Breathing Through Trauma : from one man to children across the sands

Trauma would come to shape much of Wim Hof’s life. At age 36 he was thrown into a deep dark hole when his wife tragically passed away. The event rocked him so fundamentally that it clouded his judgement—he would make some questionable choices, and begin a new relationship that would prove more destructive than nurturing. For the longest time he felt lost at sea, but as the storm raged inside his mind, Wim slowly came to harness these experiences. He used them to build a life raft that would form the framework of what would eventually become the Wim Hof Method.

Both the breathing technique and controlled exposure to cold help put you in a state where you can grapple with the turbulent events of your life—to come back to them again and again. Not to forget but to, with time and a lot of practice, have a less overwhelming and debilitating relationship with those memories.

The need to resolve trauma has become more pressing than ever. The horrors that are being lived by entire peoples in the Middle East and northeast Africa have pushed this to the forefront of our collective conscience. They are painful, but we cannot look away. There is something plainly, nakedly wrong about innocent children suffering such unimaginable hardship. It is on us to help pull them out of their own dark place, and allow them to begin undoing the immense psychological damage inflicted upon them.

The capacity of the Wim Hof Method to control stress and improve depressive symptoms has been demonstrated scientifically. Hundreds of thousands of people worldwide use the method every day to manage stress, anxiety and depression. And not just for everyday concerns over bills and deadlines, but to directly address war trauma as well.

While resolving trauma is important, it’s just one part of the puzzle. If we limit ourselves to only putting bandaids on all those aching souls, we’ll never get to a world that’s happy, strong and healthy. Wim’s mission is for everyone to use the tools that Mother Nature has given us, not as a remedy, but throughout our lives—before any smaller ills have had a chance to spread and take root.

When we work continuously to keep our mind and body healthy, then small, seemingly harmless injuries and temptations—an insult left unreconciled, a drink on a friday night, envy over the neighbor’s bigger house—don’t get a chance to grow into something more harmful.

Of course, the conflicts that are ablaze across the globe are the result of many contributing factors, some of which stretch back hundreds if not thousands of years. Wim harbors no illusions that these can be undone just by breathing. But every raging fire begins with a tiny spark. If we all work to share these powerful tools with one another, maybe we can one day get to a place where insidious little wounds are contained before they fester and cause problems on a worldwide scale.

Through decades of healing his own trauma, Wim Hof was able to heal his soul to the point where he was ready to give his love back to the world. To reverse the negative spiral and to, through science, get the world back to its natural state of unconditional love. Wim is doing what he can to bring his powerful method to everyone—from the most humble olive farmer to the world’s biggest bigwigs. He recently traveled to a refugee camp in Qatar to help raise awareness, offer moral support, spread the knowledge of his method, and raise funds for the families and children that have had to flee Gaza.

If you’ve managed to overcome your trauma, or you’ve never experienced much hardship in the first place, you have a duty to empower the person next to you. If you are free, you need to free somebody else. Who do you know in your life who might be dealing with depression, burnout, chronic stress, or even trauma? Are they aware that there is something out there as simple as breathing and taking a cold shower, that can profoundly change how they go through their day? You may be able to make a bigger difference than you think.