Thinking About Joining a Breathwork Session?

Here’s Your Beginner-Friendly Guide. Helpful Even If You’re a Seasoned Breather.

You’ve seen breathwork circles popping up everywhere.
You’ve heard friends talk about “that one session that shifted everything.”
You’ve maybe felt a quiet curiosity inside you…
but also a small voice asking:

“What actually happens there? How do I breathe? What if I do it wrong?”

You’re not alone.
Every single person - even the most experienced breathers, started exactly where you are now:
with questions, uncertainty, and a desire to understand the process before surrendering into it.

This post is your soft landing.
A simple, clear, no-nonsense guide to what breathwork - specifically Conscious Connected Breath, (CCB) looks like, how to prepare, and what you can expect.

And truthfully?
Even if you’ve been breathing for years, repetition of the basics is never wasted.
The foundations always matter.

Let’s begin.

1. First Things First: What Even Is Breathwork?

CCB (Conscious Connected Breath) is a somatic, circular breathing technique.
It looks simple on the outside, but it works deeply with your nervous system.

Think of it as:

A conversation between you and your body
that doesn’t require words.

It’s not hyperventilation.
It’s not mystical.
It’s not about “achieving” anything.

It’s about creating a safe level of activation so your body can release tension, emotions, and old patterns that may be ready to move.

Every person’s experience is different.
Every session is different - even for the same person.

2. How Do You Actually Breathe? (Beginner-Friendly + Trauma-Informed approach)

The breath pattern is continuous, circular, and intentional.

Here’s the simplest version:

1) Active Inhale

A fuller, intentional breath, but not forced.
You can inhale through the mouth or the nose, depending on what your body needs:

• Mouth breathing = more emotional access, more expression

• Nose breathing = more grounding, softer, gentler

You can switch at any time.

2) Passive Exhale

Let the breath fall out naturally - no control, no pushing.

Most people exhale through the mouth, but nose exhale is welcome too.

3) No Pauses

The inhale connects directly into the exhale.
Think circle, not step-step-step.

If things feel too intense?
Slow down. Return to the nose.
Gentle is always an option.

You lead the experience - your breathworker only guides.

3. What Might You Feel? (Spoiler: You’re Not Doing It Wrong)

Because breathwork works with the nervous system, many different sensations can appear.
Here are some completely normal ones:

Physical sensations

• tingling in hands or face

• warmth or cold

• trembling or shaking

• tightness in hands or jaw

• waves of energy

Emotional responses

• sadness

• tears

• anger

• laughter

• relief

• deep calm

Inner experiences

• clarity

• memories

• symbolic images

• big or small “aha” moments

There is no correct or incorrect experience.
Your body decides what’s ready.

4. How to Prepare (So You Feel Grounded Before You Begin)

You don’t need anything fancy - just presence.

Your space (if online from the comfort of your home):

• quiet, private, safe

• yoga mat, bed, or couch

• pillows + blanket

• no sharp corners nearby

Your setup:

• headphones if possible

• water

• comfy clothes

• light meal 2–3 hours before

• phone on silent

Your mindset:

• set an intention (highly recommended)

• then let it go

• stay curious

• no expectations required

This is not for performance.
You can show up exactly as you are.

5. Who Should Avoid Intense Breathwork? (Safety First)

Breathwork is powerful - and not recommended for everyone.

Avoid deep, intense CCB if you have:

• pregnancy (1st + 2nd trimester; 3rd = only gentle breathing)

• major heart conditions

• uncontrolled high blood pressure

• epilepsy / seizures

• recent surgery

• active psychosis or schizophrenia

• overwhelming anxiety without therapeutic support

If you’re unsure, ask your facilitator.
There’s always a way to adapt.

6. After the Session: What Now?

You might feel:

• peaceful

• tired

• open

• emotional

• spacious

• grounded

Your system has just done a lot.
Give it what it needs.

Support your integration:

• drink water

• rest

• move slowly

• journal a few sentences

• take a gentle walk

• avoid overwhelming conversations

The real magic often unfolds after the session.

7. Final Thoughts: You Can’t Do It Wrong

If you take one thing from this guide, let it be this:

Breathwork meets you exactly where you are.
Your body sets the pace.
You cannot fail.

Whether it’s your very first session or your fiftieth,
the same principles apply:

• breathe consciously

• move gently

• stay curious

• trust your body

And come back to this guide anytime.
Repetition is not boring - it’s regulating.
It’s the foundation of safe, meaningful breathwork.

If you’re ready, your breath is ready too.

The Language of Somatic Breathwork

HOW THE BODY SPEAKS TROUGH BREATH, SENSATION, AND THE NERVOUS SYSTEM

As I prepare to enter another year of Somatic Experiencing training, I find myself rereading old notes - pages filled with underlines, arrows, and small sentences that landed in the body more than in the mind.
Each time I return to them, I feel how beautifully this approach weaves with what I’ve been practicing and teaching for years: breathwork.
Different languages, one nervous system.

Because healing, real healing - is not only about releasing what hurts.
It’s about building the capacity to live well.
To feel safe enough to enjoy, to rest, to love, to create.
To be in the world with both roots and breath.

The Language Beneath Words

The body speaks long before the mind forms a sentence.
It speaks through contraction and release, trembling, warmth, breath.
It speaks in sighs, in stillness, in the subtle shifts that happen when we finally feel safe.

Both Somatic Experiencing and breathwork are, in essence, about learning to understand that language.
About learning to listen.
Because every sensation, every pattern of breath, every tension held under the skin - is the body trying to communicate something.

In SE we talk about titration, meeting just as much experience as the system can safely hold - and pendulation, moving gently between activation and rest.
These are not only therapeutic principles; they are the same rhythms that guide a conscious breathing session. We don’t force the body open.
We offer space, rhythm, and trust - and the body does the rest.

Seeing Safety

We often imagine breathwork as something done with eyes closed, turned inward.
But one of the simplest ways to regulate the nervous system begins not inside, but through the eyes, through orientation.
Up to 80% of the sensory data that helps our brain decide whether we are safe comes through vision.
The eyes are the body’s first messengers of safety - we experience that in Forest Therapy, when we immerse outselves in Nature.

That’s why I love starting breathwork sessions by inviting people to simply look around.
To soften the gaze, to notice light and shadow, color and distance.
To let the eyes find the horizon.
When we widen our field of vision, the vagus nerve softens, the breath deepens, the system remembers: I am safe. I can stay.

Touch as Remembering

Even online, touch can be a powerful bridge back to the body.
Placing a hand on the chest, feeling the warmth and weight of your own palm, pressing the soles of your feet into the floor, these are small gestures of regulation.

Touch tells the nervous system: I exist. I have boundaries. I’m here now.
It’s not just a technique; it’s a form of listening.

In person, touch can be co-regulating - the meeting of two systems in safety.
But even self-touch, when guided with awareness, becomes a dialogue with the body’s intelligence.

The Power of Sound

Then there’s sound. The forgotten language of the body.
A sigh, a hum, a vibration that travels through bone and tissue.
When we hum or tone, the vibration gently stimulates the vagus nerve, sending the message of safety from the body upward to the brain.
One of my favorite SE tools is the sound “Wooooooo.”
A long, deep exhalation that vibrates through the diaphragm and the heart.
It’s a sound that doesn’t need to mean anything. It just brings us home.

The Breath as a Bridge

Our breathing patterns change with our emotional states.
Shallow breathing often mirrors protection.
A held breath can mirror fear.
And yet, when the breath deepens, the whole system reorganizes.

Breathwork teaches us that breath is both a reflection and a remedy.
It shows us what is happening, and it helps us move through it.
When we breathe consciously, slowly, and with presence, we invite the diaphragm- and the heart it’s attached to, to move freely again.
The heart literally gains space.
The body begins to trust expansion again.

The Pathways of Regulation

Over time, I began to see how all of my work sourcers - SE, breathwork, forest therapy - meet in six simple doorways through which the body returns to balance:

Seeing : widening the gaze, orienting to the world, letting the eyes rest in openness.
Touch: feeling the body’s edges, temperature, and contact; remembering boundaries and belonging.
Voice: letting sound and vibration soften the inner tension; expressing what the body holds.
Breath: restoring rhythm, flow, and presence; allowing life to move through.
Orientation:engaging the senses to come back to the moment; noticing what’s around you.
Grounding: reconnecting to gravity and Earth; feeling weight, roots, and stability.

Each of these is a conversation between the body and the world.
Together they create a language of safety, one we can all learn to speak.

The Forest as Teacher

From forest therapy I learned that regulation often begins outside of us.
Through smell, texture, sound, and light, the body starts remembering that it belongs to something larger.
Nature regulates us without trying.
The rustling of leaves, the scent of rain, the feeling of soil under bare feet - they all speak directly to the nervous system.
When we breathe with the forest, something ancient inside us exhales too.

Grounding: The Return Home

To ground is not to become still - it’s to remember where life begins.
It’s to feel the earth’s pulse beneath the soles of your feet.
It’s to release what is too much, and to draw in what sustains you.
I often use the image of breathing through the roots - each exhale releasing tension into the ground, each inhale drawing in stability, nourishment, and life.
Grounding is the final note in the symphony of regulation.
It is the body saying: I am connected. I am home.

The Body Already Knows

In Somatic Experiencing we say:“The body always moves toward healing, if given the right conditions.”
Those conditions are simple: presence, curiosity, rhythm, and time.
Beathwork offers them all.
Every sigh, tremor, or tear is not a breakdown - it’s the body reorganizing itself toward life.
We don’t need to fix what’s broken; we need to listen to what’s speaking.
Because the body doesn’t need us to teach it how to heal - it only needs us to stop interrupting its wisdom.

Somatic Breathwork is not a technique. It’s a relationship.
Between breath and body.
Between science and soul.
Between what we can feel and what we can’t yet name.

This practice keeps teaching me that healing is not a performance, but a remembering.
Each conscious breath is an invitation to come back -to the body, to the moment, to the earth beneath your feet.
And if you listen closely enough, you’ll notice that the body has been whispering its truth all along.