Welcome to In Conversation with… where Melaina, our wellness and travel editor, connects with thought leaders, vision seekers and changemakers in the wellness industry to lean into all of the feelings, emotions and memories that come with understanding our core wants in needs through different healing modalities. From learning about Human Design to the benefits of cold plunges, Melaina meets with folks who are changing the landscape for the better. Read on, for here are there stories.
Meet Jenn Mansell, Certified Breathwork Faciliator, Mentor and Somatic Coach
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Insight Timer: Jennifer Mansell
Look at her website or IG for latest offerings and to take breathwork journey with me. She is now hosting in person breathwork journeys in both the east and west ends of Toronto once a month.
Tell us a little bit about yourself
What first drew you to breathwork? How did you find it, what was your first experience like, etc.
The first time I experienced breathwork I found myself in a room of 30 women all breathing their way through an hour long breathwork journey and I couldn’t believe what was unfolding before my eyes. It felt like they were all shedding layers of fear and shame and grief, things that had stacked up for years on end and were finally ready to be released. There were tears, there was laughter, there was so much beauty it blasted my heart open and I simply could never forget that moment. There was something so powerful about a group of humans breathing together in this way. I knew I needed to explore it.
Photo provided by Jenn Mansell
What exactly is conscious connected breathwork?
Conscious Connected Breathwork is a type of breathwork practice where you breathe in a continuous, circular rhythm without pausing between the inhale and exhale. The “connected” part refers to this unbroken flow of breath, while the “conscious” part means that you are deliberately focusing your awareness on your breathing.
This specific breathing technique has been used and studied over many years as being the primary therapeutic breathing practice used in such modalities as Holotropic Breathwork. It is done along to evocative music with gentle facilitation over the course of an hour usually while laying down. This can be a very deeply healing practice and is great for folks who have done therapy but want to explore work that is more body and feeling based aka somatic. This kind of breathwork will take you right into the heart of what’s really going on for you under the surface. It’s gentle, powerful and deeply transformative.
I’ve joined many monthly virtual breathwork sessions you offer and literally come out of a session as if I’m a new person. Share with us a little bit about what feelings, sensations, and emotions someone might feel during a session.
As we practice our conscious connected breathing our body opens. We go from a contracted and held energetic state to one of opening and expansion. As we breathe, the breath helps us to access the layers of stuck emotion or energy that have been keeping us in the contracted state. As we exhale and let go the body can release the built up tension and emotion that has been held. Sometimes people feel lots of energy in their body as this happens, waves of energy moving through, tingling, anger, shaking, tears, despair, heartache, joy, pleasure, peace, stillness.
I usually refer to my breathwork experiences as “journeys” because as we move through the layers we will experience and feel so many things, all the way into the spaciousness and stillness that we find at the end of it all, which is always deeply relieving and relaxing. Hence you say you feel like a new person at the end. It’s because you are! You have changed your energetic signature. You have shifted the pattern of holding in your body. You have literally opened yourself to experience more love and more life. Who wouldn’t want more of that?
Photo provided by Jenn Mansell
You’re also a DJ, love this. You truly live a somatic based life. In your own words, how does movement and breathwork root us into presence?
Our bodies are always in the present moment. When we move and breathe we call our minds attention and awareness to the body and ultimately into the present moment. Over the years deepening my own personal movement and breathwork practices have cultivated such a deep embodied experience of life for me that each moment feels very potent and rich. I wish more people had the experience of being fully present in their body instead of lost in their head. It’s one of the greatest gifts of being human.
When was the last time you danced? Dancing and music are my life’s greatest joys. There is nothing that can remind you of the gift of being alive more than getting lost in a beautiful dance.
