Biodynamic Breathwork

What is Breathwork

Last year I attended a retreat to learn something called the Biodynamic Breathwork Trauma Release System. I didn’t quite fully understand what I was getting myself into, I walked into the room on that first night anxious, a little scared, uncertain, and without knowing why, ready to burst into tears. I had no idea what was about to unfold, and I am so truly grateful I stumbled across this profound and such powerful modality to say the least.

Biodynamic breath combines connected breathing, movement, sound, bodywork, and meditation resulting in the release of trauma and stress from the physical and mental bodies. This system was developed by Giten Tonkov.

Trauma may be repressed from our minds or lingering in the background of our consciousness, we may know it’s there or have absolutely no clue but what’s so fascinating is that our body remembers EVERYTHING! Trauma and stress is held in the tissues of our cellular body, and can have huge impact on how we live our lives, or be the hidden reason why we aren’t fully living our lives.

The BBTR system brings us back into our body, where we are able to fully feel and express a full range of human emotions and sensations. This allows us to release physical tension and pain, repressed emotion, negative self-image, fears, whilst also bringing about feelings of presence, joy, love, compassion, and empathy for ourselves. This modality has the power to give you back your will to truly live, and I’m speaking from personal experience. This modality helped me to start removing layers of the mask I had been wearing for so long, discovering my true self, feeling such unconditional love and acceptance for myself, feeling true joy for perhaps the first time in my life.

The Power of Breath

Breath is life. Life begins with our very first breath and ends with our last. There’s only so long we can go without breathing, we need breath to stay alive.

But that’s not all breath does… Breath has the power to energise us, to relax us, to calm us in stressful situations, breath can help us be more present, to think clearly. Breath can also help us release trauma and stress from the physical body resulting in healing chronic tension, pain, and stress, bringing us back to our physical body, to fully feel the emotions repressed within us, and allowing us to feel more alive than ever before.

Breath is so versatile in how we can use it and for what purposes. The amount of different meditation styles and techniques out there is countless and the most amazing thing, it’s a tool that we are born with, it’s always with us. The most powerful tool for healing, maintaining health and vitality, and helping us to live our best life is literally within us right now.

When one experiences trauma or stressful situations the breath becomes restricted and shallow, and when this is held in the body it leads to prolonged restriction of breath which restricts our life force energy. Shallow breathing leads to tension in the body, feelings of stress and anxiety, and keeps us from fully living our lives, from feeling the full capacity of our human emotions and sensations. Whilst some emotions can be very challenging to feel, if we repress them and push them down we are also preventing our ability to feel all the incredibly joyous emotions that come with being human. We are robbing ourselves of all the incredible experiences that life has to offer. Restricting the breath, restricts joy, love, presence, compassion, and ultimately life. Restricted breath can decrease the amount of time we have on this earth, and the quality of time we have here.

In the Biodynamic Breathwork system we use deep connected breathing to build up an energetic charge within the body creating an opening where suppressed emotions have the opportunity to be fully felt, expressed, and released. This releases tension in the body and creates spaciousness within us where we have the capacity to feel lightness, a sense of peace, freedom and absolute presence.

True Meditation and Common Misconceptions

True meditation has no direction, goals, or method.

Many believe in order to be able to meditate they need to be able to stop the thoughts running around their mind… Perhaps achievable by very few on this earth who spend every waking hour of their life practicing and practicing. But the majority of us are not living the life of a monk with all the free time to practice that style of meditation.

Meditation can be done with a few deep breaths, can be done as your cooking breakfast, driving to work, or engaging in a hobby. Meditation can be done for as little as few breaths to as long as feels right for you. Can be done in silence, listening to guided meditation or a piece of music that you find relaxing.

Meditation is NOT about silencing the mind, and scolding ourselves for getting it “wrong” because we can’t stop thinking. Our brain is designed to think, sometimes I like to think of my brain as a small child, the more your try to shut it up the louder it gets but when you give the child (or your brain) the presence they require, the acknowledgement, the love and gratitude for being exactly who they are, they calm down. Your thoughts are asking to be fully heard and acknowledged not shut down and pushed away.

Whether your mind is racing with thoughts or just has a few popping up here and there, it’s okay, just stay with your breath. Continue following the flow of your breath, continue with deep, slow, mindful diaphragmatic breaths. Simply acknowledge any thoughts that arise with full presence and love, thank those thoughts for the message and watch them float away. If you experience repetitive thoughts you may wish to have a journal handy, write them down, this is a great tool as it helps to take the thoughts out of your mind. Sometimes our brain is constantly reminding us of something it thinks is very important for us to know and will be forgotten otherwise, so take the time to write it down, thank the thought and return to your breathing.

Meditation is constant practice. It’s not a practice until we get it “right” or “perfect”. Some days are easy, and others are extremely challenging. Some days meditation fills us with peace and joy, others bring about the pain, the anger, the frustration, sadness that we have been holding in. Whatever arises is exactly what needs to be felt in that moment.

Be gentle with yourself. Be compassionate. And have patience.

Further tips on meditation here:

What is Trauma?

Trauma is any experience that overwhelms the normal coping mechanisms of the body resulting from an event, series of events, or set of circumstances experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful or threatening and having lasting adverse effects on physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual well-being.

Trauma can occur when we experience an event ourselves, from witnessing someone else experience a traumatic event, and even from constant stress. Trauma can be held in the body from a very young age without even releasing, we may have been so young we don’t recall the traumatic event but our body remembers EVERYTHING! When we’re young we are very sensitive little beings, completely dependant on our parents to fulfil our needs. Something like being forced to self soothe ourselves to sleep, ignored when we are crying out for our parents causes trauma to be held in our tiny little bodies, resulting in lasting physical and emotional effects, affecting the way we live our lives and affecting the quality of relationships we experience, including the relationship with ourselves.

Whilst there are significant events that are easy to label as a trauma experience, many if not all of us have experienced, or even continue to experience on the daily, traumatic experiences, we may just not realise that they are intact traumatic to our nervous system and the root cause of issues and challenges in our life. Constant stress is a type of trauma, this can be in your job, relationship, or life in general, constant anxiety that can be caused from a previous trauma can create more trauma in the body if not dealt with.

Trauma and stress whether we are conscious of it or not prevents us from living a high quality life, holding us back from fully living, feeling and experiencing all that we have to experience here on earth. Restricting our life force energy, preventing us from experiencing abundance, joy, love, freedom, and peace.

Some symptoms of trauma include insomnia, irritability, anxiety/panic, rage, chronic pain, decreased concentration, numbing, amnesia, intrusive memories, hypoarousal, hyperarousal, decreased interest, hopelessness, depression, grief reactions, substance abuse, flashbacks, self destructive behaviour, nightmares.

So what do we do?

Come back to the breath. Allow yourself to fully breathe, to fully feel and express in a safe and supportive environment. Biodynamic Breathwork has awakened me to just how much I have been holding in for so long. At my first training last year with BBTRI I was brought back into my body where I was supported in fully feeling for the first time. My experience was so profound its challenging to put into words, it was absolutely life changing. I felt so alive, so free, light, joyful, I felt unconditional love for myself and those around me, I saw and felt my true essence for the first time.

If this modality resonates with you and you would like to work with me please contact me at info@moniquecarmela.com

Resources, Safety & Support

When working with the Biodynamic Breathwork Modality, resources, safety, and support are so important. This modality can bring up past experiences and emotions, and can at times feel overwhelming. You may be aware of past traumas that you’re holding onto or you may have no idea at all, you may feel you know what is going to come up and be surprised at what actually comes up in the session so keep an open mind.

By locating internal and external resources prior to commencing your session you have a kind of anchor to bring you back to your body if you get overwhelmed by anything that arises during the session.

Ensuring you’re in a safe space, whether that’s at home, in nature, or at the residence of the practitioner you’re working with, make sure the space feels safe to you. Feeling safe will help you to relax into the session and support you through the journey, if you don’t feel safe and comfortable it can trigger past traumatic events and the session can become overwhelming, doing more harm than good.

Having a strong support system will help you in your healing journey. Whether you have a good friend, family member, energy worker, or breathwork practitioner. Someone you can confide in, ask questions, share your experiences and what’s coming up for you is very important. The healing journey can be challenging and if you become overwhelmed, unsure, or feel like you just aren’t achieving the results you want, it can send you into a depression or state of disassociation, regressing you and preventing you from continuing the healing journey. Please make sure you have someone to assist you and who will check-in with you, especially if and when you don’t feel like talking to anyone, you want someone that will come knocking on your door or calling your phone that can be absolutely present and just listen even when there’s nothing to be said.