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2. Feeling Disconnected? Try These 3 Breathwork Practices · Energy With Alex

• Alex Williams: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Energy with Alex podcast. I'm Alex, your host, and this is your space to romanticize your life so that you can drop into the present moment and find magic in every single day. This is also a place you can always come to for honest truths and deep conversations and a lot of fun too. I am so excited to have you here. Let's get started. Hello, and welcome to the second episode of the Energy with Alex podcast. my gosh, I'm so excited for another episode. The first episode, if you haven't listened yet, was surrounding my story of the childhood religion that I was raised in. And that was the first time I'd really told the story in like greater detail and in such a public way. And honestly, the first few times that I tried recording that episode, I had this like burning sensation in my throat that I honestly thought I was getting a sore throat. Like it was so intense for that whole hour after. Afterwards, and then I kept realizing that every time I did it, that would happen, and then the sore throat would go away, and I would be back in full health. And so I realized that that was my throat chakra's response to sharing a part of my story, like such a deep, vulnerable part of my story. And the more I shared it, the more that pain started to go away. Then I started to find that the pain was not only gone, but it was turning into something different, something beautiful. It was like I alchemized that pain into purpose and into some form of art, some form of creation. And so I invite you, if there's any part of your story that maybe you haven't shared in greater detail or you haven't allowed yourself to speak out, maybe this is your turn, right? Maybe you want to tell a trusted friend or a loved one that part of your story and let yourself be seen in that way. maybe you want to create a post about it, or if you're a writer, you want to write something about it. Maybe you just want to sit with your journal and write it out in greater detail and then maybe take some of that out and turn it into poetry or whatever it is, whatever way that you want to create. I invite you to take a piece of your story and create something beautiful out of it because there's so much power that comes from that. And I'm really starting to realize that by sharing pieces of mine. Today's a good day, yeah. I ran two miles this morning and my right knee was really trying to pick a fight with me, but I did some more stretching and I got through it and I'm feeling good and ready to talk about today's topic. So I wanted to do an episode to introduce some of the modalities that I use in my work and in my personal life, my own healing journey. And I wanted to start with breath work specifically, because that's really like the core modality that has really shaped me into who I am today. Especially with all of the different things that I dealt with as I was a teenager into early adulthood that we talked about in the first episode, breathwork really helped me turn so much of those past. identities that I held on to, stories and traumas and allowed me to bring it to the surface to be felt and then released. And so I want to share that with all of you. Maybe you've tried breath work before, maybe you've dabbled in it in it a little bit, maybe you love breath work or maybe you've never heard of it before. So I just want to meet you all wherever you are and first we'll start with a little story. So how did I find breath work? Breathwork came to me exactly when I needed it, honestly. I was still kind of floating around in life in that wishy-washy way, not knowing where I stood, what I believed in, who I was. And it was a really hard time for me. And it was like, you know, I feel like when you're in your early twenties, there's already so much of that confusion of like who am I and what do I want to do with my life? And I had that combined with everything else that I was dealing with, like losing the belief system that I had grown around. And so I decided I needed to do something a little bit different to kind of shock my system and start on a new timeline. And so I actually found Manifestation Babes, Catherine Zankina. I found her program back in the day, and it was a manifestation program. And I thought, okay, this will be perfect. I can really get clear on what it is I want out of life. I don't even know what I want. Right now, so it's really hard to manifest beautiful things in a wonderful life when you don't even know what that looks like for you. So I thought this is what I need. So I did the program, it was a wonderful program. And then in it, she had said that there was going to be a few breath work sessions, and so I was looking forward to that, but I didn't really know what it meant. And so it came time to do the breathwork sessions. And I remember I lied down, I played the track and I did the breathing. I started to feel all of this energy just swirling around me. And I noticed I was moving my hands and I was breathing and everything just felt different. I could just feel even just like feeling my hair as I was breathing, like it had a different texture and the air around me felt different. And I just I was like moving things out of my body and just like doing these hand motions that I didn't even know where they were coming from. And that moment I had this clear memory that I hadn't thought about in a long time. so fast or rewind a few years before that, I was in a really, really dark place. I was struggling badly with depression and anxiety and I needed to experience something new to try to help me on a deeper level. And so I went to a Reiki practitioner. And I thought that when I went there, she was going to put her hands over my body and immediately say, my gosh, you're s filled with so much darkness. There's no hope for you. Like, that's it. And what ended up actually happening is, afterwards I asked her, what came up for you? Am I Doomed, like, is there no, is there nothing you can do for me? And she was actually shocked by me saying this, and she was like, No, your body, your energy was filled with so much light. I was actually going to tell you that I think that you're meant for this work. And I had kind of laughed, and it's like I had this feeling in the back of my head of like, yes, yes, yes. And I really I I I had that ping, but then at the same time my conscious self was like laughing at the idea that I could possibly ever do something like energy healing. And so I thanked her and I went about my way. And I didn't really think about that moment until much later, until that moment when I was laying down doing that breath work session years later, and my hands started moving, and I started to realize, my gosh, is this something that I'm meant to do? And it wasn't until I did those breath work sessions, it was like this veil was lifting, and I was able to start connecting back with myself and realizing my own power. Even when I was doing those manifestation practices when I was doing the worksheets and things like that they would help but there was always this like mental block I never fully knew what I wanted out of life or why couldn't see myself the way that I knew I wanted to. It was like I never I couldn't think my way to a better life. And breath work was the first moment that I realized I don't have to. There is a whole beautiful energetic system that's happening beneath me, in my heart, in in my soul that is leading me to where I'm meant to go. And the more I breathe, the more that started to come about. And so, what is breath work, right? Breath work is a holistic practice that includes doing a certain breath pattern over and over and over again until it puts you into almost a meditative state that allows you to go into the parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and digest. This is the state in your body where healing can occur, right? So so often we go about our day or we have Moments where we're in fight or flight. And when we are in fight or flight, our body is not able to fully relax, and we're not able to make the best decisions, and most importantly, we're not able to heal, and we're not able to process the things that have happened to us or the things that are happening to us in that moment. And so when we allow ourselves to do a practice that puts us into parasympathetic mode, that is when our body is able to fully lay back, and healing can occur on a cellular level and an energetic level, and on a physical level too. so there are different Things about breath work. there is integrative and there is meditative. Integrative breath work is anything that is under seven minutes, and meditative is anything that is over seven minutes. Because once you reach about seven minutes of breathing in that breath pattern continuously, you enter a deeper state of consciousness and you can really go some other places for sure. Now that is not to say that healing and transformation can't happen in two minutes, three minutes, five minutes, under seven minutes. Integrative does not mean that it's lesser, it does not mean that it's less potent. In fact, sometimes those shorter breathwork sessions can be so beautifully packed with amazing transformation. One, because it's a lot easier to fit into your day, and so you're doing it more often, and two. Sometimes you just need a little boost to get you out of whatever funk you're in or to allow you to have the best day of your life or the best sleep of your life. And these little things are just always getting stuck, right? All of this stuck energy within us is always clouding up our system. And so when we have an outlet like Breathwork to continually come back to and breathe it out and release some of that energy, then we can have such a beautiful, clear freedom in our bodies and really go about our day in a confident, beautiful way. Now, when you get into meditative, that is often what you do with a breathwork practitioner. I do sessions with people where we breathe for 20, 30, 40 plus minutes. And that is a really beautiful healing session as well. Now, when you start doing sessions like that, it is important to note that there are some health things that could be going on where it wouldn't be safe to do a deeper breathwork session. The top ones would be if you're pregnant, you shouldn't be doing long breath work. Breath work sessions and if you have high blood pressure, glycoma, and I can actually put in the show notes the list that I give to people just so you can kind of see it and make sure. But it is always okay to do a few minutes of breath, or you can do breath awareness where you can just lie there and just be aware of your own inhales and your own exhales that come naturally to your breath, focusing on the natural rise and fall of your chest, allowing yourself to fall into a meditative state that way, rather than kind of forcing a continuous breath pattern that's not natural to you. Now the three main breath patterns that I work with is the haloactive breath, which is a deep inhale through the nose and an exhale out the mouth. can breathe with me for just a moment and get a feel for that one. with this breath, what brings it to an even more powerful state is you want to maybe place a hand on the belly and a hand on the heart at first because when you inhale, you want to feel the belly expand because you want to start at the base of the belly. That's where so much stuck energy is and it's broken up with the breath. But oftentimes we go about our whole day and we haven't actually taken a deep breath. Like we have these shallow, quick breaths throughout the day, which is keeping us in that fight or flight mode. And it's also keeping us out of the present moment. It's robbing us of being in the present moment when we don't take a second to breathe in and breathe out, and we arrive back to wherever we are. We can be where our feet are and just really be in this moment. And so we want to get into the belly and then feel the inhale travel to the lower chest, to the upper chest, and then exhale out the mouth. And as you exhale, you want to let it exhale all the way out. And then as soon as you feel ready, calling the breath right back in. It's like this continuous wave that happens, almost as if a wave is going out, and then the tide is calling it right back in, right? And so that's one of my favorite breaths because it's very calming. it's wonderful for a great night's sleep if you want to clear some things out of the day and just settle into a really deep nervous system regulating breath. it's fantastic for anxiety. So this is a breath pattern that I used quite often because in the beginning, some of the more activating breath patterns was a little much for me to do for long periods of time. I was still able to do it for a short amount of time, but the longer intense sessions would sometimes have me feeling on edge. And so I would do this breath pattern anytime I started to feel that feeling of a panic attack coming on, or just feeling like I was starting to disassociate from the moment a little bit, or just starting to feel little bits of anxiety. And so this is a great breath for that. It's a great breath for going to sleep. And it's also a wonderful. one when you want to drop back into the present moment. I did this a lot when I was at my rehearsal dinner for my wedding and on my actual wedding day. This was like a very quick way to just drop back into the present moment and down regulate all of the crazy exciting feelings that I had that day, right? this also is a great one to do in the morning if you tend to wake up super anxious. Sometimes you wake up and it's like you have that gasp and you're just like on edge already. And if that's a way that you tend to wake up quite often, then having a few moments, putting on maybe a two, three minute song and doing that breath pattern while placing your hand on your heart is a really beautiful way to downregulate yourself and put you in a very calm state before. Your day begins. The next breath is a very well-known breath. It's probably the main one that a lot of breath work facilitators use, and it's the triactive breath. So that is a three-part breath. It's all through the mouth. So you do one breath into the belly, one breath up into the chest, and a breath out the mouth. And it's all through the mouth. So we'll do it together. So that one is the most activating breath pattern for sure. it just you you're just bringing in a lot of air. And so this one is wonderful when you want to bring in fresh energy. Maybe you've been feeling really down lately and you want to bring yourself up, right? Maybe you're waking up in the morning and you're feeling super sluggish and you just need something to kind of pop you out of it that isn't just chugging a cup of coffee first thing in the morning and your nerves feel shod and you already need a second one 'cause you're crashing and Sometimes we want that natural burst of energy without having to rely on something. And our own breath, our own source of power is such a beautiful thing. so that breath is a fantastic way putting on a two, three-minute song, breathing through it, and just seeing what happens there. This is where your intuition comes in. You want to see how you feel. So I personally, if I've had a busy day, a crazy day, if a lot of emotions happened, then I like doing this breath before bed because it kind of clears out any of that crazy energy and allows me to just settle into a deeper state of peace after I've done the breath work pattern. Now if I do it right before bed, while I'm in bed about to fall asleep, it might have me a little bit wired. But if I do it and then I lay in bed and I read my book and I have a little bit of wind down time. then I feel great. And so it's just important to kind of feel into how you feel. I've had clients before tell me that that breath just makes them feel Super activated if they do it too late in the evening. And so they keep away from that breath until the morning time or the early afternoon. This is also a great way to kind of get yourself hyped up before a work meeting or presentation or a job interview. if you're feeling like you have all this nervous energy and you want to do something with it and turn it into something more constructive or you want to turn it into something more motive. Motivating and encouraging, this is a great breath for that. if you are someone who needs to get really calm in the moment before you do a job interview or Anything else like that, then you might want to actually do the first breath we talked about and down regulate down regulate yourself before you go in. So this is where your own intuition and your own body's wisdom comes in. You want to really make sure that you have an understanding over how you personally feel with each of these breaths and just how your own nervous system operates. You may also find that maybe you do struggle with anxiety, but having to just stay really calm and do that deep breath that we talked about at first, the first breath pattern, that might actually make you feel more anxious. And this breath you might actually like more because it gives the anxiety a job to do, like a place to go, and you can breathe and you can move your hands and you can just allow yourself to somatically move through whatever it is that you're feeling. And so maybe that's what you want to. try too Now, the last breath that I'll just touch on briefly that really helped me, but isn't usually one that I use with my clients. It's more something I'll do personally is the 4078 breath, which is a wonderful tool that my therapists had taught me and I've learned from other practitioners. And it's where you breathe in through the nose for four seconds. One, two, three, four. Hold for seven, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. And then you exhale for eight out of the mouth. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. And this one is a fantastic way to get you right out of an anxious spiral. It really helped me when I was deep in my daily anxiety attacks that I used to struggle with. And it brought me back into the moment when I was severely starting to disassociate. And it really Would take me out of a state of panic and immediately put me back into my body. Now, I don't usually do this one on a day-to-day because I like to do my breath work as a more intuitive practice. I feel like our body knows when to inhale and when to exhale and how long to do it for. But if you're ever in a moment where you're just really feeling anxious and you really need to come back to reality and come back and just be grounded. That is a fantastic breath. So I just wanted to share that tool with you, just in case it's something that you struggle with as well. Now, a few things about the way that I do my practice is I touched on it before. It's a very intuitive practice. So I I often say to my clients that I will guide them through the breath, but I'm never the authority over their breath. So I will give you suggestions on maybe speeding the breath up, right? Playing around with that, or maybe slowing it down, or maybe deepening the breath. And I will give you suggestions on all of that. And sometimes you might be feeling it. And you want to keep going and follow along. But if you are getting the feeling that you want to slow the breath down, even though I've just invited you to speed it up, always follow that. if you feel like you want to speed the breath up, even though a practitioner is telling you to slow it down, your body knows that it's trying to work through something. And so maybe getting a feel, turning on a short song in the morning or at night, and just feeling how your body knows when to inhale and when to exhale. Now, what this is really doing is it's allowing ourselves to let go of the things that we are holding on to somatically. So somatically means the things that are in our body. Anything that happens to us and that has happened to us throughout our whole life, whether that be different memories or stories that we've taken on or traumas, whatever it may be, we often forget that this body of ours has also been with us since day one. And that means that so much that has happened to us is still being held somewhere in the body. we might not even realize how much of it that we are carrying until we do something like breath work and we start to feel how much lighter we feel afterwards. And so as we breathe and we take these deep breaths that reach the belly all the way up. We are allowing that fresh breath, our own life force to go in there and release whatever it is that is meant to be released. And so we might go into the breath work session and not even know exactly what is gonna come up, but we can trust that our body knows what we are ready to feel. so something may come up. Maybe a story that you've always held on to that you are ready to let go of. And what it does is the breath work brings that to the surface to be felt and then processed and then fully released, or at least released enough where we can feel a little bit lighter in our system. It's so interesting because when you look at children, they're running around, they're they're laughing when things are funny, when they're angry, they're throwing a tantrum, when they are sad, they burst into tears, when they're happy, they're smiling. Like it's this really beautiful way that children are just constantly regulating their own nervous systems and processing their emotions, like right there in the moment. And then somewhere along the way, as we become adults, we lose that skill, honestly. We start to feel like the societal pressures and what's okay and what's not okay. And yeah, as an adult, it's not okay to throw a day and drum in the middle of the grocery store. But when we get angry or something does bring us pain, we do need a way to express that. Maybe it can't be right there in that moment, but when we go home, we just push it down and down and down, and we never let ourselves fully be with it. And so breath work is one of the ways that we can allow that to be processed and released and allow these moments to finally be let go. And so this is a really beautiful thing that you can add to your healing journey. It can be a daily thing you can do. It could be something that you just add in when you feel like certain emotions are coming through. And you'll be so surprised to see what comes forward. Now, when you do a session, even if it's a two-minute breathwork session, you want to make sure that you set an intention. An intention can be something that you're ready to invite in, some way that you'd prefer to feel, or something that you're ready to release, or it could be something else too, maybe one word, right? Love, laughter. Maybe you're trying to bring something like a manifestation to light, or whatever. It could be a million different things. But it is important that you do Name what that intention is at the beginning of your session because that is giving all of this fresh energy that you're creating a job to do and a pathway to take. then these things, it's like the breath goes in and all of these things start to come to the surface. Maybe you didn't know that they were related, but your body does. And so you might get this memory that pops up, and you're like, huh, I haven't thought about that in a long time. And then you breathe it out. You allow yourself to just be with it and breathe it out. It puts you into the present moment. moment with your body again, puts you in the present moment with yourself and allows you to really be with whatever is ready to be seen and you can give attention to it. Now, something else that is really fantastic about breath work that you can use it for is gaining clarity on something. And so oftentimes our mind is constantly chattering away moment after moment after moment. Our mind's job is to protect us. It's there to show us, the dangers and and to just show us everything that we need to think about. But if we're only in our mind all day long, then we're not able to actually get clear on what is going on underneath, right? On a heart level, on a soul level. And so when you bring something to a breathwork session that you're ready to get clarity on, you get to shut the mind off for a second and really go in deeper and see what's really going on, right? This could allow a perspective shift to happen. It could allow you to see something a different way you haven't seen before. It could give you an idea for your next book idea or for your next business idea or whatever it may be it could be on a big level it could be on a small level and you will be amazed to see what comes forward and so it is really a fantastic tool and then also you get to pair it with other things right so The three main ways to move stuck energy is through breath, movement, and sound. So I would love for you to play around with that, right? Maybe one morning you put on a song and as you breathe, you move your arms and your legs or your hips or whatever it is in any way that you want. Maybe you're dancing, maybe you're sitting and just waving your hands around and stretching them out. And you may find that your body just knows what to do, right? It doesn't need to look good. It's not, it's not. supposed to look good. It's just a way for you to be able to move all of that energy through. And when you combine it with the breath, it's very powerful. And sound. This one is always like the weirdest for people to get comfortable with. It's just like so against what we're used to. But when you breathe in, Letting that breath be loud, maybe letting it be a weird noise, right? Maybe you're by yourself and you can make as weird of a noise as you want. Maybe screaming into a pillow when the anger comes up. Just like finding ways to allow your voice to be heard. in whatever way wants to come forward, right? Sometimes even in breathing there's laughing. There is quite often crying. And that is always that our body is working with its wisdom and it's all working together synchronistically to move that energy through. And I just would love for you to practice it, right? It's it's supposed to be fun. Even though there are moments where we breathe and we're crying and we're releasing Oftentimes it can feel really light and really beautiful as well. And even those sessions where you are crying and there is that pain that's coming forward, it can be so beautiful at the end of it because you realize for the first time, maybe ever, you've allowed yourself to fully see that part of you and you've allowed it to be seen and to be felt after you've ignored it for so long and then you start to feel so much lighter afterwards. You know, when I do a breath work session with a group of people and then it's maybe a heavier one because it was like just the group energy or it was under a full moon and everyone is crying afterwards and it's like it feels really heavy at first and then all of a sudden it's like after we've shared and after we've gotten some tears out, there's this lightness there because people are able to Stand a little straighter and to feel like something in their body has shifted and that is a gift. And it's like we are able to connect back with that child that was within us that used to be able to cry when they were sad and was able to scream when they were angry and was able to make noises without worrying about what people thought about them. And it's just this this beautiful reclamation of our own power. And I want you to be able to experience that again, maybe for the first time. And so that is my story today. About breath work, my favorite modality. I hope you've learned something today. I hope it spoke to you in some way. If you ever want to breathe with me, please reach out, schedule an appointment. I would love to take you on a longer journey so you can experience what that feels like as well. But until then, I encourage you to pick one or two short, beautiful songs that really get you feeling happy, free, connected to your body, and playing those songs every morning or every Every night figuring out your favorite breath pattern that I showed you and breathing for just a few minutes, setting an intention for how you want your day to go or for how you'd like to sleep or whatever it is. Maybe it's a midday boost, and just seeing how that feels and how getting present every single day and doing just a few deep breaths can completely change the outcome of whatever it is that you're about to do. Alright, I hope you all have a beautiful day. Thank you so much for listening, and I will talk to you soon. Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Energy with Alex podcast. If you loved this conversation, it would mean so much if you could share it with your community and like, rate, and subscribe to the podcast so that I can continue having these incredible conversations every single week. I will see you next Thursday.