IFH Australia Module / The Expanded Self: Exploring Grief, Death, and the Afterlife

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Please read about new venue in Tasmania

Open to anyone interested. No previous experience with Holotropic Breathwork® is necessary.

As we experience and practice Holotropic Breathwork®, the theme of death emerges both in theory and as an intrinsic part of our inner journeys. Over the years, GTT has held Holotropic Breathwork® retreats on Death and Dying,* The Books of the Dead,* The Art of Living and Dying,** and more. This module continues in that tradition.

While Western society tends to ignore or turn away from anything related to the idea of dying, those of us drawn to the holotropic are often fascinated by the experience and meaning of death, rebirth, and the continuity of consciousness. From our journeys in the holotropic state, as well as in learning to be present for others, we also become natural “sitters” for our loved ones in their dying process.

This retreat is an opportunity to explore and share our experiences in and around death, dying, rebirth, grief, and the afterlife, as they occur in HB sessions and in our lives. Primarily experiential, it will include a range of topics, such as:

– how do we best face our own death; living before dying
– dealing with loss; the mystery of the grieving process
– being present for and sitting with others as they die
– Near Death Experiences (NDEs); Life After Life; Life Between Lives
– evidence for the existence of the afterlife; the primacy of consciousness

Coming together with our stories, our fears, our fascination, our curiosity, and, of course, in our HB sessions as breathers and sitters, this retreat allows us to delve into one of the most significant aspects of the holotropic perspective and experience.

Each participant will have two sessions of HB as an experiencer, or “breather,” and two sessions as a partner, or “sitter”. Besides the breathwork sessions and the topics covered, there will be time for art, music, SoulCollage®, media, and integration during the module.

In addition to Holotropic Breathwork® breathing and sitting, topics explored in GTT modules are especially relevant for anyone working with others in expanded states of any sort for transformation and personal healing.

*modules with Stan Grof
**module with Jean Farrell

IFH Australia Module / Music and Transcendence

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Please read about new venue in Tasmania

This module is an exciting and transformative journey through the world of music and how it is used for work in expanded states of consciousness. Sound and rhythm have always been vital creative and spiritual tools for transformation. Music has even been called the language of the soul. This is a special opportunity to learn first-hand the music structure that defines Holotropic Breathwork® in such a special way.

In addition, we’ll also explore other effective strategies that help make the Holotropic perspective an essential tool for everyday living.

This module includes: 1) Holotropic music: its history, theory and practice, detailed discussion of the three-part structure of a Holotropic Breathwork® music set; with demonstrations of specific pieces for each section; 2) Holotropic group work: its history, theory and practice, discussion of common group experiences and challenging situations; 3) COEX systems: how we work with multi-level patterns; 4) demonstration of relaxation; 5) facilitator self -care.

The six-day module format is a wonderful opportunity to deepen your process of self-exploration, and to directly experience the healing potential of non-ordinary states using Holotropic Breathwork®. You will meet like-minded people from around the world, and explore together in a safe and supportive environment. You will also learn tools and techniques for living a more creative and fulfilling life, and will have extensive personal contact with some of the best Holotropic facilitators in the country. All modules include four Holotropic Breathwork® sessions, two as a ‘breather’ and two as a ‘sitter’, along with valuable time for group sharing.

In addition to experiencing Holotropic Breathwork®, topics explored in this module is especially relevant for anyone working with others in non-ordinary states of any sort for transformation and personal healing.

This module is an open event suitable for participants in the training program as well as  for those interested in personal transformation.

IFH/GTT Canada module – Integrating Expanded States of Consciousness: A Holotropic Approach

Early rate ends July 28
Discount for certified facilitators
Open to anyone interested. Previous experience with Holotropic Breathwork® is not necessary.

Each participant will have two sessions of Holotropic Breathwork® as an experiencer, or “breather,” and two sessions as a partner, or “sitter,” as well as valuable time for group sharing and integration. In addition to the breathwork sessions and the topic explored in the module, the program may include art, music, movement, and film.

Integration is an essential component of Holotropic Breathwork® practice and of any meaningful work with expanded states of consciousness. We are often reminded that preparation, the experience itself, and integration are all necessary elements of a complete transformational process.

Experiences in expanded states can touch every dimension of our lives — physical, emotional, psychological, relational, environmental, and spiritual. Their meaning and significance may continue to unfold long after the experience itself has ended. Integration is not simply a matter of understanding an experience intellectually, but of allowing it to continue revealing itself and informing our lives over time.

Giving attention to integration allows us to digest, embody, and apply the insights, challenges, and gifts of these experiences in our daily lives. Whether the experience arises through Holotropic Breathwork®, psychedelic work, meditation practice, spiritual emergence, or other expanded states of consciousness, integration helps bridge the extraordinary and the ordinary, bringing the wisdom of these experiences into relationship, work, creativity, community, and everyday life.

In this module we will explore the principles and practices that support healthy integration, drawing on the Holotropic perspective developed through decades of work with non-ordinary states of consciousness. Together we will create a safe, supportive, contemplative, and playful environment that encourages spaciousness for reflecting on, being with, and processing what unfolds before, during, and after Holotropic sessions.

The retreat will be highly experiential and will offer practical tools and creative approaches to support the integration of transformational experiences, both for one’s own journey and in work with others. Integration is not only a personal practice but also a fundamental facilitation skill for those supporting individuals and groups in expanded states of consciousness.

This module will be valuable for facilitators, practitioners, helping professionals, trainees, and anyone interested in deepening their understanding of how transformational experiences can be meaningfully integrated into everyday life.

IFH Holotropic Training Germany / The Holotropic Paradigm

Additional info, registration link, and cost

This module is offered in cooperation with the Institute for Holotropics / GTT USA and Holotropic Poland, and is recognized as part of the Holotropic Breathwork® Training Program.

This dynamic six-day module offers an immersive exploration of the principles, philosophy, and transformative potential of Holotropic Breathwork® and non-ordinary states of consciousness within the framework of Transpersonal Psychology.

This module is part of the Holotropic Breathwork Training Program and counts toward certification as a Holotropic Breathwork facilitator.

This module is open to everyone. You do not need to be enrolled in the training program or intend to become a facilitator in order to participate. It can be taken as part of the Holotropic Breathwork® Training Program, or simply as a deep personal and educational exploration of the Holotropic approach.

For those pursuing certification as Holotropic Breathwork® facilitators, this module is one of the essential core modules of the training program. It is equally valuable for professionals in the fields of psychology, psychotherapy, personal development, bodywork, healing, and consciousness exploration who wish to deepen their understanding of the psyche and its innate capacity for transformation.

Drawing on the pioneering work of Stanislav Grof and decades of experiential research, this module offers both theoretical foundations and direct personal experience of the Holotropic approach.

What we will explore:

  1. The Origins of Holotropic Breathwork®
    Discover how Holotropic Breathwork® emerged within the field of Transpersonal Psychology, integrating ancient wisdom, modern therapeutic insights, consciousness research, and experiential approaches to healing and self-exploration.
  2. Holotropic Principles and Strategies
    Learn the core principles that guide the work: trust in the inner healing intelligence, respect for each individual’s unique process, a non-directive approach, and the facilitator’s art of “doing not doing.”
  3. Cartography of the Psyche
    Explore Stanislav Grof’s expanded map of the psyche, including the biographical, perinatal, and transpersonal dimensions of human experience. This cartography offers a powerful framework for understanding your own inner experiences and for supporting others in non-ordinary states of consciousness.
  4. Perinatal Matrices
    Grof’s Basic Perinatal Matrices reveal how birth-related experiences may imprint deep emotional, psychological, and spiritual patterns. Exploring these layers within Holotropic experiences can offer profound insight into themes of transformation, death, rebirth, struggle, surrender, and renewal.
  5. COEX Systems – Systems of Condensed Experience
    COEX systems are emotionally connected clusters of memories and experiences that shape our inner world, relationships, and patterns of perception. Exploring individual COEX systems can open pathways to deep healing, integration, and personal growth.

Immersive Practice – Theoretical learning is complemented by direct experiential practice. During the module, participants will take part in four Holotropic Breathwork® sessions: two as a breather and two as a sitter.

The module also includes lectures, group sharing, creative expression, integration time, and opportunities for reflection and dialogue. Through this combination of theory, practice, and community, participants gain both personal insight and a deeper professional understanding of how to safely navigate and support non-ordinary states of consciousness.

This module is a profound journey toward self-awareness, transformation, and a deeper understanding of the essence of the Holotropic approach.

Cyrus Bruton

Cyrus Bruton (organizer Holotropic Berlin; module facilitator) is an international Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator originally from the UK. For over 35 years, he has been based in Berlin, Germany, where he lives with his partner and friends. For more than two decades, Cyrus has been guiding and holding space for a community grounded in meditation and wholesome daily living together with others.

During the 1980s and 90s, Cyrus lived and worked in India, immersing himself in various emotional and body-centered therapies, dance, and music. He also worked extensively as a progressive psychedelic trance and ambient DJ throughout Europe — an experience that deeply informs the spirit and curation of his Holotropic Breathwork® music sets.

Since 2017, Cyrus has intensely focused on the practice of Zazen and koan study under the guidance of Jeff Shore, attending retreats across Europe and visiting Japan. He is also the author of the book Mud, Lotus, Mystic, published in 2017.

Deepening his commitment to therapeutic and mindful practices, he is entering the Mindfulness-Based Core Process Psychotherapy training at the Karuna Institute in the UK for the 2026/27 academic year.

Cyrus first connected with Holotropic Breathwork® in 2011, participating in international modules and workshops before earning his certification as a facilitator in Spain in 2016. He is the founder of Holotropic Berlin, where he regularly facilitates and co-organizes workshops.

Cyrus brings a grounded, embodied presence to the work, honoring a lifelong fascination with the human journey.

Lydia Schamschula

Lydia Schamschula (organizer Holotropic Berlin; module facilitator) is a certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator, a German-licensed psychotherapy practitioner under the Heilpraktiker law, and co-founder of Holotropic Berlin. Before dedicating herself more fully to consciousness work, she worked as an actress and filmmaker, approaching film as a way to explore the mystery and depth of human experience.

Her inner work has been shaped by many years of meditation practice, especially Zazen, as well as Qi Gong and other approaches to self-exploration. She began her training in Holotropic Breathwork® in 2015 and became certified through Grof Transpersonal Training in the United States in 2017.

Since then, Lydia has been organizing and facilitating Holotropic Breathwork® workshops with the Holotropic Berlin team and has facilitated internationally in Spain, Ireland, the Czech Republic, Poland, Austria, and Georgia. A central focus of her work is preparation and integration, supporting people before and after deep experiential processes and non-ordinary states of consciousness. She has completed the ICEERS Academy Integration Training and brings a grounded, compassionate, and trauma-informed approach to her work.

Lydia lives in Berlin with her partner and their two wonderful dogs, who regularly remind her of the importance of presence, play, and long walks.

Minneapolis-St Paul Holotropic Breathwork®

The Institute for Holotropics workshop originally scheduled for November 13–15, 2026, in Minneapolis/St. Paul has been canceled. However, a Holotropic Breathwork® workshop will still be offered in the area on those same dates.

Our scheduled leader, Sharanya Naik, is unable to attend due to an unexpected medical situation requiring treatment.

We are pleased that Midwest Breathwork, led by certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator Sarah Hart, will be offering an alternative workshop that weekend at a location approximately 20 minutes from the Minneapolis/St. Paul airport.

Midwest Breathwork was already partnering with us on the original event, and the majority of the facilitation team will remain the same. We know Sarah and her team well and have great confidence in their experience and ability to provide a supportive setting for this work.

We warmly recommend this alternative to anyone who was planning to attend or would like to experience Holotropic Breathwork® that weekend.

For workshop information and registration, please visit Midwest Breathwork. 

Cost: $440

Includes Saturday lunch and dinner

Experience Holotropic Breathwork® in a full weekend format. From Friday evening through Sunday morning, there is time for the psyche to open, for the experience to unfold, and for integration afterward, without the time commitment of a longer retreat. The weekend is suitable for those new to Holotropic Breathwork® as well as those experienced with the practice.

About Holotropic Breathwork®
Holotropic Breathwork® is a powerful approach to self-exploration and transformation developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof. Using accelerated breathing, evocative music, and a supportive setting, the practice allows participants to enter an expanded state of consciousness and engage the psyche’s natural movement toward wholeness.

Rather than directing the experience toward a particular outcome, Holotropic Breathwork® encourages us to trust our own inner process and follow where it leads.

Experiences can unfold on many levels—physical, emotional, biographical, perinatal, transpersonal, and spiritual. Participants may encounter memories, emotions, physical sensations, imagery, insights, or experiences that extend beyond their ordinary sense of themselves.

What happens during the weekend:

  • The weekend includes preparation, experience, and integration, with sharing, art, and time to explore the experiences and insights that emerge.
  • Each participant will experience Holotropic Breathwork® as a Breather and as a Sitter.
  • Evocative music supports the process.
  • A trained team of Holotropic Breathwork® facilitators is highly attentive throughout. Individual  support may be offered when appropriate and always with the participant’s permission.
  • The Sitter remains present and attentive to the breather. Participants often report that being a Sitter is as valuable as being a Breather.

No previous experience with Holotropic Breathwork® is necessary. The weekend includes preparation, experience, and integration, with sharing, art, and time to explore the experiences and insights that emerge.

Newcomers and those experienced with Holotropic Breathwork® or other expanded-state practices are welcome.

An IFH Module in Ireland / Lughnasadh: A Kernel of Hope – Gifts of the First Harvest – with Cáit Branigan

REGISTRATION is closed – see below for waiting list info

Lughnasadh, named for the God Lugh, son of Eithne, foster-son of the Providing Mother, Tailltiú, is a festival said to be instituted by Lugh in honour of Tailltiú’s sacrifice for all of Her children. The festival, coming after ‘the Hungry month’ (July) was a significant and important time of harvesting, legal agreements and marriage.

The Harvest brings to bear the fruits of our labours. Cut by the scythe, the act of harvesting reminds us of the intimacy that exists between beginnings and endings, between life and death; the kernel being the promise of renewed life and sustenance.

In this workshop, we will explore the season of Lughnasadh, The Great Mother and our wounded relationship with Earth. Through stories of the Harvest Goddesses (Taillitiú, Áine, Demeter…) and the Gods associated with them, alongside journeys and practical exercises and Holotropic Breathwork sessions, we will also explore our relationships with our own bodies and mortality, the seed of life and the great mysteries of the Harvest.

Participants will experience two Holotropic Breathwork® sessions as a breather and two as a partner, or “sitter.” This event may be counted as an optional module toward Holotropic Breathwork® certification with the Institute for Holotropics.

GTT Online / Return to the Center: Sacred Geometry, Mandala, and the Inner Healer (U.S. & Europe friendly times)

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COST:  $428
Discount for certified HB practitioners

This immersive mandala-based module offers a transformational journey through the archetypal movements of consciousness.

Through a sequence of experiential sessions, you’ll explore the timeless relationship between the centre point and the circumference, between the particle self and your wave-like nature, between the patterns of your life and the light of your essential being.

This module will be a weaving of mandala drawing, guided visualisations, sacred geometry contemplations, meditative states, journaling, and authentic group sharing.

Course Content::

1. Creation: The Harmonic Blueprint
We begin with sacred pattern—mandalas as carriers of archetypal truth, symmetry, beauty, and balance. You’ll be introduced to the universal language of form that speaks directly to the psyche.

2. Fragmentation & the Outer Ring
Exploring the movement toward the circumference—how we lose center, how conditioning fragments the self, and how sacred maps like the Wheel of Life and the Yoga of the Cross can guide us inward again.
3. The Inner Healer: Remembering the Intelligence Within
An invitation into trust. We’ll explore the varieties of the inner healer, and how breath, attention, and surrender awaken this luminous intelligence already operating within.
4. The Embodied Mandala: Sensing the Axis Within
We will explore the Applications and the Gifts of Mandala Work. Preparing and embarking upon the MandalaNature Process which will form the Apex of our Journey.
5. The Reflexive Mandala: Intuition, Synchronicity & Discernment
Tuning to the feedback loop of being. How awareness sharpens through symbolic reflection. The sword of discernment, the flash of synchronicity, and the intuitive pulse of the inner compass.
6. Being Essence: Dissolution into the Light That Remains
We complete the journey by dissolving the outer forms. Letting go of thought, effort, time, and persona. Returning to the space before identity. The still, bright centre that was there all along.

Although you may attend this Virtual Module as a stand-alone event, there is also an option for those who wish to get full module credit by attending a GTT-approved double breathwork workshop.  Up to two Virtual Module+Double Breathwork combinations may be counted toward the requirements for certification.

This event consists of seven 3-hour sessions. To enhance the group experience for everyone, please note that you will be expected to attend all 7 sessions of the module just as you would if it were being held live, at a retreat center.

US Pacific Dates and Times*:
Thursday 5/7:  one session, 11:30 am-2:30 pm
Friday 5/8: two sessions, 7:00 am-10:00 am and 11:30 am-2:30 pm
Saturday 5/9: two sessions, 7:00 am-10:00 am and 11:30 am-2:30 pm
Sunday 5/10: two sessions, 7:00 am-10:00 am and 11:30 am-2:30 pm

*Please use the above U.S. Pacific times and this time zone converter to find the correct times for your zone:

https://www.worldtimebuddy.com/