Welcome to the Behind the Shield podcast. My
name is James Geering, and this is episode 166,
and I am extremely excited to bring my next guest,
Dr. Belisa Vranic, to all of you. This conversation
went a number of different directions, and it
was... Amazing. By the time I put the headphones
down at the end of the recording, I was blown
away what we discussed. So Dr. Vranic was initially
a clinical psychologist. She found her way into
breath work and founded the breathing class using
breathing techniques to create wellness in the
body, both physiologically and mentally. She's
worked with a host of people from civilians to
military to first responders. And you're going
to be inspired at the end of this about the way
you sit, the way you breathe. But also we explored
sex as well. So kind of addressing some of the
myths that we hear, maybe some of our peers bragging
about our misconceptions of maybe what the opposite
sex wants in the bedroom. Both topics that we
haven't really addressed on this show yet. But
another bonus, as far as I'm concerned, on top
of the work that she's best known for. So with
that being said, as I always say, go to your
podcast apps. Please rate the show, subscribe,
share the show. And most importantly, as I say
every single time, use your social media for
good. It can be such a great platform to spread
knowledge. And every single one of these men
and women that I have on this podcast have so
much great information that will change lives.
And I just ask you to be part of the solution
by helping me share these episodes. So with that
being said, I introduce to you Dr. Belisa Vranic.
Enjoy. Dr. Valisa, first I just want to say thank
you so, so much for coming on the show. I know
we had a fantastic conversation the other day.
learning more about you and listening to some
of the podcasts that you've been on I'm very
very excited about this conversation. Well you
can't be more excited than I am because I actually
am a fan of the podcast from before we actually
spoke and I can't say that about a lot of podcasts
but I've been listening to you so I am deeply
honored to be here and super excited about our
conversation. Brilliant and how did you hear
about the podcast? Well, I think it came up and,
you know, recommended podcasts. And then the
name jumped out at me because I talk about breathing
behind the shield. So I thought, that's kind
of interesting. Let me see what part of behind
the shield they are talking about. Um, is it
more of a, is it a metaphor? Is it, is it about
the physiology of being behind a shield? Is it
about the inner game of being behind the shield?
So I was actually drawn to the name. Um, and
then I looked at the folks you had interviewed
and then I listened to a bunch of interviews
and was like, Ooh, I would love to be on this
podcast. There's some great stuff here. Yeah,
no, it's going to be a very valuable, excuse
me, a very valuable addition. And that's what's
amazing. Like you say, which part is it? It's
all of it. You know, everything, whether it's
kindness, compassion, physiology, you know, mental
health. And that's exactly it. I think we pigeonhole
people and parts of people so much that we forget
that they're part of this. Not only the person,
but the entire planet that we live on. The whole
concept of the shield is really important. As
a psychologist, I mean, right now I'm looking
at performance and breathing, but my background
is as a clinical psychologist. So to me, I always
look at the metaphor of what someone's talking
about. And there's always interesting and humorous
connections between the words they use. So for
me, the shield, again, I think it was Kierkegaard
who said, you know, is humor your shield? So
and I know that with first responders, humor
is definitely part of of the shield because it
gets you through the day, even if it's dark and
even if it seems inappropriate to other people
to have humor be your shield. Yeah, there's no
question about that. Absolutely. All right. Well,
where are we finding you right now? Where are
you calling from? So I right now am in New York
City. So it's not my favorite place to be at
the time of the year. I don't love the cold.
I mean, I deal with it, but I'm in New York City,
kind of in the middle of it. But I travel a lot.
But right now, very center of New York City,
dark, cold, rainy, full of Christmas shoppers.
And were you born in New York area? So I was
born in Wisconsin. So I actually should be used
to the cold. And it's interesting because my
mom says that I was ice skating on single blades
when I was three. I have been around ice and
cold for a long time. I don't know why. I don't
like it as much anymore. But I was born in Wisconsin
and then we moved and I spent several years abroad.
One of the first places I lived was on this little
island that was between Africa and Spain, right
off the coast of Gibraltar called Tenerife, which
is one of the Canary Islands. So I lived there
when I was younger. And then most of my young
adult life or adolescence was in Rockland County,
which is where a lot of our first responders
come from. And I went to school in North Carolina.
I'm a Tar Heel. And right now, New York City
is home, although I spend a lot, a lot of time
traveling. Brilliant. And so when you were younger,
I heard you talk about ballet and yoga. What
were the sports that you kind of found yourself
being drawn to? Well, you know, there wasn't
as many choices as kids have now. So it was really
about what was out there for kids and what was
close by. And, you know, what could I walk to
after school? So there was horseback riding.
There was gymnastics. There was ballet. We didn't
have martial arts for girls. And I don't know
if that was good or bad for me because I know
I would have been obsessed about it. But so I
took, you know, any classes I could, which I
ended up in ballet. And I was really tiny growing
up. I was always the kid that was at the front
of the line when you measured people up, you
know, to get their pictures taken in school or,
you know, just you put people in size category
for some reason in grammar school. And I was
always in the front because I was always tiny.
So people always assumed, oh, I would be a ballerina
or a gymnast because of my size. Fact is, if
I was to do everything again, I would really
push for getting me into martial arts a lot younger,
a lot more quickly. I think the kids being in
martial arts is really critical to their self
-esteem. their sense of camaraderie and their
sense of respect and motivation. So anyway, it
was ballet, which means that I ended up ballet
and gymnastics having a very bad posture when
it came to breathing. um which is part of the
reason it led me down that road but but yeah
i can you know i have a ballet background which
is completely useless for me right now well i'd
love to touch on that for a moment because you
we always think of ballerinas and yogis as well
having the perfect posture that very upright
posture but then you know you see gymnasts and
ballerinas uh later in life and they're actually
broken so what is it about the the ballet posture
that creates that poor um ability to breathe
correctly? You know, that's a great question
because the ballet posture is also very similar
to your sort of gym weightlifter posture. It's
chest thrown forwards. So what, you know, what
Leon Chaitau calls an open scissors pose where
your ribs are flared forwards. The difference
with ballerinas is that usually their feet go
off in different directions, but the posture
itself is this very stiff, beautiful posture
in ballet where you're sucking in your gut, you're
pushing out your chest, and there's a certain
posture with your shoulders. But a lot of people
have this particular posture that's completely
open in the front. The problem with that posture
is that you're completely crunched in the back.
Although it looks beautiful both for bodybuilders
and for ballerinas, you're not doing your posture
justice because everything is crunching in the
back of your body. You're breathing in a vertical,
apical way, and you're squeezing all your digestive
organs all the time. That posture is not good
for anything in your body, especially if you
do it for, as we usually do, 10, 20, 30 years.
Right. Would that be the same kind of anatomy
or posture that you see in the military when
they're trying to be taught how to stand correctly
with the chest puffed out? It's similar, although
the bracing in it is very, very similar. Although
in ballet, you're trying to keep your arms softer,
but it's the bracing that's very similar. And
that sort of bracing is something that we do
all the time because It makes us feel prepared.
So whether you're in the military or whether,
regardless of the sport you do, what we're seeing
now is people that have the middle of their body,
sort of from their armpits all the way down to
their pelvis, in this stiff, braced stance, which
can feel very military. But the fact is that
we're feeling, you know, like we're in a war
zone, regardless of where we are. So it's this
preparedness stance that makes you feel like
you could run or strike. at any moment, but you
just might be behind a computer or not in that
situation just in this part of the day. Right,
yeah. So that posture is designed purely for
the battlefield, but you've got to know how to
turn it on and off. You have to turn, and that's
beautifully well said, is that you have to be
able to turn it on and off. And when you turn
it off, you take a deep, wide breath, which kind
of decompresses your spine and lets you fall
back slightly into a parasympathetic state. And
it doesn't mean you get... you know, tired or
woozy or sleepy. It just means you need to turn
it off and then you turn it back on again. You
turn it off, you turn it back on again. And that
way you have control over your arousal in a spectrum.
You're not completely awake or completely asleep.
You can actually choose where you want to be
as far as your state of arousal. Right now, just
staying on the kids side for a moment, because
you work with children as your early psychology
career. So what is it about martial arts from
a psychologist's point of view that works so
well? I mean, I've seen it myself. My little
boy's done jujitsu for five years now. What are
the elements that you recognize are so beneficial
for children? Oh, I mean, everything from discipline.
to respect, to tolerating discomfort, to being
able to make, you know, take steps to be able
to get to your goal. I mean, it teaches you everything
that we say is important for kids to learn. Camaraderie,
you know, for me. Our children are so not tolerating
any kind of discomfort that especially if you
roll and you do jujitsu, you have to be uncomfortable.
And that's just part of the game. But it's also
really exciting when you get something right.
So I don't think we have enough of what martial
arts teaches in your average day. So that's why
it's become more necessary. And especially for
girls, that tumbling and that. you know, wrestling
and being okay with, with body weight and somebody
else's body weight and being able to push and
use all your limbs. I mean, it's something that
I would put every kids in martial art. I mean,
I think it's super important to be able to strike,
to be able to to make eye contact with another
person, to be able to sense where they are in
space, to be able to sense where your own body
is in space. It's all these things that sound
super simple, but that are missing from kids'
lives right now. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's
how you reduce the amount of bullying as well,
not just by teaching kids to be able to defend
themselves and have confidence, but also the
kids that would grow up to be a bully are taught
humility and respect and the concept that there's
always someone bigger and better than you and
take away that. that fear that they're compensating
with the bullying. And that failure is information.
I mean, that you respect the person who beat
you because they're giving you information on
your weaknesses. And you know what? I got to
tell you, behind every bully is a parent who's
a bully. Behind every bully is a tremendous amount
of pain over something. So you take your average
bully and you look to see what's happening at
home. The probability that there's a parent that's
bullying them is pretty high. Yeah, that's something
that we don't talk about a lot in culture. the
new phrases are like snowflakes or millennials.
And, you know, when people's yapping off about
that, you're like, you do realize that these
are your children's generation. So that means
that you, if you're raising people that you don't
like the way they are now, then that means you
didn't do a very good job parenting, really.
I love that. Yes, you're absolutely right. All
right. Well, as far as your career path then,
so when you were at school age, had you always
wanted to get into psychology? You know what?
I was sort of undecided when I was in, you know,
everybody says like they follow their passion.
They knew really young. I didn't know really
young. I just loved doing all kinds of jobs.
When I was in college, I was on the radio station.
So WUSB in Stony Brook and WXYC in Chapel Hill.
And I loved it. Like I love being alone in the
radio station with tons of records. I assumed,
you know, I was going to be a DJ or something
like that because. I loved music and I liked
being alone with all these records. And even
though you're on the air with people, it's still
pretty solitary. And having the radio stations
in college really helped me because I wasn't
super, I don't know if I was an outgoing, but
I really was passionate about music and I can
still. go off on a huge tangent about like, what
are the 10 albums or CDs you would get, you know,
take with you on a desert Island. And I love
talking about music, especially old punk rock.
Um, you know, I also like country and all kinds
of other things, but it's, it's a topic I really
like, but I thought I was going to be a DJ or
something in music. And my minor was in French,
which is just cause I liked French. So once I
left college, I went and I worked for a year
for Jacques Cousteau. both in New York and in
Paris. Again, not because, I mean, I love the
oceans, but not necessarily because I could see
myself long -term doing something, you know,
ocean related. I went into psych and just every
two years I would change my job because I thought,
oh, this is really interesting. I can learn about
something else. So I can learn about children
and learning disabilities. I can learn about...
the prison system. So I would hop, not hop so
much because I would stay for two years, which
is longer than most millennials stay at jobs
nowadays, but I would learn about a certain population
and then go on to the next. So I ended up, after
working with a whole bunch of different people,
I ended up working at a magazine as the health
and sex editor of Men's Fitness Magazine. And
it was obviously psych related because it was
having to do with health, with mental health
and with human sexuality to a certain extent.
So that was kind of fun. I hit a wall with my
own stress in New York and with my own life where
I started grinding my teeth. And I had sort of
a small panic attack when I was rollerblading
down the West Side Highway. And it's not the
highway. It's actually a path next to the highway.
And I realized, wow, I have to do something about
my stress. I'm a New Yorker. I think I'm really
tough. I can handle a lot of stress, but obviously.
It's not working on the inside of my body. I'm
getting messages from the inside of my body saying,
you're not handling it as well as you can. And
I think everybody has those messages in some
way, whether it's a recurring nightmare, whether
it's back pain that's unresolved, whether it's
migraines, whether it's something that your body's
telling you deep inside, you're not really handling
your stress well. And after having a lot of dental
work done for my teeth grinding, I started looking
to see how can I deal with my stress in a way
that's okay with me. And I hit yoga. I mean,
that's kind of the first place you go to is like
you drink tequila or go to yoga class. And I
ended up in yoga class. It took me a long time
to find a yoga class I liked because I really
wanted one that described anatomy well. I loved
the breathing they did in yoga class, but I wanted
to know more about the science and the mechanics
of breathing. So that's why I went and studied
all different sports when it came to breathing.
With my own patients in my own private practice,
I found that as I started teaching them the things
that I was learning in breathing, they wanted
to do more breathing. And there came a moment
where I had to decide, do I continue doing therapy
or do I switch over and now? Just really teach
breathing, of course, always with a little bit
of therapy. But do I now become a breathing coach,
a breathing specialist, an expert? And that's
where I am today. Right. Well, I want to go back
to something you said about halfway through that.
And I heard you talking about it on the Align
podcast with your friend. But this is an area
where you listen to podcasts. People don't talk
about this very much. But when you were advising
on the sex and relationships in the magazines.
So firstly, you were talking to your podcast
host there about how different audiences were
either loving or hating your discussions on sex.
So if you wouldn't mind, you could tell me. Oh,
sure. So for a while, I was writing a column
for Fox News. And if you can imagine writing
about... uh, health and sex for Fox news, you
have an audience that either loves you or they
hate you. And I remember, uh, speaking to a Shep,
what the, on, on Fox news, because I'd started
getting hate mail and, um, he was completely
blase about it. He was like, oh, well, you know,
Shepard Smith, he was like, you know, get used
to that because people, especially behind their
screens will say all kinds of terrible things.
So I was giving health information. For me, it
was sexual health information. It was really
interesting, the terrible reactions that people
would have. They would either love it or they
would say just the meanest, meanest things. And
I remember having somebody write to me and saying,
I don't know what he assumed, but I remember
he had an army, a government email. And every
once in a while, I would respond to people just
to see, like, if I respond to you, what do you
do? I guess it was my own way of dealing with
it and experimenting. So I wrote back to him
and I said, this particular guy, and I said,
I don't know why you would think that I was.
You know this person that you think I was I think
he might have called me like a liberal slut or
something like that And I'm neither So I wrote
back and I said maybe my dad was actually in
the army. I do a ton of volunteer work with vets
I don't know where you'd get this idea of who
I am from an article I wrote when you don't know
anything about me And he wrote back and apologized,
saying, I'm so sorry. I didn't really think this
email went anywhere. I think I was tipsy when
I wrote it. And, you know, please accept my apology.
And that happened more often where I would actually
engage with people. And it was obviously my.
You know, I probably needed to have more hobbies,
but every once in a while I'd reach out to someone
and say, well, what would make you say that?
I'm not that kind of person or that's not what
I meant by this information. And it's really
good that we can have a discussion about this.
So the email I would send out that was an automatic
email, even to people that were hating, was thank
you for your interested and kind comment. And
it's so great that we live in a place where we
can have these discussions. And I will respond
to you. But I just wanted to let you know that
I'm getting your email. I will read it. And,
you know, God bless America that we can actually
have these discussions and still, you know, communicate
with each other and be civil. And, of course,
that wasn't the case often. But, you know, it
made me grow a little bit thicker skin. And yeah,
it was part of the job is that people are going
to disagree with you. And I don't mind it at
all. Sometimes when I do at that point, or even
now when I do talks and there's someone that
is combative or skeptical. I don't mind it at
all. In fact, I identify not with the combative
part, but with the skeptical part. And I always
say that that's good because there's so much
bullshit information out there. And there's so
many people trying to sell you things all the
time that being skeptical and in a healthy way
is actually signs of, you know, an evolved and
intelligent person. Yeah. Well, what strikes
me and it's I think it's worse since I came to
the States. The British are known to have a stick
up their ass, but not with sex. It's usually
a little more European, more liberal. But I was
just amazed how you can be in the middle of Terminator
27, where everyone's getting shot in the face,
and then it'll cut to a commercial or even be
a scene in that movie where the top of a lady's
butt crack is showing, and they blur it out.
And that whole... The way that we regard sex,
especially in our mainstream media, I find insane.
And it seems to me like it would be very unhealthy
lessons to our younger developing Americans.
It's terrifically unhealthy. And I mean, my background
is... Freudian, which means that I think we're
innately sexual and aggressive. It's just part
of being human beings. And that's normal. And
we have to work with it so that we can all live
together. But you can't say people aren't sexual
or they aren't aggressive because we are. We're
animals at the end of the day in human suits.
But when you take sex and you deny it and you
blur out butt cracks and nipples. it's going
to come out in a really weird way at the other
side. And that's where you get like perversity
and stuff that's pretty dark and awful. So if
we were sort of healthier with sex and more,
I don't know, open -minded about it, I don't
think we'd be showing the amount of aggression
that we do on television and being as warped
as we can be sexually. Yeah, and that's what
it seems like. Obviously, you're exposed to the
world of porn. It seems like there's a high demand
for that kind of aggressive, for lack of a better
word, rapey porn, which I don't know anyone I
know in regular life. It's like, yeah, I'm going
to go home and get my wife and her friend and
then choke them while I have sex with them. Yeah,
that's like a whole other bag of worms or box
of worms. Anyway, it's a whole other topic. Porn
and how you feel about it and, you know, what
sorts of porn there are. I mean, there's pretty
much something out there for everybody. But that
anonymity also leads us, you know, down a road
where there's a community for everything. And
that, to me, we have to make sure that children
and animals and other people are protected. And
right now there's a lot of focus on the sex slave
trade. So while I believe that you should have
privacy, we do need, there's a lot of people
out there that we need to protect. You know,
one of the things that happened to me in psychology
is that I ended up working or getting asked to
do personality assessment testing on pedophiles.
And I figured I could handle this. Right. And
I did one assessment and then I started going
over files and listening recordings for doing
court ordered assessments and I couldn't handle
it. And it wasn't a matter of me being strong
because I don't have a doubt that I'm strong,
but it was so dark and it's so, you know, it
was so tough on my heart to believe that. this
was going on. And it made me so upset to know,
think that this is going on and not a lot of
people realize the severity of it or are not
as passionate about fixing it and doing something
about it. So that's when I actually, one of the
reasons I left psychology when it came to that
type of work, assessment and court assessment,
is because When you went down that path, you
realized really how evil and how warped folks
could be. And that was terrifically depressing
for me because I know we can be bullies, we can
be mean, we can be aggressive, we can be stupid.
But the darkness and that side of human nature
that I saw was so frightening and so mind -blowingly
evil that I couldn't go there. Yeah, that must
have been horrendous. Did you see, was there
a kind of linear correlation between the pedophiles
and childhood trauma themselves? No, and that's
a myth. That is an absolute myth. That's something
that pedophiles use in courts to be able to garner
sympathy. When you're a pedophile, it is – I'm
going to put it super simply is that like part
of your brain that has to do with empathy is
not there. So if you've been abused as a child,
why would you ever go and abuse someone else
knowing what that feels like? Yeah, exactly.
It's just not true. So I mean is there a possibility
of you becoming very promiscuous or very sexual
or is there things that might happen? Yes. But
would you end up being a pedophile and doing,
you know, again, what pedophiles do, which is
look for children, groom them, having no empathy,
taking no responsibility. And it's over and over
and over again. You never have a pedophile that
has hurt one child. If there's one child that
comes up and talks about it, once they start
talking about it, you'll realize, wow, it's every
single child in this family. that that person
abused. So it's a serious problem. And child
porn on the internet, which is usually, you know,
children who are sex slaves to some extent, is
not 17 year olds that look 15. We're talking
about, you know, infants and children. So I,
when I was working on this case, I actually had
to go down to the FBI and look at a computer.
And oops, sorry. I had to go down to the FBI
and look at a computer and it was, you know,
one of those things that you wish you can get
out of your brain. You could just sear it out
of your brain. But I just realized some of the
horrendous things people can do and can do to
children and infants. And it was really. a very
fucked up place to be. That's the only way I
can describe it. Yeah, yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't
mean to lead us down such a dark path. But one
more question. No, but it's so important to talk
about. It is. Because people don't see these
things because, A, we don't want to know about
it. And I don't, you know, again, I wish I didn't
have those things in my brain. But I'm happy
to know about them because now I can be an advocate
for them. And I can now tell you about them.
But this is a very real problem that exists.
all over the place. I mean, this is happening
all over, and it's not, like I said, teenagers,
it's children. And there's a community online
that shares pictures of children, and they're
kept safe by privacy laws, and there's not a
lot of people doing this work. I know that there's
a guy out of the UK that takes the pictures.
and looks for teeny details in the background
to see if he can figure out who this person is
and where they are. But that's one guy. And I
always sort of laugh when I see a show on TV
and they have a team. So the child sexual exploitation
team is... 12 people with amazing computers and
cars, and they spend three weeks on a case. And
when I was down there, there was one guy who
was in charge of all five boroughs, and he had
two hours. And then he went on to the next horrible
case. So it's something that we need to pay more
attention to. And that exists really like in
your backyard, and probably, you know, within
your family. And that's the hardest thing to
swallow is that The folks, the pedophiles don't
look like, you know, 70s porn characters with
big mustaches and are acting weird and hanging
around schoolyards. They're, you know, family
members, unfortunately, or they're people, respected
people in the community. Tough topic. Tough topic.
Yeah. I had a guy called Nick McKinley, who's
a retired PJ and CIA operative who started a
thing called Deliver Fund addressing the human
trafficking issue. And he had the same thing.
He's like when he was in the special forces and
CIA, they would come across a case and they'd
be like, all right, who do we hand it to? And
there wasn't anyone. We didn't have a human trafficking
division that was experts. And even now it's
local law enforcement that are tasked with this.
So you may have, you know, a metropolitan department
that actually has some good resources. And you
may be out in the sticks where it's literally
a police officer on his time, you know, his days
off trying to track some of these people down.
And like you said, the stories you hear about
what happens to these young women, you know,
that their kids are taken away. You know, they're
told they're going to kill him if they don't
perform the porn or the sex acts or whatever
it is. And this is in our country. We're not
talking about smuggling from Southeast Asia or,
you know, the stereotypical ones. And it's nauseating
to realize how many issues that we have in this
country. And again, how underfunded and undersupported
the men and women that are trying to attack this
problem are. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So first
responders. uh it's part of the reason i do the
work that i do and i do volunteer as much as
i do is that we need first responders we need
first responders that feel supported and you
know that know that there's other people that
care about what they do and and appreciate it
for sure yeah now one more thing about the the
pedophiles while we're on the the topic if you're
saying that this is a basically a an inherent
disorder where It sounds like they're not going
to suddenly wake up one day and go, oh, I don't
like kids anymore. What do you propose that we
do with these people? Well, unfortunately, right
now, when they go to jail, a sexually violent
predator is a different kind of predator. Thankfully,
we categorize them differently. Usually, pedophiles
don't stop looking for children until... after
age 40, from what I understand, and again, I
haven't kept up on the literature, is that once
your testosterone goes down, you're less likely
to victimize children. And again, I haven't done
my research in this area, but what I do know
is that pedophiles don't get better. is that
you don't start all of a sudden having no sympathy,
no empathy for a child, and all of a sudden start
thinking, hey, well, maybe I shouldn't be hurting
them in this way, or maybe I'm ruining their
lives. That doesn't happen. I've heard so many,
like I said, I had to go through so many files,
and you don't all of a sudden get better. So
unfortunately, With pedophiles, they have to
stay behind bars. I know that growing up, I grew
up in a small town called Pearl River, and we
had someone who went to high school with me named
Paula. She was attacked, and it was a very vicious
sexual attack. And the guys, two guys that went
to jail, every two years come up for probation.
And they haven't done any of their work in jail.
They haven't apologized. They've actually, I
think, filed countersuit saying that they've
been traumatized by the event because, you know,
jail has been so hard for them. But every two
years, my town rallies and we make sure that
these two guys stay in jail because they would
get out of jail and they would continue to hurt
people. They have no remorse. They haven't shown
anything to have remorse. And it's amazing that
we even consider them every two years to be able
to come out into the public. So there's not a
lot you can do. You know, there's talks about
chemical castration. There's talks about where
people live in the community. It's not that I
don't believe that if you've done a crime, you
can get better. I actually work and do volunteer
work in prisons with lifers. And there are a
lot of people that do. get better that do recognize
what they did um apologize for what they did
do a lot of work when they're in prison and and
come back and come out and really integrate into
society and pay their taxes and are fantastic
citizens but that does not happen with pedophiles
right that's an interesting perspective thank
you so much because i mean like you said we are
fed some misinformation um you know and and you
obviously want to be the the optimistic there's
good in everyone but you also there's no question
that there are just people out there that are
that are broken for whatever reason and doesn't
mean you got to string them up by their balls
the rest of their life but at least keep them
away from the people that they're going to hurt
oh no i do think they should be stronger Now,
I think it's our duty to protect everyone from
them. But in the same breath, like, do I believe
people who have life sentences who have done
something, depending on what they've done, can
get better? Absolutely. So with pedophiles, I've
never seen a pedophile say, you know, I'm sorry
for what I did. They're like, I'm sorry I got
caught. But they will never have, you know, they
just happen to trip over. a naked child on the
way to the bathroom. Like it doesn't happen.
Um, do have, I work with fantastic lifers who
have done so much work while they're imprisoned
and, and tons of therapy. I just taught a meditation
class in, um, a prison outside of LA in Lancaster.
And I had 80 guys, it was a men's prison and
they were. I mean, they were chosen for being
the most evolved guys there who really were working
on themselves and doing a lot of work and, you
know, looking forward to getting out and being
being parts, you know, good parts of society.
But it was amazing. There was these people there
that were there were guys who had been in the
military. There were guys that had been had all
types of jobs, all ages and sizes who something
had happened that was not good. Some they had
had a lapse in judgment. But everyone there had
a possibility. And I would have had any of those
guys as a neighbor because they did the work.
They really did the work. So it's possible to
change with the pedophile community. Absolutely
not. You know, if you won't string them up by
the balls, I will because it's not like I don't.
yeah you know it's also the expense is just ridiculous
that we will spend 150 000 a year keeping someone
behind bars um it's crazy so yeah well i think
my thing is i've had a a guy and i've talked
about this many times now but uh the governor
from a norwegian prison the way they do prisons
is completely different and in this model and
one of them is called bastoy and i'm repeating
myself to people that listen to all the the episodes
but very very long story short instead of a big
cage it's a community but it's on an island so
they've lost their freedom but they act every
day like they would if they were back home so
they they're living with with a bunch of other
prisoners they cook they clean they go to work
so they're extremely functional so that way then
you can rehabilitate them and probably exactly
the men that you're talking about that you work
with would then go back and probably never re
-offend again because they made that crime a
passion they got dragged into drugs or whatever
it was but inherently they didn't wake up wanting
to be criminals but then you take your resources
and you lock away like the shitbag that shot
that um that camp in norway you know he's locked
up behind bars and you lock up your pedophiles
but then you funnel all your your resources into
capturing those people and imprisoning them but
not the people that them were probably going
to go and be functional great members of society
they just made a mistake Yeah, I mean, that that
way to think about it is so much better because
we have a huge number of people in prisons and
most of us don't know about it unless you're
visiting someone in a prison is that it's gigantic.
You know, it really is an industrial complex.
So huge amount of manpower out there of, you
know, who want to do good. The program I work
with, we take rescue dogs into the prisons and
they're trained by the lifers. to then transfer
them to homecoming vets. So we need to take that
model where the lifers and the prisoners that
want to give back and want things to do can,
because that, you know, that program is amazing,
but you go on to, into these prisons, you're
like, this is enormous. It's a huge complex housing,
thousands and thousands of people, and it just
keeps getting bigger. So I really wish we would
look at different models, like the model, the
Norwegian model, you. you know, you said and
did things a little bit differently. Yeah. Yeah.
No, I think so as well. All right. I want to
talk on one more area of the sex and the relationship
side before we go on to the bulk, which would
be the breath. But you touched on this in the
interview, but I think this really needs to be
said. There are so many misconceptions about
sex and relationships, about the strains they
put on marriage. But the first thing is we are,
again, I think thanks to Hollywood, as a man
led to believe that if you can't go for an hour
and a half and do about 76 different sexual positions
in the process, then you are failing as a man.
So firstly, how long is sex actually, you know,
on average lasting and how often does a, you
know, an average healthy marriage, you know,
the two partners actually have sex because there's
such mythology around that. Well, I have to tell
you that, you know, there is a link between breath
and sex in Tantra. And there is a link between
sexual health and breath in that if you're breathing
well, you're using your pelvic floor. And those
are all the urogenital muscles that if you're
keeping them healthy, you're breathing and that
part of your body is, you know. uh well oxygenated
and you have good blood flow and things like
that both for men and for women so there is um
there is a link between the breed between breathing
and sexual health for sure But the myth that
the longer you go, the better is completely set
up by pharmaceuticals and by porn. Women in general
do not want sex that lasts forever. It's incredibly
boring. And I mean, it probably makes for good
porn and it makes for selling Viagra. But the
fact is that we don't really care how long it
goes on. We just want to orgasm so that you just
make sure your partner has an orgasm if it's
in the first 30 seconds. awesome. If it's in
the first two minutes, great. It's really not
about going on and on forever. It's just, has
she had an orgasm? So one of the books I really
love is from Ian Kerner and it's called She Comes
First. And it's the fact that if your partner's
had an orgasm, they don't really care how long
you go. If you actually have an orgasm right
after them or with them, that's fine. It could
have been four minutes of sex. So it's not about
the length of time. It's about them actually
having an orgasm. orgasm right and then that
that rings true with my second marriage you know
my wife becky now you know we communicate very
well so the the simplicity of the relationship
was basically saying well what do you actually
like and then we start talking like oh shit so
you don't need so i can put the sex swing away
then People don't have that conversation. They
don't have that conversation. It's interesting.
Women will ask for feedback all the time. We're
just feedback machines. We want to know what
we look like at different angles. We're always
picking up information about what makes the environment
safer, what makes people around us happier. I
know I'm going to get pushback from that, but
that's just the way we're wired. With men, guys
will rarely ask for feedback. They just assume
you had a great time. And we're partially at
fault, you know. We're partially at fault because,
you know, we'll play into that. But, you know,
men will rarely, rarely ask or are in tune of
like, you know, if I'm clenching and stiff and
kind of like, it probably means what you're doing
is not that great. If I'm saying, yes, oh, yes.
That's awesome. Keep going. Like you should probably
keep going, but don't switch it up. Whatever
you're doing, just keep doing exactly that. So,
you know, it could be so much simpler if we all
just talked a little bit more and asked each
other and asked each other because you wouldn't
believe how many myths people believe about each
other just because they just assumed, oh, I assumed
guys like this or I assumed women loved that.
And, you know, it couldn't be further from the
truth. And in that ways, like, yes, women are
snowflakes. But once you get the algorithm, you
just have to do that algorithm. Like, you just
do the same thing over and over again. And we're
happy. And like I said, it does not matter. It
does not have to be an hour and a half. If we're
still letting you go on an hour and a half, you
just haven't hit the mark. So, yeah. Brilliant.
And then what about frequency? Like, again, you
know, in the firehouse, oh, my God. There's always
that one guy that's like, oh, I had sex 27 times
again yesterday. You know, what's the real from
a healthy marriage? And not like some sort of
target to hit, but what does it end up averaging
out? Like how often a healthy couple do have
sex? Well, I got to tell you, like no one ever
asks the chick that's the recipient of the 27
times, like how she feels about it. So I doubt
she remembers it. It's probably bullshit anyway.
Totally. You have to cut that in half and then
another quarter. But is that. is that he, again,
is going for length of time and number of times.
It's all about quantity. And we are not all about
quantity. I mean, think about it. It's like a
huge – 90 minutes is a lot of time to be doing
anything, and you're just trying to have an orgasm
for crying out loud, right? And then get some
good sleep. So I would say that a lot of it depends
on is it a new relationship because you know
in the beginning of a relationship you're going
to have a lot of sex. And then you have to be
careful that you don't fall into a lull where
you're not having sex because then it becomes
habit and then your partner becomes your roommate.
And it's really hard to get out of roommate land.
But figuring out what times works for you and
what is stopping your partner from wanting to
have sex with you. So for instance, I've had
women say to me, if the door's unlocked, I have
a really hard time focusing on having an orgasm.
And sometimes it's, I know this sounds so silly,
but the fact is that Women can hear a lot more
and they're hearing to see where the kids are
and if the door is locked. So figure out what's
that thing that would make your partner feel
better, make your wife, your girlfriend feel
better. Is it the door being locked so your kid
might not walk in? I remember reading a study
about having your feet be cold and how it's harder
to orgasm when your feet are cold. It sounds
like a detail, but what can you do to make her
feel okay about having sex? And it might just
be locking the door. It may be turning your phone
off so the phone isn't ringing in the middle
of things. It might be that you have sex in the
morning and not at night. It might be that you
have nap sex in the middle of the day. Nap sex
is awesome. So you have to get not creative,
but you actually have to schedule it and ask,
you know, what's holding you back. And, you know,
especially with women, Our weight really takes
a toll on how we feel about ourselves and how
sexy we feel. So making sure that your wife or
your girlfriend feels beautiful is so important
because it's hard to have sex when you're feeling
unattractive. Yeah, that's something I've noticed
though with a lot of marriages and I can say
this, my previous one, and this isn't to throw
mud at my ex or anything, but when when people
do get married and then male female the weight
goes on and i see that as as definitely a challenge
to the physical side because it's not that you're
going to walk around like barbie and ken but
there's that feeling of of self -confidence when
you're doing exercise and whatever it is that
promotes your well -being. But if you know in
your heart that you're kind of deteriorating,
especially if it's physically and you're looking
in the mirror, there's no question that's going
to have an effect on your sex life. Yeah, and
your self -esteem. I'm laughing because I'm thinking
about someone you had on the podcast the other
day. They were talking about being jacked fat.
It was skinny fat and jacked. Was it Chris? It
was Chris Bell. I think it was Chris, yeah. Yeah,
yeah. And he was talking about being jacked fat
and skinny fat. And so much of it depends on
what your partner thinks. So if you gain weight
and your partner's like, oh my God, you look
so amazing. Your ass is so big, like you're gorgeous.
Then you're kind of happy about it. But if you
know in the back of your head that they're looking
at you and they don't like that weight on you,
it's sad to say, but your self -esteem depends
a lot on what your significant other thinks of
you. I love the power lifting in the CrossFit
community because they've really made it so that
weight doesn't matter as much as strength. So
you have women who would have usually been getting
on the scale and trying to cut calories and trying
to cut weight. And all of a sudden they are actually
their weight is up because they have more muscle
and they're strong and they're curvy and they're
strong and they feel good. And I can tell you
that that's going to make an impact in the bedroom.
So, you know, thank you to CrossFit and powerlifting
and Olympic lifting for letting people gain weight
in a healthy way and be muscular and strong and
probably higher on the scale in a number than
they ever would have thought is sexy in the past.
But being strong makes you feel sexy. And if
your significant other lifts with you or thinks
your muscles are sexy too. even if you're not
like at 120 pounds like your friends are, then
that's just going to translate to more sex and
better sex for sure. Yeah, yeah. And there's
nothing better for your self -confidence than
being able to climb that rope for the first time
or run that distance that you've run. And I think
that's it. When you realize that you're improving,
not diminishing, and again, it's not about having
a six -pack or looking great in active wear,
but when you know that you are improving, bettering
yourself I think that's where that real self
-esteem comes from not the the feedback from
other people yeah the deadlift I mean if you're
deadlifting and you feel good about your deadlift
like it's kind of crazy it sounds like a really
good t -shirt but like being able to deadlift
well and I'm a big fan of the deadlift is like
you feel good You know, you get that little high
afterwards and you feel strong and that's going
to translate to how you carry yourself. And again,
if your friends are all these like wafey yoga
Pilates girls and you don't fit in because you're
a little thicker, that can really take a toll
on your self -esteem. I was just this weekend
hanging out with Jen Widerstrom, who was one
of the coaches on The Biggest Loser. She was
a gladiator. gorgeous. She has like thick legs
and she's got a great butt, small waist, boobs,
beautiful arms. And she's not that your typical
shape for people, but we were hanging out. I
was just telling her, Jen, you are doing such
a service to women who want to be strong, who
don't want to be, you know, tiny, that being
skinny is not. their motive that actually they
want to be strong and they want to have bigger
legs and want to be able to deadlift more and
Jen is an amazing model of exactly that of you
can be really sexy and really muscular at the
same time yeah no they've done CrossFit's done
an amazing job of redefining women period you
know as far as the ability and the look as well
and i find some of the crossfit athletes extremely
sexy you know with obviously they're muscular
but it's what they can do you know they're not
they're not buying into that well i'll just stay
at home and wash the dishes while you go to work
alpha male that's like no no this is this this
is planet earth where up till very recently women
were working and doing just the same things as
men yeah it's funny because i'm reading um Tesla's
biography because he's a I'm Serbian and Cuban
and he was Serbian. And he talks about the women
in in Serbia and how hard they worked. So they
would not only farm, but they would take care
of children and just like how tough life was
for them and what tough people the Serbian moms
and Serbian grandmothers were. And, you know,
it was just, you know, resonating with me knowing
that these are, you know, my. at least on my
father's side of the family, these are the people
that I come from, but like extremely tough lives
and very efficient in getting all the work done
and rearing children and taking care of things.
Just like, you know, three jobs all rolled into
one and not very friendly settings as far as,
you know, nature and history and things like
that. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, there's
one other area of sex I want to talk about. And
then we'll take that segue and go into the breath
work and the bulk of your work now. But another
thing that you touched on with the guy on the
Align podcast was masturbation. And I'm sure
the word is probably going to make some people
cringe because, you know, whatever doctrine they've
been raised on, that's a dirty, dirty word. But
it's something I think that most people do. pretend
they don't. Um, so what is, uh, what have you
learned as far as that and health benefits? Well,
I just want to tie it back to, um, the fact that
when you talk about breathing, there's energy,
um, and all the Tantra works and I don't focus
on this. It's not my, not my expertise, but definitely
when you talk about sex and the breath and whether
it's masturbation or orgasm, like all those things
go together. Um, when you talk about you know,
being multi orgasmic, um, and orgasms in general,
the breath is definitely tied to that. Um, so
in look at me, I've just completely forgotten
the question. It had to do with masturbating.
How do you be master of your domain? Like, like
Seinfeld says, but yeah, the connection with,
with, with the health side. So, so it's demonized,
you know? So, but I mean, people should masturbate
just cause it's, it makes you feel better and
it's a release of energy. I mean, it doesn't,
it doesn't even have to be that sexual. It's
more like, let me masturbate because I want to
go to sleep. So in general, we don't talk to
kids about it. We, it's not taught. It's not
okay. It's dirty. And, you know, it'd be so interesting
if we were so much more open -minded about it,
if it was so much more natural. I can't even
imagine what that would look like. I mean, I
can't even imagine them teaching or talking about
that in schools. But it's just, you know, I remember.
Again, going back to Fox News, having somebody
say like, I don't know. She was yelling at me
through email, of course, because I could hear
it. It was all in caps. It was all in caps. It
was all in caps. And he was saying like, I don't
know why you talk so much about relationships
and sex because I'd really rather masturbate.
And I wrote back and I said, I think that's a
great idea. Like, you should. Just think about
it. Like, you're all uptight. Masturbate, you
feel better. You feel like, you know, you just
masturbated. You got it done. You got it over
with and you just feel better. So it just from
a from a like your body feeling better and a
release. We're sexual animals. We have a sexual
energy. You're going to be calmer afterwards.
You know, I should say that there's no literature
that shows that not having sex before a fight
makes you be a better fighter. I remember being
at Men's Fitness and researching that. So although
people say that and they won't have sex before
a fight, there's no research that shows that
that actually makes you have a better fight.
But I can imagine being at the firehouse. It's
probably not something you do all out in the
open. Not on the engine on a call, no. But I
think that when you have kids, you have to make
sure that they don't have the idea that this
is something that's dirty. And that in whatever
vocabulary you can, you encourage it because
especially with girls is that if you are a girl
and you masturbate, you're going to know what
pleases you better. And, you know, what else
can I say about that? Yeah, well, it's funny.
You talked about the withholding. We've heard
that a lot from sports people. I just sat down
with Hoyce Gracie the other day, and it wasn't
in this conversation. It was one I listened to
him have with another guy that I was with on
his podcast. But his dad, Helio, had said the
same thing to them. and uh hoister basically
said uh i'm not doing that and he was like why
he said dad you've got nine kids and you fought
your whole life there's no way in hell you abstain
so i don't want to hear it that's beautiful that's
hilarious i love that i love that yeah and i
mean there's we have that sort of a when we see
someone who's really uptight we think oh like
You know, you say you're a little crass, maybe,
or I am, is that you say, oh, yeah, like they
need to get laid. And the fact is they don't
need to get laid. They actually like probably
should masturbate or orgasm or do something that's
just sexually going to be able to get them to
calm down. Or maybe they need to go for a run
as well. But that just takes more time. But,
you know, that whole notion of they're so uptight,
they need to have sex. Well, yeah, because sex
does calm you down. And, you know, it makes you
feel more alive. And then you feel if you're
having sex with someone else and you both orgasm,
you feel more connected. And just life is, you
know, you get up and you're like, hey, well,
you know, life is not so bad. It's a good way
of avoiding horrible sexual decisions, too, if
you do it before you go out. Well, you know,
there's the whole like something about Mary letting
one out of the chamber before you go out. it
just think about the dumb things that people
have done you know especially politicians and
you know actors we won't talk about because the
the their their urge to you know uh have sex
or their their wanting to conquest is like gotten
in the way of their judgment So it would probably
be a good rule is like orgasm first and then
make a decision and think about whether it's
a good decision afterwards. So you mentioned
about the connection between breathwork and sex.
Obviously, I'm sure we can all envision when
we're getting close to climaxing that that certainly
comes in. Exactly. Yeah. So would you elaborate
on that for me? Sure, sure. The squeeze that
you're trying to make with your pelvic floor
when you're trying not to orgasm and pull back,
all this comes from, I'm forgetting his name,
but when you, there's hundreds of year old texts
and information that have to do with how to become
multi -orgasmic, which means that you have an
orgasm without actually ejaculating. And it all
comes from having better control of all the muscles
that have to do with your pelvic floor and with
your erection. So if you're trying to sort of
back off at a moment before you have an orgasm,
what you're trying to do is squeeze and, you
know, think of England. So the squeeze is actually
a squeeze of your pelvic floor. So all the muscles
that are between your sit bones. your pubic bone,
and your tailbone. So all the muscles that are
part of your bicycle seat. So you're trying to
squeeze all that on an exhale. So what happens,
and it doesn't go right often, is that you'll
squeeze on the inhale. And what I want you to
do, and you're probably squeezing right now,
which is fine, is squeeze your pelvic floor,
do a Kegel with all your muscles on the bottom
of your body, and do it on the exhale. So that
not only is going to give you a couple more seconds
and let you sort of lean off the gas pedal. So
when I say squeeze your pelvic floor, a lot of
people don't know what that means. Your pelvic
floor is a group of 20 muscles at the bottom
of your body. It's a lot of muscles and it's
everything that hits the bicycle seat when you're
on a bicycle and a little bit more. So if you
think about it in your mind's eye, you're thinking
about a not quite a small pizza, just a little
bit smaller than a small pizza, but it's a lot
of muscles. There's three layers of them. So
when you squeeze, the squeeze feels like you're
trying to stop urine midstream, but that's just
the beginning. I want you to try to squeeze all
those muscles and it almost feels like you're
squeezing them up into your body. So in lifting,
you say balls to spine, and that's what I want
you to do, but do it on an exhale. So go ahead
and try that now and let me know how it goes.
Yeah, I feel them all being engaged. Okay. So
usually is that when you're told to do a Kegel
or a pelvic floor contraction is that you're
not told how to do the breathing at the same
time. And because your pelvic floor is attached
to your diaphragm by your psoas muscles, you'll
actually get a tighter squeeze. So you'll get
a better contraction by doing it with the exhale.
And again, all this to me is muscles and body
parts. It's not. It doesn't have to be sexual
at all. It's just about having that part of your
body, which is all the muscles which are connected
to your glutes and your lower abs and your spine,
having them be strong. So the flip side to that
is that that's actually going to help with your
orgasm, whether you're male or you're female.
So making that part of your body strong, flexible,
and healthy is going to make for better sex,
better orgasm, regardless of whether you have
a penis or a vulva. Right. Now you talked about
the pelvic floor. I had Julian Pannot on a couple
of times. And one of his observations was this.
This was not so much about the breath initially,
but more movement patterns and imbalance of muscles.
But how a lot of the elite CrossFit athletes
were urinating themselves, the women. And then
also you see that through women that have vaginal
births and then have terrible problems with with
leaking after. the childbirth side, I give the
body way more credit than that. So are there
things that we're doing that are contributing
to that pelvic floor weakness? Oh my goodness,
so much. I mean, that's a whole podcast. And
first of all, I have to say, I listened to that
podcast with Julian Pino. It was amazing. I loved,
that was one of the first ones that I listened
to and it was really great. So thank you for
having him on. With the pelvic floor, what's
interesting is we keep talking about the body
as a canister. So as a soda pop can, I think
Americans say, but like as this canister. And
people always think about the core as the middle
of their body. And they don't realize that the
canister actually has a bottom. And if you're
squeezing the middle of the canister, the bottom
of it is going to fall out. So that's what's
happening is that whether you're male or female
or have had children or not, if you're squeezing
the middle of the container like a toothpaste,
you know, toothpaste uh help me out here a tube
of toothpaste a tube that's it a tube of toothpaste
is that if you're squeezing it and that's the
squeeze is your ab muscles the squeeze is uh
the abdominal pressure that you put on it before
you lift um the bottom of it if you're not paying
attention is going to herniate so pelvic floor
herniations for men and for women are at an all
-time high now If you think of even go a step
further, beyond pelvic floor herniations, what
happens another 10 years later is you end up
in adult diapers. And we don't want to think
about this because you're not going to look cute
in adult diapers and I'm not either. And it's
not going to happen to either of us. Don't worry.
I'll make sure it doesn't. But is that the adult
diaper industry is huge and it's huge for a reason
is because we're not being educated about our
pelvic floors and they're just going to shit.
And we're ending up wearing adult diapers and
thinking that that's normal part of aging. And
the fact is that if you're going to the gym and
you're working out all your different muscles,
you're learning about fascia, you're doing your
active recovery, you're doing all these things
to optimize your body. What are you doing about
your pelvic floor? And most people don't even
know where it is or how many muscles it is. And
it comes with that. that prudishness that, if
that's a word, that Americans have of like, they
don't want to think about that part of the body.
It's like, it's kind of not there. So we're not
going to talk about it because it's urogenital.
It has to do with elimination and it has to do
with sex. So we don't want to talk about it.
And the fact is that it's a lot of muscles and
we put a lot of pressure on it. So it's not just
women who have had babies or vaginal births.
Some of the worst pelvic floors are runners.
Um, powerless lifters, CrossFit and Olympic lifters
have some of the worst pelvic floors as well,
because we're inhaling and bearing down and people
aren't teaching that that bear down should not
be happening. Those muscles were never meant
to put up with the kind of training that we do
where we're bearing down on them. We should actually
be squeezing them. And that makes for more intra
-abdominal and intra -thoracic pressure. All
right. So if you wouldn't mind, because that's
something I'm sure a lot of people are going
to be able to connect with, because I'm sure
most people that listen do some sort of lifting,
whether it's actually in the gym or even just
picking up a patient off the floor, which most
of us do. How would you describe that we do create
that corset, that intra -abdominal pressure the
correct way? Sure. I mean, this is a topic I
absolutely is fascinating to me because so much
of lower back pain has to do with dysfunctional
pelvic floors. And it's not necessarily that
your pelvic floor is loose or weak. Sometimes
it's just rigid and it's completely out of balance.
So you might have, because it's 20 different
muscles, you might have two or three muscles
that are super tight. and three or four that
are really loose, but it creates this unbalance
at the very bottom part of your body, and it
just ripples throughout your whole body. So you
go to pick someone up, and ooh, it feels like
you hurt something, you slipped a disc. Most
of L4, L5 problems are not related necessarily
to the spine. They're related to the fact that
your pelvic floor affects the bottom of your
spine. So to me, when you go in and you have
L4, L5 problems, it's really awful that you'll
have a lot of docs only focus on your spine and
your discs. You should be looking at the pelvic
floor. And in all other countries, people have
physical therapy that has to do with pelvic floor,
pelvic floor, physical therapists, physiotherapists
that are covered by insurance. So you live in
Australia, you live in the UK. You can get a
pelvic floor assessment that's covered and people
do it. It's normal. In the United States, you
know, I get people looking at me wide -eyed.
What? A physical therapist that works on your
pelvic floor from the inside? Yes. Under socialized
medicine? I thought that was from Russia. Oh,
my goodness. So you end up with a lot of lower
back pain and a lot of pelvic floor dysfunction
because we're not paying attention to it and
we're not educated about it. So what I want you
to think about is already think about this, no
matter who you are. And when I first started
teaching, I started teaching military and law
enforcement. And I remember I was working with
first responders over in San Diego. And I remember
asking the group, who here has a pelvic floor?
And still to this day, I'll always have some
guys usually who are like, oh, no, I don't have
a pelvic floor. And there's always one guy who's
like, no, no, I don't have one. That's like chick
stuff. And the fact is that we all have pelvic
floors. And what you can do to figure out and
really get a sense of where yours is and we're
going to do a little interactive right now is
I want you to sit on your hands with your palms
up. Okay. So your palms are facing up and you're
sitting them. And you should feel your sit bones,
your ischial tuberosities, like leaning into
the palms of your hands. One's on the right and
one's on the left. So go ahead and do that. If
you're driving and listening to this, don't do
it. Or you can do it with one hand carefully.
But I want you to realize where those sit bones
are. So even if you have a big butt, you'll be
able to feel your sit bones. And I want you to
think about in your mind's eye, and usually people
have to look up towards the ceiling and look
mildly confused, how much space you have between
one bone on the right and the other bone on the
left. So this is the part of your body that's
on your seat from one bone to the other. So what
do you got, James? Got it. That feels like. four
inches apart maybe and the guy the guy i just
hit in front of my car he looks pissed off right
now just try to explain to him what you're doing
so uh So yeah, exactly five inches. So now you're
going to get to know more about James than you
ever thought you would. James' pelvic floor from
one sit bone to the other is about five inches.
And that's kind of your average. So now what
I want you to do, and don't worry, this doesn't
get any weirder, is that I want you to put one
finger on your pubic bone at the front of your
body. So that's where your zipper ends at the
front of your body. And that's your pubic bone.
And now your other hand, not if you're driving.
But your other hand, if you're just sitting around
with us on your tailbone in the back of your
body and tailbones always funny to me because
like it is exactly where it would be if we had
a tail and that's called your coccyx and you
can feel it. It's at the very top of your butt
crack is that's where your tailbone is. So I
want you one hand in the front on your pubic
bone and one in the back on your tailbone. And
then again, in your mind's eye, and I have measured
this on people, believe me, I want you to think
about how much space. you have from one bone
in the front to the bone in the back if you went
straight across. Okay. Seems like it would be
more about six, seven inches. Exactly. Exactly.
So if you put those two diameters together so
that you have a visual, you've got about five
inches and about six or seven inches. So it's
an oblong shaped amount of real estate, but it's
a pretty big chunk of your body right there.
And I want you to sort of make that circle in
front of you. It's like, wow, that is a lot of
muscle down there. I never thought about that.
It's like, that's pretty big. So that disc of
muscle is three layers of muscles that are intertwined.
That's your pelvic floor. And if you're kind
of an anatomy junkie like I am, it's like, wow,
that is a lot of muscle. Are we training that
muscle? Did we know where it was? Is it healthy?
What is it attached to? What are the symptoms
of it not being healthy? And usually it's going
to be lower back pain. So that is your pelvic
floor. And if you want to go ahead and do a little
exercise right now is that on the inhale, you
relax your pelvic floor because most of us have
parts of our pelvic floor that's way too rigid,
really tight as a muscle. So on the inhale, you're
going to relax that part of your body. So that
whole. a bunch of muscles on the bottom part
of your bicycle seat. You're going to relax them
on the inhale. And on the exhale, that's where
you're going to do your pelvic floor contraction
and squeeze. And if you get really good at it,
you'll be able to do one side, the other side,
and then divide it into quadrants. And what happens
when your pelvic floor gets both flexible and
strong is that you're able to brace better when
you lift. Yeah, and that makes perfect sense
because have you heard of Eric Goodman and foundation
training? Yes, of course. Yeah, so all these
circles, I've mentioned this before, but these
circles where they intersect, it doesn't matter
what the discipline is, whether it's breath work
or lifting or foundation training, but you see
this commonality. And again, the way he talks
about the pelvis and the muscle imbalances is
exactly the same kind of area that you're talking
about now. And just bringing it down, like for
me, Katie Bowman, Leslie Howard and Jill Miller
were three people that I absolutely love when
it comes to pelvic floor. Issa Herrera as well.
So there's a lot of people doing great stuff.
Katie Bowman actually has a good podcast as well.
But I listen to them. I'm like, oh, my goodness.
They're absolutely right. This is such a big
part of your body that we need to pay attention
to. So there's some. fantastic people doing great
things out there. But sometimes it's just about
the cue of like, how are you explaining this
to me that now it makes sense and now I care.
So for me, and it wasn't my cue, I don't know
where I should know and be able to reference
the person who said this, but bicycle seat to
me was so great because we all know what it feels
like to sit on a bicycle seat and that your pelvic
floor is. the part of the body that sits on the
bicycle seat, and then a couple inches more to
either side, like, yeah, that is a big part of
my body. And then back pain, like who doesn't
have lower back pain? It's so hard to find someone
that actually isn't suffering from lower back
pain nowadays. But if you think about the fact
that it is attached and intimately involved with
your pelvic floor, how healthy is your pelvic
floor? Maybe it's not your spine. Maybe it is
your pelvic floor that needs help. And when you
said about cyclists, what about cyclists, people
that spend hours sitting on that group of muscles
in a very sharp seat? I'm more concerned about
people sitting on chairs or in their cars. So
cyclists get off their bicycle, which brings
us, you know, full circle to the idea that you
need to brace and you need to expand. So you
need to be able to, you know. Have a standing
desk where you continue to move. You don't just
go to standing and bracing. You need to be able
to be moving and change your body for the circumstance.
Most of us just stay in the same posture, the
same rigidity because we're lazy. But cyclists
get off their bicycle and then they don't have
that pressure on their pelvic floors. Those of
us that sit for a living or we sit just because
that's what our life is like. We go from one
chair to a couch. to a subway, to a car or whatever,
is like, I'm worried about us because we're spending
time in this semi -crouched seated position when
we should be moving a lot more, getting a lot
more blood flow and toxins out of our bodies
and being in different movement patterns and
positions. So I'm more worried about your average
seated person than I am about cyclists. Right.
And do you see that's a root of the poor breathing
practices that we see in most people these days?
Oh, absolutely. I mean, your average American
sits 13 to 16 hours a day. And I remember hearing
that number and saying, oh, that's not me, though.
And then I looked at my day and well, here I
am seated talking to you. And then I'll probably
go sit and work on my computer. And then I might
do another call and I'll be seated and I have
to remind myself to get up and stretch, you know,
go to the gym, do all these other things. So,
yes, being seated. absolutely hurts your breathing.
And part of the reason it hurts your breathing
is because of your hip posture. So if you look
at yourself seated, most of us have our hips
tipped underneath us and you're not moving your
pelvic floor as you breathe. And the way you
should be breathing is with a tiny little movement.
And it could be just an internal movement where
your psoas gets involved on the inhale and on
the exhale. If you're seated, you're going to
be stuck with your hips stuck under you for hours
and hours and hours. And that definitely affects
your breath. Right. So then if you wouldn't mind
kind of expanding on breath then. So firstly,
horizontal versus vertical. Great. So I focus
on and there's amazing people out there that
teach all different types of breathing. I'm big
into us considering each other colleagues in
a team. So whenever I have people say, well.
Who else should I go read? I have a list, a huge
list of folks. I love their books. I think you
should take every workshop that's out there and
learn as much as you can from as many different
breathing people as possible. I focus on the
psychology and the dynamics, the biomechanics
of the breathing. So are you breathing in a way
that's biomechanically sound? Once you have that
down, are your breathing muscles strong? And
to be able to get to that point, you have to
understand, because human beings are weird animals,
is that we have to understand what a better breath
is and how our breathing got this way so that
we can get connected to then making change of
that bad habit. So I combine psychology. mechanics
and neurology to be able to fix someone's breathing
and get their breathing to be better i know that's
a mouthful but that's the shortest version i
have though so while we're talking about psychology
um you you know you had a psychology background
now you're doing breath work obviously the the
big uh areas that we're seeing as far as challenges
to mental health in first responders are anxiety
depression and then suicide sadly which is you
know killing more of us than line of duty deaths
what are what are some of the you know your your
main key points as far as the connection between
breath work and improving mental health oh my
goodness i mean that is that is who i am and
that's one of the reasons i'm here is that i
come from a place of psychology so all my patients
when i was just doing therapy had uh anxiety
is um the most common mental health problem that
there is that usually goes along with depression
or with addiction, if not all three of them.
And now I get to actually give people practical
information on how to change their neurology
to be able to support a system that's not anxious
and not depressed. Now, does that mean that you
shouldn't take medication? Absolutely not. If
you need medication, you should definitely take
it. And if it's going to give you a jumpstart
to start feeling better, you definitely should
take it. But there's no way that we can start
talking about depression and anxiety and healing
from it if we don't look at our nervous system
and start asking, what am I telling my body to
do with my breathing? Because your breathing
is the mechanism that tells your arousal how
it should be. It's not necessarily lavender candles
or your self -talk or anything like that. It's
really, how are you breathing? And I'm sorry,
I've got my, you can hear the chimes going off
in the background. Oh, no, you're fine. I can
barely hear it. Okay. So your breathing is your
system, your arousal system. So if as a first
responder, you want to be very alert, but not
fall prey to an adrenaline dump, you're going
to watch your breathing. If you're staking out
and if you're watching a building for a few hours,
you have to be alert, but not too alert for it
to be taxing on your energy. But you also don't
want to be so calm that you respond more slowly.
And then do you want to be just zenned out and
calm or do you want to be completely asleep?
So there's a range of arousal and your breathing
can put you in each place that you want to be.
With anxiety, what tends to happen is that we
fall, you know, something happens so that it
makes us anxious, whether it be trauma. or a
situation or our own chemistry our breathing
follows along and now you're trapped because
you're breathing in a way that makes you anxious
so it's very very hard to get out yeah and i
had a um brian mckenzie on the show and we talked
about this the other day but just the the simple
act of nose breathing i know you know we're going
to talk a lot about like the foundation of the
breath but just focusing on that When I've been
applying that to some of the workouts that I've
done, just getting to that red zone that, all
right, I've hit my wall. I have to stop, put
the barbell down, whatever it is. It made so
much sense. And firstly, I like to self -experiment.
It worked incredibly well. And this is purely
just like I said, focusing on the nose breathing,
not even the areas that we're about to talk about
so much. But when you're calm. You know, your
mouth is closed if you've got good posture and
you're breathing through your nose. And when
you're panicking, your mouth is open and you
start breathing faster and faster. So, you know,
people can can look too far deep or even poo
poo it. But just look at someone who's panicking.
Look at someone who's calm and look at their
posture and their breath. And it's right there
in front of us. So we don't need to do, you know,
a thousand clinical studies. To me, what you
teach, what Brian talks about and other people
in these arenas. It just makes sense to me. Yeah.
And I mean, I'm so grateful for Brian and Rob
and Jason to bring this topic up all the time,
which is fantastic, which is the importance of
nasal breathing. And when people ask me about
more about nasal breathing or about CO2, I definitely
refer them to them because they are the absolute
experts when it comes to nose breathing. And
they're super adamant about it. And, you know,
I love those guys. They're there. They do great,
great work. Yeah, so that being said, understanding
that our breath can either cause anxiety, depression,
or go the other way, what's the root of that?
And then what are the things that you start coaching
people as far as breathing the correct way? Sure.
So the root of why your breath is attached to
your nervous system is that your vagus nerve,
and vagus nerve is this big sort of octopus -like
nerve that starts at the top of your head and
goes throughout your whole body. So when you're
breathing apically, which is a vertical breath,
your vagus nerve with all the long tendrils it
has says, oh, look, James is breathing with his
shoulders or his upper chest. We need to keep
him vigilant because obviously something's going
on in the environment. So your heart rate probably
goes up. Your blood pressure might go up. Your
cortisol definitely goes up. And your immune
system might go down depending on how long you're
in that state. So if you start breathing in what's
called an abdominothoracic breath, which is a
diaphragmatic breath, it's a lower body breath,
then your vagus nerve bypasses your shoulders
and goes down to around your belly. Oh, James
is breathing with a lower body breath using his
diaphragm. So it must be calm in his surroundings.
Now, granted, you might be at a fire. You might
be helping someone who's injured. So the surroundings
are not that great. There shouldn't be surroundings
where you're calm, but you stay calm. And that's
the ticket for people that can be in. situations
where you think they should be freaking out,
but they're not, look at their breathing. They're
breathing with their diaphragm in a lower body
breath. They're keeping their heart rate low
by breathing low. And with a lot of pros, this
comes naturally. But with the rest of us, you
know, normal humans, we have to practice it and
we have to take ourselves out of that upper breath,
put ourselves in that lower diaphragmatic breath
and our nervous system will follow and we'll
be able to stay calm regardless of what's blowing
up around us. Yeah, and that's something that
we need because I always point this out, especially
if we're in the environment where we're wearing
a mask, we only have so much air. It's a finite
amount on our back before we have to leave again.
you know, there's an active shooter scene or
we're in the middle of a raging fire, us getting
excited about it and breathing harder isn't,
you know, it's actually working against what
we want to do because we want to keep our mind
calm. We want to be efficient in our movement
as well. But it's definitely a challenge to keep
that breathing and that mental state lower even
when, you know, the world's losing its mind around
us. And it's the fact that one of the things
I've done is that it has to be very practical.
So if you tell someone, take a deep breath in,
most of the time you're going to see a really
shitty breath. Is that we're not taught what
a good deep breath really is. So you add a mask
to that. You add weight of all your gears to
your shoulders. And your shoulders are what keeps
you, you know, when you're a vertical breather,
your shoulders is what is helping you breathe.
So you add weight to that. And then add, you
know, poor visibility and smoke and all kinds
of other things. And, you know, you've got a
really tough situation right there. But are you
taught how to breathe in a calming way? And most
of the time we defer to a box breath. So if you
listen to. Lieutenant Grossman or Mark Devine,
they talk about box breathing, which thankfully
was the beginning of the conversation a few years
ago and fantastic at that. But how are you breathing?
So when you're counting to four, holding it for
exhaling it for holding it for, are you breathing
vertically? Are you breathing with that breath
that actually supports you being more anxious?
Or are you forcing yourself to breathe with your
diaphragm with a lower body breath? And it takes
practice. It's really strange how you think about
breathing. And it should happen naturally. But
guess what? It doesn't. It's something that we
have to think about. And because we're so braced
and we've locked up our diaphragms so tightly.
You have to, it's called dismantling your diaphragm.
Donna Farhi talks about this, is you have to
dismantle bad breathing patterns and get those
muscles moving again. Because as of right now,
we're not using our primary breathing muscle,
the diaphragm. We're using auxiliary muscles,
top of the chest and neck and shoulders. And
the fallout from that, both in mental health
and physical health, is tremendous. yeah and
it sounds when you listen to all the people that
be on the show like god it's so complicated what
am i supposed to do i got foundation i got strong
fit i've got you know this breathing technique
but the problem is the the human you know body
is an amazing thing but sadly we've spent decades
screwing it up by sitting by being an air conditioning
by eating shitty food so the reality is if you
don't want to be you know confined to a wheelchair
put on meds that we do have to put the work in
because we've enjoyed, you know, years and years
of not moving around when the human body is meant
to be, you know, roaming the land and hunting
and working in the fields and moving. And so
it seems a little complicated, but it's an easy
fix. I think the body wants to go back there.
It just takes some effort on our part to restore
the body's homeostasis when it comes to the muscle
balance and the breathing patterns. But you have
to put in the work, but also you have to understand
why. And it's not our fault because people haven't
really explained things well. So usually when
I explain it, and again, this is where the child
psych degree helps, is that I explain it in a
way that actually makes sense. And then folks
actually can't stop thinking about their breathing
and about their breathing muscles. So it's not
our fault because at some point a doctor came
over and put the stethoscope at the top of your
chest and told you to take a breath, right? And
you started thinking, well, my lungs must be
up there. Then you looked at pictures of your
superheroes and they're all in this puffed up
chest position. And then you looked at your parents,
you know, and then you started, you know, wearing
pants with belts on them and sucking in your
little gut. So it's not, you know, it's not your
fault at all. because it's explained so badly.
And at the end of the day, people don't know
what the diaphragm looks like. You look at a
picture of the diaphragm, what is that crazy
looking squid thing and how does it work? And
then they tell you it works like a plunger and
nothing could be further from the truth. It has
nothing to do with a plunger. So we have to just
back up and say, okay, where are the biggest
part of the lungs? and you can do this now, and
if you're driving, you can do it with one hand,
is that the biggest part of your lungs are down
at the bottom of your ribs. So if you're breathing
up and down, like up with your shoulders, are
you getting to the densest, most oxygen -rich
part of your lungs? No, right? So there you go,
huh. That's kind of interesting. I never thought
about it that way. If you put your fingers up
by your collarbones and just stick your fingers
up by your collarbones, that's the lungs that
you're breathing with if you breathe vertically
with your shoulders, which is how most of us
breathe. Now, the lung tissue up there, it's
actually the smallest, less dense up there. So
what happens is that you actually have to take
more breaths and faster to get the oxygen that
you need. So now you're stuck. You're a little
bit anxious and you're breathing faster and shallower
and you're stuck in this circle of being anxious
and you don't have a way out because the way
you're breathing is telling your body to stay
anxious. Yeah, and I've seen that in the gym.
I've talked about this with a couple other guests
as well. People that have done a CrossFit workout,
actually my wife is one of them, and then that...
ends up putting them into an anxiety attack.
And it's probably just from what you're saying,
that upper body, that vertical breathing, and
then probably a mouth open the whole time as
well. And it's the muscular core set. So what
I look at, again, this is where the psych comes
in, is that why are you breathing that way? So
if it doesn't make sense, why are you doing it?
So most people are bracing, guarding, or sucking
it in. So with... our gym community, most of
us are either sucking it in or bracing because
we think this makes us stronger. Or there's an
abdominal core set. So you actually can't take
a deep breath in because your muscles are holding
you together. So you have to look at the person
and go, what's stopping me from on the inhale,
expanding my middle and on the exhale, narrowing
it. Because that would actually give you a much
stronger core. If you're braced all the time,
you're not as strong as you could be. And you're
making for pelvic floor and hip and lower back
dysfunction. So once you start moving that part
of your body, inhaling, getting a better circumferential
breath where you don't move your shoulders and
your whole middle expands, then your whole middle
narrows and really squeezes. Well, there you
have better back health, better digestion. Your
hips and your pelvic floor are involved. Your
psoas is involved as well. So that's the way
the mechanism was designed to work. So what does
a breathing class look like then? You have the
breathing classes that you put on. If someone's
going in and they're a vertical breather and
let's say they have some anxiety issues as well,
just what would that look like as an overview?
So I start because, you know, I come from a gym
background. I like numbers. I come from a science
background. I like numbers as well. So I keep
things really practical because it's the way
I would like them. I also want a class that's
as fast as possible so that I can get out and,
you know, get my laundry done and probably get
a snack or something. So I pretty much mash in
as much information as I can. The first thing
we look at is your breathing IQ. So I want to
grade. I don't know how you are, but with a lot
of us that want to do better, we want numbers.
We want to know how many plates, what our time
is. We want numbers to know how we're doing.
So I devised this measure, which is of abdominothoracic
respiratory flexibility. And all that means is...
On the inhale, is your body moving and expanding?
And on the exhale, is it moving and narrowing
without the use of your shoulders? So that's
what the breathing IQ is, is that you actually
take a measuring tape, you put it around your
middle, and without moving your shoulders, you
see what your inhale is and you see how narrow
you can exhale. And again, without using your
shoulders. And that number gives you a sense
of how much you're actually using your diaphragm
to breathe because it looks at excursion. So
on the inside, your diaphragm lowers, it flattens,
and it tries to push your ribs open. So we measure
from the outside. How much are you... using your
diaphragm to push your ribs open. And then you
exhale, and your exhale is governed by your core
muscles, your abs, your obliques, and your intercostals.
So then we look at that number. How much is your
body narrowing on the exhale? And you get a grade
using exactly that. And then you just try to
get that grade to be better. So the class itself,
we do exercises where you stretch those muscles,
you try to get your diaphragm more involved and
unlocked. And then this is the part I really
like is once you have the mechanics to be perfect
is that you strengthen the breathing muscles.
And that's where, you know, I get giddy about
this information and it makes me really happy
to teach because all the sports science literature
on breathing muscles show that when you have
stronger breathing muscles, both the inhale muscles
and the exhale muscles, your performance is going
to be better, period. And that's not something
I came up with. That's there's researchers. Allison
McConnell is. one of the top researchers when
it comes to breathing muscle strength. She's
out of the UK. But if you train your breathing
muscles, the right ones, not the wrong ones,
your performance is going to get better, whether
that's strength, precision, endurance, or even
in your active recovery. All right. You mentioned
talking to Bas Rutten in one of the other interviews
I've had. I know he has the O2 trainer. Have
you done work with him as well? Oh, I love him.
That guy is fantastic. And, you know, everything
you see him on TV is you meet him in person and
he's exactly the same. He's just amazing, full
of life and optimistic and hilarious. So I do
like the O2 trainer and I like the O2 trainer.
And again, I'm very skeptical with products because
Boss actually understands that the inhale should
be a circumferential lower body breath. So he
gets that, and he does that himself. I've actually
done all my breathing tests on him, and damn,
was that fun. But he is an amazing, amazing breather.
So having someone who understands the importance
of breathing muscles and strengthening breathing
muscles, and has such good breathing himself,
made me take a look at the O2 Trainer. So once
your breathing is mechanically sound, And you've
done all the breathing muscle exercises and need
more or harder exercises. Then I use the O2 trainer.
Yeah. Very cool. Yeah, because I know one mistake
a lot of companies are making was calling the
altitude training with their masks, which, you
know, was completely against the science. They
were just restricting the airflow. That was it.
Yeah. And I got to tell you, it's interesting
because I was over at. Krav Maga worldwide in
California the other day, which is a place I
train out of. And there's a guy there and he
came in, he asked me about a breathing muscle
trainer. And I'm into anything that helps you
pay attention to your breath I'm into. So whether
it's, you know, whatever it is, whether you have
a coffee stir or the training mask or whatever
it is, it's making you look at your breathing.
That's good to me. I'm all in. However, I looked
at him and I was like. Dude, you're using your
neck and shoulder muscles to breathe. And now
you're adding an inspiratory muscle trainer to
that. So now you're just really taxing your neck
and shoulder muscles and freaking your whole
body out. So please learn how to breathe with
your diaphragm first. And if you can actually
do all my exercises, then you can add a trainer
to it. But right now you're using auxiliary muscles
and now you're putting a trainer on top of it.
Your neck and shoulders are really going to hurt
and your diaphragm is going to continue to be
locked up. Yeah, that's so pertinent as well
because we see that in the gym. You know, people
that walk in and they get horrible form and they
throw in weights on the deadlifts and then you
don't see them for six months because they blew
their back out instead of learning how to hinge.
properly and working on mobility with lightweight
until they were actually to a point where they
could add some significant resistance. Yeah,
you're totally right. And, you know, breathing
is the foundational movement for everything.
So you need to be breathing in a way that's mechanically
correct. And then you, and it's a movement, breathing
is a movement. So how can you think about complex
movement patterns if the very foundation of all
your movements is incorrect? So I know that,
you know, I love Instagram. I shouldn't be on
there as much as I am, but I'll watch people,
you know, doing beautiful movement patterns with
whether it's tactical fitness. I have my favorites
that I follow or kettlebells. And when you see
someone who's incredibly graceful, whether that
be jumping over things and pushing tires over
or swinging a kettlebell and doing beautiful
movements on a mat. When they're really good,
they're integrating the breath into their movements
in the right way. And often with the very, very
elite, they don't know they're doing it. But
again, us average folks, if we want to get better,
we have to look at how am I breathing in this
situation if I want to lift more weights, run
faster, run longer, be more precise in my shooting
or my golf game, or even with active recovery.
So, so important. So important. Yeah, and again,
I can testify that the nose breathing I did apply
with, you know, focusing on my diaphragm because
I was aware of that side as well. The foundation
training teaches it and, you know, some other
areas. But one of the funny observations is the
manifestation into the body. So when I used to
work out hard and I probably had my mouth wide
open, I would have what I affectionately call
my bitch face, which happened very, very early
on, which looked like, you know, you're just
about to drop into a pit of fire. And now with
this nose breathing and the diaphragmatic breathing,
just focusing on that, I don't think I was that
far away from it. It was a very simple fix. But
now it's kind of more like that poker face, which
is good because if your face is showing like
I'm hitting the red zone, then obviously the
rest of your body is going to believe it. But
just having that calmer breathing pattern, I
found it's not like I'm going faster. I'm just
more efficient. And as someone pointed out, the
people that do well in the CrossFit, workouts,
competition, whatever you want to call it, are
the ones that rest less. They don't get faster
so much. It's just that they need less breaks.
And that's what I found is I could just keep
plodding along just by changing my breathing
pattern. Yeah, and the ones that do best also,
when they do take breaks, they're incredibly
efficient breaks. So the breaths that they're
taking are very efficient breaths. you know,
that gets them recovered faster. And I got to
tell you, I'm going to send you this study that
looks at facial expressions and amount of oxygen
that you take in. So it's shown that angry or
sad facial expressions, actually, you get less
air into your body. So your bitch face is probably
hurting your oxygen. It's a great study that
shows that making your face be more relaxed or
happy actually gets more air in and out of your
body. So I love that study. Yeah, yeah. But it
wouldn't be so bad. But every time I've done
like a fundraiser, this one we do every year,
this firefighter fundraiser. And there's a photographer
there. He's amazing. He's a friend of mine. But
there isn't one picture that I would ever hang
on a wall because it's that same face no matter
what I'm doing. So, yeah, I've got to find someone
who's good at Photoshop. And it's funny. I'll
tell people when they take a big breath, I'll
go, relax your eyebrows. What are you doing with
your eyebrows? We're breathing. But they'll fur
their brow. No, no, we're not. Relax your face
and relax your jaw if you're going to be relaxed.
The last thing you need to be doing is, you know,
setting your teeth together. You actually want
your jaw relaxed because your body looks to your
jaw to see how relaxed it should be. So absolutely.
Brilliant. All right. Well, I got one more question
before we go to some wrap up questions. You mentioned
working with first responders. What are specifically
some of the things that you do with them and
what are some of the issues that you see like
a common factor amongst a lot of them? So with
first responders, a lot of it is integrating
their day into a story, if I could say that.
Is that often, I mean, I worked at Bellevue Hospital.
I certainly wasn't a first responder because
I wasn't the person bringing folks in or victims
into the ER. But I was definitely the next person
that saw them. So I was working a lot with first
responders. And now I deal, I've been teaching.
folks at DOJ and DOD for a little while right
now. But when you have a tough day, it's hard
to explain to someone else. It's hard to like
integrate it into your body and not get detached.
So I think one of the things that we talk about
a lot is that feeling of numbness that happens
if you are around a lot of trauma. And you have
to continue to wade through and respond to it.
And I know that I've talked to folks that feel
detached, or I even had somebody tell me they
felt wooden. So how do you take what's happened
in your day and integrate it into your life?
And right now, the discussion around vets isn't
so much about healing when you come home, because
that's really not what you need to have happen.
You need to be able to integrate. your story
from when you were deployed and integrated into
your life now. So that's a tough topic and it's
pretty deep, but what you do and how you actually
integrate it into your body and let it go and
are able to get up the next day. and have hope
and have energy to continue. So the biological
part of that kind of comes down to how high is
your cortisol and do you have a place and do
you have a routine to be able to recover and
practice resilience? So that's kind of in a nutshell.
What we're talking about right now. Brilliant.
All right. Well, I want to transition, excuse
me, to some closing questions that I always ask
everyone. So you're probably aware of them. You
know they're coming. So the first one is, is
there a book or books that you love to recommend
can be about what we talked about or something
completely different? You know what? I'm reading
now. Someone just gifted me their own book of
The War of Art. And it talks about when you don't
get done the things you'd like to get done. So
about resistance in your own life. So I didn't
know you were going to ask that, but The War
of Art is one that I'm wading through. I usually
have three or four books next to me. I also mentioned
that I was reading Tesla's book that's really
extraordinary. So I would say those two are the
ones that I'm looking at right now. It's kind
of weird, but I love the book Seabiscuit. And
it's about this horse that had unusually short
legs and how it actually got to be a champion.
So it's your typical Rocky underdog story, but
it's about a horse. So I kind of I'm all over
the place as far as reading. But I'm going to
give you one more just because I love reading
is that Roanne Dahl, who wrote Charlie and the
Chocolate Factory. has short stories that i really
love and they're definitely quirky and they're
about human nature and they're kind of out there
but uh i really like stories that are quirky
and funny and about human nature so i would that's
one that i give out all the time uh for sure
yeah he was an amazing amazing all this it's
really sad some of the the greatest people dr
zeus rodal um you know rudyard kipling would
have been such great guests on this podcast i
wish i'd started this 50 years ago Yeah, fantastic.
You're going to have to find somebody who channels
them and have them come in. Yeah, I'll just go
to a seance and I'll talk to him that way. Have
Houdini. I think I'd like to have Houdini on.
That would be really cool. Yes. Yeah, and Tesla
to find out who actually came up with it first.
Exactly. All right. So the same question, but
a movie and or documentary. You know what? I
just saw a movie called The Florida Project.
And it was a little rough around the edges. It
wasn't a high -financed film, but it was really
interesting about people that lived in the projects
right outside of Disney. Is it Disneyland or
Disney World that's in Florida? Disney World,
yes. That's the fire department I used to work
for. Yeah. So and there is a fire in the movie.
But I loved it because it was just about a community
that you don't think about is like you think
about Disney and princesses and things like that.
And like, what about folks that live in the projects
right next to it? And how do they live? So it
was a little sad, but it was definitely interesting.
And I'm actually, for a recommendation, I'm going
to veer off. And I really, I'm watching High
Maintenance right now, which is really funny,
whether you use smoke weed or do CBD or not,
the acting and the whole thing is so well done
that I recommend it to people just because. The
way New York is shown and the casting is so amazing
that I just love that show and I've been following
it for a long time. It used to be on Vimeo and
then it got financed and I think it's on HBO,
but still a lot of people don't know about it.
And it's about this weed dealer in Brooklyn and
how he goes from house to house selling weed
and meeting different people. And the characters,
especially New York characters, are so well done
that... They just they seem really real to me.
And that's, you know, I have a pretty high bar
being a New Yorker for how New Yorkers are depicted.
Yeah. Yeah. I can imagine there's a lot of caricaturing
out there. Brilliant. All right. Is there a documentary
that you love? Oh, there's so many. Oh, my goodness.
Like I love I love documentary. So I can't give
you I don't know if I can give you just one.
I mean. I can't give you just one. Sorry. Give
me multiple. Give me as many as you want. Oh,
you know what? Let me see what is. I'm a big
fan. I mean, I'm a big fan of Vice TV as well.
But my favorite documentary. Oh, you're going
to kill me with this right now. You know, what
keeps coming to mind is not a documentary. But
I was watching. Oh, man, I can't I can't narrow
it down. I keep thinking about I love combat
sports. So obviously, movies wise, I'm going
to say Fight Club, but more because it has to
do. I mean, that's not a documentary, but I keep
thinking about it is that I like movies that
have to do with human nature and that are, you
know, that that start discussion about about
people's. sense of aggression or, or sexuality
or motivation or things like that. So it's interesting
that, that anything that has to do with fighting,
whether it's, you know, Hicks and Gracie's choke
all the way over to fight club is, is I really
like, I like biographies. So that, that always
like starts the discussion about aggression and
motivation and people. So that's usually where
I turn to. Brilliant. I think one of the funniest
memes I've ever seen, and I've posted a couple
of times now, is just in a text and it says,
I was late to Fight Club, so I missed the rules.
But I love Fight Club. I highly recommend Fight
Club to everyone. I mean, it's such a good movie
because of the human nature part. And I mean,
the fight scenes are so great as well. And because
I think people need an outlet for their aggression
or else they get weird. You know, I think that
sports helps us with that for sure. But but,
you know, you know, such an amazing I always
liked the whole concept of asshole tax. I always
thought that if I had a band, I would call them
asshole tax. So I think I think that's pretty
good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that repression.
I lived in Japan for about 15 months. when I
did stunts out in Universal Studios out there.
And it was so interesting observing their culture
because we talked about repressive philosophies
and cultures with the sex side. And it was the
same in Japan. There's that hierarchy and the
way that they've kind of developed is you don't
question your boss. You don't ask why. And you
don't show a lot of emotion day to day. But then,
so consequently... when they would go out drinking,
it wasn't a social drink. They'd go out and get
shit -faced. Again, I'm not tiring everyone with
the same brush, but at that time, you just observe
a lot of business people doing that. And even
the comics, very sexually violent comics, but
they weren't sexually touchy or feely or anything
at all in day -to -day life. So it's funny that
when you withhold an area, it can cause a very
extreme reaction on the other side. that's that's
a perfect example and the the drinking and the
sexuality there is is so you know off the chain
really and it has to do with with repressing
and uh yeah you must have seen some interesting
things for sure yeah it was an experience but
an amazing culture though it really was but you
know there's it's like with this project there's
things that we do so well here in the u .s and
there's things that other countries do better
that we just need to have the humility to say
Can we borrow that and maybe change it to make
it fit our country instead of we're the greatest
in the world? Fuck everyone else, which some
people seem to believe, you know, dogmatically.
Yeah. I mean, can you imagine if we took the
best of everything from around the world and
implemented it? Just, you know, as far as literacy
rates, as far as health is, you know, if someone's
done the work and figured out that something
works, why not, you know, use them as a model?
Absolutely. You know, we have so many places
where we need help and just saying we're the
best is not going to be working for us forever.
Looking to see what really works and going, hey,
this this works. Why don't we try it would be
so much better. Yeah, exactly. And it's all there,
especially now in the technological age that
we live in. It's there and you can see the results
and you can, you know, you can reach out on Skype
and interview the people and be like, tell me,
tell me the pros and cons. But yeah, I mean,
I think that that. We are a global community
now. We need to just borrow from each other.
And I think we'll fix multiple countries all
at one time. And you know what? One of the things,
and I have to thank you for this podcast and
having me on, is that you're doing that, is that
you're spreading information by having this podcast,
by interviewing the people that you have. You're
doing that within your community and within your
listeners, is spreading the knowledge of what
works in a really gracious way. My hat's off
to you. Thank you for having me. And thank you
for putting together this podcast. I absolutely
love it. And it's been my pleasure to be on here
today. Well, thank you, because it wouldn't be
a podcast at all if it wasn't for people saying
yes. So I appreciate you sharing so selflessly
all your work and your knowledge. Well, speaking
of that, one of my last closing questions is,
is there a person that you would recommend to
come on this show as a guest to talk to the first
responders and military of the world? I am a
huge fan of Laura Zera. She is an extreme survivalist
who is fantastic. She is really, really hardcore
and amazing. And then I'm going to give you two
because I just can't stop, is that Steve Cardian
has a long history as a first responder in New
York. I think he was one of the youngest sergeants
ever in New York. He saved his first human being
at age 17. And has written a book about the importance
of female intuition as far as keeping us safe.
So I would say Laura and Steve would be amazing
on the podcast if you would have them. Actually,
I would have both of them. That would be fantastic.
That's the beautiful thing about that question.
It's such a great one to drop in there that opens
the doors to so many other great people. Because
if I respect the person to have them on the show,
then obviously if they're recommending someone
else, that has a lot of value. So thank you.
You're welcome. All right. So the very last one
before we talk about where we can find you and
your books, what do you do to decompress if it's
outside of what we've spoken about today? I definitely
go to the gym. I mean, for me, if I don't get
to the gym, I get squirrely. So I know it. I
get antsy. And I start thinking about what I'd
like to do. So the gym, getting under a bar is
where I decompress. And I wish I had something
more original to tell you. But I either, yeah,
that's my place is that I put my headphones on.
You'll see on my social medias that I always
tell people what podcast I'm listening to. And
I give a shout out to whatever podcast is my
gym podcast of the day. And just getting into
the gym. Even if it's just half an hour, that's
my place. That's my happy place. Brilliant. Yeah,
no, that's a lot of people. Nature, family, and
exercise are the three things that come up over
and over again. All right, so the very last thing
then. So if you wouldn't mind, tell people listening
about the books because I didn't realize you
had one for kids as well. You've got Breathe
and then you've got The Belly Breath. Yeah. Yeah,
the kids one is the belly breath. I'll be promoting
it more next year just because I've gotten a
little overwhelmed with life. But the belly breath
is for kids because kids up till the age of five
and a half breathe perfectly. And then then we
we mess them up and they stop breathing the right
way. But till five and a half, they do a really
good job. We just did a study on that. And then
breathe is the book. It has a very long title.
but that was published last year. And it sort
of goes about through the steps of everything
that I did today. And again, I love the book.
You don't have to buy it. You can go to your
neighborhood library and take it out. If your
neighborhood library does not have it, please
have them get in touch with me and I will send
them a copy. I'm big into public libraries and
for people to have access to information that
don't need to buy the book from anywhere, but
just take it out of your local library. And then
I'm working on the next book, which is Breathing
for Endurance, Strength, Precision and Recovery.
So hopefully that'll be out next year. I'm totally
behind because I've just realized that there's
so many great people out there and so many great
suggestions and studies that who knows when I'll
get that one done. But hopefully it'll be in
the spring. Excellent. And what about the breathing
class? So the breathing class is the website
of Dr. Belisa on Instagram. And I do workshops.
So actually, if I don't do the workshops, folks
that have been trained by me do the workshop.
And I also do teacher training. You can usually
find me doing some kind of an event with first
responders. I just got back from being in Tampa
working with the Heroes Journey and with Stay
in Step. So I'm either at a firehouse, at a conference
of some sort, in a prison. uh or at a gym doing
workshops and the workshops are go from three
hours to two days long where we do all kinds
of things related to breathing including the
meditation which is called meditation for people
that can't meditate because that used to be me
that's a lot of us i found uh headspace which
is my my kind of gateway drug but yeah i had
squirrel brain and i'd sit there for a couple
minutes and just get antsy squirrel brain or
monkey brain yeah hopping around all over the
place wondering why everyone else seems so peaceful
and yeah but uh but doing and it's A breath led
meditation is a lot easier for us that have squirrel
brain for sure. Absolutely. All right. Well,
I just want to say thank you so much. There's
been so much in here. And sorry for the tangent
on the sex side. But as you were saying, it's
very rare that you hear that. And I've heard
some good ones on relationships in general. But
there are some areas where we just we don't talk
about it. And I think it's refreshing to have
that conversation. So thank you for that as well.
Thank you for asking them. I have to thank you
for asking them for sure. All right. Well, thank
you so much. I know that people are going to
get a huge amount out of this. And, you know,
as you just mentioned, if you go to the website,
which I'll put on my website as well, the links
to the books, I think that there's some great
rabbit holes for people listening to address
a multitude of issues that we see in our profession.
You rock, James. Thanks for having me on.