Written by Monica Krake, Breathwork & Business Guide
Written by Monica Krake, Business Guide, Breathwork Practitioner and founder of Head + Heart. Monica supports businesses with the three keys to expansion- strategic structure, energetic alignment, and a powerful mastermind community. Work with Monica by joining her six-month business accelerator or her signature course, The Alignment Activation.
For many years as a business owner, I had an unhealthy relationship with my to-do list and goals. It started around 2009 when I co-founded a marketing agency in the same year that I had my first baby. I was hell-bent on prioritizing my family and growing the business, and I did a pretty good job at first.
But after a few years, the pressure to do everything better, and the actual list of "things to do" at work and at home, started to feel insurmountable. I began carrying the crushing weight of all the things, all the time. Eventually, I had my first encounter with chronic pain and started to resent everything: work, my team, my husband, it all felt so exhausting.
What I know now is that pretty much all of us feel a lot of pressure to do better in life. And guess what the number one coping mechanism is for handling all this pressure, guilt, fear, and overwhelm? Self-abandonment.
We end up detaching from our bodies and basically residing in our heads as a way to manage life. As we do this, we disconnect from our life force energy, our innate personal power. In fact, toxic work cultures and toxic productivity are often what bring many of us into the world of healing in the first place.
Guided breathwork has been the most powerful practice I’ve discovered for shifting into a healthier relationship with work and healing patterns of toxic productivity.
There are many styles of breathwork, but I’m specifically referring here to Connected Breathing, which is done in and out of an open mouth for an extended period of time, typically 60 to 90 minutes. If you’re brand new to breathwork, this article explains how to start a breathwork practice.
Why breathwork for business?
As business owners, we can only achieve what we believe to be possible for our lives. And we all come up against our limitations; we’re human. When we understand how much our expectations of life create our reality, everything changes. This is why attunement to self is no longer a “nice thing to do”, it’s actually the key to unlocking greater potential in life and business.
In this interview, Dr. Joe Dispenza cites his own research that proves meditation (including breathwork) changes our state of being, improving our blood chemistry, immune system, brain function, and capacity. In this podcast, Mel Robbins cites multiple research studies demonstrating that humans are more productive when we’re rested. Again, when we learn to regulate our human operating system through breathwork and meditation, we gain access to a much more powerful state of being.
In his book Just Breathe, author Dan Brule explains that to “regain our creativity, we need to relearn how to breathe.” This is echoed in Dr. Judith Kravitz’s book on Transformational Breathing, in which she explains that shallow breathing is an epidemic perpetuating stress and overwhelm in our society (aka toxic productivity).
3 reasons to use breathwork for business
1. Shift from overwhelm to being self-resourced
Active breathwork may not be a calming practice per se (it’s generally more stimulating); however, it’s a powerful tool for reprogramming your innate breathing pattern. For those who tend to breathe more shallowly, in the upper respiratory system, breathwork helps you become more conscious of bringing the breath more deeply into the body, into the belly and to places that may be starved for breath and nutrients.
In this way, breathwork helps us retrain ourselves to breathe more deeply in general. And when we do this, we gain a powerful tool that we can use daily to support the health of our bodies and create a more energized and regulated nervous system, which is exactly where we need to be to thrive.
2. Gain access to your inner ‘limitlessness’
In an active breathwork session, we move through stages. The first is giving the mind permission to relax. Our minds want to hold onto our to-do lists, fears, and stories so badly, so we come to breathwork to intentionally let the mind relax into presence and into the unknown.
Second, we meet what’s alive in our bodies, the energy and emotions swimming around that we haven’t had a chance to acknowledge. Simply by allowing everything to be as it is and giving our attention to (previously unacknowledged) felt sensations, we bring our bodies into somatic rest and release.
And third, from here, we gain access to the other ways we have of knowing. This is where people receive inspired ideas, solutions, and higher guidance for their business. They access incredible creative insights into what’s possible, as well as the people and places they’re meant to collaborate with and explore.
Breathwork is a tool for quantum manifestation because it helps us rewire old pathways of resistance and plug into the unknown, the gateway to the greater field of possibilities that we all have access to. Once we get a sense of this field, there’s no turning back.
3. Discover somatic empowerment
We have incredible potential as humans, far beyond what we imagine. The problem is that most of us cling to what we know rather than allowing ourselves to access the unknown, where these potentials become available. Our time here in "earth school" is really about rewiring our human condition into a Divine condition. Breathwork is a fantastic tool for this because we can’t just understand these concepts with the mind, we must somatically experience them for real shifts to occur.
Personally, my entire business has been birthed through the visions I’ve received during breathwork. Suddenly, I’ll know exactly what I need to focus on, what I need to let go of, who to team up with, and how to navigate past challenges.
3 ways to bring breathwork into your business
Learn how to start a breathwork practice and begin exploring breathwork intentionally for clarity and inspiration in your work and life. I recommend starting with a live guided session for extra support and then incorporating breathwork at home with a guided meditation. Here’s a guided breathwork for alignment meditation you can try.
Plan a guided breathwork and visioning session for your team. This is an incredible way to unite people around their individual gifts, shared missions, and the overall vision of the organization. These sessions are also highly bonding and can be specifically designed to inspire and unite leaders and teams.
If you’re an entrepreneur or creative looking to expand your business, the Business Activation is a six-month accelerator and mastermind that includes guided breathwork, strategic support, and an intimate mastermind community.
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Read more from Monica Krake
Monica Krake, Breathwork & Business Guide
Written by Monica Krake, Business Guide, Breathwork Practitioner and founder of Head + Heart. Monica supports businesses with the three keys to expansion, strategic structure, energetic alignment, and a powerful mastermind community. Work with Monica by joining her six-month business accelerator or her signature course, The Alignment Activation and connect on Instagram.
