Breathwork Magic
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, a podcast dedicated to exploring the life-changing power of Breathwork. Discover how conscious breathing can unlock inner peace, resilience, and clarity as we dive into inspiring stories and practical insights. Whether you’re new to Breathwork or looking to deepen your practice, each episode offers wisdom to help you connect more fully with yourself and the world around you.
Breathwork Magic
Beyond the Breath: Em Hollis’s Journey Through Mindfulness and Psychedelics
What if you could unlock hidden reserves of resilience and energy simply by harnessing the power of your breath?
Our latest episode of Breathwork Magic offers just that, as we welcome Em Hollis to share her transformative journey through the world of Breathwork. Inspired by Joe Dispenza's teachings and sparked by a friend's passion for Wim Hof's methods, Em's path to self-discovery is both compelling and heartwarming. From finding her soulmate to experiencing profound emotional releases, Em's story illustrates how breathwork has become the crucial missing link in aligning spiritual meditation with physical presence.
We explore the nuances of Soma Breathwork, a method that marries rhythmic breathing with music to elevate emotional and psychological healing.
This episode draws connections to well-known techniques like Wim Hof and Stan Grof’s holotropic breathwork, emphasizing the power of tailored experiences in uncovering personal growth. Through personal anecdotes, the episode sheds light on the importance of a robust support system and gradual integration after intense experiences, such as those involving ayahuasca.
Moreover, this episode doesn't shy away from the intense world of psychedelics and their intersection with mindfulness practices. This episode dives deep into the potential of ketamine therapy and other substances like bufo, highlighting their profound healing capabilities when paired with Breathwork.
Watch the Polar Bear releasing trauma video Em referenced in the show HERE!
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Welcome to Breathwork Magic, the podcast that explores the life-changing power of your breath. Breathwork isn't just a practice. It's a gateway to healing, transformation and shifting to a new mindset, by letting go of the past and embracing the possibilities of the present moment. And embracing the possibilities of the present moment I'm Amanda Russo, your host, a certified breathwork facilitator, level two Reiki practitioner and creator of the Mander's Mindset podcast. On my own journey, breathwork has been a powerful tool for releasing what no longer serves me and shifting my perspective to step into my fullest and greatest potential.
Speaker 1:Each week, I'm joined by inspiring guests, blood work facilitators, healers and wellness enthusiasts who share how this practice has helped them and their clients heal, grow and embrace lasting change. So take a deep breath in and out, settle in and let's explore the magic of your breath together. The transformation starts now. Welcome back to another episode of Breathwork Magic. As always, I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am here today with Em Hollis, and I am so excited to delve down how she got involved with Breathwork. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Amanda. So happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me.
Speaker 1:Of course I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for inviting me. Of course I'm so happy to have you. So can you tell us how you discovered Breathwork and how that came into your reality, your world?
Speaker 2:So my journey of self-help, mindset, personal transformation started with a spiritual teacher by the name of Joe Dispenza in 2016. And I ended up. My mom had a book called you Are the Placebo. It was one of his books and she had, for months before, she'd, been emailing me things about meditations, mindset, all kinds of that world of things, and I was like, yeah, whatever, mom, I was too busy in my life. I was married at the time with three kids. I was doing all the normal human things, but they always say, when the student is ready, the teacher appears. And I think at that point in my life, I was doing all of the things that you're supposed to be doing in your mid-30s and yet felt so miserable, I felt so unfulfilled, I felt like this cannot be life, Like there has to be more. And, as I said, when the student strategy teacher appears, I walked into my mom's house one day. She has this book sitting on her nightstand called you Are the Placebo. I pick it up and I dove headfirst into it because he talked about the power of your thoughts, the power of your mind, the power of meditation, the power in you to transform your life and change your life, and I was primed for that at that time in my life. So I started attending his in-person workshops. I went to a couple of his two-day workshops he had and then went to a couple of his at the time were only four-day advanced Ended up completely transforming my life. I met my now husband. Everything changed in my life. It was just a really big transformation at that point and I loved what he was teaching. I meditated every single day and as we were going to retreats, my husband and I sort of built a really tight-knit community. Within that community we became like family. And at one of the retreats in particular we were at, a friend of mine had just flown from a Wim Hof retreat straight to the Jodasvenga retreat we were at and he was super excited about Wim Hof's breathwork. So this was in 2018, before it was as well known as it is now, and that's really when I think Wim Hof was really starting to get more well known his method.
Speaker 2:And so my friend Tony was telling me all about this thing called breathwork. I didn't know what it was. I only knew meditation from doing Joe Dispenza's work. At the time. Joe Dispenza was teaching some kind of a breathwork technique, but it was something very specific that you do in his meditations. It wasn't something you could use every day or use throughout the day or use in your life. And so my friend at the time, tony, he was sharing this with me and he showed me just how to belly breathe. At the time I didn't even know what belly breathing was. That was like Chinese to me. I'm like what are you talking about? I know how to breathe. And so he I'll never forget laid me on the ground and he put his hand on my belly and he said okay, when you breathe in, I want your belly to rise first as opposed to your shoulders. And so he sat there with me and he was just showing me the proper way to breathe. And he said now, when we go into the next session where we're going to be going into a meditation, I want you to do this like five times right before we go into this meditation and do Dr Joe's specific kind of breathwork technique. And I did.
Speaker 2:And what happened in that moment was I ended up having a massive trauma, emotional release from my body. My body shook. It was an emotional release and I didn't know at the time what happened, because I didn't know anything about breathwork. But I knew something huge happened and I can easily go down rabbit holes. When I'm really passionate about something, I go all in.
Speaker 2:And so when we got home from that retreat, I started Google, searching everything about breathwork. I started finding things on YouTube and just trying different, experimenting with myself, trying different things, and it resonated with me so much because all the meditation I was doing I was having really profound life-changing experiences with meditation, but it always felt like they were very out of body. They were connecting on a spiritual level, but I felt like what was missing was really being in my body as well, and that's what it felt like breathwork was doing for me. It was like the missing component, really to create some balance between the meditation, the ability to release this suppressed energy and suppressed emotion that we all carry, and meditation wasn't doing it in that way. It was doing other things but it wasn't doing that. Meditation wasn't doing it in that way. It was doing other things but it wasn't doing that, and so I really resonated with that. It was actually transforming my meditation experiences as well. They were building on each other, and so, after researching a whole bunch of trying different kinds, I stumbled upon Soma Breath.
Speaker 2:At the time they were very new as well and I did a couple of their free sessions. On the second session, it was just like a 20 minute one. I remember laying there after and feeling like I was on drugs Literally. I've done drugs in my teen years, so I knew what that felt like and I was like how is this possible that I'm laying here feeling like I'm on drugs? It was just my breath. It was very ecstatic and very euphoric and so after that I was like I have to start teaching this. I need to dive deeper for myself and I really want to start teaching this. So I signed up for the instructor training and took me about nine months. I think it was at the end of 2018 was when I officially got certified and have been teaching it ever since and practicing it, of course.
Speaker 1:Amazing. What type of breathwork is that?
Speaker 2:So this is why I fell in love with Soma Breath right away. At the time, like I said, there wasn't a lot of options for breathwork certifications. There was Wim Hof was doing it. They were just starting to talk about box breathing, transformational breathwork and rebirthing, so those were like, really the main ones at the time and I tried all of them. I thought they were super profound, but, again, they weren't something that, like, you could implement every single day, Like you're not going to do a holotropic breathwork session every day.
Speaker 2:And so when I stumbled upon Soma, what their model is? A holistic model of breathwork. In other words, they teach you the very basics of how to breathe properly so that you can literally live longer for longevity, to improve your health, and all the way up to so they sort of walk you through a slow process. So, from the very basics of just learning how to breathe properly, learning how to trigger a parasympathetic response, all the way up to these very intensive, more holotropic-like experiences that you would do, you know, once a week or something like that, but then also a daily practice, and so they really combine that. He teaches a lot of pranayama techniques, pranayama yoga, so he uses a lot of that, but he also uses a lot of science so you learn a lot of the science and biology behind breathing.
Speaker 2:So, as you said, when people say I know how to breathe correctly, well, most people don't actually, they actually don't and so it really gives you a wide range to work with as a facilitator so you can work with anybody that's just trying to learn how to calm their nervous system. There's also daily techniques that help you build resilience, help turn down the fear response and what I found now, six years later, in practicing and working with it since then, a lot of times it's just really using it as sort of an anchor every moment, like where's my breath at right now and just learning to focus on my breath. My husband uses it in that way, like we'll be driving and something will happen and it's like okay, just extend the exhale, slow your breath down. So, like I said, somoma is I'm unsure of the different certifications that are out there now, but I do know at the time they were really on the leading edge for breathwork certification and I think it's because they really offered a holistic view to it.
Speaker 1:Now, you mentioned it's a little less intense than holotropic, so how does this breathing technique work?
Speaker 2:So they use rhythmical breathing and so that is a big staple of any of the breathwork sessions that we lead. Usually Music, high intensity music, is really important. Neeraj, the founder and creator of Soma Breath he actually used to be a DJ as well, so, like way before he did this, he would go and lead these massive like in clubs and but he would see the impact that music can have on raising the level of vibration in the room and he would watch the impact. So he's like, music with breath is pretty profound, and so they create their own music and as instructors we get to use their music when we lead sessions or we record our own, and so the music is really powerful. So it's the rhythmic breathing, the music, and then when we're doing so, a lot of those are just like you do it for around four to five minutes.
Speaker 2:The other staple to their technique is breath retention on the exhale. So we'll do like a four minute round of, let's say, a four to four rhythmic breathing, breathing in for four, breathing out for four. You're doing that for about four and a half five minutes straight and then you're breathing all your air out and you're so it's, you know, similar to Wim, and then you're breathing all your air out and you're, you know, similar to Wim Hof. You're holding your breath on the exhale for an extended period of time. I worked a lot with that early on in my personal journey and with people. Like I said, it builds a lot of resilience. It helps you turn down the dial on your fear response so you're not as afraid in your life. It gives you more energy throughout the day. I actually noticed I lose weight when I'm doing it consistently. I have more energy throughout the day. So that's just like something you would do on a like a daily thing. Then they have, like I said, the more intensive rounds which you do. You could do four to five rounds of like a two to two rhythmic breathing. So you're breathing in for two, breathing out, and I'm counting the whole time for this. So you do like five rounds of that and that's going to be those.
Speaker 2:Sessions are focused on either some trauma release, emotional release and or very ecstatic states. The intention behind that is similar to Stan Grof when he created holotropic breathwork. He was working with psychedelic medicine, with his clients and the people that he worked with, and then they made psychedelics illegal, so he was determined to find a way for these people to reach these same ecstatic states, which is why he created holotropic breathwork. So these more intensive, longer, hour-long sessions are going to be more focused on that. The difference between the two is holotropic you're sitting with a sitter. You're just doing a fast in and out of your mouth for up to an hour straight.
Speaker 2:Where Soma, you're doing rounds of breathing and you're going to do the breath retention on the exhale. So, like I said, you may do like five rounds. The really great thing about them is they give you the freedom and the leeway to create whatever resonates with you. So, like, every instructor you're going to work with is going to be a little bit different because they're going to use some different techniques, and so for me, I incorporate a little bit more of I may do in the retreats that we do. I may do like a 20 minute pure holotropic, followed by maybe like three rounds of some rhythmical breathing, so you really can play around a lot with it, which I enjoy.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. And the first time I ever tried breathwork it was actually at an ayahuasca ceremony and it was oh my gosh, wow, yeah, it was, wow, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Did you go down to Rhythmia? Because I know they do.
Speaker 1:No, I didn't. It was intense. It was like the ayahuasca and holotropic breathwork, Like I stepped away from like everything for a little bit. I did that in July and it wasn't until the following January that I tried breathwork detox and I loved it, but because it was like so much came up for me and I almost wasn't fully ready to process it but I was just like, here you go.
Speaker 2:That is very intense. That is some deep shadow work and, like you said, man, if you're not prepared for that, it can happen. It can happen to a lot of people even just breath work alone when we're doing these longer sessions. The people I work with you should not be doing these longer sessions more than once a week because it will bring up a lot of stuff and it can be overwhelming, especially when you're trying to live a life and you're having all this stuff come up. And if you don't have a really strong support system and some really strong tools to navigate that, yeah, I can't imagine. It was my first time doing both.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh. First time doing breathwork. Oh my Lord, wow, I went for it. I had no idea what breathwork. Oh my Lord, wow, I went for it. I had no idea what breathwork was. But they were just like we're now doing breathwork and I'm like, okay, I was going to do everything. Like they had combo that weekend I was going to. I did combo because I was doing everything they offered. Oh my Lord.
Speaker 2:Amanda, wow, that had to have been quite the integration process after that. So did you say you didn't touch breathwork again for another six, seven months? Yeah, I totally can understand that.
Speaker 1:I meditated a lot. I did yeah, it was very inward A lot of meditations even by myself, not necessarily classes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was intense?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I bet. So then, when you tried it again in june, was it as intense or I?
Speaker 1:I had a great experience. Awesome, yeah, I had a great experience. I didn't go into it novice I wasn't novice the first time but like yeah, hosted a lot of stuff, like came up and all these, for sure, even experiences. I didn't remember good, bad in between, like oh yeah, everything, and I'm just like this is like a movie of my life and I don't want to watch. I'm ready to shut the movie off, yeah, but I can't no movie off.
Speaker 2:No, yeah, yeah. And you know what's funny about that is we always said from the beginning my husband and I always said from the beginning when we would lead retreats or online workshops why we loved breathwork so much is because, unlike ayahuasca, where you are shoved into the closet and you can't come out, breathwork you can keep the door open and you can kind of come in and out. You know, as you choose Ayahuasca or other psychedelics, you't doing that. You're stuck in that closet.
Speaker 1:So yeah, holy moly. No, it's true, I mentioned the same thing as well. You know, it's even to people, clients, and if they have resistance, if something comes up that you don't want to face, yeah, we encourage you to, but you don't have to face it totally, totally. If it's too heavy, you can stop. It's like you can end it. You know, yeah, you have that similar experience to ayahuasca, but without Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that, well, as in your case, it's a great example that we sort of I have learned the hard way, example that we sort of I have learned the hard way. You sort of have to be humble in your approach to all of this because, yeah, it can be too much to where it'll send you the other way and you know, I hate to use the word dangerous because I don't think it's. I think everything happens when it's supposed to happen but at the same time, being very humble in our approach and yeah, I mean you can go too deep too fast and not have enough support to figure that out. So I'm glad you got back on the horse.
Speaker 1:Have you ever done ayahuasca?
Speaker 2:I've not done ayahuasca. I've done psilocybin and bufo, so I don't know if you know what bufo is Yep, I've heard of it. I haven't done Bufo 5-MeO-DMT, so it's the strongest psychedelic that's out there, but it's very quick. Mine was like 40 minutes, which compared to ayahuasca or psilocybin. When it's six, seven, eight hours, however, it's complete ego death. So there's no even you know, when you're working with other psychedelics like psilocybin or ayahuasca, there's still an observer part of you that's going through the experience singularity. It was terrifying. It's a very hard experience and I would not recommend it to most people. Actually, I think you have to be very prepared for that experience and have some really great integration tools for after, really great integration support and already have a really good personal practice, a personal practice every day that is really strong in yourself, because it's pretty intense.
Speaker 2:And now my husband and I actually lead. We went to a retreat about a year and a half ago. It was a ketamine assisted mindfulness retreat and we actually again, when I love something, I'm like, oh my gosh, I have to go to. So we actually lead. Before we would just do breathwork and meditation retreats. We actually use ketamine therapy now at our retreats alongside the breathwork, not during the ketamine sessions. We'll do the ketamine sessions in the morning and then we do the breathwork sessions in the afternoon.
Speaker 1:Now, what is a ketamine session?
Speaker 2:So ketamine therapy. They call it a psychedelic. However, it's not a typical psychedelic, it is a pharmaceutical. It's actually an anesthesia, so they use it in emergency rooms and it was developed during the Vietnam War so that they could operate on soldiers out in the field without having to put them completely out and on a respirator machine because you will continue to breathe. So it's an anesthetic out and on a respirator machine because you will continue to breathe, so it's in an aesthetic. It will, when used in really high doses, will put you out so you don't remember, but not completely out so that you quit breathing. And what they found was when they started administering this to people in lower doses, they were having these profound psychedelic experiences. And they've done a whole ton of research on the effects on treatment-resistant anxiety and depression, ptsd. So they're working a lot with vets, things of that nature, people who experience PTSD.
Speaker 2:It's only an hour long, so you are like at a retreat, it's just like a meditation, with music playing. You put your mask on, it's very ceremonial and you have, you know, a psychedelic like experience for about an hour. The difference is so it's not like psilocybin or ayahuasca, where I think of those things and breathwork in that same regard is almost like going down deep. You're going down into you can say, darkness, shadows, trauma, whatever it is so that you can clear those out. Ketamine is very ethereal, so it almost brings you up and out. So it's like a very profound and deep meditation. You lose control, but you aren't so out of control that you're almost like working with your subconscious mind. Basically it's like having a conversation with your subconscious mind. The research behind what it's doing in the brain and why is because of neuroplasticity. That's what meditation does for us too. It helps with the neuroplasticity so that we can think in different ways, behave in different ways.
Speaker 2:This is actually doing that in an hour long session. You do a couple of sessions, like our retreats. We do three sessions having the same effects as years and years of meditation. So it's very ethereal, it's very angelic, it's very healing, it's very out of the body, and so why we wanted to bring breathwork with it was for the same reasons that I shared earlier, because I think you really have to do both.
Speaker 2:So it's like when we went to the retreat, the doctor we were working with she described it so perfectly. She said a ketamine experience is like if you're in the forest and you're walking through the forest and you're lost and you can't see which way to go. You're like, oh, try this way, but it's just such a thick forest you don't know which way to go. Ketamine is literally like it pulls you above the forest for an hour so you're able to see clearly how to get out. So, as I said, it takes you out of the body.
Speaker 2:You can have experiences where you meet with deceased loved ones, so there's a lot of healing that can happen. You can see situations, traumatic situations that happen, from a different perspective and so you see the beauty in it as opposed to the tragedy in it. So it helps you really think in new ways. But my husband and I, we also believe that you have to still work down in the body. It can't just be a mind thing. You have to integrate that and incorporate that. And we have found that no one else is really right now combining the two like we are. I think the two together is just really powerful.
Speaker 1:Have you always been combining the two?
Speaker 2:No, Excuse me, so that's what you were saying. Yeah, so we've been, you know, leading transformational workshops and retreats for about six years now. We in June of 2023, we were like, okay, we got to go do something for ourselves, you know, because we're mentoring, we're guiding, we're helping people and we teach that you have to take care of yourself first before you take care of anyone else, right? So we have to follow along with that. So I was just really in a space. I was looking for a breathwork workshop, I was looking for a breathwork retreat and, like I said, I knew we needed to get away for a couple of days and do something like that. So I was Googling and researching different breathwork retreats.
Speaker 2:For some reason, I was really struggling with finding something as intensive as we do at our workshops and retreats. It was either like yoga retreats or ayahuasca retreats or psilocybin retreats, but I was not finding a lot of breathwork, only retreats, and ended up stumbling upon this ketamine assisted mindfulness retreat, and I didn't know what ketamine was. I had no idea. This was, like I said, in June of last year, but it sounded interesting and I was like, you know, mindfulness is great, it's similar to meditation. So we ended up meeting with the facilitator via Zoom. She shared with us exactly what I just shared with you. You know, we were like we've done psychedelics before but never even heard of this. She's like it's very different than any psychedelics only an hour, there's no purging, it's very etherealereal, it's very out of the body. And so we said, okay, we're kind of like you, amanda, like all right, let's do it, why not? Let's go for it. And in those three days it was almost like my initial profound transformation when I was early on in the joda swenza world. It was that all over again. I actually call it was like my second spiritual awakening.
Speaker 2:And after those three days my husband and I were like this is the missing piece, because we had worked with hundreds and hundreds of clients over the last six years, many of them having huge changes in their lives. But many of them it was like they just couldn't get past that stuck point. It was like they just could not let go enough to have this sort of really deep experience. Like their resistance was too much, their ego was too strong, rightfully so. Most of them had a lot of trauma when they were young. So of course it's really scary to surrender and let go and we were like this we know, if they would have had this, that it could have helped them break through.
Speaker 2:And so there's a woman that we had been working with for like four years. We loved her to pieces. We knew we wanted to actually work alongside her at one point and she had worked in the emergency room for 30 years and she was the first person we called up after and we're like we want to add ketamine to our retreats that we're already doing. And she was like I administer ketamine in the emergency room every single day. I didn't know that this was actually being used in this way. So she ended up doing a lot of research and she's like I'm all on board. So we did our first one in November of 2023. So we've done five so far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, that's awesome.
Speaker 2:It's a beautiful thing to watch, for sure. My husband and I have cried many times watching people go through the experience yeah, that's, that's amazing.
Speaker 1:now I'd love to backtrack a tad now what you were mentioning, how you went to the Joe Dispenza workshop and a friend of yours was telling you about belly breathing, and then you did that before the meditation. And now, how did that affect your meditation experience?
Speaker 2:So, as I said, at the time, dr Joe was teaching a certain kind of breathwork technique that's very specific to him and his teachings and it has to do with taking a deep inhale and squeezing your mula bandha or your root, you know, your pelvic floor muscles. You're squeezing that and so I believe, by already sort of being in that environment I think we'd been there like three days or something before that I was already sort of primed to really open myself up and so when he told me to belly breathe, he said take five deep inhales and exhales. So it's almost like a mini holotropic in about five times, right, and so we go into the session and so I'm like, okay, I'm doing exactly. And I will say in that moment I was working through something very personal, but it was right on the surface and that's what happens at four days At that time. They were seven day the surface, and that's what happens at four days At that time. They were seven-day meditation retreats. That's what happens at seven-day meditation retreats. That's the point is to really allow these things to come to the surface so you can work through them.
Speaker 2:So I was in a space where that was very active in my body and in my energetic field and in my mind was something that was something very deep that I was working through, and so I think I was just completely primed and ready for something like this to happen. And so all I did was literally five deep breaths in, and then we go into this breath and it triggered the limbic system deep enough into my body that after, I think like the third time that we're pulling up his breath, as he did, my body started shaking uncontrollably. So I had no control of it and you know, bawling without really any control, and that happened for maybe a minute or two hard to say three minutes, four minutes and then afterwards I didn't move at all and, like I said, I didn't know what had happened. I mean, there's some crazy things that happened in that room at his retreats anyway. So I was familiar with that, but this was different.
Speaker 2:This was different than anything I'd experienced because it was so physical for me, like the physical shaking I later learned after learning about somatic release, which I don't know if you're familiar with. Peter Levine is the one who created somatic release and very synchronistic, as you said, my mom had showed me about somatic release four years before that and she showed me a video online of a polar bear experiencing a somatic release and all of a sudden, I remembered that. After that I was like, oh my gosh, I remembered her showing me that video of a polar bear. So then, of course, when I was doing all my research, I found that video again by Peter Levine, explaining what happens to animals and nature when they let go of, they move through a stress response and their body shake and tremble is exactly what happened to me.
Speaker 1:Now you mentioned you were going through something heavy. Did you realize what you were releasing through this at the time? Oh, no, at that moment not necessarily.
Speaker 2:I knew it had to do with the thing I was working through, but I didn't know the connection between these events that happened in our childhood and throughout then through life and the connection to our physical body and how much we held that. I had no idea because I was just learning about meditation, which some could say. In some ways meditation allows for that as well, but it's not focused on the intention behind it. It's not like, okay, let's sort of release the stuck energy from your body. And so I knew afterwards it felt like literally 20 pounds off of my shoulders, literally. I was laying there. The rest of the meditation was great. It was an hour long and just laying there in a complete state of peace and stillness for that whole time. Like I said, it literally felt like I released 20 pounds off my shoulders. Because I did, my body was able to release that. So in some ways I knew, because I've been working through that, but I didn't yet know the connection between the two. Does that make sense?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it does. So you mentioned you got certified in 2018, and you knew right away that it was for you to get, I did.
Speaker 2:There was a couple things that I loved about Selma Breath and Neeraj, the creator of it. He's just brilliant. He was a pharmacist. That was his training. That's what he did.
Speaker 2:What started his journey was he started seeing, okay, I'm giving out all these prescriptions to people and not only are they're not getting better, but now they're having to come back in and take other prescriptions for side effects of the medicine that I'm giving him. So he started on his own just questioning the system, like why is this not actually how? It seems like it's not helping people as much as it should, helping people as much as it should. And then he, as I said before, it's like these things happen in our life to sort of change our path he ended up getting I think it was colitis or I can't think of the name right now. Anyway, he got diagnosed with it. So this meant he was like shitting blood and diarrhea all day, all the time, like laying in bed, and this was going on for like a year and you know, he couldn't function in his everyday life, and so the only option that the doctors gave him and sort of the Western medical system was to remove his colon and he would have to have a bag for the rest of his life and he'd have to take medication Really intense, you know thing. It completely changed his life and he didn't want to go that route because he had already been questioning it. So he said I want to see if I can do this alternatively. And he did. He discovered, actually, wim Hof, breathwork and meditation and pranayama, yoga and all these holistic, natural ways of healing. And he did. He healed his body and he said the same thing I want to develop a system. I think in his eyes same thing I was thinking it was like at that time there was only sort of these really intense ones. Wim Hof is great, but it's pretty specific, you know. So he wanted to create something that was more holistic, that, like I said, we can use throughout our day, but we can use in these really deep ways as well, and so he created Soma.
Speaker 2:What I loved and what drew me to it right away was number one. I think in some communities, when you just have a teacher, you can tend to get the guru syndrome, so everyone's giving their power away to the person that's teaching. I saw that in the Dispenza community and he was really about empowering his facilitators, his instructors, to, like I said, make it unique to them and go and spread it with the world. I didn't have that experience in the Jodas Venza community. Really, it was more sort of like come here but don't teach this and very, you know, people got really obsessed with Jodas Venza. This doesn't just happen in that community, it happens in lots of communities, and Neeraj was not like that at all. He was really about empowering the community. It wasn't about him, it was about empowering individuals and empowering people to go and spread the message.
Speaker 2:So that was the first thing that I really loved about it that there was actually a certification that you could take, that you could teach people, and it was really science and spirituality, which is my passion, it's what I talk about a lot now is really bridging science and spirituality. I believe that's what we have to do and that's. Soma of Breath really does a great job on bridging those two things, talking about mindset and manifestation, but also talking about the biology of our bodies and how certain things work, and I really loved that. Like I said, I love the community and I think those I love the holistic view of it. I love that. They said learn this, but then go, make it your own. They give you scripts for creating meditation tracks, but then they're like do your own too. Do what works for you. And so I think, for me.
Speaker 2:At the time, my husband and I had just started a coaching business my husband has an amazing story of healing his body and so we knew we wanted to help people transform and change their lives, as we did, but for some reason I felt like meditation alone. I just felt like there was still a missing piece there, and so when I did the breathwork, I was like, oh my gosh, this is really the missing piece for a more holistic model and framework for people to not just transform their lives but then live that every day. You know, because a lot of what we saw too, my husband and I, a lot of what we saw, too, my husband and I, in communities like that, where people would go and have these transformative experiences but they wouldn't integrate when they got back in their life. They couldn't integrate, they'd have like these mystical out-of-body.
Speaker 1:Then they'd go back home to lives that they hate, and then they would just stay there and go to the workshops and hope that something would change, and I felt like breath work was a way to integrate into the body. If that makes sense, yeah, it does, and you don't think meditation fully helped you into the body.
Speaker 2:It was more out of the body yes, granted, at the time, joe Dispensas was the only meditation I was doing. I have now evolved my practice and it's very different seven years, eight years later, than it was at that time. So now I really believe you do have to do both. For me, anyway, and what I teach, I think meditation is to help you calm the mind. There's different kinds of meditation as well, depending on what you're seeking. There's passive meditation, active meditation, so there's different ways that you can utilize a meditative practice. They've been doing it for thousands of years, these yogis and monks. That's how they reach enlightenment is through meditation. So there's and there's people will resonate with different things too, you know, and some people may just do meditation their whole life and that's enough for them and that's great.
Speaker 2:For me it wasn't. It felt like I was missing a piece. For me, it was actually really easy to sort of have these out-of-body mystical experiences. I never struggled with that. It was more challenging for me to be in my body, and that was part of my own personal journey in the last, you know, again, five, six years and that's what breathwork really helped me with the most was like, okay, how do I actually navigate my life every single day in my body. I can't sit in a room and meditate all day long, but I need meditation in my life as well. So for me I think I practice both, we teach both. One may work for some people, and that's great. Just for me, I think it's been really profound to use both of those tools.
Speaker 1:How would you describe breathwork to somebody who's never heard of it?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a really great question, because I've probably had people ask me this before. I would say probably it depends on who I'm talking to. It's somebody that has an understanding of this sort of alternative medicine, alternative ways to heal or change or transform. They're probably already somewhat familiar, maybe they just know about meditation. So I probably would just start with it's a way to amplify your meditation. It's a way to help you get into that relaxed state before a meditation. That's probably what I would start with somebody like that, because it has been profound for me Many times.
Speaker 2:I just do a 15 minute breath work right before I do a meditation, and so what it's doing is just helping me relax my body and my mind even more so that I can tap right into that meditation.
Speaker 2:So I would start probably there on a very basic level. If somebody that has no idea what it is, honestly I think the best thing is to show them Literally, to show them so that they feel what it's like to slowly breathe in through your nose with your diaphragm and then slowly breathe out through your mouth, because that is why I love breathwork and I think it's easier to explain to people because you can experience the results right away. It's going to take you some time and you're going to have to be disciplined and you're going to have to be committed to it. Like you shared in your first experience, breathwork has the capacity to you know the result right away, and so I think that can help people understand it when they're experiencing it for themselves. A lot of times I just start with it's a way to calm your nervous system, to help you feel better throughout the day, to help you feel more relaxed. A lot of times I just say it's different ways to utilize your breath.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:How do you explain? I'd love to hear what other people I don't talk to other breathwork instructors very much, though Sometimes I say it's like meditation on steroids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a great way. I love that Because, even like the loud music, because everybody's shocked when they start hearing yeah, start hearing it. So like it's intensified meditation. And, like we mentioned, dark air, even if somebody's never meditated a day in their life, they know what meditation is. You know what I mean. Like I've met that have never done it. Yeah, have never done yoga, I've never done any of the above. They know what it is. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:So like yeah, yeah, yeah, if you use that as the example, yeah, yeah I think it really helped because, even for sure, I've met a lot of people and I'm like, oh, have you ever meditated? And they're like no, and I'm like, oh, but you know exactly what I'm talking about, okay, you? Know, what meditation is I love that.
Speaker 2:that's a really great example for people and I think it's becoming more mainstream now. I do think a lot more people know about breathwork. It's sort of like no one 10 years ago really talked about meditation or knew what it was. Now it's like you said. I mean, they talk about manifestation on shows and stuff like that. So I think breathwork is at that point now where meditation maybe was 10 years ago. It's like oh okay, people are starting to become aware of it. I think people love that. Like I said, you can experience the effects right away. Yeah, it's not something that you have to years and years really work with and practice. So I love that. I'll have to start using that one. It's like meditation on steroids. I love that, yeah.
Speaker 1:You know and like there's no side effects either, really, and I love that too Not that I want to say there's side effects to even psychedelics, but like there's things that come with that Totally.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, psychedelics, but like there's things that come with that Totally, you know what I mean. Like it's even like the hours you're into the ayahuasca session, you know. So there was no real barrier, there was no real side effect, there was no heal. You know what I mean and I love that I didn't pose like and all the things. Yeah, it feels like almost like a much safer way and all the things.
Speaker 2:Yeah it feels like almost like a much safer way. Safer, don't want that word, but easier step into sort of these outward body or altered states. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Definitely easier. You know, even like those, the financial investment with psychedelics, I had to go put it forward Like, yeah, I agree it was worth it, but not everybody's able to do that, absolutely. You tap into breath, work, yep Easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, as Wim Hof says, get high on your own supply.
Speaker 1:Yes, it's true. Yeah, I love how you mentioned how he was a pharmacist and wanted to find a more holistic way. I love that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he actually healed himself by doing it, so it was like he was the testament.
Speaker 1:Pharmaceuticals themselves have so many side effects. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:I mean, literally we don't watch a lot of TV or anything, but now even Netflix has commercials on everything right. And so we were with our kids skiing last week and I can't remember what show we were watching, and the commercials come on, even when I think you pay to not have them. They come on, and most of them are pharmaceuticals, and we were laughing because this one kept coming on for children, mind you, it was something to do with like gluten allergies or something, and literally the side effects they were saying was can cause cancer, and we were like no words that they want you to give this to your children and it it can cause cancer. I'm like, wow, this is profound. So yes, breath work?
Speaker 1:yeah, as much as well. It. It's so wild. You know I was diagnosed this was probably seven years ago by now but with daily chronic migraines, wow. And they tried all these different medications and I don't even remember what the last one was, but I tried that one and then I was fainting in public places to the point where I was like I'm done with this. I was in an American Eagle and luckily I was with my boyfriend at the time, but I literally I just fainted.
Speaker 1:I was like I am 20 years old, like I'm yeah, I was pretty young, I was reasonably healthy, like I wasn't like super fit at the time, but I wasn't in bad shape, I didn't have health issues. And I was like and they had no idea why, but I'm now on this new medication and I was like I am done with this and I I started, I changed my diet, I started meditating what's going on and I don't have migraines anymore. Oh my gosh, amanda, that is amazing. I was like I can't do this. I can't just talk this cold trophy, of course, of course, of course. I'm like if I was not alone, what would have happened to me Happened, totally. That's how I am. It literally scared the shit out of me because I'm like, I'm fortunate, like I have gone to the mall plenty of times by myself, I met an American Eagle, and I have no recollection as to why I'm now laying on the ground. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2:And they the ground. Oh yeah, and they were like you just fell, we don't know you could hit your head like at home, hit your head on the counter and blood does that like. Oh my god, I was like something's gotta change. How very similar story. That's amazing. Good for you. It's so hard to when you have doctors saying like you know, well, you can't just do this, you can't do that, and you're like I'm taking my help into my hands and my life into my hands.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I've spoken to a few people, even on my other podcast. You know, like if you know something's not right with an education, listen to your body Because, like, I'm no medical expert and I'm not sure I say I am, but I believe we know our bodies because they were all like you can't stop this cold toque. I'm like it's not going to be worse. Am I going to faint from stopping a cold toque? Yeah, I was like what is the worst side effect? I'm fainting and I'm feeling lightheaded all the time. People don't believe me that I'm lightheaded. Well, now I know. Wow, Like I fainted.
Speaker 2:Good for you.
Speaker 1:That's so amazing. So I'm a strong believer in the holistic remedies, you too. Yeah, the minimal side effects, you know Right, exactly, I'm not going to pass out from Exactly, wow, what an amazing story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, good for you.
Speaker 1:Thank you. Have you ever faced any resistance with doing a doing breathwork? As far as me or anybody else Like yourself doing a breathwork session yourself?
Speaker 2:It's? That's a very interesting question I have had. I've worked with a lot of people who come to me with resistance and they know it. They're like I have all this resistance so that's why I'm doing it, because I resist it. Have all this resistance so that's why I'm doing it, because I resist it.
Speaker 2:I you know, honestly, I can't think of a time where I was like I didn't want to, or I for me, I've gotten so in tune with my body. I know when stuff's sort of like building up and I need to go do an intensive breathwork session. I know when I have to now and I know if I don't, it builds and builds and something's going to happen in not a good way. So for me, I think I can't think of a moment that I've resisted it. Maybe there's been times I'm sure I mean there's been times where I'm like I don't feel like, oh God, you know, because for me I've had very intensive experiences with breathwork physically you know, my husband will attest to this Very intense, and it can look scary for someone on the outside that doesn't know what's happening, look like a seizure. So from the beginning I was pretty in tune with that and so there may have been times where I'm like, oh God, it's a lot, it could be a lot as far as energy. You're exhausted a lot of times afterwards and so I think if any resistance came, it was just sort of that like am I prepared to do it? But, like I said, I think I've just developed that relationship with my body so much that it's like I know when I need to go do this, or even just a daily one. You know, if I've gone a couple of days and I haven't done just a daily maybe I'm just doing meditation because I switched a lot I'm like, okay, time to do like a 15, 20 minute, 30 minute one.
Speaker 2:So I can't say that I recall a specific time where I felt like I didn't, I was scared or anything like that, resistance like that maybe. Just I don't really feel like it in this moment, but it's been so profound for me. You know, when things change your life like that, you know and I see the results right away and I see how I feel after I go for it. And, like I said, I've worked with a lot of people that didn't want to try it. They were scared to try it. They had tried maybe some other kinds and they're like, ah, it doesn't really do anything. So I've definitely worked with people with a lot of resistance and most of the time they try it and they're like, holy shit, there's something to this, like, yeah, all with their own breath. Amazing, right, it's so true.
Speaker 1:And it's crazy. It still blows me away. I know me too. Now, what would you say to somebody who now I'm not sure if you'd consider this resistance, but like they feel they don't need to tap into breathwork because they haven't experienced enough trauma or any trauma? Sure, that's a really great question.
Speaker 2:That's very great questions, amanda. So I've probably had somebody say this to me before and you know, I think, that people number one we don't understand the word trauma very well. A lot of people think trauma means this huge event that may have happened in their childhood. But trauma could have happened from your teacher saying you sucked at this paper. You know, because the first seven years seven to 10 years our brains soak up everything so we don't really have analytical capacity to go oh, my teacher's just having a bad day. And that's not really true. That imprints in our brain literally an imprints our subconscious beliefs and who we think we are as we're older. Most people have no idea that's what happens. Most people have no idea. They just think they are who they are. They don't understand that they have deeper traumas.
Speaker 2:So the first step is like helping explain that we all carry that Also watching. You know I always show the video that my mom showed me years and years ago the polar bear, after having a stress response. I show that in everything that we do to help people, like you said, that say I don't need to do that to understand that when we have any kind of intensive stress response we have to release those chemicals out with the flush them out. We have to flush them out, and the only way to flush them out is to sort of activate this limbic system and let our body actually naturally, our bodies naturally, know how to do this. By the way, we're just not taught because it looks weird, you know, when we're kids. It's an alternative, holistic way of approaching it, and so a lot of people have just explained that process to them that just by living life, you're accumulating stressors in your body that you're not releasing. It's why people feel so good after they have a good, hard cry. It's the same thing why they feel cathartic, they feel lighter, because it's literally an emotional release, it's an energetic release, and so, especially people who don't even cry you know, I've met people that haven't cried in 20 years, literally and so the first thing that usually happens when we do these intense ones is they start bawling. They're like I don't know what's happening, I don't know why I'm crying, I'm like it's just your body knows how to do this actually. So I think, understanding that we all have some sort of trauma.
Speaker 2:Usually and again, it doesn't have to be something that's really intensive. It could be small little moments that happen in our childhood Also. You can reach very ecstatic states and when you reach these really ecstatic states, you can have profound insights. You can have clarity on well, maybe I thought this was the way my life was going to work out, or I thought I had to do this. All of a sudden, you have this profound insight that actually no, I can do this in my life. So the opportunity even if you think you don't need to get rid of anything to actually open your mind up and explore the potential for what your life could look like and what you can look like, because that's what breathwork is going to do as well, and I think just about everybody that lives now deals with stress and anxiety throughout the day because we have constant stimulation and so literally just learning how to breathe better so that you can cope and manage with that stress every single day I don't know who wouldn't benefit from that.
Speaker 1:That's so true and I love how you mentioned about it could be something so minimal. You know it doesn't have to be like. I think people heal the woe, trauma and they're like, oh yes, yes, your mom neglected. Yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's this big thing, but like you know, it could be not playing when you on the team. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Something that you don't even realize bothers you, and I think so many people think it's like this yeah, and they don't know that moment is actually still ruling their life because it's subconscious.
Speaker 2:So they don't know that. You know, they didn't know it's creating these experiences and situations in their life. So I think the more that we talk about it and people understand that, I think people are so much more open to it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, it's so true. Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. It's been fun, I loved it. I really appreciate it. Do you have any final words for the listeners?
Speaker 2:Final words. I think that, just like I said, learning some very basic techniques, you can learn some very basic techniques that's just going to help you throughout your day, like deal with stress better. But you know sort of off of what we were just talking about understanding that we all carry this emotional baggage from lots of different things that have occurred in our life and they build on each other. You know so a lot of it happens in the first seven to 10 years, but then it just builds on top of that and, as I said, the great thing with breathwork is just try it. If you just try it, you will experience exactly what we're talking about, and there have been very few people that I have met that have had a really good breathwork session and not have it be pretty profound for them. So it's worth trying for sure.
Speaker 1:I say that all the time. You got nothing to lose.
Speaker 2:Exactly. There's nothing to lose except for, you know, 20 years of trauma that you didn't know. You had Right Like, oh, your life's going to get better Shit.
Speaker 1:I love it I love it.
Speaker 2:Amanda. It's been great talking to another breathwork facilitator. I don't get to do too much, it has.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for speaking with me. Yeah, I loved this and we are going to delve deeper down Em's journey and her husband's journey, all the retreats they do and all of that on Mando's Mindset at a later time. But thank you so much. I really enjoyed this. Yeah, me too, thank you, and thank you, guys for tuning in to another episode of Breathwork Magic. I really appreciate it and I'd appreciate it if you subscribe to the show, leave a rating, leave a review and stay tuned for the next episode. So leave a rating, leave a review and stay tuned for the next episode. Thank you for tuning in to Breathwork Magic.
Speaker 1:I hope today's episode inspired you to connect more deeply with your breath and embrace the transformation that it can bring. Remember, as long as you have your breath, you have options. You're not stuck. You can make a change. You can make a shift. Each inhale is a new beginning and every exhale is a chance to let go of what no longer serves you. If you enjoyed the episode, it would mean the world to me If you shared this with a friend. Left a rating or review. Your support helps more people discover the magic of breathwork and the incredible transformations it offers, if you're ready to take the next step, I encourage you and I invite you to join me every Monday evening, virtually, for a Mindful Mindset Monday, a virtual pay-what-you-can breathwork session where you can reset, recharge and refocus. All of the information is in the show notes. Until next time, keep breathing, keep shifting and keep embracing the magic with inside of you. I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this.