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Josh Trent: Discover Physical & Emotional Intelligence To Thrive In Our Modern World
935 Plays2 years ago
Josh Trent is the Founder of Wellness Force Media and host of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast. Josh has spent the past 19+ years as a trainer, researcher, and facilitator discovering the physical and emotional intelligence for humans to thrive in our modern world. The Wellness Force Media Mission is to help humans heal mental, emotional and physical health through podcasts, programs, and a global community that believe in optimizing our potential to live life well. After publishing over 400 high-level interviews with some of the most respected minds in the health, wellness, and self-help industries, Josh has been spotlighted in major wellness media outlets such as Onnit, Spartan, SEALFIT, and Paleo f(x). Josh holds a C.E.S certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, and is the creator of the BREATHE | Breath & Wellness Program.
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Transcript
Introduction to Josh Trent
00:00:23
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Ko, your host, and thank you all for tuning in once again to today's episode. We have Josh Trent here. Josh is the founder of The Wellness Force Media, the host of The Wellness Force podcast and creator of The Breathe.
Transition to Wellness Force Wisdom
00:00:40
Speaker
and wellness program he has recently switched his work over to wellness forced wisdom because he's interested in going deeper as I am I was just on his podcast if you want to check that out for eighteen years he was a trainer a researcher and a facilitator discovering the physical and emotional intelligence for humans to thrive in our modern world.
00:01:01
Speaker
Josh was amazing. We chatted about what, he's done 500 episodes, what he has learned from speaking to this many people on the idea of wellness plus many other topics. Tune in if you want to check them out. You can find him at the wellnessforce.com and you can check out his
Pivotal Life Moment
00:01:21
Speaker
podcast. He's got a YouTube as well, wellnessforce.com. Thank you guys for tuning in.
00:01:29
Speaker
Welcome to this week's episode of The Art of Authenticity. I'm Laura Coe, your host, and I have got Josh Trent here. Hey, Josh, how you doing today? Hello, Laura, my friend, my Akashic record reader, and my fellow human being. It's so nice to be with you. I love the energy. So good to be with you. Thank you for coming on the show. Josh has a podcast that is up to 500 interviews.
00:01:56
Speaker
Almost, yeah. Actually, 500 have been recorded. So yeah, 500 plus. That's more than I can fathom. I'm at 280 and I think, oh my God, I don't know how I'm going to break past 300. So it's extraordinary. And I want to talk about this podcast and the wellness force and now the wellness wisdom and all the stuff you've been up to and how your
00:02:19
Speaker
You're so committed to helping people move through these challenges of spiritual and psychological emotional health. But before we get to all that, I was checking you out and I was like, oh my God, your story.
Catalysts for Change
00:02:34
Speaker
I want to hear a little bit more of what got you here. So I was reading that you had this point, which a lot of people on the podcast have, right?
00:02:45
Speaker
a moment where, I don't know, life hits you in multiple ways. Your mom was moving into a mental home. You were fired from a corporate job. Your relationship was ending. And it sounds like that was like a huge turning point moment, moving you towards
Journey to Hawaii and Podcast Transformation
00:03:00
Speaker
all this. But can you share with the audience, like, take us back a little bit to, you know, where you were at that time, what this corporate job was, and then how you transitioned your life towards this new world of yours?
00:03:13
Speaker
Well, you know what happens if we're gonna peel back the onion, we're gonna cry. That might happen. Or I don't know, but there's definitely an onion to peel here. So my real journey, as you know, from your work started in a soul contract where I was born to a mom and a dad that had their own unique level of physical, emotional, spiritual, mental, financial intelligence.
00:03:38
Speaker
And without the right tools, I found this drug called food. And I ballooned up to like 280 pounds. And I was in this body that I hated. I was in a relationship I didn't want. I ended up moving to Hawaii and just really going on a sole mission to find this balance point within me.
Moment of Reflection and Surrender
00:03:55
Speaker
And now that I reflect on it, Hawaii is so feminine. You know, the waters are crystal blue.
00:04:00
Speaker
There's all this beautiful nature and lushness. And so I think my default is always really just to force things. And it's interesting, my podcast used to be called Wellness Force, which now it's called Wellness Wisdom, which you've been a guest on. And so Force turned into wisdom.
00:04:17
Speaker
And that's kind of been a recurring theme for me. And even right now today, since we're on the art of authenticity, even now, I am still learning this lesson. And one of the biggest turning points was the moment you described where it was me leaving fitness after 10 years of being a professional fitness trainer and working in studios and training clients for like 10,000 hours.
00:04:40
Speaker
and really just focusing on their body, not really knowing about the emotional intelligence, not really knowing about spiritual connection, really just a piece of the Pentagon, of the wellness Pentagon that I love and teach, but not the whole thing. And so at that moment, I was like, it was 2014, it was the end of 2014.
00:05:00
Speaker
I had put my mom in a mental home. She went through a really challenging time where she had to be in a mental home for quite a while, six months or so. And then I broke up with a woman who I thought I was gonna be with.
00:05:13
Speaker
And I got fired from a corporate job because I had left fitness because I was in that space between purposes. My 10 year purpose in fitness was done, but I didn't exactly know what else it was going to be. I knew I wanted to help people. Little did I know I had to help myself first.
Lessons on Authenticity
00:05:31
Speaker
And so I got to this point where these three huge things happened in like six months, put my mom in a mental home.
00:05:36
Speaker
got fired from this corporate job with this perceived safety and money and left this relationship. So it was like health-wealth relationship, boom, everything was just hit hard. And the moment that I feel in my heart right now that I can just flash right back to, I was in the worst point I'd ever been. I packed everything in suitcases and duffel bags and moved down to my place and put the rest in storage.
00:06:02
Speaker
went to my friend's house and stayed in his spare bedroom over the La Costa golf course in Carlsbad in California. And it was like one or two in the morning and I was just crying. I was just like so angry.
00:06:16
Speaker
And I walked out and I was looking over the golf course and it was kind of like that dew, you know, that like big thick fog, that dewy fog. And I just like dropped to my knees on this cold tile, this cold brown tile. I can like feel it on my knees. And I just started crying even more. And I was just like, God, I don't want to be here if my life is like this. I don't want to do this.
00:06:38
Speaker
I don't want to live someone else's dream anymore. I don't want to go through all this torment. If this is how it's going to be, just take me out. I've never thought of suicide. I've never thought of taking my own life, nor would I ever. But I literally was just like, if this is the life, if this is my sole contract, I'm out. I don't want to do it. This isn't for me.
00:06:59
Speaker
I just prayed for guidance, you know, show me, show me the path, show me the way, show me a breadcrumb, a guidepost, a sign, something, give me, give me a footprint here. And I got to this place where I knew that I had been playing really small. I was caving into my own fear. I was negotiating with my fears of my subconscious. Yeah. And I realized that, you know, I, I bought the your wellness force in 2010,
00:07:26
Speaker
I had hosted other shows as a guest host. A lot of people don't know this, but I hosted a whole other show called Fitness and Technology. At the same time, I was hosting Wellness Force and I was just playing really small before I did any podcasting. And I just said, you know what? I'm either going to do this or I'm going to fucking die.
00:07:43
Speaker
Literally, I'm gonna launch this podcast, I'm gonna figure out how to be not just an influencer, but also to come from a space of really being honest with myself about how I'm influencing and what I'm influenced by. And that was the big one.
00:08:00
Speaker
How did you figure that part out? Like, how did you get clear on that part, right? Like, I know that's a huge question, but I guess from that moment, right? Cause that's such a, like, um, it's almost like a movie, right?
Framework of Embodiment
00:08:13
Speaker
You're on your knees in the do. Yeah. And you're like surrendering, right? And, and I think if we're
00:08:19
Speaker
If we're being honest, I've had a couple. For me, it was on an airplane 30,000 feet in the air, broke down in tears with my brother, and I released it all to the universe. I'm like, I can't anymore, right? Because it's that same thing. It's like white knuckling, pushing, making it happen, forcing your ego and thinking, why isn't it working? Because I'm doing everything I can do, right?
00:08:44
Speaker
This is the thing that culture has taught us. If I work harder, push harder, force my will harder, I'm going to get there and it doesn't happen. And you're like, I'm working really hard though. So why? Right. And then there's that surrender. How did you move from that moment, uh, towards this next goal? Like what, what was that process to get there?
00:09:07
Speaker
Oh my God. This is actually, I just got a full body chill. I did a meditation this morning and this is, I'm going to just read you one little piece of it. The more my being is required to be responsible, the less I am able to heal what ails me. Yet the more capacity I create to be responsible from my true sense of ability rather than react to it from lack, the more I'm able to heal what ails me. The more I focus on being truthful service to humanity's loving evolution,
00:09:35
Speaker
The more joy, support, curiosity, wealth from abundance and creativity,
Identity Transformation Challenges
00:09:39
Speaker
I will live. And that is exactly that. That was this morning. Yeah. It goes to your question because the answer is whatever current level of development we are at in the five areas, spiritual, mental, physical, emotional, financial,
00:09:55
Speaker
wellness Pentagon. We have to be honest. I have to be honest with myself about where I'm actually at. Not fake it till we make it or be it till we see it. All these cool phrases that people say, there is so much power in just being honest. Wait, so tell me, yeah, because I agree with you, right? And it's like, why doesn't that fake it to you and make it work? In my opinion,
00:10:20
Speaker
Even though you're faking it, the energy you're sending out is contrary to what you're saying you want, right? Because there's a pressure. There's a pressure of acting. There's a pressure of being on a show. Like right now we're on a show, right? Yeah. So of course I'm feeling two things. I'm feeling how do I answer you with truth? And also how do I be of most service to who's listening? So those are the two things that I'm holding.
00:10:44
Speaker
But I don't feel a pressure in my system right now. In the past, I felt a pressure because I was using porn. I was still smoking weed a lot. I even was having unconscious sex before. This is when I first started the podcast. So for the first two
Metaphors of Personal Transformation
00:11:01
Speaker
and a half years of the podcast, I wasn't really living my truth. I wasn't doing it off the air.
00:11:08
Speaker
Now I'm in a place where off the air and on the air is the same. Like everything I'm sharing, I'm doing everything I'm doing, I'm sharing. And so how we get there and how I got there was going through a couple hero's journeys, finding a couple mentors that really directed me. And there was one actually, one really big one. And I don't talk about this a lot, but his name was
00:11:33
Speaker
I'm actually not going to say his name. He was a secret coach, kind of like a guy behind the guy. I went to Vegas in 2018 and he took me through all these exercises. It was like the last $2,000 I had and I just paid him for this weekend. One of the exercises he had me do is he was like, great, I want you to write down 15 things that you
00:11:53
Speaker
love and that you desire in a romantic partner and come back to me. And I was like, what does this have to do with making money? Because my whole mindset was like, I want to make money. I came back to him and he said, great, I want you to cross out the ones that involve physical intimacy. And all the rest of those values are exactly what you want to embody and what you want in your business. It's the same thing.
00:12:14
Speaker
Oof. Oof. And I was like, boom, like, like, explosion. Yeah, that's big. And the very last thing he said, well, he goes, he goes, what are you most afraid to share?
00:12:25
Speaker
Well, I want to slow down for the audience, Josh, because that's big, right? Like what I hear you saying, the things that we want are not outside of us, right? There are ability to connect with it within ourself first. And then that becomes our ability to connect with it outside of ourselves, right? Is that what you take that to mean? That's how I hear it.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, I can't give what I don't have. I can pretend. Yeah, exactly. That increases the pressure, almost like the existential pressure.
00:12:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's such a deep thing because I think we're always grasping for the things we quote want. There's this desire in life. There's, you know, I want this. Let me go get that. Then I will get that. And then I will feel a certain way. And when I feel that way, I will feel complete, but it's the opposite. It's like, fill yourself with it first, right? Which is such an irritating idea. Cause it's like, Oh, what does that even mean? How do I do that? Right? So I don't think you have to go on a seeking path. You have to go and actually seek it. You have to do it. You have to go find the,
00:13:28
Speaker
find the wisdom from mentors and teachers and healers and guides. It's almost like this amalgam where everything comes together and then at some point you either recognize in the moment or you look back in the moment and you go, ah, that was perfect. It doesn't seem like it in the moment though. Right. There's something so important about moving past the brain and into the embodiment of it as well.
00:13:52
Speaker
Not just learning it intellectually, but learning it in yourself. Can you talk a little bit about what it means to you to take on some of this stuff and integrate it? Not just
Role of Authenticity and Vulnerability
00:14:06
Speaker
to spiritually study it, but to actually bring it into your life?
00:14:11
Speaker
Yeah, with integration there has to be a willingness to accept what's here. And so when going back to that question he asked me, he was like, what are you most afraid to share? I was like, I'm most afraid to share that I have a wellness podcast and I'm still struggling with my own wellness. That was like the ultimate. And honestly, that was when I turned the corner. Like that was when I started to integrate to your question, the lessons that God was bringing me.
00:14:37
Speaker
So creators bring me all these lessons. Relationship didn't work. You have this trauma in your life. You were born to this unique circumstance in the 3D world. When are you going to stop fighting it? And when are you going to start surrendering with humility to it? The big thing for me has always been like this curiosity and humility. So if I can just focus on those two things.
00:14:59
Speaker
and just be, first of all, humble and ask, okay, what can I be humble to learn? And how can I be curious enough to learn it and not just be angry at it and reject it and push it away, whatever the lesson is. Because my default has been, and still at times is, which I'm working process, my default has been to feel overwhelmed.
00:15:22
Speaker
not create spaciousness for curiosity and just move forward and quote, get shit done. And so this, even in the logo on our podcast for wellness wisdom, we have the water sign, which is feminine. And so I'm constantly reminded of, okay, if I'm going to integrate, if I'm truly going to integrate lessons, then I have to have this understanding of both of these energies, this masculine and feminine energies. Otherwise,
00:15:47
Speaker
I'm just getting shit done and that's really all just intellect. I become a victim of my own intellect where I'm just, oh, I'll figure it out with my mind. The top five things that'll get me closer to business, health and wealth. No, that's not how it works. So the integration process for me really starts with, all right.
00:16:05
Speaker
First of all, can I breathe? Good. Second of all, can I be humble enough to ask creator what I need to learn or what is here for me to learn? And then lastly, can I have the curiosity to not be angry at it? Just like I'm a child in a sandbox. If I'm a child in a sandbox, then I'm just playing and I'm learning. And it's like the same thing is available to me as an adult.
00:16:28
Speaker
I just have to use some certain
Therapeutic Role of Podcasting
00:16:29
Speaker
techniques that I have to turn down the volume of my default mode network, the cortex, the posterior cingulate, the amygdala. These are the things that need to calm down with me and with all of us so that the wisdom can come from my heart and close the space between my heart and my head. Yeah, absolutely. And it's unfortunate because shame, right? We're taught to
00:16:55
Speaker
front that we have so much of life figured out. And if long we present a certain way, people will show you a certain amount of respect and life can feel like it's going in the right direction, but then you're living with all the shame of, to your point, right? Like, what are you hiding? What is it that you're not truthful about? And those things will eat you alive and they get in the way of your
00:17:17
Speaker
progress. It's so funny you say that, Josh, because I had the same experience. This friend of mine runs a huge, huge coaching business, and we had an off-record conversation about how much shame we both have.
00:17:32
Speaker
around admitting that we don't have it all worked out. I'm the art of authenticity. I have this podcast, I should always be authentic. And it's like, no, right? Like it's so much to carry this idea that you as a wellness force person should always be well, and I should always be in my authentic truth. It's like, it's not possible we're human, you know, you're living in that humanness. I think there's something so powerful
00:17:57
Speaker
of just sharing exactly where you are to the people that are learning from you. In other words, if I can say, okay, well, I do have a good grip or a good understanding or a good embodiment of these certain things, and I'm also still integrating and I'm also still learning about these things. Oh, and by the way, here's how it's playing out in my life.
00:18:17
Speaker
That is so trustable. That is so fucking real for people. Because then I'm not just like, New York Times best selling author who sits on a platform with like a cape floating behind him or her. And that's
Journey into Breathwork
00:18:30
Speaker
honestly what, unfortunately, I find a lot of times people outsource their control where someone might say to themselves, well, as long as I read all the books, as long as I go to the workshops, and as long as I do all the things,
00:18:45
Speaker
then I'll be good. But it's actually like a kind of a lie from the ego, not kind of, it is a lie. And the last thing I'll share is like what, for me, I've developed this theory of gather, apply and embody.
00:18:59
Speaker
It's so easy for us in the 3D world to get stuck in the gathering phase where we're just like listening to Laura's podcast and reading the books and doing all the things, but we never cultivate the courage to apply it, to have the tearful conversation with our partner, to go and do the cold therapy and freeze or go to the workout or do the hard stuff because it's within this mixture of gathering an application that we really get over to embodiment. We all in our heart, I think we all,
00:19:29
Speaker
We all want embodiment so badly. We all want to embody love and we want to embody these great virtues, but the work is in the gather and application. And unfortunately, which is changing through our conversation, we can pull people out of just gathering, gathering, gathering, gathering, because at some point it's like, we don't need to gather anymore. We actually just need to apply. You're speaking about something that I wanted to talk to you about, so I'll jump into it now.
00:19:57
Speaker
the gathering, right? So you're getting the information. Okay, great. Now you've learned a certain amount, but the application, it requires a certain shedding of who you are, a death of the ego, a death of this version of yourself today. And I believe so much of the challenge of the application is this phase where as I integrate these new ways of being in the world,
00:20:25
Speaker
say I'm working on my anger and I'm less angry and now I'm like this calm person. I don't actually know who I am anymore. And there's this really scary phase in the middle where you're starting to apply this stuff and you don't quote, know yourself. And there's this scary feeling like you're dying, you're losing yourself. I don't know who I am. I don't know what this means. And I think that's a big part of it, but I know you think about this a lot. What are your views around
00:20:52
Speaker
Do you think this integration part and the lack of the identity, the ego, the death of self leads to a lot of the fear of doing the work? On 2-22-22 of this year, I had a huge death and rebirth.
00:21:10
Speaker
I let wellness force die and I birthed wellness wisdom. And there was a moment where I was like, is this the right thing to do? Who am I? What is going on here? Will people still care? And of course they did. It actually has worked out a lot better. But there was a good month where I was like,
00:21:29
Speaker
Is this going to work? Is this going to impact my finances? But I had to be honest. I'm like, the force thing was not working. It was like a lead backpack that I was carrying around. And so, God, in my life, there has been multiple deaths in rebirth, both in breathwork and psychedelics and just in normal, everyday waking consciousness. And yes, I 100% wholeheartedly agree
00:21:55
Speaker
that I think in all of our lifetimes, because I know in mine, there has been so many cycles of death and rebirth. And you could use the construct of Joseph Campbell's hero's journey if you want, you know, that's a that's a cool way to understand it, you know, the separation initiation and return.
00:22:10
Speaker
Or you could apply any kind of model to this. Essentially there has to be like the snake of Josh Trent shedding its skin, being super tender and vulnerable to the world in a space of not knowing. And then eventually the new skin is formed, but there's this space when this, when the skin comes off before the new skin has grown,
00:22:34
Speaker
There's a couple of metaphors here. One of them is actually a crab and Jordan Peterson talks about this. When a crab sheds its hard shell, it has to go into hibernation. It has to go into the rocks. It's very vulnerable because another crab could come and kill it. There's no shell. We're the same way.
Guided Breathwork Session
00:22:51
Speaker
And the second metaphor is, I remember I was interviewing Alison Armstrong
00:22:54
Speaker
And she was like, yeah, sometimes when a man gets to this space where he has no idea what's going on, nothing makes sense, super vulnerable, super tender, you're in the tunnel. And when you're in the tunnel, you don't know what's up, what's down, what's right. And you literally learn who you are. You learn about the fabric and the beingness of who you are when you're in that shitty, fucked up, uncomfortable, prickly space. You just learn. You learn what you're made of, essentially.
00:23:23
Speaker
Yeah. Well, the Four Agreements guy, Riaz, he wrote the book on mastery of self, and he talks about you have all these masks of self, and behind there is the true self, right? You're not your masks. And that whole idea of like,
00:23:44
Speaker
You're not the guy who runs a podcast. You're not the fitness guy. You're not the guy that was overweight. You're not the guy that lost weight. You're not all these things, right? But we keep adding these titles and then we identify with them and then things change in life. And then there's this just complete breakdown of like, who am I without this thing? Instead of recognizing life is just a constant
00:24:06
Speaker
you know, role that you are playing, but behind it is your true self, right? And if you know that, then play the role. Like you're a dad. When I go to be a mom, I'm going to be a mom. There's nothing wrong with playing the role. It's just the knowing that it's a role.
00:24:23
Speaker
the knowing that it's a role and also not being so serious about the role. Like I've fallen into the trap of like having to be like I just did a panel at a conference and it was with like two really big speakers. One of them is Peter Crone, another guy is JP Sears. And I was nervous. So of course I did my breathing. I prepared myself. I was like, Josh, you have a lot of wisdom to give. You have a lot of love to give. Just go for it. You know, just literally coaching myself before I do these big things.
00:24:53
Speaker
And that is really big because I could just let my mind take over and I could just let the voices and the monkey thoughts and the incessant loops take over. So it's a really big understanding for me to say, okay, whatever I'm turning into or whatever I'm evolving into,
00:25:13
Speaker
Can I do it and just love and accept myself? That has been the biggest learning curve. Can I do it and just love and accept myself to show up imperfectly with like some tweaks and some scratches or whatever it is and not have to be perfect, not have to be like perceived to the audience as perfect or perceived to the people that follow me as perfect because they're not either and neither am I.
00:25:35
Speaker
Absolutely. That's why Bernie Brown is so popular, right? It's like perfectly imperfect. Show those vulnerabilities. All right. So I have a question for you. You've interviewed all these people over all of these years. As an interviewer,
00:25:50
Speaker
What have you learned in that process? I don't even want to frame the question too heavily because I'm almost curious what comes to mind for you. Having sat on the other side of hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people over all of these years, hearing their stories, watching them communicate their expertise or whatever it is that they're here to share, how has that influenced your life?
00:26:17
Speaker
I'm smiling so big because without the podcast, I literally have no idea where I would be as a human. It is my therapy. It is my growth. It is my expansion of my awareness, of my consciousness, of me as a soul. It is my Dharma.
00:26:38
Speaker
So I do feel that it is my Dharma. And also there have been levels of challenge in what I love to do is what we're doing. This is what I love to do because it's just I get to learn, I get to share, I get to experience. But all the backend stuff, the admin, the crunchiness, the business stuff, that's the things that are the biggest learning curve for me.
00:26:59
Speaker
But overall, you know, at the very top of it, I would say what I've learned the most is when I lead with what I am genuinely interested in, on like a soul level from my heart, not just from my mind, well, sometimes from my mind, because I like science and I like to explore frameworks and stuff like that.
00:27:18
Speaker
But in the core of my questions or in the core of my listening, if I'm being in a space where I genuinely want to know, or I'm genuinely curious about that person, it just flows awesome. They feel seen, they feel heard. They feel like, wow, this person prepared. They care about me. They care about my work. And I do. Otherwise I wouldn't want to have the conversation.
00:27:43
Speaker
And behind that is this quest for my own matriculation. It's for my own learning, right? For my own growth. So there's two lenses there. It's like, you know, the spectacles. The spectacles. One side is I genuinely love this person. I want to learn about them. I want to share.
Living Authentically
00:28:02
Speaker
And the other side of it is I want some knowledge for myself. I want some wisdom for myself.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, it's so funny. I'm smiling for everybody who can't see me. I'm just smiling because, um, that's exactly how I feel. If I'm not curious and interested, I can't really keep the interview going cause like I've got to follow my own curiosity. Um, or I get bored and the interview seems like it gets kind of, uh, stale and, and the way I stay curious is also to, to learn something.
00:28:33
Speaker
Sometimes on the other side, the person gets bored and I notice it. And I'll actually just, I used to go in and now I just pull back a little bit. And I find that when I pull back a little bit on the interview, then they'll come in. It's like a great space for them to come in and be interested in their own share. Because a lot of these big guests, they're doing tours where they have like six podcasts in one day. Right. And they get so prescriptive. I got to pat it and to rep them sometimes.
00:29:00
Speaker
Well, talk to me a little bit about breath work. You also have this system, the 21 minute morning system. First of all, why 21? And then secondly, why breath work? What got you interested in that specifically of all the different ways we can calm our bodies and our minds?
00:29:22
Speaker
I just did... This is a great question because I just did a private session yesterday on Zoom with one of my guests actually. And I got so much from it by me just leading someone through really this art. It's an art to be able to lead someone through a catharsis process.
00:29:41
Speaker
And breathwork at its very core, just on a definition standpoint, breathwork is the only voluntary and involuntary lever that you and I can pull as incarnated beings for our nervous system. You don't digest your own food. Your body does that. You don't pump your own blood. Your body does that. But breath is so special. Breath is so profound.
00:30:02
Speaker
And the reason is because we can pull a lever using our breath, and we can fundamentally viscerally shift our nervous system from fight or flight to rest and digest, sympathetic being the tension, parasympathetic being the relaxation. And so when I found it, it was about two years into the podcast, and I went to this event called Unbeatable Mind with a former Navy SEAL commander, his name is Mark Devine,
00:30:28
Speaker
And we were doing this thing called warrior breathing, which is just conscious, circular breathing for 20, 30 minutes. And I felt something on my face. I'm like, what is that? Oh, it's tears. I'm laying on the floor with a bunch of pretty burly people, athletes, former Navy SEALs. And I'm just like, I don't know what this is, but I want more of it.
00:30:49
Speaker
It's not a pill I have to take. I'm not drinking ayahuasca in the jungle. I don't have to do anything super intense. I'm just laying and breathing and connecting with myself. And that catharsis point sparked a really big curiosity for me. And I was like,
00:31:06
Speaker
how could this benefit me in the way that I feel? Because anxiety and depression have popped into my life at times.
Ongoing Personal Growth
00:31:13
Speaker
And so how can this help me? Like that was my question. How can this help me? And I traveled the world and I went to Thailand for a month and I trained with this practitioner, Neeraj, for Soma breath. And then I came home and it was actually on my 12th ayahuasca journey, which I'm no longer a fan of ayahuasca. I am done with ayahuasca. Wait, I have to interrupt. Why are you done?
00:31:34
Speaker
Um, because I got slapped so hard and I had a psychic break because I chose to do medicine in a space that was not being held properly with sacredness. And I had an entity attach, which is Paul Levy talks about this as what Tico or the mind virus entities can only live in people that have spaciousness for them to live.
00:31:52
Speaker
And so it was a gift. It helped me heal a lot of things, a lot of very intimate things, but also I wouldn't wish that on anyone. It took me a year and a half to heal the looping thoughts, the OCD. I mean, I had a true psychic break. Oh my God. So it was in that ceremony though, as the sun was rising, where I started to feel the DMT in my lungs and I started to think, okay, now that I'm done with this medicine, I'm no longer going back.
00:32:18
Speaker
Thank you for this gift of showing me how powerful my own breath can be. Because in that psychedelic state, I was able to literally feel the peace and the DMT release and the calming inside of my own lungs. Almost like if you were to put my lungs on a scan, you would have seen the energy go in and out of my lungs. I mean, it was wild. It was totally wild. And that night, I bought breathwork.io. It was like four in the morning. I couldn't believe it was available.
00:32:44
Speaker
And I just told myself, I'm going to dedicate the next couple of years and really explore this breathing and this art of breath. And that led me to create the Breathe Breath and Wellness program, which is at breathwork.io. And now we have hundreds and hundreds of students across the world and like all these different countries that have purchased the program. And it was from my own journey. It was from my own learning and lesson of how do I use the breath to help me, to help me with my anxiety and depression, to find that center point. And has it really helped you?
00:33:14
Speaker
It's helped me tremendously. It's helped me in a way where when I'm conscious about my practice, when I'm doing my breath work on a continuous basis, like every day, and sometimes even for three minutes in a day, it can pull me out of the head and it can drop me back down into my body.
00:33:32
Speaker
would you be willing to quickly share with the audience listening right now, wherever they are, what a quick thing they could do to just bring them out of their minds into their body? Sure. It'll take about three minutes. We got three minutes. Sure. Okay. So where were you listening? Yeah.
00:33:49
Speaker
If you're driving, pull over. And I would do this laying down or seated. If you're seated, make sure that your hips, your shoulders and your head are all on a straight line. So just pull back a little bit so that you're not leaning forward, you're not leaning back, you're just right in the middle. Close your eyes, put your hands on your belly. Take a big breath in through your nose and fill a balloon behind your belly button. Let it go. Inhale through your nose, belly rises.
00:34:20
Speaker
Exhale, belly falls. One more time. Inhale, nose, belly rise. Exhale, mouth, belly falls. We're gonna continue to do that breathing. We're gonna do 20 of those breaths together. Inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth. I'll hold count. So just be at peace with your eyes closed. Relax your neck, relax your face. Relax your jaw, roll your jaw around a couple times. We hold a lot of tension in our jaw.
00:34:52
Speaker
Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth.
00:35:26
Speaker
halfway there. Audible exhales.
00:36:05
Speaker
Last inhale. Hold for five. Exit all the air from your belly. Inhale through your nose, belly rise. Hold for five.
00:36:29
Speaker
Exhale, audible for five. Hold for five.
Future Plans and Balance
00:36:40
Speaker
Inhale, nose for five. Hold for five. Exhale, all your stress and tension for five.
00:37:00
Speaker
Drop your chin, hold for as long as you can. When you get the sensation to breathe, be with that sensation. Go into your edge, keep holding. If you have to, take a breath in and breath out, otherwise keep holding. Lean into your edge for five.
00:37:27
Speaker
Four, three, two, one. Big inhale through your nose. Take another sip of air into your nose. Fill your belly, fill your chest and hold. Be at peace with the beating of your heart, with all the blood to your skin, with the full belly, full chest you have.
00:37:50
Speaker
Keep holding for five, four, three, two, big exhale. Open your eyes through your mouth. Take another breath in. Another breath out. Just return to your normal breathing.
00:38:18
Speaker
That's a really great grounding practice. Box breathing is for grounding. Nice. I noticed you have everybody hold their breath at the base and not inhale. That took me so long to not panic around that one. So that's something if you guys felt a little intensity like, Oh my God, I'm going to die. I think it's easier over time.
00:38:38
Speaker
It gets easier over time because we get used to that response that we have, that jerk response. Oh my God, I got to breathe. It's like, you actually don't have to breathe. You don't have to snap at your partner. You don't have to eat the shitty food. You don't, the mind tells you do it, do it, do it, do it, breathe, eat, do the thing. And you don't. And over time you build that confidence to not have to respond and be a slave to your mind. That's really what breath work is about. Two things. The retention is about you.
00:39:06
Speaker
saying no to the mind and saying yes to your body and your heart. And then over time, the deeper practices we have in the program is about you training your body to breathe, using the proper posture, using your breathing musculature to give yourself this long-term peace, long-term sustainable tool to deal with stress, really. Because we all have stress. We're not going to get away from it. Yeah. So breath can be really powerful for that.
00:39:32
Speaker
And most people are breathing at the very top of their chest, little tiny inhales and exhales. They're not like actually breathing in their abdomen, their back body, their side body. Yeah. Yeah. We, we learned that as I heard this from Dan Brule. He has breath mastery. He's, um, I believe he was Tony Robbins breath coach. And he said, when we're kids, we breathe naturally. We breathe normally. We breathe through our nose easily. But as adults, we,
00:39:58
Speaker
We breathe through our mouth. We breathe like in our clavicle, in our sternocleidomastoid. And we just, we get really tight up there. And it's a learned response that we actually get mirrored from our parents and mirrored from society because most of society needs to damn breathe. Most of society needs to breathe through their belly and slow down.
00:40:15
Speaker
One of the beautiful things around being around a little baby is that they have that beautiful inhale and exhale. When you hold them, you're like, you start to breathe at the pace of them. That really wonderful connection still to their bodies. Josh, talk to me a little bit about
00:40:34
Speaker
You're somebody who's committing his life to wellness, to wellness and wisdom now, to this spiritual awakening. People on this podcast are listening because they're interested in authenticity. They're listening because ultimately, somewhere in their soul, their body, they're saying, I need something else more different. There's a stirring, there's a nagging, there's some sense that whatever they're doing isn't quite it.
00:41:00
Speaker
Why does it matter? Why bother? You were a guy living in your life in the corporate world. Now you've done all this. What's the point of all of it in your mind? The point of living authentically, the point of living from an authentic place. Yeah, because it's so much work, breath work and ayahuasca ceremonies. Sometimes I think about all this and I think, damn,
00:41:25
Speaker
Like one of my clients used to joke like the matrix site, the blue pill moment. It's like, did I, did I really need to take the blue pill? So what's the benefit? Like, I don't mean like benefit, like pleasure-based, but like, how does this change your life for the better? Wow. It's a seesaw. I feel on one side of the seat, there's work on both sides. There's work when you're not authentic. Cause you have to hold that pressure that we were talking about, that existential pressure. When you're doing something you don't really love, but it quote pays the bills. There's pressure there.
00:41:55
Speaker
and, you know, soul contract free will, which we've spoken about. Um, I don't judge people that, that say no, I don't judge people that say no to the authentic path, the spiritual path, but man, there's so much more reward on the other side. There's so much more reward because there are these moments and I know you felt them where you might be laying or you might be at the pool or you might just be like out in life and you go, okay, this might be hard, but damn, at least it feels real. Yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
Damn, at least it feels real. Because there is, and honestly, there's more work sometimes on the authentic path. But the payoff is peace. The payoff is love. The payoff is that feeling, that embodied feeling of, I'm supported, I'm loved, I'm on the right path. I mean, you can't put a dollar amount on that. How could you possibly try to quantify the feeling
00:42:50
Speaker
of being love supported and on the right path. There's no fucking quantification for that. There's no dollar amount you could put on that. But on the other side, there is a dollar amount. Once I make 100K or once I make 300K or once whatever the number is, then I'll have peace, then I'll be okay. And the price for that is a self abandonment of the contract. And however you want, whatever metaphor you want to use, whatever my soul, whatever our soul came here to do,
00:43:20
Speaker
when I'm not doing that, it fucking sucks. It really sucks because it feels like it's just this war. It's like this internal war. Now on the other side of the seesaw, it can be challenging too because some of these roots go very deep, epigenetically past lives. And those can be really hard to pull out. If you pull a tree out of the ground, it's a lot of effort. And sometimes some of the roots are stuck and sometimes they attach, you know,
00:43:46
Speaker
Transplanting ourselves like a tree and putting ourselves in a new space and growing ourselves to grow where we actually, we're destined, we're designed to grow, can be really violent. It can be really revealing. It can be gnarly. But damn, the payoff, the payoff, the reward is like, I can breathe easy in my body because I know that I'm supported. I feel it. I feel I'm supported. I feel like I'm on the right path.
00:44:12
Speaker
I feel like I'm loved. And the other side doesn't bring those rewards. It might bring the trappings, the boats, the cars, the women, the men, whatever. But it's all like this hollow, Gabor Matei calls it the hungry ghost. You know, the ghost that just keeps eating, but there's no bottom. And so I would much rather dedicate my life to being on the other side, knowing that might actually be harder. And that's okay.
00:44:36
Speaker
Yeah, but you get those moments where you're embodied. And I always think people want to look around in their life and feel like the world around them, what they built is reflecting back to what feels true within themselves. And when you have those moments where you're like, huh,
00:44:52
Speaker
Me and my world feel like there's no break between it. I am what I'm doing. I am my interactions. I am the way that I'm showing up. None of it feels false for all that feels somewhere in me like a yes. When you have that to your point, it's very priceless. On the other side of it, what are you working on shedding right now?
00:45:15
Speaker
What is the thing that is most top of mind to release? You spoke about it a little bit earlier. What's top of heart for me is the releasing of grief, the releasing of sadness. In my lineage, in my family lineage, there was a lot of unconscious behavior on both sides, both mom and dad.
00:45:43
Speaker
And I feel that at times. I feel the unconscious reactiveness to life and the hurting of other people and the deep sadness in the lineage. It's there. It's definitely there. And so I'm working on shedding that and I'm working on identifying. The big thing for my mind and my heart right now is I'm working on identifying my attachment style.
00:46:08
Speaker
So there's lots of camps on this, but I think from my research is about five. There's the anxious, there's the avoidant, there's the ambivalent, and then there's the disorganized, which is four, that's the big four. And there might be others, but oh, and then there's secure, duh. The secure attachment, that's the fifth. So I'm working on moving from anxious to secure.
00:46:30
Speaker
And so in my life, because of my upbringing being raised with the bipolar mom and the dad that was just did the best he could, but really didn't have the tools, my compass.
00:46:41
Speaker
tends to swing to anxious attachment style. And so I'm working on being more in the center, which is the secure. And in order for me to be secure, there's a lot of unraveling, and there's a lot of unpacking, and there's a lot of clearing, unraveling, unpacking, and clearing that's going on.
00:47:00
Speaker
in my life and also being conscious to not attach to the grief or not attach to the emotions, the energy and motion that I'm sensing, that I'm feeling. It's not fucking who I am. It's just something that I'm experiencing. So I am not a sad person. I am not a grief person. I'm just a soul who's experiencing these emotions and emotions are much different than feelings. Feelings are guideposts to our emotions.
00:47:26
Speaker
feelings or guideposts to what I'm going through or what is going through me. So that's the big one for me right now. That's a great one. For anybody interested who's listening, we had Sylvie on. She did a whole show on the different attachment styles. If you're wondering what Josh is talking about, there's a great book called Attached. Yes. I know it's a little controversial, but I 100%
00:47:50
Speaker
subscribe to the attachment style work and I've done a ton of it on myself. It's a game changer. If you find out what your attachment style is, and I took a lot of time actually, I took the last two or three years to move from anxious to more secure and it's changed my life. I didn't even know it was a thing.
00:48:11
Speaker
Yeah, it's really powerful. It's like you hear about the styles and you just go, nobody's like always one. Yeah. There's one quadrant that you just, yeah, you can float depending on the people in your life. Certain people bring out one or the other in you. Like some people can make me super avoidant, but it's rare. I just tend more towards answers.
00:48:32
Speaker
Um, so, you know, there's a, there's a quadrant though, that you'll just go, Oh God, that's so resonant. And then there's some beautiful techniques to heal that. Um, so Josh, as we wrap up today, uh, tell us what you're up to today. What, uh, what are you excited about? What's going on with the wellness, um, uh, wisdom? Yeah. And, uh, where can people find you and all that good stuff?
00:48:58
Speaker
Yes, this has been so great. And one more resource too was
00:49:02
Speaker
Diane Poole Heller, and she wrote a book called The Power of Attachment. That's the one I'm reading right now. That's what's fresh for me. What's exciting for me, what I'm stoked about, what I'm stepping into is the true embodiment of everything that I learn and share on my Wellness Wisdom podcast, right? That's what I'm most excited about because I'm also gonna be getting a new podcast studio and having some rebranding and just refreshing of how everything looks and feels, because I've changed.
00:49:31
Speaker
I've changed and so I'm excited about sharing that change in that evolution.
00:49:36
Speaker
with my audience, with the world. And I'm excited about finding this center that we've talked about so much. I know it's like this fleeting thing, no one ever is gonna live 100% 365 in their center. But I'm excited about being in the center more often. And the center for me means that I'm serving, I have the capacity to serve, I've done my work, my inner work to create that space inside of me to hold whatever my partner's going through, whatever I'm going through,
00:50:05
Speaker
whatever my business requires, whatever my friendships require, whatever I'm being responsible about, you know, response able, not reactive able. That's what I'm really stoked on. So the type of conversations that I'm having on the podcast are, you know, they're spiritual, but they're practical.
00:50:23
Speaker
Because we're here on earth, Laura. We got to serve and live here. We can't just go from ceremony to ceremony and do all these wild 6D, 7D, 8D things all the time. We can go to those, but we got to bring it back here. I got to bring it back here to serve here. So I'm excited about the center point. I'm excited about this center and sharing how I've changed and
00:50:47
Speaker
And also in my relationship, you know, I'm, I'm really excited about what is the relationship going to bring? What lessons is it going to bring? And also what snakeskin am I going to shed through my relationship, through the PhD that I'm learning in my relationship on emotional intelligence, all those things. Yeah. And you can find me at, at joshtrent.com.
00:51:11
Speaker
That's the website. The podcast is Wellness Wisdom. The Breathwork program is at breathwork.io. But if you just search Josh Trent podcast online, you can probably find it three or four pages of things. Well, Josh, I'm so grateful you came on the show to share with me and all the audience members all this wisdom. We met through a mutual friend, Cal Callahan, who's been on the show, he's coming on again in a
00:51:37
Speaker
A very short period of time here. Just grateful to have met you, to know you. Thanks for having me on your show and for being here today. Yes, it's a pleasure. Thanks, Laura.