322: Why Breathwork Is The Next Yoga with Samantha Skelly

Namaste, it's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the Highest Self podcast, a place we discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. In this podcast, I love to sit down with my friends and talk about their expertise on all all topics. Spirituality. Because diving into the spiritual world can be a lot. There are so many different healing modalities, practices, belief systems, rituals, lineages. It can be a lot, especially when you're first starting. I remember how excited I was. It almost felt like a Disneyland of like, ooh, I want to learn about yoga and breath work and sound baths and witch practices and this and that and it. Even today, 10 years later, I'm still constantly learning and deepening my understandings of different practices, practices, and also seeing how much science really plays a role in these things that are ancient and time old. But we can see that science today can prove to us why these practices have surpassed the test of time. So one of these practices is breath work. So if you're not aware of what breath work is, it's not work. Well, you are working your breath, but it's not a job. But basically what you are doing is you are breathing in a specific way. There are many different styles of breath work. We'll talk talk about it on the podcast. But you're breathing in a specific way to help you clear out anxiety, stress, whatever it is that your body is holding on to, and come back to a state of bliss, peace, happiness and alignment. So it is something that is super easy and we're actually going to be doing it. On this episode. The author, Sam, is going to be guiding us through a quick little journey. And it's something that I love. Breath work to me has been the thing that has allowed me to tap into meditation so easily. I'm someone who has a very active mind. I'm an intellectual. I read a lot. I'm always learning and writing and creating things. So it can be really hard for me to like be in a thoughtless state. But breath work is that practice that can do it for me because I'm a very body based person. So if something is in my body like breath work, dance, massage, things like that, it brings me out of my mind. So if you are like me and you're someone who has tried to meditate, tried to sit and think of nothing, and it's ended up stressing you out even more, I would highly suggest giving breath work a shot. So in this episode we dive deep into basically any breathwork question that you may have had. Because I know for myself I have had a lot of questions like, you know, from what is actually happening in your body, what does it mean if your mouth feels dry, if you have those, like lobster claws, which sometimes happens to you based off of how your breath is circulating? So many different things that we, when we're doing breathwork, we don't really think about. So because we go through the practice and right after I was like, what about this? What about that? You get a really deep dive into what breath work is all about. And then she guides us through a breathwork practice right here on the episode so you'll be able to experience it for yourself. Another incredible thing about Sam is not only is she an author, she's one of my great friends, but she also has a Pause Breathwork facilitator training. So I know so many of you guys right now are going through transitions in your career, in your dharma, in your sense of purpose, and are wanting to do something that's more in the wellness, spirituality, conscious space. So if breath work is a modality that you want to add into maybe your yoga teaching practice, your meditation practice, your Ayurveda health coaching, or just to, you know, go out there as a breathwork facilitator, so many people are hiring them, especially online. It's something that could be done like touch free on the Internet. So a lot of workplaces are hiring breathwork facilitators right now. And it's definitely, I mean, I see it as the next yoga because it's so easy for anyone to do and anyone to feel an immediate result with. So Sam founded Pause Breathwork, which is a facilitator training, and I've teamed up with her to also offer my eat right for your mind body type Ayurveda course, which is not available anywhere else right now for free for anyone that joins Pause Breathwork with my link. So if you are interested in joining in, tapping in deeper and you also want to get a free 12 week Ayurveda nutrition training program on top of that, then head over to pause breathwork.com Sahara Again, that's pawsbreathwork.com Sahara. You can find that link in the show notes and get all the information, apply there and get started. So without further ado, let's welcome Sam Skelly to the Highest self podcast. And before we get started, I have an announcement for you. So many of us are really awakening in our spiritual paths and realizing that spirituality is so much more than more information, more manifestation, more materialism. But it really all comes down to embodiment Being in touch with who you are, your truth, your soul's purpose. And we're realizing that so much of spirituality has been so focused on the masculine, how to disconnect, how to be still, how to be nothing. But really what the feminine wants is to be with everything, with her movements and her expressions and her community and her joy and her purpose. And this is why I created Rose Gold Goddesses. It is the feminine approach to spirituality where each and every month we are tapping into different goddess archetypes. So this past month we were working with Goddess Gaia, connecting to our grounded, earthy, anchored energy, especially while the world is so chaotic. The month before that, we were tuning into Goddess Ichel, connecting to our womb wisdom, our menstrual cycles, aligning them with the moon. Before that, we have been connecting with so many goddesses, from Lalita Sundari for sacred sensuality, to Durga for courage, for our Dharma, to Kuan Yin for compassion, to Br New beginnings and so many others. So if you are loving highest self podcasts and these types of conversations and episodes that really take spirituality to that deeper, ancient, embodied, earthy and feminine element, and you're craving to connect with spiritual soul sisters who are also resonating with this more embodied approach to spirituality, then I invite you to join us in Rose Gold Goddesses, the sacred center Sisterhood collective all about embodying the goddess within. So besides the monthly Goddess circles, we have so many workshops that I've created for you. From my healing and embodiment through dance course to my awaken your powers master class with shaman Durek, my ten day discover your dharma audio course. Starting in January, we're going to be putting Dharma pods together so you can create your own mastermind of people to support you to find your dharma and so much more. There is no community out there like this. If you check out the website and see the transformations women have had from being part community, you will be mind blown. So head over to rosegoldgoddesses.com to join the community now and I'm so excited to meet you inside again. That's rosegoldgoddesses.com and I'll see you in there. Welcome Samantha, to the Highest soul podcast. It's so great to have you back.

I'm so excited for this conversation. Thank you so much for having me on.

So the first question I'd love to ask you is what makes you your highest self?

You know, I am in Utah right now, just amongst the mountains and the lakes and I've been waking up every single morning and Going for long bike rides and just walking by the river. And I can feel as I am walking and breathing that I am breathing in like the essence of my soul as I'm in nature. So I'd have to say that.

So beautiful. So, you know, right now we are living in a crazy time. As we love to text about, we're like, what's happening? And a lot of people's fight or flights have been on this whole year. And for me, you know, I would always say I'm not a huge meditation person. I rather dance. Like for some reason when I just sit and meditate, I'm just not really getting the benefits. And like I did TM training. Like, I really tried, but it wasn't until I integrated breathwork in that I was like, it's so easy for me to meditate and I love it and I want to stay here forever. And it was adding that breath work element in. So can you share this? For people who don't know what breath work is, what is this incredible healing modality?

I am in the same boat as you. You know, I always say breathwork is for the person who says they can't meditate. And I found breathwork at a time in my life where I was really struggling with food and my body and I had done absolutely everything to try and heal myself. And I ended up going to Bali. I was reading Eat, Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and she was talking about how she went to Bali and I'm like, okay, I'm going to do that. So I bought a one way ticket to Bali and found breathwork. I found a class and when I first saw it on the board, I was like, breathwork, like, surely that's just breathing. And I'm sure a lot of people are having that experience right now. They're like, what are these guys talking about? And so I walk up to the class and everyone's lying down with pillows and blankets. And this man comes over dressed all in white. And he said to me, he was like, do you want to go on the ride of your life? And I kind of looked at him and I'm like, what is going on? It looks like an adult sleepover, right, of my life. Like, what's going to happen? What's going down here?

Take this pill. Yeah.

I'm like, is this an orgy? What's going on? So I lie down and he teaches this breath pattern. And he said to me, he said, you are going to experience the entire spectrum of human emotion over the next three hours. And the class was three hours, which was crazy. And when he said that to me, I had this moment of like. I'm like, you don't know who you're talking to. Like, I have only felt either numbness in my body or anxiety for years because I've been in the diet binge cycle, restricting my food, using exercise as a drug, etc. Etc. But I thought I'd give it a go. So I lied down and I started breathing in this pattern. And within a few moments, I felt this activation in my system that I had never felt before. I felt an aliveness, this awakening come through my body. I was able to feel every single sensation in my system. I felt like I was so embodied, so in my body, experiencing absolutely everything. And then it progressed and I just cried and released so much emotion. And then I was able to tap into anger and rage and like, scream. And all of this was happening without me judging my emotionality. All of it was unfolding and I was just experiencing myself going through this process. So I woke up essentially three hours later. It felt like 15 minutes because time sort of collapsed in that deep immersive space. And I, for the first time in my life that I could remember, felt the essence of who I actually was. Now, to answer your question, what is breathwork and why is it so powerful? Essentially, we are using the breath in a circular, continual way that helps the mind unhook, I call it, or release. And when the mind releases, we then get to tap into our visceral intelligence, we get to tap into our body. And when we're in our body, we can attune and feel everything that we block out. And so if you are someone who doesn't feel much emotion, chances are you felt a lot of emotion when you were younger and it was too intense for your system and your body. Your protectors were like, ah, let's just shut this off. I don't want to feel this. And so there's been this emotional numbness that has occurred through your life. And so what breathwork does is it helps reawaken the parts of us that have been dormant forever. It allows us to really shift our relationship to our emotions and really feel them. You know, in order to heal, we have to feel. And so my biggest issue with meditation was I would sit there and because my mind is so busy and I definitely have add, my mind would just be. I would be thinking about not thinking, which spins me into this sort of anxious storm. With breathwork, the mind is a bystander. The mind is completely relaxed, and that for many people is just a complete state of bliss, especially for people who are overthinkers, overanalyzers, highly anxious. And to your point, 2020 has been a time where we are living in that sympathetic fight or flight state. I think we're all sort of waiting for the other shoe to drop, like, okay, what's going to happen next? You know, and there's, like, a bracing in our system that's happening. And it's fundamentally created, yes, by everything that's going on, but also us not having that real felt grounding of safety, that emotional safety. You know, after food, water, and shelter, we all need safety. And when we outsource our safety to things outside of ourselves and those things change, like many things that have happened this year, we then are left feeling untethered. And so we're driving ourselves into that sympathetic state, constantly feeling anxious. So breathwork has been a game changer for me. That's healed my eating disorder and constantly helps me recalibrate and find that. That pocket in my system that felt sense of safety.

So beautifully said. Thank you for sharing that. And I totally resonate when you said we kind of feel like we're waiting for the other shoe to drop it. Is this like, okay, what's gonna happen next? Like, you know, because I don't think, like, any of us could have imagined the way that 2020 kind of continued to unfold with. With riots and protests and political things and fires and this. And it almost feels like, okay, what else are you gonna throw at us? We gotta months left. And then also, you know, it's not like it's 2021. Everything's shifted now. It's all gone. You know?

Exactly.

Sometimes you're like, oh, once we just get through 2020, like, we're gonna forget about. It's like, not necessarily like, you know, it brought to light a lot of things that need healing around. But I think what has happened is we've so lost ourselves in it. You know, we're so trying to figure out what's happening and taking all the information, all the news sources. And, you know, I checked in with my body as I was going down these rabbit holes. I'm like, I'm not breathing. I'm holding my breath. I'm literally bracing myself physically. So how can you, like, go work on your dharma when you're literally in this, like, state all the time? So you mentioned emotional numbness, and I think that this is a really important topic because we speak a lot about anxiety and depression. But what does numbness, I Feel like that's more of a subtlety. And how does that show up for us?

It's this essence of never really getting too happy and never really allowing ourselves to emote to the point where we are processing our sadness and our anger, and we can experience our joy to the degree that we're willing to go into our darkness. And life is this beautiful. There's duality in everything, and there's so much light and darkness that is within us. And when we develop the courage and we have the tools to be able to truly explore our darkness, it gives us more access to our light. Now, for me, in my diet depression years, when I was, you know, dieting and exercise addiction and all of it, I completely cut off my ability to feel joy and happiness and love and contentment because I wasn't willing to let myself feel pain and stress and anxiety and depression and grief and anger and all of that. And emotion is life. Like there's so much aliveness and emotion. And one of the biggest problems is we have these debilitating associations with our sensations. Meaning if we experience anxiety, the story that we create is, I'm anxious, anxious, I'm weak. I can't do this. I got to suppress this. I got to eat. I got to over exercise. I have to have another glass of wine, whatever it is. But when we fundamentally shift the relationship to that sensation, and rather than anxiety coming into our experience and us deciding that we need to numb it, run away from it, or that we are fundamentally weak or flawed, we welcome it, we feel it, and we decide that, wow, this anxiety in my system is pointing to something. It's showing me something. It's guiding me to something in my system that I have that I'm not abreast to yet. And so the experience when I have anxiety, it's sort of twofold. Number one, I can feel my ego and my protector saying, I don't want to feel this. I need to push this away. And then when I observe that voice, I can also sense this excitement of there's something existing right now in my sphere and in my universe that is not fundamentally in alignment with my soul. There's a frequency mismatch. So let me feel into this. Let me use breathwork so I can unhook my mind and really get into the nucleus of this pain so that I can begin to understand what's out of alignment. And every single time, Sara, I get it. I get the point. And it's literally 10 minutes. If I'm feeling. If I'm feeling anxiety, I Will sit with it for a few moments and really just feel it without the breath. And then I'll integrate a beautiful breath pattern which we can do a little bit on the podcast to show your listeners. Then my mind releases, I get into the body, I get into the sensation of the anxiety and I am shown through my body what I need to pay attention to in life. And it could be cleaning up a relationship that was left sort of undone. It could be I have broken the congruence in myself by doing something or acting out of alignment in some area. It could be something that I'm doing to my body. It could be a conversation that I need to have. It could be something that I'm holding onto for scarcity reasons. That that is just needs to go. And so every single time there's this divine intelligence, this wisdom that exists in our body when we breathe into it and really shift the relationship to the anxiety.

So beautifully said. And I think a lot of people feel very disconnected from their bodies and this is just a really practical tool that any. If you are like, how do I connect? Listen to my body's intuition. It's like breath work, like that's it. So can you guide us through a practice that we can just do wherever we are right now?

Yeah, absolutely. So if you are driving or you're anywhere warm, like in a sauna, for instance, I don't know if you'd be listening to this in the sauna, but if you're in a sauna or a hot tub or you're driving, don't do this practice. But anywhere else, this is totally safe. So the breath is called the tri active breath. So it's a three part breath. And we're only going to be using the mouth. So it's two breaths in and one breath out. So it sounds like this. So we're going to do that for about 90 seconds and then take a deep breath in through the nose and hold at the top and allow your body. What's going to happen? The experience that you're going to have is you're going to hold your breath and your mind's going to say, okay, let your breath go. And there's going to be a little bit of like energetic chaos that happens. Allow yourself to just feel into that for literally two seconds. And then what happens is the body, the energy sort of recalibrates and the body comes back to just feeling incredibly peaceful. So of course, if you want to let go of your breath, listen to your body. And also if my pacing is too quick for you feel free to slow down the pacing. So if you want to go at this speed, that's totally cool as well.

And is it best to be sitting, lying down, or does it not matter?

So for breath, for anything more than five minutes, I always suggest lying down with your palms facing up. But for 90 seconds, you can absolutely do that. Sitting. Yeah.

Great.

Okay, we ready?

Yes.

All right, everyone, just closing your eyes, relaxing your shoulders, just taking a moment and just checking in with your heart, feeling the aliveness, the energy of your heart. And just to start with, let's just take three deep breaths. In through the nose and out through the mouth. And when you're ready, let's begin.

Sam.

And just letting the breath do the work, Feeling into your body. Beautiful work. That's it. Keeping the breath nice and strong. And now when you're ready, taking a deep breath in through the nose and holding the breath at the top. That's it. And just notice the energy recalibrating. Notice how the mind is a little bit more clear and there's a little bit more spaciousness in the body to bring forth more of who you are. And when you're ready, releasing the breath whenever you're ready and coming back into your body and just noticing the subtleties, the energy, the vibration, the clarity in the mind, the openness in the heart. And when you're ready, slowly coming back into the space, opening up your eyes. Beautiful.

I want another round of that. It's like, so even when it came up, like, I always have these, like, little questions, so I'm excited to ask them to you. So my first question is, what do you do if your mouth gets very dry?

So if you're doing that breath pattern, close the mouth, take a few swallows, and you can even do the bliss breath, which is through the nose, then come back to the mouth. What you'll notice is after about the three or four point mark, the body begins to lubricate the mouth in a way that doesn't happen normally when we're outside of the breathwork space. But if that does happen, for the first couple moments, close the mouth, take a few swallows. You can even drink a little bit of water if it's close by and then just go to the nose, breathing.

Thank you so much for answering that. My other question is Wim Hof breath is super popular right now. So are there differences in, for example, doing this one with a Wim Hof breath? What are the energetic differences?

Yeah, definitely. So Whim has a very beautiful way of using breath to place the body in incredibly uncomfortable situations, like you've seen him do, like the ice bath and hiking crazy mountains. So his method and his way of working is using the breath to stabilize the system, stabilize the body so that we can physically exert ourselves and allow our mind to become more powerful. So his method was originally created in Tibetan Buddhism, and it's called tummo, and it's like the oldest. And tummo translates to inner fire. So it's like the oldest, most powerful breath pattern of really creating this inner sauna in the system. Which is why we don't want to do breathwork when we're in a sauna or in a hot tub, because it's already creating so much fire. So Whim uses his breath patterns to physically exert the body to withstand really intense climates and situations. Pa's breathwork is more geared towards the emotional development and the spiritual expansion of the soul, of the body. So we have a massive emphasis on personal development, spiritual development, just expansion of who we really are. How can we allow our souls to be more realized through using our breath and releasing who we thought we were? So some of the breath patterns that women I use are very similar. And he really goes at that physical exertion route, which I love, because I love extreme, extreme things. I love throwing myself in a pile of ice.

Yeah, no. And they're both super great. Like, what I like about his is the breath holds. Like, it really amazes you how long your body can hold its breath for. Another question that I have is when you hold your breath in naturally, I feel my shoulders tense up. My body kind of tenses up when you're holding the breath in, should you be allowing that, like that tense, tense, tense release, or should you be trying to relax your body, Drop your shoulders, even in the inhale.

So we don't want to make the body do anything. The body will really just do its natural process. What's happening there is we are pushing the sympathetic purposefully so that we relax deeper into the parasympathetic. So if you'll notice, maybe when you're stressed, that's your natural way of kind of like. Yeah, like, it's like the bright, the bracing. Right. So when we intentionally place our body in a sympathetic state, we brace up and then we have like, the release. And that's when we sort of settle into that parasympathetic rest and digest place that we all crave to be, and the body does the work for us. That's the most beautiful thing about breath work is we really don't have to think about what to do. We set our intention, we craft. You know, if a facilitator is doing it, they'll craft the experience for their breather. The breather just has to relax, find that felt sense of safety, breathe the pattern that they are instructed to do so and just let the body and the breath do the work. It's a complete mindless way of personal and spiritual development.

So let the body do whatever it's going to do in that inhale.

Yeah, and there's. There's times where my breath work experiences, like this morning, for instance, was 100% emotional, and I didn't feel any physical anything. And then there's some times where I feel really that the physicality of the experience is really intense. So sometimes my solar plexus will kind of just like contract, because my solar plexus is where I hold a lot of emotion. And so when I'm doing the breath, that part of my system will contract and then it will expand, it will release. And that's the breath literally going into these centers, breaking down a lot of the emotionality and letting it. It process through. Now, our mind can't do that even if it tried, which is why so many people get frustrated with personal development, because they're trying to think about how to feel better. Right. Let me think my way out of this. Let me overthink this. Let me overanalyze this. Well, the true path of sustainable healing is really letting the body do its thing. You know, this is. This is what everything that you teach with your movement practices and your whole body of work is like, how can we surrender the mind so that the wisdom and the intelligence of the body can do its job? I laugh sometimes that my two companies hungry for happiness and pause breathwork. I teach people how to eat properly and how to breathe properly because we've come so far away from our true nature. You know, like, our body knows exactly what to do. We just need to move the mind out of the way enough to actually extract the intelligence that's already there.

So beautifully said and 100% agree. You can't think your way through. And also the breath work can give you healing on things that you didn't even know were there. It could be something from your childhood, your past lives, your ancestral lineage. I remember I did a breathwork class in Tulum with my husband, and he is very stoic. I call him stoic Stephen. He is. He doesn't go too high or low, and he actually really prides himself in that. But for the first time I heard him crying, like, I was. I opened my eyes, I was like, is that him? And he was like, he didn't even know what it was, but it was. Something came through him that he had to release that. So normally we would, would. We would never just start crying during something. Or if we did, we'd be like, why am I crying? What is it? And try to analyze why. But it's like there was something that his body needed to release through the mechanism of tears. And he felt so much better after.

Yeah, it's truly beautiful when we can completely surrender the. The reason why and just let the body do the work. And it's this level of surrender that I never knew was possible. You know, we're meeting, making machines, we feel sensation, we create a meaning, right? And it keep. That keeps us safe. Well, when we understand that we can actually have the sensation without the reason. And maybe the sensation that we're experiencing is not from this life, it's from the 1400s when we were, you know, a slave and we were killed on the streets, for instance, or whatever it is, or from our mothers or grandmothers or whatever it is. There's so much more than meets the eye. And our logical mind will never be able to equate the emotionality that we're equal. And so when we can just fully surrender and say, my only role is to let the body do the work and to process and release what needs to come through, we will experience just such a deep sense of safety in that and also just complete surrender.

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It's just intensity. So when we're breathing in our mouth, the depth that we can get to is so Much deeper. And so when we want to go on sort of a psychedelic esque journey, we'll use that breath with some intense tribal music. Because emotions have such an impact with emotionality in that immersive space. I mean, we do anyways. But when we're in breathwork, the body will literally ride the vibrations of the music. So say, for instance, we want to do some deep healing with like, anger, we'll use a really intense breath and pair it with some really intense music. The bliss breath is just more gentle, so we don't activate the system as much. So that's a really beautiful one. For people who have struggled with a lot of trauma. When we really go into the body and if we have trauma that we have not yet dealt with or we didn't know was there, that can be a little bit untethering for someone. Breathwork is the greatest thing for trauma, but we really got to go slow, right? So if you're listening to this and you have had a lot of trauma in your past, just really be gentle because we want to open up that window of tolerance slowly. For someone who's had a lot of trauma, chances are you've numbed out a lot. And so bringing an activation, bringing an emotion into the system can feel at first, a little bit untethering. I say it's one of the best things because I've just seen the greatest transformations in people who've had trauma. But under. When you kind of go into it without, like the real care for your system, it could be too much. And then you'll say, oh, I don't want to do that ever again. So just going slow and listening to your body, and again, if your pacing is much slower than mine, really follow the rhythm of your own body and the pacing of your own body.

And I'm sure you guys go over all of that trauma informed breathwork and stuff in your training, which we'll talk about. So another question I have is the claw hands. You know, like a lot of people, myself included, when I do that intense mouth breath work, my hands just become little lobster claws. What's happening and how do we prevent this? Should we prevent this?

So it's completely normal and completely safe. So that's the first thing. It freaks people out because your body, your hands have never done that before. What that's called is called tetany, and it's a tightening of the hands as we breathe. Now what's happening is the breath is going into the system, unbinding, unlocking a lot of emotion. And we're releasing it. So this is why people will get dizzy. You'll get hot and cold. The energy is trying to leave your body through your hands, through our extremities. And so that is the sort of scientific, physical reason why one of my teachers, he always says, well, we have meridians going from our heart into our. Into our hands. And so the spiritual reason for tetany is an inability to let go. So whenever I'm in class and my students have tetany, I'll just repeat the mantra to them. And there's been so many beautiful experiences of I'm like, what do you hold on holding on to? It's safe to let go. And they'll have, like, an incredible emotional release, and their hands will relax. It's quite beautiful.

And yes, I definitely experienced that. And I think for me, it's like wanting to be, like, in control, like, of your body, you know, of, like. You know, I feel like the same thing with, like, psychedelics too. I never want to, like, do too much and, like, lose control. So it's like my body trying to be like I'm here in my physical body. But there is this element of just surrender that you really must be okay with to really have that epic psychedelic breathwork experience.

Yeah. And that surrender, for many people, going back to that need for safety, if we don't have that safety, that, like, real, rock solid safety, surrendering can be a little bit difficult. So we only surrender in proportion to how much safety we have in our body. And that can be this beautiful dance of the more safety we have, the more we can surrender. And it's. It's. It's a beautiful dance that you can do with yourself and really ask yourself, what. How. How else can I create safety? How else can I feel supported? And it's really about, like, noticing and attuning to the things around you already. Like, I'll even do, like, a physical exercise when I'm not feeling safe in my body. I'm like, okay, I'm sitting on this chair, and this chair is protecting me. Like, I am held by this chair, and I'll notice the things that are undeniable. I'm in this house. I'm safe in this home. I have got my breath. I'm safe with my breath. My breath isn't going anywhere. You know, I've got these hands. Oh, my gosh. Like, these hands can create and they can do so many things. And then I sort of take it up to, you know, like, my spiritual connection. Like, I'm. Wow. I'M so protected by all of my guides and all of my God and etc, Etc. I'm like, wow, there's this like spiritual interconnectedness, you know, so we can just like take it up by layers to really create this field of safety. And the more that we attune to the safety that's already there, it's just noticing because it's already there. The more that we can just kind of surrender a little bit.

I know a big one for me is feeling lightheaded and a fear of fainting. So for me, if a breathwork practice, I always feel okay. Even if the worst thing was to happen, I'm to faint. I have the floor here, so it's like I'm going to fall off of, you know, a chair or fall off of whatever. At least I know this floor is here supporting me.

Did you faint a lot when you're a kid?

No, it's actually this weird. Like I can get lightheaded sometimes, but I never actually faint. Like very rarely would I actually faint. But it's just this like my first instinct of feeling unsafe is that like falling. And in fact, like this year I was driving and I felt lightheaded and it's like put in this trigger in me that like every time I drive I'm like, oh my God, what if I. What if I faint? What if I faint? So I definitely get to do some breath work around that.

You know what's so crazy? I fainted for the first time yesterday in my whole life.

How'd that happen?

Eric and I went for a really long bike ride and I was freezing. So I got back to the house and I jacked the sauna, like to full speed. And I got in and rather than sitting down in the sauna because it was colder underneath and hotter up top because obviously heat rises. I stood up in the sauna and then I just collapsed. That's never happened to me before. I told Eric, I'm like, I think I died and came back to life. He's like, no, no, no. You just fainted.

Yeah, I mean it's definitely scary. Like my, my husband Steven fainted on an airplane. They were like, are you dead? But just something, you know. So I mean, probably in your case, it was. You went from extreme cold to extreme hot. And it was just so much for your body to handle. For me, I think it's like not because I do intermittent fasting sometimes. So I feel like sometimes in the morning before I've eaten, I'm just in this kind of like lightheaded Like, I'm super energized and, like, feeling a little lightheaded right now. Plus, drinking coffee, too.

You're just, like, jittery and lightheaded, like, yeah.

So, yeah, I think breath work is such a great way to heal that. So tell us a little bit more about, like, if someone wanted to become a breathwork facilitator, bring that into their work, what does that look like? Especially now with, you know, places being closed and quarantined and people being in so much more fear, too, because this is a huge field that I'm seeing such a huge demand for, and we've talked. What does that look like for the common person?

Breathwork has been just every single person that tries breathwork or does that. It has a profound impact on their lives. And so I started working with a lot of yoga teachers and health coaches and wellness coaches, and I was like, hey, this was a few years ago. I'm like, just add this into your practice, and let's see how your client transforms. And. And the results were incredible. Like, I could not believe it. And I always say breathwork is the next big thing. Like, we are hearing rumblings of it, but it is going to be bigger than meditation and yoga combined. Like, I just know that because, number one, it has been around forever. So it is just a matter of us remembering this power that we all have. And there is such a need right now for facilitators as this. This energy and this. This industry is building and growing. And I think I had no intention of starting another business. And pause came to me in just such a divinely, just, beautiful way. Like, the entity came to me, and it was like, you are going to create this. And then the name came to me in the same car ride. It was. It was wild. And as I've been building and growing, and I'm just seeing how powerful it is for people and how when people start breath work, they just become intoxicated with it. They're just. They almost become like, you know, getting high off your own supply, like, getting addicted to the energy of doing it. And so a few years ago, I. I created this facilitator program, and it's specifically for people who, number one, want to raise the consciousness of humanity, because in my opinion, there is not a. That's the quickest way to do it. When you give people a visceral experience of their body, their hook, they don't have to think about, maybe it's working. It's like, definitely is working. And so I absolutely know the industry is going to pop in probably two to three years. Right now. We're working really hard of getting the word out and training a lot of facilitators and really gearing up for the big pop of it. But it's for people who are so committed to human transformation and really want to help and really want to give back. This modality has just been so incredible. And especially in 2020, you. A lot of my alumni, a lot of my trained facilitators have gotten fired from their corporate jobs, which is something they wanted anyways, and now have gone 100% online teaching breathwork online. And it's been absolutely incredible. They're starting breathwork membership sites. They're doing online breathwork retreats. They're doing breathwork events and workshops. And it's just. Just been absolutely amazing.

I could see, you know, Breathwork studios, just like, we have yoga studios now. There's so many meditation studios. Probably Breathwork studios will be the. The next thing.

Oh, my gosh, 100%. I can't wait for that. As soon as, you know, this virus thing goes away, you know, Yeah, I.

Can totally see that. And also, you know, even, like, corporate right now are really looking for ways to bring about healing for their colleagues. You know, I had a company reach out to me. It's just like, can you help inspire them? Because people are, you know, especially if you're so used to working in a cubicle with a bunch of people around you, and now you're by yourself, you're like. You're feeling really, like, off, right? So just having people come in, I think there's going be a huge demand from corporate places to be able to facilitate online breathwork experiences for their teams.

Corporate is investing so much money in wellness right now because they know they're finally realizing that wellness is the foundation of everything. You know, they're like, I want my people to be more productive and more, you know, inspired and have a better culture. It's like, well, we got to start with the individual. And so that's why they're reaching out. And a lot of my alumni are doing online sessions for corporate companies. Google and Nike and Amazon, like, it's. It's crazy.

I even want to get a pause Breathwork facilitator to come do breath work with my team. So I'm gonna have to get, definitely, oh, my God, hire someone. Because it's so. It's so important because people, especially right now, there's so many moving pieces to having an online business. So it's important for people to be able to stay focused and be able to multitask and prioritize. And that can't happen when you're not connected to your body.

Absolutely. We create. So we call it like creating the field. So on our, on our team meetings, we'll all sit, we call it the pause pocket of all these weird names in our company. And we'll sit there and we'll create the field through breath and we'll notice the interconnection between all of us and even just the attunement to all of all of us working on the same mission. You know, this heart centered connection, the culture it creates is just so powerful and so beautiful. And you know, it's, it's obviously it's a breath work company so we do that all the time. But I mean in any company, just sitting down and connecting through breath, like my exhale is your inhale. We are all one. We are made from the same stuff. And when we notice and attune to the, to the oneness and the harmony that we are, especially now when there's so many narratives driving disconnection and separation. Especially now to notice the truth, which is oneness, to notice that, that we all come from the same place. We are these human beings that are just precious, you know, every life, every soul is so precious. And really noticing that through breath has been, gosh, such a game changer.

It's such a game changer. And you know, we'll share more details if people want to become pause facilitators. We have an epic discount for you. I'll be offering my 12 week eat right for your mind body type Ayurveda course as a free bonus. So that link is in the show notes. I think we also have a link, a pause breathwork link. All that link will be in the show notes. But I'd love to ask you, you know, right now your new book is coming out and you are on your podcast speaking tour and doing all of the different pieces in this book. You know, the last time we had you on, we went really deep into your story about emotional eating and hungry for happiness. And I know so many listeners are hungry for happiness coaches too. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about how you're using breathwork in your life. You know, dealing with all of the stress of being a woman on a mission in this time that it feels like the world is so noisy.

I love that it's. I wake up every single day with an intent to quiet down the noise and really find the voice when I am caught. So there's three pillars of connection that's speaking to us at any given time, right? We have our mind, which is noisy and busy, full of judgment and this and that, and then we have our emotions and then we have our intuition. If I ran my business, identified more with my emotionality and my mind than my intuition, it'd be game over. And so breathwork has been my saving grace. Not only to heal myself from my eating disorder, but every single day. Like, there's no way I'd be able to run these companies and manage all these employees. I know that the sensations that are activated in my system that my mind tells me is this thing over here. It's not that. It's like, okay, that situation outside of myself brought. Brought forth in something in me that I get to heal. Breathwork helps me put value where value needs to be. And when we externalize an internal issue, we're missing the point. And so I'll use like that 90 second breath work that I did on the show. I'll use that 20, 30 times a day to place me back in my body and understand that my external world is only showing me the blind spots of where I need to pay attention to, where I need to come home to, where I need to heal, you know, and so something crazy will happen in the business and I'll be chill. And my team's like, how are you not forgetting about this? Like, that happened today, actually, like, our whole website and server just went down for no reason.

That happened to me last week. And they were also like, how are you so chill about this?

They're like, sam, there's like thousands of dollars going to these funnels and they, blah, blah. I'm like. I'm like, all right, cool. Like, what is. There's an activation in my system. The activation is fear and worry. Okay, well, what is that? Okay, well, I'm going to disappoint people because they're going to go to my shit and it's not going to be live. All right, well, where's that come from? Okay, well, disappointing people when I was a kid. All right, well, how do I compensate? Well, I normally overcompensate and freak out and try and, like, make things better, but I'm just going to sit in the sensation and just be with it and let my inner child know. It's actually okay if people are disappointed with you. It's actually okay if people don't like you. Like, you're still so worthy and you're still so amazing. And so I was like, talking to my inner child as I was, was like, trying to, you know, fix this problem. My team's like, you're being so chill. I'm like, yeah, it's cool. It's all good. It's all going to get worked out. And then it, like, got worked out real quick, you know, it wasn't this whole dramatic situation. And I think again, when we, when we try and fix the problem with the problem quotation mark, with the energetics of the mind, we just add more energetic chaos. And it just builds and builds and builds and builds.

And right then everyone's stressed out and then they're not able to think clearly and then there's more error and. And it's like, also, you freaking out is not going to solve the problem. It's not going to bring your website back up. It's just going to add more stress to it. So it's like, there's no point. Like, sometimes there is a point in anger and it can be directed towards change, but in a situation like this, all you really can do is let go. And in that letting go, you're able to rise up and maybe see solutions that you wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

Absolutely, absolutely. And yeah, it's like, that would have been shifted into aggression. I would have been mad at my team and blah, blah, blah. Whereas, like, I absolutely love, like, dancing with anger, creating with anger, writing with anger. You know how it is. It's awesome.

So beautifully said. And yeah, I think, you know, this is really the time right now to hone in on your practices. You know, I think we're realizing that this experience of 2020 and beyond is going to be very different for every single person. And that has to do with what your internal energy is like. And we really are so setting forth a vibration. And, you know, it does come down to worthiness. I think the biggest block that's keeping people from practicing breathwork, signing up for a program, whatever it is, is worthiness. I know for me, sometimes I wake up and I'm like, I have these emails and I kind of like go straight into it. And I'm like, why did I not do my breath work? Like, do I not think I'm worthy of 10 minutes of having these emails wait, having the people on the side wait? And then when I do do the breath work, I'm like, oh, my God, like, how do. How do I not do this every single day? Because it's such a game changer. So it's just Reminding yourself of how you'll feel after and realizing that you're worthy of the time that it takes.

Absolutely. That's such a big one. It's that, you know, achiever. It's like you got to do all the things or else you're not going to be loved.

Exactly. So good. So where can listeners learn more? I know you have an app coming out soon, the Pause Breathwork Facilitator. All of the things.

Yeah. So all of the breathwork stuff is over@pausebreathwork.com the facilitator link is paused. Breathwork.com Sahara, I believe. Right?

Yeah, yeah, we'll have that link in the show notes.

Beautiful. So that's if you are interested in stepping into this work and serving the world through Breathwork. The app is almost ready, so that'll be ready probably in about a month or so. So just I'll share that on my Instagram amanthaskelly. That's of kind of where everything, everything is shared. And then the Hungry for happiness book is hungryforhappiness.com book. And when you purchase the book, you'll get access to my 21 day food and body meditation series as well.

So beautiful. Well, thank you for. You know, another beautiful example that you are is you had these two interests which were unique in a way of like healing our emotions around food and breath work. And you really went for them fully, you know, training people in them. But really they are interconnected. So you're really giving permission for people who, you know, maybe they have two separate interests. They're interested in like spirituality and technology or like this and that and it feels totally different, but you can still completely go towards them and somehow find a way to link it back up. So thank you for saying yes to all sides of you and being an example that that's possible.

Oh, thanks for that reflection, Maeve. I appreciate that. Yeah, just follow the fun, follow the energy. There's. There's guidance in the energy.

Yes, absolutely. Well, thank you for being on Queen.

Yeah, of course. Thanks for having me, babe.

How incredible was that conversation with Sam? I truly believe that breath work is going to be the next yoga because it's so easy. Anyone can do it. They don't need to be flexible. They don't need to be wearing workout clothes. They don't need to believe in spirituality. Anyone in just 90 seconds even can have an experience.

Experience.

And if that felt so profound, imagine what a whole hour of doing breath work can feel like. Plus, there are so many different styles of breath work. Out there, which I love because you can kind of craft the experience for different people according to if they're feeling overwhelmed, anxiety, stressed, whatever it is. So if you're wanting to dive more into this, studying it and becoming a pause breathwork facilitator, I really recommend Sam's program. She is an expert for facilitator trainer. She has another training called Hungry for Happiness which is all about emotional eating. So she's someone who can really train masterful facilitators, which is not something that everyone can do. So if you are wanting to step into your role of teaching breath work to other people, I really recommend doing her training. So like I've mentioned, we've teamed up to also offer my Ayurveda course for free, which goes into all things Ayurvedic, nutrition, digestion, food, grocery shopping lists, recipes, really helping Ayurveda integrate into your life from a nutrition and food perspective. And that's something that you can really beautifully facilitate hand in hand with breathwork for your clients. So if you're wanting to dive further into this, head over to pausebreathwork.com Sahara pawsbreathwork.com Sahara mention that that you were referred by Sahara to receive your Ayurveda course for free. And I'm super excited to see you facilitators out there changing the world and helping people connect back to their truth, to their breath in such a beautiful and simple way. If you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your Mind Body type. This is a different book than Eat Feel Fresh, my first book ever which is not released anywhere and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my podcast in the itunes store. So all you gotta do is head over to itunes where you may be listening to this podcast and leave a review. Take a screenshot that you've left it and email it over to me@saharaetfeelfresh.com again that's Sahara S A H A R A@eatfeelfresh.com and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book Book Eat Right for your Mind Body type which goes all into Ayurveda, doshas, plant based nutrition, body types, all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for free for supporting the podcast. Every single review I personally read, it really helps the podcast be listened to by more people so we can raise the vibration of the planet together. And I am so grateful to have you on this journey. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening. And I'll see you on the next episode. Namaste.

J.