Latest / Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten / Breath Is Power: How God Gave You Control Over Your Nervous System

Transcript

Breath Is Power: How God Gave You Control Over Your Nervous System · Faithful Fitness With Coach Alex VanHouten

0:02
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Faithful Fitness Podcast for My Dad. Coach
0:06
Speaker 1: Alex van Houghten helps you get stronger and mind, body,
0:09
Speaker 1: and spirit. He believes that your body is a temple,
0:12
Speaker 1: so taking good care of it is an actual worship.
0:15
Speaker 2: I should know.
0:15
Speaker 1: I live with him every week. He brings truth from
0:18
Speaker 1: the Bible, tool of some science and stories that will
0:20
Speaker 1: set your heart on fire. May God bless you to
0:23
Speaker 1: become everything He made you to be, just one percent
0:26
Speaker 1: better every single day.
0:30
Speaker 3: The body is a living library of all of our
0:32
Speaker 3: human experiences. And this is why they say the body
0:36
Speaker 3: keeps score and why the issues are in the tissues.
0:38
Speaker 3: So a lot of the trauma, the accumulated stress, the
0:42
Speaker 3: unresolved emotions, they're in the fascia of our body. They're
0:46
Speaker 3: in the organs. That's why people get diseased.
0:50
Speaker 4: Right, I'm coach Alex van Houghten, and today you're going
0:53
Speaker 4: to hear why Breath. It's one of the few places
0:55
Speaker 4: where biology, agency and.
0:58
Speaker 2: God's design meet.
1:00
Speaker 4: My guest courtes Lee Thomas, helps people reclaim control when
1:05
Speaker 4: anxiety and trauma and stress have hijacked their bodies.
1:10
Speaker 2: This conversation macs.
1:12
Speaker 4: Because you're not as powerless as you think you are.
1:16
Speaker 4: I am so excited to have this conversation with you.
1:18
Speaker 4: I want to start with something really easy. I'm just kidding, not.
1:21
Speaker 2: Easy at all.
1:23
Speaker 4: You specialize in breath work, and you specialize in helping
1:26
Speaker 4: individuals walk through the practical application.
1:29
Speaker 2: Of that thing, not just the science of that thing.
1:31
Speaker 4: And so I'm coming from the perspective of somebody who,
1:34
Speaker 4: just like you, was trained as a personal trainer. First,
1:38
Speaker 4: both of us share the ISSA as an origin of certification,
1:41
Speaker 4: the International Sports Science Association. And what I noticed is
1:45
Speaker 4: when I started working with individuals and teaching them how
1:47
Speaker 4: to exercise, that I was constantly, constantly teaching them how
1:52
Speaker 4: to breathe, even though that wasn't part of the curriculum
1:56
Speaker 4: that I was taught. Everybody wants to know how to
1:58
Speaker 4: use this muscle and make this stronger, blah blah blah.
2:00
Speaker 4: And as a young trainer, I was always like, you
2:02
Speaker 4: gotta breathe. Why are you holding your breath? Gotta breathe in,
2:05
Speaker 4: let your belly expand you gotta exercise those bustles. That's
2:09
Speaker 4: not a cramp, that's you being weak in your breathing right,
2:12
Speaker 4: And and I found myself teaching that all the time.
2:16
Speaker 4: Where did your first exposure to man, I got to
2:20
Speaker 4: teach people how to breathe?
2:21
Speaker 2: When did that happen for you?
2:23
Speaker 3: When I realized I wasn't breathing. I one time, I
2:29
Speaker 3: mean I wasn't just not breathing correctly. I remember distinctly.
2:33
Speaker 3: It was on my birthday and I was having a
2:35
Speaker 3: conversation with my friend and his wife, and during the conversation,
2:40
Speaker 3: all of a sudden, I caught myself gasping for air
2:43
Speaker 3: and I just remember going and I was like, what
2:47
Speaker 3: the heck was that? Like what I was? I just
2:50
Speaker 3: holding my breath. I was so so unconscious to it.
2:53
Speaker 3: And then I looked down and my fist wasn't a ball,
2:57
Speaker 3: and I was like and I was like, oh, and
2:59
Speaker 3: it just hit me. I was like, wow, I'm holding
3:01
Speaker 3: on to something. And I had to sleep apnear as well.
3:04
Speaker 3: But that's during the nighttime. This was in broad daylight.
3:07
Speaker 3: And I don't even know how many times I did
3:08
Speaker 3: that in the past, just not even aware of it.
3:11
Speaker 3: So I knew my breathing was totally screwed at that point.
3:15
Speaker 3: And then slowly but surely I found this specific breathing
3:18
Speaker 3: technique which is deep diaphragmatic breath work, which allowed me
3:23
Speaker 3: to release the big thing that I was holding onto.
3:27
Speaker 3: That changed not just my breathing, but it changed my life.
3:32
Speaker 4: And you just spoke about breathing in a way that's
3:34
Speaker 4: both physical and spiritual. And here on the Faithful Fitness Podcast,
3:39
Speaker 4: we're working hard to help individuals make the most out
3:42
Speaker 4: of the body God's given them. And for many people,
3:45
Speaker 4: the spiritual and the physical are completely separate things. They
3:47
Speaker 4: think of their body and their mind as separate things.
3:53
Speaker 4: But interestingly, the science of breath shows us that there
3:57
Speaker 4: are things that come together in us that well, they're
4:02
Speaker 4: not separable. As an example, and I'm sure you know this,
4:06
Speaker 4: we have our sympathetic nervous system and our parasympathetic nervous system.
4:10
Speaker 4: And our sympathetic nervous system we actually have control over that.
4:13
Speaker 4: We have conscious control.
4:14
Speaker 2: Over grabbing a drink of water or or going for
4:17
Speaker 2: a run. Right.
4:18
Speaker 4: The parasympathetic nervous system is we think of it as
4:21
Speaker 4: kind of the relax rest and digest thing. You don't
4:26
Speaker 4: control that, like, you can't think about like, hey, food,
4:29
Speaker 4: move through my digestive track a little more slowly or
4:32
Speaker 4: speeded out like you can't do that right? What's crazy
4:35
Speaker 4: is you said, I learned to breathe when I noticed
4:39
Speaker 4: I wasn't breathing. But if you're not breathing, you die.
4:44
Speaker 4: So obviously you were breathing, but it was it was
4:47
Speaker 4: the parasympathetic version of it. It was the part of
4:51
Speaker 4: you that you were breathing, but not consciously, not intentionally,
4:55
Speaker 4: not with focus and control. And I realized in my
4:59
Speaker 4: life that breathe was one of the very few things
5:02
Speaker 4: that inhabits both sides of the nervous system.
5:06
Speaker 2: I'll breathe. If I don't breathe, it's just going to happen.
5:09
Speaker 4: But I can also take conscious control of that and
5:12
Speaker 4: make breath a thing that's within my own personal agency.
5:18
Speaker 4: Can you describe that in your work? I used my terms,
5:21
Speaker 4: But in your work when you help individuals cross that
5:25
Speaker 4: barrier what I would think of as a spiritual and
5:28
Speaker 4: physical barrier, what kind of language are you using and
5:30
Speaker 4: what are you seeing and the people you work with?
5:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I mean, for one, you can go years
5:38
Speaker 3: without sunlight, months without food, weeks without water, but only
5:43
Speaker 3: minutes without the breath. The breath theoretically speaking, we're breathing
5:48
Speaker 3: in the same ear right now as Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi. Right,
5:53
Speaker 3: it's the one thing that connects all humans on the
5:55
Speaker 3: planet right now, because everything's connected to everything else. So
6:00
Speaker 3: the breath is very spiritual, right, God breathe life into humans.
6:06
Speaker 3: And you know, the breath is it is like like
6:13
Speaker 3: think of the cells in the body. Right when the
6:15
Speaker 3: breath comes in, it awakens the cells within the body,
6:18
Speaker 3: and those cells hold memory. So people begin to activate,
6:22
Speaker 3: you know, all types of realizations, epiphanies, clarity, there's things
6:27
Speaker 3: that happen in the brain called transient hypofrontality. So there's
6:30
Speaker 3: a bridge between the science and the spirituality. You know,
6:34
Speaker 3: of it by nature. And I think when people realize
6:37
Speaker 3: that the breath is the only system in the body
6:40
Speaker 3: that works on its own, like you were saying, but
6:43
Speaker 3: we can also control it. And that's the beauty of
6:47
Speaker 3: it is that nobody's consciously breathing, right. And I think
6:52
Speaker 3: once you learn how to consciously breathe, you know and
6:55
Speaker 3: direct you know, certain energy, do certain techniques, certain breathing
6:58
Speaker 3: techniques of certain reactions. And that's what I found fascinating
7:04
Speaker 3: because we always think of you know, the pill is
7:07
Speaker 3: the quick, fast and effective.
7:08
Speaker 2: Way, right you know.
7:10
Speaker 3: But when I had panic attacks and I was taking
7:12
Speaker 3: all these you know, adavans and you know, all these
7:15
Speaker 3: prescription pills, I realized that, you know, one the breath
7:20
Speaker 3: works faster than any pill you could ever swallow. Just logically,
7:25
Speaker 3: if you look at take a pill, it's got to
7:27
Speaker 3: go thrown your esophage, it's going to go into your
7:30
Speaker 3: you know, uh, stomach, small intestines, going to break down,
7:34
Speaker 3: absorb into the body. You're looking at minimum twenty minutes, right.
7:38
Speaker 3: So but why was it when I was taken, when
7:40
Speaker 3: I was feeling and I was having a panic attack,
7:42
Speaker 3: and I was taking the pill. As soon as I swallowed,
7:44
Speaker 3: within a sixty seconds I felt better, it wasn't really
7:48
Speaker 3: working at that moment. It's placebo, even though it's a
7:51
Speaker 3: real drug, right you know, So a lot of the
7:53
Speaker 3: stuff comes in our mind and it's really you know,
7:56
Speaker 3: and I hate to say this, and because when the
7:58
Speaker 3: doctors were saying to me, I was I wanted to
8:00
Speaker 3: choke them, but they're like, you know, it's all in
8:02
Speaker 3: your head. It's all You're like, no, it's not, no,
8:04
Speaker 3: it's not no, it's not you know, and it's not,
8:06
Speaker 3: it's really not. It's actually in the body. And that's
8:09
Speaker 3: that's what they got wrong. Because the mind always wants
8:12
Speaker 3: to think into the future, right in worrying, which is
8:14
Speaker 3: just small, perpetual amounts of fear. The soul wants to
8:18
Speaker 3: be present, but the body holds onto the past. The
8:23
Speaker 3: body is a living library of all of our human experiences.
8:27
Speaker 3: And this is why they say the body keeps score
8:29
Speaker 3: and why the issues are in the tissues. So a
8:31
Speaker 3: lot of the trauma, the accumulated stress, the unresolved emotions,
8:37
Speaker 3: they're in the fascia of our body. They're in the organs.
8:39
Speaker 3: That's why people get diseased, right So, and you know,
8:44
Speaker 3: Harvard has studies that's saying that, you know, emotions and
8:48
Speaker 3: trauma can cause physical ailments. So it's not new information
8:52
Speaker 3: right now, but when you know, we're not taught how
8:55
Speaker 3: to clear the body. Right back in the day, it
8:57
Speaker 3: wasn't called breathwork detox. It was called body washing. They've
9:00
Speaker 3: washed the motions from the body using the breath. So
9:04
Speaker 3: we're talking ancient, ancient stuff in the beginning of time.
9:08
Speaker 3: And you know, it's somehow this particular technique that I
9:11
Speaker 3: discovered is resurfacing known as breath work, and you know,
9:16
Speaker 3: it couldn't come at a more dire time with you
9:19
Speaker 3: know the statistics of you know, how many people are
9:21
Speaker 3: suffering from anxiety. I call it sad stress anxiety depression.
9:26
Speaker 2: That's my accor yeah, I like that. I like that.
9:29
Speaker 2: You should you should trademark that because it works.
9:32
Speaker 3: I might write it down right down down, like we're.
9:35
Speaker 4: Going to do it so so that what's powerful about
9:39
Speaker 4: that And there's a few things kind of buzzing through
9:41
Speaker 4: my head as as you're speaking there. What's powerful about
9:44
Speaker 4: that is fourfold in my mind. First is the idea
9:47
Speaker 4: that this is something I can do right now that
9:51
Speaker 4: is immediately controllable and immediately effective. Like if you told
9:59
Speaker 4: me what's that?
10:01
Speaker 3: No, no, sorry, I thought you you're gonna I was
10:02
Speaker 3: gonna jump in go ahead.
10:03
Speaker 2: No no, no.
10:04
Speaker 4: I was saying, like, if you told me there was
10:06
Speaker 4: a pill that would help me deal with my past trauma,
10:12
Speaker 4: make me more present, increase the likelihood that I have
10:16
Speaker 4: more agency and capacity in my body, and do so
10:20
Speaker 4: the instant that I begin the actual treatment, be like, great.
10:24
Speaker 2: Take my money, how do we do that?
10:26
Speaker 4: And it's like, no, it's free like it's right, it's
10:29
Speaker 4: right here like like, which which for some people, you know,
10:32
Speaker 4: free means less valuable, is not, it's not.
10:35
Speaker 2: Breath is very fundamental, but it's so.
10:38
Speaker 4: The second thing that's very ironic to me is is
10:40
Speaker 4: how interesting is it that we live in a time
10:42
Speaker 4: where we've forgotten how to breathe? And that even just
10:47
Speaker 4: taking the time and energy to learn that. It's not
10:50
Speaker 4: just like I have to go to a breath class
10:52
Speaker 4: every day. In fact, in your work, your your goal
10:56
Speaker 4: is to help to teach people these tools that they
10:59
Speaker 4: can take with.
11:00
Speaker 2: Them and just use for the rest of their life.
11:02
Speaker 4: And so it's something that I can practice on a
11:05
Speaker 4: regular basis. But the third thing that came to my
11:07
Speaker 4: mind was I was spending some time.
11:09
Speaker 2: In energy writing. I wrote a book. I wrote a
11:12
Speaker 2: book called Faithful Fitness.
11:13
Speaker 4: We're in the process of publishing it right now, and
11:16
Speaker 4: thanks man. It's quite the endeavor, as you know, to
11:20
Speaker 4: put all those thoughts on paper, go through the editing process,
11:23
Speaker 4: go through the publishing process, dear, and then also to
11:27
Speaker 4: get to see the change that makes in people's lives
11:30
Speaker 4: when they read words that are powerful for them. The
11:36
Speaker 4: lynch pin thing in one of one of the four
11:40
Speaker 4: disciplines that I dig into was the story of King
11:43
Speaker 4: David and how he faced Goliath. And what was crazy
11:46
Speaker 4: is when I was trying to meditate on this idea
11:48
Speaker 4: and put myself in the shoes of a young teenage
11:51
Speaker 4: boy facing this nine foot warrior, right that everybody's trembling
11:55
Speaker 4: around him, and the Israelites are scared, it's been going
11:58
Speaker 4: on for forty days. Came to bring his brother some
12:01
Speaker 4: bread and cheese because that's what his dad told him
12:04
Speaker 4: to do. And he shows up and he sees this John.
12:05
Speaker 4: He's like, not in my house. I'll show you God's
12:09
Speaker 4: real right. And as I was meditating on that, what
12:12
Speaker 4: came to me was was this boy with a sling
12:15
Speaker 4: and a stone in the face of everything that would
12:17
Speaker 4: be anxiety producing and overwhelming and scary, right like every
12:23
Speaker 4: public speaker's worst nightmare, like the spotlights on you. You
12:27
Speaker 4: lose this David and we're all slaves man. In what
12:32
Speaker 4: came to my heart and mind, well, what praying through
12:34
Speaker 4: that was his breath was the deep breath in in,
12:39
Speaker 4: the deep breath out, remembering what he was here for
12:44
Speaker 4: and understanding that God was with him. And I heard
12:48
Speaker 4: somebody one time teach on this that the Hebrew word
12:51
Speaker 4: for God is yahweh why w h, And that naturally,
12:56
Speaker 4: when I breathe.
12:59
Speaker 2: In is the y w out.
13:03
Speaker 4: I'm I'm unconsciously, subconsciously always the name of God is
13:08
Speaker 4: always on my lips. And it was so interesting when
13:11
Speaker 4: that came to me at that point in time. It
13:13
Speaker 4: was shortly thereafter that your your publicist reached out to me.
13:15
Speaker 4: I was like, Yeah, we need to talk breath work,
13:17
Speaker 4: because because there is something, there is something to this,
13:20
Speaker 4: because you know, you might not be David facing the Giant,
13:22
Speaker 4: or maybe you are, but but really where your agency
13:26
Speaker 4: starts in a situation like that is your breath in
13:31
Speaker 4: my in my mind, Curtis, you're helping individuals create agency
13:37
Speaker 4: in their life where they didn't before.
13:40
Speaker 2: How do you describe that to them?
13:42
Speaker 4: When when somebody comes to you and there there's a
13:45
Speaker 4: lot of anxiety, maybe some some disease, as you said
13:49
Speaker 4: at disease in both body and mind, and and they're like, okay,
13:53
Speaker 4: you want me to breathe YEA, all right, I'll give
13:57
Speaker 4: it a shot.
13:57
Speaker 2: I guess I get it.
14:00
Speaker 3: I love that you shared that about you know, the
14:04
Speaker 3: breathing in and the out is speaking God's name. It
14:06
Speaker 3: was cool about that is even atheists speak God's name,
14:14
Speaker 3: you know, when they breathe. So there's that there's some irony.
14:16
Speaker 2: For you, right, you can't get away from it. God,
14:20
Speaker 2: I'm breathing.
14:21
Speaker 3: I personally think everyone's facing their their goliath right now,
14:26
Speaker 3: you know, and in their own ways. And it could
14:27
Speaker 3: be you know, in business, it could be in family,
14:30
Speaker 3: it could be a diction, it could be whatever. Everyone
14:32
Speaker 3: has their goliath. That's the that's the metaphor of it.
14:35
Speaker 3: And people, you know, need tools, just like the slingshot, right,
14:41
Speaker 3: it was a tool. So I believe breathwork is one
14:45
Speaker 3: of the most powerful tools for people going through whatever
14:49
Speaker 3: they're going through. And the reason why you know, we're
14:52
Speaker 3: not in you know, BC times where we're in twenty
14:55
Speaker 3: twenty six. So what I love about broad work, and
15:00
Speaker 3: you were alluding to this earlier, is the accessibility. Right,
15:05
Speaker 3: anyone with a pair of lungs can do this anywhere, anytime,
15:09
Speaker 3: and there's no barriers to entry, even less than yoga
15:13
Speaker 3: and meditation. You know, if you look at the reality
15:15
Speaker 3: of yoga, you know there's a lot of obese people right,
15:19
Speaker 3: who don't want to go put on a leotard and
15:21
Speaker 3: go bend in funny ways and sweat in front of people.
15:24
Speaker 3: You know, it's a real thing performance anxiety. You know,
15:28
Speaker 3: you're new to yoga, you're gonna go there someone who's
15:30
Speaker 3: been doing it for twenty years. You can bend like
15:32
Speaker 3: a pretzel. And then where fifty four percent of the
15:34
Speaker 3: world's population can't even bend down and touch their toes.
15:37
Speaker 3: So there's all these barriers to entry when going in there,
15:41
Speaker 3: and even meditation. Right, First of all, you look at
15:46
Speaker 3: the statistics of how many people are stressed out, almost everybody.
15:50
Speaker 3: And if you try to get somebody who's stressed out
15:54
Speaker 3: already to sit down, sit still and don't think of
15:57
Speaker 3: a thought for the next twenty minutes, going to get
16:00
Speaker 3: more stressed out. So breathwork, you can be five hundred pounds,
16:06
Speaker 3: fully clothed, lay down on your back, in your house,
16:10
Speaker 3: at the beach wherever, do this specific technique for a
16:14
Speaker 3: very specific amount of time, and you will have an experience.
16:17
Speaker 3: And unlike yoga and meditation, the results of breathwork detox
16:21
Speaker 3: are immediate and undeniable from one session. Now in the
16:26
Speaker 3: modern times, that we're in. I think that is that's
16:28
Speaker 3: significant because we live in a microwave society where people
16:33
Speaker 3: want to see results and they want to see results fast.
16:36
Speaker 3: And you and I both know. You know, we can't
16:38
Speaker 3: go to the gym and then the next morning we
16:41
Speaker 3: wake up with a six pack. It doesn't work. It
16:43
Speaker 3: doesn't work like that, right, although we'd love that to be,
16:46
Speaker 3: you know, And the strange thing about breath work is
16:49
Speaker 3: that you can do one session and be like, oh,
16:52
Speaker 3: this works. You know, I have so many supplements in
16:55
Speaker 3: my cabinet. I don't know which one works. I see
16:58
Speaker 3: a cool Dave Asprey video. I see, you know, cool
17:00
Speaker 3: this video, and I'm like, that's the supplement that's going
17:02
Speaker 3: to change my life. I don't know if it's working.
17:04
Speaker 3: You know, they get me every time. But there's a
17:06
Speaker 3: few things that come along in life where you're like, oh,
17:09
Speaker 3: I know this works, This actually moves the needle in
17:13
Speaker 3: my life, and breathwork is one of those things.
17:18
Speaker 2: Awesome.
17:19
Speaker 4: So I heard you say once that breathwork is the
17:23
Speaker 4: new yoga, and I liked that partially because and my
17:28
Speaker 4: yoga friends are going to be annoyed at me, So
17:30
Speaker 4: hang with me. Yoga friends, because I think yoga's fantastic,
17:35
Speaker 4: but partially because yoga does have such a barrier to entry,
17:39
Speaker 4: whether it's perceived or real.
17:41
Speaker 2: Right, yoga does have such a.
17:42
Speaker 4: Barrier to entry to individuals, and I have in my
17:46
Speaker 4: training career recommended yoga as a way for people to
17:51
Speaker 4: go learn how to move well, how to breathe well,
17:55
Speaker 4: and how to make those things sync up right. But
18:01
Speaker 4: at the same time, many yoga instructors would tell you
18:06
Speaker 4: that that meant much of what they coach in an
18:09
Speaker 4: hour is breath And I think I heard you once
18:13
Speaker 4: say that yoga without breath work is just stretching, which
18:17
Speaker 4: I'm sure they love. By the way, I'm sure that's
18:20
Speaker 4: intentionally true. So so if not the yoga people who
18:25
Speaker 4: taught you how to breathe.
18:28
Speaker 3: Oh man. You know, there was an instance when I
18:36
Speaker 3: found out I was holding my breath. There was a
18:40
Speaker 3: time where my doctor wasn't in and there was a
18:43
Speaker 3: substitute doctor in. I was looking to get my prescription filled,
18:47
Speaker 3: and I remember she gave me. She's like, I kept
18:50
Speaker 3: asking around, you know, because I didn't want to have
18:51
Speaker 3: to come back, and she's like, don't worry, I'm going
18:54
Speaker 3: to fulfill your prescription. Relax. She's like, but I'm going
18:58
Speaker 3: to tell you this before I do going down a
19:00
Speaker 3: dark path. You know, I watched Star Wars, so like
19:04
Speaker 3: that line scared me.
19:05
Speaker 2: It's like, Kathren Lord, Yeah, I'm like, wait, what do
19:10
Speaker 2: you what do you mean?
19:11
Speaker 3: She's like, and she explained, like, you know, it's the
19:13
Speaker 3: BNE that would trigger that and the panic attack, and
19:16
Speaker 3: then you take the pill and now the pills are
19:17
Speaker 3: causing the panic attacks and you don't even realize it.
19:20
Speaker 3: And she broke it down and it completely made sense,
19:22
Speaker 3: but I still wanted my refill. So she's like, I'm
19:25
Speaker 3: gonna teach you a breathing technique the next time you
19:27
Speaker 3: have a panic attack. Just promise me you're going to
19:29
Speaker 3: do it and at least try it. So she taught
19:31
Speaker 3: me something called straw breathing, and it's just you're breathing regular,
19:36
Speaker 3: except you pretend you have a straw in your mouth
19:38
Speaker 3: that you actually do have a straw in your mouth,
19:39
Speaker 3: so you pucker your lips like a fish like you're
19:41
Speaker 3: gonna kiss, and you breathe regular. You're not forcifully pushing
19:46
Speaker 3: more air in. You're not forcially pushing pushing the air out.
19:49
Speaker 3: You're breathing normal with your mouth constricted, just like you
19:53
Speaker 3: would and it just creates the perfect amount of inflow
19:56
Speaker 3: of oxygen and outflow of CO two.
19:59
Speaker 4: Quick Because if this conversation is landing, here's the truth.
20:04
Speaker 4: Insight alone does not change people. Practice does. That's why
20:08
Speaker 4: we built the Faithful Fitness Community. It's a place to
20:12
Speaker 4: practice embodied faith daily through scripture, movement, and discipline together.
20:18
Speaker 4: If you're tired of knowing what's right but really struggling
20:21
Speaker 4: to hang on, it's time to stop doing it alone.
20:25
Speaker 4: Join us at faithfulfitness dot co. Links in the show notes. Ah,
20:31
Speaker 4: we'd love to see you there.
20:33
Speaker 3: To get the body into the parasepathetic. And I remember
20:36
Speaker 3: I woke up at you know, three in the morning
20:38
Speaker 3: one night, having a panic attack from a dead sleep,
20:41
Speaker 3: and then all of a sudden, I went to grab
20:43
Speaker 3: my pills and I had, you know, only supposed to
20:44
Speaker 3: take one. I was taking three because they were that bad.
20:47
Speaker 3: I don't know anyone. If if anyone had a real
20:49
Speaker 3: panic attack, they know exactly what I'm talking about. It's
20:52
Speaker 3: the scuriest thing in the world. You'd think you're gonna die,
20:54
Speaker 3: You're like, this is a hard attack. So I was,
20:57
Speaker 3: and I remember I got up three in the morning,
20:59
Speaker 3: panic attack for the pills, had three in my hand,
21:02
Speaker 3: was just about to take it and I heard the voice,
21:05
Speaker 3: You're going down the dark.
21:06
Speaker 2: Path straw breathing.
21:09
Speaker 3: Yes, And I did it. I started doing it and
21:13
Speaker 3: started doing it. I remember the very like the nanosecond
21:16
Speaker 3: before I was about to stop, it just felt like
21:18
Speaker 3: something popped, like I just heard a pop, but I
21:21
Speaker 3: really didn't hear a pop, and it was like and
21:23
Speaker 3: then all of a sudden, my vitals just relaxed, my
21:26
Speaker 3: heart stopped racing so fast, and my breath calmed down,
21:30
Speaker 3: and I was like, oh my god. And I put
21:32
Speaker 3: the pills away and didn't need them since. And that
21:35
Speaker 3: was the first person that taught me a breath a
21:37
Speaker 3: breathing technique that I actually did that actually worked. So
21:42
Speaker 3: from there you'd think I would have became a breathwork teacher,
21:46
Speaker 3: but I had to be like ten more years until
21:48
Speaker 3: I actually started.
21:50
Speaker 2: Are you You're in good company?
21:52
Speaker 3: Very very much so, very very much so. And then
21:56
Speaker 3: I had a stomach condition where five years doctors couldn't
21:59
Speaker 3: heal me from this specific stomach condition. They couldn't even
22:02
Speaker 3: diagnose me. I this HAPPENEDS went on for five years.
22:06
Speaker 3: I did every test under the sun, multiple times, s
22:09
Speaker 3: wild pill cameras at you know, endoscopy, colonoscopy, I mean,
22:14
Speaker 3: you name it. I did it. And then even got
22:16
Speaker 3: really desperate and started venturing into plant medicine, went to
22:20
Speaker 3: the jungle drink ayahuasca with my mother. You know, I
22:23
Speaker 3: did fourteen ceremonies of that up to twenty now. And
22:28
Speaker 3: it wasn't until I found this one breathing technique. It
22:31
Speaker 3: was actually in the United States, and I went to India, Tibet,
22:34
Speaker 3: I was all overlooking and it was actually the United States,
22:37
Speaker 3: and this one technique I did completely eradicated my stomach
22:41
Speaker 3: condition that I was suffering with for five years in
22:43
Speaker 3: one single session. And at that moment, I meant, you know,
22:48
Speaker 3: everyone's crying in the room. It's so like, so cathartic.
22:51
Speaker 3: It was so powerful. I didn't know something inside of
22:56
Speaker 3: us that has always been there, we always had the ability,
22:58
Speaker 3: had so much power. And when that technique healed me,
23:04
Speaker 3: you know, I literally made it my mission to bring
23:07
Speaker 3: this to the world because you know, going back to
23:09
Speaker 3: stubbornness and I'm a very analytical, logical type of person,
23:14
Speaker 3: so I couldn't wrap my head around how this silly
23:18
Speaker 3: little breathing technique is what healed me. But the best
23:20
Speaker 3: doctors from New York to LA couldn't. And then I realized,
23:23
Speaker 3: oh my god, you know, the common sensus hit me
23:26
Speaker 3: over the head and it was you know, these doctors
23:28
Speaker 3: couldn't tell me what was wrong with me because my
23:30
Speaker 3: issue wasn't physical, right, it was energetic. It was emotional, right,
23:35
Speaker 3: and anatomically, you can't cut the body open and be like, hey,
23:38
Speaker 3: you got to you got an energy clot here, you
23:40
Speaker 3: got to unresolve emotion here, right, What.
23:42
Speaker 2: Did you do? It's not a very easy thing to assess.
23:45
Speaker 3: No, they can't. They don't. They don't. They don't they
23:49
Speaker 3: give you pills. Like, go to a psychiatrist, right and
23:52
Speaker 3: ask them how many people that they cured mm hmm,
23:55
Speaker 3: and guess what they're gonna.
23:56
Speaker 2: Say, eighteen percent or less. No, they don't.
24:02
Speaker 3: Palmer, right, It's like they don't, they don't. They don't
24:05
Speaker 3: care people. They help people, They help people, right, And
24:08
Speaker 3: I think that's important. But I went to all the
24:11
Speaker 3: psychiatrists and all those things just so desperate, and the
24:15
Speaker 3: breathing technique is what allowed me to remove or release
24:19
Speaker 3: or alleviate old emotion, suppressed trauma that was lodged within
24:26
Speaker 3: my body, right, my energy field that for the most
24:31
Speaker 3: part was unbeknownst to my conscious mind. And I didn't
24:34
Speaker 3: really know what I was holding onto until I released it.
24:38
Speaker 3: And when I did, I felt more buoyant, I felt
24:41
Speaker 3: more liberated, I felt more free, I felt more joy.
24:45
Speaker 3: That's the thing about the deep diapragmatic breathing is that
24:48
Speaker 3: people forget that the stomach area is the core engine
24:53
Speaker 3: of our vitality, right, and there's there's there's these things
24:57
Speaker 3: in our body called nadis right. Not to geek out people,
25:00
Speaker 3: but you know, we all understand that we have blood
25:02
Speaker 3: in our bodies. And if you ask somebody how that
25:04
Speaker 3: blood's distributed, they're gonna be like, oh, through veins and outeries.
25:07
Speaker 3: I think just about every religion in person can agree.
25:10
Speaker 3: Even science says that humans are made up of more
25:12
Speaker 3: energy than matter. And you know, you can walk into
25:15
Speaker 3: a room and instantly feel if it's good vibes, bad vibes.
25:18
Speaker 3: You know, vibes is just vibration, vibrations energy, right, you
25:21
Speaker 3: can read people to see if they're a good person
25:23
Speaker 3: or a bad person. We all have this. It's not supernatural,
25:26
Speaker 3: you know, but you know the the energy that uh man,
25:34
Speaker 3: I was just gonna share a whole second, the second thought,
25:36
Speaker 3: and I just I just messed up my thought. Man,
25:38
Speaker 3: I just try to share two stories at the same time.
25:41
Speaker 3: A man, let me go back to the original story.
25:42
Speaker 3: Hold on, man, we're gonna have to come back to that.
25:48
Speaker 3: We might have to cut that apart out.
25:49
Speaker 2: Actually it happens.
25:51
Speaker 3: Where was what was the thing I was saying right
25:53
Speaker 3: before that, because it's gonna it's gonna.
25:54
Speaker 2: Hit me before the naughties.
25:57
Speaker 3: Oh, the natties got it? Thank you? That's it, okay,
26:01
Speaker 3: And so we can all agree that there's we have energy, right,
26:05
Speaker 3: And if you ask somebody how that energy gets distributed
26:08
Speaker 3: throughout the body, we really don't know. But it gets
26:11
Speaker 3: distributed through energetic channels called knotties, which we have seventy
26:15
Speaker 3: two thousand of them that run through our body. Now
26:17
Speaker 3: this isn't Western type of medicine. It's more Eastern and
26:22
Speaker 3: the these knotties are these energetic highways, right Anatomically, you
26:26
Speaker 3: can't cut them open and see them either, but they
26:29
Speaker 3: run through our body, and there's one place that's called
26:32
Speaker 3: the times square of our energy body, which is the
26:34
Speaker 3: stomach where all the knotties intersect.
26:37
Speaker 2: Well.
26:38
Speaker 3: Also, eighty percent of our immune system right lives in
26:41
Speaker 3: our gut, and eighty percent of our serotonin is produced
26:45
Speaker 3: in our gut, not our mind. So eighty percent of
26:48
Speaker 3: our health, immune system, our happiness, serotonin, and our energy
26:53
Speaker 3: and vitality is in the gut. Yet nobody's breathing into
26:57
Speaker 3: our gut anymore. We're actually doing the opposite. We're doing
26:59
Speaker 3: something then called paradoxical breathing. And next time you're teaching
27:03
Speaker 3: a class or with people exactly you know, say hey,
27:06
Speaker 3: on the counted three, I want everyone to take the
27:07
Speaker 3: deepest breath you possibly can. And when they do, that's
27:11
Speaker 3: exactly what happens. The chest all this stuff moves, the
27:13
Speaker 3: belly doesn't move. But if you watch a baby breathe,
27:17
Speaker 3: the baby breaths when they breathe in the belly moves, right.
27:20
Speaker 3: It's because stressed didn't get caught in their diaphragm. They
27:22
Speaker 3: don't have all this trauma. And you know, as adults,
27:25
Speaker 3: this is just what it is for us. So for me,
27:28
Speaker 3: I had that block in my belly, and when I
27:30
Speaker 3: started breathing deep into my belly, I was able to
27:34
Speaker 3: dislodge whatever was was blocking in there, and that's what
27:37
Speaker 3: I released, and my health came back to me. And
27:40
Speaker 3: I just did a TED talk actually kind of going
27:42
Speaker 3: more in depth into this called actually I'm not sure
27:45
Speaker 3: what the title is called, but something about energy clots.
27:48
Speaker 3: It's pretty fascinating. I'm pretty happy that I knocked that
27:52
Speaker 3: off my bucket list. I did want to do a
27:54
Speaker 3: TED talk.
27:55
Speaker 2: So.
27:56
Speaker 3: Pretty wild.
27:57
Speaker 4: We'll stick the link in the show notes for those
27:59
Speaker 4: who are interesting in the TED talk. But as you were,
28:04
Speaker 4: as you're speaking there there, there's you mentioned earlier.
28:09
Speaker 2: How the body keeps score.
28:10
Speaker 4: It sounds like your trauma informed as a practitioner, which
28:14
Speaker 4: means that it's very possible that you wrestled with with
28:17
Speaker 4: trauma in your past. Do you have any adverse childhood
28:19
Speaker 4: events personally?
28:22
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, of course, he said, Oh.
28:24
Speaker 4: Yeah, Uh doesn't everybody? Yeah, well apparently not everybody does.
28:27
Speaker 4: So it was it was news to me when I
28:30
Speaker 4: learned that I was a seven out of ten on
28:32
Speaker 4: the adverse childhood event scale. But but what's what's very
28:36
Speaker 4: wild about that is, is that that panicked response, that
28:40
Speaker 4: hyper anxious, hyperactive response inside For me personally, I didn't
28:47
Speaker 4: learn how to breathe until I learned how to bring
28:51
Speaker 4: healing to those things that I wrestled with in my life.
28:55
Speaker 4: I was carrying those around for such a long time.
28:57
Speaker 4: And I feel like that's probably the case for most
29:00
Speaker 4: individuals that I work with. Is that all that caught
29:04
Speaker 4: up breathing up here. That's how you breathe when you're
29:08
Speaker 4: like out of breath running up a hill and you
29:10
Speaker 4: got no choice, you know, I breathe or die.
29:13
Speaker 2: I breathe or die.
29:14
Speaker 4: But many people exist in that state in their day
29:17
Speaker 4: to day life.
29:18
Speaker 2: It's like it's like in the nervous system, stuck there.
29:22
Speaker 4: This is how you breathe because this is how you
29:25
Speaker 4: breathed when you were panicked and anxious and didn't have
29:29
Speaker 4: a lot of agency. But that doesn't mean it has
29:31
Speaker 4: to stay that way. You mentioned in your story that
29:35
Speaker 4: there was there was a technique that you learned that
29:39
Speaker 4: that really opened things up for you and help you
29:41
Speaker 4: to let go of something that you were holding onto.
29:45
Speaker 4: Can you tell us a little more about that technique.
29:47
Speaker 4: I know that in your work. You are very careful
29:50
Speaker 4: to make sure that individuals learn several different tools in
29:54
Speaker 4: their process.
29:54
Speaker 2: And if you teach a whole bunch of them at once,
29:56
Speaker 2: nobody's going to do any of them.
29:58
Speaker 4: So it's important that that things are bite sized and useful.
30:02
Speaker 2: But I wonder if you'd help us to explore what
30:05
Speaker 2: it looks like to learn.
30:07
Speaker 4: How to breathe in the way that will help you
30:10
Speaker 4: to let go of some things that you've been holding
30:11
Speaker 4: on to.
30:13
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I believe you know, when people are
30:17
Speaker 3: breathing up here and they're you know, in their chest
30:20
Speaker 3: and they have this disregulated breathing patterns that correlates to
30:26
Speaker 3: being stuck in what we talked about earlier, that fight
30:30
Speaker 3: or flight, which is sympathetic nervous system. And I found
30:32
Speaker 3: a lot of the trauma that people experience is stuck
30:35
Speaker 3: in the sympathetic nervous system. And what's interesting about the
30:38
Speaker 3: breathwork detox technique is that it's done through the mouth,
30:43
Speaker 3: and I tell people ninety nine point nine percent of
30:46
Speaker 3: the time you should be breathing through your nose. The
30:49
Speaker 3: nose is connected to the power sympathetic right. The mouth
30:52
Speaker 3: is connected to the sympathetic nervous system. So they're like,
30:56
Speaker 3: you know, why are we activating are sympathetic nervous system
31:01
Speaker 3: if we want to go into parasympathetic and you know,
31:05
Speaker 3: if there's things stuck in there and you're stuck in there,
31:09
Speaker 3: you have to go in there to fix it. It's like,
31:12
Speaker 3: you know, if my toilet is clogged, right, I'm not
31:15
Speaker 3: going to go to my neighbor's sink and try to
31:17
Speaker 3: unclog it there. No, I'm going to go into the
31:18
Speaker 3: toilet to unclog it. So that's like the sympathetic nervous system.
31:23
Speaker 3: We were accessing the sympathetic nervous system and removing whatever's
31:27
Speaker 3: clogged in the sympathetic nervous system to exhaust it, and
31:32
Speaker 3: then it forcefully puts the body into parasympathetic. And that's
31:36
Speaker 3: why after the deep diafromatic breath work, people are just,
31:39
Speaker 3: you know, they're so calm, they're so relaxed, and I
31:42
Speaker 3: think that's, you know, that's the biggest issue and how
31:46
Speaker 3: to fix that. I found it a lot harder to
31:52
Speaker 3: just continuously try to put the body into parasympathetic when
31:56
Speaker 3: it's stuck in sympathetic. Kind of similar to a Harvard
31:59
Speaker 3: study and Harvard did the study, and they found people
32:04
Speaker 3: who were really afraid, whether they were getting ready to
32:06
Speaker 3: go in a job interview or getting ready to go
32:09
Speaker 3: on stage and do a ted talk, or going on
32:11
Speaker 3: a date. And they found that instead of telling yourself, okay,
32:17
Speaker 3: you know, calm down, read, let's relac, let's chill, that
32:21
Speaker 3: it was more effective to convince the brain that it's
32:25
Speaker 3: excited for what's about to happen. That there was a
32:28
Speaker 3: smaller threshold to the other side of excitement and joy
32:33
Speaker 3: than there was to calm the body and relax. So,
32:37
Speaker 3: you know, there's a very thin line between fear and excitement,
32:41
Speaker 3: and it's just the mindset. It's like, okay, you know, oh,
32:44
Speaker 3: you know what, I'm not nervous. I'm actually excited for
32:47
Speaker 3: this job interview. I worked my ass off for this.
32:49
Speaker 3: This is why they're giving me the interview. They see
32:51
Speaker 3: the value in me. I'm gonna go in there, I'm
32:53
Speaker 3: gonna crush it. This is what I've been waiting for.
32:55
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you, thank you. Right, you go in
32:58
Speaker 3: that way. So it's a lot easier to do that
33:01
Speaker 3: than to try to calm the system. So very similar,
33:04
Speaker 3: I believe to you know, being able to go back
33:07
Speaker 3: into that parasympathetic and that rest and digest that and
33:10
Speaker 3: that chill mo is clearing the things out that's blocking it.
33:13
Speaker 2: Mm hmmmm.
33:14
Speaker 4: It's something like, hey, hey, there's a battle to fight,
33:18
Speaker 4: and you don't fight the battle through rest and recovery.
33:22
Speaker 4: I think of it as I think if it as
33:23
Speaker 4: waking up the warrior. That's what I think of it as.
33:26
Speaker 4: It's the idea being that that you're not going to
33:29
Speaker 4: win this battle watching it unfold and trying to tell
33:32
Speaker 4: yourself to relax. You're gonna win this battle by stepping
33:35
Speaker 4: into it and facing it forthrightly, kind of like David
33:40
Speaker 4: with Goliath. If you join the group out here and
33:43
Speaker 4: like hey, relax, somebody's going to take care of this.
33:45
Speaker 4: It's on you, bro's it's your five stones, it's your sling.
33:48
Speaker 4: Take a deep breath and make it happen. So so
33:53
Speaker 4: I want to switch gears here and talk a bit
33:56
Speaker 4: about the science side of things. And this is my wheelhouse.
33:58
Speaker 4: So if it's not your will, so that's cool. We
34:00
Speaker 4: don't have to go there. But I am very, very
34:04
Speaker 4: interested in some of the physiological ways that we are
34:09
Speaker 4: discovering in modern science.
34:12
Speaker 2: How these things actually work.
34:14
Speaker 4: Right, and not that what you've said so far hasn't
34:18
Speaker 4: given some explanation to that. But as we spoke about earlier,
34:21
Speaker 4: it's difficult to measure. You can't cut yourself open and
34:23
Speaker 4: see that you're limited in your energy from one pathway
34:26
Speaker 4: to another.
34:27
Speaker 2: Right.
34:27
Speaker 4: But one of the more recent things that, especially in
34:31
Speaker 4: the mental health world, I think is very interesting, is
34:34
Speaker 4: there's a lot of research happening around the dysfunction related
34:38
Speaker 4: to mitochondrial activity. That is to say, each one of
34:43
Speaker 4: our cells has these little powerhouses, right, and they're producing ATP,
34:46
Speaker 4: but they're also responding to different signals in the body,
34:49
Speaker 4: and ATP really is the energy currency of the body,
34:53
Speaker 4: or or if we had to make it more bare bones,
34:57
Speaker 4: you could just say ATP is how we store electrons,
35:00
Speaker 4: like this big giant battery, and we're constantly exchanging all
35:03
Speaker 4: these reactions and electrons can't you can't really find them,
35:08
Speaker 4: you can't measure them.
35:09
Speaker 2: They're the tiny little particles that zip around so.
35:11
Speaker 4: Fast that to find it is also to lose it
35:14
Speaker 4: at the same time. And that's not spiritual speak, that's
35:17
Speaker 4: quantum mechanics. The Eisenbergen certainty principle, but we are finding
35:23
Speaker 4: that in depression, that in anxiety, in ADHD, in Alzheimer's,
35:28
Speaker 4: that in each of these cases there is dysfunctional metabolic
35:34
Speaker 4: pathways occurring at the level of the mitochondria. And one
35:38
Speaker 4: of the things that researchers are messing with animals in
35:41
Speaker 4: right now is called hypoxia. So they're reducing the amount
35:47
Speaker 4: of oxygen available to an animal and letting it just
35:50
Speaker 4: kind of exist, not enough to kill it, just enough
35:53
Speaker 4: to really stress the system, right. And then what's crazy
35:56
Speaker 4: is after about a week, maybe ten days, this animal
36:00
Speaker 4: will go from they're doing it to rats right now,
36:02
Speaker 4: because you can't really do it to humans, but this
36:05
Speaker 4: animal will go from like laying in a corner going like, man,
36:07
Speaker 4: I don't got a lot of oxygen, I'm not going
36:09
Speaker 4: to do rat things to just existing normally in a
36:13
Speaker 4: state of hypoxia. And when you actually measure the mitochondrial
36:18
Speaker 4: function of these animals, you find that their mitochondria function
36:21
Speaker 4: has increased significantly, more mitochondria, more oxygenation, several adaptations in
36:26
Speaker 4: the body that are related to bringing oxygen to the cell,
36:29
Speaker 4: and all of this, in my mind, mirrors what's happening
36:32
Speaker 4: when you work with people on the breath work side
36:35
Speaker 4: of things, because what you're doing is taking agency actual
36:40
Speaker 4: control over the oxygenating pathways of the body and the
36:45
Speaker 4: deoxygenating pathways of the body. By controlling your breath, you
36:49
Speaker 4: can make yourself hypoxic, and you can make yourself what's
36:54
Speaker 4: the opposite hypoxic? It just escaped me hypoxic, meaning I
36:59
Speaker 4: don't have a lot of oxygen in my system.
37:02
Speaker 2: I per hyperoxidated. There we go.
37:06
Speaker 4: That means I have a lot of oxygen in the
37:08
Speaker 4: system of my body. I believe that a lot of
37:11
Speaker 4: what you're doing is helping individuals take ownership of that process.
37:16
Speaker 4: And I also believe that that's not just like a
37:19
Speaker 4: magic pill that fixes things in the moment. I believe
37:22
Speaker 4: that that actually is adaptive over time in a mitochondrial sense.
37:26
Speaker 4: In your mind, are you familiar with any of this
37:28
Speaker 4: research and or do you have any any ways of
37:32
Speaker 4: explaining or describing to your clients what's actually happening to
37:35
Speaker 4: them when they start taking control of their breathing and
37:37
Speaker 4: implementing these tools regularly.
37:40
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a lot of cool breath hacks that you
37:42
Speaker 3: can do, and there's even you know what they're doing
37:45
Speaker 3: there really is is limiting the intake of oxygen, right
37:48
Speaker 3: and increase in the CO two tolerance. And there's even
37:51
Speaker 3: you see the athletes where they're wearing the mask, right,
37:54
Speaker 3: those aren't oxygen masks. That's actually depriving the system of
37:57
Speaker 3: the oxygen so they can train. They're you know, they're
38:00
Speaker 3: going to be going into a different environment, you know,
38:03
Speaker 3: in the mountains where has you know, less oxygen, you know,
38:07
Speaker 3: or just to have a competitive advantage in the ring
38:10
Speaker 3: because they don't need as much oxygen because they trained
38:13
Speaker 3: to be more CO two tolerant. And you know, there's
38:16
Speaker 3: like a bootegup model that is solely based upon that,
38:21
Speaker 3: very different than what I specialize in and train people
38:26
Speaker 3: because there's many different breathing techniques and you know, we
38:29
Speaker 3: did as far as the science involved in this, there
38:33
Speaker 3: is you know, we did a breathwork event for NASA,
38:37
Speaker 3: and you know they're very you know a lot of
38:40
Speaker 3: the My method and you know, how to explain things
38:44
Speaker 3: is I try to be as practical as I can.
38:47
Speaker 3: I don't want to kind of talk over anyone's head.
38:49
Speaker 3: It doesn't it's pointless for me to sound smart in
38:52
Speaker 3: them to not get it. Just for me to sound smart.
38:54
Speaker 3: I want to bring it to really really practical. But
38:57
Speaker 3: when you go and work with someone like NASA, right,
39:00
Speaker 3: they don't care about your charisma, they don't care about
39:02
Speaker 3: your spirituality, they don't care about any of that stuff.
39:04
Speaker 3: They care about the science and the facts.
39:07
Speaker 1: Right.
39:07
Speaker 3: So I actually teamed up with doctor Jack Feldman, who
39:12
Speaker 3: was on the Hubanan podcast, and he's one of the
39:16
Speaker 3: they'd say the number one breathing expert as far as
39:18
Speaker 3: neuroscience goes. He's a neuroscientist at UCLA, and he did
39:23
Speaker 3: my technique and we became friends and actually brought him
39:26
Speaker 3: into NASA with me to do that event, along with
39:30
Speaker 3: Helen Levetski, who is a psychologist. So I brought him,
39:35
Speaker 3: I did the technique, and then they asked all their
39:38
Speaker 3: scientific questions and we had a board and we all
39:41
Speaker 3: answered him afterwards, and they were just fascinated because they
39:44
Speaker 3: didn't know something like this exists. What I'm doing is
39:47
Speaker 3: very opposite. And you know when doctor Jack Felon, he's
39:50
Speaker 3: been doing this like forty years. When he did my technique,
39:54
Speaker 3: you know, he came up to me afterwards and he
39:56
Speaker 3: was like, holy crap. I didn't even know the breath
39:58
Speaker 3: could do that. Now, mind you, this guy one I
40:01
Speaker 3: forget the name, some really really famous award, he's the
40:05
Speaker 3: one responsible for discovering the mechanism in the brain that
40:09
Speaker 3: controls our breathing. Like he's the guy.
40:11
Speaker 2: You know, the guy, he's the breath guy.
40:13
Speaker 3: And he was just so blown away by what this
40:16
Speaker 3: technique does. And it, you know, it floods the system
40:18
Speaker 3: with oxygen, which is very different than what you're talking about.
40:22
Speaker 3: And you know, by flooding the system with oxygen, a
40:25
Speaker 3: lot of things happen, you know, as far as you
40:27
Speaker 3: know the blood flow, and you know the energy in
40:30
Speaker 3: the body, which is a little bit more metaphysical because
40:33
Speaker 3: we're not talking, you know, ATP in mitochondria. But when
40:36
Speaker 3: you do talk ATP mitochondria and that that body, that's
40:40
Speaker 3: the energy that's moving throughout the body. What I discovered
40:44
Speaker 3: without being a scientist, is that if there is a
40:47
Speaker 3: blockage and energy blockage in the body, all of those
40:51
Speaker 3: things are not going to perform the way that they're
40:53
Speaker 3: supposed to. You know, So it doesn't matter how good
40:56
Speaker 3: of like I was on the best diet ever. You know,
40:59
Speaker 3: you can have the best diet, you can and I
41:01
Speaker 3: don't care how many green juices you drink, podcasts you
41:04
Speaker 3: listen to. Right if you have an energy blockage or
41:06
Speaker 3: energy clot you know, it's gonna cause an impediment in
41:09
Speaker 3: your energy flow and you are going to experience some
41:13
Speaker 3: sort of fatigue, you know, disease, or discomfort or simply
41:18
Speaker 3: not feeling comfortable in your own body. And I think
41:21
Speaker 3: that's what most people are feeling today, and that's why
41:24
Speaker 3: they turn to whatever substances or you know, whatever their
41:27
Speaker 3: thing is, their vice is, because we just don't feel
41:29
Speaker 3: comfortable in our own body. We don't feel don't feel present,
41:32
Speaker 3: we don't feel grounded, and just because things aren't flowing correctly,
41:36
Speaker 3: you know. So I think that was the biggest discovery
41:38
Speaker 3: that I made that you know, Western science really didn't
41:41
Speaker 3: have an answer for. And I'm all for Western science.
41:44
Speaker 3: Like I'm not one of those spiritual woo woo people
41:48
Speaker 3: you know, who are just like, you know, totally against
41:51
Speaker 3: the you know, if I break my arm, give me
41:53
Speaker 3: the painkiller. I got a cavity, give me the novacame. Like,
41:56
Speaker 3: I am all for the merging of the two worlds,
42:00
Speaker 3: and I think that's the only way we're going to
42:02
Speaker 3: truly understand the body and what's really happening in it
42:06
Speaker 3: and around it.
42:07
Speaker 2: Mm hmmm. That's that's very well said.
42:09
Speaker 4: And I think I think oftentimes in Eastern and Western
42:12
Speaker 4: medicine there's Eastern is a way of being and then
42:17
Speaker 4: and then Western is a way of becoming, and and
42:21
Speaker 4: the becoming is is like, hey, you know, when things
42:24
Speaker 4: aren't working very well for you, you got strep throat.
42:28
Speaker 4: It hurts. I would like to become less strep throaty.
42:33
Speaker 4: There's an antibiotic for that, right, there is really a
42:35
Speaker 4: pill for that. I can't imagine using breathwork to fix
42:39
Speaker 4: my strep throat. However, in the being of things, I
42:44
Speaker 4: can actually exist in a way that makes me less
42:48
Speaker 4: susceptible to getting strep throat on a regular basis, and
42:52
Speaker 4: Western medicine doesn't generally inform that process, and so and so,
42:57
Speaker 4: in my mind, breath work is a thing that is
42:59
Speaker 4: thing therapeutic and positive for us regardless.
43:02
Speaker 2: But it's a matter of being.
43:03
Speaker 4: It's a matter of how I exist on a regular
43:05
Speaker 4: basis and what that does for me and my body.
43:09
Speaker 4: As we're coming to our time together here, I did
43:13
Speaker 4: want to leave our listeners with something practical. And the
43:16
Speaker 4: nice thing about breath work is that's something you can
43:19
Speaker 4: auditorially instruct us in. Is there a simple tool that
43:24
Speaker 4: you're willing to share with our listeners or a simple
43:27
Speaker 4: practice that we can do right here together on the
43:30
Speaker 4: podcast that would be useful to them now and also
43:33
Speaker 4: maybe introduce.
43:33
Speaker 2: Them to your work that they can explore in the future.
43:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I would say there's a lot of
43:39
Speaker 3: different breathing techniques out there. I'd like to focus on
43:42
Speaker 3: the most effective ones, the ones that I found to
43:45
Speaker 3: be most effective, but then also the ones that science supports.
43:49
Speaker 3: So you know, box breathing very famous. I think most
43:53
Speaker 3: people hear about breathing techniques style probably hear about that one.
43:57
Speaker 3: And you know that one is you know in health
44:00
Speaker 3: four seconds hold for four seconds, exhale for four seconds,
44:04
Speaker 3: hold for four seconds, breathe out for four seconds, So
44:06
Speaker 3: everything's four seconds and at the top of the breath,
44:09
Speaker 3: in the bottom of the breath you're holding for four
44:12
Speaker 3: seconds and then in and out four seconds, and that
44:15
Speaker 3: is extremely effective. Then there's the four to seven eight
44:18
Speaker 3: method breathe in for four seconds, hold for seven seconds,
44:23
Speaker 3: slow release for eight seconds. So you always want to
44:26
Speaker 3: have your release longer than your inhale. That's going to
44:28
Speaker 3: trigger the parasympathetic response. And both of those two techniques
44:32
Speaker 3: are used by Navy seals right they're out, they're wired,
44:35
Speaker 3: or they need to fall asleep and they get all
44:36
Speaker 3: this adrenaline. They'll use those techniques to fall asleep, you know,
44:39
Speaker 3: to go into you know, a calm state before battle.
44:43
Speaker 3: And you know it's if they're using it, you know
44:45
Speaker 3: what I mean, it's it's effective. I think the one
44:49
Speaker 3: I like sharing the most because it's never shared, and
44:53
Speaker 3: I think it's the most underrated breathing technique that there
44:56
Speaker 3: is is the SIG. It's something that we do unconsciously,
45:02
Speaker 3: but it's something that we can induce and do consciously. Right.
45:06
Speaker 3: It's a technique, and it's a technique that's so powerful
45:11
Speaker 3: that this body that we both have right now is
45:14
Speaker 3: the most advanced biomechanical machine on the planet right and
45:17
Speaker 3: self heal. It can do amazing things like this, So
45:20
Speaker 3: much this body can do well. When the body has
45:23
Speaker 3: pent up stress right, real chronic emotion and things start
45:27
Speaker 3: building to an accumulated point before it starts to come compounded,
45:31
Speaker 3: the body will naturally feel the build up, build up,
45:34
Speaker 3: build up, build up. It'll take a deep breath in
45:37
Speaker 3: without you even realize it, and then it does something
45:38
Speaker 3: like this. It's called the sigh of relief because that
45:46
Speaker 3: is the body's natural way of releasing stress, tension, and pain.
45:51
Speaker 3: It's the pressure release valve of the body. Is the size.
45:55
Speaker 3: So if you do three conscious size in a row,
45:58
Speaker 3: and how you would do this, as you know, I
46:00
Speaker 3: like you can go in through the nose, in through
46:02
Speaker 3: the mouth. I like to go in through the nose
46:05
Speaker 3: really deep, and then out through the mouth. And when
46:07
Speaker 3: you exhale through the mouth, it needs to be a
46:10
Speaker 3: very loud and obnoxious exhale. Right, I got total released, Like,
46:16
Speaker 3: if you're just gonna go, that's one, right, just do three,
46:22
Speaker 3: Like I already feel that from that one, from that release.
46:26
Speaker 3: And when you release the breath, I want you to
46:28
Speaker 3: release something else along with it, something that doesn't serve you,
46:32
Speaker 3: something you've been holding on to for far too long, Right,
46:36
Speaker 3: let it go and give yourself permission to let it go.
46:39
Speaker 3: And I think that's the go to I would start with.
46:42
Speaker 3: You know, I think it's the most effective as well
46:44
Speaker 3: and the easiest.
46:46
Speaker 2: Man. I appreciate that.
46:47
Speaker 4: As you were speaking, I was thinking about how that
46:51
Speaker 4: mirror so closely a prayer work that I lead individuals through,
46:57
Speaker 4: not necessarily from a breathing perspective, although I will generally
47:01
Speaker 4: instruct hey, we're going to breathe this in and then
47:04
Speaker 4: we're going to say, Lord, I give this to you, right.
47:06
Speaker 4: And what's weird is is those two things coincide. I'm
47:09
Speaker 4: releasing this in my breath, but also some an open
47:13
Speaker 4: posture of hands like hey here, like I don't want
47:16
Speaker 4: this any this is yours, Like I don't want it.
47:19
Speaker 4: I'm not carrying it anymore.
47:20
Speaker 2: Man.
47:20
Speaker 4: And And what's what's so powerful about that is is
47:24
Speaker 4: physiologically the breath and spiritually the mindset related to that,
47:30
Speaker 4: those two things they are synergistically powerful. I've never had
47:36
Speaker 4: a single person go through what you just described with
47:40
Speaker 4: their hands open and been like yeah, I don't get it.
47:45
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, like now I got nothing, you know, like
47:49
Speaker 4: it's it does make a difference. And I would encourage
47:54
Speaker 4: our audience as we're listening, if you are holding on
47:57
Speaker 4: to something, and you probably are, that you need to
47:59
Speaker 4: let go of pause and give yourself the opportunity to
48:02
Speaker 4: do these three size, open your hands and give it
48:06
Speaker 4: up and let us know how you feel about that.
48:09
Speaker 2: What changes for you.
48:11
Speaker 4: Man, brother, I sincerely appreciate this conversation. I like to
48:15
Speaker 4: end every podcast by praying over the person that I'm
48:18
Speaker 4: spending time with. You, mind if I pray over you
48:20
Speaker 4: Curtis and what.
48:20
Speaker 2: You're doing in the world.
48:22
Speaker 4: Please and thank you Father, God, thank you so much
48:25
Speaker 4: for the opportunity to spend time with Curtis today. God,
48:27
Speaker 4: I pray that you would bless him, give him wisdom
48:30
Speaker 4: and grace as he works with his audiences, his clients
48:34
Speaker 4: and his partnerships. God, I pray that you would be
48:37
Speaker 4: in his breath, and that as he speaks and as
48:40
Speaker 4: he teaches others to breathe, God, that your piece would
48:43
Speaker 4: also be with him and in them as well. God
48:47
Speaker 4: give him healing in his hands and healing in his speech.
48:50
Speaker 4: And I pray Lord that his work will bring individuals
48:53
Speaker 4: closer to You through something You've given us all your breath.
48:58
Speaker 2: We love you, Lord in Jesus's name.
49:00
Speaker 3: Hey Manames, Oh, gave me goosebumps.
49:03
Speaker 4: Man, that was beautiful, My man, Curtis, thank you so
49:06
Speaker 4: much for the time here and to our listeners. Guys,
49:08
Speaker 4: thank you so much for joining us on the Faithful
49:10
Speaker 4: Fitness Podcast. Until next time, train hard, but pray harder.
49:17
Speaker 1: Hey, if this episode helps you, jare it with someone
49:21
Speaker 1: who needs to hear it, and don't forget to subscribe
49:24
Speaker 1: and leave us a raving review so more people can
49:27
Speaker 1: find Faithful Fitness. Oh and my dad's new devotional is
49:33
Speaker 1: almost out now. You can grab a copy for yourself
49:36
Speaker 1: and then join our free community at Better Daily by
49:41
Speaker 1: clicking on the links in the show notes below. We
49:44
Speaker 1: all have a cross to carry, but it's lighter when
49:47
Speaker 1: we do it together, so check out both links in
49:50
Speaker 1: the show notes. Don't be a big well Bob, just
49:54
Speaker 1: do it. Until next time, don't forget, Train hard and
49:58
Speaker 1: pray even harder.
50:00
Speaker 3: Tough, tough to batt