BREATHWORK
We are pioneering embodied change and social impact
Open Up is founded by Katrien Franken, and exists to create brave spaces for people to explore breathwork, and work on their inner growth and well-being for themselves, each other and the world.
We are pioneering breathwork at the intersection between psychotherapy, neuro-science and spirituality with scientific research.
Our mission is to contribute to transformative learning and healing, where skills can be developed for deeper understanding and wisdom. Skills which can engage individuals to become active co-creators for a more conscious and sustainable society.
We aim to enhance our sense-making capacities for living a life of more meaning, integrity, joy and beauty. Welcome!
We are dedicated to the evolution of consciousness and invite people to uncover their truth and wake up to the workings of life in the shadows in order to come into their power and presence.
We encompasses a range of therapeutic practices and explore the inner dimensions of change and healing, and the transformational effects of conscious connected breathwork (Holotropic breathing)
We hope to create deeply meaningful changes in people's lives and in society, and encourage an educational and experiential approach in order to facilitate the exchange of ideas and discoveries for a mutual growth, understanding, and enrichment.
Open Up breathwork is a method of self-exploration takes people far beyond traditional cognitive therapies.
In individual and collective experiences we expand and open through utilising the breath bringing you in a particular set of internal experiences.
With the inner healing intelligence guiding, the quality and content brought forth, are unique to each person in that particular time and place.
It can be both liberating and exhilarating, but also challenging. It is held within
safety and guidance to move beyond intellectual understanding to an embodied place of deeper knowing.
Our Series
Open to Flow in the Cycle of Learning
Our work focusses on three areas.
Individual.
Communitas.
Society.
Receive personal 1:1 guidance, breathwork & counseling of our founder Katrien. Her sessions and series deepen your capability, self-understanding and intuition to explore new possibilities for connection and growth, no matter where you are on your path in life.
Our groups are often described as inspiring, transformative and life changing. Open Up has facilitated more than 800 groups (in-person) and guided thousands of people from all over the world.
We work with policymakers and want to inspire organisations, teams and leaders to benefit from the power of their own breath and create new motivations through our core story and narratives, and learn to feel what leads us in the next cultural step.
Inquiry is one of the cornerstones of our practice at Open Up. It harnesses an intelligence which we combine with breath work and counseling. A transformative approach in self-exploration and deep listening.
Our Social Impact &
Non-Profit Projects
At the heart of everything we do, we believe that individual genius needs to synergie in collective scenius. As an ever-evolving social organisation, we invest a portion of our profits in the creation of projects for society, and to build funding for scholarships of our programs.
Breathwork for Refugees in Uganda
In a refugee camp of 100.000 families in Uganda, Unidos Social Innovation centre empowers young refugees through appropriate training to teach them skills that will help them to create their own opportunities in the future.
Part of Open Up's mission is to help transform young people who are driving sustainable development goals into change makes. To support the work of Unidos, Open Up will train the Unidos team in 2021 in a prototype program, to explore the potential of inner work and self developments through breathwork for the wider community.
Scientific Research - Breathwork & Psychotherapy
Open Up is the initiator and leader in a scientific research project defying breath work in a psychotherapy meta-analysis. The research question is, does a combination therapy of breathwork with psychotherapy have any significance in the increase of one's well-being, and decrease of symptoms of anxiety and depression, and how does this lead to transformation?
We are investigating if a combination therapy is more efficient than just breath work or psychotherapeutic therapy. This research will help articulate its complexity and relationship to help us better understand the healing mechanisms underlying personal transformation.
Imaginary World
Dear friend, we are living in an extraordinary time of systems learning, in a world and society that's looking and longing for change. This is a process of personal and social imagination and experimentation, to bring out the next future. What are the questions that we are living and moving into? How can we sensitise ourselves and taste a way of seeing and being that could take us to a way of life?
This is an imperative time for artists, creators, thinkers, activists, explorers, dreamers, and doers to become revolutionaries of everyday life, opening curiosity to the possibilities in a new world we envision.
Changing Politics
Open Up is working with politicians and wants to bring a broader conversation and exploration for new ways of engaging as humans in politics. We work with people who have agency and power in the current systems, and love to support millennials.
Our ambition is to build a critical mass, expanding our circles of conscious development and the importance of personal responsibility for unlocking polarised conversations, that can open up a whole new era of inquiry and embodied leadership.
Nicola Millson - Co-founder She Leads Change London, UK
On our She Leads Change Programmes women learn to lead change from a place of authenticity and connection. We love having Katrien involved - not only because she is a brilliant facilitator - but because she exemplifies this kind of leadership.
Discover insights, news articles, scientific research and personal stories to illuminate the transformational nature of breathwork and work of Open Up.
