#15: The Breath Is the Bridge: Returning to Safety, Stillness, and Self with Steve Beattie

Feeling off doesn’t mean you’re broken.
More often, it means your body has been living too long without safety, stillness, and breath in a noisy world.

In this episode, we sit down with breathwork guide Steve Beattie, whose journey from chronic inflammation and repeated hospital visits to a more calm, grounded way of living began not with force—but with a simple, daily return to the breath. Along the way, an unexpected emotional release opened the door to deeper healing.

Steve gently demystifies the Wim Hof Method, offers important safety considerations, and then widens the lens: breath isn’t a brand—it’s a bridge back to yourself.

We explore why breath works, not as a hack, but as a handoff—from reaction to response. When the exhale slows, the nervous system listens. The mind checks in. Space opens. That pause can soften anxiety, de-escalate conflict, and interrupt the restless loops of stimulation our phones and feeds quietly train us to crave. Steve also explains how chronic stress and cortisol keep the body inflamed—and how small, repeatable breathing practices can begin to restore balance.

You’ll hear a powerful story of teens learning box breathing, hiking in rhythm with their breath, and stepping into an icy lake with surprising steadiness. The lesson isn’t toughness—it’s ownership. Meeting stress on your terms.

We close with simple practices you can take into your real life:
 • a one-minute box breath to refocus
 • a five-breath reset to return to yourself
 • a morning intention that begins before your phone does

Along the way, we reflect on community, fire circles, and the old proverb “run toward the roar,” reimagined not as force—but as a gentle willingness to meet what scares us with presence.

If something in this conversation stirs you, don’t rush to change everything.
 Take one small step: one pause, one breath, one clear choice.

Your breath is the bridge.
 Walk it with us.

Connect with Steve: 

Website

@breathinginnature on all socials

New here? Start with episodes 1-3: “Take Back Your Life”, "From Hustle to Healing",  and “5 to Thrive.” 

*Start Fog to Freedom Here*

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Transcript

Opening And Steve’s Recovery Story

Steve 0:00

I had inflammation in my body for all sorts of reasons. I didn't know why, but I just had this runaway inflammatory disorder. So I began doing the whim-hoff method day after day after day, and it alleviated all my symptoms.

Gillian 0:13

If your days feel full, but your heart longs for more meaning, you're not alone. Between the screens, the schedules, and the never-ending noise, it's easy to lose your sense of peace. But what if the way forward isn't found in doing more? But in learning to slow down, to simplify, to be still. Welcome to Be Still and Live, a podcast for individuals, couples, and families longing for calm connection and a more meaningful way to live. I'm Julian, speaker, coach, and founder of Soleil Health and Wellness, and I'm here to help you create space for stillness and step into a life that feels whole and good again. Today I'm joined by Steve Beattie, founder of Breathing in Nature, and someone I first met at a breathwork workshop that left a lasting impression on me. What struck me about Steve wasn't his intensity or performance, but his presence. Steve's journey into this work of breath work came after his own health collapse from years of chronic stress and inflammation. What he discovered wasn't just a recovery tool, but something far more foundational that the breath is a bridge, a bridge to healing, and often the most direct pathway back to stillness. In this conversation, we talk about why so many of us feel off but can't explain why, why stillness feels uncomfortable, even unsafe for so many of us, and how small intentional breathing practices can quietly transform how you live, relate, and respond to the world. If you can, I encourage you to stay with this episode until the end. It's longer than usual, but it's packed with grounding wisdom and incredibly practical information that you can take into your everyday life. So settle in, relax, tune into your breath without trying to change it, and let's get into it. Good morning, Steve. Welcome to Be Still and Live. How are you today?

Steve 2:20

I am almost all better. Thank you. I'm overall I'm very well, but I am just coming up the other side of a terrible cold.

Gillian 2:29

Yes. Yeah. Steve shared that he was just in Australia. Would you like to tell us what you were doing in Australia?

Steve 2:35

Um, sure. And that's probably why I have a cold from you know travel fatigue, jet lag, homesickness, and then my wife was terribly ill and I came right into it and I caught it. Because I don't normally get sick, and if I do, it's not it's not like this, it's not for a week. But I just spent two weeks in Australia. Um I have a big community in Australia. So I'm in Canada, and I've got a community in North America, um, a physical community in the Toronto area, sort of a global community through North America, and then I've got this big community in Australia. And I was there doing all of the things that breathing in nature does in Australia, which is breath work and meditation and men's work and uh soul connection, some wilderness hikes with this group. And it originated eight years ago, which um is funny. I don't know if if you're into uh astrology and that kind of stuff. I'm sort of on the fence with that kind of stuff. But we're on um the end of a nine cyc I found this out in social media, we're on the end of a nine-year cycle.

unknown 3:38

Yeah.

Steve 3:39

Which is just gave me a point of just thinking about what happened with the past nine years. Eight years ago, I was getting deep into my healing journey with breath work. Um, I've been doing it for quite some time, but I was making some big changes. Um I, you know, I just rounded it to ten years ago. I was really getting deep into it, but maybe it was nine years ago. Eight years ago, I found myself in Australia doing the Wim Hof method instructor training course. Um I had been big in the Wim Hof method for years before that. I had uh a runaway inflammatory disorder in my body. I

What The Wim Hof Method Actually Is

Steve 4:16

was very, very sick. I was in hospital. And the Wim Hof method really helped me. It alleviated all of my symptoms.

Gillian 4:25

Can I just pause you there? Are you able to explain what the Wim Hof method is for our audience? For those who aren't familiar with his work.

Steve 4:34

Yeah. Um although a lot of people are familiar with the Wim Hof method now. Wim Hof has put yeah, he's put breath work on the map. The reason there is breath work everywhere, the reason we're seeing, you know, saunas and ice bath centers opening up on every street corner like the Starbucks, at least in Toronto, is because of Wim Hof. Um he's known as the Iceman. Yeah, he's this Dutch man who going back decades when he was a teenager, he felt drawn into the cold. And he went and broke his way into this icy pond and submerged himself in ice water and just felt at home. He felt at peace. The world went quiet around him. And he started doing this breath work practice, and he traveled to India and studied pranayama and uh sat in the mountains in Tibet and studied with the Tuomo monks and developed this breath pattern of breathing in and out, in and out until you get this euphoric feeling in your body. And you do these breath holds where you exhale all your air and you just hold your breath. Now, I will add, never do breath work in water. You can faint when you do breath work. Any kind of breath work, you can faint. So always make sure you're safe. And so Wim Hof put this breath work and cold exposure on the map. Everybody started doing it, and he changed the textbooks. He proved that you could use your breath in cold exposure to control your autonomic nervous system, which is your immune system as part of that. And uh, there's some scientific studies done on them. And indeed, we can. We can use our breath to control our immune system, to boost our immune system, to control how we respond to stress and anxiety, to um regulate all these systems that we normally thought we could not do. And it was particularly good for people with inflammation. I had inflammation in my body for all sorts of reasons. I didn't know why, but I just had this runaway inflammatory disorder. So I began doing the Wim Hof method day after day after day, and it alleviated all my symptoms.

Gillian 6:45

Wow.

Steve 6:46

Yeah, completely. Like I went from being in the hospital with atrial fibrillation where they're getting rage, I shocked me back in the sinus riddle.

Gillian 6:53

Oh my goodness.

Steve 6:54

Yeah, I was dying. My body was completely inflamed.

Gillian 6:57

Yeah, shutting down.

Steve 6:59

Yeah, I was shutting down from this. And the Wim Hof method completely changed that. And I did it day after day after day, and I just felt fine. And uh I was in uh the health and wellness industry as an instructor. I was teaching health and wellness uh programs, fascial stretch therapy. Um that was my day job. I was working with people in chronic pain.

Gillian 7:24

And you found yourself in the same position, if not worse. Wow.

Steve 7:28

Yeah, and I didn't put two and two together. In fact, I kind of rolled my eyes at the idea of, you know, emotional stuff causing any kind of physical stuff. And even when I was working with people in chronic pain, they would come in with their, you know, their their frozen shoulder or their bum knee or their crunning migraines, and I I'd do my work on them, my fascial therapy on them. They'd walk, they'd go skipping out of the office, feeling fine. Pain they've had for ten years was gone after an hour.

Gillian 7:56

Wow.

Steve 7:57

And then I had it. I'd have their frozen shoulder, I'd have their headache, I'd have their stiff neck.

Gillian 8:03

Interesting.

Steve 8:04

This is transferred to me.

Gillian 8:05

Huh.

Steve 8:06

And I never uh connected that at all. But I was doing the Wim Hof method. I was feeling fine, I was getting back in my own health and fitness. I wanted to teach the Wim Hof method. So I did a quick search. Can I teach the Wim Hof method? And there was a way to do it, and I followed all these steps doing this. And the uh the instructor course had me going all the way to Australia, which

From Inflammation To Emotional Breakthrough

Steve 8:30

is a long way. And on Wim was part of the instructor course, but even then, this was eight years ago, and they already knew that he just goes off the rails all the time. He's a wonderful, beautiful man, but he gets very, very excited about things.

Gillian 8:43

I could see that.

Steve 8:45

Yeah. And so they had another instructor, Sharome, who was teaching it on the first day of this five-day course was meditate on your blockage.

Speaker 4 8:54

Hmm.

Steve 8:56

I didn't know what that was. I didn't have a blockage. We do not have to do it.

Gillian 9:00

Or you didn't think you did.

Steve 9:01

I didn't think I did.

Gillian 9:03

Yeah.

Steve 9:04

Well, I didn't I didn't think I did. I I knew I didn't. But it is every day meditate on your blockage. And we were doing breath work, long breath exercises throughout the day. We were swimming in the southern ocean. This is in August, their winter time. The ocean's really cold. Um and all sorts of other stuff. And every day, meditate on your blockage. Um, you're blocking me from being an instructor of my blockage. And it was on the last day of this, uh, day five, the day we were leaving, in the morning we did this long, long, long breath practice. 90 minutes of breathing, just in and out, in and out, over and over and over again, fast and slow. We were doing breath holds where we breathe in and hold our breath. And you just felt yourself expanding into the universe, letting everything go, and you just feel like you were leaving your body and elevating and sinking down at the same time. And we just kept going and going and going. And at the end of this, I felt really uneasy, really kind of wobbly. And this I felt like something was moving and shaking up inside of me. Uh-oh, that doesn't feel right. I better push that back down. It's getting in the way of my blockage.

Gillian 10:25

Right.

Steve 10:27

And then we went into the ice bath at this big kitty pool filled with ice water. And I went into that for the last time of the week. And Wim was in the ice bath with me and those two other people. And when you go into ice water, you gasp in. And you go, oh, and you have to and then you get control of your breath and you relax. It takes about 20 minutes or 20 minutes. 20 seconds, 20 seconds to 40 seconds or so, and you catch your breath, and like, okay, I'm fine. It's just cold water. And it's in that moment of I'm fine. This thing that I was really trying to push down burst out of me. And I started to cry.

Gillian 11:12

Your blockage.

Steve 11:13

Yeah. And I started to laugh. And I was crying and laughing at the same time. And all this stuff was just bubbling out of me. And I would have, I gotta get myself together. This is really embarrassing. I hope nobody sees this. You know, there's 20 other people around this iceberg iceberg.

Speaker 4 11:28

Yeah.

Steve 11:29

And I I gathered myself. It was about 10 minutes or so, and I I got out of the ice water. And I thought, oh my goodness, that was terrible. How embarrassing. And there was a one of the men in this instructor program, Asher. He was there. And he put his arm around me and he said, Are you okay, brother? And that was the first time anybody had ever asked me if I was okay. And I wasn't. And my legs gave out and I fell into the dirt and I just started to cry. Ugly crying, just bawling, wailing, screaming into the darkness. And I couldn't stop it. It just went on for three hours. Just shaking and screaming and crying. Eight years ago was the first time I cried in 32 years.

Gillian 12:19

How old were you at the time? 32?

Steve 12:23

Uh no, I turned it all off when I was an adolescent.

Gillian 12:26

Right.

Steve 12:27

Um, I did the math, I can't remember now, but I was around 12 years old. And uh I just stopped. Stopped experiencing the world to protect myself. Emotions were too dangerous to have in the environment I was in as a

Beyond Methods: Finding Your Own Breath

Steve 12:40

child. I didn't grow up in a happy place. So I just turned it off. And that repression of emotions, that pit inside of me that just stuffed everything in, was bubbling out, was driving the inflammation, causing disease. And it all came out all at once. That began my journey, my real journey. It fixed me fine. It alleviated the symptoms. But this release of emotions began my healing journey. And that man, Asher, he uh at the time was beginning this men's group. It's called Warrior Within now. It's called the Fifth Direction now, it's open to men and women. Uh focus is on men's work, but it's men's work in relation to women. Because we heal in relationship. We don't heal on our own. We have our men's circle, but we also have circles with women. We heal with our wives, we heal with our mothers, we heal with our sisters, we heal with our daughters.

Gillian 13:46

Beautiful.

Steve 13:47

Right? We heal in all these realms of being. And so we had this group called the The Warrior Within, and then came back to Canada and was doing my thing, teaching the Wim Hof method and going deeper into breath work. Deeper and deeper and deeper into breath work. There's actually a few hours after that, before I left Australia, Wim Hof came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, Steve, there's no such thing as a Wim Hof method. It's a Steve method. Okay, wonderful. But it was meant to just explore breath work. What is breath work for you? What does it do? What does it feel like? What feels right in the moment? Just do that. And so I came back to Canada and sort of doing this breath work and I let go. I was doing like when I was teaching the Wimhoff method, I was teaching the Wimhoff method 30 to 40 breaths, three to four rounds, doing the breath holds, teaching the science behind it. But on my own, I was just letting go and just breathing and breathing and breathing and feeling the patterns of breath that were moving through me. And sometimes it was this circular motion of breath, sometimes it was deep gasping breaths, sometimes really fast. Sometimes there were squeezes rising up through my spine with every breath. So I started studying all these different types of breath work and things that I was just naturally falling into, these patterns and rhythms that were just there. I wasn't inventing it. I was just discovering the energy that was already present inside of me. Pranayamic energy, the kundalini energy, the shamanic energies, all these different things are already there inside of us. And what what I teach in my workshops now is that you know they're the very first humans that walked into this that rift valley in Africa 350,000 years ago had a breath practice. Right. And they scattered around the world and layered their cultural lenses, invented their gods, named their different practices, but breath work was at the basis of that.

Gillian 15:48

Yeah. God source universe. Is that how you would describe it? Just the presence within you.

Steve 15:55

Yeah. And we've known this for a long time. For you know, in Latin, in spiritus, spirit, to breathe in, inspiritus. It connects you to something. Spirit, source, God, light, consciousness, whatever it is. To be inspired by something is something moving through you, right? And that's your breath. Spirit. Spiritus is your breath. We inspire. Is your breath in? We expire to breathe out. And when we breathe together, we conspire. That's where the word conspiracy comes from.

Gillian 16:32

Interesting.

Steve 16:33

Yeah.

Gillian 16:34

It's also fascinating and it's it's um a little bit disorienting, especially if if the listeners are new to this concept of breath and how powerful it is because it's so simple.

Teaching Breath To Youth In Nature

Gillian 16:45

And that's really the essence of Soleil Health and Wellness, be still and live. I really have found that that is the foundation to everything in life. And it's the foundation to working through these, like you said, blockages that we have that prevent us from being who we're called to be, from aligning with our purpose in the world around us. So that being said, I'd love to shift into how I met you, Steve, because I followed you online for a little bit because you're in Toronto, I'm not far away. And um you were advertising this event in Ellicottville, New York. And uh you opened it up to adults for one event, but then the day before you opened it up to youth because because you have this desire to work with the youth and help them understand the power they have within, just focusing on their breath. And uh it definitely piqued my interest. So I asked you if I could tag along with my niece, who was 14 at the time, and um, we joined you there, and I really didn't know what to expect. But what happened when we arrived there was just an absolutely mind-blowing experience for myself and my niece. Can can you just explain, you know, the the environment that we were in, the type of student that showed up that day, and what took place in that environment? Because this this was something to new this was something that was new to you as well, correct? Um working with our youth? Yes.

Steve 18:14

Yeah, in that kind of environment, definitely. I'd sort of only ever done informal youth things um with my son. He's 18 now, but when he was younger, I used to work with him and some of his friends doing some breath training stuff and other other kids of friends. I I teach them some breath stuff. But um, so I was in um Ellicottville to do this adult event where we're gonna do the breath work and climb the ski hill and swim in the pond at the top and hike back down, the Wim Hof method.

Speaker 4 18:44

Yes.

Steve 18:44

And uh we decided to do um eat event the day before for youth and just teach them how to connect to the breath and see how far we could get and and do all the stuff about using your breath to just go inwards and let go of all the noise around you and find that stillness. And then use your breath to then change your state, focus your mind, energize your body, relax your body. Relax your mind. All these different things you can do with your breath. And we just opened it up and uh about 20 kids showed up, and a big cohort of these kids, I think 16 of the 20 kids were from a school for special needs, um kids with attention deficit disorders and stuff like that. And uh so they they took a you know an hour-long bus ride to get down to Ellicottville, and you know, I'm I'm pretty squirrely after an hour-long drive. These kids were wound tight when they're gonna be able to do that.

Gillian 19:42

They were yes.

Steve 19:46

Um John was the was helping us organize that too. And I think the three of us kind of looked at each other and thought, oh no.

Gillian 19:54

Where is this gonna go?

Steve 19:55

Yeah, what's gonna happen now? And almost Did was we had the kids sit down and had them pay attention to their breath. Because your breath is something that you can feel. You know, in meditation, when we teach awareness, just be aware of yourself. What does that mean? When your mind is just racing around and around and around and around and around and it won't stop. Be aware of yourself. Okay, I'll be aware of how busy my mind is. That doesn't help anything. Be aware of your breath. So just sit and feel your breath. And that was all. That was like the first thing we did. What does breath feel like? And then I just guided them through that and had them feel how your breath feels like a wave rising and falling. Or how it feels like an expansion and a contraction. Or maybe it's the feeling of air moving in and out through your nose. Just these different ways you can feel your breath. So instead of noticing all the busy parts of your mind racing around doing stuff, it's just focusing that attention in this one little single thing of your breath. And for these kids well, not for kids, for everyone. Novelty is a really important thing. We need something

Box Breathing And State Control

Steve 21:10

new and fresh to hold our attention. This was something new and fresh. And it's going inwards.

Gillian 21:18

And right away, these kids just You could hear a pin drop in the room. I remembered being so surprised at how focused these kids were and how long they were focused. I mean, you worked with them, you worked with them for almost an hour in that space.

Speaker 2 21:35

Yeah.

Gillian 21:36

Before we went outside, and they were silent. They were into it. They were recognizing something that had been automatic their entire life that they maybe didn't take for granted, but maybe they did. They had never paid attention before. And you were drawing their attention to something that was so powerful.

Steve 21:56

Yeah.

Gillian 21:56

That is so accessible.

Steve 21:58

Yeah. You you could you could feel the exhalation in the room.

Gillian 22:02

Oh, yeah.

Steve 22:03

As everybody just let go and relax. Some of the kids fell asleep.

Gillian 22:08

Yeah.

Steve 22:09

You know, that's how relaxed they became for the first time in their life. These kids unwound just by noticing their breath. That was it. And then we did a whole bunch of exercises. Um, I liked it with uh younger audiences. I like to teach the the shapes of breath. The square, the triangle, and the circle. And I I I think we started with a square in this case because they were all relaxed. I noticed their ravene. And then we did a box breath where you breathe in, you hold, you breathe out, you hold. So you go around that box, in, hold, out, hold. And it was using a drum nice and slow, just a drum as you breathe into the drum, you hold to the drum, you let go the drum, and then you hold. We did that for a while, breathing with the drum, we're all breathing together. And then I I asked them to do exactly what Wim told me to do. There's no such thing as the Wim Hof method, it's the Steve method. Don't worry about breathing in for four beats and holding for four beats and letting go. Follow your rhythm. Some of the smaller kids are going to breathe faster, some of the bigger kids are gonna breathe slower. You just have bigger lungs. So follow that. And so I just gave them permission to now pay attention to their breath and give themselves what their breath needs. And so some of the smaller kids were indeed breathing a little faster, going around that box. Some were going really slow. And you see, some of them were like, I'm gonna challenge myself. And they were trying to slow themselves down more and more and more and seeing what would happen. So now they're not just following instructions, they're connecting to themselves. They're not just watching themselves, they're connecting to it and really feeling what they need in that moment. And the box breath or the square breath, it brings your mind into focus. It's a really great breath to focus the mind. If you're about to go into a business meeting or phone call or anything like that where you need to focus your mind. If you notice you're a bit squirrely, do a box breath. It brings you back in, focuses your mind, calms you down, calms you down physically, but energizes your mind in a focused way.

Gillian 24:30

Yeah.

Steve 24:30

None of these kids were there.

Gillian 24:33

Which came in handy because that was the training for what came next. Then we suited up and you you encouraged them, you know, we're gonna we ended up hiking up the ski hill, essentially a mountain, to a lake that was at the top of the mountain, and and the ice had been cleared out, and you had, you know, emergency response teams there. It was all very responsibly done, and obviously all these people signed a waiver, but we hiked up the side of the mountain. And some of these kids hiked up in just their winter boots and a t-shirt and shorts.

Speaker 2 25:06

Yeah.

Gillian 25:07

Um, and when we got to the top of the mountain, we all jumped in the lake, and they used this experience they had, this training that they received as to how you control your breath to calm your nervous system, to calm your anxiety, to be able to step into that freezing cold water. In the the L. I mean, this was January

Hiking, Cold Water, And Owning Stress

Gillian 25:30

in western New York. And uh it was incredible how long these kids were able to keep themselves controlled. Obviously, there was a lot of noise and screaming, and it was very entertaining for them. But you could tell that it was such an empowering experience for these kids to understand how much they how much control they had over their body, over their physiology. And it just came from that short amount of training they received on how to breathe and how to use their breath to calm their nervous system.

Steve 26:03

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and those two stages there because the first part of that climb was it was straight up.

Gillian 26:10

It was it was a hike.

Steve 26:12

It was a hike. It went up for, you know, the first probably third of that hill was a really steep climb and then turned off as kind of a winding trail up the hill. Still hard, but that first part just gasses you out. But that first part, I encourage them to not speak, to really notice their breath and to use their breath and to move their body with their breath in, out, in, out as you hike up the hill. So your breath is part of that walking or hiking process, which is a really powerful thing. It connects us. And so some of these, some of these kids were were athletes and they were pretty strong and fit. But they notice that connection. And then they noticed if they breathe faster, they can go faster.

Gillian 26:58

Yeah.

Steve 26:59

And they're moving with that. Some of the kids were not athletes at all.

Gillian 27:04

Yeah, they were struggling. But they still did it.

Steve 27:07

But they still did it. Yeah. And they noticed that, okay, if I connect to my breath, I can use my breath to help me push up this hill. So they're all connecting with the breath in different ways. One to get through this awful thing they have to do, and others to see how strong can I be.

Gillian 27:25

Before we continue, I want to offer you a quiet pause. If you've been feeling overwhelmed, mentally cluttered, or like your mind never truly rests, I'd like to invite you into a quiet reset. Fuck to freedom is a simple, rounding exercise designed to help you slow down, release the mental level, and release the level. There's the mental extreme and just before. You find a labelcoaching.com. Come exactly as you are and offer yourself the gift of space and clarity. Thank you for taking that pause. Now let's return to the conversation. Yeah, because in a situation like that, you you want to fight your breath, you know, and sometimes we're a little too too kind to ourselves or easy on ourselves, and we say, okay, I'm I'm tired, I've got to stop. But you are training them to tune into that breath and use it to help them push through this experience. Trust that breath. If your body's wanting to breathe deeper, breathe deeper.

Speaker 2 28:46

Yeah.

Gillian 28:46

And uh that was a really awesome experience for these kids to understand and actually have this real life experience of what it looks like to step into that space and to trust their bodies, to trust their breath to help them get through this difficult physical experience.

Steve 29:03

Mm-hmm. Do hard things. And then going into the uh the ice water, it's it mimic, well, it doesn't mimic, it is a stress, it's a high stress response.

Speaker 4 29:13

Yeah.

Steve 29:14

But it's on your terms. You control the stress. And they learn

Breath As Everyday Anxiety Tool

Steve 29:20

that, okay, stress is happening to me, right? It's moving through me. I am not stress. I am not having this stress attack. It is just stress, it's a physiological response, and I can breathe. I am in control of my breath. So I can witness it, I can feel what my breath feels like, and I can slow it down, control my breath, and the stress goes away.

Gillian 29:45

So can you compare that, Steve? You said you you grew up in a difficult environment. If you had these skills, how would you apply this skill of breathing and calming your nervous system in the environment that you grew up in when you were triggered and you were, you know, your response was to shut down?

Steve 30:05

I don't know. That's the short answer.

Gillian 30:08

Um I guess what I'm asking is, is this a tool that can be applied to real life, especially for our youth, when they experience some type of trigger that feels difficult or that feels traumatic for them? I mean, they're bombarded with this stuff all the time. It's hard to escape it. So if they have this practice, how would they integrate that into their life?

Steve 30:33

Um it's part of noticing, right? And for me, the reason I can't answer that question, probably how would I have used this was because I think I just went directly into the shutdown. So I I don't know how I would have got there. But when you are being activated by something, our body responds first. We have a physiological response to stress before we have a mental response to it. Our body feels this activation. We release adrenaline, we breathe faster, our pupils dilate, and we send a signal to our brain. Our brain says, Oh, we're being attacked by a bear. Let's do something about that. Our stress center of our brain, the amygdala, only has two settings. You're being attacked by a bear or you're not being attacked by a bear. That's it. And so when we send that stress signal to our brain, it's like bear attack, run, fight, shut down, do whatever you have to do. But if we can notice our breath first, we can do that exhale and let go and relax. And this has actually been studied. There was an Italian study, Italian university. Um, I can't actually give the quote of what it is now, but there was uh this is back 10 years ago or so, where they took people at this university who had anxiety disorders and they were on medication for it. And they taught them a simple breath awareness practice. All of these people went off their medications.

Gillian 32:08

Awesome.

Steve 32:09

Just by being aware of the breath and they noticed, oh, oh, something's happening.

Gillian 32:13

Yeah.

Steve 32:14

Oh, it's my breath. And they managed to calm the breath down. And so before that signal went to the brain saying you're being attacked by a bear, they calm down and oh, I'm not being attacked by a bear. Just something is happening and it's okay. And people with severe anxiety disorders, they could have an anxiety attack simply by running up a flight of stairs. Not because a flight of stairs gives you anxiety, but because running up a flight of stairs makes you breathe faster. And that rapid breath is perceived by your brain as stress, as an attack. And so we have that stress response. But knowing that, oh, I can actually just slow my breath down again, that can alleviate that anxiety that comes from.

Gillian 32:59

Right. Right.

unknown 33:01

Yeah.

Steve 33:02

And so for all these kids who have these anxiety disorders, these attention deficit disorders, where things can wind you up really fast, knowing that you

Phones, Dopamine, And The Bear Brain

Steve 33:10

can just use your breath and control it and slow down can alleviate that.

Gillian 33:14

Yeah. And it's incredibly empowering because it's available to everybody at any point in time, no matter where you live, no matter what your environment is, no matter what your title is, everybody has breath available to them. And I've talked about this author many times. Victor Frankl talks about this quite a bit. The ability that we have to change our perspective, the way we think about a situation, the way we approach it. And that power that we have. You know, you can take, I don't know the exact quote, but he basically said, you can take everything from me, but you cannot take the power that I have over my own thoughts and how I'm going to respond to the situation around me. And we have that same opportunity with our breath. You know what? It's it's no matter what's going on around us, we can always tune into that and use it to create that space of um, I guess, safety. That's that's what we're talking about here. You need to, you need to communicate with your body that you're safe.

Speaker 2 34:23

Yes.

Gillian 34:24

And you do that through the breath. That's the bridge, that's the pathway to experiencing the safety that we experience that allows us to let go of that state of chronic stress that causes so many of these health issues that we're dealing with today.

Steve 34:38

Yeah. And there's tons of neuroscience around why that works. Um, when once we get in that stress pattern, it's our limbic system of our brain, where the amygdala is, that's our stress center. It's in charge. It doesn't stink, it just reacts. It's always in this reaction process. It's trying to escape the bear. It's not going to make the best choices. It's going to make automatic choices that have just been programmed into you throughout your life.

Gillian 35:03

It's trying to keep us safe.

Steve 35:04

It's trying to keep us safe. Your brain, your brain loves you and wants you to stay alive. But it's when this part of it, the limbic system, is working, it's it's not responding to things, it's reacting to things. When we and so we have humans, we have this big, beautiful prefrontal cortex. We think about things, we understand things. But when we're in a stressed state, our prefrontal cortex goes offline and we're operating from the limbic system, which is this fast reactionary thing. And it's going to make mistakes, it's going to respond. You know, if you've ever been in an argument with your spouse and you're really wound up, and then you say that thing, and it's like, oh, why did I say that? Well, you didn't. Your monkey brain did that. When we pay attention to our breath, just pay attention to it, just feel the breath, which is what we did, how we started with the kids. Just notice your breath. There's a little part of your brain called the anterior cingulum, which connects your prefrontal cortex with the limbic system. So your big human part of your brain is looking back to the monkey brain saying, What's going on back there? You okay? There's no bear. We're safe.

Gillian 36:24

Right.

Steve 36:25

And now we're back in self, self-energy. And we can think and we can make decisions.

Gillian 36:32

You have clarity.

Steve 36:33

And we can decide. We have clarity. Yeah. Which is one of the features of self-energy is clarity. Right? We have a clear mind. And we do that just by noticing our breath.

Gillian 36:43

Yeah, so I gotta dig into this, Steve. The neuroscience behind all of this, because you understand this better than I, but the one of the reasons I'm doing what I do and feel so strongly about it is we don't understand what's going on right now. So many people feel like there's something wrong with me, but I have no idea what it is. I just don't feel like myself. But this is the environment and the culture that we live in. There's so much noise, there's so much distraction. And it didn't happen overnight. It was this slow drip that just trickled into our daily experience.

Chronic Stress, Cortisol, And Disease

Gillian 37:20

We weren't having this experience 20 years ago, 30 years ago, a couple centuries ago. Like life was so different. We were able to have this stillness baked into our daily life. We were aware of our breath. But now, because there's so much noise and distraction, we're pulled out of that state where we're present and aware and intuitive. So I'd like to talk more about that experience because I it's it's I always tell my clients, this is not your fault. It's not your fault. This is the state of the chaotic world that is outside of you. But you do have a choice. You can choose to respond how you experience it internally, how you respond to that external environment. And that's the space that I'm in right now is empowering people to take back control of themselves first, because when we do that, that's when you can impact the world around you. That's right. But I guess what I'm asking is can you help us understand what's going on within ourselves, with adults, with our youth especially? Why are we feeling this negative impact? We're all feeling kind of off. We're all feeling kind of icky, like we're not thriving right now.

Steve 38:39

Yeah.

Gillian 38:39

Can you can you connect the dots for our listeners?

Steve 38:42

Yeah. Um back, you know, those first people who walked out of that Rift Valley 350,000 years ago. When they made it back around the fire at the end of the day, they had a dopamine release. You survived another day. You found some berries to eat today. Here's some dopamine, you survived. You found some clean water to drink, here's some dopamine, you survived. You gathered in celebration with your family, here's some dopamine, you survived. This would happen four or five times a day.

Gillian 39:16

Steve is currently showing me his smartphone. He just lifted it up and I'm like, yes.

Steve 39:23

This wonderful device. And it is, it's a it's a tool. It is a wonderful tool, but it'll give you a dopamine response every time you touch it.

Gillian 39:36

Every time you look at it.

Steve 39:37

Every single time. Every time you look at it, you are like, does it like me? It's the bear attack. This is my bear. Keep talking about a bear attack. We crave that dopamine response because that's how we stay alive. It rewards us for doing the good thing, staying alive. We happen to get a good response. We happen to get that dopamine response. When we check our likes, when we check our emails. That thing that we're checking now is also giving us the news 24-7. And it's horrible. If it bleeds, it leads. We only get bad news. So we're being inundated with this horrible stuff all the time. I live in a high rise here in Toronto and they installed these stupid TV screens in the in the uh thing that feed us news for that 30 seconds I'm in the elevator.

Speaker 2 40:31

Yeah.

Steve 40:31

And we get the news that can escape, but we get the news that somebody, and it's, you know, it's sad, but you know, somebody in a city three hours away was in a was struck by a car. I'm not designed physiologically, I'm not designed. I have this programming from my from my ancestors 350,000 years ago. That's my program. I'm meant to be worried about my family, my little tribe right here in this river valley. There's 50 of us. This is where we live.

Simple Daily Practices And Intention

Steve 41:05

Every now and then we'll climb over the hills to the next river valley and we have a party and change the DNA. Then we go back to our little little party, our little family center here. I am designed to be concerned about this little group of people. 50 to 100 people. There's some science around that too, about how big of a group we can actually be in. I think it maxes out at about 100 people.

Speaker 4 41:29

That's it.

Steve 41:30

Yeah. That's all we can do. So that person who got, you know, they they were struck by a car in London, Ontario a couple hours away.

Speaker 2 41:38

I think that's one of my people.

Gillian 41:40

Yeah.

Steve 41:41

And it's it is tragic, but I'm not designed for that.

Gillian 41:45

Yeah.

Steve 41:46

And it's every single time I look at the news, one of my people has been killed.

Gillian 41:53

It's traumatizing. These little micro doses of trauma just sprinkled into your day. And these are things that you can do nothing about.

Speaker 2 42:02

Yeah.

Gillian 42:02

What you can do is influence the 50 to 100 people who are in your circle.

Speaker 2 42:07

Yeah.

Gillian 42:08

And and those people will go out and the ripple effect will grow and impact the world around you.

unknown 42:15

Yeah.

Gillian 42:15

But we're pulled out of that space on a regular basis, aren't we?

Steve 42:18

Yeah. So and so we're stuck in that space where awful things are happening to me all the time. And so, of course, I'm stuck in the sphere space. My limbic system is just on fire. I'm being attacked by bears from every angle. And I'm out of control. Because control is that prefrontal cortex.

Speaker 4 42:37

Right?

Steve 42:37

That limbic system is just running from the bear. It's making decisions based on ancient programming. Run away from the bear. But a lot of the stuff that is part of that programming is all the stuff that's happened to you in your life. I I sort of alluded to my past growing up in not such a safe place. That was all part of my beat's programming. How to respond is deeply ingrained in that limbic system. How do I have to survive? So if I don't put any thought to it, I'm going to continue surviving in that old-fashioned way. Just automatic shutdown. So in in relationship, breathing in nature, we do couples work, we do couples therapy. In that relationship, when there's conflict, I'm all automatically in that reactionary limbic system. I'm in an argument with my wife. I have to survive. She's the bear.

Speaker 4 43:30

Yeah.

Steve 43:31

We'll fall into that old pattern automatically. Yeah. Unless I take a moment and just take a deep breath in and let it go and feel that breath flow a few times. And it is only, you know, five breaths. Yeah. Just take five deep breaths, and okay, I'm back in self-energy.

Gillian 43:49

Yeah. Remind yourself of the intention. And this is another thing that I wanna I want to bring up is not just the constant bear attacks. It's the time between the constant bear attacks that have like come we've completely been deprived of this space in our life to allow our parasympathetic nervous system to take flight. That that opportunity that we have to relax and to reset has been stolen from us. Because even when we do have that space, and I'm guilty of this as well, when I have the space to relax and to breathe, I'm typically looking for that next distraction. That's when I'm, oh my gosh, I'm gonna grab my phone and numb out. And I feel like I need to numb out just out of a response from the constant stress that I was dealing with all day. But the more I become aware of this, the more I feel empowered to choose something different. Julene, what you're actually seeking is connection, connection with your creator, connection with yourself, connection with the people around you, and you won't receive that from this

Parenting From Self-Energy

Gillian 45:00

device, the internet that I hold in my pocket, that you can endlessly scroll. This this device that only triggers more and more of these bear attacks. That's what's going on. So this is the whole premise of what I'm trying to do with Soleil Health and Wellness. Pause, be still, step into awareness so that you have the opportunity to choose. That's right. Because we do have the, we do have, we have the power to choose. We're not choosing because we don't know there's another alternative. Our youth don't know there's an alternative to what they're being served in the modern world.

Steve 45:43

You um said a very powerful word there about turning to your phone to numb out and to question what it is you're numbing out from. Because what I've noticed in myself and a lot of my clients is we've got hustle culture in North America, in the West, or globally, I think, where you better be working hard, you better be hustling, you better keep going, keep going, keep going, keep making that money, keep going, hustle, hustle, hustle.

Gillian 46:13

Because one day you're gonna make it.

Steve 46:15

One day, one day you're gonna make it. That's right.

Gillian 46:17

One day you'll it's all gonna be worth it.

Steve 46:19

Yeah. But I noticed because my you know, breathing in nature, it's it's not a nine to five company. If we don't open our office doors at night, we just exist and we do what we do. It's it's our life. What we do is just living. We just live and we lead by how we live and we take people on our adventures. But I've noticed um you know, in the past, we've really sunken into this in the past five years when I came together with my wife, Nikki, that um, you know, it'd be Wednesday afternoon, and I'll suddenly have this I'm supposed to be doing something.

Gillian 46:53

Yeah. Panic.

Steve 46:55

Yeah, what am I supposed to be doing?

Gillian 46:58

Yeah. And guilt.

Steve 47:00

And guilt because of that. So what is it that we're numbing out from? Our guilt. Because we're not hustling and we're supposed to be hustling. So I better numb that out. And I numb that out by turning to my phone. I don't have to feel the guilt of not doing anything. I'm doing something, I'm looking at my phone.

Gillian 47:18

Right.

Steve 47:20

And then it's feeding me all this awful information.

unknown 47:24

Yeah.

Steve 47:24

And down we spiral.

Gillian 47:26

Yeah. And what's happening there is we are pushing ourselves into a chronic state of stress. And let's just speak right now, like let's talk about the um the impact of chronic stress on our overall happiness, our ability to experience joy, our ability to experience health and wellness, our ability to thrive. I mean, chronic stress is the number one trigger and symptom of every health ailment that people are struggling with today, especially autoimmune issues.

Speaker 2 48:06

Yep.

Gillian 48:07

The anxiety, the stress epidemic, the ADHD that our kids are struggling with, the, you know, suicidal ideations, all of these things have exploded since we introduced the smartphone and social media. Jonathan Haidt talks about this in Anxious Generation. I've mentioned that book so many times. If you haven't read it, please read it. But um yeah, it's this chronic state of stress that we are existing in as a greater community that is the problem.

Steve 48:45

Yeah. And that that chronic from a physiological point of view, that chronic stress elevates cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone and has a cycle. Um, what chronics or what cortisol is supposed to do, you know, an hour or two before you wake up, you release cortisol in your body, and that accelerates your heart and increases your breathing rate and your blood pressure, and it wakes you up and then it goes back down. It's supposed

Triggers As Teachers And Healing

Steve 49:10

to go back down. When we get sick, we get this surge of cortisol in our body, which increases our heart rate and our breathing rate and gets everything flowing and starts cleansing our body, it activates our immune system, and then it goes back down and we heal ourselves. That's what cortisol is supposed to do. But when it stays high, it activates our heart rate, increases our blood pressure, does all this stuff it's supposed to do, but it just stays there all the time. And inflammation builds up, it triggers all the inflammatory markers. You're supposed to have inflammation. I have a high level of inflammation in my body right now because I'm fighting this cold that I have. But then it's supposed to go back down. But it doesn't. And when inflammation stays high, when you have all these cytokines floating around in your body, that's what activates disease. And over time, disease happens. And different types of people, based on your genetic background and your particular makeup, will develop different types of long-term stress responses. Maybe you're prone to having digestive issues. So at first you just kind of have some acid reflux, maybe, or maybe a little upset tummy. Um, but then it gets a little bit worse, and you have developments of celiac disease or Crohn's disease or intestinal cancers and stomach cancers. It just progresses.

unknown 50:40

Right.

Steve 50:41

For me, it was affecting my joints. Just this long-term steady heat in my body began affecting my joints, which turned into what the doctor said was nonspecific rheumatoid arthritis. That's not a thing, by the way. There's no such thing as nonspecific rheumatoid arthritis. Yeah. But they have the medication for it.

Gillian 51:02

Yeah.

unknown 51:02

Yeah.

Steve 51:03

It doesn't exist, but here's your medication.

Gillian 51:05

The band-aid, right?

Steve 51:06

Right. Or it or it develops into hardening of your arteries. Right? That that plaque and calcification of your arteries because of inflammation. Or it manifests in that same idea, but in your brain, and you have all these when this ultimate long-term, when you're very old, we have we've seen this huge rise in uh dementia type conditions. And it's all from inflammation from that from that ongoing chronic stress.

Speaker 4 51:32

Yeah.

Steve 51:34

And we can fix that just by taking that breath.

Gillian 51:37

Yeah. Being intentional about creating these spaces throughout throughout our day, throughout our life, for stillness and tuning into that breath work. How, I mean, this this is complicated because I exist in this world. We have, you know, four kids in the thick of life. There's always something to think about, there's always something to do. So

Community, Fire Circles, And Belonging

Gillian 52:00

we've talked a lot of about a lot of things that are maybe hard for people to hear and to recognize and acknowledge, but I believe there's a very simple solution here. It's not easy. And it comes back to retraining our brains, reprogramming ourselves, starting new habits, breaking old habits. But what would you say it looks like to take a step into a new way of living where we recognize that this is the world we live in? Which means that it's more important than ever to acknowledge that we need to be intentional about creating space in our life to slow down and to breathe. What does that look like in a practical way for, you know, busy households that's just like trying to keep up with it all?

Steve 52:48

So it is so incredibly simple, which is good. We all know what we're supposed to do. Everybody knows that exercise is good for you, that you're supposed to eat properly, you're supposed to sleep, you're supposed to drink water. Everybody knows what you're supposed to do. Everybody knows staring at your phone for hours at a time is the wrong thing to do. We all know that. Right? Everybody knows that fast food's bad for you. But everybody does it.

Speaker 53:18

Why?

Steve 53:19

It's that lack of intention. How do I start? How do I start? Where do I begin? So the breathing in nature we do. Men's work, women's work, couples' work, group work. It's all about healing. Every morning when I wake up, actually, it was it was um an American army sergeant guy who uh said, you know, the first thing in the morning, make your bed. You started your day with success.

Gillian 53:47

Yeah.

Steve 53:49

Yeah, I can't remember who he is.

Gillian 53:51

About making your bed.

Steve 53:52

About making your bed, and it's brilliant. You start your day with success. You're going to follow that up with more success.

Speaker 3 53:57

Yeah.

Steve 53:58

Well, before I make my bed, and I I actually do this every single morning. When I wake up, I sit on the side of my bed and I say to myself, I begin today. And that I begin today, I begin to be a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better friend, a better leader. I begin today. Which means all the stuff I did yesterday where I didn't show up. Because we do. Every day we don't show up for something. We fall short. We fall short all the time. Snap at your kids, your spouse, you didn't, I'm lazy, I don't want to do that. Every day we don't show up. But if we start our day by showing up, today I begin. I'm going to be better. I'm going to look for the things in me that need to heal. Whatever that is.

Gillian 54:50

Yeah.

Steve 54:51

I begin today. The seeds planted. I've made my bed. I'm going to follow that up with a better decision.

Gillian 54:59

Right.

Steve 54:59

So my teenage son comes out of his room and he's in a teenage son kind of mood. I'm a better man already. I'm going to be a better father to him. I'm going to be the person he needs. I'm not going to get my backup because he's making me angry because he's in a bad mood. Because then I just spiral out of control. I've shown up to

Run Toward The Roar

Steve 55:20

be a better father for my son today.

Gillian 55:22

Now that's a beautiful thing. Let's compare that same situation and how you might respond if the first thing you did was wake up and grab your phone and start scrolling, reading the news, going on social media, bombarding yourself with maybe a hundred bear attacks before you even meet and greet yourself, never mind your own child. That's right. How might that interaction change if that was the way you started your day?

Steve 55:55

I wouldn't even show up because I am my prefrontal cortex. That's who I am. When we wake up in the morning, we turn to our phone and to see what horrible things happened overnight, we're back in our limbic system. Right? I'm not thinking. I'm reacting to the world. I'm stumbling around, I'm anxious, I'm angry, my breath is already accelerated, my cortisol is not coming down like it's supposed to be.

Gillian 56:20

Yeah.

Steve 56:21

I'm making my stimulant for the day. Just to wide me up.

Gillian 56:26

Yeah. Starting with an empty cup. Right? And and again, like this is where our power is. This is the choice. This is the first choice that you can make. If that's all it is, I talk about the importance of a morning routine, starting your day with intention, with gratitude. Then you're filling your cup from the get-go. Yeah. You are walking into your life with a cup that's overflowing, that you can flow into your family, into the people that you work with. That's such a fantastic place to start. And it's so empowering and it's it's so simple, but it's just simply a choice. Yeah. And I I'm realizing in my life right now, like I have I've been resisting this for some reason. I've been resisting stillness myself, but I am seeing how my life is demanding more stillness because my kids are getting older. There's always one of them that's off. There's always someone in a mood. So if I'm not filling my own cup first, then I am not contributing in a healthy way to that environment, to that friction, you know? And it just is becoming so obvious that I need more of this, more stillness, more breath work, more meditation, more prayer, where I'm being a co-creator of my life rather than just feeling like a victim and wishing these years away that are the most precious years.

Steve 57:48

And what's really wonderful about this, well, we can stay in our self-energy. So, in that example, you know, if I got up and just looked at my phone and I was looking at all the things that are attacking me, and then my son shows up. Oh, you're the bear.

Speaker 4 58:03

Yeah.

Steve 58:03

Right? That's the interaction I'm having. Right. And so I'm going to demonstrate to him in that case how not to be a man. But he thinks that's what a man is. So he's going to grow up to be that.

Speaker 2 58:15

Right.

Steve 58:16

When I stay in that self-energy, I am teaching him

Final Reflections And Free Resources

Steve 58:20

how to respond to people around him. Because he knows how he's showing up. He he knows he was just in a bad mood and you know, was being grumpy with me, and he witnessed me.

Gillian 58:32

Yeah.

unknown 58:32

Okay.

Steve 58:33

You're okay, bud. I love you.

Gillian 58:35

Yeah. You're safe here.

Steve 58:37

You're safe here.

unknown 58:38

Yeah.

Steve 58:38

Because I'm safe here.

Gillian 58:40

Right.

Steve 58:40

That's what I'm demonstrating.

Speaker 4 58:42

Yeah.

Steve 58:42

I'm safe here. And what we get to notice for ourselves and our own self-work, our inner work that we need to do as individuals, as partners to a spouse, as parents, we get triggered by them all the time.

Speaker 58:58

Oh, yeah.

Steve 58:59

All the time. And that's where we learn. When we're triggered, we're just exposing a wound that we have in our soul. That's what I get to fix. That's what I get to heal next. So when I get triggered when Nikki, my partner, we do all this work together, Nikki.

Speaker 4 59:13

Yeah. Yeah.

Steve 59:14

When I get triggered by Nikki, it's like, oh, I get to fix this one now. Here's another little wounded shit.

Gillian 59:21

Yeah, try that.

Steve 59:22

Yeah. This is a wounded little boy.

Gillian 59:24

Yeah.

Steve 59:25

Who's upset because you're upset. You know, you're out of self-energy and you react to something. I'm like, I'm reacting now. And if I don't have any wounds in my body at all, if I have no psychic wounds, my soul is just a shining light. I'm never going to be upset about anything ever again. Because I am just me. Unless I'm actually attacked by a bear. My wife is not a bear. My son is not a bear. My stepdaughter is not a bear. They're just individuals along their journey as well. So when I get triggered, that's me. I get To heal.

Gillian 1:00:01

Awesome. This is my vision for the world, Steve. I feel like we there's there's so much hopelessness right now.

Speaker 3 1:00:09

Yeah.

Gillian 1:00:10

People have lost hope. And we've stepped into this victim mentality. Woe is me. Woe is us. But we're forgetting that we hold the power. Each individual person, if if we all, and I'm I'm including myself in this, I'm not preaching, you know, to um everybody here and saying that I don't struggle with this as well. I do, I do. This is constant, ongoing, intentional work. But it feels so empowering to understand that when you're feeling frustrated, when you're feeling um helpless, remember remind yourself that you hold the power to heal yourself and therefore heal the world around you. Somebody, one of my guests earlier um corrected me. I said, to be the change you wish to see in the world. And she said, No, to be the healing you wish to see in the world. And I was like, oh man, that's good. Because I was raised with be the change, be the change. But what if we need to heal ourselves first? To be the healing we wish to see in the world around us. It's so inviting.

Steve 1:01:21

Yeah. And it's it's a return to community, is actually the key to this. Absolutely. And that was the gift of COVID.

Speaker 2 1:01:30

Yeah.

Steve 1:01:31

Was the return to community. And a lot of people haven't entirely seen that, but you know, we're all forced to go home and we lost what little community we had. You know, those friends at work who we could tolerate having a coffee with once a week. That wasn't community, but it was something. We even lost that. My little community here in Toronto grew and grew and grew. People were coming down to the lake and doing breath work and going for a swim, and then we gather around the fire and we just talk. Just like we did 350,000 years ago. We just gathered around the fire and we talked. And that was community.

Gillian 1:02:10

Yeah.

Steve 1:02:11

And that's all we're trying to do is gather around the fire and talk.

Gillian 1:02:16

That's what we're all craving.

Steve 1:02:18

Yeah.

Gillian 1:02:19

And and we're trying to access that through our devices, and it's not working. It's not working.

Steve 1:02:32

Aaron Powell We've been programmed to believe it's something we have to buy.

Gillian 1:02:36

Yes. Yeah. And strive for and pursue.

Steve 1:02:40

But there's a program that you have to do these 12 steps of, you know, healing. It's not.

Gillian 1:02:48

Yeah, I agree with you. Well, I do have a 12-pillar course, Steve. Let me tell you all about it. No, but really what it does is it starts with helping people understand their values. And then we're going to go through these pillars of life and we're going to look at it and look at how complicated it's become. And we're going to peel back the layers of complexity and align you with what matters most, with what you value. Because we've been told we have to pile all of this stuff onto all of these areas of our life and we are crumbling underneath the weight of it all.

Speaker 2 1:03:23

Yeah.

Gillian 1:03:23

It's not our fault. We've been told this is how it's supposed to look. But what we're all feeling here is that it's not working. Yeah. And what the the reason I love what you do and I resonate so much with what you do is start with stillness, start with the breath and let it guide you forward. Tune into your body and how you feel when you do that. It might be completely disorienting at first because you haven't experienced it for so long. You've been numb. And when you start to come alive, it's a little bit scary. But lean into that fear. Le like drop in and see where it leads you. And I think that's what you experience in Australia.

Steve 1:04:08

Yes, it is. In fact, there's uh there's an East African proverb that says, run towards the roar.

Gillian 1:04:14

Ooh, I like that.

Steve 1:04:15

Yeah, and what that means is as lions age, as they grow older, the the male lions with their roar, their roar gets louder and louder and louder. But they're turning into old lions. They're just big old pussy cats. They can't hunt anymore. They can't run, they can't do it. They got this massive roar. So when the pride hunts, these old male lions walk to the other side of the antelope and they roar as loud as they can, and it scares the prey. The prey turns and runs into the open mouths of the hunters.

Gillian 1:04:48

Awesome.

Steve 1:04:49

So the proverb is run towards the roar, that thing that seems so scary.

Gillian 1:04:53

Yeah. That's where the breakthrough happens.

Steve 1:04:55

That's where the breakthrough happens.

Gillian 1:04:57

Awesome. Mic drop, boom. There you go, Steve. Wonderful. I I think it's time to this has been the longest conversation yet. So hopefully people stuck with us to the end because that's where I think a lot of the gems were hidden in this conversation. But um, such a such an awesome conversation. I would love, I feel like I could talk to you for hours about this and help people understand what's actually going on because so many of us blame ourselves for how we're feeling. We feel guilty, we feel embarrassed, we feel ashamed. But all the time. But when you choose awareness, when you choose to come back to that place where you see things as they are, that's where the magic happens.

Steve 1:05:47

Yeah. And it's actually um self-fixing as well. Once you have that awareness, you just heal. It's just awareness. Because no one would, unless you're a psychopath, no one would choose to do the mean thing. Everybody wants to be a good person.

Gillian 1:06:06

Yeah.

Steve 1:06:06

So when you are aware of yourself, you're gonna treat yourself in a nicer way. You're not gonna go to the fast food restaurant because you're aware of yourself, and you gain that awareness by taking that deep slow breath and coming back to center, coming back to stillness.

Gillian 1:06:24

Right. Beautiful. So I'm gonna conclude with one last question here, Steve. What's one truth about breath and stillness you wish you had known before your own health collapse?

Steve 1:06:37

That might be another 45 minutes. Um and I'm safe.

Gillian 1:06:44

I think that's perfect.

Steve 1:06:45

Yeah, my breath brought me back to safety. That's something that I never had.

Gillian 1:06:51

And it was there the whole time. You just had to find And now your life's work is helping people return to that space of safety and acknowledge that they have access to it as well.

Speaker 2 1:07:03

Yeah.

Gillian 1:07:04

Which is awesome. Thank you so much, Steve, for the work that you do and trusting this journey that you're on and serving the world around you in this very unique way, a very necessary way, I think more than ever. And uh I appreciate that. Thank you for coming on today and and sharing your story. I would love for people to be able to connect with you. Is there anything you'd like to share about where people can connect with you? A little more about what you do and um yeah.

Steve 1:07:33

Um so you can find me at breathinginature.com and breathing in nature on all the socials. I have a uh free breath, it's free. It's community and breathing is free. So I have a free breath class that you can access three times a week, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Sunday. Uh we do public meetups at the beach here in Toronto if you happen to be near nearby. Uh my wife Nikki does a free uh yoga class in the park during the warmer months, so not right now.

Gillian 1:08:02

Just bring your snow shoes if it was really winter.

Steve 1:08:03

Spring or snowshoes, yeah. I've I've tried to encourage her to do a winter yoga, but she doesn't want to. Um and then we do we do the healing work. We guide people on their path of healing. Um it it is unique. There is no thing you have to do to heal other than gain that awareness of self. So we work in that realm of healing, we work with plant medicines, we do individual work and group work, and we do a lot of wilderness trips where we take people out into the woods and heal in the woods with a medicine of nature. But at the base of it all is your breath. Whether you're doing deep breath work practices to really get into the spirituality of it, or if you're just doing that moment of here's my breath, sitting on the side of your bed in the morning, taking that deep breath and finding stillness inside of you. It all comes back to your breath. And there's no such thing as a Steve method. It's the Jillian method.

Gillian 1:09:03

Yeah. Just breathe. Awesome. I love it, Steve. I love what you're doing. And um, I hope people take advantage of this um this conversation and reach out to you and follow you at least and understand how this can positively impact their life. The free the free breathwork classes, are those virtual or in person?

Steve 1:09:26

Uh they're virtual. Yeah, so we have people from all over the world log in.

Gillian 1:09:31

Awesome. I think I'm gonna be logging in.

Steve 1:09:33

There you go. It's tonight, Tuesday.

Gillian 1:09:36

Cool. All right, Steve. Thank you so much for being here. And uh I feel like we could have you on multiple times. I I would love for you to share one of your um breath work exercises with with the audience, but I feel like we need to come back to that and maybe you can walk us through one of the processes.

Steve 1:09:55

Yeah. Yeah, we could come back and do another one and talk about breath a little bit more and some of the actual physical exercises.

Gillian 1:10:00

Awesome. Sounds cool.

Steve 1:10:01

We'll do that when I can actually take a breath again.

Gillian 1:10:03

Yes, no kidding. I'm glad you're healing, and uh we look forward to seeing you again, Steve. Thank you so much.

Steve 1:10:09

All right, thank you, Jillian.

Gillian 1:10:12

If you stayed with us until the end of the conversation, thank you so much. These conversations aren't meant to be consumed quickly, they're meant to be listened to slowly so that we can understand how to integrate this information into our daily life. What Steve reminds us of so clearly is this: you don't feel off because you're broken. You feel off because your body has been living without enough stillness, safety, and breath in a very chaotic world. Stillness isn't something you earn after everything is done. It's the ground from which clarity, healing, and resilience grow. It really is the most important thing. If something in this conversation resonated, I invite you to take one small thing with you today. One breath, one pause, one moment of awareness, and let that be enough. Let that be what grounds you. Let that be the foundation from what you grow from. You can revisit this episode anytime you want to remind you of how important these practices are. Share it with someone who needs it, or simply sit quietly for a few moments before moving on with your day. Thank you so much, Steve, for the way you hold this work. It's so important, more important than ever. And thank you for choosing presence in a world that rarely slows down. Until next time, be still and live. Thank you for listening to Be Still and Live. As always, my hope is that this conversation offered you a little more space. Space to breathe, to listen, and to come home to what matters most. If this episode resonated with you, I invite you to subscribe to the show and consider sharing it with someone who could use a little more space for clarity right now. That simple act helps the sport reach the people who need it most. If you're ready for a gentle next step, you can begin with Falcons Freedom in the show notes or at Soleilcoaching.com. Until next time, be still and live.

Speaker 1:12:24

This podcast is produced, mixed, and edited by Cardinal Studio. For more information about how to start your own podcast, please visit www.cardinalstudio.co or email Mike at mike at cardinalstudio.co. You can also find the details in the show notes.