Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, hey, mamas,
welcome back to Conquering Chaos
a mom's guide to self-care andsanity.
I'm your host, sydney Crow, andtoday we have the amazing
Jessica Riley here.
Jessica is a certifiedbreathwork facilitator.
She helps people access theirself-source power through the
breath so that they can achieveembodied liberation, inner
alignment and increase theirquality of life.
Breathwork has been anincredible healing tool for
(00:22):
Jessica over the last threeyears and her mission is to
bring this work to as manypeople as she can in this
lifetime.
That is such a beautifulmission.
Welcome, jessica, thank you.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
Thank you so much for
having me.
I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:37):
I'm so excited that
we've been able to connect over
the last little bit.
So a little bit of backstory.
You guys, I've been connectingwith Jessica we have talked
about, you know, being on eachother's podcasts and she invited
me to one of her sessions lastweek and it was totally
transformative, I don't know howelse to say it.
I had heard about breathwork, Ihad been doing yoga and Pilates
(00:59):
and and things like that forthe last little bit, but
actually attending one of yoursessions, I going into it, I was
like I don't know, like we'llsee how it goes, and I got so
much done that day, like I wasbeyond productive.
And even since then, like thatwas last Monday, right Last
Tuesday, yeah, so it's beenabout a week and, honestly, like
(01:19):
I felt better this week than Ihave in months.
I can't even tell you.
Speaker 2 (01:23):
It's amazing that
makes my heart so happy.
Yeah, breathwork is differentfor everybody.
Like you, coming into it notreally knowing what to expect
first of all, and not reallyhaving that need to control the
experience, I think is whatmakes the experience so
beautiful, because everybody hasdifferent experiences, like I
know.
For me, my experiences areusually very deep, very healing.
(01:47):
I release a lot, but thenthere's other people who are
like journaling for like threehours after because they're just
like I had so many downloadsand so many, you know,
inspirations come through and sothat's really cool that you're
kind of flowing on that side ofit.
It's really fun.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
Yeah, I mean I'm
really grateful because I don't
know, like winter kind of canput me in a bit of a funk and
I've been doing really well overthe last couple of years.
But I still felt myself likepost Christmas just being like
we had that polar vortex comethrough.
I was just like I don't know.
I don't know else to describeit other than I was kind of
feeling a little in a funk andthen, lo and behold, your
(02:24):
breathwork comes along and I waslike what is this?
Just kind of came off aleadership travel weekend also,
and so, yeah, it was just.
It was such a powerful week andI'm super grateful so that we
can spread this word and empowerother moms and other women and
just other people, Cause I knowthat you're not specifically
targeted to moms, but if you'reopen to it, why don't you share
(02:46):
a little bit about how you'vebeen able to help your sister
who's a mom?
Because that was really kind ofwhat pulled me into wanting to
learn more and do more becauseyou've been able to help her so
much with her motherhood journey.
I'd love for you to share thatwith the listeners.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Yeah.
So I've helped my sister who'sa mom, and I've also helped
other moms to just reallyrelease the guilt, release the
fear of not being good enough ornot being a good enough mom or
you know, I don't have kids so Ican't relate to having kids,
but I have seen, you know, wherethe kid is so kind of frazzled
(03:22):
and chaotic and then the mom islike I don't know what to do and
just feeling like all of thefeelings, just to take a step
back and kind of really deepbreathe and rebalance the
nervous system.
Because that's really whatbreathwork does.
There's two different types ofbreathwork.
There's the upregulating anddownregulating.
So downregulating is reallygood for those, those moments of
chaos, those moments of highintensity, high emotion, to just
(03:45):
kind of recenter and deepbreathe into your belly and kind
of balance that back out sothat you have the spaciousness
inside of you to navigatewhatever is going on.
And then, like with that,teaching your kids as well how
to deep breathe, how to regulatetheir own emotions.
So when they are in aheightened state of of emotions
(04:05):
and you know you're, you're likewhy are you crying?
Like there's nothing evenhappened, but they're feeling
all the feelings.
Bringing in breath work to forthem as well is very, very
powerful.
So with my nephew, I'm going tojust going to use this as an
example he was crying one dayand he was really flustered and
really frustrated and I just Isat him down and I said hey,
buddy, do you want to do like arainbow breath with me?
(04:28):
And he was like what's that?
And was like still crying and Iwas like, hey, we're just going
to do a big deep breath andwe're just going to like pull
the rainbow down and you deepbreath in and your arms go up
and then you kind of bring yourarms down in like a rainbow
formation.
And we did about five of thoseand then he was laughing and
playing again and it was likethe quickest I've ever seen him
(04:48):
turn around from like just allof the feelings into like okay,
this is okay and I'm fine andI'm just going to go like go
play again, right, and yeah,just just teaching, teaching
moms and people, I guess, how tohave just overall patience and
really tap into um, inner calm,inner peace, so that they can
(05:10):
navigate those high intensityemotions with more flow.
And yeah, just with more flow.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
I guess I love that
and I mean, like the
co-regulation piece is such animportant part for them to learn
because you know, we we sendthem to their room or there's
all of these things wherethere's those heightened
feelings and they don't have thecapacity at a young age to
learn how to like self-regulatein those moments.
So when you can be the leaderand the example and even
(05:37):
co-regulate with him, like theway that you did the rainbow
breath with him or you eventaught me about the candle
breath, and so I've been usingthat with my kids where they
like have to blow out the fivecandles and that's just.
It's such a powerful tool wherethey can like they focus on
something else for a second andthen they're like, okay, is this
actually really a big deal?
What am I even upset about?
Maybe something just like spookthem or just scare, like
(06:00):
whatever.
That is where they got intothat heightened feeling of like
fight or flight and you can justfocus on something else and
help them co-regulate.
Out of that.
It is really a powerful tooland it does it kind of starts
with the mom right, likelearning how to be able to do
that myself.
So there's times where I'm likeI'm not necessarily blowing my
fingers out, but I'm like, I'mlike counting them down beside
(06:21):
me and it helps, right.
So I'm able to show up for mykids and lead by example, and
I'm sure other parents feel thesame way, right?
So that's really, reallypowerful.
So you mentioned that there'stwo ways there's downregulating
and upregulating.
Why don't you talked a littlebit about the downregulating?
Why don't you share with thelisteners about upregulating?
Speaker 2 (06:41):
So upregulating
breathwork is more to get to the
root cause of why you'refeeling like this.
The downregulating just alittle bit more about that.
It's really good for activatingthe parasympathetic nervous
system, which is the rest anddigest the calm, the peace, all
of those things.
The upregulating breathworkagain is to get to the root
(07:02):
cause.
So the upregulating breathworkis kind of a form of it can be a
form of hyperventilation andwith this it temporarily shuts
off the prefrontal cortexbecause it limits the blood
supply or the blood flow sorryto the, to that part of the
brain and the prefrontal cortexis for sorry.
(07:23):
The prefrontal cortex isresponsible for the thinking
mind, the ego mind, the monkeymind, all of these different
things.
And so when that's shut off wecan journey into the
subconscious and we can reallyget to the root cause and why
we're feeling these things.
So we might be anxious in arelationship, but why are we
anxious in the relationship?
(07:43):
Why are we showing up the waythat we're showing up?
That's what the upregulatingbreathwork can do for us, and
with inspiration as well.
How you went throughinspiration and that boost of
creativity is because you shutoff that thinking mind right,
and so you were able to deepjourney deep into the
subconscious and move forwardwith a clear mind and a better
(08:05):
relationship with source or withthe universe or God or whatever
it is that you identify with,that higher energy.
So it's a really.
It's a different way ofbreathing.
It's more commonly faster thanthe down-regulating breath work,
but that's essentially what itdoes and it's one of my absolute
favorite ways to breathe.
It's very energizing, veryclearing, very healing and just
(08:28):
overall amazing.
I just love it.
Speaker 1 (08:31):
I think that that's
amazing, and so when you're,
when you're working with yourclients, is it the up regulating
that you're tending to likework with them on?
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Yeah, yeah.
So we start with downregulating in the beginning of
the journey and then we go intothe up regulating to really drop
them into that state ofsubconscious so that they can,
you know, remember things,because your subconscious, it
holds all of your longestmemories, your deepest memories,
your deepest thoughts, yourbelief system, all of those
things.
And so journeying them intothat, and then, after the
(09:02):
journey, we come back into thedown-regulating, where it's in
and out through your nose, deepinto the belly, just to kind of
like balance it out.
And then it also teaches likegoing between down-regulating
and up-regulating.
It teaches your nervous systemhow to kind of balance back and
forth between the two.
The up-regulating breathwork isbasically designed to induce
(09:23):
stress or anxiety in a very safeway.
So it's not necessarily likeputting you into a panic attack
or an anxiety attack, but it'sbringing up those feelings so
that you can journey into thoseparts of yourself that need
healing.
And then, like, the more youpractice it, the more your body
says, okay, these feelings, I'mfeeling these feelings of
anxiety or I'm getting triggeredby a past event, but now that I
(09:46):
have gone through the breathwork and, you know, have
practiced it for so long, thebody automatically will go into
the parasympathetic typebreathing, which is the long
inhales, longer exhales, kind ofthing.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
Okay.
So that's really interestingfor me.
And so when you're working witha client, how often are you
doing these sessions with them?
Like, how often would yourecommend listeners, you know,
go through this cycle?
Speaker 2 (10:10):
Yeah, the
down-regulating you can do every
single day.
For the up-regulating because itis so powerful and you can have
such crazy experiences with itand such deep healing, I would
recommend starting out liketwice a month for the big
up-regulating, like hour to hourand a half long sessions, after
you kind of figure out a howyou respond to these breathwork
(10:34):
activations, then I would moveit into once a week and then I
wouldn't do it any more thantwice a week.
And the reason behind that isbecause you want to give
yourself a couple of days inbetween for integration, because
not only do you go through theexperience, but the experience
carries right, like you weresaying, like you're still
feeling the experience or thebenefits of last week.
(10:56):
Yeah, and so for you, like Iwould recommend doing it once a
week because you're probablyfeeling like you want to go in
for another one right now.
Even twice a month, likebiweekly kind of thing is is
really good.
But yeah, for long story long,the down-regulating every single
day, you can do that to reallybalance yourself.
And then the up-regulating youcan do, starting out twice a
(11:18):
month and then moving into onceonce a week.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
That's amazing.
And how did excuse me?
How did you get started in this?
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, my breathwork
journey has been so amazing.
So I was diagnosed with theanxiety disorder when I was like
14 and I was put on anxietymedication when I was 14.
And so 14 years later I am now28.
I have been off of my anxietymedication for almost a year now
.
And as I was coming off of thismedication, I guess first of all
(11:51):
like I met my partner about twoyears ago and he asked me if
I've ever done an upregulatingbreathwork session before, and
so I he sent me one to try andit was an 11 minute activation.
It was the Wim Hof activationand if you're very new, the Wim
Hof is so beautiful to start outwith.
But basically after thatactivation I felt so much of my
(12:14):
energy shift, I felt like a newperson and I really wanted to
learn, like why this ishappening and how this is
happening.
So eventually I went into arabbit hole of the what, the why
and the how of breathwork andit kind of just started my
journey on this.
Yeah, this journey of becomingcertified and practicing more,
(12:36):
so like just becoming certifiedto practice on my own and to
deepen in my journey, and nowit's kind of blossomed into this
huge journey that I'm just onon the path of sharing with
everyone, cause I think thateverybody needs to needs to know
this.
But yeah, basically sorry my, Igo off tangent sometimes but
basically, like the the reasonthat I started breathwork was
(12:59):
because it was so transformativein my life and helping me come
off of my anxiety medication,because in those 14 years that I
was medicated, I was feelingstress as feeling anxiety, but I
didn't know.
I didn't know what thosefeelings were because I was
numbed Right, and so when I cameoff of my anxiety medication, I
was all of a sudden feeling allof these things and not knowing
(13:19):
what these feelings were, andso breathwork was really an
amazing tool for me to go intomyself and figure out what,
everything like what, was goingon.
Speaker 1 (13:31):
Yeah, yeah, that's
really powerful and I think a
lot of coaches find themselvesin that kind of journey right.
Like it starts with healingourselves, healing, finding that
modality that resonates mostand like have the biggest impact
.
And then it's like it was sotransformative that you have to
(13:52):
pay it forward.
Like how could you not sharethat experience with the rest of
the world?
Because now you're livingmedicated free, you are, you
know, building this amazingbusiness.
You're so passionate about it,you're very good at it.
Like I had never experienced it.
I was like, wow, this is amazing, and I'm not even going to lie,
cause I did kind of like I loveholistic health and wellness
and all of that stuff.
(14:12):
But I was like, can breath work, really do this?
Like I know to take like acouple of breaths, but I really
didn't, you know, didn't fullyunderstand or believe how, how
impactful it could be.
And so having people like youout there sharing this word,
spreading it, so that people canfeel better in their own bodies
and just show up more energized, more passionate, more in love,
(14:35):
like whatever that looks like,right, dealing with all of these
old traumas and then justliving their best lives.
So kudos to you and I'm sograteful that our paths
connected.
If there's any last piece ofadvice that you'd love to share
or information that you'd loveto share with anybody, let us
know.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:52):
So I think, going
back to, like you know, people
are always trying to find theirmodality, their thing, the thing
that works for them.
And I tried meditation.
I've tried, you know,journaling and yes, like those
things work, but I found itreally hard to get into it.
And that's why breathwork is sodifferent is because it
literally shuts off the thinkingmind.
With meditation, you have topractice and practice and
(15:14):
practice to shut off thatthinking mind.
With the breathwork, it is soquick and it happens within the
first session, so you get reallyprofound experiences in the
first session.
So for anybody who's, you know,struggling with meditation or
struggling with findingsomething that works for them, I
would say give breathwork a tryand just come into it with an
(15:36):
open mind, because every singlesession is going to be so
different, like so different andit's such a beautiful,
beautiful thing that I thinkthat everybody really needs to
try, like everybody needs, tobring it into their life.
Speaker 1 (15:50):
I love that and I
will second that because you
know, I've always triedmeditation and I'll say this
like loosely, because I sitthere, I have to do the guided
meditation.
My brain is always running amile a minute and with you it
was just like instant.
So, yeah, it really was awonderful experience.
You guys, we're going to haveways for you to get in touch
(16:11):
with Jessica in the show notesso that you guys can get in
touch with her if you guys haveany other specific questions,
and I just really am gratefulthat our paths connected and
that you were able to be ourguest today, jessica.
So thank you for being here andthank you all for tuning into
today's episode of conqueringchaos, where we help you conquer
the chaos one day at a time.