Breathwork Facilitators Training
Power of Breath Institute
Carl Doebler
I have been thinking about what I have gotten from my Breathwork training during the past 18 months. It has been on my mind not just because I have been asked to right a paper about it, but because I am searching for meaning in the work and study I have done and am asking myself where does it go from here?
I put a lot of effort into accomplishing this goal and rather than put my books, notes and other breathwork stuff on a shelf to gather dust, I want to know if this is the beginning of some new insight or just another thing to check off on my “to do” list and say I did during my life.
To me it’s the difference what noted therapist and workshop leader John Bradshaw called living a life as “a human doing or human being.” I don’t need any more accomplishments to check off on my life’s score card. The challenge for me now is to be a human being and live fully in the moment, breath to breath, with all the uncertainty, beauty and aliveness that life hurls at me…
…Yes, I would have to say that is what called me into breathwork last year, learning how to live a life of quality and meaning. As soon as I heard about it…, I knew it was a path I should pursue. I was looking for a practice that would help me get in touch with the qualities inside of me I knew were there, waiting to be encouraged, coached and drawn out of me.
I was aware there was passion inside of me, things I wanted to do and interests I wanted to pursue while I still had the time and energy to do them. But before studying breathwork I was living a numbed-out life. I don’t know how to put it any better or more simply. I simply wasn’t living in the present…
“If life is a banquet, why am I starving?” – Anonymous
…There really was a lack of passion, feeling and energy in me for most of my adult life. The seeds for this were planted early in my life. I was the gay kid growing up in the sixties, a loner by nature, and fat, really fat. On a more optimistic note, I was bright, articulate, fastidious and a bit quirky but I just didn’t fit into public school life or the family life my parents tried to nurture in our house.
Like most families, my parents had their issues. My parents were not very creative when it came to parenting, so as my personality began to blossom in all its gayness, they really were rather clueless about how to deal with me. My parents did their level best with me. I know now the really bad stuff that happened wasn’t because they were evil or out to get me but because they just didn’t know any better.
I recall many trips to the family therapist in my early teens… For the longest time it left me with a deep sense there really was something fundamentally wrong with me. This undercurrent of loss, confusion, and disempowerment set me up for a difficult time in my 20’s and 30’s.
About the only thing I can say about that period of my life was I survived . . . barely. There were numerous bouts of depression, including 2 major breakdowns, numerous therapists and antidepressant prescriptions.
When I got to my 40’s I knew something had to change or I wasn’t going to make it… Living this way was not easy. My body responded in the same way bodies do when they are under stress. I constantly lived with somatic aches and pains and would end up going to a chiropractor, massage therapist and sometimes a doctor, to clear them and get my energy fields back in check. The restoration was always temporary though. The body was trying to have feelings, but the ego mind wasn’t having any part of it.
So it was that history I entered the empowerment training last year. If I learned anything last year, I learned I am more than my mind. There is a whole body of mine that is open, ready and available to me for experiencing life more fully.
“Breath is the link between the inner and outer worlds.” – Alice Christensen
(Right away) breathwork helped me see the connection between me and the Universe. I came to realize that there really was no separation. The more intently I focused on my connected breath practice the more this reality began to take shape and become a force of nature from within. I came to understand the importance of forgiveness as a prime directive towards living a life of love and service.
…I started doing the 5 Tibetans rites followed by a 5 minute conscious breath session every day. The benefits of this were made very apparent almost immediately. I found my sense of intuition expanded and deepened. I began to noticed a renew sense of hope and optimism in my life and a renewed sense of well being. My place in the world seemed more secure and my spiritual path (was) leading out in front of me, calling me forward toward light and wholeness. Forgiveness seemed not only possible but a probable course to greater self love and self acceptance… and now I can say over all I feel much more at home in my own skin.
“What is necessary to change a person is to change his awareness of himself” – Abraham H. Maslow
Breathwork has changed my awareness and perception of me and my world. If my body were an antenna I feel like I can pick up more frequencies and radiate more of my energy back to the world. I am more transparent and less sticky. Things rolls off me now in a way they never did before and my inner love is more visible then it ever was…
…I am increasingly aware of my blind spots because these are the darks places that resonate with me during my breathwork sessions. They are the places that call me back for healing, understanding and reflection. I can put a voice, a touch, a feeling and words to them now. They speak to me in the language the body understands; colors, allegory, shapes, body sensations, irony, poetry, nature, contradiction, the mystical and the Divine presence….
“Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions, and as a result, they get better answers.” – Anthony Robbins
I spent much of my life believing I had all the answers… Breathwork has helped me see the power of creatively questioning everything in my Universe; nothing is so sacred, untouchable or sacrosanct that it can’t be questioned. The answers become less important than the process of going deeper into the energy body and asking bolder, bigger questions of my world, my body and my heart…
I understand now that “meeting something with awareness” is experiencing a little (piece of) truth from Divine Oneness… Breathwork has helped me become more aware of these Divine gifts and how these gifts can be shared with clients and others I come in contact with… This is how love is made manifest in the world and Breathwork is a tool of awareness that helps tune the body toward love.
Finally, regular breathwork has confirmed for me the phase “You are what you think” is the absolute law of the Universe. Breathwork supports the Universe’s law of attraction by priming our own energy centers and aligning the body energies with our soul’s purpose and our best thinking. Breathwork brings us to the place where we can face the question: “why am I here?” and BREATHE into the Universe with confidence and grace saying “I am Love!”.