Breathwork: The Power of Conscious Breathing
How the breath can become your most accessible healer
We breathe thousands of times a day, but how often do we truly notice it? Most of us have spent years in shallow, unconscious breathing—trapped in survival mode, disconnected from the wisdom that lives in our own lungs.
Breathwork is the invitation to come back. Back to the body. Back to presence. Back to the self beneath the noise.
And as both a spiritual practice and a trauma-informed psychological tool, it holds profound potential for healing.
What Is Breathwork?
Breathwork is a broad term that refers to conscious control of the breath to influence your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual state. It can range from calming practices like box breathing, to intense transformational sessions that bring up repressed emotions and altered states of awareness.
There are many schools of breathwork—Holotropic, Rebirthing, Clarity Breathwork, Pranayama—but the core principle is the same: the breath is a bridge between the body and the mind.
The Science Behind the Breath
From a psychological perspective, breathwork is one of the most effective ways to regulate the nervous system. When we’re stressed or triggered, we often shift into sympathetic (fight-or-flight) mode. Conscious breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system, bringing us back into rest and digest.
Studies have shown that breathwork can:
- Reduce anxiety and symptoms of PTSD
- Improve heart rate variability (a key marker of resilience)
- Increase emotional processing and insight
- Help access suppressed memories for therapeutic release
Even a few minutes of deep breathing can shift your brainwaves, balance your mood, and improve your capacity to self-regulate.
Breath as a Portal to the Unconscious
In deeper styles of breathwork, particularly circular or connected breathing, the breath becomes a vehicle to access non-ordinary states of consciousness. Much like with shamanic journeying, these states can bring forward old memories, inner visions, or emotional waves that have been stored in the body.
I often guide clients and workshop participants through breathwork as a precursor to trauma processing, soul retrieval, or inner child healing. It softens the mind’s defenses and allows the body to speak.
The breath doesn’t lie. It will show you what you’re ready to feel.
My Journey with Breathwork
After my spiritual crisis and psychosis, breathwork became one of my most sacred tools. I needed something that was gentle but deep, something that didn’t overwhelm my system.
Breath brought me back to myself when nothing else could.
In a world that often rushes us into thinking, fixing, or numbing, breathwork invites us to simply be with what is. To sit with the grief. To expand into joy. To create space for clarity and calm.
Safety & Contraindications
While breathwork is generally safe, some practices can be intense. People with certain conditions—like heart issues, high blood pressure, epilepsy, or a history of trauma or psychosis—should approach breathwork with a trained facilitator and be mindful of their limits.
In my own practice, I create trauma-informed containers, always encouraging participants to listen to their bodies. There’s no “one right way” to breathe. Sometimes the healing is in slowing it all down.
Integrating Breath into Daily Life
You don’t need a ceremony or session to benefit from breathwork. Try this simple practice:
- Inhale for 4 counts
- Hold for 4 counts
- Exhale for 6–8 counts
- Repeat for 2–5 minutes, focusing on your belly rising and falling
This small ritual, repeated daily, can create massive shifts in your emotional landscape.
The Invitation
Breath is your birthright. It’s the first thing you did when you arrived here—and it can be the very thing that helps you remember why you came.
You don’t need to chase healing outside of yourself. You already carry the medicine within you. And it begins with one conscious breath.
Intuitive Souls 