The Breath Psychologist-Elif Clarke

The Breath Psychologist-Elif Clarke As a senior trainer and facilitator in Transformational Breath®, I share ideas about how to achieve

15/01/2026

For years, your breath has been quietly adapting to keep you safe. When life felt too much, it learned to hold, to flatten, to disconnect. Not because you were broken — but because your nervous system was protecting you.
In Level 123, we don’t force the breath. We listen to it.
You will learn how to:
• read the nervous system through breath
• release emotion stored in the body safely
• work with trauma without overwhelm
• restore connection where dissociation once lived
• breathe with the body, not the mind
This training is for therapists, facilitators, healers — and for those on a deep personal path.
Not about becoming someone new, but about remembering who you are beneath protection.
✨ Level 123: Conscious Connected Breathwork
📩 DM me for details

Do you ever notice yourself abandoning you in the face of other people’s envy, insecurity, or emotional need? When you s...
13/01/2026

Do you ever notice yourself abandoning you in the face of other people’s envy, insecurity, or emotional need? When you sense jealousy, bitterness, withdrawal, or subtle competition, your nervous system may not move into protection — it may move into appeasement. You might try to regulate their discomfort by giving, accommodating, explaining, shrinking, or over-helping. This can be a fawn response — not weakness, but intelligence learned in emotionally unsafe environments. Your body may have learned: “If I make myself useful, generous, or self-sacrificing, I will stay connected.” What once kept you safe can quietly become a prison. If love once meant giving + self-erasure, healing begins to look like mutuality + truth + self-respect. What if you no longer betrayed yourself just to preserve connection? This isn’t rejection — it’s self-honour.

Healing doesn’t mean rejecting the part of you that learned to survive. It means gently re-parenting the nervous system that once believed: “If I shine, I will be punished or abandoned.” We begin with micro-boundaries, with noticing, with asking: do I feel more alive or more contracted after being with them? Safety often feels open, calm, and grounded — not intense, not needy, not demanding. You are allowed to end a lineage of self-erasure. You are allowed to choose relationships that don’t require you to disappear.

I’m inviting professionals who work with people to a CPD day combining teaching and a live breath session, focused on ne...
08/01/2026

I’m inviting professionals who work with people to a CPD day combining teaching and a live breath session, focused on nervous system awareness, embodied presence, and relational safety.

This day is for:
psychotherapists, psychologists, counsellors, coaches, breathwork facilitators, bodyworkers, yoga teachers, and healthcare professionals.

Because attending to your nervous system is not “self-care.” It is a clinical, relational, and ethical foundation of your work.
You’ll learn to stay present in silence, intensity, and vulnerability…to understand transference through the nervous system…and to create a safer, more regulated space for those you serve.

We won’t push. We won’t force. We won’t chase catharsis.

We are gently walking people home.

👉 DM me “CPD” or comment below to receive details.

05/01/2026

Yesterday’s day retreat was about resting without collapsing, feeling without flooding, and being present without effort.
We gathered with a shared intention: to expand our capacity to meet stress, build resilience, and deepen our relationship with the breath — not as a technique, but as a therapeutic doorway into the body and its stored emotions.
Friends from Boston joined us, bringing a beautiful sense of warmth, familiarity, and global community into the space.
We began with cacao to soften the heart — gently melting the armour so both pain and joy could be felt. The first breath session surprised many, opening unexpected depth, presence, and heart connection.
We were nourished with home-made food cooked with love, sitting together in the room, talking, resting, and simply being — allowing connection to unfold without effort.
The afternoon opened with movement and a breathing dance, followed by a second breath session that settled into deep integration, held by chimes, sound, and yoga nidra.
What stayed with me most was the quality of the space:
regulated, connected, alive.

Worry is not just a mental habit — it is a whole-body experience. When worry and overthinking persist, the nervous syste...
04/01/2026

Worry is not just a mental habit — it is a whole-body experience. When worry and overthinking persist, the nervous system shifts into protection: the breath becomes shallow, the diaphragm tightens, the stomach often becomes acidic, and energy moves away from repair and regulation. Over time, this can leave us feeling fatigued, depleted, and disconnected — not because we are weak, but because the nervous system has been working too hard for too long. Many traditional systems have long known that touch builds trust, and through gentle, conscious touch — especially through the hands — we can support the nervous system to soften and regulate, not by forcing change but by listening. This is not about doing something to the body; it is about meeting the body where it already knows how to heal. The hands become a bridge between mind and body, between tension and release, between worry and trust — and when breath, touch, and awareness come together, the system remembers it is safe to soften

In psychology, we often focus on the event.What happened. What went wrong.But between an event and our response sits the...
27/12/2025

In psychology, we often focus on the event.
What happened. What went wrong.
But between an event and our response sits the nervous system.
Two people can experience the same situation and have very different outcomes — not because of personality or strength, but because their nervous systems responded differently. Symptoms aren’t random. They’re communication.

Anxiety, depression, pain, fatigue, or dissociation are often the body saying: “Something needs attention.”

Through the breath, the nervous system learns safety again — and when safety increases, symptoms often soften. Not because we fixed a diagnosis, but because the system no longer needs to signal distress.

24/12/2025

If your brain’s favourite hobby is self-criticism, listen to this.
That harsh inner voice isn’t the truth — it’s a nervous system survival strategy your body learned when love, safety, or approval felt unpredictable.
So the system decided: If I criticise myself first, maybe I can stay safe.
Every time that voice appears, notice what happens next.
The breath tightens. The chest contracts. The jaw grips. The belly pulls in.
Those thoughts are riding on a physiological state.
Underneath the criticism is often fear — of rejection, of being too much, of losing connection.
You’re not broken.
Your nervous system is protecting you.
The work isn’t to silence the inner critic overnight.
It’s to use the breath to teach the body that it’s safe to soften, feel, and relate to yourself differently.

24/12/2025

If your brain’s favourite hobby is self-criticism, listen to this.
That harsh inner voice isn’t the truth — it’s a nervous system survival strategy your body learned when love, safety, or approval felt unpredictable.
So the system decided: If I criticise myself first, maybe I can stay safe.
Every time that voice appears, notice what happens next.
The breath tightens. The chest contracts. The jaw grips. The belly pulls in.
Those thoughts are riding on a physiological state.
Underneath the criticism is often fear — of rejection, of being too much, of losing connection.
You’re not broken.
Your nervous system is protecting you.
The work isn’t to silence the inner critic overnight.
It’s to use the breath to teach the body that it’s safe to soften, feel, and relate to yourself differently.


selfcompassionpractice polyvagal emotionalregulation healingthroughbreath thebreathpsychologist

This retreat is for those new to breathwork who want to build nervous-system resilience and for therapists and healers w...
23/12/2025

This retreat is for those new to breathwork who want to build nervous-system resilience and for therapists and healers whose nervous systems are burnt out.

You support others for a living.
You regulate, attune, listen, and hold.
But who is holding your nervous system?

Burnout doesn’t come from caring too much.
It comes from living too long in activation — without enough safety, rest, or co-regulation.

Healing begins with safety.
When your nervous system is supported, your presence changes.
Your work deepens.
Your clients feel it.

I’m inviting beginners, therapists, healers, and facilitators to a one-day nervous-system reset retreat — a day where you don’t have to hold anyone.

✨ Cacao ceremony • Two conscious connected breathwork sessions (including throat release) • Sound healing • Yoga Nidra • Nourishing lunch

👉 Link in bio to join the Day Retreat

22/12/2025

Merry Christmas and a Happy new year to you all ❤️

A day to slow down.To open the heart.To breathe,feel,and be held.
Join us for a one-day retreat with ceremonial cacao,conscious connected breathwork,sound healing,and a nourishing lunch.

This isn’t about fixing yourself.It’s about softening the nervous system,releasing what’s been held,and remembering the wisdom of your breath.

Come as you are.Leave more connected,grounded,and alive.
Booking link in bio🙏❤️

Healing isn’t about staying regulated. It’s about knowing how to come back.The goal is not permanent calm — that’s not h...
19/12/2025

Healing isn’t about staying regulated. It’s about knowing how to come back.
The goal is not permanent calm — that’s not human. Life will activate us, relationships will touch old wounds, and the body will remember what the mind may have learned to override. The real work is flexibility: the capacity to move out of dysregulation and return to safety, again and again. Each return teaches the nervous system that activation is not failure, and that safety is something we can find rather than force.
This is where the breath becomes essential. The breath is often the first place regulation was lost — and the most direct pathway home. When the breath is held or shallow, the nervous system is protecting; when it softens and reconnects, the body receives the message that it is safe to feel, to open, to be present. Every conscious return to the breath builds resilience, compassion, and openness to connection. Wellbeing isn’t perfection — it’s a nervous system, supported by the breath, that knows the way home.

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Empower yourself by breathing

Welcome to my page!

I’m Elif Clarke, a counselling psychologist and cognitive behavioural therapist for 18 years in national health service and my private practice in London. I’ve been a Transformational Breath® facilitator and trainer for 8 years.

Transformational Breath® is powerful self-empowering tool, I guided hundreds of people using this breathing technique to connect to their deepest self, to achieve their physical, emotional and psychological well-being. I’d like to share my knowledge and experience of breathwork on my page to help more people to use breathing to improve their lives.

I offer online Transformational Breath® sessions for individuals to cope with trauma, depression, and stress; I also offer breath sessions for couples who would like to improve their relationships and connect better. You can book online sessions by contacting me directly on info@elifclarke.com or phone on (+44) 07944 532456.