The Proof of the Pudding

As they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating ... Well, at Acorn to Oak, we say that the "pudding" is your everyday life and the proof of how Breath4Life has made a difference is in how you live your daily life after engaging with the process. In this Blog post I would like to describe some of the proof I have seen during my years as a Breath4Life Practitioner.

In my early days as a Breath4Life Practitioner, I was privileged to work at the St Johns & St Elizabeths Hospice (Day Centre) offering first small group sessions, then later one-to-one breath work sessions to people with life-limiting illness - mainly HIV/AIDS and cancer.

The very first group that I ran at the hospice was with four quite nervous individuals - possibly reflecting my own nervousness at wanting them to have the best possible experience. What occurred was beyond what I could ever have imagined. One of the women - a young African woman living with HIV - took to the breath work process immediately, almost surrendering to the rhythm of the breath. Towards the end of the session, she sat up with tears streaming down her face. I wasn't concerned, as I could see that far from tears of sadness, they were tears of joy and relief! What she said was that, whilst she was lying down and breathing, she realised for the first time since her diagnosis that she was alive. She went on to do a number of one-to-one breath work sessions with me after that, with increasing visible benefit.

A Breath4Life Practitioner colleague asked me to support her in running a group at a Rape Crisis Centre in West London. In fact, three of us went along that day - and it was just as well, as the room was literally packed with women! As a B4L Practitioner, it is important to stay 100% present while people are breathing in this way - which is quite testing with a large group, even with three practitioners present. On this occasion, we were very fortunate to witness one woman who during her breathwork session, stood up and continued to breathe (it is usual to lie down during a breath work session). As she continued to breathe, she appeared to gain confidence and determination; and at the end she expressed real gratitude for the experience, which she felt had given her back the ability not just to survive, but to thrive.

I wouldn't want to give the impression that Breath4Life is only useful for people in extreme circumstances, although it does come into its own for those who would find it almost impossible to speak of the trauma they have faced - a B4L Practitioner needs to know very little of a client's story to be able to work with them. I have worked with many people who just feel stuck in making life choices which truly reflect who they are - they may be in jobs or relationships which no longer serve them, but can't find a way to change. Breath4Life is superb in these cases, by supporting people to clear emotional clutter, they gain insights into ways forward and gain the confidence to do just that. People who engage with the Breath4Life Foundation Course - a 10 month course which gives people the opportunity to work in a small group consistently to make progress in their lives - find that they are peeling back layers of conditioning, compromise and emotional clutter, to reveal who they truly are, with great confidence, This is a process which is supported by the Practitioner(s) running the course, with mentorship sessions in between the monthly group meetings.

Here are some words from former students of mine:

"I have done the Breath4Life Foundation Course and I can truly say that it has changed my life. I had reached a point where I no longer had the will to fight to live.  I was sure I had no future so I started this journey with an open mind and an open heart. I completely surrendered and what a journey…. The most amazing inner journey. I don’t think I can thank Jill and Beverley enough for their love, their support and their help." V L-P (Nutritional Therapist)

"Words are difficult to find to express the profound changes I experienced during the Breathwork Foundation Course. I embarked on the course full of cynicism and emerged not knowing how it works but full of appreciation and gratitude for the incredible changes the work had made to my life. I realise now the cynicism I experienced was about trust.  I didn’t trust the process and I certainly didn’t have trust in myself at the time.  However, over the months, with the incredible guidance of Jill and Bev, I was able to make sense of my journey so far and make major decisions about my future.  I learnt to love myself and be myself.  I had been in therapy for many years but after the course I decided to end the therapeutic relationship (with full agreement from my therapist).   I looked forward to every session, knowing that I would be in a safe environment, knowing that Jill and Bev were there guiding me through the process but that it was ‘my’ process.  However the insights that they provided after the sessions were invaluable and enabled me to relate to the experience. I can only encourage others to lay their fears aside and embark on a voyage of discovery - Breathwork is life enhancing and life changing". G C (Volunteer Worker)

As always, to find out more about Breath4Life and to book an appointment or a clarity call, please contact me on jill@acorntooak.org.uk; also visit www.acorntooak.org.uk.

Take a Life Changing Breath

‘Every moment of conscious breath is an

inspired co-creation with life itself.’

Pennie Quaile-Pearce, CEO of Acorn to Oak

Pennie is my long term friend, mentor and teacher. I came to breath work through her and we often work together on projects through Acorn to Oak.

💗

I often Tweet about courses and taster days, which I run as part of my work as a Breath4Life Practitioner. It can be a challenge to describe just how this form of breath work benefits individuals and what a first class healing tool it is for anyone who commits to the process. I co-wrote an article with a colleague, Beverley Glick, and have based this blog post on some of what that article described. I hope that this gives you a better idea of how Breath4Life might help you.

So what exactly is Breath4Life™ Breath Work?

The breath is our fuel for living – we wouldn’t survive without it. Breath4Life breath work is a therapeutic use of that vital breath. It is a simple, yet dynamic breathing technique that enables you to connect with emotions attached to past traumas and unresolved issues. Connecting with those emotions gives you the opportunity to heal the past and bring more clarity to your future.

Here are some FAQs about Breath4Life™

• Why do it and how does it work?

Whenever we experience a traumatic event – which can be as ‘big’ as the loss of a close family member or as ‘small’ as losing a favourite cuddly toy as a child – there is always an emotional reaction to that event. Over the course of our lives we encounter numerous traumatic life events. Often, however, we do not fully experience the emotional response to those events, and so they become stuck. This is often referred to as ‘emotional baggage’, which can affect how you are living your life. Breath4Life is a dynamic use of the breath that enables you to reconnect with those ‘stuck’ emotions and free up the energy surrounding them for you to use in a positive way.

• What happens during a breath work session?

You lie down on the floor or on a bed, under blankets or a duvet, get yourself

comfortable and close your eyes. A qualified practitioner then takes you through a relaxation process. You then start the breath – a simple connected breathing technique during which you breathe in through your mouth bringing in energy and gently allow the breath to sigh away, leaving no gap between the in breath and the out breath. You continue with this rhythm of breathing while the practitioner holds the space, coaches you appropriately and keeps you safe – probably for around an hour and a half. Music will be played throughout the session, which may help you to access particular feelings. You may begin to feel emotions coming up and the practitioner will help you to breathe through the emotions until the energy has cleared. 

• Does it really work?

I can only go on my own experience. For me, Breath4Life has been the

single most effective method in bringing me from a place of chronic fear and clinical depression to living a joyful, positive and very full life. I continue to use breath work in my daily life. As a practitioner I have witnessed people gaining enormous freedom from emotional and physical pain even during their first session - clients and students who engage in the longer term have made enormous positive changes in their lives. When you see the light returning to someone’s eyes after a breath work it is astonishing - there is such a renewed lightness and sense of clarity. Some have said that it's like nature's Botox!

What we don’t realise is that when we don’t allow ourselves to feel what we perceive to be difficult emotions – a process of not fully experience those feelings, called suppression – we also stop ourselves from feeling the joy and other emotions too. By allowing ourselves to feel and breathe these emotions, we allow the energy of joy to flow. In health, emotions are energy in motion – e-motions; the trouble is, most of us become e-stuck and Breath4Life helps you get unstuck.

• What is it good for?

There are so many ways in which you might gain from Breath4Life. You might be anywhere along a spectrum at one end of which is that you just don’t seem to get where you want to be going in your life; and at the other end there are deeper or chronic emotional and mental health issues related to anxiety and depression, deep-seated fear and anger or unresolved grief. Breath4Life can help you wherever you are on the spectrum – to gain clarity around an important life decision; to gain insights into unhelpful behaviour patterns, or situations that are limiting your life; to reduce emotional overwhelm or even conversely to re-energise from a feeling of being emotionally exhausted or numbed out. Emotional baggage can weigh heavily on a person and this baggage can be reduced over time and the load lightened significantly, freeing up more energy to be available for living life to the full.

It is also important to say that breath work is particularly helpful for people who cannot talk about what they are going through - for example someone with Post Traumatic Stress, who by talking about their experience continually relives it. You do not need to explain, nor tell you story, for Breath4Life to be effective. In fact, in generally, you will be encouraged to talk a lot less about your story and use the breath work session itself to support your healing process.

To book a personal complimentary clarity call with me, or to find out dates for taster sessions, please email: jill@acorntooak.org.uk. 

For more information about Breath4Life™ please visit www.acorntooak.org.uk 

The Healing Power of Process

The healing power of process

I originally wrote this piece in response to a somewhat heated, yet gripping and revealing discussion I had with a colleague about the power or certain processes to support healing and growth. The result of the discussion was both greater understanding of - and clarity on - the subject from both our points of view. 

Our discussion led to the subject of the importance of context.  In this case the context is the very, if not the most important one, of how people can heal and move on in health and clarity from traumas they have experienced, in order to live a freer life.  In my work as a Breath₄Life^TM Practitioner I work with individuals and groups in a therapeutic relationship.  I am bound by a code of ethics and practice which protects my clients as well as myself, but also makes it clear where the responsibilities lie within that relationship.  Individuals are ultimately responsible for their own healing process, however within a therapeutic relationship there is a responsibility on the part of the practitioner to ensure that clients are not left overwhelmed or feeling unsafe by any part of the process, or that they have the tools to support themselves when going through a particularly rocky emotional time and that they know where they can get support if they get stuck or are in a particular crisis. 

Over the years I have met quite a number of people who have been left very unsafe and vulnerable by teachers and practitioners who have not taken care with this aspect of their practice; and I myself have also been in that situation in both group and one-to-one therapeutic situations.  Before coming to Reiki and Breath₄Life^TM with Acorn to Oak, I had some very difficult experiences myself with “therapists” whose agenda was not boundaried and who did not take responsibility for this part of our therapeutic relationship. I was often left feeling quite vulnerable and without the necessary tools to support myself.  It feels like taking the scab of a gaping wound, leaving it open, raw and prey to infection.

I use a variety of processes within my work; for example a variety of written processes, and the use of guided imagery; although the main focus of Breath₄Life^TM is the breath work process itself, and the other processes serve to support and/or underpin this dynamic process.  In spite of having used these processes for many years for myself, and supporting others within the context of a therapeutic relationship, I am continually surprised at the power they have in giving people access to insights about particular aspects of their lives, but also in allowing access to the emotional energies which surround life events of all kinds.  Therefore, I suggest that people who are serious about their personal healing use caution when choosing practitioners and processes which are offered – especially those which make highly charged claims – in my long and varied experience, there is no such thing as a “quick fix”, nor a one-size-fits-all approach. Robust help and support with the healing process is always recommended. 

Deep, life-changing and life-enhancing healing work is an on-going process - requiring varying degrees of therapeutic support. The relationship of trust between practitioner and client must be very robust, to enable the process to be smooth and clear - even though occasionally it may feel like a bumpy ride. It is therefore of the utmost importance that the practitioner them self is continuing to work with their process - I am 100% committed to this for myself. Not only does this mean I am continuing my own healing, it also allows me to be 100% present for my clients. Within the safe space which I create for a client, my agenda is quite absent - I quite literally get myself, i.e. my ego, out of the way. 

Please contact me on jill@acorntooak.org.uk for more information on my work; and visit www.acorntooak.org.uk 

  

Not all in the Mind

Not all in the Mind - my lived experience of recovery from depression

I have a personal and family history of depression and, for several (+/- 6 years) I was living daily with depression, which mainly manifested as fear - although accompanied by persistent low mood. The impact of living with a fluctuating level of fear - anything from an underlying but gripping anxiety to peaks of panic which led me into regular flight or fight episodes - completely undermined my confidence in daily living and in achieving even small steps in my personal and professional life.

When I talk about this period of my life, whilst I had an understanding on a conscious, rational level of some of the major and not-so-major life events which had contributed to my state of being, the depression I was experiencing impacted throughout my entire being and was clearly not just "all in my head". This may well resonate with people living with depression right now. 

I sought advice from a number of counsellors and went through a variety of talk therapies, including group therapy. For me, however, this approach just did not work and I often left sessions actually feeling a lot worse and could not see any real progress. I could never really understand why this wasn't working until I realised that it was because I was still trying to work it all out in my head. Here I have to be very clear and very careful - I have close friends and colleagues who work within the talk therapy world and practice as counsellors and therapists, but for me and for people I now work with, trying to work it out using the rational mind just doesn't work.  And here is the reason why: using the mind does not reach or address what has been happening on an emotional level and how it is the underlying and often suppressed emotional layer that is causing the mental pain and confusion. Talk therapies for me also were very effective in keeping me stuck in the stories of what had happened to me, rather than helping me heal the underlying emotional patterns and suppression which would ultimately allow me to move forward freely.

We are not taught the importance of emotional health and how to experience our emotions healthily. What we actually learn are effective ways to suppress those emotions - and make them wrong. This completely misses the point of why we have emotions in the first place - which is that our emotions are our closest ally in communicating what is really going on for us. We do need to feel fear, for example, in order to know if we are in danger - but we don't need to feel it all the time; we also need to feel anger, to give us that much-needed energy, passion and drive to take action - for example to right a wrong - we need to be able to access it when needed, but not be constantly in its control. By being present and experiencing emotions in a healthy way, we prevent building up layers of suppression which result in emotional overload - and therefore impact on our mental health too.

For me, a fortunate turn of events and one which marked a real breakthrough in with my depression was when I was introduced to this concept of how emotions and emotional energy play a major part in what we understand as "mental" health. One of the most important things I learnt was that I was never going to break this cycle of depression using my rational mind - because there are such limitations on how the mind operates and one of the most unhelpful things we do with our minds is to rationalise - in other words make up a story about why we should or should be feeling something - this might be called telling oneself rational-lies. So - what really made the difference for me was having the support of a very skilled Breath4Lifetm practitioner, to support me using breathwork, to begin to safely release those layers of emotional suppression - not like taking the lid of a pressure cooker which might be very messy - but by releasing just the amount I was ready and able to experience. Breath4Lifetm breathwork is the safest and most effective tool I have found to do. Once I discovered that by using the breathwork I would feel lighter, clearer and happier with my life - even though nothing might have changed materially in my situation - I was able to commit to working with a practitioner. As they say: the proof of the pudding is in the eating - the pudding being one's daily life. I have been using Breath4Lifetm for nearly 20 years - it is a brilliant energetic tool. I qualified as a Breath4Lifetm Practitioner in 2007 and since then have seen clients individually, as couple, and in small groups, as well as running courses, including the 10 month Breath4Lifetm Foundation course - which gives participants an amazing opportunity to worth through a lot of personal issues, to heal and to grow. I am privileged to witness the tangible changes people experience, using Breath4Lifetm, giving testament to its truly life-changing power. 

To find out more, please email me: jill@acorntooak.org.uk or visit www.acorntooak.org.uk for more about Breath4Lifetm