“The mind and the breath are the king and queen of human consciousness.”
-Leonard D. Orr
The Power in the Breath
There is extraordinary power in the breath when we learn techniques and breathing patterns that allow us to use it to assist our healing and channel life force energy. Intentional breathing can improve our physical, mental, and emotional health and well-being. “Somatic breathwork healing focuses on breathing in a way that honors the body as self-regulating and intelligent, transcending the cognitive mind. This form of breathwork is a therapeutic method of full, conscious breathing that allows your body and mind to get more oxygen.” Somatic breathwork helps us connect to our body’s innate intelligence.
It can be performed independently, in therapeutic settings, or with group facilitation. Employing this practice, as well as somatic body movement exercises has proved immensely useful in helping me better self-regulate. Deliberate breathing and movement facilitate turning off the fight, flight, and freeze response, turning on rest and digest, and retraining the body to default to a more relaxed state. Feeling and dealing with intense emotions from a more relaxed state allows energy to flow through us, keeping it from getting stuck or becoming stagnant in our body, and giving us an opportunity to transmute negative emotions into positive energy.
"The throat chakra plays an essential role in communication, creativity, and self-expression. When there’s an imbalance in this chakra, you may notice you have a harder time communicating effectively. If your throat chakra is blocked or unbalanced, you may be fearful about speaking your personal truth, have a harder time expressing your thoughts, and feel anxious about speaking or communicating." This article is useful if you want to learn more.
My Emotional Experience with Somatic Breathwork
This past Saturday I participated in another somatic breath-work group session. The facilitator/breathwork instructor is wonderful at what he does and I can´t recommend him enough... you can find him at @thefeelingroom and @dhruvawilliam... but it has taken me a while to attend again because the demand is high, spots are limited, and available dates and times have not worked out for me. I was blessed to reserve a spot at the set location @shaktishalaantigua for this particular date, but it meant going to Antigua for the weekend. I love Antigua, so any excuse to go is welcome.
I made the arrangements and off I went. I took advantage of the trip and booked a half day at my favorite spa and massage place in Antigua, Mundo Natural, on Friday and Saturday I was more than ready for the session. My second go at Somatic Breathwork was a supernatural and beautiful experience. I only cried through one of the cycles, the self-expression round, which ended with clearing my throat chakra... a blockage that has been plaguing me for years with lumps in my lymph nodes which I hadn´t associated with this chakra until recently. In truth, this is perhaps where I struggle the most and one of the patterns that have kept repeating in my life... because, as Dhruva shared in the session´s follow-up literature and exercises:
"Patterns will repeat until they complete."
The Throat Chakra Urges Us to Speak Our Truth
"The throat chakra plays an essential role in communication, creativity, and self-expression. When there’s an imbalance in this chakra, you may notice you have a harder time communicating effectively. If your throat chakra is blocked or unbalanced, you may be fearful about speaking your personal truth, have a harder time expressing your thoughts, and feel anxious about speaking or communicating." This article is useful if you want to learn more.
My spirituality is a HUGE part of my personal truth, and one I have a difficult time expressing because of feelings of shame/taboo/guilt which I was programmed to associate with the supernatural and female empowerment in general. The only places I have felt safe enough to open up about this part of myself have been on this blog and with Gemini Man.
Purging Repressed Emotions & the Call INto Healing
As soon as the self-expression breathing round began, I started to cry... heaving crying, purging crying, intense repressed emotions finally making their way through this blockage and out of my Spirit. And then the tears stopped as suddenly as they began. I started to feel a desire to voice sound frequencies in harmony with the song being played. I am a sound healer. In the first session I attended, I felt the same impulse, but I suppressed it and decided instead to chant lowly and with hesitation and shame still attached.
Empowered and Inspired Breathing
In this second session, a switch had been flipped, and I went with the flow... feeling inspirited... inundated by the presence of the Holy Spirit, my connection to Source. Intense waves of heat and love coursed through my body as I started to take in the heavy energy of the room, alchemizing it through love, and radiating healing energy out in my intonations.
I came out of the breath-work practice feeling liberated, empowered, and inspired... pun intended 🤭. The spiritual meaning Dhruva gave us for the word respiration was "re-spiriting the body".
Life-Giving Breath that Connects Us All
“The word 'spirit' comes from the Latin root 'spirare' meaning "to breathe", which became the word 'spiritus' meaning "breath". The word 'inspire' comes from the Latin root 'inspirare' meaning to ‘breathe or blow into’. The word was originally used with the meaning of ‘imparting a truth or idea to someone’, “to influence, move, or guide (as to speech or action) through divine or supernatural agency or power”.
When we breathe deeply, we connect with, feel, harness, and wield the Holy Spirit. Experiencing His power like our body was designed to – in His likeness and image. Breath literally gives us life and connects us to the world around us.
"Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit." - John 20:21-22 ESV
Sailing Rough Seas with Divine Oars
Despite the rough sea I’ve been surfing as of late, I’ve felt more emotionally at ease thanks to the healing that is leading me into my Divine wholeness. Learning Somatic Therapy tools has helped me better emotionally regulate, accept, and ride the waves; trusting more in my intuition.
I have spent too many years doubting my intuition. When I doubt my intuition, I doubt my Divine gifts of Inner Knowing and Manifesting. I am a powerful manifestor. Able to ground my dreams and visions in my 3D reality. As a professional, I am quite talented and prolific thanks to these gifts. But in my personal life, I have allowed my wounds, social programming, and self-limiting beliefs to cloud my abilities and frustrate my intentions.
Tarot and oracle cards, astrology, numerology, synchronicities, dreams, visions, and meditation are all tools I like to employ to interpret and better connect with my spiritual inner knowing. They help me clarify and confirm intuitive and precognitive hunches/insights/impulses. The common themes as of late have been love, balance, harmony, spiritual growth, attraction, making a choice, stepping into my power/destiny, and new beginnings.
I was recently heavily nudged into investing more energy and time into myself and passion projects aligned with my Soul´s Purpose… putting Divine 'inspiration' into action. Besides writing my book, I was intuitively guided to learn AI prompting… specifically for AI generation of sounds and images. I am designing, crafting, and creating tools that will allow me to more fully express, project, and radiate the light and love from Source in my mind and Spirit beyond the written word.
I wish to employ them to embody my spiritual calling to be an energy healer/alchemist/coach/guide in service of others. Maybe personal or virtual sessions, workshops, retreats, events, and/or books… God only knows! I am excited to heed the call, dive into my purpose, and actively paddle out further into the great ocean of infinite possibilities… riding the waves toward my destiny.
My Moon Manifestations
What better day to fully express my truth and claim this new venture than today under a full moon. The Moon represents powerful feminine energy and signifies wisdom, intuition, and spiritual connection. I try to go outside and connect with the moon as often as possible. Doing so can help regulate your cycle.
I am currently on a Red Moon Cycle, meaning I bleed during the full moon. If you want to know what cycle you´re on and what that means, this article is a must. I feel most empowered around the full moon and enjoy an extra surge of creativity and libido around this phase. Full moons are magical, nourishing, and full of potential. They are a wonderful time for manifestation, because of the influx of creativity, illumination, and magnetism. It is a time for expansion and celebration... they are wonderful for gratitude rituals and rituals of release.
Tonight, in communion with the Full Moon and Spirit, I celebrate all of the blessings, healing, and gifts I have experienced, accomplished, and reclaimed these past months. Expressing gratitude for all endings and new beginnings. Taking deep breaths, inspiring and inspiriting... and expiring all that no longer serves me. Releasing the unhealthy patterns/cycles that have led me to feelings of shame, brokenness, unworthiness, incapability, lack, distrust, uncertainty, and being left out in the cold.
Rising up to my highest timeline, manifesting everything that resonates with my frequency, and is aligned with my Soul's purpose, and mission. Trusting and knowing that whatever is meant for me will rise with me or be called forth into my life… with honesty, in love, and through action. Attracting energies and connections that are in tune, mutually beneficial, available, trustworthy, steadfast, safe, captivating, enjoyable, evolved, transformative, loving, and unconditional in all areas of my life.
Breathe in transformation, breathe out limitations!
Air
Authentic Self
Divine Intervention
Earth
Holy Spirit
Manifest
Personal Growth
Somatic Breathwork
Soul
Sound Healing
Spirit
Spiritual
Water
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