Emotional Well-Being

The International Breathwork Summit was spectacular.   Leading authorities speaking on the many benefits of breathwork in all areas of our lives.  Read a passage from Jim Morningstar, one of the leading authorities on breathwork and co-director of the International Breathwork Training Alliance.

Emotional Wellbeing  

Breathwork has brought to the awareness of the healing community the direct link between the ability to regulate oneʼs breathing with the experience of emotional balance. Emotional balance is that middle path between repression on the one side and lack of containment on the other. Deep or repressed feelings that have been inaccessible to cognitive therapeutic intervention have been readily accessed in breathwork practice. This is because the techniques alter the breathing rhythm to activate the sympathetic nervous system in a controlled way. While the body is beginning to engage in flight/fight/freeze activation and the attendant emotional responses, the breather is staying conscious of his or her breath control. The breather learns to ride the wave of feelings rather than suppress or lose control. The full range of emotions – mad, sad, glad, scared and all their variations – can be experienced as a source of positive vitality and wisdom (emotional intelligence). All of the bad examples we have of repression or loss of control in the culture tend to give emotions a bad reputation. However the truth is that a life devoid of feeling is a passionless existence. Our breath can help us be safe with our feelings.