Sekhem Breathwork: Returning Power and Welcoming the Younger Self

Energy and Emotion in the Practice

The Sekhem experience can bring waves of sensation through the body, especially through the fingers. Some people notice a light touch or feather-like feeling, followed by a stronger movement of energy. These sensations may arise while the eyes are closed, even when there is no external sound or physical cause that can be identified.

The experience can also open an emotional passage. A participant remembered sitting beside her mother as her mother was dying. The memory brought emotion into the practice, and she was gently invited to return. The experience was deeply positive overall, while still carrying the tenderness of grief.

When Breath Opens a Spiritual Experience

One participant described a powerful spiritual experience. Before the practice, she had been noticing numbness, mainly on one side of her arm and also in her leg, and had wondered whether it was connected to a recently developed health condition. She was not usually a runner, yet she had felt drawn to run and had run the day before. She also found it difficult to focus on her breathing.

When she settled into the chair and began focusing, she felt strong pressure in her ankles and wrists, pain in her ear, and considerable discomfort. Staying focused on the light was difficult. She became tired, and her eyes watered.

At a certain point, the instruction was to go to spirit. She described spirit arriving as a white form, as she had experienced before. The figure extended a hand and said, “I’m here. You don’t have to come to me. I’ve been here the whole time.” She experienced this presence as having sarcastic, dry humor, expressed with loving kindness. That quality felt fitting because she also loved sarcasm and dry humor.

After the presence arrived, the numbness and tingling continued intensely for a while. Then the sensation spread through her whole body, reminding her of an earlier spiritual experience in which she had felt vibrating energy moving through her. She suddenly felt a strong need to urinate, even though she had just gone. In the earlier experience, she had understood a similar sensation as a release, as though energy were leaving her body.

As soon as spirit arrived, the discomfort and pain disappeared. She felt herself laughing at the figure’s sarcasm and recognized the way it had presented itself. She then remembered how closely the sensations in the chair resembled her earlier experience, and that recognition opened into something even more beautiful.

She described laughing and crying with spirit, along with a feeling of bliss and excitement. There was also a trace of sadness that she did not yet understand. She wondered whether it came from having believed that such an experience was not possible for her, or that it might not last. She now felt that it could remain available to her, and that breathing was one way to return to it.

Breathing helps bring about the experience, but it is not the only way to enter it. Meditation can also lead there. Sometimes closing the eyes is enough, and the experience is present.

The experience continued through images of the group moving above their chairs, flying in and out of one another, stopping to dance together, and then flying again. They returned to their seats, raised their hands, and moved with the music. Then they stood and danced, after which she entered a state of nothingness and no longer knew what had happened.

Entering such a state can be disorienting at first. Coming out of samadhi may bring the questions, “What am I? Who am I? Where am I?” There may be no immediate answer, and the unfamiliarity can feel frightening. With repeated experience, the transition can become more familiar and less frightening.

The Body May Release What It Holds

Breathwork can sometimes bring about remarkable physical changes. One long-standing hard lump near the upper body had never been mentioned to a doctor. During breathwork, it opened and released pus. The experience felt like a clearing, almost as though a surgical opening had taken place.

In another case, a woman with a severe ear infection and a problem affecting her ear began to bleed from the ear during the practice. The opening allowed what was understood as toxins to come out, and her hearing later returned. These experiences showed how powerful breathwork can be, while also pointing to the need to meet physical symptoms with care.