Breath is the Center

Breathing plays a central role in our lives. It is directly responsible for keeping us alive. Without breathing, our lives would very quickly come to an end. We would not be able to sleep at night if we had to constantly check that we were still breathing. Even a brief pause in breathing immediately triggers fears for our survival.

As soon as we become aware of the life-sustaining function of breathing by noticing our own breathing, our ego, which otherwise feels responsible for our survival, recedes. We realize that we owe everything that makes us who we are—our talents, our strengths, our potential—to a greater power. With this realization, our ego immediately becomes less important, and its impatience, neediness, and reactivity fade into the background. Almost without our doing anything, it is replaced by an attitude of gratitude, contentment, and devotion.

In the immediate awareness of our breath, everything that is right now seems good to us just as it is. For nothing stands between us and the present unfolding of events. We are inside of what is happening right now, and what is happening right now is inside of us. So in these experiences, the difference between inside and outside disappears.

Goodness, Truth, and Beauty

In the consciousness of acceptance and being in harmony with reality, we are connected to the eminent qualities of goodness, truth, and beauty, not in an abstract way, but as an implicit experience, as something inherent in the experience of breathing. For when we dwell in the moment, everything we need is there—inhaling, exhaling. It becomes intuitively clear to us what is good, true, and beautiful. In reflection, we can see that evil, falsehood, and ugliness can only take space in our consciousness when we fall out of this unity with the moment.

Through breath awareness, we know how to interact with other people so that we can feel comfortable and secure while also giving them a sense of security and trust. We know what is necessary and how we must behave so that people can live together in respect, dignity, and peace. It is evident to us what is good and what is evil, what benefits us and what causes harm. We understand intuitively that doing evil causes us the most harm. We recognize that acting morally is exactly what we want to do. We see that good action is the simplest and gives us the greatest joy.

In breath awareness, we are directly connected to the truth. For the breath in the moment is the true reality of that moment. There is nothing untrue about a breath. We understand that it is our duty to stand up for the truth again and again. Truth holds the community together, which can agree on a common interpretation of reality in its light. Spreading untruths, for example to gain personal advantage, is damaging to the community and therefore also self-damaging.

There is something beautiful in every breath if we consciously perceive it. It offers us the chance to discover the beauty of this very moment in life by accepting it as it is. Then it reveals itself in its uniqueness and fullness. By taking a step further, we become aware of the beauty in all people and things. Art begins with inhalation. Our first breath was the first intake of information from a world that was still completely foreign to us, through which we became part of it. Since that event, we have had the opportunity to find in every breath the desire for new things and the readiness for surprises, the basis for science and art. Thanks to our breath, we are all potential scientists and artists.

Confidence in Life

Breathing gives us confidence in life. When we surrender to it, we notice that it continues to flow, whatever external and internal challenges life throws at us. Sometimes it may falter when we are in shock. But eventually the blockage dissolves and the breath continues to flow, leading us out of the frightening situation and then onward, from one moment to the next, continuously and tirelessly. It contains the message that life always goes on, even when situations sometimes seem hopeless. It whispers to us to keep going instead of giving up when things seem difficult or uncomfortable. And it gives us a feeling of liberation when we return to calmer waters.

Connection between Inside and Outside

Breathing connects us with reality inside and outside ourselves. With breath awareness, we are automatically in touch with our inner perception and feel ourselves. We perceive how we are feeling at the moment, what emotions are present, and what mood prevails. Breathing also informs us about the reality around us. We take in the temperature, and smells give us an impression of the state and mood of external reality. When we are aware of our breathing, we are always in the present reality and not in thoughts that have to do with either the past or the future.

The Time of Breathing

In connection with the flow of breath, we are therefore in the present moment. Breathing shows us a completely different experience of time than thinking, which meanders and oscillates between the past and the future on a linear timeline. The experience of time through breathing is one that has more to do with eternity and timelessness than with linearity. For it is the direct experience of change itself, without a variable content.

We grow with time. Every breath makes us richer, richer in experience and insight. We realize that life is a continuous process of learning and expanding, that we have the opportunity to get to know and understand more and more aspects of reality. So we come closer and closer to reality when we seize these opportunities: to be inspired by reality, when we breathe it in with curiosity.

The Path to Simplicity

The breath leads us to simplicity. It is thinking that creates complexity. When it becomes too much for us, simply focusing on the breath is enough to recognize what is important and what is unimportant, what to do and what not to do. The truth of the breath is always simple and at the same time obvious. Where thinking creates doubt, the breath shows us clarity. Where thinking becomes confused, the breath opens our eyes. By breathing consciously, we interrupt our wild thoughts and find our way back to ourselves.

Integration on All Levels

The breath integrates us on all levels of our being. It is involved in all the life-sustaining functions of our body. It keeps processes running, not only by constantly supplying the necessary oxygen, but also by keeping the body moving, day and night. Even when life retreats to its absolute minimum during deep sleep, breathing continues. Even when the body (with the exception of eye movements) freezes during the REM phases of sleep, the respiratory muscles continue to work. We can use the voluntary control of breathing to strengthen our health. This is because “proper” breathing is the guarantee of a sustainably healthy organism.

Breathing accompanies and supports our emotional life. Every emotion has its own breathing pattern with which it can shape its course. Emotions therefore use breathing to unfold and find expression. We can also regulate our emotions through our breathing. On the one hand, breathing helps us to calm emotions that trouble us because of their intensity; on the other hand, it helps us to access emotions that are locked away inside us but still weigh heavily on us. For some, it is important to find access to their anger so that they no longer have to put up with everything in their lives. For others, access to feelings of grief and emotional pain is blocked, and they fall into sorrow and depression; breathing can help them to let their feelings of grief flow, thereby providing relief and regaining vitality.

The First Gateway to the Spiritual World

The breath is the first gateway to the spiritual world. Every meditation is conscious breathing, and conscious breathing is meditation. Focusing on the breath is focusing on what constitutes our inner self, on the spiritual within us. We discover who we are in the breath, again and again, as soon as we become aware of our breath.

Breath itself is not a thing, nor is it a process, but rather that which manifests itself in breathing. Just as the spirit manifests itself in the processes of reality, breath takes shape in every breath. Without “the breath,” breathing is a purely mechanical process. However, this view is only possible for an uninvolved observer. For the person breathing, it is always the breath that is activated by breathing. This also applies to the breath of an observing person.

Just as there is no matter without immateriality, there is no breathing without breath. More precisely, materiality presents itself only in abstract form, that is, as something extracted, something torn from a whole for specific purposes. When we observe breathing from an external point of view, we separate the spiritual aspect of it in order to gain insights or make interventions that we would not otherwise be able to achieve. Free from any purpose, it is solely the breath that flows in every act of breathing and that fills every act of breathing.

Breathing therefore plays a leading role at all levels of our being. It also constantly connects these levels so that they do not appear as distinguishable aspects of our being, but are experienced as a whole. Every breath is simultaneously and inseparably physical, emotional, and spiritual. Breath awareness is therefore always physical, mental, and spiritual. In it, there is no distinction between these aspects; they are one in the breath, which means that we are one with ourselves in the breath. In it, there is also no distinction between the inner world and the outer world, so we are one with the world as a whole.

Further reading:
Respiratory Philosophy in Brief

Respiratory Philosophy in Brief

Breath is the beginning and the end. The arc of every human life is initiated by breath and ends with breath. Conceived and born of breathing human beings, the first breath sets in after birth and marks the beginning of independent life. Breathing continues until the last exhalation.

This realization forms the starting point for respiratory philosophy. In what follows, I refer to Petri Berendtson, a leading representative of this philosophical approach. He calls his approach a phenomenological ontology of breathing. He sees human life not only as “being-in-the-world”, as Martin Heidegger put it, but much more fundamentally as “breathing-in-the-world”. The encounter with being is always an encounter with the breath, or rather, this encounter takes place in the breath. Thus, the breath is being, in which the experience of being takes place.

Consequently, in the breath the act of being takes place, before any perception (which is at the center of Maurice Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology) and before any thinking (according to Descartes). We breathe even when we perceive nothing (e.g. in deep sleep) or when we think nothing. This breathing “being-in-the-world” happens before any consciousness and reflection, and every consciousness and reflection is breathing. Thus, in Merleau-Ponty's respiratory philosophy, “perceptive faith” (foi perceptive) becomes breathing faith. This faith has nothing to do with religion. Rather, it denotes a preconscious conviction that the world is there, confirmed with every breath. The realization that there is a world is always at the same time the realization that it is a breathing world in which we exist by breathing. Breathing faith is not a mere psychological phenomenon, but an existential structure – we only exist through and with the air, which becomes our source of life through breathing.

In breathing, we experience that inside and outside cannot be strictly separated. A breathing being-in-the-world is characterized by a constant merging of inside and outside. The incoming and outgoing air is both one's own and foreign, always intermingled. With each breath, the inside becomes the outside and the outside becomes the inside. Life is a dynamic process of exchange in which breathing is the fundamental organizing principle and forms the medium in which everything takes place. We are in the world in every moment and the world is in us, through the air that flows in and out of us. The air we take in changes us, and we change the world around us with the air we exhale.

Breathing in the world is an embodied way of being, because breathing is a physiological process that cannot take place without a body. On the other hand, the breathing process of life is not limited to a physical process, but also contains an immaterial component. For every breath is an exchange of information. Every air molecule that enters our body through breathing contains information that is received and processed in us; every exhaled particle, in turn, enters the external world and unfolds its effect there. We are aware of this information content of air when we perceive odors, but it contains many more other dimensions, most of which we are unaware of and which nevertheless have an effect on us.

In Eastern philosophies, these invisible energies play an important role, whether as qi in Taoism or as prana in Hinduism. Both of these terms are closely related to breathing. Thus, respiratory philosophy also combines Western and Eastern traditions of thought.

Body Contact in Breathwork

The need for physical contact is deeply human and anchored in our body, which responds to gentle touches with the release of endorphins and oxytocin. Research has shown that tender touch reduces stress and strengthens the immune system. And all those who go to cuddling parties, contact improvisations or Biodanza help this need, which is perhaps lost more and more in the modern world.

In the very early stages of our lives, touch is vital.  The sense of touch is regarded as the first of all human senses. It is developed in the womb even before the embryo is two centimetres tall. It has been observed that an embryo reacts to first contact stimuli as early as the eighth week of pregnancy, long before it can hear or see. Premature babies lying in incubators gain more weight if they are massaged regularly. Infants, on the other hand, develop less well if they are embraced by anyone.

We all have a history with touching and being touched, body contact, closeness and distance, from very early on, with many imprints. We have memories of pleasant, lustful, calming and connecting touches, but also of painful, inappropriate, insensitive or violent physical contact.

Body Contact in Breathwork

In many schools of breathwork, body interventions play an important role, while there are others where this is not used at all. This article is about gaining an insight into the complexity of this issue and sharpening the sensitivity for this area of therapeutic interaction.

The Role of Interventions in Conscious Breathing

When we engage in a process of conscious breathing and deepen and accelerate breathing, we enter into an unpredictable inner state. Because by changing the metabolism through breathing as if we were exerting ourselves physically, even though we lie quietly on a mat, a chaotic state arises in some systems of the body. The further course of a session cannot be planned and foreseen in advance, but is always good for surprises. This phenomenon characterizes the special power of breathing sessions. Existing patterns on the physiological as well as on the emotional and cognitive level get shattered and have to be reassembled afterwards. This is the experience of being born again, which gave the name to the method of Rebirthing. The therapeutic effect can be seen in the rise of suppressed or repressed material from the depths of the soul, due to pattern interruption. Then it can be accepted and integrated.

On the other hand, this power that is triggered by intensified breathing requires particularly careful and responsible form of guidance. The most important aspects the accompanying person should convey to the breathing person are trust and unrestricted presence without judgement, as well as caring for safety in the environment and keeping up with the breathing rhythm of the breather. These aspects describe the therapeutic attitude, i.e. the attitude that the therapist adopts towards the breathing person, granting her the security and confidence to engage in deeper feelings and difficult inner experiences.

In addition to these accompanying postures there are interventions with which the accompanying person influences the breathing process. These can be verbal (e.g. supporting or clarifying sentences) or physical measures. There are techniques that are taught in training and used in practice together with intuition. The forms and areas of application of body interventions are very different in the different breathing schools.

With these influences, three main purposes are pursued in practice:

1. Deepening and facilitating the flow of breath by eliminating physical blockages, tensions and inhibitions.
2. Bringing up feelings stored deeper in the unconsciousness.
3. Support, comfort and emotional nourishment. 

Releasing Breathing Blockages

On the one hand, physical contact helps in opening and releasing blockages of breathing, so that dysfunctional breathing habits, which have developed over years, can be changed. With the help of these interventions the respiratory flow should become freer and take up more space in the torso.  For example, pressure is exerted on the chest or loosening movements with the abdominal wall are applied. These procedures are comparable to the methods used by masseurs and physiotherapists. Through an external tactile influence, the body system of the person concerned should be brought back from a dysfunctional to a healthy state.

In this form of intervention, the therapist is the expert and the breather undergoes passive treatment. 

Bringing Feelings to Life

This aspect of touch is done with the intention of awakening feelings that are slumbering inside the breathing person so that they can be expressed and thus felt in their fullness and finally integrated. Feelings have their representation in the body, and the tactile contact to the corresponding areas can help to feel the emotion more clearly. It facilitates the external touch to maintain the connection with this area within the body from within. By strengthening the inner relationship, it is possible to experience and accept a feeling more deeply. In addition, the direct contact can support the easier acceptance of unpleasant and stressful feelings. Many of us have missed maternal or paternal strength and support we had needed as small children to learn to handle our emotions. These needs can be reactivated and appropriate touch can fill up the lack that is left from this early phase of life.

Processing Grief and Pain

Third, body contact can be used to help deal with grief and emotional pain. When we are confronted with deep pain, it is mostly about experiences of loss: Human contact has been lost or we have never received it in the way we would have needed it. At this point in the breathing process the touch by the accompanying person can help that the feeling of being alone or being left alone is not repeated. Touching can trigger the release of hormones that have a comforting and soothing effect. The contact gives the signal: "I am there and I am accompanying you through your pain". A negative experience of deficiency can be replaced by a new belief: "When I feel bad or sad, someone is there for me".

The Ambiguity of Touch

The nonverbal area contains a fundamental ambiguity. In the verbal field, it is often only with difficulties and via detours and feedback loops that unambiguous communication can be achieved. Especially in the area beyond words, there are many reasons for misunderstandings and unclarity. Every person brings along his or her own story touching and being touched, and with each touching and being touched this story unfolds its effects. Each part of the body is marked by individual experiences, which are often stored on several layers. When we touch a certain part of the body of another person, it is impossible to know in advance, which history we will activate with this touch, which memory will be released and which process will start. 

Let us take an example. The companion puts his hand on the head of the breather. This touch can evoke different associations and emotional memories. It can be a reminder of the unfulfilled longing from childhood to feel the loving and appreciative hand of one's own father on the head. But it can also remind us that it was the hand of an uncle who initiated an abusive situation with this gesture. Or it reactivates a disparaging patting touch, which was subtly experienced as unpleasant. 

One and the same touch can be experienced as a welcome, long missed confirmation or as a burdening and retraumatizing transgression of borders. The therapist cannot know beforehand what the client's touch will trigger, even if he already knows a great deal about her story. In the process of breathing, body memories are evoked that would otherwise slumber far below the surface of consciousness. Touching has a particularly profound effect, which is much more powerful than verbal intervention, because the memory is reactivated directly at the point of contact between body and body, without the brain interposing its capacities for memory and speech. 

The History of Body Contact

Touching is a primordial form of contact with the outside world. The first experiences are made in the womb, in contact with the uterine wall and in tactile touches coming from outside on the abdominal wall. During the birth the contact with the mother's organism in the birth canal intensifies dramatically. At the end of this process, the hands of an obstetrician and other contact experiences that are completely new for the experience of the tiny being usually come to the fore. 

When we imagine a baby (or ourselves as a baby), it immediately becomes clear that we all came into the world as highly sensitive beings. Anyone who has ever carried a newborn baby in their arms knows about the sensitivity and permeability of these tiny creatures.

Anyone who has ever carried a newborn baby in their arms knows about the sensitivity and permeability of these small creatures, who still have hardly any protective body boundaries. That is why touch that take place in this early phase are of enormous importance for the development of the world view, i.e. the image of the outside world. Is it friendly and attentive or rough, demanding and insensitive? Is my sensitivity respected or are the fine boundaries of my body overlooked and carelessly transgressed?

In this context it becomes clear that in this early phase of life, stronger, more powerful to coarse touch Aare totally unappropriate, but that a distinctive form of sensitivity is required in order to convey security and trust to the small being on the tactile level, qualities the baby needs to grow well inwardly. 

So if a breathing person is in this phase, an overly dosed intervention can have devastating consequences, because it repeats a too rough and therefore unconscious abusive experience of touch, thus confirming the original suffering instead of healing it. This means that the therapist must know exactly in which phase of life the client is currently in her regression in order to dose her touches correctly. Without intuitive clarity, it is better to hold back with interventions so as not to run the risk of causing lasting damage.

Particular caution is required in the abdominal area. The precious abdominal organs and the complex enteric nervous system that connects them, our enteric brain, are protected only by the abdominal wall, not like our head brain, which is surrounded by powerful skull bones. For example, a breathworker knows about acupressure points in the right upper abdomen which can alleviate depression according to the corresponding theory. But the breather is about to experience his or her vulnerability in a sensitive phase of his or her early history, so the applied pressure massage can be felt as a massive violent intrusion into his or her own body sphere.

All of us have a detailed and history of physical contact, reaching far back into early phases of life. This history is largely unconscious but nevertheless influences our lives. In the breathing session, in which we quickly find ourselves in a vulnerable state, in which our sensitivity is activated, it is particularly delicate whether and how we get touched. What one person experiences as a pleasant and invigorating touch can arrive at the other as a burden and as annoying and disturbing pressure. We have all been touched rudely, carelessly, negligently or roughly in the very early stages of our lives. Perhaps we were passed from adult to adult as a showpiece in a cheerful circle, shuffeled from one aura into the next in quick succession, and were completely overwhelmed and irritated by this mishmash of gifts and lovelessness.

Every single one of these experiences has left its mark and has been written down in our book of the history of body contact. Details and emotional contents of these memories can appear later during a physical intervention, relatively independent of the intention of the person applying the touch. 

Because if we are in a regressive state, which can appear quickly in a breathing session, we are much more sensitive than in everyday consciousness. We often receive surprising and sudden information that was previously inaccessible to us. Often this is information whose meaning cannot be immediately expressed in words and cognitively understood, but which is nevertheless immediately evident, present and real. In this state, touching is more intense and ambiguous than in an everyday situation, because the physical memory that stores early and earliest memories is more easily accessible. 

Free Flow and Intervention

It should be kept in mind that touching and other physical interventions guide the flow of information opened by breathing in a certain direction and, in some cases, manipulate it. Sometimes, they can come in appropriately if they focus the process of experience towards an important point of self-descovery; but they can also be experienced as strong disturbances and cross-border interventions if they do not fit the inner process and especially if they are applied insensitively. 

Here we can distinguish two types of disorder experienced by the breathing person: There are disturbances that shake the comfort zone, or disturbances that throw the deeper, autonomous process of experience off course and push it in an externally induced direction. 

The former are provocative interventions designed to interrupt a habitual pattern.In principle, such interventions are helpful because they help to release more energy and vitality. Although our inner self likes to react to impulses for change with resistance and perseverance, this barrier can be overcome more easily and quickly with targeted and empathetic interventions. The accompanying person is experienced as a support for a step of liberation, which often quickly takes off when the intervention corresponds to the self-healing tendency inside the respiratory and psycho-physical system.

Basically, the following principle should never be lost from sight that only resistances that have been previously respected and understood can be overcome sustainably. Resistances are protective mechanisms that were originally necessary and helpful for survival, as such they should be respected. A therapist who has internalized this attitude will always be attentive and empathetic in helping to dissolve resistances.

On the other hand, it should also be noted that any assault can be experienced as support or as a retraumatizing exercise of power. Depending on the situation, the accompanying person must ensure that the consequences of the intervention are dealt with in an integrative way. This includes a verbal exchange about the experience and the inner effect of the interventions at the end of the session. 

Interventions as Disturbances of the Energy Flow

In the case of the second forms of the disorder, the client is experiencing and healing a deeper process, in which the self-healing forces have already activated themselves and guide the process. There would be no external intervention necessary, except perhaps a gentle and cautious laying on of hands, which gives encouragement and security. Stronger, more powerful interventions are experienced as interruptions and insensitive interferences. The accompanying person must consider what motivated them to interfere where no intervention would have been necessary. Obviously, his or her own topics have smuggled into the client's breathing process, which should be clarified in an inner work in supervision.

What physical contact means, can be noticed by the body sensations and feelings that are triggered, even if only diffusely and unclear. However, with the help of an empathetic and mindful breathworker, more of this meaning can be understood by sensing a physical intervention precisely from both the breather and the sitter, and discussing the experiences afterwards.  

It is our body and its memory, and not our mind that decides whether a touch is right or wrong. Therefore it is very important that the accompanying person does not mechanically carry out certain interventions dictated by acquired knowledge, but is connected with his own intuition and sensitivity, so that he immediately notices when a touch does not arrive as it was meant to, which then allows to correct the disturbance caused by it. 

Transference and Touch

The phenomena of transference and countertransference play another important and noteworthy role in this topic. For example, it happens that clients do not address a touch that is inappropriate for them because they basically trust the therapist more than themselves and do not want to put this trust at risk. They had learned in their childhood that it is better to remain silent when something is wrong than to address it or defend oneself against it, and this pattern can be repeated in the breathing session without being worked on. 

If there is a hierarchical model of teaching and organization in a school of respiratory therapy, it is more likely that this model will be applied to the processes carried out in the framework and on behalf of that school. Students who have learned that they do not have the truth in themselves, that it is owned by their teachers, will expect this attitude from their clients and will pass it on to them.

In Holotropic Breathing, there is a far-reaching abstinence from touch. As little as possible should be interfered with the inner process, and only if the breathing person explicitly asks for it. So any directing influence from outside is avoided. However, this model also has a weakness, because the breather can experience the absence of touch as disinterest and coldness of feeling or as refusal to relate. These are, of course, projections in which the lack of emotional attention experienced by the breather in childhood is revived during the session. But if one fails to make the projections conscious, the injuries and wounds from the early experiences are not healed, but deepened. 

Countertransference and Intuition

In addition, possible sources of information, which are opened by the physical proximity through touching, cannot be added to the resources of countertransference if interventions are principally omitted. Any intuitive impulses to intervene are thus blocked, which can under certain circumstances result in an unnecessary restriction of the effectiveness of breathwork.

The role of intuition in accompanying is not a nebulous matter, but can be understood from the dynamics of countertransference. Every therapeutic process (as in any other form of communication) consists of conscious and unconscious levels. Therefore, we can assume that there is an exchange of information between the unconscious of the breathing person and the accompanying person. Often during a breathing session a space of resonance is opened when the accompanying person breathes in the same rhythm as the breathing person. In this space, intuitive ideas or impulses can arise in the therapist, which fit exactly to the process of the breathing woman. 

Therefore, after Integrative Breathing sessions, the breathers repeatedly report back that touches were made at exactly the right time and in the right way and were desired from inside, as if the companion had read the wish from her eyes. We can understand such phenomena as the interaction of the unconscious levels of the experiencing and the accompanying person. In the language of Holotropic Breathing, this means that there is a flow of communication between the inner healer in the breathing person and the corresponding and allied healer in the sitter. It is as if the person sitting next to the breathing person would hear inwardly what needs and desires the breather transmits on the unconscious level.

Models of Body Feelings

There are models in bodywork and in various schools of breathwork that assign certain emotional themes to certain regions of the body. Often they are transmissions from everyday wisdom such as "rage comes from the belly" or "in grieving the heart breaks" etc.. The chakra teachings and their assignments are also used, e.g. "Trust is present in the root chakra" and "Communication problems have to do with the throat chakra". The use of such models goes in two directions: If someone comes with a confidence problem, then the strengthening of the root chakra can be worked on. If someone feels tension in the solar plexus, then the assumption arises that it can be about unexpressed anger. Thus, emotional themes can be assigned to body regions and body regions to emotional themes.

All these approaches have their benefits and their use for practical work. However, the highest guideline for the application is never the model, but always the experiencing person. He or she decides whether an assignment makes sense or not. Some people experience sadness more in the stomach than in the heart, others find different forms of sadness in different parts of the body, etc. So it should never be about confirming the correctness of a model through practical work, but about opening up and exploring the individual meaning of body regions with each researcher. 

Schools that work with tables and classifications of body regions and related interventions should be particularly careful in their practical work. The previously acquired theoretical knowledge should always have the second rank behind the actual experiences in the current process with the respective person. 

Beginners, in particular, are not immune to the danger of compensating their own insecurity by clinging to given rules and guidelines. They hold on to the model and explain differing experiences or feedback either as resistance of the experiencing person or attribute it to their own lack of competence. In both cases, they pay too little attention to the particular nature and individuality of the client and neglect the valuable information that can be provided by the client from their own experience.

Persuasion and Manipulation

In this context, breathworkers often use the following phrase if the researcher disagrees with the intervention: "Let the touch in and see what happens". So the client should go neglect her own feeling that the intervention is not appropriate and instead trust the therapist. We were all persuaded in our childhood to do something that we ourselves did not want, but our parents did. When we are in a breathing process, we are always connected to the inner state of our childhood or prenatal years. Therefore, any intervention that is not adapted to our real needs and does not respect our will, but comes from an attitude of superior knowledge, will reactivate hurtful and oppressive experiences from the past. It will thus have a retraumatizing effect, as a repetition of an abusive situation, which has been described as a wound in the lower body.

Instead of healing, in this case a deepening and consolidation of the suffering occurs, often unnoticed, because the double-bind attachment is revived, which in the original situation may not only have been hurtful, but also paralyzing and numbing. A part of the client’s subconscious recognizes the abuse and the transgression of boundaries. Another part knows about the dependence on the abusing person and about the vital necessity to subordinate oneself to their intentions and desires. If this doubling experience happens in the therapeutic situation as repetition and is not made conscious, an inner division solidifies in the client. And, as a consequence of the originally numbing reaction to similar experiences in childhood, it will be simply forgotten.

The accompanying person, who is convinced of the correctness of his actions, because he has learned to act this way or because it has helped himself in another situation, may not notice at all what is going on, but is satisfied with the course of events. At the end of the session the client might thank the therapist, as for her on the unconscious level the confirmation of being a good client is more crucial than gaining more self-assertion and breaking through the manipulative dependence. The therapist naively assumes that he has done a good job. For his self-image, too, it is easier to take the final picture for the whole process and not to reflect more closely and in more detail, what might be problematic.

Parents whose children behave the way they want are also satisfied with the result. Their educational work is crowned with success, without them noticing that the inner boundaries of the children have been violated. They have, presumably without naming it that, successfully performed instrumental conditioning: Behavioral modeling through reward or punishment and not through insight and change of attitude. 

Not only clients are conditioned, but also breathworkers who assert themselves through the apparent success of the action itself and the model they use. The conviction of the correctness of one's own actions produces a closed-loop system: if my correctness is not accepted by clients, it is their resistance to get involved and to cooperate, and only more intervention (e.g. even stronger pressure) will make the desired experience possible.

The Misinterpretation of Relaxation

After a longer breathing process most people are relaxed and their smling face is like a confirmation of the success of the work. But relief and relaxation prevailing at the end of the process is no guarantee that deeper issues have been resolved. It can also be an adaptation phenomenon: A repetition of the original form of dysfunctional trauma integration, combined with a strengthening of the inner resistance. And this should always be considered as a possibility. 

The exact and honest reflection about the course and the adoption of physical interventions should therefore never be missing at the end of a breathing process. Then it can be clarified whether the intervention was helpful or counterproductive. For this it is important that the therapist is prepared to consider the latter possibility and not to dismiss it from the outset by throwing it back to the client's proneness to resist. It may be that some of the emotional charge stored in the body around a trauma has been released, but that the actual dream core is still untouched and possibly even more solid and permanent. 

Another danger for misinterpretations lies in mixing up emotional catharsis and healing. Some body therapists and breathworkers believe that the extent and intensity of emotional discharge is important for measuring the degree of healing of a trauma. The emotional intensity during a breathing process is not primarily a measure of the processing and integration of mental wounds, but rather an expression of the person's ability to allow emotional expression. There are also people who become dependent on an intensive form of expression and who appreciate or even demand equally intensive physical support for this goal. It can become a habit and solidify the existing emotional patterns instead of dissolving them from within. The client has an intense emotional experience because he has activated one of his traumas, but the passage through the fears in the trauma core can still be missing for full integration.

The Problem of Acting Out

That is why "acting out" in some therapeutic schools is in principle frowned upon as acting blindly, driven by unconscious and misunderstood emotions, a repetition of defensive actions against deeper inner conflicts.

Perhaps the client makes up for what was not possible in the original hurtful situation as resistance, thus regaining a piece of the power, which had to be split off at that time. On the other hand, it can happen that the violent transgression of borders, which led to traumatization in the early experience, is imitated in the session and repeated with a reversal of roles, so that the victim can feel like a perpetrator now. If this dynamic is not brought to consciousness, catharsis remains a meaningless blow-off of steam, resulting in nothing more than momentary relief.

Interventions and Self-Healing

In breathwork, as in many other therapeutic approaches, we assume that there is a tendency towards self-healing in every human being, which has been mentioned several times in this article. Systems that have been disturbed in their organic processes have an inner knowledge of the undisturbed state and an innate strive to return to this state on their own. However, if the disturbance is massive or chronic, then the systems do not find their way back by themselves. This is the point where we need help. If a cold does not calm down by itself, we need a medicine. If this does not help, we should see a doctor.

On the mental level, which basically functions just like the physical level and cooperates closely with it, we also need professional help when our emotional and thought patterns no longer regulate themselves, but begin to lead a life of their own that burdens and hampers us. This help is all the more effective the more it makes use of the self-healing powers in the therapeutic process. In this case the therapist works with the inner energies of the client and uses his empathic abilities. It is a kind of alliance from unconscious to unconscious that the therapist consciously creates and from which the right and coherent verbal and non-verbal interventions flow. This connection is the source from which the therapeutic relationship feeds itself, which also includes everything the therapist has learned and experienced, but in which the client's current inner process of experience exerts the most important influence. 

From this source intuition arises - both in the therapist and in the client. It becomes apparent that the therapeutic work can never be planned and predicted, but is determined by the interaction of the unconscious and conscious parts of both sides. The therapist's intuition consists in reading the unconscious of the client and implementing the impulses gained from it. The client's intuition shows itself in breathwork especially through the engagement with the breathing process, which leads to levels of experience that are not controlled by expectations and thoughts, but come from deeper sources.

Help for Self-Help

In the context of body interventions, it is particularly important to bear in mind that any external intervention replaces something that the client could experience for herself or gain from her own self-healing power. It is a balancing act between autonomy and commitment. The inner conflicts that lead people to the path of self-discovery originate from this field of conflict. In this place of tension, the events in therapy take place. The art of accompaniment in this process consists in bringing both sides to fruition in the therapeutic field and strengthening them equally in the client’s psyche.

Too many physical interventions can lead to dependence on the therapist. The client assumes that without external influences and directives he will not progress inwardly. On the other hand, a lack of physical interventions can also be understood as a lack of care and thus create a negative dependency by repeating childhood defects in therapy and transfiguring them as normal.

Such patterns should be discussed. A therapist who is aware of these possibilities and perceives signs of such dependencies talks to the client about them in order to bring the patterns into the client's consciousness. This opens the way to resolving the issue, which both strengthens the trust in the therapeutic relationship and thus the ability to bind, and also improves autonomy and self-acceptance.

The attention that comes from the therapist does not automatically strengthen the client’s self-awareness - as any outside help does not automatically strengthen the ability to help oneself. Neither does the withholding of attention by the therapist strengthen the client's autonomy, but can consolidate the feeling of lack of it. Finding the right balance is an important part of the therapeutic art and is measured by the trust that can be placed in the healing forces by both parties. The quality of body interventions is a touchstone for the sustainability of trust and thus for the progress of healing that can be achieved.

Breathwork in Large Groups

With regard to Breathwork sessions in large groups, I would like to highlight another important aspect. Thirty years ago I experienced Rebirthing group processes with many participants and a few breathworkers. This was still a pioneering time in testing and spreading breathwork. For quite some time this setting seems unsuitable to me, because it has several shortcomings, which can diminish or impair the quality of the experiences and also lead to subsequent problems – and to shed detrimental light on Breathwork as a whole.

When many people breathe more intensively in a room, an energy field builds up which influences every breathing person mostly unfiltered. Our subconscious opens up and influences from other people's experiences can flow into our own process without testing and protection. If, however, every breathing person has a second person setting next to him who follows the process in a present and attentive manner, without this second person having to have any training, shelter and safety is created. The accompanying person becomes the main source for the flow of information from outside and should ideally convey security and trust and act as a protection and filter against environmental influences. In this way, the inner process can unfold with fewer obstacles. People who walk around the room and interfere here and there cannot take on this important role.

The relationship aspect is part of every self-awareness process. Many, if not all, injuries from our life history have come from the most important people in our lives. So most severe traumas have been inflicted on us by other people. Therefore, in a breathing process, we need a reliable and constant accompaniment that is unconditionally present with us. This person does not need any special training, he only needs access to the general human competence of attentive and mindful presence. Under such conditions, we can go into inner areas of our emotional landscape that are painful and anxious. Someone who comes and goes during the process, but does not stay with us, cannot give this security, but can very likely activate experiences that have to do with the coming and going of caregivers. We suffered as children because we needed more continuity and presence from the adults around us. Again, we are at the mercy of arbitrary existence and its uncontrollable termination, when in a group setting leaders go around and briefly enter into relationships here and there, only to then immediately move on again.

Someone who accompanies a breathing process for the first time without any previous experience acquires an intimate knowledge of what is going on in the breathing person.  This knowledge does not have to occur in the form of words, but can also have the character of procedural, nonverbal knowledge, which expresses itself in the feeling for the needs and the inner state of the breathing person. Thus, an intense network of relationship is created in which large amounts of information are exchanged at the unconscious level, which is fundamental to understanding and trust. Someone who comes from outside selectively and at short notice is always inferior to this intuitive knowledge, no matter how well trained and experienced he may be.

Therefore, people who come from outside would have to take at least a few minutes to make up for this difference and get a sufficient sense of the course and inner patterns of the breather and her process before they intervene. Because it is not only about the observation of a current condition (e.g. a person breathes too little into the stomach), but about the experience of the whole process, from which the individual observation gets its meaning.  Every intervention that an experienced leader makes should always be coordinated with the accompanying person, so that their intuitive knowledge of the process is included and they are respected in their role at the same time.

For these reasons, the setting in which every breathing person has a companion at his side who stays with him throughout the entire process and then goes through the breathing experience himself in a role reversal seems to me to be much better, more helpful and more professional. Experienced process facilitators can still provide assistance by verbal or non-verbal interventions, if they can deepen the process in a sensitive way and help the breathing on the way to inner healing. This is the standard setting in both Holotropic and Integrative Breathwork and has proven itself over decades. 

Essential Aspects for Setting the Framework in Group and Individual Sessions

From my point of view, the above considerations result in the crucial requirement that physical interventions during the breathing process can only be carried out with consent of the client. In both individual and group breathing sessions, the possibility is pointed out at the beginning and its role in the breathing process explained. Then we discuss what the client wants and what not. It can also be agreed upon that the client leaves it to the sitter to use his intuition, in case the necessary trust is given.

For this purpose, a clear signal of interruption should be agreed with which the client can end an overstraining or inconsistent body intervention immediately, e.g. a gesture or the code word "stop! It is also the responsibility of the breathworker to carefully check with each touch how it arrives inside the breathing person and how it affects the further course of the breathing process. In this way it is ensured that the ultimate control over the use of touches during breathing remains with the breathing person and that assaults are avoided. 

All topics concerning the dynamics of the relationship between the companion and the breather in this context, which cause confusion or disturb confidence, belong to the supervision of the breathworker. There the personal backgrounds, which probably have to do with one’s own history of body contact, can be reflected and brought to consciousness. In this way, a high quality in this sensitive area of therapeutic work with people is ensured, which is owed to all those who embark on this path of self-enquiry.

The First Breath and the Immune Reaction

After the first breath, the lungs changes stronger as any other organ. Before birth, the lungs do not have any function; this is similar between humans and mice. Though they are trained by various movements of muscles, which the unborn performs, they are filled by liquid and get their blood supply directly from the placenta, while the vascular system bypasses this organ. In the first breath, which is often connected with a strong scream, the liquid gets absorbed by the body. The lungs unfold and are fully supplied with blood from now on. In the next three weeks, the lungs develop to become what their task is for the rest of the life is: the central breathing organ. By the sudden stretching of the lungs and by the first scream, certain mediators get released, among them a cytokine, interleukin 33, which then exerts a strong influence on other immune cells.

In the maternal body, the lungs still are free of microbes. Yet after that, the lungs need a well working immune defense, for with every breath noxious substances and bacteria stream into the lungs. This immune system gets activated with the first breath in a chain reaction. IL33 is released and activates IL2-cells, special white blood cells, which invade the lungs. This leads to the activation of the most important immune cells in the breath ways, the alveola-macrophages.

The IL2-cells are important for keeping up a balance: on the one hand, pollutants should be rejected, on the other hand, over-reactions should be avoided. The IL2-cells reduce the activity of the immune system, which has the disadvantage as bacteria have a better chance to spread in the body.
The first breath can work more or less well. Labor plays and important role, but also the shock in temperature is an important trigger factor. Not all babies have the same preconditions for the kick-off of the lungs, Cesarean babies are disadvantaged.

This is the translation of a radio broadcast featuring the research work of Silvia Knapp from the Medical University of Vienna, from March 3rd, 2017 with the title: “The first breath and the immune system”, transcribed and translated by me.

Commentary:

Also this context demonstrates the negative consequences of Cesarean birth for the health of the babies. It is an artificial disruption of a process, which has its inner natural logics, here presented in the connection of the development of the immune system of the lungs. When this process cannot take place, important components are missing, which the child has to build up by itself in a different way later on in life.

The article seduces to enforce a well-known prejudice in one point: The stronger the scream of a baby after birth, the better for its health and robustness. On my enquiry about this point, I got this answer from the ORF redactor: “Mrs Ronzheimer has reported about the actual research project of Silvia Knapp. As far as she knows, the first breath and the scream connected with it is crucial for the development of the immune system of the lungs. According to Silvia Knapp, the immune system also develops normally in the case of a Cesarean birth, which is not under ideal conditions, and not as well as in the case of natural birth. Whether the scream is decisive, cannot be confirmed by Mrs Ronzheimer – the theme is the first breath, which is naturally deeper with a scream.”

Or course, a scream requires a deeper breath. Yet many experts on birth have the opinion that the scream is caused by an abrupt transection of the umbilical cord. Babies, whose cord stays attached up to the end of pulsation, usually start to breath slowly and gently, without a scream. Thus they do not suffer from the placenta trauma, which could be the emotional cause of the scream in the other case.

See the lecture of Susanna Hinnawi on "Lotus Birth" at the Global Inspiration Conference on August 5, 2017 in Hirschwang/Austria and the workshop on "Healing the Placenta Trauma" facillitated by Wilfried Ehrmann at the same event.

Intense Breathing and Control of Immune System

Intensive breathing has amazing effects. Those who have experienced cold water breathing and have previously been fearful about any contact with cold water, know what we are talking about: Breathing strongly, any fear can turn into a sense of well-being or even ecstasy while in contact with cold water.
 
The Dutchman Wim Hof has managed a lot of extreme situations with the help of the breath: marathon runs in the Sahara and in snow with bare feet, climbing the Kilimandscharo in shorts without shirt and record time, swimming in the polar sea, staying in ice water with 1 degree C for 80 minutes etc.+
 
At the Global-Inspiration-Conference 2015 in Teneriffe he has guided over 100 people into the ice water basin to demonstrate that this experience is possible for everyone, with appropriate preparation. And the preparation consists mainly in breathing intensely, making short pauses and continue to breathe intensely.
 

Breathing Intensely

What happens, when we turn up our energy by breathing strongly and intensely? We do so in different meditations and exercises and feel charged up and activated. Rapid and deep breathing brings the nervous system into the sympathetic mode. Reserves are mobilized and sensitivities set aside. At the same time, the adrenalin production is driven up and the well-known stress hormone spreads throughout the whole body, clearly measurable after 30 minutes of breathing exercises. It brings us into an excited state, which can be pleasant or unpleasant depending on the situation. People with panic attacks know intense breathing as fearful experience, athletes as a downright ecstatic kick.
 

Adrenalin and the Immune System

Enforced production and release of adrenalin causes an increase in pain tolerance, and additionally the suppression of the immune defense. For in the fight-flight-mode simulated by intense breathing, all available energies are needed on the surface to be able to ward off the thread on the outside. Whatever is not immediately useful for this task is deactivated.
 
The story is even more complex when we look deeper into the nature of our immune system. Looking at the numerous autoimmune diseases, the reactions of this system seem to be paradox. Designed to protect the body from harmful influences from outside, it can also start to destroy parts of that body. Why is this so? The immune system is equipped with strong and aggressive “weapons” against deadly invaders. In performing its task, it sometime needs to destroy body tissue and other structures. When doing so, the brain gets informed by the lymphocytes and causes the hypothalamus to produce the corticotropin releasing factor (CRH). Subsequently cortisol is released to disrupt the immune reaction.
 
This is the normal procedure, but when the stress system is out of balance and becomes permanently and chronically over-reactive, two things can happen: The immune system is chronically weakened, which causes hypersensitivity to all kinds of contagious diseases, and the control of the immune system is chronically weakened, which causes auto-aggressive diseases and probably most of the other non-contagious diseases alike.
 
In an experiment under scientific supervision, a group of Wim-Hof-breathers after a ten days training got an injection of dead E. Coli-bacteria along with a control group. The control group reacted as expected with intense outbreaks of the immune system (fever, shivering etc.). The breathers did not display any or only light symptoms. The Dutch researchers who supervised the experiment stated that the acid-base balance of the blood and oxygen levels shifted from high to low repeatedly during the cycles of the breathing technique.
 
The acid-base balance [of the blood] and oxygen levels that shifted from high to low repeatedly during the cycles of the breathing technique might have induced a kind of chemical stress, which could lead to this effect. This brought them to the conclusion that we have the potential to handle autoimmune diseases by self-control and exercise. Autoimmune diseases emerge from chronic inflammations and develop into severe illnesses difficult to cure. With these dysfunctions, the human immune system reacts too strong, so that the body gets harmed by a surplus of healing and repairing attempts. These reactions become chronic, and the autoimmune disease is in place.
 
Yet when we succeed in suppressing the immune reaction by willingly entering an adrenalin state, such suffering can be reduced or healed. When these experiments can be validated by further research, we have a proof of how the nervous system can influence the immune system and we have a door to the ability of steering our immune system by ourselves, in a first-person-perspective with a favorable outlook on curing autoimmune reactions.
 

Adrenalin and Cortisol: Better than their Reputation

Now we take a closer look to the role of adrenalin (or: Epinephrine). The well-known stress hormone is produced in the adrenal medulla by order of the hypothalamus. About ten minutes after the adrenalin release, cortisol gets produced in the adrenal cortex to protect the body from an enduring high activation by adrenalin. It also cares for increased and longer lasting vigilance on a lower level as adrenalin. The energy reserves emptied by adrenalin get filled up by metabolizing fat, proteins and minerals. Additionally, cortisol increases the performance of the immune system by alerting the immune cells, mainly the leucocytes, and sending them to where they are needed. There is a feedback system, which reduces cortisol release at a certain level of cortisol. Thus the stress reaction is switched off.
 
Completing the stress reaction in time is the ideal case appropriate for a balanced way of living. It allows us going through challenging situations and integrating them. For this task we need cortisol. Shortage as well as surplus has psychological results (behavioral distortions, depression, sleep disorders). Strong alterations in the cortisol systems occur after traumatization (post-traumatic stress disorder).
 
The healthy and beneficial stress reaction, which is an emergency solution, can run up physical performance quickly and accurately and suppress it gradually in time. When the stress gets too strong, too intense and too long or when the appropriate time for regeneration is missing, the adrenalin-cortisol-system can get out of balance and produce detrimental consequences.
 

Breathing and Stress Reaction

There is an obvious connection between breathing and stress reaction:
Releasing adrenalin (e.g. triggered by a threatening stimulus) speeds up the breathing. Speeding up and deepening the breathing, as we do in certain breathing exercises, causes the release of adrenalin.
 
So when we do intense breathing exercises, the body activates the stress reaction without outer or inner reason. Researchers call this “chemical stress”:  The unusual erratic changes in the pH-levels of the blood during intense breathing seem to trigger the alarm reaction on a hormonal level without a subjective feeling of stress or anxiety. Some participants of the Wim Hof group could lift their pH-levels to 7.75 (the tolerance range of the blood-pH is between 7.3 and 7.7) causing a dramatic fall of the CO2-level. We know from science as well as from practicing of breathwork that one of the symptoms of blood alkalosis (=high level of pH) is the “hyperexcitability” of the nervous system. Caused by the reduction of Ca2+ (calcium ions) in the blood, blood vessels contract and a potential for increased electric conductivity occurs. This phenomenon is usually seen as negative as it is frequently connected with anxious and hyper nervous feelings and panic attacks, connected with a loss of control. Yet the Wim-Hof-experiments have shown that it is possible to consciously influence the nervous system and that the electric conductivity of the nerves can be increased or decreased and deliberately moderated with breathing exercises.
 
This opens new opportunities for self-directing one’s own health. There is an obvious important difference: When we engage consciously in a stress experience e.g. by deepening and accelerating the breathing, the nervous system reacts differently as it realizes that there is no real danger, but a challenge the organism faces on a conscious and an unconscious level. We create an overwhelming situation, which might remind us of previous experiences, but within a situation of relieve granted by our conscious choice and by a stable and securing environment. So we are not overpowered and out of control as in the previous experience, which is triggered. This lays the ground for later integrating the trauma.
 

How the lungs take up oxygen

Due to their elasticity, the alveoli have a large surface for diffusion to manage the gas exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide. In normal breathing, we have the respectable amount of 70 m2 for our disposal and we can enlarge this surface to 100 m2 by breathing deeply. Thus the gas exchange is increased, more oxygen is taken in and more carbon dioxide is given away.
The breathing techniques of Wim Hof allegedly create an even larger surface of the alveoli. When deeply breathing in and exhaling loosely, thirty times, and stopping after the exhale for some time, after repeating this cycle, the breather will feel passively and vibrating. The oxygen level in the blood raises and the level of carbon dioxide sinks. The latter ought to be kept at a minimum while the mitochondria, the energy supplier of the cells, are loaded with oxygen. Setting this energy free, is also called “aerobic dissimilation” or “inner breathing”.
Inner Breathing

Science defines dissimilation as breakdown of organic molecules like fats, carbon hydrates and proteins with the aid of enzymes to generate energy. Basically, this process works without oxygen (=anaerobic dissimilation, which is highly inefficient) or with oxygen (=aerobic dissimilation or inner breathing). So the body cells need a sufficient amount of oxygen for their energy production. This process runs over several steps of a chain: glucose is transmuted into pyruvate by creating two ATP (adenosin-triphosphat)-molecules. When there is enough oxygen, the process moves further by creating up to 30 or 32 ATP-molecules out of one glucose molecule. ATP is essential for any physical movement, from moving muscles to metabolic processes and for the creation of electric signals in the nervous system. Without oxygen – and adequate nutrition – there is no ATP; and with more breathing, there is simply more ATP, while the production of lactic acids is reduced, which keeps the body in an alkaline state. At the same time, with deeper breathing more CO2 is exhaled, the blood pH level becomes more alkaline and thus more aerobic dissimilation can happen. So Wim Hof thinks that we can influence the chemical activity in our cells with his breathing exercises and that we can speed up our energy production when needed.
 

Mental Work

Besides breathing, mental concentration is used for directing the inner world. He says: “Concentration is energy. Concentration results in electrical impulses (neurons) and chemical messages (neurotransmitters). The pyruvate that provides energy to the mitochondria is boosted further by focused concentration, with this dissimilation resulting in energy, thus concentration and awareness are essential to this exercise. Increased awareness can be achieved by influencing the mitochondrial activity of the brain cells, thus releasing substances in the hypophysis, epiphysis, third eye and pineapple gland to increase awareness. More energy in the mitochondria of the brain cells thus results in the release of substances that have been hidden in the hypophysis and the pineapple gland.”
 
There is scientific evidence for Wim Hof‘s ability to deliberately suppress cytokinesis. With his method, he could reduce the cytokines in his body by 100%. Cytokines are regulators of the immune system – and a surplus production of cytokines is connected to many diseases. The pandemic Spanish flue in 1918 is said to have mainly killed people with a good immune system, as a cytokine storm was unleashed.
 
This is why Hof criticizes flat breathing and insufficient nutrition (“eating shit food“) as wide spread attack on the immune system and thus as cause for multiple diseases.