Misty Williams  00:01

Hey, sister, this is Misty Williams, founder of healingrosie.com. And I’m so excited to welcome you to Rosie radio. Tune in to find clarity, direction and hope for your healing. New episodes drop every Tuesday.

Misty Williams  00:13

We created this show to empower you to regain control of your life and feel like yourself again. Yes, sister, it is possible that I’m super excited to have my friend Josh Trent with us today to talk about something that has been a recurring pattern for me the last six months. 

Misty Williams  00:29

I was at an event last fall with Seth Spheres who is the husband of Katie Wells, you may know her brand Wellness Mama, she has one of the largest Natural Health blogs in our space, really targets moms. He and I were chatting about an experience he recently had in Austin with our mutual friend, Josh, around breathwork. 

Misty Williams  00:52

He was just raving about how deeply transformative it was to come and spend time with Josh and Austin just focusing on breath and breathing. And I remember at the time thinking, Oh, that’s really interesting. And just filing it away. 

Misty Williams  01:06

I don’t know Josh as the breathwork guy, I know him in other contexts in ways. And then after that, this idea of breath kept coming up over and over and over again. For me, people would mention breathwork, they would talk about how important breathwork can be for rewiring your entire nervous system. 

Misty Williams  01:22

I did an interview with Ari Witten for this event. And if you’ve seen that interview, he talks extensively about the importance of breath work in basically re-regulating your nervous system and really inducing a parasympathetic response so that you can heal. 

Misty Williams  01:39

So because it keeps coming up over and over for me, I have started integrating some breath work into my own morning routine, along with meditation. I really wanted to do an interview where we dove into this with someone that had some really good expertise. 

Misty Williams  01:57

Not only are we going to talk about breath work, but we’re going to actually do some breath work together. I think that’s going to be really, really powerful. 

Misty Williams  02:06

My goal for you is at the end of this conversation at the end of this video, you will know what you can do. You can add it to your own routine to begin practicing something that can powerfully support your body in healing. 

Misty Williams  02:22

Josh has spent the past 19 plus years as a trainer, researcher and facilitator discovering the physical and emotional intelligence for humans to thrive in our modern world. The Wellness Force Media mission is to help humans heal mental, emotional and physical health, through podcast programs and a global community that believes in optimizing our potential to live life. 

Misty Williams  02:22

This is going to be a fantastic interview and conversation today. And I’m super excited that you showed up for it. So Josh Trent is the founder of Wellness Force Media, host of the Wellness and Wisdom podcast, and the creator of Breathe | Breath and Wellness program. 

Josh Trent  02:58

Thank you for having me. And he’s a beautiful baby boy. It’s funny. We go around town and people are like, is that a girl or a boy? And I’m like, well, it’s whatever you want. It’s a boy. It’s a boy.

Misty Williams  02:58

Well. Josh’s life is dedicated to supporting humanity and coming together as one. And Josh is a new father of a beautiful baby boy named Noah and I have been booing and eyeing over all the pictures. And I’m sure we’ll hear a little bit about that part of his journey as this interview unfolds. So welcome, Josh.

Misty Williams  03:33

So you and Carrie have been like just the juiciest, most excited nurturing mama and papa bears to this little baby bringing this being into the world. It’s been wonderful to see you step into a whole different part of your being. There’s this protective, powerful nurturing side of you that’s just like converged and is really fierce. And I love seeing you so in love with both your son and Carrie and, and I’m really thrilled for you. So congratulations.

Josh Trent  04:09

Yes, thanks. I have a lot less free time. But all the time that I have is love time. Dedicated, I put my intentions on the things that matter most. 

Josh Trent  04:20

When you have a child, it’s like nothing else really matters besides the health of that child, the health of yourself and your family. I mean, it always does matter most, our health and wellness. But it really goes to a different level of awareness when you have a child on earth because it ain’t about you anymore.

Misty Williams  04:20

Yeah. 

Misty Williams  04:35

Yeah, well, that’s really beautiful. And I’m super excited to see you continue to blossom and I’m sure there’s going to be so many things in your own journey that will begin to permeate your work and you’ll be sharing with the world. 

Misty Williams  04:49

I’d love to just kind of kick things off with an intro here. Breathwork, when Seth told me that he came to Austin to do breath work with you, I was like, Oh!, I didn’t know that people came to Austin, do breath work with Josh. But then of course, as I kept hearing more and more and more about it. I went from being intrigued to, oh my god! This is something I need to integrate. 

Misty Williams  05:11

So for those that were like me before Seth said to me that he actually made a trip somewhere to do breathwork, Why don’t you give us a little overview of what breathwork is? Why is it so important for us to integrate this into our daily practices?

Josh Trent  05:25

Sure, in its simplest form, The Art and Science of Breath or Breathwork is really just controlling your respiration, so that you can pull the only autonomic or automatic lever you have for your stress. And that’s it just everybody let that land for a moment. We all breathe yet the way that we breathe, we learned from our parents and society as an adaptation to the stressors we’re experiencing. 

Josh Trent  05:48

So most of us actually aren’t breathing, even though consciously we think we are. At its simplest form, breath is an e-brake. You remember those e-brakes on cars, where when you’re a kid, maybe a teenager, you’d pull the brake, and it would stop the car, and it would spin it out. That’s what breath does to your nervous system. 

Josh Trent  06:05

It does it very, very quickly. So what happens when you’re consciously using your breath to control or modulate your stress is that you’re actually doing something physically. You’re doing something energetically. The physical part of what you’re doing is that you’re diaphragmatically activating what’s called vagus nerve. 

Josh Trent  06:22

The vagus nerve or vagal toning. That’s different, because a lot of us think about toning our muscles in the gym, by doing a bicep curl, or by doing squats, or by doing exercises that burn. You get in your muscles. You get toned in your muscles. But when it comes to the breath, there’s two things going on. 

Josh Trent  06:40

There’s a nervous system adaptation, where actually your vagus nerve dovetails onto the back of the diaphragm that goes into the endocannabinoid system and into the enteric nervous system. It controls so many things, if you do a deep, full diaphragmatic belly breath, which we’ll do during this conversation. That’s the first thing it does is nervous. 

Josh Trent  06:59

The second thing that it does outside the nervous system, though, is that it actually pushes the stem of the vagus nerve that is connected to the amygdala, which is the fear center of the brain. It starts to shift us physically, so that we’re getting less blood flow, less cortisol. We’re not in fight or flight. We’re out of the sympathetic side of the nervous system. We’re physically moving ourselves to peace and relaxation, and digestion. 

Josh Trent  07:24

So at its core, it’s the simplest and most powerful and only singular lever that we can pull in our nervous system that’s automatic. We can tune our stress to be actually at peace, and we can’t do one more thing. We can’t digest our food faster. We can’t make our blood flow faster. We can’t make our skin grow faster. 

Josh Trent  07:44

There’s all these things that our body just does, because it innately has that wisdom, right? Well, breath is beautiful, because it’s the only voluntary and involuntary lever that we can be in harmony with and communion with when it comes to our stress.

Misty Williams  07:58

Yeah, I love what you’re saying here about the vagus tone or parasympathetic tone. I remember having an interview about a year and a half ago with Dr. Marnie Gerbil, where she talked about the parasympathetic nervous system. 

Misty Williams  08:15

I had at that point, kind of thought of it as a thought of the parasympathetic is something you transition into from the sympathetic nervous system. And the way that I was facilitating the conversation had that implication of like, okay!, we’re going to basically turn off one thing to be in another.

Misty Williams  08:33

She corrected me, she said, “We’re not just talking about something you turn on and off like a switch. We’re talking about something that you build strength and resilience into, so that you’re able to access it a lot easier.” When you’re in that space of the parasympathetic nervous system, you’re in it in a stronger, more powerful way. 

Misty Williams  08:57

You can liken it just as you did to being in the gym, and building muscle tone. Where you’re lifting, and you’re actually making your body stronger. We’re actually making our parasympathetic nervous system stronger, in a similar way. 

Misty Williams  09:11

I found that distinction to be super helpful, because otherwise, I don’t know if I would have really appreciated building strength in this side. I kind of understood it as we’re either in parasympathetic or sympathetic, right?. And there’s actually a whole lot more to this conversation, which is really fascinating.

Josh Trent  09:31

Yeah, it’s more like the tide in the ocean. The tide takes time to change from neap to spring. So you don’t go to the ocean and all of a sudden, bam!, the tide shifts, it takes time. 

Josh Trent  09:42

We have the same kind of energetic tides in our nervous system with sympathetic and parasympathetic. And I would say that, yes, it builds strength, but really, underneath that what it’s actually doing is it’s building resiliency and it’s building activation. So it’s activating certain afferent and efferent signaling molecules or dendrites, or however you want to describe them.

Josh Trent  10:03

These molecules actually receive a message from the motor neurons, and then they send it back to the brain. And when they send it back to the brain, that’s also part of that feedback loop, that is really part of the hypothalamus. And everything else is going on with our amygdala in the stress system itself. So yeah, it’s strengthening. 

Josh Trent  10:22

But now that I hear you reflect that, to me, it’s strengthening, but it’s more like just activating. It’s activating things that may be asleep, that are conditioned to be asleep. That’s a deeper conversation when we look at society at large.

Misty Williams  10:33

Yeah, yeah. Well, resilience has been a really hot topic, the last year. I’ve seen a lot of events on resilience. I’ve heard lots of conversations. Conversations about resilience, because our ability to be resilient in the face of adversity. Especially when you’re on a really challenging health journey. 

Misty Williams  10:50

Resilience is key, because you have to keep going and you have to keep searching. You find that there’s a lot of changes that you have to make, and it requires resilience to do that. If you don’t have a strong parasympathetic nervous system, then resilience can be really hard to come by. 

Misty Williams  11:06

So take us deeper into this, I would love for you just to explain that maybe some of the strategies that we can use to induce more parasympathetic tone, I would love to just do some actual breathing together so that people leave this conversation feeling really empowered around this topic.

Josh Trent  11:25

Yeah, the first thing we can start with is our posture. The next one is our musculature. And then the next one is our actual practice itself> the breath practice itself. So for posture, most of us are, right now, I’m in a really cool chair. I’m in this chair, it’s called a lotus chair. So I actually have a pad in front of my stomach, and I’m sitting in lotus a position, and my spine, my head, my shoulders are all in line with my hips. Not everybody has this chair. 

Josh Trent  11:54

So the very first thing that most of us need to do actually, is roll our shoulders back and take a deep breath. Right, because most of us are forward flexed or like this. And it’s because of our cell phone and our cars. And all the things that we’ve heard before, you and I are in this world of health, and we hear a lot of the same things over and over and over again. But are we doing them? That’s the really big go to market here, are we actually doing them. 

Josh Trent  12:22

So the first thing you have to do is stop being so forward flexed. Forward flex means that your shoulders are basically in front of your ears, you want to pull your shoulders at or behind your ears, that’s a big one. 

Josh Trent  12:33

The next one is you want to have your body straight. So you’ll have your spine, your hips and your head on a line. And actually, everyone imagine right now, wherever you are, imagine there’s a string in the very center of your head and the top of your head, and that string is pulling you up to the ceiling. 

Josh Trent  12:49

It would look and feel almost like just a slight tug, you’re lifting your head up, you’re creating a little bit of length in your neck. And that’s the best place to start. Now, if you’re laying down, it’s happening for you. Right, what Seth and I did and what a lot of students do is we’ll just lay on the ground with some pillows, because then you’re completely relaxed, right, your shoulders are back because gravity is pulling you back. 

Josh Trent  13:08

So the key here is we start with posture, there’s in these three phases. We start with posture, you do not want to be forward flexed, you want to be open, you want to be neutral, so neutral. The next is actually where you’re breathing. Most of us breathe through our scalenes, our sternocleidomastoid. And right basically here and our clavicle is we don’t want to do that. And Dr. Bliss of Ranch, one of my teachers, he talks about horizontal breathing versus vertical breathing, right? We are meant to be horizontal breathers, that means we breathe in and out, not up and down. 

Josh Trent  13:38

But we have been trained really by stress and by our parents Misty, that we just need to breathe like this. And we see it with Wim Hof. And we see with all these cathartic techniques, and that’s cool. And I’m sure we’ll talk about the different phases of breath work later. But breath work does not mean that you’re breathing up and down. breathwork means that you’re breathing in and out. That’s the one really clear distinction I want to make. So that’s the second thing. 

Josh Trent  14:02

The third thing is our actual style or a practicum of the breath work. And so what we’re going to do right now is I’m just going to take one hand, I’m gonna put my left hand on my heart, and we can all do it together. If you’re driving in a car, obviously, don’t do this because you need to pay attention to the wheel. Right hands on your stomach, right hands on your stomach, left hands on your heart. 

Josh Trent  14:21

I want everybody to just pull your shoulders back, sit up nice and straight or you can do this laying on the ground. Close your eyes and I want you to imagine you have just had a complete bath of relaxation, your eyes are relaxed, your jaw is relaxed. I want you to roll your jaw a few times in each direction. So three times to the left. Roll your jaw, relax your jaw. switch directions. 

Josh Trent  14:44

Now open and close your mouth a few times we hold a lot of tension in our jaw, maybe a yawn. I just get fully in your body. And when you breathe in through your nose, I want you to fill a balloon behind your belly button. So you’re gonna breathe thier nose, you’re gonna fill a balloon behind your belly button. Hold right there.

Josh Trent  15:07

Did you notice that you breathe into the balloon behind your belly button or did you notice that you breathe in your shoulders went up, let it go out of your mouth. Feel that right hand push your stomach closer to your spine, all the air is exiting the balloons do two more together. So you’re gonna breathe in through your nose, fill the balloon behind your belly in through your nose, fill the balloon behind your belly. Hold.

Josh Trent  15:32

See if you’re really having a mind muscle connection with your hand on your belly. Let it go to your mouth. Let’s do it one more time. And I really want everyone to focus on keeping your shoulders down. So breathe in through your nose, fill the balloon behind your belly. Let it go. So you’ll notice just for those three breaths that we did six is the sweet spot. 

Josh Trent  15:58

We’re obviously just priming the system and we can get into a deeper practice. But what we’re doing is we’re just priming the system so that you’re actually breathing where nature intended you to breathe. And that is the balloon, the imaginary balloon that’s behind your belly. And so with this, you’ll notice Misty, I don’t know if you notice personally, or maybe people with us right now felt like wow, I noticed that I actually breathe up instead of out. Did you feel you  breathe out? Or did you feel you breathe up? Which one felt more true for you? 

Misty Williams  16:26

Oh, like I was breathing both actually. 

Josh Trent  16:28

Okay, kind of but that’s cool. So you’re a mixed breather? Yeah, nothing wrong with that everything

Misty Williams  16:31

Going to the second time I was trying to be more intentional about breathing. 

Josh Trent  16:34

Yes. So what I would do if we are in your house right now, and obviously we can’t do this here in this interview. But I would have you lay on the ground, I would place a little sandbag on your belly. And I would cue you to breathe in through your nose and your belly would rise. 

Josh Trent  16:47

So in through your nose, belly rises in through your nose, belly rises, the balloon fills, exhale through your mouth, your belly collapses to the spine and the balloon empties. So that’s the really big piece that everyone needs to get. I don’t care who you are, how old you are, or your athletic ability. None of that matters. 

Josh Trent  17:06

All that matters is that you start queuing what’s called circular conscious breathing. Inhale through your nose, belly rises, exhale through your mouth, belly goes to spine. That’s it. You’re done. You don’t even have to listen to me anymore. 

Josh Trent  17:19

No, no, listen to me more, because there’s really good stuff to come. But that’s the base, right? We talked about our posture, we talked about the way that our muscles actually activate. 

Josh Trent  17:27

So we’re breathing in through our nose, our belly fills, we’re breathing out through our mouth, our belly empties. And then the last one is actually doing this for a specific purpose, right. So if you’re having an acute stressor, this is where we can talk about the three phases of breathwork. 

Josh Trent  17:40

If you have any acute stressor, you’re in a traffic accident, you’re fighting with your spouse, you’re about to go on a stage. Maybe you’re even in a psychedelic journey, whatever it is, you’re in an acute distress point, all of a sudden your stress went from 10% to 90% or 100%. 

Josh Trent  17:55

What do you do then with the art of the breath, that’s acute style breathing. That’s a very specific practice. Then there’s meditative breathing, meditative breathing is where you and I would sit. And we would do a seven to 12, maybe a 21 minute practice, that’s more meditative. And like you had your other expert who talks about this. That’s where you train your parasympathetic to be more strong and more resilient over time. Those are those longer, more meditation style or proactive style breathing. 

Josh Trent  18:21

And then there’s the final phase of breath, which has become the most popular but honestly, the most abused. And that is catharsis breathing, catharsis. Breathing is where you go 30-60 90 minutes where you’re doing Stan Grof or Wim Hof, or a very, very deep breathing journey. 

Josh Trent  18:37

I don’t recommend people go into that. I think people should start with the acute and the meditative. So that’s basically it with our posture, our style, our musculature, making sure we’re straight and making sure we’re breathing properly. We talked about the vertical and the horizontal, that’s the building blocks of the breath.

Misty Williams  18:53

Yeah. So I’m really into human design. I don’t know if you’re familiar with human design, Josh? If not, I

Josh Trent  18:59

Just had a reading recently with Barbara or someone else. No, not Barbara with someone else.

Misty Williams  19:03

Yeah. So I love human design. So beyond the scope of this conversation, unless you know about human design, basically I am emotionally defined and my partner is not. Okay. So that means that I’m on the wave. And when we are having a very intense conversation, my wave tends to go like my intensity goes up, up, up, up up, and floods his nervous system. He’s taking everything that I’m feeling and because he’s not in the way, he’s actually magnifying all of it. 

Misty Williams  19:34

So my fiery Leo is like overwhelming him. And one of the things that he has been guided to do when he’s feeling this fire is to breathe. Because what he will do is he’ll actually stop breathing. So this is an acute stress response. I am stressing him out. And he is breathing good. It’s really shallow, and it gets really constricted and he pulls in. And it is very unproductive for both of us. 

Misty Williams  20:07

So  I want to just offer that frame for those of you who may have found yourself, or someone who finds themselves in those situations where, there’s some kind of intense event happening like a bite or intense conversation with your spouse ever, you’d find that, I think going into some tools for what we can do in those moments, which are really valuable.

Josh Trent  20:32

Let’s do that. And I’ll tell you this, the greatest tool that you have is repetition. And I’ll say that and the subconscious, or maybe our novelty seeking brain won’t like it, or novelty seeking brains are going to be like, What do you mean, I’ll just practice? No, that’s it. I mean, you literally just have to practice. So what happens is when we select, let’s do an example, let’s say that for right now, I’ll be your partner and you can be you. 

Josh Trent  20:55

You might be the wave, he might be the island, you might be the anxious he might be the avoidant, however you want to describe it, there’s a lot of different frameworks of how we describe human psychology and how we relate to one another. 

Josh Trent  21:06

Basically, one energy is going outward and one energy is going inward. So how do we make it so that there’s less of a teeter totter where one person feels stressed? And the other person feels stressed? How do we equalize that the very first thing that we do is we vocalize it, this is the big one. 

Josh Trent  21:25

And this is what I’ve been practicing in my relationship to is like, okay, share what you’re feeling. And this is really big, a great resource for everyone here is called non violent communication, nonviolent communication. Very, very powerful movement started about 30-40 years ago. 

Josh Trent  21:41

In nonviolent communication, what you and I would do is like, let’s say you came to me, and you’re like, let’s say, for example, you’re pissed off that I didn’t take out the trash that you would say to me, Josh, I can’t believe you to take out the trash is like the fifth time. 

Josh Trent  21:53

And so I would have to literally, I would have to go like this. Take a breath in through my nose from my belly and breathe like an animal because we’re animals. Animals don’t breathe up and down, animals breathe out, in and I would let it go. That’s the first thing I would have to remind myself and train myself over time. 

Josh Trent  22:10

When you bring me that stimulus, when you bring me that stress, I would have to remind myself, just like I train in the gym, with biceps, I would have to train with you in a relationship. And I would say, I need to take a breath, or I need to give me a moment or hold on to something.

Josh Trent  22:25

You need an auditory cue, right? Because you are coming out the person and you’re like, I need something, I’m upset about something, you want to receive something. So I would pause and I would say I need to take a breath. And if I didn’t have time to even do that, I would just breathe without permission. 

Josh Trent  22:40

Then I would say, what I’m experiencing right now is, I would say to you, “I’m experiencing a tightness in my chest, I’m experiencing shame, I’m experiencing guilt. I definitely want to take out the trash and I apologize for missing that, or whatever it is, right? Or hey, the reason I didn’t take out the trash is because I had a call come through and honestly slipped my mind I care about you. I understand the trash is a big deal to you.” 

Josh Trent  23:07

That is a very high level of emotional intelligence, to the degree that we have processed our lowercase trauma, or our capital Trauma. Or if we have any interstitial tension from health issues that we’re having, if someone has more that someone has chronic stress that they really have never gotten a handle on or if they’re taking in too much caffeine, or if they have food sensitivities, I mean, Misty, this whole series, right? 

Josh Trent  23:30

There’s so many things that are running unconsciously or in the background, that cause people to be shifted over to that sympathetic and when I’m in sympathetic, and I’m not aware of it. And I’m not aware of my environment, and I’m not aware of the ways that the trauma I’ve experienced in my life actually is what makes me project and have less patience with my partner. It’s very difficult to do the exercise that I did with you now, which is to take a breath to verbalize in a non violent way. 

Josh Trent  23:57

“Hey!, this is what I’m experiencing. I’m feeling shame. I’m feeling this. I’m feeling fill in the blank because there’s more breath there. Like it’s tattooed on my arm for a reason it’s supposed to spit out a piece of shade today. And what that means in Italian is if I can breathe, I can choose so if I can breathe if I can.

Josh Trent  24:18

I totally forgot to take out the trash. I did but it makes me feel a lot of shame when this situation happens. It makes me feel a lot of shame. Makes me feel like some extra stress that I’m really having a hard time being at peace with here. I understand where you’re coming from and it makes me feel like this.” 

Josh Trent  24:37

Now the unconscious way to do that would be you come at me again and you go you didn’t take out the trash. “Oh my God, will you take out the trash? I’m busy.”

Josh Trent  24:47

That could be a traditional non evolved, not emotionally intelligent and no breath awareness type response. That’s a violent response. And what happens with couples and I’ve dealt with this myself is you go From one ping pong to the other, and before you know it, there’s insults and there’s things that are being said that are completely from the ancient brain, and from our child’s self, that have nothing to do with the loving adult, the responsible adult that’s inside of us. 

Josh Trent  25:13

And it’s because number one, we didn’t physiologically move ourselves to be an adult. So we didn’t take a breath, we didn’t have the awareness, take a breath. Number two is we actually just went into the same kind of channel that’s been grooved in our brain, from childhood to adolescence to the relationship we’re in now. And we just went with it. Because neurons that fire together, they close and wire together. 

Josh Trent  25:34

And so the same messages that are going back and forth to my body, to my brain I talked about earlier with the afferent and efferent currents, if I can train myself to be aware of that when I receive a current from my body, that’s fear. That’s shame. That’s grief, whatever it is, then instead of my mind being in control, and my mind saying, well shout at your partner and tell them they’re a jerk, that’s the opposite of what we want to do. 

Josh Trent  26:00

The first thing we want to do is to have somatic awareness, want to be awake, aware of what’s happening in my body, when you and I in this, quote, example, are having an argument. And what’s happening in my body is my breath goes away, my stomach tensions, maybe my posture changes, just be aware of all that first, and then shout it out to your partner.

Josh Trent  26:21

“Hey!, I noticed my posture change, I noticed my breath is gone, I noticed I’m feeling this shitty way. I’m gonna take a breath right now.” That is the number one thing to do. Here’s why it’s so hard. And I studied this for a long time. 

Josh Trent  26:35

The reason it’s so hard is because we have been conditioned since we came into the world, by our parents, siblings, grandparents, society, job, everything, everything in our world is constantly screaming at us to stay the same, to not grow, to not change, to not evolve to be more confrontational and less loving and less we have a conversation like this. 

Josh Trent  26:56

In this interview, where we’re interested in something different, where we’re going to use the art of the breath, to cue into with somatically going on with our body because the body knows way before the mind does. 

Josh Trent  27:07

The body knows way before the mind is. The mind’s job is literally to give and receive information and to keep us safe. That’s the mind’s job, right? It keeps us safe. And it gives and receives information. That’s it. It’s kind of a great servant, but it’s a really lousy master. So we need the body to talk to the mind. 

Josh Trent  27:24

The only way we can talk to the mind by being in the body is through the bridge of the breath. That’s it. Because we take it away, the bridge is gone. There’s no bridge between somatic and psychological. Yeah,

Misty Williams  27:37

One of the things that’s coming up for me as I’m listening to you explain all of this is how easy it is for me to access the part of myself that knows what I’m feeling. I’m feeling shame. I’m a female, first of all, and I think it’s just easier for women to know their feelings. And I’ve just been doing this work forever. So it’s very easy for me. But Roderick, my partner, it is not so easy for him. 

Misty Williams  28:04

And I know that there’s plenty of people watching who are like, I could take a breath. And then what am I feeling? How do I access that part of myself, it’s kind of a foreign concept because they’ve kind of been in a reactive state for so long, and maybe it hasn’t. 

Misty Williams  28:20

In Rodricks case, it was never safe for him to have feelings and to have an emotional response to anything. So he dealt with his childhood trauma by being apathetic. I don’t care, basically just shutting everything off. I’m just shutting down the whole power grid. Right. 

Misty Williams  28:37

So I’d love for you to speak to that because I know there’s people who are watching who are in that same situation of  getting present to like what I’m feeling in my body. I’ve never done this before in my life.

Josh Trent  28:49

Yeah, the god men have the four horsemen, which is powerful. And I’m gonna mess it up a little bit. But one of them is stonewalling. Right? When you Stonewall, or when you shut down, it’s actually one of the four determinants of what makes relationships fail is number one. Number one is stonewalling. Another is contempt. 

Josh Trent  29:08

But the stonewalling aspect is really, really sad. Because if you think about it, the only tool the person has is to Stonewall and icy cold shut down, to keep themselves safe. Because at the core of that way of being what it is, they want to keep themselves safe, right? 

Josh Trent  29:25

They learned that either in early childhood or adolescence or somewhere, that when they’re getting bombarded on when they’re getting attacked; when they’re getting shouted at; when their boundaries are being broken; and not respected as a child or an adolescent or a teenager or young adult. It’s such a sad yet potent, powerful strategy that’s really hard to unwind, because it does give them what they’re desiring and that is safety. 

Josh Trent  29:48

And so if someone feels safe by stonewalling to unwind that as an adult is a lot of work, it takes patience, it takes courage, and it takes really feeling all the feelings that we’ve not wanted to feel I read this somewhere once maybe it was in Bessel Vander Kolk work the Body Keeps the Score wasn’t or might have been impeded Levine’s work waking the Tiger I forgot where I read it, but somebody’s going to get to know exactly where it was. 

Josh Trent  30:10

Every single animal in the world remembers every attack, every blade of grass, every field they’ve been on. And we do too. We’ve just become so desensitized to our subconscious memory. Because a lot of those memories are really scary. And the conscious brain perceives it as threat memory, the brain, it sends and receives information and it keeps us safe. That’s his number one job, our conscious brain is not there for you to unwind your relationship with your father. That’s not its frickin job. 

Josh Trent  30:38

But that’s what needs to be done. So that we can stop projecting all of our stuff on our partners. And so there’s two, there’s two prongs to this. What has to happen is there has to be an open conversation about the dyad, about the style of attachment that’s been created. 

Josh Trent  30:55

When I first got with Carrie there, I was the anxious and she was the avoidant. And now that’s unwinding, right? It’s unwinding, and it’s flourishing into something else. But there has to be some deep deep work on that. Because when I can reflect on my childhood, my strategy wasn’t to shut down. My strategy was to go in, when I went in, I could fix it, I could talk about it, I could make it right, I could, I could help mom, I could help dad, I could do whatever, so that I would feel okay. 

Josh Trent  31:21

But isn’t that interesting, because one’s not worse than the other one’s not better than the other. Whether I go in or whether I go out, whether I shut down or whether I open up, none of them are right or wrong. They’re just a piece of their way of being that’s keeping us separate from ourselves and from the other person. 

Josh Trent  31:39

So the way you do that is you have the conversation with the person, you go into an altered state with the person altered state meaning not in your crazy child mind, not in your reactive mind, where you’re projecting your stuff onto them. The breath is a great tool. microdosing is a great tool, being in nature as a great tool, playing as a great tool.

Josh Trent  31:58

Novelty is a great tool, there’s so many tools that you can do. But you have to do them with your partner, not separately. And you do them separately for your own growth. But when it comes to this type of interaction, you have to deal with your partner. And then in that altered state, you share openly like, “Hey!, I know that what I’m about to share with you may bring up some emotions, or maybe uncomfortable talk about and I just want you to know how your being is okay, you’re safe to shut down if you need to. But I really require more. And I want to connect with you on a deeper level, I want to connect with you on a deeper level, or I want to love you more, something like that.”

Josh Trent  32:34

You can’t make that person different. All you can do is open up the door. But actually on a subconscious level. If you try to change your partner, they’ll resist you. And they won’t know why they’re doing it. It’s because you’re trying to change them. All you can do with nonviolent communication, all you can do is you can share from the eye. I feel this way. I want more love. I want to care for you. I want to express. 

Josh Trent  32:58

And also the third caveat that I’ll say is that when you are expressing to your partner, and you’re using your breath, and you’re breathing horizontally, not vertically, and you’re in your body, and you’re speaking from the heart, there’s just something magical that happens. I know this sounds like Whoo!. And that’s cool. Because like everything is spiritual. 

Josh Trent  33:01

But when you’re speaking from the heart, and when you’re in your body, and when you’re breathing, your partner is going to feel that from you. And there’s not going to be as much of a charge. Because the pattern that gets created with anxious avoidant is the avoidant feels powerful when they shut down. And the anxious feels powerful when they go in. But they’re both really unhealthy. Actually, neither one of them is healthy. 

Josh Trent  33:39

What’s most healthiest secure attachment and secure attachment comes by unwinding the anxious and the avoidant or the island and the wave. So that’s really the beginning of that conversation. It’s a lot more deep. But that’s the start of it.

Misty Williams  33:52

Yeah. All right. Well teach us strategies, what can we do with breath?

Josh Trent  33:59

Well, the first thing that we do is we tell the person, hey, I’m feeling this way. Let’s do some breathing together, or I’m going to do some breathing, you first ask for permission. And then when you get the permission, then you go to a space where you lay on the ground together, or you sit across from each other. 

Josh Trent  34:16

I actually have this really cool spray that I’ve been using from Dr. John Neurons, it’s called the Mito Zen spray. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it. It’s a really good one. So it’s oxytocin and hoppy. I do a little spray and that grounds me. And then what I’ll do is I’ll alternate nostril breathing, or I’ll do conscious connected breathing with my partner. 

Josh Trent  34:36

The conscious connected breathing is where we sit across from each other. And we’re actually mirroring our breath. So you and I can do that right now. I’ll put my hand on my heart, put my hand on my stomach, and I’m going to inhale through my nose and exhale through my mouth. 

Josh Trent  34:48

But every single time that I do that, I’m going to look right here at your third eye, I’m actually going to look in the space between your eyebrows. So inhale through your nose. Exhale through your mouth. Inhale through your nose a little deeper and exhale through your mouth for four seconds. Inhale nose for two. Last one I’m going to hold here for 10 seconds. 

Josh Trent  35:43

And in this place of stillness where you’re not breathing, and I’m not breathing, I’m just looking at your eyes, all the little micro muscles in your face start to relax, all the arguments and the anger start to lessen. Because you’re cueing yourself to an anchor, you’re cueing yourself to that 10 second hold. And then in one second, we’re gonna go out and breathe in through our nose. So go out and breathe in through your nose. Hold this for 10 seconds. 

Josh Trent  36:11

So here you’re feeling your heartbeat, you’re feeling maybe some of your anger, you’re feeling the heat of the moment, with your partner. Just keep holding this and just be at peace with this. And then when you exhale and a couple of seconds, feel into what they’re feeling. It’s returned to normal breathing. So I’m staring right between your eyes, I’m looking at your eyes. I’m doing six of those circular breaths to inhale for exhale. And then I’m holding for 10 while I’m taking a breath, then I’m holding for 10, then I’m breathing out. 

Josh Trent  36:50

That is the anchor that we need. Because when we’re angry, we’re upset. It’s kind of silly, don’t you agree? Misty, it’s kind of silly for us to keep going on, on the merry go round. And try to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. Just stop it. Take the six breaths, do the 10 second hold, do the 10 second hold, go back to normal breathing, then respond to your partner. So 610 and 10. To inhale for exhale. That’s the best practice any of us could ever do. There’s other practices as well. But that’s a really good one to start.

Misty Williams  37:24

Yeah, I love that. I love simple. Let’s keep it simple so that people actually apply and don’t get overwhelmed. So that’s fantastic. So yeah, yes, yeah. So you talked about cultivating through habit, the breath. And I would imagine that there’s different practices for the moment that you’re in that fight or flight like are and the moments you’re just you know, I’m spending 20 minutes this morning, meditating, let me add some breath work in here to really build my tone.

Josh Trent  37:56

It’s a really good one because I love the two part breath. The two part breath is really good for meditative breathing. Because like, for example, let’s say someone is dealing with depression. And I’ve dealt with that my life depression is a focus on the past or rumination on the past. So when I’m experiencing depression, I’m really in the opposite of expression. 

Josh Trent  38:16

Isn’t that cool that the breath makes us breathe, and we breathe through it. So we can express how we’re feeling physically. If we do the breath, when a child cries, or when human beings cry. You notice most of the time they go like this. Right? It’s two part kind of. So we can mimic that in the two part breath like this. So you’re doing your meditation, maybe you’ve done two or four minutes or five minutes, depending on how much relaxation you need of circular breathing of what you and I just did, the two inhale the four exhale. 

Josh Trent  38:45

And then you get to a point where you really want to access some hurt, or you really want to access some grief or you really want to access some sadness, you want to get that depression out, you want to express the depression, the best way to do that is through a two part breath. 

Josh Trent  38:59

And so two part breath is you’re going to inhale quickly, twice through the nose, and it’ll look and feel just like this. So short, first long seconds, so short long. You do that for a minute, maybe two minutes straight to prep breath. First, small second longer. So short poll, long pull, one, two, exhale, one to exhale. And if you’ve given yourself enough spaciousness to do it, you’re probably going to cry. 

Josh Trent  39:36

I’ve made myself cry like that before. It’s really healthy for you actually. Because tears and grief and sadness or whatever you’re feeling it really just wants to come out anyways. So we may as well mimic the crying response. Right? And crying by the way is beautiful because I used to think especially as a man, I’m like, if you cry, you’re weak. That was a big thing when I was growing up. 

Josh Trent  39:56

And then in my 20s when I was a personal trainer, I’d have cry. I have Clients cry in their sessions with me and I always go home, I’d be like, Why the hell are these people crying in a training session, like what is going on. And it wasn’t until my mid 30s, where I made the connection, I was like, oh my god, Misty, they’re crying because their gloves allowing themselves to breathe. Working out, training, lifting weights isn’t just about the physical, it’s about the emotional as well. 

Josh Trent  40:22

So when we mimic that cry response, we give our nervous system a way to off gas, or to let go of some of the pressure that it’s been holding on to. So that’s a really big one, the two part breath with the short pole, long pole and the in the smooth exhale, for a minute to two minutes, that can induce a cry response.

Misty Williams  40:39

One of the things that’s coming up for me, as you’re talking about that is a conversation that I had with a friend talking about trauma. And he was explaining that in the wild, when animals experience trauma, their bodies often shake and vibrate, the trauma moves through them, and they, they allow it and then they’re able to move on. 

Misty Williams  40:59

And that trauma doesn’t get stored in their body like it does for us, because we’re clamping down, we are holding our breath, we’re holding things in. And we don’t allow things really to move through us. And I’ve certainly had times I remember one time doing hope, pono pono. And I’m sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you. For those of you that aren’t familiar with oponopono. 

Misty Williams  41:24

I remember feeling I was going through a breakup and I was just really emotional and overwhelmed by everything. When I did help when I remember, I was actually feeling kind of numb, I was at that point of just feeling them. And I started saying I’m sorry, please forgive me. Thank you, I love you. And I was taking deep breaths as I was saying it. And I started bawling. I mean just sobs racking my whole body as I just let all of the emotion and the feeling move through me. 

Misty Williams  41:52

I remember in the moment thinking what am I crying about? Because it was so much bigger than what I perceived to be.Whatever I was experiencing through this breakup, it was almost like this exorcism of grief. And it was really powerful for me at that moment. And I think we all need strategies for digging in and giving us the opportunity to process what’s trapped inside. 

Misty Williams  42:17

Because we, if you’ve been on this earth for 20-30, 40-50 years, you’ve experienced trauma and overwhelm, and we have stuck trapped inside of our bodies. And we need a strategy for moving that energy. So that we can really heal.

Josh Trent  42:33

Yeah, think of the body as if it’s almost like a public library. Except for you’re the only one has the card. Your body’s like this library. And there’s all these volumes of things that have happened. And you know them on some kind of a subconscious level. This is why earlier I was talking about every animal that’s ever been in a field. Why do you think butterflies nowhere to fly? 

Josh Trent  42:53

Why do you think that certain animals know to avoid certain places, it’s because they store it in their primitive brain the same way it’s stored in yours and mine. But the thing is we live in a world that is not the world you and I live in. But we live in a world that the majority of people in society, if you show emotion other than confidence, or anger or frustration, then you’re somehow weak, being soft, or letting emotions move through you is is in the tightest turning on this right with this interview and with the work that we’re doing. 

Josh Trent  43:26

But what’s happening is we live in a society that just reinforces the stuck emotions. Because there’s a pill, there’s fast food, there’s alcohol, there’s drugs, there’s there’s like, literally, there’s a litany of distraction devices, weapons of mass distraction, that pull you and I away from our breath that pull us away from feeling these things and essentially, pull us away from shaking it off. Right? 

Josh Trent  43:50

Because to shake it off would then make you seem vulnerable to society, to where it even bothered you in the first place. And so it’s okay to shake it off, it’s okay to show that things have bothered you or that you’re sad or whatever it is. Because why why? Why would it even matter if we were successful, or if we have all the trappings of society, if we weren’t feeling good in our bodies, or if we weren’t feeling good about ourselves? 

Josh Trent  44:14

I mean, I’ve had that journey come to me all the time in my life. I’m in a phase of that journey now. And being a dad and like, the learning curve of letting the old life die and letting the new life come in. And the business is going to be this way now. And then letting the podcast burn down and then creating a new one. It’s placed like, I just think it keeps going. And I think we have to just keep feeling and keep expressing it all through the breath and through our emotional being.

Misty Williams  44:41

Yeah. All right, well take us into some daily practices with breath.

Josh Trent  44:46

So the best daily practice we can do is I actually do right here in the studio. I have a seated little stool where I put my knees below my hips, that’s the best one. You put your knees below your hips. If you’re doing it. I would actually recommend that you don’t do it standing. So you’re either kneeling or sitting, or you’re on a meditation cushion or whatnot. And what you’re gonna do is you’re going to do the two minutes of circular breathing like you and I did. Two minutes straight, have two inhale four exhale for two minutes. 

Josh Trent  45:14

And then after that, I want you to hold for as long as you can. So you’ve been getting this rich oxygen in right, you’ve been breathing in for two seconds, you’ve been exhaling for four seconds, after you do it for two minutes, just hold, maybe you can hold for 30 seconds, maybe you can hold for 60 seconds, maybe you can hold for 90 seconds. There’s no ego on this. It’s whatever you can do. And then when you go back to the two and four, so another two minutes of the to inhale, the four exhale, and then one last round of holding. And then after that, I promise you, your body will feel different. 

Josh Trent  45:45

That is the most potent practice that any of us could do. It’s a discipline Misty to really for two minutes to breathe in for two seconds and out for four, and then do your hold. And then breathe back in for two and now for another two minutes and another hold. That can be very challenging for certain people. 

Josh Trent  46:03

This is why in the brief program, we train people how to do this, with posture with videos that 1000s of students across the world do because sometimes we just need a little help, we just need a little helping hand to do it. Otherwise, we’d have to just do like an hour class where I would take you through a bunch of practices and that would be it. It would just be all practices. So that’s the best place to start right in your morning when your mind is probably the most open and most susceptible to your environment. And you can do it at nighttime too. 

Josh Trent  46:34

There’s a different practice for night, I can share with the nighttime practices too. But that morning practice is great. It’s deep, it’s proactive, it’s meditative. Two rounds of the two, four with two holds 3060 90 seconds each and then go back to your own breathing. That’s the best way to start your day. And it is probably going to be about five to seven minutes honestly, for that type of practice is very, very short, but very, very potent practice, the nighttime practice is different. 

Josh Trent  47:00

The nighttime practice, you’re going to want to do more of a box style breathing. So the box style breathing is meant for grounding. The circular breathing is meant for energy or exploration right or expression, if you will. That’s why when clients are depressed, we do circular breathing. When clients have anxiety, we do box breathing. And it’s a really key distinction. 

Josh Trent  47:21

So at nighttime, you would do two minutes of box breathing. Box breathing is you breathe in for five through your nose, you hold for five, you exhale for five out of your mouth. And then you hold for five at the bottom. And you just continue to do that. Inhale for five you draw box, hold, exhale, five, hold, inhale, hold, exhale, hold. That’s it. And then you do the same thing where at the end of that you just give yourself a 30 60/92 hold. And all that does is just cue you to be at peace with whatever stress that you have. 

Josh Trent  47:50

The only reason we do breath hold retention is so that we can be at peace with what we’re actually feeling. So we can actually connect somatically with what we’re feeling. And then after that you would do the exact same practice again and then do another hold for 30 60 90 seconds. And that would again take you about five to seven minutes. So anyone can do this. It’s circular in the morning and box at night. Or if you need it, maybe you’re feeling anxious in the morning. Maybe you do box in the morning. And circular at night. It just depends on whatever you need.

Misty Williams  48:21

I would love it if we could do some box breathing together to give everyone the opportunity to get this in their body. Yes, you experience it. And I’ve been practicing box breathing. I love it. It is very, it’s very grounding. Yes,

Josh Trent  48:37

It is the best. Here, I’m holding up a little square right here. Okay, so this is basically what we’re going to do, we’re going to breathe like a box. So first cue your posture, put your hands on your belly, you can do it eyes open, our eyes closed. I’m gonna do it with my eyes closed. I’m going to inhale through my nose for five, hold for five. exhale through your mouth for five, hold for five. Inhale through your nose for five. Hold for five. Exhale for five hold for five. 

Josh Trent  49:31

Last one we’re going to do two counts so inhale for two, hold for two, exhale for two, hold for two. So you can see we can mix up the practice we can do five seconds if we really need to ground. We can do two seconds if we just need to queue ourselves to get back on planet earth or feel like we need some kind of an anchor or pole position. But the longer you do, like if you were to do a 10 second And that would actually slow you down to the degree that you’re increasing the length of your box. That’s how much it’s going to slow down your mind or slow down your nervous system.

Misty Williams  50:12

Yeah, really powerful. Well, thank you so much for sharing us your Jedi secrets around breath. I hope everyone will really take seriously the opportunity that you have to do a simple, simple practice that is hugely important for your parasympathetic nervous system for parasympathetic tone. But ultimately, what does that mean, for us, it means healing. 

Misty Williams  50:33

And it’s my desire that we don’t just go through an event like this and hear a lot of great strategies and stories, but we actually get some tools where we can integrate some things into our lives that support us and being able to heal. 

Misty Williams  50:49

One of the things that breathwork is also really great for. I just want to share this, I may have mentioned it in another interview. But in 2011, when I had two surgeries back to back first surgery was to remove a cyst from my left ovary, they found endometriosis, when they opened me up, they removed my ovary along with the cyst and spent two hours surgery, removing scar tissue from my abdomen, stitched up part of my small intestine on the way out, which is not part of the procedure, sent me home, 

Misty Williams  51:17

I was able to get a hold of a doctor for six days, finally, was told to go to the emergency room, saw what they had done, we’ll leave that for another surgery, and sent me home. And I didn’t sleep for six days. And I don’t know if you’ve ever gone through a period of prolonged wakefulness, but it was torture. Yeah, I didn’t doze off. I didn’t have bad sleep. I was literally awake for over 144 hours and felt like I was just coming unraveled. 

Misty Williams  51:46

And I remember calling a friend who has a toolbox of Jedi tricks. And I didn’t even give him a lot of information. I just told him I’m not sleeping. And it’s been six days and I was weepy and emotional. I mean, you get to that point, and you’re like coming unraveled. And he gave me breathwork. He told me to breathe. And I wish I remembered actually what he gave me. If there was a rhythm to it, I’m pretty sure there was because it seems like I remember counting. 

Misty Williams  52:14

But I remember to get hanging up the phone with him and going and sitting on the floor. And just breathing. And I did it for 20 or 30 minutes. And I felt myself start to doze off. And I stood up from the floor was the middle of the day. I stood up, went over to my bed, I lay down. And I fell asleep for the first time in six days. And I think, Wow, what a fight looking back. 

Misty Williams  52:38

What if I hadn’t got that strategy for calming down my sympathetic nervous system? I mean, it was, it wasn’t a long time. It’s not like I did breath work throughout the day, for the whole day. It was about three minutes. And I was actually able to sleep. So it is profound, what breathwork does for our nervous system. And these are tools that all of us need to have if we’re really serious about healing.

Josh Trent  53:03

Yeah, it’s beautiful. You said that. And you know, there is one more thing I can share too. And Dr. Andrew Weil made this really popular, but I’m sure that he got it from Leonard or who was like the man that really brought breath to the west coast to America. And it’s a 478. So 478 is designed for sleep. And that might have been what your friend gave you. 

Misty Williams  53:24

Yeah, 

Josh Trent  53:25

Because what happens is when you really when you prolong your exhale, you’re yes, you’re cueing the relaxation response. But you’re also you’re turning down the volume. And we didn’t go too deep into this of your default mode network. 

Josh Trent  53:40

Your default mode network is whatever is scanning or ruminating in the past or scanning for danger in the future is the thing that pulls you out of flow that pulls you out of present moment that pulls you out of relaxation. So if you were to go for seconds in through your nose, hold for seven seconds. Exhale for eight seconds and go back to your 478. That’ll get you sleepy, excuse the relaxation response on a much deeper level because you’re extending your exhale. 

Josh Trent  54:18

You’re also holding on the seventh, you’re coming to terms with whatever stress you’re feeling whenever we do the breath, hold retentions to actually process and feel whatever stress we’re feeling. And then the four is just to get in a nice, smooth, clean flow of oxygen. So 478 is a really good tool for sleep. And that’s for all of us. 

Josh Trent  54:37

And this is the thing like I’ll tell you, most of the people that have either worked with me or that are in the breathe program, like they just love doing the box and the circular breathing every day. If you can just master the box and the circular breathing and just do a seven minute to a 21 minute practice on the daily. Over time. These things are just going to set in the myelin sheaths going to groove. You’re gonna have transformation over the course of time three weeks, two months, something very close to that.

Misty Williams  55:08

Yeah. Well, this has been really powerful. Awesome. I love that I was able to get you for this event. This was kind of a Hail Mary, we’re getting close to the finish line. Oh my god, I have to have Josh, come and talk to us about breathwork. So this was really fantastic. Josh, thank you so much for not only sharing with us but doing some demonstrations. I hope everyone got a lot of value out of actually doing the breath work.

Josh Trent  55:31

Yes, you’re welcome. Breathe like an animal y’all, breathe like an animal. Breathe out, don’t breathe up. 

Misty Williams  55:38

Mm hmm. This is one of those videos that you might want to watch. Again and again. Because being guided in these practices in the beginning is really, really helpful. Helps really get it anchored into your body gives you some confidence when you’re doing something new for the first time. So, Josh, if people are interested in learning more about you and your work and your breathe program, where can they find you online?

Josh Trent  56:02

Just go to breathwork.io It came to me when I was on a psychedelic journey. So you’ll have to go listen to my podcast, the Wellness Wisdom Podcast if you want to learn about that. That’s a joshtrent.com. You can go joshtrent.com for everything. But breathwork.io is for the breathe program. And that’s where y’all can learn a lot more depth and a lot more practicum about what we talked about today. So thanks, Misty.

Misty Williams  56:25

Yeah, this is fantastic. Well, thanks, everyone for spending a little time with us today.

Misty Williams  56:30

We’ll see you soon. That’s it for this week’s episode. Thank you for listening. I hope you’re feeling more empowered to overcome your flabby foggy and fatigued and to reclaim your life. If you haven’t subscribed yet, don’t forget to hit that subscribe button right now so you don’t miss any of our episodes. We have some awesome shows coming right up. I love reading your reviews and comments too. They inspire me and encourage other Rosie’s to hang out with us and learn all these amazing strategies for healing and living our best lives. Till next time sister. Bye

Josh Trent  56:58

bye