Music in Breathwork: How music moves us

“Remember this isn’t about getting it ‘right’ it’s about staying connected, curious, and committed to your own path, no matter what rhythm your life is dancing to. Even if you’re catching up in your own time, your presence is felt.” – Karina Kalilah, Wild Love Manual page 19. This sentence resonated deeply given the topic of the lecture I was writing this essay about, ‘Music in Breathwork’. I missed class, unwell I slept through that Saturday jetlagged after my 2 day trip back home from America. Grateful for my perfect attendance so far, and the ability to rest as a result. My homework task to write an overview and personal reflection about the topic. Music is more than you think.

I recall during my initial Rebirthing Breathwork training feeling different, as though I did not belong due to my music preferences. I rarely ever resonated with the tribal music that played in sessions. Despite this, I was open to exploration, remained curious and begun exposing myself to more such tones.

Music and dance have been a large part of my life since childhood. I danced to the Spice Girls for guests of our home, attended dance classes as a 5 year old, danced at school assemblies in primary school.

I strayed away during my teenage years engulfed by the grief of moving countries, personal and family challenges that came with that. It was a sad and confusing time in my life. During my early 20s I discovered music festivals and trance thanks to my brother leading the way. It made me feel more connected to him despite our differences. I begun dancing again, letting the music move me.

I could always easily pick up on the emotional experience music evoked in me. I never had the language for it. It was a feeling. Kathy before the heartbreak knew how to move. When I attended music festivals held in a dome, I could feel the vibrations through my feet which would travel up to my heart, fully embracing the experience of being in the ‘here and now’. Every music festival I attended, there was always so much leading up: university assignments, difficult conversations, heartbreak, gym sessions, hours and hours of work in the family business. The moment I walked into the dome, all of it would fall away.

With heartbreak and loss, I stopped dancing again. I stopped moving freely.

I recall the first time I listened to Karina Kalilah’s sound healing song ‘Wander’, before I had done much breathwork. It was a new experience for me to have a song with no lyrics and more importantly no forceful climax or drop evoke strong emotions, crying for ‘no reason’. What was even more astonishing to me is that Karina lost most her hearing in both ears and learnt to sing after that happened. As written in the Wild Love Manual, page 43 ‘The aim is not intensity but integration’. Through personal experience and more reading about resonance and nervous system regulation, I grew to appreciate the empathetic nature of sound healing. It wasn't that I was crying for 'no reason', it was that I was feeling suppressed emotions after years of being frozen in time.

Wild Love Breathwork is unique as it combines breath, movement and sound.

It encourages expression. I have learnt to love and accept both more traditional spiritual, perhaps you can call it more ‘new age’ breathwork playlists as well as my own uncommon, different way of being to serve the room. Wild Love Breathwork showed me my upbeat trance music taste can be incorporated into breathwork, and I will find people who resonate with it.

Having my Breathwork experiences got me out of my ‘holding patterns’, and has me moving different ways to the music I used to dance to years ago in those domes. Fully embodying my new sense of self after years of grief, burnout, and a frozen state of being.

As The Bible states in Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens". Music helps us learn to dance with the ebs and flows of life.

During my Breathwork training, we explored what to consider when devising a music playlist for breathwork sessions:

The pattern of a 45 – 75min breathwork session with a peak midway

Categorising music for sessions: How to support the journey of a client or group with music

The pattern of a breathwork session dictates the music:

0 – 10min softer music to settle

15 – 25min build up gently

25 – 35min heightened

35 – 45min heart opening

45 – 60min coming down, integration time

We can theme breathwork sessions based on the music we want to play which will appeal to certain audiences. Consider categorising by:

Chakras

Elements

Archetypes

Giving the client autonomy and choice, particularly in a 1:1 space

I have learnt to have 1 – 3 playlists on hand and ask clients in the 1:1 space about what they need and feel would best serve them based on the themes of the playlists. Having experienced this choice myself, I deeply appreciated it, and feel it is an important step in the healing journey for the client to regain trust in themselves, as they begin to hear their own voice again.

Expanding my personal knowledge about the energy centres, frequency, resonance, energy transference has enabled me to understand the musical experience of a breathwork session.

Archetypes is an area I have not consciously considered that adds to client/ group experience, and intentionality of a session. Despite this, I have found myself creating playlists called: Ancestral, Shadows, Mama Love, Healing – which may all be seen as archetypal. I can see how music is important for parts work integration as we welcome and befriend the parts of us that want to be seen and heard, as I did with the song 'Wander' when I had an emotional release.

I feel that it is most important for the breathwork practitioner to bring and transfer an element of curiosity encouraging the client to get to ‘know-thy-self’ and the experience they are having, despite what the practitioner may think.

Interested in learning more about conscious connected breathwork? Book a 'Discover Breathwork' call, recieve a complimentary breathwork e-guide.

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KEYWORDS: Music, Breath, Breathwork, Breathe, Frequency, Sound, Healing, Vibrations, Vibration, Journey, Spiritual, Spirit, Trauma, Movement, Emotion, Emotions, Nervous System Regulation, Nervous System, Regulate, Integrate, Integration.