Unbearbeitete Version:
Mel, I am so excited to finally have you my podcast. Actually my community has been asking me when is Mel finally coming onto your podcast and having this now here in the office in Wintuk in our hometown is even more special for me. And it’s my first interview in this office because normally everything happens over zoom. So this is really special. So firstly welcome.
Thank you.
I’m so excited to speak to you today, especially about breathwork, because. I mean, I’ve known you for I think 6 years actually. It’s very beautiful story and I always tell people How I Met you and how you actually already told me from the start, before I even did any of the coaching staff that you were like, yeah, you should be doing coaching, you shall, you will be really successful with it. And I was just like I just met you like one minute ago and that’s exactly what happened. I went that path and I always I’m extremely grateful cause you really inspired me on that. But then I think in two years ago. I started the Breath of Journey with you. I started training with you and I started going to your to your courses and releasing on a much deeper level trauma and limiting beliefs. And then I started getting you into manifest like a high value woman because I wanted to really share that with the world. And the first question today is really how did you get into this? Like please take a moment to introduce yourself and then yeah, and then please tell us how? How did you even find this beautiful healing method for yourself?
So it’s quite funny. Like when you talk about the synchronicities with how we met for me, and breathwork is kind of a similar thing. So my journey in the healing arts started maybe like 12 years ago. It started with meditation and like yoga, kundalini, yoga, all those different types of things got into coaching because I realised for some people, going from zero straight into meditation is like. You know, like the mind can be quite loud. And so when I found Breathwork, which is probably about four or five years ago, I was already really well established in the heart. Like I already had my practices. They were doing amazing things for me. But what happened is that I experienced a pretty traumatic event. And after this event I found that my tools were just not working in the ways that they needed to do. You know what I mean? Things that had worked before or that it got me to a certain point where suddenly not able to help me move out of that space of constantly thinking or move out of that? Space are feeling really uncomfortable in my body. Or, you know, I was just kind of like trapped within my own life and not able to move forward and not able to actually experience real joy. And so just by a range of synchronicities, I ended up being in Bali in Ubud. And a friend of mine says to me, Melissa, will you join me for a breathwork workshop? Not this time. I was obsessed with like us in a yoga and I think I’d finished like my fifth yoga class of the day. So I was like, girl, please no i was like, there’s no way, you know what I mean? And also because I had a traditional. Yogic practice I was like, I’ve done so much breathwork in my life, why would I need to go to a breathwork 3 hour workshop? I was like no thank you. And then she was like, listen, please. I’m really like nervous and scared, like, I really don’t wanna go by myself. In my mind I’m thinking, OK, it’s Bali, it’s Ubud. Like classes are always super full. I’ll go there, support her and then I’ll just like run out of the class halfway through, you know? And so I walked into the classroom with my friend and immediately, like, my heart just like drops because I walk in and there’s literally one other person in the class. And I was like, are you joking? You know, like usually it’s like twenty thirty people minimum in a classroom. But I walk in and there’s one other person in the class. I’m like, there’s no escaping this for me. I’m doing 3 hours of brain work. Sounds like it’s fine. I just surrendered. I went into the class and like, same as most people, I thought it was just like traditional yogic breathing. And I was like, you know, it’s fine, let’s just do it. But as soon as I walk in, this was. Super creepy, my teacher looks at me, she says to me. africa OK, listen, something about Africans, as you guys have a lot of trauma that’s like right near the surface. So just so that you know, all of the stuff that’s going to come out in today’s practice, it’s not necessarily yours. Just don’t find it. Don’t resist it. And immediately I was like, where am I?
What is that you know?
I was like again, I’m like 7 years into a practice i’ve like i’ve. Seen a lot of experienced a lot. But it was very creepy how she just looked at me reading. I hadn’t. The word. And she was like, just so you know. And from that moment I was like this is something different and she is something different. And this is gonna be like a pretty unique experience. And so Long story short, we got down, started doing the breath work practice, which I’d never done before. But again I thought it’s going to have similar results to what I’m exactly to what I’ve experienced before. And I think it was something like 10 or 15 minutes into the bread, I suddenly felt like this wellspring of energy. This building down from my womb and then shooting up through my body and I started like screaming bloody murder. Like it was amazing. Like I had no idea that I was angry, that I was traumatized, that I had all this pain within my body and I wasn’t consciously doing it was like I couldn’t stop myself from doing it and I was screaming in a way that you wouldn’t believe. But I’d never felt better in my life. And what I experienced was a literal shaking out of all of the thoughts, ideas, limiting beliefs, traumas that live in my cells, literally. I could feel it. I could feel it. The way you feel your skin and what was sort of kind of amazing is like what accompanied that huge release of screaming and then crying and then laughing and ecstasy. You go through all the things in a breathwork journey as I actually got to see. And again, I’m not this type of person who really cares about spiritual experiences. You can get a bit lost, yeah. But I literally got to see it through my third eye. I got to see the sort of violations that my ancestry had gone through and I got to see. All of that leaving and moving out of my body, like all of their unshed tears. I got to shed for them all of their unscreened screens. I got to scream for them and it was the most amazing experience that I’ve that I’ve ever had in my life. My teacher always joked. She says a breathwork journey is the closest you’re going to get to an iasca trip without drugs, and it is a thousand percent true absolutely thousands actually just actually got actual goosebumps right now, because actually. Mama ayahuasca. Yeah, was saying, hey, how’s this? Because I think that especially talking about generational trauma, the trauma that sits in our cells up to 13 generations, yeah, I think it is. It is something that is science these days. It’s not just it’s in ourselves. And the pain that our ancestors have felt is a pain that was never released because people were not living in the day of age where breathwork sessions, iasca journeys. Even coaching or therapy or other healing modalities were where we get the chance to heal. It was just not it was just not available. Yeah, people were like more concerned with you know having food on the table and you know fighting wars. They didn’t have time to heal their pain around abuse or around other forms of pain. So for me that is a big topic and it’s really amazing. Would you like that you actually address that from the start? Because I think that’s a lot of people are not aware that the pain that they carry within them is actually not even their pain.
Hundred percent.
And you’re absolutely right. Breathwork is definitely the closest you will get. And there’s also, I’ve met people that are not called to do iasca, right, but they are very much called to doing breath work. Yeah, very much yeah you know, because they have the same kind of experience or the same kind of release.
Yeah, hundred percent % the thing that I love about Breathwork is there is a degree to which you can control it. So, you know, when I was speaking about how like it was just coming out of my body and it felt like heaven on Earth, you know, so i didn’t want to stop it, you know, But if I wanted to and you’re in a breakthrough journey, you get told and queued how to like, listen it, make it less intense, slow it down, stop, etcetera, etcetera. And you know, Nick, just like looping back to your point, I think a lot of us underestimate how much our ancestral trauma or the things that like sits in ourselves and in our. Bonds impacts our ability to live as ourselves here and the now, right? So we’re not just releasing because we’re just, you know, want to play around with our trauma and sort of muck about in the mess. It’s like for me, one of the things that I saw during my breathwork journey is I saw one of the violations that happened was between a very strong woman in my ancestral line and a man. And so for me, something that I struggled with before is I really struggled to trust men and to open myself up to men. And so there was this part of me that was like, Oh my gosh, I wouldn’t be in this loving relationship and really connect. But unconsciously, my body, my mind and my field and within the various parts of my body was like a hell to the no. And it was constantly sabotaging. It was constantly like not putting myself in situations where that could actually happen, right? And so when I released that through the breath, I was able to actually be here in the now, not be here in the now. Plus seeing through the lenses of my trauma, you know?
Wow amazing. Because yeah, isn’t that the like a beautiful definition of trauma and the a beautiful definition of trauma? Is it is too painful if you are a traumatized human being, it’s too painful to live in the now. It is too painful to be authentic to be me. Yeah, you know, it’s just too painful. So I think that exactly that is a reason why something like breathwork is so powerful. Because it allows you to experience your authentic self. Yeah, maybe for the first time in your life and makes you also understand that it is safe to be present yeah not dissociated, not being somebody else, not being attached to somebody who we think we are like attached to the ego. And that is all. I mean, we’ve been already diving into the benefits because I think people, you know, the people for you, it was very much releasing deep generational trauma, which allowed you to really be present in the moment and to really experience yourself. What else would you think it has done for you and. Also for your students right.
I think like the first thing to know is that there are even within the transformational breathwork space. And i do want to make that distinction between like yogic pranayama breath awareness practices, which are about being aware of what’s happening with your breath when you’re not changing and manipulating it versus the transformational breath work that you and I are talking about right now with transformational breathwork in particular. And there are multiple schools within transformational breathwork. It just has this amazing capacity to bypass. Our conscious mind and really get us number one into our body, which is where the truth of what is inside of us lives number two. It helps us access what’s called non ordinary states of consciousness and that’s what kind of what we were talking about. You know, where essentially your body goes into a space where rapid healing and rapid re alchemizing of the thoughts, ideas and structures within your body, mind and field can happen and can arise. It really helps you in again accessing generational. And the things that you don’t even know that you don’t know. So within the personal development space, I feel like it’s absolutely critical that you do certain types of work, like inner Child work, working with your identities to figure out what is real, what is not real. But there is this point where you can no longer logically or rationally come to the point of understanding why you are the way you are, particularly because a lot of our thoughts, ideas and programming happens before age 7, before age 6, you know, it gets codified into us and we don’t necessarily. Remember what happened at those times and so there’s a whole practice of transformational breathwork that’s called rebirthing, where it focuses specifically on what happened during your birth experience. Because what happens during your birth experience can also have a huge impact on you. Where you in a room with bright lights, where you was there biblical cord cut too soon what? How was your mother feeling during the birth process? How was your dad feeling during the birth process? All of these things impact how you are able to regulate within this life and how you show up within this life. And where your nervous system kind of, you know, contracts and halts and you find yourself unable to perform, all of those things are informed within spaces that we don’t necessarily remember. And when you use this type of transformational breathwork, particularly in a journey with someone who knows what they’re doing, you can literally go back to those times, go back to those spaces and release the traumas that you don’t even know that you have. And as you said, trauma is that thing that you know when you want to do something, when you want to create something, when you want to say something, but you find yourself collapsing. Closing, freezing and or dropping into your coping strategies saying why did I say that? Why did I do that? Why can’t I move forward? That’s our trauma and action. And So what you’ll find is through the breath at all those points where you would find yourself being stopped or pausing or faltering or distracting or self sabotaging. You now have space, you now have a moment and you now have the ability to actually create the things that you want in your life.
That is so powerful. Wow, that is so powerful. Let me go back to your journey and back to boot in that room where you and I think this is the beauty of life, like the things we are supposed to do. They find us, they call us, they find us. And they say, this is your job in this world, in this, in this lifetime, you’re supposed to be doing this. And you just know.
Yeah, OK, came in loud and I mean now.
I mean, look, I have a lot of respect for you because, you know, I’m a very. A lazy breath worker. I know the power of it, but I also like you know with I remember I think it was the last year or two years ago when I was like hey man, how was your night? You’re like i did breathwork like the entire night I was like you. It didn’t work because it is also something the ego. My ego personally doesn’t like it so much. Yeah, it’s uncomfortable for me. It’s like, OK, I do I really want to go there. Do I really want? I mean, the benefits are amazing, tremendous, you know. But sometimes my ego is very loud and very active and because why? Maybe you can explain it to me. Why do you think our egos when we know something really helps us? You know, and something holds us, but then our ego gets in there. Like, you know, maybe you can elaborate on that yeah you know, something I always say to my clients is like, you need to remember that there’s a level at which your ego is trying to protect you. So sometimes it’s like it’s unfamiliar, it’s uncomfortable. We have a tendency to go towards what is easy and pleasurable, right? Even if it’s not necessarily good for us. But something that we need to recognize beyond that is that our ego is a jealous protector of the status quo. And what that means is our ego does not like change yeah even if it’s bad for us, it’s like, this is familiar. This is what I’m used to. The unknown. I’m not sure what’s gonna happen in the unknown. I’d rather stay in the hull. That is comfortable for me right you know, and so when it comes to something like breathwork, it can be quite intense, I’ll be honest with you at the beginning. But something else that i know that, you know, we’ve spoken about this as well, is like, firstly, there’s lots of different kinds. Secondly, over time, it starts getting really easy yeah like it really stops being a big deal, you know, if you think about the first time you went to your. A good class you were like what muscle is this? Like how do you don’t mean you’re like how you know or anything you do. For the first time it can be quite intense, but then after you become unconsciously competent at it, you know what you’re doing. You trust yourself to be able to guide yourself as part of the journey. It becomes absolutely easy. And something that we do with beginners is we. It’s called titration and pilation is we allow you to go through journeys that are relatively gentle. And titration is just I don’t know if you’ve seen those droppers like you get your. You’ll face oils and things in it and you have a little drop so you don’t go into a journey. What power? And we’re going to go from zero to three hours at the most intense practices. You’ll start with something relatively gentle, you just releasing the trauma bit by bit by bit and you move from a place of relative discomfort. That’s the pendulum nation. You move from OOP, this is intense to OK, I’m going to go to something that is comfortable. And so when you’re in the breath workspace you also learn different techniques that you can empower yourself with so that you can titrate pendulant and so that no matter what anyone else is doing, your journey fully belongs to yourself. And so I find that a lot of people who are sort of like breathwork, usually they haven’t received the right guidance in terms of their breathwork or they’re not that type of person who knows how to take and hold their empowerment within a breathwork, right? Because I agree with you, sometimes you’re so tired and it’s not time to do a breathwork. But are you the type of person who can own your agency in any context? If not, that’s where your work starts. And start there, work on it because it’s worth it and.
Also just lying in a breathwork. Yeah oh my God, she just being. Like, even though, I mean every single breath work session I’ve done, even if I only was able to do the breath for maybe 10 or 15 minutes, even if it was like an hour breathwork session or something like, you know, because then maybe got too much or I was like too. Yeah, I got too involved like maybe shaking or you know, feeling a certain emotion rising. So I would just stop the breath because that’s another thing. Always just stop the breath and breathe normally. Exactly and also it is OK. And I think especially when you do it not online, I’ve obviously done it many times on online and many times offline. And if you do it offline, there’s obviously a lot of people around you, yes, that are having a certain experience. And some people have a very intense experience. And the mind quickly wants to compare and wants to be like, Oh my God, like, why is that person having this experience? Why I’m having that experience? And that’s why actually I do like the online even for that because for that I just go like, OK, cool. Like, just stay in your, I mean, to your bubble. Again, the same with my waska journey. If you are in a room with like 20 people are like reducing generational trauma. And you just like lying there. He’s like, you know, don’t get it on me. For me, please. But it is a very personal experience and very important to facilitate this. Very important and with everything. But I think with these big healing modalities, yeah, because it is such a big space. It is a space where proper healing on a cell basis takes place. It’s not just having an aha moment. Yeah, aha moment is fantastic. We love them and you can really, we can do a lot of great things with our mind and I love our mind, but most of the stuff. That’s way deeper than the actual conscious mind yeah And I think if you then have somebody to trust and that’s why. I mean, you know how I took you to Berlin? Yeah, for the life of me, yeah. It was an amazing experience for everybody because people got to experience it on a very safe level because if it is not done, very safe, I think. I don’t know if you agree with me, but I think you can even cause damage.
Hundred thousand percent no yeah hundred % it is so easy to. If you don’t know what you’re doing, if you’re facilitator doesn’t know what they’re doing for retraumatization to occur, you know and like a huge part of holding the space is not just like the technique or what’s happening. And you know me, I’m an energy worker too, so I like to do like energy stuff and whatnot. But if your facilitator is not 100 % confident in what they’re doing, if they are not like 100 % immovable, they can hold the space, you’re going to feel that as a breather. That’s going to make you scared. And then you’re orientating your breathe towards that, you know. And so for me, the person who holds the space they need to have. Their own practice that is deep and profound. They need to have been to the depths because that means when they see it in you they’re not going to move. They know exactly what is happening. You know what I mean? Yes and something else I wanna like add on that you said something I love about the containers that you create is it’s not just you come you do a breathwork and you leave and good luck. You know what I mean? That’s something that I’m not really for. I’ve seen it in a lot of places where people like you come, you do a breath work and good luck. What I love in your containers is like there’s pre work that happens and then they do a breathe, there’s post work that happens and then they do a breathe and there’s more work. After that, because stuff comes up and you need to work with it and integrate it and have the right tools to help you alchemize it in a way that it actually supports you. So I’m a huge believer in when you are new, once you’re an experienced breather, you can do whatever you want. But when you’re new, doing this within the context of a container, that helps with your empowerment and that helps with your integration. Like the containers you have absolutely essential and fundamental.
Yeah exactly. Essential and fundamental. I think those are the exactly. Yeah, I needed and. I think also look, especially in my community, I know that there is a lot of people that have done a lot right. I mean very rarely I have clients coming in saying hi, what is personal growth? Yeah what is limiting belief in either to therapy or they especially read books and listen to podcasts and listen to YouTube videos and gone to maybe retreats or you know, so there is a certain level of awareness. Around growing personally spiritually. So I think that also that you come to this point, you just come to a point where you understand you’re limiting beliefs yes where you know, OK, I obviously think I am not worthy or I am not important or I am not good enough. Great that happened due to my inner child or my, you know, the little me being extremely hurt when my parents separated or when my dad walked out on us. Or when the school teacher said made comments about my weight or about my appearance or you know. So we have a lot of knowledge around why we are the way that we are. Due to our caregivers, due to our society, due to our culture. We have the awareness. But then comes the moment and look we can. I have all kinds of formulas. I can give you 4, like releasing limiting beliefs. I have great limiting belief pasting formulas i love and a child meditations I love. But, and I think this is also something I criticise a lot in the healing arts field. On the coaching field, we don’t involve the body enough. We don’t involve the biggest part of our being enough. It is here and because up here we can control, we can kind of analyse and rationalize and understand and OK, that’s why you walk out of the therapy sessions to go. Mom in her fault. That’s why I’m screwed yeah thanks, mum. Ok.
Because something to chew on, exactly. So we love that. Like we are addicted to business. So sometimes personal development just becomes this other rabbit hole now that we get to chomp on our stories, but we don’t actually move forward. We don’t actually make any changes.
And it’s another thing we can just become busy.
With we exactly.
Walk through the forest, being present, looking at the trees and connecting with Earth. We are connecting with a podcast, yeah audio book, yeah. You know, because again, it’s cheaper and I think it’s just doesn’t. A podcast are amazing. Audio books are amazing. Everything of the knowledge that we can acquire is absolutely amazing and essential. It’s just important to get a clear awareness around that and just to be very aware how much we are consuming to keep busy and how much are we involving our bodies. So I think that also started with you two years ago was really the knowledge. Around the nervous system, yeah. Because I teach manifestation and I realised you can freaking set your goals like you wanna is your nervous system is dysregulated and then fight flight freeze phone mode. You are not going to manifest the dream man, the dream house the financial success. You’re you are too busy fighting. Yeah tigers.
Yeah so.
Maybe we can just address the nervousness and the body. And how is the breath? Work is a modality. And also generally let’s just have a chat around the nervous system and around, you know, how important it is to create awareness around our own nervous system and the healing of our nervous. System, right? I mean, so without getting like too technical, we have two sort of main branches of the nervous system, of the peripheral nervous system and we have the sympathetic nervous system which is associated with fight flight. And then we have the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and digest state. Now kind of what you mentioned in terms of like stress, we have within our bodies. The stress response. And the stress response happens anytime we perceive a threat in our environment, right. And it was developed so that when something happened that we thought was going to be a threat to us, we could respond appropriately to it. So we have things happening like our all of the blood in our body moves to our extremities, it moves to our arms and our legs so that we can like. Run really well. Our heart rate goes up because it’s pumping blood to all the various organs and our to the extremities in our bodies so that we can run really well. We have our body gets flooded with hydrochloric acid so that our digestion slows down so that we have a lot of energy to deal with other things and our energy is not going towards our digestion. Our perception narrow. So we become really like focused on what is in front of us so we can see the thing that we need to fight or flee from. So there are all these different responses that happen within our body to help us be able to. Kind of deal with whatever the threat that is happening in the present moment. But the problem is, in today’s world, the threats that we have are not things like running away from a tiger, as you mentioned. The threats that we have in today’s world are constantly having deadlines. It’s constantly receiving emails, it’s constantly being aroused by what’s happening on our phone. And so for most of us, we live in a state of constant arousal. We live in a state where we are constantly being flooded with stress hormones. And so we fall into the dysregulation of the nervous system, which is just that. We stay in that sympathetic response where we are constantly wanting to fight or, you know, flee or freeze or whatever the case may be. And so this response that we have within our body, it also has physiological and biological signatures and hormones that are associated with it. And when we’re constantly being flooded with these stress hormones, they break down our systems and we fall into dysregulation where we are constantly like on edge, we are constantly looking around like what’s going to happen. To, again, not present exactly and so instead of responding to what is actually happening in the moment, we’re responding to the trauma or the perceived threats that are still in the parcel that our body is telling us there’s a threat, there’s that there’s a threat and there is none, right. And so we respond to our work, we respond to the people in our relationships as if there is something happening, as if something crazy is happening. Usually in the present moment, there is no real threat. And so the beautiful thing that breathwork does is it helps us to regulate our nervous system and so these traumas so. Anytime we have something that exists for too long, too frequently, at too high an intensity, this can cause us to become traumatized, which is essentially the stress response, or this perceived threat response gets stuck in our bodies. It doesn’t complete, it doesn’t allow us to fall back into homeostasis. And So what Breathwork does is it tells us that our body, we take these long, slow, deep breaths. It signals to the body, it signals to the nervous system that we are safe. And so when we know that we are safe, the body knows to stop secreting these stress. For months. And so we go back into a space of relative regulation. We go back into a space where the stress response can complete itself. And that’s why we have why am I crying? Why am I laughing? Why am I screaming? It’s because something happened in your life where you were unable to complete that response. And now by queuing safety through the breath, you’re able to complete that response. You’re able to release the trauma that is stuck within your body. You’re able to see clearly what is actually happening in the null, and you’re able to take action in the places where usually you would find yourself going. Or overreacting that doesn’t really exist. Or overreacting. Or not being able to actually do the things that you want.
To yeah, and that’s also a trigger, basically. Often outriggers have nothing to do with the here and not.
Hundred percent.
They are like literally stuff that happens when we were like three years old, which we just never process yeah And i mean, look, I think it’s also interesting how you said, for example, if we are activated, if the sympathetic nervous system is activated, we our digestion slows down yeah OK. And the energy you said comes from our brain and moves into our legs like we’re ready to run. And The thing is that for example, I had this example around money the other day that people just opened their bank accounts like the online banking. They literally like their heart rate starts, you know, going up. They literally prepare for fighting or for running. And The thing is often we need to be in a relaxed state in order for us to, for example, get us out. Of financial stress. Yeah, we need ideas, we need impulses, we need downloads. But there is no time for intuition or downloads or any of that if we are that stress response because our brain literally becomes Dumber and our muscles become stronger.
And these stress hormones they literally break down your body like literally they break they you wear and tear you’re breaking yourself down if you’re constantly stressed and that’s why, that’s why, for example, our society is so much in paternity. Yeah, low immune system, because that’s. All everybody’s constipated, you know yeah one in our IBS, yeah. Which hasn’t, you know, which wasn’t like that, you know, 50 years ago, some people didn’t have that much. Of course, they weren’t stimulated as much as now we like you say, I mean, even like checking your phone activates, you know? Yeah, that’s why it’s also important to have these practices, around like not using your phone first thing in the morning and all of these things, like your nervous system, there’s a reason for.
Training it to be like this all the time. And if there’s no real drama you bring, your brain is going to make one up because it’s used to being in that state of hyperarousal all the time.
It’s also a sense of addiction, right? Yeah, it becomes like a safety to be aroused.
Yeah, yes, exactly. It’s unsafe to be safe actually it’s unsafe to relax and to just be, yeah.
That is, that’s crazy.
And you know something else that you said when we’re talking about our like ability and our capacity to get impulses and downloads and actually do the things that we want to do. Besides like the physical wear and tear that being in a constant state of stress has, which by the way, I know you know this like 95 % of illnesses are stress related or chronic stress related. So you take out the stress, you’re doing a lot better in your life, period, you know, access to creativity, downloads, etcetera. But also beyond that, even if you’re living, when we’re talking about this type of breathwork, we’re not just talking about stress management. We really are getting down to being in the body and those deeper traumas because again, this doesn’t necessarily register as stress number one. It’s just the way you’ve always lived and the way that you understand it. Until you start to do the work and see how much lighter and more spacious life can be. You’ll actually think you’re fine. It’s the same way as like if you haven’t done exercise for a long time and then suddenly you go to the gym, you’re like, Oh my gosh, I was living half asleep. Or if you have a really bad diet and then you suddenly switch to a good one and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I was killing myself, would you? This type of work that we’re talking about is usually the stuff you don’t even recognize is going. Wrong and you know, something else that I love about Breathwork is. Yes, it’s the stress management staff and it’s the release of the trauma staff, but also it’s the day-to-day stuff in terms of how it builds your resiliency, your ability to actually get things done. Because you are talking about the tasks that we have to do and particularly when you’re doing something new, it takes a certain amount of activation energy. When it’s new, you know. And so in order to do things that you don’t want to do, order, to get them to the point where it’s on autopilot, you do have to be relatively resilient. You do have to expand what’s called your window of tolerance, which is your ability to deal with life. Because again, sometimes the promise of the healing art space is we’re just like, ah, you know, good vibes only and love and light. And that’s crap, man. Like life is living. Life’s going to do what it does, and sometimes they’re going to be things that happen to you that are not great. And what is the difference between that person who has something happened to them that is not great and they’re like, oh, this is not great, let me process it. And then they get on with their life, they’re able to move forward versus the person who something happens to them and it’s thoughts forever hating themselves, beating themselves up or whatever the case may be. They have different levels of mental and emotional. And physical resiliencies, they have a different they have a more expanded window of tolerance and something that a window of tolerance is basically just that space within. You can deal with whatever life throws you, the good and the bad, without going into dysregulation exactly OK. So and breathwork is amazing for expanding your window of times, for expanding how much you can deal with in your day-to-day life without being totally thrown off kilter. And that’s one of the things that I love so much in addition to the sort of deeper, more traumatic. You know, transcendent things that one can experience.
As well, thank you so much for mentioning that. I think that is so important because life is life. Ok. Like, I mean, I’m not gonna lie. Like OK, so you can be healed for days and you can literally have work through a lot and you will always experience pain, OK. And you will always experience things that are. I’m going to kick you off board for a moment. This is the thing, how quickly you’re going to climb back on, that’s the that’s the thing, you know? And I think exactly how you’re saying, I think sometimes we have this very. I mean, I don’t like the word unrealistic because, you know, I’m a very.
I must be a really yeah, we do. Come on.
And we are human. Yeah, maybe with spiritual beings, but we are doing a human experience. I understand this experience comes with activation yeah and a lot of people have big dreams. They wanna build big business, they wanna make a lot of money. They wanna have a fulfilled relationship. All of these things are things that activate you, like left, right and centre. No matter how like healed or how many. Like how many. Coaching sessions you done. You will like a relationship. You want that great. It’s going to activate. You like the more money you make the more responsibility you have, the more you’re gonna be activated. And actually I realised that as well. That like there are certain things that have also decreased my window of tolerance when it when it comes to certain addictions that I had that I really had to look at. Which also things like iasca breathwick late made me see so encouraging. We do a lot of identity work you know this and. I think identity work is amazing, but you always have to ask yourself the question who am I being what? Who am I going to embody in order for me to manifest the dream man, the financial success, and these are all amazing questions. However, it goes deeper, you will have to ask yourself the question if I am being that version of myself, how big is that Windows?
Tolerance, right?
Right how big? Like because somebody that has manifested. And you know they’re 8 figure business. Ok, how stress can these people take? Yeah, you know it. Are they going to crumble every time? The tax man?
Calls and have someone writes a rude comment on a post.
Or that you know, and also I have to be completely honest. I think this is important for everybody listening is we block ourselves with that, including me, including me until this day. Everybody, you know, levels, it’s levels, it’s levels of healing and I also, it’s also being compassionate and knowing that we will also get through that. But when I look at colleagues that are extremely successful and I see the comments they get the actual hates that is, you know, put out online and stuff. I have a lot of respect for that and I realized that there’s a part of me that is still getting to that.
Point and.
It’s also growth in layers in stages that it is actually. You know, it’s slow expansion. It’s not an expansion that happens from you know from one moment to the next because that is actually quite activating again, you know, sometimes you. So of course the version of myself that runs an 8 figure business that has you know 30 employees that yeah, OK.
That version.
Obviously exists because on a different timeline that version exists. But in order for me to collapse by the timeline now and to get to that timeline, there is a whole different level that I need to get to with my nervous system and that’s all yes and that’s also something you also said to me with every topic. You also said to me, Nicole, just find out if you can take it with your nervous system first. And if you can’t take certain things, don’t beat yourself up. Just start with the baby steps. Yep, you know, start with the little steps and then you will get to that version of yourself. But in little steps because this is what happens with a lot of people, for example, that win the lottery, that’s what they lose their money straight away again because they can’t hold it because. Too much, you know, or they go into deep depression, people that become famous overnight and things like that, you know, that’s why I think that’s also really important to just consider that you will get to your new identity but you can you can do that by expanding that resilience level that part.
Of you that edges yeah exactly.
See if you can enjoy it to a certain degree. Like something you keep saying over and over again is the importance of being in the body and the importance of being in the now, because that’s the only place. You can receive and commune with life like yes go for the thing that you want but if you don’t know how to make yourself happy and present in the now, it’s ever shifting goal post. You’re going to hit that new identity. You’re going to want that next new identity. And you know again, just looping back to Breathwork and how it is so incredibly supportive for being in the now and creating that space to love the present while we’re still orientating towards the future. Another thing that it does that’s so amazing is you’re talking about how you know you get activated and you experience pain but what is beautiful. About Breathwork is after some time of doing it in the way that’s right for you, you’re going to start to notice that there’s just this space that starts to happen between you and your thoughts. There’s this space that starts to bowl between you and your conditioned ideas to the point where you know, your body might offer, up like oh, I’m not good enough, but where’s before it would be like I’m not good enough. And it’s so loud it might say I’m not, but it’s going to be like someone’s whispering. It’s going to feel like so far away there’s almost like, you know, you don’t have to pay attention to it. You really through this work, in this practice, you start to understand. Especially I am not my thoughts. This is just conditioning within my body. It’s what my Physiology is offering up because it’s what it’s used to. And the more you breathe, the less it becomes used to that. You change in terms of your body and it starts to offer up different things. Like you are literally going to get to the point where again with the right type of training. So yes, there’s a birth work, but we do have to do the affirmations and the identity work and all those other things because that’s the breath. Work creates the space for you to really go down deep and then fill in that space with new programmings and conditionings. And you were gonna start to notice overtime. You’ll be walking around. And whereas before your brain might have been like, you’re stupid, you’re not good enough, you’ll never get it. Now you’re gonna be walking and it’s gonna be like, I love you, you’re amazing. You’re the best. They’re gonna start like you’re gonna be going walking around, you gonna stop crying out of joy. I cry at least two times a week from pure joy because that’s the training that, like, lives in my body. And the breathwork is amazing for creating that spaciousness where you know unequivocally, you are not your thoughts. So even if the thoughts are negative, you don’t identify with them. You’re even. Look at them be like, OK, whatever. You know, and then you will. I am literally, that is no longer like a spiritual woo concept. You’re gonna start to talk like a crazy person. You’re gonna, you’re gonna start to understand that all the wisdom traditions, everything they’re saying is actually quite literal if you do that work. And like Breathwork is an amazing I love all the practices the meditations, everything. They all come together. But I do feel that working on the level of trauma, working on the level of the body was something that was kind of missing with all those other practices. And when you bring them together, all the stuff everyone says is. True and then. Not just the concept anymore. Because every personal growth book you read is like, you are not your thoughts. And you said, yeah not my thoughts. I’m not OK cool but then you think about how you know you thought that it’s as loud. Yeah, it’s just it’s just a new cage. Yeah, it’s a prettier cage.
And you know what I wanna touch on what I loved is that you said joy like you because that’s unnatural state.
Yeah, look at.
This is our natural state yeah and like to, you know, a lot of people tell me, Nicole, I’ve lost my connection to my. Feelings i can’t, feel i’m not. I don’t feel joy. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything anymore because that’s also form of old trauma response.
Yeah, hundred.
Percent and I think that yes, when we heal on that deeper level, we will experience or you will experience a joy that is innate within you, that is deeply ingrained in you, which is something that makes you smile and makes you cry and makes you so connected. I think that is also the word you know when you come out of a breathwork session. Everything is so clear and vivid. And the tree is not just a tree. It’s a banter cell. Yeah that’s not super who but that’s just exactly and on the other side and I think that’s also what the ego because you know we don’t the ego doesn’t like pain is that is also something that brings a lot of pain. It’s another thing because we know in this space we talk a lot about opening our hearts and we speak a lot about, you know, opening the heart and you know allowing love to you shine into the world and stuff and what people need to understand is you open your heart. You are going to be in pain as well. You will feel injustice in this world. You will see the and you know and I think, but that is the spectrum of life exactly and.
That is again, that window of tolerance. Yeah, you can. You can allow a lot of love and joy and inspiration to come in. And at the same time, yes, there is the other side of this, of this life. It’s not just good vibes, love and light. There is a lot of pain. There is a lot of injustice. There’s a lot of things that are. Really shitty in this world. And we also need to stop not addressing that yet and pretending like it’s not there and pretending that we all need to have a good as energy. Yeah, well, there’s some days I don’t have a good energy because i feel sad that life is unfair like that I that there is so much pain in this world. But at the same time, there is also so much beauty and so much joy. And that is the spectrum of. That, and that is what it means to be truly human. And alive alive exactly.
Like, what are you doing here? If you’re just like completely dead and numb and sorry, just like linking back to what you said about the numbness and the experience of joy number one. Firstly is like if you want to experience that next level of transcendent joy, and this is a higher level practice, the pain makes the joy more vivid. It does. And if you’re someone who is like passion, little passion based, guess what one of the best motivators and activators is witnessing. Other people suffering. I know for you you’re like girl, I’m changing the whole world because like cause you found the tools and you are now able to witness people’s pain and the reason you’re doing so incredibly is because you are motivated by that. So we don’t necessarily need to keep pain and suffering out. We just need to learn how to alchemize it right. That’s next level practice. And so sorry something is going to be very sort of scientific level. Again looping back to how does the brace support us with this is when we do this type of breathwork like on a physiological level it also stimulates. The vagus nerve, right, the vagus nerve secrets, all of these. Like it helps us to increase our vagal tone. So when you are talking about how some people are numb, it’s usually that there’s dysregulation in the system. They’re vagal brake might be locked and so they can’t experience life. And so when you’re breathing and when you’re connecting, when you’re present, when you’re in your body, you stimulate your vagus nerve, which is this nerve that runs through your entire body and literally gets your entire body and all the systems of your body online and helps you to actually. Be here to actually feel, because if not, what are you? What are you doing? You know and the truth is again, you think, Oh no, if I’m keeping up the bad, it’s OK. They are two sides of the same coin and they both make life richer for one another. Again, it’s just about learning how to alchemize them. yeah. No, yeah, I, you know, i think we should do like a Joe Rogan podcast.
Either I have.
Like you know 3.
Hours and on this day, this is how it happened when I breathe yeah.
And yeah, I mean I would like to just slowly wrap it up and also just firstly I think everybody will ask the question because actually it’s not that easy to find a lot of breathwork. Yeah, you know, I mean sure some people might have the access to it through maybe Bali or whatever, but people, most people who are listening to the podcast resort right now are not living in Bali yeah so.
How can people work with you? And how would you, if people are curious now how what would a first little baby step would be? Ok, so with this type of breathwork in particular, I’m like for your first time, be in a live class number one. Like don’t do any recordings, whether it’s online or whatever or in person we work.
For facility with a live facilitator right and then I would say, like, I mean, if you would like to work with me, that’s great. You know, you can find it. I’ve got lots of trainings and mentorships and stuff. People, I’m sure they’ll be somewhere where people can find my details. Yes, I’ll reach out to me and stuff. I’ve got some programmes coming up, so, yeah, they can do so yeah but if you wanna do something more local, I would be like make sure that you get some referrals on your breathwork instructor. Make sure they come from a breathwork institution that is accredited and that they’ve actually gone through the process of, you know, going through their own practice. Or if they’re not coming from an accredited institution, I’m a big believer in mentorship yeah so someone who has worked with someone who is a breathwork facilitator, who has a body of work, and they’re working close with them, someone who they can go to. So just. And that they have referrals, right? So again, like, if they have people who are like, this person knows how to hold space and then go to that type of person just like, check in and get those things so you feel safe and comfortable. And then, I mean, with this actual practice I again, I’m just like, don’t do recordings. Good in live class. Someone’s gonna help you find that empowerment that I was talking about before because it’s not just about the technique. The technique is the price of admission that gets you through the door, but it’s really is about creating that safety and empowerment with the technique. And the second thing I would recommend is go try it out. But if you want to go deeper as you’re kind of digging in the layers, I do recommend doing it within a container like your coaching program so that people are really equipped with the tools to deal with what comes up and it becomes even an enjoyable experience. And also so that you’re not just breathing for breathing sake, it’s good to be breathing and have it oriented towards a goal that you’re trying to create something or whatever so. It’s also my recommendation that you do it within the context of some kind of a coaching container. And if you are very sort of fragile or activated or whatever, if you know that you have a lot of trauma in your life and in your system, then I would even recommend maybe don’t go to an open level class 1st if it’s a big class, if it’s a smaller class, if it’s online and you’re in your own space, then that’s OK because you’re gonna have people screaming and triggering you more. But maybe consider doing some one to ones or doing it online first so that you don’t have to deal with other people’s experiences if you’re not really good at staying sovereign within your own space when there’s lots of other things happening and so those are just like top of mind and have like a meditation practice and stuff. So all these things, meditation practice and, embodiment, practice, yoga dance, movement shaking, all these things that can support you in your process and your integration. I strongly recommend that. To you, amazing, yeah. Symmetric viral. Thank you. Well, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This was amazing and yeah, I’m sure not the last time. So thank you so much for joining and for giving us your time and your wisdom and your energy and yeah, so excited to share, so excited.
