Breathwork Journeys
A week ago I drove down to Ubud, to spend a few days in the town where I had lived on an off for almost a year since I first came to Bali. It was a little celebration of sorts for my new single Lovers (Crash & Burn) which I released the morning after I arrived. I didn’t have much planned for the trip other than to just enjoy myself, reset and to draw inspiration from my surroundings. Of course anyone who has ever spent time in Ubud will tell your that it’s no ordinary little town and if your name is Deniz Reno, you will for sure end up falling head first into all kinds of extraordinary experiences which will seemingly start appearing out of the blue.
During my four day stay in Ubud I settled into a beautiful jungle house with my friends who had recently completed their Shamanic Breathwork Facilitator Training with another friend of mine, Levi Banner. As a result of this, Ryan and Aisling were holding almost daily breathwork sessions and I had the outmost fortune to be invited to participate. My relationship with breathwork first started four years ago when I attended Levi’s weekly sessions at the Yoga Barn in Ubud. I also attended breathwork sessions at an Ayahuasca Retreat in Peru in 2018 and most recently, in Punnu’s Active Consciousness Meditation class at the Yoga Barn. For whatever reason, 80% of the shamanic breathwork sessions I have attended in the past did very little other than put me to sleep. I had on one occasion achieved a trance like state in one of Levi’s sessions and experienced several emotional releases in Punnu’s Active Consciousness Meditation Classes. I had intended for a long time to try Shamanic Breathwork again because I had inherently felt that something in the past was blocking me from allowing the sessions to give me any sort of major breakthrough. This is why I now was so enthusiastic about partaking in breathwork under the guidance of my newly initiated friends.
Before we go any further. What is Shamanic Breathwork?
Shamanic Breathwork as I have come to understand it is the practice of guiding your breath into a rhythmic flow which induces a state of trance under which you are able to access and clear out trapped emotions, psychological trauma and blocks. Shamanic breathwork transcends the perception of breathing as just a physical phenomenon and allows you to understand the connection of breath within the mental and spiritual planes. During shamanic breathwork sessions the participants will often lay down on mats and be instructed to exercise a particular breathing flow which will guide them into a state of trance meditation for anywhere from one to three hours depending on the session.
The three breathwork sessions I completed with my friends over the period of my stay in Ubud cleared a lot of emotions out of my system. I was guided into breath work trance with the aid of traditional aboriginal instruments and a rhythmic soundtrack which was played during the entire duration of each journey. If I could use one word to describe each session I would say session one would be : Sorrow. Session two: Power. Session three: Peace. Session one made me feel like my heart was being ripped straight from my chest. I cleared a lot of wounding, grief, a lot of sadness that was trapped inside my body. I cried … a lot. After the session we were given crayons and paper and asked to draw a mandala. Mine was a blue archangel wrapping its wings around my body and shielding me with its wings.
The second session the following day carried a starkly different energy. During the trance I morphed into a black panther. Also during the trance I had a vision of being attacked by a bloodthirsty tiger and fought it to the death before the skies opened up and I was given insight to my purpose on this planet and reminded to keep on course. The mandala I drew after that journey was a human handprint crossed with a paw print from a panther, surrounded by hieroglyphics from a message I received during the trance.
On the third day my intention going into the breathwork session was achieving inner peace. During the trance I witnessed the feminine and masculine energies in my life come together, mediate and make peace with each other. The mandala I drew after this session reflected the emotions I experienced during the trance. It was a face made from two halves, a man and a woman, surrounded in light. Below I drew a heart with three stitched up scars, symbolic of the heart illustration found on the tarot card of the three of swords which represents heartache. The swords had been taken out and the heart had been healed. What I have decided to share with you is a very very brief overview of almost 7 hours of journeying under a breathwork trance. I saw and experienced many visions during this time.
What I find remarkable about breathwork is that it utilizes your own body chemistry to give you these larger than life experiences which really help clear and restructure your psyche. The sessions I partook in under the guidance of my friends Ryan and Aisling helped me realign and emotionally and mentally do some healing around aspects of my life which have not been serving me. I believe that each of us is running on patterns of behaviour which are deeply rooted in our early childhood. Breathwork allows for a safe space to explore those patterns, address issues, heal trauma and shift to a new plane of understanding within yourself.
I left Ubud at night and drove back to Canggu in torrential rain feeling lighter, happier, and extremely grateful for having had the multiple opportunities to journey into the world of breathwork with my friends.