Can THIS Ancient Breathwork LIBERATE You From Fear? Gwen Payne @WellnessAndWisdom

How did you actually find the breath?

The breath found me. Honestly, my philosophy around breath work is that it's opening us up once again to be conduits for life, love and spirit to flow through us. I mean, I think collectively that we have such a profound fear of emotions, so people just fight it tooth and nail. And, you know, the truth of the matter is, if we could open and allow that energy to move through us, it might be intense, but it's pretty easy.

Gwen, last night was amazing. Thank you so much for coming to Austin. It's been such an incredible journey and here we are almost like in a time machine that's warped us forward. So, Gwen Payne, welcome to the show.

Thank you, Josh. Gosh, it's such a treat to be here with you.

You're actually one of my first guests, the first guest to stay here in the studio. What is it like being in Austin now? You said 1980. You were in Austin.

1983, I think 1983.

So, like almost 40ish years here. What does it feel like to come back on that timeline and feel the energy of Austin now compared to in the 80s?

You know, I'd like to say it feels really different, but honestly, it doesn't. I mean, back, you know, back when I came the first time, there was. I was here briefly, just like I am this time. And there was a magic to it. And that's how I feel this time, too. From the moment I landed, I just. There's an excitement in me to be in Austin. And I don't know if you heard this last night, but I was telling Carrie that I was actually conceived in Austin. And I discovered that when I did not know this. Yes. So I told my mom the first time I visited. I said, I feel like home here. And honestly, it was the first place in my life that I'd ever felt like home because I moved around so much. And so that was such a weird feeling, to be honest, to feel at home somewhere that I literally my mother up to tell her that. And I hadn't known until she told me in that moment that I was conceived in Austin. So I don't know, it just feels like a homecoming. There's a joyfulness that I feel within myself, but also that I seem to. And maybe that's my projection, but I feel like a joie de vivre, you know, here that people really are enjoying life.

That's your Stanford French coming through right there. I just felt that, you know, one thing I've always really enjoyed about you, especially when I first met you in Sedona, and even now, more so becoming a father and just, I guess you could say, holding the space of my own family and my own business is you are one of the most fully expressed people that I've ever met, and I've met quite a bit of people in 42 years. What is it about the expression that you carry and the way you express yourself that you think people are hungry for? In other words, to be fully expressed is what so many people are hungry for, yet it's blocked by so many of the stories that we create about why we can't be expressive. So what do you think it is about your ingredients or your soul that allows you to be essentially more free and more expressive than the average person?

Okay, because I was just about to ask you, what does that mean to you, fully expressed? Because for me, it's just kind of a natural thing. I think, honestly, I think in part it is. Having grown up in a Mediterranean culture where there's a lot of hand gesticulation and freedom of tone and volume and. And peculiarities, quirkiness in people is celebrated. Right. There's not the homogenization of let's all try to fit in. Right. So I think that's, in part, is that foundation. And, Josh, you know, I've been working at peeling away the layers of conditioning and imprinting that come from lineage, that come from culture, so on and so forth, and I still continue to do so. So how can I allow myself to be more free, whether it's in dance speaking, whether it's however it is that I can show up. So it's something that I work at as well.

It was something that I feel when we hang out at the lake here and you're in a bikini. And it's a very sacred thing in Native American culture to be an elder, and I really do. It's rare. I think maybe you're the third person in almost 500 interviews where I can honestly say, from spending time with you, from being a student of yours, and just from learning from you, you truly have the virtues and you have an embodiment of being an elder, which is really rare. I think people throw that word around because it sounds cool or maybe because of the kind of commodity of spiritualization that's going on. But there is something unique about you where you have your foot in this world of youthfulness and expression, and also there's a gravitas to you. Last night, we experienced your breath as prayer medicine, really, 10 of us, and we went very deep. I had A traumatic purge come out of me of grief and sadness, which felt amazing and a lot of people might not understand. In order to hold this space, hold this space in a breathwork ceremony or breathwork training, you have to have experience yourself. And this has been like a multi decade piece for you, which we're going to go into all of your story. There's so much momentum and vacuum that brought you here to Austin at this time. And even what you're doing with inspired Sedona, like, there is a. There's a big momentum behind it. But if I can, like, let's just dive into this one piece as a jumping off point. So many people, they have this emotion inside of them where it's like, whether it's anxiety or depression or whatever it is, what is it that actually blocks people in your experience of letting go of truly letting go of depression or anxiety? What is it that makes us essentially lock our own jail cell and we forget that we hold the key?

Breath. Do you know how little people are breathing?

Yeah.

30% is what the average American adult is set to breathe of their functional capacity. 30%. I mean, just that in and of itself. I mean, you want, you know, one short answer. It's breath. Absolutely. Because essentially that's starvation mode for the cells of your body, for your brain. I mean, it is literally living in survival mode. I don't think we can help but be anxious and depressed. Right? That's standard. So, I mean, if there is one thing I would encourage everybody to do, it's to breathe more.

And usually the thing we hear after that is, oh, I breathe all day, Gwen. I've heard it too. Like, I breathe all day. But there's a key in this, and you talk about this in your work too, where it's like this block that we have. The fear of what we're gonna find is really the treasure that's gonna give us the peace and the courage that's already within us. There's a cave, and it has this scary monster in it. And I think especially our society conditions us that further makes us breathe incorrectly, that disconnects us from our body. And it really is. Well, don't go too deep, because you might find something that you might not be able to handle. What do you make of that?

Yeah, that's very true. People really can get so triggered by the prospect of going within, can't they? Yeah, well, you know, to be honest, the first thing that comes to mind is the story about, you know, everything that we're looking for is outside of us. Right. And that trance is so deeply, deeply embedded in our psyche. And, you know, ultimately, I think that the socialization process that leads us to this. This. This fear that lives in us from young, that the consequences for expressing ourselves authentically are pretty severe. Right. So, I mean, the message to not express ourselves authentically starts literally right out of the gate with babies crying, being told, shh. You know, and people often say to me, well, isn't that a soothing sound? Well, it's not a mistake. It means be quiet. Right. And so that message starts really right out of the gate. And of course, you know, at home, in schools, religious institutions, if we attend them out in public from complete strangers. But the bottom line is that it's not just the message, it's the consequences. When we freely laugh or freely just blurt out whatever it is that we want to say, and then we get rejected, we get isolated, we get, you know, we get scolded, punished, humiliated, bullied, on and on and on. It's a combination of, you know, basically the socialization process across the board of being told that, oh, no, your happiness resides in that other person, you know, in that bank account, in that thing, in that experience, when ultimately it really is within us.

I remember in the end, at the end of 2019, when I did your training with Carrie. We did it together.

Yeah.

I was like, well, why do you actually do this, Gwen? I think you were, like, pouring a coffee at the counter in your old training room. And I said, why do you actually do this? And you're like, well, it's because of trauma. It's because of trauma. Every human being experiences trauma. I think to be a human is to be a traumatized being. And it doesn't have to be this large capital T trauma all the time. It can be these micro traumas. I've shared on the podcast that one of the ways I personally used to traumatize myself would be micro trauma from watching pornography or micro trauma from not speaking my truth when I was a child, over and over and over and over and over again. And we both know that energy cannot be created or destroyed, just transmuted. So energy has to go somewhere. Does that. Still, that was three years ago. You told me that in person has your definition or your understanding of trauma through the art of breath or not. Has that changed for you at all since 2019?

Not at all.

Still the same?

Absolutely. I mean, what I just described, that socialization process, is traumatized, isn't it? Yeah. So trauma is at the root of, you know, any label as far as I'm concerned, right? And behavioral dysfunctions and so on, right.

The core of dysfunction is that we're out of alignment. There's a natural way of being that we were born to be, and that is actually a freely expressed being. So rather somebody's with us right now watching or listening, and they're like, well, what is he actually talking about? You don't need esoteric language to understand that when you feel free, there's no words that you can use to describe it. You either feel free or you don't. And I think as a product of this society, we are essentially in some kind of a matrix, either self created or something more cosmic. I don't know, maybe y' all can let us know. But how do, how do you define this? You know, this. Even with inspired Sedona and all that you're doing with your trainings and how breath came into your life, how would you actually say that freedom is something that we already have? And how would you describe the way that we actually block ourselves from embodying or from feeling free?

You know, I am pretty practical, right? And so when I speak to questions like that, it's really because of my felt experience. Otherwise I really can't answer that. But in my case, what I've experienced is those moments of freedom in breathwork, right? So in breathwork, I think one of the things that's so impactful is that concepts become viscerally experienced and then it's an embodiment, then it's a. That's a. Then it's a deeply known thing. And so in breathwork we have the opportunity and of course, working with so many people, it's not just my experience, then it becomes, you know, witnessing, holding space for people to experience the same thing is that it's something that we tap, we can tap into in breath work, or it's just a felt. And in that moment there's an understanding that has nothing to do with anything outside of ourselves, nothing whatsoever. It's part of our essential nature. And so those are the moments of freedom that I've experienced and, you know, witness in others. It's just, it's a tuning the world out. It's a letting go of what we've been carrying, whatever energies we've been carrying, releasing and bringing our attention inward. And only then can we really experience that freedom. And then when we do something like breathwork consistently, and you know, of course I'm biased, but I just don't know. And I've experienced a lot of things and I've trained in a lot of things, but I don't know of anything else that has brought me to these types of experiences like breathwork, where, you know, I can feel it in every cell of my body. And so that's why breath work as a practice is so important to me, because just having that once in my life is not enough to me, that it's within me. It's a fleeting glimpse. Right. But doing breathwork consistently can give me that more embodied connection to it.

Energy in motion, emotion. And you even said this, I believe, on your site. I've heard this before. Emotions take about 90 seconds to move through us, yet we tend to fight that 90 seconds. So if emotions move through us in 90 seconds, what is going on in our psyche that makes us block them?

I mean, we've been told they're unsafe. I mean, I think collectively that we have such a profound fear of emotions. I mean, if people were to really, like, go in and look at some of the beliefs, if they could kind of take a magnifying glass at some of the beliefs that they hold in their body that has been imprinted upon them, not that they consciously think, you know, if I feel this, I'll die. If I feel this, I'll go crazy, crazy. If I feel this, I'll never come back from this, if this will never end. I mean, on and on and on. And so that's. So people just fight it tooth and nail. And, you know, the truth of the matter is, you know, if we could open and allow that energy to move through us, it's pretty easy. It might be intense, but it's pretty easy.

So then what I heard from you is if we can allow it, and there's a construct, there's tools, there's a. There's a way that you teach where we can actually allow something, and it's actually a lot more easier than we think once we master it. But what I heard from you is, like, if we can just open a gate, it seems to me like there's a floodgate inside of all of us. Maybe it's a construct of the mind, but also it's connected to our body. I mean, the body is the subconscious mind. So then if it's just as, quote, simple as opening a gate, why is it not feeling so easy? Why does it not feel so easy to open that gate? And how do we open that gate?

Well, I don't think it's easy because it's actually not just, you know, programming in our. In our own lifetime. It's our parents Programming. It's our grandparents programming. Right. So it's in our DNA. That's a lot of. That's a lot of deep imprinting. Yeah, yeah. And then it's consistently reinforced in our lifetime. Right. So how do we open the gate? Well, Josh, I mean, I think that everything just takes work. I mean, that's not daunting to me. I'm all about it. Right. But consistent practice, consistent stepping into getting support. You know, this is a very individualistic culture, and especially, you know, in the US it's like pull yourself up by your own bootstraps type of thing. But I'm a huge fan of support. Right.

The support aspect is interesting because I think many of us that might be here with this podcast or definitely you and I, or people that are considering themselves to be in a spiritual community or in a personal development community, look at how many millions of people have followed Tony Robbins or some of the biggest names out there. But that's all intellectual healing. And I feel like there's a big difference when you're talking about support. Beyond the intellectualization of our healing versus the somatic experience of our healing, the emotional experience of our healing. How would you define healing when it comes to intellect versus somatic?

Limited. Yeah, I mean, I don't know how much healing can really occur, honestly, just in the mental capacity. I think, understanding. I think. Let me. Let me. Let me kind of take a step back, actually. I think it is important to address all. All aspects. Right. But as you were saying, the subconscious is so much greater than the conscious mind. Right. So, you know, that's about as much healing as we can bring if we, you know, have a narrative and we're able to shift that narrative. Right. That's. That's. That's powerful. But I mean, the somatic, to me, is where it's at. I mean, that's certainly where my interest lies. And that is where I would say most of my healing has occurred, is in, you know, to do with the body.

I've done so many, quote, quote, breathwork journeys. I've facilitated them. I went to Thailand for 30 days. I trained with Neeraj. I work with Mark Divine. And I told everybody last night before we did the breath work, you know, Gwen was the only teacher that really made me feel like I could actually teach others. And it's very different. This is like intellect versus somatic experience. I think so many people were just, like, hungry for the information and knowledge. But the real wisdom comes through the somatic, the emotional, the spiritual experience of actually doing it, of Actually making mistakes, learning, going through all this stuff, do you find that when you teach people, and even with how many breathwork ceremonies do you think you've led? Now, if you had to guess, what's the number on that?

Gosh, I mean, definitely in. In the thousands at this point.

It's multiple thousands. Yeah.

Yeah.

And these are not like just situations where somebody comes and ticks a box. There's a full 60, 90 minute ego stripping, physical purge, anything you guys could imagine. Do you. Do you find that your experience of how people are thirsting for information and thirsting for knowledge is really their soul, wanting them to embody wisdom, to feel better in themselves? How has that played out for you as a teacher, as a facilitator? When students come to you and they're like, I want this, but really what they need is totally something else.

You know, I think that there is some benefit to giving the information. Like, for example, one of the things that I do in my private sessions and breath work. Right. Which may or may not be something that a lot of other breathworkers do, is I give a lot of information because I think it is important to bring the mind along in that particular scenario. In my facilitator trainings, I think one of the things that sets it apart, and you can probably speak to this, is the embodied learning that people go through through the facilitator program where I. Because I've done so many ceremonies, individual and group, that I can just teach a flow to somebody and I break it down into little seg. Where. Where I. I teach, like literally the five first five minutes. Do you remember this, Josh, where, you know, people.

What do you do when they get to the door?

When.

When they get to the door, somebody feel comfortable. Do you know how many people scan their body?

Yeah. And do you. Do you know how many people have said, oh, my God, that was so helpful, just that piece alone. Yeah. Right.

Or it's never just occurred to them.

That's right.

Because of their upbringing.

Exactly. And so. So that embodied aspect or, you know, facet of learning is what creates the confidence for people to come out of my facilitator training to where, you know, what you said is something I've heard a lot, is that I'm ready to go, you know, And I did. I did three and a half years of training, my breathwork facilitator training. I learned with three different teachers and loved each and every one of them. But I saw a lot of people go through programs where at the end of a year, they still weren't ready to facilitate. They just didn't have the confidence. But people leave after six days feeling if my immersive training, feeling confident to practice. I'm not saying they're ready to facilitate. Right. But. But confident to practice. And I didn't invent this. I learned that from Chris and Janet Atwood's program, the Passion Test. Right. Facilitator training, which I did. And that's how they taught it. And I left that training. That was the best training I ever did in my life. Best one ever. Where they just had us break down into these little segments. That's how you teach people. It's brilliant. Yeah.

And it's easier for us to digest. So if I'm getting little snippets of information, rather than like somebody throwing a book at me, being like, read this book.

Right.

It's so easy. I mean, why do you think that Amazon even exists? People don't realize this. Amazon started as a book website. The original Jeff Bezos vision of Amazon was that it was just gonna be a book site. And people doubted him. They're like, nobody's gonna buy books online. What are you talking about? And then it went from books to, like, other things. And now Amazon is like the Megalith. Nothing could ever touch Amazon. I don't know if it could ever be defeated, honestly. But I love what you just said. There is a certain way to teach, and there's also a really significant way to learn to take in information. When it comes to the art of the breath. Everybody knows that we breathe all day long and we inhale, we exhale, we hold, but we're not really doing it correctly. And when I say really doing it correctly, I would be suffice to say, and I'm curious how you feel, most people are either breathing from a postural deviation or they're reverse breathing pattern people, where when they inhale, their belly goes in instead of rising, and then when they exhale, their belly goes out. Have you found that because of the stressful times that we're in that there's been a bigger call for breath work?

Well, that's an interesting question, but I just have to beg to differ for just a moment in that people don't breathe all day long. That's the problem is they're holding their breath a good percentage of the day. Right. And I have to make mention of this, that they're holding their exhales. Right. Because if you think of exhale as is free expression, you know, when we sigh, we're freely releasing Right. So that's the part of the breath that people are holding is their exhales because they've been taught to suppress from such a young age.

Inside of you, have you been noticing that because of the stressful situation that we're in with lockdowns and really the war of the mind, have you found that people are becoming, right now more attracted to breath work?

There's no question that people are becoming more attracted to breathwork. There's no question whatsoever. Which is thrilling. I mean, you know, when I first got trained 23 years ago, you know, it was very. A very, very lonely career at the time, but. But I've kind of attributed it to, in part, you know, just witnessing the growth of yoga. Right. And that, you know, there's pranayama. And so more and more people have gotten exposed to breathing, and, you know, the wellness industry, of course, has grown tremendously. So I think that it's kind of perfect timing for breathwork to have come more into the public eye, because, yes, you're right. People do need it more now, you know, but I think it's kind of been a natural progression, and it feels.

Like there's a trend of breath work where. This is why it's so powerful to have you on the podcast today, because I feel like you've been in the game for such a significant period of time, 30. 30 years plus of the art of breath, right?

Well, I've been facilitating for 23, but.

You yourself have been involved in the art for more than three years.

35, 35, 36, 35 years.

So I'm knowing that. But if experience is a barometer for growth, if there's an intention behind it for real growth, then the trend that we're experiencing right now has two sides. There's one side of it where, hey, great, more people are breathing. More and more facilitators are here, more instructors are here. But then with that, there can also be kind of a homogenization of breathwork and a commoditization of breathwork. How do you make sense of that, of what's happening right now?

I'm choosing my words carefully all of a sudden. Josh. I. I just think that if I were choosing a breathwork program, I would definitely choose one that isn't just a weekend unless you do it for yourself. That's the kind of thing that I would look for. I would look for somebody who has a lot of experience teaching it. And I know this may not be the direct answer to your question, but this is just what's coming up for me strongly. I see that there are breathwork facilitator trainings for three or four days. And that makes me uncomfortable because of what you said.

It.

It takes a lot of experience to really hold the space and create a transmission of safety that no matter what comes up for somebody in breathwork. I got you. Right. That's the part where it, you know, because it has become so much more popular and there's so many trainings springing up that. That I feel a little uncomfortable with. Right. And sometimes, you know, but I also trust. I do trust that the universe supports us in that we get the right clients. So that's the thing that kind of soothes my. My nerves in that regard. But, you know, coming back to that, that that topic of trauma. Trauma will absolutely come up in breathwork. There's no question, you know, when we don't know. Right. But it definitely will.

Or to what degree we don't know either. Sometimes it can be full body convulsions, shaking, Cr. Night I coughed and almost. I almost felt like I was going to throw up for a good 20, 30 seconds.

Yeah.

I mean, it takes a significant amount of experience to be able to hold the space, to be able to be in that space and make that truly happen. That can't be shortcutted. In other words, you can't maybe just go to one training and then be able to have the constitution to go and use all the information you learned and actually be the space and actually lead the room.

Yeah. I mean, the transmission of the facilitator is really the key piece. I mean, that's the first and foremost tool and skill that a facilitator has to have is just anchored, grounded transmission of presence. And therefore, you know, just being able to tune into their own guidance system, because it doesn't matter, frankly, how many trainings you've done, There will be things that come up that you are completely unprepared for.

What's something that's happened for you where you were like, oh, my God.

Oh, my God. Well, it was pretty intense. And this was a number of years into, you know, being a facilitator, where I had a client who choked, like, and choked to the point where he started to turn blue in the face. And I really thought I might have to call 91 1. And this was a big guy, too. And so I got him up to seated and eventually, I mean, he first went like, scarlet, and then he, you know, kind of like a little bit what happened for you? But ten times that. Right. And So I got him sitting up, and that took some effort, and I, I really had to tune into my felt sense and determine whether or not I was going to need to call 91 1, because that. That was definitely up for me. And finally, eventually he. He regained composure to the point where we were able to lay him back down. But he had definitely. He had gone to the light. That's what he told me afterwards.

What do you mean by that? Gone to the light?

That's what he said. He said, I went to the light, meaning that that was, you know, kind of a near death experience. Right. And he actually had a death wish. He had a death wish that was. Was go to the point where he did not want to come back. So then, not only had we both gone through that, then he. And when I say near death experience, you know, it was. It was, you know, kind of a little distant, but it was going in that direction. So his, his death wish after that was that he wanted to. Wanted to go back to the light. He wanted to. He saw the faintest glimmers of that light and he wanted to go there. He wanted. He. He would not get up off the mat. He did not want to come out of that space. So he literally stayed on that mat for probably another hour and a half and just. And I felt very uncomfortable, to be honest.

Oh, my God.

Well, he was like, I'm not coming back. I'm not coming back. No, I'm not doing it. It.

Like, people that don't know anything about breath work, they're probably like leaning in right now going, what do you mean someone almost died? Isn't it just breathing? Maybe what I'm feeling from you is that there was an egoic death. There was a stripping down of all the borders and the barriers and all the stories that I tell myself that we all tell ourselves as to why we can't be free.

Sure, that's absolutely possible. And, you know, nobody has ever died in breath work. I'm, I'm serious.

Disclaimer.

Yes. Nobody's ever died. And, and, you know, I, I suspect, and of course I don't know this, but I do suspect that what was also happening for him is that he was reliving something from his past. Like, I feel like either as an infant or as a young child, that there was some kind of choking experience that that was literally coming out of his body. It's not uncommon in breathwork for people to have experiences where somebody said, oh my God, I smelled chlorine and they had almost drowned in a Pool. Right. And so the trauma from that is coming out of their body. So I think that there was this kind of imprint around death for him that was in his body that was coming up.

I want to unpack this really slowly because earlier we talked about if emotions run through us in 90 seconds, and that's truly all the permission that we need to give them to actually go from A to B or be a conduit.

Can I just interrupt you there? I'm so sorry. So when we say that at the same time, it's kind of like thinking of that's one wave. But if we're in a state of.

Grief, for example, there could be multiple waves.

Many, many, many, many waves may follow suit, but there will always be just that moment of pause in between. Right. And I just kind of wanted to give that imagery to people because also, let's not expect just one wave and we're done.

And we're done. So it's not like we're saying in 90 seconds you can heal yourself with a magnet or something. I've seen this emotion code guy, no offense, I'm not here to judge people, but anybody that tells you they can heal your entire Life's trauma in 90 seconds by passing a magnet over your head, I'm like, no, thank you, I'm not interested. But let's go back to that so slowly. Let's unpack this. If one wave of our emotion is 90 seconds, and let's say that there could be so many waves of those 90 that that, you know, you might need a break at times. But there is 90 seconds of emotion. There is something so potent beyond any psychedelic I've ever taken, or any float tank I've ever sat in, or any non violent communication workshop, or any kind of ego stripping workshop. And it's something that I practiced when I was at the Vision Quest this year, and the Vision Quest before it was four days fasting with just water and nature, and I was doing my circular breathing. And a lot of people get used to breathing like it's holotropic and they have to be violent with their breath and they have to have like full body convulsions. It's simply not the case. Because going back to my point, if it takes one wave of emotion 90 seconds to move through us, in your experience, what is the best way for us to use the breath to assist that motion, to assist that energy to leave the system to be freed?

So I think in part intention, right? And so, you know, I spoke to this last night that my Philosophy around breathwork is that it's opening us up once again to be conduits for life, love, and spirit to flow through us. Right. That's just the philosophy that I've arrived at by breathing myself, by breathing others. And so if we can have the intention to open to the energy of emotion. Right? So if you look at babies, when they experience emotion, they never hunch over, right? They're open. It doesn't matter what emotion it is. It could be joy, it could be fear. It could be. It could be, you know, grief, whatever it is.

You're so right. Nova goes like this.

Open.

He'll throw his head back really quick. Exactly.

Right. That their arms go out, their legs go out.

I never thought about that before.

Mm, absolutely. So I always, you know, think of myself and then also encourage clients in the moment. Let's just say they're feeling something. Keep opening to this. Keep allowing that emotion to flow through you. And that's why having that open mouth is so helpful, because there's so much control in the jaw. Right? So thinking of opening and allowing and staying connected to the breath. So let's just say we're crying as we're. You know, as we're breathing, we're in a breathwork ceremony, so we're crying, so we can kind of let that energy move through us, but then immediately come back to that open mouth and that concept of opening up to the emotion. And another thing I like to offer up to people as. As a. An image or a thought is surrender over to the breath. So the idea that we can. We don't have to carry this alone. The breath is supporting us in. In helping that energy to move, to move through us. You know, I. I'm cautious about saying releasing too quickly because that can be another way in of kind of wanting to just get rid of the emotion. Right. So now I've kind of shifted more towards acknowledging emotion as it arises and if it's ready to release, allowing it to release. But it's also just this concept of, like, can you let the breath support you in experiencing this as opposed to getting rid of it and also feeling like that you have to hold it, feel it on your own, right? That there is something greater that's here for you that is helping you to be completely present to this emotion in the moment. Moment.

I'm sure there's somebody that's never done breath or ever been in ceremony of any kind. They just heard you, and they're like, what. What is Gwen talking about? But I found this to Be true that people that have a lot of experience, like yourself.

Yeah.

You've gone from, like, so many different paradigms around the way you teach, where it has to be this complicated or it has to be this way, and then at some point, for the masters, people that are like 10,000 hours plus of facilitating, it gets to be just this easy, simplistic way that you teach. I even found myself last night when I was your participant. I was like, oh, I wonder why Gwen isn't doing it this way. And I wonder why she's not. You're literally just in flow. Like, you're in Alpha 2 brain wave. You're in flow state. You're present, you're in the room. That is something so potent and so powerful. And I really want everybody to feel this. We cannot become a master until we fully accept that we're a student. We have to be a student first. And I think because of social media and so many things, people want to, like, bypass. They want a shortcut. Being a student. And, oh, because I have this marketing tool or because I have this outward appearance on social media, I'm the master or I'm the expert. It's just absolutely not the case. What is it about your experience that you believe has allowed you to be more simple in the way that you teach?

You know, I'm totally the student. I mean, I'm in a class, you know, every month of the year. So in part, there's just this understanding that I can never fully know everything. And so because of that, every breathwork session that I do, every group, every individual session that I do afterwards, there is just literally an organic scan of what happened in the session and what could have been different. And it's definitely not me beating myself up. It's just like an, you know, a spontaneous analyzing of it and continuing to stay open to shifting the work that I do and how I explain it. I mean, literally, I find. I mean, every time I create a manual, the next time I teach a class, it has to be changed because I'm already teaching it differently. And there's something about breathwork that I believe. It's a calling, Josh, because with as much training as I've gotten, and the training has been so impactful, my learning has really come not just through experience, but by teaching it. I find myself talking in ways that I don't even know where I got that from. Like, it's just. It just comes through me. It's. Honestly, it's kind of bizarre, you studying your website.

I think it's because of your past. And you had a very, I guess you could say different experience growing up than, like, the normal American experience. You said my diversity and cultural experiences were the most formative education of my life, one that provided my unique vision and perspective upon which I draw my work. This is like growing up in North Africa, Tunisia, Carthage. Raised in an atheist, agnostic household. So if you were brought up that there was no such definition as God, and you were brought up in a culture that was. Was so close to Sicily, which is near and dear to my heart, and you were brought up in a way that was so different, how did you actually find the breath? How did that even happen?

Then the breath found me, honestly. I mean, I really.

I've said that exact phrase. I love that.

Really? That's so funny.

See, this is why. This is why you're here, because I. I really feel the same way.

Yeah.

It's the only thing that really allowed me to have a release of anxiety and depression. But. But let's go back, because there was a construct. You were not raised by a hardcore yogi. You were not raised in a household where you were going to SRF that.

That being said, my mother. My mother was kind of. She had this hidden love for spirituality. So I have to just tell you something that, as I was saying, I don't know where this comes from. This is bizarre. The knowing that comes through me. All of a sudden, my. Let's say it would be my great aunt came to me. So I have a great aunt, my mother's aunt, that was a spiritual teacher way before her time. Time. Right. So she went over to India in. In her twenties, became a spiritual teacher, a spiritual dancer, and, you know, taught in. In New York. Her name is Hilda Charlton. And so all of a sudden, in that moment, I felt like, oh, my God. I think it's coming from her. So that's just kind of a side. But that's never occurred to me before. I never met her in my life, but she influenced my mother. But my mother, I would say, was more the. The agnostic person and would hide from my father, the atheist, that she had these spiritual tendencies. So she did teach me yoga at 15, and she did take me to my first spiritual retreat at 21.

What kind of a retreat was it?

It was a Sufi retreat.

Oh, what do people get wrong about Sufism? What is Sufism?

It's a mystical branch of Islam.

Got it.

Yeah. So it was a fantastic retreat in Montana, and my mom kind of tricked me into going because I probably wouldn't have Gone. If she told me it was a spiritual retreat, she said it was yoga retreat. So, you know, off I went. I loved every part of it. And that's where we stumbled across breathwork, where I would. We would sit at lunch just outside of this room, where people were doing private breathwork sessions. And we would see people coming out, you know, the participants. So we knew what they looked like going in, and they would come out with this radiance upon their faces. Right. This is why I have a mirror in my office, so that people can look at themselves after a breathwork session. We would see the transformation upon their faces and say to them, what did you just do? And they'd say, breath work. And then the classic is what we responded. I breathe all the time, you know.

Yeah.

And so, of course, we were curious, and that's how the breath found me. I did my first breathwork session 35 years ago. 35 plus years ago. And I remember it vividly to this day. Vividly. Literally. I can remember the sounds in the room. I can remember the visuals. I remember how I felt emotionally. And that's not uncommon for people if they haven't done altering substances. Right. So if people go now, of course, with all the ceremonies, people are more accustomed to going into altered states of awareness. But if we haven't experienced that before, often that first one is that memorable. And that's how it was for me.

But I will say the difference. People talk about this. Your first kiss can never be Duke, will he. I feel like with breathwork, it can be like, if breath work was a kiss, it can definitely be duplicated.

Yeah, I mean, I. There's certainly many. Many that I remember, but that first one is one of the more vivid ones.

It was special. And was that in Carthage?

No, that was actually in Montana.

That was in Montana, Yeah. So when did you make the move from Carthage to Montana? How did that happen?

Oh, I wasn't living in Montana. That's where we went for the.

So you flew over and flew back?

Yeah, no, I was. I was living in California at the time. I was going to Stanford.

Okay. It's interesting because your parents were intellectual, I'm sure.

Oh, they were professors.

Professors.

Very academic family.

What gave you the fuel to go to Stanford? Was that.

Oh, definitely. Yeah. They both went to Stanford.

How did that play out? Did you feel pressure from them to go?

Definitely.

Because it's so funny. Like, usually people that go to Stanford or, like, these big schools, it's like, right on their website and yours, it's, like, tucked away you're like, I went to Stanford. I'm like, why are you not talking about this?

Do you know? That's so funny.

Interesting.

That's so funny because I've definitely like hidden that most of my life.

How so? Why, why do you hide it?

Because people expect stuff from you. If you went to Stanford, you know, it's kind of like they either go, oh my God, you went to Stanford. And it's like, you know, whatever, I don't know.

But it was in French studies.

Yeah.

Language.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I, I didn't know what I wanted to major in and I wanted to keep my French fluent and, you know, French studies incorporated art history and literature and I loved all of that stuff. So.

Yes. Well, I find that in, in our spiritual world, there's a lot of broke spiritual people. There's a lot of people that they almost reject capitalism or reject business. And what I think is really unique about you is you had this academic background where you had to learn how to go through essentially the suck. You had to learn how to study, you had to learn how to actually formulate goals and have a strategic plan to accomplish things. And it's no surprise to me that we're sitting here now at this perfect time and your breath, work and inspired Sedona is growing in the way that it's growing because you have this vacuum, you have this energy and this backlog of not just going to Stanford, but also allowing yourself to go through the sucky parts of life, allowing yourself to go through the trauma. Has there been. I'm sure there's many. Like there is for so many of us. But is there one thing that cracks your heart open when you're like, wow, I really am proud of myself for going through this specific trauma because it really allows me to teach my students in an authentic way.

You know, speaking to the trauma. Honestly, Josh, I've like been such a wild free spirit a lot of my life that. And that included like just opening myself up to not necessarily positive experiences as well. I just have had a thirst for living and that's definitely brought me to a lot of experiences and some very positive and some very negative, to be honest. I certainly had trauma in my upbringing, but the thing that cracks me open. If you want to talk about the thing that cracks my heart open, that. Yeah. So I have empathy because I've lived a lot. I have lived a lot. I've experienced a lot. The thing that cracks my heart open the most is having been at my parents side on their deathbed and What I did for them in terms of fighting to get them off of the medication that hospice was putting them on. So that was where I found my true grit, to be honest.

Yeah.

And then all the life experiences that I've had, you know, combined with that. But that was probably the thing that. And having been a single parent has really been heartbreaking and heartbreakingly beautiful.

What's the gift of that? The heartbreaking and the heart opening?

Just that I. I want to say, in both cases, my parents bedside and fighting for them and fighting for my kids in different ways, brought me into a state of profound confidence in my own guidance. Guidance, because I had nobody advocating for me or supporting me in either of those cases. Right. I just had. I just had a knowing and I had a fierceness about standing up for what was, what this knowing was, and didn't question it. And it. I mean, even now talking about it, I feel such strength. I feel such strength and power. And that came from. And that comes from really listening, listening, that deep listening. And, you know, as I mentioned last night, that's in part what breathless prayer means to me, is that deep listening to our own authenticity, our own guidance system and what's true for us.

There's a lot of people that go through challenges or massive trauma, the death of a loved one or being a single parent, and they might still, like you, draw upon that and you say you feel strength. Some people might say they draw upon that and they feel a change. So what is it about the breath that you've done and the inner work that you've done that's allowed you to draw upon these traumas as something that you're strong from, rather than you're just holding a charge from? Because there can be a. I guess you could say a confusion on the outside when someone's charged about something. It might be perceived as strength, it might be perceived as power, but it's not. It's not power from peace. Power from peace can be trusted. Power from force can't always be trusted.

Yeah, no, that's a good point. Because when I was younger, people always used to think I was incredibly strong and confident. And in fact, I felt the complete opposite, you know, when I was young, because it was such a schism between that outer and the inner. So how do I not have a charge around it? I'm going to say again, because of all the support. I mean, I work with some really, really phenomenal people, and I am not shy about that. And I, you know, I believe that we all need mentors. Yes, like, we need mentors and maybe several of them to reflect back different facets or aspects of ourselves. You know, I have found that that has been the most important part of my development for sure, for many years now.

So it's like creating a scaffolding around you of healing.

Yeah.

Different healers. I remember when I was first learning with you, and I had already gotten back from Thailand at that point.

Yeah.

And I was going more into, like, the teaching realm myself, where I was creating the Breathe Breath and Wellness Program. I was doing a lot more in the breathwork world. And actually, before I. Before I facilitated for 25 people at the Paleo Conference, we did a private session together. And in that private session, the very first question you asked me on Zoom, you said, well, how are you getting the healing and the support that you need so that I could show up to the group of the 25 people? And I think that's so, so, so important. It might be easy for us to just throw it out there, like, oh, of course. If you're a healer of any kind, then it's really important for you to get your own healer. But I find that that's probably the first thing to be forgotten with most healers, because there's marketing, there's responsibilities, there's all these different things. How has that been an anchor for you as a healer yourself, consistently getting healing that you need?

I just can't imagine doing the work that I do without it. You know, I just. I can't imagine what I would have to give, to be honest. You know, there was a time when I was really struggling financially early on in my career, where I wasn't getting a lot of support, you know, but even then. Even then, it's always been a priority for me. I mean, you know, when I could, I would get it, you know, or sometimes I would just make it happen. I. I'm not gonna lie. I didn't feel tremendously supported in some ways in my family. In some ways I did. In some ways I didn't. And I think that I have craved that and sought after that my whole life. And, you know, when I was younger, it was primarily through friendships. And that's one thing that I pride myself on are my friendships that, you know, they're my family. They have been there for me. I am there for them. They know they, you know, can call me in a split second. Second I'm there. Right. And that. But more recently, and. Well, not more recently since. Since I became somebody who works in this field, I. I have a little Bit of hesitancy around saying the word healer because people tend to associate that with somebody who takes something away from you. And that's not what I. That's not what I do. I hold space for people.

But I think you're a healer. I'll say it.

Yeah, that's fine.

You can say, we can wax poetic on.

It. Just has been a no brainer. I don't think that you can do this work really, honestly. And I'm so grateful for it. And there's so many really, but I just feel like you've got to really go for the top of the top.

We were in the kitchen yesterday and I think we were talking about healing and you said, I have always been like, if there's something we need to work on or if there's some kind of healing that's needed, let's it do do it. And I was like, yeah. We both nodded our heads. There is this construct that you've gone through and that I've gone through where God created a vacuum for you, Spirit created a vacuum where you had to go through some very challenging experiences. I just, after 500 of these interviews, I have yet to sit with someone that hasn't had some type of dark contrast that is actually in a beautiful way been the very few that allows them to serve others, the very fuel that allows them to really be there for others. Do you ever get reminded when you're in these breathwork journeys or even last night with the 10 people we had at my home, does anything ever come up for you that's healing by facilitating others to be healed?

Absolutely. I mean, is it specific that, you know, sometimes I place my finger on? Not necessarily in breathwork. I can't honestly say in breathwork, oh, they're working through something that is healing me. But I will tell you that I always, always, always feel better after leaving a breathwork ceremony than I did going in. Always. It's, it's, you know, I know that going in I'm like, yay, I could I get to facilitate when it comes to family constellation, which we haven't really talked about, but that's another modality. Or systemic constellation. That's another modality that I work with that I can see a specific place in me that is getting healing right. So, so there it's more of a cognitive realization, whereas the other is more of a visceral, embodied experience.

Well, that's definitely in, in a few moments, let's go into the family constellation, the systemic constellation. We had Mark Wolin on the podcast A couple times. And he goes very deep into his work with his book. It didn't start with you. It was a lot of different things.

Great book.

But I was. I was sensing last night that it was something that I really needed, and I had been wanting it for a long time because I work with others. No one's breathed me. I haven't. I haven't had somebody actually breathe me in quite a while, honestly. Maybe six months or more. That's not true. We did our obsession together. So you were the last person that breathed me before. Yeah. And then last night, and I had this. I want to tell people exactly what this was. I had almost every a vomiting response, like a purgative response, similar to what I felt in an ayahuasca ceremony. And I had to actually lift the blanket and, like, spit under the blanket because I felt like I was getting rid of a physical substance.

Yeah.

What did you see from me that you can share with people about what they might experience in a breath is prayer session? In other words, what was your experience of me and what I was relating to releasing?

Well, I felt, you know, I felt. I think in part because I know you and I know your experience. I felt very comfortable because at the time, I was working with somebody else in the room, so I was witnessing what was happening with you and feeling into it. But I felt very comfortable that you knew how to process that on your own and that you knew that you were releasing some deep stuff from your body. Right. And it's, you know, it's not uncommon. Not to say that it's common, but it's not uncommon for people to feel nauseous.

Yeah.

Sometimes even dizzy. To have, you know, to have substances want to come out. You know, to have, like, bile come up, to have, like, phlegm come up. You know, even to have to go to the bathroom repeatedly. That can happen as well. The body is releasing. Right. So it can happen on all levels. And that's really normal for me.

It felt like, like a deep part of grief. And I know healing is a spiral. It's like even at your age and my age, it's just going to continue to go on. Like the minute we think we're healed on something, there's probably a little bit left. There's probably like a little bit more. And it doesn't have to be so daunting. Right. Like, just because we're healing and healing is a spiral does not mean that we have to be devastated if some type of healing comes back around that we thought we'd already healed. It doesn't have to be that way. There can just be this almost continuous surrender to the, to the fact that the healing is going to come around. But I find that, and I'm curious how you feel. I find that when the healing part does come back around, like last night for me, with the grief, what's after that is so fucking beautiful. And it's like, it's such a special thing, the freedom that comes when I can, in front of 10 other people, my good friends, when I, when I can share how proud I am of Carrie for being such a great mom. And I mean, I'm emotional right now just because I'm still in the medicine of the breath work and this is no psychedelics needed. That's why my emotion is welling up right now. On the other side of that, there's always so much freedom, so much joy, so much courage, so much of, like, the juiciness of life. It's like, right there. And I find that I, and we, we don't choose to put ourselves in these situations on a regular basis because we simply just forget. Now, do you think that we actually forget or do you think it's something more subconscious? Because maybe there's a little bit of a flinch inside of us that doesn't want to go through the crunchy part. Which one is it?

I think the programming runs so deep, Right. That we just, you know, the subconscious says, let's not go there.

Like the programming of fear or the programming of not.

Yeah. Not to feel. Right? Not to feel. And for so many reasons, like the beliefs that I was talking about earlier that are just kind of programmed in, you know, I mean, if you think about, you know, you know, our ancestors just having to suppress emotions to just be in survival mode, right? There was no time to grieve a lost child or this or that. You know, I mean, it's just generations upon generations suppressing emotions. And so it's really wired deeply into us at this point. And that's in part, Josh, that's in part why I get that, the support. Because I can more freely go there with somebody who's holding space for me. And, you know, I teach this stuff, right? So that's why it's like, I mean, I, I, I, you know, will jump to get a session the minute I start to feel something. It's like I want to be held and, and really allow myself to go fully in there. Because we are communicating community beings. We're wired for connection, you know, and when we feel somebody just holding that space for us deeply, unconditionally, who has no fear themselves. Right. And that's in part what I do for others. Right. So. But I'm wanting that support from somebody else so I can really drop into that and go for it.

Do you fear death?

Yeah, I think I do. I think I do because I don't feel ready to let go of my kids.

Yeah. So it's more sadness. That's what. That's my response in some way, too, is people have asked me, like, do you fear death? And I'm like, well, I feel like I've died, like, six times. Like, definitely twice in ayahuasca. Multiple breathwork sessions, where I'm like, oh, this is what it would feel like to have no ego and to actually not be here. This is. This. This is the somatic experience of that. And I'm not. I'm not angry that we die. I'm not. It's more of a deep hurt. It's like, oh, well, I won't get to hold my son anymore or I won't get to be with the friends that I care about. I won't get to experience this. This richness of life. But. But I've been through phases of that, and I honestly, at the core of it all, I think it's that sadness that allows us to live so well. Like, if we lived forever and if we never died, there wouldn't be a speciality to life. There wouldn't be a. A lane that we could all understand that this is a temporary place and maybe we wouldn't live in is rich or is happy.

Oh, I totally agree with you. And yeah, you're right. I mean, I have definitely experienced the same as you, like, dying in breathwork and in one particular breath work where I felt the stages of leaving my body, and I did go through the initial grief and then, you know, lifted up to, you know, feeling just this lightness and bliss and. But the holding on. For me, in this case, it's about my kids. But that has been something. Death, as my advisor, has been something that I have been using as a philosophy for many, many years. I mean, I think I've always had this kind of like, let's live for the moment. Right? I just. That's been very much a part of my makeup. And I don't know if it's growing up in part in a Mediterranean country, because there is a, you know, very much like, you know, enjoying the moment. Moment quality to life there. So that's been something that I have expressed through my Living for as long as I can remember, but also consciously using that. That concept, death, as my advisor. In my first breathwork training, we actually went through this incredible exercise where the teacher had us come in that day. We didn't know what we were going to be doing, and he had had these cubicles set up, and we all went into our own cubicle, and he said, it is your time to prepare for death. And we went in and he had us write letters to everybody that we needed to write a letter to. He had us write our wills out. It was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had, period. And, I mean, we were crying and we were really in it. We were really in it. And. And that from that moment on, you know, when I used to drop. Drop my kids off at the bus stop, even if we'd had, like, a tense morning or what have you, it was always like, you know, loving them up before I say goodbye to them. Because you just never know, right? It's. You just never know.

What a powerful exercise.

It was amazing. It's still amazing. It lives inside me.

I can. I can feel it from you now. So if death is your greatest advice, what else has it advised you on?

How to be more fully in the moment, how to show up more fully. In my truth, it's certainly a process, though, right? How to show up more truthfully as I am, I think, yeah, I mean, it's definitely a process of unwinding the conditioning. So there are certain areas of my life where it really has taken root and others where I. I continue to work with.

So in these areas that you continue to work with, do you always connect it to the family constellation and to the generational stuff, or is it actually yours from this lifetime? We can kind of segue into this because I'm going to link it for those of you with us on YouTube and watching, like, there's two episodes with Mark Wolin where we go very deep into the history, the practicum, and really the science of. Of family constellations and epigenetic trauma that's passed down from our. Literally from thousands of years. I believe you even said that your mother's mother had polio, and so she could not walk without the aid of crutches. And somehow that belief set integrated into your genetics, and you had to do some serious healing on that. Can you share that with us?

Yeah. In that particular case, basically what I was working with is I could not trust life. I just had this deeply imprinted belief that life wasn't supportive. And what's very typical is that this didn't just come down my mother's lineage. So, for example, you know, when this beautiful baby, my grandmother was born and then almost immediately contracted polio and then never learned to walk, right. There was, you know, this, this belief that life is not to be trusted. And on my father's side, his mother died when he was quite young from breast cancer. So a very similar belief, and this is very, very common, is that, you know, beliefs form or not formed, but are passed down to the lineage and then we have experiences in our own lifetime that reinforce that belief. So it's actually both, both simultaneously. And that's something I work with a lot in my sessions with.

Well, even on a biological level, Gwen, you were an egg inside of her, right? Your grandmother that had polio. On a biological level, you were already in her as an egg.

I know.

So how could anyone say that if you epigenetically get physical things that are inherited, how could anyone ever say that emotional epigenetics don't exist either? In other words, if three generations back there's significant trauma that's not dealt with because you're already an egg inside of your grandmother at that time, how could anyone say that the genetic encoding on you would not be affected? What do you make of that?

I mean, I just think it's a no brainer.

It's a no brainer, right? I'm like, why do people deny this? I mean, if physical things can be passed on, obviously the emotional can.

Yeah. Science is proving that though the molecules of emotion are encoded in the DNA. DNA.

Can you expand that?

Not really, because I'm not very scientific.

Okay, that's a good book. By Candace Pert, the Molecules of Emotion and also biology of belief. Bruce Lipton, which we'll link below too. So then in your own experience, either personally and with clients, how have you seen this constellation work play out? And what is the systemic constellation versus the, the other way to describe it?

Oh, so it was originally called family constellations.

Yes.

And now it's called systemic because it's extended bey the family. So for example, businesses can use the same kind of work to look at the energy of, you know, the, the, the, the soul of the business and where the energy is blocked or where it's flowing. So, and also collective, right. Look to, looking, look at, you know, where, you know, in races or just in the collective framework of society, how energy is blocked or moving.

So then what does family constellations mean for people that don't know anything about that? If you were to describe what a family constellation is.

Well, it's the belief and the philosophy that we are part of a greater whole. In this case, the greater whole is the family. Right. And why it's called constellations is that we all have our rightful places in that family system. And what that means is that sometimes people are excluded. Whether it's out of grief or shame, people are not honored. And in this case, honor doesn't mean, oh, you're a great person, it's just that that you belong in this family. And they're excluded because maybe they pass like there's a stillborn child, and out of grief, that parents never talk about it. And so there can be subsequent children that don't know that they had an older sibling. And there's a level of confusion, perhaps, in them not understanding why they don't feel like the firstborn, because, in fact, they're not the firstborn. Right. Or another one might feel a pull towards death. Right. Not understanding that, thinking they're just suicidal, but really it's the pull towards their sibling. Right. So that can just be one example. But does that answer your question?

It's great. I mean, that's a podcast on its own. Sure. If you wanted to go very deep. And again, we're going to link this below. It's interesting to me because a lot of what we've been exploring on the podcast today is the art, the science, the integration of breath and how people can actually use this really ancient tool. It's been used for so long. I mean, probably some of the most earnest, earliest text that's ever recorded. When people were stamping things on concrete, on rocks, there was probably some record of breath, you know, in your studies. And I believe it was a university in Washington, a mind body university, that you took your initial breathwork training at. What has fascinated you the most about breath work, and how have you started to combine that with the passion test, the hypnotherapy, the epigenetic trauma? All these things are kind of blossoming for you right now.

Now, yeah.

So looking back, like, what fascinates you the most? To start seeing how all of these other things connect.

So the thing that you know, is the most attractive to me, in a way, about breath is its fluidity. Right. It fluidly has taken me from, you know, explaining it 25, 25 years ago to my clients in a totally different way to the way I explain it now. I just. It's like a current. Right. And the thing that, as you were speaking, that just came up so strongly for me is that we are breathing the same breath our ancestors did, too. I mean, that's one thing that always blows my mind. We're breathing the same breath that people have done for thousands of thousands of years. So connecting us to wisdom within and without connecting us to, you know, every person essentially on this planet. One of the things that amazes me, and when I started to do online breathwork, facilitation during COVID that would just, like, light me up, is how people, complete strangers all over the world, are feeling each other and feeling connected simply by breathing simultaneously, Right? So connection, fluidity. I think those are the things that just. I think you probably just saw me light up right there. Those are the things that really, like, just light me up about breath. And so how do they relate to the other things that I do is that. Well, it's all energy. You know, we're talking about energy in every single one of the things that I do. Passions. What is passion? It's energy. We're talking about freeing up energy in the constellation work, right? We're following the energy in the constellation work. That's how. That's how we, as a facilitator, that's what we're doing. We're following the tracking the energy for the client. And, you know, the intimacy work that I do as well, it's about freeing up energy, right. And expanding. So I love that the breathwork can. You know, if I were to do a session, you know, a couple of sessions with somebody, I would do whatever it is that I think that they need or whatever it is that they come to me for. I would follow it up with the breathwork to anchor in what they experience, to drive it home, to integrate, to free up whatever may be arising. Like if somebody does a family consultation, constellations, and then they follow it with the breath work, you know, sometimes the emotions that they couldn't necessarily access in the constellation session will then come up in the breath work.

That's so intelligent. That's so true.

Or sometimes the insights, the deepen insights, or sometimes they'll all of a sudden feel the actual presence of that ancestor in the breath work.

There needs to be breath work in every type of healing modality. Even, you know, Carrie and I, we go to a talk therapist, and I have a talk therapist, and I also do my work with you, and I have lots of people that kind of sprinkle in my life. But at all of them, there really needs to be an anchor of doing some type of breath practice. Maybe it's not the cathartic practice like we did last night. But Even if it's five minutes or 10 minutes, just something like some kind of anchor. Yes.

Yeah. I mean, I gotta tell you, you're preaching to the choir here. I am such a huge fan of a daily breath work practice. Every single client that comes my way. And I didn't mention this last night, so I'm going to mention it now. You know, if you can do a daily or at least regular breathwork practice of anywhere from three to 10 minutes, I can't tell you what that can do for you, because just experiencing the movement, the flow of the breath through you. And ideally I say through the open mouth, but, you know, that's totally up to you. You can do it either way. But there's such a. An ability to flow a lot more energy through you with an open mouth and to release the control that's in the jaw. And so, you know, not only are you oxygenating, you're getting all kinds of benefits in the moment. But you know, what I do at the end of my daily breathwork practice is that I then notice. I drop in and notice what are the shifts? Because my mind. Mind doesn't necessarily slow down in 3, 3 minutes. My. My go to is 10 minutes, by the way. That's. That's my sweet spot. But I always say three minutes because better to do three than none, right?

Because after you do three, you're gonna kind of want to do five and then seven.

Like real minutes.

Yeah, yeah, start with three.

Yeah, exactly. And. But then when I notice, then I ask myself, what am I feeling? And then all of a sudden I drop in. And sometimes I'll spend 10 minutes after the breath work, because let's remember, the breath work is really the tool that gets us there, you know, and the there is just that presence with ourselves.

And I think that there is just this feeling. Like I feel it right now when I put my hand on my belly and my hand on my heart. You had us do this last night, and if everybody can just do this with us right now. There's something so wonderful about feeling your own heart, feeling your own belly, because it's been there your whole life anyway, so you may as well learn how to connect with it. And I think there's so much energy and potency there that doesn't involve any kind of war between the mind and the body. It just is what it is. We're like half beast, half spirit. It's all there anyways. And so breath allows us to connect with what's Already there. You even said this last night. Breath work doesn't bring anything new. It just exposes what's already there.

Absolutely, Absolutely.

Can you expand on what that really means? I think people get that.

Well, for example, if I, you know, breathe, an emotion comes up. It wasn't the music that created that emotion. That emotion had been held in the body and.

But it helped to kind of bring it up.

The music helps to bring it to the space.

And you facilitating. And the. And the uniqueness of the space.

Yeah. And. Or if somebody comes to a place of peace or freedom like we were talking about before.

I feel amazing today, I gotta tell you. Like, I. I don't even need to know what it was, but it was incredible.

Yeah.

Yeah. So thank you.

Thank you.

I really. I really love that. But please tell us more because I interrupted you because I had to. I had to share with everyone, like, yeah, it's authentic for me. I just. I feel really good today. I haven't felt this good in quite a long time. And it's a testament to the space you held. And also, you know, my own courage, my own history was there too, and the people that were in the room.

Yeah.

But there's a really special gift that you're going to give to the audience that we've already about talked. Talked about. And before we get there, everybody right now, just go to JoshTrent.com Gwen and you're gonna get not only a discount if you want to do the facilitator training in November, but also you gave them a breathwork practice. They can do, like, a daily practice. Tell them about that daily practice. Like, what are they going to get from that daily practice?

I actually gave an online breathwork ceremony that is more along the lines of what you did last. Last night.

Okay.

So that's. It's a recording that's just going to be up for. I forget if it's five days or a week, so I would jump on it.

If you jump on it.

Yeah, you got to jump on it. It's a recorded online ceremony, and it's one of my very favorites.

So your music is amazing, by the way.

I love music.

Gwen's playlist. I'm like, I don't know where you get these songs, but it's incredible.

I. I am shopping for music every day.

Okay.

I listen to music every day, every day. And I'm constantly finding music for my playlist, whether it's breath work or teaching yoga or ecstatic dance. It's. It's my thing. It's my jam.

So good. Okay, so go right now. Joshtrant.com Gwen and if you're interested in being a facilitator, being a breath is prayer facilitator. There's something very special we're gonna talk about at the very end of the show. But before I let you go, I have obviously more questions. There's probably, like 50 questions on here that I could ask. But the big one for me that I've been feeling ever since you arrived to Austin is, what is the meaning of all this? You know, what is the meaning of you being a breathwork facilitator, being a life coach, taking people through this inspirational process, living in Sedona? Like, if you had to encapsulate a meaning in your own life and a meaning for others that are called to be a facilitator, what exactly is that?

What.

Why would someone want to become a breath worker, facilitate for others? Why do you think that even exists for you? And why would that exist for someone else?

I mean, the word that came to mind, it's so funny. It's freedom. This is why I do the work that I do, my personal work, right? It's freedom. That's why I never understand when somebody's like, oh, I don't want to go there. I'm like, what? Why wouldn't you want to go there? I don't get it. Run. I'm going to jump off that cliff into the. Into the deep end, because that's my freedom, right? And so the freedom to be who we truly are. I mean, I think if there's one overarching purpose that we might all have, it's to be the most authentic versions of ourselves, because there's nobody else here like us, right? And so to be bound by the conditioning and the imprinting and, you know, and to not fully be. Be able to express what's totally unique to us is such a shame, don't you think?

Yeah.

And so I do the work that I do to support other people, and by supporting other people and becoming more free, I. It supports me as well. So it's a give and take. It's a give and take, you know, and freedom. That's what it is.

I love the way you express that so much. There are people. I just went on a fairly big podcast, and I've been on shows like this before, so let's not even use that podcast. I've been on podcasts before where the person interviewing me was a healer of some kind. And I could tell that when I really felt into Them, they were healed, but they were also teaching from their wound. But their wisdom that they were teaching was a little bit clouded by the unintegration of their wound. In other words, it was being clouded because they were projecting a lot of their stuff. Stuff onto their students. And this is what I really love about you. Just working with you and hanging out with you, like, you know, you're staying here in the studio. Like, I consider you to be a friend.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't. I wouldn't say this for too many people, but with you, there's an honesty about what you're still working on, and there's also an honesty about what, you know, you can help others work through. And I think that's very different. It's. There's something more trustable when a leader or a teacher or a facility facilitator can be honest about what they themselves are still working through, because then it takes the pressure out of the room. It takes the pressure off of everyone's shoulders when we can all just say, oh, even though I'm a teacher and even though I have almost 40 years of breathwork experience, I still have my stuff, too.

Oh, my God. This is what I tell my clients. You teach what you need to learn.

Okay, that's right. So then what is something without judgment that you are still working through personally, that actually, by being honest about it, allows you to serve people in a deeper way?

Well, let's see. The biggest thing that I continue to work on is speaking my truth in an intimate partnership. And this is one of the latest constellations that I received. Working with somebody is seeing that from a generational perspective. Because, you know, I mean, I've been working on it my. My whole life, as long as I've been working on myself. It's. It's just this. This kind of frontier that, I mean, don't get me wrong, I've made a lot of inroads. And, you know, I mean, you see me, I'm pretty straightforward, and I'm pretty transparent. And so it's kind of this one place where I sk. Can't seem to show up as fully. One of the things that people like about working with me, or they don't, frankly, is that I'm direct, you know, And I think of myself as being kind of fiercely compassionate, but I feel like that's really important is to, you know, be direct as well.

That's interesting. Fiercely compassionate.

Yeah.

I never thought of those two things together.

You know, I didn't either until people kept calling me fierce and Then at first I was kind of.

No, it feels like you.

Yeah. And then. But at the same time. Time, the. The depth of compassion that I have is. And it. And it feels kind of fierce, like I will be. I will be compassionate for you in a way that you can't. It's like this fierceness. Right. But so that's. That's the piece where it's still being as completely authentic as I can possibly be in my intimate partnership. That's the part that I'm working on the most right now.

Like, holding back your truth when your soul, your heart wants to express something. And so then there's. Haven't you found that in those moments, there's a shortness of breath? Right. So even someone as skilled as you are in the art of breath, you're still learning how to breathe in those moments.

That's right.

That are connected to who knows what in our family chain.

Oh, I saw one example of it in Constellation. I mean, just the total. I mean, this and this is very recent, so I'm still experiencing. Experiencing almost more the cognitive, like, wow. Of seeing myself living that out. Right. Of accepting this dutiful role of, you know, being the wife, even though I'm not a wife. I mean, but. But that dutiful role and. And that. That was such a wow to witness that in the constellation. One of the things that's really cool about Constellation work, I just have say to. To say is the visual. Because when we. When we see things, we take it in even deeper than verbally. Right. So I'm. I'm integrating that. I'm still in the process of integrating it, and I feel like this will be a big. Another big shift for me because I. I have come a long way.

But no, thank you for sharing this. So it's so awesome to know that you've worked with so many thousands of people and you're pretty open about your own work, which is honestly the most trustable thing in this world. This is why I tend to not resonate too much with Deepak Chopra or with people that are in that kind of marketing, spiritual world. And it's no diss on him. Look, everybody's got great medicine. It's just the timing of when you receive it. So I'm not here to say that that person's wrong. I'm not talking smack about Chopra. I mean, he's been fundamental for so many people's lives. But I just feel like Once people attain 20, 30, 40 years of their practice, practice of whatever their chosen endeavor is, there can be a shadow side. There can be a shadow side where? Well, I'm the guru, I'm the master, and I don't actually really need to share anything that I'm working through myself because I'm here to teach y', all, and I'm sitting on the mountain. Do you find this to be true at times?

Of myself, not of yourself?

Well, hopefully not. I mean, I don't get that read from you, but have you seen that? I mean, you live in Sedona, which is a spirit spiritual cauldron. You. You come here to Austin, which is also kind of a. A spiritual boiling pot. But in all your work in history, like, have you seen this play out where people get to a certain stage and they become the guru that never self reflects, that never shares.

Well, let me tell you, I don't. I. I just don't have the time of day for that. It's just not interesting to me. Yeah, Yeah, I like raw and real. Sorry.

So, yeah, no apology needed. Well, I've so enjoyed having you here in Austin, Gwen, and spending time and this podcast, we've explored so many nooks and crannies of, like, not just family, constellation, healing, our past, but also, like, what's going on with us in the art of breath. How do people get involved in this if they're feeling the pull? Because there's a big difference, in my opinion, between being pushed to something rather than being pulled to something. So if somebody's feeling pulled to not just learn breath, work for themselves, but maybe they're a coach or a therapist that wants to use breath as a. As a synergy for what they're already doing. Obviously, y' all can go to joshtrenton.com, gwen. That's where everything's gonna be listed. But tell them the special offer, which I have to say, like, it's a significant discount. So I'm grateful that you that you'd even offer this to us. Share with people what they're going to get when they actually come out to Sedona. It's November 7th is when it starts November 7th through the 12th in Sedona, Arizona. It's the breath as prayer. Facilitator training.

Breath is prayer.

Yes.

So the facilitator training, the first, it's six days immersive. And as Josh and I described before, what I take you through and teach you, you is an embodied flow of first a one on one session and then a group session. So by the time you leave, you've been, you know, you've been actually Facilitating others in the group so that you are totally confident to move forward, practicing. And then after that, it's followed by three months of mentorship calls where as you practice, you bring your questions, you bring your challenges, you bring, you know, your experiences to the table. And I get to mentor you because let me tell you something, that's something I wish I had had one. You know, I was just, after my breathwork trainings, you know, always just out there floundering, because, trust me, you're always going to get surprised. You're always going to get surprised. And no curriculum can teach to everything that can come up in a breathwork session. So that's what. That's what's in store. And I think one of the things that I pride myself on is in this facilitator training is that it's intimate. So I do not take more than 10 people. And as a result of the numbers, I get to personally coach each and every person during. During our time together. So, you know, there are different ways that we all hide, myself included, in terms of stepping into being a facilitator. And for some people, it might be their voice. They've conditioned their voice to be soft and breathy and, you know, so I'll coach somebody on how to change their voice. For somebody else, it might be their posture. For somebody else, it might be the, you know, the words that they speak. So everybody gets their own individualized coaching. And it's just, I think one of. One of the talents I have in terms of teaching people, I never thought I would ever be a teacher. My dad always said that, you know, you're. You should be a teacher one day. You should be a teacher. Right? Because of course, they were professors. So. But I never. I never thought I would be doing this, but it's such a joy for me. It's such a joy.

Yes, you're in your dharma. I feel that from you. Like, this is why you're here. Otherwise you wouldn't be doing it in the way you do it, and I wouldn't want to have you on the podcast. So it's been such a joy, really, like such a joy to experience you. It's so different when you're getting trained by somebody who's just effortlessly living in their dharma and doing their thing in this world. Like, it's infectious. It's really cool. So from my heart to yours. Thank you, thank you. And thank you for this discount, too. It's a thousand dollars. It's a thousand dollar discount, but it's the first three People. But it's the first three people that sign up, so you have to jump on this.

Yeah. Yes, that's right. The first three people. I just have to tell you, Josh, when I decided to do that, you know why I did that?

Why?

Because of you. Because I just think the world. World of you and of what you do. I think you just make such an impact on people's lives. And I just really. That's really why I did it. Is for you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

All right, well, make sure that you take advantage of this if you fill the poll. A thousand dollars is like a significant amount of money, so thank you for that. And especially if you've been searching for a real training, there's a lot of these, like, online only trainings, and I don't actually feel that they're doing breathwork, a service by saying, oh, you can get certified 100% online. I think that's bullshit. It's not a judgment. It's just my own experience and my awareness. Like, I think people are being taken advantage of there. So this is a safe space. This is a great space. Being in Sedona, Arizona in October is incredible. Or November is incredible. What a great time to be there. It's like, not as hot. It's like, beautiful. It's not snowing. Joseph. Hopefully at that time, Typically, no.

Fingers crossed.

Typically, no. But what a great place to do it. So anyways. Joshtrent.com Gwen, all the information is there. Gwen, this is the final question. Okay, I'm ready until your next podcast that we do. I'm sure we'll do one next year because there's going to be all kinds of stuff that comes up for me in my facilitation and in my experience of breathing. This question of being. Well, the. The wellness that we all either have or we don't. How would you define with your experience of being a mom, as a teacher, someone that grew up in a different country and had that experience? How do you define living life? Well, if you had to define wellness, how would you define wellness? What does that even mean to you?

Well, the first word that kept coming up as you were talking about is ease. And how can we create ease? And so the words that follow are simplify. I think for me, wellness is about streamlining, about simplifying, about prioritizing. Right. What is really important to me and learning to prioritize those things that are important and understanding what's really important to us. And this is, by the way, what the Passion test does. Right? But by learning to Just prioritize a few things at once. Once can bring about the wellness and understanding that those priorities will shift and evolve. And so staying in tune to what our priorities are on an ongoing basis, you know, because that, that will really tap us into our inner guidance. And if we can listen to our inner guidance, which is easier said than done, then that is going to be bring us that inherent wellness, that ability, you know, because we're just this incredible vehicle of the body knows how to self correct, you know, So I think if we can really tap in, how do we really tap into that inner guidance? Breathwork is one way, passion test is another.

Well, where can people go to learn more about you? We already linked where they can do the training, but where can they explore? And do you even have a social account that you're active on or are you too busy teaching?

You know, honestly, I'm too busy. My Instagram account got hacked and I just can't be bothered.

You don't have to have a huge IG to make a huge impact. You really don't.

And so my website is inspired. Sedona.com that's also in the link as well. Awesome.

So, yeah, Gwen, thank you so much.

Thank you, John.

Wellness and wisdom podcast. This has been three years in the making, y'. All. And I have to tell you, like, with all the ground that we covered, there is so much more to learn from Gwen in person. So head over if you're filling that poll to joshtrent.com Gwen. And until Gwen and I see you again, another podcast, until you spend time with me again on wellness and wisdom from my heart to yours, we're both wishing you love and wellness. We'll talk to you then. Hey, thanks for watching the podcast. I appreciate you being here. If you haven't done so already, click the subscribe button and the little notification bell so you never miss any of this free weekly content delivered from my my heart with care, right to yours. If you love this video, you'll love any of the videos on this page. Just click the one you want to watch next.