2024 Reflection and Looking towards 2025
A big shift for breathwork in the uk
What an honour it was to welcome our community back together again with our collective prayer for 2024: Together We Can.
This year we expanded the festival by an extra day to accommodate and allow more spaciousness in our offerings, a more integrated experience for our breathers and create multiple opportunities for practitioners to share their life-changing work. The impact of this allowed participants to take their time, choose their journeys, meet the facilitators and ask questions. We created spaces for integration, workshops that could support the unfoldings of a breathwork session and really glean the insights gained from such an immersive experience.
This year we welcomed over 150 participants and over 25 different practitioners from all over the UK, welcoming folks from England, Scotland, Wales and the Republic of Ireland. The Breathe Festival is fast becoming what it has always intended to be: a annual gathering for breathwork of all modalities in the UK.
As part of this reflection, we have a few thank you’s to make for this festival to come together:
Firstly, a huge thank you to the commitment and professionalism of all the practitioners that came and offered their work. We can only do this work because you do yours. Thank you so much for continuously sharing your wisdom, skills and knowledge with us. Thank you for your generosity to share it and offer people opportunities to dive deeper into themselves, into their consciousness and into the healing.
Secondly, thank you to the Breathe Team - yet again another year of meeting, gathering, conversing to bring this together. This festival is a passion project, and the team are all volunteers, and it is such a gift to come together for the love of breath. Every member on this team has their deep, unique skills that can allow us to pull something like this off. Thank you to everyone on the team! Also, a huge thank you to the volunteers on-site to help with venue management and smooth running - your help on-site give such an immense morale support for practitioners in each venue. It can be daunting to present to a group, and your presence was definitely felt and appreciated.
And finally, to you all. Breathers, participants, breathe festival-goers. We cannot do this without you. Thank you for coming to this event each year, thank you for sharing it with your colleagues and loved ones. Thank you for breathing and attending to whats present for you. It takes a deep sense of courage to attend something like this, and we acknowledge that. We see you, we thank you, we love you.
A few highlights
Though it was chillier than most years, there were some key highlights: welcoming new members to the festival, seeing good friends again, mornings in the sacred circle, our opening circle and our animal families, beautiful recipes form the kitchen, the sauna and hot tubs, our dance nights with DJ Alex and not forgetting our tent waterfall mishap during Steph’s session. All wonderful moments and I am sure you have more to add here.
A Big Shift for Breathwork
This year at The Breathe Festival, we launched UKBA: UK Breathwork Association. This is a formal association for professional breathworkers practicing in the UK. This association was formed in response to the needs and desires from last years collective gathering. It was expressed that professionals in the field were seeking support in their careers and the industry requires ethical and practical solidity in the growth of the profession. We are excited to share that this association is in service tot his community, the growth of breathwork in the UK and the evolution of its professional standing as a therapeutic healing modality and method.
This was also deeply supported by a lively conversation about breathwork and the NHS held by Denise Gomez and Nic Stoke. This conversation allowed us to explore how breathwork can support the health and wellbeing of many people when we come together. This was a deeply nourishing and thought provoking conversation and we are so grateful that we were able to platform it.
Moving Forward
Looking toward 2025, some other big shifts are happening at Breathe. We will be moving venue…
We are consciously entering a new relational dynamic with a new venue: Osho Leela in Gillingham, Dorset. We are yet to set the exact parameters but we are all very excited for how this new venture may give rise to other shifts for the festival. We are so looking forward to putting this all together again, and we are so grateful to you for your trust. Until next year!
Feedback
As we debrief from this year and plan the next, it would be invaluable to receive how it landed for you and whether you have insights that we dont on how we can improve it. Please send your feedback here.
Thank you and until next time, take care.
With Love,
The Breathe Team
