Clarity Breathwork and BBTRS are new additions to the modalities that are offered at Studio Britford and sessions/workshops. Sarah Marten is qualified as a practitioner for both individual and group sessions in both Clarity Breathwork and Biodynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release System (BBTRS)

Sarah first came to breath work in 2014 when she attended Bali Spirit Festival and experienced different schools of breath work. She began training in Biodynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release System (BBTRS) which uses deep connected breath, activating belts of muscular tension and emotional patterns. She chose to train in both modalities -Clarity Breathwork (qualified in levels 1-5 in 2018) being the gentler form but no less effective under Dana Delong and Ashanna Solaris and BBTRS with Giten Tonkov (qulaified in levels 1-3 2018/19).

Clarity Breathwork (formerly known as Rebirthing) is a transformative process of healing. It deeply supports the clearing away of old energies, patterns, conditioning, negative thoughts and emotions and opens the doors wide for new life and greater consciousness. Most of us don’t breathe fully, we hold back the breath and have been doing so most of our lives. When we start to breathe fully and consciously we find a way to release what we have been holding and open to an expansion of consciousness, including greater forgiveness and self-love. As a result, this inner change shifts and improves our outer life.

Clarity Breathwork supports people to release stress and tension, heal and resolve trauma, gain deeper insights into current life issues, and access one’s own internal healing energy, creativity and greater knowing.

Breath opens the energy channels in the body and allows what we have been holding onto to surface and be released. This may be suppressed emotional material, physical blocks in the body, old beliefs structures and identifications, old memories, fight/flight/freeze patterns, and addictions. 

Biodynamic Breathwork & Trauma Release System (BBTRS)

How can trauma be a doorway to higher self-awareness or even transformation? This question is answered by Giten Tonkev: “The traumatic experience can be a doorway on the spiritual path. In both a traumatic event and a spiritual experience, there is an altered state. Physiologically, the things that happen in the body are quite similar.

Trauma can be devastating and wreak havoc on your life. But once the initial response starts to settle, it also can become a steppingstone to your spiritual growth. It can show you the direction you need to go.

If it is a physical trauma, you may observe it as though seeing it from the outside, without being involved. This is pretty much meditation. You take a step back from being identified from the physical experience. People say, “Wow, it looks like things were happening to me, and I was watching from above.” Everything slows down.

In childhood experiences, there may be no rational understanding of what happened. But looking at it as an adult, you can take a conscious approach to that memory. Reliving it in a therapy session, you can clearly start to see how you formed a behavior around a particular event. You gain a different understanding of that event and how it affected you.

This supports your self-awareness and gives you the possibility to step out of the “negative behavior.” Nothing is really negative – it is just a behavioral pattern that keeps you from shining to your fullest potential. When you see this as an adult, you can change something and make a shift. And, it doesn’t have to be a memory from childhood. It can be something more recent.

The emotional or physical memory gives us the opportunity to start looking “within”. This is how traumatic events can be helpful in the way of personal growth. If approached with awareness in therapeutic process, past traumatic experiences are factors that can potentially transform you.

Look at the life story of almost any well-known person that came to some realization or self-actualization. It often came directly out of a strong event or chain of events that led to their transformation. Any kind of event that takes you out of your normal coping mechanism can be “traumatic.” It does not have to be overt trauma, violence or abuse”.

What is a session like?

Every session is different. The group sessions are an hour of circular connected breathing practice. The Clarity Breathwork process will help to dissolve the past tensions that are stored on a cellular level and this leads to experiencing more energy and aliveness. BBTRS can help accelerate the process. At the close of the session, there is an opportunity to share your experience,  integrate and understand the process on a deeper level.

Why is it important to have a qualified practitioner - I could do this at home?

A Breathwork Practitioner is a professionally trained facilitator who guides your breath in a way that enables the transformational process to occur. The practitioner guides and supports you through the variety of feelings, thoughts, and body sensations you may experience during a session and is there to answer questions and support you fully.

How do I begin?

I suggest that you start with a private session. However, if this isn’t possible then the group sessions are very valuable. Please contact me regarding the private sessions. I recommend a minimum of a series of 10 sessions to begin our work together. The frequency of the sessions is usually once a week or every other week. Sometime sessions are spaced further apart if needed. The purpose of committing to a series of sessions is to build a relationship of trust and to maintain that relationship long enough to realise and integrate the cumulative results.

The different breatwork modalities:

Clarity Breathwork is a more gentle modality to some other breath work schools. It has been designed so that it doesn’t have to be as cathartic or intense and I have found that the more gentle the more integration we experience. However, there are times when the cathartic model which is more more intense can lead to a strong release. This is sometimes needed and although you may feel “high”, it still has a profound effect in bringing awareness to patterns and occuring thoughts. Both modalities have the aim of encouraging a fundamental shift in the body towards integration and full embodiment. Many of us feel detached from ourselves. Breathwork helps us be fully present in our body so we can process and integrate the emotional material that has yet to be fully explored and completed. This encourages the body to unravel and release those places where we may be holding onto emotional wounds of a feeling of being stuck so that we become fully conscious and aligned with our higher purpose.

A space is created for the sessions that is based on safety, love, care and devotion. It is only when we feel truly safe that we can surrender to allowing something greater than us to work through us.

What is the difference between Pranayama and Breathwork

Pranayama is a set of ancient yogic breathing techniques and is the conscious awareness of breath: the life force that both energises and relaxes the body. The term is derived from the Sanskrit, prana, meaning "life force," and ayama, meaning "extension." It helps us gain access to deep meditation states, activate our awareness of self and have a healthier and more vibrant body by practicing a few simple breathing techniques on a regular basis. Pranayama slows down the breath and thus slows down thoughts. “Control the breath, control the mind” In pranayama we control our breathing to achieve a certain state of meditation.

In pranayama we control the breath. In breathwork we release control!

Breathwork. Instead of sitting up in a yogic meditation pose, we lay down on our back. The breathing is circular i.e. there is no pause at the top or bottom of the breath and the object is to release control and experience whatever comes up. The mind gets bypassed and we may drop into a deep meditative state and access a deep inner wisdom so that answers may pop up to long held questions or confusions. By simply get out of our own way, we release the agenda of the ego and let our true natures unfold. When we surrender, then the breath through breathwork takes us on a journey.

The science. In pranayama we extend the breath so that we can slow our thoughts. This produces more carbon dioxide in the blood stream, therefore encouraging a meditative state. In breathwork the conscious connected breathing does the opposite. It hypo-oxygenates cells bringing more oxygen to the bloodstream leading to healing within the body, mind and spirit.

In pranayama we extend the breath and accent the natural pause between the breaths and often hold the breath. In breathwork we cut out the normal pause between the breath and connect the inhales and exhales in a cyclical breathing somewhat like a circular breath or a spiral type of sequence. As soon as the inhale is up, the exhale begins. As soon as the exhale is over the inhale begins.

Is one more effective? Both work amazingly for their intended purposes. Pranayama is very effective in maintaining a balanced, happy state of consciousness. It cleanses body and mind and creates equilibrium in mind and body. Breath is key in any yoga asana.

I have found that breathwork is the most powerful tool for healing and transformation. It has been a life changing modality for me and by far the most natural and rapid catalyst for greater self awareness. With breathwork I am in control of the process and I am using my breath for my healing.

Pranayama and Breathwork are not the same. Breathwork would have been inspired by pranayama. The ancient techniques from yoga would have informed the modern psychologists how the breath is so potent in inducing altered states of consciousness. This was the aim from the very beginning of the 1970s when Stanislav and Christina Groff created Holotropic Breathwork. They found the breath was a powerful tool in inducing what they called holotropic states of consciousness and the practice of Holotropic Breathwork was created.

Since then there have been many branches of breathwork starting with Rebirthing created by Leonard Orr based on his time with the Groff’s. Afterwards, myriad breathwork styles were created with new names and techniques and these are mainly variations of the Holotropic system founded by the Groffs. All are completely separate to the techniques of the ancient yogis Pranayama practices.

For Pranayama there are really only a handful of techniques taught. Though there are many variations, the actual techniques found in the ancient scriptures are only a few.

Clarity Breathwork is perhaps the gentlest of breathwork practices and no less effective. It is my belief hat the body releases old patterns, trauma and memories when it is gently coaxed. The gentler the better but there are always occassions when we need a little more and this i why coupled with BBTRS, it is a system of taking full control of ones own healing.