Join Sophia for a journey into an expanded state of consciousness using a breath method optimising physical and emotional well being, nervous-system regulation, and oxygen to cell transportation. With the guidance of your breath limiting beliefs, unhealthy coping strategies and trauma based identities may be compassionately met (initiation), and shifted (transformation), in order for new ways of being to emerge and take root deep within (integration). Explore the healing power of your breath as it leads the way to your truth as a unification of mind, body, heart and energetic essence. Come home to fuck yeah, to wholeness, peaceful embodiment, and compassion; so you can have a meaningful and authentic connection to self and others.
Healing isn’t about chasing bliss, or only feeling what the ego labels as positive, nor is it about reaching a final destination of only love and light. Healing is a never ending process of compassionately turning towards and embracing all that exists within us; healing is there when we go into our shadow lands and don’t fight what we uncover but simply stay present, it’s a moment to moment lived experience of holding the totality of our experience in loving acceptance even when it’s uncomfortable or excruciatingly painful, especially then. Embrace it all!
When we, with openness and curious compassion, journey deep within we come in contact with our heart of hearts, our inner wise one, and may find our inner sanctuary, a place were we can simply rest. From this place of stillness, beyond the noise of our everyday lives, we can begin to solve the riddles of our lives and dreaming. Reclaiming and creating a healthy relationship with your breath won't solve all your problems or heal all your ailments but it's a good place to start and needs to be at the foundation of lasting positive change. Where loving awareness goes healing flows!
Our breath is the alchemist of our self-actualisation.
Breath-work and/or breath journeys are umbrella terms that has come to include any type of conscious connected breathing, where there is no pause between the inhale and the exhale. Breathing in this way creates one circular breath which in a journey is maintained for an extended period of time.
How we breathe matters! The technique used at Berkana, The sacred breath method, utilises a deep nose inhale and mouth exhale. A deep nose inhale is essential for nervous-system regulation and somatic safety, it's a return to the way we were designed to breathe. You can read more about why a nose inhale is essential in this type of work here. Through the art of conscious breathing as facilitated by Sophia, we gently but with a powerful intentionality welcome and examine all our emotions, edges, and wounds without forcing anything, we simply open to what is present in each moment.
As well as facilitating a breath journey Sophia also incorporates other breath techniques into each session, some of which you can easily begin to practice at home after just one session. It begins with the breath but movement and sound further supports the unwinding and release of tension, repressed memories, wounds, trauma and more. Sophia will introduce the client to these elements in a session but it's always up to the breathers and what they feel comfortable with. Read more about the journeys and session layout here.
Meeting and accepting ourselves exactly as we are in each moment is key.
Please note that these are not medical claims
~ Shifting out of fight or flight, into a sense of safety
~ Bring awareness to unconscious and limiting beliefs
~ Grief and loss support
~ Stress relief
~ Eased anxiety
~ Shifting destructive habits
~ Improved sleep
~ Clarity and ease in decision making
~ Accessing mystical states
~ Detoxification
~ Deep relaxation
~ Vitality
~ Increased focus
~ Emotional release
~ De-armourning
~ Mend Internal divisions
Breath journeys thins the veil between the tangible and the intangible. In this state we can begin to uncover that which unconsciously motivates us, therefore we can gain more awareness of our inner narrative and our reactions to it which leads to more conscious choices and actions, to a clearer intent. We may descend into the underworld of our psyches where we safely can navigate our way towards our authentic, wild unconditioned self, perfectly imperfectly human.
Our breath is a most powerful ally in the process of unbinding, of freeing ourselves. It's the blade that cuts through the ropes of our entrapment, ropes spun by all that we have denied within ourselves. The state we enter during a breath journey allows us to dis-armour, to let go of our defences and our defensiveness so we can comfortably walk in vulnerability and connection. In this state authentic expression is made possible.
Now this doesn't mean that we only feel the pleasurable, that we won't make mistakes, or that we are “above” any of the entanglement of human emotions. Instead it means we lean into the messiness of human life, own all our emotions and honour them as intelligent messengers, as wisdom keepers. It means we embrace the human experience in its fullest, most raw form. In reclaiming our true self and our emotions we can make more heart aligned choices and deal with life and its' challenges in a way that causes minimal harm whilst maintaining healthy boundaries.
The mystical doesn't appear to be meant to be communicated through words, only experienced, apart from perhaps in poetry and song, but falling into mystical states of being are common during breath journeys. Although, it may take a few journeys before we've shed the physical and emotional holdings needed in order for us to tap into the mystical aspect of conscious breathing, the altered state of consciousness we enter during a journey holds the possibility to see ourselves without any reflection other than the stillness of our own mind, unobstructed, free from programming and projection. Here we get to experience ourselves not a seperate from but as a part of the cosmic web. Here we have the potential to become intentional participants in life’s unfolding, balancing at the pivot of all paradoxes. After all true freedom resides in the tension between darkness and light, life and death.
Sophia was incredible. She is extremely knowledgeable about PTSD; she was able to explain how both PTSD and breathing techniques were affecting my body and she taught me specific breathing exercises I could do at home. Sophia listened to me and my story with great empathy and understanding so that I felt seen, heard, safe, supported and understood throughout the entire session which allowed me to relax.
Sophia is great at holding space and really did well to be 100% present, honouring and also calculating, yet flowing with my needs. Sophia holds space like a Goddess or Master would hold space for her disciples.
She embodies her role as a guide and facilitator and creates a space that feels warm, nurturing, nourishing and humbling... There is grace in how she carried not only herself but also me through my spiritual journey.
Thank you for a deeply nurturing, energising experience! I continued throughout my day with clarity and open-heartedness, and my focus has been much more present with my breath in the days following. Potent medicine! I've felt clear and peaceful since! Sophia held a very nurturing space for our breath work journey together. I felt safe and comfortable in her beautiful studio space, and immediately felt held by her guidance.
Her knowledge of the work and the science around it was thorough, and she clearly explained the process to me before the journey started, leaving no questions or spaces that didn’t feel supported in. Sophia’s guidance throughout the journey allowed me to feel held, as well as having enough space to feel that I was on my own personal journey.
Her prompts came through at the perfect moments to support the deepening, as well as the music playlist being just right! The container created allowed me to drop into a deep space very early on, allowing the kind of experience that I’ve never reached in my own personal breath work practices.
The journey took longer to reach or find within...it just started as I began going through shavasana... As I started going in I experienced being one with everything...feeling as I was floating around weightlessly in space amongst particles and being one and part of them.
At the same time I had an insight of starting/being from the nucleus/the centre and branching out from there...as opposed to feeling like I branch out or start on the periphery clutching at straws and trying to get back to the core the centre. Very inspiring work!
Sophia is a kind, gentle and intuitive facilitator. The space and music were on point and really carried me through the journey so well. Sophia had a good amount of guided words and teachings as well as leaving space for me to find my rhythm with some guided breaths I could hear from her to help me pull it back into pace.
Sophia has a great way of making people feel comfortable upon arrival and it makes it much easier to surrender into the journey ahead. I had no expectation of what was going to happen, once
Sophia showed how to breathe and I laid down...it took a few minutes but then I was transported to the portal of my inner channels...Going with it, it took me through a journey...multitudes of feelings and visions expressed through the breath and I felt my body relaxing and melting into the floor as the breath energy filled my whole being, allowing the heart to open and feel totally exposed to what was.
Being totally present. It was an amazing feeling and I felt very grateful that Sophia was offering this work as it’s important for us to learn to be present and feel fully, without the building up conditioning filtering our being and emotions. It is wonderful inner work and I left feeling totally inspired.
I felt a heart opening and merging with the brain in the stomach...a unification of head and heart which was very powerful as a body knowing...unexplainable but embodied. Through the open pure heart in the present we have access to deep knowing. Very grateful for this work uncovering our true inner Connection.
The first ever breathwork session I experienced was with Sophia and it was deeply cathartic.I felt very safe and held throughout the whole journey and because of that, I was able to completely open myself to whatever emotions or sensations that came through and was able to let them to flow.
Sophia explained the process very clearly and concisely, which left me feeling grounded and supported.
It was a powerful experience both emotionally and physically. The journey helped me to release the last pieces of a cycle that I have been working on to let go for many years.It was difficult in moments but so very beautiful throughout.
Sophia guided me through the whole journey in a present and warm way. Afterwards, she allowed space to talk if I wanted, but allowed me to just share what I felt to (didn’t prompt me too much). It was beautifully done.
She is a great facilitator. It was a beautiful journey of relaxation for me, alongside moments of releasing emotions and tension in the body. It was nourishing, and I came away impatient for my next breathwork session with Sofia.
