Lauren’s story

This is Lauren’s experience of the journey of yoga and in particular her understanding and connection to breathwork.

Awareness is an interesting concept; as we all have moments of awareness every moment of our lives. Where we are suddenly awake to ourselves and the world around us.

Sometimes life jolts us into an awakening, and we never go back to sleep. Sometimes awareness is like a dimmer switch which gradually turns on.

I am a yoga teacher at Breathe and Recover, and I have been “doing” yoga a long time; almost 20 Years. I completed a beginners teacher training and an advanced teacher training under the wisdom of all round Yogi genius Steve Harrison at the yoga Sanctuary, UK.

Steve pulled together a lot of the ancient systems of yoga to create a method- a way which meets the world as it is right now- the Living Yoga Method.

Many believe (in the West) yoga is only movement. Stretching and contorting. Yet from its origins, Yyoga means to join, to connect, and to unify with every aspect of life as we know it, and in ways that we don’t even know yet.

I had no idea I was missing something until I found something. Like falling in love, you suddenly become aware there is more. There is more to experience in ourselves and each other than the way we have been experiencing it. This is yoga.

From my teacher trainings, I came away with a huge amount of energy and sense of purpose. I took this energy and focused it on putting roots into my work. I wanted to give and learn how to receive.

Through love, I found my work with a UK military veteran’s charity, and began sharing the practices of Breathwork and Yoga to people who really wanted to understand what was happening inside of them. Yoga does this. It gives you a map to find your way back to yourself. Your true self.

Some people had limbs, some didn’t. Some had broken bodies, hearts, and minds, but none were ever truly lost. They just needed to remember. Yoga does this, it helps all of us to remember.

I began collaborating with people. People working in healthcare, people in academia, people who were living with illness, injury, in pain, grief stricken, those who were athletic and those who were simply curious-they all held much wisdom.

The commonality in all of us is that we are all breathing, we are all in bodies and we all have a Mind. Health is our true currency and in fact the catalyst (whether it’s mental health, physical health, the seeking to perform better or the traumatic experience) will often become the gateway to access where we really want to go in life.

Yoga gives health and power back to the person practicing it, and this health is built through practice.

Breathe and Recover introduced us to the ability we all have to literally hack our autonomic systems. We can train our systems to be resilient against chronic stress, pain and anxiety using techniques such as breathing exercises. That has such a far-reaching impact

Whilst on this journey, my fellow teachers at Breathe and Recover, Francesca (nurse) and Iain (paramedic) were also on their own yoga journeys and were coming out cleaner and clearer about their own vision for themselves. Francesca began working at a Spinal Rehabilitation Unit and introducing Yoga and Breathwork; and Iain became a Paramedic and finished his own teacher training.

The combination of energy, friendship, and the Living Yoga Method created a desire to share the incredible practices we had all been passed. Breathe and Recover was birthed. Initially it was to be a link between physical and mental health and in particular working with those who had experienced trauma, yet this has evolved further to focus on Yoga Health and Science.
It is a space where anyone can access and practice the power of Breath, Yoga and Health and take their power back into their own hands.

Health is created as it is practiced.

Feedback from students

“The yoga sessions were one of the few times in the week when I was able to be myself… not being prodded and examined”

“I don’t know how the breathing works, but it just works”