Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

The Most Important Day of My Life

It wasn’t just one day per se - it was when I got together with my first girlfriend in February 2010 and I was finally able to give myself permission to have my coming out as a queer woman at age 26.

Looking back, I knew I was attracted to women since I was probably 13, but deep shame and embarrassment kept me from acknowledging it.

I had a lot of relationships with men and forced myself to be sexually intimate with them, but it made me (and them) very unhappy.

At the same time, I was secretly in love with many girls/women and heartbroken for years.

On a trip to India in 2009, I met a woman who was queer. I had a big crush on her, but she had a girlfriend. I opened up my feelings to her after we parted (the first time for me to a woman) and she essentially coached me through this “initial” coming out via email. 

We stayed in touch and more than six months later, I went to visit her in Australia without any expectations but with the intention to find out more about my feelings. It turned out that her girlfriend and her had broken up a while before that. 

Two weeks into my visit - I had already give up on any possibility of us hooking up - we got together out of the blue and eventually became a couple. 

After that first night with her, everything around my sexual identity became crystal clear and it was such a huge relief. It finally felt like pure freedom, like liberation after years and years of imprisoning myself.

My coming out resulted in my flood gates opening up in all other areas of my life as well in terms of self-expression, self-acceptance, self-compassion and self-love.

Everything started to shift and align and all shadows started coming to the surface after I was able to express my sexual identity as my truth.

We stayed together for 2.5 years and even though the breakup in 2012 was the most difficult and painful experience to date, I am immensely grateful for her, everything she opened me up to, and all the learnings since we parted.

Our separation was my initiation into consciousness - it cracked me open and I have been on a deep healing and integration journey since.

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    How to Take a Reset Day

    It’s Monday morning. My mind feels clear. My body grounded.

    Yesterday was my weekly reset day.

    Here is what this means:

    On Sundays, I don’t use my phone or laptop all day. It’s a day without screens, without social media or email.

    It’s a day to reset my brain.

    (Note: I sometimes make an exception if I have to briefly communicate with someone via WhatsApp or look something up on Google. But it is a very intentional minute to use the phone for a specific purpose in that moment.)

    It helps me to destress my mind, body and eyes. It helps me to come back to a base level of my own inner creativity, uninfluenced by other people’s creations.

    That’s what I miss the most sometimes - when I look back at my years as a teenager and my early twenties, when I was writing and doing photography for the pure pleasure of it, not comparing myself to other writers or photographers on social media. Simply creating from my own inner well of inspiration. And even when I started my first blog in 2011 and then my travel blog in 2012, I wrote and created mainly undistracted from what others were doing.

    I consumed much less and created so much more.

    Oh, the times.

    Every once in a while it really hits me on a cellular level - just how much time we modern humans spend staring at and communicating through screens. Hours upon hours we interact in a digital world that we can’t really touch or smell.

    These days, spending more than a few hours at my laptop every day stresses out my nervous system. After several days of screen interaction, my mind feels more scattered and overwhelmed easily, I feel internal tension in my body and my eyes start burning when I look at my laptop screen.

    I’d say those are pretty clear signals from by body to chill the fuck out.

    So I am applying concepts of mindfulness to my digital life and taking intentional breaks to let my mind and body breathe and recharge.

    This also means on a daily basis:

    • I try to not engage with my phone for the first couple of hours in the morning.

    • At best I charge it in another room overnight, so no phone use in bed.

    • I have basically all notifications turned off, except phone and WhatsApp

    • My biggest time and energy sucker is Instagram and so I keep regularly deleting it off my phone for a while. Like I did a few weeks ago.

    • Only 4-6 hours of laptop work a day with lots of breaks in between.

    By now I’m sure most people have watched The Social Dilemma or read the books Digital Minimalism and Essentialism. I see more and more people get off social media or finally become more intentional about their use of digital devices.

    This week, I am going to also take a reset day on Wednesday and see how it feels to have a break in the middle of the week.

    It’s interesting to notice how little connected I feel to my body when I am using my digital devices. But life is an embodied experience and so I want to spend as much time in my body as possible, as much time interacting with the real world and humans I can touch, as much time using all my senses.

    I am grateful for what the digital world and its technologies provide me with AND I can appreciate it even more when I take breaks from it all.

    Here are a few resources to dig into regarding screens and the stress response in our bodies:

    And here are two studies:

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      Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

      The Joy of Doodling with Procreate

      Here are some fun little doodles I did on my iPad using Procreate.

      Since I have no real clue how to draw, I like to collect inspiration on Pinterest and then simply copy them with my own twists.

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        The Vagus Nerve: An Introductory Guide

        I got interested in the vagus nerve and The Polyvagal Theory by Stephen Porges about a year ago.

        This was when I dove deep into topics like trauma, depression and practices like Breathwork.

        I discovered that the vagus nerve is an important part in understanding the science of stress, the stress response in our bodies and how the nervous system works. I was surprised that I had never heard much about it before.

        Actually, I did hear about it a few times from a befriended naturopath who was helping me heal my SIBO (small intestinal bacterial overgrowth). She kept telling me to do humming meditation to activate my vagus nerve, but I didn’t take it very seriously and didn’t believe it would be effective. So I didn’t even try.

        Nice one, Conni.

        Looking back, it’s kind of funny how ignorant and clueless I was (insert facepalm emoji here).

        A name that gets dropped a lot is Stephen Porges - he put the nerve on the map and did a lot of the first initial research on the vagus nerve.

        What Does the Vagus Nerve Do and Where is it?

        Vagus-nerve-674x800.jpg

        The vagus nerve is a squiggly, shaggy, branching nerve (in yellow in the image above) connecting your brain to many important organs throughout the body, including the gut (intestines, stomach), heart and lungs.

        It’s in charge of turning off the ‘fight or flight’ reflex’. When stimulated, it basically acts as a brake on the stress response.

        So it’s kind of a big deal.

        It is the longest nerve in the body, and technically it comes as a pair of two vagus nerves, one for the front side of the body and one for the back side.

        It’s called “vagus” because it wanders, like a vagrant, among the organs. 

        The vagus nerve has been described as largely responsible for the mind-body connection, for its role as a mediator between thinking and feeling.

        So when people say ‘trust your gut’, it really means ‘trust your vagus nerve’.

        The vagus nerve is basically listening to the way we breathe, and it sends the brain and the heart whatever message our breath indicates. Breathing slowly, for instance, reduces the oxygen demands of the heart muscle (the myocardium), and our heart rate drops.

        Vagus Nerve and Stress Response

        When I talk about stress, I mean everything that activates our nervous system and puts us into fight/flight/freeze triggered by fear, anxiety, anger, grief or overwhelm due to issues we face in relationships, at work or otherwise.

        Your stress response is the collection of physiological changes that occur when you face a perceived threat, that is when you face situations where you feel the demands outweigh your resources to successfully cope.

        Here is how stress works in a nutshell:

        The autonomic nervous system (ANS) consists of the sympathetic part (SNS = activation, stress and exercise) and the parasympathetic part (PNS = relaxation, rest and digest).

        When we feel fear or anger, our sympathetic nervous system gets triggered and charges up energy in the body, getting us ready to fight or flight. The SNS signals the adrenal glands to release hormones called adrenalin and cortisol.

        Once the crisis is over, the body usually returns to the pre-emergency, unstressed state. This recovery is facilitated by the PNS, which generally has opposing effects to the SNS.

        When the autonomic nervous system charges up, we can discharge energy via vagus nerve stimulation, as increasing your vagal tone activates the parasympathetic nervous system. Having a higher vagal tone means that your body can relax faster after stress.

        The vagus nerve is essentially the queen of the parasympathetic nervous system — a.k.a. the chill out one — so the more we do things that activate it, like deep breathing, the more we banish the effects of the sympathetic nervous system — a.k.a. the “do something!” stress-releasing adrenaline/cortisol one.

        It’s important to dissolve core tensions out of the nervous system and close the cycle of an emotional or stressful experience, as any overwhelming experience that doesn’t get digested in the moment lodges in the nervous system as some form of tension. The more this happens and the more of this tension energy we keep stored in our bodies, the more likely we are to develop chronic health issues, depression and anxiety.

        Vagal Tone: Measuring The Quality of the Vagus Nerve

        The vagal tone tell us how healthy, strong, and functional the nerve is:

        • when it is toned down you might suffer from anxiety, depression, and autoimmune issues.

        • when it is toned up, you are resilient, you bounce back easier from challenges, your moods more stable, and you have a strong immune system.

        One way is to measure heart rate variability (HRV) — it’s a sort of “surrogate” for measuring actual vagal tone.

        Heart rate variability is the amount that the heart rate fluctuates between a breath in (when it naturally speeds up) and a breath out (when it naturally slows down). 

        (Did you know? Stimulation of the nervous system occurs during each cycle of the breath. Inhalation emphasizes sympathetic activity (the stress/exercise branch and activation), and exhalation stimulates the parasympathetic activity (the relaxation, rest, and digestion branch).

        Heart rate rises on the inhale and falls on the exhale, and the difference between those two rates essentially measures vagal tone.

        When we stimulate our vagus nerve, we can reduce stress, anxiety, anger, and inflammation by activating the relaxation response of our parasympathetic nervous system.

        What is The Polyvagal Theory?

        Stephen Porges is the mind behind the fascinating Polyvagal Theory, which has massive implications for the treatment of anxiety, depression, trauma, and autism.

        The theory has provided supercool new insights into the way our autonomic nervous system unconsciously mediates social engagement, trust, and intimacy.

        Polyvagal theory (poly- "many" + vagal "wandering") is a collection of evolutionary, neuroscientific and psychological claims pertaining to the role of the vagus nerve in emotion regulation, social connection and fear response.

        Here is a research paper on it by Porges and two books:

        Irene Lyon is a trauma and nervous system specialist, whose video is a great introduction the theory:

        I got a geeky science vlog for you today on the polyvagal theory. I've wanted to write about this for a while. I've even debated turning this into a long for...

        Vagus Nerve Stimulation Practices and Exercises

        In order tone up your vagal tone and relax your nervous system, here are some very powerful and effective things you can do: 

        • Deep and slow diaphragmatic breathing into your belly (especially longer exhalations, such as using the 4-7-8 technique or 1:2 ratio, but also box breathing on a 4 or 5 count and coherence breathing with six breaths per minutes, which is 5 in and 5 out)
          —> a recent study shows that just two minutes of deep breathing with longer exhalation engages the vagus nerve and increases HRV

        • Singing, chanting and gargling

        • Humming Meditation

        • Cold exposure (eg. taking a cold shower, splashing cold water on your face and sauna)

        • Meditation

        • Exercise (especially weight lifting, HIIT, cardio and daily walking for 30-60 minutes)

        • Socializing and laughing

        Here are a few more practices to generally calm your nervous system:

        • Massage (especially foot massage)

        • Body scan and Yoga Nidra

        • Massaging your diaphragm

        • Foam rolling and Yin Yoga (to work with tension in the fascia)

        • Transformational Breathwork

        • Sound Healing

        Further Resources:

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          Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

          Follow Your Highest Excitement - WTF Does That Even Mean?

          If you live and consume information in my bubble of the universe, then you will hear the a lot of people talk about “following your highest excitement” these days.

          I’m one of those.

          Oops.

          I actually adjusted it a little and moved from excitement to joy. It just vibes better with me. “Highest excitement” feels a little too intense for me. I like things a little more peaceful and chill and slow.

          So even though I don’t mind experiencing excitement in my body, I find joy more sustainable and long-term.

          Highest excitement feels like chasing peak experiences, whereas joy feels like riding a nice gentle fun wave.

          Here is what living a life guided by the mantra “following my joy” means to me:

          • doing what feels good to me in the moment

          • embracing the flow of my days and life

          • saying no to things that don’t spark joy at all —> letting go of should-ing myself and putting pressure on myself to do something

          • asking “Why am I you doing this?” —> Because if its not for the joy, then why do it? - money? Why for the money?

          • integrating play into my daily life and relationships

          Following the joy is like being and living like a kid. Take a four year old. Observe it.

          “If you have a child of two or three, or can borrow one, let her give you beginning lessons in looking.”
          —Corita Kent and Jan Steward, Learning By Heart

          They do this and then they do that, they glide from one activity to another, just as they feel it in their body. They follow their inner guidance as they play and do whatever speaks their joy at any given time. They go back and forth between activities to then come back to one or the other.

          It’s quite amazing.

          But as we grow up, we learn that we have to do things we don’t want to do.

          We learn that we have to always do things that have a purpose.

          We are told that we can’t just have fun and be joyful all the time.

          But you know what - we operate, give and are of service the best when we allow ourselves to do what sparks joy in us.

          Can I always follow the joy?

          I try to. It’s my North Star.

          But being a human in a modern world also means that sometimes I have to do things I don’t particularly enjoy or that I need to do.

          For example, I don’t enjoy responding to admin emails, make calls to the bank, or fixing something that broke (like a website).

          I try to outsource things like that as much as possible.

          The way I follow my joy is to trust the messages of my body.

          The body never lies.

          As Bashar says, when we follow our joy, we are on the shortest path to what we want.

          Posted with permission from Bashar Communications. Alan Steinfeld and New Realities: making known the unknown For the last 20 years, Alan Steinfeld has trave...

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            The Magic Breathing Technique I Use For Anxiety, Stress and Tension in My Body

            There are things that are so simple that it’s hard to believe just how powerful and effective they are.

            It’s like our rational, analytical mind needs things to be hard work and complex so that we can trust that they work.

            Thus is the case with breathing.

            Several months ago, I was on the train to see my now partner. It was going to be our first proper date weekend. As the six hour train journey from the South of Germany to Hamburg in the very North slowly came to an end, I got a little more nervous and anxious. So I pulled out trick 17:

            I started breathing in with a count of five and out on a count of 10. 

            I focused on diaphragmatic breathing - meaning, I was consciously breathing into my belly to fill up the lower parts of my lungs.

            After just a couple minutes of doing this, my nervous system and body started to relax. By the time I reached Hamburg twenty minutes later, I was calm and at ease. Ok, let’s be honest, I was just really excited at this point. But the anxiety and nervousness was gone.

            Longer exhales activate our parasympathetic nervous system and tone up the vagus nerve, which has a proven relaxation effect.

            The Yogis knew this a long time ago without having done any scientific studies. It’s what’s called experimental wisdom. Today, research proves that the technique works and why.

            This practice is also referred to as 1:2 breathing, meaning: you exhale twice as long as you inhale. I like to do 5 in and 10 out, but if you are not yet very experienced with conscious breathing techniques like this one, I would recommend you inhale for 4 and exhale for 8. If this is too uncomfortable for you still, even 3 in and out for 6 works.

            At best you inhale and exhale both through the nose, but you can also exhale through the mouth using pursed lips to control the exhale a little better. 

            You can try this out now: inhale…1 2 3 4 and exhale 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 

            Give yourself a few cycles to get used to the longer inhales and exhales.

            Note: A normal respiratory rate per minute is anywhere from 12 to 16, which means your average breath cycle takes anywhere from 3.75 to 5 seconds, compared to 12 seconds with this breathing technique (4+8=12).

            In combination with diaphragmatic breathing, we chill right out. This study showed the effects of abdominal breathing.

            Shallow chest breathing increases anxiety in the body (most people who suffer from anxiety are heavy chest breathers). When we engage our diaphragm, we feel more grounded and calm.

            You can also try out the 4-7-8 breath (or the more advanced version of 5-8-10), which was populated by Andrew Weil. You basically add on a breath hold after the inhale.

            Dr. Andrew Weil shares simple breathing technique to help with relaxation and insomnia.

            So you breathe in for 4, you hold for 7 and then you exhale for 8.

            Or you breathe in for 5, you hold for 8 and then you exhale for 10.

            This breathing technique is also super useful whenever something upsetting is happening or you get triggered. Before you react, take a few of those breaths and you will feel calmer and more connected to yourself again.

            I use it before presentation or interview, during arguments with my partner or when I have food cravings or when I can’t fall asleep because I am overthinking.

            Whenever you feel inner tension, this technique is truly THE magic tool for more groundedness and mental clarity.

            It is so incredibly simple and you can literally use it anywhere and at anytime.

            These days, I don’t only use this breathing technique in acute moments of anxiety, but I have made the 5/8/10 breathing for five minutes a part of my morning breathing practice to set myself up for the day and prime my nervous system for more calm on a daily basis.

            In essence, it reduces our fight/flight/freeze response as it slows our heart rate down, lowers blood pressure, improves digestion and reduces inflammation in the body.

            My suggestion is to practice this technique twice every day for 10 cycles each to get used to it and then use it whenever you become conscious in situations of stress in your body.

            The more we support our parasympathetic nervous system, the more resilient we become, the less stressed we are, the less we suffer from illness and depression/anxiety.

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              My Daily Routine for More Flow and Creativity (2020 Edition)

              I’m a daily routine optimization expert.

              I have been at this dance for around eight years - or ever since I discovered lifestyle design and entrepreneurship for myself.

              This begs the question -

              “Why, Conni? Why have you still not found one daily routine that works for you and that you stick to?”

              Here is my response - aka my big optimization Why:

              1. I regularly question how I do things in life - and why - and if they are not in alignment anymore, I pivot.

              2. I see my life as a series of experiments.

              3. As I evolve as a human, my needs and viewpoints change - and then I make adjustments.

              On top of this, my current Why is that I keep trying to figure out ways to experience even more flow in my daily life.

              For this, I want to find out how to establish a good balance between following my joy AND getting stuff done that needs to be done.

              In practical terms, my intention is to optimize:

              • the time I spend using my creative energies

              • spending quality time with my partner, family and friends

              • having time to just flow through the day

              I want to be able to mainly occupy my life and days with things that feel important and meaningful to me.

              Here is my dilemma though:

              • I always want to do too many things at the same time and I overestimate how much I can get done. It’s killing me.

              • I get distracted fairly easily.

              • There are things I have to do that don’t spark joy for me.

              Hence, I want to decrease the feeling of time pressure and constantly feeling like there isn’t enough time in the day to do all the things I want to do.

              For this, I recently updated my daily routine and implemented the following changes:

              1. I switched the workout slot with my creative deep work phase to use more of my morning flow state as I noticed that it is by far my best time for writing. (I’m also thinking about possibly moving my workout to late afternoon as studies suggest it is the most efficient time to exercise)

              2. I am currently experimenting with not using to do lists and only focusing on one important task per day. I got so overwhelmed with trying to do too many things each day that I figured, fuck it - one thing and if I can, I will do another.

              3. I used to meditate first thing in the morning (RPM = rise, pee, meditate). These days, I sit down later in the morning when I feel like it.

              Here is my daily routine as of October 2020:

              My Morning Routine

              I usually don’t set an alarm and wake up when my body is ready, usually after about 8-9 hours - so this can be anywhere from 7 to 9am, depending on when I go to sleep the night before.

              I then clean my tongue with an Ayurvedic tongue scraper and do oil pulling with coconut oil for about 10-15 minutes while I clean up, organize a few things and make the bed.

              Next up is my hot lemon water followed by a coffee made from fresh coffee beans with oat or cashew milk, which I drink while I read a book on my Kindle and write my daily pages in my journal. I usually give myself an hour or so for this.

              My meditation and breathwork practice usually takes place somewhere in between. Sometimes I do it right after I get up (which is what I used to do for years). These days I mostly sit down either before or after reading and journaling.

              Here is a video of my meditation and breathwork routine:

              Get my free guided morning meditation: http://conni.me/freemeditation Want my special weekly emails? You can sign up here https://conni.me/signup Why even do...

              I currently do a silent sitting meditation practice of about 20-30 minutes plus some breathing exercises for another 5-10 minutes (eg. alternate nostril breathing with a 5-count box breathing and/or 4-7-8 breathing).

              I like using the Insight Timer app.

              After all this, it’s time to use the best hours of the day to write on my laptop for 1.5 to 2 hours. Like right now. I got up late today, so it’s already almost 11.30am.

              The writing is usually for my blog (like this one), for a video, or for a course I’m working on.

              When I’m done with my morning writing, I head out to the gym or do yoga at home. Depending on where I am and what season it is, I go surfing or swimming or take a yoga class in a studio (which means I have to adjust my morning to the surf forecast or class schedule).

              Lastly, I take a hot shower followed by a short cold one.

              Here is what I don’t do in the morning:

              • I don’t eat breakfast as I practice intermittent fasting.

              • I try to not check my phone for the first few hours of the day.

              • I don’t schedule meetings or Zoom calls before midday - at best after 4pm.

              Note:

              I mix up the sequence of things quite a lot. Flow is more important to me than sticking to a set way of doing things.

              There are days when I don’t feel like journaling or when I simply forget to do oil pulling. Other days, I skip meditation or do a shorter practice. I stay flexible, because who has time for perfectionism.

              My morning routine is sacred but at the same time, I like to always check in with myself and my current needs, which always override any set structure.

              What’s most important to me is that my mornings start slow and that I consciously ease into my days with intention. They set the stage for the rest of the day and prime me and my energy flow. My morning routine is also an expression of self-care and conscious living.

              Here is a video of my morning routine from last year:

              Want my special weekly emails? You can sign up here https://conni.me I am showing you my mindful and minimalist morning routine as a digital nomad in Mexico ...

              Mid-day and Afternoon

              When I finish in the bathroom, I either do some work or depending on what time it is, I will have lunch.

              I usually eat my first meal of the day around 1 or 2pm. When I cook at home, I often make a variety of colorful veggies and rice. I also eat out regularly - my favorites are Thai/Vietnamese, Indian or a nice vegan cafe with healthy, clean bowls. I’m a sucker for bowls.

              I take my supplements with my meals: Magnesium, Zinc, Vitamin B Complex, and something for PMS/my moon cycle.

              After lunch, I might have another coffee and chill for a bit, maybe take a little nap.

              The afternoon hours are usually downtime as my energy dips before I then do some more admin/execution-oriented work and Zoom calls around 4 or 5pm until 7ish or so.

              I like to take regular desk breaks every hour to get up and move my body and relax my eyes.

              I also use blue-light blocking glasses as well as the app flux.

              All in all I like to keep my laptop time at a maximum of around 5 hours per day if possible.

              Evening Routine

              Around 7 or 8pm, I start preparing dinner or go out for a meal.

              After that it’s chill time, maybe another hot shower and a cup of herbal tea before I go to bed around 10.30-11pm. I like to do a little reading on my Kindle until my eyes fall shut (usually only takes five minutes).

              At best I put my phone on airplane mode an hour or two before going to sleep and I like to keep it charging in another room.

              Before my partner and I go to sleep we talk about a few things we are grateful for or what were our highlights of the day.

              And this is it for my daily routine!

              My Weekly Routines

              Here are a few things I do on a weekly basis:

              • Deep transformational Breathwork sessions

              • State of the Union meeting with my partner

              • Date Night with my partner

              • Therapy or coaching session (sometimes bi-weekly)

              • Sundays are often display- and phone-free days.


              I keep my daily routine for during the week and weekends. And it only slightly varies when I travel or live in different places.

              As mentioned, I like to keep things flowy and flexible so that I can always choose to follow my joy whatever that might be in the moment.

              Maybe it’s meeting a friend for coffee or go for a walk with my partner or have sex or take a car2go and drive out into nature or go for a sunset surf.

              Living life is more important to me than sticking to a daily routine. But when I’m in default mode, I opt for the daily routine, which I know keeps me healthy, happy and sane.

              Check out my article The Power of Rituals and Routines for Creators.

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                Create Something Every Day

                We are humans and we come with a primal urge to create and express ourselves.

                This urge is not in the world of rationality, it’s in our DNA. Primal means the most basic, important part of who we are. We are here to create.

                You and I and all of us have a creative energy center that yearns to be activated and its energy moved and utilized.

                It’s called the sacral chakra, which is also referred to as the second chakra, sacral chakra or Svadhisthana in Sanskrit. It is located below the navel in the lower abdomen and it is the centre of sexuality, reproduction and creativity, but also movement and emotion.

                Back in the days, all of us humans used to create houses, food, tools, art.. Evidence suggests that we started making art some 50.000-100.000 years ago. This ells me that we exist to make stuff.

                I love what Jeff Goins wrote in his newsletter yesterday:

                “We make things, because we can’t help it. It’s in our being. Almost every faith tradition and mythology has a story about us humans being fashioned from the dirt or clay or from the imagination of some deity or another. 

                Often, the very life force that animates us is the power of breath, which is appropriate considering it is the first thing we do when we come into this world and the last thing that happens before we leave it. We are created beings that are at once a part of the earth and filled with the same creative spirit that made us. We are breathed-in—that is, inspired—beings.

                I believe we make things, because that’s what we were made to do. Not even to make things, but to be making things. We are the little creators of our lives and the world as we know it. And as we endeavor to make something beautiful of, say, a pile of multicolored foamed blocks, that are worn and old and falling apart in some places; we invite the rest of the world to follow our example. So we create not just to make something out of nothing, but we also create to inspire others to be creative.

                And this, I think, is how we make the world something other than what it has always been.”

                Creativity and making stuff is like medicine, it’s healing.

                I used to struggle with depression and low self-worth a lot, but writing, making videos and photography helped me to feel connected to myself (depression = disconnection from self) and experience states of flow (the complete opposite of being depressed).

                Thus, give yourself permission to create something every day:

                • Write

                • Make videos

                • Record a podcast

                • Take photos

                • Draw

                • Paint

                • Make music

                • Build something

                To keep everything bottled in and spend your life as a passive consumer and not step into the arena as an active creator is setting yourself up for a life of regret and lack of fulfillment.

                I am currently setting dedicated time aside every morning to write. And so far, it’s been the best thing I have done in a long time. It is helping me break through my creative constipation and inner frustration. Writing every day helps me think netter, find clarity in my cluttered brain and come up with new ideas. It’s freaking awesome. Try it.

                Make something daily and see how it transforms you and your life.

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                  Make Bad Stuff

                  Better to make ‘bad’ art than to make no art.

                  Give yourself permission to create something that sucks, something that is below your standards, something that you think looks or reads like shit.

                  Anything is better than not creating and just thinking about creating or to sacrifice your ideas to your inner critic.

                  Here is my invitation for you:

                  Embrace anti-perfection.

                  And a reminder:

                  Quantity > quality.

                  Because quantity leads to quality.

                  Go make something.

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                    How to Start

                    We often come up with an awesome idea and then we make it so big that we sabotage ourselves into not creating it.

                    Because big is scary.

                    And procrastination is nothing but fear.

                    For example, I had this idea for a little mini-course.

                    I started to plan and outline it and gather ideas and suddenly it turned into a big course that would take me weeks and months to create.

                    So I ended up procrastinating and putting it off.

                    Our minds like to think about all the steps ahead instead of just focusing on the first one. Which is usually the most uncomfortable one, because we would actually have to start, get out of our heads and take action.

                    This poem by one of my favorite poets these days reminds me to stop procrastinating by making things too big, by planning too much.

                    It reminds me to keep things simple and to just take the first step, do the first thing that gets me closer to create the big idea - and actually finish it.

                    START CLOSE IN
                    By David Whyte

                    Start close in,
                    don’t take the second step
                    or the third,
                    start with the first
                    thing
                    close in,
                    the step
                    you don’t want to take.

                    Start with
                    the ground
                    you know,
                    the pale ground
                    beneath your feet,
                    your own
                    way to begin
                    the conversation.

                    Start with your own
                    question,
                    give up on other
                    people’s questions,
                    don’t let them
                    smother something
                    simple.

                    To hear
                    another’s voice,
                    follow
                    your own voice,
                    wait until
                    that voice
                    becomes a
                    private ear
                    that can
                    really listen
                    to another.

                    Start right now
                    take a small step
                    you can call your own
                    don’t follow
                    someone else’s
                    heroics, be humble
                    and focused,
                    start close in,
                    don’t mistake
                    that other
                    for your own. 

                    Start close in,
                    don’t take
                    the second step
                    or the third,
                    start with the first
                    thing
                    close in,
                    the step
                    you don’t want to take.

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                      Find the Creator Within: My Obsession with Corita Kent

                      I am currently obsessed with several artists and creators, but one has my particular attention this week:

                      Corita Kent.

                      She lived from 1918 to 1986.

                      coritabw4x5-7a375648f8c90134fe94ed6e7bb9c6b8c9055161-s800-c85.jpg
                      coritawithbannerheart.jpg

                      It sometimes takes me a few contact points until I give something or someone a closer look.

                      Her name and work crossed my online paths at least a couple dozen times over the last few months and then suddenly I had this immense urge to dive deeper into who she was and what legacy she left behind.

                      I first got inspired by this list titled Some Rules for Students and Teachers, which is attributed to John Cage, but originates from the celebrated Corita:

                      sistercoritarules1-480x673.jpg

                      Then I dug into her work and life story further through Instagram, Google search, YouTube and a podcast.

                      Check out Google's Science http://g.co/sciencejournal Sister Corita Kent was a master printmaker and teacher, and her rules for artists and teachers are lege...

                      Yesterday, I started reading the book Jan Steward wrote with her called Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit.

                      It is a collection of the teachings of Corita at the art department at Immaculate Heart College.

                      Now I’m in love.

                      “We can all talk, we can all write and if the blocks are removed, we can all draw and paint and make things. Drawing, painting, and making things are natural human activities, but in many they remain in the seed state, as potentials or wishes.”

                      “Creativity belongs to the artist in each of us. To create means to relate. The root meaning of the word art is to fit together and we all do this every day. Not all of us are painters but we are all artists. Each time we fit things together we are creating–whether it is to make a loaf of bread, a child, a day.”

                      We've launched a new video series inspired by Corita Kent and Jan Steward's seminal text, "Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit" This vid...

                      Who was Corita Kent?

                      Corita was an artist, educator, and advocate for social justice. At age 18 she entered the religious order Immaculate Heart of Mary, eventually teaching in and then heading up the art department at Immaculate Heart College.

                      Her work evolved from figurative and religious to incorporating advertising images and slogans, popular song lyrics, biblical verses, and literature. Throughout the ‘60s, her work became increasingly political, urging viewers to consider poverty, racism, and injustice.

                      In 1968 she left the order and moved to Boston. After 1970, her work evolved into a sparser, introspective style, influenced by living in a new environment, a secular life, and her battles with cancer.

                      She remained active in social causes until her death in 1986. At the time of her death, she had created almost 800 serigraph editions, thousands of watercolors, and innumerable public and private commissions.

                      Corita Art Center

                      Some of my favorite art pieces by Corita:

                      corita-kent-1.jpg
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                      typeroom_CoritaKent_slider_2.jpg
                      IMG_6715.JPG
                      351286.jpg
                      IMG_6709.JPG
                      IMG_6711.JPG

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                        How to Connect to Your Emotions

                        Here is a journaling prompt for when you feel something:

                        If I didn’t have a word for a feeling or emotion I’m experiencing, how would I describe the sensation in my body?

                        The point is to get out of our heads and into our bodies. That’s where emotions live and that’s where we need to feel them.

                        It helps to close your eyes for this.

                        Where do you feel the sensation?

                        Sense into your body, starting at your head and then moving down through your torso, including your muscles and even your heart, lungs, and guts.

                        At this point, you don’t even need to find words to describe what you’re feeling: just feel what you’re feeling. No need to do anything with them. Emotions want to be felt, not fixed.

                        For example, I often feel a contraction and tightness in my throat and upper chest when I feel sad. The sensation for anger usually sits in my stomach and chest.

                        Then just sit with it for a few moments or minutes. Explore the emotion, get curious.

                        If you feel ready to describe the sensation in your journal, this is a good list of vocabulary to help you find the right words. In the beginning, I used to struggle to verbalize how my emotions felt in my body as I just didn’t know how.

                        Here is a well-known body map of emotions in the body:

                        At best, you make it a habit to sit with and then journal about your emotions. It will help you feel more connected to yourself, your body and your emotional experiences to actually process them.

                        (I will write more about emotional skills soon, so stay tuned. It’s one of my favorite things to learn and talk about - I’m a true Cancer after all!)

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                          What’s the Purpose of Productivity?

                          Let’s go meta.

                          What’s the point of being more productive?

                          To get more things done.

                          Why do I want to get more things done?

                          A. To make an income and make more money.
                          B. T grow my audience and social media community.
                          C. To change people’s lives and make an impact.
                          D. To feel accomplished and feel good about myself.

                          Why do I want to make more money and get more followers?

                          To have more success.
                          To feel safe and secure.

                          Why do I want to change people’s lives and make an impact?

                          Because it feels good.
                          It validates my work, skills and effort.
                          To feel seen, heard and appreciated, which - let’s be honest - is good for my self-worth.


                          This idea of productivity and performance is messed up.

                          Do I feel good about myself when I get stuff done because I’m conditioned to feel good in this way or because its inherent? Is it because the desire is truly genuine, authentic and true for me?

                          When it comes down to it - when we get to the bottom of the purpose of life, after all that is said and done, especially when we realize that there might not be any purpose to any of this - the ultimate goal in life every day might just be to experience joy and have fun.

                          I am so tired of self-optimization to succumb to the pressure to perform and be more productive.

                          That pressure creates even more stress and then I get less done, because my nervous system gets activated and then I feel guilty and not good enough, which creates more stress in my body, which activates my nervous system even more.

                          Here is how I check in with myself when I am creating, working at my laptop and going after my daily routines:

                          Am I having fun? Am I enjoying this?

                          Would I be doing this if no one was watching? Would I be doing this for free?

                          Am I trying to reach a destination or am I enjoying the journey?

                          Do I feel more alive?

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                            Nobody Knows Anything

                            My mind can’t help but think a lot.

                            It likes to understand and explain things I experience, see, hear and feel.

                            But it’s not always satisfied with the answers and explanation it receives.

                            Every time I struggle to make sense of the world, I remind myself of the only three things I feel certain about:

                            1. We know nothing.

                            2. Everything is a story. Everything is artificial.

                            3. We chose the stories that work best for us and that support our current world view.

                            “We can know only that we know nothing. And that is the highest degree of human wisdom.”
                            - Leo Tolstoy

                            Here are some examples of stories:

                            • Religion (The biggest ‘truth-tellers’ out there)

                            • Solutions for Co-Vid19 (How do we deal with it best? Do masks really work?)

                            • Astrology

                            • Veganism

                            • Homophobia

                            • Racism

                            • Political parties

                            • Capitalism

                            • Definition of success and happiness (having a family and kids, a nice house, a good well-paying job and career)

                            • Eating three meals a day

                            • Men wear short hair, women long hair

                            • Feeling happy is good, feeling sad is bad

                            We claim to think we know how the world works. But we know so little.

                            What we try to do is feel more certain in an uncertain world. We try to limit risk and survive. That’s what we do as a living species when looked at through the filter of evolutionary theory: we try to survive.

                            “I know that I know nothing.”
                            - Socrates

                            We speak of right or wrong but who knows what is truly right or wrong?

                            Talk to ten people from ten different countries, cultures or religions and they will all tell you different stories about what is right or wrong.

                            If Islam is true, then Buddhism, Hinduism and Christianity are not. If Buddhism is essentially true, then Islam, Christianity and Hinduism are not. And so on.

                            Most disease is still still considered to be genetic or purely caused by matter, but along comes Epigenetics and mindbody medicine showing clearly that lifestyle, our environment, shock and developmental trauma, suppressed and repressed emotions, as well as chronic stress lead to physical illness. Check out the books When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate or The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel Van der Kolk.

                            The mainstream still believes depression is a disease and is thus treated with anti-depressants, but it is becoming more and more clear that it is only a symptom of deeper issues such as trauma, avoiding emotions and loneliness/isolation. See also the book Lost Connections by Johann Hari.

                            How About Science?

                            Science keeps being wrong and discovering new ‘rights’.

                            It seems that for almost every study indicating the truth of one theory, there's another proving the opposite.

                            At times, science claims to know the limits of what is possible and then it turns out they were wrong:

                            “Scientists said that flight by machines “heavier than air” was impossible, but nonetheless airplanes flew.”

                            - Scientific American

                            It’s also important to add that most science is an industry and relies on funding from outside. Hence why there is little research on eg. breathwork. There is no money in the breath. But there is more and more research on psychedelics, because there is money in therapies, psychedelic substances etc.

                            What we think we see (and taste, hear, touch and smell) isn’t actually real. It sort of is, but what we actually experience is well explained by Michael W. Taft, a neuroscience researcher and science-based meditation instructor:

                            “No human being has ever experienced the actual world. Your experience of the world comes to you through the signals of a group of peripheral devices, called “senses.” Those signals are then assembled in the brain into some kind of experience. It’s important to remember that this experience is a brain-generated hallucination or fantasy, not the actual outside world. It’s just like a really, really high-resolution virtual reality.”

                            —Michael W. Taft

                            The Limits of the Human Mind

                            As the saying goes: “not everything that matters can be measured, and not everything that can be measured matters.” In other words, science helps us understand many things through the lens of the human mind, which is based on the capacity for the human mind to process information.

                            Our brains literally cannot understand the universe, any more than a grain of sand can understand a beach.

                            What we perceive is what the human mind is capable of perceiving. Any meaning we make from it—the stories we tell ourselves—are limited by virtue of the mind’s limitations.

                            Beyond that, we all carry biases that influence what we choose to believe.

                            How to Live While Knowing Nothing

                            The only thing I can do is stay curious and keep my mind open while testing and experimenting for myself to see what works for me and me only.

                            I don’t claim to know the truth. Even at times, when my words sound like I do, there is no ONE truth.

                            The one truth doesn’t exist.

                            Thus, get into the habit of questioning everything. Every belief you carry. Every habit, every story you tell yourself. Every story you are being told or were told growing up. Question your conditioning and programming.

                            And then figure out for yourself what works.

                            The result of what works for me is my lifestyle, the level of joy I experience in my life and how I deal with challenges:

                            • I eat a plant-based vegan diet, because I believe in non-violence and I feel great not having animal products circulating in my body

                            • I meditate and journal daily, because it helps me to stay grounded and connected to myself

                            • I mainly buy organic and as natural-as-possible foods and cosmetics, because fuck processed shit and chemicals

                            • I don’t use deodorant, because I just don’t believe we need it

                            • I work 4-6 hours a day, because that’s all I want to do and it’s not good for me to spend more time staring at my laptop screen

                            • I don’t use to do lists, because they stress me out and I believe they are products of a patriarchal system

                            • I work out several times a week, because it makes me feel damn good

                            • I write or create something every day, because it brings me joy and I have the urge to use my second energy center every day

                            • I practice non-violent communication as much as I can, because it helps me deal with conflict

                            • I get my Astro chart read now and again, because I believe in the power of Astrology and the planets and it has proven to be correct with my experiences

                            • I feel emotionally impacted by the full and new moon, because I experience it every month, especially as a human on a menstrual cycle

                            • I like Buddhist and Yogic philosophy, because it has helped me through some tough times and it makes sense to me

                            • I consider myself a minimalist and own little, because it gives me a sense of freedom and peace

                            • I believe in a higher power or the universe, because I like feeling connected in that way

                            • I believe in past lives and reincarnation, because it helps me explain certain things in life and makes me feel connected to past and future generations

                            • I don’t believe in gender based on sexual organs, because I consider gender a social construct and nothing that is static

                            As you can see, all of these are based on stories and beliefs. You might agree or disagree, which is awesome.

                            What I won’t argue about is how much my belief system and resulting life fulfills and works for me. And the same goes for you.

                            If you agree that we know nothing and that there is no absolute one truth, you might also agree that judging others for what they do or say is in most cases arguing with absolute truths.

                            For example, if I judge someone on the street for their choice of clothes, I suggest that I claim to know that there is a good and a bad way to dress.

                            I personally find it liberating to accept that we know nothing and that one truth doesn’t exist.

                            I liberates me from attaching to opinions and beliefs too strongly, it keeps me from having arguments that strip me of valuable life energy and it provides me with more inner peace.

                            I have to remind myself regularly that I know nothing and I still sometimes catch myself judging others or claiming I know what’s right or wrong. In the end, I’m an imperfect human, like we all are. And I do it all much less than I used to. In the process I’m kinder to others and to myself.

                            However, the claims “there is no one truth” and “we know nothing” in and of themselves imply that they are true and right. Because maybe there is one truth and we do know more than nothing. So in the end, it’s a conundrum.

                            Let me rephrase:

                            Everything is possible and nothing is possible.

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                              Capture EVERYTHING: How I Record My Ideas

                              Many years ago, I made it a habit to hit record on any interesting or dumb thought or idea I have. Or when I read something interesting. Or have an interesting conversation.

                              Hit record = capture = I write the thing down

                              As a creator, everything has the potential to be grist for the mill. Anything I see, observe, hear, think or do can be inspiration for my writing, a video or a business idea.

                              It also means that I never stare at a blank page. I have a whole ocean of ideas and tidbits of writing to choose from at any given moment to turn them into something and share with you.

                              Here is how I capture everything:

                              I simply use the Notes app on my iPhone and MacBook.

                              For a while, I used the paid app Bear, but the Apple-native notes app has become a lot better over the years and so I recently switched back.

                              To keep things a little organized, I start a new note for each month.

                              The important thing is to revisit and curate these notes on a weekly basis (which is a habit I am still working on improving).

                              There is a little magic in the moment when you have an idea. Most ideas never make it into anything I create or share with others, but I have to capture it before I judge its value or quality.

                              This is also Austin Kleon’s method of writing:

                              “Make note of every dumb thought that occurs to you throughout the day. Tomorrow morning, pick the thought you think is the least dumb and write more about it. Repeat ad infinitum.”

                              These days you can literally record your ideas and have them transcribed using Otter.ai. I don’t do it much but I might experiment with it more in the future.

                              My best advice for any creator is: develop the habit to capture everything.

                              In the beginning you might have to remind yourself and more often than not you might forget. But when you do remember, write it down. Don’t ever think it’s too stupid or irrelevant or minuscule. Write it down before you make a judgement.

                              I pull my phone out all the time to capture ideas. Sometimes hundreds of times during any given day, especially when I’m out and about walking or on public transport. Or when I listen to a podcast, watch a film/documentary, listen to talk, hang out with an inspiring friend, read a book, work out at the gym, do yoga, meditate, do breathwork, surfing, before I go to sleep, when I’m cooking, in the shower…

                              In summary:

                              1. Capture everything.

                              2. Regularly turn what you capture into something tangible (daily or weekly)

                              Don’t just let your notes sit there, do something with them.

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                                My I’m-Good-Enough Resume: What I’ve Been Up To Since 2009

                                In March of last year, I decided and announced that I was going to shut down all my money-making business projects to go on a creative sabbatical and focus on filmmaking and photography projects without the pressure of monetization.

                                But in the last few months, I observed myself getting caught in negative thought cycles around the story that I haven’t done or achieved much in my life and especially in the last 12 months.

                                So I wrote out a list like a resumé to put things in perspective and as a reminder for how much I have done and “achieved” (whatever that means in 2020).

                                I’m looking back 11 years, because in 2009, I finished my Master’s degree at university in Austria and took off on a one-way ticket to India. From then on, I was on my own.

                                Here is what I’ve been up to since:

                                • Scuba dive instructor in Indonesia and Australia (2009-2011 and 2012)

                                • Trainee in a PR agency for startups in Berlin (2011/2012)

                                • Started my first blog ‘A Life of Blue’ (2011)

                                • Quit my PR job and started freelancing doing social media management, online PR, building websites and translations (2012)

                                • Started travel and digital nomad blog Planet Backpack (2012), which quickly became Germany’s most famous travel blog

                                • Published my e-book course for location-independent entrepreneur newbies (2014)

                                • Co-created Blog Camp with a friend (2013-2017)

                                • Started ‘Live Your Heart Out’ (2017) plus online apparel shop

                                • Launched ‘The Art of Vulnerability’ program and a personal branding online course (2017)

                                • Ran ‘Find Your Magic’ Online Program (2018)

                                • Launched Co.Create membership program

                                • Officially announced my creative sabbatical and shut down Co.Create and all courses (March 2019)

                                • Did several photography and filmmaking projects such as TFP shoots and short docu films (2019)

                                • Wrote my book (summer 2019)

                                • Ran Inside/Out, a mindfulness and emotional intelligence workshop week (Feb 2020)

                                • Started my Breathwork Practitioner training in March 2020, which is ongoing until January 2021

                                • Co-organized a free 30 days of meditation challenge with weekly workshops with 800+ signups (April 2020)

                                • Launched ‘The Breath Circle’ podcast with a friend (May 2020)

                                • Book launch of ‘Find Your Magic’ with German publisher GU (June 2020)

                                Looking at this list, I feel invited to be more compassionate with myself.

                                And to inquire deeper into the story of why I feel like I am not good enough.

                                What comes up intuitively around that:

                                • I haven’t been creating consistently for almost a year due to a breakup, crazy corona times, my breathwork practitioner training, a new relationship and needing time away from displays. Since creating is like breathing for me, I have been experiencing a kind of creative constipation and inner frustration.

                                • I am not making a regular income - which is what I decided when I went on my creative sabbatical, but I didn’t think it was going to last this long. I haven’t put out any paid offerings, so people can’t even give me money if they wanted to (duh!). I’m still okay for a while to come to live off my savings and from selling my travel blog last year, but not having money come in every month is starting to feel yukky.

                                • My social media channels are not really growing much, which is not surprising as I haven’t been very active.

                                In summary:

                                It’s been a thin year in terms of creating stuff, making paid offerings, earning money and business growth.

                                Things feel stagnant.

                                However, I want to add that during those 11 years I also dealt with a lot of depression and heartbreak that prompted me to go on a massive healing and integration journey to wholeness. You can read up on that here.

                                I have achieved a lot in terms of my personal growth and inner healing - especially also in the last twelve months.

                                Inner work is work as well, damn it.

                                We never really take that into consideration when we talk about productivity and success and “getting things done”. Our patriarchal system doesn’t account for that when we talk about success (that’s for another essay).

                                What is becoming more clear to me is that there is no going back to how I used to do things. I have changed, the world has changed. Things that worked in the past aren’t working anymore.

                                It looks like I have to re-introduce myself.

                                Hi, I’m Conni. I am currently deeply passionate about mental health and psychology, processing emotions, Breathwork and the creative process.

                                Let’s see what’s next.

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                                  Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

                                  The Full Moon Hangover

                                  I had a massive emotional release yesterday.

                                  It was right on time with the full moon in Aries last night.

                                  “Aries is a very powerful sign and represents warriors, courage, bravery, assertiveness and leadership. On the other hand, the shadow expression is competitive, mean, selfish and wants to wins at all costs.”

                                  “The Moon is also conjunct with Chiron, an asteroid known as ‘The Wounded Healer’. Chiron represents our biggest wound, and our biggest opportunity for growth in this lifetime. Wherever Chiron sits in our charts is where our greatest trauma has occurred, and the area we are here to transform.”

                                  Rising Woman

                                  I cried and cried and processed a lot of sadness and anger. Eventually, I moved into surrender and fully let go.

                                  Today, my eyes are sore and my body is exhausted.

                                  I also feel that something shifted inside of me. I can sense a space of a little more liberation.

                                  There is freedom in surrender.

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                                    Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

                                    The Power of Daily Creation

                                    I am going to write every day for the month of October.

                                    Perfectionism and self-judgement has turned me into a creator that doesn’t create and a writer that doesn’t write.

                                    I know from past experience how powerful daily creation challenges are. They simply work.

                                    It’s not about showing up when we feel like it. It’s showing up despite not feeling like it. It’s about quantity and not quality when we are stuck in a rut and dealing with creator‘s and writer‘s block.

                                    It’s about writing and not researching.

                                    It’s about shipping and not making it perfect. But about publishing something that is good enough so we can make something better next time rather than getting stuck on the one thing to make it perfect.

                                    I‘m tired of being stuck. Tired of having such high standards of myself. Tired of taking two weeks to write and publish a damn blogpost. Tired of feeling creatively constipated. I’d rather have creative diarrhea. I’m taking a laxative - this post is it.

                                    There’s a story about perfectionism in the book Art & Fear, which I have come across many times over the years:

                                    „The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality.

                                    His procedure was simple: on the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work of the “quantity” group: fifty pound of pots rated an “A”, forty pounds a “B”, and so on. Those being graded on “quality”, however, needed to produce only one pot — albeit a perfect one — to get an “A”.

                                    Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity.

                                    It seems that while the “quantity” group was busily churning out piles of work – and learning from their mistakes — the “quality” group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay.“

                                    Let’s make some pots.

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                                      Conni Biesalski Conni Biesalski

                                      The Art of Self-Exploration: An Introductory Guide

                                      Life didn’t ask me kindly.

                                      It pushed me to explore myself and examine my behavior, patterns and conditioning after a devastating breakup in 2012.

                                      My suffering was so intense at the time that it shook me awake from a deep sleep.

                                      I call it my initiation moment. My first proper dark night of the soul.

                                      It also pulled me into the deep waters of the question:

                                      “Who the fuck am I and why am I here?!”

                                      At times it held me under water until I thought I was going to die. But the gold I brought up to the surface and into the light of my life was always worth the suffering. I truly believe that the darkness holds gifts we could never find in the light.

                                      Beyond that, I used to love exploring the world and foreign cultures until I realized – fuck, the real adventures lie within. So I got even more curious about my inner world and embarked on a journey into the depths of my psyche and consciousness. I wanted to understand myself and figure out my patterns of suffering and the blocks to a fulfilled life.

                                      Most people need pain as a motivator for self-exploration. Like me.

                                      It is usually challenging, painful and difficult experiences in the areas of relationships, health, career or money that drive us to go deeper.

                                      Some feel stuck or deeply unfulfilled in an area or are dealing with recurring symptoms of depression or anxiety.

                                      Few arrive at the door out of shear curiosity (which came later for me).

                                      It is like the call of adventure to your own individual heroine’s/hero’ journey.
                                      For some, it’s a whisper, for most of us it’s more like a megaphone voice shouting right into the ear.

                                      Some only need one invitation phone call (eg. a painful breakup, a sudden burnout, a life-threatening health diagnosis), some need many invitations (eg. recurring health conditions, depressive episodes, a series of unhealthy relationships…).

                                      The treasures you will find on your journey

                                      There are loads of reasons why this journey is worthwhile.

                                      For me, the following stand out as I look at back at how the last 8+ years have benefited and impacted me:

                                      • I broke free from programming and conditioning from my past, my family, culture and society, the media, school and education..

                                      • I reached deeper layers of self-awareness

                                      • I found more inner peace

                                      • I can deal with challenges and struggles better as I now have tools, practice and a support network to support me

                                      • I love myself and accept myself more

                                      • I have gained more self-worth, self-confidence and self-trust

                                      • I am connected to my purpose in life

                                      • I have found my voice as a creator and writer

                                      • I am able to make better conscious decisions that are in aligned with my truth and who I am more easily

                                      • I have better boundaries

                                      • I am living a more conscious life

                                      • I am am more in the present moment

                                      • I can access deeper states of flow and creativity

                                      • I am able to better self-regulate my emotional states

                                      • I have improved my communication skills

                                      • I enjoy deeper romantic and platonic relationships (the deeper you go within yourself, the deeper you can go with others and the more connected you are to yourself, the more connected you feel to others)

                                      • I feel more empowered to heal myself and find answers as I have learned to trust my inner wisdom

                                      • I have more clarity around what motivates/drives me and what’s important to me so that I can create a life and do work that is in alignment with who I am and my potential as Conni

                                      —and so much more. This list really only scratches the surface.

                                      Exploring myself has brought me a lot of healing, integration and, essentially: wholeness. Plus, it opened up new creative capacities within myself.

                                      What is self-exploration really?

                                      Self-exploration is the process of discovering your inner castle and all the rooms within it.

                                      It means looking for the roots of who you are.

                                      It’s a journey inward to discover:

                                      • who you are and how you work

                                      • what your patterns and shadow parts are

                                      • what your beliefs are and the main stories you tell yourself about yourself and the world

                                      • why you react the way you do

                                      • why you do the things you do

                                      • what your barriers are to love or health or joy or success in life

                                      • what really sets your soul on fire

                                      • how you want to truly live your life

                                      Self-exploration is a big deal, because there is SO MUCH to discover and find out. We are complex beings with many layers that make up our personalities.

                                      It’s part shadow work and part light work – you will meet the dark corners as well as the lit up ones.

                                      It’s about exploring our past and unresolved traumas, as well as about getting in touch with our potentials and soul signature.

                                      Whereas with self-discovery, we set out to ‘find ourselves’, with self-exploration there is no end goal.

                                      When you explore, you discover things and then you can decide to explore deeper and further. Without needing to find something, you just wander.

                                      That’s why I’m more a fan of self-exploration than self-discovery, because it feels more playful.

                                      You are a traveler without a map, you find a trail and then another one and another and eventually you realize that they all connect and then you realize that you have built a map. A map of YOU.

                                      So we could say that self-exploration is the process of mapping your inner landscape and who you are in all your dimensions (eg. mind, body, spirit + soul, emotions, energies, past..).

                                      Exploring your unconscious mind

                                      Your inner landscape is made up of your conscious and subconscious mind.

                                      The conscious mind makes up about 5-10% of our entire consciousness, which means that 90-95% of how we operate and live our lives come from our subconscious.

                                      The iceberg model of consciousness by Freud visualizes this well:

                                      Blog-3-image-subconscious.labelled-power-of-sub-1024x713.jpg

                                      Our conscious mind is what is visible to us and others, eg. our goals, actions, plans, behavior, thoughts, speech, willpower and analysis. Again, this is a tiny fraction of the whole.

                                      The dominant driver, our subconscious, holds our habits, traumas, past programming, beliefs, instincts, emotions, fears, values and memories.

                                      This means that we make decisions mainly from our subconscious mind – even though we like to believe we are fully conscious in the process.

                                      Thus, when we set out to truly explore ourselves, it makes sense to dive way deeper and become curious about what lives in our subconscious so that we can truly live conscious lives.

                                      Also, we as humans carry blind spots and unknown parts in our psyche – things we don’t know that we don’t know them and information that others know about us but we don’t.

                                      The Johari Window explains this concept:

                                      johari-model.jpg

                                      Why self-exploration is essential for creators and makers

                                      Your work is only as authentic and impactful as your level of self-awareness. Your creativity, your work and your business will always reflect the level of self-exploration and personal development you have experienced.

                                      The more you know yourself, the more impact you can make outside of yourself.

                                      When you are connected to yourself deeper, you expand the capacity for connection with your audience and clients.

                                      When you know your values, you can then align your work, your mission and vision with who you are and what truly matters to you.

                                      When you are more aware, mindful and in contact with your body and its signals, you will decrease the likelihood of burning yourself out (something many of us creators do).

                                      The more we explore ourselves and share the process with the world, the more we give others the permission to embark on this journey.

                                      When we have an audience and work with people, we are multipliers. We have a responsibly. Our ways of being and energies touch anyone we get in contact with, anyone that consumes and receives our work and messages. I’d say it’s a good idea to be aware of that and use this awareness as a motivator to go deeper and further in our self-exploration.

                                      Tools + practices to built your map as a self-explorer

                                      Since there are an almost endless ways to explore yourself, I would like to pass on two guidelines:

                                      Number 1: Be really damn curious.
                                      Curiosity is the currency of self-exploration.

                                      Number 2: Experiment.
                                      Try out practices and modalities and see what floats your boat and works for you.

                                      If you are interested to find out what I have experiment with, then check out this resource, in which I document my own self-exploration journey:
                                      My Personal Growth Master Guidebook: A Complete Documentation Since 2012

                                      And then:

                                      Explore the content of your mind and your thinking (your programming, conditioning and biases)

                                      Explore your feelings and learn to sit with your feelings

                                      Explore your past and your family dynamics

                                      Explore your relationships and friendships

                                      Explore the connection with your body, your health and re-connect your mind with your body

                                      Explore your passions, purpose and calling in life

                                      Explore your values and your life vision

                                      Explore different art practices and ways to use your creative energies

                                      Explore different belief systems and philosophies such as Stoicism, Taoism or Buddhism (eg. I explored Buddhism in the beginning of my journey, because it provided me with a lot of answers to questions I was having at the time)

                                      Here is a list of modalities and practices to get started with:

                                      Inner vs Outer Guidance:

                                      Some of these modalities and practices utilize your inner guidance intelligence and self-healing capacities (eg. meditation, journaling or breathwork), while others focus more on outer guidance (eg. therapy, events, books..).

                                      I have found for myself that both are important, and that we often put too much faith and emphasis on outer guidance while not trusting our inner guidance enough.

                                      I have learned to regularly check in with myself to see where I am looking for answers and making sure that I don’t disregard or neglect my own inner guidance intelligence.

                                      Exploring Your Programming + Conditioning 101:

                                      • Why do you do the things you do? Start questioning everything you do and think and ask WHY all the time – eg. your diet, your work, your relationships, your judgements, the truths you believe, what you think is right or wrong, good or bad…

                                      • What are your biggest fears in life?

                                      • What are your limiting beliefs?

                                      • What are your big stories you keep telling yourself?

                                      • What are your main inner parts? (inner family systems)

                                      • What’s your attachment style? Your love language?

                                      • What are your relationship patterns? digging into our childhood and the relationships and attachment we had to our first caretakers and siblings.

                                      Once you know the What and Why, dig deeper and explore where it all comes from. Where did you learn all this? Who taught you? Where did you pick up your beliefs, how did you develop your reactive and behavioral patterns?

                                      Journaling goes a long way in finding answers to all these questions.

                                      A therapist or coach can serve as a guide for deeper exploration.

                                      How to best get started

                                      It can truly be overwhelming to get started. I like to keep things simple.

                                      I personally started with meditation, Yoga and working with a life coach back in 2012. From that place, I slowly ventured into deeper waters over the years.

                                      Here is what I would recommend you do:

                                      1. Start a daily meditation and journaling practice.

                                      2. Get into transformational breathwork and play with different breathing patterns as part of your meditation practice (eg. box breathing, alternate nostril breathing and diaphragmatic breathing – use the Breathwrk app to get started).

                                      3. Work with a life coach or therapist

                                      Here are some books you might want to read:

                                      Important: Spend time in solitude.

                                      The best way to truly explore ourselves is when we are fully with ourselves.

                                      Make time to go on dates with yourself regularly. Start a meditation practice. Do things alone that you would normally do with others. Go traveling by yourself.

                                      Some last words for your journey

                                      Diving deeper into self-exploration will provide you with tools, practices and insights that will leave you empowered AF.

                                      The most important part of my self-exploration has been to learn to live in my body and to fully feel my feelings.

                                      Just a heads up, a little warning if you will –

                                      Remember this on your journey:

                                      1. There is nothing wrong with you.

                                      2. Stay grounded and in your body.

                                      3. Don’t get too lost in the personal development and self-improvement world. It will suck you in and possibly never spit you out (it’s an industry after all).

                                      4. This adventure is like digging into the layers of an onion and works like spiral dynamics. Yes, there is always another layer and no, you are not stuck, just working your way up the spiral.

                                      5. Let it be fun. Embrace it like a curious little kid and play.

                                      It’s a courageous act to embark on this adventure. Self-exploration requires you to expand your comfort zone and face your fears. That’s how we get in touch with ourselves in ways we usually don’t if we only stay in the safe space.

                                      The deeper you go, the more you might come across aspects and parts of yourself that might require more integration and healing.

                                      One of my next articles will go into more detail on trauma work and what I have learned on my path.

                                      And lastly:

                                      This journey will change you. You will not come back the same. But damn, it will be the most important and meaningful journey of your life.

                                      Enjoy the ride.

                                      Conni.

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                                        Breathwork Conni Biesalski Breathwork Conni Biesalski

                                        The Art + Science of Breathwork: A Beginner’s Guide

                                        🐋 Want to explore Breathwork? 🐋
                                        Book a private 1-on-1 session with me here.

                                        🎧 Listen to my deep dive podcast episode on Breathwork on Spotify, Apple Podcast or right here:

                                        After experimenting with a ton of practices and modalities on my personal growth journey for nine years, here is my verdict:

                                        Breathwork is one of the most powerful and influential practices I have ever come across.

                                        The practice of Breathwork is in my Top Three along with Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work and meditations, as well as my experiences with plant medicine.

                                        This article will go into the details of Breathwork in general, as well as my experiences in particular.


                                        The breath —

                                        Something we take for granted.

                                        It’s just something our bodies do, right?

                                        I didn’t even know I had a breath until I started meditating and doing Yoga back in 2012.

                                        It was a Eureka moment when I first became aware of it:

                                        “Wow, holy shit, I have a breath!”

                                        I am pretty sure I am not the only one who was breathing unconsciously for most of her life without thinking about it twice or stopping to observe. It is not something we are taught growing up.

                                        However, after my first discovery, it took another several years to realize the real transformational power my breath has.

                                        Even though I had learned and practiced a fair amount of different Pranayama breathing techniques as a yogi and especially also during my yoga teacher training in 2015, I really only got familiar with the deep transformational effects of Breathwork about two and a half years ago.

                                        Before I share my personal story and experience, let’s zoom out.

                                        What is Breathwork?

                                        Breathwork is an active meditation, in which we use the breath along with music to help the mind release and connect to the body.

                                        It is the practice of changing your breathing pattern to change your mental, emotional and physical state.

                                        As you take deep circular connected breaths continuously and without break, you enter a self-induced trance state (a non-ordinary state of consciousness) where memories, pictures, emotions or body sensations can surface to be reviewed, released and integrated.

                                        Most Breathwork techniques involve deep belly breaths, also called slow abdominal breathing or diaphragmatic breathing, which stimulates the vagus nerve and lowers our stress response and inflammation in our bodies.

                                        It is usually done with a facilitator lying down, in either a group or 1-on-1 setting, with music that guides the experience. There are also guided Breathwork meditations online that you can do on your own – however, I recommend getting started with a facilitator.

                                        Here is a great little explanation video by Michael Stone, who runs in-person and online Breathwork sessions.

                                        The Benefits of Breathwork

                                        The benefits of Breathwork are seriously wide-ranging and many resources make it sound like it’s a magic medicine for basically everything.

                                        However, I am a fan of focusing on my own personal experience.

                                        Let me tell you in a nutshell how I have benefited from Breathwork thus far:

                                        It has helped me release sadness, stress and anxiety, find more peace and clarity, opened me up to more creativity and amazing ideas, and feel more joy.

                                        Overall, Breathwork helps me release unprocessed emotions, access the wisdom in my body, and open my heart.

                                        Considering that the average modern human in 2019 is deeply disconnected from their emotional pain and trauma stored in their bodies, from the ways their bodies are communicating with them, and from their intuition – Breathwork is an amazing practice to reconnect with all of these parts.

                                        If all this sounds a little over the top to your rational brain – well, your breath is incredibly powerful and still highly underrated. But hey, times are changing. More and more people are being blown away by the effects and share the message.

                                        I personally find it an amazing opportunity to process and release emotions, old trauma, blocked energy in the body and to tap into my higher self for new insights and downloads. Afterwards it feels like a reset and I experience more mental and emotional clarity.

                                        The History of Breathwork

                                        Breathwork has been used therapeutically in ancient traditions for years, including Pranayama practices in Yogic traditions and a variety of breath-centered meditation practices in Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism and Christianity. It’s nothing new really, it is just experiencing a revolution in a new way.

                                        However, most of the Breathwork therapy used today got its start during the consciousness-raising era of the 1960s and 1970s.

                                        An important man who brought Breathwork in a new way back on the map in the 60s and 70s was Stan Grof – he is a psychiatrist and one of the founders of Transpersonal Psychology.

                                        Grof did groundbreaking work investigating the healing potential of non-ordinary states of consciousness, specifically with LSD.  After LSD was banned, Stan Grof developed “Holotropic Breathwork”, a healing modality which uses breath and music to allow participants to access the healing potential of non-ordinary state of consciousness. Experiences can include re-experiencing and releasing childhoold trauma, perinatal experiences, sensory experiences that release energetic blocks in the body and transpersonal experiences such as a satori type of  breathing experience of union and connection with the universe.

                                        Another important figure in the development of Breathwork is Leonard Orr, who developed Rebirthing Breathwork in the 1970s.

                                        Both Grof’s and Orr’s approaches to Breathwork were developed independently around the same time and are, according to their founders, not directly based on Pranayama techniques, but were created through their own personal and group experiments.

                                        Since then the field has grown a lot. Two women who both studied with Grof and Orr developed their own styles of Breathwork, who became very well known: Judith Kravitz created Transformational Breath and Jacquelyn Small founded Integrative Breathwork.

                                        Types of Breathwork

                                        Apart from my own experiences with Breathwork, working with different teachers and modalities, and taking part in a Breathwork teacher training, I have been studying the practice and everything about it in depth.

                                        In the morning, the more research I did into Breathwork, the more confusing it got to be honest. There are so many types and techniques out there and many Breathwork facilitators have come up with their own versions and brands.

                                        [Of course, there are many Pranayama techniques (eg. square breathing, Nadhi Sodhana or Kapalabhati) that are rooted in Yogic practices and are thousands of years old. Many of them or aspects of them serve as basic components for today’s breathwork techniques. However, in this article, I want to focus on the more therapeutic styles of breathwork]

                                        Due to the fact that Breathwork is currently getting more and more popular, new styles are being developed quickly. Many teachers mix different techniques or alter some slightly and then give them a new label. In one way or another, they all seem to be offsprings from either Grof, Orr or Pranayama.

                                        Here is a list of the more known styles of Breathwork:

                                        • Holotropic Breathwork by Stan Grof

                                        • Rebirthing Breathwork by Leonard Orr

                                        • Transformational Breath by Judith Kravitz

                                        • Wim Hof Breathwork by Wim Hoff

                                        • Integrative Breathwork by Jacquelyn Small

                                        • SOMA Breathwork by Niraj Naik

                                        • Shamanic Breathwork

                                        • Neurodynamic Breathwork by Michael Stone

                                        • Clarity Breathwork

                                        • Ecstatic Breathwork by Scott Schwenk

                                        • Biodynamic Breathwork by Giten Tonkov

                                        Some more respectable names that seem to come up a lot in the Breathwork community (apart from those already mentioned):

                                        What distinguishes all these various techniques and styles?

                                        • Different belief systems and spiritual frameworks.

                                        • Some breathing techniques are slower, some faster.

                                        • The type and composition of music played differ.

                                        • The length of the breathing practice varies.

                                        • Some involve breathing exclusively through the mouth, others through the nose and others use a combination of both.

                                        • The settings differ (group breathing circles or 1-on-1)

                                        • The involvement of the facilitator during the session varies.

                                        As much as I am a fan of and have practiced different kinds of Breathwork, I am currently more interested in the healing potential, mystical experiences and emotional processing that more intense and longer-practiced Breathwork styles can provide me with.

                                        Today, the field of breathwork continues to evolve. Lots of of models and certification programs are available. Many organizations contribute to the training, research, and expansion efforts of Breathwork therapists around the world. These include:

                                        • The Stanislav and Christina Grof Foundation (formerly called the Association of Holotropic Breathwork International (AHBI))

                                        • Rebirthing Breathwork International (RBI)

                                        • The Global Professional Breathwork Alliance (GPBA)

                                        • The International Breathwork Foundation (IBF) 

                                        Breathwork and Science: The Healing + Transformational Power of the Breath

                                        Let’s go a little deeper and look at what actually happens in the body and brain during a Breathwork session.

                                        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.

                                        What happens when you “hyperventilate” in a controlled manner is similar to when you use plant medicine: It slows down the default mode network (DMN) of the brain. 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 takes about 10-22 minutes of breathwork until it affects the default mode network.

                                        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, during breathwork, our subconscious starts to release. 

                                        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 neuropathways to our inner intelligence and subconscious and allows for easier access to it on a day to day basis. This has definitely also been my experience after practicing it several times a week for a couple months.

                                        This is a great talk by Edward Dangerfield on trauma recovery and the nervous system “How We Breathe Is How We Think“.

                                        How I Discovered Breathwork: My Story

                                        I first came across Holotropic Breathwork through Aubrey Marcus. He kept on mentioning it in his podcast. Since I am a big fan of experimentation when it comes my personal and spiritual growth as well as inner healing process, I was immediately curious.

                                        So I googled it and found a man named Michael Stone who does workshops in Los Angeles. I signed up to an introductory group session in his Venice Beach house in March 2018.

                                        I came out mind-blown.

                                        Here is what happened at the intro session:

                                        After Michael explains the workshop, how the breathing works and what is going to happen, we all get eye masks handed.

                                        We all sit on chairs, there are about 50 people. We put on the eye mask and the music starts. The room is dimly lit. (In all other breathwork experiences I’ve had, you lie on the floor or on the bed)

                                        You breathe deeply into your belly through your mouth in a circular way without pausing. It’s quite rapid, a little like hyperventilating, but in a more controlled manner and consciously into your belly rather than your chest.

                                        The actual breathwork session lasts about an hour. He plays a series of songs that start out slow, work up to a climax, a peak, and then gradually lead you into the integration phase.

                                        As we go deeper into the session and states of consciousness start to shift, people start crying, shouting and making other noises. I did too. Essentially, you just let go, give up control and allow the body to express itself the way it wants.

                                        Check out this video to see what the breathing looks like.

                                        You know, I had done plant medicine before this. I had done lots of drugs in my teenage years and early twenties.

                                        And now I was accessing altered states of consciousness by just breathing and listening to intense music with a group of people wearing eye masks. I was fascinated that I was able to do that with breath alone.

                                        For some reason however, I didn’t look further into breathwork this time around. It would take another while before I fully dove into it and got hooked…

                                        [I want to clarify that this was just a comprehensive intro workshop – a regular Holotropic Breathwork workshop is facilitated either 1-on-1 or done in pairs in a group setting and lasts a whole day. The breathing phase usually lasts two to three hours.]

                                        [Also, if you have any medical conditions or are pregnant, please consult a medical doctor before engaging in deep Breathwork]

                                        My Deep-Dive Into Breathwork + Becoming a Breathwork Facilitator

                                        I then properly re-discovered breathwork in October of 2019, about one and half years after my first experience.

                                        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 generally don’t believe we can figure deep stuff out and heal trauma by staying on the surface level of the mind. We have to work with all dimensions: mental, emotional, physical, energetic, spiritual.

                                        This time around, I started to experiment with different styles and teachers:

                                        Being in Bali, I naturally started looking for body workers and breathwork facilitators. In the Canggu Community Facebook group, people kept recommending the same two or three people and I chose one female teacher.

                                        I decided to attend one of her open group breathwork circles in town, after which I booked a private session with her at my house and after that I went to her group sessions twice a week.

                                        The type of breathwork she taught was based on the three-part breath developed by David Elliot:

                                        You first inhale through the mouth into your belly, then into your chest and then out through the mouth again. It’s called a three-part breath and it’s quite rapid.

                                        I consciously approached the sessions with her to process my breakup – and it was amazing. I shifted a lot of pain and anger that we naturally experience when going through a rough time like this. I always felt re-born and relieved after each session.

                                        I then went to visit my family in Germany for a coupe weeks. I didn’t have access to any breathwork classes there, but I remembered that Michael Stone also offered online group breathwork sessions almost daily. So I signed up for his paid breathwork subscription and started participating in two of those every week.

                                        Because Holotropic Breathwork is done in person only, he developed a simplified style of breathwork that he teaches mainly online called Neurodynamic Breathwork. The breath is similar to what I experienced in the intro session in LA: Deep breaths into the belly through the mouth in a circular way without pausing.

                                        Usually anywhere between 70 and 300 people tune in live from all over the world.

                                        After an introduction, he explains the process and then off we go into 50 minutes of breathing listening to powerful, evocative music. Once the breathing part is done, he devotes a lot of time to answer questions and connecting to the group.

                                        I have very deep and insightful experiences every time I do these online sessions, sometimes even deeper than in a live group setting, maybe because I allow myself to have more authentic experiences without anyone around me.

                                        Then I came back to Bali and ended up at a talk by Edward Dangerfield at my co-working space Dojo right when I got back. He took over another breathworker’s breathwork circle while she was away. His approach is called “Conscious Connected Breathing”, which is much more gentle than the other two experiences I had. He brings his own experience and background as a nervous system expert into the group session. He and two other facilitators also support the breathers with some bodywork and loving guidance.

                                        I also had a private session with Edward, which is an opportunity to go even deeper with him. It was very special experience – so healing and it really helped me to process a lot of very old childhood sadness that I had stored in my body.

                                        I then also participated in a breathing circle by two German women in town, who also guide the session using conscious connected breathing. Before we lie down to breathe, we are invited to do about ten minutes of dancing while breathing through the mouth as a preparation for the session and to connect to our bodies.

                                        Beyond that I have done a lot of online sessions with different teachers and did sessions on my own.

                                        Eventually, it became clear that becoming a breathwork practitioner is my path, my dharma. I attended a introductory breathwork practitioner training in March 2020 in Canada, but then Covid hit and so I signed up to Michael Stone’s online training, which kicked off in July 2020.

                                        I currently breathe about once or twice a week (besides my shorter morning breathing practice that consists of various techniques).

                                        Currently, I am offering private 1-on-1 breathwork sessions (also virtual) and I regularly run online and in-person workshops (sign up to my newsletter to find out when they happen).

                                        What I Experience During Breathwork

                                        What I love the most about Breathwork is that it gets me out of my head and connects me fully to my body.

                                        It feels like a very primal way to release trauma and process emotions.

                                        It usually takes about 5-10 minutes of breathing to really let the body take over, going from me breathing to my body breathing me. Then the body takes over and I open the door into this altered state of consciousness and the ride begins. I lose track of time and space and it’s hard to believe how quickly time goes by.

                                        During a session, I often times go through a lot of waves of sadness and anger that I my body releases by crying, making sounds and moving. At times, this became really uncontrollable and I felt like I was moving a lot of old trauma in my body. After those kind of intense sessions, I usually feel a deep release, which is amazing.

                                        Sometimes, I have memories from my childhood come up or other memories I had totally forgotten.

                                        Other times, I have more subtle and relaxed experiences and then a variety of things can come or even downloads from my higher self around life and business.

                                        These moments remind me of doing plant medicine, when it is almost as though you are in a totally connected higher state to receive messages.

                                        Towards the end of the session or sometimes after the music and my breathing reached its peak, I usually end up drifting into a trance-like meditative state for a while. I assume that’s when my brain waves slow down to theta, because I am not fully asleep but also not quite there. It’s this in between space of consciousness. It’s awesome, especially when I drift back into beta brainwaves at the end.

                                        I also usually experience tightness in my hands and it gets a little uncomfortable. At times I also get the tightness in other areas of the body, like my mouth or neck. It’s a normal symptom and subsides as I slow down the breathing.

                                        I want to add two important things:

                                        1. Every session is different, not one is ever the same (kind of similar to plant medicine experiences – you never know what you get beforehand, it always varies)

                                        2. Every person has different experiences. The more inner work you have done on yourself and the more open you are to fully experience yourself and your emotions, the deeper it will be. I regularly hear breathers say they didn’t feel much. For some people it might take a few times to really allow themselves to experience themselves fully. Thus, don’t go into a breathwork session with any expectations. 

                                        Is Breathwork Dangerous?

                                        There are definitely critical voices out there who point of the dangers and shortcomings of breathwork. However, they are mainly directed at the more intense forms, ie. Holotropic Breathwork and Rebirthing. 

                                        Critics say that Breathwork is dangerous because it is hyperventilation.

                                        However, Breathwork is different form our conventional perception of hyperventilation.

                                        When you hyperventilate you don’t control your breathing in a conscious way. Hyperventilation is typically upper chest breathing and it tends to be rapid and unsteady. You exhale more than you inhale, causing a rapid reduction of carbon dioxide in the body.

                                        But in Breathwork, the in and out breath are both long, deep and rhythmic.

                                        I personally never experienced anything that felt dangerous or scared me (apart from processing fear itself).

                                        Another argument:

                                        People are not sufficiently supported to integrate the experience after group breathing circles

                                        This might be a valid point especially for people who are more inexperienced with shadow work and don’t have a support network or access to a therapist/coach to integrate deep experiences.

                                        I didn’t dive too deep into these opinions yet, but you are more than welcome to do it yourself here:

                                        A Critique of Stanislav Grof and Holotropic Breathwork

                                        This article outlines some good questions around Breathwork (and Holotropic Breathwork in particular): Twelve Things You Should Know About Holotropic Breathwork

                                        The Breathwork Magic

                                        I cannot even begin to tell you how grateful I am to have this amazing tool in my life now.

                                        Breathwork is a highly empowering practice. You don’t need a healer or guru – you are your own healer and all you need is your breath. No side effects, no purging, no hangovers. You can step out of the experience at any time by just returning to a normal breath.

                                        I believe this is just the beginning of the Breathwork movement and that it will spread like crazy over the next few years. What an amazing opportunity to transform and evolve as humans.

                                        My vision is to help bring Breathwork into the countless lives of fellow creators and entrepreneurs as part of my mission around the creative process and mindfulness.

                                        I am called to help people heal themselves.

                                        So Breathwork is really one of the most powerful methods to learn more about what is really going on in your unconscious mind.  It gives you the tools to change your life, to manifest what you want, and to have a more loving and fulfilling relationship with yourself and, as a result, everyone and everything around you.

                                        If you have any further questions, send me an email via mail@conni.me.

                                        If you feel called to explore Breathwork, book a private session with me.


                                        To the power of breath,

                                        Conni.


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