Transition Breath March 2020 update

Hi there,

Welcome to Transition Breath's March 2020 update.


Upcoming events

Contemplation of the day

Death-related material is a common theme that plays out in altered-state therapies like breathwork. Understandable when, for a vast majority of the world's population, it is our primal fear. It is also a product for those of us with the privilege of waking up each day with the expectation that we will live.

I once sat in a Quechuan ceremony in Ecuador and my material for that ceremony was death. Sitting alone on the edge of the jungle, I felt my connectivity with my body slipping away. I started to panic because I thought I was dying. My initial response was to fight my process; however, I eventually came to a place of acceptance - one day, I WILL die. These words don't seem to adequately convey the intensity of what I felt at the time, but this insight into death during that ceremony led to the beginning of a deeper reflection and understanding of the nature of death.

My breathwork practice has also featured death-related material. I've had whole sessions where I've cried for knowing, in a felt sense, that everyone I know will one day die. Although harrowing at the time, it didn't compare to the session that I endlessly cried about knowing my death would come one day. When I asked my teacher about this experience, she said it is often easier to comprehend the death of others rather than the death of ourselves.

Processes of this kind are common. Death is a collective experience; much like love, it is Universal. Yet we live in a death-phobic society where more energy is invested in keeping it away or hidden. Stephen Jenkinson's book Die Wise explores many of these themes as someone who has worked as a death doula. He writes that our death-phobic society has created the mantra, More Time. Rather than individually and collectively learning how to die well, we instead pursue the path of living at any cost in order to have more time.

These collective fears of death are very present in our society right now. Watching the news or walking into a supermarket with empty shelves are all symptomatic of our death-phobic society. This primal fear drops us into our lizard brain, the fight or flight response, and irrational behaviour takes hold. Fear is infectious and can spread like wildfire. 

These experiences highlight the importance of our breath as a tool to navigate collective fears. Pause, take a breath, respond. When you're watching the news, are you breathing? When you're around people who are triggered, are you breathing? A simple breath in, a gentle hold, and a nice long exhale will help not only yourself but those around you.

More importantly, take the time to learn the undercurrents of your reactivity. An ancient, powerful technique like breathwork enables us all to bring forth our deeper unconscious fears, bring them into awareness and transcend our lizard brains.

Therapeutic breathwork

Transition Breath's one-on-one breathwork sessions are a powerful technique that allows you to access, amplify and release held material in your body. It fosters a healthy expression of emotions and physical sensations and is an opportunity to explore unconscious realities. Session times are:

  • Wednesday, 6 pm to 8 pm

  • Thursday, 6 pm to 8 pm

  • Friday, 9 am to 5 pm

  • Weekends by appointment

Want to know whether breathwork is right for you? Then book an initial consultation to discuss what you're seeking to achieve with breathwork. Sessions are also periodically held in other cities (such as Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne). Email Transition Breath if you want further information.

Group breathwork

Join the global breathwork community for World Breathing Day, Saturday 11 April. Transition Breath will be hosting a group breathwork session from 2.30pm to 5pm at AKA Studio Yoga, Brunswick. We'll be exploring the universal experience of the breath - you can watch a video with further information here. Limited spaces available, so book our place early so you don't miss out: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/world-breathing-day-melbourne-group-breathwork-event-tickets-95165188641

Another group breathwork session will be held at Ainslie and Gorman Arts Centre (Canberra) on Sunday, 19 April from 4pm to 6.30pm. The theme for this session is Beyond the Mind and will be supervised by my teacher, Mirabai Vines. Again, there are limited spaces and ticket are available here: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/beyond-the-mind-group-breathwork-circle-tickets-97911715577

Finally, I have been asked by many people during my corporate and community breathing workshops whether I run regular breathing classes, and now I do! Each Tuesday night from 21 April to 12 May I will run a one-hour conscious breathing class for people wanting to improve their breathing practices and learn conscious breathing techniques to help manage stress, anxiety, low energy and much more. Tickets are available here:  https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/breathing-club-a-weekly-conscious-breathing-class-tickets-97701153781

Breathing workshops

I ran my first corporate breathing workshop for the Attorney-General's Department last month, and the feedback I've received so far has been wonderful. There is such an appetite in many organisations for useful, simple techniques to help employees manage their stress and improve general wellbeing at work and at home. Sessions have been held for: the Australian Senate, Attorney-General's Department, Australian Government Solicitor, the Private Wealth Network and Equality Australia.

If you or your workplace is interested in Transition Breath's 90-minute Breathing Workshop then please reach out.

Other information

A very well known breathwork practitioner is Wim Hof, an eccentric and larger-than-life figure in the world's breathwork community (although, he probably wouldn't refer to his practice as breathwork). His technique is coupled with cold water immersion, and it's becoming increasingly popular (check out Netflix's Goop series, episode 2). Wim has been very proactive in his engagement with the world's scientific community to help inform the benefits of both breathwork and cold water immersion. Here is a video about the auto-immune system: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MaaB6ZlakgA

That's it for now. Breathe well everyone,