Transcript
Speaker: race scal end Hey, this is Katie and you're tuned into Riskillians, a podcast about the hard, soft and slimy skills that'll help us stay afloat if our modern systems don't.
Speaker: This week, I learned how to make natto, which is a traditional Japanese ferment that is renowned for giving tourists the ick because it is very slippery and very gooey.
Speaker: To make it, you have to soak and then steam soybeans, then inoculate them with Bacillus subtilis, which over 24 hours turns the soybeans into something an orc with a chest infection might cough up.
Speaker: Natto certainly is gooey. stretching from the end of your chopsticks like spider webs, with a cheesy and mycelial flavour. When I spent time in Japan, I absolutely LOVED the stuff, and the Japanese grandmas LOVED that I loved it, and fed me bowls of fluffy rice mixed with raw egg and a scoop of natto for breakfast every morning.
Speaker: The reason I've been wanting to make my own natto is because I do find it genuinely delicious, and I'm also besotted by its nutritional gifts. It is crazy high in vitamin K2,
Speaker: and also contains an enzyme called natokinase, which is really awesome for cardiovascular health, which is something that I personally need a lot of support with. I've never seen it available in Australia, organically at least, and because I'm pretty keen to live as long as possible to keep recording podcasts, amongst other things, I had to learn how to make it.
Speaker: And now I am proud to say there's a big container of chunky monster sputum in the fridge. Even though I love cooking and fermenting and insourcing my nourishment, Sometimes it does feel like staying on top of my health is a full-time job.
Speaker: I've spent most of my adult life as a nutritional sleuth, trying to figure out what to eat, what to avoid, which therapies and philosophies to put my faith in, which superfoods are legit, and which are predatory capitalism dressed up as a detox protocol.
Speaker: In short, just trying to feel better. And I know the world of wellness cops a lot of flack, But the industry succeeds for a reason, because so many of us feel goopier than natto on a daily basis, sludgy and strung out and downright sick.
Speaker: And our bodies are up against it, attempting to thrive within systems not designed for human flourishing. In fact, the very opposite. I heard someone say recently that if you just went with the flow of mainstream culture, eating the food, using the apps, keeping the strange hours, buying the clothes drenched in forever chemicals, you'll end up very sick indeed. We are now at the point of actively having to push back and protect ourselves against the plumes of bad juju emanating from industrial civilisation.
Speaker: We can't all afford to live inside hyperbaric oxygen chambers, but we can all breathe. When today's guest, who is a breathwork instructor, offered to guide me through a session before our interview, I was really rather intrigued.
Speaker: And of course I said yes. My only association with breathwork is that a guy I used to know vaguely, who worked in advertising, suddenly became a breathwork influencer and I just got really cynical about it. But now I can see that breathwork is deeply rooted in so many spiritual traditions, inseparable from age-old human technologies of gathering, co-regulating and accessing altered states.
Speaker: Breathing is free, air is a commons, and anything that can help soothe our frazzled nervous systems in these fractious times sounds good to me.
Speaker: So, before recording the interview that you're about to hear, i laid myself down behind the microphone as Ella Mariska's soothing voice floated out from my screen, guiding me through different breathing patterns. with sun pouring through the window onto my face, exaggerating the sensations of warmth and tinglyness that were arising,
Speaker: alongside fat droplets I didn't know my eyes needed to shed. My first breathwork session was really profound and so epic that I've done it every single day since.
Speaker: There are obviously so many types of breathwork and lots of questionable breathwork gurus out there, but I think at heart this simple accessible practice is quite brilliant and a vital tool for our times.
Speaker: So I am really excited to bring you this breathwork primer with a young lass named Ella Mariska, who I was lucky enough to meet in person last year at one of George's screenings. Ella is just 21 years old, wise as the hills, a certified breathwork instructor, and she's also studying nutrition and dietetics, and brings a fresh and youthful perspective to the podcast, which has been a lot absent thus far.
Speaker: My bad. So today you'll hear about how breathwork works, as well as Ella's own experience as a young person living through the poly crisis, navigating novel life paths as the old roots fall away.
Speaker: i hope you feel inspired, if you haven't already, to dabble in a little bit of breathwork after this episode. But just as a disclaimer, don't queue up a breathwork podcast after this one if you're speeding down the freeway or swimming in a lake or operating a forklift.
Speaker: Ella also recorded some of her very own music to accompany the intro to this episode, which is the icing on the cake. So let's get into it. Here's the lovely Ella Mariska in conversation and on the handpan in a forest.
Speaker: Ella, I am so delighted to welcome you to Ruskillians on this sunny Saturday morning. a weekend conversation feels particularly relaxing for me and not only because you just guided me in breath work, which was phenomenal.
Speaker: Yeah, so excited to have a chat with you and... yeah explore all the beautiful ways breathwork can help us and where it can lead us in life. Yeah, it is something that definitely has my interest. And oddly, for a thing that I do, I'm sure many thousands of times a day, it is very foreign really to me to actually think about my breath and think about what the breath can offer in terms of yeah, medicine and clarity. Maybe just to kick off, I'd love to know a bit about your life.
Speaker: You know, like who are you and what do you get up to each day? Who am i That's a big question. the hardest question of all. Yeah, I'm Ella. Grew up in Garigal country in Sydney.
Speaker: How I live my life? ah Well, right now I'm studying at uni. I'm studying dietetics. But that's kind of really only one tiny little facet of how I like to live my life. i yeah did my breathwork instructor training last year.
Speaker: was actually during lockdown. So i was I'm quite young still. So this was, I would have been still a teenager. during lockdown and was going through some really, really hard times, the lowest I've ever been in my life.
Speaker: Just waking up each morning with this dread and this weight on all my muscles as I'd go to get ready for the day and just this mind that would not shut off.
Speaker: It just felt like I was a little hamster in this wheel and I was just running and running and running and someone else was holding the key for me to be let out.
Speaker: And it was such a difficult time. And yeah, it just was not in a great headspace at all. Yeah, just really struggling. So when COVID came came along, yeah, it was a massive adjustment, but for me it was actually...
Speaker: There was a big silver lining because it meant that I had to stop. And all the external factors that were driving this off this hamster wheel, I could just ignore them and actually focus on myself for the first time in my whole entire life.
Speaker: In this society, it's not really normal to be taught how to focus on your breathing or just be aware of yourself. It's just, right, get up. go to work, come home, cook dinner, watch some TV probably.
Speaker: so yes, so during COVID, I was a bit bored one day and I decided, i was looking on YouTube, I was like, oh, how did this Wim Hof dude.
Speaker: What's he all about? So i was like, well, I've got nothing but time on my hands, so there's no harm in giving this a go I found a YouTube video and pressed play. I was in my room. Yeah, about 10 minutes in, i was like, oh my God, I can actually feel my body.
Speaker: I can actually like feel my senses in a way that I haven't in so long. And I just, I remember getting up in the middle of it. I'm like, oh my God.
Speaker: And it just felt finally like I was coming home to my body, which is why my breath work offerings is called coming home breath work, because it was the first time in a long time that I actually felt like I was home in my own body, in my own vessel.
Speaker: So, yeah, that sparked a very long winding road of starting breathwork practices and yoga and exercise, just bushwalks and surfing and all the beautiful things that I love to do now.
Speaker: really started during COVID. Yeah, in my life now I just integrate all those things. I love, love, love connecting out with nature, just being in her embrace is so beautiful.
Speaker: And yeah, that's what I centre my life around really. Gorgeous. And you mentioned off air that blew me away that you're only 21 years old. I knew we were a sprightly young thing, but I didn't realise quite how young. And I wonder when you describe that period of your life that was extra arduous and that weight that you felt in every muscle of your body as a young person, as a teenager,
Speaker: Was part of that the state of the world? Like what kind of things were swirling through your head? Definitely a lot of things. So at that point in time, i was having really big friendship issues. And, yeah, it was actually i was just getting bullied, which was really hard because as, what, probably 14 or 15-year-old I'm like,
Speaker: i'm like what what have I done? Like I put all the onus on me, like what I might have done and not really looking at the bigger picture of, oh, maybe the other person has things going on too. Maybe it's not all my fault. But probably having grown up in more of, I guess, the conventional sense of like you just wake up, you go to school, come back, that definitely didn't help.
Speaker: in my ability to speak up for myself. Like I was just like, oh, I'll just hide away from my feelings because then they'll just go away. But definitely like the grief for the earth once I started connecting back in because I just didn't have any capacity to feel any of those things at that point in time.
Speaker: But when I did start connecting back to who I am and my body and all these beautiful things, then I felt the weight. But yeah, breathwork for me has really helped gain a a lot bigger perspective on the earth and that complete grief for natural world and how we're kind of living our lives as ah as a whole, especially growing up in a city and yeah, being quite involved in all of these things.
Speaker: Yeah, you made such a good point again when we were speaking off air that, you know, you're not the usual riskiliance guest demographic in that you are so much younger than folks I might be typically speaking to. And that absolutely lit something up in my brain of, yeah, I haven't had the opportunity to speak with a younger person on this podcast about how you're perceiving the future, how you're reckoning with the world, right? what you see as the problems, you know, where you're taking life in response to these
Speaker: exquisitely unusual times that we find ourselves in. And um' sorry to kind of derail the breathwork momentarily, but I am fascinated to hear from you, Ella, as 21-year-old, as you say, coming from ah an urban life, reconnecting with with the earth, with with your with your breath, with the very stuff of life. Like what is your POV 21-year-old? And yeah, what what are you hoping? What are you, what are you so you know, aspiring to All of those things. I'm so curious.
Speaker: That is such a juicy question. wow Yeah, I guess starting off with the preface that I'm probably not a good representation of all 21-year-olds in the whole entire earth.
Speaker: If you were to pluck a 21-year-old off the street, their views might be probably different to mine. But I think trying to find a balance between uni which is very science heavy and feels very much like in the machine I guess you could call it just like churning out the work churning out the opinions that aren't like they are yours but they have to fit a certain mold 100% so I've got one foot in that sort of world which I love and it has its place but
Speaker: I also have my stronger, more dominant foot in more of the, I guess, the the natural world and the spiritual side of life and how they integrate so beautifully but yet they are such distant opposites from each other.
Speaker: And I find that that being in predominantly in a society that values more the science and the knowing tangibly with your logic mind rather than letting the mystery of the earth and of nature take her place and just feeling that I guess that's where I really struggle is that can't we have both yes science has its place I love science but it definitely overrides the magical beauty and the mystery that
Speaker: we miss when we're we're trying to logicalise everything. I made that word up. And just instead of just trying to know everything, just let it be and just really observing what it's all about.
Speaker: And I think that's one of the hardest things as a young person who i guess is still trying to find that balance I would say breathwork as a practice of being with mystery and curiosity as opposed to being with the rational knowing and, yeah, applying our logic to these times, these situations which actually i suspect invite us to be way more in that receptive listening space.
Speaker: I don't know if that's from the ending for you. No, that is definitely landing. that's I'm so passionate about breathwork. I could probably link it to about anything in my life.
Speaker: Breathwork has such a unique capability to drop us in to our emotions and our body and the earth.
Speaker: It is unlike anything I've tried before in the way that it just is almost quite instant for me now to just drop in and feel the energy around you as well.
Speaker: um That magic you're talking about, the mystery. i mean, I've started doing meditation a bit more now and I think having done a lot of breath work, it's now translating to meditation as well, which is super cool.
Speaker: But I totally agree that with this times that it almost seems like how Am I possibly ever going to do this? But this dream is so, it's so visceral in my gut that I just, yeah, you can't logic it. Like you've just got to trust and With Breathwork, for me and I know quite a few other people, it really gives perspective on life and, yeah, as you were saying, just connects different pathways that you wouldn't have thought of before.
Speaker: I feel like one of the most radical and reasonable acts in this time is to slow down, is to not do, is to pull back,
Speaker: The churning machine that we've already touched on kind of relies on our input and energy to keep it going. And I feel like there's this human bias where we we think we have to do something. It's a bias towards action, not subtraction. And in a way, these kind of practices where you can look at them from the outside and say, you're you're not doing anything. You're literally just sitting there.
Speaker: How can that change anything? But actually I suspect, and I'm reminded of of guests that we've had on the podcast, such as Dr. Yin Paradis, where he, from an Indigenous perspective, says, when the times are this urgent, we need to bloody well slow down. That is the antidote, and yet it can feel so uncomfortable to sit and pull back when we feel like we must do. and so...
Speaker: Again, like I share, i don't i don't know anything about breathwork, but I can see how it connects to everything and how powerful it can be as a personal and and communal practice. So feel free feel free to comment on that, Ella. But also I'd love to just hear a bit of like a definition of what it what it is so we can get a handle on what we're talking about.
Speaker: i totally think for the first part of that, Yep, slowing down is so hard, like unrelated to breath folk, but I've just hurt my elbow really badly. So I've been in a sling for six weeks now.
Speaker: And with that, I've just been walking. I've been walking everywhere because... hate to sit still for days upon days on end and when I've been walking I've been walking slowly because i have nothing else to do and also I love walking but I find especially walking around like busier roads you get so many more stairs when you're just stopping and looking at something than like bustling along and I find that so interesting that we are so ingrained
Speaker: that like fast pace and rushing is normal, that when someone's actually just stopped and looking, it's so weird. And people look and they're curious and they're like, oh, what's going on?
Speaker: it's It's very fascinating to me. But yes, what is breathwork? Breathwork is and the conscious act of connecting in with our breath.
Speaker: So a breath, I guess, appears when we are first born and it leaves when we die. And it's the thing that carries us through the whole entire way. We can go without water for a while. We can go without food for a while.
Speaker: We can go out without connection for an even longer while, but without breath for a pretty short amount of time, We're not, we're not thriving.
Speaker: So that's why it makes breath work such and an important part of life and even just breathing properly is that we can take it with us wherever we go. It doesn't matter where we are, what we're doing.
Speaker: Our breath is always there. And we breathe about, I'm pretty sure it's about 30,000 times day. And and I know myself mostly, it just happens. But when we actually just slow down and listen to our breath where it's landing, whether it's landing in our belly or our chest, how fast it's going is actually, it can tell us a lot about how we're feeling without even going into like the emotion side of it.
Speaker: And it's really powerful to just sit and slow down. So like, When you're a bit more stressed and things are just going crazy, the traffic's honking and you've got to go somewhere or the goats need milking and you haven't gotten there yet, your breath tends to get a bit shallower and in your chest.
Speaker: And when you're doing that, the oxygen can't get into your muscles as well. And it kind of, it well, it does signal to your brain that You've got to be on alert, there's something happening.
Speaker: But when your breaths are slower and more in your belly, it actually signals to your brain, so interesting, that it's safe and it's time to slow down and you're okay.
Speaker: So even just stopping once a day i do it in the mornings, just when I wake up. Before I go do anything of the day, i just sit for about five minutes and i like to have the sun on my face if the sun's kind enough to show, pick out behind the clouds or the horizon, but just sitting and listening to your breath before you know the other things will be there during the day
Speaker: They're just for later, but just listening and sitting is so powerful. And it really sets up your day for such a more mindful and present experience.
Speaker: Yeah, even that five-minute quietude in the morning is very powerful and it strikes me as the kind of maintenance that we need in this very digitalised, very distractible time.
Speaker: And I'd love to go into that a little more later too, but while we're lingering here on the why's and how's and what's of breathwork, I wonder if you can take us into even geekier territory around the physiology of breath work because it it isn't simply just slowing down your breath right like you're actually tinkering with the way that your your nervous system is working and i mean i'm i'm clutching at straws here because i don't actually know but yeah how like what are you actually manipulating and what are you doing during a breath work session so the geekier aspects of breath work i love this so
Speaker: There's a spectrum of breath work. So the slower breaths that we were talking about before, which are yeah more researched. And a lot of science has gone into that in looking at its effects in anxiety and depression and even like irritable bowel syndrome, which is so interesting. And then there's the other end of the spectrum, um which is more of the fast paced, the shallower chest breaths.
Speaker: that when we breathe in a controlled way, actually activate our sympathetic nervous system. So that's our fight flight response, just like exercise does. um So when we exercise, we breathe harder, faster, and it actually helps to release some of the like pent up stress and energy that we have throughout our day.
Speaker: And that's very similar to what breath work does. So when we breathe in a faster paced way, it's kind of like we're walking up a hill. It feels really hard at first. It feels really difficult and sticky. With that process, our blood flow actually moves from our prefrontal cortex. So that's our thinking logic mind. And it actually shifts into the limbic system. which is our motion processing centre. So I've done MRI scans and CAT scans on this.
Speaker: And with that, it kind of means that all those emotions that we've stuck in a little bottle and just jammed them away and just, oh, deal with them later, oh, I don't want to think about that.
Speaker: It offers a really unique time to go into those. And because there's more blood flow in our limbic systems, It really offers such a beautiful place and space to unbottle that jar and to dig a bit deeper into how we're feeling and really connect with our body, which is super unique.
Speaker: And we really want to get nerdy, it also, it slightly alters our blood gases. So,
Speaker: as just a general society actually links in quite well with just our fast paced life is that we are breathing faster than normal or like breathing faster than we did a hundred years ago.
Speaker: And so when we're constantly chronically breathing faster, it's signaling to our nervous system that, Oh, like I've just got to be on all the time. I've got to be going all the time.
Speaker: And so, There's actually more oxygen in our blood than carbon dioxide. And carbon dioxide is kind of like a hidden gas. We kind of just ignore it because we're like, oh, yeah, we need oxygen to breathe and function. And then we just blow out carbon dioxide. That's just waste product.
Speaker: But it's so interesting. There was a scientist. Oh, I forgot his first name, but his last name was Bohr. And he, in the 1900s, I'm pretty sure, invented the Bohr curve, which is basically saying the more carbon dioxide in our system, the more oxygen gets released into our muscles. So basically oxygen and carbon dioxide have an affinity for each other.
Speaker: So we when we don't have enough carbon dioxide in our system because we're breathing a bit harder and faster than usual, um it means that the oxygen isn't actually getting perfused, which means getting absorbed into our blood in our muscles as efficiently.
Speaker: So not only are we breathing harder and faster, but we're not getting enough oxygen to our muscles or as much, which really impacts a lot of things, but just fatigue and energy and like a lot, a host of other things, even just like brain fog and they' being able to think clearly.
Speaker: So that's that. That's just like breathing like our 30,000 breaths that we do. That's a bit of the physiology of that. But when we're doing breath work, we're altering those blood gases, and so that oxygen and carbon dioxide, in a controlled way that ultimately lets our body become more in balance in everyday life. So even though we are breathing harder and faster, and I've just naysayed that,
Speaker: During breath work, when we do it in a controlled and safe environment, it actually helps our body to find this beautiful balance between the really slow breaths and the fast breaths.
Speaker: It finds this beautiful balance in between where we can feel more stable and bit more energised. So it is thinking of it more like exercise where you're stimulating a stress response in a positive sense to kind of build that muscle and to also have to come back to a baseline that might be more chilled overall and more robust overall and more resilient overall because you've worked it in this way, as you say, in a controlled space. So like a breathwork session does include both deep, slow breathing and then you ramp up the pace.
Speaker: And that's like I'm wondering what what kinds of breathwork, what different kinds of breathwork there are and what deeper levels there are and like a minimum effective dose. um Yeah, I'm still really curious about what that can look like as ah as a practice and where people can take that.
Speaker: So there are breathwork techniques that have originated all across the world. Like even indigenous cultures, like they play the didgeridoo, the circular breathing technique they used actually used to induce like a bit of an altered state or just let them connect deeper to country.
Speaker: All the old yogic, yogi scriptures, there's like the alternate nose breathing. There's so many techniques. It's actually crazy. I think there's over a hundred.
Speaker: But basically they're all kind of ending up at the same goal. So that goal is just feeling more balanced, more connected to ourselves and to the greater spirit and the energy that surrounds us every day. So it doesn't really matter what breath techniques you choose, but if it's done in a conscious way,
Speaker: it really does end up to the same goal. So there are like some caveats. So like, as you were saying before, when you blend the deep, slow breathing and then the activation, those two together, really the slow breathing makes your body feel really safe. And then activating activates that stress response. It's called positive hormesis.
Speaker: And that activating stress response combined with the calmness of the slower breaths helps to find that goal. We didn't do it today, but my favorite activating technique is called the sniff, sniff, sigh. I'm not sure if I've named that or it's an actual name, but it's basically you take two deep breaths in through your nose and then one long sigh out your mouth. So it sounds like this.
Speaker: And it's so calming and there's not really ah like minimum effective dose or like recommended dose.
Speaker: It really depends. I find breath works effects are more potent when we're breathing properly. So properly meaning with using our diaphragm, mostly through the belly, a little bit through the chest.
Speaker: and really getting as much airflow as we can through that, whether it being over 30 second period or ah one second period.
Speaker: And it really depends what state you're in and what you're looking for. Like when I do my five minutes in the morning, it's really just observing and checking in with my body. But sometimes I've just stared at my laptop for four hours I've been sitting down I'm like, oh, I just need something a bit more. And that's when I would turn to like the deep, slow breaths and then the activating breaths.
Speaker: A really lovely, easy breath flow that you can do just like at your home. is you just go sit out in nature and find your favorite tree or your bush or even just the grass works and just visualizing the tree or the bush or whatever plant giving off oxygen and you're breathing in that oxygen from the plant just quite slowly. And then on the exhale, giving out your waste product, your carbon dioxide to feed the plant.
Speaker: And it's a beautiful cycle that can really help you connect in deeper to the land. That is such a beautiful practice and breathing with a plant. I know a lot of intuitive, more esoteric herbalists talk about this foundational relationship building breathing practice to be able to tune in to plant consciousness and plant medicine and as a way of of of receiving plant wisdom and plant medicine without actually eating or imbibing any of the plant material itself. And so not only, you know, I love that that's a breathwork technique, but it is also a a technique of perception and attunement to our plant community as well.
Speaker: And I think that's where breathwork is just so powerful is that it really, it really tunes your senses in a way that I've not experienced anything else too. Like sometimes I'll come out and i'm like, oh, my God, the leaves are so bright and the I just can hear the bird noises as if I'm waking up again. Yeah, I'm interested in your comments on
Speaker: blood flow and how that changes and how we're circulating maybe more oxygen and nutrients to different parts of our brains and in turn activating them and calming others down. What can you tell us about breathwork and its role in creating more mental clarity? And, you know, something that I personally have been experiencing is cognition like a butter knife you know i just want sharpen my mind tool and i'm not sure how and i think there's so many different reasons why my butter knife of a brain is becoming more and more blunt but do you think that breath work could support me to be a sharper tool in this shed and also have you experienced that yeah 100 breath work
Speaker: breathwork I guess it's not so much of a scientific explanation apart from the fact that the blood is going to different parts of your brain. And then when you so well when you stop doing breath, like it's you're not going to stop breathing, but when you stop doing that altered function of breath, I guess, um and everything goes back to normal, the blood does go back to the other areas of your brain, slightly more enriched.
Speaker: And so, yeah, totally in my experience, helps to give a lot of clarity and perspective, especially, um which is what I was touching on before with just even the bird noises feeling brighter and the colours seeming more bold is just, it gives a different perspective on actions that perhaps you do every single day or things you'd see every single day. So I think in that respect,
Speaker: Totally, it would help sharpen your butter knife.
Speaker: Oh, and Ella, what else can you share about your experience with breathwork and what it has gifted you? ah so much, so much. There's a story I'd like to share that I think might sum up a bit.
Speaker: um So i'd been doing breathwork through the YouTube videos for about two years. So it's really quite accessible.
Speaker: Like you don't even need it access to YouTube. You can just tune into yourself. um But if you did want a bit of guidance, there are some really great ones on YouTube. But the first time i did breathwork in a group, it was so beautiful. There's something about people coming together and breathing together.
Speaker: in a certain way that just really connects all of you. And i just remember this one time, it was quite late at night, I think it was dark, when I was breathing, i was like, oh my God, this is amazing, like this is the first time I've ever done this in a group and I feel so supported.
Speaker: And then sometime during it, I just felt this like, it's hard to describe, but just, I guess a root, you could call it, growing from under my body through the earth. And I was in a room, but it just went under this room and to gum tree in the car park. And I was like, oh my God, I can see this gum tree in like such a beautiful way through my mind's eye. And I i later went out and I was like, okay, there is definitely a gum tree out there.
Speaker: It was so special. And yeah, with that, it really made me appreciate how lucky we are to live in, yes, such a broken world, but in such a whole world in so many different other ways. And we're trying to help each other and we're trying to get through this together. and I think that's so powerful.
Speaker: And Breathworks just really, i guess, helped me to emphasize that in my life. like facilitating and giving back to people I love and people of the community and having that space held for me for so many years and now being able to hold that space for others, I think is so powerful and it really brings a lot of meaning and richness into my life as well.
Speaker: I love that story. Yeah, it's it's so, yeah, such a powerful, simple tale. And I also love that you've expanded the conversation beyond the individual practicing breathwork to the collective practice and what it feels like to be present in a group and be held in the field of a group's energy. What do you know about how our nervous systems communicate? What's happening in a group breathwork session?
Speaker: It's a tricky thing to articulate because it's very much like a gut feeling in a visceral sense. But it's used a lot in somatic practices to connect in with each other.
Speaker: It's so powerful to just breathe like at the same rate as one other or the whole group. There's not much like science or logical explanation, but I think just our energy fields just start mingling with each other and being especially being held by a facilitator or a couple of facilitators.
Speaker: I wish I could draw this. I'm a very visual person. Sometimes words are not the most eloquent way to describe it, but just being held in a space is so powerful and you definitely do rebound off of each other and it just helps really heighten all the experiences through breath work so even just connecting in with each other and yourself yeah it's really powerful and i'm not sure i've done that question justice but i'm not sure words can yeah it is it's a great reminder that
Speaker: verbal descriptions aren't everything and yeah using our imaginations or using our creative expressions in other ways can really assist in in articulating these things but also just experiencing it for yourself just just going along and and feeling that um ineffable sensation of being together like that and I also feel like it's probably going to be one of those things that we come along with our scientific study and prove at some point and go, wow, isn't that amazing that our nervous systems speak with each other in this way? But as yet, it's just in the realm of kind of woo. And it is a bit hard to talk about. But um yeah, thank you for trying.
Speaker: Yeah, I think it's so interesting the last... I would say five years, bit longer, science has started to look at it more seriously for more of the therapeutic benefits for like physical and mental health.
Speaker: And there has been studies showing that, yeah, breathwork is actually a very powerful tool to connect deeper to psyche into different parts of your mind in that way. So I think science is definitely catching up very slowly, but I really do hope that some, I love staying in the magic of it, but I would like to know how and why too.
Speaker: Yeah, I guess just to like give an example, like those was there was the gum tree time, but there was also this beautiful time in the snowy mountains where I was breathing and I felt really, really safe.
Speaker: And then i just like, I'm quite connected to down there. I love being down in the mountains and yeah I just felt like, oh my gosh, the land is is welcoming me home.
Speaker: And with that just came this like crushing grief for the earth and the world. And it was actually through breathwork session that I was like, that I managed to let that go as well.
Speaker: And it's not something that I like consciously think about that much because i can do my little actions each day, but holding onto that grief isn't going to help me.
Speaker: um I could just do what I can and let it be what it'll be. But through that breathwork session, I really was like, okay, I'm seeing and feeling this, crazy, big, wild emotions that didn't feel like totally mine either. It felt like the land, it sounds so woo-woo, but it felt like the land gave it to me a little bit to process.
Speaker: And that totally wouldn't have happened if I weren't, I guess, in that receptive state. And it was so powerful and beautiful just being able to process that and let that go. and with letting that go, just so much of my own guilt of not doing enough and guilt, I guess, of participating a bit in things that I know aren't the best for the earth just in everyday life.
Speaker: One thing to really know if you're like, oh, my God, I don't want this to happen, like but I really want to try breath work, is that the breath will only take you as far as you need to go And you definitely have a choice in the matter. Like if I was like, no, don't want that.
Speaker: I just slowed my breathing down, slow my breathing down. I'd still feel so connected to my body and my mind. And I think that's also a beautiful thing is just mind-body connection really strengthens.
Speaker: It can bring up a lot, but I think it's for me and for other people that I've chatted to and taught, it really opens it up in a beautiful, space safe space.
Speaker: Yeah, I can't help but imagine what might happen if people tried breathwork en masse and felt a little bit of what you're describing. And it speaks to me of the idea of interbeing and having an ecological identity where we actually feel feel the feels of the world and understand that our actions can be as natural as breathing in terms of a survival response and being part of the Earth's survival response because we aren't separate.
Speaker: And what what a powerful thing that would be for for lots of people to to taste and to really feel in their bodies. Yeah, that would be beautiful.
Speaker: Do you notice in the breathwork community that there is an instinctive connection to, if not activism, at least awareness? Like, do they go hand in hand or are there breath workers who are going and kind of delivering their services in a corporate space that is completely severed from all the things that we're talking about?
Speaker: That's a really good question. so It's definitely a community and space that is growing quite rapidly. i don't want to say unfortunately it's getting trendy, but listen I'm so glad that it's getting the voice that I believe it deserves. But with that, I guess, comes all types of people, which is so beautiful.
Speaker: When you're facilitating, you do bring in, I guess, some views and values that you do hold, like some people... really are into it for like the physical and mental health aspect. They really focus on that, which is beautiful. And then other people, um really focus on like connection to earth and country, which I like to do a bit. I find it's really grounding.
Speaker: Um, but there definitely are especially in the corporate space, it's quite big, which I actually think is so beautiful. because it's definitely not where I'd wanna be every single day. But for these people who, like we were saying before, just mostly a go go, go, it gives them such a beautiful tool to just step down and fully feel them, like feel what they're feeling.
Speaker: I was helping out at a corporate breath work and there's this dude next to me. After the breath work, he was like, This is the most wild day of my life.
Speaker: I did meditation for the first time this morning. Now i'm doing breath work. I don't know what's going on. I like, I cried and he's like, this is wild. And yeah, it sounded like he was just gobsmacked on like how actually just sitting with yourself, you can feel all these things. He was actually just like, what what's going on?
Speaker: um So I think it has such a beautiful and important role there in just helping. Like everyone are people. Everyone's a person no matter what where they are and what they're doing. So I think the more breathwork reaches people, the more it will have, yeah, a beautiful impact. And it slowly, slowly, the more people start to be conscious of how they breathe and how They live their life. I think that has such beautiful ripple effects to other things in their life, even if it's just a corporate dude going, maybe instead of like turning on the TV, I'll just like sit outside for like five minutes and I'll go watch TV or something like that.
Speaker: Yes, I will try to take the optimistic viewpoint that such questions are going to facilitate deeper connections rather than better clarity to enable more money-making.
Speaker: just have an amazing idea of how to extract more resources from this alien. I am definitely an optimist and... Yes, it could probably be used in that way, but I'm hoping that even if it is used in that way, it has other ripple effects for their own health.
Speaker: I want to ask you a question about life paths. There's two ingredients to this question, and one is how do you know that you're on the right path? What does it feel like? And especially as a young person, What is that sense that you have of following a pathway that's being opened up before you in maybe ah quite a mythic way?
Speaker: And also there's an ingredient of how breathwork might facilitate such clarity for others. Wouldn't I love to know if we're on the right path?
Speaker: That would be so amazing. me Yeah, I think definitely as I spoke to at the start of the conversation about just like that really low part of my life, I was just kind of following everyone else because fitting in was was the order of the day. And if you're not fitting in, then who are you? And Where do you sit?
Speaker: So I guess when fitting in failed miserably, yeah i kind of had to start looking at other things. And I actually, this is a tangent, but I at the time got recommended the most beautiful book. It was called Atlas of the Heart by Bene Brown. She's an emotion researcher and it's basically I guess like an emotion Bible. Like it just, she names, I think about 70 emotions and gives a really beautiful description for each one.
Speaker: And reading that, i was like, oh my God, people think, people feel the same things I'm feeling in different ways in different spaces. Yes, but we all feel the same.
Speaker: So that combined with breath work giving me a bit more of a clearer mind and a bit more of a perspective on life. was like, oh, okay. so if that path isn't really working and I'm not feeling like i have the energy to walk that, what other things can I do? So i started just slowly following things that would make me feel, i guess, good after like,
Speaker: I was just really conscious of noticing how I felt after doing things. So after doing yoga, how do I feel? Oh, great. After sitting on the couch for two hours, being a vegetable, oh, feel terrible.
Speaker: So i kind of used that as my compass. I used my inner, I guess, feeling as my compass to go, oh, no, I'd rather keep on walking a little to the right and just keep on discovering what makes me feel good. And yeah, after just all those little steps culminated in, oh, I suddenly feel like I'm on a different path and I have different values and beliefs that are just as valid and just as beautiful than the ones I had before. They're just different.
Speaker: And Yeah, breathwork definitely helped me lead me on that journey because it was the first time I fully felt conscious of how I was feeling. Yeah, that's what's really guided me is just knowing how I feel after doing things. Such a wise approach to notice not...
Speaker: Not so much what you want to do at any given moment, but how things are making you feel in that afterglow or that after ugh in the case of you're sitting and doing something that reads as rest but can actually feel like super stagnant.
Speaker: I'm just so so in awe of where you're at as a 21-year-old and so hopeful and inspired by what you're taking into the world, Ella. And one thing that I thought we could close on is i read on your Instagram page, which is very sparsely populated, and this kind of explains why. You wrote a post saying that,
Speaker: you don't post often, end quote, because instead of creating more noise in an already deafening world, we are content in our message and stay rooted like the trunk of a red gum tree waiting for the wind's currents to show people the way home. And that felt just gorgeous to receive on this horrendous platform of Instagram, which I hang out still. And i want to know where people can connect with your work.
Speaker: And what you would say to someone who wants to give this a try but might feel a little bit scared. Yeah, it's been a real, an internal battle I would say with being on Instagram because I haven't had it for so long, a person like a personal account.
Speaker: But I was like how do people how do I reach people if it's not on Instagram? So I started and i I did a bit and then I was like oh, I'm just going to pull back because It just doesn't, I guess, as I was speaking to before, it makes me feel heavy and a blob.
Speaker: And so, yeah, that's why why I don't post much. But if people wanted to find out more, I have a website that I'm sure will appear in your linky-poos.
Speaker: um Oh, I also have a YouTube video. It's a guided breathwork session. Oh, yay. Awesome. I was going to point people in that direction. Yeah. So that would be really cool to try out. If you're a bit hesitant on, oh, should i go to a class? Because it's definitely not something you have to pay for all the time. Like it's beautiful breathing as a group, but in a different way, it's just so lovely in the convenience of your home to just lie down whenever you want and go, hey, I need
Speaker: I need a break and I need just a moment to breathe. So yeah, probably website or email is the best way to contact me.
Speaker: Fantastic. Yeah, I love the low key presence and ah that's a relief in itself. It's like you taking that breathing space gives us permission to pull back to so the role model ship is not lost on me and is there anything else that you'd like to share as we move into Saturday afternoon we've been spending lots of time together which is so nice but yeah is there anything else you'd like to add to the conversation o yeah time flies I did not realize it was I think treat each breath like it's your last because when you're
Speaker: Present and focusing on your breath. You can't be in the past and you can't be in the future. You have to be right here and just savoring all that beautiful, beautiful life force that is your breath and have fun with it.
Speaker: It's not a serious thing. It can be quite playful. And I think that translates very strongly into life. Have fun with life. Be a bit cheeky, be a bit playful.
Speaker: Oh, thank you so much for bringing me back to what is right under my nose that I take so for granted and sharing so much delicious wisdom today and, yeah, connecting people with this practice that I see amazing.
Speaker: one tool um in a toolkit for helping ourselves stay, you know, stay on a more even keel in these rough seas.
Speaker: So I really appreciate it, Ella. Thank you so much. Thank you, Katie. I've loved chatting to you.
Speaker: That was Ella Mariska, and I've linked her breathwork offerings in the show notes, which also include a live online group session that Ella's running if you feel like giving it a go no matter where you are in the world, and also a guided YouTube session.
Speaker: Huge thanks to Ella for being the change that I wish to see in the world. Now, announcements. I posted a photo of my natto on Instagram if you want a little look-see.
Speaker: Also, there are still tickets to come to Raskillians' first live podcast recording at Daylesford Town Hall this Sunday morning as part of the Words in Winter Festival.
Speaker: And thirdly, early bird tickets are still on sale for the Australasian Permaculture Convergence slash Return to the Village Festival, which is essentially just a co-created permaculture campout, Skillshare, and bloody good time up in Woodfordia,
Speaker: That is April 2027. I'll be there hosting live convos and workshops and fun stuff like that, and I would really love to see you guys. Thanks for listening, all of you tree creepers and crested shrak tits. Much love.
