September 1, 2025 • 44 mins
Take a deep breath. Now take another. In this transformative conversation with Anthony Abbagnano, founder of Alchemy of Breath, we explore how something we do 25,000 times daily without thinking can become our most powerful tool for personal transformation.
Anthony shares the profound journey that led him to create a global breathwork community and write his new book "Outer Chaos and Inner Calm." Drawing from 71 years of life experience, he offers a compassionate framework for navigating life's challenges through conscious breathing. When we choose to take a breath during moments of overwhelm, we make our first step away from victimhood toward agency and authorship of our own stories.
The conversation weaves through the hero's journey archetype, showing how our lives follow universal patterns of departure from comfort, exploration of the unknown, discovery of inner treasure, and return with newfound wisdom. Anthony explains how breathwork allows us to participate consciously in these journeys rather than being swept along by circumstances.
Perhaps most provocatively, Anthony discusses how embracing death awareness brings more vitality to our lives. By consciously considering our mortality, we sharpen our appreciation for each moment and deepen our connections. This isn't morbid contemplation but rather a practice that grounds us in the preciousness of our limited time.
The practical core of Anthony's teaching is beautifully simple: "breathe and feel, feel and heal." By maintaining conscious breathing while fully experiencing our emotions, we develop the capacity to witness our experiences without being overwhelmed. Through this practice, what once seemed like our greatest obstacles become our greatest resources.
About Anthony Abbagnano
Anthony Abbagnano is the founder of Alchemy of Breath, a globally recognized breathwork community that has helped thousands reclaim their power through the transformative power of the breath. His personal story, shared in this book, details how he overcame profound challenges through breathwork and mindfulness, leading him to create a life of purpose and balance.
As the first to bring breathwork online, Anthony serves as curator for online breathwork on the board of the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (GPBA), and holds a faculty position on the Shift Network. Anthony’s Breathe the World online breathwork sessions draw hundreds each week, with an extended community of 170,000 and counting.
Breathe The World Online Sessions
I'd LOVE to hear from you! Send me a text!
Heart of Motion Podcast host Susannah Steers is a Pilates & Integrated Movement Specialist and owner of Moving Spirit Pilates in North Vancouver, BC. She is passionate about movement, about connections and about life.
Through movement teaching, speaking, and facilitating workshops, she supports people in creating movement practices that promote fitness from the inside out. She loves building community, and participating in multi-disciplinary collaborations.
Along with her friend and colleague Gillian McCormick, Susannah also co-hosts The Small Conversations for a Better World podcast – an interview based podcast dedicated to promoting the kind of conversations about health that can spark positive change in individuals, families, communities and across the globe.
Social Media Links:
Moving Spirit Pilates Instagram
Moving Spirit Pilates Facebook
Susannah Steers Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Susannah Steers (00:00):
Welcome to the Heart of Motion Podcast.
I'm Susanna Steers and I'll beyour host as we explore the
heart, soul and science ofmovement as a pathway to more
active, vibrant and connectedliving.
Nothing happens until somethingmoves, so let's get started.
Welcome to the Heart of MotionPodcast, where we explore the
(00:22):
heart, soul and science ofmovement and what it means in
our lives and at the heart ofmovement and really of life
itself, is breath.
We take it for granted, webreathe in, we breathe out.
For the most part, we don'treally even think about it.
It just happens.
And yet breath is the one thingthat ties into everything we
(00:42):
are and everything we do.
Breath supports posture andmotion and acts as the
foundation for every system inthe body.
It unites the sympathetic andparasympathetic nervous systems.
Breath connects spirit to form.
Today, we are diving much deeperinto breath with a very special
guest.
Anthony Abbagnano is thefounder of Alchemy of Breath, a
(01:06):
globally recognized breathworkcommunity that has helped
thousands reclaim their ownpower through the transformative
power of the breath.
His personal story, shared inhis new book "Outer Chaos and
Inner Calm, details how heovercame profound challenges
through breathwork andmindfulness, leading him to
create a life of purpose andbalance.
(01:26):
He's spoken alongside notableleaders like Deepak Chopra,
Marianne Williamson, bruceLipton, peter Levine and others.
Anthony, I am so glad towelcome you to the Heart Emotion
Podcast.
Anthony Abbagnano (01:40):
What an honor .
Thank you, Susannah.
I loved all the things you saidabout the breath too touching
and true.
Susannah Steers (01:48):
And true.
Breath is so important, andit's just something we most of
the time don't even think about.
So I'm thrilled to dive in, andthere is so much I want to talk
to you about today.
So why don't we jump right into your new book, "Outer Chaos,
inner Calm?
I want to know what inspiredyou to write it, and maybe is
there something in your ownjourney that shaped the book's
(02:10):
message.
Anthony Abbagnano (02:12):
Yeah, absolutely completely.
The book is actually born fromwhat I would call the backbone
of the training that I've beengiving for the last 15 years to
people who want to be breathworkfacilitators or to use the
breath in their practice.
So doctors, nurses,psychotherapists, policemen,
(02:32):
psychiatry, you know on and onall different walks of life, and
it was really done as arequisite to ensure that the
quality of facilitation that mygraduates would provide is of
sufficient depth and gravitasthat they can really sit
alongside anybody, no matter howdeep or bright or light their
(02:55):
process might be.
So that goes all the way tosome of our facilitators who
worked with the MAID program inCanada.
We do work in prisons andhospitals and police forces.
We deal with a lot of traumawork and we really want to
accompany people in those tenderand deep moments in their life
(03:15):
and the book is really exactlythat.
The inner journey that I ask ofmy students is pretty much
articulated in the book.
It's a lighter version andmaybe has a wider appeal, and
that's the purpose of it.
I found people who are comingto study breathwork with me.
Some of them said it's not thebreathwork I want to do, this
inner journey thing I've heardabout.
(03:36):
So I thought, well, I betterpull it out.
Obviously, if there are morepeople that want to do it, I
want to make it available.
So the book is the beginning ofthat awareness, that inner
journey for people, and for some, the completion as well.
Susannah Steers (03:51):
Is there something in your own personal
journey that brought you toworking with the Breath in this
way?
Anthony Abbagnano (03:59):
Yeah, that's when I said everything.
Everything in my life has ledto this book, even though it's
the fourth book I've written.
Actually, I've written fourbooks before.
Excuse me, this is the last oneI've written and it's the first
one to be published.
Okay, this book is really it isentirely from my own life
perspective and the experiencesthat I've had, but it really
(04:21):
talks about experiences that areuniversal.
And I think one of the mostchallenging things when we're
overwhelmed or troubled or superchallenged, is that we somehow
have this story.
We tell ourselves that thewhole universe is orchestrating
our adversity and thateverything's going pear-shaped.
And I think in those times ofdeep distress, it's good to know
(04:43):
that we're not alone.
They're actually.
That's one of the fundamentalaspects of's good to know that
we're not alone.
They're actually.
That's one of the fundamentalaspects of our human journey is
that every once in a while, weneed to encounter that sense of
deep threat in order to grow, inorder to become more resilient
and robust.
So that's certainly been my life, and the book is really about
(05:04):
taking those 71 years now andputting them into a message that
can be really quite brief,because the principles are
simple.
It took me a long time ofstruggle to find out what they
were, but they're actually quitestraightforward and simple and
they can be employed with ease.
And it's not to say the book isan easy read.
(05:24):
But it also asks some questionsthat we get to reflect on, and
some of those questions are evendesigned not to be answered but
just to be with as a way ofopening to a deeper part of
ourselves.
But I think that the outcomeand the purpose of the book is
really to gain agency, so totake a brief look at our past
(05:49):
and to understand what theconstraining factors were that
sculpted us to be who we arewith, so we can rewrite those
parts that we want to rewrite.
Coming into our present moment,then we have the choice of well
, what do I want the rest of mylife to look like?
(06:10):
So it's about becoming theauthor of your life rather than
letting someone else write thebook for you.
Susannah Steers (06:19):
Throughout the book you refer to a hero's
journey.
I love looking at patterns andI love a good archetype.
Can you tell me a little bitmore about the hero's journey as
you see it and maybe describehow people might apply it in
their own healing processes?
Anthony Abbagnano (06:39):
Yeah Well, there are a couple of really,
really important takeaways thatI think are valuable for people
to know if they're not familiarwith the hero's journey.
But the hero's journey is bornfrom research that Joseph
Campbell did and Joseph Campbellwas an anthropologist and he
studied many different cultures,including tribal cultures and
(07:00):
myth, and he understood as aresult of his research that
there is actually a human storythat we're all living, and it
might take a lifetime to live,but there are many loops of this
thing happening as well.
It could be an hour or a week,or a relationship or a project
or anything like that, and therecould be four or five of them
(07:23):
going on at the same time, likeI'm living the inner journey of
my life right now, the hero'sjourney of my life.
Right now I'm living the hero'sjourney of this talk we're
having.
I don't know what you're goingto ask me next.
I've left my home territory,I'm in an exploratory place and
I may have to meet some of mydemons and my dark sides, if you
ask me the right questions, andI also will hopefully find some
(07:45):
kind of treasure on thisjourney.
And already this might seemfamiliar with many films that
you've watched or many books orstories that you've read, that
there is this departure fromwhat we know and an excursion
and an exploration into anunknown world, and there is
treasure to be found in thisjourney and that, in a classic
(08:11):
movie, might be Treasure Islandand landing on the island and
finding the box of treasure.
And in the sense that I relateto the hero's journey, the
treasure is inside each of us,and so it's really about finding
ourselves.
It's an internal journey thatwe make.
And then, of course, once wefind the treasure, if you're
sitting on Treasure Islandwithout a helicopter or a boat
(08:33):
or a way out, that treasure isnot really worth a lot.
You can't eat it, you can'tburn it, you can't trade it.
If you're on your own, there'snothing you can do trade it.
If you're on your own, there'snothing you can do.
So that second half of thehero's journey is about how do
we take that back, how do webring it back to where we came
from usefully, in such a way asit can be a teaching of some
(08:58):
kind.
This value can be conveyed tosomebody else.
So that's the hero's journey.
What I've done with this book isI've borrowed from the hero's
journey, but I've also examinedthe human journey and taken a
lifespan.
So really, in the book we'relooking at the different stages
(09:21):
of life that we will passthrough and if you're 85, or if
you're 25, that the onlydifference is you've got more
past behind you and less future,or less past behind you and
more future.
But the thresholds that we willcross are the same and they're
universal thresholds, they'rearchetypal thresholds.
So I think, to get to the realtakeaways for this, for people
(09:45):
who don't want to spend theirtime reading A Hero with a
Thousand Faces, I've been in mylife.
I now understand whenever itmight happen again.
(10:11):
There's always something elsewaiting to happen.
But unless we're prepared tobecome the discoverer of what
that is, we won't know what itis.
So we'll stay in the rut ofrepeating the same things, the
depression, the anxiety loops welive in, the ways we undermine
ourselves, the inner judge thatI'm not good enough, I don't
(10:33):
belong, all those narrativesthat we've learned to repeat to
ourselves as if they weremantras or affirmations and
indeed they are.
We then become the slave ofthat statement and we then
unconsciously engineer ways torepeat it again.
So this book is really abouttearing the stickiness of the
(10:55):
comfort zone, tearing ourselvesoff that sticky pad and going to
a new launch pad and exploringwhat else that can be.
What else is it that could bepossible?
So it's fairly intrepid, butit's guided and it's supported.
One of the things that I loveabout the book is that it's now
open on our community platform,so when you read it, you can be
(11:17):
alongside other people that arereading it too.
And I think, in all the workthat I've done, the value of
community has proved itself tobe paramount, because it's when
I feel alone with my shame or mysense of failure that it gets
amplified and it gets worse.
I keep listening to my ownvoice.
That's putting me down, butwhen I find out there's someone
(11:38):
else who's feeling exactly thesame way, all of a sudden it
changes and there's aconversation that can happen in
a way.
Maybe I can uplift them in away, or they can uplift me in a
way, and so, with this sense ofcommunity, we can really make
this an easier navigation, thisgame of life that we play.
Susannah Steers (11:59):
Yes, and it seems that these days, with all
the connectivity that we have inthis way, you know, with
podcasts and the things we areconnected to, there are ways in
which we are really disconnectedfrom ourselves and from each
other because we're glued to thescreens and glued to the ways
information bombarding us.
(12:19):
I want to ask a question,because oftentimes the theme of
this podcast, it's centraltheme, is movement, and over the
last year we've explored manyways that different kinds of
breathwork can support andamplify movement and embodiment
as a pathway to meaningfulchange.
(12:39):
Now the science is finallycatching up.
There's a growing body ofresearch showing that breath
work can reduce your stress,anxiety, improve your mood and
benefits that we see in yourteachings.
But your work takes it deeperthe physiological calm that's so
(13:08):
often measured by science and alived, emotional, felt, sense,
experience of calm.
Anthony Abbagnano (13:14):
I think they're very similar.
I think the more we come, firstof all, to take it down to
basics, the more we come closerto our breath, the more equipped
we become to manipulate anothersystem in the way that we want
to, so we can excite it or calmit or anything in between.
(13:34):
And there are lots of buttonsand dials on that dashboard that
the closer we come to thebreath, the more we notice what
they are and how to utilize themat the right moment in the
right way to create a completelydifferent outcome in our
perspective and therefore thatwhich occurs to us.
If our perspective is different, we will notice differently and
(13:55):
so, therefore, different thingscan can happen.
So whether the nervous systemis calm, naturally because I am
absent of external stimuli andit's the end of my day and I'm
just just exhausted and I don'twant to think anymore, and I sit
there and like have that exhalethat we all know is like gosh,
(14:15):
gosh, you know, is almost awell-being in that exhaustion,
because it's the knowledge thatI could put the list down for
the day.
I don't have to check my phoneanymore, you know.
And so we can arrive at thatcalm by hyperactivity and
exhaustion.
But I think the ability tocreate that sense of calm is
something different, andespecially if with the world as
(14:39):
chaotic as it is.
And then comes the questionwell, what would it look like to
alchemize that chaos, toactually use it as the compost
that will nourish the shoots ofmy own sense of inner calm, no
matter what is going on outthere?
And then, when we get to thatplace, then we begin to notice
(15:02):
that, oh, my sense of calm, myquality of presence how much I'm
fully with you is actuallyinspiring for other people.
People notice the quality ofpresence.
We used to call it presence ofmind 50 years ago, but now we
understand presence means morethan just presence of mind.
It means presence of everything.
(15:24):
And we know what it's like whensomeone who has a high quality
of presence enters a room.
We all feel it, we feelattracted, we feel inspired, we
feel compelled.
And so that calm that we attainthrough this process of alchemy
of the outer world into thestill point inside becomes a
(15:48):
form of leadership, of innerleadership that then emanates
and informs the world around us.
And as to the element ofmovement, I think what I find
most relevant is that the breathwill flow within you or it will
flow without you.
So let us make it our businessthat it will flow within us,
(16:10):
because then we are in movement.
So it teaches us, the more weacquaint ourselves with it, that
hanging on means non-life.
It might feel safer not toleave this moment and it might
feel comfortable and more known.
But if we can let go and trustI think it was Elizabeth
(16:33):
Kubler-Ross who wrote that bookon death and dying, I think it
was and she said are you willingto trust, as you take a step
over the edge of the cliff, thatyour foot will actually land on
something solid?
I think we've seen I rememberHarrison Ford did a movie when
he had to jump off.
It looked like this precipitousdownfall into the darkness and
(16:54):
dragons and all kinds of uglystuff.
It was a very special momentbecause he did step off and
something happened.
And so there comes a point inour lives that repeatedly
perhaps, that we're offered thechance to embrace faith, that I
am in harmony with life and I amin the dance with life and life
(17:15):
will not step on my toe becauseI'm in the flow.
That element of movement, Ithink, is where I make my pitch,
because the flow of the breathis the flow of life and, like
you said in the beginning, weforget about it our whole life.
Really, if we focused on justthat first and last breath and
(17:35):
understood that we're doing thatall the time, 25,000 times a
day, we're living that birth anddeath cycle, how many
opportunities does it give forcreativity and how many
opportunities does it give forinquiry and curiosity and wonder
?
And finally, how manyopportunities does it give us to
let go of something that wefind difficult to let go of,
(17:57):
that we're hanging on to?
Susannah Steers (18:00):
Yes, because everything tends to contract
when we're in that space of fearand we're not breathing, or
it's very shallow and our bodiestighten up, but the world kind
of gets smaller around that too,doesn't it?
It is sometimes a scary thingto look at taking that step, and
(18:22):
I feel like we're sort ofaddicted to living life at full
throttle and in particular ways,I'm wondering if you have ways
that people can access thatsense of true calm when they are
in that state of overwhelm.
How do you get to a place whereyou can use that state as the
birth of something deeper?
Anthony Abbagnano (18:45):
Yeah, yeah and different,
Susannah Steers (18:47):
Different yeah.
Anthony Abbagnano (18:49):
Because I don't know, as a race, if we've
ever been under such threat.
I think I was hearing a speakerwho I value.
His name is Stephen Bartlett.
He was interviewing some peoplejust the other day and they
were concluding that we have anincrease of 66% in war than
(19:13):
we've had over the last 10 or 20years.
So we now deal with proxy wars,where countries employ other
countries to do their battlesfor them.
So these things are real, eventhough we feel distant from them
and there's no more.
I don't believe there's everbeen in my lifetime a more
urgent moment than there is nowto seek a different way of being
(19:36):
100% invested in that.
And I think one of the pitfallsthat I see happening in many of
the conversations that arehappening out there are that
this argument that we entertainfor all the way, from conspiracy
at one end of the continuum tomainstream media at the other
(19:57):
end of the continuum this is alldata that's getting chucked at
us all the time.
It's confusing.
We don't know what sense-makingmeans anymore.
We don't know what's sensible,what's not.
We don't know what's true,what's not.
Those things have been actuallyleft behind as a part of our
past and we're now in thisswirling confusion that it's
(20:19):
very easy to grab for footholdsor handholds in this kind of a
situation.
And I see what's happening isthat the conversations that we
indulge in, the conversationsthat we let become the currency
of our lives, are not healthyconversations.
So I'm for and you're against,or she's left and he's right,
(20:41):
and we keep dichotomizing andpolarizing and casting opinions,
and they get stronger andstronger and meanwhile the
adrenaline, the world adrenalinelevels are going higher and
higher and the patient's levelsare going lower and lower and
health levels and immunitylevels are going lower and lower
and we're not in good shaperight now.
(21:03):
So to me it's about how do weactually change conversation,
and that's what the book isabout is about standing for a
new conversation and theninquiring what that conversation
might be.
So how can we invite a new typeof correspondence rather than
this old one that you attack andI co-respond?
(21:27):
I co-respond by attacking youback.
And so how can we change thequality of correspondence to
something that is kinder andmore heart-centered and more
amply informed, and that allstarts with one breath?
Just that choice, to make thetime to take one breath is, I
(21:49):
think, the greatest act that wecan make, especially if we're
under pressure, say how can wedo this when we're under
pressure in these situations?
And when it comes down tobreath practices, it's
absolutely true to say the wrongtime to try a new breath
practice is when you're underpressure.
The time to put it into placeis when you're not under
(22:10):
pressure, so the next time itcomes up you know what to do.
You have an automatic go-to.
So I wouldn't expect others thansome really very basic things
like remembering to take abreath when you don't want to is
the beginning of somethingdifferent.
And then it's a question of now.
How do I make that moment intomovement?
(22:30):
How do I connect that moment tothe next moment so I can create
movement that has traction andaccountability and something
measurable at the end of it.
And then we can feel like I amon the road to change.
I as an individual am on theroad to change and I can
identify things that arecontributing to that and things
(22:53):
that are not, and I can choosewho I hang out with and who I
don't hang out with, and thenwe're beginning to reconstruct a
new possibility of reality.
I think I mentioned in the bookI love that statement of you
become the average of the fivepeople you spend most of your
time with.
You know.
Susannah Steers (23:10):
It speaks to a practice as well.
I mean the other thing I findand I work in a Pilates studio
times when I see people come inand they want a quick fix.
They want something.
You know, give me a couple ofexercises and then I'm going to
go away and do something else.
For me, the value of any kindof movement practice is the
consistency.
It's the getting to knowyourself, is getting to know
(23:32):
your patterns, is getting toknow your habits and seeing
things from differentperspectives and playing with
things in different ways.
My sense is it's not just, youknow, putting on an app and
doing a few breathing things,but really embracing a practice.
Anthony Abbagnano (23:48):
Yeah, and I think the practice is to create
intimacy with your breath, thisthing that you mentioned at the
beginning, like all thosebreaths we took in between, the
only ones we paid attention towere the ones that were missing,
you know, when we caught ourbreath because we were wounded
or hurt.
And so I think that firstchoice of taking a breath is the
(24:12):
antithesis to being the victimof a situation, because when
we're a victim of a situation,we lose all our attributes, we
lose all our processing powerand our thought mechanisms go to
the amygdala, to the back ofthe brain, and we're reduced to
those three famous things thattrauma brings, which is fight,
(24:32):
flight or freeze.
So just the enactment of achoice, I think, is opening a
door to a different potentialoutcome.
I think maybe this is one ofthe stories I tell in the book
of a friend of mine who was apsychotherapist and she went to
I think it was Greece and therefugees were going there from
(24:55):
North Africa at that time, andshe had this experiment where
she would say to each refugeethat came off one of the boats
you've made it, congratulations,I want to acknowledge you for
being a survivor and what theyfound was that the people she
(25:19):
welcomed, whereas the othersjust sort of threw them a
blanket and told them to go lineup over there to get their food
or whatever.
The ones that she welcomed hada much easier time integrating,
and I think that's because wedon't acknowledge ourselves for
what we do.
We measure what's got to bedone and we're taught that the
outcome is somewhere over there,somewhere beyond where I am now
(25:42):
.
I'm never happy with what I'vegot.
I always want what I haven'tgot, and these things have
become normal to us, and so weforget to acknowledge the ground
that we've actually covered.
I was sitting with a woman today, an entrepreneur, highly
(26:06):
successful, who is, in herbusiness life, super successful,
young, early teens and unableto have functional relationships
because of the fact that sheneeds to do her inner child.
What I do, I do a lot of innerchild work, and there are parts
of her being that have just beenisolated and abandoned and left
behind because of crises thatshe had when she was a young
girl.
I was amazed when I said well,what practices do you have to
(26:29):
create awareness in yourrelationship?
She named like well, first ofall, no matter how much work
I've got, I delay it until I'vecompleted my personal practice.
And I said, well, what doesthat look like?
She said, well, I pray and Ibreathe and I read, and I go for
a walk and I go to nature.
And I'm thinking, do you everacknowledge yourself for that?
(26:50):
Oh no, I never have.
So I said, well, if you were toacknowledge yourself, would you
feel it was quite so hopelessas you do now this situation?
And she went.
I never thought of that andit's so basic, it's so
fundamental.
But there's something about whenwe look.
(27:12):
We've learned not to look atourselves in depth unless we're
criticizing or judging.
We've become so self-judgmental.
So you know, I thinkacknowledgement, as I say in the
book, is a fundamental part ofour human journey.
That's not grandiosity, that'sacknowledgement where
acknowledgement is due.
So I think that's important toremember and I think also that
(27:36):
the same thing, I think everyperson carries a natural gift
and most of the time thatnatural gift is wrapped in.
The biggest problem that we faceand this is another principle
of the hero's journey too youknow, in the cave you fear most
lies the treasure you seek.
So if we don't take the time tounwrap that, what looks
disgusting to us or painful ifwe don't actually stop and make
(28:00):
that act of responsibility, theability to respond to actually
unwrap, that we won't find thetreasure that's underneath.
There's something about allthose downtimes, those
depressing moments that we live,the ones that we call failures
or whatever the ones that wecall failures or whatever that
(28:22):
really are asking us to put onour detective hat and our
superhero cape or whatever it is, and to really get nose in
there, not to wallow in it, butto find something that we hadn't
found, because at the bottom ofthat very dark pond is a golden
key.
If we can make it down thereand look through the silt,
there's a part of ourselvesthat's competent, qualitative,
(28:44):
completely able to negotiatethis situation.
We just can't resource it, wecan't find it, so we can't treat
it as a resource.
And often that gift shows up assomething so unbelievably
normal to us because we grew upwith it, but we don't give
ourselves credit for it, so itdoesn't count in some way.
Susannah Steers (29:04):
It is amazing what we overlook so many ways.
Another thing that you talkabout in the book is I think
you've alluded to it a littlebit that embracing death
actually bring us more life.
Now that, I mean, it soundsfascinating and maybe scary too,
and maybe that relates to whatwe were just talking about.
Can you unpack that a littleand let me know what that means
(29:25):
to you?
Anthony Abbagnano (29:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think the metaphor that you
used about movement is alsorelevant to this, because if we
don't embrace death, we'retrying to stop something that
wants to happen.
Right, that's our tendency.
But yeah, the book encouragesthe reader to consider death
(29:48):
awareness as a real advantageand a real benefit.
It brings a huge benefit to us.
I think we all have heardstories about people who've been
given terminal diagnoses andsome have recovered, but others,
who haven't, have stillexperienced a complete
turnaround in the way that theysee the world and a complete
(30:08):
turnaround in theirrelationships, their life view,
their spirituality, their senseof forgiveness or compassion and
their awareness of ending.
Sense of forgiveness orcompassion and their awareness
of ending and endings have thisawfully negative connotation to
us because they mean goingsomewhere else that we don't
(30:29):
know what will happen.
So people like Ram Dass, whosay think of your death as going
home, are presenting thequestion what if the opposite is
true?
What if it's the launchpad to afantastical, wonderful
experience?
And why have we named it?
Why have we branded it the waywe have?
(30:52):
And my experience is that bybringing death consciousness and
it's difficult, I mean Iremember I did this with my wife
Five or six years ago, Ithought I was going to get a bad
.
I had a test, I thought I wasgoing to get a bad diagnosis,
and so I started to say, look, Iwant to, I want to talk about
this.
If it's going to happen, I wantto talk about it.
And she was deeply disturbedbecause that's not.
(31:16):
It's like talking about the endof our love, the end of our
relationship.
You know, it's like frightening,and yet the more that we did it
, the more that we would sitdown and make it a part of our
awareness, make it a part of ourday.
Things didn't get morose at all.
Actually.
We level of appreciation shotskyrocketed.
Our awareness of today andwhat's here right now just like
(31:39):
exploded into a whole new thing,and the love that we felt, the
tenderness that we feel for eachother could really be felt, as
well as the loss, the impendingsense of what that loss would be
.
If we keep hiding from the loss, then the gain has no purpose.
And so it's like trying tolisten to those old AM radios of
(32:03):
50 years ago that were allcrackle and treble and there's
no bass note.
You know, life without the bassnote gets to be a little bit
whiny, and troublesome.
With the roundness of thepoignance of things like loss
and grief.
They're the things that reallypush us into contemplation, and
(32:24):
part of the paradox that I'vediscovered is that of everybody
that's been dear to me that hasdied and as I get older, there
are more and more it's happeningmore and more frequently dear
to me that has died and as I getolder there are more and more
it's happening more and morefrequently everybody has left a
gift behind.
In the grief that I've felt,there's been a gift that I was
(32:46):
never able to notice when theywere there, and it's almost like
in their wake there's somethingto be discovered that we just
don't notice until they're notthere anymore.
The weight of the last wordsthey said is an obvious example,
or any advice that they mayhave given us, or an expression
(33:07):
of love that we may have had.
And I've understood in my lifethat in that act of dying we're
actually facilitating somethingelse to happen for those that
remain.
There's something that canactually be in movement, even
though it feels like an ending.
So I know there's a bit ofembrace of mysticism and paradox
(33:30):
there, but I believe thatworking with the awareness that
we're going to die one day isgoing to make us a whole lot
more alive now.
And what if we could choosethat last breath?
What if we could, like theindigenous Americans have said
in the past, what if we could gopick a tree and say it's over,
(33:52):
today's a good day to die.
How would it be if we couldbring that into our Western
culture more, that we could bethat choiceful and that present
with each other,
Susannah Steers (34:08):
the connections to ourselves and between people
and between all of the thingsand everything that we relate to
in the world around us.
Connections fascinate me andfor me it started in the body,
recognizing how every part of usis connected to, is influenced
by and influencing everythingelse, and that sort of changed
(34:29):
my view on movement and bodywork and all that kind of thing.
When I'm in the natural world,the sense of truth in those
connections is simply amplifieda thousandfold.
You can just bathe in it whenyou're out in nature.
It always makes me feel more athome in the world.
I'm wondering we've talked alittle bit about community.
(34:53):
Is there anything you'velearned that indicates that kind
of shared breathwork play arole in fostering connection?
Or maybe it's not even shared,it's individual practices coming
together.
I don't know.
Anthony Abbagnano (35:05):
Oh, absolutely.
I've got so many stories, butit's what we do every Sunday.
You know, every Sunday we do aBreathe the World online twice
to cover both hemispheres, andwe have several hundred people
breathing together.
My wife, amy, said look, we'vegot to launch alchematescom
(35:29):
because we're putting so manycouples together, because
they're in an incrediblybeautiful space where they
breathe together and they get toknow each other deeply and they
get to understand that it'ssafe to be vulnerable and you're
allowing me to see yourvulnerability and that's so
precious, it's exquisite.
And so we see that all the time, both in our online community
and in our land community herein Italy.
(35:52):
We see this happening all thetime.
Couples that breathe togetherstay together.
People that breathe togetherweave together.
There's something extraordinaryabout allowing ourselves to kind
of dismantle the falsearchitecture that we built to
protect us during our childhoodand our youth and the times that
(36:15):
we got hurt or wounded, andthen consciously dismantling
like, okay, it's a bit like thatsticks game or something where
you have to remove a stickwithout crumbling the whole pile
, you know, and but I think ifwe do that with care, then it
does stop that midlife hit orthat sudden loss, catapulting me
(36:36):
into the tumble dryer of humandismay and despair, that I can
retain my agency.
And it's all about agency,because every time we're aware
of the breath that we choose, westrengthen our ability to
choose.
You think of all the timesyou've been wounded or hurt,
that you lost your breath.
That's what happened, right,you were shocked and you were
(36:59):
traumatized and then it wentinto your whole cellular
structure.
So maybe we can take a momentand even if it's just imagine or
contemplate that every breaththat we consciously take now
we're actually sending back tothat old me or that old you, to
those times that we lost it.
And there's something deeplyreuniting.
(37:24):
And when we talk about community, the community starts with me,
it starts with you.
It's not you and me that createit starts with you.
It's not you and me that createit.
So if I can bring my own beinginto unity and harmony with the
nature, with the flow, with themovement, and then I come to you
and I present myself to you, Iam present, I am presenting.
(37:46):
I'm not pasting or futuring,I'm presenting myself to you.
That means that we can be realtogether.
We don't have to absorb orlisten or withstand each other's
narratives.
We can create a curious oneourselves, and I think that's
where the new conversation comesin, that we can actually create
a proper community, a propercoming into unity of external
(38:07):
beings, and there's a journey tomake with that.
There are some corridors ofloneliness that lead to solitude
and there's trepidation andthere are demons and there are
traps and false starts and wildgoose chases, but there are also
wonderful, you know wonderful.
(38:30):
I got asked by a student today.
I said what does this calm feellike to you?
And I said you know, it's a bitlike being in a canoe on a
river and being with no paddleand just knowing it's okay and
loving the sounds and the sightsand the gurgle of the water,
(38:52):
and even not knowing that I maybe about to go over Niagara
Falls, and it's still okay.
It's still okay.
It's like it's connecting withthat part of us that actually
doesn't die.
I think it's connecting withsomething eternal.
Susannah Steers (39:14):
That's beautiful.
I love the idea that it isconnecting with that part of us
that is eternal.
That's pretty cool.
What is one, and maybe you'vegiven it to us already?
What is one takeaway from theOuter Chaos, inner Calm book or
(39:36):
from your work you hope ourlisteners can carry with them
today after our conversation?
Anthony Abbagnano (39:45):
Well, for those who've not done breathwork
before, those who have donewill know exactly what I mean.
For those who've not donebreathwork before, I think it's
breathe and feel, feel and heal.
So what do I mean by that?
When you cry, you sob right andyour breath is doing its own
(40:07):
thing.
You're in this convulsion andyour breath is doing your own
thing.
But if you feel that sorrow orthat sadness and you bring a
measured breath to it, somethingcompletely different happens
that you allow yourself to fullyfeel the experience, but you
also stay in the witness at thesame time.
So you're having the benefit ofthe depth of emotion, but
(40:27):
you're also watching it andtherefore not over-identifying
with it.
You can watch it like a cloudin the sky that it will pass.
It has a shelf life.
And that works with thepositive feelings too.
If you are making love and youwant to change the nature of
your orgasm, if you breathe aslow, connected breath as you
(40:53):
feel the sense of crescendo andcontraction arriving, it
completely changes the nature ofthat too.
And they're both very similar.
Actually, they're both verysimilar states of being.
It's, I think, the achievementof the marriage, the re-pairing
of our emotional realm with theact of breathing that creates
(41:14):
alchemy, something magical canhappen.
So, instead of running awayfrom fear or acting from fear,
or running away from anxiety ortrying to get rid of these
things, we work in a differentway.
We work in a way of like let'sgive it permission to be here,
what are you feeling in yourbody right now?
(41:34):
And breathe.
And if the person stopsbreathing and they start getting
choppy, you know, come back toyour breath.
Come back to your breath.
That's the deal here.
You've got to keep breathing,then allow the feeling to come
into being, give it permissionto exist.
Even then, begin to amplify thefeeling as you're breathing.
Breathing is number one.
And then, all of a sudden, welook at that fear that's haunted
(41:55):
us for 60 years, or the anxietythat has put us on meds and put
us into places we didn't wantto go.
We begin to understand thatactually, this is just energy
and I can get a saddle on this.
I can get a saddle and a bridleon this.
I can actually ride this energy.
It can help me in countlessways and my fear is actually a
(42:20):
good thing.
I just need to speak to it soit's not all pent up like
someone who's been stuck in, youknow, stuck in a hole and needs
to explode Like our anger is.
You know, if I can be inrelationship with these things,
then there's so much to learnand so much empowerment from
learning to breathe with them.
So feel and breathe, breatheand heal.
Susannah Steers (42:44):
Anthony, it is such a joy to talk to you.
I know that our listeners aregoing to want to connect with
you.
They're going to want to findyour book.
Where do we find you, oh?
Anthony Abbagnano (42:54):
Thank you Well, online, alchemyofbreathcom
.
I don't know if you can hearthe bells or not in the
background, but right now I'mlistening to some bells which
are beautiful Alchemyofbreath.
com.
And then also, if you want tocome visit us, initially you can
still do it through Alchemy ofBreath, but we are called ASHA
(43:15):
Alchemy School of Healing Arts,so that's A-S-H-A dot global,
and you can find out more.
You can come closer one way oranother.
We're doing a wholeregeneration project here in
Italy.
You can find out about and, ifyou're interested in the breath
and courses and doing our Sunday, if you're interested in the
breath and courses and doing ourSunday Breathe the Worlds with
us then please do.
(43:35):
It's free.
It's a great opportunity tomeet people and enjoy good
quality community.
Susannah Steers (43:43):
We'll put all of that in the show notes for
the podcast so you can find thelinks there.
Where can we find your book?
Anthony Abbagnano (43:54):
My book's on Amazon and you can also, I think
, buy it from the website, andit's actually yeah, our launch
is right now.
Susannah Steers (43:59):
Fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharingof your heart and your wisdom
with us and I look forward tolearning more about your work
and diving into some practice.
Thank you for being with metoday.
Anthony Abbagnano (44:13):
Thank you, Susannah.
Susannah Steers (44:16):
Till next time, breathe and feel, feel and
breathe.
See you soon.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Subscribe and, if you love whatyou heard, leave a five-star
review and tell people what youenjoyed most.
Join me here again in a coupleof weeks For now let's get
(44:38):
moving.
Welcome to the Heart of Motion Podcast.
I'm Susanna Steers and I'll beyour host as we explore the
heart, soul and science ofmovement as a pathway to more
active, vibrant and connectedliving.
Nothing happens until somethingmoves, so let's get started.
Welcome to the Heart of MotionPodcast, where we explore the
(00:22):
heart, soul and science ofmovement and what it means in
our lives and at the heart ofmovement and really of life
itself, is breath.
We take it for granted, webreathe in, we breathe out.
For the most part, we don'treally even think about it.
It just happens.
And yet breath is the one thingthat ties into everything we
(00:42):
are and everything we do.
Breath supports posture andmotion and acts as the
foundation for every system inthe body.
It unites the sympathetic andparasympathetic nervous systems.
Breath connects spirit to form.
Today, we are diving much deeperinto breath with a very special
guest.
Anthony Abbagnano is thefounder of Alchemy of Breath, a
(01:06):
globally recognized breathworkcommunity that has helped
thousands reclaim their ownpower through the transformative
power of the breath.
His personal story, shared inhis new book "Outer Chaos and
Inner Calm, details how heovercame profound challenges
through breathwork andmindfulness, leading him to
create a life of purpose andbalance.
(01:26):
He's spoken alongside notableleaders like Deepak Chopra,
Marianne Williamson, bruceLipton, peter Levine and others.
Anthony, I am so glad towelcome you to the Heart Emotion
Podcast.
Anthony Abbagnano (01:40):
What an honor .
Thank you, Susannah.
I loved all the things you saidabout the breath too touching
and true.
Susannah Steers (01:48):
And true.
Breath is so important, andit's just something we most of
the time don't even think about.
So I'm thrilled to dive in, andthere is so much I want to talk
to you about today.
So why don't we jump right into your new book, "Outer Chaos,
inner Calm?
I want to know what inspiredyou to write it, and maybe is
there something in your ownjourney that shaped the book's
(02:10):
message.
Anthony Abbagnano (02:12):
Yeah, absolutely completely.
The book is actually born fromwhat I would call the backbone
of the training that I've beengiving for the last 15 years to
people who want to be breathworkfacilitators or to use the
breath in their practice.
So doctors, nurses,psychotherapists, policemen,
(02:32):
psychiatry, you know on and onall different walks of life, and
it was really done as arequisite to ensure that the
quality of facilitation that mygraduates would provide is of
sufficient depth and gravitasthat they can really sit
alongside anybody, no matter howdeep or bright or light their
(02:55):
process might be.
So that goes all the way tosome of our facilitators who
worked with the MAID program inCanada.
We do work in prisons andhospitals and police forces.
We deal with a lot of traumawork and we really want to
accompany people in those tenderand deep moments in their life
(03:15):
and the book is really exactlythat.
The inner journey that I ask ofmy students is pretty much
articulated in the book.
It's a lighter version andmaybe has a wider appeal, and
that's the purpose of it.
I found people who are comingto study breathwork with me.
Some of them said it's not thebreathwork I want to do, this
inner journey thing I've heardabout.
(03:36):
So I thought, well, I betterpull it out.
Obviously, if there are morepeople that want to do it, I
want to make it available.
So the book is the beginning ofthat awareness, that inner
journey for people, and for some, the completion as well.
Susannah Steers (03:51):
Is there something in your own personal
journey that brought you toworking with the Breath in this
way?
Anthony Abbagnano (03:59):
Yeah, that's when I said everything.
Everything in my life has ledto this book, even though it's
the fourth book I've written.
Actually, I've written fourbooks before.
Excuse me, this is the last oneI've written and it's the first
one to be published.
Okay, this book is really it isentirely from my own life
perspective and the experiencesthat I've had, but it really
(04:21):
talks about experiences that areuniversal.
And I think one of the mostchallenging things when we're
overwhelmed or troubled or superchallenged, is that we somehow
have this story.
We tell ourselves that thewhole universe is orchestrating
our adversity and thateverything's going pear-shaped.
And I think in those times ofdeep distress, it's good to know
(04:43):
that we're not alone.
They're actually.
That's one of the fundamentalaspects of's good to know that
we're not alone.
They're actually.
That's one of the fundamentalaspects of our human journey is
that every once in a while, weneed to encounter that sense of
deep threat in order to grow, inorder to become more resilient
and robust.
So that's certainly been my life, and the book is really about
(05:04):
taking those 71 years now andputting them into a message that
can be really quite brief,because the principles are
simple.
It took me a long time ofstruggle to find out what they
were, but they're actually quitestraightforward and simple and
they can be employed with ease.
And it's not to say the book isan easy read.
(05:24):
But it also asks some questionsthat we get to reflect on, and
some of those questions are evendesigned not to be answered but
just to be with as a way ofopening to a deeper part of
ourselves.
But I think that the outcomeand the purpose of the book is
really to gain agency, so totake a brief look at our past
(05:49):
and to understand what theconstraining factors were that
sculpted us to be who we arewith, so we can rewrite those
parts that we want to rewrite.
Coming into our present moment,then we have the choice of well
, what do I want the rest of mylife to look like?
(06:10):
So it's about becoming theauthor of your life rather than
letting someone else write thebook for you.
Susannah Steers (06:19):
Throughout the book you refer to a hero's
journey.
I love looking at patterns andI love a good archetype.
Can you tell me a little bitmore about the hero's journey as
you see it and maybe describehow people might apply it in
their own healing processes?
Anthony Abbagnano (06:39):
Yeah Well, there are a couple of really,
really important takeaways thatI think are valuable for people
to know if they're not familiarwith the hero's journey.
But the hero's journey is bornfrom research that Joseph
Campbell did and Joseph Campbellwas an anthropologist and he
studied many different cultures,including tribal cultures and
(07:00):
myth, and he understood as aresult of his research that
there is actually a human storythat we're all living, and it
might take a lifetime to live,but there are many loops of this
thing happening as well.
It could be an hour or a week,or a relationship or a project
or anything like that, and therecould be four or five of them
(07:23):
going on at the same time, likeI'm living the inner journey of
my life right now, the hero'sjourney of my life.
Right now I'm living the hero'sjourney of this talk we're
having.
I don't know what you're goingto ask me next.
I've left my home territory,I'm in an exploratory place and
I may have to meet some of mydemons and my dark sides, if you
ask me the right questions, andI also will hopefully find some
(07:45):
kind of treasure on thisjourney.
And already this might seemfamiliar with many films that
you've watched or many books orstories that you've read, that
there is this departure fromwhat we know and an excursion
and an exploration into anunknown world, and there is
treasure to be found in thisjourney and that, in a classic
(08:11):
movie, might be Treasure Islandand landing on the island and
finding the box of treasure.
And in the sense that I relateto the hero's journey, the
treasure is inside each of us,and so it's really about finding
ourselves.
It's an internal journey thatwe make.
And then, of course, once wefind the treasure, if you're
sitting on Treasure Islandwithout a helicopter or a boat
(08:33):
or a way out, that treasure isnot really worth a lot.
You can't eat it, you can'tburn it, you can't trade it.
If you're on your own, there'snothing you can do trade it.
If you're on your own, there'snothing you can do.
So that second half of thehero's journey is about how do
we take that back, how do webring it back to where we came
from usefully, in such a way asit can be a teaching of some
(08:58):
kind.
This value can be conveyed tosomebody else.
So that's the hero's journey.
What I've done with this book isI've borrowed from the hero's
journey, but I've also examinedthe human journey and taken a
lifespan.
So really, in the book we'relooking at the different stages
(09:21):
of life that we will passthrough and if you're 85, or if
you're 25, that the onlydifference is you've got more
past behind you and less future,or less past behind you and
more future.
But the thresholds that we willcross are the same and they're
universal thresholds, they'rearchetypal thresholds.
So I think, to get to the realtakeaways for this, for people
(09:45):
who don't want to spend theirtime reading A Hero with a
Thousand Faces, I've been in mylife.
I now understand whenever itmight happen again.
(10:11):
There's always something elsewaiting to happen.
But unless we're prepared tobecome the discoverer of what
that is, we won't know what itis.
So we'll stay in the rut ofrepeating the same things, the
depression, the anxiety loops welive in, the ways we undermine
ourselves, the inner judge thatI'm not good enough, I don't
(10:33):
belong, all those narrativesthat we've learned to repeat to
ourselves as if they weremantras or affirmations and
indeed they are.
We then become the slave ofthat statement and we then
unconsciously engineer ways torepeat it again.
So this book is really abouttearing the stickiness of the
(10:55):
comfort zone, tearing ourselvesoff that sticky pad and going to
a new launch pad and exploringwhat else that can be.
What else is it that could bepossible?
So it's fairly intrepid, butit's guided and it's supported.
One of the things that I loveabout the book is that it's now
open on our community platform,so when you read it, you can be
(11:17):
alongside other people that arereading it too.
And I think, in all the workthat I've done, the value of
community has proved itself tobe paramount, because it's when
I feel alone with my shame or mysense of failure that it gets
amplified and it gets worse.
I keep listening to my ownvoice.
That's putting me down, butwhen I find out there's someone
(11:38):
else who's feeling exactly thesame way, all of a sudden it
changes and there's aconversation that can happen in
a way.
Maybe I can uplift them in away, or they can uplift me in a
way, and so, with this sense ofcommunity, we can really make
this an easier navigation, thisgame of life that we play.
Susannah Steers (11:59):
Yes, and it seems that these days, with all
the connectivity that we have inthis way, you know, with
podcasts and the things we areconnected to, there are ways in
which we are really disconnectedfrom ourselves and from each
other because we're glued to thescreens and glued to the ways
information bombarding us.
(12:19):
I want to ask a question,because oftentimes the theme of
this podcast, it's centraltheme, is movement, and over the
last year we've explored manyways that different kinds of
breathwork can support andamplify movement and embodiment
as a pathway to meaningfulchange.
(12:39):
Now the science is finallycatching up.
There's a growing body ofresearch showing that breath
work can reduce your stress,anxiety, improve your mood and
benefits that we see in yourteachings.
But your work takes it deeperthe physiological calm that's so
(13:08):
often measured by science and alived, emotional, felt, sense,
experience of calm.
Anthony Abbagnano (13:14):
I think they're very similar.
I think the more we come, firstof all, to take it down to
basics, the more we come closerto our breath, the more equipped
we become to manipulate anothersystem in the way that we want
to, so we can excite it or calmit or anything in between.
(13:34):
And there are lots of buttonsand dials on that dashboard that
the closer we come to thebreath, the more we notice what
they are and how to utilize themat the right moment in the
right way to create a completelydifferent outcome in our
perspective and therefore thatwhich occurs to us.
If our perspective is different, we will notice differently and
(13:55):
so, therefore, different thingscan can happen.
So whether the nervous systemis calm, naturally because I am
absent of external stimuli andit's the end of my day and I'm
just just exhausted and I don'twant to think anymore, and I sit
there and like have that exhalethat we all know is like gosh,
(14:15):
gosh, you know, is almost awell-being in that exhaustion,
because it's the knowledge thatI could put the list down for
the day.
I don't have to check my phoneanymore, you know.
And so we can arrive at thatcalm by hyperactivity and
exhaustion.
But I think the ability tocreate that sense of calm is
something different, andespecially if with the world as
(14:39):
chaotic as it is.
And then comes the questionwell, what would it look like to
alchemize that chaos, toactually use it as the compost
that will nourish the shoots ofmy own sense of inner calm, no
matter what is going on outthere?
And then, when we get to thatplace, then we begin to notice
(15:02):
that, oh, my sense of calm, myquality of presence how much I'm
fully with you is actuallyinspiring for other people.
People notice the quality ofpresence.
We used to call it presence ofmind 50 years ago, but now we
understand presence means morethan just presence of mind.
It means presence of everything.
(15:24):
And we know what it's like whensomeone who has a high quality
of presence enters a room.
We all feel it, we feelattracted, we feel inspired, we
feel compelled.
And so that calm that we attainthrough this process of alchemy
of the outer world into thestill point inside becomes a
(15:48):
form of leadership, of innerleadership that then emanates
and informs the world around us.
And as to the element ofmovement, I think what I find
most relevant is that the breathwill flow within you or it will
flow without you.
So let us make it our businessthat it will flow within us,
(16:10):
because then we are in movement.
So it teaches us, the more weacquaint ourselves with it, that
hanging on means non-life.
It might feel safer not toleave this moment and it might
feel comfortable and more known.
But if we can let go and trustI think it was Elizabeth
(16:33):
Kubler-Ross who wrote that bookon death and dying, I think it
was and she said are you willingto trust, as you take a step
over the edge of the cliff, thatyour foot will actually land on
something solid?
I think we've seen I rememberHarrison Ford did a movie when
he had to jump off.
It looked like this precipitousdownfall into the darkness and
(16:54):
dragons and all kinds of uglystuff.
It was a very special momentbecause he did step off and
something happened.
And so there comes a point inour lives that repeatedly
perhaps, that we're offered thechance to embrace faith, that I
am in harmony with life and I amin the dance with life and life
(17:15):
will not step on my toe becauseI'm in the flow.
That element of movement, Ithink, is where I make my pitch,
because the flow of the breathis the flow of life and, like
you said in the beginning, weforget about it our whole life.
Really, if we focused on justthat first and last breath and
(17:35):
understood that we're doing thatall the time, 25,000 times a
day, we're living that birth anddeath cycle, how many
opportunities does it give forcreativity and how many
opportunities does it give forinquiry and curiosity and wonder
?
And finally, how manyopportunities does it give us to
let go of something that wefind difficult to let go of,
(17:57):
that we're hanging on to?
Susannah Steers (18:00):
Yes, because everything tends to contract
when we're in that space of fearand we're not breathing, or
it's very shallow and our bodiestighten up, but the world kind
of gets smaller around that too,doesn't it?
It is sometimes a scary thingto look at taking that step, and
(18:22):
I feel like we're sort ofaddicted to living life at full
throttle and in particular ways,I'm wondering if you have ways
that people can access thatsense of true calm when they are
in that state of overwhelm.
How do you get to a place whereyou can use that state as the
birth of something deeper?
Anthony Abbagnano (18:45):
Yeah, yeah and different,
Susannah Steers (18:47):
Different yeah.
Anthony Abbagnano (18:49):
Because I don't know, as a race, if we've
ever been under such threat.
I think I was hearing a speakerwho I value.
His name is Stephen Bartlett.
He was interviewing some peoplejust the other day and they
were concluding that we have anincrease of 66% in war than
(19:13):
we've had over the last 10 or 20years.
So we now deal with proxy wars,where countries employ other
countries to do their battlesfor them.
So these things are real, eventhough we feel distant from them
and there's no more.
I don't believe there's everbeen in my lifetime a more
urgent moment than there is nowto seek a different way of being
(19:36):
100% invested in that.
And I think one of the pitfallsthat I see happening in many of
the conversations that arehappening out there are that
this argument that we entertainfor all the way, from conspiracy
at one end of the continuum tomainstream media at the other
(19:57):
end of the continuum this is alldata that's getting chucked at
us all the time.
It's confusing.
We don't know what sense-makingmeans anymore.
We don't know what's sensible,what's not.
We don't know what's true,what's not.
Those things have been actuallyleft behind as a part of our
past and we're now in thisswirling confusion that it's
(20:19):
very easy to grab for footholdsor handholds in this kind of a
situation.
And I see what's happening isthat the conversations that we
indulge in, the conversationsthat we let become the currency
of our lives, are not healthyconversations.
So I'm for and you're against,or she's left and he's right,
(20:41):
and we keep dichotomizing andpolarizing and casting opinions,
and they get stronger andstronger and meanwhile the
adrenaline, the world adrenalinelevels are going higher and
higher and the patient's levelsare going lower and lower and
health levels and immunitylevels are going lower and lower
and we're not in good shaperight now.
(21:03):
So to me it's about how do weactually change conversation,
and that's what the book isabout is about standing for a
new conversation and theninquiring what that conversation
might be.
So how can we invite a new typeof correspondence rather than
this old one that you attack andI co-respond?
(21:27):
I co-respond by attacking youback.
And so how can we change thequality of correspondence to
something that is kinder andmore heart-centered and more
amply informed, and that allstarts with one breath?
Just that choice, to make thetime to take one breath is, I
(21:49):
think, the greatest act that wecan make, especially if we're
under pressure, say how can wedo this when we're under
pressure in these situations?
And when it comes down tobreath practices, it's
absolutely true to say the wrongtime to try a new breath
practice is when you're underpressure.
The time to put it into placeis when you're not under
(22:10):
pressure, so the next time itcomes up you know what to do.
You have an automatic go-to.
So I wouldn't expect others thansome really very basic things
like remembering to take abreath when you don't want to is
the beginning of somethingdifferent.
And then it's a question of now.
How do I make that moment intomovement?
(22:30):
How do I connect that moment tothe next moment so I can create
movement that has traction andaccountability and something
measurable at the end of it.
And then we can feel like I amon the road to change.
I as an individual am on theroad to change and I can
identify things that arecontributing to that and things
(22:53):
that are not, and I can choosewho I hang out with and who I
don't hang out with, and thenwe're beginning to reconstruct a
new possibility of reality.
I think I mentioned in the bookI love that statement of you
become the average of the fivepeople you spend most of your
time with.
You know.
Susannah Steers (23:10):
It speaks to a practice as well.
I mean the other thing I findand I work in a Pilates studio
times when I see people come inand they want a quick fix.
They want something.
You know, give me a couple ofexercises and then I'm going to
go away and do something else.
For me, the value of any kindof movement practice is the
consistency.
It's the getting to knowyourself, is getting to know
(23:32):
your patterns, is getting toknow your habits and seeing
things from differentperspectives and playing with
things in different ways.
My sense is it's not just, youknow, putting on an app and
doing a few breathing things,but really embracing a practice.
Anthony Abbagnano (23:48):
Yeah, and I think the practice is to create
intimacy with your breath, thisthing that you mentioned at the
beginning, like all thosebreaths we took in between, the
only ones we paid attention towere the ones that were missing,
you know, when we caught ourbreath because we were wounded
or hurt.
And so I think that firstchoice of taking a breath is the
(24:12):
antithesis to being the victimof a situation, because when
we're a victim of a situation,we lose all our attributes, we
lose all our processing powerand our thought mechanisms go to
the amygdala, to the back ofthe brain, and we're reduced to
those three famous things thattrauma brings, which is fight,
(24:32):
flight or freeze.
So just the enactment of achoice, I think, is opening a
door to a different potentialoutcome.
I think maybe this is one ofthe stories I tell in the book
of a friend of mine who was apsychotherapist and she went to
I think it was Greece and therefugees were going there from
(24:55):
North Africa at that time, andshe had this experiment where
she would say to each refugeethat came off one of the boats
you've made it, congratulations,I want to acknowledge you for
being a survivor and what theyfound was that the people she
(25:19):
welcomed, whereas the othersjust sort of threw them a
blanket and told them to go lineup over there to get their food
or whatever.
The ones that she welcomed hada much easier time integrating,
and I think that's because wedon't acknowledge ourselves for
what we do.
We measure what's got to bedone and we're taught that the
outcome is somewhere over there,somewhere beyond where I am now
(25:42):
.
I'm never happy with what I'vegot.
I always want what I haven'tgot, and these things have
become normal to us, and so weforget to acknowledge the ground
that we've actually covered.
I was sitting with a woman today, an entrepreneur, highly
(26:06):
successful, who is, in herbusiness life, super successful,
young, early teens and unableto have functional relationships
because of the fact that sheneeds to do her inner child.
What I do, I do a lot of innerchild work, and there are parts
of her being that have just beenisolated and abandoned and left
behind because of crises thatshe had when she was a young
girl.
I was amazed when I said well,what practices do you have to
(26:29):
create awareness in yourrelationship?
She named like well, first ofall, no matter how much work
I've got, I delay it until I'vecompleted my personal practice.
And I said, well, what doesthat look like?
She said, well, I pray and Ibreathe and I read, and I go for
a walk and I go to nature.
And I'm thinking, do you everacknowledge yourself for that?
(26:50):
Oh no, I never have.
So I said, well, if you were toacknowledge yourself, would you
feel it was quite so hopelessas you do now this situation?
And she went.
I never thought of that andit's so basic, it's so
fundamental.
But there's something about whenwe look.
(27:12):
We've learned not to look atourselves in depth unless we're
criticizing or judging.
We've become so self-judgmental.
So you know, I thinkacknowledgement, as I say in the
book, is a fundamental part ofour human journey.
That's not grandiosity, that'sacknowledgement where
acknowledgement is due.
So I think that's important toremember and I think also that
(27:36):
the same thing, I think everyperson carries a natural gift
and most of the time thatnatural gift is wrapped in.
The biggest problem that we faceand this is another principle
of the hero's journey too youknow, in the cave you fear most
lies the treasure you seek.
So if we don't take the time tounwrap that, what looks
disgusting to us or painful ifwe don't actually stop and make
(28:00):
that act of responsibility, theability to respond to actually
unwrap, that we won't find thetreasure that's underneath.
There's something about allthose downtimes, those
depressing moments that we live,the ones that we call failures
or whatever the ones that wecall failures or whatever that
(28:22):
really are asking us to put onour detective hat and our
superhero cape or whatever it is, and to really get nose in
there, not to wallow in it, butto find something that we hadn't
found, because at the bottom ofthat very dark pond is a golden
key.
If we can make it down thereand look through the silt,
there's a part of ourselvesthat's competent, qualitative,
(28:44):
completely able to negotiatethis situation.
We just can't resource it, wecan't find it, so we can't treat
it as a resource.
And often that gift shows up assomething so unbelievably
normal to us because we grew upwith it, but we don't give
ourselves credit for it, so itdoesn't count in some way.
Susannah Steers (29:04):
It is amazing what we overlook so many ways.
Another thing that you talkabout in the book is I think
you've alluded to it a littlebit that embracing death
actually bring us more life.
Now that, I mean, it soundsfascinating and maybe scary too,
and maybe that relates to whatwe were just talking about.
Can you unpack that a littleand let me know what that means
(29:25):
to you?
Anthony Abbagnano (29:26):
Yeah, I mean, I think the metaphor that you
used about movement is alsorelevant to this, because if we
don't embrace death, we'retrying to stop something that
wants to happen.
Right, that's our tendency.
But yeah, the book encouragesthe reader to consider death
(29:48):
awareness as a real advantageand a real benefit.
It brings a huge benefit to us.
I think we all have heardstories about people who've been
given terminal diagnoses andsome have recovered, but others,
who haven't, have stillexperienced a complete
turnaround in the way that theysee the world and a complete
(30:08):
turnaround in theirrelationships, their life view,
their spirituality, their senseof forgiveness or compassion and
their awareness of ending.
Sense of forgiveness orcompassion and their awareness
of ending and endings have thisawfully negative connotation to
us because they mean goingsomewhere else that we don't
(30:29):
know what will happen.
So people like Ram Dass, whosay think of your death as going
home, are presenting thequestion what if the opposite is
true?
What if it's the launchpad to afantastical, wonderful
experience?
And why have we named it?
Why have we branded it the waywe have?
(30:52):
And my experience is that bybringing death consciousness and
it's difficult, I mean Iremember I did this with my wife
Five or six years ago, Ithought I was going to get a bad
.
I had a test, I thought I wasgoing to get a bad diagnosis,
and so I started to say, look, Iwant to, I want to talk about
this.
If it's going to happen, I wantto talk about it.
And she was deeply disturbedbecause that's not.
(31:16):
It's like talking about the endof our love, the end of our
relationship.
You know, it's like frightening,and yet the more that we did it
, the more that we would sitdown and make it a part of our
awareness, make it a part of ourday.
Things didn't get morose at all.
Actually.
We level of appreciation shotskyrocketed.
Our awareness of today andwhat's here right now just like
(31:39):
exploded into a whole new thing,and the love that we felt, the
tenderness that we feel for eachother could really be felt, as
well as the loss, the impendingsense of what that loss would be
.
If we keep hiding from the loss, then the gain has no purpose.
And so it's like trying tolisten to those old AM radios of
(32:03):
50 years ago that were allcrackle and treble and there's
no bass note.
You know, life without the bassnote gets to be a little bit
whiny, and troublesome.
With the roundness of thepoignance of things like loss
and grief.
They're the things that reallypush us into contemplation, and
(32:24):
part of the paradox that I'vediscovered is that of everybody
that's been dear to me that hasdied and as I get older, there
are more and more it's happeningmore and more frequently dear
to me that has died and as I getolder there are more and more
it's happening more and morefrequently everybody has left a
gift behind.
In the grief that I've felt,there's been a gift that I was
(32:46):
never able to notice when theywere there, and it's almost like
in their wake there's somethingto be discovered that we just
don't notice until they're notthere anymore.
The weight of the last wordsthey said is an obvious example,
or any advice that they mayhave given us, or an expression
(33:07):
of love that we may have had.
And I've understood in my lifethat in that act of dying we're
actually facilitating somethingelse to happen for those that
remain.
There's something that canactually be in movement, even
though it feels like an ending.
So I know there's a bit ofembrace of mysticism and paradox
(33:30):
there, but I believe thatworking with the awareness that
we're going to die one day isgoing to make us a whole lot
more alive now.
And what if we could choosethat last breath?
What if we could, like theindigenous Americans have said
in the past, what if we could gopick a tree and say it's over,
(33:52):
today's a good day to die.
How would it be if we couldbring that into our Western
culture more, that we could bethat choiceful and that present
with each other,
Susannah Steers (34:08):
the connections to ourselves and between people
and between all of the thingsand everything that we relate to
in the world around us.
Connections fascinate me andfor me it started in the body,
recognizing how every part of usis connected to, is influenced
by and influencing everythingelse, and that sort of changed
(34:29):
my view on movement and bodywork and all that kind of thing.
When I'm in the natural world,the sense of truth in those
connections is simply amplifieda thousandfold.
You can just bathe in it whenyou're out in nature.
It always makes me feel more athome in the world.
I'm wondering we've talked alittle bit about community.
(34:53):
Is there anything you'velearned that indicates that kind
of shared breathwork play arole in fostering connection?
Or maybe it's not even shared,it's individual practices coming
together.
I don't know.
Anthony Abbagnano (35:05):
Oh, absolutely.
I've got so many stories, butit's what we do every Sunday.
You know, every Sunday we do aBreathe the World online twice
to cover both hemispheres, andwe have several hundred people
breathing together.
My wife, amy, said look, we'vegot to launch alchematescom
(35:29):
because we're putting so manycouples together, because
they're in an incrediblybeautiful space where they
breathe together and they get toknow each other deeply and they
get to understand that it'ssafe to be vulnerable and you're
allowing me to see yourvulnerability and that's so
precious, it's exquisite.
And so we see that all the time, both in our online community
and in our land community herein Italy.
(35:52):
We see this happening all thetime.
Couples that breathe togetherstay together.
People that breathe togetherweave together.
There's something extraordinaryabout allowing ourselves to kind
of dismantle the falsearchitecture that we built to
protect us during our childhoodand our youth and the times that
(36:15):
we got hurt or wounded, andthen consciously dismantling
like, okay, it's a bit like thatsticks game or something where
you have to remove a stickwithout crumbling the whole pile
, you know, and but I think ifwe do that with care, then it
does stop that midlife hit orthat sudden loss, catapulting me
(36:36):
into the tumble dryer of humandismay and despair, that I can
retain my agency.
And it's all about agency,because every time we're aware
of the breath that we choose, westrengthen our ability to
choose.
You think of all the timesyou've been wounded or hurt,
that you lost your breath.
That's what happened, right,you were shocked and you were
(36:59):
traumatized and then it wentinto your whole cellular
structure.
So maybe we can take a momentand even if it's just imagine or
contemplate that every breaththat we consciously take now
we're actually sending back tothat old me or that old you, to
those times that we lost it.
And there's something deeplyreuniting.
(37:24):
And when we talk about community, the community starts with me,
it starts with you.
It's not you and me that createit starts with you.
It's not you and me that createit.
So if I can bring my own beinginto unity and harmony with the
nature, with the flow, with themovement, and then I come to you
and I present myself to you, Iam present, I am presenting.
(37:46):
I'm not pasting or futuring,I'm presenting myself to you.
That means that we can be realtogether.
We don't have to absorb orlisten or withstand each other's
narratives.
We can create a curious oneourselves, and I think that's
where the new conversation comesin, that we can actually create
a proper community, a propercoming into unity of external
(38:07):
beings, and there's a journey tomake with that.
There are some corridors ofloneliness that lead to solitude
and there's trepidation andthere are demons and there are
traps and false starts and wildgoose chases, but there are also
wonderful, you know wonderful.
(38:30):
I got asked by a student today.
I said what does this calm feellike to you?
And I said you know, it's a bitlike being in a canoe on a
river and being with no paddleand just knowing it's okay and
loving the sounds and the sightsand the gurgle of the water,
(38:52):
and even not knowing that I maybe about to go over Niagara
Falls, and it's still okay.
It's still okay.
It's like it's connecting withthat part of us that actually
doesn't die.
I think it's connecting withsomething eternal.
Susannah Steers (39:14):
That's beautiful.
I love the idea that it isconnecting with that part of us
that is eternal.
That's pretty cool.
What is one, and maybe you'vegiven it to us already?
What is one takeaway from theOuter Chaos, inner Calm book or
(39:36):
from your work you hope ourlisteners can carry with them
today after our conversation?
Anthony Abbagnano (39:45):
Well, for those who've not done breathwork
before, those who have donewill know exactly what I mean.
For those who've not donebreathwork before, I think it's
breathe and feel, feel and heal.
So what do I mean by that?
When you cry, you sob right andyour breath is doing its own
(40:07):
thing.
You're in this convulsion andyour breath is doing your own
thing.
But if you feel that sorrow orthat sadness and you bring a
measured breath to it, somethingcompletely different happens
that you allow yourself to fullyfeel the experience, but you
also stay in the witness at thesame time.
So you're having the benefit ofthe depth of emotion, but
(40:27):
you're also watching it andtherefore not over-identifying
with it.
You can watch it like a cloudin the sky that it will pass.
It has a shelf life.
And that works with thepositive feelings too.
If you are making love and youwant to change the nature of
your orgasm, if you breathe aslow, connected breath as you
(40:53):
feel the sense of crescendo andcontraction arriving, it
completely changes the nature ofthat too.
And they're both very similar.
Actually, they're both verysimilar states of being.
It's, I think, the achievementof the marriage, the re-pairing
of our emotional realm with theact of breathing that creates
(41:14):
alchemy, something magical canhappen.
So, instead of running awayfrom fear or acting from fear,
or running away from anxiety ortrying to get rid of these
things, we work in a differentway.
We work in a way of like let'sgive it permission to be here,
what are you feeling in yourbody right now?
(41:34):
And breathe.
And if the person stopsbreathing and they start getting
choppy, you know, come back toyour breath.
Come back to your breath.
That's the deal here.
You've got to keep breathing,then allow the feeling to come
into being, give it permissionto exist.
Even then, begin to amplify thefeeling as you're breathing.
Breathing is number one.
And then, all of a sudden, welook at that fear that's haunted
(41:55):
us for 60 years, or the anxietythat has put us on meds and put
us into places we didn't wantto go.
We begin to understand thatactually, this is just energy
and I can get a saddle on this.
I can get a saddle and a bridleon this.
I can actually ride this energy.
It can help me in countlessways and my fear is actually a
(42:20):
good thing.
I just need to speak to it soit's not all pent up like
someone who's been stuck in, youknow, stuck in a hole and needs
to explode Like our anger is.
You know, if I can be inrelationship with these things,
then there's so much to learnand so much empowerment from
learning to breathe with them.
So feel and breathe, breatheand heal.
Susannah Steers (42:44):
Anthony, it is such a joy to talk to you.
I know that our listeners aregoing to want to connect with
you.
They're going to want to findyour book.
Where do we find you, oh?
Anthony Abbagnano (42:54):
Thank you Well, online, alchemyofbreathcom
.
I don't know if you can hearthe bells or not in the
background, but right now I'mlistening to some bells which
are beautiful Alchemyofbreath.
com.
And then also, if you want tocome visit us, initially you can
still do it through Alchemy ofBreath, but we are called ASHA
(43:15):
Alchemy School of Healing Arts,so that's A-S-H-A dot global,
and you can find out more.
You can come closer one way oranother.
We're doing a wholeregeneration project here in
Italy.
You can find out about and, ifyou're interested in the breath
and courses and doing our Sunday, if you're interested in the
breath and courses and doing ourSunday Breathe the Worlds with
us then please do.
(43:35):
It's free.
It's a great opportunity tomeet people and enjoy good
quality community.
Susannah Steers (43:43):
We'll put all of that in the show notes for
the podcast so you can find thelinks there.
Where can we find your book?
Anthony Abbagnano (43:54):
My book's on Amazon and you can also, I think
, buy it from the website, andit's actually yeah, our launch
is right now.
Susannah Steers (43:59):
Fantastic.
Thank you so much for sharingof your heart and your wisdom
with us and I look forward tolearning more about your work
and diving into some practice.
Thank you for being with metoday.
Anthony Abbagnano (44:13):
Thank you, Susannah.
Susannah Steers (44:16):
Till next time, breathe and feel, feel and
breathe.
See you soon.
I hope you enjoyed today'sepisode.
Subscribe and, if you love whatyou heard, leave a five-star
review and tell people what youenjoyed most.
Join me here again in a coupleof weeks For now let's get
(44:38):
moving.
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