Breathwork, Addiction Recovery, and Finding Purpose After Rock Bottom | Jon Paul Crimi

What if the thing that finally helps you heal is not another attempt to outrun your pain, but learning how to sit with it, breathe through it, and come back to yourself?

Jon Paul Crimi spent years running from emotional pain through alcohol, drugs, partying, and self-destruction. After hitting rock bottom, he found breathwork, a practice that helped him reconnect with his body, release stored pain, and begin building a life rooted in purpose instead of survival.

In this episode of Overcome with Travis White, Travis sits down with Jon Paul to talk about addiction, trauma, grief, anxiety, depression, shame, and the unexpected path that led him from personal pain to helping thousands of others through breathwork.

Jon Paul shares why he believes breathwork can help people quiet the mind, access emotions they have buried, and move through the nervous system patterns that keep them stuck. He also explains the difference between different styles of breathing, why circular breathwork can feel intense, and why the goal is not to force healing, but to create space for the body to release what it has been holding.

This conversation is honest, practical, and deeply human. It is about recovery, emotional release, finding purpose, and learning that you are worth the work it takes to heal.

What We Discussed

• Jon Paul's early life in Massachusetts and the pain he tried to escape
• How alcohol, drugs, and self-destruction became coping mechanisms
• What changed after Jon Paul hit rock bottom
• How breathwork entered his life and helped him begin healing
• The difference between box breathing, Wim Hof-style breathing, and circular breathwork
• Why breathwork can bring buried emotions and trauma to the surface
• How the body can hold grief, stress, fear, and unresolved pain
• Why therapy and breathwork can work together
• How people can feel stuck even when they understand their problems intellectually
• The connection between purpose, self-worth, and emotional healing
• Why men and high performers may resist slowing down long enough to feel
• What someone can expect from a breathwork class
• Why Jon Paul teaches people to trust the breath and stop overthinking the process
• How healing can change the way you show up in your life, work, and relationships
• Why living authentically often starts when you stop caring so much about other people's opinions

Learn More About Jon Paul Crimi

• Jon Paul Crimi is a breathwork teacher who helps people use breathwork to navigate addiction, anxiety, grief, trauma, stress, emotional pain, and feeling stuck.
• Through his work, he teaches people how to use the breath to quiet the mind, reconnect with the body, and create space for emotional release and healing.
• Learn more at https://breathewithjp.com.

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Transcript

0:01

Sometimes the biggest battle isn't addiction, anxiety, or trauma. It's believing you're worth saving. John Paul Crimy spent years running for pain through alcohol, drugs, and self-destruction. But after hitting rock bottom, he discovered a path that would not only change his own life, it would help thousands of others change theirs. Today he teaches breath work to help people navigate trauma, stress, grief, and emotional pain. This is a conversation about healing, purpose, and finding your way back to yourself. Welcome to Overcome with Travis White. John Paul, why don't you go ahead and start us off by taking us on your journey? Sure. well, thanks for having me, Travis. I'm excited to speak with you today. Yeah, my journey's interesting. I come from a small town in ~ Massachusetts, in Bal you know, south of Boston, about 25 minutes south of the city. It's ~ called Pembroke, Massachusetts, and it's the fifth most Irish town in America, surrounded by the 13 most Irish towns in America. So they call it the Irish Riviera. And I didn't know that growing up. I didn't know that's where I was growing up, you just knew that I thought everybody had 17 brothers and sisters and liked to get drunk and punch each other in the face. Yeah. So that was normal. And so with a name like Jean Paul, people are like, ~ Jean Paul, are you French? Ooh, Palais vous Francais. And I'm like, I am not French. I'm actually I'm Irish, I'm Scottish, and Italian, which means I like to drink a lot. I don't want to pay for it. And then I want to start a fight. Yeah. And then being from that area in Boston, that means the same things also. So You know, I just grew up in an area that was all about sports and being tough and being a tough guy. And I I realized, I don't know if I realized it then, but I was very overly sensitive. And I was I was told I was overly sensitive. I was told, you know, that's your that's you. You know, if I said something bothered me, it's like, that's you, you're just too sensitive. And it's like, so I unconsciously got the message really young that like there's something wrong with me. I'm too sensitive. And that environment just didn't allow for that kind of sensitivity. And you know, I felt different and I felt out of place until I started drinking. And then that made me feel like I was a part of things and a part of life more so. So I think it really my my life kind of took off when I started drinking at 13. And I got into some trouble as a some kids do. And You know, things got progressively worse. I got arrested when I was sixteen in a cranberry bog ~ with a bunch of friends in my car drunk. And I I managed to wiggle my way out of the cop car. The cop was searching my car and I managed to like slide the handcuffs down in front of me and roll down the window and bed them bend the metal forward that and like reach out and open the door from the inside of the car and then run with the handcuffs on. And I looked back and there's this redheaded Irish cop, Officer Hurley. I didn't know this guy used to be a high school track star. And this guy ran me down like Usain Bolt. I was like, wow, this guy's fast. Yeah. And I knew I couldn't outrun him. So there, like, there was like this awkward moment, like, my God, he's gonna catch up to me. I was like, I was just kidding. And he tackled me and arrested me. And that was like the story for the next bunch of years. I got stabbed when I was 19 in a blackout and ~ almost died, lost half the blood in my body. And the next night I was. Out at a party with my whole head bandaged up, drinking. And someone was like, Didn't you get stabbed last night? And I was like, Yeah, what's going on with you? Like, you got any drugs? And so I just kept partying and doing drugs. And then I moved to California when I was 23 and I wanted to pursue becoming an actor. And ~ I started to do that. I went, I put myself through acting school, and ~ and then I got this weird thing where I started to get patches on my head and on my body, bald patches. And I I I came down with What they call alopecia. And so it's sudden hair loss. And I didn't know what to do about it. I went to the doctors. They put me on prednisone, which is a catabolic steroid, right? It's the opposite of what bodybuilders take. Bodybuilders take anabolic steroids, right? I was taking catabolic steroids, which makes you kind of fat and bloated. And I was working at Gold's Gym in Venice at the time, the Mecca of bodybuilding. So everyone around me is on anabolic steroids, and I'm on catabolic steroids, I'm on fat steroids. Yeah. And I'm like, it was really, you know, difficult. And I didn't have the tools at the time to deal with what was happening to me. You know, I didn't have you know, I I was losing my looks essentially. And I was twenty four years old. And my whole self esteem and self worth had been wrapped up in my looks. I had spent years, you know, getting ripped and getting this body, and I was a fitness model and trying to be an actor, and that was being stripped away. And ~ I started drinking and using drugs way like it escalated from that point on. And then I went and saw a therapist because I thought she'd prescribed me some Prozac or something. And she actually told me I should look into recovery, you know, ~ like 12-step AA programs. And I was like, Really? Like I'm pretty, you know, I'm running this gym and I've got this scholarship to this school. And she's Yeah, but you're self-medicating. You're taking all this Vicodin and you're drinking and so she kind of planted the seed and Eventually I did check out twelve step recovery and got sober. And that was a life-changing experience for me. And pretty young, you know. ~ and I decided to get off the catabolic steroids. I decided to stop taking the cortisone shots and the doctor's like, You're gonna lose all your hair. And I said, Fine, if that's what it's supposed to be. But the the drugs that they were giving me was giving were giving me ulcers and I was just miserable. And so at that time I went completely hairless. And so I went through this huge metamorphosis, this change, this transformation, if you will, where I didn't look the same. I didn't recognize myself in the mirror. There was literally a moment where I was talking to a client who was on a treadmill and I was like, who's that weird looking guy? And I went, Wait, that's me. Like I I honestly didn't recognize myself, which was wild. and I was judging myself. And so I really started to do the work, You know, I started to dive in and do some of the spiritual work that I needed to do. And I started to do the therapy and all the work on myself. And I I I just dove into the 12 step recovery and it changed my life. And there part of that is helping other people, right? Sponsoring other people, passing it on. And you can't make someone be your sponsee. So I decided to do Big Brothers of America, which is like a mentorship program. And I mentored this kid who was a young kid. 12 years old who had some issues. And that was massive. It was like the first thing I did for somebody else getting something in return. And I got so much in return helping this kid. And then I started, you know, helping guys get sober and sponsoring guys and helping guys. And and then I got pulled into the world of what they call companion or sober coaching, where I started helping celebrities and rock I got went on tour with a bunch of bands and worked with a bunch of famous actors and all that kind of stuff. And that was wild because I got to see, you know, firsthand that like fame and money is not gonna fix me. Like everybody thinks it will. Everybody they know money's not gonna fix them, but they want to find out for themselves, right? So and they hear it, you hear it, Mm-hmm. but everyone thinks like, no, that person can't handle it. So and so, they can't handle the fame and the money. If I had it, then all my problems would be fine. And I saw it up close. Like it doesn't fix it. anyways, I became good friends with Matthew Perry ~ from the show Friends. And Matthew was an amazing person and very close friend of mine. And we were following Los Can Los Angeles Kings around one season. And in that process, it's the final games, game six in the Staples Center, and the Kings are about to win the cup, and all these celebrities are in this little VIP room under the Staples Center, and in walked Tony Robbins. Go turn to Matthew and I Holy shit, it's Tony Robbins. And he goes, Really? We've been following the Kings all season, flying around to playoff games. Just They're about to win the cup. Every celebrity in LA is in here right now. You're excited about this gigantic man? And I said, Yeah, he's amazing. He changes he changes lives. Like I had his book in high school. I had his tape cassettes. That's how old I am in high school. And he goes, Well, go tell him. And I said, No, I don't want to be that guy that bugs him like people bug you. And I was walking back through the tunnel. And Tony looked up from his phone and he goes, Hey man, how's it going? And I go, man, I never do this. I know everybody says that, but I never do. I I'm a huge fan. I've been following you since I was in high school. And he goes, What's your name? What do you do? We start talking. And he goes, Have you ever been to my seminar? And I go, No. He goes, I only do three domestically a year, but I'd love it if you'd come next month as my personal VIP guest. And I go, Really? He goes, Yeah, here's my secretary's information. She'll take care of everything. And Tony was so gracious, so amazing. I I went to his seminar. And I had some epiphanies there. And one of those epiphanies was like, I'm done with Hollywood. I had come really close on some screenplays that I had written and a bunch of other things. I was in development with some big, you know, production studios. And I was just like, I'm done. I'm just gonna help people. I don't know what that looks like. I don't know what that's gonna be, but I'm really good at helping people and whatever that ~ at least my life will be worthwhile at the end. And so I walked away from the Hollywood dream. And right after that, I found breath work because some woman had taken Matthew Perry to do this session with a guy. And he was telling me all the weird things about this session. And then he was telling me about this breathing thing. And I said, That sounds crazy. And he goes, Well, you're my only friend that's open-minded enough to try it. So I bought you a session with this guy. And I was like, Really? All right, I'll try it. So I went and I had some experiences. And this guy did this breathing technique. It's not the technique that I teach today. I teach a very different technique. But what it did was it opened my mind up and I had an experience from this guy that was pretty profound. And I started looking at all these different techniques out there. And I was like, why doesn't everybody know about this? Why doesn't everybody realize that there's these things out there, these techniques that are life-changing? And the technique that I teach today, which is circular breath work, it's really incredible. You know, there's a lot of I think I should say this, you know, breath work is an umbrella term. It's like saying fitness, right?~ if I said fitness. Mm-hmm. You would go, what do you mean? You do CrossFit? Do you do soul cycle? What do you what do you do? What kind of fitness do you do? And so there's so many different types of breath work. Cause I'll meet someone and they'll go,~ I've tried breath work. And I'll go, well, what kind? And they'll go, box breathing. And I well, okay, that's not what I teach. That's not what I do, right? It's very different. People have this idea in their head that it's gonna be this relaxing meditation. And some breathworks are like that, but it this style that I do is more like a workout. It's intense. It's more like a psychedelic journey, you know? And so it's very intense and I push it very intensely. And I had this epiphany, I had this realization, like, why doesn't everybody know about this? This was 15 years ago. I mean, breath work has become more popular in the last 10 years, right? But this was 15 years ago. Nobody knew about it. Nobody was talking about it. I was kind of begging friends to come to my classes. Actually, This woman talked me into doing a class at her studio. And Matthew was one of the first people to come to one of my first classes. And he's like, This is your gift. This is what you're supposed to do. And I'm like, Really? And he's like, Yeah. And ~ I just decided that if I was going to teach breath work, I would teach it in a way that made sense for me because it had been kept Mm-hmm. in these new age kind of woo-woo circles and with people. And there's nothing wrong with that, but like, I know people like to do things with people they can relate to, people they identify with. And so I thought I'm gonna teach this in a way that's kind of Tony Robin style with my trainer background put into it and play cool music and have a big massive yell at the end and and then have people pull moments of gratitude, moments of love in their heart after the breathing is over, because I want people to leave filled with gratitude and love because that's what's really important. So I created this very specific style of class. I took this ancient technique and then I modernized it. I sort of modernized the package around it. And sure enough, within a you know, a good year or two, I had hundreds of people in my classes and it was like sold and the celebrities were having their assistance call to get in my classes, and it was this credible experience. And then I was in, you know, Los Angeles Reporter and the Times and on Good Morning America. It took kind of took off. And ~ I was the first guy to really put this thing online, because I knew like The first 10 minutes I'm doing a presentation, I'm showing you, I'm doing a demonstration, I'm telling you all the things that are gonna happen. Then you gotta watch me breathe, you gotta watch the technique. But then after that, you lay down flat on your back and you close your eyes. So I'm like, this would work fine online. In fact, some people, some guys probably would do it better online at home where they're not, they don't have people around them. They can kind of let go more, where they they they feel less self conscious. And they're in their safe space so they could have that big emotional release. And they don't have to drive afterwards. And so I started doing it online about nine years ago. And there was some pushback from some old time breathwork teachers against it. And and sure enough, they all changed their tune once COVID happened. So I had already been doing it before COVID happened. And then during COVID, everyone showed up. And one of the main things that I've been doing for the last nine years is Doing teacher training. So I teach other people how to teach this. I've certified over 3,000 people in my method of breath work of how to, you know, take other people through this in this way. And it's it's been amazing to watch my students come do this with me, learn this from me, and then go take other people through. And then they have these beautiful experiences where they're like, my God, it's so fulfilling. I have so much purpose in my life now that I'm helping other people go through this work and heal themselves. And I'm like, yeah, that's what it's about. Like, I'm not gonna be happy all the time. But if I have some work that gives me purpose, that gives me fulfillment, that makes me feel good, that fills me up, then that's gonna carry me through the times where I'm down or I'm not happy. Right. And so I think there's this lie that we've been told that Mm-hmm. we're supposed to be happy all the time. And like we're not. It's an emotion that comes and goes, right? And so, yeah. So I don't know why people are telling themselves that lie, Exactly. but it's just not it's just not. True. But if you have purpose, if you have fulfillment, if you're working on yourself a little bit every day, that's life-changing. That's what you want to go for. And so that's kind of been my journey. And now I'm just out here trying to spread the word, the gospel of breath work, if you will. Like, come try it. Have an open mind. I know it's hard for people to understand and to believe that something you've been doing your whole life since you were born, unconsciously, without any effort. If you come to a class and somebody's going to show you this other way to do it that you have to put in some effort. And I always say, listen, you've done something harder in your life than lay on the floor and breathe. It's not that hard. Don't let your brain trick you, right? So I brought the science in too, because there's a thing that can happen. It's called transient hypofrontality, part of the prefrontal cortex of your brain can turn off in this incredible way when you do this type of breath work. And that's the area of your brain where the critic lives, where the ego lives. And it's it's amazing to turn that off and to move into your heart, which is really beautiful and really powerful. So I've been doing this now for a long time. I do it online every Sunday on Zoom, and there's a five day replay afterwards. A lot of people can't make the live Zoom time, which I understand, but it's 9 a.m. Pacific time, 12 PM Eastern time, or whatever time zone you're in. I have a lot of people that come from all over the world and they can't make that time. So I have a five day replay afterwards. And I, you know, and I have my teacher trainings online and courses that you can I do them in person twice a year as well. And those sell out pretty quick because I keep them pretty small. I'm doing one in September in Calabasas, California. And I do them in person, but I also have them online. And so I I've certified over 3,000 people with this style of breath work. And so that's kind of everything in a nutshell. And we can pull it apart and look deeper into certain areas, whatever, you know, you're interested in. Yeah. Yeah, let's do it. I have I have so many questions. I could go so many different routes with it, like different ways with this. Yeah.~ but I think it's really cool that you took breath work and you do your own Because I I'm totally that person that I think you need to find what works for you. And ~ so I think it's really cool and incredible story. Yeah, thank you. So my first question is kind of goes back to your sobriety. How did getting sober change your view Of yourself and your future. Well, you know, I didn't realize it till I got sober, but I had low self esteem when I got sober because I had done some shitty things and some some terrible things that happened to me along the way. And I realize now that's human condition, but back then I didn't, you know. And so I was taught in sobriety that if you have low self esteem, then you need to do esteemable acts. And I didn't know what ste esteemable acts were, but I I started to figure it out for myself. And the first one was doing that volunteer program, big Brothers of America. And then I started helping guys and helping people. And that really filled up my self-esteem bucket, you know? And so that changed my viewpoint of myself. And, you know, it doesn't happen right away. It takes time. And there was some times, Mm-hmm. you know, I remember in early days of teaching Breathwork, people would come up to me after class and be like, that was life changing. You've changed my life. Thank you so much. And hug me and like say all these amazing things about me. And I was like, you know, I couldn't hear it. couldn't I couldn't let it in. It was hard for me to let it in at first. And I and then I was like, and I'm still kind of like this like, it's the breath work. It's not me. I think I'm really good at teaching breath work because I've spent the last 15 years like honing it and making it the best I can possibly make it. And I want to be awesome at it. And I open my heart and I get really vulnerable in class. And I because I believe what comes from the heart goes to the heart. And that gives other people get permission to get v vulnerable in class. So I think that makes me unique. But the breath work is the thing. So I try not to make me the thing because I want to keep my ego right sized. But I also know now that I've helped a lot of people and I've done a real a lot of really good work on the planet. Yeah, and it's it's like you've you've found this purpose in life and you're just pushing forward with it. I think that's what all of us need to try to do is find our purpose. Yeah. And if you don't know what your purpose is, you know, breath work is one of the ways to get clear on it. I've had a lot of people come and they're because they're because they're in their head so much, right? You know, your head is like it's like telling you all these stories. And it's I'll give you a good example. You know, I used to, I don't do one-on-one sessions really anymore, but I used to do a lot of them when I started out. And women would come to me and they'd be like, There's this guy, and I'm like, okay, tell me about the guy, right? And they're like, I go two minutes to tell me about the guy. And they're like a lawyer arguing both sides of the case for the guy. Well, he's really good and he does this and he does that, but he doesn't do this and he doesn't do that. And I go, okay, let's just let the breath work get some clarity on it for us, right? And what it does is it turns off all the lawyers arguing the sides of the case of for this guy, and it moves them into their heart, and their heart is really clear about what it wants. And oftentimes they would sit up and be like, he's not the one. They're crystal clear. And then two days later, three days later, they're like, maybe I shouldn't break up with them. Because what happens is they turned off the brain and they moved into their heart, and the heart knows what it wants. The heart isn't confused. The heart isn't arguing two sides of the case. The brain is what is job is to protect you and keep you safe. And sometimes it thinks it's protecting you by going, I don't want to get back out there on the dating market. I don't want to be alone. So it creates fear and it pushes that fear out to you because it thinks it's keeping you safe that way. But when you get in, when you turn off that fear, you know exactly what you want, that you'd be better off alone than with someone you're not meant to be with. Mm-hmm. And so that same thing works for finding your purpose. Whatever you're, if you're not sure about what your purpose is. Then you lay down and you breathe and you get that clarity. That clarity will come to you through the breath work. Yeah. And you explained something to to me that it's that we ki I kind of mentioned this in the past that the mind, body and emotions are all connected in some way. And I think too often we're explained to them we're they're explained to us as like so separate, but I I feel like there's a connection once you like dig down deep enough. you don't even have to dig down that deep. I mean, listen, I lost my hair and my eyebrows from alopecia, which is caused by stress or trauma, right? They're not 100% sure, but it's brought on by a stressful event or a traumatic event or a bunch of stress, right? So that's my emotions affecting my physical health. Right? Nobody doubts at this point that like you can stress yourself out right into a heart attack, right? But if that's true, isn't the opposite true as well? Mm-hmm. That you can you can heal your body, yes, for sure. you can you can start to send your body good signals instead of the stress signals and start to heal your body. There's a thing, it's called takosubo. It's Japanese, it's the Japanese word, it means brokenhearted syndrome. They've actually studied that people can be so brokenhearted that can affect your shape, the shape of their heart. It can change the shape of your heart from from being emotionally brokenhearted over, you know, the loss of someone or the loss of a relationship, but you can also heal it. You can heal it too. So our emotions can literally change the shape of our heart. I d I totally believe it. I and I I I just think for some reason it just reminds me of my grandparents. My my grandpa passed away and then my grandma passed it was like a year and a half later and I I totally think it's because the broken heart. Like she there's tons of studies out there that show that that like a lot of spouses that have been together for a long period of time, the other spouse passes fairly quickly afterwards. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I I joke, I say, if you don't think your emotions can affect your health, then go find my eyebrows because they're gone. Right. So I'm like, come do the breath work and clear. He's Because what a lot of people discover when they come to my classes is I hear this. This is one of the things I hear the most. you know, I done all the work, I did therapy, I did Tony Robbins, I did, you know, Joe Dispens, I did all these things, and then I thought I did all the work on myself. And then I came to your class and I had all this stuff come up during the breath work and you know released all this stuff that I didn't even realize was there. I go, yeah, because all that work you did, you thought was in your head. It was the thoughts in your head that you were working on. This stuff is in your nervous system, in your heart, in your body. And so you didn't do that work. You didn't clear it out of the nervous system. You didn't clear it out of the body because you didn't. There's a d you know, you need a specific technique for that. There's a specific way to do that. And so a lot of people are shocked when they come and they feel all this stuff up for them and release all this stuff. The most common statement after the class is, holy shit, that felt like 20 years of therapy without saying a word. And I started putting that on all my ~ stuff, all my, you know, my website and my ads, all the different things. And I thought therapists were gonna get pissed at that. But ironically, they're the ones who send me the most people. And I've said this before too, and I I'm a I go to therapy, I think it's helpful for me, but I'll be the first one to say I don't think therapy is for every everybody. I think you need to find what works for you. If it's breath work, like great. If it's something else, like great. Like I think you need to actually take the time though to figure it out. Don't just say you've tried it all. Yeah, I If something doesn't work, go try something else. Yeah. And I think therapy and breathwork work really well together. That's why a lot of therapists send their people to me because Uh-huh. the the breathwork brings up all the stuff, all the trauma, and then they go process it and talk to their therapist about it. And so it creates some big shifts. So I think they work really well together. yeah, and you know, listen, if you want something different, if you want to change in your life, then you have to do something different. You know, otherwise you keep doing the same things. Nothing's gonna change. That's the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. but I I can't make people come. You have to be willing to have an open mind and try something new. And oftentimes, unfortunately, people have to wait till they're in a lot of pain. Pain is the touchstone to growth. So, cause I'll tell people what I do and they'll go, yeah, yeah, that sounds fine. And then I'll see them six months later or a year later when they lose someone close to them or they go through a breakup or just a bunch of shit falls apart in their life. And then they're like, all right, I'll try that breathwork thing. Like, okay. You're ready to you're ready to try it. You're ready. I'm here. I'm here whenever you're ready to try it. Yeah. It's it's like their life just has to fall apart just enough to to come do it. So Yeah, I I don't know why people have to wait for that. I don't anymore. I just I as soon as I start to things feel things unravel, I'm like, okay, let me go dive into some work. Let me go do some breath work on myself. Let me see what else I can find. Let me see what the universe is sending me right now. I did, you know, something like a year and a half ago called the Hoffman process that was life-changing for me. And I done all the things again, but I found that and it was so powerful. And and it was around pre parental. patterns that you inherit from your parents. And it changed my relationship to my parents in a profound way. That's super cool. We've talked a lot about stress. What what are some signs that people are carrying stress that they have not fully acknowledged? Whoo, that's a good question. I mean, if you're not sleeping well, you're stressed. You know, if it like I I think stress itself is not fully acknowledged because stress is just a fancy word for fear, right? I it's a it's a it's a word it's a more acceptable word for fear because what what am I stressed about? I'm stressed about money. Okay, well, let's dig underneath that. What about it? Well, I'm afraid that my business is n you know not working out right now. And well, what happens if that doesn't work out? Well, then I won't be able to pay the bills and support my family. Okay, so I'm in fear that I'm not gonna be able to take care of the people I love. But I'm calling it stress because stress is more acceptable in society, not like fear around financial insecurity or financial whatever is going on with my finances. And so we we have to be willing to dig deeper and get underneath things. and really like look at the truth of it. A lot of people don't want to do that. They don't want to look at the truth of the situation. We all have stuff. Nobody, nobody out there doesn't have I I mean, I've worked with the most successful people on the planet. They still have things. They still have stuff. And some of your stuff isn't even your stuff. Trauma is passed on to the DNA. Science has proven that trauma is passed on to the DNA. So you thought you were screwed up because of your parents, and you were right. It is their fault. Call them and let them know. No, don't do that. I'm kidding. I joke about that in my class. I'm going to call them and let them know. No, I'm like, but now that you're aware that that's a thing, because some people don't know. Some people don't know why they have depression, anxiety, whatever. And it could just be passed on. Could be passed on to them. They're like, I don't know why I have these things. You don't, you know, it's your responsibility to figure it out and do something about it. Yeah, I totally agree. So what so why is it that you why do you think that so many people s stay stuck when they actually want to change? Because the fear of the unknown is more comfortable. They'd rather be miserable and and sit in the known than than travel into the unknown, the fear of the unknown. That's the truth. Is that like just not knowing what's on the other side if they quit drinking or if they go to a breathwork class or like people just don't like they don't they don't want to move out of their comfort zone. But if you can strengthen that moving out of your comfort zone muscle. If you're willing to do what's some get a little uncomfortable, you can change everything in your life. And there's this ~ Les Brown used to say, if you do what's easy all the time, then life gets hard. But if you do what's hard, life gets easy. And it's not that hard showing up to a breathwork class online and laying on the floor and breathing. Like, come on, it's ridiculous. It's so easy. But It gets uncomfortable in the beginning and you want to quit because there's a, you know, your mind is kind of battling you. Your mind will shut off during this breath work. And it's a it's beautiful when your mind shuts off. It's what I was looking for when I was doing drugs and alcohol. I wanted to shut my brain off. But your brain doesn't want you to shut it down. So it fights you and it's like, I don't like it. It's weird. I'm dizzy, I'm uncomfortable. This is stupid. This song, I don't like this song he's playing. Like, so your mind kind of talks all this trash to you for the first time. 10 minutes of the breathing and then it kind of gives up and the breath takes over and breathes you. So I always tell people, like, be willing to be uncomfortable for the first, you know, 10, 15 minutes of this and have some skin in the game. Like I would give it away for free just to get people to do it, but people don't, they don't respect what's free. You know, if they don't pay, they don't pay attention, Mm-hmm. Tony Robbins likes to say, right? And so they have to have some skin in the game. I've gone to classes of my students that I've taught and they go, You don't have to pay. I go, No, no, I have to pay. Cause if I don't pay, I'm not gonna work as hard. And so I need to pay so that I work hard, so that I have the experience that I need. Yeah, exactly. So I wanna touch on one thing just because I had this it just reminded me of something when you said use the word uncomfortable. I had a boss at one of my previous jobs that said if you're not uncomfortable in everyday situations, you're not pushing yourself to learn to become better. And ever since then I've I totally agree with it. And I was like, I've never thought of it that way 'cause it's like Yeah. the it otherwise you just become complacent. Yeah. I've been doing Brazilian jujitsu,~ which is the martial art for 18 years. And the whole first year is literally you just get beat up by everybody. There's no you're not you don't know anything. Everyone in the room is beating you up. Mm-hmm. I was I remember being beat up like I was at the time when I started, I think I was 35 and I was beat up by like a s like an 18 year old kid who was like 120 pounds, who was like climbing all over me like a spider monkey. I like, this can't be happening. Cause I was like a yoked out personal trainer, you know? And so Mm. Every time I go, I I'm uncomfortable. People put me in uncomfortable positions and I have to find my way out of that position, that discomfort. And so you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable in Brazilian And so it's a great like, you know, thing for your life, I think. Not everybody's gonna want to do that, but I worked a lot on the outsides, and it wasn't until I got sober that I started working on the insides. I had spent many, many years. focused on my outsides. And we have to work on the insides. You know, the happiness, fulfillment, purpose, that's an inside job. And so I've spent the last, you know, 26 years doing inside things and then sharing them with other people. Like that's where the journey changes is like once you've transformed, you've changed your life, can I turn around and give it back to somebody else? That's kind of like the hero's journey where you You know, you bring the elixir back and you bring it back and you pass the torch on and you help somebody else. And then to watch them turn around and help somebody else, it's like, wow, look at this this like levels, you know, look at this multi-level marketing for good. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. And that's There's no multi-level marketing. I need to be clear about that. Like I I and I tell people I'm like, listen, I'm not trying to build a cult or anything. You can come do my class one time and know how to do this breath work and then Yeah. On your own. do it on your own. Like, yeah, you can make a playlist, you can do it on your own. Some people like to come to my classes because they like me to push them and they like the community of it, whatever. But you don't have to do it all the time. You can do it with me one or two times and you're good and you can do it on your own and whenever you want, and it'll change your life. So during one of your breathwork ~ sessions, what is actually happening to the body? There's a lot of things going on. And some of it is, you know, there was no science when I started this breath work 15 years ago. Like they sometimes people's hands would cramp up like this. They called it tetany. And that's the medical name for it. But I I couldn't get an answer from these breathwork teachers. Like, what is causing this tetany? And they'd give me all these like, it's the moon. It's like something you're holding on to. It's you're detoxing off weed. I'm like, I haven't smoked weed in years. Like, that can't be true, right? And I Was doing these classes that were sold out, it was like 70 people every twice a week. And I had some things that I noticed, you know. when you like success leaves clues, right? And so you look for the commonalities and things. And I saw that people who were getting the tetany really bad were pushing the exhale more than other people. And so I brought in this health and science researcher from Harvard, and she said, yeah. I said, people are pushing the exhale, and they're the ones that are getting tweaked out. And I think that's the key. And sure enough, it was because when you push the exhale, you throw off more CO2. And you we actually need CO2. People think we don't. CO2 is bad for us, but we need CO2. It binds to oxygen. And we that's how we absorb the oxygen into our body, into our blood. And if you breathe essentially too fast and push the exhale too much, it starts to cause this tetanine, it starts to cause this cramping in the muscles. You're fine if that happens. It happens to new people in my classes all the time, but that's why it's happening. And so if you can relax the exhale, and what I actually discovered and came up with was, you know, if I'm going to do this online, I need pe need to give people a way to back off if it gets to be too much for Right. And so I said, if it's too much for you, if you get a cramp that's uncomfortable or painful, first of all, let me just say this that I say in my classes, there are zero reported incidences of anything bad happening during this breath work. I've been teaching it for 15 years. I've never had anything bad happen. There's no evidence of anything bad out there. But I want to empower people to to to take care of themselves if it got to be too much for them. Because, like, if you go do psychedelics now, which are super popular, you're stuck on that ride. You're not getting off that ride. Yeah. Right? But this, you're not stuck. So, you know, if it gets to be too uncomfortable, you just close your mouth, breathe through your nose, and pause. No long Wim Hof breath holds combined with this breath work. That's actually not smart. And I can go into why later if we want. But so I gave people this way to back it off. And that actually makes people feel safer. And then they can go deeper into the work when they feel safer. So I created that in my classes online and in person. So the science is part of this is science, and this part of this is my theory from what I've seen.~ when we breathe into our nose, down into our body here, our diaphragm, we're breathing parasympathetic, which is rest and digest. Okay. So most of the breath work teaches techniques out there that are taught are breathing through the nose to calm the nervous system, right? We take a breath in through the nose, we breathe out through the mouth. And that stimulates the vagus nerve in the back of our necks and calms the nervous system down and puts us in our parasympathetic and relaxes us. So there's tons of techniques out there. Box breathing is like this all through the nose that calm the nervous system. The style that I mainly teach that I like to focus on, circular breath work, we breathe through the mouth into our sympathetic, which is fight or flight. And so people go, wait, why do we why would we breathe in a fight or flight? Well, because that's where the trauma is stored. That's where all the stuff is. in fight or flight, but we're doing it in a safe environment. We're doing it laying down in a safe environment, setting the intention to release some of this stuff that we've been holding on to. And there's something really powerful in that intention. And there's something really powerful about breathing into that sympathetic system in this way. And you do it sometimes if you're exercising intensely, if you're you know breathing through the mouth and but your muscles are absorbing that oxygen. This you're not. They're you're laying down, the muscles aren't absorbing it, right? So that's part of what happens. This thing that happens and we start to release some of the stuff emotionally that we've been storing in our body. So I believe there's a little bit of mystical element to it, but I always share the story of, you know, when a rabbit gets chased in the woods by a fox and it gets away, it shakes afterwards because it's trying to release that trauma that it just experienced. And I believe this is one of our mechanisms by which to release the trauma. Yeah, very cool. That's ~ you're actually the first person that I've heard that uses the mouth the whole like for breath work'cause I've only heard about multiple different ways to use the nose and the mouth together. So that's I find this like really interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it's a different experience. It's a really different experience when people do my class. And there are people who have done tons of breath work and then they do my class and like, I've never done anything like that. And they're like, they're blown away. They've been doing all these practices for 20, 30 years, and then they do the class. And they're like, Holy shit. And then I push the energy pretty hard because I bring out the old trainer in me. And so people have bigger experiences and they go, Holy cow, I've done circular breath work, but I never had an experience like that or whatever. And so I try to be tell people like, come do my class and see what's there for you. Some people, the first time, they're kind of just so taken back by the physical sensations in their body that they need to do it maybe one or two more times to like to get to the emotional stuff. Mm-hmm. They're just like, even though I spend all this time telling people like physical things are gonna happen to you, your hands might cramp up, like you're gonna feel tingling, you might get dizzy. They don't believe me. And then when it happens, then they're like, look at that. And I'm like, I told you that was gonna happen. Like, why are you surprised? You didn't believe me? Yeah. And so they're so d like just caught off guard by the physical sensations that they need to do it a few times to really break through and start to have the big emotional releases. And some people come and just have this massive emotional release the first time. It's life changing. Yeah, and you said emotional release and so that kinda leads into my next question. How can something as simple as breath work create such powerful emotional shifts? Well, we are tapping into the body's own, you know, self-healing mechanisms. And it's just that we don't realize that these things have been inside of us all of our lives and that we have the ability to heal ourselves. And it we think it needs to be complicated. We need to complicate it. You know, I have this course online called the Five Day Emotional Detox. And it's these really powerful exercises,~ writing exercises and different things combined with the breath work. That have changed my life. And I thought I did workshops with them in Los Angeles. And I thought, let me put these into a course. And that course has been incredible. People have done it and sent me incredible emails.~ but I was doing it for this company in Switzerland and they translated it into all these different languages. And they go, No, no, five days is not gonna work. The Germans, the Swiss will not believe that five days is enough. It has to be five weeks. So we have to like we we trick ourselves into thinking like. If it's too easy, it like you hear everything out there, like, this is so transformational. It's a pack of gum. It's not transformational. It's just gum. You know what I mean? Like, stop calling everything transformational. Mm-hmm. This actually is. This actually lives up to that hype. In one hour, you will have an experience that you go, holy shit, that was one of the most incredible things I've ever experienced. And then what happens is people have this experience. It's so profound to them, they can't believe it. Then they tell their friends and their family and all their people around them, and then they have to come try it. So it just grows exponentially off of that because ~ people are just so shocked by how powerful it is and like what it does, what it creates. It they just ha they just they can't wrap their mind around it because everything out there takes years to work, right? Therapy takes a long time, Mm-hmm. yoga takes a long time, all these things take a long time. It doesn't have to. This can this can create a massive shift in one session. And then if you did it once a week for a year, I guarantee you your you and your life wouldn't be the same at the end of that I've seen it for 15 years. I've seen thousands and thousands of people just Yeah. Very cool. a practice and do it and then change their life. And and have you ever witnessed a a transformation during a session that just caught you off guard? Yeah. I mean, it's the not so this is the funny thing. The ones that catch me off guard are n are the the ones that aren't obvious. Like I see people have this huge emotional release and start crying and like deep crying, like crying from the soul. So I know they're having a profound experience. But then there was other people that are like nothing is happening on the surface. And then afterwards they're like, that was the most life changing thing I've ever done. I was like, really? Like I didn't see anything happening there. It was all going in. Quietly on inside of them. And so, you know, that's the part that's surprised me in sessions over the years. And I've heard people talk about releasing traumas and physical ailments. Like, you know, I had this thing in my throat where I couldn't talk properly for most of my life. And then it literally released in the session or my back or this issue. You know, women have told me that they couldn't get pregnant and then they started doing breath work. And They were able to just turn off their head and the worry and all the stuff and all the pressure around getting pregnant. And then they got pregnant. Because it was an emotional block. It's yeah. So I've seen that. I've seen women who are like in, you know, I don't want to make that promise. Let me be clear about that. But, you know, I've seen it a lot. I I've seen it happen a lot of times. And I've seen people just, you know, let go of things they've been carrying their whole life. Stories. Because we carry these stories around, Travis. This happened to me when I was 19. I was stabbed. And this happened to me and that happened to me. And a lot of people, the stories are running them. You know, when Mm-hmm. I told my story, it's like none of that has any power over me at all. All those terrible things, none of them have any power. But sometimes you hear someone tell their story and you can hear that it's got all this power over them and it's running them. And it just doesn't the stories don't run me anymore. I'm not caught up in the stories. Yeah, you're to me, you're using the story to help other people, which I I think is great. It's that's a part of why I started this podcast is because I wanted to use mine and allow people to use theirs to actually get other people to open up and try different things to help themselves out. Yeah, we need to hear that, right? That comes in through our ear. And if the person speaks our language, if we feel a connection to them, if they're speaking the language of the heart, if they're coming from a place of honesty and vulnerability, maybe it'll go through our ear into our heart and we'll go, you know what? I feel like this guy is like maybe telling the truth. And maybe I should try this. Like maybe I should try this, like and see what's there for me. I don't know, it's it sounds ridiculous breathing in a but let me go try it And then they have an experience and that's what changes their life. So the stories that we share, hopefully they can create action because nothing's gonna change in your life if you don't take any action. You have to take the action. Yes. For sure. And and I remember I was I was actually stuck for years and like all the you know, it's medical and mental health issues for me. And until I actually went through s like a bad medical spout and had some bad mental health seizures or mental health problems after years and years of having them. It's like a big cluster came on and I finally admitted to myself. I need help. I need to I need to find a way out of this. And it wasn't until I said those words and admitted to myself that I needed to do what find something that worked for me. Like I I knew I was gonna remain stuck. Like Yeah. I the I need help is one of the most powerful things you can possibly say. But it's so hard to say it, especially for a man like a man we were like taught like you be tough, be a man, you can figure it out, walk it off, right? Like we do this thing to little boys from a young age of like, Mm-hmm. be a man. It's like he's eight years old and crying because he got hurt. Why are you telling him to be a man? Yeah. He's eight. He's supposed to cry. He just got hurt, you know, and so. It's so funny. Like when I tried to quit drinking on my own for a good solid year and I would get like 20 days and I would drink and I get 30 days and I would drink. And so I could like when I really thought I could do it on my own. And that was such a hard thing to realize to realize. Like I can't figure this out. I need help. I need help. So I'm gonna go take advice from another man who I don't know to tell me how to quit drinking. Like that sounds crazy, but it worked. Right. It worked. And so, and then I go, wait, I'm gonna go to a breathwork class. I'm gonna lay on the floor and breathe. That sounds ridiculous. And then it changed my life. So now I've had so many things in my life that I've done that I thought were ridiculous that were life changing for me. I'm like, what else is out there? Okay, I'll go do that. And some of the stuff is ridiculous and didn't work at Mm-hmm. And I was like, okay, it didn't work. No big deal. It's a great story. You know, I tried that thing. But some of the stuff worked so profoundly that I'm like, wow, this is amazing. I have to bring this into my students and my teacher trainings and share this with the people around me and share this with my family. Y so I think the key word there is sharing. Like I think you're sharing your knowledge and making it so other people get the help they need is fantastic. But what about those people who are afraid to confront their all the pain that's inside of them, all those painful emotions. What advice would you give those people? Well, your emotions, I used to say feelings aren't facts and feelings won't you. But I learned that that's not true. Because sometimes you can get a lie in your head that's so strong that tells you something so strongly that it will create a s like a loop and you can commit suicide. And because I someone very dear to me, very close to me, got that lie in their head and they committed suicide. And so I don't say that feelings aren't facts. I say that, you know, if you're feeling all these feelings, first of all, just know that some of them may not be true, that our head isn't always telling us the truth. It's a hard thing to face, it's a hard thing to realize that, like, my brain, which is supposed to protect me, is now overprotecting me and lying to me and telling me stories that aren't true. And it can tell you things like nobody cares about you, nobody loves you. It isn't fucking true. And so I say, like, you gotta find somebody that you trust and tell them what's going on with you and walk through the fear of the unknown and walk through those of reaching out for help. You know, the the it just starts with like picking up the phone and asking for help and saying, I don't know what to do. I'm I've got this feeling, I've got this thing going on with me. And That's kind of the hardest part. Like the build up to that is much harder than actually taking the action and doing the thing. We build it up in our heads into such such a bigger story Yes, for sure. and such a bigger thing. We we actually just taking the action is just ten times easier. Yeah. And you hit on something to me that is huge when it comes to especially like to me, I guess I can't even say just mental health, but anything you're going through is having somebody in your corner, having that one person that you can trust. But I wouldn't even say it is just one person. I think you need to trust yourself, trust others, the ones that you know are in your corner that are there for you. And you need to trust into the progress that you make even when it's small. Teeny steps. Yeah. You and you need somebody to point it out to you, a a mentor of some type, you know, to be like, no, you have made progress because you don't see it in ourselves a lot of the time. it's really hard to see in ourselves. And so finding those right mentors, finding those right people, unfortunately, you know, what happens with like something like alcoholism or drug addiction is it isolates us. It's an a it's a disease of isolation. We push everybody away and they get sick of you know, people lying to their face all the time, you know, and it's it and we become isolated and we feel completely alone. And so we are alone and we have to find, you know, whether it's 12 step recovery or some rehab or whatever it is, it's just like we have to find some help and be willing to take direction and stop listening to ourselves for a good six months to a year. That 30 day bullshit, like For treatment for recovery, like that was created by insurance companies because that's all they wanted to pay for. It you didn't mess your life up in 30 days. You're not going to fix it in 30 days either. It takes some time. So when I went into recovery, I was like, a year. I'm going to give this a year. And if my life isn't better in a year, then the bar will still be there, the liquor store will be still be there, the drug dealer will still be there. And in a year, the circumstances of my life had changed. quite a bit, but like I had really changed on the inside. Like I wasn't looking at things with the same eyes anymore. My perception had shifted massively. And I really had started doing the inner work on myself and reading all these really powerful books like, you know, The Power of Now and The Seed of the Soul and on digging into the work around myself and meditating and helping others and all these kind of things. And I was like, yeah, you know what? I don't, I'm not that same guy. Like why would I want to go back to the To the same horrible life. Yeah, it's you found your way out, found your way to the other side. And it's I can see how that is. And then you got to reach back and pull someone else up. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. There's a lot of people, Just keep going. I meet people sometimes out in the world and you know they find out I'm sober and they're like, you know, I tried, you know, I tried 12 step recovery and it didn't work for me. I go, ~ you did? Did you ~ did you get a sponsor? Kind of, yeah, I had a sponsor. Did you work all 12 steps? Well, I worked a few of them. Did you turn around and work the 12 step, help somebody else? No, I didn't do that. Yeah, I know. Cause if you did, you'd still be there. What you did is you went to the gym and you walked around and you looked at the equipment and you maybe sat on a piece of equipment or two, but you didn't even lift any weights. And then you what left there and you said, Yeah, I tried the gym. It doesn't work, it doesn't get you in shape. Well, you didn't really do the weights. You didn't do the diet. You didn't get it someone to show you how Mm-hmm. to lift weights and eat right. And then you didn't turn around and help somebody else. Yeah you Yeah, and you for sure have to put the work into it. It's I for some reason I had in my head when I first started therapy that they could just take all my emotions and I take them away and they disappear and I'd be fine. It would take about, you know, six months to year. And my therapist had to set me straight. He sat me down. He's like, You know, you can Your goal is actually to learn the techniques to deal with what you have So you can look past it and move forward. Yeah. I was like, so you can't just talk it out of me He's like, No, it doesn't work that way. So it was it was a big mind shift for me. Yeah. The the emotions require to be felt. And what a lot of people do is they don't want Mm-hmm. to feel them. They push them down inside. They don't realize they're pushing them inside. They think they're just pushing them away. But like what I always like to say is like you can't open your heart up and feel gratitude and joy and love and close it off from grief and sadness and disappointment disappointment. It doesn't work that way. So you have to feel the other emotions too. And that's not what people want. They don't want to feel them. And I just found that when I allow those other emotions to be felt, then I can get back to gratitude and love. Which is where I want to live. Yeah. Yeah, and I I think for me that's exactly where I want to live too, by the way. But I think the biggest like blocker for me was the fear of being vulnerable. Hmm. Yeah. Well, it's funny because, you know, I said this at the very beginning when I was telling my story that I was told I was overly sensitive, right? And that's just being vulnerable and ~ you know, allowing your emotions. And I just was in an environment that didn't allow for it. And my joke was if I started to feel my feelings, I would do a shot and then punch somebody in the face and the feelings would go away. But now, if you do my class, you'll hear I get really emotional in certain moments in my class. And people, it gives people permission to get emotional themselves in the class. And so I think it's one of the things that makes my class really special in the way I teach it. And, you know, what comes from the heart goes to the heart. So what I learned is your greatest wound can become your greatest gift. My greatest wound was that I was too sensitive. And now I allow that vulnerability to come through to help other people. I love it. Yeah. It's like I'm a I'm a I'm not I'm a guy guy. I'm still a guy. I'm a jujitsu black belt. I can kick the shit out of most people out there. Like I joke, it's like I'll choke you out and then I'll show you how to put gratitude and love in your heart. U use use all of your talents in one spot, right? Yeah, well, it's funny. It's like you can be both. You can be a sensitive, vulnerable man and be a badass at the same time. You don't have to be one or the other. And I don't have to be some new age woo-woo guy to teach breath work. You know? And I like people were shocked when they started coming to my class at this one studio that I was teaching at a long time ago. Cause I I sometimes would be really frustrated. I had to take the for the 10 freeway to the 101 to the 405. They're like three worst freeways in Los Angeles. And then I was like fighting over a parking space. So by the time I got into the room, I was like, Jesus, sit your ass down so I can show you how to put gratitude and love in your heart for God's sakes. And they're like, my God, this is the teacher. Cause all the other teachers were walking in the room and they were like, Hi, hi, everybody. I know Mercury's in retrograde right now and we're Yeah. all having a hard time. And I was walking in the round room and just being like, sit your ass down. Let's go. We're gonna do some shit, you know? And they're like, what? And I'm like, yeah, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna teach this in what's real. Like, there were some days I came in there, I was pissed off. There was some days I came in there, I was heartbroken. And I allowed that to come through during the class. I allowed that emotion to be felt. I get just as much out of teaching my class as the people do taking my class. So I'm so grateful when I get to do my class online every Sunday. I'm like, I needed that too. Yeah. ~ I wanna be moved and I wanna move other people. I don't wanna just teach a friggin' class. I wanna be moved in the process. And I get the same way when I start a podcast, like it's I'll be having a crappy week and all of a sudden I jump on that podcast and when it's over, I feel so much better. Yeah. It's amazing. Telling your story, sharing your story, sharing with somebody else. That's human nature. It's in our DNA. We used to sit around the fire and share stories. And we've kind of lost that. We're finding our way back to it through this podcast, through that connection, sitting around the fire, telling stories. But a lot some people are just so disconnected. We're on this device doom scrolling all day long and trying to and we and we're feeling you know, lonely and whatever, but like that's because we're missing that connection. You gotta get out there and touch grass, as the young kids like to say now, touch grass and connect with other people. Yeah, for sure. So if somebody right now, or so somebody listening is struggling with whatever, anxiety, stress, feeling stuck, what's one thing they could do today to start moving forward? I would say take a small action, you know, a small action. You could sign up for my class on Sunday, you know, there's a five day replay afterwards, but this Sunday's class, well, I don't know when this is coming out, but like there's a five day replay after the class. And so if you just commit to it and then put it on your calendar and do that, I promise you you're gonna feel a shift. You're gonna feel a shift. And I may not be the right guy for you. There's other people out there doing this work, and there's other things, but maybe it takes you to the next thing. And like so, commit yourself to doing once, one thing a week that you've never done before. It doesn't have to be one thing a day, one thing a week. You're saying, you know, I'm gonna do one thing every week that I've never done before, I've never tried before for myself, for myself care. And I like to say that self care is about, you know. Doing the uncomfortable work, right? People think self-care is a bubble bath or a massage. No, that's the reward for doing the thing. Real self care is is good showing up for yourself and being willing to get uncomfortable for yourself. Being willing to do the thing you're scared of. That's real self care. That's real self love. Yeah, and it it and if you don't if you're not willing to put the work into it,~ for example, the very first time that I started therapy years ago, I I really honestly just half assed it. I was given all these worksheets and assignments to do outside of therapy and I didn't do So I didn't really see any progress and I'd go back and he he would say, Okay, it explained the progress over the last like two weeks and I was like, I didn't have time to do this. I didn't have time to do that. Yeah. He said, Well I need you to do that. So we but this time around, now that I was fully committed and actually did the assignments, I saw huge shift in the way I think about things. Yeah, you can't be mad. It's funny to me, people get pissed off looking at other people's lives. And it's like, well, you don't know what the what work they put in. You can't be mad about the life that you don't have for the work that you didn't put in. Right? You didn't put the work in. Mm-hmm. You have no idea what work that person put in. Stop looking at other people's lives on social media and thinking they have it so good. You know, you don't know what it's like behind the social media, but also you don't know what work they put in. So If you want a better life, be willing to put in a little work for yourself, be willing to show up for yourself and see what happens. Exactly. Very well said. So looking back at the person you were, you know, when you hit rock bottom, what would you want him to know about the life you're living today? You know, it ~ it's funny because it always takes longer than we think it's take. So have patience, be kind to yourself. You know, I like to say work hard on yourself, but don't be hard on yourself, you know, because I was really hard on myself all that way. And one of the things I've gotten from this breath work is like, you know, I'm gonna keep making mistakes. I'm still making mistakes. Do I I don't need to beat myself up when I make a mistake? And do I want my kids to beat themselves up? Do I want my kids to be as hard on themselves as I have been on myself? I don't. So I can't tell them that. I have to show them that. I have to model that for them. Like, hey, look, I messed up. It's okay. Let me fix it. Not a big deal. Let me not beat myself up. Because I watched my daughter being hard on herself and it broke my heart. And I was like, well, that's kind of what I do. so You know, work hard on yourself, but don't be hard on yourself. Ca create a shift where you're like, you know you're gonna keep making mistakes. You're never gonna reach it a point in your life where you stop making mistakes. So if that's the case, like can I just be easier on myself when about these mistakes? I love it. Love every piece of it. I always say that when I do these it feels like a free therapy session for me. Cause I I pick up so much from Well, you're gonna come to class. That's gonna be that's gonna feel like ten therapy sessions when you come to my class Yeah. and do that. You're gonna be like, Holy shit, we need to do another podcast. That's what happens every time. He So I have just one last question and then if just a few follow ups. You've helped people move through addiction, anxiety, grief, and trauma, and you name it, you've probably helped someone in thou those lines. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about the human ability to overcome adversity? Yeah, I just think that your spirit is stronger than you think it is. And you have to be willing to love yourself and and and just keep showing up. Like it I you know, I've I love stories of adversity. I think everybody does. I mean, that's why we go to the movies, that's why we watch shows. But you see it in other people, but you don't think it's there for you. It's there for you too. You can be the hero of your own story. You are the hero of your own story, but you have to be willing to do something different. Because if you keep getting the same results, then you have to like look at that and go, like, what haven't I tried? What am I why am I making the same mistake over and over? What can I do differently here? And look at that and have an honest look at yourself. Be honest with yourself because a lot of people are lying to themselves and find people that you can trust. That will get honest with you too. said and I I totally agree. ~ what and the these this one's just a generalized question. I try to ask this to every guest. What would you say is the biggest stigma when it comes to mental health?~ I I I don't I think there was a big stigma. I don't think the stigma is is there as bad anymore. At least for me, like I talk about it so much, maybe I'm I'm just so used to it. You know, it's like right there at the forefront. But I I think just like alcoholism, you know, alcoholism, there was a lot of stigma around alcoholism in the 50s, the forties, the fifties, the sixties. And now it's like everybody knows somebody in their family. That has alcoholism, that has addiction. It's it's ripped through the lives of every single you know family on this on this planet, I think, at this point. If you if you nobody wants to be an addict, and so it's not a it's not a personal moral failing, it's it's a disease. And so and the same thing with mental health, but it's just calling it out takes away the power. Takes away the shame around it. S you know, calling it out, speaking, speaking it into the light, as they say, you know, like we're doing, we're bringing it all into the light right here. It just takes the power away from it. You know, like people try to make jokes about me being hairless. It's like, I already made all those jokes. I've already heard of if you've got something good that's I haven't heard, like, great, give it to me. I'll use it myself. Like, there's no power. You have no power over me. There's nothing you can say to me. about me that's gonna hurt my feelings at this point. I wouldn't give someone that kind of power. So t calling out the mental health stuff takes the power away from it, takes the shame away from it. It shines the light on. Awesome. Fantastic. where can people find you? My website, I have a couple websites, but my main one is breathewithjp.com, B-R-E-A-T-H-E-W-I-T-H J P dot com. Not breath with J P, breathe with J P dot com. And you can find my other websites through there. You can find my Sunday Zoom class on there as well. if you put your email in, I give you 10 bucks off the class. So it's only 19 bucks your first time. The price of a burrito these days, I like to say. And so Come try a class before you don't just sign up for a teacher training if you were inspired by this podcast. Do a class first. I want people to experience the breath work before they deeper. And then if you want to dive deeper, check out my courses online. The five-day emotional detox course is really profound that I was talking about. And just show up. Just be willing to try something different. Don't eat before the breathwork class. You want to do it on a bit of an empty stomach and ~ give yourself an hour. If you don't have an hour to take care of yourself, Do a breathwork class, then you don't have a life. Awesome. And the last thing here is we've discussed a lot of topics tonight. Is there anything that you would like to bring up that we did not bring up? I think we covered a lot of ground. I think we we really hit everything on the head and I feel really good about this. I I just I just think, you know Have to say, it sounds so corny to do the self-love, this kind of work on yourself. You know, I I think I was embarrassed when I started talking about breath work and saying self-love. Like I just never thought I would be that guy. But the biggest regret that people have at the end of their life is that they wish they lived a life more true to themselves. They've studied this in hospice where people are dying. And that is by far the biggest regret that people say they have is like. I wished I I wish I lived a life more true to myself. I wish I did the things that I really wanted to do and lived more authentically who I really was. And so I really feel like I'm doing that. And I feel like when you do the breath work, you stop giving a shit what other people think. And when you don't care what other people think, you can create an amazing podcast. You can do so many beautiful things in the world when you stop worrying about or stop caring about other people's opinions of you in your life. Yes, that's that's really well said 'cause at some point I had to learn how to do that. I had to stop caring what people th thought of me 'cause Yeah. I really don't care. I'm gonna do what I want to do. Yeah. Well, John Paul, thank you so much for taking some time to speak with me today. And thank you for what you do. Thanks for having me. I really admire how you're out there and formed your own type of breath work basically to help people out and how you're sharing your story. Thanks, Travis. Appreciate it. And thank you all that have listened to this episode. If it resonated with you, please share us. Or please share us. Please share this episode and give us a follow. Thanks again. Until next time.