Since time immemorial, our most powerful tool to keep calm and centred has been a simple breath. Holotropic Breathwork, which is the subject of a workshop in Dubai this weekend, goes further, urging participants towards self-healing with a combination of breathing, music and coaching.
The breath-work combines deep, accelerated breathing with evocative music and coaching by experienced facilitators. The technique was developed in the mid-1970s by the Czech-American psychiatrist Dr Stanislav Grof and his wife Christina.
Yahia Kabil, a doctor in Dubai who spent seven years studying with the founders, is one of the few Holotropic Breathwork facilitators working in the UAE.
“Training with Stan and Christina was nothing less than life-changing,” says Kabil. “They were wonderful role models – two kind, impassioned pioneers with immense integrity.”
Kabil says that the healing effects of Holotropic Breathwork go beyond that of traditional talk therapy. “While talking therapy has its place, it also has limitations,” says the former psychiatrist. “It uses the intellectual mind to remember experiences from the past to try to analyse them. However, Holotropic Breathwork involves reliving past experiences as opposed to remembering them intellectually. As the cellular memory is activated, a stream of emotions and sensations flow and are vividly felt and expressed.”
According to Kabil’s co-facilitator, Andrea Anstiss, a transpersonal psychotherapist who has trained extensively in breath-work, at the workshop each participant will go through one breathing session and another session where they will assist someone else.
“In Holotropic, the realms of experience are fascinating,” says Anstiss. “Some describe it as entering a vivid, dreamlike state. The combination of fast breathing and the music produces a change in the chemistry of the body to produce a non-ordinary state of consciousness. There is almost always a sense of letting go and an automatic connection to our inner wisdom.”
The reactions vary from one participant to the next, says Anstiss.
“So while there might be crying or shouting, there is also laughing and dancing. Some simply feel a deep sense of peace. Everyone reacts differently and we provide a safe, non-judgemental environment. We end the session with group sharing and doing some art mandala, so we can express our individual experience creatively.”
• Dr Yahia Kabil’s and Andrea Anstiss’s Holotropic Breathwork session is on Friday, November 14, from 9am to 7.30pm in Dubai. For more information or to book, contact vanessajarnold@hotmail.com or andrea.anstiss@gmail.com
artslife@thenational.ae
