There are so many benefits of breathwork – reducing stress, releasing grief and anger, increasing energy, and more. I’m sure there’s a reason it’s calling you and that’s why you’re reading this today. What surprised me from my breakthrough session with The Breath Movement was having the opportunity to finish the cycle of an emotion that I experienced.
I had been wanting to try breathwork for a couple of years. For whatever reason it didn’t happen until January 2024. It was a nice experience but I didn’t have a big emotional release like I had expected and had hoped for.
That came in my second session and it was feeling mum guilt that opened the door to the wave of emotions needing to be released. A lot of them I was expecting. Anger and resentment I had suppressed for years towards my husband. All the mum guilt for being too controlling with my kids or for when I couldn’t control my anger. Sadness from when I felt left out and alone as a child.
But the most profound was when I was taken back to the moment of giving birth to my first daughter. Experiencing the pain of back labour and completely surrendering to it. I remember the primal noises I was making and then the OB who made the comment that I was making too much noise for the stage I was at. She thought I was much further along from all of my cries. I suddenly felt self conscious. And shame for being too loud. So I shut it down and I reigned myself in.
This was something I had never thought about. The labour had been long and the post birth complications were overwhelming and all of this contributed to my postnatal depression. I have since done a lot of work to heal my birth experience including counselling and kinesiology which I’ve shared in previous posts.
But in the breathwork session I realised how much I needed to complete that birthing event, that emotion that was interrupted. That I needed to scream. And so I did. Even though I was initially worried about screaming in a group setting. But I surrendered because I knew this was what I needed. The self conscious worries were gone. I was in a safe space and I needed to let go and be that wild woman vocalising her pain.
It was so freeing and so liberating. And then I became aware of the songs playing in the room. There She Is Again came on and it felt like it was playing just for me. The playlist was the perfect soundtrack to my breakthrough. I enjoyed the music and felt absolute bliss. It was funny how hard it was to keep breathing through my mouth with a huge smile on my face!
I am so grateful to Jake and his team. I loved the sharing circle at the end. And I believe his exercises at the beginning (the eye gaze and especially the arms out) also helped open the door and set the tone for my release.
I also know February has been potent for me and my own healing journey. I recently had a kinesiology session that had cleared some feelings I had stored in my hips from my pregnancy and the birth of my first. Maybe this was the final layer to be released. I feel like this cycle has now come to completion and that is so comforting for my soul.
So if you have been wanting to release suppressed emotions, trapped emotions and even interrupted emotions from your body, your fascia, your muscles, your soul please give breathwork a try. At the very least you will experience some time to be with yourself and that can be so powerful on its own.