Conscious Emotional Release in BioDynamic Breathwork.

by Giten Tonkov.

As we all have experienced in the past our breath and emotions are very closely connected. When we try to control our emotional expression the first thing we try to do is control the volume of our breath.

 

Oftentimes our muscular tension or stiffness as well as pain in the physical body is related to a buildup of unreleased emotions such as anger, grief, anxiety, fear, frustration and many others.

Emotions can be suppressed due to family, religious or cultural conditioning.

Many of us hold our emotions in for years and in many cases since childhood. It takes an exuberant amount of physical energy to ‘keep all together’ and pretend that ‘all is ok’.

We spend our entire lives trying to keep our emotions under control. We may succeed on the surface but deeper inside our body does not lie. Sooner or later we will feel the adverse effects of repressed emotional states.

The benefit of allowing our emotional expression is increased sensitivity and awareness of our emotional states.

Medical studies show that repressed emotions are often the case of onset of disease in the physical body. Psychosomatically it may result in pain syndrome, onset or diabetes or even cancer.

Healing benefits of emotional release are immense.

In a context of BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release, Emotional Release simply means allowing a conscious expression of our emotional states, which have been brought up to the surface as a result of deep connected breathing in combination with bodywork and conscious body movement. The keywords here are ‘Conscious Expression’. It is very easy to get lost in our emotional expression, as it’s a sort of chemical high that we experience when we feel emotional. It simply feels good to fully feel again but this can become overwhelming. In BioDynamic Breathwork we chose to allow this emotional expression while staying present to how it makes us feel in out physical bodies.

Staying present to our Felt Sense means to simply observe how or physical body reacts to various emotional states. Shifting our attention to the physicality instead of being trapped in an emotion itself. A trauma healing component in this case is to monitor the intensity of our expression so it does not become overwhelming and throw us once more into a trauma vortex.

By allowing emotions to flow we start to live more healthy and fulfilled lives. We allow for deeper connections with ourselves and others. We create long lasting healthy relationships and invite intimacy and love into our lives. By releasing muscular tension we enable our circulation to bring nourishment to our physical tissues. Emotional intelligence means allowing ourselves feel all our emotions without being stuck or overtaken by any of them.

Our emotional states can be a nourishing passing experience. Through emotional release BioDynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release supports us to feel, ‘own’ and take responsibility for our emotional states thus developing our emotional intelligence.