Off The Vine with Kaitlyn Bristowe - Grape Therapy: The Power of Breathwork with Morris Weintraub

Episode Date: January 12, 2023

Today’s episode is part of Kaitlyn’s (and hopefully all of the Vino’s) healing journey for the year ahead! Kaitlyn’s new friend Morris Weintraub, Breathing Coach & Breathwork Instructor, joins for a deep dive into all things breathing and breathwork, teaching us how we can work with our bodies to calm our minds and ultimately rise to a higher level of consciousness. Morris expands on his own healing journey, including how he found breathwork and how breathwork can be used to produce similar results as and prepare for plant medicine journeys. The two talk types of breathing modalities, explain how we can breathe to manage our anxiety, and get into the behind the scenes of how and why breathing techniques work for our bodies and minds. Plus, be sure to check out Morris’s free anxiety playbook series for the Vinos, which you can find on his website (MorrisWeintraub.com/OTV) as well as his upcoming event with James Nestor. And, check him out on Instagram @morris_weintraub. We’re calling 2023 the year of healing, and we’re just getting started. Thank you to our sponsors! Check out these deals for the Vinos: PELOTON - Explore Peloton Row and their financing options at onepeloton.com/row. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Okay, listen up if you love a good slow burn romance, and let's be real, who doesn't? You need to check out the new Audible Original of Pride and Prejudice. It's an intimate performance that literally makes you feel like you're right there swooning with Lizzie Bennett and Mr. Darcy. Marisa Abella as Elizabeth and Harris Dickinson as Darcy, I'm obsessed. So whether it is your first time with Jane Austen or your 50th, this version is such a fresh, fun listen. Go to audible.ca slash Jane Austen to dive in. This episode of grape therapy is brought to you by Peloton.

Okay, listen to me in your little ear holes. Peloton is bringing motivation and energy to rowing like never before with a variety of rowing workouts on and off the row and all new world-class instructors. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game-changing features that help you get rowing or just advance what you already can. do trust me i dread it explore peloton row and their financing options at one peloton.com slash row wine lots of good it's time for off the vine grape therapy welcome to your weekly session kately and friends are here to share unfiltered advice lots of laughs and some major breakthroughs

so put your feet up pop a cork and get ready for some grape therapy Welcome to Grape Therapy. I'm your host, Caitlin Bristow. And today's grape therapy is part of my own healing journey. I am really trying to learn more and more about myself, tap into a deeper part of me so that I can be the best version of myself. So cliche, I know, but I mean it. I really mean it. I decided to bring my new friend Morris on the pod today to talk about his experience with psychedelics and how we can use breathwork in our routine to help our mental health. heal our trauma and even get to a point of feeling like we might be on a little journey of our own. Morris Weintraub is a breathing, breathwork, and yoga coach specializing in stress reduction, emotional awareness, and physical well-being. It is such fascinating stuff, you guys. We talk all about it. Enjoy. Hi. Hey, hey. What's going on, Caitlin? Oh, nothing. Just, uh,

I feel actually great right now, but the last three days, I have been, I don't know if my body is detoxing or if I'm just like fighting something or if the January, like depression is real, like the holiday blues, like the holidays are over and everything's just like blah right now. But do you feel like everybody's like that in January? Well, I think here in Jackson, I haven't seen the sun for about 10 days. So I feel you. I know what you're saying. Oh, that'll do it too. Yeah, it's actually really shitty weather over here. Like I went, I actually forced myself out of bed today. I was like, I'm going to go move my body. I'm going to work out. I'm going to stop feeling like this. And I got outside. And one of the weather channels was like, if you don't have to drive today, don't. There's like a torrential downpour in Nashville. There was severe weather storms going on. And it's just like raining and thundering. And it's just gross. I feel like that doesn't help anybody's mood. Well, you've got it all going on. So it sounds to me like, Somebody might want to invite a little bit of breath into their life. I know it was perfect having you on today. I was like, I could not talk to a better person today with how I'm feeling and everything that's going on. And I was surprised because I put it out on my Instagram story.

I said, I'm just feeling so low. I'm not motivated. I don't feel like, yeah, New Year, let's go. I feel depressed. I feel anxious. And then I was like, oh, my gosh, I'm having more on the podcast. This could not be better timing. Well, I would agree with you.

So what I would suggest is before we even continue, would you follow me in about 60 seconds of a conscious breath pattern? Absolutely. So I want to teach this to you and, of course, all your lovely listeners. So sigh of relief, okay? We're going to actually do this in through our noses and out through our mouths. Okay, so it's a big, deep, diaphragmatic breath, breathing from deep down into the belly, stretching the breath into the upper chest. as we do this, we're going to fill our lungs to the maximum capacity before exhaling softly, like with a silent ha through our mouths, okay? So it's going to be like this. I'm going to do one. It's like this. I'm going to exhale to get a big breath and inhale.

And then through an open mouth. Okay. And then we're going to do at least six of them. Let's do between six and eight. Just follow me. Come along for the ride. Okay, perfect. The big thing here is know this. Anytime we're taking a deep diaphragmatic breath, we're activating sensors in our low lungs that send parasympathetic calming signals to our brains. Okay. So the major thing for you guys to all take from this entire podcast, okay,

on the conscious breathing skills side of things anyway, is that we use the breath to access the body. Once we slow the body, the mind has no choice but to follow. So what we're going to do is we're going to move, a little bit of energy but we're going to deepen our breath physiologically we're going to wake up a bit but the overall effect of this is going to be calming okay so big deep breaths through the nose filling up exhale through the mouth follow me ready exhale through the nose big breath through the nose in exhale through the mouth keep it up five more

Keep it up. Let's go. Halfway there. Three more. Big full breath in. Really stretch the breath to the upper chest. Let's do two more. One more. Final one, fill up to maximum capacity and then see how much stress we can release with that final exhale. Letting the shoulders drop, letting the belly soften, letting everything fall. Six deep, conscious breaths. It doesn't take much to reset the nervous system.

This is what we all have to learn and understand. We can use these breaths any time throughout the day. They help us to either wake up, calm down, or balance our nervous. system on command. How do you feel? Okay, you know what's strange is I actually was feeling like a little bit anxious in the middle of that and then I got sweaty and then I felt completely calm. Yeah. Well, what did I say there? I said that we're going to slightly activate our nervous system before we come down into that parasympathetic calm state. Okay, so everybody thinks, all right, I want a breath that's just going to chill me out. But what they don't understand is by

slightly activating our nervous system by raising it up by going up the mountain a little bit it gives us more space to come down into a calm balanced state on the back end and that's what you just did for yourself and i could see the tightening in your body we started out your shoulders were high your chest was constricted you were holding and as we did it you slowly started to open up what everybody in the world has to understand about the breath is that this is a process of of expansion, okay? We all go through our lives completely contracted. We're too busy.

We're too stressed. We're in sympathetic overdrive all the time. You know, and basically we have to learn to break through that with different breath patterns. And it's by coming into ourselves, feeling our bodies that we get out of our heads and we can just release, let go, and transform. Yeah. I feel like breathing is obviously something that we just do. every day so naturally and we don't realize how like breath work could actually impact our mental health. And I've told you this. So just for a little backstory for people listening, I met Morris at

Cleo and Adam's wedding. Everyone on my podcast knows who Cleo is. And we were talking about this. And I was telling you how sometimes breath work will actually do the opposite for me and give me a little bit of anxiety because, and I think it stems from when I was little and how I had OCD and breathing freaked me out because everything in my life had to be even. I needed to, like, I wouldn't hand out school pictures because my face wasn't even. I would freak out if my breath in was shorter than my breath out. So focusing on those things kind of stress me out. So I think I always learned to just kind of ignore the breath and just like your body will do it naturally. And just from working with you a couple times now, I feel like that has slightly gone away.

And I actually now love the idea of breath work. And I've shared this on my podcast so many times. But like I'm just, the year of 2023 is me focusing completely on my health, my mental health, my wellness. A lot of people don't understand the power of breath work. I have so many questions for you. Yeah, we have a lot to cover. What people don't understand is that our breath is linked to not only our physiology, but our

mental and emotional health as well. It's all one. It all works together. So we work through the body to calm the mind. Okay. And the number one way to do that is we access the breath. So just a little bit on my background and what I offer now. So we're going to talk some today. What we just did that exercise was a conscious breath pattern or a functional breath that I teach. And these are ways to bring breath into your daily lives to help wake up, calm down, or balance the nervous system at any time. And they're wonderful ways of bringing breath in to create a desired effect so that we can be our best selves and manage our anxiety or wake up and really perform at our maximum capacity. But then the other side of things is breathwork, which is a deep breathing

modality that gets you out of your head and into your body so you can feel what's going on in your internal world. This really, really works on the emotional level. And so it's this emotional purging that we can get to that really works on a transcendent level. Okay. So we can actually get to the root of our issues, the root of our problems, and not just manage them, but resolve them. And that's what breathwork is all about. So it's two totally different things, but they're both beautiful practices. Right. And you obviously would recommend, like, doing a bunch of practices along with breathwork, like therapy, meditation, breath work, like all of the things, right? Yeah, absolutely. I'm not a conformist. I'm not here to tell you that breathwork is the only

healing modality. It is by far my favorite. But I do meditation. I've been on journeys, as you know, medicine journeys. I've done a lot of therapy, and I'm into programs and book exercises, and everything that you can do that helps raise your level of awareness, raises your level of consciousness. And as we do that, we work through our stuff and we become better individuals. And that's what it's all about. Yes, I love that. Where and when did your healing journey begin?

How did you get into this? Oh, man. That's an interesting one. So I normally say that my healing journey started when I found breathwork, but even going back further than that, I'm just going to level with you. My first entryway to the healing, my healing path started when I ended up in the emergency room. And I had been laying in bed for about a month. And I was staring around my bedroom and things were imperceptibly moving.

and I had this heightened sense of awareness, and things were just off. Everything was just a little off. And I started worrying that I had a brain tumor. And so I ended up in the emergency room one night, and they did every scan in the world possible. And the doctor came back to me and said, you're completely healthy. Has anything big happened in your life, or are you experiencing any stress? And right there, it hit me that I was dealing with panic attacks. and that I was doing this all to myself.

And there was a great sense of relief in that because I was just glad I didn't have a brain tumor, right? Because my father passed away from a brain tumor. Wow. Oh, I'm sorry. So you can see how that story could get put in place, right? Yeah. So I immediately then hopped on a plane, went off to India, and my healing path began.

And it wasn't until a couple years later, I got over my anxiety pretty quickly once I formed an awareness around it. But then it wasn't until I went off to Bali. By this time, I was already a yoga teacher, already had experienced meditation, already done kundalini yoga for an extended amount of time. But I went off to Bali. I got hurt on a climbing trip that rendered me incapacitated in in in in in in inundated. couldn't walk. And so I figured the only thing that I could possibly do at that time was learn to meditate. So I crutched my way to my first meditation class in Bali, and I sat down, and it ended up being a deep breathing meditation from the Sufi tradition, which is seven rounds of deep

breathing. And 35 minutes later, I was laying on the ground, crying my eyes out, and that one transformational session literally changed my life. It made me realize that every single thing that I had ever repressed in my life was owning me. And it wasn't until, or it wouldn't be, until I accessed and released these things on a foundational level that I could move on with my life and stop being angry, stop being contracted, stop being resentful, and become the person that I wanted to be. So that's really where my journey began. It's so, I've been learning so much about how healing forgiveness is. And it's interesting that you can do breathwork to achieve that level of forgiveness. What is it? Like,

what is the science almost behind the breathing that can do that for you? First thing to understand is that it's our brains. It's our egos standing between us and our higher selves and our higher selves are true love, right? So once we cut the brain out of the equation, our bodies can express themselves. Our emotions come up and out, and then we can reframe the events of our lives and move on in a better way. But more importantly than that, even, we embody a new state of consciousness. And in that state of consciousness is a state of love and love is forgiving right so i have had things for my childhood um childhood sexual trauma actually that i had to work through with breath work and come to forgive others and the act of forgiveness

uh people just have to understand it's about gaining personal empowerment and freedom for themselves it has nothing to do with the other person it's helpful it's beautiful to forgive somebody else so they can move on with their lives and we do a service to others that way. But really, in the end, it's, it's about giving ourselves what we need, which is that, that love, acceptance and freedom from the event that transpired. Yeah. Right. That's, and so is it when you get into that level of breathwork, does your brain actually go somewhere else than just surface level that you're able to like, yeah, remember those times? And, and how does that work?

So this is how breathwork works. We charge the body. We bring more energy in. We offset our carbon dioxide levels. We push out more carbon dioxide than we're used to. It actually limits blood flow to the brain by about 40% in the first 15 minutes of breathwork. This takes our hippocampus and our Pareto-Oxipital cortex offline.

These things govern our space and our time, our sense of self, visual process. processing. When that happens, we access what I call the golden zone and something trippy happens. We go from, we start off in a beta wave state. We transition to the alpha state. There we probably hit more of a theta brain wave state. And we are now in an ethereal space where we are no longer tied to our minds and our bodies are free to express themselves. It's in our bodies that all of our stress, negativity, trauma, past events, all that stuff lives in there, and then it's free to come to the surface. And it works through our subconscious mind. So our subconscious mind,

which is a million times more powerful than our conscious mind, or so the yogis say, right? Then it starts to work through itself. And the breath is intelligent. So it takes us where we need to go and lets us see what needs to be seen in this elevated state. And when we're in this elevated state, basically we aren't so tied to our emotions so that we can view them and feel them in a safe space, in a safe way. So the same way in a mushroom journey that medicine or plant medicine would help us detach a little bit from these emotions so we can see it from a higher perspective. The same thing happens in breathwork. And it's in this moment, in this elevated state where you're seeing things from a higher perspective or say from your higher self that you can

frame them in the light of love and move through them more easily. On the physiological level, yes, like I said, carbon dioxide, other things. You're making your blood more alkaline. So you're pushing yourself into a sympathetic state and you're really getting into the limbic system. So you're actually having to deal, we push ourselves into a fight or flight mode, basically freaking ourselves out to stir all this stuff up so that we can face it and we can transcend it. It isn't always about calming down. Yeah, we all want to learn to calm down, balance and be zen. But how we really get there is working through our BS on the emotional level, right? Because it is our emotions that drive our thoughts. I don't care what anybody says.

That's how it is. Every emotion the yogis say, every single deep emotion that we have is worth 10,000 thoughts. So if you can resolve one emotion, all those thoughts go away. And those are all the limiting beliefs and patterns that have been put in place since our childhood. Right. So I am, let's just say, I believe in talk therapy because I know that it helps because I've done it myself. But the question is, is it makes us feel better, but does it resolve anything? Right. breath or let's say a plant medicine ceremony or something that allows you to go access the past events of your life right view them work through them and most importantly feel them that's what matters okay so you can think all you want about something and you can think about how you want to change it

but it isn't until we experience it and we feel it in our bodies that it becomes our truth And that's what breathwork is about. Okay, when you've got a lot going on, it can be really hard to find time or motivation for a workout. I know I've been there a million times before, but Peloton has really motivated me to get it in however and whenever I can. You guys already know how I feel about Peloton. It's my fave.

So I've had their bike for a while now, take classes on the app, but the Peloton Row brand new to me. I went to their showroom in Nashville. I need to get this rower immediately. I should have asked for it for Christmas. Maybe I'll just get it myself. Merry Christmas, Caitlin. You guys, I'm serious when I say I actually had fun working out and feel like I got in a brand new type of workout for me, just full body. Peloton is bringing

motivation and energy to rowing like never before with a variety of rowing workouts on and off the row and all new world class instructors who will help you get in a great workout while having fun no matter what your experience level is. And rowing is no joke. You can work on 86% of your muscles in only 15 minutes and get all your cardio and strength in one shot. The technology was really cool when I tried it in the showroom. It helped me get into it the right way, and they have this form assist while working out. So it's like a breakdown of what you're doing right and wrong, and it'll help give you the proper form. And the breakdown is at the end, so you can go even harder next time.

Right now is the perfect time to get rowing with Peloton Row, and we can promise you've never rowed like this before. Peloton Row offers a variety of classes for all levels and game-changing features that will help you get rowing or advance what you already can do. explore Peloton Row and financing options at OnePelaton.com slash row. Grab a coffee and discover nonstop action with Bud MGM Casino. Check out our hottest exclusive. Friends of One with Multi-Drop. Wanted even more options? Play our wide variety of table games.

Or head over to the arcade for nostalgic casino thrills only available at BetMGM. Download the BetMGM Ontario app today. 19 plus to wager, Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531, 2,600, to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. I want to talk about microdosing and the benefits and ayahuasca and all this stuff.

But we were talking about this in Mexico, and you were saying that breathwork could actually produce similar results as doing a mushroom trip. Is that true? Well, I mean, that's what I've experienced. I'll tell you from personal experience, but let's just roll the clock back, how it all began. Okay. So Stenislav Groff in the 1960s, he was an LSD practitioner. And so he was giving people journeys using LSD. LSD got outlawed.

And what he had noticed over his time working with thousands of patients is that they all fell into a similar breath pattern. The deeper their experience became, the deeper their breath became. and so he realized like all of them were using this breath pattern deep deep diaphragmatic big breaths you know to process the emotions and the intensity of what they were going through so he got to thinking once lSD was outlawed oh well all right i'll just give it a shot with the breath alone and see what happens and what he realized was it was 90% as effective it still took people to the same place right the experience aren't as long as in a plant medicine ceremony, but you get to that same elevated space, right? And most importantly, what happens is we use the breath or the plant medicine to dissolve our ego, so then the truth can unfold from within. Wow.

I could talk to you for five hours about this. This is so fascinating. Okay. And I talked about it for a minute on a podcast with somebody once about how I did some mushrooms in Mexico. but I want to know about your experience and what made you decide to do it. And well, I just feel like it's become such a thing where everyone's talking about it. People are more curious about it. People, I think, are so focused on their mental health and are wanting to like, you know,

take all the therapy that we're doing right now and how people are becoming more open about it and take it to that deeper level. What was your experience with it? I just did a plant medicine journey. It was mushrooms, silly sidon, in Mexico. And really, one thing that drove me to do that is that everybody wanted to know what the difference between that and breathwork was. So I had to find out for myself. But I had always wanted to do it, but I've had seizures and been epileptic since I was a baby.

Oh, my gosh. And so I never confronted or I never wanted to confront all my stuff through plant medicine because I was scared of having a seizure. So, actually, it's pretty incredible, like, in the weeks leading up to my journey after I had already booked it and I was all set to do it, I had weaned myself off my seizure meds, and then I had a big seizure. I had a grand mall. And I hadn't had one of those in years. They don't really affect my daily life. They only happen while I'm sleeping. But it was definitely the universe challenging me and challenging how.

how much i was committed to this and it turns out i was really committed and i won't lie to you the main thing going on my life in the last year was was a breakup and it's challenging it's hard yeah yeah and being where i am in my life and doing as much work as i've done i knew that um or i felt anyway that i had gotten as far as i could go with the breath and i wanted to try something new And so I went down to Mexico to do the mushroom journey. Now, this is my fears speaking. Do you do like the one that get, where you like throw up and then you have this like breakthrough because I have a crippling fear of throw up.

Like it's like a phobia of mine. You know, I haven't done. I think that's a big part of ayahuasca and it's a big part of combo ceremonies. Yeah. I opted out of doing combo and Toad, which was DMT. I only did silly cybin. I had no stomach issues. Some people can, but as long as you fast heading in to the journey, you should be fine and then drink some water.

Well, why would you have a fear of throwing up? When I was about four or five years old, I got hepatitis and I swallowed sewage water in a lake in Alberta. and I got so sick that they thought I was going to die and I threw up all the time. So probably my brain goes to like my four-year-old self where I think I'm going to die and that's where my fear of throwing up. But you would think at the age of 37 I could overcome that

but like I can't. Well, I'm sure I can, but like I'm terrified of it. It's next level. Like I would rather feel sick for like seven days straight and feel nauseous, then throw up once and feel better. Okay. Well, question, had you ever thought back to that experience that you had as a child, or was this your first time that you kind of put those two things together?

No, I've thought about it. I don't know if I've ever, like, deeply thought about it, but I've always, like, that's a, that's one of my first memories in life is being that sick. Well, the way that these things work in like breathwork or plant medicine ceremonies is once you have an awareness around something like that, it tends to pop up and come up, and then you have an opportunity to work through it in real time. And I'm not saying you have to get to a point where you need to throw up. That's fine.

Right. Fine not to. But, you know, it's just, just now that it's on your psychological radar, it makes it a lot easier to, to, for it to pop up. Yeah. Which is why the work of awareness is important. So the mushrooms that I did in Mexico, what were those? Those were fun. fun mushrooms.

What is that? Like, what's the difference? So there are different strains of mushrooms. In medicine ceremonies, it's pretty common to use Golden Teacher, which is what I took for my ceremony. They say that it's a very gentle type of mushroom. The mushrooms that you had were more of a party variety. And then, you know, it's just from there about, really, you know, dosage matters, but it's also

So more than anything, the experience is one of allowance and surrender, whether you're partying or you're doing it with conscious intention. Now, there are two big differences here. Conscious intention, you need intention setting, and it's super important to do that so that you can, you've primed your subconscious mind to go where you want it to go or to at least face the reality of the thing. that you can't see, right? Like, you know, and party's different. But either way, Phillyop Medicine is going to make, and breathwork, is going to make your body feel weird.

You're going to get hot. You're going to get cold. You're going to feel heightened sensations. Things are going to poke at you. You're going to possibly cramp up. All these physical things are going to happen. And this is an opportunity to learn how to soften, release, relax into them, rather than being in control of everything, like the more you want to control the experience, the more of a battle there's going to be. You have to be willing to roll with it and surrender. And so basically what I want to get the message out is like that breathwork is an amazing tool to prepare for mushroom journeys or medicine journeys because you have to access your breath.

If you start contracting, you start holding, like everything goes off the right. right so you want to be able to open into the experience and the way that we do that is by keeping the energy moving and breathing through it that's probably where the anxiety for me stems from with really surrendering to the breath work was like you say when you get there your body goes into kind of fight or flight mode and you have to surrender to it where I probably just stop myself before allowing to completely get there when I've tried to do breathing but all the times I did before we did our one exercise over zoom that one time which was incredible I feel I feel like I've always just stopped myself.

It's our internal world that we repress that ends up owning us, okay? It's the things that got put in place from our childhood that we have suppressed and we refuse to look at that end up becoming our actions, our sentiments, and our behaviors as adults, okay? And so on my healing path, I have to tell you, I spent a lot of time doing. everything except looking at my own childhood because my blind spot and my belief was like, oh, it was pretty good. Oh, yeah.

Maybe I was, whatever, I was sexually abused. Okay, maybe I, oh, my parents drank a little bit. Okay. Maybe I was left alone a lot. Maybe, you know, maybe we didn't have that much money. But like, but, you know, the truth is my parents were great parents. My mom loved me. My dad loved me.

Of course, they got divorced when I was a baby. and he was absent, but I was still, like, became best friends with him. Like, you know, always looking at the bright side of everything. But the truth is, is that our inner child doesn't look at the bright side of everything because they're the ones who had to live at all. And as we grow, we forget about those experiences. And they're repressed. And they're in the background.

So, you know, for you and everybody else out there, I would just say programs that turn your light of consciousness to, your childhood are just invaluable, just invaluable. And especially for those people out there who, you know, want to look at astral charts or want to talk about past lives, let's deal with this life and take it back to when we were a kid. That's where the gold is. It's so true.

That's why I'm so excited to go to the Hoffman Institute is because that's like a week of intertiled work because I, the same way, I'm like, I had such a great childhood. I'm like, is this program for me? And just doing, you know, some of the online work, I'm going, oh, my gosh, oh, my gosh, I can't wait. I cannot wait to go in there and learn more about myself and get into that inner child work because I think that's going to be so healing. All month long on Pluto TV, stream the biggest Tyler Perry movies free. Watch your favorites like Medea's Witness Protection and Medea's Big Happy Family. Join Tyler Perry as he goes on a couple's retreat with Sharon Leal and Why Did I Get Married?

Or Idriselba and Gabrielle Union in the Tyler Perry directed film Daddy's Little Girl. Plus, Pluto TV has hundreds of channels with thousands more movies and TV shows, available on live and on demand. Download the free Pluto TV app on all your favorite devices and start streaming now. Pluto TV. Drop in, watch free. Before we get back into Breathwork, which I still want to talk more about, where do you think people, if they are curious about any sort of like microdosey or anything like where is a safe place working because i know there's a lot of people out there that they've totally judged me for talking about doing mushrooms and there's people out there that just want to like yuck people's yum and i just want to know like for people that are

curious where's a good place to do research to start like to learn more about it well i'm like i said i'm not the expert on i did all my own work and something that i i definitely would say to everybody out there find who you are comfortable with okay because when you're in a journey, whether it's a breath worker or it's a shaman or somebody holding space for you during a medicine journey, trust is the biggest foundational piece. So do your due diligence. Okay. It's not about the mushrooms. It's not about the ayahuasca. It's about who's facilitating, who's holding the space and the relationship you have with them and the trust that you have. And if anybody's judging, I would invite them to look within at their own stuff. And it isn't

until we go there that we grow the compassion, our true capacity for compassion that we have with others. Yeah. I always like to think that about people who are judging me or when I'm reading mean comments. I'm I'm slowly but surely actually starting to have more and more compassion for those people instead of wanting to clap back or sometimes I do. But like I when I first started seven years ago and I was getting trolled, I thought it was funny. Then it started hurting my feelings. And then it made me go looking for it. And I would be like what we like to call on this podcast shopping for pain. And then I like got like where I'd like feed off of it. And then I started working more on myself again. And now I have more compassion for these people. Because I'm like,

oh my gosh something's actually like not right within them or they've like got some trauma that they need to work through or like they're not like mentally healthy and I'm I've gained a lot of compassion for trolls now which is so interesting to say but hold on hold on I just have to give you I'll give you some props okay because what I like to say is lead by example okay I'm not talking anybody into anything like without having lived it myself so if you're on the healing path, you're doing the work, then you have a right to talk about it. And I commend you for doing that because the people who need it, the people who are seeking it, the people who are open to it, those are the ones that are going to come along for the ride. Yeah, exactly. I agree. Okay, let's get

back into a few different types of breath work that you would suggest. So is there different types of breath work? I guess is my question. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. So, functional breathing techniques, you know, there's that whole basket of what I do, right? These are small interventions that we bring into our daily lives in three minutes or less. Okay, so we can talk about that. As far as deep breathing modalities, okay, the one everybody knows is Wim Hof, right? Like, you've probably heard of Wimhoff, right? So those are deep, deep breaths and we do them and then we hold our breath.

As we hold our breath, we bring our bodies back into balance. And then once we've come back into balance, then we begin again, okay? So that's kind of like the starter. What people don't quite understand is everybody thinks that that's like extreme. That's like the starter package of breathwork, okay? So then like when I was talking about Stanislav Groh, he taught holotropic breathwork. And that's very similar to what I teach, which is called circular breathing, okay? But they're just different ways of taking deep breaths, basically.

And you take deep breaths for an extended amount of time. What I do is a little softer and gentler so you don't blast off quite as quickly. Holotropic is on the spectrum of the same as shamanic, where you're taking a deep breath and you're actually pushing the exhale out. I teach a big deep breath in through the mouth with a soft exhale out. You get to the same place and you just don't go there quite as quickly. Okay. And then there's different other breath patterns you can work in to make another experience or journey. but trust me when I say they all take you to the same place it's all the same BS it's what you

like there's another one that's a double inhale with a single exhale you end up in the same place it's all for the same reason okay the one thing that does differ with conscious connected breathing that I really really believe in and enjoy is like when I teach you breathe throughout the entire experience and you don't hold your breath okay and yes you find a lot of peace stillness tranquility, your higher self can whisper to you and tell you things about yourself in that deep, quiet space, right? But really what we want to do in our daily lives is learn to access that space and be in it for a longer period of time. So by training ourselves to actually breathe in that space, I believe we then tend to bring that ability into our daily lives a bit more.

But they're all beautiful practices. So that would kind of be a summary of different breathwork practices, I would say. And do you think people should be practicing every day? Or is this something that once you get to a certain point, you only needed a certain amount of times? What should the average person be doing with breathwork? If you're looking for a transformational experience, I would suggest signing up for a retreat and doing breathwork for multiple days in a row. To give you an idea when I go on retreats or I host retreats,

They're anywhere from seven days to 21 days, and typically you breathe anywhere from one to two times a day, which is a lot. My biggest retreats, 21 days, breathe twice a day. Trust me when I say just a week of breathing will change your life, but really I like the number of, if you breathe twice a day for 10 days, nothing will be the same. And whatever you're moving through will have moved. so that's my promise to you but understand this okay so that's in the breath work camp oh and in my daily life or whatever i shoot for once a week just to give you an idea okay and when i say i shoot for once a week my journeys that i coach and teach are typically around an hour long so you're blocking off about an hour an hour 15 of your life um which is which is manageable it's doable right yeah it's just don't watch one

Netflix show for the day. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, this is the deepest work you can do, okay? Remember, also, all these conscious breathing skills. Okay, we've all heard of box breathing. You've probably heard of extended exhales. You inhale and then exhale twice as long as you inhale. You know, I teach about 30 different functional breathing skills that you can bring into your daily life. So, you know, these are going to be up on my website. You can go there, learn more about them, sign up for personal coaching or then I'll be teaching groups as well. Basically, though, these are things and interventions that are super important. We breathe more than 22,000 times a day, most of the time completely dysfunctionally.

Most of us are breathing around 15 to 20 breaths a minute when we should be down at six breaths a minute. When we're breathing at six breaths a minute, we're processing oxygen anywhere from 18 to 35% more efficiently. It's profound on the physiological level. and the mental, emotional level. So how to bring breath into your daily life, what I will tell you is that I use conscious breathing skills

or functional breathing skills, same thing, right? So I use these small interventions in my daily life. Then I do yoga, which most people think of as a movement practice, but it isn't. It's a breath practice. I also do my own personal breath with movement practice called Kunyasa. It's actually my favorite way to bring breath into my life. Basically, I move my body and breathe for, you know, anywhere from 30 minutes to an

hour at a time. And then, yes, I do breath work. I go for it and I do deep breathing once a week. And that lasts about an hour. So all of that adds up to really raising our energetic quality. What people, I don't want to be all woo-woo, but like every other ancient culture around the world, they all agree that breath has subtle energy. Like there's air and then there's breath. And when we breathe it, it becomes infused with a life force energy. And so when we breathe, all this emotional healing, BS and everything that we've talked about, it's all great and everything. But just trust me when I say, you can breathe simply to raise your energetic quality and raise your consciousness as well. we do this by feeling the sensations and the energy in our bodies, I wouldn't have believed any of

this stuff nine years ago. I would have called BS on all of it. And it wasn't until I walked into my first class and I felt it for myself. I felt like the universe was literally expanding from my solar plexus and blowing up coming out. It was like the sun had exploded within me, right? And And these are the types of things, whether, you know, forget emotional healing. If you are just somebody who's a seeker and explorer, somebody who wants to open, somebody who wants to try something new, somebody who isn't afraid to jump on the roller coaster and say, screw it, then breathwork something to try. Yeah, absolutely. And tell us again where, I know you said a couple times about how we can sign up and what, where is, or what is your website and tell. us about the app?

Yeah, so I'm actually working with an app that is soon to come out, the breath source. And I am one of 18 instructors from around the world, Breathmasters, who are going to be bringing original content to everyone and everyone spreading the gospel of the breath in as many different ways as humanly possible. So when that drops, I would definitely look into that. Caitlin, actually, something that I did was I knew I was coming on here. So I filmed a video series and put together a free giveaway that you guys can go to my website, grab and download. And it's called the Anxiety Playbook.

Okay. So this might be up your alley and maybe some of your listeners as well. This is definitely up my alley. It's a free giveaway, it's a PDF, and it comes with an accompanied video series, all about managing anxiety, okay? So just go to my name, check it out, and let me know what you think. I love that. I feel like my listeners would absolutely love something like that, and I do too. Like, I can't wait.

That's so kind of you to do that for us. I mean, this whole podcast started off with me in the emergency room freaking out, right? So anything I can do to pay it forward, yeah, I mean, this is just my way of doing that. I feel like, I really feel like the year 2023 is about so many people healing because the last couple years of what people have been through, I feel like everything made us all look inward and want to heal and like learn about ourselves and come together. And I feel like there's so many, you know, people are starting to really meditate. people are really starting to talk about therapy and mental health.

And I feel like breathwork might be like something that to some people is underrated or not, you know, people don't have as much knowledge about. So I feel like listening to you speak about it will inspire a lot of people to do that kind of work. And I'm excited to see what people say about it and after they do something like this. So it's a topic I've never covered on the podcast either, which is so exciting for me. That's amazing. Thank you so much. So, I mean, I would just say that, okay. This is what my uncle says.

He says, understand that most people don't have the stomach for it. If you're listening to this and it builds anxiety inside you, just thinking about turning towards your BS and getting to know what's going on and on the inside, then this work is for you. Just take that step forward. Just move forward and however you grow your awareness, it can be with breathwork, it can be with meditation. It can be with inquiry. It can be any different way possible. But try to turn your attention towards your inner world and sail into the storm. Have the fortitude to sail into the storm knowing that you will go through it.

It's the only way through it. If we run from our problems, we run from our whole lives. They're just going to continue chasing us forever. Yes. I wanted to ask you if there's anything else that you wanted to share. that we haven't covered at, like, any sessions or events that you have coming up? Okay. So beyond finding me on the BreathSource app, I have an in-person live event at the end of the month

in collaboration with Wild Health. They're a genomics-based personalized medicine firm and doctors group. And I will be with James Nestor, the author of Breath, New York Times best-selling author. and I don't know if you've read this book. I don't know if you've listened to this book, but if you haven't, you have to go out and do that. It is the best book written in the last 10 years that summarizes the importance of the breath.

And it is a fascinating read and not just because I'm a breath nerd myself. Anybody and everybody who gets a hold of this book loves it. So I'll be teaching with him. You can find that on my website or go to Wild Health and just Google Wild Health along with James Nestor, and I'm sure that event will pop right up. I love that.

Oh, I'm so excited. And look, I'm about to order right now. Yes, yes. Get that book, girl. I'm so excited. I'm going to ordering not even ad decart by now. Got it. The beauty of Amazon.

Thank you so much for just sharing your wisdom. And I feel like inspiring people and encouraging people to turn inward and do the work. And it's all just so healing and beautiful. And I just, I'm so happy we got to do this podcast. And it was so lovely. I thank you from the bottom of my heart for giving me a platform to just be an advocate for the breath. I'm Caitlin Bristow. Your session is now ending.

Thanks for joining us for this week's Great Therapy. Don't forget to rate, review, and follow on your favorite podcast platform and tune in Thursday for your next session. I'm Lola Blanc And I'm Megan Elizabeth And we're the hosts of Trust Me The podcast about cult's extreme belief And the abuse of power Now on podcast one

We're real life cult survivors And we're here to tell you Anyone can join a cult If you've ever dived head first Into a new self-help program Or believed wholeheartedly in a spiritual practice Or even just trusted someone with your life Guess what?

You're just as susceptible as everyone else No one is safe Especially not Megan I'm the most susceptible. We want to debunk the myth that people who join cults are uneducated or naive or broken. Because anyone can be manipulated by a narcissist or feel good in a new group they've joined. And we should know we both have been. Join us every week as we explore the world of extreme belief, talk to survivors and experts,

and share our own experiences with cults in the abuse of power. Don't be fooled. You might be next. Get new episodes of Trust Me every Wednesday on Podcast 1, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and anywhere you get your podcasts.