Befriending Your Breath: Moving From Chronic Stress to Genuine Relaxation Through Breath
"Your breath is not something to fix — it's something to befriend."
You've been stressed for a while now. And you’ve tried the usual methods: taking days off, going on vacations, improving your sleep, and maybe even using a meditation or breathing app. Yet your body still feels like it's bracing for something. You’re exhausted, but you can't fully land.
That's not a personal failing. It's a physiological one.
Stress isn't just a packed schedule or a hard week. It lives in the body: in the tension of your chest, the shallowness of your breathing, and the subtle held quality in your ribs. You can't think or willpower your way out of it. No amount of effort will shift what your nervous system is holding.
This workshop is an invitation to develop a different relationship with your body and your breath, one built on listening rather than controlling. That shift, practiced over time, is what opens the door to genuine regulation and true relaxation.
About this workshop
This is a 2-hour experiential workshop. You’ll spend most of the time practicing. This includes guided breathwork, gentle movement, and simple body-awareness exercises designed to help you feel regulation rather than just understand it.
We'll start with noticing: where do you feel stress in your body right now? What does your breath actually do under pressure? From there, we'll move into brief, practical and accessible nervous-system education. Then, we’ll do a practice sequence where you can begin to feel the difference between a dysregulated and a more settled state.
The practices draw from Viniyoga therapeutic breathwork, Tibetan yogic breathing traditions, and James Nestor's research into optimal breathing patterns. They're gentle, accessible, and trauma-informed — designed around listening and allowing, not effort and control.
This is not about:
Performing breathwork or doing it "right"
High-intensity or cathartic breathing experiences
Forcing or controlling the breath
Adding another should to your self-care routine
This is about:
Recognizing that stress lives in physiological patterns and that those patterns can change
Learning to use breath as a way of listening to your body, not managing it
Beginning to recognize what a shift in your nervous system feels like in your body
Building a simple, repeatable way to regulate that you can return to in daily life
Rebuilding trust in your body's own capacity to find calm
This might be for you if...
You understand stress intellectually but can't seem to shift it physically
You feel tired but cannot relax — even when you have the time and space to
You experience shallow breathing, chest tightness, or disrupted sleep
You're frustrated that your usual self-care doesn't seem to restore you
You're curious about how your body actually holds and releases stress
You want something experiential, not just more information
You already have a mindfulness or movement practice and want to go deeper into the body
This is not for you if...
You want to learn controlled, high-performance breath training
You're looking for a high-intensity or emotional-release breathwork experience
You're skeptical of somatic work and primarily want a conceptual framework
What you'll experience
This is 2 hours on Zoom. You'll need a comfortable place to sit or lie down, and ideally a quiet space where you can close your eyes.
You'll practice:
Getting acquainted with your natural self-regulated breath
Simple body-awareness techniques to locate where stress lives in your body and how to redirect it
Hands-on body breathing and diaphragmatic awareness, yogic breathwork.
1:2 ratio breathing — the core regulation tool
Gentle movement to open breathing space in the ribs, spine and psoas
Adapting breath practices to your own natural rhythm
The format:
Guided breathwork and movement practices (most of the workshop)
Brief nervous-system education in three short segments
Solo reflection and journaling
Group reflection and integration
What won't happen in 2 hours: You won't permanently rewire your stress response or never feel tension again. You'll leave with a clearer sense of how your breath and nervous system are connected. You’ll also learn practices you can return to. For many, there’s a small but real shift in trust that regulation is actually available to them.
No prior breathwork or somatic experience necessary. All practices are gentle and adaptable.
Meet your facilitator
Diana Justl is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and somatic psychotherapist with over 17 years of experience as a facilitator and educator in health, wellness, and body-centered healing.
Her work sits at the intersection of clinical nervous-system literacy and contemplative practice. She draws from Viniyoga therapeutic breathwork, Tibetan yogic breathing traditions, Hakomi body-centered therapy, and interoceptive awareness practices — integrating them with current research in neuroscience and trauma-informed care.
Diana has guided breathwork in trauma-informed psychotherapy, somatic regulation workshops, Buddhist yoga and subtle body practice, and psychedelic integration support. She holds a graduate degree in Integral Counseling Psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, a 500-hour Registered Yoga Teacher certification, and advanced training in Body Centred Experiential Psychotherapy. She specializes in supporting people with AuDHD, PTSD, and chronic stress conditions where nervous system regulation is central to healing.
What sets Diana's teaching apart is her orientation toward breath not as a technique to master, but as a relationship to cultivate. It’s about listening to the body's signals and learning to respond with care.
Learn more about Diana's work.
Workshop details
Date: Monday, April 13
Time: 7 pm Eastern Time
Duration: 2 hours
Platform: Zoom (link sent upon registration)
What you need:
A comfortable place to sit or lie down.
Ideally a yoga bolster and a small neck pillow or a few large, firm pillows and a smaller neck pillow, blanket
No prior experience required.
Recording: Available to all registrants after the workshop
Sliding scale pricing: $20–$60 If you can't afford the full amount, pay what you can. If you can comfortably afford more, please do — it supports making this accessible to others.
If this speaks to you, join us.
Right now, as you read this, your breath is doing something. It might be shallow. It might be held. It might be moving with a little more ease than earlier today. You didn't have to think about any of it — your nervous system has been quietly responding to your experience all along.
This workshop is an invitation to begin responding back. To learn to listen to what your breath is already telling you. And to start rebuilding trust that your body knows how to regulate.
About Aurora
Aurora is a community for inner development. We partner with exceptional facilitators to design and host online programs and practice spaces. We're new, still finding our shape, and building what Aurora becomes together with the people who show up for it.
You can find other upcoming events on our Luma calendar.
To learn more or get involved, visit auroracommunity.space