Breathing Freely: The Hidden Key To Vibrant Coaching
Author: Gregory Newman, M.S.

Some experts estimate that we take more than 20,000 breaths each day. Based on that figure, we breathe in and out about 833 times per hour and 13 times a minute. In every coaching session, you are either breathing in, breathing out or holding your breath. So is your client.

How you and your client are breathing impacts every moment of your coaching relationship and lives. If you are each breathing shallowly or holding your breath, energy can get stuck in and outside of your sessions together. If you are each breathing freely, energy and creativity can flow through you both.

Many of us don’t think much about our breathing, especially when we are coaching. After reading this article you will. You’ll be more conscious of your breathing--and how you can use your breath to facilitate change in yourself and your clients.

Why Your Awareness Of Breathing Is Vital

As coaches, we are continually moving beyond our comfort zone in our own lives and assisting our clients to do the same. The primary feeling that usually emerges when human beings move into new experiences is fear. If we think that our present identity or survival is at stake, we instinctively tighten our stomach muscles, which results in shorter, shallower breathing into the chest--or in stopping the breath completely. This is often called the “fight-or-flight” breathing pattern.

Contrast this pattern with diaphragmatic breathing, which occurs when we are not in the grip of fear. When we are relaxed, our stomach muscles are loose, which allows the abdomen to swell with the in-breath and fall with the out-breath as the diaphragm goes through its full range of motion. This is often called “belly-breathing.”

Being aware of how you and your clients are breathing puts you in a position to make powerful interventions that can lead to inspiring results for you both.

How To Make The Shift--And Breathe Freely

The key to breathing freely is to notice when you are in a “fight-or-flight” breathing pattern--and then shift into “belly-breathing.” In other words, when you become aware that you’re breathing shallowly or holding your breath, relax your stomach muscles and take slower, deeper, more relaxed breaths into your belly. The reward is an almost immediate, felt-sense of overall well-being.

Once you’re able to make this shift, you can also assist clients in doing so. For example, a client will often go into “fight-or-flight” breathing when you ask a powerful question like “What do you really want?” Immediately they may hold their breath. Here, it can be extremely helpful to ask, “What’s happening with your breathing right now?” Or to state the obvious--”It sounds like your breath just stopped.”

These interventions invite the client to bring their awareness to their breath and body, a shift which is inherently grounding and will often organically restart their breathing again. You can then invite them to soften their stomach muscles and take slow, relaxed breaths into their belly as they wonder about the question.

Breathe With Your Feelings--And Free Your Creative Energy

We can also learn to breathe with all our feelings and experiences--and to invite clients to do the same. One invitation I make is “let yourself breathe with that.” This is especially helpful when a client is feeling angry, afraid or sad. Here’s why: one of the things that many of us learned to do as children was to hold our breath as a way of cutting off the flow of feelings and sensations in our bodies. As adults, we’re still doing it.

Clients are often amazed to discover that by breathing with a feeling like fear, it passes through more quickly and can even turn into excitement. But there’s an even bigger payoff that they soon discover: all the energy it was taking to resist their feelings--by breathing shallowly or holding their breath--gets freed up for creative action when they breathe. For most people, this is a lot of new energy to play with.

Evolving Your Body--With Your Breath

When you or I are breathing with the very feelings and experiences that we usually hold our breath against, something else is also occurring. We are using the newer part of our brains--the cerebral cortex--to soften the “fight-or-flight” response which is coming from the deepest part of our primitive brain. We are gently rewiring ourselves to respond differently in our bodies and the world. Over time, we find ourselves breathing freely, even when we’re under stress and moving into new, uncharted creative territory in our lives.

Several years ago I discovered a surprising pattern in myself--whenever I was feeling excited and happy, I held my breath. Now when I’m feeling good, I remember to breathe and let my good feelings expand. Sometimes I think that we have a society-wide agreement to control the flow of good feelings in our bodies--by limiting our breathing. I wonder: what would our world be like if we were letting ourselves breathe freely and feel good all the time?

Your Clients Sense And Respond To Your Breathing

Sometimes my clients will ask me if I’m holding my breath. Often, I am. They can sense on some level when I’m not participating with my breathing. I think that all clients--whether they’re aware of it or not--can sense if a coach is limiting his or her breathing. I’ve also found that two people will often match each other’s pattern of breathing. For example, if one person is holding their breath or breathing freely, the other person will too.

How you’re breathing can also dramatically affect your state of consciousness. Check this out for yourself. Hold your breath for a few moments and notice how this impacts your experience of yourself and the world. Now relax your stomach muscles and take a few relaxed breaths into your belly. How do you feel now? How does the world look to you when you’re breathing freely? If you had to choose, which state of consciousness would you rather live in?

Breathing Opens Space For Natural Change

Ideally, we want to enjoy a continuous flow of “belly- breathing” as we coach a client. In reality though, it’s an on-going process of noticing when you’re breathing shallowly into your chest (or holding your breath) and then shifting back into “belly-breathing” again. And inviting your client to make this shift when you notice their breath has moved into their chest or is being held.

With a little practice, both you and your clients will be breathing more fully and freely. Ease and flow will begin to permeate your sessions and lives. Troublesome feelings will pass through more quickly and pleasurable feelings will expand. Stuck places will disappear--in your body and life--and new creative solutions and action steps will come into being. As we and our clients breathe freely during a session, we are naturally creating more and more space for each of us to unfold.








--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Since 1995, Gregory Newman, M.S. (www.bodycenteredcoach.com) has coached individuals and couples in body-centered skills that have made it easier for their lives, relationships and careers to blossom. He coaches over-the-phone and in-person and can be reached at 608-274-6962 or greg@bodycenteredcoach.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------