May 22, 2025 • 38 mins
This episode covers Jake's discovery of breathwork facilitated by various guides. Initially skeptical about its effectiveness, he first encounters limited success but later has a profound mystical experience under more directive guidance.
They explore the history and methods of breathwork, particularly focusing on the development of holotropic breathwork by Stanislav Groff and the significant role of music in facilitating breathwork sessions. The story details the step-by-step growth of their own breathwork practice, from private sessions to hosting large groups, overcoming numerous logistical and business challenges including relocating studios multiple times due to various circumstances.
He highlights his unique approach to breathwork facilitation, emphasizing the importance of music as a narrative tool and rejecting unnecessary mysticism or rigid structures in favor of accessibility and effectiveness.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
I don't know if I've ever heard of the holotropic.
Holotropic breath work is like the OG of breath work in.
Western Society.
It started by Stanislav.
Groff was a Czechoslovakian therapist who back in the fifties and sixties when, I believe it was Eli Lilly came out with LSD 25.
(00:28):
They didn't know what to do with it.
They knew it had effects, but they're like, we don't know how to market this.
We don't know how to prescribe it they just sent it out to a bunch of doctors and said, Hey, can you figure out.
What to do with this, with your patients.
And Stan was one of those doctors who got that and he ended up doing about 4,000 therapy sessions with people on LSD.
Wow.
Yes.
(00:49):
He was having incredible results, incredible outcomes with people pairing LSD and therapy together.
Eventually the seventies roll around and they outlaw LSD and he's stuck.
He's accustomed to working with people in LSD and getting them these kind of results where mere talk therapy is not going to do that.
One of the things that he noticed.
(01:10):
While he was guiding people through these LSD sessions is at the end of it, they would all have the same breathing pattern that their breathing pattern would take on this rhythmic nature and be very cyclic, cyclical and connected and into the belly.
And his wife came up with the idea of what if that breathing, what if it goes both ways.
(01:32):
What if that experience has causes the breathing, but that breathing can also cause the experience.
Hold on.
His wife said that.
Yes.
Wow.
So they come up with holotropic breath work, which is a kind of circular breathing, conscious connected breathing where every breath is connected.
He has a lot of, mystical beliefs surrounding breath work that.
Didn't really line up with me at the time.
(01:53):
Like I knew holotropic breath work's powerful, but before this experience, I didn't know much about holotropic breath work.
My friend Chaos has this friend who's a holotropic breath work coach travels the country, offering groups holotropic breath work experiences.
Usually holotropic breath work is done over the course of an entire weekend.
It's a very involved process, but he's gonna give us a.
(02:13):
Two, three hour experience.
So me, Kim, my son, we all go up to Prescott.
And we do holotropic breath work with him.
And I lay there for two hours and nothing happens.
I was cautiously optimistic but also pessimistic.
The breath work would do anything.
Like I knew ayahuasca worked every time, all the time.
(02:35):
You take that by God, you're gonna have a mystical experience.
And I did this breath work, laid there, looked at the ceiling.
It was like, yeah, this is some cool music.
And I didn't get much from this.
So I was like that Check breath, work off the list of modalities.
That did not work.
Fast forward, maybe a month or two later, I end up taking two girls to an ayahuasca ceremony in Mexico.
(02:55):
And as we're coming back, one of the girls says, Hey, my boyfriend is a breathwork guide and he's got a class in Tempe.
You should come to it.
And I was like, eh.
I've done breath work.
It was pretty minimal, like nothing happened.
And both of them are raving about it.
They're like, no, it's incredible.
It's great.
You gotta do it.
I was like, me? Nah, I checked it off the list.
I'm good thanks.
(03:16):
I like to do things that, that work.
And they were very insistent.
The one friend Natalie was very insistent that I try this breath work.
So through her, persistent persuasion.
she eventually got me to take a breath work class with him, and I went in and did the breath work and had a full blown mystical experience.
(03:40):
It was like ayahuasca and bufo mixed together while I was doing this for two hours, and it was amazing.
It was incredible.
Got a lot of messages, got a lot of downloads, and just had a really powerful experience and was like, wow.
This is it.
This is the stuff I have found, the thing I can do this every day and, do this.
(04:02):
So at the end of class I'm like, Hey man what's the playlist of the music you were playing there? So he takes a screenshot of the song, sends it to me and says good luck got speed.
I go home the next day, build the soundtrack, lay down to do, breath work.
I huff, I puff, I do everything that I thought he told us to do.
(04:22):
And basically at the end of 30 minutes, all I have is sore ribs and nothing's happened.
Sore ribs.
So I try again the next day and nothing go back to the class again a week later.
Do the experience.
Another full-blown mystical experience.
Super powerful, very emotional.
I think it was that one where I ugly cried for 40 minutes.
(04:43):
Nice.
Just snot, snot bubble cried.
When it was over, I sat up and poured a bottle of water over my head so nobody would be able to tell it was me.
That had been like blubbering the whole time.
Not tears.
Got sweaty.
I just gotta, I spill my water.
Oh my gosh.
Correctly over my head.
You won't be able to tell.
And that was, incredible.
Paid even more attention to the directions this time and said, all right, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna figure this out, put the playlist on, do the breath work, nothing.
(05:11):
And I'm like.
This is terrible.
I can only do it in a group and it turns out there is something to group energy that for sure.
In seven or eight years of doing breath work, I think I've had two experiences doing breath work by myself.
Okay.
And that when I do it in a group, it generally, at this point, it takes me about three breaths and I've dropped in.
(05:33):
I'm now a regular at breath work.
I'm going every week.
I'm trying to sort my life out.
Got a lot of stress that I'm dealing with, and breath work is keeping me regulated.
I keep doing the breath work, and I realize, hey, it might be easier to get people to come to breath work.
Than it would be to come to Ayahuasca and it will help prepare them for the psychedelic experience that if you do this breath work it is, it's like, Hey, how about we jog a couple times before we go run a marathon? Like, do I breathe in Tempe or do I.
(06:06):
So if I'm trying to attract people it's certainly a much easier appeal.
So I'm bringing people to breath work and, we're doing breath work in this guy's family room and there's 15 to 17 people in there and we are elbow to elbow.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it is not the most luxurious experience.
He's not spending a lot on production here.
(06:28):
So during one of my breath work experiences, I have this vision of 60 people doing breath work together every week we need to polish this up a little bit.
Yeah, we need to bring a little professionalism to this.
You are a great guy.
You're a great facilitator.
I'm really good at this business thing.
I'll get this going for us.
And he's eh, yeah.
(06:52):
I don't know.
and I was like, all right, We're doing it.
So in the time that we're doing this, I'm also looking for, I'm asking him, Hey, where'd you learn how to do breath work? There's not a lot of information on the internet at the time about breath work, and he's pretty cagey about how he learned it.
Okay.
So I just start taking everybody's breath work.
(07:13):
Everybody online, in Person.
what do you got? Let me see it.
How you doing it? And what I'm looking for is.
I'm looking for a guide.
I'm looking for someone to say Hey, this is how we do it.
This is why we do it.
this is what works.
And I'm also looking for somebody who doesn't have, it's very easy when you do breath work to get caught up into, magical thinking, okay.
(07:38):
Where they have a lot of beliefs attached to the breath work.
Why don't we just stick to the breath? You're wanting to enjoy this.
If you go down a certain path with a certain belief, could turn those people away.
Sure.
we don't have to believe in unicorns and shockers to do this.
A Wikipedia page of breath work when you first started checking it out, or no? Not yet.
No.
Not yet.
There wasn't even a Wikipedia page job.
Okay.
Yeah, I was like, this is early.
(07:59):
at that time, no.
Have you ever edited.
The Wikipedia page? I figured my belief on that is anything I edited would get kicked right off.
They would edit me right off the page.
So while I'm doing this, I'm having all these other experiences I'm seeing and I'm judging it by what about this was effective? And what about this was just fluff and window dressing.
(08:19):
And there's a lot of window dressing.
Okay.
And then very little here's the part.
That actually does the thing.
Okay.
which part of this is the mechanistic effect that's going to create the outcome that we're looking for? One of the things, people often ask like, why didn't the first one work? Why did the second one work? This is around 2017.
(08:41):
At that time, people who were leading guiding breath work were used to working with people who were spiritually naturals.
What do you mean by that? So like back in the 1950s, 1960s, if you were an athletics coach, or coaching a team, everybody that you worked with was a natural athlete.
Sure, okay.
They were already strong, fast, and then you were just moving them around and the same thing was happening in the spiritual community at that time, in that everybody who was doing it, involved in it, attracted to it, had a natural propensity towards that thing.
(09:12):
So if you listen to any of the breath work.
Guidance back then.
It's hey, just take a breath and follow your breath and follow the flow and just do what feels right.
And, I'm laying there going How should I know What feels Right? I don't know what to do.
And the second guy was much more directive, much more do this now.
(09:34):
Inhale.
Exhale.
Like he was very directive about when, how, and what to do and really codifying that of this is what works.
Yeah.
So I took that and then, tried a bunch of other styles trying to find what worked and never really found anybody who wasn't just, Completely crazy about The other beliefs that were attached to their breath work.
(09:57):
Hey, we've gotta believe in all this other crazy ethereal stuff for you to do breath work with us.
And I was like, I don't think you need that.
For some people it can be helpful, but, I don't think that's required.
So I went, built a website, set up Facebook, rented 7,000 square feet and said, Hey.
(10:19):
Let's go do breath work over here.
And he was still dragging his feet and I finally got him in there.
He started guiding breath work and I think we had two people show up The first time, which was like, woo.
we got two people to show up, and then it started to grow.
It went like 2, 4, 8, 10.
(10:40):
15, 20, 30.
We were having 35, 40 people at a breathwork class.
It was going really well.
And then, covid hit and that was, we shut down for six weeks.
'cause that Was what the government told us to do.
So we shut down for six weeks.
At six weeks when I opened back up.
I don't think he ever came back after that.
(11:02):
Never to guide a group again.
I don't think he ever came back and guided a group after that.
it was up to me to guide at that point, and I was figuring it out.
I had been guiding some of the groups at that point, but it was like we were doing it together.
And now it was just me.
fortunately we just had two people showed up once Covid was over two brave souls.
a couple of my friends that were there when I first guided breathwork, previously I had owned CrossFit gyms, so I had been a CrossFit coach on the drive home from breathwork, they were calling me Sergeant Breathwork because I was guiding breathwork like I was a CrossFit I was like, inhale, exhale.
(11:37):
it wasn't that bad.
Hey, how do we make him laugh without hurting his feelings? Yeah.
It's awesome.
And it wasn't that bad, but they weren't wrong either.
hilarious.
Yeah.
and then one of the other things I realized was I was Intent on making sure that they had an experience was that I had completely forgotten about ending the class, like when it was over.
(12:01):
So the time was up and I was like, oh, I have no idea what to say now.
And basically it was like, I'm gonna turn the music off now and, we're done.
And that was my first closing.
And then I had to go home and go, yeah, that needs to be, we gotta polish that a little.
gonna have to do a little whiteboard work on that.
(12:21):
bet there were more like, oh, I know.
What? There was a fair amount of that.
I'm glad there weren't many people.
over time it just developed and grew.
And one of the things that really separates our breath work from other breath work facilitators is that other breath work facilitators treat their breath work session like they are the star and that it's radio.
(12:43):
And they're just going to Talk the entire time.
there is not any moment where there's gonna be any dead air.
They're going to talk and lead and guide and basically give a little sermon while you're going through breath work.
And I disagreed with that.
Immensely.
I thought the power of breath work is connecting your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.
(13:07):
And once those two are communicating with each other, there's nothing that I have to say that's going to be more powerful than what your subconscious brings forward to you.
so my whole goal was like, I'm going to guide you through this experience very clearly, and then I'm gonna turn the experience over to you and your experience is going to be whatever your experience is going to be.
And Then we guided them through that.
So I'm guiding the breath work after Covid and, we're open for six more weeks Then we get shut down a second time because of Covid for six weeks.
(13:37):
Now the space I have is about 7,000 square feet.
If you've ever been to our studio.
this is a little over two and a half thousand square feet, It is much, much bigger.
And I go to the landlord and go, Hey, I don't think I can carry 7,000 square feet anymore.
I don't know if we're gonna shut down again.
I don't know how many more of these shutdowns I can take.
what can we do? Fortunately we were in a commercial building that, overall the building was about 50,000 square feet.
(14:01):
Damn.
so he is go, I got this other room over here.
It's a thousand square feet with two bathrooms.
I'm like, sold.
I'll take that one.
So we were there for, a year.
And It was Southern and 48th Street.
Basically general area.
And it was a co-located space, so it wasn't mine exclusively.
So every time we had breath work, we had to put all the mats out, had.
(14:24):
Put the speakers out, set up the sound system.
And then when it was over, break it all down, put it all the way.
And I was getting real tired of that.
so went to the landlord again and started looking for other spaces and said, Hey, what do you have that's a little more exclusive that I can have for myself.
Yeah.
And he said, we've got 1700 feet over here and that can be all yours.
You can set it up.
(14:45):
It's exclusively yours.
You have your own exterior door.
I'm like, great, let's set that up.
So we do that and now we've got a full blown lease.
Things are going very well, and one Friday he comes in and says, Hey, I sold the building.
this Friday afternoon, you gotta get out by Sunday.
Oh, wow.
And I was like that's problematic.
(15:06):
I don't have anywhere to go.
So we found a place, at least I thought, I found a place.
And we get a Ryder truck and I said, Hey, we've got a lease with you and you can't just throw me out.
He's me, don't care.
Like I sold the building for enough money that this is.
This is your problem.
Not my problem.
I'm like, it's gonna be legal action about this.
(15:28):
He's I'll pay you to Leave, oh, okay.
It's not what I wanted.
So we have one more class there Monday night and have at the end of class, basically just have everybody pick up their mat and take it out to this rider truck and put it in this rider truck.
I love it.
And that was the last group participation.
Yeah, that was our last class there.
(15:48):
Okay.
Now we're gonna move to a place that's 6,000 square feet.
And I'm like, yeah, now we're talking back.
Back to the big time.
And just drive the truck over to the new place that's around the corner.
Park it there.
call the place Tuesday morning.
Hey, we're ready to make deposit and move in.
What do you got? They're like, yeah, we'll get back to you tomorrow with the contract.
They call me back Wednesday and they're like, yeah.
(16:11):
we decided to go with a national tenant and a national tenant is like a National HQ company that.
they just have a department that cuts a check and it's a national company that's a chain that they pay rent for.
And I was like, from a business point of view, that makes much better sense than renting To me.
But, no, I don't have a place.
So we spend the next two weeks just desperately trying to find a location and after about two weeks we can't find anything.
(16:37):
this is February.
I'm like, I don't think we're gonna find anything till October.
Like October seems like a good time for us to move into a new place.
I will stop looking with such urgency, but I'll just keep looking around.
So that's what we do.
And then we look at many places from.
Mid Tempe to North Scottsdale.
(16:58):
that 1 0 1 quarter.
We're just looking at anything that's 1500 to 5,000 square feet.
What do you got to help me out? I just need a big room here and we can't find anything like it is just barren.
I finally find a place in June, email them It takes forever.
It is a very lengthy process.
(17:19):
We find the place in June.
So I think it's August before we sign a lease.
Okay.
So we've been talking to 'em since June.
Hey, will you take our money and let us move in? They finally signed the lease in August you need to redo the floor.
You need to redo the ac, you need to hang some lights.
Paint the bathroom doors.
(17:40):
They get that done, by January.
Wow.
no.
And they were like, I will have it done in November.
And I'm like, December's largely useless to me.
Oh yeah.
Everybody's super busy.
Yeah.
If I had a thriving business, which I do not, we will have no clients there in December.
(18:00):
Kim, my partner's found a dance studio and she's offering breath work there.
week.
Yeah.
So you're able to lead it there too I've decided not to because it's on yoga mats.
It's super small.
It's not what I wanna do.
I just wanna keep this going.
okay.
I'm gonna sit this one out.
So every once in a while we go help her there on a Thursday night, but most of the breath work at that period is Kim holding down the fort and me just.
(18:22):
She's doing another, living room style And you're like, listen, we need to be in a stadium.
it's nicer than a living room but not much.
Okay.
Yeah.
here's a yoga mat and I'm like, I'm not gonna lay on a yoga mat for two hours and do breath work.
Yeah.
we'll take possession January 5th.
we'll open up.
And they, missed the January 5th.
Deadline.
(18:43):
I think we open, like we've got a big grand opening planned and we don't have the keys and nobody's here.
That sucks.
So I am, I'm a little at this point, I'm bitter Towards the ownership and management group.
Hey, we had a, we had an agreement on this and in the future there will be penalties for deadlines missed.
(19:05):
Yeah.
Managed to, our grand opening was not very grand by the time we got to having it.
I think we had maybe 10 people here.
And I was like, all, it was sold out last week.
and then we have this beautiful facility that we're in now, And that's how we got to this location.
Yeah.
And how we got here.
Awesome.
I don't know if I was gonna talk about anything else more than that today.
(19:26):
I might have a question.
so there's no like official class to go to, to be a breathwork.
Facilitator there are a lot of breath work facilitator training classes.
that's really good.
Okay.
I've taken several of them.
I have my own breath work facilitation course that I offer.
Okay.
and the breath work facilitator courses are amazing.
(19:46):
they kind of range from $250, for an online course all the way up to 10 to $15,000, for a seven day retreat of breath work, facilitation.
Okay.
And have you been to both? I have not been to the bigger ones.
Mostly because in looking at their agenda and their, outline I know all that.
(20:09):
okay.
and there was holotropic breath work and to be a certified holotropic breath work facilitator, it's like a two year course.
Oh, wow.
I think it's seven or eight different courses that you have to take over two years.
Okay.
so I did some of the lower ones and then just in the process of doing it realized that most of them.
didn't line up with what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it.
(20:30):
Okay.
And it's Hey, you're teaching me to do something that I don't wanna do, I don't wanna do it that way.
Speaking back on that When you talked earlier about how, that there's people with the beliefs and mysticism type things connected to breath work.
Can you gimme an example of anything that like jumps out at you as whoa, this could be something that is just not, that it's wrong.
(20:51):
holotropic breath work is a great example of this.
I think one of the reasons that it stayed.
Rather niche is that Stanislau came up with what he called the perinatal birth matrix.
if I'm doing this from memory, there are four parts of the birthing process and each of those gets recreated during the breath work experience.
there's the Garden of Eden portion of, being born where you're just floating in the amniotic fluid in the womb.
(21:17):
And everything is wonderful.
And then as it progressed, contractions concur, which are constricting on you.
then there's the part where you're actually Being born and basically being choked to death.
the birthing process for a baby difficult on mother, going through the canal isn't easy Your head's getting squished.
Your lungs are getting squished.
the life choked out of you in order to be born.
(21:40):
then you come out and somebody.
Slaps you and air comes into you in many spiritual communities, the air coming into you is the point at which you actually receive a soul that.
First breath is the breath of life and the Biological processes that happen from that Is crazy.
Yeah.
the breath is like a catalyst Yes.
(22:00):
To, to every system in your entire body.
Just jump starting.
Yes.
Like every cell, every, it was crazy.
Of all of our bodily functions, every system, every whatever.
And I was just like.
What I mean, it's the key.
yeah.
So in a lot of spiritual traditions, the spirit doesn't enter the body.
Like it'll hang out around the mother and be close by, but the spirit doesn't actually enter the body until that first So a lot of the.
(22:28):
Breath work intention, the breath work experience that Stan has around his breath work is involved around the trauma that takes place pre-birth, that he's work walking you through the perinatal birth matrix, that he's created.
And I think there's something to it.
I think that is a component, but I don't think it is the end all, be all of the experience itself.
(22:50):
and there is, belief in past lives, belief in projecting astral projection, While I'm accepting of those things, I'm also not, belief of physical miracles, physical, do people come here and experience.
Physical healing, physical miracles, having ulcerative colitis, like becoming asymptomatic is what we call it.
(23:15):
we're not allowed to say that it's a cure 'cause then the FTC gets involved.
But a permanent remission of symptoms for ulcerative colitis, sciatica, any number of conditions.
Can it happen? Yes.
Am I going to tell you it's going to happen? No.
I do not know why.
Miracles happen sometimes and they don't others? I can't conjure them on command and many people, once.
(23:39):
they see a miracle like that, they think, I am the vessel of the miracle and I have no belief that I'm the vessel of the miracle.
Yeah.
I may be a witness to it.
but it's not my power.
It's not my authority.
not who is doing it, I can see why it'd be very easy for other people once they get to witness something like that, that they think it was them that was doing Sure.
(23:59):
I had a headache when I came in here and now I don't Concept and this is, yeah.
My headache here.
And you're like, I'm here for it.
True.
To do your true.
little of those miracles happen.
But I'm also not going to promise you.
Okay.
There are absolutely facilitators who are going to promise that coming in.
And then if you don't get that, then they'll blame you for not having sufficient faith, not cool, sufficiently straight, not cool at you, didn't follow it perfectly.
(24:23):
Okay.
That makes sense Now that's one of the other things that I see, with a lot of breath work guides is that you have to do this exactly perfectly the way I say it.
And if you didn't do it exactly perfectly on the cadence at the time, and you didn't get the experience, that's your fault.
Gotcha.
And one of the things I was shooting for was like, what is the most broadly applicable and effective way that we can do this so that we can reliably create this experience without making it that person's fault? Sure.
(24:51):
and our success rate is about 149 out of 150.
149 of them are going to have some level of experience.
Yeah.
Whatever That, whether it be the relaxation time to reflect or An all out, transcendental, whatever you wanna call it.
Experience.
yeah.
Like the, as we say, the mildest experiences of deep meditation where your mind goes quiet.
(25:11):
you can experience a full blown transcendent experience where your loss of time, loss of space, loss of self, you, be connected with all And that it's ineffable, meaning that there are no words to describe it.
All right, so I can have another question.
Sure.
I need to know more about that 'cause I think it's, one Second.
Have we gone over about that? we were actually well under time, so I appreciate the questions.
Okay, so you asked about the music? Yeah.
(25:35):
So I can go on about this topic for I know you mentioned it earlier about how you asked for his playlist, right? and you were trying to have An experience again, it sounded like, to repeat that.
So what about that urge.
Led you to say, Hey, there's something about the music.
I'm wanting you To show what that importance is to breath work.
(25:55):
Does that make sense? So to go back to the beginning during his playlist, I was dealing with a lot of trauma.
I didn't know it at the time, I just thought I was angry, but that was caused by something.
And apparently I had a little trauma to work through and the playlist that he had, was.
40 minutes of drumming by Byron Metcalf.
And if you in the spiritual community, you'll recognize that.
(26:16):
And if not, I highly recommend his music.
But it was 40 minutes of deep bass shamonic drumming.
And that takes you into a very deep, dark place in which you can work through some Okay.
Okay.
And that was my.
First breath work playlist.
Okay? And every.
Like within the last two years, I think I've played a similar playlist of that once.
That was the first playlist that I made was very similar to that.
(26:39):
Okay.
And in doing other people's breath works, I quickly began to realize how much the music made an impact on the experience.
And not everybody was good at it.
or their, let's say their taste did not resonate with my taste.
Yeah.
and it was very the, like when I say it wasn't my taste, I was like, I'm sure there's somebody here who is enjoying this and it's not me.
(27:03):
Yeah.
that led me to, Hey, what is the music that does resonate with me? one of the Things I realized very quickly is there are.
in my corporate life, what made me good was I was always trying to tell a story.
Hey, lemme tell you the story of the product.
Lemme tell you the story of this company.
Lemme tell you the story of why your role in this company is important and why what you do matters.
(27:27):
That I'm always trying to do that through a story to people and I realized that the music was a story and that a lot of these people were just playing.
Random songs that they liked.
There was no cohesive through line, through the music.
Yeah.
It was just like, Hey, we're doing this, then we're doing this, then we're doing This.
And I was like, that is super random and I'm not appreciative.
(27:49):
there needs to be an arc here.
Yeah.
So beginning, middle, end.
That's how Disney does all their movies.
That's how Pixar does it.
Of course.
Hey, you have a challenge.
The challenge gets worse, and then you have a cure, and then you're better at the end.
And that is most story arcs.
That's the way it goes.
feel like it's a character in the breath work experience, or do you feel like it's more of just the.
(28:14):
gimme an analogy about what the importance of that music.
Like how can you bring music into showing what it is in Breath work? sure.
I think some of my better breath work playlists start with either the assumption of an intention or the assumption of a pain.
what kind of pain, are you dealing with? Are you dealing with anxiety, depression? Are you dealing with trauma? Are you Dealing, with bitterness because of lack of forgiveness? Are you dealing with self-worth? what trial is it that you're facing in your life that you would like to overcome and be done with? and then from that, the very beginning of the breath work is.
(28:47):
Basically a sound bath.
It's just something going in the background so that I can talk over It.
And guide you through that breath.
music in the background, but just lovely.
Sure.
sound bath music almost every.
Spoken word thing you hear on Spotify has some of that in the background and that it plays along with it and during the silence it gives you something to listen to.
(29:09):
So we've got about 20 minutes of that because that's about how long I talk when I'm guiding breath work is Hey, I need 20 minutes here where I can talk and guide and get you into the experience and get you going.
And then after that, we will come the entrainment portion, or what I call the induction.
An induction is the journey from the world of reality to the world of your subconscious.
(29:30):
and that's largely drumming.
Like it's a solid, steady beat.
That's why we call it entrainment is that, that don't.
Boom, boom.
We're trying to get everything in your body on one rhythm, okay? if we can get everything entrain.
So what entrainment means that, things will vibrate and resonate together.
(29:50):
Okay? so if you have a violin and you a D-ring on the violin.
If there's another violin there, the D-ring on the other violin, if that isn't being touched, will start to vibrate.
Okay.
None of the other strings.
Great analogy.
Okay, cool.
So that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to create that mental, emotional entrainment in your body, in your breath, in your mind, so that they can all come together and be one cohesive hole.
(30:12):
And that's what we're doing with that.
That can be anywhere from five to 15 minutes, 20 minutes.
Like I said, the first playlist was like 40 minutes of that, of we're just gonna keep dropping this beat on you.
and then after that comes what I call the wave.
And the wave is up and down and left and right.
So up high positive light energy.
(30:34):
Okay? Down.
Okay.
And then, that's also the light and the dark.
just because something is high tempo doesn't mean it's happy.
Okay.
it can also be you have light, dark, high, low, and that's the four quadrants that you're dealing with there.
And that you can do both of those.
that I'm taking you on that 3D journey of high, low.
(30:54):
Awesome.
Through the music.
it is designed to take you into some dark places intentionally.
Sure.
to get you to like, Hey, look at this over here that you haven't looked at since you were 12.
Pull that out into the light.
And because it goes up and down, your energy is going up and down.
You can't maintain peak energy for very long, and you can't maintain bottom energy for very long.
(31:16):
So we're going back and forth in between them that it's a wave and then, the wave can last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.
And then after the wave is over, we do what I call the river.
And the river is the gentle music where it's just kinda a little bit more sound.
Bathy.
It's a little slower tempo.
I call it the river 'cause it's like fur loading on a lazy river.
When you're in breath work, you're just floating and Letting everything that's happened integrate into your body, integrate into your mind, I thought you meant river, like the Texas hold them where you like fold over the river card or something.
(31:50):
no, the River may be first, so now I don't know.
like you're on a lazy river, that's the end of breath work.
So that's my three part play.
And we're gonna do that Yeah.
wake up and then I have figured out how to bring people back.
That's excellent.
A little bit more gently.
Yes.
Okay, good.
Hey, we need to discontinue the connected breath.
I'm like, oh, that's a good idea.
(32:10):
They're like, Hey, we should probably stop that connected breathing before we call 'em back.
They're all wake up and just, Yeah.
That's awesome.
so I got that from someone else, but everything else I did, in calling people back, I appreciate.
music is hugely important.
you can't do breath work without it.
I did do breath work one time without music, non-intentional.
(32:31):
I led an online breath work, class.
I dunno, maybe I had 15, 20 people online for this.
And in Zoom, when you are playing music, you have to go into the advanced settings to share the music that is playing on your computer over the Zoom, and I forgot that step that day.
(32:52):
I was having a great time listening to the music while they heard nothing.
And then at the end they were like, a test to see if we Could do the breath work in silence? And I was like.
I can't imagine just turn the camera off, turn around and jump on my pen on the floor.
Oh, no.
Stab myself.
I was like, no, This was just your facilitator being a bonehead.
(33:15):
how did they think there's something missing they had experiences.
Okay.
you can definitely.
Have it in silence That the physiological effects will be the effects.
Okay.
it will take off, but certainly a lot less guided.
and it's certainly a little bit more difficult to keep the energy cohesive of the group if there's no music.
I hear the dog and the Birds outside and somebody Talking, walking past my window.
(33:40):
I think I busted out the Buddhist cone of, There is no bird, there is no song.
And once you've achieved enlightenment, that makes sense.
But if you've just done a breath work class with no music, it's probably sounds a little patronizing.
Yeah.
that was all I had.
I'm glad you told me about the music part.
'cause I feel like that's such A Huge part of breath work the emotional rollercoaster that the music brings you on.
(34:03):
I have a client who's.
Been doing breath work with me for almost the entire time, and he's only done breath work with me.
and one time he was like, yeah, I don't think your music's really that different from anybody else or that special.
I was like, if you are challenging me to play somebody else's playlist at breathwork so you can see the difference that will be most entertaining.
(34:27):
Nice.
Nice.
I think I do have a gift 'cause most of the time I make a playlist, I listen to maybe four or five seconds of the song.
And then I put it in the playlist and then when I go back and listen to it a second time, I listened to four or five seconds of the song and rearrange the songs based off of intuition.
Yeah.
And then go, Yeah.
(34:47):
I hope that works.
Yeah.
It's part of what's impressive.
you feel like not only have Been into a rock concert, but also a psychology appointment with your counselor or whatever.
The two are so different, but yet so needed when you just have music is a part of our lives, I was pretty Pleased with myself.
I like that.
Sold work To a soundtrack.
Work With a Count, with a soundtrack.
(35:08):
thanks for telling me your story.
I can't wait to hear more.
you being here.
I don't know if I've ever heard of the holotropic.
Holotropic breath work is like the OG of breath work in.
Western Society.
It started by Stanislav.
Groff was a Czechoslovakian therapist who back in the fifties and sixties when, I believe it was Eli Lilly came out with LSD 25.
(00:28):
They didn't know what to do with it.
They knew it had effects, but they're like, we don't know how to market this.
We don't know how to prescribe it they just sent it out to a bunch of doctors and said, Hey, can you figure out.
What to do with this, with your patients.
And Stan was one of those doctors who got that and he ended up doing about 4,000 therapy sessions with people on LSD.
Wow.
Yes.
(00:49):
He was having incredible results, incredible outcomes with people pairing LSD and therapy together.
Eventually the seventies roll around and they outlaw LSD and he's stuck.
He's accustomed to working with people in LSD and getting them these kind of results where mere talk therapy is not going to do that.
One of the things that he noticed.
(01:10):
While he was guiding people through these LSD sessions is at the end of it, they would all have the same breathing pattern that their breathing pattern would take on this rhythmic nature and be very cyclic, cyclical and connected and into the belly.
And his wife came up with the idea of what if that breathing, what if it goes both ways.
(01:32):
What if that experience has causes the breathing, but that breathing can also cause the experience.
Hold on.
His wife said that.
Yes.
Wow.
So they come up with holotropic breath work, which is a kind of circular breathing, conscious connected breathing where every breath is connected.
He has a lot of, mystical beliefs surrounding breath work that.
Didn't really line up with me at the time.
(01:53):
Like I knew holotropic breath work's powerful, but before this experience, I didn't know much about holotropic breath work.
My friend Chaos has this friend who's a holotropic breath work coach travels the country, offering groups holotropic breath work experiences.
Usually holotropic breath work is done over the course of an entire weekend.
It's a very involved process, but he's gonna give us a.
(02:13):
Two, three hour experience.
So me, Kim, my son, we all go up to Prescott.
And we do holotropic breath work with him.
And I lay there for two hours and nothing happens.
I was cautiously optimistic but also pessimistic.
The breath work would do anything.
Like I knew ayahuasca worked every time, all the time.
(02:35):
You take that by God, you're gonna have a mystical experience.
And I did this breath work, laid there, looked at the ceiling.
It was like, yeah, this is some cool music.
And I didn't get much from this.
So I was like that Check breath, work off the list of modalities.
That did not work.
Fast forward, maybe a month or two later, I end up taking two girls to an ayahuasca ceremony in Mexico.
(02:55):
And as we're coming back, one of the girls says, Hey, my boyfriend is a breathwork guide and he's got a class in Tempe.
You should come to it.
And I was like, eh.
I've done breath work.
It was pretty minimal, like nothing happened.
And both of them are raving about it.
They're like, no, it's incredible.
It's great.
You gotta do it.
I was like, me? Nah, I checked it off the list.
I'm good thanks.
(03:16):
I like to do things that, that work.
And they were very insistent.
The one friend Natalie was very insistent that I try this breath work.
So through her, persistent persuasion.
she eventually got me to take a breath work class with him, and I went in and did the breath work and had a full blown mystical experience.
(03:40):
It was like ayahuasca and bufo mixed together while I was doing this for two hours, and it was amazing.
It was incredible.
Got a lot of messages, got a lot of downloads, and just had a really powerful experience and was like, wow.
This is it.
This is the stuff I have found, the thing I can do this every day and, do this.
(04:02):
So at the end of class I'm like, Hey man what's the playlist of the music you were playing there? So he takes a screenshot of the song, sends it to me and says good luck got speed.
I go home the next day, build the soundtrack, lay down to do, breath work.
I huff, I puff, I do everything that I thought he told us to do.
(04:22):
And basically at the end of 30 minutes, all I have is sore ribs and nothing's happened.
Sore ribs.
So I try again the next day and nothing go back to the class again a week later.
Do the experience.
Another full-blown mystical experience.
Super powerful, very emotional.
I think it was that one where I ugly cried for 40 minutes.
(04:43):
Nice.
Just snot, snot bubble cried.
When it was over, I sat up and poured a bottle of water over my head so nobody would be able to tell it was me.
That had been like blubbering the whole time.
Not tears.
Got sweaty.
I just gotta, I spill my water.
Oh my gosh.
Correctly over my head.
You won't be able to tell.
And that was, incredible.
Paid even more attention to the directions this time and said, all right, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna figure this out, put the playlist on, do the breath work, nothing.
(05:11):
And I'm like.
This is terrible.
I can only do it in a group and it turns out there is something to group energy that for sure.
In seven or eight years of doing breath work, I think I've had two experiences doing breath work by myself.
Okay.
And that when I do it in a group, it generally, at this point, it takes me about three breaths and I've dropped in.
(05:33):
I'm now a regular at breath work.
I'm going every week.
I'm trying to sort my life out.
Got a lot of stress that I'm dealing with, and breath work is keeping me regulated.
I keep doing the breath work, and I realize, hey, it might be easier to get people to come to breath work.
Than it would be to come to Ayahuasca and it will help prepare them for the psychedelic experience that if you do this breath work it is, it's like, Hey, how about we jog a couple times before we go run a marathon? Like, do I breathe in Tempe or do I.
(06:06):
So if I'm trying to attract people it's certainly a much easier appeal.
So I'm bringing people to breath work and, we're doing breath work in this guy's family room and there's 15 to 17 people in there and we are elbow to elbow.
Oh, wow.
Yeah, it is not the most luxurious experience.
He's not spending a lot on production here.
(06:28):
So during one of my breath work experiences, I have this vision of 60 people doing breath work together every week we need to polish this up a little bit.
Yeah, we need to bring a little professionalism to this.
You are a great guy.
You're a great facilitator.
I'm really good at this business thing.
I'll get this going for us.
And he's eh, yeah.
(06:52):
I don't know.
and I was like, all right, We're doing it.
So in the time that we're doing this, I'm also looking for, I'm asking him, Hey, where'd you learn how to do breath work? There's not a lot of information on the internet at the time about breath work, and he's pretty cagey about how he learned it.
Okay.
So I just start taking everybody's breath work.
(07:13):
Everybody online, in Person.
what do you got? Let me see it.
How you doing it? And what I'm looking for is.
I'm looking for a guide.
I'm looking for someone to say Hey, this is how we do it.
This is why we do it.
this is what works.
And I'm also looking for somebody who doesn't have, it's very easy when you do breath work to get caught up into, magical thinking, okay.
(07:38):
Where they have a lot of beliefs attached to the breath work.
Why don't we just stick to the breath? You're wanting to enjoy this.
If you go down a certain path with a certain belief, could turn those people away.
Sure.
we don't have to believe in unicorns and shockers to do this.
A Wikipedia page of breath work when you first started checking it out, or no? Not yet.
No.
Not yet.
There wasn't even a Wikipedia page job.
Okay.
Yeah, I was like, this is early.
(07:59):
at that time, no.
Have you ever edited.
The Wikipedia page? I figured my belief on that is anything I edited would get kicked right off.
They would edit me right off the page.
So while I'm doing this, I'm having all these other experiences I'm seeing and I'm judging it by what about this was effective? And what about this was just fluff and window dressing.
(08:19):
And there's a lot of window dressing.
Okay.
And then very little here's the part.
That actually does the thing.
Okay.
which part of this is the mechanistic effect that's going to create the outcome that we're looking for? One of the things, people often ask like, why didn't the first one work? Why did the second one work? This is around 2017.
(08:41):
At that time, people who were leading guiding breath work were used to working with people who were spiritually naturals.
What do you mean by that? So like back in the 1950s, 1960s, if you were an athletics coach, or coaching a team, everybody that you worked with was a natural athlete.
Sure, okay.
They were already strong, fast, and then you were just moving them around and the same thing was happening in the spiritual community at that time, in that everybody who was doing it, involved in it, attracted to it, had a natural propensity towards that thing.
(09:12):
So if you listen to any of the breath work.
Guidance back then.
It's hey, just take a breath and follow your breath and follow the flow and just do what feels right.
And, I'm laying there going How should I know What feels Right? I don't know what to do.
And the second guy was much more directive, much more do this now.
(09:34):
Inhale.
Exhale.
Like he was very directive about when, how, and what to do and really codifying that of this is what works.
Yeah.
So I took that and then, tried a bunch of other styles trying to find what worked and never really found anybody who wasn't just, Completely crazy about The other beliefs that were attached to their breath work.
(09:57):
Hey, we've gotta believe in all this other crazy ethereal stuff for you to do breath work with us.
And I was like, I don't think you need that.
For some people it can be helpful, but, I don't think that's required.
So I went, built a website, set up Facebook, rented 7,000 square feet and said, Hey.
(10:19):
Let's go do breath work over here.
And he was still dragging his feet and I finally got him in there.
He started guiding breath work and I think we had two people show up The first time, which was like, woo.
we got two people to show up, and then it started to grow.
It went like 2, 4, 8, 10.
(10:40):
15, 20, 30.
We were having 35, 40 people at a breathwork class.
It was going really well.
And then, covid hit and that was, we shut down for six weeks.
'cause that Was what the government told us to do.
So we shut down for six weeks.
At six weeks when I opened back up.
I don't think he ever came back after that.
(11:02):
Never to guide a group again.
I don't think he ever came back and guided a group after that.
it was up to me to guide at that point, and I was figuring it out.
I had been guiding some of the groups at that point, but it was like we were doing it together.
And now it was just me.
fortunately we just had two people showed up once Covid was over two brave souls.
a couple of my friends that were there when I first guided breathwork, previously I had owned CrossFit gyms, so I had been a CrossFit coach on the drive home from breathwork, they were calling me Sergeant Breathwork because I was guiding breathwork like I was a CrossFit I was like, inhale, exhale.
(11:37):
it wasn't that bad.
Hey, how do we make him laugh without hurting his feelings? Yeah.
It's awesome.
And it wasn't that bad, but they weren't wrong either.
hilarious.
Yeah.
and then one of the other things I realized was I was Intent on making sure that they had an experience was that I had completely forgotten about ending the class, like when it was over.
(12:01):
So the time was up and I was like, oh, I have no idea what to say now.
And basically it was like, I'm gonna turn the music off now and, we're done.
And that was my first closing.
And then I had to go home and go, yeah, that needs to be, we gotta polish that a little.
gonna have to do a little whiteboard work on that.
(12:21):
bet there were more like, oh, I know.
What? There was a fair amount of that.
I'm glad there weren't many people.
over time it just developed and grew.
And one of the things that really separates our breath work from other breath work facilitators is that other breath work facilitators treat their breath work session like they are the star and that it's radio.
(12:43):
And they're just going to Talk the entire time.
there is not any moment where there's gonna be any dead air.
They're going to talk and lead and guide and basically give a little sermon while you're going through breath work.
And I disagreed with that.
Immensely.
I thought the power of breath work is connecting your conscious mind to your subconscious mind.
(13:07):
And once those two are communicating with each other, there's nothing that I have to say that's going to be more powerful than what your subconscious brings forward to you.
so my whole goal was like, I'm going to guide you through this experience very clearly, and then I'm gonna turn the experience over to you and your experience is going to be whatever your experience is going to be.
And Then we guided them through that.
So I'm guiding the breath work after Covid and, we're open for six more weeks Then we get shut down a second time because of Covid for six weeks.
(13:37):
Now the space I have is about 7,000 square feet.
If you've ever been to our studio.
this is a little over two and a half thousand square feet, It is much, much bigger.
And I go to the landlord and go, Hey, I don't think I can carry 7,000 square feet anymore.
I don't know if we're gonna shut down again.
I don't know how many more of these shutdowns I can take.
what can we do? Fortunately we were in a commercial building that, overall the building was about 50,000 square feet.
(14:01):
Damn.
so he is go, I got this other room over here.
It's a thousand square feet with two bathrooms.
I'm like, sold.
I'll take that one.
So we were there for, a year.
And It was Southern and 48th Street.
Basically general area.
And it was a co-located space, so it wasn't mine exclusively.
So every time we had breath work, we had to put all the mats out, had.
(14:24):
Put the speakers out, set up the sound system.
And then when it was over, break it all down, put it all the way.
And I was getting real tired of that.
so went to the landlord again and started looking for other spaces and said, Hey, what do you have that's a little more exclusive that I can have for myself.
Yeah.
And he said, we've got 1700 feet over here and that can be all yours.
You can set it up.
(14:45):
It's exclusively yours.
You have your own exterior door.
I'm like, great, let's set that up.
So we do that and now we've got a full blown lease.
Things are going very well, and one Friday he comes in and says, Hey, I sold the building.
this Friday afternoon, you gotta get out by Sunday.
Oh, wow.
And I was like that's problematic.
(15:06):
I don't have anywhere to go.
So we found a place, at least I thought, I found a place.
And we get a Ryder truck and I said, Hey, we've got a lease with you and you can't just throw me out.
He's me, don't care.
Like I sold the building for enough money that this is.
This is your problem.
Not my problem.
I'm like, it's gonna be legal action about this.
(15:28):
He's I'll pay you to Leave, oh, okay.
It's not what I wanted.
So we have one more class there Monday night and have at the end of class, basically just have everybody pick up their mat and take it out to this rider truck and put it in this rider truck.
I love it.
And that was the last group participation.
Yeah, that was our last class there.
(15:48):
Okay.
Now we're gonna move to a place that's 6,000 square feet.
And I'm like, yeah, now we're talking back.
Back to the big time.
And just drive the truck over to the new place that's around the corner.
Park it there.
call the place Tuesday morning.
Hey, we're ready to make deposit and move in.
What do you got? They're like, yeah, we'll get back to you tomorrow with the contract.
They call me back Wednesday and they're like, yeah.
(16:11):
we decided to go with a national tenant and a national tenant is like a National HQ company that.
they just have a department that cuts a check and it's a national company that's a chain that they pay rent for.
And I was like, from a business point of view, that makes much better sense than renting To me.
But, no, I don't have a place.
So we spend the next two weeks just desperately trying to find a location and after about two weeks we can't find anything.
(16:37):
this is February.
I'm like, I don't think we're gonna find anything till October.
Like October seems like a good time for us to move into a new place.
I will stop looking with such urgency, but I'll just keep looking around.
So that's what we do.
And then we look at many places from.
Mid Tempe to North Scottsdale.
(16:58):
that 1 0 1 quarter.
We're just looking at anything that's 1500 to 5,000 square feet.
What do you got to help me out? I just need a big room here and we can't find anything like it is just barren.
I finally find a place in June, email them It takes forever.
It is a very lengthy process.
(17:19):
We find the place in June.
So I think it's August before we sign a lease.
Okay.
So we've been talking to 'em since June.
Hey, will you take our money and let us move in? They finally signed the lease in August you need to redo the floor.
You need to redo the ac, you need to hang some lights.
Paint the bathroom doors.
(17:40):
They get that done, by January.
Wow.
no.
And they were like, I will have it done in November.
And I'm like, December's largely useless to me.
Oh yeah.
Everybody's super busy.
Yeah.
If I had a thriving business, which I do not, we will have no clients there in December.
(18:00):
Kim, my partner's found a dance studio and she's offering breath work there.
week.
Yeah.
So you're able to lead it there too I've decided not to because it's on yoga mats.
It's super small.
It's not what I wanna do.
I just wanna keep this going.
okay.
I'm gonna sit this one out.
So every once in a while we go help her there on a Thursday night, but most of the breath work at that period is Kim holding down the fort and me just.
(18:22):
She's doing another, living room style And you're like, listen, we need to be in a stadium.
it's nicer than a living room but not much.
Okay.
Yeah.
here's a yoga mat and I'm like, I'm not gonna lay on a yoga mat for two hours and do breath work.
Yeah.
we'll take possession January 5th.
we'll open up.
And they, missed the January 5th.
Deadline.
(18:43):
I think we open, like we've got a big grand opening planned and we don't have the keys and nobody's here.
That sucks.
So I am, I'm a little at this point, I'm bitter Towards the ownership and management group.
Hey, we had a, we had an agreement on this and in the future there will be penalties for deadlines missed.
(19:05):
Yeah.
Managed to, our grand opening was not very grand by the time we got to having it.
I think we had maybe 10 people here.
And I was like, all, it was sold out last week.
and then we have this beautiful facility that we're in now, And that's how we got to this location.
Yeah.
And how we got here.
Awesome.
I don't know if I was gonna talk about anything else more than that today.
(19:26):
I might have a question.
so there's no like official class to go to, to be a breathwork.
Facilitator there are a lot of breath work facilitator training classes.
that's really good.
Okay.
I've taken several of them.
I have my own breath work facilitation course that I offer.
Okay.
and the breath work facilitator courses are amazing.
(19:46):
they kind of range from $250, for an online course all the way up to 10 to $15,000, for a seven day retreat of breath work, facilitation.
Okay.
And have you been to both? I have not been to the bigger ones.
Mostly because in looking at their agenda and their, outline I know all that.
(20:09):
okay.
and there was holotropic breath work and to be a certified holotropic breath work facilitator, it's like a two year course.
Oh, wow.
I think it's seven or eight different courses that you have to take over two years.
Okay.
so I did some of the lower ones and then just in the process of doing it realized that most of them.
didn't line up with what I wanted to do or how I wanted to do it.
(20:30):
Okay.
And it's Hey, you're teaching me to do something that I don't wanna do, I don't wanna do it that way.
Speaking back on that When you talked earlier about how, that there's people with the beliefs and mysticism type things connected to breath work.
Can you gimme an example of anything that like jumps out at you as whoa, this could be something that is just not, that it's wrong.
(20:51):
holotropic breath work is a great example of this.
I think one of the reasons that it stayed.
Rather niche is that Stanislau came up with what he called the perinatal birth matrix.
if I'm doing this from memory, there are four parts of the birthing process and each of those gets recreated during the breath work experience.
there's the Garden of Eden portion of, being born where you're just floating in the amniotic fluid in the womb.
(21:17):
And everything is wonderful.
And then as it progressed, contractions concur, which are constricting on you.
then there's the part where you're actually Being born and basically being choked to death.
the birthing process for a baby difficult on mother, going through the canal isn't easy Your head's getting squished.
Your lungs are getting squished.
the life choked out of you in order to be born.
(21:40):
then you come out and somebody.
Slaps you and air comes into you in many spiritual communities, the air coming into you is the point at which you actually receive a soul that.
First breath is the breath of life and the Biological processes that happen from that Is crazy.
Yeah.
the breath is like a catalyst Yes.
(22:00):
To, to every system in your entire body.
Just jump starting.
Yes.
Like every cell, every, it was crazy.
Of all of our bodily functions, every system, every whatever.
And I was just like.
What I mean, it's the key.
yeah.
So in a lot of spiritual traditions, the spirit doesn't enter the body.
Like it'll hang out around the mother and be close by, but the spirit doesn't actually enter the body until that first So a lot of the.
(22:28):
Breath work intention, the breath work experience that Stan has around his breath work is involved around the trauma that takes place pre-birth, that he's work walking you through the perinatal birth matrix, that he's created.
And I think there's something to it.
I think that is a component, but I don't think it is the end all, be all of the experience itself.
(22:50):
and there is, belief in past lives, belief in projecting astral projection, While I'm accepting of those things, I'm also not, belief of physical miracles, physical, do people come here and experience.
Physical healing, physical miracles, having ulcerative colitis, like becoming asymptomatic is what we call it.
(23:15):
we're not allowed to say that it's a cure 'cause then the FTC gets involved.
But a permanent remission of symptoms for ulcerative colitis, sciatica, any number of conditions.
Can it happen? Yes.
Am I going to tell you it's going to happen? No.
I do not know why.
Miracles happen sometimes and they don't others? I can't conjure them on command and many people, once.
(23:39):
they see a miracle like that, they think, I am the vessel of the miracle and I have no belief that I'm the vessel of the miracle.
Yeah.
I may be a witness to it.
but it's not my power.
It's not my authority.
not who is doing it, I can see why it'd be very easy for other people once they get to witness something like that, that they think it was them that was doing Sure.
(23:59):
I had a headache when I came in here and now I don't Concept and this is, yeah.
My headache here.
And you're like, I'm here for it.
True.
To do your true.
little of those miracles happen.
But I'm also not going to promise you.
Okay.
There are absolutely facilitators who are going to promise that coming in.
And then if you don't get that, then they'll blame you for not having sufficient faith, not cool, sufficiently straight, not cool at you, didn't follow it perfectly.
(24:23):
Okay.
That makes sense Now that's one of the other things that I see, with a lot of breath work guides is that you have to do this exactly perfectly the way I say it.
And if you didn't do it exactly perfectly on the cadence at the time, and you didn't get the experience, that's your fault.
Gotcha.
And one of the things I was shooting for was like, what is the most broadly applicable and effective way that we can do this so that we can reliably create this experience without making it that person's fault? Sure.
(24:51):
and our success rate is about 149 out of 150.
149 of them are going to have some level of experience.
Yeah.
Whatever That, whether it be the relaxation time to reflect or An all out, transcendental, whatever you wanna call it.
Experience.
yeah.
Like the, as we say, the mildest experiences of deep meditation where your mind goes quiet.
(25:11):
you can experience a full blown transcendent experience where your loss of time, loss of space, loss of self, you, be connected with all And that it's ineffable, meaning that there are no words to describe it.
All right, so I can have another question.
Sure.
I need to know more about that 'cause I think it's, one Second.
Have we gone over about that? we were actually well under time, so I appreciate the questions.
Okay, so you asked about the music? Yeah.
(25:35):
So I can go on about this topic for I know you mentioned it earlier about how you asked for his playlist, right? and you were trying to have An experience again, it sounded like, to repeat that.
So what about that urge.
Led you to say, Hey, there's something about the music.
I'm wanting you To show what that importance is to breath work.
(25:55):
Does that make sense? So to go back to the beginning during his playlist, I was dealing with a lot of trauma.
I didn't know it at the time, I just thought I was angry, but that was caused by something.
And apparently I had a little trauma to work through and the playlist that he had, was.
40 minutes of drumming by Byron Metcalf.
And if you in the spiritual community, you'll recognize that.
(26:16):
And if not, I highly recommend his music.
But it was 40 minutes of deep bass shamonic drumming.
And that takes you into a very deep, dark place in which you can work through some Okay.
Okay.
And that was my.
First breath work playlist.
Okay? And every.
Like within the last two years, I think I've played a similar playlist of that once.
That was the first playlist that I made was very similar to that.
(26:39):
Okay.
And in doing other people's breath works, I quickly began to realize how much the music made an impact on the experience.
And not everybody was good at it.
or their, let's say their taste did not resonate with my taste.
Yeah.
and it was very the, like when I say it wasn't my taste, I was like, I'm sure there's somebody here who is enjoying this and it's not me.
(27:03):
Yeah.
that led me to, Hey, what is the music that does resonate with me? one of the Things I realized very quickly is there are.
in my corporate life, what made me good was I was always trying to tell a story.
Hey, lemme tell you the story of the product.
Lemme tell you the story of this company.
Lemme tell you the story of why your role in this company is important and why what you do matters.
(27:27):
That I'm always trying to do that through a story to people and I realized that the music was a story and that a lot of these people were just playing.
Random songs that they liked.
There was no cohesive through line, through the music.
Yeah.
It was just like, Hey, we're doing this, then we're doing this, then we're doing This.
And I was like, that is super random and I'm not appreciative.
(27:49):
there needs to be an arc here.
Yeah.
So beginning, middle, end.
That's how Disney does all their movies.
That's how Pixar does it.
Of course.
Hey, you have a challenge.
The challenge gets worse, and then you have a cure, and then you're better at the end.
And that is most story arcs.
That's the way it goes.
feel like it's a character in the breath work experience, or do you feel like it's more of just the.
(28:14):
gimme an analogy about what the importance of that music.
Like how can you bring music into showing what it is in Breath work? sure.
I think some of my better breath work playlists start with either the assumption of an intention or the assumption of a pain.
what kind of pain, are you dealing with? Are you dealing with anxiety, depression? Are you dealing with trauma? Are you Dealing, with bitterness because of lack of forgiveness? Are you dealing with self-worth? what trial is it that you're facing in your life that you would like to overcome and be done with? and then from that, the very beginning of the breath work is.
(28:47):
Basically a sound bath.
It's just something going in the background so that I can talk over It.
And guide you through that breath.
music in the background, but just lovely.
Sure.
sound bath music almost every.
Spoken word thing you hear on Spotify has some of that in the background and that it plays along with it and during the silence it gives you something to listen to.
(29:09):
So we've got about 20 minutes of that because that's about how long I talk when I'm guiding breath work is Hey, I need 20 minutes here where I can talk and guide and get you into the experience and get you going.
And then after that, we will come the entrainment portion, or what I call the induction.
An induction is the journey from the world of reality to the world of your subconscious.
(29:30):
and that's largely drumming.
Like it's a solid, steady beat.
That's why we call it entrainment is that, that don't.
Boom, boom.
We're trying to get everything in your body on one rhythm, okay? if we can get everything entrain.
So what entrainment means that, things will vibrate and resonate together.
(29:50):
Okay? so if you have a violin and you a D-ring on the violin.
If there's another violin there, the D-ring on the other violin, if that isn't being touched, will start to vibrate.
Okay.
None of the other strings.
Great analogy.
Okay, cool.
So that's what we're trying to do, is we're trying to create that mental, emotional entrainment in your body, in your breath, in your mind, so that they can all come together and be one cohesive hole.
(30:12):
And that's what we're doing with that.
That can be anywhere from five to 15 minutes, 20 minutes.
Like I said, the first playlist was like 40 minutes of that, of we're just gonna keep dropping this beat on you.
and then after that comes what I call the wave.
And the wave is up and down and left and right.
So up high positive light energy.
(30:34):
Okay? Down.
Okay.
And then, that's also the light and the dark.
just because something is high tempo doesn't mean it's happy.
Okay.
it can also be you have light, dark, high, low, and that's the four quadrants that you're dealing with there.
And that you can do both of those.
that I'm taking you on that 3D journey of high, low.
(30:54):
Awesome.
Through the music.
it is designed to take you into some dark places intentionally.
Sure.
to get you to like, Hey, look at this over here that you haven't looked at since you were 12.
Pull that out into the light.
And because it goes up and down, your energy is going up and down.
You can't maintain peak energy for very long, and you can't maintain bottom energy for very long.
(31:16):
So we're going back and forth in between them that it's a wave and then, the wave can last anywhere from 15 to 30 minutes.
And then after the wave is over, we do what I call the river.
And the river is the gentle music where it's just kinda a little bit more sound.
Bathy.
It's a little slower tempo.
I call it the river 'cause it's like fur loading on a lazy river.
When you're in breath work, you're just floating and Letting everything that's happened integrate into your body, integrate into your mind, I thought you meant river, like the Texas hold them where you like fold over the river card or something.
(31:50):
no, the River may be first, so now I don't know.
like you're on a lazy river, that's the end of breath work.
So that's my three part play.
And we're gonna do that Yeah.
wake up and then I have figured out how to bring people back.
That's excellent.
A little bit more gently.
Yes.
Okay, good.
Hey, we need to discontinue the connected breath.
I'm like, oh, that's a good idea.
(32:10):
They're like, Hey, we should probably stop that connected breathing before we call 'em back.
They're all wake up and just, Yeah.
That's awesome.
so I got that from someone else, but everything else I did, in calling people back, I appreciate.
music is hugely important.
you can't do breath work without it.
I did do breath work one time without music, non-intentional.
(32:31):
I led an online breath work, class.
I dunno, maybe I had 15, 20 people online for this.
And in Zoom, when you are playing music, you have to go into the advanced settings to share the music that is playing on your computer over the Zoom, and I forgot that step that day.
(32:52):
I was having a great time listening to the music while they heard nothing.
And then at the end they were like, a test to see if we Could do the breath work in silence? And I was like.
I can't imagine just turn the camera off, turn around and jump on my pen on the floor.
Oh, no.
Stab myself.
I was like, no, This was just your facilitator being a bonehead.
(33:15):
how did they think there's something missing they had experiences.
Okay.
you can definitely.
Have it in silence That the physiological effects will be the effects.
Okay.
it will take off, but certainly a lot less guided.
and it's certainly a little bit more difficult to keep the energy cohesive of the group if there's no music.
I hear the dog and the Birds outside and somebody Talking, walking past my window.
(33:40):
I think I busted out the Buddhist cone of, There is no bird, there is no song.
And once you've achieved enlightenment, that makes sense.
But if you've just done a breath work class with no music, it's probably sounds a little patronizing.
Yeah.
that was all I had.
I'm glad you told me about the music part.
'cause I feel like that's such A Huge part of breath work the emotional rollercoaster that the music brings you on.
(34:03):
I have a client who's.
Been doing breath work with me for almost the entire time, and he's only done breath work with me.
and one time he was like, yeah, I don't think your music's really that different from anybody else or that special.
I was like, if you are challenging me to play somebody else's playlist at breathwork so you can see the difference that will be most entertaining.
(34:27):
Nice.
Nice.
I think I do have a gift 'cause most of the time I make a playlist, I listen to maybe four or five seconds of the song.
And then I put it in the playlist and then when I go back and listen to it a second time, I listened to four or five seconds of the song and rearrange the songs based off of intuition.
Yeah.
And then go, Yeah.
(34:47):
I hope that works.
Yeah.
It's part of what's impressive.
you feel like not only have Been into a rock concert, but also a psychology appointment with your counselor or whatever.
The two are so different, but yet so needed when you just have music is a part of our lives, I was pretty Pleased with myself.
I like that.
Sold work To a soundtrack.
Work With a Count, with a soundtrack.
(35:08):
thanks for telling me your story.
I can't wait to hear more.
you being here.
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