Ep. 127- The Breath Work Queen Adrienne Rivera

Alright, y'all, welcome back to the You Winning Life podcast. You already heard that in the intro, but today's guest is Adrienne Rivera. She's a spiritual business coach who specializes in teaching healers and coaches how to create a six-figure business online. She started her journey as an online fitness and mindset coach grew to six figures, discovered her passion and talent for business coaching. Now she supports her clients with growing and scaling their purpose-driven business, hosting online events, building their email lists while focusing on helping them find their alignment with their soul level, especially using breathwork. And that's where she became the founder of Breath of Gold, a breathwork company that hosts weekly breathwork and training breathwork facilitators. Super cool stuff. Definitely in the wheelhouse of everything we're talking about here. So, Adrienne, welcome.

Thank you so much for having me.

So let's just do a little bit of your backstory about how you stumbled into both this business stuff, breathwork stuff, and then how you bring those two together.

Yeah. So I graduated from college and I thought that I had to do things the way that everyone tells you, which is use your college degree get a desk job, all the things. And I double majored with a degree in psychology and technical writing. Technical writing side of things was very boring. A lot of people ask me like, what is technical writing? And it's like the user guides of an iPhone that no one ever reads. So I manifested my first desk job, which really opened my eyes to entrepreneurship because even though it was a desk job, it was, um, just me, the founder, and another girl. So it was a startup. It was 3 of us. And it really showed me like, wow, like she's not that much older than me. She can start a business. I can do this. So, it really piqued my interest. Then I saw a Facebook ad that says, are you a fitness coach? Which I also had a background in fitness coaching, fitness coach all throughout college, taught spin classes and ab classes and all the things. Then, yeah, from that ad, I am like, OK, let's see what is possible here. Long story short, got fired from the desk job, hired a Business Coach, had a lot of success because I had no other choice. Yeah, I really fell in love with the business side of things. When I was living in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, I stumbled upon breathwork at something that was called Spirit Fest. And it was the most eye-opening experience that I'd ever had. Because when I was doing fitness coaching at the time, what inspired me to start in the fitness coaching realms was that I had overcome 6 years of binge eating disorder. And so at that time, I remember feeling like everything was outside of me, like food and pleasure and comfort was all outside of me. And for breathwork, it was the first time that it felt like, wow, everything that I've been looking for outside of me is actually in myself. I felt it in every single cell of my being. And then that first breathwork session, it was like my cells were radiating and pumping and it was so much euphoria. I'm like, what is this? This is just me. This is just my breath. And so I immediately got hooked and kept doing more and more and more, went on my own deep spiritual path. A lot of people ask me like, What got you into spirituality? Honestly, breathwork. Like, I had no idea that there was more because I never felt it in my body. And so that was really the spiritual awakening that I had was breathwork, lots and lots of breathwork. And so as I was a fitness coach, I found that people were still having trouble losing the last 10 pounds. And it was because it was emotional. It was wanting to keep people at an arm's length, not wanting to let people in, you know, trauma that's stored in the body. And so I just had the light bulb moment. I'm like, oh my gosh, they need breathwork. They don't need to know what to do at the gym, they need breathwork. So I started helping some of my clients and leading them in breathwork and did several different trainings in breathwork and deepened my own breathwork practice. And as I pivoted into business coaching, it was the same message: they need breathwork. They need breathwork because business is mostly mindset. If you have all the strategies in the world around how to create a 6-figure, multiple 6-figure, or 7-figure business, you still may not do it because of the limiting beliefs that you have and the lack of alignment and feeling like you're just doing something because you want to make money rather than something that you feel excited about. And so if there's not that soul alignment, you're not going to do it anyway. So breathwork really is the thing that's like every aspect of business that I've done, breathwork has always been there. Yeah, it's powerful.

Very cool. So I want to break this down a little bit more because there's a few things that you mentioned that I know the average person might struggle with. So number one, you were, you worked at a career, you worked at a job that even whether it was a startup or whether it was a company and you knew it wasn't going to go anywhere or whatever it might be, where people know that they're looking for something more, something might hit them. And then one of the things I'm also seeing is that people don't have that where they're looking for something more, that they think that this is what it is and what it should be. And all it is, is just waking up, going to work, coming home, waking up, going to work, coming home, this repetitive process, where there becomes a lack of consciousness and a major autopilot. But you had something that kind of like knocked you around a little bit that you're like, oh, I can— when you said, I can do this too. I want to— I'm very curious of like, what do you think it was about you that made you think that I have this capability? Because I see this with a lot a lot of my clients. What do you mean I can go out there and start something? What do you mean I can ask for a raise? What do you mean I should maybe look at some other additional training in a different vertical that might still apply to this company? To think a little bit more outside of the box. So what do you think was ingrained in you for you to even have that predisposition to think that way?

Yeah, honestly, I think it was the spark that I had of believing in myself. I've been the person always to see something, have the vision, and then create it. A great example of this is before I even knew what entrepreneurship was back in high school, I got into triathlons and I'm like, this is so fun. I want everyone to do triathlons. This is amazing. Yeah. Just feeling the passion for something. And I want everyone to feel that passion for something. And so I'm like, I'm going to start a triathlon club team. So I started it. And not only that, but I'm like, I'm going to start a race for the whole school. And I got the whole school involved. I got the drama kids to do this commercial. I got the film people to to film this commercial. I got the, you know, the person involved with the announcements to show this video announcing this race to raise money for the Loud and Free Health Clinic. And it was like this whole production. It was awesome. And it was so much fun. And, you know, there's a lot that I learned because the team, you know, we'd have team meetings, and I'd pretty much have them all sit down and be like, okay, what do you think I should do this week? Rather than delegating to them. So you can probably imagine that tendency came into my business for the first few years. But it's just knowing that I've always been the type of person to follow my passions and to see things in a different way. And I've always had this creative spark. Um, and when I notice people are doing something, I notice it, I sit with it, I ask myself what works about what they're doing. Um, every email that I get in my inbox, what works about this email? How I'm being sold to, how does this work? And how can I use this for my business and make it even better? And so I've always been very curious. In school growing up, I was the most curious person ever. I wanted to know why everything worked. My favorite book was a book called How Things Work. It teaches you how to make toothpaste, how to make pencils, teaches you how everything in the world works, all the inventions that exist. I'm like, wow, there's just so much possible. So I think that it was the curiosity and the belief in myself that it was possible and that, you know, I've just seen other people do things differently.

Yeah. And I think that's like the words that are coming to me, right, when you said curiosity. But I think there's a level of brazenness, and we don't use that word often enough, right? It's beyond boldness, it's beyond audacity. And, and, and one of the skills that you're talking about is getting things organized and leadership and stepping up and asking people to be involved, being willing to say the no. And I find that more often than— I came back from a a conference this weekend. And I was just, you know, asking some of the newer professionals, like, do you do this?

Do you do that?

Like, and they're like, oh, I can't do that. And I'm like, well, of course you can, because I do that. And I didn't start off that way. And, and having that audacity to rethink about how things are done that might actually support you better than worrying about what's going to happen if you don't do this for a client, right? And to be able to do both, right? I can take care of me. I can set these boundaries. I can set these protocols into my business. And it can also be beneficial to my client versus only deferring to them. And I think that takes a level of brazenness to be able to do that. So when you started doing this breathwork thing, right, so you use that word. And I want to make sure that people understand what the heck is that? What is breathwork?

Yes, of course, this is such an important question. Because breathing is different than breathing practices, which is different than breathwork. So breathing, of of course happens unconsciously, we can consciously manipulate our breathing as well. And the power happens when we consciously manipulate it. Now, if you've been to a yoga class before, you may have experienced breathing techniques or exercises or pranayama. And those are usually shorter. You're— they're usually done in and out through the nose. And usually the benefits are, you know, calmness. There's different pranayamas for bettering your sleep, for anxiety, for focus, a lot of benefits. It's like a full tool belt. But when we use the word breathwork, 9 times out of 10, people are referring to a journey-style breathwork. This is a conscious, connected breathwork similar to Holotropic Breathwork, if people listening have heard of that. And so usually how it looks is breathing in and out through the mouth in a circular, connected way. And it kind of sounds like this. It's like So it's an audible breath, and we are using this deep breathing in a way for an extended period of time to access altered states of consciousness and to access the subconscious mind and to really reveal some things that we couldn't see before with just the waking conscious mind. And that's where the spiritual connection comes in. That's where you're able to do a lot of inner child work. 9 times out of 10, people cry in their first few sessions. It's like releasing a lot of layers. It's like peeling the onion layers, I like to call it.

Right. So I want to challenge people's first, maybe recoiling thought, right? I have this big smile on my face for those of you who are not watching the video version. And the first thing I'm going to is the neurology of this. And for those who are like, all right, that's too woo-woo out there, right? That's just like, you know, this breath thing. And yes, it's like, but we go to the gym for everything else. We hire trainers for other things. We, right, we to work and exercise these muscles, for lack of a better term, is something that we're not trained to do. We think we breathe, we think we, you know, we do this naturally, but we actually do have to train or get into an entrainment with this. And that does cause physiological stressors. So the first thing I'm going to is the neurology of this whole process, the physiology of this whole process. And for anybody who's like, all right, this sounds like BS, woo-woo, go listen to Dr. Andrew Newberg's episode on the podcast, check out his books, because he is a neuroscientist that was at Penn Medical, now at Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and his whole area of study is neurotheology— what happens to your brain during religious and spiritual experiences. So all of this stuff that Adrian's talking about has scientific data supporting these processes. And we know, especially like with the pandemic, right? When people are like, oh my God, my oxygen saturation's going down. Well, that's going to affect your physiology. That's gonna be able to affect your immune system and your stress handling and all those other things. So these processes, my guess is that when you have people who are going through just regular stressors, what we are talking about changing their nervous system, we are talking about changing their immune system. Because we can't function without oxygen. While everybody's complaining about gas for their cars right now, we need that. And we don't complain about, ah, I'm not focusing on my breath enough. I'm not sitting here and contemplating and focusing on this and exercising this muscle. No one's sitting there doing that. I mean, there are, but not the average person.

Yes, for sure. There's so many benefits to breathwork. And I love what you said about really it supporting the nervous system. And yeah, You know, even what you mentioned about the pandemic, there's definitely an effect on that because people have, in a way, subconsciously been taught it's not safe to breathe. If you breathe too deeply and you're out in public, you're going to get sick. You know, cover your breath, suppress, suppress, suppress. And our breath is the portal and the gateway to our emotions. I remember going to a therapist once and, you know, tapping into some inner child work and feeling like I was on the edge of crying. And they could feel that as well. And they're like, like, make sounds, breathe deeper, make sounds, breathe deeper. And so what happened was I was like fighting the tears, holding them in my body, and then all of a sudden I'm like wailing and it's just waterworks. And it's— it felt so amazing. I felt like a new person afterwards. I was just allowing myself the safety to cry and release it. But what she was doing in that moment was giving me permission, in a way teaching me how to cry, telling me, hey, release those emotions that are wanting to move from your body right now. And breathwork can do that. It's fascinating too, because whenever I am leading a one-on-one session I'm asking people to breathe really deeply in this circular connected way, and it's clear that they're not. They're like, they're breathing so shallow to my eyes. I ask them, does it feel like you're breathing really deep right now? They're like, yeah, it feels like I'm breathing so deep. Like, huh, isn't that interesting? And so then my follow-up question usually is, curious, have you ever had any trauma around breath? 9 times out of 10, there is some sort of trauma around breath where they have ever been— they've been maybe drowning or choked in this current life. I had a few people from past lives, but most of it was, uh, you know, this life where they had certain things happen in their body where they didn't feel like it was safe to breathe. And so their body learned it wasn't safe to breathe and to hold the breath. And what does that create in a human being? Someone who's disconnected to their emotions.

Yeah, yeah. And it's so simple because I see this all the time when I'm doing the neuro-emotional technique. It's always that, okay, stop. You're not breathing right now. Take a nice, slow, deep breath. Like, you see them in session, whether it's on my Zoom sessions or when I'm doing NET in person with somebody, just not breathing. And you can see the body language change based on a response to a trigger or stimuli, a memory. And it's not just like in the shoulder scrunched up, but you like see them like And it's right, and that's going to change this, the ability to process and handle things. So when you're working with this for yourself, and you said like, you know, you work through some traumas and some psychological processes and, and now taking this into business, right? The average business owners are running through their day. They're moving from one task to the next task and they don't take this time. And I love that that old story of like, you know, the guru and the Zen meditator, and they go to their guru and they're like, ah, I tried your meditation process, but I found out that I don't have time to meditate. And the master goes back to them like, oh, that's interesting, because you don't have time not to meditate. And I think that like, even on a more simplistic level, the breathing process, we think it's this autonomous thing that is happening the way it needs to happen. And we don't even have to worry about it. It's on autopilot. So how do we start noticing when it might actually be working against us or not working as efficiently? And just for the average general run-of-the-mill person, but then as we're, you know, those are the, those are people who are listening that are business owners or working in companies or corporations where they might see that throughout the day or what may cause that to happen for them.

Yeah. And so what you just said about being on autopilot, when you find yourself on autopilot, I feel like that is your indication that you need a breathwork session. You get to go deep, because I don't feel that we should ever be operating from that place. It should be operating from a place of consciousness, a place of knowing what we're going towards, what we're creating, and having clarity. You know, breathwork is incredible, not only for releasing trauma, but also for gaining clarity. I like to say that the breath shows us a metaphor of life. It's like the inhales is what are you calling in, what are you getting clarity on, and then the exhales is what are you releasing, what no longer serves you, what are you letting go of. And so in some sessions, it looks more like I received so much, if that's what you're available for and that's what you're needing. We always say as breathwork facilitators, breathwork gives you what you need, and to surrender to that. And it's amazing because how many people here listening don't know what they need. I know, like, all the time I don't know what I need, so that's why I do breathwork. It's like, breathwork, show me what I need. And so you don't know if you're ready to release something or, you know, call something in and get clarity on something and manifest something. So clarity, I feel like, is key. I call it my CEO breathwork. I do it every week, at least once a week with a one-on-one mentor of my own. And then I actually have a breathwork membership that people pay into, and I use my own membership and I listen to my own recordings because it's so good and amazing. And so I usually try to do it a couple more times a week as well, just to feel that energetic maintenance. It's kind of like spiritual hygiene. It's like taking a shower for your spirit is what it feels like, right?

And if you don't put that in priority— and I've been playing with this theme for the last few months, and I see this, um, where time, you know, if you don't prioritize these things, then of course it's going to go to the bottom of the barrel. And time has its own energy, it has its own mind, and it's going to— it's like water. Water is going to find any cracks, right? If there's a leak, it's going to find all the lowest places. Time has that same thing, that time will automatically fill itself with lower frequency activities when we're not choosing and prioritizing and working around the priorities and then filling everything else in. And I, and I see this with our, with our healing. I see this with breathing, with figuring out what we need to do, that other chaos will seep in when we're not focusing on the priorities or the dominant things that we need to work on, especially if it comes to our healing, especially if it comes to our psychology and our disposition and our goals. So I'm wondering, like, when people are first getting started, have you found that— and maybe this is not even the right way of looking at it, but I'm— I have a curiosity of, like, do you find that more intense things might come up front? In other words, that the— one of the reasons why we might unconsciously protect ourselves from wanting to do this is that they may— the people who are going through or have gone through a lot of things may not be ready to handle handle some of the insights that might show up for them. And therefore, like, all this stuff might show up too much up front. And they're concerned that they won't be the vessel or have the mindset or the psychology to be able to handle some of the things that they might realize that they need to be working on or doing.

Hmm, such a great question. And I would definitely say the first 10 sessions are very deep. Usually, it's a lot of the inner child work, a lot of the releasing, unraveling the stories. My invitation for anyone who has a little bit of that fear of like, am I ready to see what's underneath the hood of the car, so to speak, you know, have a trained facilitator, have someone who's ready to hold space for you and process it. Because the hardest part not necessarily is during the breathwork session, but it's perhaps the integration afterwards, what to do with all the information that comes through. And a lot of people also ask me, you know, should we start with a more mellow style of breathwork before we go into the deep stuff? And I'm a firm believer that you get to have circular connected breathwork because so much is going to come up. My first breathwork session, I had no trauma revealed. It was all sunshine and rainbows. And that was exactly what I needed. I probably wouldn't have fallen in love with it if it showed me the dark stuff first. Later on, you know, second or third session, it was all waterworks and, you know, shadow sides of myself. And that was beautiful as well. And the motto is it really gives you what you need and what you're available for. So if you're—

so interesting. Yeah, that quote, right? What you just said right there, that it shows up what you need. I'm finding this consistently when people are finding the right healing modalities for them. And I'm not talking about like your run-of-the-mill, right? I wasn't trained as the run-of-the-mill therapist because our training as like marriage and family therapists is really a misnomer in its term. It's not we only do marriages and we only do families. It's systemic. It's relational dynamics. It's you in relationship to whatever scenario is going on. And I wish we change that and change the titling of it because people have that belief like, oh, well, you only work with couples and you only work with marriages or families. I'm like, it's not— it's, you know, family medicine practice, right? We see everything. But our focus is on the relationship dynamic between you and that thing, you and the belief about that thing, right? And I find that as I got deeper into my own healing journey, as I started doing more of the mind-body stuff and integrative medicine and acupuncture and Chinese herbs and functional medicine and all those other things, and then finding NeuroEmotional Technique as a patient when I was going through panic attacks and anxiety, and then becoming a practitioner in it. The things that, if you allow it, and maybe this is where the first step is, is allowing it to show up of what you need to do. And if it's in the business setting, it's allowing your beliefs of what's keeping you limited from allowing something to show up, whether it's the right employee, whether it's the right marketing system, whether it's the right but getting out of your own way of your beliefs of why it won't or why it can't versus coming up with the reasons why it could.

Mm-hmm. 100% is possible 100% of the time is the motto. And when you go into breathwork, one of the biggest gifts is the shift in perspective. I wouldn't have even thought of half of the business ideas that I've had if it weren't for just opening myself up to the receptivity and creating space to be with myself and my breath for the answers and the wisdom to come through. And it's exciting because you do business in a slightly different way. You know, I know all the business foundations, and with— for my business coaching clients, I teach them all the things that they need to know about marketing, sales, and so that they have that as the foundation. But when they surrender to the breath, it takes them from their head down to their heart. What is it that they can create that's best for the world, that's best for the highest good of all, that has the most excitement? And breathwork can show you that. A great example of that is I use breathwork for business recently, and I went in, you know, I'm looking to fill this retreat for entrepreneurs to do breathwork and mastermind in person here where I live in Reno. And I went into the session, I was like, oh yeah, that girl that you recently connected with, reach out to her, she gets to come. And so I sent her a voice note, I'm like, hey, this might sound crazy, but I just did breathwork and I saw a vision of you there. Do you want to come? We've known each other for like 5 minutes. She's like, oh my gosh, full body yes, send me the details, I'm in.

And it's sometimes that simple when we get out of our own way, because we're like, you said, like, we're just, we're just going and going and going. And just to stop and pause is one thing. Stop, pause, breathe is another thing. And then letting that insight in. I was reminded of, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago, I started doing like a Zen Buddhist meditation, a very simple Zen Buddhist meditation. It was a 30-minute silent sitting group meditation, which was awesome. And then they did a Dharma philosophy talk afterwards for like 15, 20 minutes. So it was like in and out in an hour, which was like express, super awesome, once a week at night at 7 o'clock. And I remember sitting there the first few times, and if you want to sit in a chair, you sit in a chair. If you want to sit on the, right, on the beanbag thing, right, on the buckwheat cushion, has to be gluten-free, right, then it's, right, you can sit there. And if you want to move and you feel like you need to stand up, just do it, stand up behind, right? There was like, it was multiple ways of showing up and being comfortable. And I remember like that first 30 minutes, it was so awful. Like, oh my God, this feels like 4 hours. And then it's right, they have this whole idea of just the breath is so simple in their mindset is when you're breathing in, have this thought, clear mind, clear mind, hold the breath, let it out. Don't know. Right? That's what the, that's what the 30 minutes is set on. It's not focusing on what do you want to manifest? Or what do you want to heal? Or what do you need insight on? It was just so simple breathwork of clear mind, clear mind. What does that mean? Right? You know, the monkey mind paradigm, it's going to jump all over the place. You don't need to worry about anything. It doesn't matter. It's not important. It doesn't matter if it's about a billion-dollar business idea or healing your relationship or going to the gym, what you're going to eat for dinner, right? Just clear your mind. And then that split second between the breath in and the breath out, you think, you know, you think you have the answer. You think you need to focus on that. You think you need to solve that problem. And the breath out thought is, don't know. So let go of that, right? The non-attachment part. So right, that's just a very simple, but that was like a profound shift for me who's constantly, right, one, I'm helping people handle their stuff, but two, navigating what I was navigating at that point. That was hard. Those two things, clear mind, don't know. So how do we beat that thing of like, this can actually be easier than you might think. How do you, how do you walk people through that?

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. There's so much, uh, wisdom in that practice as well. Um, you mentioned something earlier, and it's that people find the right healing modalities for them at the right time in their life. And I am a firm believer of that. And there's so many different styles of breathwork, and meditation can use breath as well. Um, and what's fascinating about what you just said is, you know, you don't always need to manifest something. You don't always need to do deep healing work. And often circular connected breath does look like manifesting or releasing. And so oftentimes it's harder for people to meditate or to simply have the intention to clear their mind. And the invitation is to surrender non-attachment. You may have a million thoughts come through as you're training your brain to have a clear mind. And what I feel is important for people is to start where they can start. Because oftentimes people try to run a marathon without ever doing a 5K. It's like all or nothing.

Right. I want the million-dollar business, but have you made $1,000? Yeah.

Right. It's so true. Yeah. So for me, I'm very grateful that I found the Circular Connected Breath first because in a way it felt like I was doing something. Felt in a way, it feels like you're being productive. You're like, oh yeah, I'm getting business ideas. Oh yeah, I'm finding clarity. Oh yeah, I'm getting so much done. This is so fun. And I allowed myself to be in that space for so long because I wouldn't meditate at all. I'm like, I don't get anything out of this. It's too hard to quiet my mind and it's too hard to be still. And I think anyone who struggles with meditation but knows that just being with their mind is important, try breathwork because you'll probably fall in love with it and it'll be great for you for a while. And just now in my life am I also seeing the benefit in stillness and quieting the mind and meditation and finally getting into that and embracing that as well because it's a little bit more edgy and challenging to just sit and be and not even need to consciously manipulate the breath. So the biggest thing that's coming through right now is just to tell people, explore all of it, and the thing that you can commit to that is fun, do it. It's like with fitness, that's what I would tell people. It's like, okay, if you don't like weightlifting, what is fun to move your body, and what can you commit to, right?

You don't need to buy a $2,500 Peloton just to have fun, right?

Exactly.

And it's so interesting because I was, you know, right before the pandemic kicked in, a buddy of mine introduced me to the Muse meditation headband, right, where it actually tracks your EEGs and all that stuff. And the pandemic kicked in, I closed my office, I've been working from home, stress level was super high because I'm handling everybody else's stuff and not finding the downtime to take care of me. And I'm like, oh yeah, I have this thing and I haven't used it. And I remember like ever since, you know, from April of like 2020, I guess, I don't know what year we're in right now. It's been craziness. But right, and I started using And I realized how quickly I was able to get just by using this app with the waves or whatever sound and the breathing, and it guides you through it and it tracks your EEGs. And when you start getting focused, it brings you back into— right, you hear all this different chirping. When you start wandering off, you start hearing all these extra noises. And how quickly you can retrain yourself to do this within the span of minutes. This is not days, weeks, months, and years of practice. This. And this is why I love having guests like you on every once in a while to like really remind people, it's not that difficult. And it's not going to take you 8 or 10 years. And I think there was a study done by someone who was a lifelong meditator, and how long it took them to get into that meditative state and what their brainwaves were like at that period of time. And then they found someone who I think started off recently, and started them off at 0 to X amount of weeks. And within a certain amount of weeks of meditating, their brainwaves were mapping up to be the same. So you don't have to be a lifelong breath— I'm gonna make an assumption— you don't have to be a lifelong breathworker to be able to get the same benefits as someone who is just starting.

Yeah, one session can change your life. One session, that's all you really need. And also, you'll probably fall in love with it, just like me, and do it every single week.

Yeah.

Want to, right?

Well, and I always look at it from like, well, what's the worst that can happen if you try this, right? And maybe let's handle some of those objections or concerns, right? What would— what do you— what have you heard over your practice of, well, what if this happens, or what happens if this brings this up? And what happens if— so, right, well, what's something you've heard, and how would you handle— and how would you handle those objections?

Yeah, yeah. I mean, I— okay, worst case scenario, you give an hour of your life and you don't see any visions and don't get any clarity. And you're like, did this really work for me? And worst case scenario, you feel really calm. Right? So that's one, one case. Another thing is maybe you go into some deep things that you maybe are available for on an emotional level, but maybe consciously you're like, whoa, wasn't really expecting to go into that today. And so maybe you feel like very vulnerable afterwards and feel like, wow, I just exposed a lot from my subconscious. And now I'm thinking about and then you journal, you process it, and then you feel a little bit better. So maybe worst case scenario, you invest an hour and then you need another hour just to journal and process things a little bit more. Um, there are different styles of breathwork for everyone. This open mouth circular connected breath, we do not recommend for everyone. So people with certain like pre-existing medical concerns and things, we do a whole talk when they come on and we just invite them to breathe in through their nose. Um, It's more gentle on their nervous system and a lot of other things. But yeah, I would say that that is the short answer for it. If in the healthy person, worst case scenario is they don't feel anything and they're just calm, or they feel a lot and they need a journal afterwards. There's not really much at risk if you are a normal healthy person. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think the risk that we subconsciously or unconsciously create is, will I be able to handle this and can I face my stuff? That I think that a lot of us now— I mean, this is the beautiful thing of why, you know, this platform is so great, because it's normalizing this, it's normalizing healing, it's normalizing going deeper in a non-traditional way, right? All of a sudden, right, psychedelic healing is the rage. I'm like, well, where the hell did that come from? And Timothy Leary's like rolling in his grave like, I told you guys like 50 years ago. With LSD, right? And now there's microdosing and, and MDMA and then ayahuasca and all the other stuff that's becoming so normal. And even people I would never expect to be like, oh, I'm thinking about doing this. I'm like, what, really? You like— okay, cool. Like, I'm glad that's happening, but that's not going to be for everybody. And this seems to be like, well, if you're interested in that and you're not ethically, morally, or whatever, you and that's where it's a concern to you, well then, hey, there's breathwork. Yes, you can get there too through that.

Exactly. And through circular connected breath, breathing deeply for a long period of time, usually around an hour— doesn't always happen, but sometimes it can actively produce DMT naturally in the brain. So it is a psychedelic experience. When people say, oh my gosh, I saw so much, I feel connected to spirit, it's because of that. They're opening themselves up to these altered states of consciousness in a healthy way with their breath. And I believe that if it's within us, it's meant to be used for a reason. It's like, right, you know, I led a retreat in the Peruvian Amazon jungle. And just like all the trees are there to give you everything that you need, it's like, you know, the God, the universe was created with everything that we need. We just overcomplicate it. And then we think we don't have everything that we need. So it's like all the trees in the world in the Amazon can cure you of anything. And we have everything we need within our body.

Correct. And go back to that science part, right? The DMT, that molecule, we— it's already predisposed. No, no different than the cannabinoid receptors in our body. They're already there. That people don't know this, like, oh, there's this drug or this thing that's coming in and it's going to affect my nervous system and my biochemistry. No, no, we already have those receptors and molecules in our body. So accessing and leveraging this in a safe and healthy way can only amplify with the right people and the right tools, can only amplify that.

And what I love about breathwork, for anyone who's curious about having altered states of consciousness, is that worst case scenario, let's say that you feel out of control with your body, your hands are cramping, your body is tingling, and you're seeing intense visions, then you just go back to breathing in and out through your nose and it stops in 5 minutes. If you're going down to Peru to do ayahuasca, then you're on that journey for 4 hours, 8 hours, maybe 12 hours depending on your metabolism, depending on the dosage. And and you cannot get off that ride until the medicine lowers. And so you're in control of going deeper. Like if you want more visions, you want to go deeper, you breathe deeper. If that feels good in your body, if you want less, it's a little too much, a little too much sensation in the body, breathe a little bit less. And so it's like you're driving the car and you're saying, okay, a little faster, a little slower. You're going at your own pace and it feels really great. And I've actually gone to Peru and I've sat with ayahuasca 4 times and breathwork has blown my mind. Mind way more than ayahuasca. Ayahuasca is a lot more sexy, and you know, right, it seems like it's the Lulu—

it's the new Lululemon of it.

But it's honestly not as powerful as breathwork. And it just goes to show, like, we're always, as humans, I feel, in this psychology of looking for the newest, shiniest object, right?

That new silver bullet.

I know. And it's like the most ancient thing that is always within us, that we have for free within us, our breath is the best thing, in my opinion.

And that's what I think is so fundamentally crazy about this, because it's right, you're saying, well, it's not sexy, and it's not this, and not everybody's talking about this. And, you know, it's kind of like, like Transcendental Meditation, when they started finding out all the research and the science behind TM, and then, right, yet everybody doing meditating, and then yoga became the thing, and then spinning became the thing, and then, right, juicing became whatever it is. The thing is, we already have the answers. And it doesn't require sneakers and doesn't require a heart rate monitor. It doesn't require a $50 membership at a gym, and it doesn't require a $35 video platform membership. It's already— it's just breathing. And that's what's so crazy, that it's that simple.

Sometimes it's so simple. The answers are always within our breath. And if you need the accountability, if you need the support, especially if you're new to breathwork You know, find a community, find a breathwork circle, find a breathwork instructor that is either online or local that can guide you. And when you feel that safety of someone who, you know, has done their own inner work and they can hold that space for you to do your work, you're going to go a lot deeper.

Yeah. Makes absolute complete sense. So let's put out some places where everybody can find you right now. They can go to YouTube and it's under, right under your name. Um, And we're gonna put all the links into this show, but on Instagram, it's Adrienne Rivera Coaching. And again, like, put all the stuff in there. Obviously, if you guys want to check out— and you actually have a new product that I know you were showing me right before we started.

Yes, I have the Breath of Gold Oracle Deck, which is right here. And you pull a card every day in the morning. And yeah, you, you are reminded of what to connect to with your breath. So some of the cards are Breathe in Love, Breathe in Passion, Breathe in Connection. All the things.

So if we pulled one right now—

yes, let's do it.

Let's pull one right now and see what— what— as everybody's listening, if you're driving, do not do this while you're driving.

So we got 35 for those who care about angel numbers and, and, uh, you know, different, you know, numbers. And so it says, breathe in commitment. And there's a dolphin for anyone who has a spirit animal of dolphin. Lots of pink. So breathe in commitment. And the guidebook says, breathe in commitment. A life of balance and harmony comes from a life of commitment. There is freedom in commitment. Now is the time to embrace commitment and hold that which is important and close to your heart. When you commit, you tell the universe what is important to you and what you want more of. Embracing commitment during this time will allow you to have a deeper experience of joy, contentment, and playfulness. Ness, ask yourself, where am I not fully committed? And what would I shift if I was fully committed? When you are the embodiment of commitment, others will see you as the leader that you are and respect you. Really a great one.

Spot on.

Yeah, there's so much freedom in commitment. I think so many people think that it's the opposite. And that was one of my biggest life lessons is that there's so much freedom in commitment. Yeah. Yeah.

So then if you're listening to this and you want to hear more, please, please, please check out Adrienne's stuff. It's really awesome. Treat yourself to this card deck. It's super cool, right? And then even if you're not even doing the breathwork side, but you just want to journal or you want to just a mindset for the day, right? You can just do it as simply as that, right? That's the thing, the versatility of these resources and tools. You can use it one way, you can use another way, and that's awesome. Awesome.

Yeah, if anyone here wants to try a breathwork session live with me for free, first session is free. You can go to breathofgold.com/sunday-breathwork and you can come to one of our Sunday breathwork classes and try it out.

That's super cool. Y'all better take up— take her up on this. It's pretty, pretty awesome. So, all right, so then we have the Breathwork of Gold, we have your Instagram, we have this deck of cards. And where can they get the cards? Where?

On, on my website.

On your website. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So if anybody wants to hear any more information, obviously check her out, go to the YouTube channel, some awesome, awesome videos. And Adrienne, this was incredible, really hitting all the wheelhouses of mind, body, spirit, and entrepreneurship and bringing it all together. And I really appreciate—

Yes, thank you so much for having me.