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Principles of Theapeutic Breathwork
By Maryanna Bock, M.Ed., LCSW

  • The Breath as a primary vehicle for healing and expanding awareness, consciousness, and emotional health is thousands of years old in the East, but relatively new to the West.
  • The Breath is the connection between the mind and body.
  • It is voluntary and involuntary, conscious and unconscious.
  • The quality of movement, the openness vs. tightness, the rhythm, feel, the balance between inhale exhale, quality of the inhale and exhale, the origin, location, connection or pause between inhale and exhale – are a few of the variables in the breath, throughout our day and throughtout our life.
  • Breath awareness is our awareness of these qualities and changes.
  • Beginning at birth we repress or suppress unresolved experiences, big and small traumas into both the subconscious and the body simultaneously. The body engages in suppression or repression by stopping the breath momentarily. This occurs on a very subtle level every time the conscious mind judges anything as wrong or bad. The jolting stop at the end of a gasp is the more traumatic example of this unconscious stopping of the breath. This ongoing process over the course of minutes, hours, days, a year accumulates as an unconscious closing down of more and more areas of our respiratory system.
  • Repression and suppression in the body are literally areas where we don’t breathe and the full access to the flow of life energy is restricted.
  • Different types of repressed and suppressed issues close down different parts of the respiratory system in correspondance with our chakra system. Where we breathe and do not breathe in our body is literally a map of our emotional body-mind.
  • The respiratory system has a capacity of two gallons, most of us are breathing about a pint of air or 20% of capacity. The breath is the source of 70% of our energy. Most of us are life energy starved.
  • Breathwork is a general term that in the west mostly refers to variations of conscious connected breathing, a specific breath pattern for releasing emotional repressions and suppressions stored in the body and energy body. It has been referred to by a variety of terms such as rebirthing, transformational breathwork, life breath, etc. Therapeutic Breath is the term that the is used by the Internation Breathwork Training Alliance, the international organizations that holds the highest standards for breathwork facilitation training.
  • Breath work is a life changing tool.  Once learned and integrated into the person’s lifestyle, it empowers the individual themselves to:
    • Clear themselves of further repressions/suppressions on a daily and weekly basis.
    • Optimize the frequency and flow of energy flow in their energy body.
    • Increase their mental clarity, physical vitality and emotional serenity.
  • Each session is unique and guided by the super-conscious and stated conscious intention of the client. The facilitator is the witness and coach to the process of opening the breath and staying on course through the session.
  • Each session lasts from 30 to 60 minutes and includes three stages:
    • The “Body” stage – the opening and activation of the breath.
      • The breath is connected (without pause between the exhale and inhale.)
      • The Inhale begins in the belly (diaphragmatic) and moves as fully as possible through the whole respiratory system.
      • The exhale is completely relaxed, like a quick silent sign, emptying most of the lungs in a mater of 3-4 seconds, followed immediately by a full inhale.
      • The mouth is open to allow maximum airflow.
      • When these four conditions are present, the breath ‘activates.’ It energies almost without efforts, as if the person had been running.
      • The facilitator’s job is to support this process with effective use of touch on pressure points, affirmations and presence.
    • The “Mind-Emotional “ stage” – the Integration process.
      • Repressed and suppressed patterns, targeted by the clients intention, are entrained to a higher frequency. This is accompanied with a variety of body sensations and sometimes emotional and cognitive awareness.
      • As the breath continues to supply high energy, these suppressed patterns resolve and clear, resolving permanently at the body, energy body and emotional-cognitive level.
      • The facilitator’s job is to support the client to “breathe through” this process, keeping the breath connected until resolution is integrated by their supportive presence and coaching.
    • The “Spiritual stage” – Client communes with Higher Self and Spirit.
      • Once resolution of the targeted pattern(s) happens, the transformed aspect of the individual is experienced at a higher energy level.
      • This stage is highly individual from person-to-person ranging from simple relaxation, to ecstatic visionary connection with Spirit in ways that are personal to the client.
      • The facilitator gives supportive space for the individual’s own experience, trusting the perfection of each person's path.

For an introduction to Therapeutic Breathwork, Guide Service for the Soul, Earth Circle Spiritual Leadership Training, Sacred Ceremonies or Wilderness Questing or to Learn more and/or schedule a Therapeutic Breath Session call Maryanna at 207-443-7001, or email maryanna@lightcoach.com.



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