The Essential Guide to Shadow Work: Integrate Your Wounded Parts + Live Your Authentic Self
We all have one.
Often times, we aren’t even aware of it.
Our shadow.
I was literally a walking shadow up until my initiation onto my consciousness path.
Since then, I brought so many of my shadow parts into the light that I sometimes can’t believe I didn’t know about them before.
It’s funny how blind we are when we are unconscious. We just don’t know what we don’t know, of no fault of our own.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
- Carl Jung
I didn’t know what I was doing was shadow work until I became interested in Carl Jung. I was only seeking more peace, overcome my suffering and heal my depression as I was experiencing recurring challenging situations in my life and in relationships. Patterns started to occur and I got more curious to explore them.
Along the way, the deeper I ventured into my unconscious, the more I became aware of hidden parts that slowly unveiled themselves. Hello, shadow!
We naturally prefer to avoid uncomfortable feelings, thoughts and memories. But that doesn’t mean they disappear. Instead, they keep living a secret life in our unconscious.
In order to become whole human beings, we have to learn to embrace not just our light but also our shadow and heal wounds from childhood (because we all have them).
The world we live in is bipolar. No day without night. No hot without cold. No light without darkness.
How can we truly be authentic if we keep hiding unloved parts of ourselves? How can we truly love and accept others if we don’t fully accept our darkness?
These days the concept of ‘shadow work’ is all around and it gets thrown around like candy - and yet, there still seems to be a lot of confusion around it all.
So what is the shadow truly? Where does it come from? Why should you even care about it? How can you get started with shadow work? What are the best practices?
I have learned a lot in my 8+ years of dealing with and integrating my own shadow parts.
Let’s dive in. We have a lot to talk about:
What is the Shadow?
When we talk about the shadow, we mean all the parts we deny, hide or reject about ourselves.
Carl Jung describes the shadow as the hidden part of our human psyche.
In his model of the psyche it is the other side of what he calls the persona, which is the part that we show to the outer world, a mask that is intended to hide all our flaws and imperfections.
It’s called the shadow because it hasn’t been captured by the light of our consciousness and because it has been banned from the surface of our visible life.
Jung basically considers everything that is unconscious as the shadow, because it is the the scary unknown that we humans don’t like to face.
However, even if it is hidden, it remains a part of us and expresses itself in our personality and how we interact in the world and especially with other people.
The shadow doesn’t just include ‘negative’ aspects of our personality, but also positive ones. The things we idolize or adore in other people is un-lived potential within us and also part of our shadow.
In essence, the shadow is comprised of unresolved conflicts and problems; un-lived desires and passions, as well as denied needs and wishes, socially unacceptable beahvior.
Here is a great video that goes into more detail:
Where Do Your Shadow Parts Come From?
So how is the shadow created? Why do we have a shadow?
During childhood we learn how to get love and acceptance - it’s what drives most of our behavior, because as children we believe without it we will die (which, according to research, is also true). It’s how we are wired as humans.
We also learn how not to be if we don’t want to be cut off from love and affection from our parents. So we conclude from these situations that we have to hide certain behaviors and that we can’t be fully authentic in our ways of expression. We mold ourselves like clay so we don’t get rejected.
In the process, as we develop further as children we have to adopt and adjust to our parents’ values and societal norms. Later on, this is further enhanced through friends, partners, career and groups and we keep adjusting to what is externally expected from us and how we get approval.
As humans, our fear of abandonment and rejection is greater than our need for authenticity - and so we keep hiding who we really are and push parts of us further into the unconscious shadow part of the psyche (mostly without even knowing it).
But the shadow never sleeps and the more our lives progress, the louder its knocks on the door to consciousness become.
Essentially, your shadow is your wounded self. It’s everything you got hurt by and didn’t fully process and so you repressed/suppressed it into your unconscious. We do this as a way to protect ourselves from further hurt and because we don’t know better at the time.
The results are behaviors for which our ego is in charge (as the “manager”), but they are really all just protection mechanisms that we had to develop as children to get love and not experience pain.
What is Shadow Work?
The intention of shadow work is to bring the suppressed personality parts back into our consciousness and learn to accept and love them.
Through different practices we can integrate the parts that got split off earlier in our lives back into our psyches and thus become ‘whole’ human beings.
Shadow work confronts us with parts of ourselves that we rather not know about - hence, why many people avoid doing it, don’t want to go there, are not interested and disregard this kind of ‘personal development’.
It’s not easy to look at ourselves in this way, actually take responsibility and accept the parts that we judge in ourselves and others.
Yet, the solution lies not in the permanent avoidance of our dark soul parts, but in their full acceptance and approval.
It’s a process of acknowledging the ‘ugly’ parts of ourselves - our anger, jealousy, greed and bitterness - and learning to love them despite our judgements of them.
Shadow work is also trauma work as we heal wounded parts of ourselves - a lot of shadows were created as part of developmental or attachment trauma when we were children, when we didn’t have the resources to deal with our emotions fully and so are stored in our nervous system and in the stories we tell ourselves.
“This confrontation is the first test of courage on the inner way, a test sufficient to frighten off most people, for the meeting with ourselves belongs to the more unpleasant things that can be avoided so long as we can project everything negative into the environment. But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness.”
- Carl Jung
How Does Your Shadow Manifest and Express Itself?
There are many ways our shadow parts show up in our conscious lives:
Jealousy
Addiction
Depression
Anxiety
Codependency
Creating or being part of a lot of drama in life
Self-sabotage
Power struggles
Lies
Procrastination
Resentment
Passive-aggressiveness
Bitterness
Aggression, anger and rage
Violent behaviors and abuse
Victimization
Guilt and shame
Reactive
Discontentment
Your shadow will control your life and keep presenting you with uncomfortable opportunities to integrate it.
We can’t heal what we don’t see or feel - and so it will keep causing challenges for you, make you and others miserable and sick.
How You Can Recognize Your Shadow Parts
The people in our lives mirror our shadow parts back to us if you like it or not and we project our shadow onto other people in the form of criticism and judgement.
“The shadow is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.”
Wikipedia
Everything you find annoying in others, that you judge and reject from yourself points to shadow issues.
What people are in your environment? What do you dislike or even hate about them?
But also: What fascinates you about them?
Who are people on social media that you dislike or judge?
Who are people or celebrities that you idolize and that have put on a pedestal? And why?
Also, whenever we unconsciously repeat a behavior it is a clue for a shadow part that has taken control. Can you spot patterns in your life? Any pattern that repeats itself is your shadow calling out at you.
Here are more clues to help you recognize your shadow parts:
Lack of self-confidence and afraid to speak up
Blaming external circumstance
Weak boundaries
Fears around putting yourself and your creative work out into the world (fear of judgement, procrastination, self-sabotage…)
Not doing what you know you want and is good for you
Money and success issues (judging others who make a lot of $$ or are very outwardly successful)
Relationship issues and dramas (anxious or avoidant attachment styles)
Everything that scares you sinks deep into your shadow (sometimes it becomes a big inner monster). What are fears that you repeatedly have to deal with?
Maybe every time your partner talks about their colleague at work you get jealous even though there is no rational reason for your reaction.
Maybe you judge a woman’s masculine appearance and don’t like women who wear short hair. This could be an indicator that you reject your own masculine shadow part within yourself.
Maybe you have a friend who is sometimes late and it triggers you out of proportion.
Maybe you keep attracting unavailable partners or partners who cheat on you.
Maybe you feel frustrated in your relationships and you then turn passive-aggressive.
Maybe you feel stuck in areas of your life and no matter what you do, you don’t seem to make any progress.
Hello there shadow… 👋🏼
In essence, wherever you struggle in life a shadow hides.
Examples of the Shadow
When you grew up, your parents didn’t value what you had to say. Little You concluded that your opinions don’t matter and so stay quiet in order for your parents not to blame you or criticize you. This aspect keeps evolving and you learn to suppress your opinions and you develop a fear of speaking up, especially in school and later on in your job or on social media.
Or maybe you learned to not take all sweets from the table because you would be considered greedy. Or you learned to not be loud, wild and free in your expression because you’d be thought of as childish or annoying.
In both cases you might judge others for the exact same thing, eg. for being annoying or greedy.In my case, my family of origin is not very creative in their expression and so when I created things as a child I didn’t get the recognition I needed from my parents and thus concluded that I wasn’t creative enough and my creations not good enough.
This led to me not ever sharing my photography/films with anyone and later one, no believing in my abilities, I wanted to but didn’t have the confidence to apply to film/photography school.When you scroll around on Instagram and you see someone celebrating a 6-figure product launch or having just bought an epic home by the beach or getting married to their dream partner - and you notice yourself feeling jealousy. Or sadness. And you criticize them or judge them “Oh look at them boasting their big money egos” or “Who would need such a big house anyway?” or “Well, we all know how many marriages fail, so I’m sure they won’t make it far.”
It’s the part of you that wishes the same for you but you don’t have it. It’s the part that is in scarcity mode. It’s the part of you that is resentful that you grew up in a poor family or that your parents got divorced when you were 7 or that you grew up in a small apartment sharing your room with your two siblings.Being in love is another beautiful way we project our shadows. Let’s say you are someone with a permanent 9-5 job and you have lived in the same very organized apartment in the same city for 10 years. You have a really nice secure life. And then you fall for someone who is a real adventurer, maybe a digital nomad or someone who has cycled around the globe on a bike, who impersonates freedom in everything they do.
In this case, the aspects of you that you have not lived enough are projected onto the other person. This shows you what parts of yourself you are not expressing yet, which of your own dreams and potentials you are ignoring (probably out of fear).
In the first few months we idealize our new partner and put them on a pedestal because they have or live aspects that are part of our own shadow.
Based on the Holographic Model everything we only perceive and see in the world what lies as a potential within us.
The Benefits of Doing Shadow Work
The pathway to completion as a human being, to become whole, is to face our dark side and bring it into the light, because our shadows keep us stuck until we deal with them.
Repressing our shadow work and keeping it from entering our lives requires a lot of energy. In the long run, if we never engage with it, this suppressed energy can make us sick, cause burnout or push is into a big crisis.
Through its integration we experience deep healing and can unleash a lot of energy. It is only when we accept and honor the shadow within us that we can channel its power in a positive way and find emotional balance and true inner freedom.
When we make friends with our neglected shadow parts, we experience more joy and flow in life, more fulfilling relationships and are able to access our full potential.
We expand our capacity for kindness and compassion to ourselves and others, which makes us less judgmental and critical.
Liberating our shadow will turn us into happier people, give us more self-confidence and boost set a lot of creative energy free.
And lastly, this process makes us more self-aware, as well as conscious and in touch with ourselves. We can then actually operate from our adult self rather than staying stuck in our child self and let it run the show when we are operating from our shadow unconsciousness.
So if you have been looking to learn to love yourself more and deepen the connection with yourself, shadow work is the path.
What Are the Best Practices to Do Shadow Work?
Here are my preferred ways to reclaim parts of ourselves that we have rejected:
A. Observe your reactions and practice being conscious
What are your triggers? What and who makes you have a reaction?
Being triggered comes from unconscious patterns and is essentially a automated fight/flight response that originates in our brain that sends signals to our endocrine and nervous system.
Watch yourself in your relationships, as you are out and about in your daily life but also when you are consuming social media.
Through self-observation and mindfulness we can practice to become aware of our shadow aspects. It might take a while for you to develop this skill (when we are triggered it’s difficult to come back into our rational, adult mind) but even becoming conscious after the fact and take some time to reflect on a reaction is a massive step in the process. Consciousness opens up choice.
Because remember: when it’s hysterical, it’s historical. Meaning: when your reaction to an event or someone’s behavior is out of proportion it is usually rooted in the past and in your shadow.
B. Practice emotional inquiry and complete the emotional cycle
What am I feeling? (Check this list of emotions here)
Why am I feeling this?
What belief or story is attached to this emotion? (eg. I am not good enough, my feelings are not valid, I am not lovable, no one supports me, I will never be happy…)
Does this feeling or situation remind me of something in the past or my childhood?
Feel the emotion in your body. Connect to it and give it the space it needs to complete its cycle.
It’s really about developing a sense of curiosity for your inner emotional world and seeing your emotions as information.
C. Write your heart out: daily journaling
Stream of consciousness writing is like a raw window do yourself. It helps us learn to be honest with ourselves and we discover things from our unconscious we didn’t expect.
The pages are the space where we can’t bullshit ourselves.
The best ways:
You can also get started by using these prompts to identify your shadow parts:
What triggers me in life and my relationships?
When and how do I judge others? What do you dislike in others?
When and how do I judge myself? What do I not like about myself?
What or who do you feel resentment for?
What are things I complain about?
What are things I envy in others?
What are things I struggle with?
What do you find inspiring and fascinating in others?
Another great journaling practice is The Work by Byron Katie (here is a summary with the four questions, but I also recommend her book).
D. Sit with your shadow in meditation
Learning to sit with yourself in silence is essential in really getting to know yourself and your shadow. It is also the hardest thing to do for many people. But being able to just be with yourself, your thoughts and your feelings is powerful in getting in touch with your (wounded) shadow parts and sit with your emotions and inquiring deeper into your triggers.
If you are just getting started I highly recommend using Insight Timer.
Here is also a good guided meditation:
E. Dream analysis
Dreams are an ideal vehicle in which to confront the shadow because dreams provide a direct line of communication to the unconscious. Through your dreams, your unconscious is speaking with you. (By the way, Jung was a big fan of dream analysis)
Especially recurring dreams really means your shadow wants your attention and they offer a ton of important information.
The difficult part of dream work is remembering at least one of the at least half a dozen dreams we have each night.
Focus your attention on remembering and understanding your dreams before going to sleep. Make it your intention.
Put a pen and a notebook next to your bed. This way, if you wake up in the middle of the night and remember your dream, you can jot down a few notes on key words or images that may help you more fully recall the dream in the morning. Important: Don’t just write what happened but how you felt in the dream as well.
A great book to learn more about dream analysis is by Jungian analyst Robert Johnson called Inner Work: Using Dreams and Active Imagination for Personal Growth.
F. Analyze your favorite stories, myths and movies
A more intuitive way to explore your shadows is looking for symbols and archetypes in the stories you resonate with most. They directly speak to the unconscious without us knowing it. We like certain movies and hero’s because they mirror a part of our shadow self.
Make a list of your favorite movies and myths and jot down their rough storyline. Then think about the characteristics of your heroes and heroines and how they might relate to you, your unfulfilled potential or secret desires.
In order to understand complex storylines and their meanings better, I also recommend googling for myth/movie analysis or interpretations.
I have done this exercise a couple of times and what I find out about myself keeps surprising me! Try it!
This book is a great resource to learn more about this practice:
Movie Yoga - How Every Film Can Change Your Life by Tav Sparks
G. Inner Child Work
Since most of our shadows are created during childhood, that’s also where a lot of the healing and integration potential lies.
We essentially have to learn to reparent ourselves in order for our adult self to take the driver’s seat in our lives.
A great way to do inner child work is through guided meditations (see eg, this one on Insight Timer) and journaling practices (here are some good prompts to get started).
Here are two great books on the topic:
Homecoming: Reclaiming and Championing Your Inner Child by John Bradshaw
Reconciliation: Healing the Inner Child by Thich Nhat Hanh
Also, check out this intro post by The Holistic Psychologist:
And her video on the topic:
H. Breathwork + Plant Medicine
We get to explore our shadows very deeply when we are in altered states of consciousness, which we can access through transformational Breathwork or with Ayahuasca, Huachuma or Magic Mushrooms.
I have had really powerful experiences and insights with plant medicine and I keep practicing breathwork regularly to integrate my shadow parts. (If you are interested to explore breathwork, you can schedule a private session with me here).
The cool thing about breathwork is that you don’t need a shaman to do it, you don’t need to travel to Peru to do it and drink a liquid that will probably make you purge. You can do it online from the comfort of your own home and still experience transformational states of consciousness. It has changed my life in so many ways, which is why it is the practice I offer to the world.
This is IG livestream I did with my good friend Jonny a few months ago, titled WTF is Breathwork? - you can watch the replay here:
I. Therapy and Coaching
Shadow work on ourselves without any outside support is often quite limited. We all have blind spots that we don’t know that we have them and it often requires a light from outside to shine it into consciousness for us.
If you are really serious about healing your wounded parts and integrating your shadow, I highly recommend working with a professional.
It’s been very helpful on my own journey and I continue to get support from therapists and coaches.
A Personal Note:
Where I find shadow work falls short is when it comes to somatic or body-based practices to release stuck trauma and process emotions.
The concept is very mind-focused, which totally leaves out the parts our bodies and nervous system play in holding on to stress when dealing with challenging events and dysfunctional relationships especially during childhood.
In my own experience, doing breathwork, working with a therapist trained in somatic experiencing and learning emotional intelligence skills to work with emotions were essential for my integration and healing process.
(I will talk more about these practices soon.)
Further Resources
Owning Your Own Shadow: Understanding the Dark Side of the Psyche by Robert Johnson
Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature by Connie Zweig
Momentum: A Shadow Work Guide & Journal by Quinn Barbour
King, Warrior, Magician, Lover: Rediscovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine by Robert Moore
To dive deeper into Carl Jung, I recommend these books:
Man and His Symbols by Carl Jung
Jung: A Very Short Introduction by Anthony Stevens
Jung: The Key Ideas by Ruth Snowden
Final Words
Authentic personal development that is meant to be long-term and go into depth, has to go via the path of integration of our split off shadow aspects. Once we dive deep into our shadows, we can finally start living a life of inner freedom.
We might not be responsible for what happened to us in the past but we are responsible for doing the inner work to become whole human beings again.
Facing the truth about ourselves can be very frightening and uncomfortable, but every shadow part we integrate holds a tremendous gift for us.
It’s a journey of a lifetime, not one that we can just check off a list. It’s not about getting rid of our shadows, but about bringing it into the light so that it can teach us and heal us.
Happy shadow-working! 🤙🏼
Conni
PS: If you are curious to explore and heal your shadow parts using Breathwork, you can book a private session with me here.
PPS: If you struggle with creative confidence and sharing your gifts/ideas with the world, check out my course and mentoring program - shadow work is a big part of it… 👇🏼
Creative and Emotional Alchemy
Here is what I’ve been really curious about lately:
How can we alchemize difficult emotions into creative action?
The following is a first attempt at articulating my thoughts and ideas around this question by exploring one particular emotion: anger.
(Next might be sadness and grief.)
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Did you know that anger and passion stem from the same source in the body? Anger is really passionate life force trying to express itself through you. It's in our DNA, it's what makes us human.
Yet, from a young age, we’re taught that anger is negative and an unproductive emotion that needs to be mitigated. Anger doesn’t seem to fit in with the “pleasure principle,” our human instinct to seek positive feelings and avoid pain.
But anger seems to do three helpful things to our mind and body:
It’s like a boost of energy, focusing attention. Anger energizes us. It emboldens us.
It activates the part of the brain crucial to establishing behaviors that push us to pursue desired goals.
It makes our thought process less structured, less logical, looser, and more able to see the wider scope of the problems we face.
Contrary to the idea that anger clouds thinking, properly understood it is an astoundingly clarifying emotion.
Anger can feed creativity in ways that allow us creators to name the wrongs we see, give voice to people and ideas that are underrepresented, and imagine a world where positive change can happen.
For example, a part of me feels frustrated because we don’t get properly educated on the impact of stress, trauma, attachment issues and shitty lifestyles on our physical and mental health. I could have saved myself a ton of struggle and pain with more knowledge, but it took me years of self-education to understand how it all worked and to heal myself. I’m also kinda angry that we don’t get taught about the power of the breath and how to use it like a remote control to regulate our nervous system. Like - why TF not? #human101
All of this anger drove me to share what I’ve learned as a creator on my blog and on YouTube, and spread the power of the breath as a breathwork teacher.
Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Gandhi and many more used the inner message of anger to create transformation. In their mastery of anger walking the path with it as an ally, they unleashed tremendous creativity to achieve their ends, mobilizing others and ultimately making an incredible mark on humanity. Their artistry of anger changed the lives of many forever.
If you’re angry right now, the worst thing you can do is ignore it or try to suppress it. Instead, channel that anger into a productive and creative source. Better yet, use that productivity and creativity to address one of the problems our world is dealing with right now and invoke change.
Maybe you’re angry because the panini crisis is not ending and because you disagree with how your government deals with it all.
What makes you angry right now?
Maybe you are angry at your parents for the challenges you experienced as a child and all the inner healing work you have to do today as an adult.
Maybe you are angry at yourself for not getting your shit together to quite your job and finally pursue your dharma.
Maybe you are angry at life and the universe because things are not going the way you want them to.
Maybe you are angry at your partner, at a friend or the unfriendly cashier at the supermarket.
Maybe your anger is suppressed creativity wanting an outlet, but shoved aside due to the responsibilities of daily life.
Awesome. Embrace it. See your anger as information. What is your anger trying to communicate to you? Meet yourself, with acceptance and awareness.
Aware anger can change the world.
When we feel the energy of the anger, we can use this energy to create something. You can use it to write, to paint, to start a business or a new project, to make music...
(But also: Yelling into social media is not the same thing as making a painting or writing a novel.)
I first transmute my raging emotions via somatic work, breathwork and sitting with myself, punching pillows, yelling when no one is around, dancing, shaking and writing in my journal as stream-of-consciousness writing - and then I can use my wise anger to create.
As I create, I become bigger than any particular feeling. Just because I have anger doesn’t mean that’s all I have. Other feelings are free to show up in my work.
Anger can be fire for creativity and innovation. And as I use this powerful fire, I move beyond being a reactor to being a creator.
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My partner and I are organizing an exclusive online workshop (in German) on how to consciously deal with and process anger. It will include a series of practices to help you turn this fiery emotion into your superpower.
If you want to learn more about how to create a new and healthy relationship with anger, then come join us for “Himmel, Arsch + Zwirn! - Endlich richtig wütend!” on May 15.
Early bird ends in two days.
Click here for more information.
⚡️ My latest YouTube video:
How I Optimize My Life for Meaning + Health
I've been re-evaluating my life for a while and came to realize what truly matters to me.
There are three key areas that are making a huge difference to the quality of my life these days.
This video is dear to my heart. I'd love for you to watch it here:
🐧 Cool stuff I invite you to check out:
Podcast: How to Make Life Effortless with Greg McKeown on Modern Wisdom
I'm a huge fan of Greg's first book Essentialism that I read several years ago. He now published a new book that I can't wait to dive into. This episode serves a good intro exploring questions such as: Is the toughest path always the right one? Is the more important a thing is, the harder it has to be? Or is there a way to make the execution of what matters most in your life a little easier?
Article: In Lieu of Real Drugs, I Now Take Hits of Tim Ferriss by Alex Olhonsky
I read the 4HWW by Tim Ferriss in 2011 (changed my life back then like so many others') and even though I was never a die-hard fan of him, it's been interesting to watch his evolution and healing journey. As he has evolved, he basically took his followers as passengers on his metamorphic journey. In this essay, Alex outlines how the Tim Ferriss gateway drug works: 1st hit = Productivity hacks. 2nd dose = Deeper & psychedelic. 3rd fix = Healing trauma.
Video: The most important step in life by Hindz
Loving myself some Hindz wisdom these days, he just sums it up so nicely: "Gotta leave room for the magic to flow into the process." I can attest: The steps I didn't plan are the ones that made all the difference to some of the best things that happened in my life. Letting go of making elaborate plans and opening up for serendipity was my big lesson even before the 'rona hit - and it's been one of the most valuable and life-changing lessons for me.
Insta Post: What Urgency Culture Looks Like by The Holistic Psychologist
I've been thinking about time urgency, because I used to feel it too: This underlying feeling that there just is never enough time, to expect immediate results, responses, and immediate gratification. It's basically the world we live in and it's almost an act of resistance to normalize the pause, to slow down, to take our time. Definitely have a look at the beliefs and stories she talks about in this post - I have a feeling you will also identify with a couple ;)
App: Calmly Writing Editor
Sometimes, all I want is a fully white page to braindump my words onto. Even though I mainly use Scrivener to write, at times I like to mix it up and go more minimalist. This editor is exactly how I like it: white and simple. I currently only use the web version, which serves my purpose well, but they also offer a desktop app.
Music: Reinhardt Buhr on Spotify
This artist is currently on hot rotation when I'm writing (ie. now!). His music is divine. His music is improvisational and like a sacred orchestral sound journey. He combines guitar, electric cello, didgeridoo, vocals and percussion in a way that is truly special. I love all of his songs, but this one is my favorite.
Video: Be There, Be Present by Greg Dennis
During lockdown in 2020, photographer Nick Pumphrey turned to where he felt most at home - the sea. He dedicated to taking his camera in the sea for every dawn of the month of May, and sharing his experience each morning with ten photographs on Instagram with the hashtag #DawnDaysOfMay. This film captures Nick's story. (I'm in love with his photography, it's unreal)
🧚♂️ Quote wisdom that I'd like to pass on:
“Nobody will stop you from creating. Do it tonight. Do it tomorrow. That is the way to make your soul grow… The kick of creation is the act of creating, not anything that happens afterward. I would tell all of you watching this screen: Before you go to bed, write a four line poem. Make it as good as you can. Don’t show it to anybody. Put it where nobody will find it. And you will discover that you have your reward.” - Kurt Vonnegut
“Knowing how to be solitary is central to the art of loving. When we can be alone, we can be with others without using them as means of escape.” - bell hooks
"We think our distraction is due to external triggers––our devices and the outside world. But 90 percent of distraction comes from internal triggers, uncomfortable emotional states we seek to escape. Thus, becoming indistractable begins with mastering internal triggers." - Nir Eyal
📝 Journaling prompt I invite you to dive into:
What personality traits do you judge or criticize in other people, on social media, your friends, family or colleagues?
How do you possess and condemn the very same traits within yourself?
Uhhh, I love myself some good shadow work journaling. This one is a juicy entry-level one that I like to reflect on every now and again. It helps me to check with in with parts of myself that might still be hiding and bring them into the light. Give it a go, it's powerful stuff.
🪐 In my universe + what I'm working on:
Surfing a lot and am making lots of progress.
We went up to the capital Colombo a couple times for some big city shenanigans (dentist, chiropractor, epic food and coffee..).
Doing mentoring sessions with fellow creators, started giving private in-person breathwork sessions, doing weekly breath coaching calls.
Creating content around our anger workshop for social media and preparing the event. Hint: It's gonna be so dope!
My friend Jonny and I are part of a wonderful little virtual retreat that covers all things overwhelm, stress and burnout. Our session is on Breathwork for Stress Relief. Check it out here. (It's free)
Slowly looking ahead and thinking about our next steps beyond Sri Lanka..
This is it for today!
Thank you for being you.
With love and salt water in my ears (got smashed around in the waves a lot surfing this morning - gotta love those sessions too ;),
Conni. 🐋
PS:
Ways you can work with me:
Create As You Are - my online course with optional coaching to help you become a confident creator and find your voice
Conni Biesalski
Creator. Writer + Author. Online Filmmaker+ Photographer. YouTuber and Podcaster.
Meditation + Breathwork Teacher. Vegan Surf-Yogi.
I help creators make more magic through mindfulness and self-exploration.
Connect with me on Instagram | YouTube | Twitter
Listen to my podcast.
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My Conscious Relationship with Work and Business
All of the following has been a huge work in progress over many years.
I didn’t just suddenly arrive at this way of relating to my work.
It evolved, our relationship grew.
Here is how I currently relate to my work:
I want it to be a source of joy, not a space of must or should.
I am not it. It is not me. My identity and self-worth are not tied up in it - not in the money, not in the follower numbers.
I do it because it’s fun. Making an income is an organic side effect.
It’s a choice every day.
I would write and make videos and do breathwork even if no one was watching.
I do it for me and the people I want to help and serve. Not to find extra happiness.
It is a part of my life and existence, because I am here to create, but it is not the only source of meaning in my life.
I am not chasing a goal or big vision. I am enjoying the process and letting it evolve organically beyond my imagination, beyond the known.
I like to spend about 4-5 hours a day with it.
I won’t let it stress me out anymore. When it does, I step away and take time off.
I’m ok that we work in phases and seasons. There are months where we spend more time together and months where we spend more time apart.
We keep working on our relationship. It is an on-going process that I reflect on and make changes as I go along.
Our relationship with our work needs to be healthy, because otherwise we burn out or we neglect other parts and relationships in our lives.
The way we relate to something is the way we relate to everything.
Advice for Perfectionists (My Struggles + Solutions)
We don’t just overcome perfectionism one day -
or as Stephen Pressfield calls it in his book The War of Art:
The Resistance with capital R.
We aren't just magically free of it one day.
It’s a lifelong dance, a back and forth of who is leading the dance.
Becoming a confident and prolific creator is like trying to get fit. We have to constantly train the muscle that helps us move past perfectionism, procrastination, and the Resistance.
We don’t just fight the dragon once. It will show up for as long as we create.
In my case, ten years later, I tend to struggle more with perfectionism now than I did in the beginning.
I recently finished creating a course for creators, which is all about overcoming creative insecurities, procrastination, and perfectionism. It’s called CREATE AS YOU ARE. Because I want creators to confidently express who they are and what sets their souls on fire.
Of course, I was dealing with all the things I teach in the course even more so as I was creating the course - AND it made the course so much better!
Of course, perfectionism shows up as a regular visitor. That’s just life as a creator.
But - I have found a trillion ways to move through Perfectionism and the Resistance.
I have had to put in so many reps that my muscles are strong and my tool belt is huge.
I don’t let Resistance hold me back from creating and putting myself out there. Those days are long gone.
I have pressed publish on so many imperfect things in my life as a creator.
Imperfection everywhere.
And so here I am - still dancing with perfectionism.
Remember what Elizabeth Gilbert says:
“Create whatever you want to create — and let it be stupendously imperfect, because it’s exceedingly likely that nobody will even notice. And that’s awesome.”
And even if they do notice, they will forget. we only really remember a fraction of what we consume online.
I just pressed publish on an imperfect video on this topic. Check it out here:
Perfection is an illusion and so we might as well just drop the pursuit of it.
How is perfectionism holding you back from sharing your gifts with the world?
—
PS: You can join the course at createasyouare.com
How to Breathe Properly: The Basics of Functional Breathing
Here is the truth:
There is no one way to breathe - there are thousands.
The “right” way to breathe depends on the situation and on what you are doing:
When you’re running for a bus your breathing is going to be different than when you are sitting stationary.
When you are having sex or masturbating, your breathing is going to be different than when you are standing and cutting vegetables.
💨 That’s the beauty of our breath - it responds to the demands that are thrown at us.
❔The more important question to begin with is:
What’s Your Natural Resting Breath Like?
Let’s check:
Take a moment to just notice your breath right now - it helps to put one hand on your chest and one on your belly:
Are you breathing through your mouth or nose?
Are you breathing more into your chest or more into your ribcage and belly?
How fast or slow are you breathing?
How loud and noticeable is your breathing?
Do you sigh often?
Do you notice a natural pause after your exhalation? Do you hold your breath at times?
Does it feel easier to inhale or exhale?
🔅The 3 Golden Guidelines for Correct Breathing
1. Use your nose
Always breathe through the nose unless your are doing heavy exercise - to prevent over-breathing, which leads to loss of co2 and less oxygenation of the blood
2. Breathe into your belly
It stimulates your vagus nerve and sends calming message to your brain and nervous system.
3. Slow down your breathing
According to research, the “ideal” breathing rate is 5.5 breaths per minute, which is much lower than most people’s breathing rate (12-20 breaths per minute) - so keep practicing your coherence breathing and extending your exhales --> this trains your CO2 tolerance
In summary:
In general, the lighter and more silently you breathe, the healthier your breathing and nervous system.
“Correct breathing” means breathing through the nose, with the diaphragm, relaxed, rhythmically.
💡Bonus Tip:
Check in with your breathing regularly during the day.
Pause what you’re doing for a second, become present and see how your breath is doing.
Then adjust accordingly.
Got questions? Wanna improve your breathing?
I offer breath coaching - send me an email at mail@conni.me
🐋
My Complicated Relationship History with Emotions
I used to be totally disconnected from my body. Living mainly in my head, thinking obsessively, being super rational and floating around in the universe ungrounded.
Unconsciously, being in my body didn’t feel safe because I didn’t feel safe feeling my emotions.
I was scared of all the deeply painful emotions that I was forced to face as I was going through one toxic and codependent romantic relationship after another for many years.
I was scared to fully feel the loneliness I was experiencing on and off throughout my life.
After years of being in the queer closet, I was an expert at suppressing my emotions.
But life wouldn’t just let me off the hook, plus my sun is in Cancer. So not feeling my emotions wasn’t an option - which is probably why I had to go thorough some incredibly excruciating emotional pain for life to crack me open.
Some of the sadness was so big that I never allowed myself fully process it. At times, the pain and the suppressing of it would have me get stuck in depressive episodes, sucking me deep into a dark abyss.
Feelings of rejection and loneliness were my constant companion. I felt lost a lot as I was roaming the world as a digital nomad. I felt unworthy, unloveable and at times, lost faith in life and myself.
All in all, a lot of overwhelming emotions from past experiences and trauma were buffered in my body.
I had tried all the spiritual practices and healing modalities and therapy and coaching (here is a full list). They helped somewhat but not to the extend that I needed them to.
Working with a somatic psychotherapist and exploring other somatic practices was a huge game changer in learning to feel emotions in my body and allow myself to be with them. In the end, emotions are home in our bodies.
Then the breath and Breathwork entered my life and showed me how safe it can be to drop into my body and process big emotional experiences. In the process, I learned about the nervous system and how to self-regulate my emotions via the breath.
Today, my emotions and I are good buddies. Our relationship has evolved into an accepting and grounding connection. I’m not scared of them anymore - they have full permission to be here. They are an important source of information from my body and psyche and an invitation to explore myself and what is alive in me deeper.
One of my biggest learnings along the way:
Emotions want to be felt, not fixed.
In one of my next posts I will share how I deal with and process emotions like anger and frustration, sadness, shame or fear.
My Priorities for a Long and Healthy Life at Age 37
I am 37. I turn 38 on June 30th.
One of my goals in life is to stay as healthy as possible until I die. Because what’s the point in growing old while suffering?
Here are my current three priorities for a long healthy life:
1. Minimize stress, regulate my nervous system + release past trauma energies.
Stress and trauma limit our lifespan and make us sick - I really don’t take this fact lightly anymore.
Chronic stress impacts our bodies more than we realize and most of us are numb to its negative effects. I basically lived 20 years of my life in anxious mode without being aware of it. It took its toll on my nervous system and health. Hence, why I’m so bullish about Breathwork as a way to regulate the nervous system and therefore stress hormones.
Plus: Healing trauma. We all have experienced some form of it in our lives and if we don’t process and release it, it keeps living in our bodies and psyche, causing havoc in the form of chronic health issues, autoimmune disorders, anxiety, depression.. I have already done a lot of inner healing work over the years and tried out lots of different modalities, but it’s an ongoing process. What has helped me tremendously: somatic experiencing and somatic psychotherapy as well as transformational Breathwork.
2. Work on physical mobility and flexibility.
After more than a year of not surfing, getting back into it is showing me all my physical weak spots. In addition, months and months of lockdown and closed gyms resulted in procrastination and slacking with a regular workout routine. And sitting for hours on end inside during winter didn’t help.
Naturally, I got injured after a few weeks of hitting the waves and am now forced to stay on dry land for a bit due to a hairline rib fracture and an injury on my foot.
I am seeing an awesome physiotherapist from Finland here in Sri Lanka, who is helping me develop a custom mobility program to get my body back in shape. He also gives me deep massages to open up my back and glutei muscles and release built-up tension.
On top, I am doing the free mobility and strength workout in the Surf Athlete app, which focuses on a lot of hip mobility, rotational mobility and hamstring stretching and strength.
Getting older is no joke. Our modern lifestyle with the lack of movement are a source of immense issues. We can take a lot up until our mid to late 30s, but eventually our bodies will wear and tear. Sitting is the new smoking. It’s the worst we can do on a daily basis.
If you can’t do a squat or reach your toes with your fingers, get on it. Now.
3. Have fun. Dance. Play. Laugh. Love.
Whereas in my twenties and early thirties I enjoyed the hustle and optimizing my productivity, the last couple years showed me how unhealthy and unfulfilling it is to chase growth, money and followers.
Plus, burnout is a real thing.
A while back I came to terms with the fact that hustle culture just isn’t for me. It’s like a rat race but for egos and wounded inner children.
These days, I invite in more fun and play, more meaningful relationships, more laughter, more dancing..
I eventually realized how much more important LIVING LIFE is to spending time staring at displays. Unless its fun (like writing this essay right now), I prefer real life offline experiences.
I’m ok to not grow as fast as other. I’m ok to not be as consistent with my creative output than others. I go at my speed and that speed is about enjoying the ride through life, enjoying the scenery, enjoying smelling the flowers and walking barefoot in grass.
F*ck Productivity and All Its Systems and Apps
I’m so over productivity advice and all the tools.
It feels like the Twitter and YouTube world masturbates over who is more productive, creates more content, uses the latest productivity systems and apps.
And I’m just over here, thinking: “Who cares?!” And more so: “Why do we want to be more productive? What for?”
And so I keep thinking myself into this rabbit whole of what are the real underlying unconscious intentions and unfulfilled needs that we are trying to pursue and meet by chasing more productivity.
Here is one:
Control.
By worrying and occupying our minds with productivity concepts and systems, we are actually chasing control. But it’s mostly an illusion of control. Because that’s what control is. An illusion.
Here is another one:
Validation.
By being more productive, we feel enough, more worthy, more seen and heard, more successful. It validates our identity and idea of what it means to be a good human in our society.
Beyond that, I get it. We all need to make a living.
And yes, when we start out building a business, we have to put in time and energy to make it sustainable and move it forward. Not manifestation technique can help us transcend this stage of a bit of sweat and tears. Entrepreneurship is for the doers.
But if I’m not driven by passion and obsession, then what’s the point? Then I’m compromising and creating from a place of scarcity.
And then there are the never-ending expectations of the social media algorithms that reward us for creating and posting as often as possible.
After 10+ years of using social media, we are conditioned to believe that we have to keep working the conveyor belt of creating content in order to stay afloat. And not a lot of people question this.
But to get more done so we can get more done? For more followers? More subscribers? More money? Which, for many people, eventually leads to burnout and exhaustion?
It just doesn’t make sense to me.
I personally like to live life. I like to spend my days as much as I can actually interacting with life beyond screens. Because that’s what I’m pretty sure is what I will remember on my death bed.
But the patriarchal system we live in evaluates our performance based on output.
It’s the world we live in and most of us accept this as a fact.
Isn’t all this productivity hype all just distraction from doing the actual work, from facing our inner demons?
How did humanity make it this far without Notion and Roam and The Second Brain and every other YouTuber telling us his top five hacks to be more productive?
People back in the days didn’t have any of those fancy tools and productivity apps and somehow managed to help humanity advance to this point.
Granted, they didn’t have the distraction of social media and the internet.
They didn’t have our constantly activated nervous systems triggering an addiction to adrenaline. They didn’t have all the stressors our modern lives present us with on a daily basis (despite promising a better life).
But still. We are not victims.
We suffer from a lack of focus, because we lack presence and awareness. We have to relearn what it means to pay attention, because our attention decides the quality of our lives.
Are people actually genuine and authentic when they say they love productivity and optimizing every little aspect of their days and output? Like, really? Or are we bullshitting ourselves?
Are we doing our morning routine because we truly love it or in order to achieve something?
The truth is:
Yes, of course, I struggle with focus and procrastination and digital organization.
After 10 years of being a creator and solopreneur - procrastination is still my middle name.
Trust me, I tried out everything. All the tools. All the advice.
I have even given advice around productivity in content I created.
Another truth is:
Almost none of the tools and systems work for me.
My information management system is still a mess.
My to-do lists are pretty useless.
I only get a fraction done of what I set out to do every week.
My business is not growing as fast as it maybe “should” be.
But I’m living life over here with all my senses and having fun creating when I do, while others are hustling.
(Hustling for what?)
Here is what does help me:
Inquiring within. Explore the shadows that are hiding beneath my procrastination.
Being honest with myself about what fills me with joy and what I’m actually filling my work days with.
Trusting that I can work in my own speed and do what excites me and trust that life will work in my favor and keep supporting me. Trusting that if I stay in my zone of genius and joy that flow and $$ will follow.
Cultivating presence, awareness and regulating my nervous system by doing Breathwork and meditation, by spending a ton of time out in nature.
Here is also what helps me:
Embracing what I’m passionate and obsessed about and doing that every single day.
No productivity hacks or tools needed.
These words by Zach Phillips really resonate when it comes to my work, any work:
“It’s important to me that I do it simultaneously for NO GOOD REASON and EVERY REASON.”
How I Discovered Breathwork
My life used to be an emotional and dramatic rollercoaster.
Then the breath and Breathwork entered my life.
I had my first introduction to transformational Breathwork in a workshop with Michael Stone in his home in Venice Beach, CA, several years ago.
It blew my mind (as it does to first-time breathers)
I had done plant medicine before this. I had done drugs in my teenage years and early twenties. I had experiment with lots of spiritual practices and invested a ton of money into all sorts of healing modalities.
And here I was sitting and “merely” breathing and accessing altered states of consciousness, processing moments from my childhood, connecting to my inner child and accessing parts of myself I hadn’t been able to access before - by breathing and listening to intense music with a group of people wearing eye masks. I was immediately fascinated.
It took me another while to properly explore the transformational power of Breathwork.
I was going through a big transition in my life due to a recent breakup. I wanted to consciously process my emotions and sadness and thus decided to explore more body-based somatic work again. I intuitively knew I couldn’t figure out my recurring pain and challenges in relationships by staying on the level of the mind, by meditating and doing talk therapy. I knew I had to go into my body.
Breathwork resurfaced on my horizon.
This time around, I started to experiment with different styles and teachers. I went to every Breathwork circle I could find in Bali. I booked private sessions to go even deeper with practitioners.
I consciously approached every breathing session to process my breakup and old stored emotions in my body and psyche – and it was amazing. I shifted endless amounts of current and old pain, anger and fears. After each session, I felt re-born, relieved and lighter. And a little more connected to my body and my emotions.
Eventually, it became clear that becoming a Breathwork practitioner was my dharma. It’s the medicine I am here to share with others.
Working with my breath has transformed me and my life in ways I could have never imagined.
It helped me find healing and inner peace. It helped me find a connection to my body and emotions I never had.
It enabled me to meet my partner who is also a Breathwork Teacher.
It feels like several emotional mount Everests climbs without a break lie behind me and I have reached a high plateau with fresh air, where I can take a breather, integrate years of ups and downs and truly focus on sharing my gifts and my passion without the painful distractions and energy leaks.
I have no idea what life still has in store for me.
I’m open to it all. Because I have my breath.
SEO is NOT Dead: How My Blog Suddenly Exploded
I got my faith in SEO back.
An article I published in October last year was picked up by the Google algorithm and is now sending 7.000+ visitors per month to my website (this number is growing daily).
I don’t really check my analytics much and so I only noticed it because I received more and more messages from people who told me they had found me via my blogpost on shadow work. So I got curious and looked into it.
All of this feels really good, because it shows me how much power there still is in SEO in 2021.
After my huge SEO and financial success with my travel blog several years ago, I almost thought this wouldn’t be possible anymore. But it looks like it still might be - just takes a little longer and it takes more effort.
So I’m planning on writing and optimizing my content for search even more.
The dependency on social media is really annoying. Even though relying on the Google algorithm is also a dependency, it doesn’t feel like a never-ending hamster-wheel that you have to feed the hamster every day.
The Limits of Talk Therapy + Life Coaching: What to Do Instead
I’ve done it all.
All the psychotherapy, all the coaching.
I’ve worked with at least four therapists and at least seven different coaches over many years.
It all helped in many ways. Sort of.
I don’t regret all the hours and money spent, not at all. I’m glad for all the insights, all the learnings.
But eventually I hit a wall. I kept feeling stuck, I kept having the same painful and co-dependent experiences when dating and in relationships, I kept on struggling with depression and loneliness and, on top of all that, I had to deal with chronic health issues.
After all those years, I was at a loss, I was frustrated and desperate.
It took me a long time to understand why I was stuck.
Why Talk Therapy and Life Coaching Work
On the one hand, for my rational brain it’s important to understand cause and effect and to analyze past experiences to explain current challenges and fears.
Talk therapy and life coaching are great first steps to bring awareness to patterns, stories, beliefs and unhealthy habits.
Therapy is a powerful way explore the roots of our personality and current struggles by going back to our childhoods. It helped me a lot in making sense of my past and uncover dynamics.
CBT therapy can also be very beneficial when needing immediate strategies to improve our mental health.
Also, by naming something and shedding light on our shadow parts, we de-shame secrets and stories in a safe environment. Something that was really important for me as I struggled a lot with shame and keeping things un-expressed.
Life coaching definitely also helped me gain new perspectives, as well as adjust my habits and thinking.
All the work I did with therapists and coaches served as an entry into exploring my psyche and unhealthy thinking patterns.
Why Talk Therapy + Life Coaching Don’t Work
We are not just our minds - even though Western culture tries to make us believe that.
The thing with talk therapy and coaching is -
We stay on the level of the mind and try to intellectually understand and change things that happened on an emotional and somatic level.
As Bessel van der Kolk’s book title says: “The body keeps the score.” Trauma and big emotional experiences are stored in our physical body, our nervous system and our emotional body. Unprocessed and unexpressed emotions don’t just disappear, they are buffered.
When the body holds the memory of the trauma, people can get stuck in chronic fight, flight, freeze responses in the body which cause a variety of physical, mental, and relational issues to occur.
““We have learned that trauma is not just an event that took place sometime in the past; it is also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body. This imprint has ongoing consequences for how the human organism manages to survive in the present.
(…)
Psychologists usually try to help people use insight and understanding to manage their behavior. However, neuroscience research shows that very few psychological problems are the result of defects in understanding; most originate in pressures from deeper regions in the brain that drive our perception and attention. When the alarm bell of the emotional brain keeps signaling that you are in danger, no amount of insight will silence it.”
- Bessel van der Kolk
Most developmental and shock trauma can't be treated linguistically, it can't be processed 'as a story' before it is processed somatically.
Talk therapy is considered a “top down” approach, as it relies heavily on verbal expression and cognitive functioning. Talk therapy often heavily relies on intellectual insights for change and for talking as growth. Also, it can encourage people to get stuck in patterns of thought or narratives that do not serve them for their evolution.
A big reason we get stuck with talk therapy is also because a lot of trauma happened to us before we were able to speak or before we were able to form distinct memories of the experience. Some big experiences are buffered in our bodies purely somatically and as an emotion, eg. pre-verbal trauma, birth trauma, pre-natal trauma or even ancestral trauma that was passed on to us (it is said that trauma is passed on through seven generations).
On top of all that, the things we struggle to change usually sit in the unconscious. But talk therapy and coaching usually only help us access conscious material, which only makes up about 5-10% of our total mind.
Plus, never once did I explore nutrition in therapy, though it can deeply affect mental health.
Medication is often prescribed as a first stop instead of a last resort (which in some very serious cases might be necessary).
A lot of therapy also doesn’t teach easily available and incredibly powerful tools of how to regulate the body's nervous system, which is often a driving factor in anxiety.
Lastly, many life coaches and even therapists are not trauma-informed or trained in trauma awareness.
Beyond Talk Therapy: The Alternatives
There is so much more beyond talk therapy that I have found way more effective on my journey to lasting transformation and healing.
I have divided them into two categories:
Somatic modalities to heal and reprogram our nervous system and stress responses in our bodies.
Practices that help us access our subconscious mind.
Somatic Therapy Approaches
Somatic psychotherapy instead works from the “bottom up”– reducing stress and anxiety physiologically, through changing the autonomic nervous system and discharging trauma.
Through somatic modalities, I learned to
re-connect to my body and listen to the signals it gives me
create a sense of internal safety and feel safe feeling my emotions
self-regulate my emotions and find more inner calm
Here are some somatic therapy approaches to healing and transformation:
Somatic Experiencing
Grinberg Method
Feldenkrais
Breathwork (daily to regulate nervous system and regular deep dive sessions for releasing emotions and unprocessed trauma and access subconscious )
EMDR
Practices to Access the Subconscious Mind
Here are ways to access to the other 95% of the material that make up our minds:
Psychedelic and MDMA-assisted therapy methods
Plant Medicine (eg. Ayahuasca, San Pedro..)
Dream Analysis
Internal Family Systems
Talk therapy and life coaching are good entryways in the beginning when we are starting our journeys into healing and transformation.
However, to experience true lasting healing, a deeper approach is often necessary - one that goes beyond the conscious mind into the body and into our subconscious.
(This is atomic essay #28, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
What REALLY Happens in Your Brain and Body During Deep Transformational Breathwork?
What actually happens in the body and brain when we are doing conscious connected breathing for 30-90 minutes?
When you breathe deeply and continuously without pause in a controlled manner it is similar to when you use plant medicine:
It slows down a structure of the brain called the default mode network (DMN) - meaning, there is a decrease blood flow and electrical activity in that area.
The DMN is a group of brain structures found in the frontal and pre-frontal cortex. According to research, the default mode network is primarily responsible for our ego or sense of self; it is responsible for the brain’s control mechanisms and a lot of our rigid, habitual thinking and obsessions. It's what's active when we recall memories, envision the future, monitor the environment, think about the intentions of others...basically, it's the parts that light up when we daydream or self-reflect.
It takes about 10-20 minutes of Breathwork until it affects the default mode network and we start to "bypass" our ego mind.
With the ego out of order, the boundaries between self and world, subject and object dissolve. It helps relax the part of the brain that leads us to obsess, which makes us calmer. This allows us to break free from typical thought patterns, we can experience a transcendence of time and space, a sense of unity and sacredness and a deeply felt positive mood.
Since fast breathing loosens psychological defenses and the ego temporarily vanishes, our brains are free to explore more unconscious material. Childhood memories and many others that were long forgotten can come up because our DMN doesn’t have any restrictions in place anymore.
In our day-to-day lives, we normally suppress a lot of emotions and memories, but during Breathwork, our subconscious and our bodies start to release them.
During a session, we welcome everything to come up and often the fast deep breathing creates physical and emotional symptoms that are intensified – giving us an opportunity to process and release them.
In a study on Holotropic Breathwork from 2007, they found that voluntary hyperventilation results in disinhibition of previously avoided or suppressed stimuli.
When you do Breathwork regularly, it strengthens the neuro-pathways to your inner intelligence and subconscious and allows for easier access to it on a day to day basis. It is a powerful way to support you in freeing yourself from your egoic mind and integrating this deep inner work into your everyday life.
Scientific research around Breathwork is still in its infancy, but it is slowly being explored more and more. I found a few studies, especially around Holotropic Breathwork that are supporting the claims of the potential healing effects (this article summarizes them well).
However, since there is not much money to be made with breath, cause breathing is free, not much money is invested in researching it.
The fact of the matter is that the breath has been known since ancient times to be used by humans for healing purposes.
-
You can experience the effects of deep transformational Breathwork by joining one of my upcoming workshops. Register here.
(This is atomic essay #27, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
The Art and Science of Breathwork
Breathwork is currently taking off as the next big mindfulness and consciousness movement.
If you struggle with stress and anxiety, mental clarity or sleep issues, then we invite you to learn how to use your breath as a vehicle for better mental, emotional and physical health:
I teamed up with @jonnym1ller to run an introductory workshop this past weekend called "The Art + Science of Breathwork".
Many of us struggle with meditation, but a daily Breathwork practice offers many of the same benefits, plus:
it is easier to learn
it can be practiced anywhere
the results are predictable.
Also: Meditation combined with Breathwork is like a superpower.
In this free one-hour workshop:
we will show you how to use your breath to self-regulate emotions and manage your nervous system.
you will discover the science of stress-management, how the breath changes our blood chemistry and how we can use it to shift our physiological and emotional state.
you will learn effective and powerful breathing techniques that can be applied in many different situations during your daily life.
Watch it here:
If you are interested to dive deeper into the world of breath— we will be running a special kind of program – starting on Feb 20 (early bird price until Feb 2):
30 DAYS OF BREATHWORK
Learning Breathwork — aka the conscious awareness and regulation of your breath — is a safe and natural way to quickly shift your autonomic nervous system into a state of calm and balance.
It is the most effective way to relieve stress and anxiety, improve your sleep and increase energy + focus.
If you are serious about unlocking your full human potential, start a Breathwork practice.
During the 30 day challenge, we'll teach you the most effective breathing techniques for regulating your nervous system and you get to connect and breathe in community (superfun by the way!).
We'd love for you to join us → Register here (early bird price until Feb 2)
—
(This is atomic essay #26, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
How to Unlock the Superpower of Your Breath
Breathwork is a way of life.
The best way to approach it is to view it as a lifestyle.
View it as something that you incorporate into your way of life and being as opposed to a set of practices done formally every day.
This way it will become part of your daily life rather than a regular chore or another thing on your to do list.
This idea compares to the formal practice of meditation versus living a mindful life on a daily basis.
The invitation is to decide to focus on your breathing and to observe it, to sense it, moment to moment. And to use the breath as an in-built remote control for your body and nervous system.
With breath awareness, the breath breathes you; with conscious breathing, you breathe the breath.
It’s important to learn to flow back and forth between active and passive, between doing and being, between breathing the breath and letting the breath breathe us.
You can breathe to the rhythm or beat of a song.
You can breathe in nature when you are out in a forest or by the ocean (eg. breathe with the movement of the waves).
You can embrace your partner or a friend and sync your breath up with theirs.
The possibilities are endless.
When you experience life through the breath, you get to somatically connect to life and feel life as it happens (rather than “think” life).
By elevating the quality of our breath, we can enhance and expand our lives.
Get into the habit of observing your breath and taking control of it before, during, and after various activities, events, and interactions.
The journey into the breath is one that doesn’t end with a daily practice or doing the occasional deep Breathwork session.
Once you start to really own your breath, and understand and utilize its power - you unlock a superpower.
(This is atomic essay #25, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
I’m in the Flow Again: Making $$ By Following My Joy
The last couple weeks or so have been pretty awesome in terms of feeling connected to my purpose and making a living.
I silently launched my new course to the interest list and made almost 30 sales. That’s more than $4000.
My first solo Integrative Breathwork Workshop sold out pretty quickly and I even had several people on the waitlist. I made $375 with that. The workshop itself was the bomb diggidy. I had a lot of fun and the group was such a gift.
I scheduled another one for February and it’s almost half-way full already.
My friend Jonny Miller and I ran a workshop on The Art + Science of Breathwork in the Nesslabs community and we had more than 80 people register. Afterwards, we pre-sold 16 tickets to our 30 Days of Breathwork challenge that starts February 20. That’s $1050 already without having publicly announced it. I would like to get 50 people involved, but to be honest, my secret wish is 100 participants.
We then decided to run the same workshop again but publicly for our own communities and have 160+ people registered. Unbelievable, that’s way beyond anything I would have imagined.
My Instagram account for @breathwork.alchemy is growing nicely.
My Clubhouse community is coming along and I just passed 500 followers. I ran a couple room events with my partner and also moderated a few with some friends. It’s loads of fun to connect with people on that platform, really enjoying it.
Beyond all of this, I feel deeply connected to my work, trusting in its purpose for other people and the world.
I usually never share any numbers like these publicly, but hey, why not. It’s all about transparency these days. #buildinpublic
Besides, my message with this post is this:
All I have been doing these past couple years is follow my joy without knowing how I was going to make a living.
I gave up successful projects and businesses to trust in my calling.
I can’t lie - I did get sucked into a little financial scarcity mindset vortex for a bit towards the end of 2020. But I kept trusting, no matter what.
And so here I am today:
I followed my joy and I found my flow again and it’s working out.
Abundance is always available.
(This is atomic essay #24, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
The Lazy People’s Guide to Building a Daily Writing Habit
One of the most valuable skills and most powerful habits is writing.
Here is how to write every day for people who struggle with daily habits:
Set the bar incredibly low.
Track your progress.
Make a plan in advance.
Set a writing cue.
Reward yourself.
Commit to the process for at least 90 days in a row.
You must be dedicated to writing every day.
Set up a daily reminder system.
Tell people about it.
Fall in love with it.
This is how I make writing a thing I just do every day - like, no big deal. Like brushing my teeth.
I don’t think about it anymore, I just sit down and do it without thinking about it.
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(This is atomic essay #23, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
Why I Enjoy and Appreciate “Clubhouse”
I have been using the new app Clubhouse actively for about two weeks now:
ran my own room events and co-moderated others
raised my hands and contributed to conversations many times
(Come find me at @conni.biesalski)
Here is my resumé:
It’s the social media app for the new age we are currently entering.
By new age, I am talking about the Age of Aquarius.I believe it’s not just a current hype but that it’s here to stay.
It offers immense potential.
Here is why I enjoy and appreciate the app:
Dope conversations. I have dropped in on some really valuable discussions among wonderful and smart people and the rooms I moderated were really fun too. Yes, there are lots of mediocre chats and boring trash rooms, but hey it comes with any platform - you got to dig a bit to find the gold.
Abundance of friendliness and kindness. It really surprises me how incredibly friendly and kind most people and moderators are on the platform. For real, makes me believe in the good in humans even more.
Everyone is super helpful. Apart from the above point, giving value and being genuine about it seems to be the motto on Clubhouse. I find it fascinating just how patiently people give others advice, so cool.
The collaborative nature of the platform. In essence, you can really only grow by collaborating with others and providing a lot of value. Running a room on your own just talking at people probably won’t get you very far.
It’s going to be interesting to see how the platform further develops, since this is really only the beginning.
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(This is atomic essay #22, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
How I Keep Myself Fit During Lockdown
My body needs to move.
Regular exercise and moving my body daily really keeps my mental, emotional and physical health in check.
Considering how humans evolved, our modern sedentary indoor lifestyle is insane to me.
I also believe that regular physical movement is grossly underrated when it comes to depression, anxiety, sleep problems, fatigue/low energy, focus and productivity.
However, I have to admit, it’s not easy to stay motivated to exercise and workout during lockdown times.
When we’re not in the middle of a pandemic, I usually go to lift weights at the gym, take a class at a yoga studio, go swimming and - depending if I’m nearby an ocean - surfing is my go-to as well.
But of course, we all have to adjust to the current circumstances.
These days my workout routine is a combination of the following:
Online Yoga (usually with Jivamukti Peace Yoga Berlin)
The Class by Taryn Toomey
Yoga self-practice sequence (my go-to is the spiritual warrior sequence)
Kettlebells and bodyweight exercises
Going for walks out in nature
Doing Yin or Gravity-style Yoga
I aim to move my body daily, but I might skip a day here or there. I also don’t do strong workouts on the first two days of my menstrual cycle.
Every morning, I check in with myself and my movement needs:
Do I need something strong and more cardio-ish? Do I need to be outside? Do I need more stretching?
I truly believe in the power of exercise to regulate our nervous system and to stay healthy in all dimensions.
That’s my big Why - I want to grow old healthy and become 100 years old while enjoying my body and life.
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(This is atomic essay #21, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
Is Creativity a Muscle? If So, How do You Build It?
Does this process ever get any easier?
Is there a way to systemize the creative process?
How can I optimize writing so it feels more effortless?
It sounds like an oxymoron, to systemize the creative process - creativity as a thing can be a messy, open-ended, multi-track road which we just have to walk down to unlock and un-stifle the thoughts we've got in our heads.
Here Is What Helped Me Train My Creativity Muscle:
Separate my writing brain from my editing brain. Mental fatigue is caused from context switching between these two modes of thinking. Also, it’s hard to be truly creative and come up with original ideas when our editor is turned on, as he tends to be too critical for creativity to really flourish.
Systemize ideas. Prioritize getting thoughts down on paper or record random ideas in my notes app. This way, I never have to stare at a blank page.
Transform writing into a habit. Consistency builds value and quantity leads to quality. Figure out a good cue, response, and reward for writing. It will compound over time.
Set up a creative environment. The better I'm able to have my writing environment mimic that of a child at play, the better the writing session tends to go.
Showing Up + Sharing Your Work = Putting in the Reps
Just 'showing up' is massively important. Building up that routine and developing a habit for getting words onto a page is the place to begin. While it doesn't happen every day outside of my current 30 day challenge, I strive for 30 minutes of writing (just words on a theme, whatever's in my head) and then walking away.
I'll come back to it later, review and edit for around 10 minutes and then post it to my blog, include it as an essay in my newsletter or share it on a social media channel.
This last part is really important; if we don't share our work we can never improve because we are constantly working in a silo.
A few question for you to help kick-start a routine:
When do you write?
Where do you do it?
What is your platform for sharing?
When I don’t feel like writing…
When I'm in a writing funk I try to pay attention to my environment and my inner world:
Are there interruptions to my creative process?
Do I have internal or external stressors?
Where am I at in my menstrual cycle?
As they say, "putting in the reps," even when you're not feeling it, helps to build the creative muscle.
Doing it every day helps to build it.
Setting up a system makes it easier to be more efficient.
Sharing our writing supports us in building confidence.
Building a muscle takes time and it needs to be worked out regularly. Once you stop, it starts to shrink again. Being a creator, a writer is a way of being, a way of living.
Make writing your lifestyle and you won’t ever have to worry about building your creative muscles every again.
(This is atomic essay #20, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)
The 16 Identities We Create to Compensate for a Wounded Inner Child
As human beings, we are not linear or two-dimensional creatures. We are all multi-faceted and have multiple parts that make up our psyche.
The identity our wounded inner child creates has a positive intent: To protect us.
Here are some common protector costumes:
The Perfectionist
The People-Pleaser
The Rebel
The Hyper-Independent
The Strong One
The Humorist
The Overachiever
The Hoarder
The Addict
The Control Freak
The Conflict-Avoider
The Bully
The Put-Together One
The Self-Doubter
The Nice Guy/Girl/Person
The Shy One
For example, being sensitive or expressing emotions of fear or sadness were not supported when I was growing up and considered a sign of weakness.
So I put on the costume of The Strong One and The Hyper-Independent. I felt like I had to show that I never get scared and that I don’t need anyone and can take care of myself.
Or as a young teenager, I slowly started to feel my attraction to women, but I felt way to ashamed about that to admit that I was queer.
So I put on the costume of The Addict and took a lot of drugs and partied hard to drown out feelings of loneliness and depression that came from suppressing a lot of my emotions and shame.
I could share many more of these examples, because I had a lot of protector costumes in my closet. Eventually, I was initiated onto my journey of awakening and becoming conscious, which also led me to heal the parts that my protectors were trying to protect. Over the years, I have been able to take many costumes off and become the me that has been there all along.
Doing the work to heal our inner children and our past traumas is one of the most important work we can do. It might be a tough and painful ride, but it’s the only way we can become truly whole.
(This is atomic essay #19, which is part of 30 Days of Writing #Ship30for30)