Asheville Breathwork Blog
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Demonstration of a Session of Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation near Asheville
Hi, I’m Kris Cassidy, the founder of Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation, and I’m here today to show you what a session…
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Each Full Breath We Take
I am continually in awe of the benefits and impact conscious breathing and breathwork offers to humanity. Hope you enjoy…
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Healing Potential of Your Breath
Enjoy this quote by Jessica Dibb: “At the beginning of the 21st century there is expanding recognition that the source…
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Breathwork is a Spiritual Gift
“Breathwork is a spiritual gift…You can let go of human misery to be a free and natural person. Your human personality…
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Breathwork can ease pain and soften tension
“The breath has the capacity to ease pain and soften tension. When you concentrate on breathing, your mind is able to gather together all its scattered energies. Your mind becomes much more focused, quiet, and clear. In fact, when you focus on your breathing, you are in the present, in the here and now. You are able to truly shift from one state of consciousness to another.
Some great thinkers have actually said that the breath has the power to actually move matter and consciousness to new states of being. The breath is the life force. When you focus on breathing, you focus on directing the life force within you. This focuses and quiets your mind and helps you move energy. That’s why it’s so powerful to breathe into your difficulties. It moves them, shifts them, and transforms them.” -
How Can Breathwork Help
Besides calming the mind and body, conscious breathing can help unblock and resolve painful, energy-draining emotions, trauma and conflicts. Stress…
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Breathwork and the Subconscious
There is a powerful use of the breath, which contributes more specifically to the healing of the emotional body. This method enables a person to release the locked up emotional traumas that have been repressed by us, so that they stop influencing us from an unconscious level of our awareness.
Breathwork is a very effective method of opening our awareness to the many influences that have been hidden from our normal consciousness. Much of our decision making happens in an instant. What most people don’t realize is that the output of information for that snap decision has gone through the unconscious supercomputer before offering up its result. If the unconscious software is infected with a virus of deep emotional trauma, conflicted emotion and emotions we are in denial about, the decisions can be self-destructive, limiting and contribute to a cycle of creating more pain.
This process allows for the personal exploration into the unconscious emotional software and energies that are influencing you in ways that undermine your full potential.
Even if no deep emotional experiences stand out in your awareness because they are made invisible by the veiling power of denial, they do exist. They have to be taken out of the darkness of your unconscious mind and emotional matrix and brought into your awareness, so you can release the pain and understand the causes of how this pain was influencing your life from that hidden place inside.
Using one’s own breath in a guided and controlled rhythm begins the process where a person begins to slow down the incessant chatter of the mind with its ceaseless array of thoughts.
In this amazing process of guided breathing, you begin to become aware of your total presence. You are triggered into being fully alert, alive, aware of your body, feelings and senses. You are conscious of the total physicality of your being as well as levels of emotion and feelings that can no longer be locked in or repressed, they now demand a release. And the release happens. Naturally and deeply, on a physical and cellular level.
After the completion of the breath cycle, the body rests, and a feeling of deep relaxation and peace is experienced.. A sense of being at-one with oneself, with one’s life and with the world at large. This is the state of no worry, and no thought, full of peace and serenity and unlimited potential. We rest in the expanded inner space that reflects a harmony of mind, body and spirit. -
How Breathwork Can Help
Through conscious connecting the breath, the focus of attention is guided into the body. As the breath unfolds we meet all the “folds” that are in our way. You could say that the “folds” are the blockages in the body-mind.
Focusing on our breathing helps us not to identify with what we are feeling and/or thinking, so that we don’t have to drown in our feelings. We become able to breathe continuously whatever we think or feel and thus centre ourselves in “the here and now”.
We begin to notice that we are not our feelings and that there is something in us that’s “bigger” than all of our drama. We are enabled to observe what’s happening from an aware ego position and to feel enough safety, in which we can integrate our past hurts and pains. We stop feeling like victims.
There is a deep sense of peace the moment we can let go of our judgements. Deep inside us we know -in a nearly indescribable way- that we made a connection with our own true being. This is the process we call ecstasy when consciousness frees itself from limiting thoughts, judgements and convictions and we are no longer identified with them. We are able to “stand by” and perceive. Our bodies don’t lie. We can feel the truth. The blocked energy starts to flow freely again physically and mentally. New possibilities of choice occur. This process may happen very quietly or with a great sense of euphoria.
When energy is prevented from flowing, consciousness disappears. Where energy flows, consciousness steps in.
Tilke Platteel-Deur, Breathwork Practitioner
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Benefits of conscious breathing
“Each full breath we take has a beneficial impact. If we take that full breath consciously, with awareness, the benefits are exponentially increased. We can develop a practice of breathing this way. We can even cultivate skill in the way we allow our breath to be modulated by our experiences, and the ways that we encourage a full deep breath in every moment – in the presence of all of the vicissitudes of a human life. We can come to understand and expereince that within each breath we breathe dwells the possibility for greater health, healing, and wellness, personal growth and development, creativity, developing intelligence and wisdom, accessing intuition, and evolving and building a healthy world together.” – Jessica Dibb, “The Complete Breath”
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Quotes from the 2012 global Breathwork Telesummit
‘When you take a full conscious breath you light up all 3 areas of the brain…you can experience the present moment without defensiveness.’
‘Breath is our greatest nutrient and our greatest medicine.’ Jessica Dibbs‘Breath is an essential part of transformative practice that leads to health’. ‘
‘Conscious Breath improves heart rate variability which aids in reducing stress and trauma’
‘Bringing awareness to the breath brings amazing transformative possibility. With awareness you can intentionally modulate it or let it be. You play with the boundaries of being active or letting go. It trains the mind to let something be or take an active role.’
Dan Siegel -
Breathwork: The Carrier of Spirit.
Breathwork has the power to be the carrier of Spirit into the body
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Stress Relief Through Breathwork Meditation
If you are like most people you experience some kind of stress on a daily basis. For some the level of daily stress can be debilitating. The American Institute of Stress says that stress is America’s number one health problem. It’s been estimated that 75 – 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related problems. And it has been medically proven that stress has a direct impact on the immune system.
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Scientific Understanding of Breathwork
The scientific understanding of the breath and its support of the physical body continues to grow. Studies prove that, in addition to supplying life-giving oxygen to the cells of the body, respiration profoundly affects almost every system in the body. Research has shown that the breath has a profound effect on every aspect of the body, brain chemistry and the nervous system. What many of us have known for a very long time is now being validated. There is no magic pill that will make it all happen instantly but the work with the breath is surely the fast track to greater freedom.
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Breath Moves Consciousness
By taking the time to meditate and open up to your true nature you not only give to yourself but…
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The Master Key to Good Health
“There’s no limit to what working with the breath can accomplish. My own first-hand experiences with this natural healing method have convinced me that breathing well may be the master key to good health. I recommend breath work to all my patients.”
-Andrew Weil, M.D. -
Stress Relief Thru Breath Meditation
If you are like most people you experience some kind of stress on a daily basis. For some the level of daily stress can be debilitating. The American Institute of Stress says that stress is America’s number one health problem. It’s been estimated that 75 – 90 percent of all visits to primary care physicians are for stress related problems. And it has been medically proven that stress has a direct impact on the immune system.
So, how can you manage the stress in your life? World-renowned cardiologist Dr. Dean Ornish says that deep breathing is the best form of stress management known to man.
As the founder of Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation, one of the questions I get asked the most is “How does Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation help with managing stress and stress related ailments such as depression, anxiety and chronic pain?
Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation is a simple and powerful way to use breathing to activate your own healing energy and life force, and to release stress on a cellular level. It supports physical, emotional and mental healing, as you simultaneously connect more to spirit. And by oxygenating your blood through breathwork you can enjoy greater vitality and the health benefits of increased detoxification.
I believe Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation is one of the most powerful tools for stress management in the world today. In just one 90-minute session of Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation you can experience a deep calm, and a feeling of inner peace and wellbeing. Many clients have told me that after just one session they felt the most relaxed they’d ever felt in their life.
Don’t let stress ruin your life, your health and your relationships. Find the peace and relief that you deserve and need now. To learn more about Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation, to find out about upcoming Breathworkshops in your area, or to bring a Breathworkshop to your area, visit breakthroughbreathwork.com.
And take a nice deep breath.
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The Gift of Breathwork
The Gift of Breathwork
How fortunate we are that there is wisdom from ancient times to today that can teach and guide us in consciously harnessing the full benefits of our breath. It is our most potent nutrient, and our most potentiated vehicle for awareness and self-actualization – and it is available every moment.
From the simplest of breathing techniques that encourage relaxation and stress-reduction to intensive breathing techniques that help humans to penetrate the deepest parts of themselves, access their greatest gifts and fully flower as a being – breath is a surprising, delightful and awesome blessing. -
Be Aware of Your Breath
Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space. Remember from time to time to notice that you are breathing. If you really notice that you are breathing, meaning bring your attention to your breath, just one conscious in and out breath, and a different dimension is there in your life. Be present at every step of the breath, the in-breath and the out-breath.
There is no thought when you are present with the breath. What is extremely significant, when you are aware of your breath is that what you are really aware of is you are aware of awareness. That’s the beauty of it. What that means is you entered the dimension of presence and space has opened up in your life.
Eckhart Tolle
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Breathwork: A powerful self-healing and transformational process
Breathwork is a powerful self-healing and transformational process that opens restricted breathing patterns, integrates emotional suppressions and permanently clears the subconscious mind. It is an advanced science of converting resistance to enthusiasm.
From a physical viewpoint, our breath is our connection to life. We can go without food for 30 days without water for 3 days, but in 3 minutes without breath we die. Most people think if they breathe in and out they are healthy. The truth however, unless we are breathing deeply and fully our bodies are not getting the oxygen needed for optimal health.
Oxygen feeds the cells and most people are starving their cells, so many people feel tired all the time. This is quite a problem in our busy world. The solution can be as simple as conscious redirection of the breathing pattern. The pattern can be reprogrammed and the breathing muscles retrained.
Breathwork opens and clears restricted breathing patterns producing more energy, increased detoxification, better health, improved respiratory capacity and strengthening of the immune system.
Breathwork clears the subconscious mind, which allows us to resolve stress. It permanently clears repressed emotions such as anger, fear, anxiety, guilt and depression, which creates more peace, creativity and clarity. Breathwork connects us to higher dimensions and levels of consciousness and gives us a stronger connection to our higher self, with fuller expression of our spiritual nature.
Breathwork can help in pain control, infertility, phobias, stress, PMS, headaches, chronic fatigue, asthma, TMJ, panic attacks, depression, apnea, heart condition, respiratory ailments, digestive problems, birthing, addictions and recovery. -
Be Aware of Your Breath
Be aware of your breathing. Notice how this takes attention away from your thinking and creates space. Remember from time…
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Exploring the Healing Power of Circular Breathing
In the quest for improved well-being and holistic health, alternative healing modalities have gained popularity. One such modality that has captured the attention of seekers of inner balance and emotional healing is Circular Breathwork. Rooted in ancient practices and modernized for contemporary wellness, Circular Breathwork is a transformative journey that combines conscious breathing, meditation, and mindfulness to facilitate healing on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels. In this blog, we will dive deep into this intriguing practice and explore its potential benefits.
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‘Anatomy of Your Next Breath’ by Jim Morningstar
To truly understand the miracle of your next breath, letʼs look at the mechanics and energetics of the breathing process on multiple levels. “With each breath we take in about one million particles that have existed in our environment since the beginning of time and which certainly at some point have passed through every living being on our planet – including Buddha, Jesus, Hitler and Einstein. Every time we breathe out, we add something unique to our environment (Minett, 2004).” What are these particles? How do we take them in and what energetic influence do they have on us and us on them?
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Conscious Energy Breathing and Self-Healing
Conscious energy breathing is an art and a science. It has been called spiritual breathing, intuitive breathing, and rebirthing breathwork.
It also has been called a biological experience of God. It is very simple and easy to do, especially in the presence of a well-trained breathing guide. When we connect the inhale with the exhale, we are experiencing the duality of the inhale and the exhale in unity. When we experience merging of the inner breath with the outer breath, we are experiencing another duality in unity. It is this unity that is the biological experience of God, infinite being, or sometimes-called divine energy. This is the essence of life itself. This essence is also the space between our thoughts. It is nearer to us than our very breath, and it is the source of the breath of life. -
Therapeutic Breathwork by Jeremy Youst
Everything breathes: breathing is the inspiration of Life within all living forms of reality. All matter is in a continual state of particle exchange. In humans, breathing is the biological basis and spiritual expression that renews life, propels awareness and focuses body-mind functioning in time and space.
Therapeutic Breathwork is the intentional application of conscious, connected breathing one-on-one or in a group setting, guided by a skilled practitioner and the Spirit of Breath, and held within the sacred container of a therapeutic relationship and community.
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What does a Breathwork Therapy Session Involve?
A therapeutic breathwork session typically involves approximately an hour of concentrated connected breathing coached by a breathworker that works on the levels of body, mind and spirit.
Body:
Learning how to sustain a relaxed yet full breathing rhythm through whatever tension that arises in the body is a precious gift. Chronic holding patterns in muscle as well as connective tissue can be released without exterior manipulation. Once this is learned, a life-long method of tension relief is attained. This is an art form and not a mechanical process. One must sense the right breathing pattern for the appropriate circumstances. Like any skill, it develops with practice.
Mind:
More than an aerobic exercise, breathwork helps us discover the deep-seated negative beliefs behind holding patterns. This allows us to change the thought patterns that tend to recreate the chronic tensions. Sooner or later by giving the old messages and instructions to the body, we produce the same defensive reactivity. Permanent change takes more than just experiencing one time relief. It takes insight into a new way of seeing myself and my life and developing the self-talk to sustain it. The affirmations that come from working with a breathworker are not generic aphorisms for a good life. They are individually developed tools for the reconstruction of a new consciousness. Along with the continued practice of the breathing technique, the affirmations provide a daily reinforcement of a new level of enjoyment in life.
Spirit:
Breathwork’s underlying philosophy is that the key to new life is accepting total responsibility for union with your Self or oneness with the Divine Spirit. This means a willingness to go beyond our small self and letting our breath be our guide and friend en route. This is not a process of speculation and philosophizing but rather of direct experience. No one tells you your truth. You know it directly by virtue of your courage to go past fears and self doubts. Others celebrate with you on your path but do not control or interpret it for you.
Table of Contents
Licensed to Kris Cassidy (kris@breakthroughbreathwork.com), Order TRA120124-8595-75146
Cycle of Breath:
A therapeutic breathwork session often involves:
1) a beginning in which one experiments and discovers how to sustain a connected full rhythm with coaching,
2) a middle period of building an energetic charge to a point of release, and
3) an ending period during which the released energy is grounded and suggestions for application are integrated.
Breath and Energy Releases:
Holding patterns in our breath mechanism frequently date back to our very birth (see Dansbyʼs article). Many people have actual memories of their birth and the fear that generated their holding. But this memory is not necessary to the release process. There is a distinct difference in the ease and pleasure of the breath after the moment of breath release. This is most often followed by an energy release felt throughout the body. The physical sensations of this vary with individuals and relate to dissolution of our chronic areas of suppression.
Completion:
Most people work through a series of five to ten sessions with a breath coach or breathworker to gain the confidence to continue the practice on their own. This practice involves a heightened awareness of the breath as a moment by moment barometer of our conscious states. The practice is furthered by occasional formal sessions done alone, with a friend or a breathworker. This does not guarantee permanent bliss but gives one direct access to a “powerful medicine” for the altering of stuck energies – physical, mental and spiritual. More and more one can experience the truth that all that is needed is inside. -
Breathwork for Healing, Integration, and Personal Growth
Breathwork as defined by the International Breathwork Training alliance
is the art and science of teaching breath awareness and breathing techniques for enhancing the human physical, mental, emotional and spiritual condition. True wellbeing involves balance and harmony in all the components of oneʼs self. Excessive focus on one part of the self to the exclusion of others results in imbalance and dysfunction. The other side of this equation is that the fine-tuning and harmony of all aspects of the self lead to higher states of health, wellness and opens the door for subsequent growth. Healthy breathing is the thread which strings all the pearls of oneʼs self together. Letʼs look at how healthy breathing is in the mainstay of an integrative approach to personal growth. -
The Origins of Breathwork
In ancient and pre-industrial societies, breath and breathing have played a very important role in cosmology, mythology, and philosophy, as well as an important tool in ritual and spiritual practice. Various breathing techniques have been used since time immemorial for religious and healing purposes. Since earliest times, virtually every major psychospiritual system seeking to comprehend human nature has viewed breath as a crucial link between nature, the human body, the psyche, and the spirit. This is clearly reflected in the words many languages use for breath.
In the ancient Indian literature, the term prana meant not only physical breath and air, but also the sacred essence of life. Similarly, in traditional Chinese medicine, the word chi refers to the cosmic essence and the energy of life, as well as the natural air we breathe by our lungs. In Japan, the corresponding word is ki. Ki plays an extremely important role in Japanese spiritual practices and martial arts. In ancient Greece, the word pneuma meant both air or breath and spirit or the essence of life. The Greeks also saw breath as being closely related to the psyche. The term phren was used both for the diaphragm, the largest muscle involved in breathing, and mind (as we see in the term schizophrenia = literally split mind).
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What can I expect from Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation?
Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation is a powerful practice used to facilitate deep emotional and spiritual healing. By engaging in this transformative practice, individuals can expect a range of benefits that can positively impact their overall well-being.
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Stress Relief through Breath Meditation
If you are like most people you experience some kind of stress on a daily basis. For some the…
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Scientific Benefits of Proper Breathing
The average person breathes approximately 20,000 times per day. This means that in one 24-hour period roughly one hundred square meters of our lung surface is exposed to approximately 8000 litres of air, and 17.5 litres of blood passing through our lungs carries the oxygen from that air to every cell in our bodies. That oxygen allows our cells to produce the energy they need to survive, maintain health, deal with the stresses of daily living, and regenerate themselves when they reach the end of the lifespan. But what is equally important and not so well known is that, on the return journey from the cells, our blood carries seventy per cent of the body’s waste products for elimination through the lungs. If for no other reason then to remove the toxins from our system, it pays to breathe effectively. Yet the vast majority of people do not breathe as fully or as efficiently as they could for maximum physical well-being. It is no wonder then that the vast array of other benefits- mental, emotional and spiritual – to be derived from the management of the breathing process have been largely ignored, at least in the West.
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The Power of Connected Breathing
The connected breath is one of the most powerful tools to bring us in contact with the energy system within the physical body and thus with the Here and Now.The power of being here now is the poser that enables us to integrate old anger, fear and sadness. It is the poser permeating the universe and everything in it. It is the power of Presence, the power of the Divine.
Only when we are anchored in our energy system, right in the here & now, can we be authentic and have access to our inner authority and intuition.
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Benefits of Circular (Connected) Breathing
In the realm of alternative wellness practices, circular breathing breathwork has gained significant attention for its remarkable benefits. Offering a multitude of advantages, circular breathing breathwork has the power to enhance physical health, boost mental clarity, and promote emotional balance.Let’s explore how this simple yet profound practice can revolutionize your everday life!
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Breathwork and Spirituality: A journey into inner Peace and Connection
In our fast-paced and often chaotic lives, finding moments of stillness and connection with our inner selves can be challenging. However, there is a powerful tool that can help us on this journey: Breathwork.
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Breathwork for Purification on all levels
Breathing is not just the movement of air, but also the movement of energy. If you do a relaxed, connected…
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Breathwork Therapy and the Importance of Proper Breathing
Breathwork Therapy and the Importance of proper Breathing To breathe is to live. How we breathe has a most profound…
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Breathwork for Anxiety and Stress
Connected breathing, also known as circular or conscious breathing, is a breathing technique that involves taking deep, full breaths in…
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What is Breathwork?
Breathwork is a type of practice that focuses on regulating and controlling your breathing patterns in order to improve your…
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Breathwork Healing for Anxiety
Breathwork is an active form of meditation that allows us to disconnect from our mind, reconnect with our body, energy, and…
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What is Conscious Energy Breathing?
Conscious energy breathing is an art and a science. It has been called spiritual breathing, intuitive breathing, and rebirthing breathwork. It also has been called a biological experience of God. It is very simple and easy to do, especially in the presence of a well-trained breathing guide.
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What are the physical benefits of
Breakthrough Breathwork Meditation? How can it help my breathing? One of the questions people frequently ask us is: What are…
