Breathwork
Breathwork Margaret River
I tried a dozen other modalities before coming across cathartic-style breathwork more than a decade ago, and from my very first experience I was blown away. That’s the reason why I trained and why I still stick with it today – because it works.
I was looking for a way to do intensely personal work that had lasting, tangible effects. I wasn’t interested in just more talking, more thinking.
I wanted help. I wanted to break through. I wanted change.
Nothing else offered me anywhere near the outcome that I was looking for – and that I found with breathwork.
Guided breathwork helps release trapped negative emotions and trauma, identifies limiting core beliefs, and reworks the ancient stories of your past for the sake of greater clarity and freedom.
Although breathwork is a kind of direct psychotherapy, there’s a mystical element to it as well because active breathing puts the client under pressure and helps to dissolve the barrier between the conscious, controlling mind and the vast interiority of the unconscious – the vast interiority of our true nature.
In that way, breathwork offers the dissolution of the person you think yourself to be, freeing up the potential that always lives within, just waiting for access and to break free.
Imagine what it could be like to live without constant anxiety, intrusive thoughts, depression and overthinking, or with critical self-judgements and inner commentary that destroys your confidence and keeps you stuck – keeping you feeling like a failure before you’ve even started anything.
I established Margaret River Breathwork in 2016 and have worked with hundreds of clients to release trapped density, resolve trauma, and deeply examine core beliefs driving the ongoing experience of hardship in life.
In addition to my psychotherapy sessions through Seva Counselling, I also offer a standalone breathwork practice for those seeking to cut to the chase and tackle significant trauma release head on. If that’s you, please read on to get an overview of what’s possible.
What Is Breathwork?
Therapeutic breathwork involves working with a facilitator to undertake active breathing – usually between 30 and 90 minutes – to dissolve the barriers between the conscious, controlling mind and the greater depths of the unconscious.
I liken the unconscious to a vast abyss in which can be found the memory of everything we’ve ever seen, felt and heard – going right back to earliest childhood, if not before.The body itself is our partner in this experience.
In addition to spontaneous memories and emotions – and access to resonant moments from our earliest lives – bodily and energetic sensations and the physical drives of the body to move or vocalise emotion help to reveal what is going on in the unconscious depths of our inner lives.
Working with the unconscious allows structural change – not from a place of effort, but from a deeper rewriting and reworking of the unconscious understandings that drive our core ways of orienting ourselves to the world, thinking about ourselves, and how we relate to others.
When we are no longer driven by shame, by feelings of inferiority, of not being enough – of unworthiness or faultiness or being inadequate or broken – our surface behaviours no longer reflect those distortions in the same way a clear glass window allows true seeing. Such distortions – caused almost always by early childhood misunderstandings formed by trauma both subtle and extreme – resolve themselves when they are processed under active breathing in the care of a skilled therapist who knows the ropes.
Everyone is different and few breathwork sessions are the same.
While some people have easy emotional access and great literacy in describing their experience, many of us have become more locked off from our inner lives. The beauty of breathwork is that access to the unconscious comes without doing anything except connecting the active breath for an extended period of time so that even the most rigid, hardened individual can gain benefits.
Why Breathwork?
This is difficult work because it can be confronting. A lot of us say we want to “do the work”. The reality of what that entails is almost always more than we think because it is the thinking mind itself that traps us in the troubles we’re seeking to escape from. In that way, we’re very often literally our own worst enemies.
I don’t do groups. I don’t think that’s the way to go. I only work with clients one-on-one (or in couples) with discreet supervision and guidance to ensure a safe and lasting experience.
Just one breathwork session will likely bring immediate release, relief and change … and the reality is also that to undo a lifetime’s conditioning, there’s no magic wand or silver bullet. Breathwork is best undertaken with a skilled facilitator who can support you in the next part of your journey as an ongoing process.
Along the way, there’ll be tears as well as laughter, which is pretty normal when you’re doing some of the most important work you’ll ever undertake. But with great risk comes great rewards. It’s up to you. Are you ready to do the work?
An Important Note
While I love breathwork and I’m passionate about my practice, I also don’t think it’s necessarily the be-all and end-all for helping clients achieve breakthroughs.
Breathwork itself is a bit of a buzzword when it comes to wellness therapy, and a lot of people who seek it out aren’t entirely prepared for the profound experience it can provide.
People often experience – and they’re sold on the promise of – a “profound transformation” and disappear back into their lives, only to return a few months later feeling just as bad as before.
After working with numerous clients during the past decade, my somewhat controversial opinion is that breathwork itself is actually quite pointless to healing the wounds of the heart unless there is a supporting framework of dedicated counselling and integration of what has been discovered during breathwork “deep dives”.
My 1-hour and 90-minute sessions through Seva Counselling are an ideal support in and around focused chunks of time working with breathwork to investigate the unconscious.
Please note: I only take on breathwork clients after a quick direct chat to make sure we are a good fit and there are no health concerns that might impede a breathe. I also only book breathwork sessions in blocks of one breathe plus a separate 1-hour integration session within the first few days or week after the booking.
Drop me a message and we can have a quick chat to get started.
WHAT IS BREATHWORK?
Therapeutic breathwork involves working with a facilitator to undertake active breathing – usually between 30 and 90 minutes – to dissolve the barriers between the conscious, controlling mind and the greater depths of the unconscious.
I liken the unconscious to a vast abyss in which can be found the memory of everything we’ve ever seen, felt and heard – going right back to earliest childhood, if not before.The body itself is our partner in this experience.
In addition to spontaneous memories and emotions – and access to resonant moments from our earliest lives – bodily and energetic sensations and the physical drives of the body to move or vocalise emotion help to reveal what is going on in the unconscious depths of our inner lives.
Working with the unconscious allows structural change – not from a place of effort, but from a deeper rewriting and reworking of the unconscious understandings that drive our core ways of orienting ourselves to the world, thinking about ourselves, and how we relate to others.
When we are no longer driven by shame, by feelings of inferiority, of not being enough – of unworthiness or faultiness or being inadequate or broken – our surface behaviours no longer reflect those distortions in the same way a clear glass window allows true seeing. Such distortions – caused almost always by early childhood misunderstandings formed by trauma both subtle and extreme – resolve themselves when they are processed under active breathing in the care of a skilled therapist who knows the ropes.
Everyone is different and few breathwork sessions are the same.
While some people have easy emotional access and great literacy in describing their experience, many of us have become more locked off from our inner lives. The beauty of breathwork is that access to the unconscious comes without doing anything except connecting the active breath for an extended period of time so that even the most rigid, hardened individual can gain benefits.
WHY BREATHWORK?
This is difficult work because it can be confronting. A lot of us say we want to “do the work”. The reality of what that entails is almost always more than we think because it is the thinking mind itself that traps us in the troubles we’re seeking to escape from. In that way, we’re very often literally our own worst enemies.
I don’t do groups. I don’t think that’s the way to go. I only work with clients one-on-one (or in couples) with discreet supervision and guidance to ensure a safe and lasting experience.
Just one breathwork session will likely bring immediate release, relief and change … and the reality is also that to undo a lifetime’s conditioning, there’s no magic wand or silver bullet. Breathwork is best undertaken with a skilled facilitator who can support you in the next part of your journey as an ongoing process.
Along the way, there’ll be tears as well as laughter, which is pretty normal when you’re doing some of the most important work you’ll ever undertake. But with great risk comes great rewards. It’s up to you. Are you ready to do the work?
AN IMPORTANT NOTE
While I love breathwork and I’m passionate about my practice, I also don’t think it’s necessarily the be-all and end-all for helping clients achieve breakthroughs.
Breathwork itself is a bit of a buzzword when it comes to wellness therapy, and a lot of people who seek it out aren’t entirely prepared for the profound experience it can provide.
People often experience – and they’re sold on the promise of – a “profound transformation” and disappear back into their lives, only to return a few months later feeling just as bad as before.
After working with numerous clients during the past decade, my somewhat controversial opinion is that breathwork itself is actually quite pointless to healing the wounds of the heart unless there is a supporting framework of dedicated counselling and integration of what has been discovered during breathwork “deep dives”.
My 1-hour and 90-minute sessions through Seva Counselling are an ideal support in and around focused chunks of time working with breathwork to investigate the unconscious.
Please note: I only take on breathwork clients after a quick direct chat to make sure we are a good fit and there are no health concerns that might impede a breathe. I also only book breathwork sessions in blocks of one breathe plus a separate 1-hour integration session within the first few days or week after the booking.
Drop me a message and we can have a quick chat to get started.
Breathwork
I started Margaret River Breathwork in 2016 and have worked with scores of clients to release trapped density, resolve trauma, and deeply examine core beliefs driving the ongoing experience of hardship in life.
For more details on my breathwork services themselves, please visit here
I’ll sometimes recommend a breathwork session to a counselling client if it seems beneficial, usually to reduce hyper-alertness, anxiety or trapped anger – all of which are defences hindering the deeper work.
While I love breathwork and I’m passionate about my practice, I also don’t think it’s the be-all-and-end-all for helping clients achieve breakthroughs.
Breathwork itself is a bit of a buzzword when it comes to wellness therapy and a lot of people who seek it out aren’t entirely prepared for the profound experience it can provide.
People often experience – and they’re sold on the promise of – a “profound transformation” and disappear back into their lives, only to return a few months later feeling just as bad as before.
After working with numerous clients during the past decade, my somewhat controversial opinion is that breathwork itself is actually quite pointless to healing the wounds of the heart without a supporting framework of dedicated counselling.
I was drawn to breathwork because I loathe bullshit and was impressed – in fact, completely blown away – by the power of a cathartic-style breathwork session. But experience has shown me there’s little point in signing up for a deep breathe where a client dumps a huge amount of trapped density and releases pent-up trauma held in the body – and then goes back out into the world to fill themselves up again with exactly the same pain.
Breathwork is best and most beautifully served hand-in-hand with a more prolonged examination of core beliefs along with the thinking and behaviour that created that density in the first place.
To explore this further, please check out the Margaret River Breathwork page here or send me an email.