Title: Moving Towards Wholeness - Holotropic Breathwork®, Shamanism And The Dance Of Healing

Guest: Sharanya Naik

Recorded: September 2025

Couple of months ago I had the privilege of interviewing Kylea Taylor, A key figure in the ethics of caring within psychedelic and transpersonal therapy realms and an author of books like The Ethics of Caring and Considering Holotropic Breathwork. That interview was published August 10th 2025 and I recommend you listen to it if you have not done so already and if you are interested in this subject matter.

That interview was enlightening to me and allowed me to explore the ethical landscape of psychedelic-assisted therapy and the profound principles of inner ethics in non-ordinary states which Kylea developed over the years. We’ve focused the conversation on psychological theories that govern Holotropic Breathwork as well as discussed how Stan Grof’s original work truly transformed the landscape.

Interviewing Kylea left me even more curious compared to how I felt after reading Stan and Christina’s Groff book titled Holotropic Breathwork - A New Approach to Self-Exploration and Therapy earlier this year. I wanted to continue probing this topic but wanted to find a different angle of attack for my second interview about Holotropic Breathwork and I wanted to find somebody who grew and evolved from starting as a participant to ending as an accomplished facilitator with a lot of experience in the field.

I’m very pleased to report that I have found just such a person. My guest today is Sharanya Naik a multifaceted practitioner who’s work spans education, bodywork, creative writing and spiritual exploration with a deep-rooted expertise in Holotropic Breathwork®. For those of you who have not had a chance to listen to my previous interview with Kylea Taylor, Holotropic Breathwork® is an experiential method developed by Stanislav and Christina Grof that uses accelerated breathing, evocative music, and focused bodywork to access non-ordinary states of consciousness for healing and self-discovery. For all intents and purposes think of it as something truly magical but also relatively easily accessible as getting into an altered state of consciousness using this method does not require any special tools or ingestion of any special compounds. Sharanya originally from Bangalore, India, she moved to USA in 1984 and has since through hard work and dedication built a rich career integrating both Eastern and Western traditions. She became a certified Holotropic Breathwork® facilitator in 2003 after rigorous training and has since facilitated sessions for groups and individuals across multiple cities in the United States and India. As a module facilitator at The Institute for Holotropics (formerly Grof Transpersonal Training, or GTT), Naik contributes to training programs, helping others learn the technique through immersive modules that include breathwork sessions, group processing, and integration practices. On top of all that she also served as editor of The Inner Door, a journal dedicated to Holotropic Breathwork® practitioners, where she curated content on transpersonal psychology and experiential healing. Naik is also a writer of poetry and short fiction, currently working on a novel. Her creative output often explores themes of impermanence, societal divides, human vulnerability, and conflict—mirroring the introspective insights gained from breathwork sessions and shamanism.

Her life journey reflects a commitment to wholeness, drawing from Hinduism, shamanism, and somatic practices, making her an incredibly insightful guest for today’s interview which expands and supplements some of the themes I had the privilege to cover with Kylea back in August this year.

Links and interview references:

Hansa Holotropic - https://hansaholotropic.com/

Grof Transpersonal Training - https://www.holotropic.com/

Charles Eisenstein - https://charleseisenstein.org/books/