YOU’VE BEEN HOLDING YOUR BREATH FOR DECADES: Breathwork, Nervous System & Erotic Intelligence | 16

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We live in a wold that has forgotten how to breathe. We are stuck in shallow breath and continuous fight or flight stress response. Let me take you on a journey. How you breathe is key to how you live your life. How you exhale determines how relaxed or stressed you are. We will travel to New York City, Costa Rica, into not pretty places of deep release and even deeper freedom. We explore why high-performers hit a threshold because of holding their breath, perpetuating infinite cycles on stress. I am taking you deep into my understanding of the nervous system response of shallow breath. And how breath might potentially set us all free. Right now, feel your breath. Noticing the motion, the movement of body, of bones with the exhale, the inhale. The sinking, the lifting. Your nostrils. Throat. Airways, Lungs. Back. Chest. Now, open your mouth. Exhale all the way out, fully and completely emptying out your lungs, releasing every last little sip of air. And here, the challenge begins- can you actually? Exhale all the way out? What does that ask of you? It might be a big ask. A bigger ask than you are capable, willing to commit to. Stay with me. Let me challenge you.

THE STORY

Let's begin in New York City. A journey I felt a ton of resistance embarking on in the first place. Big city. Too busy. Too expansive. But a dear Austrian friend lovingly convinced me to travel to our mutual friend's wedding. It was spectacular, no regrets. All of it, spectacular. And it lead to one of the biggest breath experiences of my life. Our hostess sent us to this yoga breath place, and we went. It was very Manhattan, trendy, spiritual. A dim lit room. Hot people on a Friday night in November, all mats in the space taken. Holotropic breathwork. Founded by Stanislav Groff, one of the guys foundational on the LSD research before that got shut down by the US government. His idea: find the LSD effects elsewhere. In your own body. Through your breath. Spoiler alert: it works. It all started with a talk on the history and technique. Live instrumental music. And breath. One of the highest highs of my life. Ready for take off?

Next stop: Costa Rica. Breathwork is a fundamental part of my training as a love, sex and relationship coach in the VITA™️ method. During our retreat last June, we breathed our hearts and souls out and then back in. We went for a deep dive into the methodology. The basis here is conscious connected breath, eliminating the pauses between breaths, connecting them, with open mouth breath (not recommended when having cardiovascular challenges or during pregnancy). This is the way I work with my clients. One of them recently had an energy orgasm, simply through breath. And for myself, this way of breathing makes me feel so alive. Back to Costa Rica. 100 women in a glorious room, to three sides only windows, overlooking the lush, vibrant jungle and the ocean, breathing, breathing, breathing. All our practices involve breath. The details are too intimate. Trust me, it was deep. Every single time is deep. One game changer for me was to be on all fours and not lying down or sitting. On all fours, I feel like I can really allow for my body to be moved by the breath, express freely, sound. It's definitly not pretty in the sense of sweet little girl.This is powerful goddess shit. It comes with roars, howls, witchy cackling, coughing up, purging and releasing whatever is stuck. There can be rage, anger, fire burning. There can be sadness, grief, waters flowing. Sometimes, I hit rock bottom, and often, underneath sadness, there is rage. Or underneath numbness, there is big sensation. Breath tickles those, frees and liberates those places where the mind has no chance to go. There can be ecstatic joy and orgasmic bliss, there can be howling laughter and tears of love. Sometimes I punch pillows, rip things apart, stomp my feet. Sometimes I curl up into a ball, wrapping my arms around me. Sometimes I throw my head back in wild laughter, shiver with orgasmic energy, hump the ground beneath me. And you know what? It gets me. Every single time. Every single time I engage in this kind of breath, and allow my body and voice to express freely, something in me is liberated. It goes far beyond the mind. The mind surely wants to resist, suppress, be safe, and at some point, myself as well as my clients usually hit a wall of wanting to quit, not believing anything is working, or similar. But this is exactly the moment when you move beyond the mind, beyond the limits of the mind, beyond any smallness and safety. It is orgasmic, infinite, profound. It's magic. No one can forbid breath. Everyone I had the pleasure of working with so far is forever changed from practicing their breathing. It improves patience, stamina, presence, confidence, power. It improves their sex life. It improves their career. It improves their entire existence. It makes them embodied leaders and connects them to their erotic intelligence. Post breath I am usually extremely clear and calm. I have nothing to compare it with. Maybe similar to after a really good sauna cold plunge session. Or epic, connected, cosmic sex.

THE PATTERN

Are you holding your breath right now, in this moment? We live in world that has forgotten how to breathe. It is safer this way. A world where holding your breath feels safer than breathing beyond your collar bones. Where shallow, rapid breathing signals your brain that you are in danger. And that forever keeps the sympathetic nervous system on high alert. The cycle is reciprocal and viscious: stress causes shallow breathing, and shallow breathing reinforces the stress. High performers hold their breath. Shallow chest breathing means survival mode. Never fully exhaling means never fully feeling safe. A full exhale asks to completely let go, to surrender, to release control, to trust that the next breath will fill you up with fresh air. But we hold on to that last little bit as if no new breath was ever to come. The body eternally stays braced, ready, performing. The vagus nerve controls the parasympathetic nervous system. Shallow chest breathing restricts ribcage movement and dysregulates the vagus nerve. Which suppresses your body's ability to slow your heart rate and lower your blood pressure. Inefficient breathing limits the intake of oxygenated air. Some of the side effects: cognitive fatigue, dizziness, foggy thinking. Pour some coffee into the mix to fix that. Which adds to frying your nervous system. It's a wild ride how shallow breathing influences your nervous system by locking the body into a perpetual sympathetic stress response (fight-or-flight). On the long run, this keeps stress hormones like cortisol elevated and reduces parasympathetic ("rest and digest") activity. If you are such a nerd as I am, these are the effects: Sympathetic dominance. Vagus nerve dysregulation. Decreased oxygen flow to the brain. Neurotransmitter imbalances (less production of the calming, good stuff like aminobutyric acid, which helps manage anxiety and mood). Scary? I agree. Ain't no biohacks for that.

Breathing is really, really hard, because it asks so much of you. A full exhale asks you to let go of control. So simple. So terrifying. Breathwork is a nervous system reset. It is somatic, in the body, not cognitive. The body moves what is beyond the processing of the mind. Breath is the portal.

Are you still holding your breath over there? What happens if you try? Exhale all the way out? Fully let it go? You might be stuck so deeply in survival mode, that you cannot do it alone. And that's fine. We are here to breath together. It's not that exotic to exhale fully, yet deeply erotic. It might even be why all your pills and tips and tricks are not really doing anything. Your shallow chest breathing might keep you stuck in survival mode. All the pills and tips and tricks might be a big investment for you. And that might be the issue. Let go of control doesn't cost you anything (besides a little ego death maybe). No optimizing of surrender. No costs of letting go. No patent on the exhale. Presence starts with an exhale. Power starts with an exhale. Breath home. Remembering how to breathe, how to exhale. You held your breath for decades. It's time to let go now.

I know, I know. The world has taught us that control is strength. You are constantly holding, you are constantly ready. If you never fully let down your guard you can never fully get hurt. The safest thing to do was brace. Hold. Perform. Shallow. Keep a little bit of that breath, under control. Exhale might lead to vulnerability. Exhale might come with surrender. Exhale might mean letting someone in. And all of this? That was classified as weakness in your world.

I tell you what. I say, the opposite. Shallow breathing is weak. There is no way to access your full power without your full body. There is no way to access your full body without your full breath. Can't access your presence without your body. Can't access your intimacy without your body. And your body can't be felt, it can't even exist, when you're not breathing.

THE INVITATION

Your life is optimized. Schedules. Sleep. Diet. Workouts. Supplements. And you are still holding your breath. You are still in survival mode. And then that challenge: one full exhale. Which scares you senseless. Because it asks you to let go of control, where you built your entire existence around control. It is deeply engrained in you: control equals safety. Being braced is being ready. Contracted is the only way. Letting go fo control equals threat.

A body that never fully exhales is never fully alive. It's forever in survival mode. It is locked out from presence, aliveness, intimacy, true power. All those beautiful things require you to let your guard down. And you never exhale enough to let the guard down.

We all feel it. The world is led by men who never fully exhale, who hold on to control at all costs at all times.

Your partners feel it. They know you're not fully there. You're not fully breathing. Not fully present. Not fully alive.

One full breath. All the way in. All the way out. Let go. That's the work. And everyone who's done this work with me? Forever changed. Sex life improves immediately. Plus more patience. Stamina. Presence. Confidence. Power. Embodied leadership. Erotic intelligence. Clarity. Calm. Aliveness. It's free. And it asks a lot of you. Your guard. Control. Armour. One full exhale. That's all.

EMBODIED INQUIRY

Find it on YouTube.

Yes, breath is magic. It's what makes us alive, no kidding. And I'd been holding it for decades. Too much to hold. You've been holding too. Time to let go.

That's how you come home.

That's how you stay alive.

Exhale now.