Giten Tonkov – Release Trauma From the Body With BioDynamic Breathwork

In this opening module, you’ll become fully grounded in the foundations of BioDynamic Breathwork.

You’ll walk through the ways trauma turns into tension and how it’s stored in the body as it accumulates over the years.

You’ll explore the profound physical impacts of trauma — and the sensations the body produces when that trauma is released.

Rather than going into deep, connected breathing practices as in other approaches, you’ll move through BioDynamic Breathwork in intervals using the principle of titration — releasing tension in small doses so you don’t become overstimulated.

You’ll learn how to become more aware of your body’s sensations — and develop an even more intimate interaction with sensory messages throughout your body — as you take the first steps toward releasing your trauma.

As Giten shares these foundations, you’ll discover:

• The 6 elements of BioDynamic Breathwork — breath, movement, sound, touch, emotions, and meditation
• The 7 belts of tension — ocular, oral, cervical, thoracic, diaphragmatic, abdominal, and pelvic — and how they’re different from the chakras
• The 3 different speeds of breathing — and how the speed and pattern of breath activates your sympathetic or parasympathetic nervous system response
• The true meaning of resources — supports, feelings, sensations, areas of the body, memories, people, physical objects, or thoughts — that calm you while enhancing feelings of safety
• How to utilize your body’s natural rhythm of moving between the contraction of tension and the expansion of relaxation in a process called pendulation
• A 45-minute sitting breathwork exercise to help you become familiar with the practice and bring awareness to parts of your body that need attention

In this second module, you’ll explore the ocular belt, which includes the eyes, forehead, and top of the head.

As you’ll discover, it’s also home to the emotions of suspicion, amusement, contempt, detachment, guarding, fighting, anger, and grief.

The tension in the ocular belt is constantly asking the question, “Where is the next danger coming from?” Your eyes gather visual information, assess the safety or threats in your environment — then send nerve impulses to the occipital area for processing….

In this module, you’ll discover:

• How continual fear and stress create headaches, tightness (in the forehead, cheeks, temples, and more), tension around the ears, tightness in the muscles around the eyeballs and pupils — and even hair loss
• Why extreme cases of fight-or-flight activation — that arise from war environments or unsafe home environments, for example — can cause tunnel vision — where people block out what they’re seeing
• How your ocular belt is affected by frustration — for example, why you might sometimes have difficulty concentrating when you’re stressed and frustrated, despite the high level of energy pouring into your overactive mind
• The powerful changes that come from releasing tension from the ocular belt, including better hearing, sharper vision, and more
• A 45-minute practice of breathwork, self-bodywork, and movement focused on releasing tension around the ocular belt — and expanding your peripheral vision

In this module, you’ll be introduced to two pivotal belts that often collaborate with each other…

You’ll explore the oral belt, which includes the mouth, chin, nose, jaw, and ears. Emotions like contempt, disgust, longing, desire, fear, pain, anger, connection, self-awareness, and presence reside in this belt…

The cervical belt, meanwhile, is home to the deep neck muscles and tongue. Emotions like self-pity, helplessness, longing, hurt, fear, pain, rage, freedom, creativity, and self-expression are found in the cervical belt.

The oral and cervical belts work intimately together. While the oral belt is home to your mouth, the cervical belt houses your tongue, and ultimately, your voice.

You’ll discover how both belts are involved when you hold back the words you really want to say — for instance, you might wake up with a sore throat the morning after repressing your true opinion at work…

Or you might experience chronic tension in the throat and neck, stiffness in the trachea and vocal cords, and a restriction of breath.

Neck tension can also cause you to sink your neck down into your shoulders, physically pulling yourself into your “shell” like a turtle. This type of constriction involves much more than keeping your physical mouth shut — it impacts your creativity and true expression of your inner self.

In this module, you’ll:

• Discover the meditation space within you that’s been covered up by trauma — and explore how to reveal it
• Experience firsthand how, when you work with one part of the body, the rest responds — you’ll be guided to address your jaw and neck tension, so your pelvis responds
• Discover the different ways oral and cervical belt tensions show up in your life — for instance,Type A people often have a strong lower jaw that projects forward, and they might struggle to balance confidence with a fear of being reprimanded
• Explore why even though you might feel strong anger, you sometimes can’t open your mouth to speak about it
• Create what Giten calls a window of tolerance — and discover how to make it larger so you’ll become more resilient, even in the face of your triggers
• Work more deeply with the felt sense — and understand that if something comes, it’s just a body sensation… and if it’s too much, you can shift yourself to a place of safety
• Experience a 45-minute practice of breathwork, self-bodywork, movement, and vocal sounding to ease tension in your jaw and the front and back of your neck and throat

In this module, you’ll explore the thoracic belt, which includes the heart, shoulders and surrounding muscles, chest, arms, hands, lungs, and the muscles between your ribs.

This belt houses deep heart feelings of grief, mourning, longing, love, fear, rage, anger, and joy.

The thoracic belt is most impacted by the childhood impulse to reach out for pleasure. Chronic tension can take hold when your developmental needs aren’t met, and you’re instead exposed to deprivation or punishment.

For adults, traumatic heartbreak also can cause knots in the thoracic belt. If you don’t take steps to consciously release this tension, years may pass before you recover.

In this module, you’ll explore:

• How tension around your shoulder joints can interrupt the flow of the heart — and the emotional significance of the heart meridian that travels from the armpit, down the inside of the arm to the pinkie
• How the thoracic belt of tension often shows up as shoulder stiffness and a collapsed chest, which then affects the lungs
• The ways your thoracic belt is involved every time your nervous system instantly reacts in the face of a threat
• How thoracic tension or relaxation show up in different cultures — and how these cultural norms are passed from generation to generation
• How full-body hugging supports oxytocin production and cardiovascular health — if it’s welcome
• The ways the energetic field of your heart extends outside of your body the moment you receive comforting, healing touch
• A 45-minute practice of breathwork, movement, and self-bodywork to soften the protective armor around your chest area, shoulders, and arms — and reestablish the energetic flow to better relate to yourself and the world around you

In this module, you’ll explore the diaphragmatic and abdominal belts.

The diaphragmatic belt — located in the diaphragm, stomach, rib cage, and all supporting structures — involves pain and pleasure. When trauma is held here, it can block the sensing sexual feelings, rage, hate, terror, strength, and empowerment.

The diaphragm is intimately involved in your ability to breathe deeply, and any stuck emotions affect the volume of your breath.

In the same way, your breathing affects how you activate and use your diaphragm. The inability to express yourself emotionally affects your ability to flex the rib cage and expand the lungs.

In other words, when you stop breathing, then you stop feeling.

You’ll also explore the abdominal belt, home to both the abdominal and lower back muscles. This belt is linked to emotions including pain, fear, pleasure, trust, and all feelings related to nourishment.

The abdominal belt is also known as the body’s relaxation center….

In this module, you’ll explore:

• How the volume of breath you inhale directly impacts the expansion of the lungs, your ability to feel emotionally, and digestion
• How, when you’re breathing effectively and your diaphragm moves freely, it activates the abdominal organs, enhancing digestion, lung and heart movements, overall energy, and long-term wellbeing
• The scientific roots of the popular phrase “gut reaction”
• How constriction in the abdominal region closes off your internal spaces and your breath
• Why extreme stress causes you to tighten your belly, which then constricts the diaphragm — and the many ways this kind of constriction is connected to emotional trauma, sexual abuse, anger… and can even result in Irritable Bowel Syndrome and related issues
• How to work with your abdominal region to create more space for your diaphragm — and expand down into the abdominal cavity to release tension
• A 45-minute practice of breathwork, self-bodywork, and movement to expand the volume of breath and release ribcage restriction

In this pivotal module, Giten will walk you through the pelvic belt, where almost all core pelvic muscles are located, including the genitals, urinary tract, buttocks, and also the leg muscles.

The pelvic belt is linked to sexual feelings and arousal, a sense of power, and the emotions of anger, rage, anxiety, terror, panic, and pleasure.

The pelvis houses the primary core muscles, including the psoas (the large muscles that run from the lumbar spine through the groin on either side into the hips). This area envelops and supports the bladder and sex organs.

Giten will explain how the pelvic belt is crucial in fight-or-flight, and how it’s a primary location for tension. Trauma responses in this belt can cause the core to become weak and overextended…

In this module, you’ll learn:

• How trauma from fight-or-flight-related tension, sexual abuse, rape, and misuse of sexuality all take hold in the pelvic belt
• Why, when people are contracted or conflicted about sexuality, the resulting tension has been linked to sexually-related disease
• The ways the intimate connection between sexuality and quality of life, pelvic discomfort, contraction, and disease can also block the channeling of sexuality to the heart
• How the moment you relax into sexual energy and heal traumas throughout the body, you can also gain newfound access to your creativity
• The ways your legs, also part of the pelvic belt, keep you connected to the Earth — but when you’re grappling with sexual and/or creative repression, you can still feel disconnected
• How your connection to the Earth (your “roots”) can be cut when you forget to go barefoot and maintain direct contact with the planet
• A 45-minute practice featuring breathwork and movement focused on your pelvic region — including the craniosacral connection (jaw, occiput, and pelvis) — and utilizing all the previously addressed belts of tension