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
Breath as a Lifeline: NatNat Bedard on Healing, Parenting & Nervous System Wisdom
In this episode of Breathwork Magic, host Amanda Russo welcomes Natalie (NatNat) Bedard, an emotional healing specialist and founder of Life To One Self. Through the lens of a powerful personal story—from a near-death experience to raising twin boys while healing—this conversation explores how breath becomes more than a practice; it becomes a lifeline, a mirror, and a transformative tool.
The discussion delves into how meditation, mindful breathing, and nervous system awareness can support emotional integration, rest, and self-compassion. NatNat leads listeners through a grounding "mindful moment" breathwork practice and shares the deep impact of vitality breathwork and cold plunges. Her reflections offer insights into choosing presence, embracing inner wisdom, and honoring the body’s signals.
Key Points:
[2:53] – Discovering meditation and breathwork after a mysterious illness and hospitalization.
[5:15] – Parenting twins as a spiritual practice and learning to ride emotional waves through breath.
[13:58] – A guided mindful moment to regulate, release, and reconnect.
[20:09] – Why the nervous system needs rest and why pushing isn’t always healing.
[28:56] – Processing childhood trauma and accessing deep compassion through vitality breathwork.
[41:36] – Amanda’s journey with grief, breath, and the healing power of presence.
[46:14] – Exploring spirit, nervous system intelligence, and what it means to truly feel safe in the body.
To Connect with Amanda Russo, The Breathing Goddess
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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. 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 back to breathwork magic. As always, I'm your host, amanda russo, and I am so excited to be joined today by natna, and I am so excited to delve down her journey. She is an emotional healing specialist and novice system guide and the founder of Life To One Self, and we are going to delve down her journey and how she discovered the power of the breath. Thank you so much for joining me.
Speaker 2:I am so excited for this conversation, amanda, and I am really honored that you are sharing this space with me, with your audience. I don't take this lightly, because you're inviting me into your safe space and you're entrusting me to bring value, and I hope that this conversation will go deep and that it touches at least one listener so that they can understand the power of their breath, so that they can understand the power of their breath.
Speaker 1:I'm so glad to have this conversation with you, so I'm curious when and how did you discover breathwork?
Speaker 2:I discovered breathwork when I almost died. I had lesions in my brainstem and cerebellum and I was in the hospital for almost 40 days and then I was released without a diagnosis so that means without a plan, and I was given like six months to live. And if I did live, I wouldn't be able to walk, I wouldn't be able to function properly. Thankfully, a year later I learned meditation in the form of TM Transcendental Meditation, and so when you meditate, what happens is your nervous system starts to have safety and you're starting to drop into your body and your body's oh, it's safe to release a lot of things that we've been storing in our body and a lot of things are like emotional charges from childhood experiences that you couldn't feel, the actual, authentic emotion, so you weren't able to process it. So now when you're meditating, you're, you know, telling the nervous system okay, disarm, open up your body's, oh, okay. And that's when you have to really anchor in your breath, because you want to jump out of that, you want to interrupt the pattern, you want to be reactive. It's very difficult to be in the processing and the response. So by doing that and, as I said, I almost came close to death and I didn't have.
Speaker 2:I have twin boys and they were four at the time and so when I learned meditation they were about five. Most people that are teaching tell you to find a quiet space and you know, meditate for 20 minutes. And I'm like twin boys that are five, like I don't have quiet spaces. So I brought that meditation onto the couch in the living room while they were fighting, tv blaring going on and I could see my nervous system wanting to interrupt every minute with them and it was anchoring into my breath of just ride this feeling because viscerally in your body, when your nervous system's activated it feels really powerful. So in that I was able to ride that wave by anchoring myself in that breath and going in the rhythm of that breath just until that wave went and allowed a little bit more, a little bit more for me to be curious of what was going on without having to interfere.
Speaker 1:Wow, that sounds like a really scary time period with the hospital endeavor.
Speaker 2:It was and there was actually a real surrender. I really went through the veil of death and had an appreciation of time. We take time for granted. We don't use it as a tool, and it really showed me the wealth of things and allowed me to release a lot of the psychosomatic and beliefs and expectations I was placing on myself. Also allowed me to have a different relationship with fear, really understand that nervous system. When we're told not to fear and not to be anxious, it's well. A healthy nervous system does have fear. It does have anxiety. A healthy nervous system does have fear. It does have anxiety.
Speaker 2:Yet a lot of us ramp it up to 100 with our thoughts because of you know, as we were saying before, we recorded our stress right now isn't the stress that our brain and our nervous system was made for. We don't have tigers and we're not trying to build safety for lodging and everything else. That's already done. So what we've replaced that with is oh, I'm late for school, or I didn't get my Amazon package, or my instant gratification isn't being met, or this is an inconvenience, or the weather isn't going all those things that you don't have control over. Yet your nervous system doesn't know the difference and what people don't realize stress. Stress is cortisol, and cortisol is produced when you're supposed to run and move your body to get yourself out of a situation. Yet most of us are not moving our body after that happens or while it's happening. So it's just a buildup and then becomes a loop, because your body has now created a home in chaos.
Speaker 1:Because your body has now created a home in chaos. Now I'm curious you started meditating on the couch with your twin boys.
Speaker 2:How do you do that? I just didn't. I was, you know, because I didn't have a diagnosis, I didn't have a plan, so I didn't know. You know, how are these lesions going to appear again? And my like, my body was starting to come back online. Is everything going to come crashing down? And because I didn't have that plan, on the outside all I had was inward. And so the more that I went inward, the more that things opened up and there was an inner knowing inward, the more that things opened up and there was an inner knowing, there was an inner connection, and so in that, it was like, okay, we're going to do boot camp and we're not able to cultivate that quiet space, so let's make it work in the lifestyle that we have.
Speaker 2:And I knew that meditation was bringing some value into my life. So it was like, okay, let me bring it here so that I can engage with my parenting role. I understood that my parenting role was trying to use control where it was like wait a minute, what am I trying to control? What am I afraid of facing? Or feeling that the twins are reflecting back to me? Because our children are a mirror that reflect a lot of things that we don't want to see about ourselves or actually feel, and if we're willing to look at that mirror, we're able to face some of those experiences, those unmet processes, those authentic emotions, and that brings a wholeness.
Speaker 2:Wow, it was warrior work, I'm sure, because when my mind wanted to be screaming at them about shut up, stop fighting. Because I'm an only child, so I didn't understand sibling rivalry. So when they were fighting my mind, I could see my mind picking one as a villain, one as being the victim. Yet it was like I couldn't relate to the sibling rivalry because I didn't have, I had cousins, yet a sibling is different. So it was like, oh wait, and I see it clearly in my mind. I really pit one over the other where it was like wait, stop, that is their interaction, it's not mine. And it was biting that, that needing to scream, that force that wants to come out and riding the wave of that. And once I did, it was like, oh, it passed without me having to be reactive to it.
Speaker 1:Wow, that makes a lot of sense. Now you mentioned you were doing transcendental meditation. How is that different than a regular meditation?
Speaker 2:Well, transcendental. There's all different types of meditation. I now do Vipassana, so that's just following your breath. But transcendental meditation creates a mantra for you, so it distracts the analytical mind so that you can drop into your body, your subconscious, and go deeper into yourself. By having a mantra it helps to distract you from accessing that part and going deep within yourself.
Speaker 1:You explained that so so wonderful. I have heard Transcendental Meditation for 29 years, as long as I've been alive and I have never fully understood it. So thank you for that, you're welcome.
Speaker 2:I try to create simplicity in my language. There's a lot of things that I understand that are very complex, Yet I want to bring it in simple terms so that people feel like it's digestible, that I don't feel inferior, that I don't have all the academic terminology and all that, that it can be simply put into my everyday language. And that's what I just keep trying to refine within my language so that people can relate and access these modalities and access these tools without it feeling too heady for them or too intellectual and that they get lost in that and get discouraged.
Speaker 1:Honestly, I feel the same way about breathwork and I'm trying to make that more mainstream, make it the yoga of the world.
Speaker 2:Would you mind coming into a mindful moment with me so I can show the listeners what I bring forth to my clients and in my podcast, to see the practical part of breathwork that I introduce to people. Yeah, absolutely Okay, and for your listeners a lot of times. Sometimes we're listening to this when we are driving or need our visual. So when I ask Amanda and myself to close our eyes, please don't do that. Safety first, keep them open. Yet you're able to listen to those other prompts. So, amanda, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seating and, if it's safe to do so, gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose. You're going to bring your awareness to watching your breath go in and out. You're not going to try and control your breath, you're just going to be aware of its rhythm, allowing it to guide you into your body. There may be some sensations or feelings coming up, and that's okay. Let them surface. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go, surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be. Be with your breath, drop deeper into your body. Now there may be some thoughts or to-do lists that have popped up, and that's okay. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath and dropping deeper into your body, being in the presence, in the space of being. Gently bring your awareness back to your breath, creating even more space between the awareness and the thoughts and completely surrendering into the body, into the breath, into presence, into being, into the breath, into presence, into being, now coming into your senses at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while still staying with your breath. So this is what I call a mindful moment your breath. So this is what I call a mindful moment that you can just do these small check-ins with yourself to see your emotional state, see what your body's storing, see what is going on internally, which we don't do enough check-ins with ourselves. We're not really taught to do check-ins with ourselves.
Speaker 2:So there's different modalities of breath work and some are great for the big purges and activating and resetting your nervous system. Yet in the everyday, I wanted to introduce something practical that not using meditation, which it is a type of meditation, it's bypassed a meditation and it's part of breath work where it's a practical part, where it's wait. Let me just take a quick little moment to check in with myself to anchor in my breath, and it's a practical part where it's wait. Let me just take a quick little moment to check in with myself, to anchor in my breath. And it doesn't mean that the environment or your situation changes, it's just you can show up differently. You can realign and and shift your perception, shift the chemicals that are going on in your body and activate your power of choice, choosing. How are you going to show up in this?
Speaker 1:I love that. Activating the power of choice Something I do and it's similar to this but a little shorter than this is like before I'm going to make a decision before I'm going to make an important phone call, anything like that. Like I'm going to make a decision before I'm going to make an important phone call, anything like that. Like I'm going to take a deep breath in and out before I do it, anything that's a little challenging. Even just one breath in, hold it and then release it, even just one. And some people are like what's one breath in going to do? But it re-centers you and you're not thinking all these thoughts that you were previously thinking. Even that one breath, but like even that one breath.
Speaker 2:You know Exactly. And what you're doing is you're acknowledging the body, like you're saying that big phone call, that big. So that means fear is activated, there's anticipation activated, there's some kind of means fear is activated, there's anticipation activated, there's some kind of emotion that's activated. So you're coming into the body, taking a big breath, acknowledging the feelings, acknowledging the body, yet also stepping into what action needs to be. So you're integrating. Let me ground myself, let me acknowledge my body is feeling, let me open up the space and then take that power of choice and action.
Speaker 1:So bravo yeah, no, that's true. And integrating it. I never thought about it like that it's not the other. Yeah, no, that's true. Now I curious do you do any of the bigger type of breathwork? I do?
Speaker 2:I've been to. You know Vitaly, he does seminars, so he's been here twice. Well, he's been here three times, but I've only been to two of his sessions where he brings us through a big breathing and activating and it's very powerful. He has a gift of bringing presence and bringing you through different dimensions within yourself and releasing also, and he uses music also to bring you through a whole emotional stream. I will do different rounds of breath work also, especially when I know that I've been going through stuff and my body needs to release and let me ground myself. So there's different types that I will. I'll do the five box breath at times or I'll do the holding my breath for a long period of time and then exhaling.
Speaker 2:I tend to when I do cold plunges, I like surrender and no breathing and it kind of at first it was freaking me out Because I was like I don't need to breathe and this is kind of weird and I'm really not needing to breathe and it's lasting for a very long time. Yet I'm in a very serene state and very open, expansive state and then I'll trigger my mind. Okay, take a breath and I'll take it, but more and more it just stays longer and longer, that I'm not needing breath in the way that my nervous system is accustomed to. Yeah, it's not for everybody. Like the things that I do, I always do a caution. This is my own experience and I'm going with an inner guidance. Yet you have to understand your physical limits or what you're activating. Like I understand that a cold plunge will activate anxiety, it will activate fear. Yet I need that fear with breath.
Speaker 2:A lot of people, when they're afraid, they stop breathing and they don't recognize that. That's why when women are in labor, they teach them Lamaze classes, different breathing techniques to go through the pain. Because usually when we feel pain, we brace and we hold our breath. We don't want to go through the experience, but we're going to go through the experience. But we're going to go through the experience.
Speaker 2:So how can we work with the body so that it doesn't constrict and hold on to things that it can release? So it's an ebb and flow of understanding. So I know when I go into that like I've been doing cold plunges for many years now some days it's all great, other days, when my mind doesn't want to, it's like dragging it's viscerally my body's. I don't want to do this and sometimes I have to honor that. It's just my nervous system is too dysregulated, so I'm not going to force it and use mindset techniques and then even dysregulate it even more so. Yet other times, when I know it, it's just at that threshold. It's okay, let's go. We can go in here and do what we have to do because of the chemical release that happens.
Speaker 1:Now you said, if it doesn't want to, you're not going to use your mindset techniques and dysregulate it even more. Yeah, so if you, if your mind doesn't want to do the cold funds, you're not doing it.
Speaker 2:Not that my mind doesn't want to do it. I'm going to listen to my body Also. A lot of us, you know I understand our body can tell us a lot of lies and what we can not do. I don't think we also listen to when your body needs rest. Not do I don't think we also listen to when your body needs rest. We try to push it all the times beyond its limits and, yes, the body can do a lot of things beyond its limits.
Speaker 2:Yet when did we like make rest as a villain, Make safety as something that's weak? Why are we not listening to some of the body's wisdom of what it needs, just dragging it all the time Go beyond, go beyond, go beyond. Okay, yeah, I can do that. Yet after a while you have to be in this cycle of always go, go, go and you don't even know how to rest, because then you've created an identity that rest feels weak and that I'm not pushing myself enough, and I'm I'm not not pushing myself enough and I'm not going beyond the boundaries and I'm not going to my potential. When did we vilify rest and safety?
Speaker 1:That's true. You've got me really thinking over here, especially when you said the word mindset techniques, just because of my other podcast with the mindset and that's even something myself have struggled with on and off the balance of do I mindset myself to do this or is this like my nervous system not wanting me to do this?
Speaker 2:Because we haven't been really taught to trust our intuition, to listen to really our body's wisdom. We think our body is always wrong and it's no. It has some wisdom. That's where our intuition, where we're going to get connected with spirit so that we can go through the nervous system. But if it's always dysregulated, it's blocking you from vulnerability, it's blocking you from the space of where oneness is. Yet when the nervous system can disarm and surrender, the two can be together spirituality and humanness. But we're always choosing one or the other, this little comfortable zone that you've created. Yet we got to go beyond this.
Speaker 2:Yet there's a lot of it that, especially mainstream, has made it that everybody's not doing good enough. It's activating this. Go beyond, go beyond, go beyond, go beyond. And it's where is the rest? Where is the safety? Where is the some of the ease that not everything has to be hard and difficult, like the biohacking? Yeah, there's biohacking, but to what degree? That you're always analyzing, always mindsetting, and there's. Where is there a safe space to land and have some rest? And now they're starting to see oh yeah, your body does need some sleep, your brain does need some of this, you do need some rest. But for some people, especially those that have mindset. I'm like that looks like a little bit of dysregulation, also a little bit of anxiety, that we're just going to push, push, push to avoid feeling emotions or data and once you feel them they're not going to come bother you anymore, it won't be so intense, but some people are running from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I like how you mentioned. There's some dysregulation there, you know. And even you, talking about the cold plunges, I'm relating very much. You know, I've been doing cold plunges for a while myself and when I first started doing them I was really in this mindset of I have to do a cold plunge every single day at the start of the day. I was so freaking dysregulated when there was a day I was not able to it like threw me, it threw me off so much.
Speaker 1:I, my boyfriend at the time I got in such a huge disagreement with him over the fact that I was not able to do my cold plunge. But we were literally in the car the whole day. We were in the car and we were traveling and it was, I was not nice and like I was really like rude and even looking back, I'm like man that like that's, it's, it was not like me, but I was so like po'd and dysregulated at the fact that I could not stick to the plan, the mindset plan of the cold plunge. That helps me. And you saying all this, I'm yeah.
Speaker 2:And unfortunately, we're not taught radical compassion. We're not taught what our expectations can do on us. Yes, a plan is needed, yet when life happens and we're not able to have it, are we a failure? Did everything fall apart? This idea that we're creating perfection like there is no perfection? It's like meeting yourself every single day.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, you create a list, you want to attack it and everything else, yet are you allowing context to come in that if I'm riding in a plane and in a car all day and there's no cold plunge around, am I such a disgrace to my body? Or are there other techniques I can meet it with? Don't get me wrong. Like a cold plunge activates serious chemical releases. There's adrenaline and oxytocin and dopamine that gets released. So, yeah, who doesn't want to have a great mixture of a high with that? Yet there's other ways that you can do that also, but we can get such.
Speaker 2:That's why understanding the nervous system and what it can bite onto and then re-attack you with it's a serious thing, and I appreciate your vulnerability of letting people know. Oh yeah, this really messed up my whole mental state and how I was interacting with other people, because I wasn't attaining this identity of what I created as an expectation to improve myself, to better myself, to create this self-care package or routine that I've created for myself. Yet that's why the mindfulness and the compassion radical compassion is needed for you to understand everyday life. We won't always be able to meet it, but does it mean that you're a failure? Does it mean that you're weak? Does it mean that you're giving excuses? Maybe sometimes, sometimes we want to rest. It doesn't mean you're not good enough. It means you're going through the journey of becoming that's so true.
Speaker 1:I was chuckling as you were saying some of that, because I sat in this car for three and a half hours in complete silence, because I was so irritated at this man for the fact that he did not help me be able to do a cold plunge. And he was like Amanda, we have no water. Like where do you want to do this? Like we were in the car and it's. I didn't have the compassion for myself or for him at the fact that it's almost impossible and even in the moment I was like you know, they have showers at rest stops. You could have made this possible for me to be able to do like a cold plunge in a shower at a rest stop.
Speaker 2:You just didn't, but that's the power of the nervous system. It was protecting you, it had an idea that this was going to bring us what we needed. So, because it wasn't being served, it gets very vicious. I'm writing a book on it right now, called the gift, wrapped in sandpaper your untamed power. So, understanding that nervous system and I give it a visual as a stallion and, when the defense mechanisms are there, that pit bull. So your pit bull was activated, your fight, and then you're a little bit of freeze and falling because you went silent and you were ruminating inside, but you were also fighting, attacking, because it was like he could have. Yeah, you could have asked stop here, stop there. But it didn't come as that because I want to be taken care of and it's layers of understanding these different parts of our nervous system. So I appreciate that you're bringing yourself as an example to better of our nervous system. So I appreciate that you're bringing yourself as an example to better understand that nervous system and meet that part of yourself and be like you know what you really didn't know.
Speaker 2:It's it was all protection. Is it nasty? Yeah. Is it a little humiliating sometimes? Heck, yeah. Yet if you can see yourself there when you see somebody else doing some shit and cursing somebody or whatnot. You can see them with different eyes and be like, just like me, you have no idea what you're doing. Your nervous system has taken over your behavior and it's activated with a lot of fear because it thinks that this is the only plan and it's trying to control and it doesn't know how to feel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no that makes a lot of sense. I'd love if we could transition a tad. You mentioned the vitality breathwork that you did. I'm curious what that helped you with the most.
Speaker 2:It actually the first session that I went into. It helped me to dive more into my sexual trauma as a child and to see the tenderness of it and the emotional charge of fear that was physically in my body, so really understanding those knots and that armament that goes on in the stiffness in my fascia. Because of all of that tension I used to hold the anticipation and going through the experience and afterwards so holding on to that and not being able to process it. It allowed me to enter into the experience through those childlike eyes and I could look at myself and observe myself with tenderness not this rigid part where I'm just going to get through this and it's not going to impact me, that I could actually look at it with compassion and have sensitivity around it, not chastise myself.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:Mine. I was able to go so profound because I've been doing deep inner work for over a decade and the wisdom that I have about the nervous system and needing it makes it that some of the things are able to reveal themselves to me. Yet a lot of people things reveal them but they dismiss it. And that's why, when people work with me, I catch them and I'm like what's that? And then I draw it out so that they can feel it and it makes sense and it's all. But I usually ignore that and I'm like what's that? And then I draw it out so that they can feel it and it makes sense and it's all. But I usually ignore that. I'm like, no, let it come up, let the story unfold. So the body is releasing what it's been keeping score of, what it's been storing inside. So, just like we're having this conversation, you're reliving a memory right now and you're seeing yourself with different eyes and you're relating to yourself in a different way. You're also seeing your evolution.
Speaker 1:So who would you suggest that type of breathwork for?
Speaker 2:The vitality one yeah, yeah, he's really good. He has disclaimers already. Yeah, yeah, he's really good. He has disclaimers already. If you have heart issues or different physical things, he has big disclaimers. So not to engage with it. Yet if you're willing to engage, oh, anybody, okay, it's very profound, very profound experience.
Speaker 1:Now, what type of?
Speaker 2:breath Like some facts breathing. Some people were like saying, well, are you making a type of ventilate?
Speaker 2:and he was like, no, I'm not, but it's coming close to that, so go ahead with your mouth open some of it with your mouth open and then some with deep, with your nose, then holding your breath, um, some banging onto your chest to, you know, get all the energies and stuff like that moving through. So there's some. You come to see, though, the endurance of breath work, because some of the breath work you're not even able to keep up with the exercise the way he's doing it. So you get to see, oh, my endurance isn't really good with my lungs and you can stretch the capacity and everything else. But yeah, he brings you in a heightened state and then brings you down and then another heightened state and then just lets you coast.
Speaker 2:And a lot of people, once they release, they're in hysteria of laughing. So they're in a bliss of a childlike state and just meeting themselves with love that those armaments of the nervous system are disarmed and they can just be in the bliss. Some are bawling hysterically because they're finally meeting themselves and removing the veil and the disarmament that they've had. And so you know, people talk about the inner child and what that is. The inner child is an immature part of your nervous system so that keeps trying to control things. Yet once you meet that, then you can grow that immature part of your nervous system and integrate it in, rather than it always trying to hijack your behavior because the fear is so activated.
Speaker 2:We have to get rid of things. We have to get rid of things. It's all about integration. And then it gets released and whatever's not needed goes and what's needed is there. It's like you can't throw the baby out with the bath water, but it would be nice that I could just, you know, rip my whole page apart and have a blank canvas. And it's not how life is Like your brain, unless you have amnesia or something like that.
Speaker 2:Retaining some information is good. It's just recognizing what your nervous system is doing, understanding your biology, understanding what you've created as an identity for yourself. Do you feel your emotions or do you think your feelings? Are you neck up? It's coming back into your body. Many people are not in their body, so coming back into your body and creating safety becomes the wholeness. With the W, it's easy to be neck up, really easy. It's a headache and you're trying to control a lot and it feels a little safe. Yet, coming fully into your body, you get to experience life in such a profoundness and you're starting to learn to trust yourself in a profound way.
Speaker 1:Yeah, becoming more aware because, like it's all, it's all part of us. You know, even like that situation with me, even though I wasn't a child at the time, that was just like three years ago, but it's still it's still a part of me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was part of the immature part of your nervous system, like I, you know, when you, when I said like you could have advocated for yourself, you're like oh wait, a minute, I did. And it's oh, yeah, so now you're sounding exactly like him. No, but it's true, and we don't want to hear it. It's just take care of me, cause a lot of times we go into relationships and it's you're going to take care of me and it's no, I'm not supposed to take care of all of you. And you can't ask for independence and then not want to advocate for yourself, cause when we're dysregulated, we don't hear that shit. Don't tell me that shit, like you're rare and want to scratch your face off. Yet if you can activate curiosity and be like yeah, why didn't I advocate for myself? Why was I not stern and said can you stop at some gas station please, so I can take a cold shower?
Speaker 2:It's all in reframing to understand, like if it was something like, say, for instance, if you had to go for a pee, you'd have no problem to have told them I need to stop, like even by the side of the road, let me piss, or something, because I'm going to pee in my pants or I'm going to pee in this seat, but the cold shower, because there was still some aversion to it and it wasn't fully ingrained in your lifestyle.
Speaker 2:It was easier to place blame somewhere else and then get angry that you weren't doing it. These are the mind games that the nervous system does with us, and so when we can see what we're creating as a story, that's when we can meet it more and ask what are you trying to protect? That's why I say rest is important too, because if you keep stretching this thing, sure it'll work. Yet at a certain point, you hear about people that have pushed themselves to create a whole new body, but broken bones, broken this, broken that, and they don't even know how to rest because the thing is on them all the time Improvement, improvement, improvement, improvement. Because the nervous system hasn't learned safety. Where is their rest?
Speaker 1:It's so true, that's so true.
Speaker 2:Fear is a fascinating thing. We can use it to our benefit, yet it can overrule us, these mindset and biohacking. They're using fear in a very activated way, Yet can they meet it? Can they control it? Or is it controlling them? Because it's never good enough?
Speaker 1:No, that makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2:There's always a new discovery. Can we just stay with one discovery for a year at least and try to implement that before you tell me oh well, this week we do this, but now next week we got to do this, and it's whoa, whoa, whoa Again, you're activating the. Not good enough, there's always something unfolding. Science is always discovering itself and always making mistakes and always saying what it doesn't, and it's always there. Yet at a certain point, you have to take responsibility and be like okay, I'm going to try this for a bit and see what unfolds Not every minute, jump out, jump out, jump out. It's like where's the foundation being built?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 2:A neurosis that goes on with it and I would like to see are you happy? Can you sit just still and watch a sunset? Can you take in the birds? Can you just watch the ocean without it having to be? Let me check my steps. Did I run and do this? Did I do? Can you just be present for a moment? Can you appreciate time that's passing by without it having to be productive? Sorry, no it's.
Speaker 1:It's true, it's really true. You know, and honestly, prior to like actually developing a breathwork, what brought me into breathwork? It's interesting because a good friend of mine had gotten certified in breathwork and I was into yoga. I was going to yoga, I was doing yoga outdoors and she's like I've got to try this breathwork detox and I was thinking like I know how to breathe, meg, but I didn't say that to her but I was like I'll try it sometime. I know how to breathe, meg, but I didn't say that to her, but I was like I'll try it sometime.
Speaker 1:And she was one of my friends that like I probably would have tried anything that she did at some point, but I brushed her off for a long time, at least four months. I brushed her off completely and it was the anniversary of my grandma's passing and she was hosting another session and I thought it was like a meditation and I had no plans. I was single at the time and I was like I don't want to sit home and wallow in pity and I'm not like trying to celebrate this. So I was like I guess I'm going to meditate for an hour and a half and I felt my whole life shift.
Speaker 2:I want to thank your grandmother Because my friend introduced me to meditation. It was on the anniversary. Thank your grandmother, because my friend introduced me to meditation. It was on the anniversary. It was on her brother's birthday, but he had already passed, so I want to thank your grandmother. Connecting you from the other side of love Did Bringing you into love.
Speaker 1:She definitely did, because it was also even my friend hosted a pay what you can session in person. I was unemployed at the time. I was like, ok, this works out, I guess I'll try this. Like I don't even know what this is. And it was funny because I told my mom I was like I'm going to meditate for an hour and a half. She's an hour and a half. I feel like that's a long time. I'm like it's fine. I don't know, feel like that's a long time. I'm like it's fine. I don't know Like I'll get good at it.
Speaker 1:And even I called her afterwards and it was so funny because I've done different plant medicines and she was like you didn't just meditate and I was like Mom, why are you saying that you drank something? Meaning she was thinking like ayahuasca, like did ayahuasca before she's? Let me guess you drank the stuff. And I'm like, because she doesn't remember like the name ayahuasca. And I'm like no, mom, I didn't drink anything, I just breathed.
Speaker 1:She's, you didn't just breathe, you wouldn't be sounding like this. I'm like listen, I can't explain it, but I breathed for an hour and a half and now I've reframed like all these negative thoughts that I had about this situation and I was super close with her and for the longest time I thought I was mad that she didn't see me graduate high school. I was mad about all these different things and my mindset was like she saw you graduate eighth grade. You got eighth grade graduation photos. I you wore a cap and gown for eighth grade and it just reframed every negative thought about this specific experience and I was like all I did was breathe for an hour and a half.
Speaker 1:You're right, and I've system yeah, I've done a lot of stuff like plant medicines, therapies, all these different things even talk therapy and it didn't do what breathwork detox did for me.
Speaker 2:Because you met yourself, you met your biology.
Speaker 1:Biology.
Speaker 2:I can tell you something and you might put me on a pedestal. Yet your own experience. You are the author and the owner of activating your power. Yeah, so you met your biology and you knew how to meet it. You knew what and your biology let you. You know, a dysregulated nervous system is always in negative bias and in lack, so it will feed all the things. Like you said. Oh, you didn't come to this, you didn't come to this, you didn't come to this to refuel why you should be staying in this dysregulated state. The breathing allows openness and you don't feel constricted, and then it allows possibilities and reframing. Oh, but I did have this. I did have that, I did have this. No one had to force that and tell you about it. Your body allowed that part to release. Yet if we don't take time to really meet our biology and understand what's activated in us, then we don't know that there's other possibilities. So that breath allowed you to finally be in your biology and start taking control of it and meeting it, honoring it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, it's true, I really did.
Speaker 2:And your grandmother was part of that, so thank you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for saying that. I know she was.
Speaker 2:And I totally get where your mom was like, because an hour and a half of breath work, an hour of meditation, even 20 minutes of meditation, breath work, an hour of meditation, even 20 minutes of meditation, there's a difference in the calmness in your voice, in your interactions, that people can automatically be like are you high? What is going on? And you know, sometimes when I'm in a deep state people are like are you high? I was like, nope, I don't need to, I can activate my chemicals and just being a real, especially cold plunges will do that for me. So I do get, and especially if you just realize that you released all of these narratives that you had of lack and allowed possibilities and gratitude, and see what you did have possibilities and gratitude and see what you did have, of course you would have a whole different tone of voice and interaction with her that she would feel and be like, no, no, you took something and it's no.
Speaker 1:And that was yeah, and it was even things that I couldn't change. Like I can't bring my grandma back and go back to high school and walk across. You know what I mean? Yeah, there's no way. It's not possible. So to be able to reframe that, it was like wow.
Speaker 2:A thought is that energy doesn't die and we're really not taught that. We're just in these physical bodies to experience the experience through our senses. Yet the spirit, that doesn't die, so it's just in a different frequency. And if you don't allow yourself to be open to that frequency, then you don't know that it's always there. She's always around you, always cheering you on, always proud of you, you, and always showing you different ways to remember. Come back into your love this way yeah, that's so true.
Speaker 1:I love that energy never dies.
Speaker 2:That's why I call it the other side of love the other side of love. Oh my gosh beautiful it's the part where only till you experience it do you understand that there's no ground in that part, and that feels very unstabling. That's why grief can feel very disorientating, viscerally and uncomfortable, because your nervous system is trying to communicate with another nervous system, yet you have to go into the ungrounding to be able to speak through spirit and energy and through frequency.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. Well, thank you so much. I love speaking with you. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate the podcast that you're creating and creating a space of practicality for people, for them to better understand themselves, understand what the breath can do for them, and not just you know. A lot of people are doing things and they're not questioning why because they're so afraid They've been told. Just do as you're told, don't ask any questions, questions where you want to bring the why behind it, so that it really sticks with people and they understand the benefit of it, not just interact with something. So thank you for bringing this into the podcast space and informing and educating a mass of people. So thank you so much, amanda. This has been a delight and I love your energy and I love this conversation.
Speaker 1:Of course, and I would love to speak with you on my other podcast, amanda's Mindset, and delve down your journey a little more. I would love to Awesome. Well, thank you, guys for tuning in to another episode of Breathwork Magic. Thank you for tuning in to Breathwork Magic. 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. 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 Blackbird 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.
