EPISODE #9
In episode 9 of The Intuitive Health Podcast, Dr Anthony talks to Breathwork Teacher, Trauma Release Facilitator and Author, Pat Divilly. Pat talks about his journey with breathwork and how it can be helpful for mapping the nervous system, releasing tension and quieting the inner critic. They also discuss what true self-care looks like and how to release shame around not meeting expectations, either self-imposed or imposed on you by other people. Feel free to visit Pat's website to learn about his upcoming Conscious Connected Breathwork Teacher Training, or to join any of his regular workshops.
Full transcript
This is auto-generated so please forgive any typos.
Tony
Today on the intuitive health podcast I'm so beyond excited to be able to talk to Pat Divilly who has joined us this morning to and to explore everything to do with wellness I suppose and I really want to get ah, get kind of pats insights into all the breath work that he's been doing and just a little bit about his journey. And it's so nice to see you Pat first of all.
00:36.42
Pat D
Yeah, you too. It's I think last time I saw you was was a galway a couple of years couple of years now yeah
00:40.28
Tony
Um, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it was so I see you regularly obviously on Zoom doing your online breathwork sessions and um then I had done ah a handful of your in-person breathwork sessions as well and they.
00:49.54
Pat D
Okay.
01:00.18
Tony
Oh they've just been so brilliant and actually I just want to rejoice in your merit for a minute and before we get stuck into the conversation because actually you were the one who introduced me to conscious connected breathwork and actually my breathwork journey really began with you
01:20.13
Tony
And that has been so transformative for me over the years that I've kind of gone deeper and deeper into that with holotropic breathwork and pranyyama breathwork and it's be It's shown me how to access parts of myself that I actually never knew existed and um and that's all thanks to you? Ah so like it's been such a gift I was connected with you many years ago through a friend who had done some of your workshops as well.
01:39.60
Pat D
Um, cool. Nice.
01:53.16
Tony
And um, and obviously you had your podcast and there's just so many facets to what you offer and how you provide healing for people and you know you're one of the main protocols that I go to when my clients come through the door.
02:07.59
Pat D
You can.
02:09.37
Tony
Like you need to get touch pat and do Pat's breathwork to kind of process the emotion that's trapped within the body and even the people who do come through and are already familiar with you. You're bringing people on a journey of transformation that ah like it's just such a special gift what you offer people. And just from my experience and from my heart I want to say thank you and sometimes you know what? Ireland it's so crazy because we never really stopped to appreciate actually where we're where we've cooked from the milestones and and.
02:32.88
Pat D
Now. Thank you I'll take that.
02:47.24
Tony
Ah, sometimes we just don't get to value appreciate the impact that we're having on people's lives and from some of that works with clients every day and from my own journey I Just want to acknowledge the work that you're doing. Ah yeah.
02:58.28
Pat D
A that's a nice way to start at a podcast I appreciate it and finally the man who brought me to breathwork was I should acknowledge him I don't know his name but I was at a festival in Costa Rica years ago and this flamboyant italian man arrived at dinner and he said we're going to the beach to breathe and. We went and did a breathwork session I didn't know what had happened but it blew me wide open and that was the start of my journey. So. It's interesting how it how it happens so shout out to the italian man with the exactly. Yeah.
03:20.29
Tony
Um, yeah, yeah, with the amazing shirt. Ah, it's so interesting because I think and I had actually it was only through some of your. Your online sessions that I did that I became familiar with other breathwork practices that set me off on my journey and and you've done a lot of kind of varying different breathwork and training and you offer different practices and. And you in your workshops. You do a lot and of trauma release stuff as well and I'd love to just hear and kind of what your journey of evolution with that has been and how you feel breathwork helps to release trauma within the body.
04:10.90
Pat D
Yeah, um, this was never supposed to be what I was doing I don't think I was a fitness guy growing up that was the first thing that gave me confidence was fitness and martial arts I'd been bullied a lot when I was young and so fitness was the first thing that I did where um I suppose fitness fitness is something where. You're responsible for your results and so when you see results you can kind of take confidence in that or at least that was my experience that it wasn't a team sport. It wasn't something that I could buy it was something I had to work for and and so that led me on a path of professionally pursuing fitness. And I failed pretty miserably with my first business and fell into a depression and a lot of shame because I was driven by insecurity and the the kind of belief that if I achieve something in business. It'll make me enough and so when I failed it. It almost did the opposite but started again. It kind of took off for me the second time round right time right? place right? person right? Social media platform and I came in on Facebook back in 2011 probably when it wasn't being done and I think it was the first irish guy doing ah online fitness at scale so went from 5 clients to 20000 clients in 4 years so my whole life changed. Um and I suppose between working with clients working with that many clients and I was naive at 21 22 thinking fitness is about training and nutrition and push up some broccoli but then you work with 20000 people from varying backgrounds and you come to see sleep and stress and.
05:37.97
Pat D
More than n and I think self-talk affects. You know the results that we see so then I kind of steered away from fitness started to looking at cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis and Logotherapy and Jungian work and all this you know the mind basically and that was useful up to a certain point I would set goals I was. Challenge my limiting beliefs I would do all the cognitive work and it was great up to a certain point but I found my late twenty s I had kind of ticked all the boxes that cognitively made sense. It's kind of a cliche story but I had bought the house and met a great partner and um built this business I'd always dreamed of. And I was still riddled with anxiety and stress and and imposture syndrome and the more I achieved the more of a magnifying glass I actually felt on my insecurities I thought the insecurities would go away but it almost made them more because it was kind of like when you're depressed or anxious and you can point to things that are wrong. Kind of makes sense on some level but when everything's quote unquote right? and you still feel miserable about yourself. It. It can be for me at least it was jarring and I came to the breathwork like I mentioned with this this flamboyant italian man and. He just disappeared from the beach at the time I couldn't quieten my mind I I tried to meditate because everyone said you should meditate. But my mind would get really busy and it was a challenge for me and so when he led us through a breathwork on the beach I assumed when I opened my eyes that everyone else will be still deep in meditation but I went so deep that when I opened my eyes everyone had pretty much left the beach.
07:01.91
Pat D
I said wow like this was something different for me but it took me a year to figure out what had happened and then I met Wim Hof and I went and spent a week with wim and and yeah I started exploring breathwork and and started noticing that it was having an impact and bringing up emotion for me that was locked in the body if you will and. Strangely I was in a float tank like a flotation tank and probably a couple of years ago now and I had done this couple of times before but once in the float tank. My body started just tremoring and normally I would have stopped the tremoring and because it was strange or I would have gotten out of the tank or whatever but I had actually read a book about.
07:38.39
Pat D
Shamanic practice where and in Native American cultures Sometimes when the soldiers would come back from War The whole village would come out and make a circle and the soldiers would sit in the middle of the circle or lie down and they'd cry and they'd tremor and they'd release all this emotion from the trauma that they'd been throughout War. And there was a witnessing by the tribe and they compared the difference between the ptsd rates of these soldiers that came back into these natural healing modalities versus the soldiers that went back to normal life if you will and the soldiers in the Native American Backgrounds were not getting ptsd the same way that the and they thought Wow this is. Must be something in their culture but then they took non Nativeative American like the the general population and put them into the same healing modalities and the ptsd was again, not happening so they recognized the sweat lodge and all these traditional means of healing and being witnessed in your healing made such a difference. Then I came across trauma release exercises. And yeah, it's just been an evolution of leaning into the next thing and the next thing but ultimately what we're looking at is when we experience trauma which is anything that's too much or too quick or too soon or not enough of is another experience of trauma so like and complex trauma would be.
08:35.76
Tony
In.
08:50.79
Pat D
Not having our needs met for an extended period of time this is traumatic for a child of course and there's 2 things for me that that I see happening so when I was bullied as a kid. The first thing that happens is there's fear and so the body responds by clenching and armoring armoring around the emotion. We tend to stop breathing when we're fearful. Gasp and we lose our voice so those 3 things get lost my voice my movement my breath and so it's trapped in the body trapped in the nervous system and so my nervous system freezes in that response and I go back out into the world and the world could be safe but my body is perceiving that the world is dangerous and so I'm not able to access perspective I just see threats and fears. Like a soldier coming back from war and being afraid of their kids because they've just been in this hyper aroused state for months looking for threats and the other things that happens alongside the body response is we develop subpersonalities to keep ourselves safe going forward so when I was bullied my my system froze I became fearful of people.
09:49.10
Pat D
And my psyche created characters to keep me safe so I became an overachiever I became a people pleaser I became many different things and that became my strategies. So I think the journey of healing is those 2 things. It's letting go of what's being held in the body and it's recognized in who I became to stay safe and how that might be impacting me now like the the.
10:07.86
Pat D
A lot of men as as a kind of generalisation. We're told boys don't cry and so they armored around physically armoured around the emotion of sadness and so they'll hold that tension in the body particularly down the front of the body and then they'll have become probably stoic overachieving hardworking and tough guys or stoic you know, whatever it might be so.
10:25.78
Tony
Um, oh my God I'm literally just like fascinated by this like I feel like you're speaking to my soul personally so I feel like everybody listening.
10:27.30
Pat D
That's a long-winded way of talking about the journey.
10:42.10
Tony
Ah, hope it resonates as deeply with them because everything that you're talking about with regard to shame and the different characters that you have to live and ah, it's just it just speaks to me so deeply and I'm so grateful for your vulnerability with chair and that. And you know I think it's a journey in itself to actually get to the place where you feel. Actually you can lean into that vulnerability to talk about even being bullied as a child. Um and even to allow yourself to be vulnerable in the space of actually these are all the characters that I created in my life. These are all the hats. That I wore on my journey back to authenticity and I actually we released a podcast episode just today and where we kind of were talking about boundaries and last week we were talking a good bit about shame because it's actually wild.
11:36.13
Tony
I thought as a journey as a gay man through this world I didn't realize what shame was up until only a couple of years ago and when I went deep into that I ah like it. It profoundly was impacting me and my life and how I identified with the world and. My relationships. How I made friends with people and it it was so debilitating but it was something that was so blind to me you know and through the sessions that I do with you actually? ah I love setting an intention before I I go into the.
12:14.47
Tony
Session and I Love how you walk people through that and the power of intention has been so powerful because actually you know I do a lot of energetic work and I love that you talk about the shamans. Um, because I generally set the intention to go into my root chakra. Or they cut kind of that base where I hold a lot of fear and shame and I'm like let's clear this out. Ah and oftentimes when I set a deep intention like that I'm scared going into the session because I know it's going to be insane. Ah the shaking that happens during those sessions are are.
12:49.61
Tony
It's just wild what we actually hold in the body you know and is this like when you you obviously still do a lot of breathwork yourself. Do you.
12:53.84
Pat D
Um, yeah.
13:00.28
Pat D
Yeah I go through different practices but I've leaned back more into the breathwork again. But sometimes I've been trying to get more into dance and more into bioenergetics. Um, Dance is an interesting one for me and that like I say there's that overachiever part of me that's always kind of.
13:05.68
Tony
Yeah.
13:14.82
Pat D
Living in the future and trying to do more and learn more and experience more and it's a very linear way of living which can be um, quite and limiting limiting and and so dance and things like that I think get you out of your your kind of patterns because you're not planning what's going to happen next year I went to an ecstatic dance with Aubrey Marcus years ago who's and.
13:34.56
Pat D
A podcaster out in the states and I remember him saying I made a lot of sense to me at the time he was saying between hearing the music and moving your body.. There's a space and you're trying to get rid of that space. Because the space sort of represents fear. It's like I hear the music and all this shame and self-doubt and inner critic is saying oh I don't know maybe don't move your arm that Oh How how do normal people dance what am and he's like if you can get all that noise out of the way and just connect with the music which sounds a bit woowoo and that's the work and I guess that's that's that's how we've. Connect to intuition I think and everything else, but you know you mentioned shame and and and and not being aware that there's shame there and I think that was true for me as well and I think is true for a lot of people and something I've become aware of is is the inner Critic. The voice of the inner critic is the voice of shame. So If you've got an inner Critic. You've probably got some shame which is.
14:23.23
Pat D
Belief that I'm unlovable I'm not enough. There's something wrong with me I'm inherently flawed and you know as you know this this toxic and this healthy shame healthy shame as I did something wrong and I need to kind of adjust my moral compass maybe or be in integrity and healthy shame as I did something wrong. So I'm a bad person and a lot of that's down to how we were parented and.
14:42.92
Pat D
How our parents maybe supported us or challenged us when we made mistakes and did I take on the belief that I'm unlovable because I broke the cup in the kitchen or did I say oh I made a mistake and I need to be a bit more careful or whatever it might be so do a lot of work now and working with the inner critic and.
15:01.76
Pat D
It's a bit random but it was funny I was watching a video about shame the other day and the lady was talking about how it's a Mammalian thing that if you look at a dog that knows that they've made a mistake. The dog will kind of cower away. You can see in their physiology that they're embarrassed or they're ashamed and it's the same for us. There's that physical sense of collapse and um, losing.
15:18.55
Pat D
I Almost think of it as um, there's the healthy adult part of us that can be grounded and have perspective and make great decisions and be compassionate and curious and all these things there's the wounded child who's fearful and scared of the world which is kind of the voice of shame or the the energy of shame. So I collapse from the world and then there's the teenager. Defensive teenager who tries to protect the inner child. So when we experience shame a lot of us. The reason we we don't maybe connect with the shame is because we've come up with really good strategies for getting away from the shame as quick as Possible. So a common one is when men feel shame or embarrassed they go to Aggression. So That's their default setting. So Someone teases me I feel that collapse and that shame and very quickly I shift into and I go for the other person so could be you know I I numb myself when I feel shame I just track myself when ashamed feel shame I go to addiction when I feel shame I move to guilt when I feel shame I move to a so that can be an interesting. Um. Piece to explore and again coming back to the breath work I think the value of the breath work is you just breathe into that space without having to change it and then you can kind of learn from it. Okay, the shame is this the belief is this this is where the belief came From.. It's not True. So yeah.
16:19.85
Tony
Here. Yeah that's amazing like I love that your top bit kind of dogs because you can always tell now I I have a cat and he does not give 2 craps about nothing but the dogs always you could tell. But. I find it fascinating even just watching them because you know if they experience a bit of a trauma they shake they get up and they shake it off and they they can just get on about their day and whereas I think with humans when we feel it I know.
16:59.60
Tony
In my body when I go into that space of nervous system overwhelm or a wound is triggered within me that I've carried from my own childhood I go into complete hyperarousal like that's my default place to go to So it's interesting because now that I'm aware of that through.
17:18.87
Tony
Obviously the work that's been done to get to this point when I start to go into that space where my body I'm starting to tune out a little bit I'm like oh actually hang on what is going on here. That's that's that's been triggered within me here. You know.
17:33.38
Pat D
Yeah, yeah, and it's of amazing to Um, yeah, that there's an interesting There's interest and work. You can do around kind of mapping your nervous system and mapping the the signs and one of the things that I came to learn was that your your whole physiology changes I mean. When you go into that fight or flight response you experience tunnel vision which makes sense they get you tunnel in on what the challenge is and you lose perspective. So you only see the worst case scenarios that's the Tunnel vision aspect but something else that your hearing changes your taste changes your smell changes you notice what you're hearing that.
18:08.40
Pat D
I've noticed myself that when I experience anxiety I struggle to connect or hear the person who's two feet away from me but I can pick up on all the sounds in the background. So I'm in the coffee shop and I'm struggling to focus on the person I'm with but I can hear all this noise in the background and that's a survival response. So and I see I see learning how as you say. Your response is x and my response is y and coming back to the dogs if we're in a room and a dog comes into the room if someone's scared to dogs. They're going to have a very different response to the person who loves dogs and so everyone's system is different which is why I think it's important that people come to understand their system. What are the signs that I've left my zone of regulation and what are my practices for getting back because again the practices will be different but I think it's a skill. That's really useful to develop because sometimes we think about self-care as being the list of things to do like I'm going to go to my yoga class and I'm going to meditate and I'm going to drink water and these are all good practices.
19:02.54
Pat D
But I think the ultimate act of self-care is to be able to check in regularly as to how I am and what I need because I could wake up this morning with the best plan in the world. But if I'm exhausted probably what I need is rest and so true self-care will be to check in unass suit myself. How do I feel I feel exhausted. What do I need I need deep rest. What's my plan Yoga nidra.
19:20.76
Pat D
Today for example, um, but sometimes in our head we're like okay well my list was to go and lift weights for an hour. So I'm going to shame myself if I don't meet this perfect list. You know? So yeah.
19:32.87
Tony
Oh absolutely like oh god that resonates with me. It's so funny I think when you grow up as ah, the eternal people pleaser and the helper and you facilitate everybody else's needs and wants and emotions you know. You can definitely get into that space where you just blindly go and fulfil all of these requirements that are set of you and especially I'm a capricorn and so I'm a devil for doing lots of work like working myself into the ground and over many years it actually was identifying. First of all what my pillars of kind of self-care were and it was gas because actually many many years ago. Ah like in lifestyle medicine there's 6 pillars that we often use to our lifestyle medicine train and.
20:23.38
Tony
And you know I think to myself. It's all well and good. They're all great things to to live by and they totally make sense. It's very like it's common sense that if you eat well and you get a bit of sleep that it works you know, but the reality of it is like it did work for a time. For me because actually it was quite new for me to lean into a better sleep schedule and to be going to the gym regularly and like things that actually weren't common sense to me maybe during my teens you know, but it's interesting because then the further into the journey you get and then you actually start to actually check into the body.
21:00.82
Tony
And like the body keeps the score Essentially it it. It has all of the information that we need to go on our journey of healing and all of a sudden these little bits and pieces that I used as part of my selfcare routine I was like this isn't cutting it anymore actually like my anxiety is coming back.
21:20.69
Tony
Like what? Ah what's going on I need to go obviously deeper into this and it's so interesting that you talk about kind of finding what works best for you because back at that stage I would have said to everybody. Well the three things that mean the most to me are. Healthy eating I Love having healthy food in the fridge that gives me peace of mind and my exercise of my daily meditation I was like you should do that that will work for you too. Those 3 things work for me that will work. Ah.
21:50.54
Tony
But it actually it wasn't work for everybody because everybody's journey so different with this. You know.
21:55.84
Pat D
Yeah, um, you mentioned earlier about the dogs shaking and and letting go of the stress and it's interesting. We at animals What will happen is and before the dog has the shake. Maybe maybe taking a different animal As an example, if if we're in the wild and there's a Zebra that's about to be attacked by ah a predator.
22:14.16
Pat D
Zebra will first response will be I'm going to fight the threat if they feel they can beat the th threatsh so that's the first kind of primal response. The second isn't going to run away so I'm going to flight so fight flight and the third response is are going to fall over and play dead so freeze and because predators want to chase their food. They don't want to just gnaw on ah and ah and some the plane dead.
22:33.69
Pat D
But what happens is once they come out of the freeze response The first thing they'll do is they'll orientate so they'll look around their environment to see if they're safe and only then do they shake and what I kind of take from that is that when we're really busy when we're really stressed when there's lots going on. It's almost like kind of high performance at our high high functioning anxiety I guess in a way that I can keep going and keep going and keep going sometimes then Christmas comes or a holiday comes and suddenly suddenly we get sick or suddenly our stuff comes up and and so.
23:03.67
Pat D
As you say different tools for different times and sometimes when you're really looking after yourself and you come to a really good place sometimes stuff comes up then because maybe on some level your body and your psyche has a sense of okay, you can handle this now. He can deal with this now whereas when you're stressed and you've got a lot going on I mean one of the key tenants of stress is that you're going to address.
23:23.37
Pat D
Thing That's right in front of you. You're not going to look at the bigger picture and so what that looks like in communication is you're going to fight to defend yourself if there's an argument. You're not going to think of the bigger picture in work. You're going to do the thing that gives immediate reward or puts out an immediate fire. But you're not going to look at the bigger picture. So maybe when we.
23:42.30
Pat D
Calm ourselves and ground ourselves and get to a better place. That's why it is nonlinear is because then we maybe need to deal with a bit of a backlog that's not being addressed when we've been in in fight or flight states.
23:52.39
Tony
It's so interesting. Yeah that's so interesting because I think it's so ah, what you were saying about when you get to Christmas and you go down like a ton of bricks. This is something that I see very very regularly actually and I'm seeing more and more clients coming through that are on breaks from work because they've actually reached complete burning and then as soon as they stop their whole body goes into a complete meltdown state and they've they've reached breaking point and that's what has brought them through my door.
24:25.81
Tony
Because they've seen the gp. They've had their bloodstone. Everything's fine and when they come through to me their gush is completely destroyed. They're in a complete state of anxiety and they're in a fight or flight state or in a complete like so state of hyperarousal themselves and it's interesting because. You know they've held the energy of stress of all the trauma of everything that's been happening for me. They've held it or for them below the surface and it's almost like it's it's bubbling away. It's bubbling away. It's bubbling away and then when they reach the breaking point they give their body a chance a bit of safety to actually. Ah, to to just stop operating at that level then the body goes into a complete state of of meltdown and you know I started this journey fully enough and I originally set up my Instagram as and ah to talk about good health because I had a lot of you.
25:22.15
Tony
Good health issues myself on my journey with anxiety and um, you know I just wanted to give people the tools through my medical training and everything to eat well for their gut and for their body but the further I got into this and then obviously I started training in energetic practices I was like oh my God actually. A lot of what we're holding in the body that's affecting The gut is is Energetic. It's the energy of shame. It's the energy of fear. It's the energy of guilt and you know through the shakra-based system. All of those emotions and those deep heavy energies. They're all held. In the energy center is linked to the solar plexus in the in the gut or the stomach or the lower energy center is in in the body and that are kind of predisposing people to constipation or loose bells and.
26:15.89
Tony
I Love that you when we were talking and there a minute ago you were talking into the energy of what was being held in the body and you say that you're kind of on a journey now with kind of Lina more into that aspect of your practice as well. Are you.
26:28.26
Pat D
Yeah, and yeah I guess the the way I see it all is that we're all in a box that we've created or has been created for us. So what did they say that first our world shapes us and then our first first our world shapes our beliefs and then our beliefs shape our world. So those early messages.
26:46.86
Pat D
Gave us beliefs and then there are those beliefs we carry kind of show us the world that we we live in and so and my question is always around like what's beyond how I've seen myself up to this point. So I was an Irish man who can't dance and Didh-h-h-dada and I was like let's challenge the different assumptions and let's like.
27:05.80
Pat D
Sometimes think about it like if all of your beliefs have put you in a box. The box is probably tiny compared to what's outside of the box and life and adventure and enjoyment and fulfilment I think is often outside of that. So yeah I'm just constantly leaning into that. Um and always gone deeper like it's amazing. How.
27:24.36
Pat D
You can do this work for years and then you can come to a conclusion or come to ah see a belief that you hadn't seen before and you like Jesus and they didn't realize that was there. Um, so yeah, yeah, that's where I'm at.
27:33.89
Tony
Yeah, it's fascinating. It's just such a fascinating work and so the one of the most profound kind of breathwork experiences I had was with a holotropic breathwork and that was like god we went deep into that for about 3 hours like
27:53.43
Tony
And it was ah absolutely fascinating, but during that journey for me, it was through shuma some my shamanic training we did it as part of 1 of our our weekend practitioner training and trainings and.
28:10.19
Tony
Actually it's interesting because we did a lot of ecstatic dance that weekend and of course there was that kind of uncomfortable part of myself as like people are going to see me doing this oh my god but it's funny because I I love doing the breathwork sessions at home alone by myself. <unk> enough as we talk about shame and what people will think of us because I tend to shake an off a lot during my my session. So I love doing your sunday sessions because I can shake and shout and scream and do whatever I need to do but I'm not disturbing other people in the process you know and.
28:47.96
Tony
Ah, life that is totally that's by fear of of ah being a burden to other people around me obviously but it's interesting because during the holotropic breathwork session that I did where we went deep into that I actually lost all sense of what was happening around me and. Just the visualisations that were coming. It was actually like funny enough I haven't told anybody outside of the the weekend but ah during that I went through the process of actually Birthing. It was obviously Birthing. Ah and ah. I was birthing a sense of deep shame at the time because I was working very deeply with shame but also it was like birthing a light baby essentially and I think by working through the shame I was bringing that kind of light into the world and. And because I think a lot of the time the shame that I was holding even coming on this journey to to get to here even with the podcast and everything like that was you have to work through so much fear surrounding what? what's going to be perceived of you. What if you say the wrong thing What if someone picks that up wrong like And. Ah, did you find that when you were on journey with your podcast that you were breaking through all of these fears and barriers yourself.
30:10.43
Pat D
Um, um, certain things I do I Just do it because I want to do it and and I don't really care. Ah.
30:20.69
Pat D
And I think the podcast was one of those things I never had any expectation with the podcast. The podcast did over two point five million downloads or something which was never again, never the plan and I think it did 250 episodes over 5 years and I would just chat and talk the reason I stopped toward the end was because I was starting to think what 2 people want rather than what we want to talk about that's why I stopped and they don't really want to do things from that place.
30:27.16
Tony
Um, amazing here.
30:40.29
Pat D
Um, I yeah massively insecure when I started out when I look back up but I was putting out when I was in the fitness days I cringe and I realized how much I was looking for attention and all that kind of stuff but I guess I've worked through. Yeah um I definitely worry.
30:58.49
Pat D
Professionally I don't worry about people think of me but maybe outside of that and in some ways I do in relationship I do sometimes in in different areas I do and and ah so definitely yeah I was peeling through layers and everything else. It's funny. You mentioned the rebirthing idea I trained in rebirthing breathwork Also which is.
31:16.14
Pat D
You know holding someone in a hot tub for an hour as they do a breathwork session to recreate the womb. It's pretty out there and pretty wild. But ah we had some kind of incredible sessions with that I remember doing a session and I was being held in the water face down with a snorkel breathing for an hour and I could just hear like there was.
31:33.27
Pat D
8 people maybe 8 people in the pool or in the hot tubs around the place and it was bizarre I could hear like the the tears from an incubator ward and and relive those implicit memories the you know the memories that are held in the body before we have conscious awareness that was pretty wild but ah yeah, and finally on that training the rebirthing training. We did warm water and cold water rebirthing cold water was just kind of pool temperature. It's supposed to represent the masculine more. So the father wound and then the warm water is the womb. So it's the the mother wound and on the birth traumas they say is our first big trauma because we're in this warmth and we've got all our needs met and then we come out into the world and you take this gas but cold air and it's like where am I everything's ter terrifying on some level but ah, we also did this this piece around I'm trying what it was called. Think it was called the biggest lie or something like that it was to find your biggest limiting belief and generally it comes back to I'm I'm not enough or I'm not lovable. Those are generally the 2 we've a million ways to say now. But those are generally the 2 and I remember we played with you played with the beliefs and my thing was I'm not enough and or I'll never be enough and ah.
32:45.58
Pat D
I I can't remember the context but I got to the point of being able to laugh at that belief and be like like how much easier will life be if I just if I just believe that like just fully owned it rather than fight a murder I'm not enough I'm probably never going to be enough and that's fine. What's the big deal it.
33:01.68
Pat D
It took away all. It's hard to describe but it took away all its all its meaning and all its power. It's just like it's just a thought it doesn't really matter and if it's if I Just let it be true I can just be free. But if I fight with it and I got to get rid of it then it's like resistance and.
33:18.76
Tony
Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing we can really we can create so much conflict for ourself in our thoughts can't we like and like I I love listen to all the kind of thought leaders on a lot of this stuff with regard to.
33:35.86
Tony
Kind of you're not your thoughts just let the move just let the move let the energy move through you let the emotion move through you. You don't have to attach anything onto it and I ah like it's so challenging to to actually do that. Ah, first of all, but. You know when you get reach that breaking point like what you were talking about there were you actually you lean into actually saying to yourself to know what? Okay fine. You know I'm I'm going to start fighting against this and the whole body just can just actually soften around it. And it just changes our complete ah view on the whole situation kind of the journey that we're on with the turmoil we're creating for ourselves. You know? ah.
34:17.99
Pat D
Yeah, yeah I think another another kind of supportive piece for me is just the parrots work idea that were many different parts So I have an inner child of a wounded teenager I have a perfectionist I've an overachiever I've a confident guy of all these different parts of me and so they sometimes just question like who's who's having this thought.
34:37.76
Pat D
And the thought of I'm not enough is not the 36 year old man that's here it's the 8 year -old boy that didn't feel like he was enough so tune it into that. Ah, the part of me that judges other people in the wellness industry. They don't know what they're doing. It's like okay that's also not the 36 year old man that's.
34:52.60
Pat D
A younger version of me who feels insecure and needs to project outward his insecurity by pulling other people down so it's it's interesting to just check in with yourself and not again, get rid of the thought people like what part of me is having this thought oh part of me holds this belief because it's probably not the adult you it the adult you is fine. It's a part of you that got frozen in time because they didn’t think they were enough.
35:06.98
Tony
Um, yeah, it's fascinating. A couple of years ago when I left the HSE and I was like there has to be more to health. There has to be more to what we can offer people on this journey with their health and because was a sick care system rather than a health care system in my in my eyes you know and I. Decided to go away on an adventure to kind of come back to myself after kind of many many years and exams and all of these things that kind of pulled me away from myself in a lot of ways and a friend gave me your book. Ah for the beginning of my journey. The fit mind book.
35:52.22
Tony
And I remember sitting onto the plane I flew over to the states I went to Sedona and I went to all these magical spiritual locations where I could kind of like tap into my body and hire guidance and your book was a pivotal part of that journey actually because.
36:09.61
Tony
It It spoke into those ah different archetypes. But it also gave some amazing journaling prompts and to kind of really challenge your thinking around ah kind of. Narrative I suppose that we create within each of those archetypes and I sat and I read I didn't stop reading I read for most of the flight over to the states because I was like this is fascinating actually. And then when I got over there I went through each of them and did all my journaling points and I learned so much about myself on that journey because you know sometimes we don't realize it's the hats thing we're wearing all these different hats and. Like the book was just so Brilliant. So Obviously if people are listening to this and they haven't read it I'd highly recommend that you get your hands on it and lean into the journaling aspect of it to really challenge yourself to go deep into that because I didn't really journal much before that and that was ah, an amazing tool.
37:02.26
Pat D
Um, thank you. Thank you.
37:18.20
Tony
The self-care 2 box that we were talking about and I don't do it every day but I do lean into it when I want to kind of explore deeper aspects of what's happening for me and and is that something that you have done on your journey or.
37:34.17
Tony
That you do is it something that you recommend when you're working with people.
37:35.80
Pat D
Yeah, journalists changed changed everything for me over the years and I think you know people talk about addictions and like addiction to alcohol or to gambling or to porn or whatever it might be I think ultimately the biggest addiction is our addiction to our identity like our addiction to our our beliefs because the beliefs have kept us safe like the purpose of the ego is to keep us safe in the world. Learned a way of being that ensured that we'd live another day so being a people pleaser being a nice guy being an overachiever being hardworking all of those things have served people up to a certain point. Ah, and so it makes sense that I would be addicted to those parts of myself and what journaling has allowed me to do over the years is just to go beyond that and.
38:14.72
Pat D
Yeah, so lots of different practices morning pages I love which is Julia Cameron's work which is just stream of consciousness just 3 foolscap pages write whatever comes to you and just brain dump and and get some of that noise on paper I find that quite clearing.
38:28.16
Pat D
Ah, byring haditi's work I spent a year doing byron Katie's work ten years ago as she's the work dot com. She's got a bunch of free resources and Byron Katie's work is around challenging your beliefs and um, it's a meditation of sorts. It's like okay, well most of us blindly believe everything that we think and.
38:46.13
Pat D
And so how would it be to challenge a thought so to sit with paper and to go through it and there's basically 4 questions she asked. So she's amazing I must I must get back into Byron Katie's work amazing lady. Um, she'll ask you to identify a belief that you're holding so my my.
39:05.98
Pat D
My friend doesn't care about me something happens that leads you to believe your friend doesn't care about you and then she'll ask is the belief. True. Yes, or no, you might say yeah, it's true if you're very attached to it. You'll say that's true and then her second question is can you absolutely know that it's true and that's like it's like a meditation it creates a bit of space where maybe you challenge you but I can't absolutely know because I'm not in their head. But I think that my friend and then the third question is how do you react? or how do you respond or what happens for you when you believe that thought let's say there's lots of resistance in me this is stress I feel like other people don't like me I'm judgmental toward my friend and then her fourth question is who would you be without that thought and ultimately it comes down to I'd be free I'd be.
39:45.25
Pat D
I'd be loose I'd be ah happy I'd be content and her process is challenging the ego because of course you want to believe the thing. No, it's my friend's fault. It's not my fault but she kind of says I think we're like a projector screen. And if there's dust on the projector then everything you project is going to show dust on it and it's not because of what's out there. It's but because of our unclean filters. So would recommend Byron Katie but generally, it's definitely a practice that that is supportive.
40:10.75
Tony
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing and I love I Love that and reference to the projector and the dirt and it's so funny because I think we all live so much of our lives are iIn a space where we don't realize we're actually projecting so much stuff like and I know in my own previous relationships and all of these things it was.. It's so easy to do that. Ah from a very subconscious space and and it's lovely.. Thank you so much for providing. Some tools there to actually be able to but to work and lean into into that and funnily enough and the the morning pages are is something that I recommend for a lot of my clients coming through to actually just. Like sit down start talking about the yoghurt that you just had the oats and as like I'd just allow it to flow out of the body. But.
41:08.73
Pat D
Yeah, I'm actually I'm actually writing another book at the moment which is obviously a slightly different process to ah to the the freewriting. But 1 thing I learned from writing is that um, there's an editor. And there's a writer and I think Julia Cameron talks about this and the purpose the purpose of the morning pages is to get the editor out of the room and just to dump brain dump. So you've got that perfectionist character. Just let them be somewhere else so that you can actually create and I find the same what writing a book is the first couple of books I tried to write it'd be like judging every line and does this make sense. Okay am I going to get judged by a psychologist because I got the lingo wrong and I just be questioned and be really slow process and now the new process is just half an hour timer boom just brain dump. Okay, another half an hour timer brain dump do that 4 times then go back and rewrite it 6 or 7 or 8 times and tidy it up. But if you don't.
42:01.30
Pat D
And that's a side note I'm writing a book but you need to Basically there's an editor in your mind who filters everything you actually think and actually want to say and actually want to write and you need to let them sit outside of the room for a while every now and then.
42:11.76
Tony
Um, yeah, yes, yeah yeah, I Love that I Love that and so for people who are just starting out on their journey and do you think that the morning pages is a good place to start to actually begin to tease out. The the thought processes that go that are going on through the body or where would you recommend people starting to actually begin to work with the body or even to get into breath work.
42:38.63
Pat D
Yeah, um, couple of places I think um in terms of breath work. Wim Hof was a really good starting place for me a couple of years ago because it's very tangible. There's an app you can get that's free I think there's videos on Youtube and you just follow along so Wim Hof I found quite useful. 1 of the good things with Wim Hof for people that aren't familiar is you'll take 30 to 40 really deep breaths and then you do a breath hold where you hold your breath for say a minute and then you repeat it a couple of times what I found useful at the time was that I was very made much of thinking I was in my head all the time. And having to focus on counting my breaths and then on having something to focus on in terms of holding the breath. It gave my mind something to anchor onto and so that allowed my mind to quieten versus just trying to sit and meditate which I found difficult at the time so something like Wim Hof can be good coherence breathing is probably the most research breath around. This is a really strong breath for for. Um. It's got numerous health benefits. It's incredibled. So you just breathe in for about 5 seconds out for about 5 seconds you just create this coherence There's a track on Spotify called two bells which is free and it's two bells and so when it dings you breathe in when it downs you breathe out and you just do this and the health benefits are just insane with the coherence breath. That's a nice practice on the breathwork side of things whim is more activating and energizing the coherence breadth is more grounding and and stabilizing and those would be a good place to start and then I think finallyly what came to me when you when you asked the question was which I've never really thought about or said before is.
44:06.44
Pat D
Think there's probably merit in listening to this kind of stuff that we're talking about now so that I've become aware of that I'm repeatedly aware of that. But what we are consuming on a regular basis really does start to impact kind of where our focus is so if you want to be a marketer listen to marketing people if you want to focus on your wellness listen to well and stuff and I think maybe. That could be a nice place for people to start start home for a walk a couple of times a week some of the time go without any audio and just listen to your thoughts other times go with wellness content. There's a million million million places you could start. But I think listening to different stuff can be a good way of picking up ideas like people who pick up ideas from our conversation. Maybe some of it will resonate. Maybe some won't but.
44:45.75
Pat D
The more you listen to you'll find your thing you got to you got to expose yourself to new conversations and new ideas as supposed to find new potential and and inside.
44:53.92
Tony
Yeah, oh I love that I absolutely love that and I do say this to people regularly who are with me obviously because from an energetic perspective. We are consuming energy in the form of. The stuff that we listen to the things that we're watching and it's not just food for energy you know and and I really I love that suggestion of actually just paying attention lit but bit more to actually what what kind of information are you consuming and. And kind of bring you on on a journey you know to to being in a better space and also I just wanted to add in as well. 1 thing that I recommend for some my clients is the awesome breathing app and it's a little circle that kind of goes bigger and smaller and it's it's really lovely because there's some grace.
45:46.18
Tony
There's like box breathing and there's like different structured breathing patterns that you can just follow the circle on the screen and that's free to download onto your phone and if if people are listening and they find that that's that's helpful for them. So just as we're finishing off part I just wanted to touch base with you about this amazing breathwork practitioner or facilitator course that you're you're starting out about and I I Just love to hear a little bit more about it and for for the listeners to be able to kind of to hear what you're you're offering.
46:20.34
Pat D
Thank you It's like most of what I've done over the last ten years it wasn't really planned as such is just kind of unfolding. Um I've been studying breathwork for 8 years with lots of great teachers I've studied as we talked about the trauma release stuff study with Gaba or studied just under amazing teachers for the last eight years and so um I've been leading donation-based classes for 3 years every week and there's just been people repeatedly asking like when are you doing a teacher training and when are you doing a teacher train and I would always send them to different teachers and then I just felt like it was time. Um, so it's a six months training. Um different sort. Different types of breath work but largely the conscious connected breath work and really helping people to learn how to hold these sessions online or in person for groups or for individuals and there's different breathwork trainers and there's like I love the community in the sense that there's other trainers that I would happily recommend like so I'm basically doing calls with people to see if it's a good fit for them and if. Not a good fit I'll send them to my friends that are other teachers that that might suit them better, but my niche I suppose within it all is is I think the processes around the breathwork. So not only are you learning about the breathwork. But you're learning about the shadow and learning about trauma integration learning about emotional regulation all these different skills. And so yeah, it's a sixmonth deep dive. Of course anyone gone through it is going to have a deep personal journey and also come out certified to to teach. So um, it's it's a new initiation for me like everything else that we do when it's new. It brings up fears and and securities and and new things to learn and things you don't expect. But um, I'm excited and It feels like the next natural step.
47:49.74
Tony
That's amazing. That is amazing and it's such like it's such an important offering and and we definitely need more really skilled breathwork teachers out there and to be able to learn from you with that kind of breath. Knowledge and the skill that you bring to each of these sessions and actually just feeling into the energy of what I feel when I'm doing your sessions. It's almost like when I close my eyes and you start to speak I see you like and I see you like a warrior of souls actually like.
48:22.10
Pat D
Um, I'll take that. Thank you.
48:23.60
Tony
Like you're bringing. It's almost like there's a fog with everybody in the room. Everybody's just standing looking for the for the path and you hold the lantern that leads them through the fog. That's how I tend to see the sessions. Ah when I close my eyes I'm quite visual when I when I start these Journeys and and you know.
48:43.33
Tony
I'm very particular about who I work with on an energetic basis just with who's in my energy and what's happening and I think it's so lovely that actually feeling protected and safe and guided by you during the sessions that you offer is so important and I just I urge anybody that's thinking about getting on board to to definitely touch base with you because you provide such a beautiful safe way of exploring these these parts of yourself and and the teachings that you're offering I'm sure will be mind-blowing. So.. Thank you so much for I'm so grateful that you've come on and to chat it's been fascinating I feel like I could talk to you for Hours. You're a fascinating man. Ah, do do do do I Thank you so much for being with us.
49:23.95
Pat D
Well listen. But if I ever feel down I'm going to listen back to your you Lovely words. Thank you.
49:35.17
Tony
And um have a beautiful weekend and yeah I'll see you again soon. I'll see you on Sunday ah, and all so ah, but that we'll see you for breath work the next weekend then but have an amazing weekend I hope you have fun.
49:39.22
Pat D
You I'm going to miss I'm going to stag party in Glasgow this weekend. So it's a very different very different way of life this week Ed
49:54.90
Pat D
Um, thanks Tony thank you thank you guys yeah I enjoyed it.