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How to Tell If Your Breathwork Facilitator Is Safe with Megan Ashton · Reclaiming Consciousness

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot of facilitator stories where I'm hearing where like the facilitator is almost chasing catharsis because that feels good for the ego.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: They want to see the screaming and the big cries, and they're chasing it at the expense of the agency of the breather.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it can become very traumatizing.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think connected breath work, when it's held in a trauma-informed container, is like the most powerful medicine and the safest because it's your inner wisdom.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's your own medicine.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Reclaiming Consciousness.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Elise Bassine, trauma and breathwork expert and creator of the Metamorphosis Method, the only methodology bridging the gap between spiritual healing and clinical trauma work.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: For many years, our consciousness has been hijacked by societal and cultural programming, religion, the media, and familial and ancestral trauma.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_02: In this podcast, you'll discover my unique perspective on trauma healing and how it is the gateway to fully reclaiming your consciousness.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: You'll hear stories and teachings that expand your mind as you discover how every relationship challenge, business block, or limiting pattern is an invitation to reclaim the parts of your consciousness you unknowingly gave away.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_02: Get ready to go deep.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: Now let's dive in.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone, welcome back to the show.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_02: So before I introduce today's episode, I have a quick announcement, but a big announcement.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_02: I started this podcast in 2021, and we've been going for five, almost five years now.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_02: And there's been a huge evolution of the podcast.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_02: However, I have been feeling for a little while that the podcast again needs to evolve, it needs to go through an evolution, a rebirth that aligns with my energy now, my business now, my work now.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_02: So in order to do that, it felt right for me to pause the podcast for three months.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_02: So after this episode, the podcast is going to go on pause for three months.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: However, all the episodes will be here for you to listen to and go back to the ones you haven't listened to.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I am going to be creating some playlists around specific topics that will be on Spotify.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, around the mother wound and breath work and all of the topics.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you can go back and listen to those.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_02: And then after 90 days, we will be back and there will be a new format, let's say.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: The idea that I have is still evolving and still developing.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm not going to share anything else about it, but there will be a shift and an evolution, which I'm very excited about.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_02: This episode that I have for you today, I recorded with another breathwork practitioner, Megan Ashton.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_02: We connected just through the International Breath Work Foundation and just really connected over a lot of things in the breathwork world, specifically around trauma and being trauma-informed and the importance of being skilled and being able to hold space for trauma in the breathwork space specifically.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And we both feel very passionately about that.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: So we have a conversation around that and really, and in the healing space in general, like what are some of the problems and deficits around people who are holding space for healing, but don't have the skill set to really walk people through trauma.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I know this is something you've heard me talk about before.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge piece of my certification.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: And Megan and I, although we have different perspectives, I think we meet on a lot of different levels and we have a really powerful conversation.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think you're really going to enjoy it.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_02: We will leave all her links in the show notes.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I know you're going to enjoy the episode.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: Hi everyone.
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome back to the show.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: So I am super excited for today's guest and conversation.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_02: I have Megan Ashton with me, who's the founder of Unity Breathwork.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I know we're going to have a really great conversation about breath work.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_02: So, Megan, welcome to the show.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me, Lise.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really excited for today's conversation.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's so needed.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Totally.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so glad you reached out to me and we got to connect and we had a great conversation earlier.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: But I'd love if we could just start out.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_02: If you could just share, you know, a little bit about you and kind of like the highlights of your journey that got you to where you are now and to creating Unity Breath Work and just kind of the highlights of the story behind that.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Before we do any of that, I would love it if you're okay if we just take three grounding breaths for myself and for everybody listening.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna leave my eyes closed in case everyone else would like to as well.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: And just taking in some soft, slow breaths into the belly through the nose.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_01: Taking one final belly breath.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: And then when you're complete, thinking you eyes open.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for that.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, thank you.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: So my journey, I mean, I never even know where to start with a question like this, but I would say my whole life led me to breath work.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I was always interested in natural healing.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And as young as I think grade eight, I had already start started to numb out my feelings with alcohol.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then in high school it turned into an eating disorder, first anorexia and then bulimia.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't even know what I was numbing.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know I was numbing.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: I was just like chasing these things that were so harmful for me and knowing that they're not right.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I was already interested in natural healing.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so by the time I turned 2021, I was looking for ways to get better.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried everything.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I started with a holistic nutrition training.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, well, if I have the right nutrients, maybe I won't need to binge eat.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Didn't really do much for me.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in nutrition so much, but it didn't help to heal me.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: So I felt inauthentic offering it to others.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then if that brought me to clinical hypnotherapy.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm a really big believer in the power of the subconscious mind.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something we're working with a lot in breath work.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't suggestible, according to my teacher.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I didn't actually get the healing I was looking for because I was one of the few that just was not suggestible.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I also felt inauthentic leading it for others.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: So then it brought me to Reiki and shamanic healing.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: I did just traditional talk therapy as the receiver, was just hitting dead ends with that.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Eventually I ended up in a jungle in Colombia doing a whole week of plant medicine, ayahuasca and combo.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: I already had chronic fatigue and just like a nervous system stuck in freeze.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was so harsh on my body.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: After the first session, I was just brought to hell and I was told don't do this again.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried to tell my shaman, and he basically was like, Well, how's your life been so far?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, Well, pretty terrible.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Do you want the rest of it to be terrible?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you gonna face this and continue?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so, against my own inner wisdom, I almost felt like emotionally forced to continue.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I did the whole week and for the next year, I was just sick constantly.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was worn down.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: It had been almost like an 18-year feeling quest at this point, and nothing had worked for me.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm like, if even ayahuasca doesn't work for me and all of these other modalities, I guess I'm just hopeless.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm just gonna be struggling with alcohol dependency, with bulimia, and with running away from my problems through travel for the rest of my life.
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then a friend told me you have to try this breath work class.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And this is when I was in Ubu Bali, and one of the other trainings I had already done was a yoga teacher training in India.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if I'm honest, my least favorite part was the half an hour pranayama we had to do every day.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, so boring, focusing on my breath.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do it.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Did you?
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was just, I think you almost already need to be at a certain stage where you've already peeled so many layers back to be able to actually connect with pranayama.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's just too much going on in the monkey mind.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: It just feels like a lot of trying, right?
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't like holding my breath or like making my breath, I don't know.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: Didn't resonate either, right?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So that was, I was just like, I don't know about this breathing stuff.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I kind of showed up to this breath work class in Bali, a bit of a skeptic, but my friend told me, she said, it actually just made my bulimia go away.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, that is a huge thing to say, and nothing has worked for me in 18 years.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So give it a try.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: I've tried everything else.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: Within about 15 minutes of this conscious connected breathwork practice, I was in this very deep, non-ordinary state of consciousness that I had never been in, even with the ayahuasca.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was, but it wasn't a healing state.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was more just a hellish state.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: And then in this, it was, it was hell for the whole week.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: In this breathwork state, though, I just got brought back to my little inner child.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: I was like three or four, and I was just crying out for some love and affection.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I didn't even consciously know.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: I was already like 37, and I didn't even consciously know, but a lot of my numbing was about not processing the sadness I had carried from childhood of being the black sheep, of you know, being a middle child where it's just impossible to get the kind of attention that you need and being a really sensitive child.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so I actually went back to that grief and cried so loud, which I would never usually do in a group of strangers, because I was in this non-ordinary state, I didn't care.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: And then there was the facilitator plus her assistant, and they were both giving me supportive touch.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that was a part of my grief as well, that was like the lack of the touch when I was a child.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so after that session, I felt reborn.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: I literally just felt change.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: That night I was very tired because I had such a big release.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I woke up just feeling like, you know what?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: I feel more confident.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really care so much people think about me.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: Life just felt like brighter, you know.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'm seeing colors again.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I knew that day that this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is the healing work that I want to bring to people.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was in a training within two weeks.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Usually I'm very indecisive, but I just knew this is what I want to do.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And the bulimia had already lost its grip after the one session.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: In this training, every second week, we did a breath work session.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, the first couple of months, there would be thoughts like, oh, maybe maybe I do want to lean on food.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm starting to feel some feelings.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I did have a couple backtrack episodes.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: But by like month three or four, it wasn't even a thought anymore.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a resonance, it just went away.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm such a believer that like most addictions are just rooted in trauma.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And when we can work through that trauma, it doesn't need to be an addiction.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you're not an addict for life.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: This is your trauma.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: And when you can give yourself healthier ways to feel and process it, then it doesn't need to be a struggle every day.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I experienced that.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And my dependency on alcohol kind of just loosened up.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And also just my need to travel.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've been using travel as an adult my whole life to just escape.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: When things got too much, I'd like, oh, it's this town.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: I gotta get out of Ubuntu or I gotta get out of this stupid Iving Island.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it was really just me running from my feelings without consciously knowing it.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: So from that day, I just I actually made it my mission to help make breathwork as popular and accessible as yoga.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: That was about almost 10 years ago now.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: And after the training, I was already a wellness writer.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to write for a lot of the international training schools.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I got to get paid to learn more about my craft and I got to see inside all of these schools.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: And I learned so much.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw a lot of strengths and I also saw some weaknesses.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And just having people come to my sessions, I was hearing some horror stories about people's experiences with other facilitators.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I was seeing that there's trainings in my hometown where I am right now visiting 50-hour trauma-informed, conscious-connected breathwork trainings.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: And like that just blows my mind and scares me so much because people do not realize the depths of what we're working with in these sessions.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, in about five years ago, I started to teach breathwork myself.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: And I've now really focused on making it really in-depth as far as trauma information goes, not just slapping that word on, but actually weaving it into every thread of the training.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And now I'm just focusing more on bringing more awareness around the importance of safety in the industry because it's just it's the wild west, as you know.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like breath work got so big in the last like since COVID times, really, it blew up.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: And because of that, it's just so unregulated.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: In yoga, they have the yoga alliance.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: In Connected Breath Work, we have the Global Professional Breath Work Alliance, but it's not regulated like the yoga alliance yet.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's my vision is to get that regulated so that we could have more safety in these sessions.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that was a bit of a long-winded answer.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's great.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there's a lot of threads I wanted to pull on.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_02: Obviously, ultimately getting to like the main topic around like, okay, what is yeah, what does it look like actually to regulate this, you know?
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And I want to talk about that mostly, but just like a few things.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_02: First of all, I don't know if we talked about this.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_02: I also had an eating disorder that I healed when I started doing breath work.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I had a very similar experience.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I was young, I was, I was 19.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I had the same thing where I didn't understand like where all of this was coming from.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's how I ended up discovering breath work, is because I was like, why do I feel so shitty?
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't understand because like I didn't have like a fine childhood or whatever, like obviously seemed normal enough, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like there was nothing I could like pinpoint.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember like when I when I first started doing my breath work training, you know, I was this was in like 2001 and I was so young.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_02: I was like 19, 20.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: And you just you were ahead of the curve.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: I know, yeah, and no one knew what it was back then either.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: And when I first started getting involved in the community and stuff, like, you know, everyone's talking about healing, and I'm like 19, 20 years old, and I'm like standing there and I'm like, what is everyone healing from?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like I didn't understand because you know, like I just didn't have context for that.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like I didn't know.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: And back then trauma wasn't a word that everyone knows.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: Like now my teenage nieces and nephews are like, oh yeah, that was traumatic, and it's just dropped in.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like everyone just knows that we all deal with trauma.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was like, no, that's you didn't have an accident, you didn't have trauma.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_02: And and even in those communities, I don't remember hearing that word, you know, like it wasn't until later on when I started using it kind of like when I started my business, but it was also because, you know, the majority of the work I had done with students, you know, when I was a school counselor, they were all traumatized.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like kind of a natural thing for me to talk about and and like normalize.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_02: But before that, I don't remember it like being a thing.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_02: So, and I get what you're saying because for me, it wasn't like I had to be like, okay, now I'm gonna heal my eating disorder.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like it just was a symptom that went away as I processed like the deeper feelings.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_02: And that's you know, and I think it's it definitely was a long journey for me, but like the actual like dysfunctional eating really stopped pretty quickly.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the rest of it is was just more like thoughts, you know.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that really, if I could say the honest like truth of that whole arc, I think in the last like two years, I can say that like I'm fully like don't have any of those issues anymore, even just like a flutter of thinking in my mind, you know what I mean?
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_02: But it's it's such a long process, but like the actual like eating disorder ended very quickly, but you know, a lot of it's residual thoughts, yeah.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's still subconscious reprogramming that's needing to be yeah, updated.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then the other like two threads I wanted to pull on a little bit because I feel like these are very common things for people.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like you mentioned, first of all, the plant medicine, which I wanted to go into a little bit more with you just because it's so popular right now, and I want it to go a little more into your experience, but also the other thing you said too is around you know, hitting dead ends in therapy.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a really common thing for people too that would bring them to breath work.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: So can you just talk a little bit about what that was like for you?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think there's power in talk therapy to get some awareness and tools, but it can only go so far.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, I've had a lot of therapists in my breathwork training, and they say that, you know, they see like a shame and a guilt in their clients because some of them have been going to them for three or five years and they know better, but their body's still reacting, they're still going into these unhealthy relationships, or they're still relying on drugs or alcohol or whatever it is.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: They still have treatment uh resistant depression, and that's because it's top down, and our traumas are stored in our bodies, so you can't talk your way out of trauma.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was never stored in the brain, anyways, in that way.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think because I was already such a researcher and writer, like I already knew all the things, like most of the things.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I was like, okay, I already know this though, but what I'm still being triggered and I'm still needing food, even though I could abstain for a few months.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: It's like every day is a huge day that I abstained.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it was just that you need to work bottom up, you need to combine the two at least, if not, you know, because you gotta work from the body and the nervous system first.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that's just like the pathway for so much more positive change.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that's one of my visions, too, is to get more therapists and mental health workers recognizing the importance of working bottom up.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I am seeing a lot of therapists using EMDR, so that's bottom up, that's great.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I want breath work to be as well known as EMDR or more so in therapists.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: I want them all to have a breath worker that they refer their clients out to or for them to train themselves because most people that I know that have done EMDR and even therapists that have worked at EDR and then trained in breath work, they're finding that the breathwork is actually far more powerful than the EMDR for creating change in the clients.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_02: I agree.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_02: Like, first of all, I have nothing against EMDR, but I think in order for it to work, it has to be a specific memory.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: And also it can't be something that, like, because a lot of what I end up working with with people is imprints or energies or patterns or wounds that happened before you had cognitive thought or in the yeah, it's not an actual memory that you consciously have.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_02: EMDR is not going to do anything for that, and and that is where everything starts anyway.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, for sure.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: In the womb and our birthing traumas.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: But the other thing too is you know, with a lot of trauma, the conscious mind tries to protect you by making you forget about it, but it's still held in the body.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you can't EMDR out of that trauma memory that was so traumatic that you couldn't even remember it.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: And again, it's not to say anything bad about it.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_02: I think it has time and place for it for sure.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I definitely think it has its limitations.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm hearing too, which I love, like so.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: My therapists are also breathworkers, they're now introducing sometimes just every two weeks, they do a small group session with their clients, they bring their clients together, and they're saying things like, you know, this client had treatment-resistant depression for five years and suddenly like the veil's lifted and they've only done three breath work sessions.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Or I've been talking to this client for years and they haven't opened up about this actual trauma that happened to them a decade ago, and now they're opening up.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's just like it's just reaching these much deeper layers, which is so beautiful.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: 100%.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've I've had a number of therapists in my certification, and it's almost like a relief for them because they're like, okay, now I know how to address this.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: But the sad thing is, is like with the training that they get, unless they are motivated to figure out how to deal with this stuff, they're not trained in trauma.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_02: Like I have a master's degree in counseling psychology.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: We never once talked about trauma in my master's program.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's mind-blowing.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping that there'll be a new paradigm in the next five or 10 years where that's not the case.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: But I think they're moving in that direction.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, uh, never mind.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: No, I don't want to get into it.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure we can we can circle back to it.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, okay.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, no, I just wanted to touch on the plant medicine thing a little bit too, because I just feel like it's such a it's something that so many people are like doing right now and it's so popular, and it's not the end all be all at all.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and again, I'm not saying it can't be helpful.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_02: I think it can.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_02: But yeah, I'd love to just hear a little more about your experience and what you can offer to people around that.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: With plant medicine, people are like very often just chasing experiences and they go, and even if you do have a good experience, it's not traumatic and hellish like mine, you go back to your everyday life and it's not properly integrated.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And then it's like, okay, I guess I gotta go do it again.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, like it's this outside thing that you like travel to, or it's like a big thing where it's not properly integrated.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I think because it's plant medicine as opposed to breath work where it's our own medicine, there's so much preparation that needs to be done.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I wasn't preparing, I was binge eating and having like bulimia episodes right up to the day that I arrived on site for that.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Usually you do a dieta, like a pure diet, and you've already learned ways to self regulate, which I had not.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was still in my own hellish internal world.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so to go and take this medicine and put all of my power into this person who was feeding me, like he told me, like, oh, I gave you the demands dose, the double dose, because I just felt like you needed to go further after my first hellish experience.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was just vomiting so much the entire night.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Usually it goes away after an hour, 12 hours.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: I was so out of it, I couldn't even make it into the bucket.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like I've never been that out of it.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like I the bucket was right there.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was so out of it.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: I was trying to get him to give me an antidote, but I couldn't keep it down.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just hell.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then he just made me do it again.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, you know, because it's become almost reappropriated, there's a lot of people who are in it, like a lot of shamans or you know, plant medicine guys that are in it, not necessarily because it's in their lineage and they're properly trained to hold it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that was my experience.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: He, I felt like dark energy every time I took the medicine from him.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like there was darkness around him and there was like zero good intention.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It was all about him being in the ego position of giving something to me.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it just was not trauma-informed, it wasn't properly held.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: He would like to give me the dose, stay with me for an hour, and then he'd bring in his 18-year-old babysitter to be my guide.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like that's not common.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: Like I had a really bad experience.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not usually that bad.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But I just I mean, I've heard of bad things like that.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Or when people are in that hyper vulnerable state, they're getting taken advantage of.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: There's just, and also just they're deciding the dose.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So that's not you.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's not your inner wisdom.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: And nobody else knows what dose is good for you.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: So it's so easy to have too high of a dose, or for your body just not to be ready for it.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: And again, once you go back into everyday society, any breakthrough you've had, it's almost never integrated.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas with breath work, when you could build it into your life, you're like, oh, you know what?
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna go twice a month.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then I spend time in between journaling or writing, and it's just kind of built into your everyday life, you're slowly creating these real lasting changes.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_02: And then like after the first night, I'm just curious, you felt like you shouldn't do it again.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_02: It was it just because he kind of convinced you that you should, or like what was kind of that.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was just I'm I'm very stubborn.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_00: When I set my mind something, I'm gonna do it.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I was convinced nothing's worked for me.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Ayahuasca is my answer.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's gonna finally heal me after my 20-year healing quest.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: So I went determined after the very first session, I was just in this like hellish where like all the senses, everything was spinning and colors and noise, and just so much, just so much.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was overwhelming.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: I kept thinking, come back to your breath, even though I wasn't even a fan of breath work at that point, but that wasn't helping.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I did, I got a clear message like when I was in this state, don't do this again.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I tried to have that talk with him.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: And he was, I had already told him about my bulimia and he used it against me.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, like, you know, your life's not only been hellish, but you've been dealing with spleen and it hasn't gone away.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have it forever if you don't stick this through.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_00: And he kind of just like talked me out of my inner wisdom to listen to him, because either that or the other choice is to live in a hellish life for the rest of my life.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, okay, I guess this is something I need to do.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_00: I need to be brave, I need to do it.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: So I went back in and that then he double-dosed me.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it was just a terrible overall experience.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_00: And it just lasted so long.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Like usually they say eight to 10 hours.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'd be out there for eight to 10 hours, I'd have a shower, I'd eat, and I'd go to bed, and then I'd open my eyes and I'd be back in it again.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: So like I was like having 18-hour medicine days.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'd wake up and he'd do combo, so then I'm vomiting again, where they put the burn holes and then they put the poison on it.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And I already had a compromised immune system and chronic fatigue.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's way too intense, people that already have autoimmune conditions to do all of this medicine.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's too much for your nervous system and for your body.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And also just like energetically, I feel like if you're not aware of energy, then you open yourself up.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you don't know what you're opening yourself up to.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's another thing that people don't necessarily have awareness around in this space, is just how energy works and what attract dark energy, and like how to protect yourself from that and how to work with that.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is why a lot of people have these like experiences.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then, like afterwards, did do you feel like it made life harder or the same or like harder because my immune system was our I already had chronic fatigue, but it was way stronger.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was more tired and just getting every sickness, every bias or bacterial infection that was going around for an entire year.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it didn't make any difference in my bulimia or my alcohol dependency or my need to numb out through travel.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: It was the exact same until a year later when I discovered connected breath work.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's when it finally happened, kind of when I had given up all hope.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you for sharing that.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's important.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and one more thing I want to add to the conversation is I think a lot of the shamans and spaceholders for fit medicine, I mean, a lot of them are not trauma informed.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a problem, too, in this space.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they're not there to hold trauma, they don't understand nervous system safety.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, what is this person ready for?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: Proper preparation and integration.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think also like one of the things I always point to is obviously there's a lot of value that we can get from the ancient traditions and ancient wisdom, right?
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_02: But I also feel like it doesn't mean that we just take it without applying it to your own journey and what's going on for you, and also applying it to like the energy now in the world now.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, interesting.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_02: How do you mean?
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_02: Well, for example, with something like ayahuasca, right?
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_02: These shamans supposedly should be this should be passed down to them as to their lineage.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_02: And as it's passed down, it's like passed down in this way where it's like, okay, this medicine has this energy and you create a relationship with it and it teaches you something, right?
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_02: But in order, right?
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_02: In essence, then being trauma informed is neither here nor there because that's the thing.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: But at the same time, now we're like living at a time on the planet where like it's traumatic, just like living on the planet, right?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: So like people are going to have trauma come up, people are traumatized.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: So we need to be able to take that wisdom and lineage of like, okay, this plant has this information for you.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_02: You have this relationship with it, but it also that has to be applied to what people are dealing with now.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's a different society than 100, 200, 300 years ago.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I see that a lot with stuff like Buddhism and and stuff like that, where like there's great information there, but if we take it in this very like black and white way, then it can be applied in a way that's actually detrimental instead of it being helpful, you know?
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, um, because it's not taking certain things into account.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_02: So, anyway, that's like a side note, but I think it's important to be able to understand that when we engage with any of these things.
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_02: So, okay, in terms of like the breath work stuff, maybe we can just start by for you, what were some either experiences you had or things that you saw that kind of were like red flags for you or opened your eyes to like, okay, this is something where people need to be trauma informed, or this is the wild west, or it's lacking in the space.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_02: Let's start there.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, there's just been just so many instances of people coming to my sessions and having just shared an experience that they had in the past where the facilitator didn't even warn the breathers about something as basic as tetany where the hands go in a claw shape.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: It happens to 70 to 80 percent of breathers.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: The other time this tetanny happens in life or your hands go in this claw shape is a panic attack.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Nowadays, almost everybody has anxiety.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people have a history of panic attacks.
• 29:36
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't properly explain that before the session begins, what tetany is, how to manage it if it gets too intense and that you're safe no matter what, you could have someone having a panic attack in your session, you know, and it's so scary or just so much anxiety around it.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a lot of people reach out to me, like, you know, I want to try it, but I'm really scared to try it.
• 29:53
  SPEAKER_00: I've heard it's so intense and scary.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that's because they've had friends that have gone to sessions where they weren't properly prepared for what was gonna happen.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: So we call that, I don't know if you call it the frame, the whole introduction beforehand, but you don't just explain the technique, yeah, but you explain how to use the accelerator and brake so that they can slow down.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_00: You offer agency.
• 30:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I always explicitly say everything I'm gonna say in this session is a suggestion, always a center innerism first and foremost.
• 30:18
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm hearing for my students who have breathed with other people and from some of my participants is that they're being forced, they're not given suggestions, they're being told, you have to breathe more, not like maybe breathing more if that feels safe.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: There's just a lot of facilitator stories where I'm hearing where like the facilitator is almost chasing catharsis because that feels good for the ego.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: They want to see the screaming and the big cries, and they're chasing it at the expense of the agency of the breather.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that's when it can become very traumatizing.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think connected breath work when it's held in a trauma-informed container is like the most powerful medicine and the safest because it's your inner wisdom, it's your own medicine.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's never your own medicine, your own process isn't going to give you too much or not enough unless you have a facilitator who has an ego who is forcing you to do things.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: And some people's their own cultural upbringing or their traumas teach them that you have to have a respect for authority and listen to what you're being told to do.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And even though, as facilitators, we don't want to think of ourselves in a position of authority, we are.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: When they're lying down and it's our voice guiding them, if we tell them they have to do something, some people are just going to listen even when they're already overwhelmed.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: And that can just push them too far too fast.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: I had a student of mine say that she did an online session where once they got into the superconscious non-ordinary state about halfway through, at that point your subconscious programming is like open and you'll really take on the words of the facilitator.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that facilitator used that against someone, started to try to sell her program, saying, like, if you're, yeah, if you actually want to, now that you're in this superconscious state, if you actually want to heal and create laugh and change, you need to sign up for blah, blah, blah.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: And my student was like, What the hell is happening right now?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she shared about it in our next class.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: So the woman used tried to use their subconscious openness and their vulnerability to sell something to them.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And then just like some of these big sessions, I don't want to name any names, but there's a guy that's going around and he's holding like five in-person sessions in different parts of North America, and he's not really giving a frame.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_00: He's standing on the stage the whole time and he's dictating things to people.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's just like pushing people outside of their window of tolerance.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's not giving them agency.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't stay afterwards to have any kind of sharing integration circle.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hearing stories.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You probably do.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: I have some students that went to his sessions as well.
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: They just went as an experiment and they were like, Yeah, what the hell is this?
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then this like not even holding grounding or sharing after a session.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many people are just holding people, they're bringing them to their edges, and they're like, Okay, go home and drive now.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: And people are like, What just happened to me?
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_02: And also like that actually doesn't function in terms of actually creating a transformation, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: No, like, oh no, you without the integration.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, and also like you can't force somebody to have a transformation like that or like release something, like that's not how it works.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_02: That is kind of the problem, too, of like a just not understanding how this actually works, because this is not about my agenda for somebody or your agenda for somebody, like their body, their being dictates that, right?
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I always say, like, I'm never gonna be able to predict what's gonna happen, like exactly different every time.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_02: For every person, every time.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_02: And we have to like be an allowance of that.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_02: So to kind of try to force someone to have an experience, that's the opposite of of what this is, you know.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think like the reason why this works so well from what I've seen, and and you know, when it the space is held properly, is because you are creating a container and a safe space for people to process their own feelings and come to their own conclusions.
• 34:08
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I have people give me that feedback all the time.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: This was so powerful because you just allowed me to process and come to my own conclusions.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: And within that, like imagine like when you were struggling with drinking or something and someone was like, Well, really, you should just stop drinking.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's things to do, is you should stop drinking.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, Well, if I could do that, don't you think I would have fucking done it?
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: Uh-huh.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_02: I would have hit that switch light, the light switch up if it was that easy.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: It's not that's not how it works.
• 34:40
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, you can't force somebody to have an experience.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: And I think too that by being around the block with this, a lot of the breath work that is the more like screaming, flailing, all of that stuff.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: To me, that is just a way that people are avoiding feeling, you know, they think they're accomplishing something, but they're just avoiding what's there by not being with it.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I hate to like say that to people who that might disappoint them.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: And there's always exceptions, there's always nuance.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: I'm sure there's times where that's fine.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, obviously, if there's a noise that needs to come out of you or you need to move in a certain way, like by all means do it.
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_02: But that is not the point of this, is to be like flailing and screaming the whole time.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Like, that's not that's not that's chasing experiences again, you know.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and it's not integrating and it's not actually allowing yourself to feel, it's it's a distraction from feeling.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's avoiding feeling and like thinking that you're doing something.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I agree.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sometimes I see it too, just like there's always natural body movements, which is great, but if somebody's just like repetitively moving for the entire session, I'm just like, I think you're just distracting yourself or non-stop toning.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, like the whole time.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, first the emphasis is meant to be on the inhale, not the exhale.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_00: Toning is the exhale.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Also, I think this is you know a distraction point.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're getting closer to something deep down, this is helping to like get you out of that, keep you away from it.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_02: And also, like I always tell my students too, like, you can kind of feel the energy behind something if somebody is like doing something to avoid versus like, you know, it's just kind of being a natural release.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like it has a different energy to it.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: You can just feel it.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_02: And if you feel it, you can trust that and be like, okay, let's stop and let's just like breathe into what you're feeling.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: So yeah, and I think there's so much nuance to it because I think that obviously all practitioners kind of bring like you know their own energy to it and stuff.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is kind of another thing that I know we wanted to go into around it's like, okay, ladies, well, you're saying there's all this crazy shit going on.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_02: How do I decide who I should breathe with or who I should train with?
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_02: How do you look for somebody?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_02: Or what do you think are the important things to look for if you do want to do a breath work training, or even if you just want to do breath work with somebody?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: I had briefly mentioned it earlier, the Global Professional Breath Work Alliance or GPBA, it's the closest thing we have to regulating body.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping one day it's gonna be as important as the yoga alliance is, where you literally need to have it to work at any studio or to get insurance.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm hoping we'll go in that direction, but they do have really rigorous standards for trainings.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: You have to submit your curriculum and you have to meet so many different things for ethics and safety.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: So at least a school that's on there or a practitioner that has the GPBA badge of honor on their certificate, you at least know they're they've met the bare minimum there.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: You also want a practitioner that did a trauma-informed training.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Not all the trainings at the GPBA are necessarily trauma-informed or really going deep into trauma.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that's something you want to check for as well.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_00: And from those two, that's gonna be a really good start.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because I would say like 98% of the schools are not GPPA and trauma-informed.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: So that's already gonna be a pretty safe start.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: You could also just go on their website and feel into it if you're looking for a facilitator.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: If they're like just talking about screaming and catharsis and you sense any sort of ego, that's a red flag.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: I don't really like when people have called themselves healers.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're facilitators, we're holding space for other people to get in touch with their own healers.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: For me, any kind of guru vibes, whether it's for plant medicine or for breath work, run as fast as you can.
• 38:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I see that with trainings.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Some of the heads of trainings have started to get these guru vibes, and it's a really big turnoff for me.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a big red flag because we're not, we're not healers.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are spaceholders, which you spoke to earlier.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: I like to say we're not directing anything, we're creating a safe container for what wants to unfold in each and every person.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't know what that is.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: I know a school that has like pre-recorded tracks, another big school where it's like already recorded for the facilitator.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: And for me, that's just missing such a huge opportunity because I think so much of the healing happens in the moment from an attuned facilitator who can hold that space and speak from something higher than themselves for what needs to happen.
• 38:58
  SPEAKER_00: So just having a pre-recorded track misses so much of that magic.
• 39:02
  SPEAKER_00: And another thing I just want to mention, most people don't know about this, but there's actually a lot of danger associated with incorporating breath holds in longer conscious connected breath work sessions.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_00: Have you heard about this at all?
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I hate breath holds.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's another way to not go deep.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: You won't go to your trauma with a breath hold.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: You might feel really good for a minute, but then you're back at baseline physiology.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe say more about that because it's just something that I never that I always hated.
• 39:28
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't, I never do that.
• 39:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I learned this myself, like firsthand.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: I was leading a session about eight years ago, and towards the very end, so like 50, 55 minutes of conscious connected breathing, one of my participants who was also a Wim Hof practitioner, who is also very, he had already trained himself to hold his breath and to ignore the alarm bell to breathe.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: He decided to just hold his breath against my knowing or my instruction.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: And he held it so long.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: He went into, it's hard to tell the difference, but it was either, from what I can tell from my research after that, it was either a hypoxic blackout, so a low oxygen blackout, or seizure.
• 40:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think he had a seizure.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: His body was shaking, his lips were blue, he was foaming at the mouse.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: At the time, there was no information on this.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I started to do some research, and all I could find was two videos of Wim Hof, which have been taken down now on YouTube.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it looked like he was guiding, not his typical technique, where it's every two minutes you hold your breath.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: He was guiding a longer connected breath work because everyone's eyes were closed, lying down, and there was music.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: And it actually was up at the two men having seizures in his sessions for my research.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_00: I started to talk to free dive instructors, and they said, Oh, it sounds like a hypoxic blackout, which is why we don't allow people to hyperventilate before they go underwater, because it increases the risk of this.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: And basically, what I learned is CO2 is actually our trigger to breathe.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's not because our oxygen is dropping, it's because our CO2 is dropping.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: When we do connected breath work, the longer we do it, the lower the CO2 gets.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's never dangerous unless we purposefully decide after 20, 30, 40, or even worse, 50 minutes of connected breathing when CO2 is at its lowest to hold our breath.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: And we've already had practice with it.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when you're already used to holding your breath and ignoring that value and you've reduced it so low, it could trigger a seizure.
• 41:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I had two other people have seizures in my session since then.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_00: I yeah.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Also, interestingly, it was always in Sailita, Mexico, which I don't know what that has to do with.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_00: But they also admitted that they were Wim Hof practitioners and they just decided it would feel good to hold the breath at the end of the session.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in every introduction, I say my main rule is no holding your breath.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_00: And this is for safety reasons.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_00: That is my one and only rule is no holding your breath, as well as no screaming bloody murder, because that's just regulating for other people in the group.
• 41:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's prevented it from happening again.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: But one of my students, even though I teach these dangers, she went and held a group session and she was working with a bunch of athletic men who had done Wim Hof.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: And she said to them, you know, I don't advise you hold your breath, but if you really want to, I understand.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: So she went in, not in her authority.
• 42:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not really sure why she said that.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: He had a seizure or a hypoxic blackout, we don't know.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: So since then, I've just been doing more research.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_00: And it seems like it's happening more than people talk about.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_00: One of my other students was in a group session at a festival in Los Angeles, and he said, a guy had a seizure, and in the middle of the session, they just stopped everybody.
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_00: So this is another red flag.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: The guy over like everyone's in a deep non-ordinary state.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of intending to this one guy and letting people continue their breath journey, they had everyone stop your session right now, coming back to a breath, which is so jolting.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_00: They brought him out on like an emergency stretcher.
• 42:35
  SPEAKER_00: But that could have been done without stopping the rest of the group when there's music playing and they're already in a deep altered state state.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like you have to hold the safety of an entire group.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: You have 50 people in a non-ordinary state, you're just gonna yank them out.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't even have any assistance.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_00: Another red flag.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you have a facilitator holding space to more than 14 people without an assistant, that's never a good sign.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it's just one of my things that no one's really talking about that I'm trying to bring more awareness around is how dangerous it is to hold your breath after extended connected breathing.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: With Wim Hof, every one or two minutes with a regular Wim Hof practice, you hold your breath.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it resets the physiology, it brings the CO2 back up so it reduces the risk.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you're doing an everyday Wim Hof practice, you're not hearing about seizures.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know a lot of facilitators that purposefully integrate like four breath holds throughout their one hour long session.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, that's just really dangerous.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_00: Then more people need to be talking about the risks.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it's interesting because like uh I'm the type of person that like if I'm like on a podcast or something and someone's like, explain the scientific whatever is happening when you breathe.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, Well, I won't be doing that.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_02: Like your boundaries.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_02: That's just like not my thing.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I'm like, I can tell you these other things, but like, not my thing.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_02: But I always know when things don't feel right.
• 43:48
  SPEAKER_02: And also, as someone who's been doing conscious connected breathing for so long, like these other breath work things that have come on the scene, I always was kind of naturally just no.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: It doesn't say it just doesn't resonate for me.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and also like even like the three-part breath, and again, not making it wrong.
• 44:07
  SPEAKER_02: It's just something that like I don't like it because it just I feel like it adds to my anxiety or dysregulation.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I know it works for some people, but then also any type of like holding my breath, it just feels wrong to me.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like I just don't feel like it's serving me.
• 44:26
  SPEAKER_02: And again, I know there's like something to it for people.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not saying it's wrong for everyone, but yeah, everyone's yeah.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you almost intuitively knew for connected breath work, it just doesn't sit right.
• 44:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I do, I agree.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think like breath holds as is a separate practice for separate purposes.
• 44:41
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't like that they're being married together in so many sessions.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, yeah, there's like physical health benefits and immune system benefits.
• 44:47
  SPEAKER_00: That's great athletic performance benefits, but you do breath holds after every couple of minutes.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: You don't go into a conscious connective breath work journey looking to process grief and trauma and then start holding your breath.
• 44:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's counterintuitive.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is, it's not gonna there's science behind it too, because you're resetting all the physiology and everything that's happening in your brain that brings you to these non-ordinary states after you hold your breath.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: It brings you almost back to the baseline.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why if anyone's tried a longer connected breath work with breath holds, they probably noticed it felt like a really long time, like the session, because you keep going back into normal consciousness.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_00: So usually in connected breath work, the first 10 minutes feels long and then the rest of time flies by because you're in that other state.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's so interesting.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_02: The other thing I just wanted to get your take on to, because obviously my audience has heard me talk about trauma extensively, but like just curious kind of your take on as a breathwork practitioner.
• 45:39
  SPEAKER_02: Like, how would you define being trauma informed?
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_02: Or like, what does that mean to you specifically?
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's it's unfortunate because the word is just getting thrown around so lightly now.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_00: Like the instance I gave earlier where they're saying it's a 50-hour trauma-informed breathwork training.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, you cannot teach someone to teach hold space for breath work in 50 hours, let alone be trauma-informed.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's not just informational, but it's actually something deeper than that.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: To be a trauma-informed facilitator means recognizing the importance of your own nervous system, showing up grounded yourself because your nervous system sets the state for the room, understanding the importance of getting your ego out of the way.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: Even having trust in the session itself is part of it.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're starting to doubt it or you have fears around it, the breathers can sense that.
• 46:22
  SPEAKER_00: Really having implicit trust in the breather's inner wisdom, never forcing your will on it, never trying to get someone to go further than their window of tolerance.
• 46:32
  SPEAKER_00: So having an understanding of what is your window of tolerance, you know, hyper arousal and hypo arousal is not what we're aiming for.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_00: And understanding the importance of agency.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_00: That is what people need to really feel safe enough to go to their deepest edges.
• 46:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I just think it's something that you can't just teach in a book.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's something that actually happens from your own self-practice.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, yeah.
• 46:55
  SPEAKER_00: So not only we have our students do like a daily breath practice to help regulate, and then the regular connected breath work sessions.
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone's medicine is different, but you need to find a medicine to work through your own layers.
• 47:05
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you're not willing to work through your own layers, that's going to impact your breathers.
• 47:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I also believe as long as we're alive, there's more layers.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't think that, you know, oh, I graduated from my breath work training.
• 47:14
  SPEAKER_00: Now I can just hold space and I don't have to do any ongoing work.
• 47:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, if there's anyone who's who's a breath workers not doing their own work, run in the other direction.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or if they're not being willing to be vulnerable, because we're putting people in such vulnerable spaces that if they're not being vulnerable and authentic in their own lives and that how they show up to a session, that's felt as well, and that could be dangerous.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_02: I always say, like, my a hundred percent best practitioners are the ones who've gone the deepest in their own personal journey, because like you can't take anyone where you haven't gone yourself.
• 47:48
  SPEAKER_02: So you're not gonna be able to recognize what's going on and hold space.
• 47:54
  SPEAKER_02: And also, it's so interesting because like I feel like your lens is obviously a little bit different than mine, but what you're saying is very much the same in the sense of like having that self-awareness when you're facilitating.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I always say, like, I always call it like you need to be able to put your shit to the side and you need to have enough self-awareness to know that your shit is coming up.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_02: So you have to, because a lot of times I think for me, that is probably the most important like skill that you can learn.
• 48:24
  SPEAKER_02: And I think one of the things that I think is like a problem in these, not even just in the breath work space, but I think in like, you know, the healing or coaching spaces or whatever is like people not knowing that they're triggered and projecting their shit on each other, and like that's where chaos ensues.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I think being able to know what your stuff is, being aware that it's happening, being able to put it to the side so you can hold a clean and clear space and not bring your stuff, yeah.
• 48:58
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a skill set.
• 49:00
  SPEAKER_02: It takes a lot of self-awareness.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to be able to have that wherewithal to like take something and put it to the side and be like, okay, I'm gonna deal with this later.
• 49:12
  SPEAKER_00: It's a box I'll deal with after the session.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: I actually have a story about this.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_00: One of my students who ended up having to do an after pro extra couple of projects after this because he demonstrated this at our in-person, everybody takes a turn leading a session and he was co-leading and he was holding space for a sharing circle.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he started to cry at somebody's share and it's like, I have to go.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he walked off.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, Oh my god, that is the opposite of what you're talking about.
• 49:36
  SPEAKER_00: He did not put his shit aside.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_00: He started to over-associate with the story, he got triggered by it, and then he took it as an opportunity for him to process in front of the whole group.
• 49:44
  SPEAKER_00: And so just one extreme example of, you know, if what if like I wasn't there overseeing this to hold the group and he was just doing this on his own, and he's a group of 10 people who are looking to him to help him like ground and integrate, and he walks off crying.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's just you can't do that.
• 49:59
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the terms we use is like teaching from the middle of the mess, you know, you speaking about no matter if there's shit going on, you put that aside.
• 50:04
  SPEAKER_00: You step into role of facilitator, and that has to switch.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_00: You have to put that to the side to deal with after the session.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 50:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like it actually really helps you with your own process.
• 50:16
  SPEAKER_02: Cause I always say to people too, like, of course, I'm always in my own process and sometimes it's intense or whatever.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_02: But over time, I've gotten so good at like I can step into this role immediately.
• 50:28
  SPEAKER_02: But what it ends up happening is that it helps you to move through your own process so much faster because like you have that nonstop tether to like your power all the time.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_02: So even if you're like moving through your own emotions and it's intense or whatever, you never really lose that connection to your power and like the truth of who you are.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_02: So like you don't ever get lost in that process, you know.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_02: So like it helps so much to be able to do that.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_02: And also, I'm a huge believer in like you just have to do it if you want to be a facilitator.
• 51:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like, you just have to experience yourself as that.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_02: You have to receive it and facilitate it.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_02: And until then, everything's just conceptual.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I like throw everyone to the deep end in the very first day.
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: And they're like, what?
• 51:20
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
• 51:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, yes, you do.
• 51:22
  SPEAKER_02: Go.
• 51:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, like she's like, Oh, I'm not ready for it.
• 51:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, we gotta rip that band-aid off.
• 51:27
  SPEAKER_00: We I can't baby you because you're not gonna step into your potential as long as you're saying that you need to actually practice it.
• 51:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_02: That it's so experiential because you don't understand what you're gonna be like doing with people or bringing to the table until you just like do it.
• 51:43
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think an additional element to trauma-informed, particularly when it comes to holding space for connected breath work, is being in touch with your intuition and observation skills because people do have really big releases.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're just like freaked out and panicked and you think automatically, oh, I gotta intervene, they're out of the window of tolerance.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_00: You're very often bringing people out of exactly what they need.
• 52:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you have to be able to differentiate the difference.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, is does this person need me, or am I actually just intervening and taking them out?
• 52:09
  SPEAKER_00: And that's an intuitive process.
• 52:11
  SPEAKER_00: And doing more breath work yourself helps you to get there.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 52:15
  SPEAKER_00: To get that to strengthen your intuition and to you, that connection to trusting your own signals.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_02: And also really knowing how you experience information, like when you're watching somebody breathe, because I think everybody does that differently.
• 52:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like some people will, you know, feel things more in their bodies or they'll have like sensations or whatever.
• 52:38
  SPEAKER_02: And you have to be able to like know what's happening, kind of like decode that so you can like have that information and awareness for people.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's a huge part of it too, is just having that presence of like, okay, what's happening for me right now?
• 52:53
  SPEAKER_02: And like, how is it related to the person who's breathing in front of me?
• 52:58
  SPEAKER_02: And it also you might not need to do anything about it, but it's also the awareness that that's so important to have because it'll make sense later.
• 53:07
  SPEAKER_00: There's just so many levels to it, and that's why it's like mind-blowing that people assume that they can get certified in 50 hours.
• 53:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, I think people just think, oh, it's the breath, can't be dangerous.
• 53:16
  SPEAKER_00: And they're somehow missing the fact that not only are we working with trauma, but an activated nervous system and sympathetic state, all of the health conditions that are contraindicated, how do we work with that safely?
• 53:26
  SPEAKER_00: People aren't even getting trained in it properly.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_00: And then also we're working with the subconscious, and there's just such a big responsibility for all of those.
• 53:33
  SPEAKER_00: To try to like think that you could do that after 50 hours blows my mind.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm often seeing is people that do the short trainings is they go out there and they start doing a couple sessions and then they just lose heart, or that something scary happens and they're like, okay, either I don't want to do this anymore, or they end up in a longer training like one of ours, because they realize how big this work is.
• 53:52
  SPEAKER_00: And when you're working with something so deeply powerful, it's a big responsibility and it's not something you can learn in 50 hours.
• 53:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you end up actually spending more time and money because you go to another training, or you just fit all together.
• 54:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I really don't think there are shortcuts when it comes to becoming a breath work facilitator.
• 54:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my vision and goal is that one day people are going to recognize the importance of really committing yourself to an in-depth training that's gonna properly teach you to hold space so that people don't leave re-traumatized or worse off than before they came to your session.
• 54:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it kind of brings me back to the whole like ayahuasca thing.
• 54:24
  SPEAKER_02: So I feel like it's kind of the same thing where it's like it's such a powerful thing.
• 54:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I think people take it as, oh, I'm just gonna go do this.
• 54:32
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like if you play with fire, you're gonna get burned.
• 54:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like you have to know how to like handle the fire.
• 54:39
  SPEAKER_02: And if you do, it's gonna be really powerful and it can like heat the house and give you light and all the stuff.
• 54:45
  SPEAKER_02: But if you don't know how to handle it, you're gonna get burned.
• 54:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good analogy, it's true.
• 54:51
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 54:52
  SPEAKER_02: And even with something like breath work, it is ancient wisdom.
• 54:56
  SPEAKER_02: Like obviously, there's different ways that it's been brought forward into like our world now, but it is ancient wisdom.
• 55:03
  SPEAKER_02: But it's like, how do we apply it to our lives now and in the world now in a way that is really actually gonna create change for people and be supportive to people, you know?
• 55:15
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's like the biggest, the biggest thing.
• 55:19
  SPEAKER_02: I guess the other question I kind of wanted to explore that we can use the last few minutes on is in terms of like actual like regulations.
• 55:27
  SPEAKER_02: What are your ideas of what that could look like?
• 55:29
  SPEAKER_02: Just out of curiosity.
• 55:31
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I just think that all practitioners should be Global Professional Pathwork Alliance trained.
• 55:37
  SPEAKER_00: And the GPPA, for me, that the one catch with them that I've I've been trying to like get a talk with them so I can talk to them about this, is that they say it has to be a two-year training, yet you're a GPPA certified school and almost all the schools are one year.
• 55:49
  SPEAKER_00: So that's a problem because even though you trained at a GPBA school, you can't be listed on their site as a practitioner.
• 55:55
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm not saying you need to look for a practitioner that's listed on their site as a practitioner, but that their certificate says GPBA on it.
• 56:02
  SPEAKER_00: That I think is what insurance companies need to be looking for.
• 56:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, studios who are bringing in breath workers or retreat workers who are bringing in breath workers, that they went to a school that's certified by the GPBA.
• 56:13
  SPEAKER_00: I do think 400 hours is a good number for this kind of work.
• 56:18
  SPEAKER_00: And that it doesn't need to be over two hours, two years.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's actually too spread out and you you lose momentum and you forget what I think like why is 400 hours over two years better than 400 hours over one year?
• 56:28
  SPEAKER_00: I see better, more learning and deeper change when it's more it's every two weeks versus every month.
• 56:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um so most trainings, you want to look for a 400-hour training, GPPA certified, and just ask them straight up if their their training was trauma-informed.
• 56:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you can ask what school they went to, you can look up the school and see if it says trauma-informed and make sure the school is on the GPPA website.
• 56:48
  SPEAKER_00: Taking responsibility to do your own research, you know, you are putting your vulnerability, your nervous system, your trauma in somebody else's hands in a way.
• 56:55
  SPEAKER_00: So you don't just show up and just expect that they're, you know, just because they're a good person, they might not even realize their own blind spots.
• 57:01
  SPEAKER_00: So doing your own research before you choose who to breathe with.
• 57:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 57:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it's also important to really choose somebody that you resonate with them and their, you know, their kind of like perspective on it, you know, because I think with something like breath work, there are people have different just like ways that they lean towards.
• 57:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 57:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know, even when you're properly trained and trauma-informed, there's so much variety in how we all hold space.
• 57:29
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, finding, you know, look at their website, maybe they have some videos or some blogs reading about them, their about section.
• 57:34
  SPEAKER_00: Do they resonate for sure?
• 57:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's a good one.
• 57:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
• 57:38
  SPEAKER_02: And and I think the biggest reason people come to me is a maybe they've done a training or or whatever and they want to be able to take people on a like deeper journey.
• 57:48
  SPEAKER_02: Or there's something about the way I look at it that they connect with, you know, that makes sense to them.
• 57:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I think that's an important thing too, is just, you know, having somebody that you feel that, like, okay, we look at this the same way, you know, or we like have the same perspective on it.
• 58:04
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's important too, because it is kind of like a wide variety of things.
• 58:08
  SPEAKER_02: Cause there's some work people that are talking about things that I'm just like, what?
• 58:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just not like a different and it's not bad, it's just like not my thing, you know.
• 58:16
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 58:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, there's 10 hundred different flavors of apples.
• 58:20
  SPEAKER_00: Which ones do you like?
• 58:21
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you like Granny Smith, maybe you like pink gala, you know.
• 58:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, they're all great, they're equally nutritious, but which one's the one that resonates with you?
• 58:28
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know where the apple one came from, but it just came to my mind.
• 58:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, no, it's true.
• 58:32
  SPEAKER_02: It is like that.
• 58:33
  SPEAKER_02: I appreciate you sharing all of that.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like we could have a whole other conversation as well.
• 58:38
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe we'll have to do another one.
• 58:40
  SPEAKER_02: But maybe if you could just share where people can find you, and um, if you have anything coming up, like your certification or whatever, and we can link all that below.
• 58:50
  SPEAKER_00: Perfect.
• 58:51
  SPEAKER_00: So my website is unitybreathwork.com.
• 58:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a researcher and writer by nature, so I have a lot of articles on there based on the science of the breath and trauma and trauma-informed trainings, etc.
• 59:03
  SPEAKER_00: I also have Instagram, Unity Breathwork, and I run three retreats a year in Salia, Mexico.
• 59:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's a charming, beautiful little beach town.
• 59:12
  SPEAKER_00: My next one's in November.
• 59:14
  SPEAKER_00: You'll see the rest of the dates on my website.
• 59:16
  SPEAKER_00: And then my facilitator training is three times a year.
• 59:20
  SPEAKER_00: I just launched my summer one, so the next one will be in the fall, and you can find out more about that on my page as well.
• 59:26
  SPEAKER_00: And it's deeply trauma-informed.
• 59:27
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really proud that one of my former students, who's a trauma therapist with 20 years of experience in the field, helps to co-teach a lot of the trauma and mental health models.
• 59:36
  SPEAKER_00: So she's a facilitator and a therapist, and I like that combination, just like you with your background, and then you to teach breathwork.
• 59:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think it helps you make the trauma-informed parts more holistic and more broad-reaching.
• 59:48
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, you can check me out on Unity Breathwork.
• 59:51
  SPEAKER_00: I occasionally offer free online sessions about four times a year.
• 59:53
  SPEAKER_00: You can find it all on my website.
• 59:55
  SPEAKER_02: Cool.
• 59:56
  SPEAKER_02: We'll link that below.
• 59:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 59:58
  SPEAKER_02: This was great.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: It was fun.
• 59:59
  SPEAKER_02: So thank you.
• 1:00:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 1:00:02
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• 1:00:03
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much.
• 1:00:04
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, everyone.
• 1:00:05
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Elise.
• 1:00:07
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for being here.
• 1:00:09
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• 1:00:34
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