Guides
Meditation & Breathwork in Therapy
Short, gentle practices for settling your body and turning inward—always optional, easy to adjust, and never something you can get wrong.
Approaches I draw on
On my approach page, I describe meditation and breathwork as “often utilized to connect you with your mind’s eye and core self.” That can sound grander than it is in practice. Usually it means a few minutes of slowing down together, so you can feel what’s happening inside you clearly enough to work with it.
I believe healing comes from building a trusting relationship between mind and body, and these practices are one way to begin. They’re never the whole of therapy and never compulsory, and in session, breathwork can be as simple as noticing, slowing and lengthening the breath.
What it actually looks like
Because we meet by video, you’ll be doing this wherever you are—your desk chair, the couch, the edge of your bed with the door closed. It might take a couple of minutes at the start of a session, or come up in the middle when something stirs. A practice might go something like this:
- Settling in: feeling your feet on the floor and the weight of your body in the chair
- Noticing your breath as it is, without trying to change it yet
- Letting each exhale run a little longer than the inhale, a few times, if that feels okay
- Turning inward, toward a feeling, an image, or a part of you that’s asking to be noticed
- Coming back: opening your eyes if they were closed, and talking about what you noticed
You’re in charge of every part of it
Nothing here is mandatory. You can keep your eyes open, let your gaze rest on the floor in front of you, shorten the practice, change it, or stop halfway through, and none of that counts as doing it wrong. There’s no performance involved, and nobody’s grading your breathing.
Tuning into the breath doesn’t settle everyone. For some, it does the opposite—it sharpens anxiety instead of easing it. If that’s true for you, we’ll use a different anchor: the sounds around you, your hands resting in your lap, or something you can see in the room.
I meditate myself, imperfectly, and I wouldn’t ask you to sit with anything I’m not willing to sit with myself. Mine wanders too, and yours is allowed to.
Breath and the nervous system
Breathwork is part of how I approach emotional regulation and nervous system work. Breathing happens on its own, and you can also change it on purpose—which makes it a useful bridge between what you’re feeling and what you can do about it. Letting the exhale lengthen can feel settling, and noticing your feet on the floor can bring you back into the room when your thoughts are racing ahead.
I wrote about the body side of anxiety in why you might feel anxious for no reason, and these are the same simple tools. Practicing them together in session means they’re more familiar when you need them on your own, whether anxiety shows up at your desk or at three in the morning.
Meeting your parts and your core Self
Meditation is also a doorway into Internal Family Systems work. Once your system has settled a little, it gets easier to turn inward and notice what’s there: a tightness that seems to be guarding something, an image, a younger version of you, a voice with strong opinions. In everyday language, your mind’s eye is your capacity to picture things inwardly, and these practices give it a little room to work.
The aim is to connect with your core Self, the grounded part of you that can stay curious about your other parts instead of being overwhelmed by them. A few slow breaths won’t get you there on command, and that isn’t the point. They can make enough space for that steadier part of you to show up, even briefly, and for us to work from there.
If you’d like to try this with someone guiding you, the contact form is the place to start. Send a brief note, and we’ll arrange a free 15-minute video call where you can ask what a practice might look like for you.
A few common questions
Do I need any meditation experience?
None at all. You don’t need an app, a cushion, or a regular practice, and there’s nothing to get right. If you’ve tried meditating before and it didn’t go the way you hoped, you’re just as welcome.
Do I have to close my eyes?
No. Keeping them open is completely fine, especially when a practice is new or when closing them doesn’t feel comfortable. You can soften your focus and look somewhere neutral, and you can change your mind halfway through.
Will we do this every session?
Not necessarily. Some sessions might open with a short practice, others might use one in the middle when something stirs, and some won’t include one at all. It depends on what you bring and what you want, and it’s something we decide together as the work changes.