Josh Trent | NoBS Wellness: How Breathwork Can Unlock Self Love & Personal Power | Wellness Force

Self love and loving yourself is not a light switch. You can't just wake up this morning, I'm gonna love myself today. You can, but old programs and subconscious beliefs in the universe is gonna bring you contrast and challenge to challenge your belief at all times. Self love is a practice and a choice, and self love is not something that we can just get inspired to do one day. We can get inspired to start it. But there's a framework for this, and it's in many emotional intelligence trainings. And the framework is be, do have. And maybe you both have heard of this before. The be, do have model.

Hello, Josh. Thank you for coming on the podcast today.

This is so cool. I'm glad I get to be here and explore. No bs. Thank you.

Yes, yes. We love it. And we are so excited to learn from you being in the wellness world for as long as you have been all. All that you know. So first off, we want to start with, just tell us about yourself and how you got into wellness.

I got into wellness because I wanted to thrive. I wanted to have a great life, and I wanted to live my life well. But the only way that I could do that was by unpacking all the things, programs, subconscious programs, mental programs, learned behaviors from parents in society. I had to spend a large majority of my life unlearning those things, which many of us are doing right now in a very accelerated fashion, especially with the health concerns in the world and the propaganda and media. So to pull the lever. Way back, I was born to a mom that had bipolar disease, and my dad left when I was super young. So I guess my soul came to this world and chose a really challenging path on purpose so that I could understand the contrast of what it means to really live well, because when I came in, it was really challenging. You know, I was raised on welfare, which means government cheese and kick cereal and no produce and just horrible food. And this is in the 1980s, and then in the 90s, I found a drug called food. Because I started having all these emotions that I didn't know how to deal with. Anger and frustration and sadness and disappointment and looking back. And I've done a lot of work to connect with this young, young version of Josh. Just really what he needed was to be heard and to be held. I think that's what we're all either dealing with and acknowledging or not. And so flash forward without the proper tools, either mentally and physically. I'm 21, I'm 280 pounds. I'm in a job I hate. I'm in a relationship I don't like. My physical body is 280 pounds. So like, you could say I was ripe for transformation, right? And I love Gay Hendricks. He has a great way of explaining this, this part of the hero's journey, because we all go through this. The universe sometimes tickles you with a feather and sometimes the universe smashes you with a hammer. And that happened to me when I was at a party once. I was 280 pounds, I was about 22 years old, and I looked down and I saw this belly and I had a beer in my hand and I just. It's the first time I've ever connected with a higher power. Not a bearded dude in the sky, but I'm saying like a higher power. And I just felt this message come through. The message said, there's more to life than this. There's more to life than feeling angry and taking drugs and drinking and doing all these things that are hurting. And so I just slammed the cup down and I ran home drunk. I think I ran like three miles drunk home. And I typed in the computer, like, how do I be healthy? How do I lose weight? That took me on an 18 month journey of gaining 100 or losing 100 pounds, then gaining 60 back and then doing low carb and Atkins and Paleo and all this stuff to really just be like so frustrated that I left, I left San Diego, I left my mom's illness, my relationship with my father, just kind of like the drug and alcohol and just really not, well culture that was here at that time. And. And I surfed in Hawaii and I hiked and I fished and I moved to Oahu. And I really just started to understand, like, who's Josh? Like, what's Josh all about? What does he actually want? The strings from my past were strong and they came from scarcity, they came from self hatred and they came from disappointment. And that was mirrored to me by my mother and father, which in a way was also mirrored to them by their mother and father. Alan Watts, the famous philosopher, calls it all wretch and no vomit. We're all teaching each other the same things that are harming us over and over and over again, generation to generation to generation, until it lands in the lap of a man or a woman who's just really ready to change it, you know. And so that's what led me into the fitness industry. I thought, okay, if I take control of my physical body, then I guess things will get better. And it did get better for 10 years. But there was a Dark part of my emotional and my spiritual and my mental health that was never really able to be shined light on because I was just so busy shining light on other people all the time as a trainer. And after that, I just got so frustrated with how I felt. I didn't know about the unconscious wounding that I had. From the age of 33 to 35, I worked in corporate America. I went back to corporate America because I wanted a, quote, safe job, committed spiritual suicide, then got the gift of being fired. And when I got fired, it was the most scary and also most liberating day of my life. And then here came the hero's journey again. I got fired from a job that I didn't want to be in anyways. I was forced to put my mom in a mental home at that time, and I broke up with my girlfriend at the time, all in the span of a few months. And so universe, God, spirit, higher power, whatever you want to say, was literally pressing me physically against a brick wall and asking, if you really want your dream, now's the time. If you really want to live well and have Wellness Force be a real business. And if you want to move this forward, you have to do this now. There is no way out. And I just made a. At that moment, I was like, I would actually rather die than go back. I would rather die than go back to what was before, because I can't do that ever again. And that's been my North Star ever since, you know, among many other things. But. And that's what brought me here to you, right? That's what brought the podcast was just having, like, three big, dark nights of the soul and then going through that and really understanding, like, hey, when I made the decision to die, I really just chose to let that old life die and connect with something outside myself so I can actually use sustainable fuel to move me forward instead of anger and frustration and trying to white knuckle the whole thing.

Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think? Because I just. Your story resonates with me so much, and I see pieces of my story and yours, but I also always marvel at stories like this because the way that we have been raised so many of us in society, and you sound very similar, is that you may feel that, but how, like, what made you say, okay, and I would rather die? And so I am actually going to make that choice, though, of letting this old life die and doing. Doing this thing, because I think sometimes it would be easier to, in a sense, just like, let your soul die one day at A time. Because what society tells you is it's better to have, like, go out and just find another safer job. Or you know what? It is a lot of work to lose that weight. And I just, like, really like this food and whatever. Everybody else is bigger now, so I'll just continue down that path. And it's like, in many ways it's harder, but it's also so much easier to stay in, in, you know, the current paradigm that you're in.

Yeah. Gosh, there's so much. What a great question. There's like so much there that I don't know if the two of you have seen the movie Braveheart. Have you seen Braveheart, the movie? So do you remember and for everyone with us, do you remember when William Wallace was in front of the crowd and the guy said, well, we. We're not going to fight these. This oppression and this tyranny, because if we do, then we're not going to live. And he says, y. You may live for a while, but many years from now, dying in your beds, you'll be willing to look back and give anything for just one chance, for just one chance to come back here and tell your enemies that they can take your life, but they're never going to take your freedom. And that is exactly the same feeling I got right now. And I know you both felt it, you both remembered it, because movies are the. Are the archetype that live inside of all of us. And the answer to your question is that the more to the degree you're connected with your internal archetype and to the degree you've gone through enough exploration of pain and contrast and shadow and wounding. And I'm not talking just woo, woo here. I mean, this is legitimate psychological, physiological, psychosomatic connection of head to heart. If you look at Dawkins work and Hawkins work, they're always at odds. If you look at Bruce Lipton or Joe Dispenza, I mean, there's so many people. I really. I have to tell you, I really love this question for so many reasons, because you're getting right to the core of what makes people shift. And what makes people shift is there's a simple axis. It's not easy, but on this axis, there's pleasure and there's pain. And when people go through enough pain based on their unconscious, explored wounding, or maybe their current experience of what wounding is actually here, maybe it's financial, um, societal, relational, all these different woundings, there's either internal wounding that's stored in the subconscious, or there's current wounding that's going on from a bad job, relationship or environment to the degree that those things are either still in the system or still in the mind of being processed. That is what makes people say enough. Enough is enough. I do not want to be in this body anymore. I do not want to be in this relationship anymore. And you know what that feeling is? That feeling of enough? That's self love. Self love is what makes us change. It's not anger. Yes, anger is more powerful than despair. If you look at Hawkins ladder of emotions, despair and shame are the lowest frequency. They're the lowest measurable scientific frequency of energy. Anger is a higher frequency than despair. So I get it. Anger is a short term motivator for people to say f this I'm not living this life anymore. I will change because I have experienced so much pain and so much contrast that I can't do it anymore. And that's the long answer to your question. But the short answer was I was at my friend's home just starting the podcast 2015. Mom was in a mental home, just broke up with my girlfriend at the time, doing my first couple episodes on the podcast on a rickety, cheap plastic computer stand in my friend's spare bedroom that I couldn't even pay him for because I was that broke. That's where the seed of change was planted. It was not some kind of perfect garden. And I think a lot of people are waiting till their external situation gives them the evidence that they can change. When really, unfortunately, it doesn't have to be this way. Unfortunately for so many of us, we only change when the pain is so great that finally the love for ourselves trumps the pain that we're feeling.

Yeah, yeah, I totally agree. I think it's. It's harder to change when you are in a situation that's just okay.

Yes.

Seen in this year because it's been harder for people to be in a situation where it's just okay. What. What have you seen in all the work that you're doing now for people when it comes to this topic?

I'm just so. I'm so. What a great podcast you both have because you just ask really perfect questions for what the world needs. Like when you're asking that I was breathing in and I was exhaling out because I was feel emotion of what you were asking. Because the emotion of what you're asking. And we know that if you look at psychological models, a feeling that we have is really just pointing down to an emotion. An emotion is energy in motion. So an energy in motion that I'm feeling can either come from myself or it could come from the collective unconscious. Right. Gretchen Rubin talks about emotional contagion. So we can catch emotions and feelings from other people, but we can also catch them from the collective unconscious, which Carl Jung writes about. So within the collective unconscious right now, there is fear, there is despair, there is self hatred, there is us having to look in a mirror about how the patriarchy has treated women, about how men have treated women, about how women have given away their power, and about how men actually never had power. They were just using force to put it in place. But force isn't trustable. Power is trustable. So that's really what's happening in the collective unconscious right now. And really, the change that's being called. We're being called up the mountain. We're being called up the mountain as mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and podcasters. Everyone is looking at the mirror because 2020 is the year of the mirror. It's the year that we have to look at ourselves and we have to see what we've created. We have created a unconscious capitalistic model that squeezes as much water out of the towel as it possibly can at all times. And the only way we're going to get through this is if we take a deep breath, start connecting back into our bodies, start having real conversations with people that care, and really take an honest look at what we've created. We're essentially children with our hand in the cookie jar that just got smacked, and instead of pausing to feel the pain, we're just going for more cookies. It's utterly ridiculous what's happening right now in the world. And I think we all are being forced to pivot and change. And I really believe this, and I don't mean to paint a dark picture. We're going to have to go through a lot more pain. We're gonna have to go through a lot more pain before people wake the f up. The only way that's gonna happen is through pain. Unfortunately, that's not true. It's not the only way it's gonna happen. But it's like I see it as possibly the inevitable way that it'll happen. We could essentially get a download from an alien or God or something, and something could come in and wake us up. I just don't know if that's gonna happen. So the only thing I can control is what I put out into the world. And. And I know that was kind of a long answer for your question. I'm not even sure if I totally answered your question, but that's the starting point for what you asked.

Yeah, no, no, I think it's exactly right. It's just if you have any sort of kind of feeling towards energy around you, you feel that energy of despair and of sadness and anxiety and fear and all of those things. And a lot of people just in the practical world are losing their jobs or are things that were once ways to make them feel just okay or like what's underneath are no longer there. And so you couple those things together, and I just feel like it's an explosion of everybody just feeling worse maybe, than they did before. So I'm just curious, like, what. And you were answering it there in terms of how you've experienced it. And I'm wondering if there are certain things that you found that have been really helpful for people in this time now to kind of go to where you're talking.

Yeah, everyone. I actually do both. I use a journal, but I also use Evernote. And so it's been really healing and really powerful for me, because what I'll do is. And I'm always thinking about new frameworks. I never just use a template and stick that template for my whole life, but I do process what's called an emotional inventory. And emotional inventory is powerful because what you do, it's very simple. Now, it's not easy, but it's very simple. You draw a line down in the middle of a paper. On the left side of the paper, you write 10 things that you truly love. And I'm not saying, like, you just tick boxes like, I love cornflakes. You know, like, you actually have to put down 10 things that you love and appreciate about your life. On the right side of the paper, you write 10 things that are causing you the most pain. It could be internal or external. And then you take a deep breath, you sit with it, you meditate, you do some. Some breath work, which I'm excited to talk to you about. And then after that, you do the most courageous thing. Because courage is actually the transformative emotion between lower self and higher self. Courage is what gets us from lower self to higher self. And you can break it down scientifically or spiritually means the same thing. We're either in despair or we have the courageousness, the courage to go towards our dream and towards really what is love. Our dream is love. That's what fuels us, Right? So in this process, I then go to the most courageous thing after I've done what I told you, and I reach out to someone, someone that I trust. And this has to be vetted very carefully. Someone that has. Has supported your dreams in the past and that actually breathes life into your dream. So don't tell this to a person that says, ah, you'll never do that. You call this person, you say, hey, Nicole, I'm. I just took an inventory of my life. Can you hold space for me for two minutes while I just share with you what I'm super grateful about, the one thing I'm most grateful about, and can I share with you the one thing that I'm committed to changing? And they'd be like, first of all, if they're a good friend, they'd be like, whoa, sure. They would just support you, you know, of course. And you tell them, like, I'm having a really hard time in Life. There's like 10 things that are causing me pain. But I really sat with myself and I've just chosen. Today is the day I will begin working on letting go of the one thing that's causing me the most pain. And I just wanted to call you and tell you about it. And maybe just the fact that you do that might make you cry. It might make you have, like a feeling of emotion that was dormant. You know, just taking that inventory is so powerful because it will allow you to actually begin where you are. Everyone's looking for the perfect starting point. There's no such thing. The perfect starting point is wherever you are, that's the perfect starting point. So that's what I would say to people, is start there. Then from there, start to gather the evidence, the accountability, the coaching, the programs, the podcast, and put all those things into your experience so that then as you move forward to let go of the thing that's causing you the most pain, that you have, like community and family and team to help you and guide you along the way.

I love that tool. I feel like it could have been very helpful in other parts of life, but I'm also very excited to have that. But as a follow up question to that, I know this is something that immediately triggered for me personally, although I'm sure it is for a lot of other people. How do you identify that person and then have enough, Like, how do you drop the bullshit of needing to be perfect?

Okay, I can do this for all of us. If y' all will trust me for two minutes, I can take us there.

Yeah.

Okay. So you just take your left hand, put it on your heart, take your right hand, put it on your stomach, and close your eyes and Relax the muscles in your face. If you're in a car right now, don't do this. Pull over safely. Right? Take a big breath in through your nose and fill your belly with air. Okay? So hold that for three seconds, and when you let it go, make a sound out of your mouth. Do that three more times, Two more times, but really fill your belly. There's a balloon behind your belly button. Last time, really feel the warmth of your hand on your heart and send yourself some love as you breathe into your nose. Now let all the stress go, all the judgment go. Just go back to your normal breathing. Keep your eyes closed, relax your face. Maybe roll your neck a few times. Feel the gravity of where your body is in its chair. And just for a moment, just be grateful that you're still here. Just be grateful that you're still in a body. As you keep breathing into your nose and your heart, ask yourself, when you were young, what did you love? Who did you. Who could you trust? Who could you really, really, really trust? And whoever you could really trust? Take a snapshot of that feeling. Who could you really, really, really trust? Who did you love? Who could you trust when you were that young? When you're a little girl or. And now, take a quick scan of your life today, who gives you the same exact feeling? Who can you love? Who can you trust? And the answer is bubbling up now. And then, when you're ready, you just open your eyes slowly, and that's who you start with. You start with that person. Whoever came to you in the stillness, whoever came to you once you turned off your default mode network in your brain. That's what we just did. That's what breathing does. It turns off your default mode network, the default mode networks, who can I not trust? So when we turn off the default mode network, we start tuning into our somatic system, and we. And we really feel in our body who we can trust. And that person bubbled up for all of us right now. I mean, for me, it was what came up for me was my brother, my mom, and my lady and my partner. That's it. You know, those are the three people that I could trust in that moment. Doesn't mean that that won't change, but. But that's where we start. So those are the two things that we can do.

I love that.

Yeah.

Shannon's crying because she's a very emotional person. It's good for her, I feel.

See, that's love. Crying is love.

Yes.

Crying is love. It's beautiful.

I texted my brother because I Even though the entire time I'm like, this is so depressing. I burned through watching the crown. And then this morning I told my brother that I was crying because I was thinking about Princess Diana, how lonely she had to be while married to Fitzgerald. So I feel a lot of things, past and present, apparently, and it's an.

Honoring of that too, because sometimes we just get to cry and we don't need to care where it comes from. Doesn't matter when I have to know where our tears come from. Like, it's just beautiful that they're just there, you know?

Yeah. I love that. And I know we're gonna. And I love what you share in terms of the journaling exercise, which I found recently. Journaling has been really helpful for me to connect because I. I am the opposite of Shannon. I've disconnected from my emotions so much that I can't feel them on command. And I also love the breath exercise. I know we're going to talk more about that. That is, you're a good team.

Then it's like, it's like yin yang, right? Like you can.

Yeah.

There's beauty on both sides, by the way.

Yeah.

I think it's interesting because so many people are like, I'm noticing that I am this way or I'm noticing that I'm that way. It's like there's gifts in both.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think loving yourself is the hardest part.

But that's basically this podcast. If everybody can just get this one thing, start to do self love work, and we can talk about that too. That is, that is actually everything. If I could go back and put a little piece of paper in my pocket when I was like 17, I'd be like, hey, when you start hearing about self love, pay attention. I would just say that one thing.

Well, let's go there. Like what? Yeah, tell us about. About what you. What tools you found in that. In that area.

So from. From what I can see and from what I can feel, the element of self love is the reason it's not talked about in our society. It's beginning to be more talked about, but the reason it's placated and Michael Pollan calls them like platitudes. Right? Like, we have these social media memes where it's like, love is all there is. And on some level we get that. But self love and loving yourself is not a light switch. You can't just wake up this morning, I'm gonna love myself today. You can, but old programs and subconscious beliefs in the universe is Gonna bring you deep contrast and challenge to challenge your belief at all times. That's why the beliefs that aren't challenged are the beliefs that never change. Just let that land for a moment. When I heard that once, I was like, oh, okay. So if I can have a belief and have it, know that it's good for me and know that my belief is creating the external circumstance that I love, then I don't need to challenge that belief because it's giving me the result I want. But if I don't have a result I want, it is 100% connected to a belief that's not been challenged yet, period. We all create our own reality, right? And so that's the pre frame for what I'm going to share with you about self love. Self love is a practice and a choice. And self love is not something that we can just get inspired to do one day. We can get inspired to start it. But there's a framework for this and it's in many emotional intelligence trainings. And the framework is be, do have, and maybe you both have heard of this before, the be do have model. So most people and how our society is shaped. And this was my exploration going back to your question, right? Because the question was, how have I found this? The way that I found this is because I've done so many book reads, podcast listens, paid with coaches, paid with mentors, gone to events, done inner child work and shadow. And I've done all these things and I'll continue to do whatever is called to me. But the one thing that all of this points towards at all times is. And can we curse on your show or is the clean show okay, the one, the one thing that everyone's not doing is no one's owning their shit. You have to own your shit and you have to love your shit. Just like you love your partner or your mother, your father, your brother, your sister. It's the same thing. When Gay Hendrix told me this on a podcast four years ago, I was so, like, not ready to hear him. I was like, what are you talking about? Love my. He told me to love my fear. And I was like, how do I love my fear? What do you. What? What is that? And he's like, the same way that you feel. You know, the process we just did where I. Where you had asked, how do I trust someone? It's the same thing with whatever thoughts are looping, whatever results we're having. How can we love exactly where we are? Not in a BS spiritual bypassing woo woo way, but in, like a legit psychosomatic, connected. How can I love where I am? Because whatever contrast I'm receiving is trying to be putting me in order. It's chaos pushing me in order. So what I found through all these things that I was mentioned to you, the books, the podcast, the lectures and the groups. I did emotional intelligence training where we're, like, screaming at each other and, you know, like, ego, ego disillusion, work and all this stuff. And what I found about the self love was that unless I'm really living in my body, unless I can actually live here, like, be comfortable here, nothing else will come. No other kind of love or healing can come if I don't feel like I actually love where I live, because I love where I live, because it's all that I have. Actually, it's all that we. It's all that any of us have. I can't live in your bodies, you can't live in mine. You can get thought contagion from me, and I can get thought contagion from you, but I can't live in you. We have to love that we live inside of ourselves, even if that means we have cancer, we have crazy diseases, all these things, and that's the real beast. I mean, I haven't had any of those serious things. I've had my own health issues. But the real work comes when you have to take ownership for the organ or the disease that manifested inside of you because you weren't willing to own your shit. And people might say, wow, Josh, that's pretty judgmental. That's pretty harsh. That's pretty insensitive. Maybe, maybe you both have friends or maybe somebody's listening that's had cancer or a disease. The more I lean into this work of self love, the more that I realize, like, yes, sometimes there is chaotic events. Sometimes there's things like Hiroshima or, you know, these power plants that give people cancer. And that's real. I don't necessarily know that 100% those people chose that. I think there is things in this world that we can't ever explain. We just have to give that up to God. But I think on the whole, not always, but on the whole, I think that these emotions manifest physically for us. And so everything in the long answer of your question, every single thing that comes our way is leading us back to do we love ourselves? And are we loving being in this body because we're not the body? And so if the body doesn't want us in it because we don't love it, then it's going to try to get us out of it. And that might have been a little advanced, but I can go deeper if you'd like me to.

I think it's fascinating because I have personally experienced this on a very, very minor level compared to somebody who has cancer or something like that. But I'm thinking back to my 20s when I was in college and drinking all the time and doing stupid stuff, and I was sick so often, and I was just reflecting the other day, especially with everything going on with, you know, the health scares that everybody is going through during this pandemic and realizing that, like, I haven't really been sick in a long time. And I guess for me, that was where you. When you said that, I went to. Because I think it is because of the work I'm doing on myself or, you know, the things that I'm trying to do to love myself.

Yeah. Because the. And I don't know what you've done, just probably been quite a bit in order to hold space for a conversation like this. But when you did have the sickness stuff, what was it? What was it? Like, flu, Colds.

Yeah, exactly. Just like constant, like, little things like that. Right. Or just like, not feeling good. Headaches, like, just little things, you know?

Yeah. Because really what we're doing when we're partying and when we're drinking and when we're doing all these things is we're just. We're just trying to get away from the sadness. We're just sad about something. And it could be real deep, it could be none. People are just sad and they're depressed. And so, you know, when think about respiratory, there's. In Chinese medicine, the lungs is like sadness and depression and grief. So if you're getting sick and you have a respiratory issue, the reason that that happened is not necessarily because the organ itself was trying to make you sick, but to flashback to your college years. When you're drinking and partying and all these things, there was a part of you that just wanted to experience hedonism. Right. You just wanted to be like, yay. Probably if you checked in. And I don't want to project onto you, because I could be wrong. But I think for the most amount of people, it's because there's sadness there. It's like you're in a new space and you're away from home and mom and dad aren't there and it's totally new and you kind of feel alone. It's like, well, let's go get drunk. They'll just take you Right away from it. So there's, there's, there's always an emotion connected to the physical. And by the way, sometimes physical can cause emotions as well. There's like a feedback loop there. Right. So everything revolves on a circuit of homeostasis, which you both know, right. From functional medicine and even functional diagnostic nutrition. The body's always trying to achieve homeostasis, which is like this peaceful middle calm. So if there's any system in the body that is pulling us out of homeostasis, it's going to be screaming to get us back into it. And so that can happen physically, emotionally, spiritually, and mentally.

Yeah. So what have you found to be the most helpful tools, especially for a beginner to work on? Self love.

Yes. What we did right here, everyone can do that practice. And I went fairly quick, you know, where we did the breathing. The big thing here is I'll say you do the inventory, you feel it, you allow yourself to feel it. Like the 10 things you love, the 10 things you hate. Circle the one, circle the one, feel it, then do specific breathwork. And we have a lot of different breathwork that we have for our clients in the Breathe, Breath and wellness program, where there's the daily meditative breath, which is like, you know, it's around three to seven minutes, sometimes leading up to 21 minutes, where it's really about grounding you and about clearing, Clearing. You open. A lot of people that struggle with meditation. It's actually a really powerful thing to do. Breath work first, because when you're breathing, we're turning off the default mode network. And essentially what I could share about the default mode network is we have this frontal cortex, the posterior cortex, and we have the amygdala. There's a few other things in there, but those three beautiful things, I don't want to demonize them. They keep us alive, they keep us safe. Those three things are constantly scanning for threat. I mean, even right now, even during this podcast, all of us have had moments where our default mode network has been switched on. But you know what turns off the default mode network? What turns off the default mode network is heart connection or focused attention. Focused attention turns off the default mode network because if you look at the PET scans and the science scans of the default mode network, when you're consciously performing a task that's goal oriented, the racing monkey mind shuts down. This is why people with ADHD and children that have behavioral problems. The first thing that any holistic practitioner should do is start getting them on a water, food, and movement Program immediately before they ever consider pushing pills down their throat. I mean, these poor kids, they're just getting pulled into a system that's fundamentally fucking broken. And it's just keeping people sick on a perpetual cycle in the name of commerce, in the name of growth, in the name of year over year growth which isn't serving anyone. So the question was what.

Self love practices?

That's right. Okay, thank you. You know, I'm just like passionate about this stuff because no one's really gotten it yet on a grand scale. There's people like us that are getting these messages and that believe in it. We have so much program. The very same thing, and this is for anyone listening and watching. The very same thing that you may feel resistance to. What I'm saying is the very belief that is being triggered to change. So I've said anything at all where you're like this dude sounds like a hippie, or this dude sounds kind of woo woo. Or like watch that part of yourself. Like watch that part of your mind, your intellect, your default mode network that has kept you alive and that has kept you safe and that has maybe gotten you a PhD on the love. Love that thing, it keeps you, it keeps you safe, it keeps you moving forward. But also are you truly happy with the results of your life and are you truly happy with our collective society? If not, like, listen to what I'm saying because that's why it's coming out of me and that's why it maybe resonates with you. So going back to the self love, the whole part of this is inventory. The reality is, and that I constantly get lessons on is that all we actually are is love. And it's like as I say it, my intellect can understand it, but my heart, my head to heart connection flutters sometimes in that understanding because sometimes I'll be like, wow, I'll go for a while and I'll just understand like, well, all three of us are the same. That you're just a unique expression of God experiencing God or of energy experiencing energy. And that's pretty awesome, right? That we're all the same and you're just a unique point of consciousness that's experiencing itself on this rock in the middle of outer space that's lit by an orb in the sky. You ever think about that? Like kind of crazy that we're even here. So the self love quotient on this is. It is a practice of daily surrender and of awareness. And that sounds super advanced, but it's not actually. It's really simple. But again, it's not easy because daily practice and awareness. The reason that's challenging is because life is very complex and complicated. And so we might have our whole healing modality planned out for three quarters and we might have everything listed on a paper and how we're going to heal and how we're going to love ourselves. And then your kid throws up on your lap or your son gets in a car accident or you lose a job or life is bringing you. And actually, what's even more crazy, and I don't wish this upon anyone, but anytime I've ever had a monstrosity of challenge, it is the universe forcing me to grow or forcing me to retract like you had asked before. Like, maybe I don't want to have my dream, maybe I don't want to lose weight. And there's no shame in that choice either. There's absolutely no shame in that choice. I'm not here to shame anyone. You, you make the change to love yourself in a daily practice of surrender and awareness when you're ready, not because I say so, you do it because you're ready.

Yeah.

So you mentioned breathwork as one of those things. We did a little bit of an exercise here with that as well. So can you tell us more about breathe and why you started it and what you think it's so beneficial for?

I think it's beneficial because there's, there's both science and spirit that back it up. And also in my own life, I have a tattoo on my arm and it says se porso resperate, pozo seguere and seposo resperare posa seguere means in Italian it means if I can breathe, I can choose. I can choose to love someone if I go like this, if I can just take a deep breath and not be in my trigger. Going back to the, I guess you could say the lens of emotion and emotional inventory. It's like if I'm feeling an emotion, well then my feeling is a guidepost to my energy and motion in my body. And as I mentioned before, the energy can come from internal or external that triggers us. I would say most of the times it comes internally by the way, because life is always going to bring us stress, you know, but it's temporary. What makes people saturate themselves in long term stress and long term self hatred. Where self love can't get in is when people don't breathe. Because the very first thing that we do, like imagine this, all of us are in a car and we're driving down the road and someone literally sideswipes us, takes out our light, and we almost crash. What's the first thing that you do when that happens?

Taking a big deep breath.

You probably go like this. You hold your breath. It's because that is our fight or flight system that I love, and that is here for us, to serve us, making us aware of the threat of death. And so it's like, all right, that's, that's a good thing. Like, we want, we want to be friends with that thing, but we want it to be the slave. We don't want it to be our master. And so husbands, wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, work, finance, all these things can bring in that same feeling at times. And so if we're not connected and living in our body, then we can't ever, like, take a deep breath and then love them or find a solution with them or connect with them because we're too busy being a slave to ourselves. And the reason that's important is because there's a biological aspect to this too, right? We have four diaphragms, we have the perineum, we have the diaphragm at our belly, and then we have our main diaphragm, which is like a dome shaped diaphragm behind the solar plexus. And then we actually have another diaphragm in our throat and then the top of our head. So we have four, four diaphragms. And those diaphragms circulate fluid throughout our body. And scientifically, when you take a big deep breath, the reason why it feels so good to do this and fill your belly so that your diaphragm expands is because when you do that, it is activating a vagal nerve, the vagus nerve, that runs from the back of the cranium all the way down the spine, and it innervates on the backside of the diaphragm. And it also wraps around the endocannabinoid system. This is why we have cannabidiol in our program. And it also wraps around our enteric nervous system. And the enteric nervous system is the nervous system of the gut. So we have the enteric nervous system, the central nervous system, the vagus nerve, which is like a big lever that we can pull, and the system for cannabinoids. All these systems, right, the automatic, the, the enteric and the ecs, they all work together to either calm us or make us fight or flight. And so it, again, it's like, it really is simple, but the complexity and the challenge is like, okay, well, how do we train ourselves to use these, the breath and the cannabinoids, that we can use them in a time where it really matters? And that's the training. Um, this is why baseball players are volleyball players. They do, like, millions of swings. Millions. Because it really matters during the game, when they execute it. Well, it's the same thing with your breath training. We've all been breathing from our. We've been shutting off our diaphragm, and we've been breathing through our cervical, basically, for our whole lives. And we learned it when we were young. This is the crazy part. I love our parents, and I know we all have a part in our heart that we love them and we're thankful that we're here because of them. But they learned it from their parents, as we talked about earlier. And everyone is breathing like this. They're forward, flex their kyphotic. They're. They're retracted here in their chest. And so everyone is essentially breathing not from their diaphragm. And if you look at the cadaver of the actual vagus nerve, the majority of the innovation is down near the gut. Then that's why it's such a big deal. And I Learned this from Dr. Belisa Vranich, by the way. She wrote a book about this. When we're innervating the gut and we're pressing the diaphragm into the ECS in that system, the endocannabinoid system, and also the enteric nervous system, when we're doing this on a scientific basis, we're actually scientifically relaxing ourselves as if we needed a scientific explanation for it. But it is pretty cool to know.

Yeah. Yeah, it definitely is. So can you talk through the program a little bit?

What.

How is it structured? What can people expect?

So the beautiful thing is this. Charles Duhigg and Gretchen Rubin and Nir Eyal and all of these behavior change specialists, they all essentially say the same window. It's between 21 to 66 days for some kind of a habit to catch. And so I thought about that, and I was like, all right, if you can fortify your new breathing behavior, your new breathing training in three weeks, then I think it's going to be up to you if you want to continue or not. And you have the highest rate of success, because 66 days is a pretty big commitment. 21 is like a more feasible commitment. So I built the program. It's called Breathe, Breath and Wellness, because breath is the door, wellness is the home. So we live in wellness. So we breathe, and then that Allows us to eat and move and sleep. And then once we're eating, moving, sleeping and breathing, then we can start taking an inventory of what I call the BTFA loop. And this is belief, thoughts, feelings and actions. So those seven pillars are put together and that allows us to really understand why we are triggered and why we go to certain spaces of anger and frustration in our lives, either with ourselves or other people. And so the program is 21 days. We learn about the meditative breathing, we learn about the acute stress breathing. And that's like stage fright, maybe a fight with your partner, maybe something's going on, you need to calm down right now. There's breathing practices that we have for like acute stress moments. And then we also guide people to cathartic journeys. And cathartic journeys is the third phase of breathing where people can actually do 30, 60, 90 minute long journeys with conscious, connected breathing. Can I share about the two types of breathing too? Is that okay? So the two types of breathing that we all do, there's actually only two ways we breathe. We either do a box breath or we do a circular breath. That's it. There's many other ways to breathe, but essentially you're either breathing in a circle or you're breathing in a box, right? So even if you're doing a double inhale, you're still holding and you're still exhaling. So you're still essentially drawing a box. And so here's a circular breath. I'm just breathing and no stopping, right? It's a circular breath. And then here's a box breath. I'm drawing a box with my breath, right? Inhale, hold, exhale, hold. That's the circle in the box. There's a certain time to use those and there's a certain time to not. And that's the cool thing about breathwork and about the Breathe program is we actually show people when it's appropriate. Based on science, of course, but also based on our, our beta group and the people that have gone through the program because it's such a big deal that we don't just go like this. That's not breathing, right? I mean, it can be helpful if you're actually having a panic attack. That's why psychologists have people breathe into a bag, because you need to do Breath of Fire if you're ever having a panic attack. That's, that's real. But for the rest of us, there's, there's alternate nostril breathing, there's cyclical conscious connected breathing, there's box breathing with breath Retention. I mean, there's. There's really cool stuff in the program. And I guide people how to integrate into their lives, and it's guided. And so, you know, you can go through it at your own pace. And then, of course, if you need accountability, like, I'm here, right? So that's the cool part of the whole thing. And I built it from three years of travel. And, you know, the reason why I got this, this tattoo on my arm is because I suffered from crazy anxiety pretty much all the way up until I launched the podcast. And even during the management of this podcast, I've still had anxiety pop up. I think really what anxiety is is just my excitement and my kind of wanting to be safe in the future. Right. And I think we all experience that and we all experience depression too. It's just to the degree that how can we pull ourselves out of it with that autonomic lever of breath? How can we use controlled respiration to not be a slave to depression or slave to anxiety? Like, that's. That's really why I. Bro. Why I launched the program.

Yeah, I love it. Because it's something that once you learn it, like, it's free. It's like it's there whenever you need it.

Exactly.

Like now I have to pay Josh more money for the next step.

And then, you know, I mean, we update things, like, we'll put in new modules and we'll give more education, but it's all. It's like, you have to buy more of it. You already bought it once. And also, I love what you said too. It is free. But the challenge for any of us, you know, when we get anything is are we using it? There's a space between knowing and doing.

And why focus on breath? Because you have, you know, all of this experience and you, you know, you have a whole organization that talks about a lot of different wellness things. Why breath specifically? Why was that the most important thing to focus on?

Because when you are beat down to your knees and literally all you can do is like, either cry or just be in your emotion, the only thing that can transcend you and can carry you on is your breath. That's all that we have. And what's even more fascinating, and there's a guy that's name is Koot Blockson, I don't know if you've heard of his work. He. He asked me a question once on a show. He was like, you know, you're not breathing yourself, right? And I was like, what do you mean? Because I used to be very Analytical, which I still am because I like. I like science because I think there's a part of science that keeps us safe. But I think unfortunately, right now, science is being used as a God and science is being used against people. But he told me, he's like, you're not breathing yourself. And I was like, what? And he's like. He's like something else is breathing you. There's a higher power. There's a. There's a. There's a divine intelligence. There's something in this world that breathes you. It's the same way that on our heart, you know, there's the SA node that creates the spark, but nobody knows why the essay node sparks. That's why you can take a heart out of someone else and put it in someone else, and the heart beats in someone else. Have we ever stopped to like. To like, actually think about the craziness of life and how just incredibly beautiful and crazy it is at the same time? So you asked me, like, why the breath? Why now? It's because it's the only thing that we can be in communion with and we can control. It's the only thing. There's nothing in this world that we can be in communion with and control. Like the breath. We can't beat our own heart. We can't digest our own food. We just can't. We can control our. Are what thoughts we indulge in. We can control how we breathe. That's it. And of course, the breath alters the thoughts as well, because breath turns down the default mode network as I talked about earlier. So anyways, all the. All these things come together for the answer to your question. That, that truly, like, if we can breathe, then we can choose. But if we can't choose, then we're probably not breathing. And if we're not breathing, then we're a slave to our emotions. And when we're a slave to our emotions, we're a slave to the people that dangle the puppeteer strings in our society that say if women aren't beautiful, they're nothing. If men don't have six figures in their bank account, they're nothing. And it is all fucking bullshit. Everything is sold to you to keep you small and keep you buying our shit so you can keep adding into a program that's broken at its core level, and we all are fed up with it, and that's why people are getting sick and looking in the mirror. And so the breath leads us to that awareness.

Love it.

Yes, I do. Okay, so we want to Be mindful of your time. I could literally talk to you for hours. This is great, but we've talked about so many great things, so you can even go back to some of those things that we've already talked about. But somebody who's newer into this wellness world. Yes, there is a lot out there within wellness, and there's some false gurus and there's a lot of bs. And there's also a lot of things that people may think are BS and they maybe just need to drop their ego. But what would you say with your, you know, over 17 years of experience in the wellness world? Top three tips for somebody who is wanting to really either start or continue on a strong journey towards, well, being.

Well, first of all, just do what I just did, because then I can give you a real answer. The best way to do this is take an honest pause and just be real with yourself, without judgment, without shame of where you are. Just do that first. There's nothing else you have to do besides that, because that's. And I can even feel it right now. That's what closes the space between the head and the heart is just an acknowledgment of the truth. And then you can actually just operate from where you are. But if. If you don't do that, then you're going to search for lots of information and evidence of how you might intellectually move forward or intellectually heal. But until you close that space between your head and your heart, and I gave you the tool on this podcast, and that's honestly a beautiful start. It's a beautiful start. From there, you can do more advanced journaling and you can work with people and stuff like that. You know, trauma release therapists, emotional intelligence professionals. But until you at least know where you are, you can't go anywhere. It's like trying to do Google Maps with no home destination. Doesn't know how to get you anywhere. So that's the number one thing. And then the number two thing is be extremely mindful. Have a mindfulness practice of who is in your space. And I don't just mean people. I mean, like, especially this thing, right? It is the number one. It is the number one attack on human consciousness right now. Of course, it allows us to connect. It allows people to connect with us. But if we're not careful, it can be like the kids in Pinocchio being led to the island. Like, that's essentially what this phone is. We're all swiping at the grocery store. We can't go three fucking minutes without Being on our phone, it's killing relationships, it's killing marriages, it's killing health, it's killing our eyes. And I'm guilty of it sometimes as well. But I'm talking about it. I'm mindful about. I'm not shaming anyone. I'm not shaming myself. I'm just, I'm just, I'm upset because, remember, frustration and anger is a lot more powerful than despair. I could either go, yeah, forget about it. I'm just going to be on my phone all the time. And they got us. Forget about that's. That's the lowest level of vibration. And you can measure this. Robin Openshaw does some good work on her book vibe about this. And also science can resonate the hurts of anything. You can do muscle testing, which there's, there's still some interesting science on muscle testing. I don't know if I'm a hundred percent on muscle testing or not. I still have, like some scientific method to go there. But, but that's the number two is be super mindful of who is in your space. Like, obviously you two have a shared love for communication and you want to put out great messages in the world, and that's why it feels so fun to talk with you. But there's a lot of people in our lives that don't give a shit. They just, they want to have their beer, they want to have their fried chicken wings, they want to go watch sports on a tv, an empty stadium. They want to wear a mask and get angry at you, and you don't wear a mask. And they want to force their beliefs onto you and not give you the choice of freedom. And that's a virus, right? People can be a virus, just like viruses can be a virus. And that's really what we're. That's what we're dealing with. So that's number two. Be super mindful of who's in your space and really judge who's in your space off of what direction you're going in. Like, if you're a functional medicine practitioner or you're a wellness coach or you're a therapist and you're hanging out with people that actually not even don't like what you do, but maybe they don't believe in what you do, it's a clear sign you don't get to hang out with them anymore. You don't get to share your dreams with them anymore because they. That will kill your chi and your life force faster than anything else you could imagine. And so that's number Two, Number three is find something that you absolutely love in your life, whether it's coaching or podcasting or breathwork or walking in the sun, just find something. Fishing, hiking. I mean, there's. There's literally, like, thousands of things you could love. And give yourself permission to try as many different things as you can before you find something that kind of, like, tugs on your soul and your heart. And just do that. Just do that as much as you possibly can. Because I forgot who said this. I think it was, like, ancient Chinese wisdom. I may butcher it a little bit. If you want to defeat evil, the best thing you can do is focus on the good. You can't fight evil by, like, being angry at evil. That's what feeds evil. That's what feeds negativity, is anger and frustration and. And there's a time and a place for those strategically. But if you really want to be well, you have to be aware of what's causing you pain, and you have to have the courage to be curious and the courage to do the things that are going to fill you up. So those are the three things I think you should start with.

I love it.

That's perfect.

I mean, you've dropped so many bombs of wisdom that I can't even count them all. So I'll definitely put them all in the show notes. So then. Last question. Unless you have any. Okay, last question. Where can people find you? Where can they find the Breathe program if they want to learn more?

Yes. You know, this has been so much fun. Like, I don't normally do this, but I want to give your audience half off the program, which is like, we're coming up to, like, a holiday period anyways. And I feel like, man, this is the time to be generous, for all of us to just be generous. So I'll put a code in. And so for the listeners, let's. Let's do no BS50. So no BS50. You can get half off the program, and you can go to Breathwork IO and just use that code, no BS50 in all caps. And then it's at Breathwork IO. So if you want to be in the program, and you can go through the program guided by me, and then if you want, at the end of the program, you can decide, like, do I need to spend time with Josh or do I got this? You know, you can make the decision for yourself. So that's. That's like, my gift for just having such a great conversation. But if you want to learn about the podcast, just go to wellnessforce.com you can search Wellness Force online, and it's Wellness Force pretty much everywhere if you're paleo minded. Within our media house, we also have a brand called Civilized Caveman, and it's where we give out recipes and it's like more paleo focused. A lot of things for like, AIP and different immune disorders resources and cooking for them, too. So, yeah, that's, that's where you find me. And thanks for the great questions. Like, I, that's why I love podcasting, because I really get to learn from other people, you know, the questions that they ask.

Yeah, we love this conversation, too. It's definitely a shared feeling. So thank you so much for coming on, for spending more time than we even had allowed. We really appreciate it.

Yes, thank you. Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much.

It.