Process and Breathwork

Breathwork may be described as a form of therapy, a means of becoming more aware of what is happening in your life, so that the choices you make become more conscious, less dictated by old beliefs and traumatic events, and much more in tune with present reality. In SOURCE Breathwork you are presented with the idea that thought is creative, that anything that exists now in a tangible form, existed earlier as a thought. That the thoughts you have entertained up till now have created the life experience you have right now, and that by choosing different thoughts you will be able to create other, more enjoyable, life experiences.

 You can look at it this way: With the thoughts you have had, you have been 100% successful creating the experiences you have right now, so it only stands to reason, that you will eventually be able to create something else. As it is expressed so concisely by Louise Hay, a prominent new-age writer, You are the only thinker in your mind, you cannot blame anyone else for what you think, you are the only one responsible. This way of thinking about ones situation has the distinct advantage that it puts you in the drivers seat, you are the power in your life. With another aphorism, The power is in the ability to choose (what to think or what to do). In addition to being a form of therapy, SOURCE Breathwork thus becomes a way of creating more and more of what you want in your life.

 Becoming more aware of your thinking, and turning it in a more constructive direction is a fundamental principle of SOURCE Breathwork. In order to add momentum to the new thought direction and to clear out old, less constructive thinking habits, a specific breathing technique is used, as will be explained below. The combination of the two constitutes the essence of SOURCE Process and Breathwork.

Typical results of SOURCE Breathwork

Breathwork can improve the quality of life in many ways, and every client will have his own unique experience of that. Experience shows, that often the ability to relax deeply increases, stress is reduced, vitality and energy is increased, psychosomatic symptoms are reduced, confidence in oneself and others is increased, and relations are improved. 

How SOURCE Breathwork is done

In breathwork sessions the role of the SOURCE Breathwork Therapist is to help the client to become clear about the thought patterns that have created the situation he wants to change, and to help him select new thoughts, that are more life enhancing. The therapist helps the client first of all by being aware himself, and by giving the client his attention, perhaps by focusing part of his own attention on being safe, innocent and complete himself. In this way, the SOURCE Therapist provides a safe and loving atmosphere in which the client may more easily become aware of thought patterns that create non-desirable results, and let go of them.

Usually a SOURCE Breathwork session starts with a consultation. In this, the client will be encouraged to describe what he wants help with, and while doing this, the SOURCE Therapist will pay very close attention to what is said, how it is expressed, and also to what is expressed nonverbally. While the SOURCE Therapist is doing this, he will get an idea of what kind of thought forms could have created the situation the client  now wants to change. In this way, the SOURCE Therapist gains an understanding of how the client prevents himself from having what he says, he wants.

Perhaps this will become clearer by being exemplified: A person who has difficulties establishing good, warm and rewarding human relationships comes to the SOURCE Therapist. What could be the thought forms behind this problem? On a surface level there are many possibilities, e.g. I am boring to be with; It is a waste of time for me to socialize, I have important things to do; Nobody likes me; I am too fat/thin/high/short; I am not intelligent enough, etc. On a level a little deeper, things often boil down to: There is something wrong with me, and/or I don't deserve to have this. And if I don't deserve, it could very well be because I have the (subconscious) idea, that I am guilty of something.

 Assuming that thinking patterns like these have created the problem, the solution is for the client to develop new thinking habits, to consciously choose to think thoughts like I am perfect as I am right now, I am innocent, I love and approve of my body as it is right now. So the SOURCE Therapist will suggest to the client, that he work with these turned-around-thoughts, which are called affirmations. Working with affirmations may entail writing them 20 times a day, saying them to yourself in front of a mirror while you look yourself straight in the eyes, and simply choosing the thought as often as possible, almost as a mantra, or at least every time you realize that right now you are about to slip back into the old way of thinking. When affirmations are used consistently, they will bring about a reversal of thinking habits, and therefore new results will be created in the life of the client.

 In a SOURCE Breathwork session affirmations are used in a very special way. When the consultation has come to the point where the client feels complete in talking about his situation, and the SOURCE Therapist has decided what affirmations to use, the client will be asked to lie down comfortably on his back with eyes closed. The SOURCE Therapist will sit next to him, and ask him to start breathing with open mouth, a little deeper that usual, focusing on the inhale and bringing more air into the high chest, letting go on the exhale, continuing into a new inhale, thus connecting each breath to the next in a smooth, cyclic manner (sound sample, 180k ). While the client is breathing, the SOURCE Therapist will occasionally speak affirmations to the client. The SOURCE Therapist may start using affirmations to establish safety: I am safe in my body, no matter what I feel right now; It is safe to breathe; My body is safe. After a while he may then begin saying the affirmations that were decided on earlier.

 If the affirmations chosen are good in the sense that they are closely related to the thinking habits that created the situation the client wants to change, then breathing will probably become more difficult for the client. Perhaps he will cough, begin to breathe less, or stop breathing for a moment. The SOURCE Therapist will then encourage the client to continue breathing, Take a deep breath; And another one. The SOURCE Therapist can also support the client by simply breathing in the same rhythm himself. By staying focused on the breath, consciously choosing to breathe while the affirmation that triggered the breathing stop is being spoken, the body's resistance to the new thought is overcome, and the new thought, the affirmation is integrated. This resistance is not always easy to overcome; you may feel uncomfortable in your body while moving through it. Use of willpower to stay focused on the breath can be, combined with the support of the SOURCE Therapist, quite essential.

It can be said that breathing + affirmations activates the conflict that needs to be resolved in the mind of the client, staying with the breath makes it possible to move through it.

When the client has moved through his resistance to a given affirmation, it will be much easier for him to think the new thought in the future; the body will now be able to cooperate better with the mind in thinking the new thought, and it may indeed become a new habit. One should realize, however, that while one may move one's frontier post in a SOURCE Breathwork session, it is up to the client to defend and make active use of the newly acquired land in every day life.

During the session strong emotions, long forgotten memories and/or body sensations may come up for the client. While such emotions are being released it is important to stay focused on the breath, to continue breathing. The SOURCE Therapist may choose to focus on safety in his choice of affirmations when this happens: I am safe in my body, no matter what I feel right now; It is safe to let go.. Also physical support by touching and/or holding can assist the client in being safe enough to breathe his way through the emotions that come up.

It may happen that the client moves through emotions, physical sensations, or even memories relating to his biological birth, and how he was received in this world. It is reported to be a very healing experience when this happens.

 The breathing part of a SOURCE Breathwork session often takes 45 to 60 minutes, and usually it is fairly evident, when the client feels complete. After having breathed his way through something, the breath will often become very relaxed, perhaps very gentle, perhaps very full, perhaps even ecstatic. At this stage the SOURCE Therapist may choose to let the process move into completion, letting the client breathe in any way he wants. After a while, some nice music may be helpful in making it attractive for the client to return more fully to everyday consciousness. At this stage the client probably feels very good, very relaxed, very energetic, very clear, very innocent, very open and very loving. Because of this openness, he still needs his SOURCE Therapist's attention and care, and he should be given the opportunity to share his experience. A couple of practical considerations are, that probably he is thirsty, and he may be somewhat dizzy, if he gets to his feet too fast. Usually a good hug completes the session.

 The above description refers to what is know as dry SOURCE Breathwork, which is the form most used today. SOURCE Breathwork may also be done with the client lying in water, face up, being supported/held by a whole group. Most commonly the water will be warm, at least body temperature.  (Click for description of a session, or a photo series). The hot water seems to stimulate subconscious memories from the womb and birth situations, thereby making it possible to heal the experiences of separation that most of us experienced at our biological birth.

Generally, people find the warm water experience deeper than dry session, and quite often people come out of it with one of the deepest experience of love, support and connectedness they have ever had in their life. Proper integration of this new experience thus serves to restructure the client's perception of his birth, his relationships to others and how he is received in the world.

Other forms of breathwork

I have described dry and warm water work above, but these are not the only possibilities; in fact breathwork can be done successfully in an unlimited number of ways. Not all of these will be appropriate in any given situation, however.

Let me give an example: Some time ago I found myself attracted to horror movies for the first time in about 15 years, and went to the cinema a couple of times, without thinking much about it. When I saw the third one, which I found really scary, something became very clear to me, while I was holding on to my chair - this was about learning to feel safe, no matter what. So I started to breathe, which totally transformed my experience of the movie, I could see this stuff, make space for it, without feeling scared. My point is, that although I would not recommend horror-movie-breathwork to everybody, it certainly worked for me. And I have not seen any horror movies lately. Another example that I have found useful is breathwork/using affirmations on feeling safe with power and strength while jogging or doing other forms of aerobic physical exercise.

Most people who have had 10 SOURCE Breathwork session will be able to breathe themselves, although they will probably not go as deep as when they do a session with a breath therapist.  (Click for description of a session).

Why is birth so important?

For most of us birth was a very traumatic event. Even under ideal conditions, the baby has to move from the warm, moist realm it knows, through very narrow channels, with and against a lot of pressure, into an unknown, cold, bright world, where it will suddenly receive 2-3 times the amount of oxygen it was used to, with its first breath. And most births are far from ideal, for many reasons, so it is understandable that most babies apparently make some fairly negative conclusions about their new situation, right at birth. Having formed an opinion on what life is like, the child, and later the grown up, will tend to experience life exactly that way. It seems to be the opinion of people who have studied birth closely, that there is a direct relationship between what the child experienced at birth, and what will become the major issues, or difficulties in his life. Re-experiencing, and healing, the birth is a very significant event, because it will overcome this automatic coupling, leaving the individual free to experience and react in a much less stereotype fashion. Because experiences at birth are so important, the SOURCE Therapist will usually ask the client to briefly describe his birth and early childhood during the consultation at the first session.

 Many people don't think that explanations end with birth into this lifetime. If you believe in reincarnation, present day problems could be related to experiences hundreds or even thousands of years ago.  SOURCE Therapists usually don't talk much about reincarnation, and probably have different opinions on the matter. They prefer to put the focus on the present situation, and on your ability to choose what to think and what to do right now, because the present moment is where your power is. One may also claim, that if you experienced something in a past life that still influences you, then that experience will somehow have been re-enacted at your birth into this life. So, from a practical standpoint, it seems more efficient to concentrate on healing the present lifetime. With an aphorism, it could well be, That the most important thing you can learn from the past is - that it's over!

History of Breathwork

How old is breathwork? How old is breathing? How old is thinking? Well, breathing techniques have no doubt been in use for thousands of years by e.g. the sages of India. Likewise it is described very clearly in many ancient traditions that the thoughts you entertain will create your life experience. The so called Patanjali Yoga Sutras of India are an example of this: A standardized set of thoughts (sutras) are used (in a very specific way) to create kindness, compassion, strength, knowledge about the stars, and even invisibility and levitation, supposedly. Louise Hay is a more recent proponent of the value of affirmations, being the author of several books in large circulation.

However, the specific way in which breathing and thinking (affirmations) are combined in SOURCE Breathwork seems to be a fairly recent event, invented in California by Leonard Orr around 1970. Sondra Ray, Bob Mandel and Colin Sisson are well known authors in the field. In her variant of breathwork (SOURCE Process and Breathwork), Binnie A. Dansby probably emphasizes supporting the client in experiencing himself as safe, connected and supported more than anyone else; Binnie has as part of her background worked with birth a lot, supporting women giving birth. Originally, breathwork was done in warm water as described above, but with the client lying face down, breathing through a snorkel. Later it was realized, that it was the breathing rather than the water that was essential, and dry breathwork became the most common form.

 A distinctly different line of development came from Stanislav Grof, who developed Holotropic Breathwork TM. Although his technique utilizes breathing, it is very different from the SOURCE Breathwork described here. It emphasizes use of the breath to access so-called non-ordinary states of consciousness. This type of breathwork will not be discussed further in this essay.

My experience with SOURCE Breathwork

My experience with SOURCE Breathwork is, that it continuously transforms my life in a direction that makes sense to me, in a way that is much deeper, much faster and a lot more pleasant than I thought was possible. I started doing the Leonard Orr/Binnie type of breathwork as a client in the spring 1991, and did about 15 sessions with a very good SOURCE Therapist. In the autumn 1991 I joined the first SOURCE Warm Water Event for men in Denmark, which marked a turning point in my search for an understanding of my identity as a man. In the autumn 1992 I joined Binnie's training, a 3 year programme to train  SOURCE Therapists, in Denmark. For me, the primary results of this training is that I feel a lot more comfortable with myself, with others, in the world. I enjoy my life more, and I see more and more that others enjoy being with me. I experience much more love than before, and I trust myself more. Also, head aches are less frequent, although I have accepted many new responsibilities. In addition to this, it is very inspirational to see all the growth that happens with others in the training group.

Warm Water, SOURCE Breathwork is very special to me, both as a SOURCE Therapist  and a client - I do it as often as possible. The level of support between human beings possible in this setting is absolutely unique. This makes it possible for very deep transformation to happen in a gentle way.

Some thoughts on my use of SOURCE Breathwork

I am sure that I am going to continue using SOURCE Breathwork as a client for quite some time. I will also continue to rebirth others.

 In a more extended meaning, I'm using SOURCE Breathwork more or less continuously; it is becoming an automatic function of the mind to generate and repeat affirmations whenever my consciousness discovers that now my thinking is not as positive as it could be. And whenever I discover that I have stopped breathing, I will choose to breathe consciously for a while. Also, in this situation, I will try to remember what made me stop breathing. I call this use of SOURCE Breathwork Breathwork in the Market Place - using thinking and breathing continuously to expand life, in real life situations.

One thing I find particularly interesting is the relationship between language and consciousness, how the two affect each other. How you can learn about a person's (or your own) consciousness by being aware of his language; how you can affect a persons consciousness through your own use of language, e.g. by speaking the exact right affirmations at the exact right time during a SOURCE Breathwork session. I want to expand my understanding of this, and take a close look at what Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) has to say about this. Also, I find the healing potential of sound, or vibration, extremely interesting.

But first and last, I am deeply fascinated by the idea that thought is creative, that, from moment to moment, we all create our lives by the thoughts we give our attention to.  

© Text 1993 by Karsten Bruun Qvist
© First photograph by Jonas Himmelstrand