Breathwork 101 & FAQS

Breathwork 101 & FAQS

The type of breathwork that we teach at Sacred Breath Academy is known as circular breathwork or conscious connected breathwork. However, we are different from most breathwork in that we work with a nose-inhale cycle to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) and also promote longer journeying, nourishing/therapeutic containers, free-form/intuitive/uninhibited breathwork, and a full space for post-breath processing and integration. Our foremost intentions in our immersions are to invite somatic safety and to create an impeccably-held container.

What is Breathwork?

Breathwork is ultimately an umbrella term for the art or act of consciously affecting our breath, the only part of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that we can control. Autonomic implies “independent” of the conscious mind. The ANS is likened to a team of horses- it will follow the leader. And because the breath is the only part of the ANS that is consciously controllable, if we begin to artfully master breath, it will become a lead horse, and the rest will follow. Change your breath and change your life, no exaggeration. How amazing is it to have one of the most transformative tools in existence right under our noses...

What is Circular Breathwork?

Circular Breathwork, however, is the term for consciously controlling our breath through a connected or circular pattern without pause (conscious and connected). Circular Breathwork is defined as:

An experiential practice and self-healing modality that uses conscious, connected breathing to access expanded states of consciousness, while simultaneously unlocking repressed emotions and clearing stagnant energy from the mind, body and spirit. It can further help us to establish new neural pathways in the brain and cultivate deeper emotional and relational intelligence to embody in our lives.

How does it work? Through an intentional, safe and artful increase of oxygen levels, we activate different areas of the brain for deeper insights and heightened clarity, while meeting the sacred root of unresolved emotional imprints for healing and integration. 

The most important aspect to note with circular breathwork/conscious connected breathwork is that we are entering into an expanded (or non-ordinary) state of consciousness which ultimately allows us to penetrate the unconscious mind and shift the brainwave pattern. There are many forms of circular breathwork but what’s unique about our method (The Sacred Breath Method) is that it activates the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) response (also known as rest, restore, recalibrate). However, only nose inhale cycles (like ours) or purely diaphragmatic breathing can activate the PNS. Otherwise, mouth-inhale circular breathwork actually activates the sympathetic or “fight or flight” state.

How Does Breathwork Change the Brainwave?

Circular Breathwork allows us to break out of the “monkey” overthinking mind (beta brainwave) and enter into a theta brainwave (alpha, theta or occasionally gamma) or expanded state of consciousness.

Here you may access the unconscious mind to unlock embedded imprints, programmed narratives or self-limiting beliefs for greater healing, integration and resolution. Here we are given the opportunity to transform the un-serving beliefs which keep us marooned from our higher potentiality. It also allows us to tap into the limbic brain, where repressed emotions and memories are stored.

How Does Breathwork Work on an Emotional Level?

Breathwork also allows us to drop deep into our bodies, venturing into and communing with our somatic and emotional landscape. It allows us to move stuck energy and stored emotions by breathing life force energy into them (the creative and stimulating energy of prana). 

You can think of circular breathwork as a form of powerful “emotional hygiene”, allowing us to both access and breathe life into repressed/trapped/blocked emotions to set them free… through emotional expression, deep catharsis and somatic (body) unwinding. Otherwise, these stored emotions remain trapped in the subconscious and continue to direct and influence us in real-time without our conscious awareness. If we do not integrate or clear them by lovingly meeting and welcoming them in, they will become heavier and denser as time goes on. This is why most numb, avoid or disassociate from what is. Because they are avoiding an intimate communion with their deeper emotional body and the wisdom it offers, if only they were to meet themselves in this space. 

By continuing to unknowingly armor against our repressed emotional content, the textures we are holding onto will only grow from whispers to roars, eventually erupting in unhealthy ways. Circular breathwork, however, is an avenue to safely and artfully explore our emotional landscape in a safe container of compassionate witness and non-judgment. In essence, breath teaches us how to create space for it all— to meet ourselves there, to love ourselves there, and to welcome in and embrace our totality. Breath also teaches us to re-inhabit our bodies, reclaim our essential truth and recalibrate our nervous system back into balance.  

Circular breathwork is truly for those ready and willing to venture deep into the most intimate spaces of self.

The journey of breath is a journey of

true self-love,

of higher compassion

and multifaceted awareness.

By breathing into the unknown and un-met,

we bring life and energy to that which is buried or stagnant.

We integrate our stored experiences into deeper understanding.

We let our emotional body speak.

We breathe with it.

We meet what was lost.

And we set free what is ready to dissolve or transform.

In this precious place, we reclaim our totality.

We remember who we are.

Breath is also our foundational relationship with life and a metaphor for how we engage the world around us. Are we breathing deeply, opening, receiving, expanding and feeling? Or are we tight, constricted, armored, numb or contracted? Or some combination?

By unconsciously restricting the flow of breath, we restrict the natural current of universal life force that naturally wants to pour through us. To breathe completely is to be fully present to what is, in this moment. To be here now.

Circular breath is a powerful tool that may bring us into direct contact with parts of our being that are not being fully acknowledged or seen. It allows us to call in and call home our hidden ego aspects; bring awareness to our emotional and energetic blockages; confront our limiting and self-sabotaging beliefs; and to hold deeply, with gentleness and care, our embedded traumas and/or core wounds. Connected breath shows us where we are unknowingly armoring against the endless life-force, creativity and vitality available to us now.

Through breath, we enliven the lost parts of us

and return them back into wholeness.

It is important to understand that when we retrieve repressed parts of us through the breathwork process, we must be willing to honor them and give them the spaciousness of expression— as they simply want a voice too. These unseen parts yearn to be met and integrated, not further pushed down, rejected or bypassed (please have compassion, we all engage this in some capacity). These can often be aspects of ourselves that we criticize, reject, abandon or disassociate from. Yet through the breath, we are able to deeply reclaim and integrate them and bring them back into our conscious awareness. Remember, our wholeness includes all things that exist within us. Through the benevolence and intelligence breath, we begin to transmute our wounds into wisdom and illuminate our shadow with loving awareness.

Connected breath can further help us to dismantle and dissolve self-sabotaging narratives (faulty ways of seeing) that are not in alignment with our core truth or authentic self. Through breath, we may begin to return to our essential knowing- who we always were, beneath the layers of conditioning, story and programmed response. This is the realm of our higher self. We can then reawaken and re-enliven our soul’s truth and unique personal medicine. We can reclaim and reinvigorate what lies dormant in our heart. Through the breath, we may also connect to our most exquisite divine essence and rise into the fullness of who we are. 

This process permissions us to awaken our own inner healer- the one who has all keys and answers already. Throughout the breathwork process, the healer within will illuminate what the breather needs to see, allowing for both a compassionate meeting, reclamation and reintegration of any abandoned/fragmented parts of self (soul retrieval), along with the dissolution of limiting perceptual lenses (false beliefs/negative self-thought/illusory narratives or repetitive stories) are not in alignment with their deepest truth and core self.

Many will also release emotions that have been lodged in the body for decades, if not an entire lifetime(s). Just as we practice physical hygiene, spiritual and emotional hygiene are equally as important to our wellbeing. Thus, we must clear these trapped or stagnant emotions from our channels, body, and nervous system if we want to make more space in our being for higher vibrational tones to come in. Think of the trapped emotions as a dams holding back water (or life force energy). By finally breathing into the emotion(s), we may uproot it, surface it, feel it, express it, then release it back to source. The release is like the dam breaking, and finally the water (or life force) can flood in. Many feel indescribably lighter afterwards, as if a great weight has lifted from them and they have purged out a lifetime of stagnation and density. Some also deem conscious breathwork to be extremely therapeutic, as it can actively clear the imprints, stagnations and blockages out of the body in a visceral and lasting way.

The majority of breathers first experience deep (and at times, intense) emotional release, or catharsis. It is possible to feel anything from grief/pain/discomfort to ecstasy/joy/bliss and anything in between. Again, these are parts of self that are not being met in waking life (even ecstasy and bliss can be energies that are being blocked), and thus want the freedom to be completely and uninhibitedly expressed in a safe container of expression, as we create. 

Additionally, the breathwork will catalyze a powerful cellular healing process in the breather that is difficult to put into words and can only be experienced. Many call it “energy surgery”. Once the channels are fully open, breathwork may further take one into the mystical states of knowing, awareness and consciousness. Some merge with the divine, enter into still point, connect to that which is infinite, boundless and formless, or have profound epiphanies, realizations and transcendental experiences. Others may tap into their inherent genius or innate bliss, experiencing a newfound love for life. Breathwork is also a gateway for individuals to reclaim their personal power, divine sovereignty and authentic voice.

Conscious Connected Breathwork is also alchemical in nature, raising one’s vibration and bringing them into direct contact with their light body for strengthening and activation. The ancients referred to this as the “ka”, and very much understood that we were meant to prepare this body in our current life for our soul’s continued evolution. The light, or ka, body is a composite of light codes and sacred geometry which bring together our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual bodies. This body radiates light energy and electromagnetically links our multidimensional self with the infinite universe around us.

With each conscious breath, we become closer and closer to that alignment of walking with the divine, dancing effortlessly in each moment to the rhythm of the collective heartbeat— the beat we share as one exquisite human family.

Conscious Breath is the living bridge to our divine nature. © 2021

— Written by Kaya Leigh, Founder of SBA // Photography by Plantiful Soul

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NOTE: ALL WORDS ARE COPYRIGHTED (and birthed from our mind/heart/soul), unless the source is clearly cited otherwise. Please think again before taking our words as your own, as dozens have been doing over the years. This is our deepest life’s work. Please respect and honor it as sacred.

© 2021 BY KAYA LEIGH AND SACRED BREATH ACADEMY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All content is for your personal reference and is not intended to be shared, copied or otherwise distributed. Doing so is an infringement of copyrighted intellectual property. Small quotes may be shared and cited as 'Sacred Breath Academy' with permission.