Is there a prescribed ‘order’ of experience?

Of course, people come to workshops with certain expectations, or even rigid ideas about what they must experience or what they will experience, as if their therapist had given them instructions. (One participant even arrived with a map of his body, drawn by his therapist, and used it to show me where his "junk" was.) But in holotropic breathwork there is no prescribed sequence of experiences, and it is impossible to predict what will emerge. Facilitators emphasize again and again: let go of your expectations and your plan, open yourself to deeper layers of yourself, and be prepared to be surprised. The inner "healing radar" that somehow switches on in holotropic states of consciousness will select exactly the question you will explore, the healing you will experience, and the lesson you will learn that is most needed in your life right now.

There is also a widespread misconception that participants must first resolve personal traumas, then birth trauma, and only then, if they are lucky, might they have a transpersonal experience. This is an understandable misreading of Grof's work, since he did propose this as a general sequence of discovery in the holotropic process. But in an individual case, from session to session, it does not unfold this way. We have seen many people have very powerful spiritual experiences in their very first session of holotropic breathwork: these can give them encouragement to continue, an overview of their process, or the tools they need. We have seen many people whose first experiences were entirely transpersonal, which can last for several sessions, until they realize that the next frontier of their growth lies in their personal life or personal history. Interestingly, many sessions open numerous levels of the psyche at once, in a fascinating, holographic way. As with dreams, each session may contain a prelude or a hint of what is to come. I remember a participant, a committed vegetarian, who during a holotropic session briefly saw an image of a Big Mac, which amused him greatly. In the next session, a few days later, he had a full transpersonal experience in which he was a lion, hungrily devouring the raw flesh of an animal it had just killed.

Experience confirms again and again that holotropic breathwork simply calls forth exactly the experience we need at that moment, from whatever level of consciousness. Whether it is a "therapeutic" or a "spiritual" experience is irrelevant. It is also irrelevant whether it seems to originate in the past. Whether it is literal or metaphorical does not seem particularly important either. What matters most is simply that we have this experience, on that day. The session offers us a glimpse into the archetypal structure of the present moment and, very effectively, carries us to the next stage of our development.