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Sophia's Healing Odyssey From Anguish to Self-Love and Mindful Living
Have you ever faced a storm of emotions so powerful it felt as if it could sweep you away? Sophia Plank, a somatic breathwork practitioner and stretch therapist, joins me, Portia Chambers, to recount her transformative journey through heartbreak and healing. Our discussion peels back the layers of grief following the loss of her brother, revealing how she navigated the subsequent spiral of partying and substance use, and the wakeup call that steered her towards a path of self-discovery and self-improvement.
Together, we wade through the complexities of emotional healing and the sometimes surprising connection between our feelings and physical health. Sophia takes us through the labyrinth of anger and sadness, challenging societal expectations about emotional expression, and the personal enlightenment that comes from feedback which may at first seem jarring. We also delve into the beauty of self-love and healing, looking at the courageous steps needed to break free from toxic cycles and the humbling yet uplifting process of learning to receive love.
Ending on a note of simplicity and mindfulness, we stress the importance of cultivating a practice of presence, with gratitude as the cornerstone. Our conversation intends to leave you equipped with practical, everyday strategies for incorporating mindfulness and self-compassion into your routine, serving as an uplifting reminder that every breath is a lesson in the art of living fully and gratefully. Join us for this heartfelt exploration into the power of breath-work and the transformative potential it holds for anyone on a journey towards healing and personal growth.
Connect with Sophia @sophiamariaplank
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Join me, Portia Chambers, as I sit down with women just like you, sharing moments in their lives that shape them into who they are today Stories of motherhood, betrayal, transformation, love and loss, Vulnerable conversations, deep connection and collective healing. Welcome to the this Is we podcast. I am so excited to have our next guest here with us. Sophia Plank is a somatic breathwork practitioner and stretch therapist working within the healing space. She brings wisdom, love, truth into everything she does to help rise, raise the vibration of the collective. Welcome, Sophia, I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:Hello, thank you. What a beautiful introduction. I'm so excited you're here. Hello, thank you, what a beautiful introduction. I'm so excited to be here.
Speaker 1:Yes, all right. So let's just dive right into it and let's go back in time a little bit to. You know your story of grief. I don't want to give too much away. I'll let you do that. But yeah, take us back to that moment in time.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, yes, I think grief is really the catalyst that got me here. I never really thought it would get me to where I am, but I feel like that's really where the story sort of begins. So about 10 years ago, I lost my brother very suddenly. He was in a cliff diving accident. He got hit on the head while he was in the water and he was lodged under a rock about 20 meters deep and they couldn't find him until the next day. So it was a really intense experience to move through, especially being so young and for this to happen so suddenly. He was only 31 and I was 23 at the time and I was already in my kind of reckless days of socializing and having fun, as you are when you're 23. Lots of partying, drinking, the occasional recreational drugs, of course, as we do at that time. And, yeah, after that happened, I spent the next two months still being at home and I had already booked this around the world ticket and I had decided I was still going to go travel for about a year. So a year ended up turning into two years and throughout that time I really spiraled a lot quite heavily. I had absolutely no idea how to move through grief, how to deal with trauma. I think the two months after everything had happened, when I was still at home, there was still so much shock. You're just moving through the motions of day-to-day life just trying to kind of get by, and so there was never a point for me to just sit and actually be with myself and understand what was happening. I was almost just like running away. And that's when the drug, sex and rock and roll went to like a whole other level, because I felt like I didn't really have the responsibilities of being at home. I didn't have my family members to grieve with all of these things. It was really kind of out of sight, out of mind, and so I just kept kind of pushing everything down and I kept numbing every part of me for a very long time. So that went on for a couple of years. After two years I finally came back home to Canada and one of my very close friends committed suicide while I was back home and that kind of really threw me for another loop, but again kind of put me back into that spiral and eventually I started traveling again for another year and then towards the end of that this was 2017, I believe my boyfriend at the time.
Speaker 2:I remember it was like this beautiful moment. I look at it as a beautiful moment now, maybe not at the time, but he was like why are you so angry all the time? And I was like what do you mean? He's like you have a chip on your shoulder. Like every morning you wake up you're just angry and I have no idea why. And it just seems to be this consistent pattern with you, like what's going on? He's like you have this beautiful life, you live in Australia, you have two jobs. Like it looks from the outside like you're having this incredible time here, but you know, getting to know you and live with you. I'm just really recognizing this and I don't think I reacted so gracefully then as I probably would now. But thinking back, it was a beautiful moment because he was, he was right, he called me out and I honestly didn't recognize it until that point.
Speaker 2:And so I started thinking, okay, something isn't right here and I'm obviously not happy. So where do we start? And I was working at a gym. I started speaking to some of the ladies that came in there consistently and one of them said why don't you try following Tony Robbins and just look at some of his work and start diving into it. I thought, okay, why not? So I watched a few of his videos and then he just so happened to be coming to Australia a couple of months later for Date with Destiny, which is his biggest event. It's seven days.
Speaker 2:I'm an extreme extremist. I do everything like on both ends of the spectrum I always have and so I thought you know what I? I'm gonna dive into this like feet first and like let's just see what happens. So I did, and I had a pretty like rude awakening to myself because I'd never faced myself to such intensity before. I'd never entered the realm of the father wound and the mother wound and relationships and all these different things that started coming up. So it was a beautiful experience. After that week, I felt incredible.
Speaker 2:However, I kept traveling and then I sort of stopped doing the work. I didn't realize that you had to continue the work. I was still so fresh into this industry, if you will, or this experience, and so eventually I came back home to Canada. I still continued partying a little bit here and there. I felt a little bit better and I started getting into a few more courses. Some inner child healing came up.
Speaker 2:I did some habit mastery once I finally decided I didn't really want to be doing drugs all the time. I needed to pick one end of the spectrum. I've always been into fitness and health and I was always working out every day, but I was also drinking and doing drugs on the weekend and I thought you know what? I'm just teeter-tottering on both ends. No one's going to take me seriously in any industry, so I need to pick. And so I thought, okay, I'm going to stop doing drugs. I'm really not enjoying all the anxiety that's coming with it and and I could notice a lot of this like grief was coming up. I could notice a lot of just more anger and emotions were coming up and I still wasn't exactly sure how to process them completely. But I did know that drugs was making it worse. So I thought, okay, let me get this out of my life and then continue to move forward. So that's what I did, and things got a lot better after that course.
Speaker 2:And then one day I just felt like there was still something stuck inside of me. I just kind of got a little fed up because I thought I'm doing all this meditating, I'm journaling, I'm in mentorship programs. I'm, you know, exercising every single day. I'm doing all these things. I don't do drugs anymore, I don't drink as much anymore, like how come there's something that's still stuck? And like why can't I move this? So I started to get curious and a girlfriend of mine said why don't you go to this breathwork class? And I was like okay, never heard of breathwork. But our friend that's teaching it was in a pretty traumatic car accident and she seems to be loving life right now. So I'm like I guess you know what, if she's like drinking this happy juice, then maybe I should try it too.
Speaker 2:So I went to a breathwork session and it just cracked me open.
Speaker 2:It completely blew my mind because it allowed me to be with myself and to feel everything that was coming up and be within a safe space where someone was holding space and allowing me to move through that with no judgment, but just pure love and tenderness and compassion.
Speaker 2:And then I started to realize, okay, it's grief.
Speaker 2:It's this big, massive ball of pain, of grief that's just sitting here that I haven't allowed myself to move through. I was moving all these other things within myself and I was still creating more abundance in my mindset and in all these other spaces, but I feel like at that grieving soul kind of spiritual level of becoming and growing into yourself. I think that was really holding me back in such a profound area in my life that I wasn't allowing myself to tap into and so being able to break into that and open that space up and then just allow myself to move through that, again also with compassion. I think I live a lot in my masculine energy, like heavily in my masculine energy. I'm very much a doer and very competitive, and so allowing myself to just be within my feminine and in my body and drop into that space, it just created something so different within myself, so beautiful, tapping into areas that I'd never really allowed myself to, and so, yeah, that's kind of how I ended up getting here, slowly but surely.
Speaker 1:Well, that is a story for sure. Oh my gosh, I have so many notes, so many questions. What do you want to know? So I want to kind of talk a little bit about the anger, because I feel like sometimes that is an emotion that I know. When I was grieving, anger was not something that I associated with grief. I felt like it was its own emotion, said like having this rude awakening where it was just like. It was just like one day where I was like why am I so mad? Like how did I get myself here? And so I kind of want to talk about what that anger looked like within your body and like within your everyday.
Speaker 2:First off, I definitely had tons of trouble sleeping. I was just like always agitated. Little things would get to me, especially at night, when I would stop doing my day-to-day working activities, exercising, all these things that kind of take you out of your head and into your body, or just doing things that occupy us. I noticed at night I was just really struggling to sleep, I was irritable, my mind was racing and it was always very negative. Right, I mean, insomnia is one thing and I'm sleep is still not my best friend. But I think at that point I just remember I was constantly like I was really agitated and angry at night. It showed up in my body in the morning as just being like ticked off for no reason, for no reason, and it felt like my immune system was constantly just being depleted because I was doing all these things like eating really well, exercising, still trying to take care of my body a fair bit. But I was just noticing that, I mean, on top of the sleep, my immune system was just really, really, really low. I was getting sick, probably once a month. It was really ridiculous. At one point I thought something was definitely wrong with me from an autoimmune position or something, because I was just, I was constantly depleted of energy and, yeah, my immune system was super low, so that, within my actual physical body, like it was so draining, it was so draining, and now like coming to the point where I'm at, within my actual physical body, like it was so draining, it was so draining, and now like coming to the point where I'm at, within my somatic breathwork journey. And, being a practitioner for two years and also being one of the teachers of the course, I've dived into this course so many times and I always pick up on different things every single time.
Speaker 2:But one thing that's really stood out to me, because it obviously hits home for me, is that anger is a emotion that sits on top of sadness a lot of the times. It's a beautiful emotion. Every emotion is beautiful in its own way. Right, because it's teaching us something. Right, there's something there. It is allowing us to learn something about ourselves by it just sitting within our body, and so what I've learned is that, for me personally, always living so much within my masculine, I would much rather embody anger versus sadness, and I think it can go on both ends of the spectrum, but I think a lot of people they prefer to be angry over being sad.
Speaker 2:It's easier, right, it's easier, and then we can deflect, right, we have anger and then it's. We can deflect that anger and it's a lot easier to just spiral within that emotion because it starts to release all these stress hormones and everything into our body and then all of a sudden it's just like, okay, now we spiraling and it's like one thing, one thing, one thing everything can just start to trigger us. So then for me, again in my body, I started to live in that very triggered, very stressed out state all the time, which now explains why I was always feeling like my immune system was just not there, which it wasn't right, because anger was literally just constantly putting all of these like cortisol and all of these things into my body that were causing me to feel even more anxious and angry and depleted, more than I even was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I feel like anger is like a more normalized emotion than sadness, because it's hard to be sad out in public, like let's be honest, but it's easy to be angry out in public, like if we're going to pick an emotion I would much like cause sadness. People are looking at you, like why is that person growing? You know, people get uncomfortable with that emotion and anger can be very subtle. It can feel very internal, like you're just angry at things. It can feel itchy, like you had said, like that irritation. But yeah, I think I love the point that you brought up that anger sits on top of sadness, because I feel like for myself that really that really resonated with a lot of things because I was.
Speaker 1:I'm not an angry person, Could ask anybody that I grew up with. I'm the far opposite. I'm like joy in that Disney movie with the elements or what's not. The elements is that. You know, I forget the name of it, but I am naturally just kind of a happy go lucky type of person. So when anger became apparent like present in my life, I didn't even really know how to deal with it Because it was just such a foreign emotion for me, such a foreign feeling in my body, but it easily took control, like it was very easy to kind of sink into that and be like, oh, I don't love being angry, but it is still kind of comfy here, like I kind of still enjoy this because I don't love being angry, but it is still kind of comfy here, like I kind of still enjoy this because I don't have to deal with all the other shit that's going on in my life that's making me feel all these other crazy emotions you mentioned. Okay, I kind of want to talk about the rude awakening.
Speaker 1:and because you talk about it like obviously you talk about it now is like this amazing thing, but at the time I'm sure it stung a little. I want to just talk about how that felt because I know for myself not that that's confrontation, but being told something about yourself that is not, you know, overly positive or bright, can really hurt and be like like almost offended in a way.
Speaker 2:I think that's exactly how I took it at the time, especially considering where I was at in my life. I definitely took offense to that big time. I was not really good at confronting uncomfortable conversations in the first place or taking negative or sorry, just let's say criticism or feedback. I had a pretty hard time accepting that, which I've now actually recognized that I've been struggling for probably my whole life to just to receive in general. Receive love is a big one, but just receiving. I'm very close, I'm a, I'm a big giver and I'm very closed off to receiving. So that's something that has recently kind of been a download that has come into my awareness, which is a beautiful thing now to know so we can work through it. But yes, at the time I definitely don't think I took it too well, but I did. I did take the steps to at least acknowledge what he had said and I don't know if I've properly thanked him or not, but I should probably do that either way Because it really was. That was another catalyst in that moment. But yeah, it was hard and I think it's difficult sometimes, especially when we want to give other people some sort of you know, feedback like that or criticism like that, criticism like that, it's hard, it's hard. It probably was really hard for him to even bring that to me.
Speaker 2:But I I could imagine, like I think he did it in such a beautiful way from what I remember where it was, just like he was, just like man. He's like every morning you're just waking up like this I don't like, I don't get it. You just have a chip on your shoulder like what's your problem? Like he wasn't super rude about it but he just, you know, he very much made it known and I'm sure I stormed out of that apartment and went to work super angry. But yeah, now it's, it's the way that I give and receive information. I try to come from a a very loving place and again, I'm just, I'm grateful for that. But it it was an awakening and I don't think in the moment I recognized it to be as much of an awakening as I obviously do now. Yeah for sure.
Speaker 1:Okay. So I wanted there's like other questions, but I really want to touch on the receiving of love, because I know for myself that's a huge, huge thing, like even a compliment, huge, huge thing, like even a compliment like, oh my God, portia, that event was so great and I'd be like, yeah, but instead of just being like thank you so much, I'm so happy you, you know, enjoyed yourself. That was the goal Like just leaving it at that, instead of it being like, yeah, but this didn't work, or yeah, but you know, thank you. But so I kind of want to talk about you know, you kind of still very much, I guess, in the process of it, but I just kind of how it started, or what you started to do to start receiving that love.
Speaker 2:Yes, I've. Honestly, right now, I'm heavily focused on myself. I am heavily focused on what does Sophia need in this moment and how do I connect more with myself? So, this recognizing that I'm not allowing myself to receive love I literally just listened to this beautiful podcast recently and that's where I heard that and I was. I was really like it hit me because I was like wow, I just recognize that a lot of times, when sometimes family members give me a hug, like my mom, I'm always like oh, like I don't, I don't want it and I was like interesting, now that I think about this, I'm like that has kind of been an issue for me and I think that it's been also creating this cycle of getting into relationships where I'm not necessarily receiving love, but I am receiving something from this person that I'm tying to love and thinking that this is what love is right.
Speaker 2:And I've been through many toxic relationships and now I'm really focusing on, okay, what is the pattern that I am trying to break here? And a big thing that's come up for me is that I am not recognizing my own self-worth and a big part of that is not loving myself because I'm letting myself you know everything that's happening in our existence, in our world. We're creating it. So, you know, I thought this person was really kind of playing with my heart and like toggling me back and forth. And then, when I was mirrored this relationship by someone that I really really look up to and admire, she was just like you've been doing this to yourself the whole time. This person hasn't been doing it to you because you've been allowing it. You're not using your voice, you're not allowing this to stop, you're allowing this cycle to continue. So what is it within you that's not recognizing that you deserve more? Right, that's a lack of your self-love. And I thought, wow, you're absolutely correct. It is different partners that I have been with over the years in these relationships.
Speaker 2:And then also recognizing, oh okay, you know what, like I, I was allowing so many things to happen. I was allowing so many toxic behaviors. I was allowing things that were feeding my toxic behaviors, whether it was like alcohol or drugs or whatever. I was like attracting and keeping those things in my life because they were reinforcing that lack of love that I had for myself. Wow, and so, yeah, it was a big pill to swallow there again, but you think you get to some place and you're really loving yourself. And then you're like, oh, okay, now I've been doing that Interesting. So, yeah, I mean the mirror, the mirror is beautiful.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's really damn hard to look at, but the mirror reflection from people, and now really recognizing that you know, every single relationship and every relation that you have with a person is just mirroring something in you. And so I'm at this point now where I'm like I just really need to learn how to be with myself and listen to myself, because I've been such a doer in my masculine energy not in my feminine flow for so long that I'm just at this point where I'm like I just I really want to understand myself and spend more time with me and listen to what does Sophia want? And a big part of what I've been recognizing in the last couple of weeks is that there are not many people that I really enjoy spending too much time around, because the conversations and the energy of what I'm feeling in that relating situation that's happening is really important to me. And the more that I'm staying very connected to myself, the more that I'm really recognizing those feelings. I think before it was like okay, you hang out with people, you have some drinks, which again starts to disconnect you from your body, right, because it numbs you. Or maybe you smoke some weed or you or whatever. You're socializing and you're not really like paying attention to how this is actually making me feel.
Speaker 2:And I mean there's, I think, like socializing is super important. I think it is a part of self-care as well. Don't get me wrong. There's a time and a place. But I also think it's very important to recognize where is that socializing bringing me after? You know, to have fun and still come home and be in a good mood, that's great and just to like, you know, have a blissful time.
Speaker 2:But when there's other things that are happening and I'm just really recognizing that, my body's like oh, I don't like this or I don't want to be here, that's been like really important because it's like I think now, the more I'm starting to connect with myself, the more my body's almost like screaming at me and I'm like, okay, I can hear you, um, and just you know what right now, like taking myself out of, like I'm not interested in like dating or being with anyone because I'm so focused on myself and I know that you know I'm not allowing my energy to move through. I'm going to turn to the chakra systems for a second. But I'm not allowing my energy to actually raise to the vibration of my heart, because it always starts in your root and it starts to move up, and I am so blocked in my root and my sacral chakra that I'm not even allowing that energy to start moving up into a place where I have all this love. And so right now, it's really important for me to feel like what does Sophia need to continue to raise her vibration so that I can, number one, get that love to myself? And then, once you have all this love within you for yourself?
Speaker 2:I think a beautiful relationship is this dance between two people where neither one is taking anything from the other. They are whole, complete beings that, yes, are working on themselves, but they are complete and whole within themselves. They're not looking to put garbage on anybody else or take energy from anybody else's chakra system or just from them or what they are as a person. They are just whole and complete. And then they come together into this beautiful dance of just overflowing love, and that is the place where I want to be. So, until I can get into that space within myself, I'm just kind of staying retreated and a little more of like a hermit and just honestly listening to, like what do I need? And then I can move forward and give more to other people.
Speaker 1:I really love that and I love the you know putting, you know pressing pause on, you know the relationships in your life, or you know having a partner or whatever, and then really focusing on yourself, cause I feel like that's so much of the theme right now. Everywhere I look, and especially in women, and I and I love it, because I love it, because I wish I had that a little bit I was tossed into life, you know, having my daughter so young, getting married so young. I was tossed into life. I didn't have the pleasure of sitting down with myself, to be alone with myself. I am now, because my daughter is older and she's less dependent on me, and I honestly cannot wait. Like a year and a half. She will be out of my house Well, maybe, but she'll be off doing something else and I, once high school's over, I wash my hands clean. I'm your mother, but I'm not you're. Like a girlfriend said, the role changes from when you're a mother.
Speaker 1:When your children leave is you, you're a mother, and then you become the consultant when they're older so you know you're not so motherly and you need to wrap them and keep them safe and make sure nothing in the outside world is harming their beautiful souls, their innocence. But once they're kind of 18, it's kind of like, okay, go mess up, go experience life. I'm here to support you and love you, but we're going to cut the cord and you're going to leave and you're going to sit with some of the things that you've done good and bad and learn from those experiences. And so maybe that's just me, because that's what happened to me. I was just tossed in, but I love that. You're really, you know, focusing on yourself.
Speaker 1:So I would love to talk a little bit about the inner child. I think. I think that's huge and I feel like there's so much information out there, but it almost needs to be simpler. Where it's like diving into your inner child doesn't have to be as complicated as a full body meditation, or it could be as simple as something that I do that's so funny that I do every time I'm walking. Or if I walk by a fence, is I run my hands along it because that's what I used to do as a kid, right? Or if there's rocks, I'm like I'm gonna climb on a rock, because when was the last time I climbed on a rock or walked along, um, like the border of the sidewalk, you know, as you're teetering, tottering and like am I gonna fall? And so like those are such subtle things that you can do to kind of awaken your inner child and bring yourself back into that mindset. But I would love to know what you, you know, started doing for yourself to kind of awaken that part of yourself.
Speaker 2:Right, right, I remember I did this inner child healing course and that was the first time that I realized that I just didn't love myself and that was a few years ago and that was like really, really hard. I just remember like breaking down in that call and it was just, it was like a punch in the face, um. But from there it was really learning that there's so much power in forgiving the younger version of you, the younger versions of you, because that's anything from like yesterday to when you were came from, being born and being brought into this world so innocent and not really knowing anything and just trying the best within the situation that we are in in our lives, right, the family that we're in, the siblings that we have, the schools we go to, we're all just like trying our best, right To do whatever it is that we need to do that makes sense to us, and so I mean a big part of that is really forgiveness. Practices have been huge for me. I went through this beautiful practice where I went through a meditation. It was like a timeline of breaking up my life thus far into six segments. So, depending on how old you are, just kind of divide your age by six and you would sit within this meditation with some music on, for about three, four minutes or so within each segment, and you would try to go back to that stint of time and remember things that had happened and things that you hadn't forgiven yourself for, and moments, or you know, things that you had done, things you may have said, situations that happened and like, what are you still holding onto in those years of your life? And it was about just recognizing what was still there, what was coming up, because I mean, how often do you go that far back and really like sit with yourself and think about that? And it was just forgiving yourself in all of those different moments. So that was a really powerful exercise for me to just start letting go of some of the things that I'd still been realizing, I was judging myself for, and then it was like wow, I was so young, like how would I have known any better at the time? Right now I have that awareness. It's completely different. Would I do that now? No, but it was just, it was beautiful, and also things that other people have done to you. I think that's a huge piece of this where it's like where is that inner child still feeling hurt Not necessarily things that you've done and feeling shame and guilt, but like where is that child really feeling hurt and can they find forgiveness in that moment or for that person that may have hurt them, because this is still something that they're really like holding on to. So that was like huge for me and I'd say now, in terms of like something that I like to do, that kind of brings me back to my inner child.
Speaker 2:My, probably my favorite thing is just painting. I love painting. Yeah, I love drawing when I was a kid. But just honestly, having paint nights, I think it is so much fun, whether it's with friends or just myself, and just kind of getting lost in that and just allowing myself to just like play. So I think that like that just brings out this creative side of me and it's just, I don't know, it's like a little kid can just, you know, play and create and do whatever and just move through that. So that's probably for me, the one thing that I that I go back to. That brings me back to that inner child the most. The second would be like arcades, things that like are nostalgic, yes, like activate, uh, anything activate and going to like dave and buster's like. Sometimes I just like I'm like I justuster's Like. Sometimes I just like I'm like I just want to go play games and just like be a kid and run around that place and like do whatever feels good. Like that to me will bring me back to my childhood.
Speaker 1:I love that you brought up painting. I think that's so. I think there's something to be said to have something outside of our jobs and outside of our relationships that is just solely for us, that bring us back to a time that we want to remember like being a kid. I think that's why I haven't put my puzzle is out. I'm waiting for the sunshine puzzling in the, you know the four months of gray is hard, um, especially when you're old and the pieces are dark. You cannot you. They all look dark.
Speaker 1:They all look the same they all are the same at this point. I got so far in my puzzle. I did all the bright pieces and then I was like I had to literally put it away for the winter and then bring it back out.
Speaker 1:But I love it. It's like just sit there and separate myself from it. For me, I think the puzzle brings me back to my daughter, because I think we did a lot of puzzles together when she was young, because it was just an activity and I love that, like I love using my brain in different ways. So I'm happy that you mentioned something that was kind of outside of you know, a meditation practice or a breathwork practice. It's something that's a little bit more tangible, that someone could just go to the dollar store, grab some paints and literally just start painting, with no purpose, no expectation, just the intention to paint. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:I love it, I love it On the note of breathwork I would love to talk about breathwork I think it is such.
Speaker 1:I think it is such I don't want to say such the rage, but it is very much. The word is out there and there's more people. It's kind of similar to cold plunging right. It's out there, some people know a little bit about it, some people don't know very much about it, and so I would love just to talk a little bit about how breathwork has helped you and maybe even just leaving everybody with. You know a very small, tangible breathwork practice that they could just do before bed or when they are feeling stressed or angry or whatever.
Speaker 2:Right, beautiful. Yes, I would love to do that. So breathwork is really this inward journey into yourself that allows you to connect with your body, because the whole goal within a breathwork session at least the style that I teach and most of the ones that I've done apart from my own is to take you out of your head and really take you into your body. Inside of our body we have all kinds of emotions which are just energy in motion, and when they're sitting there and they're stuck, it is really hard for us to move them sometimes. Yes, we can exercise and that helps us move energy around, but there's something to be said about, you know, ecstatic dance and these other practices that are really allowing us to get in touch with our emotional body. Through that Right and through breathwork, we are really getting into that emotional body. Through that right and through breathwork we are really getting into that emotional body. We are focusing on using our breath to expand into our abdomen and expand into areas of our body that seem to be a little bit untapped and maybe have pressure and tension, and that's really where the suppressed and the repressed emotions or trauma or pent up stress is kind of sitting. So breathwork allows for this beautiful experience for you to discharge, because when you're holding on to all these things, you're really just stacking all these stressors one on top of the other and at some point we're going to bottom out. And if we don't have some way of channeling that stress or harnessing all of that into something and releasing it, well then it's really, just, at some point, going to self-destruct ourselves, whether that means it's disease, that's going into an organ or you know some. Sometimes we have these like mental breakdowns, or people do these completely irrational things. They're probably completely stressed out, like they are on their last nerve. If we want to go back to that kind of saying, that's literally where it is. They are just completely at their wit's end. And so when we go into a somatic breathwork session I'll talk about that because that's what I'm the most versed in we have time at the beginning and the first half of the session to really tap into our sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight.
Speaker 2:What is stuck in there, what is sitting in there that we haven't allowed to move and, more importantly, that we haven't allowed ourselves to feel, because we we really just like to push things down and we don't like to feel them. That's why we do, you know, the drinking and the drugs and the socializing, or, you know, binge watching tv or whatever it is. There's so many ways that we can really numb ourselves, even like sex and gambling, and all of these things can just be numbing agents, right, things that are really just keeping us from feeling what our body's asking us to feel. And so we have all these emotions running through our body just wanting to come out. And so in that first half, we allow those emotions to just start moving through us, because you are in this safe space, you're in a container where everybody is there to essentially do the same thing to offload and you have somebody that's making sure you're safe and also just being there with you, holding that space, being compassionate, being empathetic and giving you permission like, hey, it's okay to feel what you're feeling, allow yourself to do that. Healing takes place in front of that empathetic witness that is there right, which is the person that's going to be guiding you.
Speaker 2:By offloading and discharging, we're creating space, which is beautiful, because the more space we have within ourselves now, we can allow in new. If we want to grow, we need grow, and if we're constantly being held down and everything's being taken up within our body from all this old garbage or old things that we're holding onto that aren't probably serving us anymore, then it's going to be really hard for us to continue to grow and move forward. And so second half I love, because it's just beautiful how it comes full circle, because now we've created space and now it's like, okay, we spent time maybe going back into the past or maybe reminiscing on the anxieties that we currently are experiencing in our day-to-day about the future. We did that in the first half. Now let's be present in this second half and let's start to reinforce what we actually want to feel, because, again, you're moving forward in time, you are creating this embodiment and this energy that you want to show up with when you leave the practice. Right, it's like we're not just going to bring you to the trenches and leave you there.
Speaker 2:And now it's like, okay, we went through the trenches, but how do we want to come out of the trenches and what do we want all of this beautiful space to be taken up with? And how do we want to show up in order for us to start attracting the things that we want into our lives? So the second half really allows us to gain a little bit of clarity. It allows us to tap into our parasympathetic nervous system, which is our rest, and recover, and that is when we get to repattern our brain and repattern our body as to like, okay, how do I want to feel, how do I want up? You know, what are the things I'm actually grateful for? Where am I not allowing love to flow to me, whether it's in my body and my life? To certain people, to certain experiences like where am I blocking that? So it really brings you into the present moment and to what's actually important to you. So you gain this clarity as to how do you wanna feel, how do you wanna show up, and so I think breathwork has just become such a big practice now, and a powerful and popular practice, because people are starting to realize, hey, I actually have access to this tool that I don't even really need to pay for.
Speaker 2:Yes, you probably have to pay for a breathwork class, but I mean, there's tons of free stuff online and you like I'll again give a practice shortly that you can do on your own and it's this free tool that allows us to almost, like, be our own therapist and we have nothing that is taking over the experience, because when we ingest something whether it's coffee or some sort of food or cocaine, anything, any substance we ingest it has an agenda within our body. But when we are just laying there and it's our breath, it's incredible because we're getting all of these messages and then we're also understanding that all those messages were just from us, to us. Absolutely nothing influenced that. So it's like you having a conversation with yourself and coming to understand certain things, and sometimes that can be a little bit confronting and sometimes it can, you know, surprise us what comes up. But it can also be really beautiful, because now we're receiving these messages and we're understanding where part of the problem is within us. That's causing some of these emotions to maybe come up that we don't want to experience all the time and others to just be hidden. I think breathwork is now just it's.
Speaker 2:People are recognizing wow, this is powerful and I can actually get somewhere with this. I know for myself I really struggle. I know you absolutely love meditation and I love how much you love meditation and I love it too. I do. But I'll be completely honest, it's really hard for me to just drop straight into a meditation. It really is.
Speaker 2:I am like fidgety, I'm thinking about a bunch of stuff. I'm like my back needs to be straight, this isn't comfortable, it's hard and so in breath. Because we're upregulating our nervous system, it actually allows us to drop into that meditation. So for me it's been so powerful because I can get into that meditative state. But again, I don't have to go through this whole process of thinking am I doing it wrong? Am I like even getting there or not? So it allows me to tap into that meditative state in just a different way. So I think for a lot of people, because we're so busy and our minds are constantly racing, if we actually up regulate the nervous system first, it allows us to kind of like deal with that monkey brain and that chitter chatter a little bit more and then like drop into ourselves and then we can drop into that meditative state yeah, I would agree.
Speaker 1:I'm actually gonna say the same thing I would like. Breathwork is for those that have like a busy mind, and meditation is one of those things that I teach people how to, not how to meditate. I teach people how to, because it's all to each their own. I feel like everybody's meditation practice is different and everybody needs a different tool, a set of tools, to accomplish their meditation practice. When the mind is really, really busy and, like you had said, like sitting there for the first five minutes and all you're thinking about is everything that came before this fucking moment and then everything that's going to happen after this moment, that came before this fucking moment, and that everything that's going to happen after this moment is not fun. You just feel like you're sitting there going through a to-do list the entire time and you're like this is such a waste and I've used breathwork numerous times to get me into a state just like in a yoga practice.
Speaker 1:I'm a yoga teacher, so in the beginning of Shavasana, the first thing that we do is tell you to connect with your breath, because your brain can't do two things at once. As much as we like to think that we can multitask, we really truly cannot. Our brain can only do one thing at a time, so if we're only focusing on our breath, the chatter immediately quiets because it can't do anything. It can't think of your to-do list and intentionally think about breathing. And so I just love everything that you said about breathwork and I love how you brought up the component that it's free, because I think people think it costs something and I'm like it's free. We do it every day, all day, without actually knowing it just naturally happens. But I remind people of that all the time, like even in teaching a yoga class like this is a tool that you could literally take with you and it costs you no extra money. The only thing it costs you is time Five minutes, 10 minutes, 20 minutes, three minutes but I think I think it's such a valuable tool.
Speaker 1:I I've worked with breathwork coaches. I've done masculine breathwork, which is not my cup of tea, because I was already too much in my masculine energy. I needed a more feminine, somatic type of breathwork and it really does push you, especially I know for myself, who is very self-aware, who knows, I know a lot of what's happening in my body, what's happening in my mind, and usually understand where it's stemming from Maybe not necessarily within that moment, but moments later. Breathwork is probably one of the most challenging things for me to do, because I'm so guarded. I don't love being vulnerable and it's funny because I am so vulnerable, but it's like a guarded vulnerability in a way, and especially in a group setting it to me. It's just very, very different, and so it's to me.
Speaker 1:It's been one of the most challenging things that I have done in my journey to self, and I love it because it's always different. It's never the same. The journey is always different. You always learn, you know something, and I feel like it's the same with a meditation practice. You always learn something at the end of it, whether it be about yourself, whether it be about something external, but it's so beautiful. So teach us a little something.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, okay. So I, I find I couldn't agree with you more and I, I, I like to say that breathwork is like the busy bodied person's form of meditation, right, and I think like, again, you just need to find your medicine and whatever works for you. And if that is what works for you, I find like sometimes breathwork because there is the confrontation piece, it can kind of be a little bit more like moving into our masculine energy just to kind of get us there, whereas I find meditation itself can be more of the feminine. But I just, yeah, I find it is. It is the way for us to just get into that connecting with ourselves, um, from an active state. So I like to say that breath work is like a active meditation, whereas yoga or something that's a lot slower would be more of like a passive meditation. So I think that's kind of like the way I like to describe it for people so that they can kind of tangibly understand it a little bit. So I have a few actual breathwork sessions that are 10 minutes long. So I will definitely send them to you and all the listeners are more than welcome to watch those. They're up on YouTube. There's one for the morning and there's one for the evening.
Speaker 2:So one super simple practice is just either setting you can have a timer, or you can have music or a song or something that allows you to remember, like where you're at time-wise, or you can simply do 30 breaths. But I like to start by doing about 30 breaths, or I'll do a song that's maybe two to three minutes long, depending on how long you want this practice to be. It can be as short as five minutes if you'd like, but taking about 30 breaths in and out through your mouth and it really allowing your diaphragm to open up and expand as much as possible because you're trying to get as much air in and down into your abdomen. That's really the goal. It's not how fast am I breathing, um, it's more of how deep can I actually move that breath within myself, and so breathing in and out through your mouth helps me to activate my sympathetic nervous system and bring me up, because Because, again, I like to drop down lower into my parasympathetic. So the simple one for me is again 30 breaths that are like again, speed doesn't really matter, just find your rhythm and stick to it.
Speaker 2:Once you've done about 30 breaths or, let's say, two minutes, whatever it is, or a song I like to use more of an upbeat song, something that's going to really raise up my nervous system. I'll do that and then I'll go into a breath hold, so I'll take a deep breath in, fill up my lungs and I'll hold at the top with my lungs full and then after about a minute or so, I'll exhale. And in that time of that breath hold, I just like to sit with myself and I just I love to feel the energy moving through my body. I think it's just so powerful because when you just sit and you're still and you realize like you can feel your the blood moving through, you can feel all these different sensations in your body and it's like wow, like that is I'm creating that, like that is life, like you can create the energy that you want inside of your body, that to me, is like so crazy. So it's just this beautiful reminder and it's also a moment for me to just recognize what's coming up for me. Is there, you know, is am I a little bit angry or ticked off? And I'm just like just you know, curious, with compassion and grace, what is coming up, you know, but again, having compassion, for, okay, this is just just an emotion, but where is it coming from? Is there a story tied to it? Yes, maybe, maybe not, I don't know, just noticing what I notice right again, just spending time being with me, allowing myself to be with me.
Speaker 2:Once I've completed that breath hold, I'll do the same thing. So I will continue to go through another round of breathing, but this time in through the nose, out through the mouth, and now I'm taking my nervous system down. So, two minutes a song, 30 breaths, whatever it is that you want to utilize to kind of gauge how much time. And again, if you need to spend more time in the first half, go for it. If you're feeling like this is feeling good and I want to ramp up and I want to discharge more sweet, you can make that. Three, four minutes. Is feeling good and I want to ramp up and I want to discharge more Sweet, you can make that three, four minutes.
Speaker 2:If you want to really get down into more of a meditative state, sure, elongate the second half. Maybe that's feeling really good. Right, it's like you. Make it your practice, like you do. Right With your meditation. It's beautiful, make it your own.
Speaker 2:And then, typically at the end, I'll exhale fully and I will just hold again, with a bottom hold, which means there's no air in my lungs, and I'll just hold there. Same thing feel my body, feel what's coming up, feel the sensations. Typically, I tried to remind myself to just love. Love is like the most powerful thing on the planet, this beautiful energy of love and gratitude. And I like to think about. You know, what am I grateful for today? And it can be something as simple, as you know, this bed that I'm sitting in right now, because it's so cozy, it allows me to rest and it allows me to, you know, wake up to another new day, whatever anything that's coming up. So that's a simple practice.
Speaker 2:If you want to go even more simple, six breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth, breaths in through your nose, out through your mouth, and if I'm really trying to down regulate, I like to elongate my exhale as long as I can right, really allow myself to come down. So if you don't have, you know, five minutes, maybe I've been caught in moments where I'm like really anxious, or I'm about to go into like, let's say, have a conversation I don't want to have, or like I'm just really in this moment of like traffic, or I'm angry with someone or something's going on in my business or whatever, and I'm feeling I'm like, ok, I'm really agitated here, maybe I need to jump on a phone call or something. And I'm like, ok, how do I center myself quickly, because I don't want to put this energy on other people and because I don't want to put this energy on other people, and I'm just like, okay, six breaths and that's it, and just breathe in, breathe out, and it really just brings me back into the moment. I'm like, okay, I'm here, I'm now, and I'm usually feeling a little bit more calm after that, which is beautiful. And I'm just like, okay, what can I control? What can I do in this moment? Let me just, you know, exhale out a little bit of this energy that I'm feeling. So, six breaths is even more simple, but if not and you have some more time, then you know, utilize the longer practice. I do 10 minutes every single morning, as soon as I turn on my light, when my alarm goes off. 10 minutes with myself, that's it. Without a doubt, I'm always doing that, and those practices again that I have created, those are 10 minutes long.
Speaker 2:So those are beautiful, just to like work through and be with yourself, and I think it's honestly so important to just whether it's at the beginning of your day or the end of your day just have time with you.
Speaker 2:Like, can you at least give back to yourself Like you are the gift, like life is a gift in itself and you are the gift to yourself in this lifetime to experience all these beautiful things that the world has to offer and experience yourself. So it's like before you just react to everything else and work and kids and people and spouses and the world, can you just be with yourself, can you just give yourself a few minutes? I like to do it at the beginning of my day, some people like to do it at the end. Actually, at this point I kind of do both, but I've created those two practices for that reason, and so the evening one actually has two rounds of taking your nervous system back down. So I'll just recommend for anybody that is listening and does need a practice, you know, take what you need from it. If you only want to bring your nervous system up for one round and then two or three to bring it back down, go for it Again. That's the beauty you can really play in this practice.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love that and I love how you said 10 minutes. Like I feel like that's so manageable. You know, sometimes when I first started my breathwork person, I think the guy wanted me to do like 30 minutes and I was like I feel like that's a lot of time.
Speaker 1:It's not really, but to dedicate 30 minutes just when you're starting out feels like a lot. When I first started my meditation practice, it was five minutes a day because I was like I can do that. This is new for me. I don't really know what this is necessarily going to look like. So I can, I can do five minutes and that that grew very quickly, Like it didn't stay five minutes for long, by the end of the week it was like 10 minutes because I was like oh.
Speaker 1:I really love this. This is really good. I enjoy this. This feels, this feels nice. It wasn't easy, but it felt nice and I always felt significantly better.
Speaker 2:I love it I love that.
Speaker 1:So my last question for you today is what is one piece of advice that you would like to leave here with everybody?
Speaker 2:I think one thing that I would love to leave everybody with is allow your breath to take you back home to yourself and into the present moment. We get really caught up in this crazy busy world, being anxious about what's coming up in the future and sometimes spending time ruminating and living in the past, and it's like life is happening in the moment. Life is the breath in your lungs right now, in this very moment, and you are not promised or guaranteed or owed another one. You're not owed another breath, but you're going to get another breath, most likely, and that breath is again life. Right, it's the first thing you do when you are born, you take your first breath, and it's the last thing you do when you die. It's the last breath of your life and every single breath in between that is life.
Speaker 2:That's what we're living in this moment, and it's so easy to live in other places, but sometimes it's so hard to just come into the breath that you're in, which is just that present moment. And how can you live in that, in the present? And, yes, of course, like, start to create what you want in the future, but allow yourself to be present and just notice all the beautiful little things in the present moment of life, like the person you're talking to. You know I'm talking to you right now and nothing else around me is taking any of my attention right now. It's like how can you be so present in the moments that you're in that whoever you're with you can leave them with something beautiful, right, leave the space that you're in a little bit better than when you got there? So, and that's just by like just being present and just being there and being grateful for that moment being there, because as soon as that breath in that moment's gone, it will no longer exist anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So use your breath. Use your breath to take you home.
Speaker 1:Yes, oh, I love that and I absolutely love this conversation. I feel like we could keep talking, but I think so too, I'll wrap it up. So thank you so much, Sophia, for being here sharing your story and everything else. I think you know, the beginning story was just the tip of the iceberg and you really just took us through this incredible journey that you have been on and kind of left with a lot of, you know, a few little tangible things that I know I'm going to be taking with me.
Speaker 2:So yes, thank you for such a beautiful conversation. It's so lovely just exploring how we get to where we get to and being so grateful for the journey and how it's exposed itself. There's so many things that happen along the way that we're like, oh my gosh, why did that happen? Or we have this guilt or the shame, or we're like, you know, we don't recognize that the world is just our biggest teacher and life is our biggest teacher just trying to guide us through. And now, when I have these beautiful conversations, it just reminds me of how grateful I am for all those moments that have brought me to this one. So, thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure connecting with you, my pleasure.
