Breathwork as Integration: Reawakening the Wisdom of Your Psychedelic Journey
After a therapeutic psychedelic experience, it’s not uncommon to feel like you’ve touched something profound—only to have it slowly slip from view as the days go by.
Maybe you had a moment of crystal clarity…
A felt sense of connection…
A long-held pattern that finally cracked open…
And now, it’s hazy. Distant. Hard to access.
This is the nature of expanded states—they are often temporary. But their gifts don’t have to be.
This is where Breathwork—specifically Conscious Connected Breathwork—can become one of the most powerful tools for psychedelic integration.
A Doorway Back to the Medicine Within
Conscious connected breathwork has the capacity to induce a non-ordinary, trance-like state, similar in many ways to that of a psychedelic journey. But there’s a key difference: you remain fully in control. You’re at the steering wheel the entire time, able to dial the intensity up or down depending on what you’re ready to explore.
In this way, breathwork offers a gentle but potent re-entry point. It allows us to return to the landscape opened during your psychedelic experience—whether that was emotional release, spiritual insight, or nervous system regulation—and reengage with the parts that are asking for more time, more care, more integration.
A Personalized Integration Practice
In a 1-on-1 breathwork session, we craft your journey together. I work with you to identify what needs attention: perhaps it’s an insight that’s faded, a body memory that resurfaced, or a desire to reconnect with the sense of openness or clarity you felt during your journey.
Using a trauma-informed approach rooted in my training in Somatic Experiencing, I support you before, during, and after the breathwork. There’s no rushing. No pushing. We move at the pace of your nervous system, honoring the body's readiness and capacity.
After the breath journey, we take time to slowly return, anchoring into the body and allowing what arose to land with clarity and safety. This isn’t just breath—it’s embodied integration.
Why Breathwork is So Effective for Integration
Psychedelic journeys can be revelatory. But without proper integration, even the most profound experience can fade into a memory. Breathwork helps keep the door open just a little longer, long enough to return with something meaningful.
Here’s why breathwork is such a potent integration tool:
It’s embodied. Breathwork isn’t just insight—it’s sensation, emotion, movement. It bypasses the thinking mind and allows the body to lead. Your body doesn’t just remember pain; it can also remember peace, safety, and connection.
It gives direct access to the autonomic nervous system. Through the vagus nerve's deep connection to the lungs, diaphragm, throat, and heart, conscious breath patterns can influence how safe or activated we feel. Breath becomes a direct line of communication with the part of us that manages survival, regulation, and resilience.
It facilitates trauma renegotiation. Therapeutic breathwork, especially when guided by someone trained in trauma and somatics, allows stored trauma to surface in a manageable, titrated way. With the right support, the body can complete survival responses that were previously frozen or fragmented. This is where true healing happens—not through force, but through presence and permission.
It’s adaptable. Every session meets you where you are. Whether you're needing to discharge energy, reconnect with clarity, or rest deeply into safety, your breath becomes the medicine.
It re-patterns the nervous system. When paired with somatic tools, breathwork helps the nervous system rewire itself toward regulation. Over time, it becomes easier to come home to groundedness, connection, and choice—especially after big, opening experiences like psychedelic journeys.
Safe Spaces for Tender Work
Both psychedelic journeys and breathwork can bring us into contact with some of the most tender, vulnerable parts of ourselves—grief long held, shame stored in the body, trauma frozen in time, or even long-forgotten memories that resurface with startling clarity. This isn’t just catharsis—it’s exposure. And that exposure needs to be met with attunement, safety, and skillful containment.
That’s why the container matters so much.
In my sessions, whether one-on-one or in a group setting, the space we co-create is gentle, grounded, and guided by the wisdom of the nervous system. I bring the depth of my training in trauma, physiology, bodywork, and nervous system regulation into every breathwork journey. I utilize tools learned through Somatic Experiencing, Craniosacral Therapy, and Naturopathic Medicine. This means I understand the nuances of your unique nervous system, holding patterns, and trauma physiology. I understand that every body has different needs. I know how to pace and support emotional content that emerges—without pushing, reactivating, or bypassing.
Breathwork isn’t just about breakthrough—it’s about being witnessed in your humanity, your softness, your truth.
I hold space with reverence for your process. You don’t have to rush. You don’t have to perform. You don’t have to relive anything you’re not ready for. We move at the speed of trust, led by the intelligence of your body.
And when the journey is over we slowly and gently come back into the physical space intentionally, so you leave the session feeling anchored, grounded, and supported.
Because this work deserves to be held with care.
Because you deserve to be held with care.
Book Your Breathwork Integration Session
If you’ve recently completed a therapeutic psychedelic journey—such as the Ketamine-assisted Therapy program at Qi Integrated Health—and are looking for the most effective way to reconnect and integrate, I invite you to join me for a 1-on-1 Breathwork Integration Session. These are offered once a month on a Saturday.
Want a more accessible option? Join one of my Group Breathwork Workshops—a powerful and affordable way to drop back in with the support of community and shared intention. These are offered a couple times a month on evening weekdays.
Book now through Qi Integrated Health and let your breath support deepening the journey ahead of integrating your new-found self.
Meet Dr Samantha Petrin, ND
Dr Samantha is a naturopathic doctor with advanced training in trauma-informed care, somatics, and breathwork facilitation. She guides clients through psychedelic integration using Conscious Connected Breathwork and nervous system-based tools to help insights from expanded states land more deeply in the body—safely, gently, and at the pace of healing.
