Introduction to Conscious Connected Breath

Conscious Connected Breath (CCB) is a powerful, transformational healing modality that promotes emotional release and expansion of consciousness.  CCB involves consciously shifting the breath to a faster, fuller, and more expansive breath.  It utilizes a circular, rhythmic, open-mouth breath pattern that results in the breather’s carbon dioxide (CO2) levels dropping.  This drop in CO2 triggers the prefrontal cortex, our thinking brain, to go off-line which opens the door for the release of old suppressions, thoughts, beliefs, patterns, and behaviors that can be otherwise held hostage.  

Sessions are facilitated by certified Conscious Connected Breath (CCB) practitioners, as verbal and hands-on interventions are often needed for breathers to go beyond their line of comfort to catharsis as well to ensure the breather’s safety once their CO2 levels drop.  A typical session is 1 ½ - 2 hours in length, including a 15-30 minute check-in, 45-60 minutes of Conscious Connected Breath, and 15-30 minutes of integration and debrief.  A knowledge of breathwork clients’ significant life events is of importance for the CCB facilitator to be aware of as it informs the work.  This information is obtained prior to beginning individual breathwork sessions and is updated each session during the check-in.  

Conscious Connected Breath brings us back to our birthright of a beautiful, unrestricted diaphragmatic breath.  Sleeping babies are great examples of what this breath pattern looks like, as they have not yet been conditioned to restrict and control.  They have not yet been taught not to cry, not to laugh, not to raise their voice, or not to feel and react to the world around them as children and adults have, all which result in the majority of children and adults controlling and restricting their breath.  Leaving us with a shallow “survival breath”.  

The conditioning to restrict and control our breath to avoid emotions that make others around us, and eventually ourselves, uncomfortable acts similar to if we had a physical injury, like a broken rib or shoulder.  We end up breathing a shallow breath pattern, a survival breath, to avoid causing ourselves emotional discomfort or pain just as we would physical discomfort or pain.  Conscious Connected Breath releases us from this survival breath pattern while we are engaged in it and in our everyday life, if we engage in the practice enough to allow our body and mind to be released from the survival breath pattern..   

There are a couple of analogies that describe the effect of the Conscious Connected Breath that I think are helpful in conceptualizing it.  The simplest is that of a car wash.  That the power of the fast, full, rhythmic breath serves as a car wash for our insides, clearing out suppressed emotional scars that hold old thoughts, beliefs, patterns and behaviors that no longer serve us.  

Another analogy is that the power of the breath is to the body what the power of the rushing river water is to a river bed in the early spring.  That, similar to a river bed that is filled with debris (i.e., branches that have fallen and gotten stuck), the body is filled with debris (i.e., suppressed thoughts/beliefs/patterns/behaviors).  Debris stemming from challenging life experiences that are stuck in the body due to our having been conditioned to hold in our emotions.  And it is not until there is a rush of water powerful enough to move the debris from the riverbed that it is moved and cleared out.  Just as it is not until there is a rush of breath powerful enough to move the debris from the body, in the form of energy, that it is moved and cleared out.  

You will find a list of breathwork books as well as books on the current science and thinking on how our body stores our life experiences and traumas (i.e., The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk, M.D.) Breathwork, and specifically Conscious Connected Breath, goes beyond emotional release and is believed to relieve tension in the body, reduce blood pressure, improve immune system functioning, energize the body, promote mental clarity and support natural detoxification.  It is recommended for adults, 18+, with the exception of individuals with certain contraindications (i.e., bi-polar or schizophrenia, uncontrolled diabetes) who are recommended to consult with a doctor before engaging in CCB.  

Conscious Connected Breath is from the same lineage as Holotropic Breathwork and the

Wim Hof Method of breathwork.  All three stem from the re-birthing lineage of breathwork, where our breath is believed to act as a bridge between the conscious and unconscious (by bringing unconscious patterns more conscious) and between the mind and the body.  The re-birthing lineage is credited to Stanislav Grof and Leonard Orr, both who were leaders in the use of breathwork in the therapeutic field.  

Dr. Judith Kravitz practiced breathwork and studied under Leonard Orr, later developing her own technique of breathwork called Transformational Breath in 1977.  This technique has been credited with helping millions of people who have practiced it and is endorsed by well-known integrative medicine experts such as Deepak Chopra MD and Christiane Naorthrup MD.   Conscious Connected Breath (CCB) stems from Judith’s Transformational Breath technique.