How do I know if I’m doing this right?
Do you ever feel like you’re on a never-ending search for healing? That the same things keep happening over and over again? That no matter what you try it never quite gets you where you want to be in life? You’ve tried different therapies, but nothing has ever totally worked for you? Everything helps for a little while, but you’re always left with a lingering feeling that you’re stuck and something feels incomplete? You know something needs to change but you feel unsure what to do next and feel like you’ll never find a solution?
I know how it feels. For years I battled with depression, chronic self doubt and and a sense of something unresolved locked up in my body. I was relatively successful in my career, but had a tendency to sabotage my own success and was on a continual search to find something that would help me feel whole.
It all came to a head in 2008. I had recently ended yet another long term relationship. The year before I had walked away from a thriving business. I was feeling lost and in search of a new direction in life. But for the first time I looked at my life and thought ‘this has to change’. My strategy for life just wasn’t working. I realised I was doing the same thing over and over again, the same patterns in my life constantly repeating. I had spent years exploring different forms of therapy, counselling, personal development and spiritual practice and had been meditating most of my adult life, but now none of it was helping me. Here I was, in the fortieth year of my life, having thrown everything up in the air once again.
So I asked myself‘ ‘why does this keep happening?’ And I realised for the first time in my life that something really had to change. I had to do things differently. Whatever I kew and understood about myself just wasn’t working any more.
WHAT’S GOING ON HERE?
What I didn’t know at the time, was that I was carrying some major unresolved traumas in my body. But when I say I didn’t know I always knew there was ‘something’ in there. I’d carried a heavy feeling inside my chest for years and had always felt blocked and unable to access something I knew was inside me.
And although I wasn’t consciously aware of them, these unresolved traumas were impacting my life in various ways: the years of depression, the self doubt, an inability to connect to myself emotionally, being ‘in my head’ all the time, difficulty making decisions, having to be perfect, an inability to commit in relationships and most of all, a never ending search for a solution that never came, no matter where I looked for answers.
All I wanted was to feel complete. To feel at home in myself and to feel connected to who I was and what I was here for.
So I kept looking. Firewalking, shamanism, reiki, coaching, counselling, group therapy, family constellations and body work.
THAT WAS THE YEAR I DISCOVERED BREATHWORK
What is Breathwork?
Breathwork is a way of using your own breath to access your own, innate, creative and healing ability. Specifically it involves breathing in a pattern known as ‘Conscious Connected Breathing’ (no pause between the inhale and the exhale) to enter a deeply relaxed, trance like state, where you can access a deeper level of consciousness in yourself and transform deeply held experiences in your body. It’s like a really powerful, active form of meditation. It allows us to bring to light and transform all those unresolved experiences, beliefs and conditioning that keep us stuck, so we can live a happy and fulfilled life.
Why Does It Work?
All of us have experience we weren’t able to process at the time, including loss, trauma, abandonment or any experience where we felt unloved, unsafe or unaccepted for who we were. These experiences remain suppressed in our bodies as trapped energy and tension and in our minds as subconscious beliefs about who we are and how we relate to life.
They are also reflected in our breathing patterns
For example, when we experience something stressful or traumatic we may stop breathing altogether. We shallow breathe when something is uncomfortable. We get panicky and breathe too fast in our chest.
Until we allow ourselves to process these unresolved experiences in our body, they sit within us beneath our conscious awareness but show up in our lives as e.g anxiety, depression, problems in relationship, not feeling good enough, a general sense of unfullfilment in our lives or any manner of phsical mental, emotional or spiritual complaints.
WE CAN CHANGE THE WAY WE EXPERIENCE LIFE BY CHANGING THE WAY WE BREATHE
Simply by changing the way we breathe, breathwork helps us bring to light all those unresolved experiences we carry and enables us to transform them. And it allows us to do this in a way that is safe, unique and beyond the level of the mind. No more talking endlessly about the problem – all we have to do is breathe! The more we learn to do this, the more we are able to fully inhabit ourselves and be present.
How Does Breathwork Help?
Breathwork helps us rejuvenate our physical bodies by flooding it with oxygen and prana, or life force energy. It helps us let go of unhelpful beliefs we hold about ourselves and the world. It helps us to release tension, suppressed emotions and to deeply relax into who we are in essence. It helps us to release unhelpful patterns of behaviour that no longer work for us. It helps us connect more deeply – to ourselves, our loved ones, our inner guidance and our path in life. It helps us resolve the situations we find lost challenging. It helps us to finally, fully accept who are are with all our peculiarities and to be that in the world.
As I started my journey with the breath, one of the first thing I noticed was that my life actually started to change – rapidly. As you free yourself from the belief patterns bound up with your traumas and breathe life into what you want, you change yourself energetically. Life then meets you differently. Things ‘start to happen’, often without any outward effort on your part. You react differently. Circumstances start to show up that enable you to get insight, heal past experiences and to learn.
During my journey with the breath, I freed myself of every major trauma that was impacting my life. I moved home, married a wonderful woman, became a stepdad and became part of a vibrant community in a beautiful part of the world. My anxiety and OCD disappeared, I stopped getting depressed and for the first time felt able to trust my own choices in life. I ate better, exercised more and gradually freed myself of the need to have it all together for the world. I got out my head and into my body. I made many new friends. In short, I completely transformed my life.
But more than all of that I experienced a deep spiritual connection I’d never felt before. A deeply felt connection of trust, security and love.
BREATHWORK WILL HELP YOU CONNECT TO YOUR OWN SPIRIT.
Reconnecting to your own spirit brings a deep sense of security and connection. Breathwork allows you to truly come home to yourself, feel at peace with who you are and with a deep sense of gratitude your life and all the challenges it brings.
STARTING YOUR OWN BREATHWORK JOURNEY
Is there a specific challenge in your life you’d like to transform? Perhaps you’d like to:
- Feel calmer, more grounded and to be more at peace in your life?
- Resolve a particular issue in your life that’s keeping you stuck?
- Be more in control of how you respond to life’s challenges?
- Get more confidence and clarity?
- Be more at ease and accepting of yourself and others
- Feel more freedom and express who you truly want to be?
- Go deeper on your spiritual journey?
I invite you to take part in an eight-week online Breathwork Journey so you can discover your own inner healer and find the solutions you need for your life.
It’s true – going through a Breathwork session on your own does present a more challenging set of circumstances than when you are supported by a facilitator. Staying focused on the breath and having the awareness to observe and work with what is happening is something that takes experience and practice. That said, you can definitely become good enough with the practice to make significant shifts in the quality of your life experience.
It just takes a little experience and know-how.
The know-how comes from both your own experience and getting help with the technique – either from a Breathwork facilitator or other sources such as books, online videos and the like.
And with the support of a course just like this one.
During the course, each week you’ll learn different ways of approaching Conscious Connected Breathing, get answers to any questions that come up and will be guided through a one hour breathwork session. It will be your chance to go deeper into the process, get help with any aspect you are struggling with and learn how to apply it in your own life.
What This Course Will Give You
More than just a set of Breathwork techniques, this course will give you a whole new approach to life to help you grow and thrive.
- Clear structure, giving you clear steps to apply each week, building knowledge and confidence with the process.
- A powerful tool you can use for your own healing and transformation – for the rest of your life – anytime and anywhere.
- Regular weekly sessions ensure that you can enjoy dedicated time to really make progress and achieve your own personal breakthroughs.
- Support to apply the process directly to your life as you go through the course to experience what’s possible for your own healing and growth.
- Skill – learn to facilitate your own solo Breathwork sessions to transform any personal challenge into an opportunity for insight, healing, growth and a new level of personal awareness.
- Wellbeing – learn how to use Breathwork to achieve deep relaxation for your own wellbeing and success in life.
“What helped me was your very clear structuring of each session. So each day had a particular theme, leading up to the last one where everything was being pulled together. And I found that considered organisation very, very useful. And I think it’ll last me forever. What else can I say?”
What’s Included
Each week the session will last for just over two hours and will include:
- Attunement – you’ll start each session with a short meditation to help you get present, ground and prepare for the class.
- Breathwork Tutorial – each week you’ll learn a unique aspect of the Breathwork process to build your understanding and for you to practice during the week. This will be delivered via a presentation each week with additional emails to support your learning.
- Time for Questions (live programme) – an opportunity for you to ask questions, get feedback on how the process is working for you and how to work with it specifically for your own situation.
- Guided Breathing Journey – each week you’ll experience the benefits of a full one hour guided Breathwork session to help you apply each weeks lesson and get more familiar with the process.
- Optional sharing (live programme) – so you can learn from each others experience and get further guidance on your own process.
- Recordings of session material including guided Breathwork sessions – access these between sessions for practice and continued learning.
- Email support with your own personal journey through the process to help embed your learning and apply it to your own life.
- Personal one-one coaching to make sure you are getting what you want from the course.
“I brought so many issues with me to your Breathwork sessions. My life was in turmoil both physically and mentally. Gradually through your inspirational guidance, using and practicing the Connecting Breath, I began to feel a deeply healing peace, free from feeling guilty about the happiness coming back into my life. Totally overwhelmed that my life had changed so much in such a short time, yes this works. I don’t have all the answers yet but I’m willing through this phenomenal work, to incorporate it into my daily life, I know it works for me.”
“What I enjoyed about the course, was learning the different ways to enter a breathe. To have the opportunity to take whatever was going on with me in present time into the breathe was incredibly and powerfully important to me. I can use it anytime not just wait for a breath work session. This puts the power in my hands, and I really like it. I’ve been working through my spiritual practice for over 30 years and to find a new tool that just opens you up and brings you calm and brings you understanding, is a powerful thing.”
“If you find yourself considering this breath work course, just go for it! The course with John Paul is an excellent investment and life learning experience. I went into the first session with a burning sense of curiosity and emerged with a valuable new life skill, which has impacted on me on a profound level. This course has impacted on me immensely, not only in terms of my physical health, but also in promoting a greater sense of emotional well-being and spiritual growth. Thank you so much John Paul!”
“When I signed up for the course, I just had this instinctive feeling that I needed it. It’s helped me in how to approach difficulties in my life, in terms of relationships with other people and family. And that’s been really, really important. Because I think I’m putting out something different. I’m not putting out tension, or thinking I’m going to be criticised. I’m much more at ease. So thank you for that. That’s a big issue.”
“What I found most helpful from the course was finding a sense of calm during absolute madness. I was going through a big transitional period, leaving a position I’d been at work for 10 years and launching into a whole new area. So the course came rushing into my life at just the right time. It was exactly what I needed. It helped me just punctuate that experience right at the beginning of that decision making process, to leave the position I was in and create a new career for myself. It was perfect.“
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“It helped me to reconnect with myself on a deeper level. It’s like an internal cleanser, like an internal massage. It helped with relaxing my whole body on a different level and it just became more and more powerful. More and more trapped energies came to the surface to be released and let go. And I set myself free on so many levels, so many spiritual levels. So it’s been very revolutionary for me helped me as well support my physical health, but as well my spiritual journey, it helped me dive deeper in my meditations and achieve whatever intention I would set.”
WHO IS THIS PROGRAMME FOR?
This programme is for anyone interested in learning Breathwork as a tool for healing and self growth.
The programme is for you if:
- You are curious about Breathwork but don’t know where to begin
- You have already tried the technique but want some additional support to get more experience with the practice
- You have something specific you’d like to work through in your life as you go through the course
- You are curious about the practice as a tool for spiritual exploration but want some guidance around this
- You can commit to the eight week course
“I really enjoyed the online workshops with Breathing Journey and John Paul. I find him very easy going and understanding and he has a great sense of ‘let it be what it is’ about him, which I find helpful in releasing and working through traumatic times. Thanks John Paul.”
WHAT COURSE PARTICIPANTS SAY
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THE PROGRAMME
The course is built around the concept of the Five Elements of Breathwork (as described in the book ‘Vivation – The Science of Enjoying All Your Life’ by Jim Leonard and Phil Laut). Each week we’ll cover a different element of Breathwork, with each week building on the one before. Learning to apply these elements through the weekly sessions will provide you with a highly effective approach to getting the most out of your Breathwork sessions.
Week 1 - Introductions and Welcome
- Course outline
- Understanding the process
- Stepping into the lineage
- Breathing with intention.
Week 2 - Conscious Connected Breathing
- Connecting the breath – fundamentals
- Where to breathe in the body
- Nose versus mouth breathing
- Going deeper versus easing off
- Fast and slow breathing
- Tingling and tetany
- Staying present.
Week 3 - Total Relaxation
- The key to bliss and self healing
- The importance of the exhale
- Trust and the breath
- Cycles of activation
- Working with emotion
Week 4 - Awareness in Detail
- What’s happening?
- Working with your experience
- The importance of body sensation
- Exploring subtlety
- Breathing with and breathing through experience
- Going unconscious/drifting
- Patterns of energy
Week 5 - Integration
- They key to success
- Strategies for integration
- A strategy for life
- Self acceptance, love and gratitude
Week 6 - Be Willing
- Whatever You Do It Still Works
- There’s no way of getting it wrong
- The glue that holds the process together
- Are you willing?
Week 7 - Putting it all Together
- Intentional Living
- Applying Breathwork to Your Life
- Breathwork as a spiritual practice
Week 8 - Closing the Circle
- Final thoughts
- Maintaining a practice
- What did you get?
- Feedback and farewells
Tuition Cost
There are three levels of participation to choose from. This allows you the flexibility to either do the programme in a way that suits you: either as a self study programme, join the weekly live group sessions, or as a series of one-one sessions.
Self Study Programme
(Start right away)
Access all the course materials and support without attending the weekly live sessions:
Cost: £197
Live Weekly Cohort
Starts March 16th
Engage in the weekly group sessions and get live support and feedback:
Cost: £497
One-One
Be fully supported through a series of one-one sessions:
Cost: £1497
(instalment plan available)
Bonus 1: Extra recorded sessions for you to practice at home
Bonus 2: Get a 20% discount off any future one-one breathwork sessions
“It was so brilliantly put together, and so beneficial to create the time and space to engage in this practice. Plus the videos being available to catch up on or recap afterwards are such an incredible resource.”
It is Breathing Journeys philosophy that we do not want to exclude anyone on the basis of price. If you would like to attend the course but do not currently have the financial resources to do so then please get in touch.
PRACTICALITIES
- Live course start date: March 16th 2021
- Live course end date: May 11th 2021
- Weekly live session times: 7-9pm UK Time
- Course duration: 8 weeks (no live session week of April 6th)
- Lives sessions: On Zoom (laptop or tablet best)
- All sessions recorded
- Full joining instructions on sign up
My 100% No-Risk Guarantee
Entering a programme like this can be daunting for some people and is certainly a commitment of your time and money. To lower the risk for you I offer a full money back guarantee if you attend the first session and then decide it’s not for you. Not only that, but if you complete the course but don’t feel confident enough with the process to use it for yourself, then I will work with you via weekly coaching calls for up to a further six weeks. If, at the end of that time, you still don’t feel confident using the process for yourself then I will refund you in full.
Is This Course For You?
I’d love you to join this course, but more than that I want you to enjoy the course, to get maximum benefit and for this to make a positive difference to your life. If you’re uncertain or unsure this really the right course for you then I invite you to book a call with me and talk it through. This will enable you to ask any questions about the course and for me to find out what your needs are and if this course is aligned with those needs. Definitely no pressure to join, just a chance to talk through your concerns or ask any questions you have.
Meet Your Breathwork Coach John Paul
I first encountered breathwork in 2004 and straight away I knew it was powerful. This was confirmed to me when I started my first series of personal sessions and quickly noticed that my life was changing – actually changing. Breathwork has enabled me to open up the parts of myself that had been locked up most of my life and transform the traumas I carried into opportunities to grow into a fuller human being, by no means ‘all sorted’ but definitely more present, grounded and at home in my life. I’ve had the good fortune to train with several incredible teachers over the years: firstly with Peggy Dylan of Sundoor International, who was in Leonard Orr’s (founder of Rebirthing Breathwork) first ever training group, then Alakh Analda of Zentium International in Australia and then finally but by no means lastly with Doug Sawyer and Brigitte Martin Powell of the Air School of Breathwork in the UK – true masters in the field and who’s approach I embody in my own work. I have facilitated hundreds of clients through Breathwork sessions now and am constantly surprised by the power of this work. I am a member of both the British Rebirth Society and the International Breathwork Foundation.
