Radical Wholeness and Breath by Sarah Stewart Brown

Embodiment practices have great potential to enhance wellbeing and health, but Radical Wholeness goes beyond ‘mindful’ body-scans and suggestions that it would be good to listen to our bodies more. It helps us move out of our over-busy, anxious, organising, analysing heads and relate to the human and non-human world through the body. 

It turns out that the body is a great sensor and resonator. Disconnected from it as most of us are most of the time  we miss out on the experience of joyful aliveness,  flow states and rewarding relationships. We also miss a great deal of useful information that could help us skilfully navigate the world.

The capacity to be more aware of the body and to embrace its astonishing intelligence are needed to repattern the neural pathways which develop in very early life in response to the defensive strategies of our families and from deeply held cultural beliefs. These are the patterns that control our mindsets and our physiology, immunity, digestion, breathing and cardiovascular health.

How is your breathing right now? How often do notice your breath? If you do this from time to time, you may encounter some habits that could do with attention.

Breath is one of the 4 pillars of Philip Shepherd’s Radical Wholeness weekend workshops. Different ways to breath and their effects are explored. Shallow upper chest breathing makes you more anxious – try it and see. Belly breathing is advocated by many disciplines as a way to calm down, but this doesn’t work for everyone. Another way is the back breath. We tend to ignore our backs; they are out of sight and out of mind. And we don’t like going backward or being caught on the back foot. But the effect of letting the breath fall into the back – feeling the back of your chest moving against the back of a chair is deeply soothing. You may start to feel your spine moving a little with each breath and the effects broadcast up to you head and down to your sacrum. After a while the body calms down and comes out of the state of threat. It’s as though you can access the feeling that ‘someone has your back’ and all is going to be well.

Sarah Stewart Brown will be hosting a Radical Wholeness taster session on Saturday 24th January 2026, followed by a full weekend on 28th-29th March. Both can be booked here.