(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Confidence Through Health podcast. My name is Jerry Snyder as a health wellness and sports performance coach. My goal each week is to bring you experts to help you take control of your health and build your self-confidence. Thanks for including me today on your journey to better health. - I wanna say thank you to social media cowboys for sponsoring this week's episode of the Confidence Through Health podcast. If you need help with the website, if you need social media needs for your business, if you need help with AdWords, SEO, all those things that you know you should be doing, but you are too busy to do or you're too confused about they are the experts you need in your corner. If you're interested in launching a podcast, let's such as mine, they help me edit my podcast and do a fantastic job making sure that all of the technical side of it is handled and we launch a nice, neat, edited podcast episode each week. So I wanna thank social media cowboys for their continued sponsorship of the Confidence Through Health podcast. You can find them at social media cowboys.com or you can find them as well with other sponsors at confidencethroughhealth.com. - Well, thank you Ben for being a guest on the Confidence Through Health podcast. - Absolutely brother, thank you for having me. - So like I was telling you a little bit before we started recording, I'm really excited about talking to you for a moment. The breath work standpoint of what you're doing and there's so much more to how we breathe than just yes, we all know we have to breathe to have life but like there's so much more to it, right? - Mm-hmm, definitely, definitely. There's a deep, deep rabbit hole when it comes to breath work, that's for sure. - Yeah, so what got you, before we get into all of that stuff, but like what got you inspired to go, okay, this is where my passion is, this is what gets me up in the morning. - Yeah, so I'd say that I really fell in love with breath work when I was on a pilgrimage in Asia, primarily Southeast Asia. I was working in the realm of plant medicine before and serving that medicine, traveling and working with my mentors and then I realized that there was a big need for integration and preparation 'cause we were hosting retreats and people were having a good experience but there wasn't a completion aspect to it in the sense that people were potentially being kind of fragmented in their experience and they weren't able to really integrate it all together and create a very complete experience. So I left and went and studied different healing modalities like sound healing, breath work, meditation, yoga and just fell in love with breath work. I realized that it was the most efficient modality, it was the most fastest acting, it was just the most direct to the point modality that there was and all we needed was our breath, right? You didn't even have to move to access breath work. So, and I was really fascinated by the different pillars of breath work that I've now categorized, whether it's a relaxing technique to ease stress and anxiety which everybody in the modern world needs, of course. Activating techniques that really boost vitality, libido energy, vital energy connection to the divine and then what we have is freedom techniques and these freedom techniques are really fantastic for releasing stuck energy, resetting the nervous system and resolving trauma. So just the diversity and the ability for it to be impactful on many levels and for all types of characters, right? All types of people, no matter what they're going through, it really what allowed for me to fall in love with it. And then that progression continued whenever I brought it back to the States, what I learned and integrated it into the medicine retreats and was having phenomenal results by merging the two together. And then one day the universe said, hey, let go of the medicine and just, this is the medicine, right? Focus on breath work and eventually that's led to me to now we educate facilitators and teach people how to become facilitators and specialists with the three levels of breath work, three pillars of breath work. And then take that and bring their gifts to the world through retreats and coaching programs. And so it's been quite the journey but originally what allowed me to fall in love with it was the simple fact that it was efficient, practical and it just got the job done. - Right. So going back to something you said early on in that when you were in that discovery mode and you saw people that were like, they weren't really, you said, they weren't able to integrate and their preparation wasn't there. Is that because most people you've seen and what you deal with and how you help them, like we still have in the back of our head, like, okay, I'm looking for the quick fix. Oh, this isn't working. This is what I was expecting. Like, is it the expectation level that's not allowing us to fully get there? - I would say that that's part of it. And I think that expectation comes from the ego. We talk a lot about the ego and all our containers. The ego can really get in the way. There's a lot of chatter and expectation is just one element of the different, just one piece of the different puzzle, massive puzzle that the ego tends to rely on. It'll find any piece that it needs. Expectation, doubts, fear, shame, any low vibrational energy that feels safe and familiar, right? To our energy field and to our ego, it will attach to that. So I would say that there's a broader scope than just the expectation that's holding people back. But I definitely agree that that is one thing that gets in the way of people liberating themselves, you know? And when we have that awareness of what is getting in the way and we have that awareness of the ego and what it does and how it plays and how it operates, then we can really bring deeper understanding into how we can navigate life. Because if the ego is very active, we can say, "Hey, I see you, I feel you, I hear you. "I know you're here to just keep me safe, "but this is what we're doing. "We're progressing from here." So I would say that the ego plays a big part in our progression, but with the plant medicine, the big issue was people were having a very radical ego to solution and feeling like they didn't know themselves when they returned without being told that this is what's going to happen or without being told, you know, this is how you integrate this. And so we focused a lot on the integration piece of the plant medicine experiences and we've been really successful with that and impacting people. I think our documents have been viewed about 15,000 participants who have gone through an experience, which is fantastic 'cause we all have to wake up to the reality that it's not about being aloof and being in the stars and being, you know, high off your ass. It's about integrating and dropping into the body and understanding the body. And that plant medicine experience is just essentially a catalyst that unlocks our ability to go deeper into this experience that we're in here now. So yeah, long answer to a short question there. - No, but that's great. And it's like the breathwork piece and I'll admit, I don't practice it as much as I should. And I found myself especially in the last, I'm a runner and I have a Achilles injury that I'm dealing with right now that I haven't been able to run for, I'm going on four weeks. And the first couple of weeks, I was like, okay, I fill in my stuff with other stuff. I'm like stressing about it. And then I'm like, wait a minute, I'm forgetting. Like when I'm running, I'm totally focused on my breathing because I know that that's uber important to be able to be efficient and run longer in like, well, I'm not running. So I'm not focused on like, I'm not having that downtime to just breathe in. And especially after I run in the stretching time afterwards and the recovery and the grounding that I do. - It's your meditation. - I was like, oh, I'm not doing that. - Yeah. - I was like, no wonder my stress level is just increasing. - No. - You know, and not just like the stress that most of us think of as like the world and all the bills and all the different things we have, but I could feel the stress internally, the muscular stress, right? And I was like, like, my body is not the same. But then once I started breathing more intentionally, I was like, okay, I can come back to a grounded center. It may not be the same because it's a different aspect and the other way of doing it. But that's basically what people are missing, right? Is that like, they're so stressed with so many other things. They don't take that moment to say let me breathe and let my body come back to a center gravity, like neutral point and energy wise. - For sure. Well, there's several things here I wanna touch on. One being, you know, there's many different ways to cope with reality and life. One is running, right? One is endorphins. We all wanna get high, whether it's on our own supply or outside of it. So whether it's alcohol, cannabis, running, breath work doesn't matter, but there are healthy and there are not healthy ways to enjoy our life, right? To cope. Breath work is a fantastic one and it's a fantastic replacement if you can't exercise, right? So having breath work techniques that you can drop into if you can't exercise in your runner and you're used to a solid drip of endorphins just throughout the entire day and you take that away, you're gonna feel it. I mean, pretty radically, it can lead you to pretty insane amounts of depression and anxiety. Your body's like, where are the drugs at, right? So like having a heroin addict and then taking away their heroin, it's gonna cause some issues. And with that being said, there are also some really fantastic, there's a fantastic breath work practice that came to my mind whenever you were explaining that you had an injury. It's really, really good for one feeling good, adrenaline. It helps with it releases adrenaline. It releases serotonin or it increases serotonin and it will increase the amount of endorphins due to the adrenaline. And it's also fantastic for inflammation. So if you have any injuries, it's a really, really good practice. It's called dynamic breath work. Similar to Wim Hof breathing, which I'm sure you've probably dabbled in before. It's a morning practice, really easy to do. It takes 20 minutes to do four rounds and it's game changing, it's life changing. And so that's something that I would definitely recommend to you and all the listeners and something that I can share. A simple, easy link you can just plug and play. - Nice. - Yeah. - No, and that's one of the things that I think people don't understand because it's breath work has, and just how you breathe has so much to do with how your body copes with different things are going on, inflammation, stress. I think we all know that in the moment of like a high stress situation, right? We've all seen it just breathe, just breathe, right? Or, you know, the athlete on the sports field that has an injury or something and everybody's like, back up, let him get some air, right? Like we all know it's important, but in the moment that it's not that intense acute issue, we forget throughout just our normal day, we still need to practice this on a daily basis. - Yeah, it has to become habitual. Like, you know, return to the moment that you first started running and you first fell in love with it, right? The moment that it probably didn't come from your first run. - Right. - Yeah, probably came from training for a race or preparing to do something that was difficult. And the feeling when you ran that full marathon or half marathon that endorphins, you're like, oh, this is a fantastic feeling and I wanna return to this, right? And then it's, you know, doing it consistently every day, every other day. And that's the same with breath work. It's the same with any intentional practice. And we can call, you know, breath work a sport because it's a, you're working, right? You're working out and working in when you do breath work, it's the name. And it is very important to be intentional about having a breathing practice. It's, I think it's fundamental no matter who you are, whether you're an athlete, a scholar, a professor, an entrepreneur, a high performer, you're going to put yourself in stressful situations at any moments in any day. And if you're chronically stressed and not able to intentionally regulate your stress levels, then essentially what happens is all the blood is relaxing or is going to the extremities because you're in what's called fight or flight. So you're prepared to defend yourself or flee. And what happens is your immune system becomes compromised. So your entire system becomes compromised because the life force energy is going from the gut where most of the blood is and where the immune system lies and it's going into your extremities. So this is why when people are chronically stressed, they become chronically sick. And so having a, at the bare minimum, a relaxing breath work practice that you can access and through the nose, deep into the belly chest and head and sigh it out five times and your nervous system will become regulated. Almost very reliably or almost every time it would be very reliable. And just having that, just knowing how to access that is life changing. And a lot of people don't, a lot of people don't. And to add fuel to the fire, they throw in organic coffee on top of it, 300 milligrams of caffeine and some pesticides to light the fire of anxiety and stress and relationships within their home and their career that are detrimental and they don't have boundaries and there's chronic, you know, keeping the peace. And so we really, it's not even a thing that we need. It should be a requirement. And you look at, you know, schools and the education system that we have today, it doesn't teach you that. Nine times out of 10, you're not going to be taught that in school. You're not going to taught how to be a good man. You're not going to be taught how to be a loving woman. You're not going to be taught how to regulate your nervous system. So it's really up to us to discover these practices and find teachers that are going to teach you how to do this work, right? And which, you know, now we live in a beautiful time where podcasts and education platforms online and you can learn anything and everything in this new way, which you're facilitating and stewarding, which is so amazing. And so we have this blessing. And so there's really no excuse. There's no reason why everyone shouldn't have a regular practice that they can at least go to. Hopefully you do it every day in the morning and at night. But if you don't have something you can go to, then you haven't looked enough. And it's very easy to access. And of course, I have dozens and dozens of tracks online that are completely free as do thousands of others. And so it is essential. I find that it's a non-negotiable in everyone's life and having something to regulate the nervous system quickly. 'Cause we live in a stressful world. And I think breath work is the best way to do that. - Yeah. Well, and you mentioned teaching at school and one of the things that I've, I don't know why it's one of the small little things you learn that you just never forget, right? And it's just a random thing. But I was inquire for all four years of high school. And I don't remember what point of high school that he said this, but I remember a choir teacher, our director was talking about breathing and teaching us, so, okay, this is how you breathe through the song, so you can hold the notes and do all the done, and all that. And I remember him saying, 'cause we all sort of made fun of him at the moment, it like you're never breathing 100% properly except for when you're asleep. Because the way your diaphragm works and your stress and you're forcing something about the problem, whether you're posture or whatever, but once you're laying down, you're letting your body completely and your body goes back to like, okay, now I can control things. - Yeah. Interestingly enough, even then, you might have to tape your mouth shut. - Right, well, and that's something that I've started doing. I didn't, I actually had, I got lucky to wear. I didn't have to tape my mouth shut, but I would just force myself. And now I sleep with completely nasal breathing. - Yeah. - My mouth shut's the whole time. - Changes everything. - I run for the past three years. I've been able to run nasal breathing unless I'm at an extreme pace. - Or high altitude. - Right. - Mm-hmm. - And I'm able to do that. And it's like, it completely changes, it takes it to another level of like, - Absolutely. - On the rest side, my rest is so much more, it's deeper, it's so much more relaxing. And I wake up more recovered. And people see this around me. Like, you know, I'm going to PT now for my injury and my therapist last week was like, dude, I got a question for you. You know, he's like, okay, this isn't happy you can do with this. I just want to ask you a question. Like, what's that? Because you're almost 50. How do you have so much energy to do what you do? I was like, oh, I was like, well, I mean, I treat myself well as far as nutrition. I do what I said. I sleep well and I breathe well. Like, those are two basic things that don't cost us anything. - Nope. - We just have to learn how to do it. - Fascinating, right? - Yeah, and it changes your life. - Absolutely. And I think that there's two ways of living at this point on the earth. There's the old way in the new way. And people who are stuck in the old way, God bless them 'cause it's just, it's horrific, you know? It's like, if you believe in heaven and hell, I believe that heaven and hell can be accessed here on earth. You know, we've all been in those moments where we feel like we're in hell and we've all been in the moments where we feel like we're in heaven. And we can intentionally cultivate these moments of heaven through healthy practices, breathing, nutrition, sleep. You know, not poisoning our bodies. Feeling good in your body every day should be our, is our birthright. And I'd say probably 5% of people actually feel good in their body every day and the rest of people suffer, you know? But that suffering is cultivated as well, right? The suffering's cultivated. So you guys don't have to suffer. If you're out there suffering from lack of, you know, feeling like crap, then it's time to make changes, right? And I know that this is a big message of yours, of course, but those changes can be made today and then changes, you know, behavior becomes a habit and that habit becomes a lifestyle and that lifestyle is what really allows for you to anchor into a new way of being a new life that's unimaginable. If you can't feel good in your body every day and then you do, it's absolutely unfathomable for the person who doesn't. So it's in breathwork is an integral piece to the nutrition, to the sleep, to the healthy diet, to healthy habits in general. And I feel that the breathwork is kind of a cherry on top because it is an intimate practice in which you can practice anywhere and it allows for you to access the many dimensions that you want to access with breathwork, whether it's you need to relax before bed, you need to optimize and get pep in your step in the morning, you need to release trauma and reset your nervous system and release energy. If you have a cry that's been in there for five years and it's stuck there, it's controlling your life, man. It's controlling your life. And you have to make a conscious decision to purge that energy and so breathwork can help with that as well, which is just mind blowing. - Yeah, and one of the things that you touched on there is there's so many people that are feeling bad on a continual basis. And it's not just like, oh, I felt bad in this moment today, but they're just like in this chronic state of feeling bad and they don't know what good feels like anymore, right? And in starting breathwork opens up a lot of those doors. It opens up the trauma door, it opens up because at least from what I've experienced a little bit is that when you really start to go, okay, I'm going to center myself on breathing and understanding and start to let all these other things go, not necessarily in a meditative state, but just in a focus, I just want to focus on my breathing to feel my body, to feel better, you start to feel all these things creep up and you're like, oh, I got to deal with that. Oh, I got to deal with that, right? And so like, I mean, is that pretty common or was that just me? - Definitely, no, it's, it's, especially if you're practicing a technique that's designed to release trauma, right? That's designed to reset the nervous system. Problem is, the same problem that we encounter with the plant medicine is that when people started having these memories with unresolved emotions surfaced to the top so that that energy, that emotion, energy and motion can be released from the being. Nobody knew how to take care of it. Nobody knew how to handle it. Nobody knew how to, you know, because energy moves in an arc, right? It becomes, if you have something that's stored in the body, it's controlling your life unconsciously. And whenever we do breath work or plant medicine, whatever it is, as it comes up to the top to be released, it comes up here and it's very present. It's very in your face. It's very hard, right? It's very emotional, it's very intense. And that intensity and that discomfort, people avoid that like the plague and so they push it back down. And so if you pull it up and you push it down, I was just working with a client yesterday who had this experience, then it just knocks at the door and it knocks at the door. And they can't be, they can't have empathy for their children, their partners, they can't go to work because that energy is knocking, knocking, knocking, knocking. And so allowing it to come all the way up and be there with the feelings and the sensations, the pain, the suffering that you experience and feel it and cry and yell and shake and do whatever somatic experiences needed to allow that energy to be released. And you will feel like, oh my God, I can't believe that was still there. And I feel so light. I feel like I have a new body. And so that sonic neural breath work is the practice that we teach and it does exactly that. It combines music and it combines somatic expression and some coaching and some body work to release those energies and remove them from the body because we're all carrying them. We're all, we all have trauma. We all have trauma, different degrees of trauma, whether it's physical and mental, mental, emotional. And we all need to do some deep healing when it comes to our traumatic wounds. And I think that this is just a huge characteristic of, again, the new world that we're inhabiting. People throw around the term new earth, but it truly genuinely is. Like we are a new species at this point. That's exceptionally more enlightened than our previous generation, so in generations. So breath work is phenomenal for releasing trauma and feelings coming up and being very present is a natural process, a natural part of the process of freeing yourself from the trauma, the energy of the trauma in the body. - Right, yeah. And it's something that's so necessary for all of us to go through, right? Even if we don't think we need to go through it. Like you said, there's only like 5% of people that can understand what good feels like. And I would bet the majority of that 5% knows that because they went through something that cleans them out of feeling bad, right? It wasn't just like, you know, they were born and they were good kids and everything was great and their life was perfect and they never had trauma. And so they'd never experienced anything. Like we've all been there. It's a matter of, do you have the tools to handle and not just in the moment, but then handle what happens afterwards? You know, and one of the things you mentioned too was that sometimes we have to have that shaking moment to reset the nervous system and immediately what popped to my head was, you know, the lion and the gazelle on the, you know, Serengeti and the gazelle running for its life, the lion finally will give up and then the gazelle, if you watch, they'll just have the shake moment and then they go back to eat and dress. - They'll regulate. - Like nothing ever happened, you know? - Because they're constantly regulating, right? - Right. - Yeah, and the problem is we have, you know, our perception of the world around us, the traffic horns, the cellphone buzz, the boss yelling, the barista making an express. So they're all indicative of threats to our safety, right? So we are also being, we're the gazelle, right? We're being chased by the lion all the time. Our mind cannot perceive the difference between the two and we're learning to perceive the difference between the two as we evolve, but it hasn't been that long since we've had modern society. - Right. - That's very busy and chaotic and computers and to-do lists and calendars and it's just a lot. And so the gazelle knows how to regulate through millions of years of evolution and we're not regulating, right? So what do you have? You have chronic dis-ease, dis-ease. If you break the word apart, you have dis-ease. We're not easeful and graceful. So the breathwork piece and this is why I'm all in on it is because the breathwork allows you to come back into ease and regulation just like the gazelle does and moments, moments. You don't have to go to a yoga class. You don't have to go drink ayahuasca. You don't have to go do anything but connect with your breath. And beautifully, there's millions of guided experiences that can help you do it immediately. - Right. And it's something that, like you said, we're in the society now where it's, we don't have that moment where we just go sit on the porch at the end of the day because there's no TV, there's no cell phones, there's no Wi-Fi, there's no nothing like, so what do you do? Well, you go sit on the porch and watch the sun go down. And in that moment, like you might think like, oh, they're two old gazers that are bored, just rocking in the rocking chairs. But the other thing they're doing is they're regulating, they're breathing. And I have to imagine that that had a lot to do with handling stress levels for those generations in the past where now we don't take that intentional time, even if it's not focused on like, okay, I'm gonna intentionally go focus on breathing. We don't take that intentional time to just relax and be away, which naturally then causes the breathing to at least regulate and slow down. - Yeah. And another big part of that is the sunlight, right? Watching the sunset and getting that type of light releases melatonin and the blood stream. And your body's like, ah, you know, go camping, right? You go camping and you might stay up till 11, 12, you know, if you're in your house, but you go camping. As soon as the sun goes down, notice what happens, right? You're instantly ready to go to bed. It's fascinating. And but what we have are we have these screens that emit blue light and our body cannot tell the difference between the light from the cell phone and the blue and the light from the sun. And so it does the exact opposite. Whenever we look at our phone, we're sitting up in bed and we take a look at our phone. It releases cortisol into the blood stream, right? And so and we're, boom, we're getting up, right? The body thinks it needs to get up. So there's so many different factors that tie into all of this. Breathwork being one, exercise, your jam being another, lights, right, diet, nutrition. There's so many things that go into this. And for people who are ready to make a transformation for themselves, it's about really finding a coach that can guide you and lead you in the right direction in receiving mentorship. Like it's the easiest way to do it in my personal opinion. I've done, that's how I've gotten where I am. And that's what I recommend to others is, hey, if you're ready to feel good, like get a coach, you know, get a coach and go to the next level and do it for real and make it a habit and make it a lifestyle, 'cause you can sit here and lolligag for years and go nowhere, unfortunately. A lot of people do that. - And it's so much more about just getting oxygen in, right? Oxygen obviously is important to our body. It's important to ourselves, it's important to, right? If we don't have it, we're gonna die. And, but there's like, 'cause you mentioned so many times about the different endorphins and neurotransmitters and different things that are reactive to how we get the oxygen in, right? And that's more of the key. It's not just go breathe, but it's doing it with that intentionality so that you can drive the correct responses internally. - Essentially, yes. And that's why we have the three pillars. We have relaxing techniques, speak for themselves, activating techniques. You know, if I get up in the morning and I'm tired, if I go lay down and do our relaxing breath work, I'm going back to sleep. But if I have a big meeting in an hour and I need to pump up on, you know, I'm moving my body, I'm moving my breath, I'm cultivating energy in power. Instead of just running and drinking a 200 milligrams of caffeine and hit my adrenals, I'm gonna cultivate that energy in my soul and my body and getting the cold plunge as well, which is one of my favorite modalities. Cold plunge breath work and you'll feel better than a cup of coffee could ever make anyone feel. - Right. - And then of course, freedom techniques, you know, sometimes we just need to reset, press the reset button. Like we got one on our computer, we also have one on our bodies and our minds and it's called transformational, holotropic, sonic neural, shamanic. There's many different labels to these different breath work practices that do this. But, you know, you don't have to eat at the mushrooms and go lay down and rummage around and have an experience while that's great in all, it has its place, right? You can cultivate this reset with your breath, intentionally. And the fact that that's there, I mean, it just changes the, you know, it's an ancient art form that's being brought into a modern world. - Right. - And so it changes the trajectory of our species, I think, dramatically. And the earth is suffering, the earth is dying, you know, like the oceans are emptying, the forests are burning. And so I really believe that this awareness and this new world that we're coming into, this new consciousness that everyone is experiencing is a necessary requirement that the earth is requiring in order for us to get our stuff together and be good stewards and inhabit the earth 'cause if we don't, there's not gonna be anything to inhabit, so. - Right. Well, and you mentioned consciousness and this is where I think that some people get lost because when you take the time to truly do the breathwork practice, whichever one you're doing, it's going to change your life. And but when you do that, you do get to, at least I've experienced it, and some of the other people I've talked to experience, you get to a deeper level of consciousness. And it's almost like you're using more of your brain, like in your mind to be able to go like, "Oh, that's opening up so many different things." And it's like, "Oh, I don't have to watch the news." That doesn't affect my life at all because my life is over here. And if I do these things, oh, there's so many doors that are going to open, there's so much to it. And there's so much more, I mean, to be chasing pleasure sounds cliche, but there's so much more pleasure and enjoyment in life on that side of it. - Yeah, absolutely. And it's fascinating you talk about this, I'd love to dive into this and what happens whenever we do circular diaphragmatic breathing. So circular diaphragmatic breathing is the style of breathing that we're doing when we do sonic neural breathwork, our freedom technique, and it's 90% in, 90% out, you're not stopping at the top or bottom and you're the same force in. And you do this style of breathing for technically 55 minutes, but really, really you're doing the style of breathing for roughly five to 15 minutes. And then what happens is called transient hypofrontality, which is a fancy way of saying a trance state. And so what actually happens is it feels like you're accessing more of your brain in mind, but there's actually a shortage of blood flow, there's vasoconstriction to certain parts of the brain including the prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus. And so what you have is a combination of the ego dissolving and becoming very secondary in your conscious experience, which allows for you to connect with your true self. Because the prefrontal cortex is great at having conversations and with relationships and communication and relationships and hierarchy and relationships. But other than that, it really doesn't do a whole lot. And so the, I say it doesn't do a whole lot, does many things, but there is a massive part of the rest of our brain that is doing so much that we're not consciously aware of because we're perceiving with the thinking mind. And the ego is a very big part of that thinking mind. So when that goes out of the window and it's dissolved, then it's almost like you have a 30,000 foot view of your relationships, your career, your decisions that you make, your habits, your behaviors. And if you don't give yourself this time, this break from the ego, people have no idea that they're absolute ego maniacs. They have no idea that they are just driving themselves into an abyss of karma and hard humbling moments. And it sucks because I was one of those people, right? And so my ego was dissolved. I didn't realize that, oh my God, I'm so much more than just this little thinking mind that is perceiving the third dimension here. And so having that experience will allow for you to have a much more sustainable and much more fulfilling grasp on life. Because you might think that you know everything, right? And you can be called an ego maniac because you have no idea that you even have one. But you have to let that go. You have to surrender that and you have to release that experience in order to really come into the knowing of who you actually are, right? And people have never experienced that before. But it's fascinating because it actually slows down blood flow to parts of the brain. And then once you go into the trance state or the transient hypo-frontality, your body actually begins to heal itself naturally and organically and intuitively. So you might be breathing 10 minutes and then you go into trance state and you might go and start this completely new breathing pattern, this completely new breathing practice and start moving the body in a way you've never moved it before and doing Reiki on yourself in a place that you had an injury and you've never done Reiki before. Right. So everybody is a healer. Everybody has this intuitive knowledge and wisdom within them. But you cannot access it with all of the constructive conditioning of the mind, right? So, and really I should say destructive conditioning because all the things you've been told, right? You're not worthy, you're not good enough, you need a certification, right? Thank you. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, it's all BS. And once you go to that place where it dissolves, you're like, oh, wow, it's all BS, right? And so that is a very, that is also, we call that a rite of passage, right? Because this is what they've done for many, many years. The Vedic Rishis, they drank soma, right? Which is likely a form of ayahuasca and ancient Greece, they would drink the cukion, right? Which is likely a form of LSD from a beer that they made. And it's like today we have ancient plant medicine coming into the modern world, but we also have this ability to access our breath and have the same experience and give our self a rite of passage and teach ourselves that we're not the center of the freakin universe. And that life is so much more grand and beautiful and incomprehensible than we can possibly imagine. And so I think that that introduction of that style of breathing into modern society is essential. As essential as if everybody in modern society had a plant medicine journey, right? And had the same experience, but you don't have to, you don't have to access finite resources from nature, right? In order to connect with yourself in that way. And so I think that it's just so important, man. And something that's really cool for you to touch on. - Yeah. Well, and that self-healing piece is, I mean, that's one of the biggest reasons why I do what I do is 'cause this is like, for me, the door just like the light bulb went off and it was like, oh my gosh, we can heal ourselves completely if we give ourselves the right inputs, right? The right nutrition is gonna give us the right, you know, the right, you know, and avoid the things that are truly toxic to us, right? Like don't get stuff in the way as much as you possibly can. - Yeah. And yeah, allow us things that are actually good for you, right? Don't buy it, don't listen to what, frankly, do not listen to what the power is that being, the government tells you what's good for you, right? Do your own due diligence and do your own research. That pill's not gonna fix you, man. It's not, it's a band-aid. And so if you wanna go deep in, you know, you actually wanna do surgery on yourself, you know, then, you know, emotionally and physically and spiritually and emotionally, then it takes more than just numbing and avoiding and coping and taking a pill. It goes much deeper than that, as you were just sharing. - Yep. Well, and that's the thing. I mean, with the news and the government and all that, like, there's so many ways to where they can just be, okay, we just put them over there, we deal with them and we have to deal with them. - Sure. - That's not affecting my life at all, every, right? Like, I can go through my life and I can be happy and I can be healed. And we can't, I fully believe that, like, if we treat ourselves like a temple, the temple will give us so much knowledge and so, 'cause that's where people went for, you know, they went to the temple to get knowledge, they went to the temple to get spiritual connection. And it's all inside us. - You're a temple, yeah. - Yeah, we just haven't really liked it. 'Cause we just, we've stuffed so many other things in the way that now we can't see through that. And if we, if we slow down and breathe properly, like you said, it don't like so many other things. I didn't know that it shuts off parts of the brain to be able to allow the other parts to, to open up and show us what's in there. - Yeah, well, it's, it's cool that the analogy of a temple, because if you have a temple, you ever, if you've ever been in a hoarder's house, then you see just how disgusting it is. And your temple is full of information. It's full, it looks like a hoarder's home, right? It's full of all the to-do lists, the identities, the children's toys, the, the male, like all of the things are stuffed into that temple. And you got to empty that out, man. You have to take out your trash. And if you don't, you will not be able to be with yourself and be okay. You will not be able to nurture your relationships or your career or do your, live your purpose here on this, in this earth and the freedom technique of sonic neural, like that clears out the garbage. You know, we have to take out the garbage. There is a maintenance practice that we need. And we haven't been taught this, man. The Matrix Society does not want you to know how to do these things. It really is a shame. And that's a bridge we're burning. And this new bridge is being built. And I'm very passionate about that because, you know, we, the odds are against us, frankly, and straight up, you know, the society does not want you to be healthy, well and free, right? Doesn't want you to be individually successful and a successful entrepreneur and healthy and your body and your mind doesn't want that. And so every act that you take, if you've had trouble finding motivation to be healthy and take care of yourself, every, just know every action that you take that is intentional about becoming healthier and taking action and feeling better is a direct act against darkness. Is a direct act against evil, you know? It's a holy act, right? It is a beautiful and high vibrational act of love for yourself and everybody else around you. 'Cause as you were sharing, you know, when that temple is pure, you are the temple and people come to you, right? People will come to you for your light because your temple's empty and it's Palo Santo, it's smudged and it's clean, right? And you tend to the garden you can touch as the phrase that it came to me earlier when you were talking about like, the news is over here. I'm not going to let that impact my energy, right? 'Cause you're tending to the garden you can touch and if you, it really cultivates here and from here it expands out and that's where breath work really just helps us do is take care of that temple and expand out a beautiful bright light for others to connect with. - Well, in that piece, the connecting with others, right? That's, and you sort of mentioned that you talked about this a little bit when you talk about the ego in the world, you know, the universe doesn't surround around us and it's like, and I think that's something that, I mean, a lot of us, we can relate to how that feels from when we were a teenager and we think, oh, we know everything, right? And then some people can get past that other people can't, you know? And when I got to that point where I was like, oh, wait, my world is a whole lot better when I focus on lifting everybody else up and helping them. - Yeah, like, you know, it's not about me. It's about what can I do for everybody else? And I'll never forget, I had somebody who was actually a client of mine and then very quickly found out like, okay, this isn't gonna work. You're not ready yet. You're not prepared for what we're going to do. And, you know, a couple of months after that, relationship stopped as far as a client relationship, I saw her post something and she was like, replying to somebody else and she was like, I would never give any of my stuff away from free. It's my business, you're gonna pay for it. I don't know. And I was like, I can't, like 99% of my stuff away. - Of course. - Like, I want you to have it. Like, I want you to see it and be able to try and implement it and if you can't, then you can come to me and pay for my services and I can help you get over the top, right? And that's, I'm guessing that's similar to the way you are 'cause you've said you've got a ton of stuff online, but it's like, okay, when you get to that wall that says, okay, I can't get past this for whatever reason, I need a coach to help me get there. - Sure. - Right? Like, that's when they come to me, that's when they come to you to say, how do I get to the next level? - Yeah. Well, it's, you know, this is a deep dive for me 'cause I teach people how to be conscious entrepreneurs and a huge part of this is, you have to provide radical amounts of free value to a specific person that you are qualified to help in order for your voice to be heard at all. - Yeah. - There's too much noise out there. You're in an ocean of value providing people. - Right. - And so you, you know, I started putting meditations and breathwork flows on Insight Timer four or five years ago. And with no intention of it ever being returned, right? And, you know, I've had dozens of clients come from Insight Timer that have said, this is amazing. I love this, I want to do this with my life. And so it's less for me now about being a breathwork coach as to being, oh, you're ready to share this with the world. - Right. - Let me show you how to do it in a way that's sustainable and impactful. And yeah, I think that, you know, as Hermosey says, give the knowledge away for free and then people will pay for the implementation. - Right. - Yeah. - And that's, you know, and it's, there's so much stuff out there. - Yeah. - Right? Like, and some of it is garbage. - Right, it's true. - It's in the health space. - Sure. - You know, and so as a consumer out there, you have to, you have to do your due diligence and understanding of, and, but then there's that other piece and you sort of touched on this earlier when you're talking about the different modalities. Like, one's going to hit with you a little bit more than another. - Yeah. - And that's okay, right? They all need to be used, but one's going to be maybe, you know, all I'm going to do this one 60% of the time and the other ones might get 10 or 20% of my time. - Yep. - That's okay because it's, it can be individualistic. It doesn't have to be a very strict, oh, if you're not doing this much breathwork, every day, it's not going to work, right? - Correct. Yeah. It's, you just need something. - Yeah. - At the end of the day, you, you just have to get started somewhere. - Right. - And need, you need to do something daily. And you'll notice, once you start feeling good in your body and you don't do the things that you do daily, you'll notice. - Yeah. - And that's when it becomes a lifestyle and that's whenever you are able to easily course correct. - Right. - Because if you take care of yourself for 90 days straight and you feel fricking awesome and then you go out and get drunk and eat a bunch of pizza and cookies and don't do breathwork the next day and don't hydrate, don't get good rest, you're gonna, you're gonna realize real quickly how different you felt before, before when you were unwell compared to when you were well. And then you get unwell again. It's like, oh man, I gotta get back to that, feeling good. - Yeah. Well, and it's funny because it's, it's a similarity or trying to, you know, look at the analysis of it of like when somebody says like, oh, but nobody's doing those things. It's, it's so different. You know, I'm gonna be looked at differently. Like, are you sure it's gonna work? All this kind of stuff? - Sure. - And I don't know if you know who Dave Ramsey is, the financial guru. - Yeah. - But I know one of the things that he, I've heard him say many, many times it's like, look, I get it going out of debt in this, in this society is different, right? But try it. If you don't like it, you can always go get another credit card and you go get another loan, you can go get all these things back. - Yeah. - But try it for a little bit. If it doesn't work, okay. Go back to it. - Exactly. - He knows when it comes to financial world, like if you go that side and you lived debt free, oh, you're, you're not gonna go back unless something drastic happens to your life and pushes you back into it, you know, like losing job or major medical bills or something like that. But, and I think it's the same way when it comes to health practices. If you truly say, I'm gonna try this and see if it works very rarely, are you gonna get to a situation where like, oh, that, that, that's horse hockey. That didn't work. It's like, it's like, you know, you're gonna be like, oh, that did change my life. - You're gonna feel good and that feeling good is gonna be that positive confirmation that you need every single day to feel good over and over again. - Right. And that's what we're looking for. - Yes, sir. Definitely. - So Ben, so how can people that resonate with this? How can they connect with you, find you online? Where do we want to send them? - So my Instagram is @connectandevolve. C-O-N-N-E-C-T-A-N-D, Evolve, E-V-O-L-V-E. All one word. And great place to connect with me. Have a ton of stuff there. And then if anybody wants to send me a message there, we're very responsive from that platform. And then AwakenedBreath.org, Awakened, not Awakened, but AwakenedBreath.org. And that's where you can find more information about our facilitator trainings and our breathwork retreats that we host multiple times per year. And then for all the brothers out there who are looking to be initiated and to help the positive masculinity, you can find more information about our men's retreats and our men's coaching and what we do with men and bring them through that rite of passage in a really powerful way. From my Instagram as well, you'll see the bio. And my bio, PW Brotherhood, is our Instagram page for that. And we host about five men's retreats a year. And that's really a massive passion of mine is helping men to really become the embodied, stoic, powerful, loving, vulnerable, and just warrior that they are meant to be so that they can show up for their families and their careers and their purpose and their Dharma and be fulfilled and live a fulfilling life. And we all deserve that. And when the men show up and do it, it provides a lot of space for the ladies to do it as well. - Right. - Because being a healthy man, a big part of that is learning how to be a healthy partner and create a healthy spaces for the feminine in your life. So that's it, Awakenbreath.org. Connect and evolve on Instagram and that's linked to everything. - Awesome. And I say like, you know, we talked a lot about breath work and that's what I wanted us to be about. But I truly do applaud you and I truly appreciate you diving in to help men. - Thanks. - 'Cause that's something that I've done a little bit through our church, through church retreats and speaking and like it's a huge passion. And I don't think that there's enough guys stepping up to the plate to help 'cause most of the guys I know are screaming for help. I don't know how to do this. I don't know what's the next step. My family's falling apart, my job's falling apart 'cause I just don't know how to handle all this stuff. And part of it is putting yourself as a priority. Like you said, loving yourself, getting yourself to that place where you can say, okay, for whatever reason, the life's happened to me. This is where I'm at, right? And I think you would agree with this as like, no matter where you are, in whatever modality you wanna start at, the first thing you've gotta go is say, okay, this is reality. I have to accept what reality is. For whatever reason, this is it. How do I get the next step? - Yeah, I think it's a big thing is taking responsibility for where you are, right? And not putting the blame on anybody else. Because you are, no matter what happens, and if you wanna become an entrepreneur and be successful and live a life of freedom, you're gonna have to take responsibility for a lot more things than you're ever going to want to. And everybody's issues, everything around you is your responsibility. And you're in that situation because of you. And you can sit there and talk about it and complain about it, or you can buck up and take action and ground yourself and regulate your nervous system and face the conflict and create the progress instead of keep the peace and go to the next level. And it's hard, man, it's really hard. You need brotherhood, you need community, you need coaching. If you wanna live a life of greatness, there's things that you have to do that are super uncomfortable. And that's just is what it is. But the beauty of it and the love and the beauty on the other side is 1,000 fold. The return on investment. - Well, again, I wanna applaud you for what you're doing 'cause it's like the passion is there. I can see it, I can hear it. And keep doing what you're doing because we need people like you out there helping all the rest of us. - Thank you, brother. Likewise, man, keep doing what you're doing as well, spreading the good word. - Well, dude, thanks, Ben. - Thank you, brother. - Thanks for checking out the Confidence Through Health podcast. Please subscribe, post a review, share this episode with those you love who need a little extra help with their health journey. Visit AllInHealthInWellness.com to learn more about the coaching programs that I provide. All episodes are produced by the Social Media Cowboys, your source for all online marketing needs. Go to socialmedicowboys.com for more information. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)
Ben Holt is on a mission to help us achieve our purpose through healing ourselves, expanding our potential, and becoming someone who make a positive impact in the world. The way Ben's purpose has grown and expanded is both inspiring and proof that we can all achieve more if we heal ourselves and move past our ego.
