Talking About Trauma Isn’t Enough. The Body Needs To Release In Its Own Way (often through a lot of snot and tears).
Ashley* blows her nose and wipes some of the tears off her face. Her eye-makeup has made dark streaks down her cheeks. But she is smiling through it all. Used tissues are all over the floor. She asks me in a stuffy voice if she can give me a hug, to which I reply ‘Of course.’ We hug briefly but warmly. She thanks me repeatedly and we agree to meet again next week.
Ashley is a clinical psychologist and psychotherapist. This was her third visit to see me, her third breathwork session. She has gone from having intense anxiety and being socially withdrawn after some traumatic experiences, to enjoying life and being anxiety free again. As a professional, and as someone who has gone through years of therapy and deep inner work, she had intuitively know that, even though she had mentally processed a lot of her past, something still needed to be released on an emotional and physical level. She had experienced in herself as well as in her work over the years that sometimes talking just isn’t enough.
New wave of body-psychotherapy
I’m seeing, to my delight and surprise, an increasing openness in the mental health sector to using somatic (body-based) therapies such as breathwork for psychotherapeutic purposes. This could just be because of the circles that surround me, or because an increasing number of psychologists, psychotherapists and even psychiatrists are becoming aware of — and frustrated with — the limitations of talk therapy and pharmaceutical medication in treatment of deep seated trauma, anxiety and depression.
As a breathwork therapist I, however, see the other side of the coin: People who’ve undergone decades of traditional therapy and medical treatment (and spent tens of thousands of dollars for the pleasure) suddenly getting better and shifting their lives simply by breathing and feeling their emotions. How can this be? Are breathworkers some kind of miracle healers? No. It’s all thanks to the in-built wisdom of the body that knows how to heal itself. Breathwork uses the body’s own in-built (but often suppressed) mechanism for letting go of stress, trauma and unprocessed emotions. This means that by breathing in a specific way people have intense emotional releases: cry, shake, sweat, even scream into a towel. It’s often painful and uncomfortable, but well worth it as the effects are nothing short of miraculous: I frequently witness chronic anxiety disappearing after just a few sessions and life without panic attacks turning from dream to reality.
As a breathworker I see a momentum building as we speak. Ten years ago I’d been teaching yoga for almost a decade but had never even heard of breathwork (beyond the yogic pranayama or breathing exercises). Now breathwork events are popping up at local yoga studios. The yogis, fellow personal development junkies, as well as the mental health professionals, are ready for something more. They are sick of being stuck in the same old dysfunctional patterns despite the spiritual practice, therapy and best efforts to become conscious.
The missing piece in modern self help and spiritual industries
It’s familiar frustration: I was at that very same point when I found this work. I had decades of yoga, meditation and self-development under my belt, but something still wasn’t working in my life. I’d joined the popular ‘love and light brigade’ and successfully avoided my shadow and my wounds for 30+ years, wondering why all the spiritual practice and personal development wasn’t working so well. I was still getting triggered left, right and centre, battling with difficult relationships and excruciating emotions — and feeling ashamed of it on top…
It was the emotional releasing and shadow work that finally changed everything for me. I’d spent all that time trying to control my emotions, making them wrong and hiding them from everyone, including myself. It hit me like a ton of bricks: Emotions were there to be felt, not to be ignored, overridden or even ‘transformed’. Without this missing piece I was just treading water. It was the thing that brought everything together and made both spiritual practice and self-inquiry much more potent.
It hit me like a ton of bricks: Emotions were there to be felt, not to be ignored, overridden or ‘transformed’.
A few years and hundreds of breathwork sessions later I regularly get mental health professionals, like Ashley, and their clients in my clinic. (They are human, just like you and me, struggling with the same stuff, dealing with the same relationship issues, stress and heart ache.) Old wounds and traumas get released into those thousands of tissues, cried out loud, snotted and shaken out of the body. And so they leave, leaving us to live life without being stuck in the painful past.
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
