Changing your state without talking your way there
The breath is the one part of the nervous system you can operate on purpose. That makes it the shortest route into a state you cannot think your way out of.
The one lever you can reach
You cannot decide to lower your heart rate. You cannot decide to stop bracing. Almost everything the nervous system does happens without asking you.
Breathing is the exception. It runs automatically and it also takes instruction, which makes it a door into the rest — and it works whether or not you find that interesting.
In practice this means that when someone is too activated to talk, or too shut down to feel anything, we have somewhere to start that does not depend on finding the right words first.
awaiting asset
Four things it is good at
Anxiety that will not settle
A long, slow exhale is one of the few things that reaches the nervous system directly. It is not a trick and it does not require you to believe in it.
Shutdown and numbness
The opposite problem. Different breathing, used to bring feeling back rather than take it down.
Getting under a story
Sometimes the breath opens something the conversation has been circling for weeks.
Something to take home
A pattern you can use in your car before a hard conversation, without needing me there.
How it goes
We talk first
What is going on today, how your body is, and whether breathwork is the right thing this session. Sometimes it is not.
We set it up
You are lying down or sitting, warm, with as long as you need. I explain the pattern and how to stop, and you can stop at any point without explaining why.
We breathe
Anywhere from a few minutes to [length]. I stay with you the whole time and talk you through it. [Sharon to name the pattern(s) she uses]
We land
Slow return, water, and time to say what happened before you go anywhere. Nobody leaves mid-air.
When we would not do this
Stronger breathing patterns are not right for everyone, and that is a clinical judgement rather than a preference. We would talk it through, and use gentler work instead, if any of the following applies to you.
[Sharon to confirm and edit this list to match the patterns she actually uses]
- Pregnancy.
- Cardiovascular conditions, or uncontrolled high blood pressure.
- Epilepsy or a seizure history.
- Recent surgery, or a detached retina.
- A history of psychosis, or current unmanaged severe mental illness.
- [Anything else Sharon screens for]
Over video
Breathwork works over telehealth, with one change: we agree beforehand that you are somewhere safe, that someone knows you are doing it if the session is a strong one, and that you stay on the call until you are properly back. [Confirm Sharon's telehealth breathwork policy]
Not sure if this is for you?
Ask on the consultation call. I will tell you honestly whether breathwork fits what you are dealing with, or whether we would start somewhere else entirely.