Music Breathing: A Brief Structured Approach to Regulation in Trauma and Stress
Music Breathing uses trauma-informed principles, moving at a pace your nervous system can actually tolerate. Across 6-8 sessions, we will work to gradually understand and support your nervous system, building a supportive tool for coping with stress and trauma symptoms.
Music Breathing doesn't ask you to talk about your trauma - we turn to the body first, and provide support through breathing and music. We use drawing to help process your experience, providing a visual map of your progress over time.
Who is Music Breathing for?
How it works
• We start in silence using simple breathing practices that help us find your baseline, together, with no music at all
• Gentle, steady music is introduced once your body is ready. The goal is to breathe with the music and not be overwhelmed by it.
• Over time (and only when you're ready) we work with music that carries more intensity, building your tolerance a step at a time
• Every session includes space to draw or reflect on what came up and what progress you might be making. No artistic or musical skill is needed.
What a session involves
• No musical skill or experience required
• You're always in control of pace, and we don't move to more challenging material until you're ready
• See a full session structure below for more detail
Investment
Session structure example
In the first session, I’ll get to know more about what brings you to Music Breathing, and what music you might like to work with. We will explore your breath together through practice and reflective drawing, giving us a starting point to work from.
You’ll learn about some breathing techniques to support your nervous system, and we will practice these together in the session. Reflective drawing will help to capture your experience, and we will discuss when you feel ready to introduce music to the experience. You’ll be encouraged to practice these techniques between sessions and keep a log of your experiences to support your progress.
In these sessions, we’ll explore using breathing techniques along with supportive music, using reflective drawing to support processing. For the best results, you will be asked to practice at home between sessions using suggested music.
With the skills and breath support you’ve developed in earlier sessions, we will gently expand the music we use, utlising the breath as support in more flexible and responsive ways. Reflective drawing will continue to support processing, and you can continue to practice at home between sessions using a wider repertoire of music. You will also learn how to select your own music as an ongoing resource.
Note: This structure is an example only – actual session progress may vary depending on your needs.
