Creative Breathwork is a lineage born from several lineages of breathwork. It twists together the techniques and philosophies of Rebirthing Breathwork, Cathartic or Holotropic Breathwork, Tantric Breathwork and Yogic Prana Breathing.
It is based on the philosophy that we are powerful creators and we alone hold the key to our own life’s creation.
This style of breathwork is primarily nose breathing, we breath in and out of our nose and only use the mouth occasionally. If you have done breathwork before, you may have used a technique where you are breathing out through the mouth.
We primarily breathe through the nose because in the Indian spiritual lineage, where this breathwork comes from, the nose is the place of the nadis.
In the Nadis there is an intelligence which separates prana from oxygen and sends the oxygen to do the physical job and sends the prana to do it’s more energetic and spiritual work.
The channels of the nose connect much deeper into the lungs than is possible with the mouth and can therefore release the DMT held inside your lungs more efficiently.
The hairs of the nose filter out any foreign matter present in the air you are breathing.
So this is why we breathe in and out of the nose, because this intelligence is only activated by breathing through the nose. We don’t have it in our mouth. We occasionally use the mouth Breathing technique to assist when emotions are coming up and it is difficult to breathe through the nose..
The focus of this connected breathing technique is all on the in-breath. This is the most important thing – to focus on breathing in and let the out-breath just go.
It’s helpful to think about it when you are beginning as drawing life force in with the in-breath, focus fully on powerfully drawing in the breath then surrender and let the breath out by just letting it go.
Another way to think about the in-breath and out-breath is an active in-breath, the masculine aspect, doing – and then the out-breath is passive, the feminine, surrender.
A common thing for beginners is to force the out-breath, and be breathing super-hard – in and out. instead of letting go at the out-breath.
Feelings come up, sensations come up and you might feel like you want to bust through those emotions and those feelings. In-out-in-out-in-out-in-out…..
This hard breathing in and pushing the breath out is what can lead to Tetany. This is where your hands start to curl up and your mouth starts to purse and get tight. Your hands can be so tight that you just can’t move them.
Tetany can be quite painful and most breathers have experienced it at some point. Certain types of people will get tetany worse than others.
Tetany happens more often when there is fear and control in your being. So it’s a sign that you could begin to let go of that control. Let go of the out-breath. If you can just think of the in-breath as active and really pull that in-breath in. You are saying “YES!” to life!
You are pulling in that life force to your body, and you say to yourself “I am going to pull this life force in and I don’t know what is going to happen, but I am going to surrender to whatever happens, I’m going to surrender with every out-breath”.
That is the kind of energy that I want you to keep in your mind as you are starting to explore breathwork.
Try and breathe wide and deep, not too shallow, and really think about expanding your ribs out on the in-breath. You don’t want to be doing fast and shallow in-breaths. If you put your hands on the side of your ribs and breathe out side-ways.
This is helpful if you haven’t really ever breathed properly, which is a lot of us. Many of us don’t have well-developed lung capacity. Many of us have been using a fraction of the full capacity of our lungs and breathing mainly into the top half for years.
Each and every breathwork session is different. Sometimes it may feel like you have been breathing, or have been supporting someone for hours instead of just one! Other times the one hour may feel like 15 minutes! Every session is different.
Later in the training, we will be learning about different types of personalities and how that is likely to impact on your journey with the breath. Whether you get extreme tetany, or whether you have fear come up, where the tension builds in your body.
Some of the things you will be exploring in yourself through the breath, relating to your personality type are:
Control – the degree to which you have a need for control.
Embodiment – the degree to which you are present in your body – or out of your body.
Drama – the degree to which you need to feel drama in order to feel you are getting somewhere.
These things impact on your experiences when you are learning to breathe (and your client’s experiences if you are training to be a practitioner).
Some people knock out and need someone to bring them back, sit them up. Some people are out of their body and hovering somewhere above. These are people who we call Schizoid personality types. (More on personality types in level 2 of the training)
You can get hot and cold, you may experience very extreme temperature changes while breathing.
Allow yourself to process whatever is happening. Be like a child, children keep breathing while they are crying, and they don’t hold back – they let it all come out. You need to be childlike in that way.
Breathwork Techniques
Tetany- For extreme tetany that is too much for someone to handle you can roll the person on their side and put their thumb or finger in their mouth. Because they are sucking they have to breathe smaller breathes.
They have been pushing on the exhale and sometimes you don’t notice it, these people are fragmented from their body, they are a schizoid personality often very thin. It is an imbalance in the oxygen carbon dioxide balance. It’s not dangerous but it can bring up fear.
‘we had enough traumas when we were born we don’t need it to heal we need a gentle approach’
Yawning– Get them to refuse the yawn and breath fast and gentle until the yawning stops. They are yawning not because they are lacking in oxygen or Prana but they are resistant to receiving it.
Wriggling- Resistant to breathing and feeling the sensations that are arising, encourage them to keep breathing and ask them to stop moving to make a commitment to staying perfectly still explain to them that the movement is dispelling the prana that is gathering to assist in the unlocking of the blocks in their body.
Chit Chat– or as we call it Chit Chat Anunda- again this is a form of resistance, you as the facilitator can get tied up in answering a million questions from your client, patiently keep asking them to be silent and come back to the breath. You can say ‘It is very ineffective if you continue to talk.’
Swallowing. All of these reactions stem from one emotion…fear, just feel the fear and do it anyway.
What to do if you lose confidence in yourself- Take some deep relaxing breaths and remember not to be attached to an outcome. Trust the breath, trust your client and trust yourself. Ask for support from your higher self and know that everything is perfect.
Remember Anger is the effort required in suppressing grief
Client gets Angry- Help them to clench their fists and kick their legs, all emotions are welcome.
The more you breathe into a sensation without moving the more possible it is for the trauma locked in your body to be integrated and your energy body will be clearing.
Knocking out- People will knock out for all sorts of reasons- Support your client to sit up and stay sitting up whilst breathing, this will help them breath through the unconsciousness.
Extreme emotional reaction- You can feel the emotion but come back to a gentle nose breath just little sips in through the nose. The nasal breath integrates the emotion before it gets extreme. You can touch the deep trauma with gentle breath it doesn’t have to be cathartic and traumatic. Let someone rest or sleep for a little while, suggest they will integrate during sleep every night until it integrates.
Suspended Breath- The breather will be breathing a connected breath well and strong and then they breath out and they dont breathe back in. Their face will be relaxed, their lips may turn blue (Inoxia), their nose and fingertips can go blue. Their cheeks white. If you can sit there in absolute trust, you may want to pray to your guides if you feel worried, it is safe and important to allow this in fact you probably won’t be able to arouse them, they are far away. They are likely processing their first breath when their cord was cut and they are reliving in a gracious way the trauma of that experience, it is being integrated, it is an incredibly healing experience. When they come back they may come back with a huge shock and you can softly tell them to come back to their breath, they are safe and when they do come back to their breath it will be the clearest breath they have ever had. You can ask them to come back if need be but it will be difficult.
Connection to source, bliss breathe- You will feel you are breathing and are conscious and the energy is flowing, it will look like you are not breathing but you are. A feeling of expansion and bliss flows in your being. This happens after a lot of the trauma has been shifted.
Breathwork is psychophysical, meaning it is driven by your psychology but felt in the physical.
Perfect breathers: ‘Everything in my life is working perfectly so don’t you mess it up’ These people have the perfect uniform breath. It can help to mix them up when they are breathing such as move them to face different directions at each breathe, sit them up one day, then lay them down the next, mix up the routine to assist them to lose control, when they lose control really be there for them as this person hasn’t received much love, they are a rigid type personality and need a lot of patience, assist them to get into their heart. These people are in control in their life, they are in control for a reason this mechanism has been in place for a reason. Be soft and gentle with this type of person.
Sleepy client – Have them kneel up on their knees or their hands and knees and even to crawl around to keep them awake. The client holds onto the back of your shoulders one hand on each shoulder, you hold the top of their hands, (Elephant Walking) and they walk around whilst breathing.
The reason for this is there is no pressure on the diaphragm so they can take deeper breaths, sitting up can put pressure on the diaphragm.
This can happen because they have had a lot of anesthetic in their lives and the breath is bringing it up and out so will have the same effect coming out as it did going in. Leonard Orr would leave the room and let them sleep so he wasn’t in the space of the anesthetic to have to purify it through his system (More on this in purification). The person is dissociated from their bodies and will do this throughout their lives and you are asking them to stay home, so they are knocking out, letting them sleep can be helpful to get the anaesthetic memory out of their body.
Every time you do a breath session your energy body cleans and balances.
