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“Breathwork will help you more deeply connect to that inner sense of self and what is really here for you, so that you can work with your mind.” - Jen Liss
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The Benefits of Breathwork with Jen Liss
Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.
It’s such a privilege to introduce you to Jen Liss on today’s podcast episode. Jen is on a mission to educate and inspire more people to untether from societal expectations so they can shine into a more joyful, authentic, and abundant life.
Known for her straightforward and honest coaching style, she makes self-development work relatable and fun. Jen is a firm believer in radical self-acceptance as a path to greater joy, which she helps people to attain through breathwork.
Her podcast, Untethered with Jen Liss, is in the top 3% of all podcasts, encouraging thousands of listeners to align with their truth and go for their dreams. Jen has been honored to speak on stage both locally and internationally, sharing her message to inspire more people to live an authentically joyful life.
I’d encourage you to get to know her even better at untetheredjen on Instagram.
Today we focus on the benefits of intentional breathwork, which I know you’ll find fascinating. Here’s our conversation.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: I am so excited to welcome Jen Liss to the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here with us.
[00:00:06] Jen Liss: I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
[00:00:09] Dawn Calvinisti: Jen, tell us a little bit more about what you do and why it is the thing that lights you up.
[00:00:16] Jen Liss: Yeah. So I am a coach, a speaker, and a breath worker. And combined, what I love to do is to help people to unleash what I call their magical glittery, sparkly unicorn gifts into the world to fully be ourselves and to show up in the best way that we can contribute. So that's what lights me up. I am just so lit up by seeing people live their magic just to put the things out there that they already have. Like we all have so many gifts inside of us. And a lot of times we're holding onto them, and it's what I call, we're tethered, we're just like, we're like tethered by all of these things, and it's like keeping us from just sprinkling our magic in the best way that we can.
So what I love to help people do is to realize the gifts that they have and to allow themselves to put them out into the world. And I do that via mindset work and body work and specifically connecting the mind and the body together. And breath work is one of my main tools that I use to support people to do that.
[00:01:18] Dawn Calvinisti: So I can't tell you how excited I am to bring this subject to the podcast because we really have not touched on it before. And breathwork is something that I became very aware of when I was taking yoga teacher training, and it became a part of what I. I would say I gravitated to and started to dig deeper and study more into it.
And in my own journey, some of the, the listeners will have heard that I suffered from very severe anxiety and breath work was my number one go-to that started to release all of that. So for me to have you here and to be able to talk more about the benefits and why we would use it, whether we have anxiety or not, is just an awesome thing to be able to share this tool and this gift with people.
[00:01:59] Jen Liss: It's such a powerful tool and it's exciting to hear that it's something that has supported you so deeply and and I heard recently from someone, it's actually the yoga individual who works with Deepak Chopra. I was in a class with her and she said the most important thing about yoga, we think it's the stretching and the strength training, but it is actually the breath.
The breath is the most powerful part of that practice. And so you found your way to the breath through the yoga, and that is the case for a lot of people. And you know, I myself suffer with anxiety. In fact, I had a panic attack just three nights ago. It had been a really long time since I had one, but I've been moving through a lot of very challenging things myself in the past couple of weeks. I also went bungee jumping, so that brought up some anxious feelings. So the breath work is such a powerful tool for anyone who struggles with anxiety. It doesn't promise that we won't ever have some kind of anxious experience ever again, but it is an amazing tool for supporting us and moving through all of our anxious feelings, stress, and things of that nature.
[00:03:10] Dawn Calvinisti: So just to clarify, because I'm sure people are thinking, what do you mean breath work? Like I breathe.
I breathe. What are you meaning by that? And I know, yes, maybe it sounds like it's a more conscious type of breath, but explain more to us, when we say breath work, what are we talking about?
[00:03:24] Jen Liss: Yeah. So, okay. Yes. You are born with breath. Your breath is with you from the moment that you enter into this physical world until the moment that you leave the physical world. We all have breath, but breath is happening both automatically and you can also control it. So it's involuntary, it's simply happening and it's also voluntary.
Breathwork is using that voluntary side to control the breath, to manipulate it, and therefore to manipulate the state of your physical body. So your blood actually changes when you do breath work, you have more oxygen or less CO2. So when we manipulate the breath, we are able to move ourselves out of a stress state and into a relaxed state, or vice versa.
Sometimes you might want to move into a stress state. We can get into that if you want to, but that is, breath work is manipulating the breath to shift the state of your body to shift your body's natural chemical cocktail that it is producing for you in any moment.
[00:04:25] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that you say that and, and that people are going to understand more about choosing to breathe. And I think that's one of the things that as a coach, as a mom, it's an area where I think it's a super simple tool that you have with you all the time. You don't have to really, you know, pull your notes to remember how to do it.
But there are just such easy ways, and I mean, there's multiple ways more complex than not, but there's just so many ways that you can quickly change a situation and your response and your emotions around that situation just by consciously bringing that breath under control.
[00:05:00] Jen Liss: Because your body's always giving itself drugs. You're giving yourself drugs at all times via your thoughts, via the way that you're breathing, via the way that you're responding, like we are getting a cocktail. And so if you can use your breath to activate the side of your nervous system, that is calming, you can give yourself calming drugs.
So my mentor, Samantha Skelly says, you are the drug. And it's true when you manipulate the breath, when you do that conscious breathing most of the time in today's world, we use breathwork a lot in our every day. Where it can support most of your listeners is by using a conscious breath to calm, to relax, to rest, to go into that rest and digest of your parasympathetic nervous system.
We don't have to get too sciency about it. There is a a lot of science backing this. But we're mostly spending time in the fight flight freeze, which is your sympathetic, and so you can use conscious manipulation of your breath to move yourself over into the other side of your autonomic nervous system, which is where we get those nice calming sensations.
[00:06:07] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, and for the people who are listening. I know we have lots of people pleasers and perfectionists and procrastinators and often with that, the thoughts that come with that of having to do it right, you know, making sure that everybody's pleased. What are other people thinking? Am I gonna put something out there that is good enough?
All of those things. When you even start to hear the conversation in our heads ramp up the fight or flight and the response is to automatically start breathing more quickly, to become more tense, all of that. So definitely what you're saying, I can see how just learning to stop and, and slow that down is gonna change how we're thinking and what we're I guess experiencing in that moment, right?
[00:06:51] Jen Liss: Truly what's so important for those of us who tend to be, I'm one of you, I have grown up a perfectionist. I have am in that recovering perfectionist, you know, phase of my life. You know, it's really important that we realize that we cannot be our creative best when we are in that fight flight stressed state.
The brain, can't it, it can't access, you can't access the well of creativity, I call it, in that state. You can access it when you get into the rest and digest state, that's when that side of your brain becomes active when you can actually dip into that well. So it's really important for us to begin to gain awareness of when we are in that stress state and not to judge it.
Which is what we'll tend to do. We'll be like, ah, I'm just so frustrated that I'm so stressed. And then, then we're like stressed about being stressed and it can really start to compound when you can just step back and take a nice deep breath and give yourself some space, not judgmental space to come back down.
That's when you can be your most creative. So realizing the importance of that, because creativity is how you show up in your everyday life, no matter what your job is, I don't care if you're an accountant, you need to be able to dip into your creative problem solving side. So it's very important that we use that.
We learn to use our breath because it's one of the most powerful ways to get ourselves there. It's not the only way, but it's a really powerful way to get yourself there.
[00:08:22] Dawn Calvinisti: So what would you suggest when we're realizing, okay, I would like to change this. What's my first step? What am I thinking about when I'm thinking of, okay, I wanna do something different with my breath.
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[00:08:34] Jen Liss: So here's base level is that if you're in a state of stress, part of the reason that you're stressed is because for some reason you're fearful or anxious. You don't feel safe. There's a lack of safety in a, a moment of stress, and so that's why we're tensing up. You think about the human, there's a saber tooth tiger, and we're like, Ooh, I need to be ready to fight.
Well, we feel that every time we get a notification from our phone, right? You hear the dinging go off, it's a text message, oh, it's a slack message. Might be my boss. So you're, you're fearful, even though you might not really sense that you are fearful. So it's very important that we signal safety to ourselves.
So signaling safety you can do by taking a nice deep breath into your nose and sighing out loud, ah. An audible sigh signal safety to your body. There's other cues you can do to signal safety as well. There's something called havening, which is where you might take your finger tips from one hand to the fingertips of the other hand and rub it down to your elbow very gently.
Tell yourself you're safe. You're safe and do that while also combining it with a nice nose breath, maybe that audible exhale. Long breaths signal to your nervous system that you're safe because if you're fighting a saber-tooth tiger or hiding or running from it, you're taking those short, quick breaths.
So always remember like a nice lengthy breath, particularly through the nose. And then also finding some other somatic way to signal safety, whether it is a sigh or doing that havening that I told you about. Those are such fast ways you can haven on a zoom call. Like, put your hand down below the line and haven and run your fingers up and down and just say to yourself, silently, you're safe.
And take a nice deep breath. Nobody even knows you're doing it. You could do this in public without anybody even really realizing. It looks like you're, like, just have a, an itch that you're scratching or something. You know? So these are very simple ways. That's, that is breath work. Even if it's not some of the extended journey driven breathwork that I offer in bigger sessions with people, that helps to induce transformation, helps create a more flexible nervous system.
Even just those little moments can be incredibly powerful because you're starting to gain awareness of your own stress, and then you're signaling safety to yourself and bringing your autonomic nervous system back into that parasympathetic state.
[00:11:01] Dawn Calvinisti: I love this because it is so simple and I think even the fact that we can do it with people around, right? Often if you need some type of tool to calm you, you might feel like, are people looking at me? And this is just such a great way. You mentioned just having more flexible nervous system. I'd love if you can go into that more.
[00:11:20] Jen Liss: If we can get sciencey, I'll really nerd out with you, but I'll try to keep it simple. So most of us have what is called a very rigid window of tolerance. Your window of tolerance is basically where you can be super flexible in your day-to-day life and just handle stress and things come on, and you're just like moving through your life, moving and grooving when you hit the edges of that window of tolerance.
You go into fight, flight, or freeze. So when you, if some people, most people, almost all of us have a very tight window of tolerance. We don't have very much space to be like, if you just like picture yourself like dancing within this space, well your hands are like hitting the edges if you don't have a lot of space.
Right? I know your listeners can't see, but I'm like really wiggling my arms around. So if you're always tapping those edges, you're just like stress, stress, stress. Something that breathwork can help us to do an awareness of where you're even hitting those edges. What it can do for you is to, over time, widen that window of tolerance.
Really that is the goal. And that makes your nervous system more flexible. It has more space. You can handle more stressors that are coming in without yourself going into an emotional turmoil, because we've all felt that, right? Like something so small happens and all of a sudden we're just cycling out of control.
And it's like you, you can't help it, but you're irritated at every little thing. It's because your nervous system is activated. You went outside of your window of tolerance. You can use your breath to bring yourself back into it. So in like a nice, that inhale on that signaling safety brings you back into your window of tolerance.
And as you do that more and more, that safety window gets bigger. So you get more flexible, you've got more space to move. My favorite way, I don't know if you've have seen stepbrothers, the movie Stepbrothers, it's kind of an older comedy with Will Ferrell, but at one point, him and John C Reilly, they're, they're supposedly like brothers and they act like they're in middle school, but they're full blown adults.
But they have a bedroom together and they're like, oh my gosh, what if we put one of these beds on top of the other bed and we make bunk beds out of it. And then they're like, we have so much room for activities because they had so much space in the bedroom now because they had made bunk beds. It's like you're making bunk beds when you practice some of these and then you have more space for your nervous system to, for you to be having fun and not to be hitting the edges.
You're not so crowded.
[00:13:54] Dawn Calvinisti: I love hearing this because again, coming from a background of perfectionism, often we can get really stuck in our rigidity because it's what keeps us secure and also we feel like we can control things. And so that makes it so much easier. If the box is smaller, there's less to have to think about controlling and sometimes we, we want to stay in that and it's hard for us to actually even have the, have the idea that, you know, getting outside of that box would be a good thing when it comes to reaching our goals.
And for most women that I speak with, they're high performers. They have big dreams and goals, and yet they're stuck because again, that box that you're talking about is, is limiting them and they're not willing to, to stretch and make those boundaries and move the beds so that they have that room. So what would you say when it comes to breath work around the idea of achieving goals?
Because a lot of of people would think I have to take time out to do that, and it'd just be easier if I just press on and get stuff done and, you know, I need, I, I just don't have time for it. Right. I just, I just gotta keep going. So what do we do when it comes to understanding how this will benefit us that way?
[00:15:03] Jen Liss: Yeah, so a lot of us are not. This is where it becomes so important to get connected between our mind and our body, because our mind loves to create boxes. The perfectionist might. It just, it loves to create those boxes and it gets really nice and comfortable even if you're so uncomfortable. The mind is so comfortable.
So kind of what you described there of the perfectionist, like we like the box because it feels like this comfort and control when really you're miserable in there, right? So the awareness of anybody who's listening to this podcast probably has some awareness of like, you know, I'd kind of like to get out of this box, but at the same time, it feels real comfy here.
And so they're stretching themselves even by listening to this podcast. So congratulations on that. But when it comes to achieving your bigger goals, a lot of times we are not connected to what is that bigger reason that you are even achieving those goals in the first place. Why do you really want to do it?
And a lot of times the mind and the perfectionist mind will tell us it's because I need to prove to somebody that I can. Even if that's that proving to yourself, proving to the universe, proving to your dad, proving to your fourth grade teacher, whatever that proving mechanism is, there's something deeper.
Underneath it that is really driving you and you're likely through your mind, not connected, fully connected to that. So what breathwork can do is to help you more deeply connect to what is really driving you, what is really, what are you really here to do. What is your magic that you have to give to the world?
What are your gifts? What are your talents, and how could you be using those in the most fulfilling ways? Breathwork will help you more deeply connect to that inner sense of self and what is really here for you, so that you can work with your mind. You can work with that perfectionist tendency. That's so dang good.
You're so good. If you're a perfectionist girl, you are. You have got like this world of structure. You're so good at it. So it's like, how can I get better at connecting to my essence and to what I really care about? When you can connect those two things together, you can more powerfully go for your goals because you're not simply moving toward them so that you can prove something to somebody else.
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[00:17:24] Dawn Calvinisti: So at this time of year, especially as the year's closing out we're gonna be talking a little bit about looking back and reflecting on the year. We're gonna be talking about setting goals for next year. We're going to be talking about do you really like how life is going and does there need to be changes around how you're feeling and, and all of the good stuff that you want to bring in rather than just continuing on because it's how you've always done it.
So in this way, I'm just wondering how could we add breath work to help us as we're taking some time apart, maybe an hour, maybe, you know, some time over a few days to sit and really reflect on what we are wanting and what we've done. How can we use breathwork to help us to do this?
[00:18:06] Jen Liss: That's such a great question. So can, if I can explain what I do in a breathwork journey in deeper breathwork. So what we started this conversation with was, Hey, when I'm really stressed and I just, I recognize that I don't have a very flexible nervous system, and I would like to expand that window of tolerance.
Here's when I can use breathwork for and longer breathwork journeys will indeed help you with this as well. But some of this deeper work, like if you sit down and do an hour long breathwork session, here's what it helps you to do. It helps you to let go of the mind, the flurry of the mind to release it sometimes completely so that you can come fully into a meditative state and to connect with yourself, which is what I was just describing.
Like you can fully more deeply connect to yourself and be fully, fully present with yourself. So coming into 2024, what do you really want? What do you really, really want? When you can disconnect from all of the stories that the mind and all of your past experiences and all of the wants and the needs that you have kind of built up around yourself that can feel really kind of claustrophobic, like all of that, you can fully disconnect to that and connect with your emotional and physical intelligence.
You can have new things drop in for yourself. You can realize what would really be fulfilling to you. You suddenly make space for new things to drop into your mind. Like, wow, I hadn't thought of that since I was in second grade. I used to love, you know, drawing or painting. And all of a sudden you realize, oh my gosh, even though I am an accountant,
I could actually be using my creative skills to be communicating some of my messages with my clients in a more creative way. Like that's just one very simple example of how something could potentially drop in for you of, oh my goodness I, I loved doing that. Oh, how can I possibly combine that with what I'm doing today?
When we create the space away from all of the, like, I need to do this. I need to do that. Here's the next thing. Here's the next thing that is happening in our mind all day, and really drop in for a nice extended period of time and giving ourselves that space to do it. It is amazing. It's really one of those things that I can explain all day, but you've gotta experience it to really fully get it.
It's an experiential event but it's so powerful and I have a feeling that you have yourself, have experienced it at some point.
[00:20:41] Dawn Calvinisti: Absolutely. I was just thinking as you're describing it, I cannot wait till that time that I've set aside comes because I love that part. And, and the way that creativity comes out and new flow of thoughts and ideas. And again, just that little bit of disconnect from the everyday and the have tos and shoulds and all of that stuff.
And, and just the, the freedom to allow your, your mind to bring up things to you as you're doing that breath work. One thing I was thinking of when you were saying that is I know some people, and when I talk about meditation and that type of thing, it's like, oh, I can't sit still. I can't do this.
Breath work also does not have to be done sitting on a chair in a room or sitting on the floor in the room. You could be active. Is that not right?
[00:21:20] Jen Liss: Yeah, the way I learned breathwork was while training for a marathon years ago. There's a, there's a really great, if you have any runners who listen to this podcast or people who love to walk, an amazing breath for while you're walking and running, is called the pulse breath. And you go two breaths into the nose, two breaths out through the nose, or three or four, but it's always even, so even three in, even three out going through the nose is preferable.
You can also go through the mouth if you feel like you're not getting enough air, but doing that through the nose it's incredibly powerful while you're doing movement to do this breath, it really pulls you out of the mind because even while you're walking or you're running, you can feel the thoughts kind of cycling.
Magic drops in, I'm not kidding you, when you do this breath, while you're also. You can also do, I do movement. I had a client yesterday. She was having a ton of hip pain. We did hip opening exercises while she was breathing and she, she couldn't even hardly move because of this hip for the past two weeks.
She went for a hike yesterday, miles long hike with no pain. Doing that movement while also breathing into that space. She also had an emotional release during that session because she was holding this tension in her hips. It's so powerful, the combination of the movement with the breath and the emo we hold emotion in our bodies.
We, we hold these emotional patterns in our bodies. And so, having that, that safe experience where you can release it. There is an emotional pain body and a physical pain body. And we, we hold onto both. So breath helps us to release that.
[00:22:58] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, there's, I mean, there's a reason why I taught natural childbirth classes for years. My background is in natural you know, that end of natural health, and again, breath is a huge part of that because it brings us into our bodies rather than trying to escape what's going on. But at the same time, it allows us to kind of rise above the actual physical of what's, of what's going on as well, so that you're not fully in the pain.
And so for pain management, breath work is also a fantastic thing. If there's anybody that's suffering from pain, it's something else to be looking at.
[00:23:30] Jen Liss: Yeah, there's a, there's a really scientific reason for this too. So a lot of times when we're in pain, the limbic part of our brain is activated. That lower kind of base at the base of your brain is activated when you do breath work and when you release the mind it, it actually activates the neocortex.
So this is what I did when I was training for a marathon. A lot of times when you're in pain, while you're exercising or you're running, this could be any kind of pain. You're going into a lot of past thoughts that are coming up and enhancing the pain because that part of your brain's activated. So if you can get present, breath helps you to have active presence.
When you're present, it activates the, the neocortex of your brain, and then there's less pain. There's actually less pain there when that part of your brain is activated.
[00:24:17] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that you touched on that too, because I think, again, this is a tool that is so multifaceted, so multipurpose, and it really does influence every area. It, it, it can be helpful for sleep, it can be helpful for managing your emotion. It can be helpful for your, your response when you're just feeling irritated or upset beyond it being something to calm us.
It really is something that as, as something that you learn as a tool that you can also gift down. I, I think of this when I think of my kids because learning breath work has been hugely beneficial to helping my kids get through a school day that's really tough, or an exam that they're starting to fall apart and melt down in, or just being upset after a conversation with a friend that doesn't go well.
If you can catch your breath. It really does change where your mind is at and a lot of those negative thoughts that are going on. So again, like I just, I can't say enough about it. I think it just is hugely beneficial in all areas.
[00:25:14] Jen Liss: It's accessible. It's always there with you, so you have it on you. It's not like you have to go home and go get it. You already have it. So it's, it's not the only tool that you can use for these things. For anxiety and for relaxation, for stress. But it's, it's there. It's there with you, and it's incredibly powerful.
[00:25:32] Dawn Calvinisti: When I have guests on the podcast, I always ask the same question, and so I'm going to ask you as well, Jen. When it comes to the three Ps, which are people pleasing, perfectionism and procrastination, where do you tend to go to?
[00:25:47] Jen Liss: Procrastination, 100% procrastination, although all of them have been challenges, procrastination, and I know that there is this thing called creative constraint. And so procrastination supports me in feeling constrained so that I can activate my creativity. And so I sometimes like to look at it as a positive thing.
I'm supporting myself with my procrastination. I think I've, I've gained a lot of healthy tools by looking at it that way, and at the same time, sometimes I get frustrated with my own procrastination.
[00:26:20] Dawn Calvinisti: I'm glad that you mentioned the positive because I do once in a while talk about the fact that it's not all negative to be any of these three or all of these three. They all have really great parts that can be activated and used in order to move you forward. It's just when they get you stuck that it's a problem.
So I have another question for you on, I guess kind of linked to that. We talked really briefly at the beginning about the idea that you might want to actually move into a more stress state, I guess is what I would say. What would we be doing that for? What would we be changing our breath in order to do that for?
[00:26:52] Jen Liss: Okay. Thank you for asking this question. That's a great one. So we might sometimes in a breathwork session, held in safety. So I'm a trauma-informed breathwork facilitator. Everything I do, I always encourage people, listen to your body. Know exactly where you're at, be curious, and just allow yourself to feel what's here and then take it down if it's too much, but sometimes, mouth breathing activates your sympathetic nervous system.
It takes you into that stress state. So when you mouth breathe, if you do a heavy mouth breath, sometimes I'll do breaths that are like really fast in and out through the mouth. It activates your stress state, and we might do that in a session in order to bring up emotion and order to activate those emotional patterns in order to activate your perfectionism or your procrastination or whatever some of those tendencies are that tend to frustrate you.
Then we activate the parasympathetic to come back down and to see what's here and to allow ourselves to process and to realize and to witness. And so we activate in order to potentially depends on your spiritual beliefs and things like this, but potentially to transmute that energy out of a stuck energy and into something more positive and flowing.
So with intention and with safety, we might activate that and then bring it back down. And you can do this for yourself. I recommend learning it, at least from watching some videos. If you see the breath of fire is a very common one that you might see that is very activating, and you'll tend after you do that, to come down into a nice, calm state afterwards so that you can witness what has arisen for you.
Because simply seeing those patterns often releases them. We don't have to do anything other than activate it and witness it and be like, oh, there you are. It's like a toddler. It just wanted mommy to see it and then it goes away. So that's why we might sometimes activate.
[00:28:48] Dawn Calvinisti: Where can we get started if we're thinking like, I would like to learn more about this, is there a place that is easiest to connect with you? Are there other resources that you would recommend? What would you say?
[00:28:59] Jen Liss: So you can connect with me. I'm Untethered Jen on Instagram. I often share little breaths. I also have a podcast where I do a Thursday breath where at the end of the episode, so you can always breathe with me there. And I also have a breathwork membership that is soon launching, so you can pay attention to me on Instagram or connect with me at jenliss.com.
[00:29:19] Dawn Calvinisti: So don't forget to go into the show notes and you can find everything. I'll put all of the connection to Jen there. And we're also gonna give you a free gift from Jen. In which is the Aligned Decision Making, pdf. So tell us a little bit about what that's gonna do for us.
[00:29:33] Jen Liss: So aligned decision making is learning how to make decisions that are fully in alignment for you. This is so good for the perfectionist who tends to want to think through every single side of a decision before making it. It's learning how to focus on the feedback that you feel in your body after you make a decision instead of focusing so much on the decision itself.
So it's a very much feeling based way of making decisions, feeling and reflection based way. Very, very powerful for those of us who tend to worry or feel guilty or stressed either before or after making a decision.
[00:30:13] Dawn Calvinisti: For all of you who are listening, thank you so much for joining us and pass this on to other people. Just forward it, share it, get other people to know, not just about the podcast, but about Jen as well. That's one of my favorite things about being able to introduce you to other guests on the show, is that you get to be a part of their community.
You get to find supportive people around you that are where you are at. So I would just encourage you to do that today. I am absolutely positive you found at least one nugget that you would think, oh, my mom, my sister, my friend needs to hear this. So pass it on and share it with them. Jen, thank you so much for being here.
I learned lots, just chatting with you, and I love that we got to bring up this topic.
[00:30:52] Jen Liss: Thank you so much. It's so much fun.
Dawn Calvinisti: Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening.
Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram.
Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.
CONNECT WITH DAWN:
Website: https://pursueprogress.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pursueprogresswithdawn
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/pursueprogresswithdawn
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/imperfectioninprogress
Imperfection in Progress Podcast: https://pursueprogress.com/podcast
Grab your 200 Affirmations for the 3 P’s here: https://www.pursueprogress.com/affirmationspodcast
CONNECT WITH JEN:
Website: https://www.jenliss.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredjen
Special Gift: Aligned Decision Making pdf
Link to Free Gift: https://www.jenliss.com/alignment
OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
Umbrella Virtual Solutions: https://www.umbrellavs.com
Book Your Free 30 Minute Strategy Call with the host, Dawn Calvinisti: https://link.theviphub.ca/widget/bookings/dawncalvinisti/highvaluestrategy
“Breathwork will help you more deeply connect to that inner sense of self and what is really here for you, so that you can work with your mind.” - Jen Liss
⬇️ OR SCROLL DOWN TO WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO ⬇️
The Benefits of Breathwork with Jen Liss
Welcome to Imperfection in Progress, a podcast for ambitious women who are people-pleasers, perfectionists, or procrastinators. Want to feel less stress and more joy in your life? Then this is for you. I’m your host Dawn Calvinisti.
It’s such a privilege to introduce you to Jen Liss on today’s podcast episode. Jen is on a mission to educate and inspire more people to untether from societal expectations so they can shine into a more joyful, authentic, and abundant life.
Known for her straightforward and honest coaching style, she makes self-development work relatable and fun. Jen is a firm believer in radical self-acceptance as a path to greater joy, which she helps people to attain through breathwork.
Her podcast, Untethered with Jen Liss, is in the top 3% of all podcasts, encouraging thousands of listeners to align with their truth and go for their dreams. Jen has been honored to speak on stage both locally and internationally, sharing her message to inspire more people to live an authentically joyful life.
I’d encourage you to get to know her even better at untetheredjen on Instagram.
Today we focus on the benefits of intentional breathwork, which I know you’ll find fascinating. Here’s our conversation.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Dawn Calvinisti: I am so excited to welcome Jen Liss to the podcast today. Thank you so much for being here with us.
[00:00:06] Jen Liss: I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for having me on.
[00:00:09] Dawn Calvinisti: Jen, tell us a little bit more about what you do and why it is the thing that lights you up.
[00:00:16] Jen Liss: Yeah. So I am a coach, a speaker, and a breath worker. And combined, what I love to do is to help people to unleash what I call their magical glittery, sparkly unicorn gifts into the world to fully be ourselves and to show up in the best way that we can contribute. So that's what lights me up. I am just so lit up by seeing people live their magic just to put the things out there that they already have. Like we all have so many gifts inside of us. And a lot of times we're holding onto them, and it's what I call, we're tethered, we're just like, we're like tethered by all of these things, and it's like keeping us from just sprinkling our magic in the best way that we can.
So what I love to help people do is to realize the gifts that they have and to allow themselves to put them out into the world. And I do that via mindset work and body work and specifically connecting the mind and the body together. And breath work is one of my main tools that I use to support people to do that.
[00:01:18] Dawn Calvinisti: So I can't tell you how excited I am to bring this subject to the podcast because we really have not touched on it before. And breathwork is something that I became very aware of when I was taking yoga teacher training, and it became a part of what I. I would say I gravitated to and started to dig deeper and study more into it.
And in my own journey, some of the, the listeners will have heard that I suffered from very severe anxiety and breath work was my number one go-to that started to release all of that. So for me to have you here and to be able to talk more about the benefits and why we would use it, whether we have anxiety or not, is just an awesome thing to be able to share this tool and this gift with people.
[00:01:59] Jen Liss: It's such a powerful tool and it's exciting to hear that it's something that has supported you so deeply and and I heard recently from someone, it's actually the yoga individual who works with Deepak Chopra. I was in a class with her and she said the most important thing about yoga, we think it's the stretching and the strength training, but it is actually the breath.
The breath is the most powerful part of that practice. And so you found your way to the breath through the yoga, and that is the case for a lot of people. And you know, I myself suffer with anxiety. In fact, I had a panic attack just three nights ago. It had been a really long time since I had one, but I've been moving through a lot of very challenging things myself in the past couple of weeks. I also went bungee jumping, so that brought up some anxious feelings. So the breath work is such a powerful tool for anyone who struggles with anxiety. It doesn't promise that we won't ever have some kind of anxious experience ever again, but it is an amazing tool for supporting us and moving through all of our anxious feelings, stress, and things of that nature.
[00:03:10] Dawn Calvinisti: So just to clarify, because I'm sure people are thinking, what do you mean breath work? Like I breathe.
I breathe. What are you meaning by that? And I know, yes, maybe it sounds like it's a more conscious type of breath, but explain more to us, when we say breath work, what are we talking about?
[00:03:24] Jen Liss: Yeah. So, okay. Yes. You are born with breath. Your breath is with you from the moment that you enter into this physical world until the moment that you leave the physical world. We all have breath, but breath is happening both automatically and you can also control it. So it's involuntary, it's simply happening and it's also voluntary.
Breathwork is using that voluntary side to control the breath, to manipulate it, and therefore to manipulate the state of your physical body. So your blood actually changes when you do breath work, you have more oxygen or less CO2. So when we manipulate the breath, we are able to move ourselves out of a stress state and into a relaxed state, or vice versa.
Sometimes you might want to move into a stress state. We can get into that if you want to, but that is, breath work is manipulating the breath to shift the state of your body to shift your body's natural chemical cocktail that it is producing for you in any moment.
[00:04:25] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that you say that and, and that people are going to understand more about choosing to breathe. And I think that's one of the things that as a coach, as a mom, it's an area where I think it's a super simple tool that you have with you all the time. You don't have to really, you know, pull your notes to remember how to do it.
But there are just such easy ways, and I mean, there's multiple ways more complex than not, but there's just so many ways that you can quickly change a situation and your response and your emotions around that situation just by consciously bringing that breath under control.
[00:05:00] Jen Liss: Because your body's always giving itself drugs. You're giving yourself drugs at all times via your thoughts, via the way that you're breathing, via the way that you're responding, like we are getting a cocktail. And so if you can use your breath to activate the side of your nervous system, that is calming, you can give yourself calming drugs.
So my mentor, Samantha Skelly says, you are the drug. And it's true when you manipulate the breath, when you do that conscious breathing most of the time in today's world, we use breathwork a lot in our every day. Where it can support most of your listeners is by using a conscious breath to calm, to relax, to rest, to go into that rest and digest of your parasympathetic nervous system.
We don't have to get too sciency about it. There is a a lot of science backing this. But we're mostly spending time in the fight flight freeze, which is your sympathetic, and so you can use conscious manipulation of your breath to move yourself over into the other side of your autonomic nervous system, which is where we get those nice calming sensations.
[00:06:07] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, and for the people who are listening. I know we have lots of people pleasers and perfectionists and procrastinators and often with that, the thoughts that come with that of having to do it right, you know, making sure that everybody's pleased. What are other people thinking? Am I gonna put something out there that is good enough?
All of those things. When you even start to hear the conversation in our heads ramp up the fight or flight and the response is to automatically start breathing more quickly, to become more tense, all of that. So definitely what you're saying, I can see how just learning to stop and, and slow that down is gonna change how we're thinking and what we're I guess experiencing in that moment, right?
[00:06:51] Jen Liss: Truly what's so important for those of us who tend to be, I'm one of you, I have grown up a perfectionist. I have am in that recovering perfectionist, you know, phase of my life. You know, it's really important that we realize that we cannot be our creative best when we are in that fight flight stressed state.
The brain, can't it, it can't access, you can't access the well of creativity, I call it, in that state. You can access it when you get into the rest and digest state, that's when that side of your brain becomes active when you can actually dip into that well. So it's really important for us to begin to gain awareness of when we are in that stress state and not to judge it.
Which is what we'll tend to do. We'll be like, ah, I'm just so frustrated that I'm so stressed. And then, then we're like stressed about being stressed and it can really start to compound when you can just step back and take a nice deep breath and give yourself some space, not judgmental space to come back down.
That's when you can be your most creative. So realizing the importance of that, because creativity is how you show up in your everyday life, no matter what your job is, I don't care if you're an accountant, you need to be able to dip into your creative problem solving side. So it's very important that we use that.
We learn to use our breath because it's one of the most powerful ways to get ourselves there. It's not the only way, but it's a really powerful way to get yourself there.
[00:08:22] Dawn Calvinisti: So what would you suggest when we're realizing, okay, I would like to change this. What's my first step? What am I thinking about when I'm thinking of, okay, I wanna do something different with my breath.
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[00:08:34] Jen Liss: So here's base level is that if you're in a state of stress, part of the reason that you're stressed is because for some reason you're fearful or anxious. You don't feel safe. There's a lack of safety in a, a moment of stress, and so that's why we're tensing up. You think about the human, there's a saber tooth tiger, and we're like, Ooh, I need to be ready to fight.
Well, we feel that every time we get a notification from our phone, right? You hear the dinging go off, it's a text message, oh, it's a slack message. Might be my boss. So you're, you're fearful, even though you might not really sense that you are fearful. So it's very important that we signal safety to ourselves.
So signaling safety you can do by taking a nice deep breath into your nose and sighing out loud, ah. An audible sigh signal safety to your body. There's other cues you can do to signal safety as well. There's something called havening, which is where you might take your finger tips from one hand to the fingertips of the other hand and rub it down to your elbow very gently.
Tell yourself you're safe. You're safe and do that while also combining it with a nice nose breath, maybe that audible exhale. Long breaths signal to your nervous system that you're safe because if you're fighting a saber-tooth tiger or hiding or running from it, you're taking those short, quick breaths.
So always remember like a nice lengthy breath, particularly through the nose. And then also finding some other somatic way to signal safety, whether it is a sigh or doing that havening that I told you about. Those are such fast ways you can haven on a zoom call. Like, put your hand down below the line and haven and run your fingers up and down and just say to yourself, silently, you're safe.
And take a nice deep breath. Nobody even knows you're doing it. You could do this in public without anybody even really realizing. It looks like you're, like, just have a, an itch that you're scratching or something. You know? So these are very simple ways. That's, that is breath work. Even if it's not some of the extended journey driven breathwork that I offer in bigger sessions with people, that helps to induce transformation, helps create a more flexible nervous system.
Even just those little moments can be incredibly powerful because you're starting to gain awareness of your own stress, and then you're signaling safety to yourself and bringing your autonomic nervous system back into that parasympathetic state.
[00:11:01] Dawn Calvinisti: I love this because it is so simple and I think even the fact that we can do it with people around, right? Often if you need some type of tool to calm you, you might feel like, are people looking at me? And this is just such a great way. You mentioned just having more flexible nervous system. I'd love if you can go into that more.
[00:11:20] Jen Liss: If we can get sciencey, I'll really nerd out with you, but I'll try to keep it simple. So most of us have what is called a very rigid window of tolerance. Your window of tolerance is basically where you can be super flexible in your day-to-day life and just handle stress and things come on, and you're just like moving through your life, moving and grooving when you hit the edges of that window of tolerance.
You go into fight, flight, or freeze. So when you, if some people, most people, almost all of us have a very tight window of tolerance. We don't have very much space to be like, if you just like picture yourself like dancing within this space, well your hands are like hitting the edges if you don't have a lot of space.
Right? I know your listeners can't see, but I'm like really wiggling my arms around. So if you're always tapping those edges, you're just like stress, stress, stress. Something that breathwork can help us to do an awareness of where you're even hitting those edges. What it can do for you is to, over time, widen that window of tolerance.
Really that is the goal. And that makes your nervous system more flexible. It has more space. You can handle more stressors that are coming in without yourself going into an emotional turmoil, because we've all felt that, right? Like something so small happens and all of a sudden we're just cycling out of control.
And it's like you, you can't help it, but you're irritated at every little thing. It's because your nervous system is activated. You went outside of your window of tolerance. You can use your breath to bring yourself back into it. So in like a nice, that inhale on that signaling safety brings you back into your window of tolerance.
And as you do that more and more, that safety window gets bigger. So you get more flexible, you've got more space to move. My favorite way, I don't know if you've have seen stepbrothers, the movie Stepbrothers, it's kind of an older comedy with Will Ferrell, but at one point, him and John C Reilly, they're, they're supposedly like brothers and they act like they're in middle school, but they're full blown adults.
But they have a bedroom together and they're like, oh my gosh, what if we put one of these beds on top of the other bed and we make bunk beds out of it. And then they're like, we have so much room for activities because they had so much space in the bedroom now because they had made bunk beds. It's like you're making bunk beds when you practice some of these and then you have more space for your nervous system to, for you to be having fun and not to be hitting the edges.
You're not so crowded.
[00:13:54] Dawn Calvinisti: I love hearing this because again, coming from a background of perfectionism, often we can get really stuck in our rigidity because it's what keeps us secure and also we feel like we can control things. And so that makes it so much easier. If the box is smaller, there's less to have to think about controlling and sometimes we, we want to stay in that and it's hard for us to actually even have the, have the idea that, you know, getting outside of that box would be a good thing when it comes to reaching our goals.
And for most women that I speak with, they're high performers. They have big dreams and goals, and yet they're stuck because again, that box that you're talking about is, is limiting them and they're not willing to, to stretch and make those boundaries and move the beds so that they have that room. So what would you say when it comes to breath work around the idea of achieving goals?
Because a lot of of people would think I have to take time out to do that, and it'd just be easier if I just press on and get stuff done and, you know, I need, I, I just don't have time for it. Right. I just, I just gotta keep going. So what do we do when it comes to understanding how this will benefit us that way?
[00:15:03] Jen Liss: Yeah, so a lot of us are not. This is where it becomes so important to get connected between our mind and our body, because our mind loves to create boxes. The perfectionist might. It just, it loves to create those boxes and it gets really nice and comfortable even if you're so uncomfortable. The mind is so comfortable.
So kind of what you described there of the perfectionist, like we like the box because it feels like this comfort and control when really you're miserable in there, right? So the awareness of anybody who's listening to this podcast probably has some awareness of like, you know, I'd kind of like to get out of this box, but at the same time, it feels real comfy here.
And so they're stretching themselves even by listening to this podcast. So congratulations on that. But when it comes to achieving your bigger goals, a lot of times we are not connected to what is that bigger reason that you are even achieving those goals in the first place. Why do you really want to do it?
And a lot of times the mind and the perfectionist mind will tell us it's because I need to prove to somebody that I can. Even if that's that proving to yourself, proving to the universe, proving to your dad, proving to your fourth grade teacher, whatever that proving mechanism is, there's something deeper.
Underneath it that is really driving you and you're likely through your mind, not connected, fully connected to that. So what breathwork can do is to help you more deeply connect to what is really driving you, what is really, what are you really here to do. What is your magic that you have to give to the world?
What are your gifts? What are your talents, and how could you be using those in the most fulfilling ways? Breathwork will help you more deeply connect to that inner sense of self and what is really here for you, so that you can work with your mind. You can work with that perfectionist tendency. That's so dang good.
You're so good. If you're a perfectionist girl, you are. You have got like this world of structure. You're so good at it. So it's like, how can I get better at connecting to my essence and to what I really care about? When you can connect those two things together, you can more powerfully go for your goals because you're not simply moving toward them so that you can prove something to somebody else.
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[00:17:24] Dawn Calvinisti: So at this time of year, especially as the year's closing out we're gonna be talking a little bit about looking back and reflecting on the year. We're gonna be talking about setting goals for next year. We're going to be talking about do you really like how life is going and does there need to be changes around how you're feeling and, and all of the good stuff that you want to bring in rather than just continuing on because it's how you've always done it.
So in this way, I'm just wondering how could we add breath work to help us as we're taking some time apart, maybe an hour, maybe, you know, some time over a few days to sit and really reflect on what we are wanting and what we've done. How can we use breathwork to help us to do this?
[00:18:06] Jen Liss: That's such a great question. So can, if I can explain what I do in a breathwork journey in deeper breathwork. So what we started this conversation with was, Hey, when I'm really stressed and I just, I recognize that I don't have a very flexible nervous system, and I would like to expand that window of tolerance.
Here's when I can use breathwork for and longer breathwork journeys will indeed help you with this as well. But some of this deeper work, like if you sit down and do an hour long breathwork session, here's what it helps you to do. It helps you to let go of the mind, the flurry of the mind to release it sometimes completely so that you can come fully into a meditative state and to connect with yourself, which is what I was just describing.
Like you can fully more deeply connect to yourself and be fully, fully present with yourself. So coming into 2024, what do you really want? What do you really, really want? When you can disconnect from all of the stories that the mind and all of your past experiences and all of the wants and the needs that you have kind of built up around yourself that can feel really kind of claustrophobic, like all of that, you can fully disconnect to that and connect with your emotional and physical intelligence.
You can have new things drop in for yourself. You can realize what would really be fulfilling to you. You suddenly make space for new things to drop into your mind. Like, wow, I hadn't thought of that since I was in second grade. I used to love, you know, drawing or painting. And all of a sudden you realize, oh my gosh, even though I am an accountant,
I could actually be using my creative skills to be communicating some of my messages with my clients in a more creative way. Like that's just one very simple example of how something could potentially drop in for you of, oh my goodness I, I loved doing that. Oh, how can I possibly combine that with what I'm doing today?
When we create the space away from all of the, like, I need to do this. I need to do that. Here's the next thing. Here's the next thing that is happening in our mind all day, and really drop in for a nice extended period of time and giving ourselves that space to do it. It is amazing. It's really one of those things that I can explain all day, but you've gotta experience it to really fully get it.
It's an experiential event but it's so powerful and I have a feeling that you have yourself, have experienced it at some point.
[00:20:41] Dawn Calvinisti: Absolutely. I was just thinking as you're describing it, I cannot wait till that time that I've set aside comes because I love that part. And, and the way that creativity comes out and new flow of thoughts and ideas. And again, just that little bit of disconnect from the everyday and the have tos and shoulds and all of that stuff.
And, and just the, the freedom to allow your, your mind to bring up things to you as you're doing that breath work. One thing I was thinking of when you were saying that is I know some people, and when I talk about meditation and that type of thing, it's like, oh, I can't sit still. I can't do this.
Breath work also does not have to be done sitting on a chair in a room or sitting on the floor in the room. You could be active. Is that not right?
[00:21:20] Jen Liss: Yeah, the way I learned breathwork was while training for a marathon years ago. There's a, there's a really great, if you have any runners who listen to this podcast or people who love to walk, an amazing breath for while you're walking and running, is called the pulse breath. And you go two breaths into the nose, two breaths out through the nose, or three or four, but it's always even, so even three in, even three out going through the nose is preferable.
You can also go through the mouth if you feel like you're not getting enough air, but doing that through the nose it's incredibly powerful while you're doing movement to do this breath, it really pulls you out of the mind because even while you're walking or you're running, you can feel the thoughts kind of cycling.
Magic drops in, I'm not kidding you, when you do this breath, while you're also. You can also do, I do movement. I had a client yesterday. She was having a ton of hip pain. We did hip opening exercises while she was breathing and she, she couldn't even hardly move because of this hip for the past two weeks.
She went for a hike yesterday, miles long hike with no pain. Doing that movement while also breathing into that space. She also had an emotional release during that session because she was holding this tension in her hips. It's so powerful, the combination of the movement with the breath and the emo we hold emotion in our bodies.
We, we hold these emotional patterns in our bodies. And so, having that, that safe experience where you can release it. There is an emotional pain body and a physical pain body. And we, we hold onto both. So breath helps us to release that.
[00:22:58] Dawn Calvinisti: Yeah, there's, I mean, there's a reason why I taught natural childbirth classes for years. My background is in natural you know, that end of natural health, and again, breath is a huge part of that because it brings us into our bodies rather than trying to escape what's going on. But at the same time, it allows us to kind of rise above the actual physical of what's, of what's going on as well, so that you're not fully in the pain.
And so for pain management, breath work is also a fantastic thing. If there's anybody that's suffering from pain, it's something else to be looking at.
[00:23:30] Jen Liss: Yeah, there's a, there's a really scientific reason for this too. So a lot of times when we're in pain, the limbic part of our brain is activated. That lower kind of base at the base of your brain is activated when you do breath work and when you release the mind it, it actually activates the neocortex.
So this is what I did when I was training for a marathon. A lot of times when you're in pain, while you're exercising or you're running, this could be any kind of pain. You're going into a lot of past thoughts that are coming up and enhancing the pain because that part of your brain's activated. So if you can get present, breath helps you to have active presence.
When you're present, it activates the, the neocortex of your brain, and then there's less pain. There's actually less pain there when that part of your brain is activated.
[00:24:17] Dawn Calvinisti: I like that you touched on that too, because I think, again, this is a tool that is so multifaceted, so multipurpose, and it really does influence every area. It, it, it can be helpful for sleep, it can be helpful for managing your emotion. It can be helpful for your, your response when you're just feeling irritated or upset beyond it being something to calm us.
It really is something that as, as something that you learn as a tool that you can also gift down. I, I think of this when I think of my kids because learning breath work has been hugely beneficial to helping my kids get through a school day that's really tough, or an exam that they're starting to fall apart and melt down in, or just being upset after a conversation with a friend that doesn't go well.
If you can catch your breath. It really does change where your mind is at and a lot of those negative thoughts that are going on. So again, like I just, I can't say enough about it. I think it just is hugely beneficial in all areas.
[00:25:14] Jen Liss: It's accessible. It's always there with you, so you have it on you. It's not like you have to go home and go get it. You already have it. So it's, it's not the only tool that you can use for these things. For anxiety and for relaxation, for stress. But it's, it's there. It's there with you, and it's incredibly powerful.
[00:25:32] Dawn Calvinisti: When I have guests on the podcast, I always ask the same question, and so I'm going to ask you as well, Jen. When it comes to the three Ps, which are people pleasing, perfectionism and procrastination, where do you tend to go to?
[00:25:47] Jen Liss: Procrastination, 100% procrastination, although all of them have been challenges, procrastination, and I know that there is this thing called creative constraint. And so procrastination supports me in feeling constrained so that I can activate my creativity. And so I sometimes like to look at it as a positive thing.
I'm supporting myself with my procrastination. I think I've, I've gained a lot of healthy tools by looking at it that way, and at the same time, sometimes I get frustrated with my own procrastination.
[00:26:20] Dawn Calvinisti: I'm glad that you mentioned the positive because I do once in a while talk about the fact that it's not all negative to be any of these three or all of these three. They all have really great parts that can be activated and used in order to move you forward. It's just when they get you stuck that it's a problem.
So I have another question for you on, I guess kind of linked to that. We talked really briefly at the beginning about the idea that you might want to actually move into a more stress state, I guess is what I would say. What would we be doing that for? What would we be changing our breath in order to do that for?
[00:26:52] Jen Liss: Okay. Thank you for asking this question. That's a great one. So we might sometimes in a breathwork session, held in safety. So I'm a trauma-informed breathwork facilitator. Everything I do, I always encourage people, listen to your body. Know exactly where you're at, be curious, and just allow yourself to feel what's here and then take it down if it's too much, but sometimes, mouth breathing activates your sympathetic nervous system.
It takes you into that stress state. So when you mouth breathe, if you do a heavy mouth breath, sometimes I'll do breaths that are like really fast in and out through the mouth. It activates your stress state, and we might do that in a session in order to bring up emotion and order to activate those emotional patterns in order to activate your perfectionism or your procrastination or whatever some of those tendencies are that tend to frustrate you.
Then we activate the parasympathetic to come back down and to see what's here and to allow ourselves to process and to realize and to witness. And so we activate in order to potentially depends on your spiritual beliefs and things like this, but potentially to transmute that energy out of a stuck energy and into something more positive and flowing.
So with intention and with safety, we might activate that and then bring it back down. And you can do this for yourself. I recommend learning it, at least from watching some videos. If you see the breath of fire is a very common one that you might see that is very activating, and you'll tend after you do that, to come down into a nice, calm state afterwards so that you can witness what has arisen for you.
Because simply seeing those patterns often releases them. We don't have to do anything other than activate it and witness it and be like, oh, there you are. It's like a toddler. It just wanted mommy to see it and then it goes away. So that's why we might sometimes activate.
[00:28:48] Dawn Calvinisti: Where can we get started if we're thinking like, I would like to learn more about this, is there a place that is easiest to connect with you? Are there other resources that you would recommend? What would you say?
[00:28:59] Jen Liss: So you can connect with me. I'm Untethered Jen on Instagram. I often share little breaths. I also have a podcast where I do a Thursday breath where at the end of the episode, so you can always breathe with me there. And I also have a breathwork membership that is soon launching, so you can pay attention to me on Instagram or connect with me at jenliss.com.
[00:29:19] Dawn Calvinisti: So don't forget to go into the show notes and you can find everything. I'll put all of the connection to Jen there. And we're also gonna give you a free gift from Jen. In which is the Aligned Decision Making, pdf. So tell us a little bit about what that's gonna do for us.
[00:29:33] Jen Liss: So aligned decision making is learning how to make decisions that are fully in alignment for you. This is so good for the perfectionist who tends to want to think through every single side of a decision before making it. It's learning how to focus on the feedback that you feel in your body after you make a decision instead of focusing so much on the decision itself.
So it's a very much feeling based way of making decisions, feeling and reflection based way. Very, very powerful for those of us who tend to worry or feel guilty or stressed either before or after making a decision.
[00:30:13] Dawn Calvinisti: For all of you who are listening, thank you so much for joining us and pass this on to other people. Just forward it, share it, get other people to know, not just about the podcast, but about Jen as well. That's one of my favorite things about being able to introduce you to other guests on the show, is that you get to be a part of their community.
You get to find supportive people around you that are where you are at. So I would just encourage you to do that today. I am absolutely positive you found at least one nugget that you would think, oh, my mom, my sister, my friend needs to hear this. So pass it on and share it with them. Jen, thank you so much for being here.
I learned lots, just chatting with you, and I love that we got to bring up this topic.
[00:30:52] Jen Liss: Thank you so much. It's so much fun.
Dawn Calvinisti: Thanks for listening to today's show. If you found value in what you heard, please share it with a friend and rate and review us on whatever platform you listen on. It really helps get us out to other women who could benefit from listening.
Check out our show notes for details from the show and to connect with me or our guests. Want to continue the conversation? My website is www.pursueprogress.com or DM me @pursueprogresswithdawn on Instagram.
Until next week, pursue progress no matter how imperfectly.
CONNECT WITH DAWN:
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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pursueprogresswithdawn
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/pursueprogresswithdawn
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/imperfectioninprogress
Imperfection in Progress Podcast: https://pursueprogress.com/podcast
Grab your 200 Affirmations for the 3 P’s here: https://www.pursueprogress.com/affirmationspodcast
CONNECT WITH JEN:
Website: https://www.jenliss.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/untetheredjen
Special Gift: Aligned Decision Making pdf
Link to Free Gift: https://www.jenliss.com/alignment
OTHER RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST:
Umbrella Virtual Solutions: https://www.umbrellavs.com
Book Your Free 30 Minute Strategy Call with the host, Dawn Calvinisti: https://link.theviphub.ca/widget/bookings/dawncalvinisti/highvaluestrategy
You'll feel relief as you realize what things you can do less of and what area you should focus on right now.