A Bromley wellness practitioner is taking people underground to help them breathe through anxiety — and the results are surprising
Inside a cave network under the streets of South London, a series of meditation events are underway with participants focusing on their breath 100 feet underground.
Ted Lawlor, the somatic breathwork practitioner behind If Only They Knew, is hosting a series of wellness events inside the tunnels of Chislehurst Caves — and the venue is proving to be more than just a dramatic backdrop.
The 28-year-old, who kick-started his mission to help people after multiple tragedies, including the death of his dad in 2024, says the energy underground offers something no studio can replicate.
“When you strip away the noise — the phones, the lights, the pace of life above ground — your nervous system starts to settle almost immediately,” Ted tells us. “The caves do half the work before we’ve even begun, it’s powerful stuff.
“The plan is to not only help people heal themselves, but to also send out that positive energy to help heal the Bromley locals too.”
The events combine a unique blend of somatic breathwork, hypnotherapy methods and Spinal Energetics Reiki in a format Ted calls a Thought Energy Design experience.
Participants lie in a low lit environment and are led through a structured healing sequence designed to shift the body out of a stress response and enter your subconscious mind to see real change.
Somatic breathwork is a body-based practice that works through the nervous system rather than the thinking mind — making it distinct from conventional meditation or talking therapies.
When we breathe in a specific rhythm, we directly influence the vagus nerve, the body’s primary stress-regulation pathway.
“Most people try to think their way out of anxiety or fear,” Ted explains. “But these are not just thoughts — they are physical states. Thought Energy Design gives the body a way to reset that no amount of positive thinking can replicate alone as the body is responsible for 80% of your body’s internal communication. You can’t think greater than you feel”
Ted’s events have drawn a wide cross-section of the community — working with PureGym, local schools and even Anthony Joshua’s charity ‘Clean Herts’.
The science Ted references is increasingly mainstream but yet seriously underused.
The vagus nerve — the longest cranial nerve in the body — acts as a direct line between the brain and major organs, including the heart, lungs, and gut.
Controlled breathing stimulates this nerve, triggering what physiologists call the parasympathetic response: slower heart rate, lower blood pressure, reduced cortisol.
In moments of chronic stress, the body becomes stuck in a sympathetic (“fight or flight”) state.
Somatic breathwork is one of the fastest known ways to interrupt this cycle, changing the body’s state to reprogram some of the 80% of internal communications stemming from the body to the brain.
Ted’s upcoming Chislehurst Caves sessions are part of a broader expansion of If Only They Knew, which also offers a three-session one-to-one programme and corporate wellbeing workshops for businesses across London.
“Every single person who comes out of the sessions say they feel lighter, that’s why I do this,” he says. “It’s time to design the inner world so you can define your outer world.”
Ted Lawlor’s next somatic breathwork experience can be booked on the If Only They Knew website.
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