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
Ancient Wisdom, Modern Healing: Breath, Qi & Acupuncture with Banya Lim
What if your breath could unblock emotional energy and guide you back to your natural state of well-being?
In this episode of Breathwork Magic, Amanda Russo welcomes Banya Lim, a multi-generational healer, energy coach, and the creator of the Qi Mastery System. With over three decades of experience as an acupuncturist and practitioner of oriental medicine, Banya shares how breathwork became a catalyst in her personal and professional healing journey.
Listeners will be inspired by Banya’s unique integration of spiritual acupuncture, movement, and breath, and how the body holds not just tension—but wisdom, memory, and the potential for emotional release. Discover how specific breath patterns and movements can open energetic pathways, dissolve blockages, and restore emotional clarity. This conversation also explores the five elements, the body’s subtle messages, and the power of healing through intuition.
Whether you’re looking to deepen your self-awareness, move stuck energy, or explore a holistic approach to wellness, this episode is a must-listen.
Key Points:
[2:04] – Banya’s early healing path and the roots of spiritual acupuncture
[4:35] – The breath as a delivery system for qi and personal transformation
[7:00] – How breathwork and movement complement acupuncture practices
[12:22] – Her first breathwork experience and the emotional breakthrough it sparked
[15:24] – The five elements and how they mirror emotions in the body
[21:52] – Why movement is essential for clearing blocked energy
[28:19] – A powerful stretch + breath technique to release anger quickly
[34:14] – Emotional imprints in the body and how beliefs create blockages
[36:33] – Final wisdom: align your inner world to create outer transformation
If this episode inspired you, don’t forget to rate, review, and share it with a friend who could use a breath of insight and clarity.
Keep breathing...your body knows the way.
To Connect with Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess
~ Sign Up for Virtual Mindful Mindset Mondays HERE
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. 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.
Speaker 1:The transformation starts now. Welcome to Breathwork Magic. As always, I'm your host, amanda Russo, the Breathing Goddess, and I am so excited to be joined with Vanya today. And Vanya is a multi-generational healer and energy coach. She has 30 years of experience as an acupuncturist and oriental medicine practitioner and she developed the Chai Mastery System, and I am so excited to delve down her journey. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Amanda.
Speaker 1:So I'd love to know how you first ever came to discover Breathwork.
Speaker 2:Well, my focus in my life, aside from my family, is healing, deliver, healing for people has been my focus since I was young and also, coming from a family with many healers, that has been our main interest. I feel like my mom's an acupuncturist as well. She eventually incorporated an idea of spirituality into acupuncture and that is actually traditional way of doing acupuncture and that has been lost over thousands of years. And acupuncture has been about connecting mind, body and spirit. But it ended up just focusing just on the physical level, which is fine. But unless we tap into the whole system, which is mind, body and spirit, you're not really doing the whole, you're not doing the complete healing.
Speaker 2:When I started practicing, I called, I decided to just call it acupuncture, spiritual acupuncture. So I talk about this mind-body-spirit of who we are and naturally open up conversation with many of my clients and then eventually find out that there's so much wisdom I mean I've known about this, but I got to really experience it on so many levels there's so much wisdom within the body and also how powerful self-healing that is Ultimately true healing occurs by individual, not because someone gave something, someone did something Individual. Each person has to walk that journey to discover their own healing. I believe our bodies are the most powerful thing that we inherited from my parents and from my ancestors and there's a voice keep continuously telling us what to do, what to wear, what to eat, where to go, who to talk to all those things we just haven't really taught to listen to our body. So that's one idea Healing has to occur from individual, from their own journey.
Speaker 2:And the breath and energy earlier I said cha is actually chi. Chi can be delivered into the body through the breath and we come to this life with the breath and we're going to live this life by exhaling or letting go of the breath and that is one of the key elements in circulating the energy within the body and opening the we call it meridians. The energy channels in acupuncture we call meridian can open up through breath and the qi or energy gets activated and then eventually open up the channel. It's like literally getting acupuncture with the breath.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so that's what spiritual acupuncture with the breath.
Speaker 2:Okay, and so that's what spiritual acupuncture is. Spiritual acupuncture, there's many aspects to it physically getting acupuncture, and also there's a guidance or coaching aspect to it.
Speaker 1:Part of coaching, one area that I do breath work Okay.
Speaker 2:And how do you combine the acupuncture with the breath? So a typical program is most of the work that I do online these days, because I do more coaching than anything. But if there's any severe cases people have to come here to Sedona where I live, and they tend to stay a few weeks or a few months and throughout those few months they get regular session, acupuncture session and then intermittently they get breathwork sessions with me. I love that Through the program they get to really in tune with their own body, because anything that we want to achieve in our lives let that be health, relationship or success in your business there are blockages to get to where you want to go and that blockage is literally within the body and there's actual location of that blockage is energy within the body and we have to open them up. So what acupuncture does? Going to those specific spots to open them up.
Speaker 2:But since our energy is connected to our emotion, our thoughts and our stories, unless we delve into that, people tend to go back to the old way. It's weak. So breath work helps break the patterns, helps people to have awareness of this pattern and not only be aware of it. They can be able to create a sense of healing within the context of doing the breath work, because during the breath work tremendous energy gets generated and I always say awareness is the starting of everything. So even guiding people to having awareness it takes a while, but breath work has such a powerful way to not only creating awareness but be able to resolve and dissolve whatever the energetical blockages within them. To this point I really don't know sometimes how things happen exactly. I know I'm talking right now, but there's just so much energy gets generated. I think people go down to their unconscious level, so deep that so many things happen. And I'm still learning, I'm still discovering every day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I get it. I love how you mentioned the mind-body-spirit. I think that's so key to bringing that into any practice. Now, have you always had breathwork as a part of the acupuncture practice that you do?
Speaker 2:No, no, this has only been incorporated in the last four years.
Speaker 1:I'm curious have you noticed a difference like before and after?
Speaker 2:Have you noticed a difference like before and after? I mean, I can give you an example just for myself. You know, just having my first experience I always had. I mean I wouldn't recover from this, but I had depression, and the first time I had breath work, I had just sense of, you know, sense of elation. It's just such an experience of bliss that I haven't experienced ever before. You know, you really don't have to take anything, you don't have to take drugs. You know, this is such a natural way of experiencing who we truly are. And once in a while my clients tell me their experience with acupuncture too. Acupuncture can be very, very powerful. When the meridian opens up and all the emotional blockages go away, then you also experience this powerful lightness.
Speaker 1:No, that makes a lot of sense and I get what you mean by the bliss fate from doing breathwork. But wow, I'm so curious like differences you saw, like acupuncture with breathwork versus just the acupuncture. Now, I've never experienced acupuncture myself. I know what it is, I've heard of it Like I know about it. But I'm so curious about that with blood flow versus without.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, goal here is the same. I'm sure your goal is the same too for us to go back, return back to our original state, original state of wholeness, and I believe that we all have that. We just have to align to that the aligning part. You just get help from different people and different practitioners. My goal is always about healing. Once again, what is the most effective and powerful and quickest way to create healing? If I can, I sometimes bring in some herbs as well, which is Chinese herbs not always and I found that if I incorporate breath work, there's always powerful healing that happens. So I mean, why not? Why not incorporate this into the work that I do? Why not recommending this to other practitioners, which that I'm doing? Yeah, it speed up the process of healing work that I'm doing process of healing work that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I've noticed that a lot of different modalities are incorporating it in some aspect, because it helps you let go, feel more safe, be able to do whatever the process is less in our head.
Speaker 2:Right, right. I think it's all about going down to that unconscious level. As you know, like an iceberg, our conscious lives just above the water. This is how we operate throughout our lives, throughout our days. But we have this vast aspect of who we are is unconscious and we don helps us to go into that deeper level of who we are, where there's this unlimitlessness that exists and unconditional love that exists, and also wholeness exists and the healing that exists.
Speaker 1:So you're literally just letting go of ego.
Speaker 2:When did you first experience breathwork? I don't know, it's 2019. Maybe 2019 somewhere there.
Speaker 1:Do you remember like effects of it after your first experience?
Speaker 2:Well, like I said, I just feel really elated and happy. I was just tearing At the time. I was going through some difficult time and I didn't really know how I was going to get out of it. And after the session I wasn't crying because I was sad. I was crying because I was happy that you can be able to have all of the emotion that you can experience through that and probably not for everybody and all the time, but also, like tearing and crying is for me was a form of release, at the time it felt like that's amazing, you know.
Speaker 1:You don't have to do anything, there's no drugs, it's just breathing, like I love, love that aspect. There's not really side effects. People talk about plant medicine, they talk about these different things, but there was no side effect to breathwork and I loved that, you know yes, I've always, always believed that bodies.
Speaker 2:This body holds everything that we need. We just need some pointer what to do, that's all. Breathe certain way, eat certain food, but we have everything we need here, not outside. I explore also some plant medicines too, but it's still something outside of us. If anybody want to try it and do that, which is fine. But the journey of finding answers outside of us, it's coming to an end. Trying to find whatever that is we're looking for, that outside of who we are, that path is coming to an end, at least my perspective. We time to go. We went to the moon, we're trying to go to the mars and different places. You're trying to find something. But wherever you go, you will see the arrows pointing at you. What are're looking for is at home, not out there, and literally our bodies hold all the answers that we're looking for. We just haven't taught to see the power within us and we're just learning, that's all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, now that makes a lot of sense. I agree, though, that it's people are starting to look less outside of themselves, you know, a lot less outside of themselves. What would you say is the significance of the body?
Speaker 2:Our bodies are the microcosm of the universe. Whatever's happening out there, it's happening within us and that's a very example of oriental medicine and acupuncture. There are acupuncture points within our body. There are 365 main points within the body that matches with the number of days in a year and there are 12 major meridians that matches with 12 months in a year. And organs, eyes, nose has all these connections to the moons and stars and so on. Our right side of the body is more connected to masculine energy or paternal energy. If you have a consistently having issue on the right side of the body, if you're consistently having issues on the left side of the body, left side is more connected to feminine energy or yin energy, and you will be wise to look into your relationship with your first caretaker, which is usually your mother, and so on. And that's based on yin and yang theory. And there are two main theories, guys oriental medicine, yin and yang theory and five element theories. Based on five element theories colors, direction, taste everything has a connection to what's going on within the body. Also has a reflection on the outside as well.
Speaker 2:Liver and gallbladder is the yin and yang pair and its emotion is anger. So when in the anger, the liver and yang mer is only that one side of the body. So this is why when you have excessive anger, you right away put your hand on the side of the body. This is like a universal gesture. If somebody come at you like that, with the hands on the side, you know that person's usually not necessarily happy with you.
Speaker 2:And liver and gallbladder's connection is to wood and its color is green. When you get to listen to our bodies, truly listen to our body, we just navigate our body, navigate our day-to-day life intuitively and instinctively. Look, this is why when you wake up in the morning, you just want to wear certain color of clothes. That's also a sign that your body's way of telling you that's the most harmonizing color for you to wear. But if you right away doubt and think about how people are going to judge you instead of just following your intuition, liver and gallbladder is a connection to green. Color is green. Sometimes you get drawn to green, sometimes you get drawn to red. Red is color of heart and small intestine, lungs and large intestine. The color is white when you and lungs and large intestine is metal and its emotion is sadness.
Speaker 2:And when you have an overwhelm, there's a sadness within you. It affects your lungs right away. You catch cold easily, you might have a little bit of digestive issue, and so on. In ancient China, if an emperor catches a cold cold, they go by this five element theory. And since color is white, the cook chef has to prepare food based on color white. They diced on in white parts of the green onion, things like that. They cook that way to be able to harmonize the lungs and large intestine, which is the metal of the body, and the color is white. Does this make sense or too much?
Speaker 1:No, it does. Wow, it's so fascinating though, oh my gosh, okay. So all of these different colors, wow, okay, and they affect, like, different parts of the body.
Speaker 2:Different parts of the body. Yeah, and also each emotion connected, each meridian connected organ, and that organ is connected to emotion. As I told you, for example, metal organ is lungs and large intestine. Its emotion is sadness. So when you have overwhelming sadness since you're a kid oftentimes, sometimes I see a lot of cases.
Speaker 2:People born with a lot of sorrow, you know, also go through their lives, throughout their life they experience it it's because they kind of take on their parents' energy, especially their mother. They might have a lot of lung issues, can be asthma, whatever that might be, and then lung meridian starts from here, like it's bilateral, so from here and go down to the thumb. And this is the reason why when your lung meridians gets blocked, you right away your shoulder can hunch like this. So eventually the blockages within your body can create specific posture. So, believe it or not, you have a very unique posture, Amanda, and I have my own unique posture based on different blockages within the body, energy system within the body. Someone who really know us very well in our lives, if they see us in just dark silhouette, they can tell that that's us based on our movement.
Speaker 1:So the body can tell us a lot.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, continuously telling us. And this is why, when you purposely move your body a certain way, you can also open up the meridians. The goal of all the martial arts like Tai Chi, qigong, kung Fu, karate and all these martial arts actually ultimately trying to open up all these acupressure points within the body through the movement. Some of them did find that through the meditation and so on. Movement. Some of them did find that through the meditation, and so on. So I encourage my clients to do some form of movement consistently.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, definitely it makes a lot of sense. Wow, that is so fascinating all of this to me. It makes sense, wow, like the different body parts and the metal from, and it's your lungs, and ties into the emotion of sadness.
Speaker 2:Oh, by the way, you asked me about my first experience of breath work. I started to have this movement. I almost wanted to dance. I don't know if that happened just for me or other people. I just wanted to move my body and that flow of energy happened, I think I just I kind of like slow dance for a little while after that, I remember you were in like this euphoric state.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that I love.
Speaker 2:yes, relate to my, my belief on how our body energy opens through the movement, and it would just happen very naturally for me.
Speaker 1:Now, did you I don't know if you remember, but did your body move while you were doing the breath work?
Speaker 2:Yeah, in the midst of it, yeah, because I was laying down, and then eventually my, I mean, you know, you kind of have you know those clammy, you know tetany, and my mouth was like that. It was hard to move. But after you know, after you start breathing naturally, I start to have this like sort of natural tai chi or dance movement while laying down. Then eventually I sit up and, you know, did the movement for a while. Wow, oh, my gosh, yeah, my whole body was tingling.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like how you mentioned that, because every I mention it before I facilitate a session. But a lot of people look at me like that's not going to happen and if you've never done it, you're like my hands are going to do that. But yeah, yeah for sure. Now, can you explain? I know you mentioned chi is the energy, but can you explain at a basic level what chi is?
Speaker 2:explain at a basic level what qi is. Well, the word qi is an ancient word and come from Asia. That has been exist, I believe, more than 5,000, maybe 7,000, 10,000 years, and people are trying to, in a way, describe what this thing is that moves everything, generates everything, and there's a certain quality to it and the more you work on it, and there's a way to harness it and there's a way to gather it and there's a way to send it too, and we simply describe chi as energy, and some culture call it prana, some culture call it holy ghost, because it creates a miracle and healing, and some place, I believe, even called God. It's invisible, but there's a power in it. It moves things and make things happen that made sense.
Speaker 1:It's invisible but you can feel it. That made a lot of sense, thank you, because we heal. I heal the word energy so much and I feel like a lot of my listeners do as well. But what? What is energy? That makes a lot of sense the way you explained that, thank you. What have you noticed that it's helped you with becoming more in tune with your body?
Speaker 2:I believe me practicing on my own. It's very important for me. So make a point to do three things that I commit to do Meditation, movement, movement and breath work. Do you do those every day? Breath work not every day, maybe once a week, but meditation and movement every day. I love that. I live in Sedona, arizona.
Speaker 1:How long have you been doing those? Every day, the breathwork once a week?
Speaker 2:Probably about 20 years, because movement and meditation are the two things that get me out of my depression 20 years ago. And that's without any drugs, any therapy or any chemical.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, movement is a big thing. You know, I have my own weight loss journey. But even outside of the weight that I lost, you know, I heard this phrase from this woman, rachel Hollis, that she had said move your body, change your mind. And I was in a pretty miserable state. I was living with a man at the time that was my ex, that wouldn't move out. And I just started moving, I started going for walks and it shifted my mind more than anything ever has. You know, like moving, getting out of your own head, is a big thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing when we're trying to change something, if you feel miserable and that's a thought and an energy, and we cannot change our thought with other thoughts. I mean it can be possible, but it's not as easy. Thought with other thoughts I mean it can be possible, but it's not as easy. The easiest way to change is changing your energy and one of the most effective way to change energy is movement. When you move your body, even just physically moving from living room to the kitchen, something happens. Not just moving your legs, but imagine you move your body from outside, inside, from outside somewhere in the nature. That also changes. And also when you actually move your body, you move opens up the meridians and some of the specific movement qigong. It's like getting acupuncture without getting needles. You know there is meridians in the qi body and along there there are acupuncture points. When you move your body a certain way, it opens up the meridians.
Speaker 2:Have some of the five basic movement qigong movement in my qi mastery system that helps open up the meridians and also the emotions that's related to it. For example, wood organs, liver and gallbladder. Liver and gallbladder's emotion is anger and, as I told you, when you get angry we naturally put our hands on the side because we can feel something's happening, both consciously and consciously. One of the effective ways to open the meridian if you cannot go anywhere is just doing this Both sides, but with the breath, breathing deeply and breathe out and just stretch the side. I recommend anybody who has an anger issue or in a relationship that makes them angry easily. I ask them to just go to the bathroom for just two minutes to do this with your breath. So many people report back to me how quickly the energy changes and when your energy changes, your emotion changes.
Speaker 1:Wow, no, that's so true and it's so powerful. I love how you mentioned just go to the bathroom and do this and breathe. It makes a lot of sense. You know, even if somebody's at work having a stressful moment, no matter where you are, you can excuse yourself and use the restroom. Do that stretching. I love that. Wow, I'm sure that shifted a lot of energy. You're changing your state. You're also moving physically, like you're not around the situation that's causing you this stress.
Speaker 2:You're physically moving and you're also doing this stretch and you're breathing yeah, I feel a bit by basic movement that I have in my chi Mastery System for the sadness and anger and so on.
Speaker 1:Wow, Now what is your Qi Mastery System?
Speaker 2:Qi Mastery System is energy coaching program incorporating body awareness, somatic work, breath work and meditation.
Speaker 1:Okay, do you do this one-on-one or is this a group?
Speaker 2:I love doing one-on-one. Right now, most of my work is one-on-one.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice, and how long have you had this system?
Speaker 2:Without realizing that I was doing this over the last 25 years or so. I was just teaching people on this and I remember a few of my clients asked me if they can use some of the teachings that I gave them into their work and I said, go ahead. Yeah, if you can help people, definitely share. And then I found out that they were doing coaching work and I didn't even know what coaching was 10 years ago and I decided to really delve into this and share as much as I can, and also, if I can be able to share with the people who live in Iceland or in Japan, you know so it's ideal for me. So I really put my energy into this last 10 years.
Speaker 1:That's amazing and I love the combination that you have. You know, the breath work, the meditation, like all of the energy work, like tapping into each other, and the movement. I love the combination that you have.
Speaker 2:Right, I mean everyone's different. Right, you're different. You have a different set of things that are going in you that are different than mine, and there's no one cookie cutter system should apply to everyone, kick-cutter system should apply to everyone. And I remember one of my clients, you know, just doesn't want to get acupuncture, which is fine, but he want to get healed. And I did a lot of body movement, energy movement and chi exercise and did a lot of breath work and yeah, we got to unearth a lot of things that was buried and yeah, there's powerful healing that happened through those work. Yeah, Wow.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, though, that you were flexible and met that client where they were at. You know, like maybe they were even nervous of the acupuncture needles. You know I'm full of tattoos, but I have, like, my apprehension of the needles from acupuncture, you know.
Speaker 2:Exactly, exactly. Everyone's different. It's not no.
Speaker 1:Okay, Now do you?
Speaker 2:think the body holds the key to happiness. I definitely believe that. How so? Because it holds the blockage to happiness. So by unlocking unblocking, not blockages you get to your natural state of happiness. No happiness or striving, it's definitely not out there, it's in here and literally within the body. We can tap into it. It actually has its own location within the body. We can tap into it. It actually has its own location within the body. It has its own zip code.
Speaker 1:It has its own zip code. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
Speaker 2:Let's simply say people come to me with a goal I want to be happy, I want to have goal. Okay, I want to be happy, I want to have a happy marriage. I want to be a CEO of the company, I want to be a champion of this. So, whatever the goal then might be, what's getting in the way of that goal? The blockages are there. The blockages usually always connect to the specific emotion and certain belief, and the belief creates energetical emotion and that emotion has energy.
Speaker 2:Energetical emotion has a location within the body. Let's say I want to be a CEO of a company and what is the blockages? What is preventing you from when you get to really look into it, you will see the answer, and it can be I am not good enough, I am not experienced enough. That energetical emotion has a location within the body, literally has a location, and also there's emotional, energetical emotion that's opposite to it has a location within the body and usually reside one of our chakras. Let's say I am not good enough. It's restoring your solar plexus. I am good, I am enough, I am amazing that powerful energy, my store, stays in your heart chakra and you let them connect and communicate and it is done in a more meditative setting. So this here is an iceberg that I told you about. We do have to go down to this unconscious level to really get into it and look at it.
Speaker 1:That makes sense. It's deep work. That's amazing, all this work that you're doing. Thank you.
Speaker 2:And you're doing amazing work too.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I appreciate you speaking with me. I really do. And now, where can listeners connect with you?
Speaker 2:You can go to my website. My name banyalimcom and, for your listeners, I can offer you, you offer free clarity sessions. You can then, when you go to my website, you can see it and and sign up awesome.
Speaker 1:I will link that in the show notes. And do you have any final words of wisdom you want to share with the listeners? I just like to give it back to the guest.
Speaker 2:Our world has to match to our internal world. So just work on access your inner world. That's the key to everything that you're trying to get to.
Speaker 1:I love that. Well, thank you so much, banya. I really appreciate you speaking with me. Thank you, amanda, and thank you guys for tuning in To another episode of Breathwork Magic. 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 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.
Speaker 1:If you're craving a reset, I'd love to invite you to Mindful Mindset Mondays, now held on the last Monday of every month. It's a virtual pay-what-you-can breathwork session designed to help you recharge and realign. You'll find all the info in the show notes and if you're ready to go even deeper, you can always schedule a one-on-one breathwork session with me. This is your space to work through what's coming up and move energy in a more personalized way. As always, thank you so much for listening. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world if you shared it with a friend or left a review. Your support helps more people discover the magic of breathwork and the shifts it can bring Until next time and the shifts it can bring 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.
