Breathwork
& MORE
“The dynamic of breathing also takes in the deep world of prayer and meditation, where through the rhythm of the breath you come down to your primordial level of soul.”
John O’Donohue
Breathwork & More
Breathwork is radically self-empowering work that supports individuals in finding their own inner healers to move towards positive transformation and wholeness. The foundation for most methods of Breathwork include yogic practices, elements from ancient and aboriginal world traditions, spiritual philosophy, and in some forms, western depth psychology.
Together with certified facilitators, Barbara and John will create a safe, secure and trustworthy container where the ancient healing powers of Breath combine with evocative music to open participants to the profound insights this work offers. In addition to Breathwork, Barbara and John will invite other experienced guides and facilitators to bring additional modalities to these gatherings such as Sound Healing (Crystal Bowls), Shamanic Energy Work, Meditation, Tarot, Dream Work, Movement, and more.
Providing a safe, secure, and trustworthy container for all that arises is essential. For some, there is added safety in knowing that there is both a man and a woman available for support. With the Breather’s inner guides, skilled facilitators, and a safe and secure environment, traumas can be released, and greater freedom can be experienced.
Set and setting are paramount concerns for doing this work, which can take effect in unexpected ways.
After opening the session with an invocation, meditation, a chance to get to know others a bit, and Breath instruction, a small group of participants will find a spot to lie down comfortably with blankets and eye shades, and begin the Breathing practices while listening to music. The inner journey will be unique for each person. There is a good amount of time afterwards to journal, draw, move, or just be still before the group reconvenes to integrate their experience.
Breathwork can be useful for anyone seeking more insight into themselves, more meaning in their lives, and access to expanded
states of consciousness.
Participants report releasing long held beliefs and negative habits of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Exploring and healing traumas, expanding creativity, and enriching one’s spiritual path are also often experienced in Breathwork. Sometimes participants experience their own birth, or their past lives. This work can give access to a different kind of “knowing”. Because this work is by nature experiential, it lends itself to making deep contact with our soul self, what in some traditions is called self-remembering.
Barbara’s introduction to Breathwork was in the early 1980’s when she attended an eight-week workshop through the then-named “Institute of Transpersonal Psychology”. Back then, the Breathwork she was introduced to was called “Rebirthing”. She found her way back to Breathwork with her husband a few years ago through Shamanic Practices and Breathwork that was capable of inducing non-ordinary states of consciousness and radical self-healing. Barbara and John are now in the process of certifying as facilitators in this work.
John came to healing work later in life, after coming together with his wife Barbara in 2005. He is a long-time student of the Enneagram and considers its insights powerful in self-understanding as well as in relationships of all kinds. Having led a career in various business ventures and raising two daughters to adulthood, he felt a sense of wanting greater purpose. A few years ago, he began a serious investigation of this real need, beginning with work with The Mankind Project, which has led him to other means of self-empowerment including taking part in a Vision Fast, Family Constellations work, as well as Breathwork. John’s evolving mission is to promote inner healing and self-empowerment for all people so that everyone in our world may prosper and thrive. He is thrilled and honored to be joining Barbara on this journey of service.
“I am deeply grateful for having been the receiver of such precious regard.”
“I have partnered with Barbara in some of these modalities and have directly witnessed and experienced her capacity to create sacred space and a safe container in which profound transformational work becomes possible. She has a unique capacity to see individual needs while simultaneously holding the field for the gathered community. She brings unconditional love and care for whomever she works with. I have felt this myself and am deeply grateful for having been the receiver of such precious regard.”
Paulo Rebello
Marriage and Family Therapist
“Consciousness altering breathing techniques – from ancient practices such as yogic pranayama to modern disciplines like holotropic breathwork as developed by the transpersonal psychiatrist Stanislav Grof – act literally to inspire us. As we breathe in fully and rapidly, our biochemistry shifts and we take in and join with the essence of the world. By altering the depth and rhythm of our breath, we can alter our relationship to the world and to ourselves.”
Bill Plotkin
