Breath of Transformation: Alan Dolan's Journey from PR to Healing Guru

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
and welcome hello.
It was just hello, no welcomes.
We do not welcome peopleanymore, isn't that right?

Speaker 2 (00:06):
andy new policy?
Yeah, no, welcoming at all.
We've got someone who'sprobably been our most
anticipated guest, I would say,not least because we had to um
postpone, uh, his first umrecording, but also because I
think he's probably beenmentioned the most out of anyone
in the world on our podcasts.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yes, yes, Drumroll.
Please for Alan Dolan, thebreath guru.
Short intro because it's afairly long episode relative for
us, because we just had so manyquestions.
We could have gone on a lotlonger.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
A lot longer.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
So we won't keep you too long here, but we're going
to talk about breathwork and thebreathwork industry and the
miraculous healings that Alanhas seen and where the industry
is going and how he was featuredin the article and how he got a
book deal and all these amazingthings.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
And I haven't just drawn the Kool-Aid.
I actually had a one-to-onesession with Alan.
I looked it up in January 2019and it was incredibly powerful.
My first experience ofbreathwork.
So, yeah, another thing I sentyou on right, you sent me on
that, yeah, you sent me to himJanuary 21, no 2019.
It was brilliant.

(01:15):
Yeah, really really good, enjoycheers.

Speaker 1 (01:19):
Hey, listener, if you're enjoying the insights and
stories we share on our pod,then don't miss out on any of
our episodes.
Hit the subscribe button todownload and listen to our
conversations at yourconvenience.

Speaker 2 (01:38):
Alan, welcome to the show.
Start off nice and easy,hopefully, hopefully.
How did you get into breathworkand also, can you explain what
breathwork is?

Speaker 3 (01:48):
okay.
So I think I got into it.
Simply put, really stress.
I was in a really good job thatreally didn't suit who I was
and didn't really the the matchwasn't there.
I was working in saudi arabiariad.
I'm a gay.
That's probably not a greatmatch.
I should probably just havegone the whole hog and gone to
Lagos and lived there.

(02:09):
But basically I was just reallystressed out.
I was on a 10, I would say on a10 scale and I was looking for
something to alleviate that.
I didn't want to leave the jobat that point and I was kind of
felt a bit boxed in by it alland I started to do yoga and I
knew that yoga would bring mystress levels down and indeed it
did.
But the bottom line was itopened things up big time and I

(02:30):
realized there were so many moredimensions to yoga than purely
a de-stressing tool.
So I got really intrigued bythat and gradually my job became
less.
I was a PR and communicationsmanager in the aerospace
industry and gradually my jobbecame less and less and less
engaging and the yoga becamemore and more and more
captivating and I thought thatit was time probably for a

(02:52):
sabbatical.
So I took a year out and theplan was there was no plan
because up to that point I'dlived very much by my diary and
it's scheduled at the wazoo mostof the time and it was PR.
So I was out pretty much everynight as well.
I was smoking a lot, I wasdrinking a lot, until yoga
kicked in and then that sort offell by the wayside.
So I took a year out and theonly thing I booked was I went

(03:14):
to spa, samui, and had atwo-week or three-week detox
with the whole bit, colonics andfasting and all of that, and I
thought that would be a good wayto begin.
And then I booked a yogateacher training and that was my
insurance policy so that ifnothing else happened, I'd open
a yoga retreat.
And at that point there weren'treally any.
There weren't so many around.

(03:34):
It was kind of a new idea.
And I got to Costa Rica.
I was at this wonderful placecalled the Nasara Yoga Institute
, an amazing, amazing place, andI was just in heaven.
I was with 53 other people whohad an equal love of yoga and we
had the most amazing facultythere, people who are really
experts in their field.
So we studied the scripturesand the Bhagavad Gita and we had

(03:57):
a couple of classes a day andit was just a great setup,
really, really good.
So I was blissing out for thatwhole month plus.
You're on this amazingpeninsula in costa rica and
literally like sea turtles kindof coming up on the beach to lay
their eggs and stuff.
It's just, you know,paradisical.
And we had a day off and one ofthe guys on the course in fact
two of the guys on the coursesaid oh, we've got this thing

(04:18):
called conscious connectedbreathing.
We'd like to give the group, uh, the gift of a session and I I
was less than gracious.
I seem to remember I was kindof you know, what have you got
to teach me about breath?
I'm a yogi baby, I've got youknow my pranayama and all of
that which I loved, and anyway Iwent along and it was only it
was short, it was like a 45minute session, I think 12 of us

(04:40):
rocked up, there were twofacilitators, but 45 minutes
later the world was a differentplace.
It had really, I call ittectonic plate shifts, when you
get those really big quantummovements.
And I'd done a lot of work upuntil that point.
I'd been traveling all over theworld, I'd been to India, done
that trip and the Himalaya andall of that, and I remember,

(05:02):
before leaving Riyadh, I'd sortof spoken to the universe and
probably prayed and said youknow, make it obvious, whatever
this thing is that I'm lookingfor, that I haven't yet found.
Make it really bloody obvious,don't make it subtle.
I need a real lightning bolt.
And indeed that was exactlywhat happened.
It was so clear that was thenext step and I think what it

(05:23):
was.
It was a number of things, butprincipally it was the fact that
breath, like, in a way, thefact that people have such low
expectation of what breathworkcan do, is like a secret weapon,
because often people come inand they're just like, yeah,
whatever.
And that was very much me.
And what in effect happened was,you know, people would probably

(05:45):
call it a download.
I just really frame it as I wasgiven information that was
truth, and one of them was thefirst thing was really you've
been depressed since you were 12years old I was 40 at that
point and it was like a missingpiece of the jigsaw puzzle just
coming into the picture andslotting in there, and I knew

(06:05):
it's truth and also, whateverpart of me was communicating was
saying and it doesn't have tobe this way you can clear out
the emotional sort ofunderpinning of what's keeping
this in place.
And that got my attention bigtime because I'd been um ill on
a pretty regular basis, almostmonthly, and I'd be kind of
incapacitated, usually in bedfor a couple of days, and in the

(06:28):
end I called it my throat thingbecause I thought it was
physiological.
I didn't realize that I knew solittle about mental health at
that point.
I didn't even make theconnection that there could have
been something involving mentalhealth.
I just thought it was a throatthing.
I had a sore throat usuallywhen it happened and I used to
just get a pile of books andjust sit it out and wait it out.

(06:50):
So when that piece ofinformation came in, it was like
light bulb city.
A lot of things became veryclear to me and I was hooked
really.
And the other thing thathappened which I think really
happens to a lot of people whotry breathwork is I got a huge
connection to whatever you callthe all that is.
I call it God, but whateverword you want to use is fine In

(07:12):
a way that I'd never experiencedbefore.
I knew the theory.
I'd read all the books, butthis was a visceral connection
through every cell of my bodyand it was unlike anything I'd
ever done and I'd done ayahuascaand stuff at that point and
tried various substances, bothlegal and illegal, and it was
like nothing I'd everexperienced.

(07:33):
And the fact that I wasgenerating this and I knew it
was me generating it wasn'tsomething alien that was coming
into me, it was coming from here, I knew it was coming from my
heart, so that just it blew myparadigm.
What I thought of as the world,just you know, it opened up and
sort of I see as likeconcentric circles.

(07:54):
They just exploded, those and Irealized that I knew very
little as a human and my life tothat point had been very kind
of compacted and it put me intoa very expansive state of being
and I was just hooked from thatpoint on, so being somebody with
quite an addictive personality.
I then went away, booked 14sessions on the trot, did it for

(08:16):
14 days with a facilitator andthen picked up the ball and did
it myself and 12 weeks later,having cried a lot and had
various experiences with it, theunderpinning, the emotional
underpinning had gone.
A lot of childhood stuff hadbeen cleared out and I didn't
really experience any form ofdepression from that point,

(08:45):
aware of the fact, I don't wantto talk about it being cured or
anything like that.
What I would say is um, I'vegot the propensity to go back
there if I do the wrong things,but now I know how to navigate
it and not do the wrong thing.
So I so, yeah, I've had noexperiences of it since that
period, and that's now coming upon 22 years.
So that was how I found it.
There was two questions, Ithink well, what is breathwork?

Speaker 1 (09:06):
but yeah.

Speaker 3 (09:09):
I mean, what is it?
You could be here for monthsand still not answer that
question.
I think the the thing I loveabout it.
There's a lot of things I loveabout it, but one of the things
I really love about it iseverybody has a unique
experience with it.
It's not cookie cutter, it'svery bespoke and it will work
with you exactly where you areon any given day, at any point

(09:30):
in your journey, and it willgive you exactly what you need
at that time.
So, in a way, it's impossible todefine it.
If I define it to a client, ifI'm doing a workshop or a
one-on-one and I say you know,it's a self-healing modality,
it's very much.
It's coming from us.

(09:51):
It's not anything I'm doing toyou, mr Klein.
It allows us to open up ourrespiratory system.
Most of us don't breathe verywell, we're quite closed down
and it does this what I thoughtof as sort of real magic.
It puts the body into what Ithought of as a recalibration
mode whereby anything that wasout of harmony or balance would
start to move back to, you couldsay, optimum factory settings

(10:13):
and we'd get to access stuffthat is normally not accessible
at all.
And, as Richard was doing hisPhD, he flipped me a paper he'd
found which explained itperfectly, and I didn't even
know that paper existed.
I knew viscerally what washappening, but I had no
scientific explanation.
And in fact it's called Richard.

(10:34):
Remind me it's.
Temporal Transient there we goFrom William's 2007.
How wonderful is that I had noclue.
I'd had experience empiricallyof that, but when I saw it you
know these people in 2007 hadactually tracked it and knew
exactly why all these amazingthings were happening.

(10:55):
And I guess that was it I wasjust absolutely hooked.
And, apart from anything else,the efficacy, it just works
really well and luckily, in someways, I feel lucky that I
didn't know that I wasexperiencing depression, because
I probably would have druggedit and gone the conventional
medical route.
And, of course, now what we'refinding is the things like the

(11:18):
SSRI inhibitors don't actuallywork very well and I think
there's a huge gap now thatbreathwork could fill, given the
right conditions and the righttraining and professional
approach to it, in the same waythat psychotherapy is regulated.
I think you know we're sort ofmoving in that direction now
with breathwork and I think itcould fill that gap in a very

(11:39):
healthy way, you know, in a veryeffective way yeah, and we want
to speak more about the thissort of regulation of breathwork
later on.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
But you have been sort of on the cusp of this.
You're now one of the sort ofelder statesmen of the
breathwork industry in the UKand when you, I guess, first
started it, breathwork was evenless well-known than it is now.
So how did you identify thatthis was going to be your life

(12:07):
work and that this was well?
You've been calling it thebreath illusion as well, but you
you've been calling that foryears.
How did you know thatbreathwork was going to explode
like this?

Speaker 3 (12:15):
do you know, rich?
I've never, ever doubted itsince that first breath session.
I knew it was dynamite, I knewit was gold.
If it could get you know, witha very left brain kind of
cynical approach and just blowthose doors open, I knew it
would work for everybody.
I had an innate knowing of thatand an innate trust and I never
doubted it.
And when I started Breath Guru,the only doubt I had was like

(12:37):
too early for the market,because I'm an Aries Leo
ascendant, I'm fiery, you know,and I was just go, go, go, go go
.
And in fact it took me sevenyears really to get any kind of
sort of leverage in there andany kind of opening in there.
And I spent those first sevenyears just educating people
because people just like me weresaying why do I need to pay you

(12:58):
to breathe?
That's ridiculous, you know,and of course it's not.
And that was a gap in theknowledge, you know, and of
course it's not, and that was agap in the knowledge.
So so at the beginning yeah, I'mjust sort of scanning back and
seeing if I ever I don't reallyfeel like I had any doubt at all
I knew the value of it.
It was very clear to me that,particularly from the mental
health point of view.
And of course, since then I'vehad, you know, thousands and

(13:19):
thousands of people and I knowthat it works in many different
areas.
I I've only ever seen it dogood.
A lot of times it just blows mydoors off, and sometimes it's
just beyond awesome in theoriginal sense of the word.
It's almost like what I wouldhave termed miraculous.

Speaker 2 (13:37):
Some stuff that I've seen is just incredible
particularly in terms of timeand the efficacy in relation to
time.
Time that actually was one ofour questions in terms of could
you talk a bit about some of theprofound healing you've seen
over the years?
Sure what we're talking abouthere?

Speaker 3 (13:53):
so.
So at the beginning I reallydidn't know.
It was kind of suck it and see,really I was just working a lot
I work with, on average aboutseven people a day and I was
hooked and I was just reallyintrigued, really curious about
you know where are theparameters for this?
And every time I thought I'dfound them, client would come in
and blow them away.
So what I realized pretty soonwas that it was infant.

(14:15):
In terms of of my experiences,it seemed like we were infinite
and it was infant.
And, of course, part of thewhole beauty of breathwork is
the connection.
So you're connecting withyourself at a very profound
level and it's really answeringthat.
Who am I question, in a veryvisceral, understandable way.

(14:36):
But in terms of stuff thathappened, I think there are two
pivotal ones for me.
One was a soldier who'd seenactive duty in the Falklands and
he hadn't slept.
When I saw him he hadn't slept,for I think it was about 15
years.
He'd had night terrors, ptsdand he hadn't slept properly and
he looked like a ghost.
He walked in the room and hewas just white, like really
white.
He was hardly there and hiswife as often happens, his wife

(15:00):
had gently nudged him in mydirection and we did four
sessions together and they werepretty big sessions, you know.
They were quite emotional butcertainly doable.
I helped him navigate throughthose experiences and at the end
of the four he was sleepinglike a baby and we were in Spain
and he went back to live inGlasgow, I think, at the time

(15:22):
and I kept in touch with him andwas checking out and he was
absolutely fine.
So you know something that'sthat profound.
My sessions were 90 minutes, sosix hours essentially of breath
work had absolutely clearedwhatever it was that was held
within his nervous system, hiscellular memory, however,
however you want to frame that.

(15:43):
And that really got myattention because of course
there's so many veterans and allsorts of people experiencing
various kinds of PTSD.
The second one was a lady whowas an incest victim and rape
victim, and it was toddler rape.
She was two and three and fouryears old when this was all

(16:04):
happening and when she came intothe room she described herself
as toxic and she said I thinkI'm beyond any kind of help and
she was medicated and she was analcoholic because when she had
free time she wanted to numb it.
So she just drank and she wasvery successful.
She's a really successfulcareer person and she spent all

(16:27):
her hours either working ordrinking.
So I guess she was mid thirtiesby the time I saw her and she
hadn't had a holiday sincegraduation because she didn't
want to have free time, becausewhen she had free time she drank
.
So she just filled her lifewith work and I said well,
you're here, why don't we justgive it a whirl and see what
happens?
And again, four sessions, big,emotional, but definitely

(16:52):
navigable, and I didn't reallyknow by the end of the fall, but
that was all we'd got time for.
She was going back to her abode.
I was in Spain, spain and Ithought that something good has
happened here.
I don't know quite what and Idon't know what the extent of it
is.
And when she was due to go backhome, she actually diverted and
went to Ibiza and she had somefriends who were over in Ibiza

(17:13):
on holiday and she said, I thinkI'm just going to change my
flights and go back and see themand I thought, well, that's a
really good sign.
And then that was in October andI followed up with her, as I do
with all my clients, and shewas a little bit like her cards
were pretty close to the chestand she wasn't really letting me
see much.
And then on January the 1stI'll never forget this, it was
January the 1st I got downstairs, checked into my mail, my

(17:35):
computer blew up.
I was like, okay, I guess it'sa cyber cafe went down to the
cyber cafe and her email was thefirst one in the inbox and she
said I'm sitting in luangprabang in laos.
I've taken six months off work.
Every morning I wake upthinking that it, in capital
letters, is going to come backand I'm slowly but surely

(17:57):
realizing it has gone forever,at which point I am in tears,
I'm booming and people arelooking like what the hell's
going on with him.
But it just really reallytouched my heart because this
was somebody who thought she wasbeyond redemption and beyond
saving.
In fact, four sessions againsix hours good to go.

(18:19):
And I saw her since I've seenher in her home country and
we've done sessions since thenand they're really just top-ups
that work was done, and thebeautiful thing about one of the
innumerable beautiful thingsabout breathwork is, once it's
done, you don't need to go backand revisit it if it's processed
.
So that's the one.

(18:40):
If I had to choose just one,that would be it, because it was
just so huge and so touchingand something so extreme.
You know, I don't, it doesn'treally get more extreme than
that, you know.

Speaker 1 (18:54):
So so I guess, yeah, those would be the ones that
would stand out there, andy,yeah, yeah I think that hope is
such a valuable sensation whenpeople are struggling because,
yeah, when you have mentalhealth issues like depression,
like I did for I don't know, 18years, more than half my life,
you just think this is this isnormal, this is just, this is

(19:16):
life.
And when you just get thatglimpse of oh no, you can be
free from this, it, uh, it makesyou want to continue.
You know healing, especiallymental health issues, chronic
issues they are long healingjourneys yeah, and often you'll
have relapses, but you knowyou've got the hope that okay.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
Well, the relapses, they're less frequent over time
yeah, and I think the fact thatyou're getting tangible evidence
that it's working is greatleverage.
The big thing withself-development or healing or
that whole sector, is how do youget your client to continue
with the work?
That was always my conundrum atthe beginning and in fact, a

(19:54):
certain amount of clients with acertain amount of
self-discipline would pick upthe ball and run with it.
But there's another set whojust don't have that yet within
their psyche, that kind of drive.
But the fact that they weregetting these like wow, I'm
feeling really good on it, andnow actually we've got the
opposite end of the coin.
Now it's like, oh, I'm feelinggreat, I don't need to do that
anymore, whereas of course, it'sa practice, so you do need to

(20:16):
continue with it.
Technology's helped everybodyand it's dogs got that.
Now we've got ours and that'sbeen very helpful in terms of
having.
It's almost like havingsomebody else in the room there
with you as you're doing yourpractice, you know, to help you
navigate whatever it is you'reexperiencing on any given day.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Yeah, I was going to ask about that because have you
found the sort of online shiftwith covid?
Because, having done both workonline and in person, I mean I
think you know what I'm going tosay, but the in person was just
immeasurably better for me.

Speaker 3 (20:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:49):
So how have you found that shift?

Speaker 3 (20:51):
So, to be honest, I had to be drag, kicking and
screaming into the online world.
I was not, because I loved theintimacy of the personalized
sessions.
You know the physical proximityI'm quite hands on when I work
my sessions.
You know the physical proximityI'm quite hands-on when I work
so and I just was like this is amuch less than anyway.
I've since learned and what Isee now is they're completely

(21:14):
different things and they shouldnot be compared because they're
not the same.
There I use the analogy of fruitquite often.
You can't compare an orange toa banana.
They're both fruit but they'reentirely different in terms of
their texture, how they taste,etc.
And it's very much the samewith online and in person.
In some cases online issuperior to in person.
If you think about anybody withsafety issues, acrophobia, that

(21:37):
sort of thing, they're muchhappier being in their safe home
environment, certainlyinitially to establish rapport
and all of that sort of stuff.
It's absolutely superior towork with them in that way.
And then they've got a choice.
Hopefully afterwards, oncethey've come into their bodies a
little bit more and groundedand feel a bit more secure, then

(21:58):
maybe at that point we've gotan option.
But there really are differentthings and that's one of the
things when we do the trainingprograms and pretty much
everybody is reticent aboutgoing into the online stuff when
they do their case studies andalmost everybody has a
turnaround because they see thatin fact it has a lot of value.
And, apart from anything else,think about the flexibility from

(22:20):
the point of view of apractitioner.
You can be literally anywhereon the planet.
You can work with anybodyanywhere on the planet.
Talk about a market.
You know it's huge.
Our mutual friend, rich Jameshe did the program, did a great
job.
He was right at the beginningof COVID, did some free stuff on
Instagram, I believe, got hiswhole business running online

(22:42):
and then he's like, okay, I'mgoing to move to Costa Rica.
It made no difference to hisbusiness whatsoever.
So the flexibility aspect froma practitioner's point of view
is wonderful.
Now I enjoy both of them, justfor different reasons.
I really like the fact I get towork with people who I wouldn't
normally be able to work with,but I still love the proximity
stuff.
I had to London a couple oftimes a year.

(23:03):
I've had the retreat inLanzarote for over 20 years, so
they're both good, but it'sapples and pears bananas is the
case maybe.

Speaker 1 (23:14):
Yeah, I have some takes on that, given that I
conducted my PhD research studyonline.
There were people who said to meleading breath workers who
poo-pooed my study.
Some said you should never dobreath work online.
Some said you should never dobreath work online.
Some said you should never dothe first session online.
Some said it doesn't workonline.
Some people a very well knownbreath worker told me breath

(23:38):
work doesn't work for anxiety,so I'm not going to help you
recruit for your study.
And, of course, yeah, we hadphenomenal results large effect
size, statistical significance,the largest randomized control
trial ever on consciousconnected breathing.
And you know, people seem tojust like form opinions based on
very little evidence andwithout actually testing it.

(24:00):
So I certainly think thatconscious connected breathing
works online and, yeah, theevidence suggests it does and I
would really agree that it's.
You know, it's different drinksfor different needs, as they
would say in the office, andthat some people will prefer it
online.
Some people will prefer it inperson.
For example, if you livesomewhere miles from a breath

(24:20):
worker and you can only get to abreath worker once every few
months, going once every fewmonths rather than every week
online, you're obviously goingto get much better results by
going every week online and, asyou said, you know some people
when I've been facilitatingworkshops one of your workshops,
alan when, you know, the energywas going wild and people were

(24:41):
having huge processes and peopledoing the kicking and pounding
and I was dealing with one ladywho was just, you know, very
scared of all those loud noisesand clearly she was would have
preferred online breathwork,because you can't hear people
screaming, shouting and cryingyeah, yeah when, during the
online stuff and yeah, plus theconvenience of of not having to

(25:01):
travel if you were in london,you have to get the tube and
you're in an altered state,that's uh, you're vulnerable
there.
So I think there's a lot ofbenefit to online work as well
as um as the in-person stuff.

Speaker 3 (25:13):
Interesting what you were saying about the various
reactions you had from peoplearound working with anxiety.
I would say 75 of my work atthe moment is around anxiety.
It's undeniable and I thinkyour stats were very clear in
the phd.
It was very clear when we didthe john case thing, we were
talking about it just prior tothe recording starting.

(25:33):
I worked with the politicalcorrespondent for the Guardian,
a lovely guy called John Case,and he was very transparent in
terms of his journey.
He talked about mental healthissues, breakdown, heroin
addiction and he didn't reallyknow much about breathwork and I
think one of his colleagues hadsort of gently nudged him in my
direction and we did thesession and he was very much

(25:57):
raised eyebrow and that's fine,no problem with that at all.
But by the end of it he'd donethe arc, he'd done a 180 and he
absolutely loved it and he wrotethe article very again, very
transparently.
He talked about his cynicismand then what he'd experienced
and his main thing was anxietyand he posted it on.

(26:17):
It came out in hard copy on thesaturday.
I remember getting about 25mails and thinking, oh, that's a
little underwhelming for theguardian.
And then on monday it wentonline and it went bonkers.
The Guardian got something like23,000 hits from the article in
a day.
I've got a very robust website.
It broke down.

(26:38):
It just couldn't take thetraffic that was coming through.
And the key word as far as I'mconcerned was anxiety, because
it's just so pervasive.
And that was why I got theoffer for the book, because
they'd seen that and they knewthat there was something in the
zeitgeist there that was reallyrelevant and particularly
post-COVID, people sort of relaxand then here it all comes.

(27:01):
There's all the stuff we'vebeen suppressing during that
very trying period.
So I find it absolutelyincredible that people would
have any doubt at all.
I think that the mistake peoplemake around it is I had
somebody come in the other dayand he said, yeah, I'd like to
get rid of my anxiety.
And I think you have to reframethat and sort of manage the

(27:22):
expectations and say well, youknow, anxiety is a human emotion
and it's something that we'reprogrammed to feel and we're all
going to feel it at differentlevels.
The key is being able tonavigate it and get it down to
reasonable levels.
I woke up with it the other day.
It was a Sunday.
I woke up and it was rockingaround there.
As soon as I opened my eyes andI checked in with it and I

(27:42):
realized, oh, it's about that,and I thought you know what?
That's a reasonable response towhat's actually happening.
So there was nothing wrong, didmy breath practice, 20 minutes
later, done and dusted, movedbeyond it and got on with the
day.
I think it's that sort of thing.
You know, breathwork is not amagic bullet.
You know it's not somethingthat's going to okay.
Now I'm evolved and I'm goingto wear white and arm all the

(28:03):
time.
It's a tool and it has to beused in order to be effective
and you have to be quiteresolute with it.
And it won't get rid of yourstress, it won't get rid of your
anxiety, but it will help youto navigate those very
effectively.
And certainly, you know we bothhave experienced depression.
Depression is a response to Ithink of it as the filing

(28:23):
cabinet being full emotionalcontent that hasn't been
processed.
So what it can help us do isopen that filing cabinet and
begin to process that content sothat we don't get those extreme
responses, which is really thebody's way of just saying we're
full, there's no more space andtherefore we're just going to
pull the plug and go into pausemode.

(28:44):
You know so clearly I'm biasedbecause I work with this stuff
every day and have done for overtwo decades.
But it is pretty incredibleyeah, yeah, they um.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
The anxiety thing I think lots of people have.
Lots more people have anxietythan they used to, and I think
there's definite reasons forthat.
But I also think there is asection of that growing
population who are just victimsof concept creep.
Whereas in the past you wouldjust say, oh, I'm worried, I'm

(29:15):
worried about something, andthat would be a healthy reaction
to a stressor, now people thinkany kind of worry is a
pathology and I think that's um,that's not necessarily the case
.
And when someone says like Iwant to get rid of my anxiety,
it's a little bit like having ared warning light coming up on
your car dash.
Uh, you know, let's say it'syour problem with your

(29:38):
carburetor or something likethat, and you're just like I
don't want to fix the carburetor, I just want to get rid of that
red light.
The anxiety is normally a awarning sign that something in
your life is, uh, is a rye or amist that needs attention.
So I think that's a nice way offraming it.

Speaker 3 (29:54):
And of course, there's way more stimulus and
stimulants for that red light tobe on nowadays just how we live
Cities completely not designedto live in a city.
Most of the people I see when Igo to London are living life at
a rate of knots and jugglingtheir various responsibilities

(30:16):
to the best of their ability,but it's simply too much and
they're normally thendeprioritizing their own
self-care.
That normally goes somewheredown the line and that's the
kicker.
So my thing, really with thevast majority of people I work
with, is reprioritize yourself.
It's not selfish to look afteryourself properly, and you'll be
in a better position to supportthose around you in whatever

(30:37):
that looks like to you once yourneeds are met.
I think that's part of that.
Maybe it's a sort of a Britishthing I'm not sure about.
You know, sacrifice yourself infavor of others, which is
absolute.
It's terrible.
Advice A bit more technicalyeah, yeah, exactly yeah, irish
from in favor of others, whichis absolute.
It's terrible advice.

Speaker 2 (30:53):
Yeah, yeah, exactly, yeah, irish can we talk a bit
more about the um, physical sideof breath work?
Obviously it's got undeniable,amazing uh impacts on mental
health.
But in terms of I'm thinking,two parts perhaps.
One is what's happening to youphysically when you do conscious
, connected breathing, yeah, andtwo is, you mentioned, you're
quite hands-on with your workand I know that you kind of

(31:15):
adjust people.
If that's the right term, yeah,we talk about what's happening
there as well yeah, well, Ithink actually rich is probably
the expert.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
In fact I'm bringing him into breath guru this year
to to look at the physiologicalside of things within our
trainings.
We've been training people nowfor a good few years.
Rich was on one of the firsttraining programs and I think my
forte is really thepsychotherapeutic and also the
hands-on bodywork stuff.
So to answer in reverse order,that filing cabin analogy is

(31:49):
quite a good one in some ways,and when people come with
elevated stress levels oranxiety or depression, that is
in the body.
So it makes sense then that byworking with the body we can
find out, a where these thingsare located and, b begin to open
up those areas so that whateverenergy is is being held there

(32:11):
in the file can be released andprocessed.
So that's the idea behindgetting hands-on.
We call it body mapping.
It's a form of acupressure andit really focuses in on key
areas in the body.
If you just had to choose onearea in the body, I would say
solar plexus.
Solar plexus for me is almostlike our intersection between

(32:34):
the heart area and then the willdown in the gut, and it's a big
indicator of how stressed youare if you just stick your thumb
in to your solar plexus areanow and just check in with it.
For most of us, when we go injust a little bit and then just
see how far you can go withoutit getting too painful, there's

(32:55):
some resistance to getting inthere.
So if I just had to choose one,that's really the one I tend to
go for most.
In fact, the whole body is.
You know, we can hold stuffanywhere.
I tend to focus mostly on mything is really embodiment.
So most people on the planetright now aren't inhabiting
their bodies, which is strangeto even say that.

(33:17):
And even when I started to work, the early adopters were mostly
yogis and people like that andI was thinking, oh, of course
these people are going to besuper embodied.
Really rare, really rare,particularly yogis, because they
tend to have quite tight coresand the Pilates people and all
that again often reallyovertoned cores.

(33:37):
So I spend a lot of time justopening up that area so their
energy can flow down properly.
So if you think about thephysical body as being here and
then the energy body is comingin, and actually the optimum
would be, it would be congruent.
Most people are more like thisa half in and half out and of
course, our culture elicits thatalso.
We're a very intellectual,audio visual culture, so we're

(33:59):
eliciting being here a lot ofthe time wearing these headsets
and all of that.
So it's actually quite rare tomeet somebody who's embodied I
don't actually remember meetingsomebody, uh, in recent history
who's fully inhabiting theirvehicle.
And, of course, what does thatsay in terms of how we're going
to use the vehicle, how you know?
I use the rather flippantanalogy of you know, have you

(34:22):
tried to drive your car recentlywith one bum, cheek on your
driver's seat and the rest ofyou out in the vehicle?
It's quite challenging Bothfeet on the pedals, hands and
the rest of you out the vehicle.
It's quite challenging.
Both feet on the pedals, handson the wheel.
Now you're talking, but that,for better or worse, that's
where most people are.
So my thing really is I work alot with the legs, I work a lot
with the hips.
Solar plexus is a key one thatsort of tends to open up the

(34:44):
upper area and just by bringingtouch to the area, immediately
the client's attention is goingto go to where you're touching.
So just something as simple asputting your hands on the feet,
immediately the client'sattention is going down there
and therefore, if theirattention is going there, energy
is going there.
Energy will follow attention.

(35:05):
So if you want to bringsomebody in, simple, you know,
in some ways, pop their hands onthe feet, immediately
everything starts to flow.
So in the, the instructionalvideos we've got on the, the app
, I talk about most people beingupside down pyramid shape, and
what we're going for is at leasta kind of a see, if I'm gonna
oh, there we are at least equaldistribution, if not.

(35:30):
You know, pyramid shape, inother words, they're super
grounded, super embodied, andthen less and less as they go up
and in fact what you'll find isfrom what most practitioners
find when they become moreembodied, the mental faculties
work.
You know, it's like your mindgoes from that white noise place
to laser beam and your mentalacuity actually goes up.

(35:52):
You know, as opposed to theopposite, it's not like it
doesn't actually need that muchenergy to focus and operate
effectively.
So I guess part of partway toexplaining how we approach the
whole thing.
And of course, it's likeanother dimension then on top of
the actual technique itself,like another dimension then on
top of the actual techniqueitself.
So you can go in deeper.
The efficacy is increased, thepower, you could say, of the

(36:16):
session is often increased andliterally just one point can
really open things up, and Ithink that in itself is a little
.
There's a sort of almost like aninherent danger in that we were
talking prior to the recordingof, you know, this idea of
standards within the profession.
I think people can often getcarried away by the fact they're

(36:38):
like whoa, this is superpowerful.
I had this workshop experienceand I had this big catharsis and
now I'm going to go and do that.
Absolutely 20 years and I'mstill really beginning this.
I may be perceived as an elder,but really you just realize how

(36:58):
infinite we are and how muchthere is to learn.
So I have a certain amount ofcapability, but there's every
single client you're learningeach time.
But there's a every singleclient you're learning each time
.
Yeah, but it's a.
It's like it's an art.
For me, it is an art.
I don't see it just as a sortof a mechanical rote thing.
It's very much.

(37:18):
Intuition is as important asany of the technical stuff that
we know to feel your way intothe field and feel your way into
what's appropriate for anyparticular person you may be
working with.
So Richard do you want to saysomething about the physiology.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Well, I was thinking.
There's no research onacupressure.
No one has ever done anythingon acupressure.
I know I'm in conversationswith other potential PhD
students about doing futureresearch with other potential
PhD students about doing futureresearch, but I would love to
see a study of one group doingregular breathwork with
affirmations and acupressure andone group not doing it and

(37:58):
seeing if there's any differencethere.
I think that would be aninteresting one.

Speaker 3 (38:01):
But especially with the whole Me Too thing.
Now we're very clear that weneed permission to go hands-on
with somebody.
There needs to be boundaries,there needs to be some sort of
signaling system so that if it'stoo much for them we don't have
to back off, et cetera.
But in fact I always put thatout there to my clients and
they're often quite the opposite.
They're like no, go for it, Iwant to get the max out of my

(38:24):
session.
So quite the reverse really ofwhat I was expecting.
I thought I might findreticence and in fact I don't.

(38:52):
But yeah, you're right.
In a way this is a relativelynew way of working.
Man's been working with breathfor at least 25,000 years.
The yogis have got recordeddata on pranayama.
That's that old.
But for me it's really as oldas we've been conscious, which
is, depending on who you look at, 400,000 years or so.
So it's pretty obvious to methat man would start to
experiment and ask thesequestions using rhythm, using
movement, using breath.
So for me it's something veryancient that we've rediscovered.
But the rediscovery 50s, 60s andStangroff and the rebirthers

(39:13):
and all of that and theholotropic.
They weren't interested instamina, they were basically
hippies who had been droppinglots of acid and then suddenly
it wasn't available.
So they were looking for otherways to reach altered states of
consciousness and data was notreally at the forefront of what
they were prioritizing.
So that was why I was soexcited when you did your PhD,

(39:36):
really to get some meaningfuldata, and of course that's now
only going to increase.
You've sort of opened thosedoors now, so there's going to
be a lot more people doing that.
But in a way that's what I loveabout it as well.
It's very cutting edge.
We don't have these precedentsbehind us.
Like the yogis have, you knowthe pranayama, we don't have

(39:56):
that with conscious connectedbreathing.
And I find that really excitingbecause it is really new
frontiers and, as I mentionedearlier, every time I think I
understand something or I thinkI know where the sort of
perimeter is, somebody will comein and just blow that away for
me and at the moment I haven'tfound any.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
I just really haven't found any yeah, well, what
direction do you think theindustry is going in?
Then have you have you come sofar, but where's it going?
Yeah, I think we're at thebeginning of the curve.

Speaker 3 (40:26):
I don't think we're anywhere near the middle.
I see a parallel of whathappened.
I think we're at the beginningof the curve.
I don't think we're anywherenear the middle.
I see a parallel of whathappened to yoga.
We're at that point now where alot of people are getting
interested, a lot of peopletraining, and what happened to
yoga, as you probably remember,was from it being kind of
lentil-eating hippies just backfrom Goa or India.

(40:46):
It then became everybody andhis dog was doing it.
And I think the same thing'sgoing to happen with breathwork.
I think it has an advantage inthat there's a certain section
of the population that willnever, ever go to a yoga class
because they perceive it asspiritual and the iconography
and all of that sort of stuffwill put a certain amount of

(41:07):
people off.
Breathwork doesn't really havethat.
So we're ahead of the game interms of that bit, and that's
one of the beautiful thingsabout it.
It's the utility of it.
Do you have lungs?
Great, you know you can do this.
Yes, there arechondroindications, but they're
quite minimal if you've had asevere mental illness, among
others.
But the vast majority of thepopulation are really safe to do

(41:29):
this.
And it doesn't need expensiveequipment, and even if you are
living in Ulaanbaatar and can'tget to a facilitator, there are
downloadable tools to help you.
So I see, personally, I thinkit's going to be bigger than
yoga.
We're not at that point yet.
We're at the point now whereit's going to be
professionalized and it won't besufficient to go to a workshop,

(41:52):
a weekend workshop, and then belike, okay, I'm going to teach
this now.
It just won't be permitted.
You won't be able to be in thespace with people, and that's as
it should be.
You know, it's a very well forme, it's an honor to work with
people, but it's also just thatyou're responsible for this
person.
You know, if they go intocatharsis in 60 seconds flat,
you better know your shit, youbetter know exactly what to do

(42:13):
so that they're safe.
And you can't do that byattending a workshop and you
certainly can't do it by justworking online.
You've got to have in-proximitytraining.
Our training is launching in.
We've sort of revamped it.
It's launching again in January.
It's going to be a 12-monthprogram.
Yeah, that's what we're talkingabout.

(42:33):
Just like if you were to dopsychotherapy or any other you
know professional vocation, youwould expect to go through some
pretty rigorous training.
Breathwork is no different, andI love the direction it's
heading in that sense.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yes.
So one thing I've noticed withbreath workers is they want to
profess to how powerful breathwork is.
So they'll say you know it'slife changing, you can have
mystical experiences, it willcure your depression and you'll
meet your ancestors, but thenthey don't want to do the
necessary steps to make it safe.
It's like you know you won'tbelieve necessary steps to make

(43:10):
it safe.
It's like you know you won'tbelieve how powerful this is.
But it's just going to be meand a hundred breath workers and
, uh yeah, way under supported.
Or it's just going to be me.
It's just a book or something.
You're just reading it with nosupport.
So it feels like you know youcan't have both things.
You can't have.
This is a, you know, a nuclearbomb to your psyche and well,

(43:33):
we're not really going to takethose safety measures.
So, yeah, I think, as you'resaying, professionalization is
coming.
Thank God I'm involved in thoseconversations with the GBPA and
other organizations.
There is going to be a lot ofchallenges to regulation because
I think a lot of people do justwant to do what they want
without any consequences andthey don't want any oversight.

Speaker 3 (43:53):
But unfortunately that will probably, you know,
sink the whole industry well,you know it, people are going to
do what they want to do whenall said and done.
But the more we can sort of getit out there and talk about not
only the the positives and thepower and all of that, but also
the fact that it is powerful andtherefore it should be not

(44:14):
treated lightly, it should betreated with respect and it
should be delivered respectfully, and part of that is looking
after the safety of your clients.
So I heard recently I think youknow this one Rich, a guy who'd
literally just graduated from apurely online training, I think
, and he went off and did aworkshop for 50 people and it

(44:35):
was in person and he simplywasn't equipped to do that.
So a lot of people ended up invarious states of distress and
he was scuppered, basically, andthere's a lot.
You know everybody's got thatstory.
So we're pretty much coming infrom the opposite direction, I
think, which the idea of ratiois like.
You're working with a groupit's five to one.

(44:56):
You're working online it's 15to one.
Those seem reasonable.
And even when you've got the 15to one, you have backup people
there and breakout rooms in caseanybody gets into trouble.
So I feel like you don't knowwhat you don't know.
So people are having theseamazing experiences about like
this is for me, this is my work.

(45:17):
I don't necessarily want to putthe work in, they just want the
kind of the power aspect, andI've definitely been there.
At the beginning I was likefucking hell, I'm pretty hot,
shit, this is really good.
And people haven't.
And of course, they'reprojecting all sorts of stuff on
shit.
Oh, my god, you just changed mylife.
And blah, blah, blah.
And I always remember theGeorge Clooney quote.
His dad sat him down at thebeginning of his career and just

(45:39):
said look, you're going toreceive a lot of adulation here.
You're going to receive a lotof press.
You're never as good as theysay you are, but you're never as
bad as they say you are.
It's a very leveling thing andI think I've always sort of I
always bear that in mind whenpeople are, they're extolling my

(46:01):
virtues and it's like thank you, and I just sort of bring it
back to them and say but youknow, of course you know that
your body and your being didthis.
I'm your facilitator, I'm yourguide, I've helped you navigate
this experience.
But actually this was reallyyou and okay, maybe it's a part
of you that isn't accessible toyou all the time, but it's
certainly you.
It's not me using my fluence onyou or anything like that, ilk.

(46:23):
So there is that I had a guy whocame in for my interview or
potential trainees and I rejectquite a few, I have to say and
one of the guys came in him andhe was like quite young, he was
sort of mid-20s, and we use aparallel track when we train
people.
So one, one aspect of it, Ithink of a dna molecule.
One strand of the dna is how tobe an amazing breath coach, and

(46:45):
the other strand is what's mybaggage and how do I deconstruct
it and move beyond it.
And what I've realized is thatthose two are pretty much
inseparable.
Just like in the same way, whenyou did your psychotherapy
training, you had to be doingtherapy at the same time.
So it's the same principle Ifyou can get as clear as you can

(47:05):
possibly be and then come intothe space as a facilitator,
you're going to do a much betterjob than if you're bringing all
sorts of stuff in with you.
So this guy, I explained the DNAaspect and like, here's how to
be a great breath coach, here'show to deconstruct your baggage.
And he was like well, you know,I'd love to know how to be a

(47:25):
great breath coach.
I think I've done all mybaggage.
I was just like red flag.
I did a weekend retreat acouple of weeks ago and it's
like, oh, bless him.
That in itself tells me he'snot my guy, you know, he's not
my trainee, because he's not gotthe emotional intelligence to
understand that it's an infinitejourney and that I'm 61.

(47:47):
Do I have baggage?
You bet your ass, I've gotbaggage, and the difference is
simply there's less of it and Iknow how to navigate it mostly,
not always so.
So it's an ongoing thing and Iand I like that about it.
I like the fact you never getto a point where you can say I
can do this because you'realways learning, you're always
expanding.

(48:07):
And likewise, you never get to apoint where you go okay, I've
done my baggage, let's move onand do other things now.
No, you know, it's going to bethere till I pop my clogs.
I'm still going to have stuffwhen I leave and head wherever I
leave.
So again, you don't know whatyou don't know and there's a lot
of ignorance out there.
So part of what you know ourjob and part of what you know
this is doing is educatingpeople in terms of how to

(48:29):
approach it.
Yes, it's amazing and yes, it'svery powerful and therefore
should be treated with greatestof respect, as should your
clients or central clients andwhat would you say to someone
who's considering breathwork forthe first time as a um customer
, whatever you call them, yeahyeah, I mean great, I've had
actually I've had people who'vecome on the training thing come

(48:52):
into the interview not havingdone it, which always seems very
strange.
Why would you want to be doingthis as a vocation when you
haven't actually tried thetechnique?
That's something else.
Aside, I'm all for peopleexploring themselves and my
advice for me is just go andwork with as many people as you

(49:13):
can and feel into whether or notthey're appropriate for you,
because there'll be some peopleyou're going to have better
rapport with than others.
So, just like I was looking fora psychotherapist a couple of
years ago and I knew I wanted towork with a male because I was
going to do mummy stuff and Ididn't want any transference
getting in the way, so Ishortlisted three and I went to
their websites and I looked atthem and two of them were all

(49:34):
about their diplomas and theirqualifications and I didn't
really get a sense of who theywere.
The other guy his first pagewas a blog and he talked about
being in Phuket when the tsunamihit and his wife and kids had
gone off shopping and he thoughthe'd lost them.
And I was like that's my man?
You definitely.
And it proved when I started towork with him, I was like, yeah
, absolutely Very humane, verytransparent, incredibly kind and

(50:00):
just with a really huge heart.
It's perfect.
So I think the same could besaid of breath workers.
Check them out, there's goingto be some.
In fact, I just had thisconversation earlier today with
a couple of trainees.
It doesn't mean they're betteror worse 's just they're not for
you or maybe they're very muchfor you.
But check it out and see,because everybody brings their
own essence to it and and that'sa really important part of what

(50:22):
we do you know, it's not cookiecutter, as we said before.
I think it's a vehicle for youbringing whatever you've got
into the arena, into the space,and that's going to look
different for every singlefacilitator that you work with.
So trust your intuition and doask them.
Ask them about the qualitieswho have you trained with?
It's an important question howlong have you been doing this?

(50:42):
How's your self-practice?

Speaker 1 (50:45):
you know that sort of thing yeah, and there are bad
breath workers out there as well.

Speaker 3 (50:49):
Oh yeah just like any any profession yeah, the doctor
we talked about just prior tothe recording, my greek friend
just like in a, it's nodifferent to any other
profession.
There's different levels ofcompetence within it, and that's
why the sort of the safetyaspect and the procedural stuff
that's being put in place nowand the professionalization of

(51:10):
the whole sector is so importantyeah, um, just going back to
that point about, um, constantwork, I do.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
I think there is like some nuance there.
One thing I see in the wellnessindustry is this idea of like
just perpetual self-developmentfor the sake of self-development
.
I think so.
I like to frame breath workconscious, connected breath work
as medicine, like it ismedicine for mental illness,
mood disorders and things likethat, and you don't necessarily
take medicine forever.

(51:38):
Once you're healed, you don'tneed to take that same medicine.
I like the analogy of a rocketship.
A rocket has different blastersas it goes through the
atmosphere.
You need different blasters.
Rockets, rockets, propellers todifferent stages and I think
for some people, yeah, they onceyou're out of depression.

(51:58):
Once I was out of depressionand addiction I needed to focus
less on oh, I'm sick and I'mhealing myself into.
Okay, am I going to make myselfmore resilient to stress?
And there is that brilliantquote from chris williamson
where he says you know, thereare two types of people in this
world people who don't know theyneed self-development work and

(52:19):
people who don't know when tostop.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Yeah, yeah for sure, for sure and it's not like you
know I work with breath,obviously.
I work with it a lot.
So I was just on vacation theweek before last I was with my
partner.
It was beautiful, we were on alittle island in the Indian
Ocean and what I wanted to dothere was just drop into nature,
and that in itself is healing.
So I think the way I look at itand I think the way you're

(52:43):
approaching it is it's a toolkit, and breath is a really great
tool to have in your kit, nodoubt.
But I use a lot of silence.
I'm in silence quite a lot ofthe time, stillness.
I'm intrigued by grounding andby connecting to the earth, so
I'm out in nature a lot.
That's walking or being in theocean.
I'm lucky I live near the beachand stuff, so that's very

(53:05):
important.
I read a lot.
I'm still interested in input.
I'm always my antennae arealways open for stuff that maybe
I don't know about or maybe Ihaven't heard about, and I'll
feel, if I get, I call it theflash.
If I get the flash, I'll go andcheck it out, and that's
normally my intuition, sayingthis one is for you, and
sometimes I don't get it, that'sgreat, you know.

(53:25):
So I'm open to it, but I don'twant to be obsessive about it.
I want to have a life, I'mabout it.
I want to have a life.
I'm not a, I'm not a monk orsomething.
My body is a temple.
Well, yeah, and I love the oddglass of wine and it seems to me
like a really nice thing to do.
Um, and I'm a bit of a car nut,so there's all that.
So it's like you don't becomeless, you don't become this sort

(53:46):
of I think some people areexpecting sort of rarefied
version one of the best thingsI've ever heard anybody say
about breathwork.
It was a friend of mine, alan,and he was asked how are you
different as a result of thework you've done?
And he just simply said I'mmore me, and that was just so
beautifully simple and yet veryprofound at the same time, and I

(54:07):
feel that's part of it.
I'm just so much more acceptingof myself, and part of that is
giving myself a break and havingmy really slow mornings and
understanding how I work bestand not being noticed the
grindstone all the time, whetherit's self-development or work,
and, you know, giving myselfthis eight months period to just
kick back a little bit and justtake stock and and enjoy can

(54:31):
you talk a bit about that, alan?

Speaker 2 (54:33):
I know you're taking this eight months off.
You've given so much to tobreath, work, and what's this
eight months about for you?

Speaker 3 (54:38):
so uh what it was.
I hit 60 last year, right, andpeople were talking a lot about,
you know, the decade and all ofthat, and I was just like I'm
just really happy be here, Ifeel really glad to be here with
a really nice life, and I justfeel very grateful.
And as that was happening, atthe same time I could feel

(55:00):
something shifting within me andI couldn't put any words to it,
but I was feeling this sort ofinner wave, if you like, and the
last time I had that was SaudiArabia, when I left and changed
career and did something quitedifferent.
Ie this and I just thought youknow what?
I'm just going to let it rolland just give it its time.
Don't try and push it through.

(55:21):
You know, and it's one of thethings I say to my clients all
the time we're taught to wantthings now, or preferably by
yesterday, and I feel like theway nature works and we are part
of nature, obviously the waynature works is very gradually.
You don't just go from springto summer.
It's a gradual transitionsummer to autumn and I feel like
we're like it's veryincremental.

(55:41):
You almost wouldn't notice it.
So I wanted to really honorthat and I let it roll for a bit
.
And then one of my friends wasaround for lunch.
I think it was January orFebruary and I was still having
this feeling.
I feel it growing, but I hadabsolutely no idea what it
looked like.
And she said oh, do you know,your house has doubled in value

(56:02):
since you bought it three yearsago.
And I was like I did not know.
But that is very keyinformation and I realized at
that point it was about shiftinggears and giving myself some
more space and time.
And, uh, part of that iswriting the book.
As a consequence of thatguardian article that we
referred to earlier, I got anoffer from a pretty major

(56:23):
publisher who were veryinterested in collaborating on
something around anxiety and andI was love literature.
I'm always reading, I likewriting, I love the whole
editing process.
So that was just right up mystreet and it had been sort of
on the periphery but neverreally had the opportunity to do
that.
So consequently sold the placeLiterally from putting it on the

(56:45):
market to money being in thebank was eight weeks.
That's unheard of.
I live in Spain.
It took me 11 months to buy theplace and eight weeks to
actually sell it, so I knew Ihad some pretty interesting
universal help happening there.
I was watching it, going downthinking this is outrageous, you
know, and it just was so smoothand yeah, and that's now all

(57:05):
done.
So it seemed like a good time tostep back and we've used it for
Breath Guru as well, to stepback a little bit and for us all
to sort of recalibrate andwhat's come up is we're going to
revamp the training and we'vegot some ideas, richard,
actually coming in as part ofthat revamped.
Look for the training and thiswhole thing that we were talking
about earlier, which isprofessionalization of the

(57:28):
industry and the sector, andjust very excited about it.
It's going to be.
We've already got a greatprogram sector and just very
excited about it.
We've already got a greatprogram.
It's going to be even betterand I love that and I think it's
quite different to anythingthat's out there.
So, that being said, happilyI've got some great people in
the team who are doing most ofthat for me and I get to sort of
step back a bit and think abouthow I'm going to approach the

(57:49):
book, and part of that is givingyourself space and time to just
let it percolate.
I'm not somebody who can do afull day's work and then plug in
and be really inspired.
That's not how I work.
I need my rest time.
So that's what this period'sabout, from now until well.
When I estimate something, Ipretty much always get it 100%

(58:11):
wrong.
So what I've decided to do isI'm estimating it will take four
months, so in fact, it willprobably take about eight.
So we've got our first traininggroup coming in to Lanzarote in
February 2025, middle of.
So from now to then should beenough time, I think.
So it's exciting.
I haven't done this since I was40.
I took a year out to retrainwhen I was 40.

(58:34):
So 61 feels like a good time totake another gap year.
It's definitely an intense whendo people find you for the time
being designed with zeroknowledge in mind.
You don't need to have done anybreathwork whatsoever.
And that's happening at 7pm UKtime to 9pm UK time three

(59:03):
evenings next week.
I'll be in London in September,london in November, and I've
got two existing groups that areon the go.
They're coming in for theirgraduation weeks.
One is coming in on the 28th ofthis month, the other one is
coming in at the end ofOctoberober.
So it's not like I've stoppedcompletely, but it's definitely
way, way less than I'm normallydoing.
So yeah, it's all good and it'snice to have some space and

(59:23):
time.
You know, tomorrow I've got afree day that just does not
happen usually.
So I'm going to be a beachvelma, just head to the beach
and maybe go for a walk andwander the coast a little bit.
So this all feels like verytimely.
I feel ready to do itdifferently, absolutely, and
also to let other people in, letthe world with richard's wife
natalia.
She's been my number two in thebusiness for a couple of years

(59:45):
and with rich coming in at theend of this year, it's great.
So this is like a transitionperiod of me sort of stepping
back a little bit and lettingthe younger people come to the
fore.
There we go, absolutely best ofluck excited for that yes, yeah
.

Speaker 2 (01:00:01):
Well, thanks so much for your time and it's been an
absolute pleasure talking to you, total pleasure hanging out
with you guys.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Nice to meet you, andy, and anything I can do
that's going to promotebreathwork, I'm up.
Whatever it is, whatever itlooks like, I'm there usually.
So thanks very much for takingtime out.
Nice to talk with you both andsee you soon.
Richard and Andy, where are youbased?
I'm?

Speaker 2 (01:00:26):
in London and I didn't actually tell you this
earlier, but I'll be seeing youfor a one-to-one in about a
month's time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:33):
Ah, okay, great, You're on the next London trip.

Speaker 2 (01:00:36):
Brilliant, because I was just about to offer you a
place.
You've already done it you beatme to it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:39):
Yeah, okay, so I'll look forward to that and thanks
so much, both, and take care.
Lots of love, take care.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Bye wow welcome back welcome back.
That was awesome.
Um, he's so eloquent, isn't hejust?
He just um have to do it, solight touch.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
You just don't have to guide him too much he's just
straight into where you want himto go.
Yeah, exactly he kind of.
We had a running order and hekind of just I don't know, maybe
he read our minds or something,answering the next question in
the running order it sounds likehere we just switched off, but
we were actually just engagedand, um yeah, observing him go
over exactly what we wanted togo over yes, indeed.

(01:01:29):
So yeah, I hope you enjoyed that.
We didn't mention where to findAlan.
It's at breathgurucom and atbreathguru on Instagram.
And, yeah, he's available inLondon.
He does retreats in Lanzarote,does his teacher trainings,
which, as you mentioned, I'll bevisiting out in Spain.
I'll be teaching on those aswell in the future and, um, yeah

(01:01:54):
, given that I'll be there, youprobably want to sign up now,
don't you?

Speaker 2 (01:01:59):
yeah, don't let that put you off.
Alan's a really good guy andyou won't see much of it.
Yeah, it's just true, yeah Imean they are.

Speaker 1 (01:02:06):
They're discounting now just to offset the, the lack
of value you'll get from me.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Yeah, it's a's a big discount, to be fair there
aren't many people in the worldwho've done as much for
breathwork as him.
Over what did he say?
A 20-year period.
So definitely well worthchecking out his work and he's
such a nice guy as well, totes.

Speaker 1 (01:02:26):
All right, Well, thank you listener.
You find us at Andy Sam at.
The Breath Geek and.

Speaker 2 (01:02:36):
Rich's website RichardLBlakecom.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
That's right, and all good podcasting hosts Apple
Podcasts, Spotify.
You know how to find a podcastby now.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
All right, cheers Andy, cheers Rich, take care,
bye, bye-bye.

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