We respond and react with our bodies and hearts more than our brain. Each of us has our own particular work to do balancing the yin and yang of our body’s nervous system.

I’ve always had a pretty fierce streak as well as a tender, intuitive heart. Partly nature and partly growing up in a volatile home with no clear boundaries and confusing messages around love.

Anger and fighting back was a way to feel safe and protect myself and those I loved. As we often do, I turned that anger on myself, using self-criticism as another safety behaviour.

These days, breathwork helps me balance this ‘yang’ with tender ‘yin’, to recognise and gently soothe the unmet needs beneath the turbulent threat-defend reactivity.

Each time I touch the pain and find the courage in my heart, I am reminded I can hold myself more lovingly whilst continuing to engage, with a little more care for my limits all the while. I’ve learnt to recognise more clearly when anger is constructive, and when it’s destructive.

It’s kind of a paradox but breathwork practice means growing the strength to be gentle, and the fierceness to be compassionate.

To fully feel love, joy and compassion, we need to honour the parts of ourselves that make us want to distract, react, contract or run away. We often reject our needy parts, the fearful parts, the angry parts but these are all the parts of us in this human experience and when all our needs are met and understood we can share our fullness with others.

When you heal trauma, you heal the nervous system, when you heal the nervous system, you heal the emotional body. To heal trauma and past stories we have to allow ourselves to be vulnerable and feel all the feelings.

In our lives at some point, we have all experienced trauma, disappointment or feeling misunderstood or let down. The breath is the key to guide us from the mind to the heart and let go of any baggage we may still be holding from the past.

 Our breathwork practice is an opportunity to set intentions, let go of unhealthy patterns,, find space, purpose and make way for the next part of the process that we are all sharing at this time. An important part of this heart opening journey will support insight, flow, creativity and authentic connection to Source.

By being present with all the feelings – anger, love, joy, pain and frustration – we are able to sit with the courage of our hearts and come to a place of compassion, finding a path from reactivity to a willingness to feel what is difficult to feel.

In doing this we raise our inner vibrations, let go of tension and feel closer to our hearts’ wisdom.