Why Trauma-Informed Training Matters in Breathwork
Hello there, I wanted to outline a few things why trauma-informed training is vital to breathwork training.
Please note, I am using the term ‘trauma-informed’ here because it has become one of those buzzwords to catch folks into this essay and training, however there are some issues I have with the term in general and I will share that below.
The term ‘trauma-informed’ is a word that has emerged to distinguish courses and practices that are rooted in understanding trauma, and those that don’t. But the way it has been used in the western psychological frameworks reveals something about the approach of education that I find troubling.
This term can reveal that the way trauma is perceived is something ‘some’ people experience and practitioners and therapists need to educated on the various traumas that people go through. There is an othering in this perspective that I am still in the process of really articulating accurately.
Trauma is not something we need to be informed about, its lived experience. It’s a remembering. Its an honouring of all that we experience living within this society. If a course or training doesn’t have an expanded lens of trauma, it reveals that they think trauma is something that happens to others, and as practitioners we need learn about it to help them.
However, the term is still important to help us in this moment, and so I will outline below why its important for breathwork training to help flesh out the concept a little more fully.
Breathwork is a very simple and yet powerful practice. It can often be described as the bridge between the conscious and unconscious. As more people turn to breathwork to attend to life and how it moves through them, trauma is a something we need fully embrace.
Introduction
Breathwork and the Body: A Bottom-Up Approach to Healing
There is generally a very simple distinction of differet types of therapy can be describes as ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’.
This is the idea that a ‘bottom-up’ approach focuses primarily on what is happening in the body, and how that informs our understanding and experience of life. Bottom-up essentially means body-based. Working with the body as the primary focus, not our thoughts, mind-sets, narrative or psychology.
Top-down is the opposite. Working primarily with the mind, with the stories and narratives and analysis to help challenge the ways we move through the world through discipline and control of the mind - for example the use of more traditional western therapies like Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) or psychoanalysis - approaches that aim to understand and control the body through the mind.
Within this framework, breathwork is bottom-up. It directly works with our nervous systems, allowing the body to process and release emotions that words alone may not be able to reach. This is a really powerful practice because much of what we go through is remembered in the body. It is stored, kept and cherished in order to keep us safe. The body uses what we have been through to ensure we don’t go through it again. Often times in helpful ways, but also this can be really unhelpful.
Breathwork offers us a an opportunity into choice to process, complete and attend to trauma in a way that we enter a place of agency.
Indigenous and animist practices have always known about the power of the breath, about the importance of our body as a terrain, and how the breath can be a bridge between the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual worlds.
These traditions have always understood that healing begins with the body. Though, the modern philosophies rooted in the renaissance, wellness culture and western culture often pedestal top-down approaches to healing, and undervalue the power of the body.
Which is how we get that manic panic and romanticism of breathwork as an instant fix, without acknowledging the deep, historical context or the risks involved when working with trauma.
Being trauma-informed means understanding how trauma lives in the body, not just in the mind as a story or the event itself. It resides in the body, it takes up space and can often take up all other ways of being.
Trauma isn’t static, it isnt something that happened that need to heal from, but something we learn to live with. It is our body’s ongoing response as protection. It may manifest as anxiety, hypervigilance, dissociation, or a host of other physical and emotional symptoms.
Trauma-informed breathwork acknowledges that it’s not about fixing something that is broken, but rather honouring what the body has been through and creating space for safe exploration. It’s about cultivating safety and agency in the breathwork space, rather than pushing for release, for catharsis, or an intense re-traumatising experience that can feel like ‘work’ or that it’s working.
Working with trauma is slow, its tender and gentle. Many appropriations of breathwork focus on these powerful and often ungrounded releases that can end up being far too much for the body to make sense of.
What Does It Mean to Be Trauma-Informed?
The Dangers of Non-Trauma-Informed Breathwork
Unfortunately, the wellness industry has jumped on the trend of breathwork. And because of powerful the practice is, often ‘sell's’ the idea that big emotions equal to success. It promotes that if someone is having an intense, cathartic release, the breathwork is "working." This fetish with dramatic emotional breakthroughs can be incredibly harmful and in come cases addictive.
I have been in the wellness space for 12 years now, and some of the risks I have seen in the industry are worth voicing.
The first is the pedestalling of ascension or elevation. For those in trauma-ed bodies, this could be a celebration of dissociation. The desire to escape, to float, to get high and not stay in the body and move through what is here. This can lead to an addictive relationship to breathwork or ‘healing’ or ‘progress’ which is unsustainable and can really burn us out and delay deep healing.
The second is the mismanagement of flashbacks or vivid memories. Breathwork has the potential to untether deeply buried emotions and memories, and without the right training, facilitators can inadvertently bring these up without the processes of pace, pendulation or choice. People often get overwhelmed, and do ‘too much’ that can unfortunately scare them away from the practice.
The third is the lack of integration. Integration is just as important, if not more than the practice itself. There is no point doing anything if we cannot integrate it into our daily life. Integration means the process of letting things land in new formations, allowing the trauma re-patterning to happen with care. Often people experience insomnia, or overthinking after a session that isn’t integrated. A trauma-informed practice is deeply interested in integration and what that looks like for you.
The fourth is lack of safety. Breathwork can be really intense, if we do not learn to practice with safety and resources, we can accidentally trigger panic attacks or overwhelm. A trauma-informed practice is doing things at the pace of the breather and knowing what their capacity is.
And finally, due to our conditioning of deep emotional and spiritual suppression, unprocessed emotions can emerge unpredictably. The way the body moves and shifts can look and feel really intense. A practitioner who is unskilled to hold this may inadvertently place judgement on the person for those reactions, may even be afraid of the intensity and creates dynamics of shame, blame or even fear.
These risks mean that the breather are not held in a space that can welcome all parts of themselves, and can cause more damage than good.
A trauma-informed approach to breathwork includes some key fundamental shifts in how breathwork is facilitated. It is how the breath is held, it is the awareness of how the practitioner shows up. Just because someone says it’s trauma-informed doesn’t mean it is, it is in how its held.
Take note of how the create accessibility for different bodies, its how they orient and navigate physical safety and create space for trauma-ed bodies in relation to other people or objects. It’s an awareness that people may feel more or less safe being closer or further away. It’s the practice and invitation of choice and agency. It’s the employment of other resources, of understanding the breather in what soothes them and what grounds them.
It is important for breathwork facilitators to train, practice and understand the different approaches, because simply saying that their have a trauma-informed approach can create a false sense of safety which is very dangerous for our nervous systems.
What is Trauma-Informed Breathwork
A trauma-informed approach recognises that there is nothing to fix. Instead of seeing people as broken, it acknowledges that their responses are a natural reaction to pain and violation. Trauma-informed facilitators move away from the mindset of "fixing" and instead focus on supporting the body’s natural healing process.
This is a decolonial perspective on trauma, understanding that pain is not a sign of failure, but rather a signal that something needs attention and care. It’s about shifting from measuring health through productivity or the ability to "move on" to honoring the wisdom in the body’s responses and learning how to create space around the trauma.
1. Shifting from Fixing to Honouring
Trauma often leaves people feeling powerless and without control. When a breathwork session lacks agency and choice, it can inadvertently recreate dynamics of powerlessness. Trauma-informed facilitation prioritises giving the breather options and autonomy, allowing them to choose how to engage with their breath.
This means offering alternative techniques if one feels too intense, being clear that all participation is optional and that taking breaks is encouraged and allowing participants to set their own pace rather than being guided into something they are not ready for.
2. Creating Agency
For people living with trauma, the body can feel like an unsafe place to be. Rather than feeling connected to their physical sensations, they may find themselves numbing out, dissociating, or seeking escapism. The idea of being present in the body can feel overwhelming and even terrifying.
In trauma-informed breathwork, the goal is to rebuild trust and safety within the body, but this process cannot be rushed. Going too deep too fast can trigger a re-traumatising experience, leaving the person feeling even more disconnected than before. Simultaneously, holding back when someone is ready to go deeper can also feel frustrating and invalidating.
There are two key ways people can betray their own bodies during breathwork:
Doing too much when they are not ready; pushing themselves into intense sensations or emotions without preparation.
Doing too little when they are ready; avoiding exploration out of fear or habit.
It’s challenging to navigate this balance, especially for those who have lost touch with their bodies through years of dissociation. Trauma-informed facilitation means moving slowly and cautiously, allowing the body to relearn safety at its own pace. This practice of temperance is like dipping a toe in, coming back, and gradually going deeper. It is essential for sustainable healing.
In the capitalist wellness industry driven by productivity and fast results, there’s a tendency to push for breakthrough experiences. But for trauma-ed bodies, this push can be counterproductive and even harmful. The process requires patience and presence, which is why it often takes more time and resources for those carrying trauma. It’s important to recognise that healing cannot be rushed and that building trust within the body is a gradual process.
The focus should always be on guiding people to feel safe enough to feel, to become curious about physical and emotional sensations without overwhelming themselves. When done with caution and care, breathwork can become a pathway to reclaiming the body as a safe and grounded place to exist.
3. Cultivating Trust and Safety in the Body
Accessibility in breathwork is not just about physical access or affordability, it’s about creating an environment where people with trauma feel welcomed, included, and understood. Too often, wellness spaces are designed with an assumption of stability and comfort for the dominant group, ignoring the reality that trauma is far more pervasive than we might think.
Trauma-informed care means normalising the presence of trauma in the room, rather than treating it as an exception or a surprise. In the circles I work in, all of clients have trauma in one way or another. They seek me out as a trauma-informed practitioner. However, with neurotypical approaches, with a focus on the dominant, and fear of trauma, many practitioners assume that everyone will just ‘manage’ without creating the environment for deep independent management. There is an implicit trust that people will be okay, and so practitioners dont take take the time to care for those that need it, because most will be fine. Attending to the 90 % will always exclude the 10%, attending to the 10% will always include the 100%.
Meeting Fundamental Needs First
People with trauma often worry about basic, practical concerns - like where the bathroom is, how long the session will last, or whether food will be available. These details might seem trivial to those without these sensitivities, but not having clarity on these simple things can trigger anxiety and stress responses. Trauma-informed breathwork facilitators understand that acknowledging these needs upfront helps create a sense of safety and belonging.
Avoiding the “Shock and Awe” Reaction
When someone’s trauma shows up in a session, the worst response a facilitator can have is to act shocked or overly concerned. For example, if someone shares a difficult experience and the reaction from the facilitator is an exaggerated “Oh my GOD!”, it can make the person feel ashamed or abnormal. Trauma-informed care means responding calmly and without judgement. It means communicating that their experience is not extraordinary or shocking, it’s human.
Creating a Culture of Acceptance
People who live with trauma often internalise the belief that “there must be something wrong with me” if they react differently than others. This feeling of being broken or flawed can be reinforced by facilitators who overreact to trauma responses. Instead, trauma-informed practice involves responding with empathy and normalization.
One problematic example is the wellness instructor who pushes extreme practices, like long breath holds, insisting that everyone should be able to do it. In these cases, the goal often proves the facilitator’s own prowess rather than genuinely holding space for participants. This not only risks re-traumatising individuals but also sends the message that struggling is a personal failure, rather than an indication that the practice itself might not be universally safe.
Normalising Trauma
Trauma is not an exception, it’s a part of the human experience. By acknowledging this reality without drama or judgement, we create a space where people don’t feel pressured to hide their pain or pretend they are okay. Trauma-informed breathwork facilitation means making it clear that it’s normal to feel uncomfortable, unsure, or even activated during sessions, and that these experiences are met with understanding and support rather than surprise or shame.
When we normalise trauma responses as part of the collective human experience, we take away the stigma and isolation that so many people feel. This is essential for building truly inclusive and accessible wellness spaces where all bodies feel welcome, not just the ones that fit a model of calm and composure.
4. Accessibility for Trauma-ed Bodies
How to Find Trauma-Informed Breathwork Training
If you are considering becoming a breathwork facilitator, it’s important to choose a training program that prioritises trauma-informed care. Look for certifications from respected bodies like the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (GPBA) or the UK Breathwork Association, which emphasise ethical standards and trauma awareness.
The Inspire Breathwork Facilitator Training program is designed with these principles at its core. We teach facilitators how to approach breathwork responsibly and ethically from a decolonial, trauma-informed way, equipping you to hold space with care and awareness.
Breathwork can be a beautiful, profound practice, but only when facilitated with respect, safety, and understanding. Trauma-informed training is essential not only for the well-being of your breathers but also to ensure that you, as a facilitator, are prepared to navigate complex emotional landscapes.
If you’re serious about becoming a breathwork facilitator, make sure your training prioritises trauma-informed practices. It’s not just about certification, it’s about responsibility and integrity in every session you guide.
Want to learn more about trauma-informed breathwork? Get in touch with us today to discuss how our training can equip you to make a meaningful impact.
Thank you for reading. I would love to hear what you think and if this was helpful for you.
I invite you to send me an email at hannah@inspire-breathwork.com
With love,
Hannah (she/her)