Latest / Master Your Yoga Teaching with MaKenzie Fly / Breathwork, Bedridden & the Dark Side of Chasing Peak States w/ Max Lowenstein

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Breathwork, Bedridden & the Dark Side of Chasing Peak States w/ Max Lowenstein · Master Your Yoga Teaching with MaKenzie Fly

• Max lowenstein: Most people breathe incorrectly all day, Their body braces, they use accessory muscles, and now they're breathing with auxiliary muscles, and actually with each breath, they're increasing the stress and damage to their body, both mitochondrial and you know, just oxidative damage. I'm talking about just using accessory muscles because you had a pattern that's imprinted upon your nervous system, and now that's coloring the lens of your consciousness. You get 11 million bits of information per second to your brain. You only utilize 40 of them. your brain is a reducing filter. you're constantly reinforcing what you think is the environment. This is why, when we say your internal orients your external, it's true. You MaKenzie Fly: What's up, everybody, and welcome back to MYYT, where you are learning to level up your yoga teaching one masterful class at a time. I am so excited to bring you this episode. This week I am joined by Max Lowenstein, a breathwork teacher and founder of the Breathwork Academy, which is ranked the number one breathwork community on school, the platform school S K-O-O-L. And this conversation went all over the map, but in the absolute Best way. Max has spent more than two decades exploring breath, yoga, consciousness, and the nervous system. And after a series of health complications, these practices that he's spent years teaching suddenly became deeply personal. In this episode, we talk about why Max says breath work is a tool of the practice. It's not the practice and what that actually means. His wild story of losing his ability to walk and talk. We're talking bedridden and the practice, the breath practice that Max turned to for hours a day during his recovery. The difference between breath work, pranayama, and breath journeys and why lumping them all together can be problematic, why chasing a temporary state change isn't necessarily the goal and the trait change Max believes we should actually be looking for, how even yoga, meditation, and spiritual practices can become another way of chasing peak experiences. Why More is not necessarily better when it comes to breath work and how Max thinks about finding the appropriate dose for your nervous system. The question Max uses to determine whether your practice is actually working. Why Max believes charging for your work can actually be part of serving someone and the difference between generosity and giving so much that you burn yourself out, and how he spent six years giving value on Instagram before monetizing and eventually built a community that allowed him to spend dramatically less time on social media. This conversation is about breath work, but it's also about so much more. It's about the difference between intellectualizing the work and actually embodying it. Because the goal isn't to become really flippin' good at breath work. It's to allow the practice to change the way you show up when you're no longer doing it. I know you're gonna love this conversation, so turn it up and let's dive in. excuse me, sir. I don't think I recognize you because the max that I'm looking for is notoriously shirtless. So take your shirt off. Max lowenstein: Should I take the shirt off really fast? MaKenzie Fly: No, my my husband, he's in a show here in Las Vegas when and he is basically a singing he's a clown, like a singing clown. And in the show, he is basically an idiot of a cowboy who wears. All sorts of costumes, one of which is assless chaps and shirtless all the time. So he has the exact same situation happen to him where people are like, I don't recognize you unless you have your shirt off. Do do Max lowenstein: Joe. MaKenzie Fly: you find that that's common with the way that you show up in in your world? Max lowenstein: A lot of people bring up similar notions to me. They're like, I didn't recognize you with your shirt, but none of them are my students. All of them are people who see me teaching outside of that setting. And they bring the ideology of what I look like on Instagram into the interaction. So they're they're seeing like a clip of teaching, right? MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: and they're like, Whoa, why do you have your shirt on? I'm like, I always teach with a shirt on. MaKenzie Fly: No, I'm just teasing with you, of course. But Max lowenstein: No, I know. MaKenzie Fly: I do feel like you have really cool tattoos and I was wondering if that had any symbolism to you or the story behind those. Max lowenstein: Thank you. Yeah, they're all yaunts. Sakyant. So mine are specifically the story of my life just embedded on my body. And traditionally they were given to warriors as blessings. So they're simultaneously the story of my life, but also like a blessing of what I want to bring into the world. MaKenzie Fly: wow, beautiful. I don't know if you've shared that yet and I missed it, but that's really, really, really amazing. I initially found you, probably like most people, on Instagram with your hilarious and amazing reaction videos that you do where you are just like so, I don't know. Honest and truthful of being like this, everybody is insane, or this is completely incorrect, and really just doing such a great job of using your content to educate and help people see through some of the stuff that is being showcased and taught. and and that's how I found you. So I just I just thank you for the work that you do on social media and the the the clarity that you're bringing to some of these things. It's really, it's really good. Max lowenstein: Of course, yeah. I love, you know, just helping and clearing out any maybe myths that I would see. Obviously everyone has their perspective, but when I started teaching breathwork a little over ten years ago, it really wasn't a very popular thing. And so there was nothing about it, right? It wasn't like a popular buzzword. But now that it's a popular buzzword, everyone who's any I mean, people are just saying the most outlandish things to get views. And the unfortunate part is People are actually receiving damage from this. Right. If you go into like a healing met is this isn't the true for all aspects of social media, but in this specific aspect, people are coming for healing. They have an issue. And so if you give them the wrong medicine, you can actually do a pretty intense amount of damage. So I don't love meeting these things with resistance. That's not generally how I like to live my life. But I feel like sometimes things need to be said. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah. No, it's so true because and I think you've shared this in some of your posts about this certain type of person is already very vulnerable and they see that and you know, it just it does way more harm than help. So it's it's so good. And the way in which you invite people into your space to learn more. And I've actually joined your community. I've been in the community maybe a little bit over a month or so and slowly making my way through things. I'm sure you know, as being a parent, I'm like, gosh, there's so many things that I want to dive deeper on. But I'm enjoying it so, so much, and I'm learning so, so much. It's it's so great. And I know we're gonna definitely plug it. And if listeners are looking for a space like this, we can direct them in that direction. I mean, I guess before we even dig into the content that's somewhat within there, you have such a crazy story. I mean, can you tell us a little bit about almost dying? I think it's twice, right? You've had you've had two experiences. Yeah. And how Max lowenstein: Yeah. Yeah. In in the in the same year. MaKenzie Fly: yeah, and how you use breathwork to survive and get back on your feet. Max lowenstein: Very, very long story short. I found breathwork when I was really young and it set off a cascade of events that shaped me into the person who I am today. I'd say I'm very lucky that my mom forced me onto this path when I was 13 years old. And MaKenzie Fly: That's gonna be me with my two boys. Max lowenstein: then my first yoga teacher actually was extremely unorthodox in the sense that for some reason she would just always It felt like picking on me, but it definitely wasn't picking on me. It was a loving, caring thing. Should I just max where's your breath? Max, where's your breath? Not even cueing physical postures. And this really set off a massive cascade in my life, which led to a lot of isolation and loneliness. It's it's the reason that I created the community. I needed I wanted to create the resource that I needed when I was on the path. but I was always in tremendously good health because of this. My father. Has a lot of autoimmune diseases and a lot of issues. He's been chronically ill for a while. And it all started when he was 35, that things really went downhill for him. And I just thought, well, I'm on this healthy lifestyle my whole life. This definitely isn't going to happen to me. And so when I was 35, I kind of got hit with these things and I didn't know what they were. I didn't think to just be like, maybe I have autoimmune issues until I finally got like a blood test. And so like, wow, like my ANA is like off the charts. Maybe I should think about this. And so while we were trying to figure things out, some doctors recommended some surgeries, and unfortunately I lost my ability to talk and walk. So I was just laying in bed all day. And I think the human condition is to sometimes just like feel bad for yourself or ruminate on things, like what can I do differently? Why is this happening to me? But I very quickly, you know, I gave myself space to feel the feelings, but I very quickly tuned into what can I be doing right now? Well. Can't be doing much of anything. My son was just born. It was killing me that I couldn't be with him. yeah, and he also, I think it also exacerbated the issues because he was in the hospital or ER at least once every three weeks when he was born. He had a lot of issues that he was a very big kid, and I think that might have been some of it. He had some kind of some some like bleeding disorders and he had like a hemangioma like right next to his eye, like all kinds of stuff. And so, You know, my wife was also postpartum. So I would before I had the surgeries that made, you know, me bedridden, I would basically muster up all the energy that I could and just carry him to the ER. Because he was in a lot of pain. He like didn't want to like be on. So I was I was carrying him. I was using a lot of effort, energy. And I think that was just exacerbating the issue. That's also why people didn't really know what was going on, because it could have been like mental or physical stress. We didn't know that I had also gotten hit with his autoimmune. So Anyway, I figured, why not do something that could benefit me? So I took my breath work practice from 20 minutes to eight hours per day. I know it seems kind of extreme. And here I am today. so I decided before, you know, before that, I had really believed in the power of breath work, but I had never like healed something like that in my own body. I've had thousands of students that I've helped, but That was really inspiring for me. when you have a lived experience like that, then I feel like it strengthens your dharma. Not that someone couldn't have a similar dharma without having that kind of experience. I'm just saying for me, it makes me feel like the example I always give is like a flaming metal airplane part, like falling towards the earth. Like I just feel like I am unstoppable no matter what. I'm going to try to help people with this power that I know is. extremely healing, your only companion from the moment you come into this incarnation until the moment that you leave. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah. It's honestly insane, Max. Like I can't I can't even imagine for all people, for you, for your baby of a son, for your wife, just how difficult that would have been. And for anybody else who's going through an experience like this where it feels like the dark night of the soul, may it be a beacon of hope for you that you really can, as cliche as it sounds, like turn the mess into the message or like it be being the in t the time of embodiment and being the exact platform that you need to stand on to create a platform, you know, and and have like real. real direct experience with the work and what you're teaching. Okay, so let's imagine that you are in your bed and you can't speak, you can't talk, you can't walk. Like what when you started applying the breath work, which specific techniques did you take yourself through? And like what was what was it like for your body coming back online slowly? What was that like healing journey actually look like and feel like? Max lowenstein: Yeah, so first of all, I just really want to stress that breath work is a tool of the practice, it's not the practice. And MaKenzie Fly: I love that you say this. I love that you say this. Say it again. Like Max lowenstein: Breath work is a tool of the practice. It's not the practice. So what a lot of people will do is they'll try to accumulate lots of different breathwork techniques and they'll put them together. I do this on YouTube. I do that on YouTube. I love this dude has a hundred different breathwork practices I can do on YouTube. And you find these people keep coming back to the practices. They use them as a state changer, which is awesome. You should I mean, I don't want to shoot on you. You can definitely use breath work as a state changer. And that is a great start. But it's like buying a car without a motor. It's never gonna get you to the grocery store, it's never gonna get you to where you wanna go. And Accumulating techniques, I am gonna talk about the technique that I used in the bed, but accumulating all these techniques and doing all these things, it is the outward manifestation of your effort, and it's awesome. It's it's going to change your state. But if you're practicing and you're not becoming more wakeful in your daily living life, if you are not seeing an improvement every single day without having to return to the practices. what's the point? In in my in in in in my opinion. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: Right? Why? Cause 'cause you always you're always gonna get anxious about this thing and then you're always gonna come back to this practice. You have to have your two hour routine in the morning, MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: like to be a functioning human, or you have to like make sure that you know when the stress hits that you can immediately go into your zone of breathing or meditation or whatever it is. It's I don't think that it's that's how life should life MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: is meant to be lived. I think that we want to strengthen. MaKenzie Fly: Right. And I think I think you said this in some way. And please correct me if I'm wrong, but it's still like the addiction disguised and that that tendency to be really extreme showing up in another form. One of my teachers, I've said this before on the podcast, but it's coming to me now as your describing this, it it's this parable, maybe you know it, but it's talking about using a boat to cross a river and how the boat in this case is a tool to carry you from one side to the other side and how foolish it would be to then strap that boat to your back and like walk on the land afterwards. And that it's like you use it as a means to get but eventually even the tools themselves become like baggage that you carry, in some degree. So have you heard that or does this describe a little bit what you mean, maybe in different ways? Max lowenstein: slightly different, but it is a core teaching, which is that the technique must dissolve itself and the crutch, the tool can become the crutch. Right. At a certain point, you have to get out of in the the car. Let's use the car analogy, even if you do have a motor in the car. At a certain point you have to get out of the car and go into the temple or into the grocery store, whatever it is that you want to do, right? you can't you can't you can't just drive. You have you have to do the work. I love the analogy. of is basically when I say the tool becomes the crutch. It's like you you use the boat and it was like super helpful. Now you strapped it to your back. I love that. For me when I was young I did portaging a lot. So I would actually have to strap the boat to my back. I don't know if anyone knows what that is. You go from like small lake to small lake. you have to you have to actually carry the boat MaKenzie Fly: No. my god. Max lowenstein: in between the land and then you put it back in the water to keep going. So that for me, when I think of that I think, but maybe you do need the boat. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: but we're we're we're basically saying the same thing in different ways. Well, the way I think of breath work, so there's breath journey in in my experience, there's breath journey, breath work, and pranayam that people all confuse for just breath work. And so breath work is opening up the neural circuitry so that teachings can get in deeper, we can reshape our nervous system, and we can be a more full version of ourselves in life. Pranayam is moving energy. It's this ancient yogic technique. Yogis realized. Hey, the breath can move energy, and we're gonna move energy for vitality and for all these different things. And there's breath journey, which is removing large amounts of trauma all at once from the nervous system. When done properly and skillfully, it's not for everyone, and especially if the facilitator is using this in a way to reinforce their own ego structure. It can be extremely harmful for both the practitioner and the teacher, right? You can fry your nervous system like that. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. It just makes me I think it was autobiography of a yogi. in this book he's like talking about how you can't and this is why like just such respect for All pranayama and breath work of all kinds. And I think a lot more yoga teachers, or at least ones that are in my sphere that I know, have such a respect that it's like borderline fear of not feeling educated enough, skillful enough, and are aware of how potent and powerful it can be, that it's like plugging into the electrical circuit of the universe, and you could potentially fry yourself and the other person. So I feel like that's where more yoga teachers. at least who maybe at least listen to this podcast, it's like they're not necessarily tooting their own horn. They're actually afraid because there is such a healthy respect. Max lowenstein: Yeah, and that's a s that this is especially true with pranayam. I know that I actually know many yoga teachers who have fried their nervous system with pranayam. MaKenzie Fly: Wow. Max lowenstein: so yeah. MaKenzie Fly: I mean, I guess it's a better place to be than the the alternative. Max lowenstein: But potentially. I always like. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: I think my philosophy in life is always, this is kind of what you were touching on before. I I don't think I ever commented. you made a statement that I was the the statement that you made about what I had said is that when I went from my very addictive personalities, basically in my story, which I think you were referencing, I experienced some wakeful states of consciousness when I was very young, and my brain. Because I did not have a proper teacher, I did not have proper understanding, I did not have proper guidance, saw that as a peak state of consciousness. And so the rest of my life, I just tried chasing peak states of consciousness. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: And so when I left that phase and I realized, okay, it's not bungee jumping, it's not all of the I don't know if I can say it recorded, the the deleterious MaKenzie Fly: Okay. Max lowenstein: things that maybe people would do. It's in my post, so you can read about it. like women and substances and all of this stuff, which is like not a good path to go down. I flipped to the other side and I just did like crazy austerities. It was the same extreme nature, just disguised as something else. And so MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: my philosophy is always like, for example, if you're going to the gym, people are always like push it, you know, you want to lift like really heavy. I'm always like, nah Why? Why not just stop at like eighty percent or seventy percent? You're still gonna get like most of the benefit, but you have like none of the downside of potential injury. You have like none of the downside of like hurting your nervous system or like overworking yourself or fatiguing yourself. You can like still enjoy your life and get all the benefits from this. And you will probably enjoy the activity more. So that's how I see breath work and pranayam as well. And in my course, I'm sure you've read it, like I have disclaimers everywhere. It's like more is not better. Like what your biology needs is better. So you can do this practice, this practice, or this practice. But don't just go to the most extreme one. I'm super stressed. So I'm gonna do this. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah. No, this is so good. And maybe we could transfer transition a little bit into the the conversation of using like using your senses, sensuality as the doorway to liberation, which is tantra, not sexuality as the doorway, but using your ability to use these faculties, all of them. your faculties of your eyes, your ears, your mouth, your sense of touch, your ability to feel as the key to unlock not just that one. And I think like in the the yogi's maybe teachings, especially with the story of like the Buddha, he tried all of this stuff of denying the body or being really extreme with fasting, like all the the other austerities, and maybe recognizing the of having the same realization of being like, wait a minute, this is the same, the same addictive or extreme personality in a different way. So I don't know, maybe maneuver towards that or Or riff off of what I just said. Max lowenstein: Yeah, there is only one thing foregrounding as many. Even right now, the computer I'm talking to, you, me. This is all in my school of philosophy, the universe exploring itself. It's differentiation, but the everything you're feeling, like the pockets, maybe you're feeling excited to be on this podcast. Maybe you're feeling tired from being with all your kids and you're just smiling because you're happy that I'm here or something and we're friends. Any any feeling that you're feeling, you you could you could be feeling infinite amount of feelings. I don't know, but They're all the same universal energy, just foregrounding as what they're foregrounding as right now. And so when we tune into that, when we realize that the zen that was on top of the mountain, we brought that there. MaKenzie Fly: Mm. Max lowenstein: We took the zen to the top of the mountain. That was within us all along. We're activating it. No one, right? No one would say if you attach yourself to a simulation and you know, you had like the the 3D goggles on or whatever, not the three D goggles, sorry, I'm like. Dating myself, I'm such a caveman. You had the metaglasses on, whatever you do, that puts you in a world, and you saw like a beautiful like monastery on like a mountain, right? And then they took the the goggles off of you, you wouldn't say, those goggles gave me such a sense of awe, right? You would say the awe arose within me. So what is not here now, at this moment, within every particle of existence? Between you and me talking on this podcast right now, what is not here right now, what is not present right now is nowhere, anywhere. And so chasing something else outside of you, chasing other things, thinking that it's gonna give you that thing is We're here to explore ourselves. It it's not about not doing things or not providing effort or not chasing your goals. But the unrealistic expectation of us actually searching for the most important thing, what you were referring to, kind of, or what you were what you were touching, right? Somewhere else, or needing to do something else, is simply not the reality of the situation. MaKenzie Fly: I can't wait to listen to this episode again already. I do think I want to roll back a little bit to the maybe and t touch on into the specific techniques that you used and how it started to feel when things were coming back online. I think that might be interesting and just helpful if you're open to sharing. Max lowenstein: Yeah. So my personal daily non-negotiable practice is resonance breathing. It can seem so simple. It's between four point five and seven seconds in and out. More is not better. It's based on your particular body size. It's based on your particular nervous system. It's based on many things. I have a four week course on just this. You would think, breathing like five point five seconds in and five point five seconds out the nose is an easy thing. It's just like, No, I have a I have an entire four-week course on it teaching you all the ins and outs. And so for me, when I use resonance breathing and for my body and for what I feel is best, it's about six seconds in and out through the nose, and that's it. Using healthy diaphragmatic breathing. So I was making sure most people I find generally through life breathe in correctly. They have a very traumatic event. Can i i I mean it can be. A single traumatic event. It could be modern living, right? Like if you're hunched over a laptop all day and you're closing all of this off, it can make a breathing, you can have stuff from your childhood where you braced really heavily and your body never felt safe to come down. You didn't have a finely attuned parent. Most of us don't have perfectly awake attuned parents to meet all of our needs as kids and make us feel safe, right? There are things that happen in our life that cause us to brace. The diaphragm doesn't move healthfully. My name is Healing Motions on Instagram because I think that the diaphragm as it moves up and down the body is the most healing thing that you can possibly do. You massage the vagus nerve, you can massage the organs, you send signals of rhythmicity to the brain. We're not gonna get into it now. But for all intents and purposes, diaphragmatic breathing, six in, six out, sounds very simple. Ex especially if you can begin to feel the breath in the low back. I have a whole course where I teach you different ways to breathe. It's like you can breathe into your chest, you can breathe into your So breathing in into the diaphragm and the low back is especially healing. If you can feel 60% of your lung tissue is in your back body. And for me, because I already had this practice, it was very easy to tap back into it. I've created also some special frequencies. I first used them to, I'm gonna put a pin in this right here. I actually got off on a tangent. Most people breathe incorrectly all day, they have a hard experience. Their body braces, they use accessory muscles, and now they're breathing with accessory muscles, auxiliary muscles, and actually with each breath, they're increasing the stress and damage to their body, both mitochondrial and you know, just oxidative damage. And that's not even including, by the way. We're not talking about over-breathing, we're not talking about reverse breathing, we're not talking about any of the maladies of breathing. I'm talking about just using accessory muscles because you had a pattern that's imprinted upon your nervous system, and now that's coloring the lens of your consciousness. You get 11 million bits of information per second to your brain. You only utilize 40 of them. Your brain is a reducing filter. I'm gonna say that one more time. 11 out of 11 million bits possible to your brain at any given second, you process 4D, 4-0, because your brain is a reducing filter. So you're constantly reinforcing what you think is the environment. This is why, when we say your internal orients your external, it's true. You have a heart event. And most people just live the same six months of their life over and over and over again. They just replace it with different people, places, things. You can change the external, but it's still gonna be the same thing. You're still it's people call it manifestation, and then it leads to this whole thing like, well, how could I possibly be creating this negative outcome for myself? It's not like that. Your brain is picking and choosing what information based on your past experiences. You're not doing anything wrong. We just need to clear up from the nervous system. MaKenzie Fly: Mm. Max lowenstein: So, all that being said. We want to fix the breathing pattern first so you're actually using the diaphragm in a healthy way. The community would do this over four weeks. I I the reason I say that is just because it takes a moment. It's not just, yeah, I'm just going to now have this healthy breathing pattern, right? What happens when you're stressed? How do you pull awareness into your everyday life? So I started using this practice, which for me, so resonance breathing for me, very known practice already. And on top of it, I've created for myself certain frequencies. You know this from all of the all of the breathing has these frequencies on it. I initially created it for my meditations because I realized it would drop me into a meditation faster than anything. And then I applied it to sleep and I actually made it change and drop so that you can get deeper sleep. It it makes your brain go into deeper waves of different brainwave states as you sleep. Then I start applying it to breath work and I realized, wow, I can actually drop into resonance breathing significantly faster. In the course, we describe like how you have a certain amount of time that you need to activate resonance breathing before it actually starts working for you. And there's clinical data that shows like set times, and as you do it more and more, it actually has greater benefits. So your your minute like seven to eight, that 60 seconds is less beneficial than like minute like 20 to 21. Right? So I would have these strings of resonance reading. I would I would listen to the frequency. I would just put my headphones in. And I first started using it because I found that I couldn't sleep. I had so many of these medications and I realized, dude, you're hopped up. It's after surgery, and like they're just giving you right. I I I mean, I wasn't even really taking care of myself. I was just being given things, like intravenously, but also I was like not able to really communicate what I needed. And I was like, dude, like I need to be able to sleep. Like this is like the first step to recovery. Like if you can't sleep, if your brain there's a lot of research that your brain actually like accumulates waste product and when you sleep, they're it's like pumped out of your brain. Glyfocumeral, I think it's called. It's kind of MaKenzie Fly: Mm. Max lowenstein: a new and emerging field. But anyway, I'm like I can't even make proper decisions for myself. So I started putting on this frequency and doing the resonance breeding, which was the only thing I could do. And I could sleep. And this was for me the turning point when I was like, okay, I am affect I know I've this whole lot I've always been telling my students you can affect your but I'm like, all right, I have the reins of my life back. Okay, like I can s and I'm just like, I'm gonna do this all day as much as I can. I couldn't do it all day, but like for around eight hours. Sometimes I was just so out of it, or sometimes like I'd be plugging my phone in somewhere else. It just wasn't like possible 'cause I really wanted to listen to the frequency while I did it. I wanted to have the time. I was totally out of it. I didn't want to be thinking about, Am I exactly six seconds? I have it everything timed out for myself. I think you've started the resonance breathing course, have you? Or maybe MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, I think I just I haven't been able to go through as much. I started that one and then your Nali Cria one. Yeah. Max lowenstein: Yeah. Yeah. and that was like that healed my digestion when I was really MaKenzie Fly: I am so, I feel like you're the only person that I've ever practiced with and learned from where I'm like, I feel like I'm actually getting the step-by-step process and progressing. And I Max lowenstein: Yeah. MaKenzie Fly: haven't even like been able to move through it. It's really, really good, Max. Max lowenstein: Thank you. Yeah. And and I love like my favorite thing is you know, we have these accountability threads. The accountability threads are mostly f so people can check in and stay accountable. When you hold yourself accountable, you're more likely to hit your goal in public. But also I give feedback every day and it's awesome to see where someone starts and they send a video of like doing a wave and I'm just like, Yeah, that's rad. You know? MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Yeah. Max lowenstein: That's really rad. And so anyway, back to how the breathing was changing my life. Because of the condition I feel sometimes that I'll just use myself as an example, since my father was extremely reactive when I was young. I always have the samskara. So even though I work on it constantly, I have that samskara of just like reacting and of having anger. And this is like an underlying state for me. What this what you see right now is not my natural state of consciousness. This is like. 23 years of practice to get here. When I went to my first kundalini class, I'm not a kundalini teacher, I don't do kundalini, but I went when I was very young. And I thought the class was terrible. I really didn't like it. But one thing stood out to me that I'll remember the rest of my life. I was talking to a teacher after class and I was like, I couldn't sit properly and like I just I really wanted to listen to what you were saying, but you know, I I just I like my mind was going off. He just grabbed me by the shoulders and he went, How long do you think it took me to get this chill? And I was like I had been doing yoga for maybe like three or four years at that point. I thought, you know, Dunning Kruger, I'm like, I know everything, like I'm so good at yoga at this point. and and yeah, I was just like, like I understand, like this takes time. So, you know, a lot of people when they have surgeries like this or something, or or things just continuously go wrong, it can be a negative feedback loop. And so for me personally, it was really important. out of sympathetic tone into parasympathetic tone, into rest and digest for as long as you can. And when I felt that turn on in my body, it gave me the understanding. Cause up until this point, I had no idea I didn't know it was autoimmune. In fact, the breathing gave me the insight to check to see if it was autoimmune. This is the part that I don't normally say. MaKenzie Fly: Mm. Max lowenstein: the breathing gave me that insight that turned everything around. Because when I do this type of breathing, what Life is so busy. But what's meant to come to you will come through you when you clear yourself out with breath work. And so I MaKenzie Fly: That was so good. That was so good. Did someone write it down? Max lowenstein: was able I was able to figure this out and kind of the doctors couldn't figure out what was wrong with me, but I could figure it out. Because there is a field of con we were talking about this just a little while ago, right? There is a field of awareness. That is right now foregrounding as you and me, but if we tune back into it, if we take a step back, it is knowing. It is undivided knowing. It's not thought, it's not based on past experiences, right? And anyone can tune into that. So when I felt my body turning consistently from sympathetic to parasympathetic, rest and digest, it was like this feeling of, okay, I am getting better. The universe is supporting me here. This isn't my time yet. Cause for a while I thought, Yep, this is it. I'm done. And I'm like kinda cool with that. You know, I've been practicing for a long time and but like the thought of leaving my wife, and at that point I only had one kid and the f the thought of leaving my wife and son was just like, I've gotta find a way through this. You know, I'm not lying down right now. And when I felt my body consistently turn back on into rest or digest after like two hours of doing this, 'cause I was so hyped up in the hospital setting and You know, my mom flew up like to help because my wife's postpartum, like my son's in the hospital, like I can't walk. And like, you know, I'll just say that it was it was hard for my mom. And like seeing my mom in that state was also not great for me. So, and by the way, I'm not saying that she shouldn't have come, like she was like the most helpful thing ever. Right? I like I'm glad she's there, but but still seeing your mother like In a state, like, am I gonna lose my son? You know, is like not a good, like that's not a good signal. Like no one likes to see that. So so after doing this for several hours and feeling like I was turning myself into rest and digest, then I was able and plus the whole time bringing in the teachings. It's not just the breathing pattern, it's actually allowing the teachings to take hold of your nervous system in a greater way. I feel like it imbibed something in me that allows me to transmit a lot more clearly now as well. So you know, that's kind of what started turning everything around. I left the hospital and then eventually I was able to clear my mind enough to get enough insight to not to tell doctors what was wrong with me, but to propose things. And everyone was basically just kind of like, Well, maybe, but it seems like you're getting better now. So just keep doing what you're doing. Right. And I was like, All right. MaKenzie Fly: Thanks. Max lowenstein: By the way, nothing against doctors. Doctors are awesome. Like This is this has nothing to do with doctors, right? This is like my personal journey. It's not some kind of statement against like big pharma or something. I've MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: I have no issues with that. I'm I'm glad I was on the painkillers, like after the surgery. You know? Like I did not w want to just like Right? Like MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, and like in trauma and in s like like in Max lowenstein: Yeah, exactly. MaKenzie Fly: s in moments like that where it's appropriate for sure. I that Max lowenstein: Yeah. Yeah. MaKenzie Fly: is such like just a wild story. That's why I was like, you have a crazy story and to to be that lived experience, what are some of the other wild stories that you've heard from your community of people going through some of the resonance courses or maybe any of the other ones. What are the testimonies that you hear that just blow you away? Max lowenstein: have thousands of testimonies MaKenzie Fly: So many. Yeah. Max lowenstein: at this point. I have people saying that they didn't want to be here anymore. You know? And now they're happy about life again. I have people saying, you know, they're chronically they have they have chronic insomnia and they can sleep now. I have people saying the the things that I love the most I mean I love all the things that I hear. What I really love is two things. One is Hey, I've tried breath work a ton, nothing's working. Why? it's because you bought a car without a motor, right? Like this is why I do the reaction videos. I have to do them sometimes, right? Because it's just like this is misleading, but it's getting a lot of views because it's sensational. and then, my God, I actually tried this and I see my nervous system changing. Now what would have sent me into a tizzy, what would have absolutely ruined my entire day, I just brush off. MaKenzie Fly: Right. Max lowenstein: I'm more responsive. I can be a better husband or a better wife. I feel different. This MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah. Max lowenstein: is what really right, because I have a lot of people that come in and they're just like, I feel calm and I feel amazing. I've never felt this happy. I've never felt this calm in my entire life. For those, I'm like, this is good. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: But when people reshape, if you actually stick with it and you reshape your nervous system, that's when life begins to change. That's when we stop our past from affecting our future. Most people, like I said, they live the same six months of their life over and over again. Right. So our past does not have to dictate our future. And that's what makes me really happy. Well people can manifest. I've we have a trader, we've actually have multiple traders that they're like, Hey, for the first time I'm profitable. You know? Like this is working. Cause like I'm not I I don't know all the terminology, but like I'm I'm not like so nervous anymore and I can like think more clearly and I can foreground the best possible emerging future. We have people who are like, yeah, I was like wasn't doing well with money and now I'm like doing great with money. And I signed up for like a teacher training and did all these things like because, you know, or I had this awesome business idea. Like it doesn't matter whatever your dharma is, you can foreground it more clearly. That's MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: what really makes me people I think are very obsessed about like, how do I feel when my eyes are closed? It's a kind of a phenomenon right now that everyone's like, I really want to have a good eyes closed experience. How do I meditate the best? How do I do this the best? How do I do that? Maybe I'm gonna find this new plant medicine that's just gonna do it for me. nothing against plant medicines. But what I use as the like rubric, like, is this working? Like, how's your eyes open experience afterwards and not just directly afterwards? Like tomorrow. Like, are you 1% better? MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. It's just it's just so good. I don't know if I heard this little rhyme from you, but the the concept of it's not the temporary state shift from using the tool, but it's the trait shift that happens as a byproduct of it, like how it changes who you are when you're no longer doing it. And the that is the measuring stick to see the success. And I think often, I don't know, I guess I noticed this in in yoga students is the people who spot it first or most are often not you because you're the one that's changing. So it's like maybe the people that the closest people in your life, like your partner or your friend or whatever, is gonna notice that you are a little less reactive or a little more patient, a bit faster than you. I don't know, this is just coming to me. I guess maybe that's my experience of something that sometimes it's hard to see something because you're the one that's changing. Like you're you're so close to it that it's a little bit difficult to notice. Max lowenstein: And it can actually go in both directions. MaKenzie Fly: Mm. Max lowenstein: So it can be the example that you're giving, which is like, I see myself every day in the mirror, and it doesn't really seem like much has changed. And we have a lot of people who do that. They're in a very bad place. And they're just like, I see all these people having wonderful experiences, right? Why am I not having wonderful experiences? And I have to sit them down and be like, Do you remember where you started? It's MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: like, yeah, like I didn't want to be here and like all these things. And I'm like, and now. You're feeling pretty good, but you're not having a wonderful experience, and that's making you sad. Like, let's look at this first post that you made in the community. And they're like, yeah, I was in a really bad spot. It's like, okay, we're like kind of being hard on ourselves. We're not seeing all the change. and it can go in the opposite direction as well. So people who make big strides quickly, generally, Without getting too deep into this A lot of times as people progress on the path and your vibration changes, I I'm just gonna I'm not gonna dive into the science behind all of this and because there is actual science behind this. I'm just using the most basic, gross words that I could use, as opposed to like the subtle languaging, just to get the point across. But as you begin to increase your vibe or frequency, as you begin to do the work, what what it's really saying is as you change your behaviors, your patterns, your habits, as you resonate like this. The people around you who don't have that resonance are going to feel threatened. They're gonna feel threatened for two main reasons. One is that they can't control you anymore. You're not manipulatable. And two is subconsciously they're feeling that they also have this rising, this call to rise, and they're not embracing it right now. And so this discomfort could lead to them actually. The rising tide lifts all ships for sure. But sometimes if someone is really attached, their limitations, because again, the chemical cocktail that you grew up with, you're addicted to, even if it's not pleasurable. So why some people you go around them, they're always creating drama. Right. And so a lot of times you'll make these strides and the people around you will unintentionally kind of try to drag you down. or you'll feel like it's not really, man, I was friends with this person for so long. Why are we falling apart? Right. Why does this person maybe, you know, their idea of a fun time is going out and drinking at a bar and your idea of a fun time is like I don't know, staying home and meditating. That's like not a great example 'cause you can be like super spiritual and go to a bar. I'm not trying to make an e example like that. Right. MaKenzie Fly: Th this whole episode you're like, by the way, disclaimer. Max lowenstein: By just because it's not so simple. Cause you can take a little sound bite and it can just be like, like this is the thing. It's black and white, but like nothing is black and white. Learning, life is the curriculum. Everything is the curriculum. Every life is the learning experience. And when you can meet yourself and you can meet all those hard moments with compassion, not empathy, empathy is in the mind. When you meet yourself with compassion and you actually hold space for whatever is arising, it's a pointing out instruction for where you need to heal and where you need to grow. And so anyway, back to the point. Which is that sometimes you're actually going the opposite direction. And the people in your life, like your family, you're feeling resistance from them. You're feeling almost like a bad person for working on yourself. and this is also, you know, this is a reason why community is like so important. If it's not my community, I keep I always say community because I really did create this for what I needed when I was growing, but any community that you have, right? Being surrounded by like-minded people that are gonna uplift you. And help you in this situation. The rising tide lifts all ships. so it can go both ways. It can go one is you don't think you're making the progress and you're moving too slowly, but you're actually walking your path directly. And two, is you're actually making big leaps, but other people are perceiving you in a way that is trying to push you back. And if you're not skillful in that endeavor as well, you know, it can be a hindrance on the path. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah, and support it. I I think that that's it's so key and it's so true. And you've done such an incredible job of building your community and for yoga teachers that are listening who want to do something similar where They create a space that has a very specific intent and purpose and work. Can you share a little bit about how you have done that in your life and for your business and how that has provided for you and your family and helped you go through this crazy time? Max lowenstein: Course. So God, I started Instagram like eight years ago at this point. I'd been teaching for a while and I saw one of my friends who had a huge Instagram following, and companies were just reaching out to him left and right. Like he he was not a yoga teacher, he was just a yogi. And like, man, do go reach out to him and all these, he would just say something and they'd be like, Here's you, like so many people were listening to him. And I was like, you know what? I think that I could help more people, because I was anti-social media. I was like, I think I can help more people if I take this online than I could ever help in person. My biggest class ever that I've taught, taught without a microphone, was 750 people, which is a massive class. but I have a post that did 250 million views. Like there is literally no way to replicate that in real life. So I noticed that kind of early on. And for the first six years that I did Instagram, I did not monetize at all. I just gave, gave, gave, gave value, value, as much value as I can and ask for anything back. Now I'm obviously have this community that I'm inviting people to, but nothing like I said at I think at the beginning of this, no, I did say it at the beginning of this, I feel like, especially after my recovery, I am just a falling metal airplane part. Nothing is stopping me. If you have this drive and this determination, give. Give more than you think. Everyone's always I I find that so many people are like, yeah, they're giving little teasers and then you have to like, you know, pay for the thing and like all of this. And they're it's like, I don't want to give away my secret sauce. No, no, no, give it all away. Like people are gonna sign up for your thing or purchase your thing or do your thing because they want you to tell them specifically how to do it and most people aren't gonna implement anyway. Most people aren't gonna do it anyway. Most people need like s I'll give myself as an example, the accountability chat. me telling you how to perform the practices, guidance, the community like all these things, right? That's what people are paying for. The technique if if you're worried about the technique, if you think that your technique is special, you're infinitely wrong. Someone can find it on YouTube. But it right? But but it it may it may not be with your special magic. Like you're gonna talk to someone, you're gonna bring something unique to it. And that's what people are going to be drawn to. So you give, give, give, give, give and eventually something like this like Community that I started, or it might be like maybe this podcast, right? People just asking for it at a certain time. You have a great ability to communicate. And so it just it's it's the next logical step. You give so much that is the next logical step to do X, Y, and Z. And then there's also the flip side of that. The flip side of that is that I know a lot of people who take this teaching this whole time, I think, the overlying theme is like intellectualization and embodiment are different. MaKenzie Fly: Hmm. Max lowenstein: You can learn something for so long, but learning about push-ups and doing push-ups are not the same thing. The hard part here is that an empowered practice, it's like if there was a way to do push-ups, that actually wouldn't give you benefit, right? Intellectualization and thinking you're doing something versus actually doing it effectively is different. And so you may have shadow parts that aren't integrated, that are manifesting for you as an outward quality right now, as I'm just giving and I don't deserve money and I need to just give this away for free. And my, you know, what this is isn't like worth anything. And like, there's all these reasons that I see that people say, like, I need to give this away. This should be free. This should be totally free. I should use my time for free. and just give, give, give. Right. And you hear all these people that they just like like the massage therapist just gives like free massages all the time. It's like, people need this like healing mess. Right. Understood. Take a deep breath in. Let it all go. And just know that money is an energy of exchange. This is probably the most important lesson that I can impart to you on the I know we're talking about brother. Money is just an energy of exchange. Anything is an energy of exchange, but money is a powerful energy of exchange because there's it's very hard to mismatch on it. It's very easy to mismatch on other energy of exchange. But when someone gives you money. They're opening up a channel to receive more directly from you and they'll receive more benefit. When I first started doing breath work, I gave it to a ton of people for free. And no one had a transformative experience. Even people who really needed it. And I did those MaKenzie Fly: Right. Yeah. Max lowenstein: people a disservice, a massive disservice. I started charging, I started charging a lot. And I remember this one time, I had someone, we were traveling in Mexico, and she reached out to like, hey, can I do a session with you? And I was like, Yeah, just so you know it costs this much. And she to save up for three months to have a session with me. I changed her life in 45 minutes. And I'm not just saying that. Like I kept contact, like I completely changed her life in 45 minutes. Like a an entire 180. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: I can almost guarantee you if I'd given that away for free, she would not have had that experience. She wouldn't have been bought into it. The energy exchange wouldn't have been open. It would have been a mismatch. I would have been giving energy. It's not there. So don't let your shadow parts, don't let The unintegrated, unhealed child aspect that just, by the way, needs love and nurturing. Breathe into that. Hold it with compassion. You can sit with it. You can move through this. Don't let that portion get confused with, I'm trying to give away as much as possible for free. What you give away for free, this is like, for example, I'm saying on social media. I'm helping a lot of people at once. I'm putting out goodwill. I'm I'm doing the best that I can. I'm not asking for anything in return. Right? But I'm also not using personal energy to help one person. Like a lot of people will DM me and I can't really respond to them. And MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: it's also a disservice because if I did respond to them, do you think I could help someone in one conversation in an Instagram DM? No. Like I couldn't do that. The problem is much more complex. So MaKenzie Fly: Yes. It's it's so good and it's so important. I mean, the idea of price being not for you but for them and that that even sign of putting down the money, like putting skin in the game, of course, increases that own their own personal responsibility, accountability, can commitment to the thing. So I'm so glad that you said that, but also caveat it with having personal having strong boundaries of what is appropriate in the space so that you aren't in the DMs like giving away stuff that should be charged for. It's such a learning curve for a lot of yoga teachers, I think. Max lowenstein: Because then what you're really doing is you're not only devaluing yourself, you're burning yourself out. Cause now you're trying, you're basically what you feel is I'm responsible for this person's healing, or I want them to sign up for my thing and I'm pushing and I'm pushing. I'm using personal energy. Either way, you're burning your nervous system. And I by the way, this isn't saying I'm always like the caveat, this isn't saying don't talk to people in the DMs. I talk to people in the DMs. Like it's it's it it's it MaKenzie Fly: Like Mackenzie being like, Hey, wanna come on the pod? Max lowenstein: But there is there's no you can't truly help that person. The energy of exchange, it's the the energy flow is not open. So you're doing everyone a disservice. There it's still, yes, help people and do things, but someone's coming to a complex topic, right? And they're not the energy of exchange isn't open, you're just you're pushing, you're pushing. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. So did you invest in learning business in the sense of how to build community and then let's say use Instagram to drive traffic and attention to your free community? Did you did you learn or have you just been figuring it out and l doing what's working? I'd be curious to know because I think a lot of yoga teachers like could look at your account and just be like, it was luck. It just happened. And so often I love to talk to people who are doing great work and also receiving well-deserved attention and are have big followings and big offers and are making really good money and helping people see that this was very much earned, earned and worked for. So I'd just be curious to hear about your experience of what you've done to get to where you are. Max lowenstein: Exactly where I was when I hit 5,000 followers, two years into posting one to three times per day on Instagram. And not like how Instagram is right now. Instagram right now is easy. I'm talking back in the day, like professional photos, like going out for like six hour photo shoots, doing the whole crazy yoga thing. By the way, I'm again not like putting it down because it's much more saturated. I'm just saying you can create content faster. in the past, at least I felt a ton of pressure to create hyper curated content when it was like all pictures and it was very nice, especially the yoga scene. If you were around at that time, you'll know that everyone's pictures look very professional and it was it was different. It was just different back then, at least in my sphere. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, but remember remember just that one single image that you could post? Max lowenstein: That's what it was. It was just one saying. And we would go into the Dallas and do the craziest photo shoots and try to make the images compelling as I remember exactly where I was after two years posting every single day. I hit 5,000 followers and I was just like on top of the world. I remember where I was when we hit a hundred followers. I was like mind-blown. I was like mind-blown after like several months of posting that we hit a hundred followers. I was just like, whoa, a hundred, like some people like lose perspective. Imagine a hundred people in this room with me right now. I I MaKenzie Fly: I I do this all the time with the podcast. Max lowenstein: actually know because we had like we had like thirty people in here when my son from for my wife's baby shower. It was packed. Like it w this room was packed with 30 people. like standing room like a hundred people is a big deal to talk to a hundred people. I only got two thousand views on this like post. It's like 2,000 people watch this? What? And when you have this sense of gratitude, the first of all, the universe gives you more, but second of it doesn't burn your nervous system. MaKenzie Fly: Hm. Max lowenstein: Right? And then the second thing, and I think the more important thing is I have spent an embarrassing amount of money, hundreds of thousands of dollars, on coaches, and I have yielded nothing. I have MaKenzie Fly: Nothing? Max lowenstein: yielded nothing. I have received zero benefit. And I highly regret doing it because as I was doing social media, I was like, I am missing something. I need to do something. And I would pay all these companies, all these teams, people promising this, promising that. And I think maybe that could work for some people. for me, I think it was a learning experience because I was so desperate to move away from social media. I don't like social media. I like helping people, but constantly posting, creating content. I want to be with my family. I want to be with my community. I spend ninety nine percent of my time in the community. I spend 15 minutes per day now on social media. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: I was so desperate to move away from from social media. I paid all these people, all these different teams, and it was just failure after failure. And what I noticed is that when I actually tuned into my Dharma and I just sensed what is the right way forward here, everything fell into place. And again, this isn't saying that coaches MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, that that through Max lowenstein: are MaKenzie Fly: that through you and to you sort of idea. And I even think maybe you somewhat said it, like the content ideas is like sourced and pulled from your community. And I think that that is like something that a lot of people are missing is they're trying to like build maybe this community on Instagram when really it's like it's like find a place where you can do the actual work and then showcase and share insights and things that are happening from the community. It just feels or at least that's been my experience, it it actually feels like in alignment and like you're lit up about it and like it's the work instead of trying to like attract people to the work, if that makes sense. Max lowenstein: Yeah, so I've given thousands of dollars to my teacher over the years. and a lot a lot. And that has yielded more for me than any of the thousands. I've spent on coaches in general. I MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Max lowenstein: had a really bad agreement at first, basically. They were just saying, like, yeah, we're doing it for you. We're do-I was so naive. I took a vow of satya. I took a vow of honesty when I was very young. When I first got into business, I thought everyone was gonna be honest with me. I ended up losing a lot of money and then getting into a lawsuit, which lost even more money because I was like, well, they took my money and I should just be able to get it back, right? Wrong. especially if they had more money than you, they just paper you to death. So I lost a huge chunk of money at the beginning, basically my entire life savings. But I can tell you every dollar that I've invested into my teacher. Who has never talked to me once about business has yielded like So much money in return. And it's not about money for me. Money is not my orienting principle. But it is important to know that I think a lot of times people on our path, the answer is there for you. It's waiting to be foregrounded. and no one else, again, this could be different for everyone. Maybe you find a coach that's just so spot on and they're they do the right thing for you, and you're off to the races. But for me, every business decision that I've made. based on money has always ended poorly. When I have, and again, money is important. That's not what I'm saying. My orienting principle is different. My orienting principle is is moving from this space of the benefit of all beings everywhere, not just saying that, actually doing it. And so when I can tap into that, when I take a step back and I tap into that, then my decisions have been good. That's how started social media. I was like, how can I help the most people possible? Boom. Great idea. Okay, I heard someone made a lot of money doing this. I'm gonna invest in a team to do that for me. Terrible idea. Right? It's because the energy behind what you're doing directly affects the outcome. And I would just like to say. I learned a lot from all that stuff. Like those were lessons that I needed to go through because I grew up with extreme scarcity in my household. and so I that's a some people can say, well, that's a terrible thing. Why don't you like X, Y, and Z? I did try to sue the person when I was young. or that one person, but again, I just didn't know how anything worked. I was super naive. I was super young. This is a pointing out experience. This has nothing to do with them. They didn't come to me and be like, Hey, sign this contract. Like I went looking for them based on what someone had told me, but I went looking for them. And I engaged with them. Like this is my that was my fault. I take full responsibility for that. And it was an MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah, and that's what Max lowenstein: unhealed aspect of myself trying to shortcut something, trying to do something, trying to just take people. There's a great saying, trust but verify. MaKenzie Fly: Never heard it. Max lowenstein: Right? MaKenzie Fly: Never heard it, but I like it. Max lowenstein: It's in the Bitcoin community. Trust but verify. So this has been a fun conversation. So MaKenzie Fly: Yes. Yeah. All all over the map in the best way. For people who are like, okay, you've been talking about this c this community the whole time, what exactly is this community? How can they get plugged in if they love you and the the way that you teach, your energy and your work? Where can they find you? Max lowenstein: This is not my intention. I just I really created something that I needed when I was younger. And so I reference it all the time. People will all the time ask me a question on Instagram. I was like, I wish you had access so could just share this article that I wrote with you, you know? and sometimes I do, I'll just screenshot it and like send it to people if it's fast. But at one point it was actually I was trying to share because we get wins in the community, share wins like every few minutes. And at one point it was I haven't posted any in a while because it's I'm spending so much time screenshotting, going to Instagram, taking it, writing like this is my community, like posting it on stories, just it becomes unaffected. I just spend all my time in the community and that just yields for me. And it's kind of my life right now. so with all that being said, MaKenzie Fly: Ha ha Max lowenstein: my Instagram is healing motions and it's right in my bio. It's also on school, S K-O-O-L, as the breathwork academy. And that has a K for Academy. Breathwork Academy. You could also look at any of my posts. There's basically a keyword on any of my posts. You can just type that in and I'll send it to you automatically. MaKenzie Fly: Yeah. Yeah. I'll definitely make sure to link some things in the show notes below. I in the community and can attest that it's amazing. It's awesome. Max lowenstein: Yes. MaKenzie Fly: Make sure that you jump in and just use Max's knowledge. He definitely can deep dive even more on the specific techniques and back it up with a bunch of science and then give you the actual videos and practices to apply them and actually experience them. So, Max, thank you so much for hopping on the podcast. This has been such a joy, and I'm so proud of us for being two parents. Parents who are messaging, Max lowenstein: my god. MaKenzie Fly: like, hey, is it gonna work? Is he down for a nap? Okay, it's go time, like just juggling and making it happen. Max lowenstein: It was absolutely insane. Like both of my obviously we were just talking before this, both of my kids are sick this weekend. So it's like is ten do I have ten minutes? Okay, my kid's down now. I'm like messaging, all right, he's down, like let's you know, it's it's really and then you also have kids. You just had birthday and all this stuff, so it's MaKenzie Fly: Yeah, yeah. Max lowenstein: yeah. I mean MaKenzie Fly: No, well, I really appreciate it. I mean, as a parent, I completely understand and get it. And I know I can feel, as I'm sure all of your community members can feel how much love, time, and attention and nurturing goes into that community. So it feels amazing to be a part of it and for you to also be generous to share it with my community here. So seriously, thank you so much, Max. And dear listener, thank you for coming back each and every Wednesday. If you loved this episode, make sure you send it to somebody just to let them know that you were thinking. about them and until next week, namaste!