White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
E77: From Stress To Stillness with Bonnie - How Conscious Breathing Rewires Your Body And Mind
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Your most powerful tool for calm might be hiding in plain sight. We sit down with Bonnie from Bonnie’s Breathwork to unpack how conscious breathing can transform stress, sleep, pain, and emotional resilience—without apps, gadgets, or long routines. From the first few minutes, Bonnie connects the dots between ancient practices and modern nervous system science, explaining why nose breathing, longer exhales, and simple patterns change heart rate, chemistry, and mood in minutes.
We walk through an easy, on-the-spot 4–7 exercise you can use in traffic or before a tough meeting. Bonnie demystifies conscious connected breathwork, clarifies when and why an activated approach can help process stored emotions, and shares essential safety notes so beginners start wisely. We explore common pitfalls—like mouth breathing, chest-only inhales, and chasing big cathartic “highs”—and show how steady, gentle practice builds real integration. You’ll learn how to feel for diaphragmatic expansion at the ribs, why nasal breathing improves sleep and recovery, and how kids, workplaces, and rehabs are already benefiting from these skills.
Along the way, we highlight practical cues you can implement today: check in with your breath during daily pauses, relax your jaw and shoulders, expand the ribcage sideways and back, and default to the nose. Whether you’re curious about regulating anxiety, supporting trauma healing in a safe container, or simply finding more steadiness in a busy life, this conversation provides clear steps, grounded science, and lived experience. Take a breath with us, try the short demo, and see how quickly your state shifts.
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Bonnie's Breathwork
Wellness Retreats Spain
Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Matt Charlie Valentine. And today we are online. Where are you, Seb? In Leeds. What about you? Wow. Well, I'm in Wakefield. In the rhubarb triangle. I heard about that rhubarb triangle. It's uh it's a definite area. Look it up, look it up, and the reasons why. Yeah. Enslaved rhubarb, anyway. So what what you do? It's been a while, hasn't it, Seb?
SPEAKER_01:It's been a while since we recorded. It's not been a while since I've spoken to you.
SPEAKER_03:No, no, that's that's every day, isn't it? Every day, every other day. Yeah, so we've had a bit of a break over the summer, but it's been it's been cool, as in we haven't been recording, but well we've been recording, but we just haven't been putting them out as much. So we've been working on some video clips. We've been working on some video clips apart from that. Yeah. Anything else to report, Seb? No, that's good. I'm feeling great. I'll soon knock that out of you with this season. Me stressing about my internet connection. Not a big shout out to Sky, who I've still not sorted my internet out anyway, or our internet. Uh but a big shout out to Energy Impact who have renewed their sponsorship for us. Big up to Conrad from Energy Impact, yes, who's uh they've renewed the sponsorship, which allows us to operate a bit more freely, I suppose. And then also to Common Sense, who actually printed the shirts or made the shirts. Thank you. It's one of them shirts for me. Have you got one extra? I've got yes, because I'm only a large Seb. Yeah, all right. I'll uh remember when you're ordering the marathon shirt. Right, shall we crack on? Because we do have our guest here waiting after her siesta. Yeah. So I would like to welcome Bonnie from Bonnie's Breath Work and Holistic Healing. The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact. How are you, Bonnie?
SPEAKER_00:Hi Charlie. Yeah, I'm good. Yeah, thank you for the invite. Good to be here.
SPEAKER_03:Oh no, it's good. So we um we met down at the Wim Hof workshop that we ran with Jack from Wellness Retreat Spain. He well when we did that back on a very cold, a very cold February day when we could hardly catch his breath. I don't know because it was so so badly cold, but it was freezing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:It must be it was a little bit yeah, for a for a Wim Hof workshop and everyone thinking it was cold. But could you give us a little bit of an introduction, a brief introduction, not too much, don't give everything away. And then uh what I'd like to do is you know get into breath work and how we can relate that to our mental state of mind and wellbeing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well again, thank you for the invite. It's great to be here. So yeah, I'm Bonnie and I'm a holistic practitioner, and I specialise in conscious connected breath work, and I also am a myofascial energetic release practitioner. So that's a kind of massage that holds space for emotional release. And I also do energy healing, so you know, a few little things under the holistic umbrella.
SPEAKER_03:The myof the myofascial, that's what we one of the or myofascia is one of the first things we did as a um not on the holistic side, on the sort of for the what would you say? Like a what did Jez do? It's basically uh it's like a treatment, but not it's looking it's working with the fascia rather than muscle or the joints. Yeah, and he was he was telling us there how much of the trauma and memory that that that can be held in there. And funnily enough, we're listening I've been listening to a book about the vagal nerve and how that's yeah, so that's quite interesting. That might be another one. You might have dropped yourself in. Might have dropped yourself in to find another one there, Bonnie.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_03:So but this one, ideally, we're gonna look at breath work, and it's something that I think has come to the prominence the last few years, but a few different ways, a few different methods, things like the Wim Hof breath work, he's made it really famous, hasn't he? Yes. Lots and lots and lots of other lots of other techniques than than Wim Hof stuff. So could you tell us one, how you got into it, and and then we'll go into about what it can be used for?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so I I sort of found breath work on a personal level. About 14 years ago, I'd sort of embarked on this inward journey of sort of self-development. Uh I'd sort of spent the previous 10 years just trying to escape, trying to escape life. So that sort of manifested in addictive behaviours, unhealthy coping mechanisms. So thankfully I've come out of that back in 2011. And it was probably a couple of years after that I'd sort of started delving into personal development workshops. And there was an organisation called ClearMinds that I had started to attend, and within their workshops, they offered conscious connective breath work. And I sort of had such a shift on the first session that it just planted that seed of like, oh my goodness, how can something be reached like that within myself just by connecting with my breath? So it fascinated me. But it wasn't for years, sort of back in lockdown, really in 2020, that the breath really started to help me deal with what was arising and and you know how I was viewing the world and what I could see unfolding. It really helped me to stay grounded, which then the idea of, you know what, I think I'm gonna train in this and and take it out there. And somebody that I'd been following for quite a while has started up a training school, so that was it. It was like, okay, I'm gonna commit to this. And that was just over four years ago, yeah. And I've been, you know, absolutely living my dream ever since of being able to deliver this powerful modality and just see the ripple effects in other people's lives and including my own, just because I facilitate breath work now, like I'm still on this journey with my breath and developing and deepening that relationship with it. Yeah, so it's amazing, really.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I was um what was that? I was listening to again, it's gone out of my mind. Listening to something, but it's it's one of the only things that we can actually tap into, isn't it? What that we can actually control through our autonomic system, such as our heart rate or you know, our digestion with all these all these all these networks and all these functions that our bodies do. There's not that many that we can actually tap in, but when we tap into the breath work, you know, it can be super powerful. Seb's done breathwork as well, haven't you, Seb? Bits and bats. Yeah. With Bonnie. Yes. Have you done any more? Have you done you did one at the the thing in Manchester we did, didn't we? Didn't you?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I did, yeah. Quite enjoyed it.
SPEAKER_03:And uh done some at yoga as well. Yeah, I think that's what a lot of people think, though. It's it comes it's it's a yoga thing. But that again, that's ancient. I think I think it just helps, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Well it's it's all ancient, you know. We sort of, you know, Wim Hoff has massively helped sort of bring it into mainstream, but this isn't new. This is like this is ancient stuff that that we was tapping into thousands upon thousands of years ago. And there's just so many different beautiful techniques that that take you to different sort of end goals, you know, and and it is literally the remote control of our nervous systems, which is what I love. You know, our breath can indicate what's going on nervous system-wise. You know, if we're activated, our breath becomes fast and shallow, but also we can use the breath to downregulate or upregulate our nervous system. So if we're feeling a bit panicked, we can tap into the breath to help calm the nervous system down. So that I think that's why it can be so powerful because you know, we can use it to really help us anchor and and and navigate, you know, our daily life in a more responsive way instead of reacting. And that's what I've definitely found myself on a personal level as well.
SPEAKER_01:So this might be quite a hard one to answer, but uh, can you maybe explain what's happening to in the brain and the body when we practice breath work?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so when we start to consciously connect our breath, so I'm talking specifically for conscious connected breath work now. So when we start to focus on our breath, we start to change the physiology within our body by the oxygen that we're breathing in, the levels of CO2 that we're off setting. So there's changes within the body in that way. And because of those changes, we then change the way of the brain function. And this is, you know, my simple way of explaining it in layman's terms. But we fire up certain parts of the brain, other parts of the brain start to go offline a little bit. But in turn, with the whole process, it's helping us to come to a place of more presence within the body and more of a felt sense within the body so that we can start to connect with what might be held. So that's where emotional releases can start to happen. That's where trauma can start to be integrated within the nervous system, you know, and all of that healing power. But yeah, it's it's it's fascinating if you want to get into the whole physiology. Yeah, yeah. So when people say, What? What I'm gonna go and get taught how to breathe, when I've been breathing all my life, it's like when you start to control your breathing and focusing it in a certain way, using you know, the technique to to take you where you need to go, depending on what you're looking for, because some are more activated breaths, some are more calming breaths. So, yeah, depending on where you want to take that, there's so much more going on, you know, inside.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think in uh in think in one of its sort of simplest forms, this this thing where we say to people, just take a deep breath, you know. As it's someone that's agitated or hangry or you know, we just we've we've always said that. And but then when you actually put that into like I were doing about when I were ranting about Sky and my internet connection earlier, I think before we start recording, let me just you know take this deep breath in, fill my lungs, blow it out. It does, you know, for anyone that not doesn't do it, then you just need to try that, don't you really? Because it just it does work. It's like I also almost imagine blowing that stress out.
SPEAKER_00:And it's it's just inviting that pause to just stop, to just pause, you know, and and again, that's not something that we often do, even when we sat, the mind's thinking about the next thing. You know, you maybe sat on the train home from work where you could be sitting and pausing and connecting with your breath, but it's like, what am I going to do for for tea when I get in? And you know, we don't often pause, so that you know, stop and take a breath just offers that pause as well. But also, you know, elongating out the exhale helps to calm the nervous system, you know, and and fires up the parasympathetic side of the nervous system, which is the rest and digest. So there's lots of different things that go on with just stopping and taking a breath.
SPEAKER_03:So with the with the, you know, like if we've just looked at the length of the breath breath, and let's just take, for instance, this what I mentioned there, this just sort of just take it steady, take a breath, take a, you know, and I have done this before with only through what I've read and practiced myself, where somebody, uh, an example is a young person that I've been working with who's got either scared through climbing or something like that, or been angry, which that seems to be affecting a lot of people. You just right, just take that moment, concentrate on the breath, and I'll do I'll I'd I'll just say, like, you know, breathe in for two or three and then blow out for four or six and do that three times. Is that one of the just simplest calming methods about? Seems to be for me. It's just for me, it's it's actually remembering to put myself in that state rather than carry on with a annoyed state.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and because the breath is part of the autonomic nervous system, which we said at the beginning, we do it unconsciously, which is why we can still breathe when we're asleep. So we can sort of go through life and sort of react. And and and if we're uh you know a naturally angry person, being able to just and expel that charge of anger before releasing it can really help change your life. And until I found breath work, I was quite an angry person, responding, not responding, but reacting to life because I was just in high activation. Now I'd lived my life stuck in fight or flight, you know, constantly having to press through and was just overwhelmed. So to react in anger was really natural for me. But again, just having that those simple tools of being able to take a few breaths in and then allow the exhale to be longer than the inhale will always allow the the system to calm. And then you've got a bit more time to respond in a grounded and more centred way than instead of from that activated charge. So yeah, those breaths are great, and box breathing as well is good for anxiety where it's just like you know, in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four, or five or six, however long your breath cycle you're comfortable with, but that's another good one as well.
SPEAKER_03:Without putting you on the spot, would you better just quickly lead it? No, the calming breath, just for a demonstration.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:I'm just thinking that the calming breath would be would be one that if people were listening to this and actually driving or something like that. I'm pointing this at Seb actually for his road rage. It's a it's something that's safe to do, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:It is. I mean, you don't want to be doing any activated breath work whilst you're driving. Like I wouldn't adm, you know, advise that at all. But yeah, a nice calming breath that you can use whilst you sat in traffic or a traffic jam, you know, these times where you want to go, I'm I'm with you, Seb. Like I'm with you on that one. Really? Yeah, well, good, but I have to really I have to practice what I preach. So, you know, things are ch you know, they've they've changed, but yeah, very much so like that. But I'd love to guide you through my little meditation. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's say we're not driving, because I'm gonna invite you to just close your eyes.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So just allowing yourself to close your eyes and just relaxing and just noticing your breath without changing it. Is it slow or is it fast? Just notice. I mean the shoulders relax, the junk relax, brow to soften. And we're just gonna take some inhales through the nose, and then we're going to exhale through the mouth, allowing the lips to be slightly pursed on the exhale and slightly longer than the inhale. So we're gonna breathe in for four, and we're gonna breathe out for seven. So breathing in through the nose, one, two, three, four, and out, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and in through the nose for four, and out for seven, two, three, four, five, six, seven, and repeat one more time. In through the nose, two, three, four, and out for seven, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So just opening your eyes when you're ready.
SPEAKER_03:Alright, Shad. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And that's the short little breathwork technique that you can literally tap into once you've come to a standstill. You know, you can do this whilst washing up at home, whilst studying the queue at the supermarket, where you can just and even just doing that one cycle, like I feel my body and my shoulders just relax a little bit. So in those moments of like activation, can you just pause and take a breath? Nice long exhale and then respond.
SPEAKER_01:So, why is the exhale longer than the inhale? What's the reason behind it?
SPEAKER_00:So it's allowing the CO2 to be offset and it's just allowing it kicks in the parasympathetic nervous system. So because you're exhaling and it's allowing the system to calm, that's how we come into a state of calm. If you're breathing, if the inhale is longer and more activating, then that's when we're we're charging the system up and activating the sympathetic nervous system, which is our fight or flight. Yeah. So yes, a longer exhale helps to slow down the heart rate, which you know, in turn sends safety to the brain and the nervous system, that we are safe, so in turn, helps the body to relax.
SPEAKER_03:There we go. Yeah, Patrick McCow uh McEwen, the uh oxygen advantage.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_03:When I read that and yeah, when I read that and then started trying to do the you can build your cardiovascular or improve it. Improve yeah, the way it operates. And that what on one of them you are you're just doing a walk, but you you get rid of everything out of your body and then carry on walking. I nearly burst in I nearly burst into tears through the effects of the CO2. That you know, it's not this, it's not not always just how much it's not the oxygen we're breathing in as as efficiently as we get rid of that CO2, isn't it? So that's calming you down anyway when we do that, when we even when we just do that breath where we're just doubling or nearly doubling what we blow out, which sort of leads into this thing of people not breathing properly anyway, because if they're all breathing into the shoulders, yeah, because we were doing there, we're breathing in through his nose, into his diaphragm, rather than this breath that everyone does through the mouth, into the shoulders and blows out again, because they're not we're not breathing properly as a species anyway.
SPEAKER_00:Or don't seem to be No, we're not. No, we're not. We you know, we we form these maladaptive breathing sort of practices from quite, you know, early on. And you know, everyday life we're meant to be breathing through the nose, like there is nothing in the mouth for breathing. That's to ingest food. You know, we want to be breathing in through the nose so that it filters the air that we breathe in, it gets it to the right temperature so that we are metabolising everything at its optimum. But yeah, we we often are breathing through the mouth because we're running around at 100 miles an hour, and you know, we're activated, so we're trying to get more of a breath in, so that's the quickest way of getting a gasp of air in. But then what we're doing is we're we're keeping ourselves stressed because we're constantly breathing in and out through the mouth, fast and shallow, all up in the chest, and that actually activates our fight or flight, which is where we're stressed. So we're actually unconsciously contributing to our stress levels, you know. And I know like I've spent many years in the corporate world in sort of sales recruitment, so constantly on the phone, and if you think about it, when you're talking, you t you can breathe in quicker through your mouth. So it's like constantly talking and developing these patterns of mouth breathing. Yeah, so being able to just bring more awareness into your everyday life by checking in with your breath. You can start to notice when you are breathing unconsciously through your mouth and consciously bring it through the nose. You can mouth tape of a night, you know, so that we're sleeping and breathing through the nose, because a lot of us breathe through the mouth and then wonder why we wake up in the morning feeling like we've not been asleep, you know. But that's because we've been breathing through the night through our mouth and not allowing our nervous system to rest and digest, what which is what it's meant to be doing.
SPEAKER_01:So when Charlie um told me to read the book Breath by James Nestor, something that really stuck in my mind was I think he speaks about the breath through the mouth. If you breathe in through your mouth, that's like poison and it's quite bad for your body if you constantly do it. And it just really stuck with me. So I always tried to breathe through the nose and then out of the mouth. And yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, because if you think about it, like if our breath can control our nervous system, so you know, as we're speaking, we can use certain techniques to calm the system down or activate it. Mouth breathing activates it. So when our nervous system thinks that we're in danger because our fight-flight response has been activated, with our hormone, you know, our endocrine systems firing up, sending out the stress hormone, cortisol to the system because you know, we either need to fight or flee, you know, like this is a real primitive response that's happening. So when we're operating on everyday, you know, in our everyday lives, highly stressed with high cortisol levels and everything else that happens in the chemistry of the body when, you know, the nervous system is changed, you start to realise how, you know, the way that we breathe, how how it can affect our health. And, you know, in that book, the br you know, the breathe with James and Esther, it's fascinating. You know, it goes into how uh the way that our jaws and our mandibles and our skulls are shaped by the way that we breathe. You know, it it's and our teeth, you know, how our teeth are set out. It's uh yeah, highly, highly recommend the book for anyone that's listening.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah, without a doubt. That's one of the books that sort of set me off on that path of doing all this research for my own self, the breath work, and that from the breath work, that's when I went onto the Wim Hof stuff. And just that thought of something as simple as breathing through your nose and then learning again to breathe into your diaphragm rather than and it makes sense, doesn't it? This breathing into your shoulders, you tense, you know, it's like it's like a fighter coming out from a corner, you know, or somebody that's going into a fight tense is up and your shoulders are in your cap and you're not breathing into your diaphragm, it's a really short breath, so then you end up out of breath, which makes you even more anxious.
SPEAKER_00:Exactly, exactly. And then what happens is the body starts to it forms these patterns of of protecting and of guarding, you know, to protect against what you know, whatever the fear is that our nervous system and our brain is is responding to. And then that's when we can start to feel chronic tension, like you know, this is where where it says like trauma is held in the fascia and the tissues of the body, this is what we mean, you know. So the way that we breathe and the way that we feel safe within the world can highly impact the way that our bodies are sort of carried as well.
SPEAKER_01:So Bonnie, you mentioned earlier that breath work can bring up deep emotions and trauma potentially. So is there like a special breathing technique that you need to use for that to be brought out, or is it just something that comes out once you're consciously using your breath?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, when you're consciously using your breath, the whole goal is to become as present with yourself and your body and the emotions that might naturally arise by just holding space for yourself and being present, that that's where trauma release can happen, you know, and that and that trauma release might be a good cry, it might be a a natural tremoring of the body. But what sort of most often is used to help release emotions is the activated mouth breathing in the conscious connected way. So we safely and for a very short time in a safe container guide people to activate their sympathetic nervous system because that's usually where the trauma has happened, that's where the rupture in the nervous system has happened, where you know there's been an experience and that experience hasn't been corrected. You know, maybe you didn't you experienced something awful or stressful, but there was no one to come and soothe you and say, it's okay, you're safe. You know, there's a rupture in the system then, and that's where it's held until we can safely and you know, not for a long period of time. You wouldn't want to be actively actively breathing for hours of you know at a time. You'd be re-traumatising your nervous system then. But yeah, slightly activated breath, but it's all about you coming into presence, using your own breath as that guide inwards to start to explore your inner psyche whilst you're working with the different sides of your nervous system to come into that activated state where the emotions can be released. But it's also important to come back to that regulated, calm feeling towards the end so that the the body's back into a grounded and feeling safe.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've done a a few breath work sort of workshops where it's gone up to about an hour where there's been there's been music and it's been guided and it's got quite intense at some point, you know. Started maybe seeing some visuals. And I remember doing one where at the end of it my hands were like this, the little crab hands here, and my mouth, my mouth was like I was holding a bottle to bottle top in my mouth. Yeah. And I spoke to and I spoke to the like the who was leading at the time, it's just yeah, that's probably there's a lot of tension through your jaw, a lot of tension that's been pushed out through this breath work, and it's such a powerful thing that to experience. It couldn't, you know, first time it's quite worrying to be fair, quite scary. I think in what has been what is actually trapped in here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, I think I think there's there's some misleading things out there when it comes to how the body tenses up. Because what what it sounds like you're explaining there, Charlie, is something called technique, where the hands can crample, you know, the the the lips can go tight. And that's because of the changes of the oxygen and CO2. So sometimes in conscious connected breath wear, if you're breathing in through the mouth and then you're blowing out the the exhale, that can cause technique. So you you sort of want the technique to be more sort of you don't want to be blowing the exhale out, it's just letting it go rather than blowing it, yeah. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, but it can feel uncomfortable, which I always guide people to come back to nose breathing until that dissipates, until that that you know your system sort of levels out again, and then and you can go back to the activated mouth breathing.
SPEAKER_03:Could you describe some other techniques or what what you s what sort of things you would teach in workshops?
SPEAKER_00:Well, because I specialise in conscious connected breath work, that is mainly what I do.
SPEAKER_04:Right.
SPEAKER_00:Sometimes I weave in the odd little different technique here and there. So the breath of fire is usually a good technique to sort of do it in the mornings, you know, if you're feeling a little bit sluggish. So that's quite a quick breath in and out through the nose, just using the diaphragm to sort of expel the exhale. That's a really good way of just bringing the system back up if it needs a little bit of an energy boost. We've got the calming breathwork techniques that we've sort of gone through, the box breathing, which is a good one that helps to you know balance the CO2 and oxygen again, and then you know, the X the X to help sort of calm the nervous system. But yeah, there's I mean, there's there's loads of techniques out there, but it's conscious connected, it's the connected circular breath that I specialise in.
SPEAKER_04:What's your favourite?
SPEAKER_00:Conscious connected breath work. That is my favourite. Yeah. Because you can you can do it with just nose breathing as well, so it doesn't have to be activated. And again, it's it's coming back into total presence with yourself and your true nature, like the truth of who you are, you know, and and letting go of the stories that were formed, you know, in our younger years that hold you back and that sort of stuff. We can really start to let go of all that and and and tap into the essence of who we are. So yeah, that's what I love about conscious connected breath work because it can take you to those places.
SPEAKER_01:Is it safe for children to practice breath work? And do you reckon we should start teaching it in school and potential workplaces as well?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's already it's already getting into schools and the workplaces, you know. There's a lot of people, you know, a lot of friends out there that are doing some amazing things, you know. But I mean, I've I've I've done some work with rehabs, like I believe we need it in in rehabs, in schools, in hospitals, you know. I mean, if if we had breath work in school, I know like my daughter, and I know she wouldn't mind me sharing this, she struggled quite a lot in her mock exams, had that perfectionism um thing going on. Breath work would have really, really helped. And like I was I hadn't trained in it back then, but how different would it be, you know, if if kids going into their GCSEs that are, you know, full of all this anxiety had some sort of tool to just keep them regulated. You know, how different would life be if if kids in infant school just started to gently start to be taught about their breath and how they can use it, you know, and and then for that to just become second nature, you know, so it's it's getting out there, like it's there's there's a real feels like a real big movement of uh breath work that now that people are starting to see, you know, and the science back in is there, and you know, a lot of people thought it's woo-woo stuff or you know, that you're using the breath to conjure up, you know, not nice things. And you know, no, it's uh it's a very powerful tool that I think has been used for millennia. We've just forgot, but now it's being remembered.
SPEAKER_03:Let's get into a rabbit hole then, because I like a good rabbit hole. I said most of the sort of literature and well, it's audiobooks basically that I listen to talks about breath work and they always refer, and again. There's this one that I'm reading about or listening to about Polyviegal Theory. It says just observe a toddler observe a toddler, how a toddler breathes. Because you know they all always have these little pot bellies, and the little pot bellies is supposed to breathe in into the diaphragm. But then as we as grow older, and I'm thinking it's maybe just is it just Western society that grows older and just forgets about breath work? And now we seem to be coming back into it. And it's that like I say, it's that if I'd have known 25 years ago about well, I suppose I did because I'd done yoga and stuff like that then, but you don't I didn't sort of tie that together with anxiety through PTSD, and that I could have gone into you know, could have gone into my counselling sessions or whatever and started with the breath work, like I do sometimes with the that I've done with EMDR. You've start I start with a breath work and it just you know brings you down from everything else.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:What what's gone wrong? What's gone wrong, Bonnie? What went wrong with society that we've we've just forgot simple medicines? Because it is a medicine, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I just I just think that the way that we've lived and how we've evolved, we've just come more and more disconnected to ourselves, to each other, to the land that we live on, to nature. And I and I think it's just that form of disconnect, you know, we're all on this wheel, you know, like and I think people are starting to say there's gotta be more to life than this, you know, and people are starting to search, like, because that's what took me on this journey. I always searching for something like just searching for for a deeper meaning of life. And I think I'm seeing that a lot out there now. And and I think, you know, with a lot of what we see going on in the world and what we're experiencing and the stresses, it's like going and being prescribed a pill from your doctor that's just gonna numb your symptoms. I think people are just not, they're like, there's got to be more to this, and these were this is where these so-called alternative healing modalities are starting to come into into more mainstream.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think that's that might be one of the problems, isn't it? That over here or in the UK, you could when you could get a doctor's appointment, you could just go in and say, My ankle hurts, this hurts, I've got this going on, and they just prescribe you a tablet and then you take that and that that's gonna take that away rather than looking into something breathwork. Well, that's free.
SPEAKER_00:That's something that we quick fix rather than Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. You know, like a lot of the work that I do, so like the myofascial energetic release and uh, you know, and the breath work, like I I've lived with chronic pain for 14 years now, and I've gone through the revolving door of symptom management, pain relief management, and it's only through this journey of connecting with my breath and starting to develop this deeper relationship with my nervous system and my body that I'm starting to find more capacity to hold the pain, which has been way more I've seen more results in the last sort of four years than I have done in the past 14. So a lot of my work that I deliver has has come from lived experience of what's worked for me on my own journeys as well. So yeah, I mean breath work for for pain relief is is is you know can be really beneficial as well. So I'm not sure if I've just gone off on a tangent there and not asked you question. I can't remember. No, it's all good.
SPEAKER_03:It's all good. Well, I mean I mean, one with the you know, with the pain relief, there's this again, you make yourself tense, don't you? Yeah. And if you're stressed, if you're stressed, that can cause pain in areas where there's been injuries. And then I know that I I used to do when I had my when my back was really dodgy, you'd be you'd be just tensed up. So if you're tensed up, you're not you're not breathing into your diaphragm again and making yourself put yourself in that anxiety cycle.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And also if you're if your job is sort of sat at a desk, you know, on a computer, the diaphragm can naturally tighten because you're sort of hunched over, so then you're more likely to breathe in into your, you know, your chest, and then the diaphragm just naturally tightens because you're not working it and exercising it properly. So it starts to become this like never-ending cycle.
SPEAKER_03:If somebody's if somebody's listening to now and thinking, what is this diaphragmatic breathing or breathing into your diaphragm? How would they know if they're doing that correctly?
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so if you were to place your hands on either side of your ribcage at the bottom, really you want to be breathing into your hands so that your ribcage is coming out. So you don't want the ribcage coming up with the shoulders like that. You want to feel like your rib cage is opening out. So if you put your hands on the side of your ribcage and just and really breathe as much as you can into your hands, and you can feel the back ribs coming out. So it's not just about breathing into your belly and allowing the belly to expand, it's allowing the whole muscle because it sits all underneath your rib cage. But yeah, so breathing into your hands and allowing the rib cage to open up as much as it can.
SPEAKER_03:Well, that's good because that's I've never I've never had it described that way. I've had it where you put your hands just on the side, but yeah, I like that. I'm gonna encourage you that.
SPEAKER_00:All you've got to think about is that your diaphragm supports under your rib cage, so just allowing your rib cage to open as much as it can, and that is your diaphragm and your intercostal muscle, so doing all that helps to really allow the lungs to feel to get that nice full breath.
SPEAKER_03:We'll have to send you a white fox talking mug now for that. I've got I like that one, it's good.
SPEAKER_00:So if I I'll hold you to that.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, yeah. I'll all I guess get one. So somebody's listening to this and thinking, right, I'm thinking of giving that a go. Where would you point them, direct them?
SPEAKER_00:Well, okay, so yeah, to yeah, to myself, obviously. Like, you know, I'm on Instagram at Bonnie underscore breathwork. There's my website, Bonnie's Breathwork.com. And yeah, I mean, I hold a monthly in-person group session in Birmingham each month. So they've been going for four years now, so it's a lovely little community that's grown. So that's just out the side of the city centre in Birmingham on the first Tuesday of each month. And then I hold one-to-one sessions as well, online and in person. And I'm also part of the team at Wellness Retreats. So as part of the retreats there, we hold various types of breath work, including the conscious connected, including the Wim Hof method, and some more meditative breathing. So, yeah, great retreat.
SPEAKER_01:So and what I was just interested in if people decide to do it themselves, are there any dangers involved? Or do you reckon it's better to do with someone, especially when you're not experienced?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I mean, especially when you you're going into the activated techniques, because um you're changing the oxygen levels to the brain, you're altering the the blood-brain barrier. So I would always advise to be guided, especially if it's something that you're doing for the first time, because again, you're actively working with the nervous system, you know, and there's certain contraindications as well to certain breathwork techniques, just because you're changing the physiology of your body. The more gentle meditative breaths, you know, like a nice slow, you know, few breaths in through the nose, you know, each morning before you start to the day, you know, that's no problem with that. But yeah, when you're when you're really starting to get things activated, or if you're really coming into some emotions, you you want to know that you're being held in that space safely.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I think diving into the Wim Hof like I did on a mission rather than on a journey, I end up doing the you know, doing the breath work and holding it as long as I could. I mean it boosted it boosted my breath retention, but you the lights are flashing and the fingers are going and the body starts shaking. Don't really need to get there, do you, to get that to get a benefit?
SPEAKER_00:No, but again, it just it depends on what your what your end goal is. And that's why there's so many different amazing techniques, all with different outcomes. But I think when when we see a lot of social media that's portraying these big, pathartic releases and you know, shouting and and all of that sort of stuff, people start to think that we need to really push to get for it to work. When, you know, so so often these very gentle, these gentle breaths that really help to connect with yourself can be way more powerful and and may way way more sort of healing because you're integrating more than just having these big explosive experiences that are just cathartic and they feel good and you get a good dopamine hit and all that sort of stuff, but you're not truly integrating any of the trauma or reload, you know, emotional blockages that you may be holding. So again, it's going back to what you're looking for. You know, is it a more spiritual thing? Is it more connection with yourself, or is it more of a optimising how your body works and you know, for the sport side of things? So I can go on a whole different tangent and speak for hours on that.
SPEAKER_03:But yeah. Well, so apart from your after retreats, what's what's next for yourself?
SPEAKER_00:So tomorrow I've got my in-person breathwork session in Birmingham. So always look forward to that and seeing the community there. I've got the retreat in Spain coming up with Wellness Retreat Spain, and then I've got some more advanced training with the myofascial energetic release in November. So yeah, yeah, it's sort of quieting down now for the year. It's been manic over the summer with all different festivals and lots of lovely things.
SPEAKER_03:I was just gonna say, while you've been running your in-person retreats, have you are you seeing this growing popularity and as it gets more media attention and people, you know, and the experience of people telling other people, well, this has worked for me.
SPEAKER_00:So how's that how's that grow how Yeah, yeah, it I can definitely see that there's people that are inquiring and coming that are saying that they wouldn't normally have even entertained the idea of going to a breathwork session, but it is it's been through word of mouth, or that they're starting to see it appear more, you know, on the TV and you know, in the in the mainstream media. So there's definitely more awareness that's coming now around breath work for sure.
SPEAKER_03:I might have to get Seb down to one of your sessions.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, that'd be great.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I'll drive there and he can drive back. Been over since then.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'll hold you to that then.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, well, we we need to deliver you a mug anyway now, don't we? White folks talking inspirational guest mugs. So we've probably just scratched the surface, haven't we? But it's it in the in the what we can do as we just talk about, have a conversation, is give people these little little pointers, and then it's up to it really is up to them to go out and experience it really is, it really is.
SPEAKER_00:And I think you know, we touched on how we sort of live in the Western world and how we've become more and more detached from this sort of natural world around us, and we're consuming more and everything that's at the touch of our fingertips. But I think if we can start to gently bring in more awareness around our breath, just to how we're normally breathing throughout the day, and then stay curious, like it can take you on the journey of a lifetime, like it really can. You know, I know for me it's helped me reclaim myself and reclaim my body, which has been massive. It's been massive. So, and it all starts with just the awareness of the breath. So maybe just next time you find yourself just standing waiting in a queue, just check in with your breath. How am I breathing?
SPEAKER_03:You know, so yeah, I suppose rather than get I suppose rather than getting the phone out and checking on social media, just take that same time to tune in. Once you get it so that way you you do tune into your breath, then you sort of tune into yourself, don't you, for that moment.
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely, that's it. You tune it's that interception, you start to tune into your body, how's it feeling? Oh, my shoulders are up, okay. Yeah, loosen my shoulders. Oh, I'm noticing my jaws are tense. Can I can I soften it? And by checking in like that, you know, four or five times a day, or or maybe for 30 seconds every hour. You you're more present with yourself so that you can start to really navigate life in a more grounded and centered way instead of feeling like life's got you by the hair and it's just dragging you around.
SPEAKER_04:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I felt like that for many, many years, just literally surviving the day, going to sleep, waking up and surviving another one. Because I didn't have the tools, you know, and life would have been a lot easier if I'd have had these tools then. But you know, here we are.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Well, thank you for coming on and sort of passing that information on to others. So hopefully, hopefully some people some hopefully people go out and try it themselves. Yeah. If I can get Seb to a session, we can get anyone there, you know what I mean? Cool. Well, thanks for joining us. Thanks for giving up your time this evening, Bonnie.
SPEAKER_00:Well, you're welcome. Thank you for for having me. It's been a pleasure. And yeah, I think we have just scratched the Safari, so I think there's probably other talks with other things that might be on the card as well.
SPEAKER_03:Excellent, but you don't get two amongs, perfect.
SPEAKER_00:Damn.
SPEAKER_03:Right. Thanks a lot, Bonnie.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks, Charlie. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to buy us a coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalking.com, and look for the little cup. Thank you.
