Conscious Breathing :

How Shamanic Breathwork Can Transform Your Life

By Joy Manné

We are breathing beings. Every moment of our lives, from our birth to our death, our life is defined by our breathing. When our breath stops, our life stops with it. Our breath is, however, much more than a physiological function. How we breathe affects what we feel, how we relate, how we live, how we think. It affects our physical and mental health, our personal and spiritual development, our state of consciousness. We are our breath, and our breath is the language that tells us how we are. Breath language also tells us what we can become. Our habitual breathing rhythms regulate our emo¬tions and state of con¬scious¬ness. When we change our breathing rhythm we alter our state of consciousness. (p. 3)

The Breath is the Teacher and the Path

The divine, however we perceive it, is in every breath we take. Breathwork is naturally and inevitably a path of spiritual development. In fact, there is nothing else. We are not goalless, purposeless mechanisms. Human life on earth is a spiritual experience and a spiritual training. We are spiritual beings in material bodies which are refined tools for spiritual development. We are conscious beings whose task it is to develop this consciousness ever more deeply, and, with it, to develop our goodness and ethical behavior, so that we can come to know our Divine nature. In many forms of shamanism there is a teacher or guide with whom the apprentice shaman studies. When methods have Breathwork at their center, then what is common to all of them is that the Breath is the Teacher or Guide. It leads and teaches the way. Development and progress take place through sensitively following and surrendering to it. Then it takes us on a sacred journey through a series of initiations that give us opportunities to acquire subtle skills and attain secret and sacred knowledge. The Breath is also the Path we follow on this journey. (p. 29)

Vision

Insights free our energy and open us to choice and change. The freer our energy, the freer our breath, the freer our spirit. Our horizons expand and we see the ever-larger picture. We develop vision. Vision takes us far beyond the Ego Level, with its naming and blaming, competition and rivalry, feelings of lack, shortage and fear, and where the goal is surviving. Vision shows us the greater purpose of our own and other people’s lives, and life in general. It guides us to fulfill our unique potential and to support others in fulfilling theirs. Vision takes us onto Soul Level. (p.51)

Breathwork Trances

Typical of shamans is their access to altered states of consciousness, frequently called “ecstatic states” or “trances.” These too are integral to Breathwork: I use the words “altered state of consciousness” and “trance” more or less interchangeably. “Trance” is a bit more general. Holotropic Breathwork™ uses the phrase “nonordinary states.” Breathwork naturally induces many different kinds of trance states. I do not cover all of them in this book.

A trance is an energy field that holds and maintains the particular altered state of consciousness that the breathing has induced. Within this energy field a particular step towards healing takes place. Breathwork trances, therefore, are also healing energy fields. There is a progressive development of depth of trance from light awareness and concentration from which the breather can easily emerge, to heavy, “holding” trances from which the breather is only released when the energy of the trance comes to its natural end. (p. 59)

Grounding and awareness

We have to be consciously present for any activity to succeed. This is true for personal and spiritual development, therapy, and everything else. The more present we are, the more energy we have. Being consciously present is an energy state. Developing this energy has always been the goal of spiritual disciplines because the more of it we have, the more meaningful our life and the greater its quality, both for ourselves and others. Grounding and Awareness are the two essential elements that enable us to be consciously present. When we lose our Grounding, we lose contact with our body, often to the extent of leaving it altogether. When we cultivate our Grounding, we reclaim our body. We approach the conscious present through it. When we lose Awareness, we become progressively unconscious. When we cultivate our Awareness, we reclaim our conscious mind. Being consciously present at a high energy level depends on acquiring skill in Grounding and Awareness. (p. 85)

Grounding is an initiation into the use of the body’s energy and the body as energy. (p. 125)

The Breathworker’s Attention

The most important intervention in any Breathwork session is the quality of breathworker’s attention, and this is even more important in Advanced Breathwork where clients are hypersensitive to what is going on in the energy field. The breathworker who cannot fully give attention to a session is taking energy out of it. As the trance is substantially deeper in advanced Breathwork than in the earlier stages, extra care is needed when making an intervention. It is extremely unpleasant when an insensitive breathworker breaks into the trance. (p. 192)

Breath Mastery

If we use our breath well, we deal wisely with the emotions and unhappiness that arise in everyday human experience, cope with our existential crises, have access to transcendental states of consciousness, and live our life with reverence in the light of deep spiritual realizations. We have Breath Mastery when we can use our breath throughout our daily life to integrate our experiences as they occur, give ourselves Breathwork sessions as and when we need them and for our pleasure, and have the wisdom to know when we need the support of another person in our development. However advanced we may be, it is useful to remember that an accompanying person can support and enhance our energy, and see things that we cannot see ourselves. Even if we are expert practitioners, it is important to continue to give ourselves the opportunity of an accompanied session regularly. (p. 211)