What to Look For In A Breathwork Training
‘Become a facilitator in 3 days!’ yells one Facebook ad. Whilst the popularity of Breathwork in the culture now rivals that of Taylor Swift, this also brings along a certain ‘dilution’ of quality. In the sea of mediocre and dodgy Breathwork courses, it’s reassuring to know that a small band of Breathworkers are committed to standards and ethics.
Qualities of a Professional Breathworker
Being able to be there for others whilst in the presence of strong emotional material is critical in becoming a professional Breathworker. It’s all about integrating your personal experiences in your own Breathwork sessions before you can be there for others. That’s why the Australian Breathwork Association’s rules state that Breathwork Training should be delivered in less than two years! You need to be able not to freak out or panic when someone is going through an intense emotional or physical release during a Breathwork session.
So what would I look for in a Breathwork Course? The most important tick box would be whether or not the teachers are professionally accredited by the Australian Breathwork Association. If not, you are immediately at a professional disadvantage. (That also depends on how you want to use Breathwork Courses – for personal growth and/or to start a professional therapeutic business.) I can tell you from personal experience, that sometimes there are very unusual phenomena that can arise in a session, and you need to be able to ‘flow’ and ‘guide’ your client through choppy waters without losing your own grounding (‘freaking out’).
The 5 things to look for in a Breathwork Training
1. A sound understanding of birth trauma
What is birth trauma anyway? Well, it is a point in your birthing process where something ‘goes’ wrong or gets ‘difficult’. For example, did your mother give up pushing and they had to use forceps? Did they administer drugs to relieve pain? Were you induced? Did your mother have a complicated illness around the birth? All these events can leave imprints on your psychology.
2. A sound understanding of the terrain of the psyche
We need a sound understanding of the terrain of the psyche- a map of consciousness if you like. We need to know what we are dealing with other than just saying things like ‘It’s just their stuff coming out’.
3. A sound understanding of why love matters and what you did or didn’t get from your parents
An understanding of why love matters and what you did or didn’t get from your parents is critical. All of your life – from the point of your conception to your early adulthood – is important in the world of relationships, sex, and dealing with life’s curveballs.
4. A sound understanding of ancestral shame and pain
If you don’t know much about your ancestry, start digging! This is not a family tree mapping exercise but rather we pay attention to the distortions and ‘blocks’ in your family. There is always some clue about events being not quite right in a family line, e.g. early death, suicide, sudden death, abuse, divorce, war trauma, forced migration, or voluntary migration. All these ‘non-normal’ family trajectories can have a deep impact on how you perceive the world in the present moment.
5. A sound understanding of the somatic tensions in the body
Many Breathwork Courses miss this one. Make sure when you do Breathwork that you are inside your body (at least for the first 20-30 mins of the session). Many people are drawn to Breathwork because they are seeking to go into spiritual ‘worlds’. This ‘leaving’ pattern is a defense mechanism against feelings of pain. At Inspired Breath we emphasize how to understand your Character type (another blog) and how to listen to what your body is telling you as you move into the liminal state of Breathwork. Many Breathwork courses focus on the old ‘ascension’ model of getting more enlightened and if we just do more and more Breathwork then things will one day become perfect.
This is not the case. It’s better to look at Breathwork as a way of sorting out the different compartments of your life, the good, the bad the ugly. For example, I used to have road rage when I first got a car at age 27. I didn’t have outbursts of rage before this (except when as a child). I thought ‘What in the hell is going on?’ It was a process of discovery, drilling right down to my birth trauma – high forceps and circumcision trauma on top of that a few days later.
Integration from Breathwork takes time
There is a way to turn down the volume on this by re-integrating the trauma into day-to-day life which does heal, but you can’t make everything better all at once! It’s a long slow road to being able to get a handle on all that makes us up. Rather than trying to ‘move toward wholeness’ we could look at the Breathwork journey as a ‘sorting of the myriad colors of my life’ to create less chaos. Breathworks courses are best when they take into account the totality of life influences, not just the ‘birth trauma’ or not just ‘attachment theory’ and not just ‘ancestral material’.
There is also room for the soul’s journey in any teaching of Breathwork. That is, what were you put on Earth to do? The circumstances of your life are not only given by what happens to us but also by the fact that we are incarnated in the first instance. There is an ‘acorn’ in your impregnated embryo that will attempt to sink its roots in this world and flourish regardless of all the negative circumstances that may beset us.
Stop Trying to Work it All Out at Once
So stop trying to ‘work’ everything out with your mind and start understanding your Breathwork journey as just that, an adventure which is not all perfect, not all ‘big bang’, not all ‘I’m going to find the true path’ etc. Liberate yourself from the tyranny of ‘getting better’. Instead, become your expert archaeologist in the desert sands of time. Look for objects and situations that formed us, integrate that moment in time, and move on to the next item. It is an endless process until the day we depart.
What we offer here at Inspired Breath
Suzanne and Phil at Inspired Breath have designed our 4 part modular training for those wishing to become a professional therapist in Breathwork, or for those professionals who would like to take our 2-year Breathwork Training as a personal retreat to gain a better understanding of themselves. We teach you the essentials in how to become a great Breathwork Practitioner – grace, healing, empathy, understanding your own shadow, dealing with transference and counter-transference, and examining your birth trauma. We also look at your early years and focus on what did and did not get as a child. Was your mother there for you? Was your father there for you? And that my friends, is a good place to stop. Have a look at our next intake on 6 July 2025 at https://inspiredbreath.nycdiscoveries.com/breathwork-training-retreat/
Phil Morey, Inspired Breath