Josh Trent is back by popular demand on Mark Groves – Create The Love Podcast!
Josh is the Founder of Wellness Force Media , host of the Wellness + Wisdom Podcast and the creator of the BREATHE: Breath & Wellness Program. He spent the past 19 years as a trainer, researcher, and facilitator discovering the physical and emotional intelligence for humans to thrive in our modern world. This episode is for new AND seasoned breathwork practitioners!
Discover:
- Go to createthelove.com/cards and grab a set!
- The role pain plays in shaping our ability to deal with adversity
- The power of using breathwork to regulate emotions in everyday life
- Fatherhood Expectations & Reality
- The Resilience Factor
- Pain Is The Ultimate Teacher
- Getting Grounded Again
- Coming Home To Ourselves
- Why Community Is Vital
- The Path To Liberation with Breathwork
- Stories We Tell Ourselves About Money
- Becoming a Victim of Intellectualization
- How to Love Your Fear
Listen to Mark Groves interview on Wellness Force:
- 302 Mark Groves: Create The Love
- 386 Mark Groves | Create More Love: How To Deal w/ Breakups, Boundaries, & Beyond
Table of Contents
REDISCOVER YOUR WHOLENESS
A deep dive into unconditionally loving yourself.
Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every relationship in your life, but most of us have spent our lives taking care of everyone else over ourselves. Trying to figure out what we want, what we need, how we feel, and who we truly are—can feel incredibly overwhelming. Not today! This course was made to guide you through the sacred process of rediscovery, step by step.
BREATHE | Breath & Wellness Program
Get 20% off: use code PODCAST20
Boost your immunity and calm your mind with freedom from chronic stress in the modern world.
A 21 day guided breath and wellness program using ancient wisdom to boost your immunity, calm your mind, and give you freedom from chronic stress in the modern world.
Combining special breathwork infused with safe vape cannabidiol, BREATHE gives you everything you need to let go of old weight, de-stress, and build immunity so you can live your best life.
In this special (limited time) offer, you will receive:
– Lifetime access to BREATHE
– Free upgrades to all future training modules
– Free additional training modules
– Special VIP coupons for safe vape, essential oils, CBD, nootropics and more
– Private WF group access
Here's Josh and Mark Groves LIVE on the podcast for the full conversation with resources and links for you to enjoy:
Mark Groves Create The Love
Hello, hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the Mark Groves podcast. Today, we are going to be learning about a skill that will completely change your relationships in your life. And that's not an over promise because I have experienced it myself.
This skill allows us to not only get more in our bodies, more cognizant and aware of our emotions allows us to release them, allows us to just be informed by them so we can then change our lives. Right? Many of us in triggered moments in relationship, but this can be in life. We disassociate, we leave our bodies, we get reactive.
We go into automatic programming. That is generally destructive, but also let me just reframe that in a way it is protective and it's important because we learned it somewhere to protect ourselves from being hurt. And, but unfortunately the very thing that protects us from being hurt when it's in a safe situation, also prevents us from deeper intimacy, depth, and being seen.
Automatic Programming
Mark Groves: So this skillset invites us to get more in our bodies and also to be able to sit in those feelings and those thoughts and those things so that we can choose responses that are constructive to deepen intimacy and relating. If we learn this skill, it will, as I said, radically transform our lives, but more specifically our relationships to ourselves and other people.
And we're just going to add a nice little cherry on top. It also will take you out of your body in a way, because I've had so many sort of almost psychedelic experiences through this practice, through this skill that have allowed me to explore the bigger conversation with consciousness and other dimensions.
And you know, you know me, I like to be grounded and in the sky at the same time, I like that there are so much, there's so much complexity to the planet, to the earth, to how it works, to how relating works to miracles, to all of it.
Mark Groves: Get To Know Your Partner
We're going to get into that today, before we get into today's episode, wherever you listen to this, share this episode, if you found it really helpful so that someone else can find it too. Also any of your favorite episodes, obviously love for you to share them, tag me on Instagram so I can re-share it wherever you listen. Please give it a five star review in a written review.
That's so helpful to get into more people's ears so that we can transform this world together with how we relate. I wanted to take a quick break in this episode to talk to you about the greatest struggle that people have in dating.
Mark groves, and that is asking the right questions and not just the right questions, but asking hard questions, questions that determine if someone wants what you want, what you are, what your relationship status is that deepen vulnerability and intimacy and ultimately asking the right questions allows you to get to know someone on a deeper level gets to know their values, get to know whether they're a good fit for you.
Now, I recognize that when I get feedback on asking questions, people say that's too hard to ask, or it's too soon to ask that, or whatever the excuse or thought or feeling or fear might be. Well, I thought, let me ask the hard questions. And that's why I created create the love cards. Great. The love cards is created with such intention, for you to deepen your conversations on dating. And because of that, the deck, when you open it up, it fits two smartphones.
So you can put your phone inside the box as you take the cards out. So you can both be present. Now, if someone doesn't want to play, I'm like swipe left. That's a red flag, like who doesn't want to play a game. Second, I've got it in four sections. So we got foreplay, diving, deeper, too much information.
Mark Groves – Cause would it be a deck from me if it didn't have DMI and building chemistry. So there's four sections for you to explore the landscapes of one another and see if you're a good fit. If you want to have deeper conversations, if you want to take this deck of cards on your dates or on your date night, or you think this would be a good gift for a couple, then go to create the love.com/cards. I put them at a really accessible price of 30 bucks, and I can't wait for you to check them out.
They've received rave reviews. People are loving them. I, Mark Groves, have actually one friend who took them out on its second date with someone that she was hitting it off with. And after she got the answers to the questions that the deck provided, she realized that this person was not a good fit and swipe left.
Relationship Expectations
And now is in a relationship with someone she loves. So that's what dating is about is it's about filtering. And also my intention is to support you along that journey, to not just finding the person that you want, but if you're with them asking the questions that help create and deepen intimacy.
So go to createthelove.com/cards and grab a set. Now, now it's time. My good friend returning guest, Josh Trent, he is the founder of wellness force media.
Mark Groves – He's the creator of BREATHE | breath and wellness program. And is the host of the wellness force podcast. Josh is an incredible human. I love his insights, soul, heart and I can't wait for you to hear this episode.
Welcome, Josh, Trent, back in action. You're a return guest. I'm very excited to have you back. My friend, me too.
Mark Groves: Josh Trent Is Back!
It's good to be.
Here. Well, and you've had a few changes in your life since the last time you were on, right? Tell us, yeah,
A little bit about it. Yeah. My, my boy Novah is five weeks old. So I'm a father, which is something you and I have chatted about quite a bit. And my heart has been expanded and filled in ways like I could have never imagined. It's so like the experiential learning that we all talk about, like there's no way you can be prepared to be a father because the experience of becoming one is actually what prepares you for it and the next phase. So I'm just like, whoa, welcome to parenthood. That's what it feels like. Yeah. It's awesome. It's filled with love.
Like no book is the immersion, you know, like, no you can't, they can't give you a fake baby and make you feel like you have a real baby, you know, kids though, weird little babies pee and that's so weird. Yeah. You know, they can't do that and it's not gonna actually give you the lived experience of caring for a being
Fatherhood Expectations & Reality
No, no way. And you know, it's funny. I was, when you mentioned that the fake baby, I was thinking about the CPR classes, where they have the babies. And there's just no way that even if you did do a class of any kind, you would actually know how to apply that your lessons to the actual moment when you're holding your child in your arms, it's just a totally different feeling.
It's much like many things that you talk about and that you and I talk about.
You have to have the experiential learning and the wisdom that you earn to actually embody the virtues to show up, to actually be it. So you can do your prep, but good luck trying to apply a template for children for infants.
Mark Groves – You know, there's the, the actual act of experiencing fatherhood. I haven't. So, you know, to I to think about it, to dream about it, to try to put myself in your experience. I can't, you know, I hadn't, I had a guy I used to work with this incredible guy who said he was such a, he's such a good father. And I remember he said to me that the first time he saw his child, it was the first moment he ever experienced his heart outside of his body. And I thought that was really profound.
You know, this that's, and that at least gave me some tangible, you know, possibility. But of course, you know, you realize that you combine DNA with someone else too, who is a portal like that to me is wild. Like women are a portal, you know, on this planet, into the planet, whatever it is, I don't know. But just incredible.
Novah's Birth
It's profound. Thanks man. Yeah. And we had like, non-traditional desire to have our son at home and, you know, the universe had other plans. So we had a tremendously challenging and really growth producing experience. But at the time I wasn't worried about the growth it was producing. I was just literally dealing with the trauma of the event. So yeah, I mean, I have a new found a reverence for what women go through, like in every single way.
Cause I saw it, I felt it. I was there firsthand. And I also know it's just another experience in my life where I have an idea of what I want. I have an expectation of how something might go.
And then there's just like events that occur where I'm forced to surrender and was the ultimate threshold, like ultimate initiation mark to be a parent, to have everything you thought was going to go down, be completely different. And then the tools that I have, like, how do I make sense of it all? How do I like not lose my? Essentially. That was, that was the journey I, we walked for 10 days in the NICU.
Mark Groves – Yeah. I remember talking to you sort of briefly between moments, I'm sure that you were in because I had no conceptualization of what was going on on the other side of the phone when we were texting. But I was just imagining like at the amount of, you're like holding the possibility of loss at the same time, you know, that's, there's so much love in that moment. And it's such a, like, it's this paradox and I love that.
You said, you know, when you're in it, you're not thinking this is going to produce so much growth. It's like, thanks a lot. You know, it's like someone imagine while you're in that, I texted you. I'm like, wait, do you see how much you grow from this Josh? I was like, I will never text you again. Mark ever,
Never, you know, it's crazy, man is I love my brother. He posted my heart. He actually, when we were in the middle of it, like in the middle, when I was at my most stressed and honestly, most out of body because my body didn't feel safe. Cause I wasn't really doing the things. I didn't have the, or through trauma, there is a resistance to what is, and I was resisting it and he calls me and he's like, dude, you know, it's going to be okay.
Like, you know, things could be a lot worse. He was trying to coach me through it. And at one point I just said, brother, I love you. But how the would you feel if somebody was trying to coach you in the middle of this experience? And he's like, oh, I guess I wouldn't like it. And I'm like, exactly.
The Resilience Factor
So there is something to be said about like this meeting, the tide where it is and not trying to like change things or run right to the positive. And I get it though. It's like, we all want to experience life in the most joyous way, but sometimes it just requires grit to stay in the like resilience factor that, I mean, gosh, I didn't even know that I had that much resilience and I feel like I've been through a lot of things, but this was beyond anything I could've ever even honestly thought that I could handle. Yeah. It's stretched me in a profound way.
Yeah. That experience of as you're going through it, you know, you're growing then if acquiring more of you that didn't even know you could tap into. And it's so interesting in those moments because they're like tearing your it's like your existential skin is being torn to make more room for more space, more love, more heart, more resilience, more, all that.
Mark Groves – But you're right. You know, when someone says it could be worse or whatever, focus on positively intentioned thing, it actually pulls you out of being in it. You know, it's sort of like negates or says your pain right now is not, it's not as important as the possibility in your life. The pain is the possibility. So get the out of here. So I can step into that.
Pain Is The Ultimate Teacher
Yeah. Yeah. Because pain is the ultimate teacher. I mean, and this isn't waxing poetic. Like I don't know how I would have ever become the leader of my community or the leader of now my family, if I didn't go through different of pain, there's just absolutely no way mark. Like no way that we can embody the, I guess you could say the space or the capacity to hold it all, unless we've gone through some of these lessons from the pain teacher just don't see it possible for any human being,
These moments in my practice. Right. They invite skill sets because of course, when we're going through transition change, what happens? We throw out the window, our practices, our food choices, you know, and maybe you could speak a bit to the biological process that maybe fuels that, you know, and then can we do to return because we've all done it, you know, we're all like I'm stressed, forget exercise. I'm stressed, whatever, when those are all the things that really root us and ground us and allow us to,
Getting Grounded Again
Mark Groves – To be, we were sharing before this interview about how the earth is the place that grounds us and whether it's, you know, the air we breathe around, we walk on or even experience of us touching physical touch, like all these things that ground us when we're in stress or when we're in some kind of traumatic event. The very first thing, unless we're, you know, as an master and maybe even they have their moments.
The very first thing that happens is that we'll do this. We'll hold our breath. We'll bring all of our energy up to our collarbone and our belly completely shuts off. So we'll do upper chest breathing and think I've shared this with you. And if I haven't here we go on my arm as a tattoo and sporadic [inaudible] and an Italian. That means if I can breathe, I can choose. And I got that because in 2016, I started to learn about power of breath and not just breath work, but just the beautiful art form that breathing is.
And I say art form because many people that do work, think of breath, work as just another piece of work. But I see it as an art form where I can pull my only autonomic lever in my body.
And that is, you know, the parasympathetic and sympathetic lever breath is the only one we can control. So I'm going through this experience where by the way, I ducked into the bathroom at one point and I did my breathing because I was crying. I was leaving my body. I was literally in full meltdown. And the only thing saved me is getting me back to my center. So I could at least lead someone was doing my breathing and not been on a physiological level is we're flooded with cortisol. When we're flooded with cortisol, eventually we're going to have a blood sugar dysregulation.
So on top of that blood sugar dysregulation, we're also not breathing, which then pulls us even harder into the sympathetic nervous system, sympathetic being fight, flight, freeze, parasympathetic being rest, digest, and peace. So once we're over there in sympathetic, the very thing that we actually need is the very thing that we've been trained as a society specifically as men to ignore. And that is, suck it up. Be strong don't show emotion, harden up. One of the big, biggest perpetrators of this is David Goggins, where he's like harden up, you know, this narrative so fascinating. I'm like I get why people are gravitated to it.
Yeah. I didn't eat shut down when you were running. I mean, you've had
Six heart surgeries or whatever. So, so yeah, that's, that's biologically what's happening. And then only way that we can even have an access point to choose. You know, if I can breathe, I can choose is if we take conscious control of a respiration. If I take conscious control, my respiration will then grant it. I'm going to be more conscious. I'm going to be more present in the moment. It's so easy to intellectualize this and say, oh yeah, get it, get it for stress.
We should breathe. But are you doing it? And have you trained yourself over time to actually make that trigger action response? So you're triggered, what's your action response to your trigger? Is it to go eat ice cream, yell or get defensive or shut down or blame? Maybe it is to go within, take a massive belly breath?
Coming Home To Ourselves
Like you just yawned right now. It was just beautiful. And whenever we yawn, yeah. You're stretching your job whenever we yawn. Like whenever we just emote, like there's immediate relaxation. So if we train that over the course of time, it's like water dropping on a rock. And eventually that groove is, is worn, you know, synaptically and physiologically. So I got to a point in life where anxiety was so bad, five years back, actually, when I started wellness force that I needed something, I kept praying like spirit, bring me something, you know?
Cause I know it ain't going to just be these psychedelics. It's gotta be something that makes me feel a little more safe.
So that's when I found breath through mark divine and unbeatable mind and SEALFIT, and then I started to really unpack the science and the spiritual aspect of the breath.
It's been my go-to like the number one thing that made me create the breathe breath and wellness program. And now we serve people across the world. People in frickin' Russia, that's still trips me out. We can create a program and people in a completely foreign country can access it and use it. It's really beautiful.
So long-winded answer man, but that's, that's, what's going on physiologically biologically, we're literally turning down the volume of the default mode network in the brain. When we breathe, we're getting back to the parasympathetic, we're bringing down the cortisol, bringing more self-regulation to the blood sugar and we're in just a more harmonious state. But the key is that we have to learn how to practice it when it matters. Most, it makes me,
Just BREATHE
I think of when we were talking about David Goggins saying like, yo, go do that thing, crush that thing, keep going.
And I think it's important that we get through thresholds, but I think when we're doing it at the cost of our own health, or we're not present through the transformation through the threshold, you know, and I think what breath work has done for me in my, like I'm not exceedingly experienced, you know, maybe done breath worth like a hundred times in my life in doing it though, or is to go like you're in your body, all the feelings that you've been, not feeling always been beautiful experience like I have yet, you know, it's been emotional, it's been all the things and you feel like tingling, you know, you feel all, you're just so embodied.
Mark Groves – And I think if we can, if we can get back into that space, because when we're triggered, we're not using our brains anymore either.
You know? And I was saying to you for court too, that I felt that way. Like I felt very much like disembodied. Yeah. And disassociated because of trauma of the world and what's going on right now. And I have a hard time. The reason I was stretching my jaw wasn't yawning is because I've also felt tightness in my jaw.
I felt, you know, that I clench, I have a gap between my front teeth now that I never had when I became an entrepreneur that began, you know, the stress of, of just life, but also not necessarily having the right tools because who says breathe and like teaches you how to actually breathe properly. You know? And I watched now parents with their toddlers who are like, take a moment ready and they do a breath. And I'm like, that's incredible. Like this kid is learning how to regulate. How is it learning that
The Right Way To Breathe
Bring up such a rad point. You know what happens to a baby? If you cover their mouth or if you cover their nose, I'm sorry. If you plug a baby's nose, they start to choke.
Cause at birth babies don't know how to breathe through their mouth. We're actually wired to breathe through our nose from, from birth, the miracle wisdom. So what does that say about us as adults? Like you had said, if we're not learning how to self regulate and we become prey to the trappings of social media and distractions and stress, we're trained by parental example and by societal example.
So if I'm a three-year-old and I'm learning that it's actually not safe to become, it's not safe to breathe through my nose because I have to learn to, then I'm eventually going to turn off that circuitry. And then I'm literally, and physiologically not prepared to deal with greater stressors in life.
It's not our fault, man. I'm not here to demonize anyone. I mean, just because we're born with an innate intelligence doesn't mean that we embody as adults, you know, we have to be reminded and re-talk to
Everything in that sentence.
Mark Groves – Yeah. Big part of what we learn with breath is, okay, well what are my emotions and my pain trying to teach me. And if I'm not breathing through my belly on a physiological note, the intera nervous system, which you know, you and Zach, I've talked about a lot on your podcast is gut health.
But what people don't realize is in the enteric nervous system, there's more connections than like stars in the sky, which is kind of fascinating. Even think about like, we have so much going on there. We have a solar system in our gut.
And then, and then the enteric nervous system wires with that central nervous system, which then the Vegas nerve on the back of our cranium all the way down our spine. It intervates almost like tree roots. If you look at it, diagram it enervates on the back of the diaphragm.
How To Breathe
So when you take a big belly breath and you actually fill your lungs with air and you change the position of a diaphragm, it sends a signal, hard electric signal to your brain to shift more, over to parasympathetic. So belly breathing and conscious breathing. It's not just like, woo.
Although, beautiful. I love woo. You know, I love woo and love science. Me too. It actually brings us to a place where we can then more auto-regulate or self-regulate. And we can return back to innate intelligence that we were born with as babies, where if you were to cover our nose, when would start to choke, because natural breathing like you're doing right now, your mouth is gently closed. You're breathing through your nose.
You're not even thinking about it because you're relaxed. But a lot of people, if you watch them though, their mouth will be open when they listen to people talk because they're not breathing through their nose. There's so much to unpack with breath, but it's really about, and I remind myself when I have jaw tension, when I have something tight in my belly, when I feel something tight in my shoulder, can I take a breath and give myself a gift of presence and be like, okay, what's my pain trying to tell me what's this mild, medium or heavy discomfort, really trying to tell me, you know, what can I learn from it instead of how can I suppress that back down?
Mark Groves – So do you have practice that, you know, for you listening right now, maybe we can just have an experience that, and we can just get a taste.
Yes. So wherever you are, if you're in a car, you can do this. Just don't close your eyes. If you're seated and you want to close your eyes, that's cool too. Make sure that your hips and your shoulders and your head are in a straight line. So don't slash forward.
Don't lean back. So just feel your tailbone root into your seat. If you're in the park, if you're maybe listening to mark show and you're, you know, in a beautiful sunny area with little birds chirping even better, but wherever you are, it's cool. Make sure you're straight. Put both hands on your belly. So feel the warmth of your hands on your belly and just breathe normally through your nose, relax your jaw, just breathe in and out through your nose for three breaths, No mouth yet.
Just breathe through your nose in and out. Now take that you're doing your nose and connect it. Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth. Feel your belly, expand like a balloon, inhale through your nose, exhale, audible through your mouth. Two more, just like that.
Pulling Your Stress
Last one, pulling your stress. Next one. Let it go with your mouth and just feel the difference that that did to your nervous system, how simple it is, how powerful it is just to be reminded. And then think about if you were to multiply that for six deep breaths in a row. And then if you were to just be with whatever came up, people that have trouble meditating benefit more than anyone else in the world from breath work or breathing.
Because just in that little bit, we did, you can feel like right away in breath work like the most immediate gratification tool, because it just brings you to wherever you are. And so if you're with us and you did the three while you're listening to mark and I do the six now, so do the same thing we just did except do it six times.
And at the end of the sixth breath, do a quick scan, almost like, you know, in the grocery store, when they scan something, scan your entire body and find something that's tight or something that hurts and then continue your conscious, rolling breath, like a circle and just put it to that spot. So me personally, I have a little bit of pain on the lower left side of my back. So I'm going to close my eyes, stack my spine, put my hands on my belly, watch it grow like a balloon. Forget about you.
Notice I'm not even cuing us to forget about the chest. Don't breathe your chest. I find less words is more for breathing because if you use too much teaching or too much words, it gets people in their head and we want to get out of our head and into our belly essentially. So everyone can do that.
And maybe right now, as you're listening, you're, you're continuing that breath. You're getting some of the benefits of that. That's your entryway into breathing like a circle and breathing through your belly, which then, I mean, I can just feel it with the tiny bit we did like even more relaxed.
Mark Groves – That's a great way that anybody can practice this for free, no matter who you are. It's a beautiful, starting place
Gets us to this place of being present. And you know, I remember hearing someone who teaches breath work. I can't remember. What's that guy's name? Who's like the crazy Swiss guy.
Oh, Wim. Hoff. Yeah.
Benefits of Breathwork
Yeah, yeah. He's great. He's funny presenter. And he was saying good eye on your own supply. You know, and I felt that when I did breath work, like I felt like I could go to other dimensions that I was, you know, I had had really beautiful exploratory journeys into my soul, into myself, into the world, into conversations with, you know, whatever I'm having conversations with. And also a relaxing, you know, like a relaxing of my nervous system.
Mark Groves – You feel sort of a dispelling stored up tension. And I'm curious, what are, you know, my can't be the only one who's had psychedelic kind of experiences on breath work. And I'm curious, what other sort of benefits come from it?
I was in 2016, I was laying on the ground. And that was really like the beginning of my journey, which is what you talk about so much in your show. And that's like the intelligence of the heart, you know, like what it really means to be in your heart. I didn't know what that was in 2015, and I'll never forget. I was laying on the floor with like 50 spec ops, Navy seal, like, you know, like really tough people. And I look around, we're doing this warrior breathing, which is what you and I just did, but we're doing it in a longer fashion. And it got to this point where there was a psychedelic experience for me.
Looking around… and there's like people crying and I'm crying and I don't know what the hell is going on. And I'm like, why am I crying right now?
Like, didn't know what it was, but my body knew. And so what's really going on is inside of all of our tissues. So, I don't care who you are, man, inside of all of our tissues is a tremendous amount of issues. And it's not just Bruce Lipton's thing. Although he did, he did make that phrase big, which I love issues are in the tissue.
So what are the issues, issues that are like the capital T lowercase T trauma? So what's happening is when we are allowing ourselves to be in these states of really mark altered as straight up altered states.
Like you're kind of like an astronaut and you're going to go to all these different parts of the galaxy within yourself. And you know, who's really amazing at this is on a hot day, our friend, she, she took me through a session once. Oh my gosh, she's so amazing.
Conscious Breathing
And it's literally just conscious breathing with drumming. So there's three aspects. The first one is physiologically happening is we're flooding the system with oxygen. Then we're getting to a space of hypoxia.
Mark Groves- Hypoxia is where our blood and saturation our oxygen saturation is lowering that can produce these essential states, these altered states, but the most important thing. So first is the oxygen then is the hypoxia.
And then the third thing is whatever. Someone's integrative ability as the facilitator and also the experience of the student or the breather. Those have to be on point because if somebody has never been through a psychedelic experience, or if somebody is literally doing breath work for the first time, and they're already a traumatized human doing a cathartic breath work could actually retraumatize them. If they don't know how to handle it, or if the facilitator doesn't know how to handle it.
So it's super important to bring up because people think of this breathing, like you mentioned, like Wim Hoff. He's like, okay, but are you, and he's getting, you know, all these people into these states, but we also have to have like loving concern, loving awareness in the states. Cause if we don't can retraumatize people.
But the cool thing is, is if you have somewhat of training and if you're walked through an experience where you learn the fundamentals, you learn how to breathe. You learn how to hold space. If you're a teacher or you learn how to handle, what's coming up. If you're a student, you can have some incredible moments.
Like I've had moments where I literally went back into world war II and connected with my grandfather and felt compassion for how he had to kill. I mean, I've had moments like that and that's awesome.
Three Phases of the Breath
I've had the most insane things occur and I'm like, okay, I know that's not just my imagination because I can feel it here… I just don't just sense it here in my head. And so as people go into breath work, there's, there's three phases.
Mark Groves – There's the acute, which is like, oh, I'm stressed. I got to speak. There's the meditative, which is like more proactive nourishment. Like, Hey, every day I'm going to love myself. I'm going to do this seven minute practice or the 21. And then there's that last phase mark, which is the psychedelic experience, the cathartic breathing.
So acute meditative and cathartic as what most people, easy way to understand breathing. Most people think of breathing just as that, you know, astronaut space exploring their galaxy in the soul.
These are all things that deserve lots of attention, lots of respect. But main thing I'll say is like, there's so much more going on than what you can think about. All you really need to know about breath is how you feel that that's the biggest part of breath work or breathing is how do you feel? Do you feel better? Do you feel stressed?
Mark Groves – Let that modulate your, your capacity or your style
When think of all the benefits of this for relationships, you know, like the ability when I started meditating and then started doing breath, work, breath work allowed me to even get so much more attunement to my body. Meditation obviously provides a level of awareness.
You know, that you're having awareness of awareness and you know, all the magical things makes you the observer. I was the observer of my mind, not so much my sematic feeling based response and doing breath work. And as I said before, we started recording. I'm like, I gotta get back into it.
Cause I'm feeling that I need to get back into my body. I got to take more responsibility for my ability to respond, you know, and, and just being able to be more present. And for you listening, there's no better way to supercharge your relationships and actually move into a deeper level of connection and intimacy than to have awareness of your body and your responses. I mean, nothing will transform relationships better than going deeper within ourselves.
Mark Groves – So when I'm sitting in the trigger that I have this practice to say, just take a breath, three of them, five, six, definitely better to be able to begin, to get blood perfused back to the parts of our brains.
And that actually make the good things and actually are about building connection. And what has been your student's response and yours do in embodying this and making it a practice
Instant Reward with the Breath
Easiest part of the breath is that you get the instant reward, the most challenging part of the breath. I guess you could say unequivocally for most people is that they have to deal with what comes up when they do it. Even in the cute, even in the seven minute or the 21. So the best thing I would say is it's actually your friend.
Mark Groves – I know it sounds a little weird, but on your show, I think it's totally cool to dive into love, whatever, whatever comes up, whether it's anger, fear, resentment, jealousy, rage, I don't care.
And any emotion, any energy and emotion that he motes up that comes out when you're breathing is actually there anyways. So we don't need to ignore it or try to suppress it. Or we also don't need to quote, focus on it.
We can just let it come up and let it go.
I have been, since my son was born, I probably cried every week. I've probably cried every single week. Yeah, I definitely have is not probably I have. And it's because when I, when I'm sitting, so the way that I do it and the way that I teach it is first know how to breathe through your belly, know how to stack your spine, shoulders, and head know how to relax your nervous system to the point where you can actually get the benefits of the circle.
I like the box as well. The box is really good for grounding people. And so in a seven minute box practice in the brief program, what we do is we have people actually stack their knees below their hips. So I see a lot of these meditation chairs where your knees are like above your hips. But what happens is, is when you do that, you actually cut down the capacity for your belly to go in and out.
Mark Groves – You really want to become a balloon.
You want to go out as far as you can breathe like a horizontal person and then go in as far as you can. And I would say that for most of the people that start the program in the very first week, if they master that, how to sit, how to breathe properly from your belly button, with the balloon, they get the benefit immediately.
And then what comes after that is a lot of emotional inventory practices.
Like what do you actually do with the stuff that's coming up? I have a lot of practices, a lot of guides and tools for people to, to manage the things that arise. You know, when they're doing the breath. So there's, there's a challenge. And there's also a beautiful benefit man, for people in that very first week where they're just, they're just activating.
Getting Into The Deeper Work
What's already there. And then of course, you know, the deeper work is okay, what do I do with this now?
And then you become, actually addicted in a good way because you start craving the breath work just like you would crave a workout, just like you would crave anything.
That's good for you because it always gives you that lighter feeling. Anytime we're emoting something out, whether it is shame or anger or whatever, even if we're a half a percent lighter after we do it, the benefit is something that's going to hook our, our brain. It's going to hook our limbic system because we knew that last time it was awesome.
Or last time it might've been hard, but then, I felt good when I'm done. We'll want to keep going back to the well, and so that's comes a true practice and an art form or a training because you get hooked, you get hooked in a good way and,
And addicted to a positive effect from that, which is great.
Mark Groves – You know, you get addicted to the experience. And I know after I've done it, where you feel like your body feels so energized too. And you're like, I can do so much right now. Yeah. You definitely do feel that. What is that from? I don't understand that,
That you bring up an awesome point. So Dan Brulee, he's been a breathwork pioneer for 40 years. He learned from Leonard or who was like the father of breathwork.
He says that based on his research, you get 300% more oxygen to the brain. When you do a proper breath, hold retention, what's a breath hold retention. You and I did our priming breaths and the breathe program we'll do 20 to 30 priming breaths. Then we'll do two rounds or three rounds of box breathing. Then we'll on the exhale, do a hold.
So when we do a hold, it increases nitric oxide, and when we increase nitric oxide, the brain gets flooded in that, hold on the exhale with oxygen because all your pulmonaries are coming to your heart.
When the your heart is pumping it into your head. And you're in a space where your brain literally is receiving more blood flow, more oxygen because of you super oxygenating holding grounding, and then bringing all that, the pulmonary spirit, I guess you could say to your head, think about this.
The Breath Connection
If 300% more oxygen to your brain, after a properly done breath, hold, how could this help anyone that is doing something more cognitively demanding or being on a stage, or even like being on a podcast, you know, before you and I have gone on, I did like 10 something. I didn't even count the breasts over 10 breaths just to like center myself.
So it's pretty fascinating what goes on because that's just one phase of it. Why also mark, we feel lighter when we're done with any kind of properly done breath work is because we're emoting, we're actually exiting the things that are contracting us a nervous system perspective. So any of those emotions I talked about, if we're releasing some of those, then hell yeah, we're going to feel lighter because those things are subconsciously draining us.
Mark Groves – Whether it's a relationship or a job, or just maybe an incessant monkey mind that we're indulging in, all the things that are pulling us.
I mean, I look side to side right now because it seems like at all times I have been feeling lately, just an existential tension that is so vast and so overwhelming at times. Sometimes I'll just be sad. I'll just like allow myself to be sad for what's going on in the world. Cause it's really sad. It's really sad.
And I'm like, okay, well what do I do with this sadness? Yeah, I'm going to allow myself to feel it, but what do I do with it? I have to emote it. I have to take the energy and admire love and responsibility to put it in emotion. Otherwise I'm going to eat something I don't. I know it's not good for my higher self.
I'm going to lash out at Carrie, my partner. I'm going to, you know, not show up for my son or my business as a father. So, it's the most important thing we can do is to move the energy in our body. And one of the most powerful ways to do that is through the breath.
Mark Groves – And it's shocking to me that we don't talk about this. You know, that we don't actually, it's not shocking. It's just unfortunate because we don't talk about anything. Really. There's very like 0.0, 1% of schools talk about relationships, you know, very few talk about findings,
Finance, or wellness or anything that makes humans whole.
What Makes Humans Whole?
When you think of the last 18 months, I don't, we're not going to get on a tirade about this, but like immunity, health, nutrition, all the things that are good for your body, like being able to, you know, out I was saying before we started recording, I'm like, I need breath work because I know that I need to get more embodied.
I know that I'm super stressed from the world, from what's going on, the sadness, the grief. And also my rage, my rage as to that, we have not been having conversations about wellness when the very thing we need is wellness. And there's so obviously so many confounding factors to that.
There's no excuse to not have been having any conversations about health. There's none in when people are like, but I don't give a. Like we should have been talking about health. We should be talking about health.
Mark Groves – We should be obsessed with talking about how to improve our health, not consume more media and hurt and get more fears so that your immune system sucks. It's like, it's just this perpetual cycle that it just keeps injuring people. And that enrages me. So any breath work to get that rage my body, cause it me off and it's such cancel culture and all the that you're like, we can't even have conversation anymore.
We can't have dialogue. And what breathing allows is for dialogue with your body first, so that you can have dialogue with your family member who might be triggered by the fact that you're hesitant when you have very valid reasons to be hesitant, no matter what your reasons are. I know they're valid because they're yours, you know, and that's such a,
You've had so many people on your podcasts that talk about feedback, you know, like receiving feedback, like what is feedback? Our body is this beautiful synergistic being meat suit. And you and I are inhabiting this meat suit. There is built in feedback systems that we ignore.
We just think we ignore them and flat out ignore the feedback systems because whatever is feeding back…
So we don't want to eat. We don't want to swallow because it's uncomfortable.
And I get it like, yo, I totally get it. Like I'm carrying some extra weight right now, but look, I know how to let it go.
Mark Groves – You know, I just went through an insane two months traumatic process. And so I'm honest about where I am with you, with us, with me because what the else is there? Besides me being honest. I mean, if I'm not listening to my own feedback, then I'm suppressing the information that's trying to come to me.
Stress Less with Breathwork
So this is really big for all of us, man, because what you just said is probably what everyone is feeling. We're all feeling angry, upset, hopeful.
We're feeling all the things it's just like a knob has been turned up so much more. And the intensity of these things that I think we're feeling right now, especially if anyone identifies as an HSP or, or more empathic, like it's, it's the highest volume I think we've ever experienced.
Mark Groves – And so it's a quick segue, just bear with me for a second default mode network in our brain, prefrontal cortex, the posterior cingulate and the amygdala with some other ones. But those are the big three. When you're consciously breathing, you actually turn down the volume on the default mode network. The default mode network is what is scanning when you're doing a singular focused activity.
So if anyone's ever tried to make love and their brain is spinning or you're trying to connect or just be with somebody and your brain is spinning, that's your default mode network volume knob turned all the way to max.
And so what you have to do is in order to get out of your head and into your heart and your stomach, you actually have to physiologically go there and you can go to talk therapy forever.
Mark Groves….
I love talk therapy in some ways, but you, the more you use your intellect to try to heal a somatic or a spiritual issue, the more you're actually shooting yourself in the foot. And so in order to heal, what's going on downward. We have to bring up whatever is happening down. And so on. The only way we can bring up what is happening down is by breathing because that's what recirculates and that's what allows us to recapitulate the things that are causing us the constriction in the first place.
I remember my saying to me, once that I said it a few times, maybe just to make sure it got in my head, that there's very few people in the world who can actually do an honest audit of themselves, of who they actually are and how they actually show up… you just did it alive audit of how you're feeling and what's going on.
When we like in the circumstances that currently exist in our world, if our somatic responses, I don't want to do that, or I don't agree with that, but we do that thing in order as we've been coerced to get freedom or to get whatever, to get acceptance from our family to get.
There's so many dynamics to this, but I want to speak to both sides because we're not speaking to both sides. We're not speaking to the experience of the collective.
Getting Back Into Your Heart
We're negating one side and saying it's bad… then you disassociate from your somatic experience because it says, I don't agree. You say, but I'm going to do it anyway.
But, you said previously, you know, about like in order for things to come back from it, get back into your heart, you know, you have to have to breathe and there's a hundred percent a role for coaching and therapy. Absolutely. Yes.
Mark Groves – I've had transformative experiences and I'm sure I'll have many more from those. And I've had insane experiences as well with somatic experiencing with breath work where I felt things I did this breath work practice once where it was combined with a medicine wheel and it was program actually at a psychotherapy conference. And it was psychotherapy meets shamanism, which I was like, is it straight up?
That's cool. Yeah. These things should hook up and make a baby.
Mark Gorves, I'm in it and I forget what part of the wheel I'm on. But all of a sudden I see my mom being taken from me and young. I know that that's what I know and see her being taken away from me.
And then I start crying, like literally crying, not in the thought…. I'm like, what the! So I texted my mom and dad, I'm like, yeah, they're used to me now.
I said: “Yo, I'm in this shamanism means sex therapy session. I had this vision that some mom being taken from me, how long was I in the NICU? And my dad's like, my dad, I love him.
He's like, you were born on a Friday at 5:00 PM to two very loving parents. And 10 days later, we were happy to, you know, he's, doesn't want to tell me like, there's any pain in there, which I understand all of a sudden I'm like, whoa, that is crazy.
So I talked to the teacher after and I'm like, Hey, I went through this experience. And she's like, and I'm like, I don't, can't verbalize it. Like can't label it. She said it was pre-verbal because before you had words to label the emotion and no joke for like three months, I was also doing a candida cleanse. So just add a confounding factor to this for three months, I would just start crying randomly.
Remember, I was talking to Kai and we were at, we were visiting her family we're in their backyard and I'm like, I don't know why I'm so sad. Like I started crying again.
Boom.. it all came back to this like release that I had in that breathwork ceremony that gave me access: I had the conversation with my parents about the experience, you know, more deeply than text thread lifted something from my chest that had been living there for so long that I couldn't label.
And man, it was just profound. So, you know, speak to like no one could get to that. Cause it wasn't based on words, like no psychotherapist was going to ask me the right row of questions to get me to how'd you feel when your mom, when you got put in the NICU and your mom was taken and I'm like, no, one's thinking about that generally in the psychotherapeutic world anyway. Certainly unless you're Mark Wolynn, he probably you in these directions. Yeah,
Yeah. For sure. Yeah.
Birth of A New Life
Mark Groves….
Yeah. He, he would, I'm like, I felt your story because my son was 10 days in the NICU. So it's really interesting that you were 10 and he's done. And I, and I know everyone has their own story and I'm like inspired in this moment to share about like frequency aspect. You really think of our we're like living library that has a bunch of codes that we've been in printed by and for either like aware of them or not.
So if you look at Hawkins work and you're not talking about this before, like the, the big change for people is about frequency of 200, because below 200 is like shame, fear, guilt. And then right at 200, there's courage, there's courage.
So you had the courage, we have the courage to like go into it so we can get out of this spiral that maybe we don't even know is happening because these things happen on such a subconscious level that like you they'll make people cry and they don't even know why.
And it's way beyond like, oh, it's just my hormones. Or it's just this thing. There's so much going on is contributing to, I guess you could say a collective unrest, both within ourselves and society, unless we all have the courage to do the practices like you did and to do the breath work we can't ever get to the 200. And then we can't ever get above 200, which is where, you know, we experienced pride and then we experienced acceptance. And in the latter, we'll go up from there. We can't get to 200, which is courage unless we actually lean into it and we do the thing.
So the powerful way for people to get out of the head. And I'm not, I'm not I'm not going against talk therapy, mark, but I will say, dude, I just as cool timing. Cause I just recorded a solo cast and it's called a victim of intellectualize nation. You and I like, I love, I loved intellectualize one of my favorite things to do, but, but it doesn't, it doesn't heal me on that deep level because a lot of the things that my ego is attached to, I can be really smart and intellectualize my way out of it.
Becoming a Victim of Intellectualization
People can intellectualize anything. They can make anything, make sense, any circumstances, the worst circumstances. And you know, when you're in your head, you're not in your heart.
Mark Groves: And most of us live in our heads because our hearts haven't been sentenced. They haven't been felt. And that's why stillness and presence in breath is opening a beautiful door journey back down to say, Hey, there is so much more to me there's so much more to me.
Mark Groves, I have so much innate wisdom. I have so much innate intelligence and it's not about, you know, I was saying about intellect.
So I'd lived so much in that space and I love the academic. I love research, but it was safe to be there. It was safe for me to know that better than anyone else or to, you know, because then I would never feel like, I didn't know which then meant I never had to feel like it wasn't enough.
Mark Groves:
And I even think of that experience relating, you know, I was someone who over pursued and was codependent still working on that obviously, cause that's never done and would self portray to be in relationship. And if it can't find it in the patterns of, you know, your relating or your childhood, it can simply be a moment like I had in the NICU where it's so unconscious that I'm just like, oh, I that's why I'm so afraid of space being between me and the ones. My soul loves that… smother space and it could be opposite. I know I could have had the opposite response.
I don't want closeness because it leaves to pain. But yeah, it's, it's profound what gifts we can access through the miracle of breath, the miracle of breath, like breath is such a miracle just to breathe. Like we're kept alive by something. We can't see, you know, it's just floating in the air everywhere.
Mark Groves: It's abundant. They haven't tried to package it yet and sell it to us. Except for if you're in the hospital.
How to Love Your Fear
You know, I was feeling when you're sharing is like, I don't know if you're familiar with gay Hendricks. I'm sure you've heard of his work, but Hendricks Institute. So I just interviewed him. This is a genius zone. He wrote the big leap.
This guy has so much wisdom. He's in his seventies. He's been in the game of life and also like growth the growth game for 40 freaking years. And, and his ability to just drop these bombshells that are like snipers in to the collective.
He said something to me. He was like, there's, there's two big fears that we all have that we all get to face in this lifetime. And that is either relationship to others or relationship to self there's, fear of being too close.
Mark Groves: And then there's fear of rejection. Isn't that such a crazy paradox. We are actually afraid of being too close because we want to be accepted and we want that.
We crave that. But then on the other side of it, we're also afraid of being rejected. Like life can be such a paradox and it can get us so stuck in the head where we project onto our current partner or any future partner, whatever we haven't addressed.
And so the most intelligent thing we could ever do is to tap into the intelligence of the breath, because then from that place we can actually make sense of, is this real? Are the thoughts I'm thinking actually real or am I just swamped?
My default mode network has turned all the way up. I'm believing the thoughts in my brain. I've been feeling this this week. Like I've been really solid on my personal habits and I've just felt so clear. I felt so clear and I'm like, well, this has been waiting for me the whole time.
Freedom & Truth
It was only because I had to experience a bunch of pain at the clarity of what it means when I have discipline is freedom. And so I was thinking about that when you were sharing, because I'm like how many people deal with the same core issues over and over?
And over again from an emotional perspective, but they're not emoting what they're feeling.
They're not actually moving in at all. So really learning from it. They're not learning the gateway to all of it. It's like, so, you know, spirit made it so simple move right of your breath, move your body. Like, just move your boundaries, move your boundaries. We complicated because we become this intellectual, like, you know, where there's like an intellectual, dark web to where people can go super deep on like the world is ending and all that stuff, which is like, that's a black hole.
I recommend nobody goes down there. I got caught in there once. I'm like, get me the out of there. So, so the rounded out, like if we want to become our own savior, our own grace, then we have to first recognize that we have potentially become our own victim of intellectualization.
Mark Groves…. and that we were the oppressor. We ourselves, I, me, Josh, Trent, I oppressed to myself.
It wasn't my dad, my partner or society… it was me.
It has been and was me the whole time.
Like it always has been, and I'm not negating trauma or abuse that people go through.
Cause that's real too.
But I'm the one, I'm the arbiter of the truth. I'm the arbiter of if I'm a victim or if I'm not. And so this is about responsibility. So we all get to breathe and breathing is the response that makes us able to deal with life itself.
You're reminding me of a premiere Rumi that sure you, the listener have heard me say before, which is why do you stay in the prison when the door's right there?
And it always makes me think of like that. We build these prisons of possibility of what I can say, what I can do. I'm supposed to be what I'm, what I'm allowed to feel, what I'm capable of, what all these rules that society teaches us that you know, that are not the same as be kind, be graceful, beauty, be limited, be small, be not, don't be too much fit in this prison… we'll all stay in it and complain about it.
Maybe we'll drink rosé or whatever. And just to numb the fact that we're all sitting in this prison, wondering why watching people on the other side and we're like that person, they got lucky, that person that did it. Yeah. So man,
Mark Groves: Stories We Tell Ourselves About Money
Well, I've done that door. I've done that. I've said, oh, I used to my very first talk I ever gave as an entrepreneur ever, the talk was called, speak your truth. It's on YouTube. You can find it. And I basically said, there's been four records that have played my whole life. Money causes pain, expect the worst to happen.
People can't be trusted and I'm not worthy for the record.
Rich people are bad. Yes. So money get rid of it. Don't
When I love people, they betray me and definitely so many upper limits about possibility in terms of purpose. I mean, I did an undergrad degree in finance that I've never taken an Ambien, but it's gotta be similar. I don't know. And no offense, if you're listening and you love finance. Cause Hey to each their own, I totally get it for me. It was a sleeping pill. And I'm like, I only did that because I was taught it. So yeah, man, I've had similar and encourage you the listener, what records have been running?
What prison are you in? And breath is a gateway to that. Like breath just, you've already experienced it on this show. Just like every time we do that, we are actually in touch with the miracle of life, you know? And that's what you said, responsibility.
Mark Groves: Like, I will always preach that.
Mark Groves: The Path To Liberation with Breathwork
You know, we were just talking about, you know, I'm going to be launching coaching thing for people who want to learn more about and, and be relationship coaches at some point. And I was like, what is the work that I have done? Or like sort of the premise of the values of the work.
And it's, I've never cared about relational outcomes for people. Don't get me wrong. It's amazing of people's day together. I'm not going around, busting up love.
I care that you're liberated and could give a shit about anything else because care that you're liberated.
If my intention is anything else, then I won't, I'm not liberated in the intervention.
You know? And breathwork is a path to the observation and to liberation because you experience it through breath.
That's a great, I've never thought about it like that. Thank you, man. That's so good. Yeah, because we can see it and we can feel it. And then really once, once we do those two things, there's no excuse, except for maybe an excuse that the ego creates, but there's really no excuse.
If you can feel NC because you can't fight against that kind of logic, it's almost like a, you know, there's the subjective truth and the universal truth. If you can feel it and see it, it's not something that you can lie about. Can't lie about it. And I think the 25, maybe even 30 years of my life, I was just lying all the time. I was lying to myself about what I was really feeling. And of course that's came out once I found the breath. So literally it's the access point?
It's the gateway. It's the gateway to the liberation and the observation that you talked about because the breath we're not alive without the breath, we can't have a sensory experience. We can't observe. We can't feel so. So good. That's why I love podcasting. Like I would never think of that on my own. And that's why like a volleyball, neither
Mark Groves: Why Community Is Vital
Would I, right? It's only through collective conversation. That's why community is so important. We need the emotion we access because you think of emotion, evoke emotion, right. It evokes motion.
And we need to access it because if you watch like the movie joy, I always love giving to people as an example of watching. If they want to see what blowing up codependency looks like in, in that movie, which is, I think Jennifer Lawrence, she does that.
She's like hit the end. He's like, this. I'm done. And she blows up, but she's achieving like in her purpose. And we often wait until we have to do things till that vote motion is on the end. Like where we can no more, no more, but you don't have to wait. It can just be a little that's offer. And for me, like one that's evoke emotion is I said to you, I need a breath work practice because I know I need it to be in integrity with myself.
I need it. Yeah. Because I have to get back in my body so I can be more present so I can do my best work so I can be present to my partner. So I can be present to you in this podcast, to my friends, to my family, to you, the listener, to be in integrity with it. I have to, I know that I need to get more, more boundaries around technology. Those, and I'm going to do it because that's, when you learn something, you got to do it.
Mark Groves: And then, and so Josh, I love you. Thank you for being here. Where do people find more? Where do they act, tell them about your program and how they can access it.
I always love our talks, whether it's on a podcast or not. And this one's close to my heart because I have, this is literally this point of my consciousness at this point in my development, this is my life's work so far, you know? Sure. I'll do other things in life. This is like 41 years of my own experience. And three years of traveling to Thailand and working with these amazing people across the United States. So this program is, is breathe, breath and wellness.
Mark Groves: We talk about how to embody the things that come up and how to deal with what comes up after you breathe. So this is not just a breathwork specific program.
This is about your wellbeing.
And so the program is three weeks long. I think if anyone has felt the call or maybe the excitement or you get that little tug, just go to breathwork.io and as a gift to your audience, just enter the code: “Mark”
Everybody gets 20% off breathwork.io with the code mark.
Mark Groves: So thank you, man, for letting me share it. Something that I really care about and trust you, intuition. Y'all if you're feeling like you are at least interested or curious about breath, do that. If you're already a seasoned breathwork person, I bet you'll learn something new too
Amazing, man. Thanks so much. I've enjoyed this conversation thoroughly and always love chatting with you and you know, mixing up the ingredients of whatever the universe brings together to produce this. And so thank you for being here.
