Breathwork for Trauma Healing: Here’s What You Need to Know

Breathwork holds the potential to catalyze profound healing for individuals grappling with trauma. By engaging in deep and focused breathing, an intricate and powerful harmony forms between the mind, body, and soul. Within this state of alignment, the knots of tension and suppressed energies intertwined with trauma can rise to the surface, and be both processed and expelled from the body.

Breathwork & the Processing of Traumatic Memories

We gain access to the subconscious mind during breathwork and this allows for explicit or implicit memories that the psyche wants to process and release to come to the surface. While the emergence of traumatic memories signifies a genuine desire for the body to alleviate their lingering physical and psychological impacts, it does not necessarily mean the person has the tools to handle this purging process with ease. In the absence of adequate resources, this journey can be discomforting, and in certain instances, it might even induce psychological distress.

A Safe Container & Integration Support Are Paramount for Trauma Healing

When it comes to breathwork for trauma healing, establishing a safe container is paramount. If the process is not properly explained to the participant, they don’t understand how to prevent overwhelm in a session, or they don’t feel empowered and safe, it can lead to retraumatization. Conversely, when a safe container is established, the participants become empowered to delve deeply into their journey and this opens the door for truly transformational experiences to occur.

At Neurodynamic Breathwork, we recognize the processing and releasing of trauma can stir a lot of things up. We understand the vital role of creating a safe container and we take pride in providing an extensive support structure that surpasses that of the majority of breathwork schools worldwide. We provide extra layers of support during and after the breathwork sessions to ensure all of our participants feel safe and held throughout the process. We also help our participants to integrate their experiences, and this integration is what allows for deep healing and lasting positive change to occur.

Breathwork for Trauma: Resources We Provide 

During the Online Breathwork Session:

1. To ensure everyone feels fully supported at all times, we offer one-on-one private interactions with a Certified Breathwork Facilitator to all online breathwork participants via private chat.

2.  We hold space for a sharing circle after the breathwork session is over to allow everybody to share about their experiences and ask for additional support if required. While some other schools also offer sharing circles, most circles close off after a set period of time. Our sharing circle is uniquely supportive because it stays open until everybody is fully complete, no further support is required, and all questions have been answered. We also provide the opportunity to follow up after the session with a facilitator, should the participant require it. 

3. One of the techniques that the body uses to release tension and bio-energetic blocks is to maximize the tension in a body part in order to then get the most effective release possible. Occasionally, the body does not quite complete that process during the session. We recognize this can happen and explain to participants how to do Neurodynamic Release Work on themselves to release any residual tension that is left in their body that was not there before the session began.

After the Breathwork Session:

1. We provide a detailed PDF with guidelines for integrating your session.

2. We follow up each of our sessions with an integration support email contact – integrationsupport@breathworkonline.com. We encourage you to reach out if needed and if necessary.

3. We offer a twice-monthly drop-in integration group led by a skilled EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) practitioner. This is a 100% free opportunity to work through your integration process with the support of a professional.

Free Breathwork Coaching Call Opportunity

After you have completed at least three full breathwork sessions, if you are committed to staying with your Neurodynamic Breathwork™ practice, and you feel that you are stuck or struggling in your sessions, please watch our “Taking Breathwork Deeper” webinar here. After you watch the video, if you still have questions, you are eligible for a one-on-one 30-minute breathwork coaching call with Glenn Girlando, a NeuroDynamic Breathwork™ Online Facilitator with over 17 years of in-person facilitation experience.

You can find Glenn’s bio here.  

You can set up your appointment at: https://calendly.com/breathworkcoaching

Online Support Resources that We Provide:

When you subscribe to Neurodynamic Breathwork, you receive access to our private online community, where you’ll find many other people on a path of healing and transformation who are actively working with complex trauma, generational trauma, developmental trauma, and other varieties. This is a safe and supportive space to connect with others on the same path and share about your experiences.

Recommendations if You Are Working with Trauma in Breathwork

If you have deep trauma, we suggest that you have a support structure in your life to turn to. A support structure could include:

• Access to a trauma-informed therapist (ideal) and if you are in therapy, we suggest that you get approval from your therapist to participate
  
  
•  Access to a close friend who you trust and can share your experience with after the session
  
  
• If it feels right, you can have someone physically with you during your breathwork experience, to hold your hand, or give you any support that you might ask for during the session (above and beyond what is available by private chat with a trained breathwork facilitator). This is optional – trust your intuition/inner guiding intelligence on whether this feels like something that would support you.
  
  
• For more information, check out our post on “Breathwork Integration Suggestions.”

Example of a Neurodynamic Breathwork Online Experience of Trauma Healing

“I knew little about Neurodynamic Breathwork Online when I decided to take a workshop. Beginning with my first session, I was able to access a very deep place within myself where many important life lessons were revealed to me. I soon signed up for the all-access path and the work has since become an important and transformative part of my life. 

In my most recent session, I was able to confront an incident of abuse from childhood that I had been repressing. I was able to return, mentally and emotionally, to the place where it happened and radically transform my own interpretation of the experience. I remembered that during the incident, at a point when I was in mortal danger, I was overcome with a feeling of utter calm combined with the certainty that I would be OK. At the time, I understood how precious and meaningful this realization was, but in the days and weeks to come it was crowded out by feelings of intense shame and the urge to repress what had happened. 

During my most recent breathwork session (over 35 years later), I was able to reconnect with the sense of divine safety that I had experienced and to recognize what a wonderful gift I’d been given. A very deep part of me was in contact with something divine that day, and through neurodynamic breathwork, I am learning to revitalize and reinforce that connection. I feel excited, hopeful and genuinely optimistic in a way I haven’t felt in many years.” – Bryan, Oct., 2019

Does the Idea of Holding Space for Deep Healing Spark Something Within You?

We offer a 6-month breathwork facilitator training that is not merely educational, but also a transformational program. This is a world-leading comprehensive training that will allow you to confidently Facilitate Breathwork Workshops both online and offline. More than that, you go on a deep and transformative inner journey that will allow you to release trauma and layers of conditioning, and step into your fullest potential. Past students tell us this program not only prepared them to lead breathwork classes, but in many cases also transformed their relationships and life quality. Find out more about the pathway to becoming a certified breathwork facilitator and the best version of yourself here.

If becoming a certified breathwork facilitator does not interest you but you would like to experience breathwork in a safe and supportive environment, we invite you to join us for a FREE breathwork session.

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