Introduction: Breathwork
By Jordan Cleland
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Let’s talk about breathwork. You may have already heard of breathwork - perhaps you’ve tried it during yoga, maybe at your company’s lunch n’ learn, or perhaps you’re old hat at it.
Breathwork is an active meditation. It uses a simple and repetitive breathing pattern to access a meditative head space. Before each session at Tilde, the participant(s) and the breath guide set a theme or intention. This theme can be something the participant has been working on or thinking about. Other times, the intention could be to go with the flow, to simply follow where the body wants to go. Just like your life and death, your breathwork practice should be as unique as you are.
At Tilde, there are different themes we like to breathe into. Often breathwork is an opportunity to feel feelings. There are powerful forces at play that do not want us connected with our emotions (see: capitalism). In a breathwork session, we might practice feeling and cultivating joy, we could breathe through sorrow or grief, or we might use the breath to go in and out of strong emotions, just following them as they come and go.
Breathwork also helps soothe the nervous system which, frankly, we need more of these days.
If you’re interested in a group session, you can pick and choose based on the theme (and send us an email if you have any questions) or you can book a private session for a tailored experience for your mind, your soul, and your body.
How To Do It
The Three Part Breath pattern is simple:
Breathe into the belly
Breath into the chest
Exhale completely
The rest is up to you.
We suggest to breathe through the mouth, but if you’d prefer you can do it through your nose. It can be done laying on your back or sitting in a chair. The speed is completely up to you - in fact, throughout the session, at any time, you can back off or speed up.
Remember: if you’re breathing, you’re doing it.
So you’re following the breathing pattern, now what?
Much like in meditation, your mind may wander and you may have trouble following the pattern, depending on the day, time, setting, mood, stars, energy, etc. Everytime you realize your mind is wandering, you can ask yourself: Do I want to come back and continue the pattern? If so, you can fall gracefully back into it (or maybe not so gracefully).
Throughout the session we will sit with you (either in person or virtually). We’ll cue the breathing pattern and some options for speed. We’ll remind you of the normal sensations that arise during breathwork. And we may even wax poetic: about death, life, and everything that happens in between.
If you want to give breathwork a shot, you can book a private session or join one of the upcoming group sessions.
