Mark Divine [00:00:58]:

So well, Catherine, thanks so much for joining me today again.

Catherine Divine [00:01:03]:

My pleasure.

Mark Divine [00:01:04]:

This is going to be fun.

Catherine Divine [00:01:05]:

Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:01:06]:

So do you have any experience with breath? I mean, what’s your. I guess we all do because we’re born.

Catherine Divine [00:01:12]:

That’s what I was going to say. Well, we’re all experts. I would say that. I believe it’s one of the first things you do when you come into this world.

Mark Divine [00:01:17]:

That’s right.

Catherine Divine [00:01:18]:

Is taking a deep breath, or maybe a not so deep breath. It’s one of the myths is that we’re born knowing how to breathe, and that’s not necessarily true. We learn how to breathe.

Mark Divine [00:01:27]:

Yeah. Well, that’s interesting.

Catherine Divine [00:01:30]:

We have to.

Mark Divine [00:01:31]:

I wonder how you know that.

Catherine Divine [00:01:32]:

Is it just something that Gary talked about it? Gary crafts. He talked about how people say, oh, you breathe like a baby because babies take the deepest breaths, but actually they’re still developing their lung capacity and their muscular.

Mark Divine [00:01:44]:

Yeah, but like, they don’t need to be taught to take their first breath.

Catherine Divine [00:01:47]:

No, they don’t.

Mark Divine [00:01:47]:

That’s what I was thinking. You meant. Yeah. No, that happens naturally. That’s a physiological function. But you’re right. People say, you’re right. Breathe like a baby.

Mark Divine [00:01:56]:

Right. Because the baby’s bellies go up and down, but the baby is not consciously breathing like that.

Catherine Divine [00:02:04]:

Right.

Mark Divine [00:02:05]:

It’s just. And because they’re on their back, generally, it’s just what’s happening. And if we could begin at a young age to learn conscious breathing, what a profound difference it would have make in our lives, wouldn’t it?

Catherine Divine [00:02:17]:

I think it would make a huge difference. Yeah. Just to, you know, the breath is that tool to regulate the nervous system, to take ourselves from one state to another to bring us into the present moment. Awareness.

Mark Divine [00:02:29]:

Yeah. There’s so much to it, you know, in unbeatable mind, which you’re a master coach, we talk about the fact that the breath and working with the breath has. What’s the word? Applicability or it crosses over all five of the mountains that we train. So it’s got a thread. It’s got. Yeah, it’s a thread or bridge, the five mountains. So it has a very distinct physical and physiological benefit, has a very distinct and powerful mental development benefit, has the ability to help with healing and emotional awareness, intuition and then the spirit. Right?

Catherine Divine [00:03:07]:

Yes.

Mark Divine [00:03:08]:

And a simpler way to say that is the breath is the link or the bridge between the body, mind and the spirit.

Catherine Divine [00:03:16]:

Yeah, well, they say that in the yoga tradition that it’s what binds the breath, binds the spirit to the body.

Mark Divine [00:03:23]:

Interesting.

Catherine Divine [00:03:24]:

Because going back to being born, when we’re born are we take our breath and we’re here. So that inhale and then when we die, we exhale. And then they say the spirit leaves.

Mark Divine [00:03:36]:

Right. And. And metaphorically, every inhale and exhale simulates birth and death. Yes, Inhale, the expansion, that’s like birth and life. And exhale is the return path all the way out and that represents death.

Catherine Divine [00:03:54]:

And you could also then go to with the bringing in prana. On the inhale you’re bringing in new energy, new life force, oxygen. And then on the exhale, it’s the upana. You’re getting rid of the waste, the toxins, the things you don’t, negativity, negative.

Mark Divine [00:04:07]:

Anything that’s not serving you. So right there we’ve talked about like two powerful practices that can transcend the five mountains. Breath awareness. Just being aware that every inhale is like the expansionary phase of life, embodying living being out there. And every exhale represents the contractionary phase of life returning in, returning home and coming back to source. And so with that incredibly like powerful awareness mantra, even just kind of mindful presence about that inhale and the exhale and the nuances of that and the birth and the death, then you have a practice that is basically where you embracing fully life, but you’re also practicing for death.

Catherine Divine [00:05:04]:

And that goes to what you’re saying about also the threading or the bridging of all the mountains. Right. Because although it’s mostly unconscious, some, some people do have consciousness to it. A lot of the reactivity or even the choices people make is there’s a base of fear of death.

Mark Divine [00:05:24]:

Fear of death, yeah.

Catherine Divine [00:05:24]:

And whether that’s the death of the self, the ego identification or actual physical death.

Mark Divine [00:05:29]:

I think for most people who aren’t involved in self awareness is actually death of the body and death of the ego represent the same thing. Right. Because they identify with the body. And it’s only until you stop identifying with the body that then the death of the ego becomes the main thing and it’s actually sought after through practice. Yeah, that’s powerful. The other practice that we discussed is that Catherine mentioned is on the inhill to actively visualize and energize the prana life force coming in. And you can experience that like either coming into the nose, going down into your lungs, and then expanding throughout your body and seeing it energize your entire body or, you know, coming into the crown of the head is another way to do that. And then when you exhale, you’re seeing more of an orangish light, which represents detoxing apana.

Mark Divine [00:06:23]:

Anything you don’t need heading back out.

Catherine Divine [00:06:25]:

And a lot of people don’t exhale completely. That’s like one of the reasons why when people start to breathe properly, they’ll actually lose weight or if they have any sort of like inflammatory imbalances, they’ll start to see it come into balance.

Mark Divine [00:06:42]:

I’ve made the audacious claim before that if you literally just learned through box breathing and then tactical breathing to regulate your breath through, so you’re breathing most of the time through your nostrils, six breaths per minute, full breath cycles, that you would come into your natural weight and you’d be in optimal health.

Catherine Divine [00:07:00]:

That’s. Yeah, I mean, I think that’s a pretty.

Mark Divine [00:07:02]:

No, I’m not suggesting that you wouldn’t also exercise and do that, but you’re gonna. You’re gonna have so much more energy and pep in your step that you’re gonna want to do that stuff.

Catherine Divine [00:07:09]:

I mean, I could try it. I spent a whole year thinking that if I ate potato chips and blessed them that I was going to be on optimal weight and health. And that worked out for you? Not work out for me. No, but it was a good practice. It was a good exploration of. Anyways, back to the breath.

Mark Divine [00:07:24]:

Now we’ve been. We introduced breathwork to Navy Seals back in 2006.

Catherine Divine [00:07:31]:

Yes.

Mark Divine [00:07:31]:

So we’re kind of OGs in this area.

Catherine Divine [00:07:34]:

Yes.

Mark Divine [00:07:34]:

But now and back then, nobody was besides yoga teachers. Right. Nobody was really teaching breathwork that I know. I mean, Wim Hof was just getting started, but nobody knew about him.

Catherine Divine [00:07:45]:

It wasn’t mainstream. So what was becoming mainstream when we. When we were teach. When we started teaching people, you know, that were either going into the seals or the seals, Yoga was becoming mainstream. So that was when. So if you look at like our, the main teachers we’ve studied with, they were starting yoga or going to India in the 70s, early 70s, and that’s when yoga was very on the fringe. And, and it was, you know, no one really knew what it was. And then, so when we started practicing yoga and started teaching yoga, that was when there was like that big explosion of it in the West.

Catherine Divine [00:08:30]:

And all of a sudden you had the yoga festivals, you had the conferences, you had the studios being born. And then to your point, so people were teaching breath still in that vein, let’s say of the Ashtanga, there was pranayama or other veins, but there wasn’t like, this is a breath class.

Mark Divine [00:08:50]:

Yeah. No one really separated out as a singular thing. And now you have breathwork studios and trainings, have like, you’ve interviewed facilitation certifications.

Catherine Divine [00:08:59]:

Yes.

Mark Divine [00:09:00]:

You have Wim Hof, who’s got, you know, probably tens, if not hundreds of facilitators.

Catherine Divine [00:09:05]:

Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:09:06]:

We can get back and talk about his stuff later on. So it’s kind of interesting. Like things have come a long way. I fear that, like, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of good stuff going on, but a lot of people are a little bit addicted to the high intensity, holotropic, you know, type thing. And I think that is breath work. And I want to kind of like just like really go back to our teacher, Gary. He’s like, man, when you’re starting breath work, breathing in through the nose and out through the nose in a slow, controlled manner is like, that’s where you start.

Catherine Divine [00:09:41]:

Yeah. Or even just learning how to breathe in through the nose and out through the nose.

Mark Divine [00:09:45]:

Exactly. Learning how to use the muscles and.

Catherine Divine [00:09:47]:

Any sort of regulation. Not necessarily long because for some people it’s going to be like just learning how to breathe.

Mark Divine [00:09:54]:

Right. And that’s a good point. The duration is not like a, you know, it’s not like an Olympic sport. Right. And I have a lot of people think, oh, with box breathing, which we teach, that we’ve got to hold longer and longer and longer periods of time and you know, get to like, we’re doing a 15 count inhale and a 15 count hold. That is not true. Unless you’re practicing for deep sea diving. Right? Yeah.

Catherine Divine [00:10:19]:

I mean, free divers. And then of course, if people want to go and build lung capacity, I, I have an opinion about this because I think it goes really into that like, doer culture. Right. And the like Having to like kind of the bigger badder faster of getting an ego. It’s an ego thing instead of like, if you look at it more from the receptivity of the breath, like, wow, what a amazing gift. This mystery of life. And I get to sit here and learn how to receive my breath.

Mark Divine [00:10:49]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:10:50]:

And then building capacity from that is really different than like, I’m going to count this and like, check a box.

Mark Divine [00:10:57]:

Yeah. You know, I’m going to be the best breath work practitioner ever.

Catherine Divine [00:11:00]:

And then. But like, what, you’re commenting on another way.

Mark Divine [00:11:04]:

Sorry. Oh, it’s more that every breath experience has to induce some sort of euphoric state or magical, mythical, you know, kind of a mystical experience. That’s not true either, right?

Catherine Divine [00:11:16]:

It’s definitely not true.

Mark Divine [00:11:16]:

That’s a trap.

Catherine Divine [00:11:17]:

And it’s a trap too. It’s a trap to chasing the good feeling.

Mark Divine [00:11:20]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:11:21]:

And you know, and I feel like yoga and Buddhism both talk about that a lot. Like the difference between like happiness and contentment.

Mark Divine [00:11:27]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:11:28]:

Or, you know, let’s say peace. Like if I’m always chasing a good feeling, then I’m. There’s still trapped, there’s still avoidance, there’s.

Mark Divine [00:11:37]:

Still suffering, still avoiding suffering. And you’re trapped in the cycle of desire.

Catherine Divine [00:11:40]:

But what you were saying about the breadth of like the holotropic and like that being really, I get why people enjoy it and go, oh, that was because you can have like blast off experiences. Blast off experiences, these out of the world experiences. However, you know, like what Gary touches on, and I agree with him, is there’s so many, like, precautions to that, especially for people that already have sensitive nervous systems or history of trauma and.

Mark Divine [00:12:12]:

You’Re moving a lot of energy. So if you have any kind of unresolved mental emotional issues, which I don’t know many people who don’t, then you could actually create a greater disturbance. Right. Without some preparatory work.

Catherine Divine [00:12:25]:

I know for myself, like, that was a big thing when. Because we do in the Unbeatable Mind program, the Breathing with will.

Mark Divine [00:12:33]:

Yeah. The breath empowerment.

Catherine Divine [00:12:35]:

The breath empowerment, which is a holotropic breath. Right. Comes from qigong, the one he teaches.

Mark Divine [00:12:39]:

It’s different in that it’s nostril. Right. Holotropic is through the mouth, which is a sympathetic breath, but it’s intense, so it’s got a sympathetic quality to it, even though you’re breathing through your nose, but it’s a little bit subdued.

Catherine Divine [00:12:52]:

Okay. Okay, yeah, thank you for clarifying that. And it’s qigong, though, from where the.

Mark Divine [00:12:57]:

It comes from a qigong.

Catherine Divine [00:12:58]:

From qigong. And with that, whenever we were teaching and facilitating the bigger conferences of like 100, 200 plus people, I had to really not do it.

Mark Divine [00:13:10]:

Yeah.

Catherine Divine [00:13:10]:

Because of how expanded out I would be.

Mark Divine [00:13:12]:

Yeah. You were afraid of blasting off.

Catherine Divine [00:13:15]:

I wasn’t even afraid. It was about like, I need to stay grounded in order to facilitate space today.

Mark Divine [00:13:19]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:13:20]:

You know, and I know that if I do this, there’s a really good chance that it’s going to blast me out because of how sensitive my nervous system is.

Mark Divine [00:13:27]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:13:28]:

And so that just again, is like that pre warning or precaution.

Mark Divine [00:13:31]:

Yeah. I think that’s kind of the biggest point here is for those holot. In holotropic, we mean like intense mouth breathing, like Wim HOF or traditional holotropic. Sharp inhale, you know, relaxed or forceful exfil. Either way, those are okay in short doses, you know, five, maybe 10 minutes max. And I wouldn’t necessarily do it every day unless you’re very healthy and you’ve done therapy. Right. And you’re working out every day, then maybe short, short blasts every day.

Mark Divine [00:14:05]:

And I’m still not sure that it is going to have the transformative effect that we’re really looking for with, with breathwork. Because with. With breath work, the way I understand it and the way Catherine and I teach it, like we’re looking for metanoasis, we’re looking for the transformation of the mind. And so the physical component of that is arousal control. Right. So you breathe for arousal control by breathing through your nostrils, deep into your diaphragm, massaging the vagus nerve, activating that parasympathetic rest and digest. For most of my clients, that’s where we start and stay for months. Because they’re all in hyper arousal.

Mark Divine [00:14:42]:

They’re stuck in really serious hyper arousal. And their parasympathetic sympathetic nervous system is atrophied. The path, the pathway is atrophied. So we gotta, you know, reinvigorate that.

Catherine Divine [00:14:53]:

And their muscles for breathing are usually not developed in a way that’s really.

Mark Divine [00:14:58]:

Gonna support their atrophied. Or people literally have stuck diaphragms. The diaphragm doesn’t even move up and down.

Catherine Divine [00:15:03]:

Yeah. And that can come from spinal mislead. I mean, there’s so many reasons why. And I would even push back a little on the holotropic breathing daily, even for short periods for people that are completely sound body mind. And you know, I think that getting into one rhythm of breathing every single Day is. Can be useful and helpful. And that also is just like I’m the same every day, which isn’t true.

Mark Divine [00:15:32]:

I agree with that. I’m thinking about one of our teachers.

Catherine Divine [00:15:36]:

Yeah.

Mark Divine [00:15:37]:

Who had some mental problems. And I. We thought. I think it’s because he did the same pranayama, the same breath work every day. And it was intense. So back to kind of like just nostril breathing. It’s just starting. Breathwork, as Katherine said, is just learning how to use the muscles of your breathing, using the diaphragm, getting that full lung capacity and breathing through the nose.

Catherine Divine [00:16:00]:

And do that one every day.

Mark Divine [00:16:02]:

Do that one every day. Right, do that. And so what we’re looking for is ultimately six breaths per minute, which is five count inhale, five count exhale through the nose. The only time you want to breathe through your mouth is if you’re talking or in extreme exercise. And even then, you want to train yourself to breathe through your nose. Like a seal fit. We have people sprinting with water in their mouth to force them to breathe through their nose. Breathing through the nose has a lot of benefits.

Mark Divine [00:16:48]:

It splits the air, so it slows it down and then it stimulates the NADIs. Right. The energy pathways, the NIDA and PIN, which go around the sushima and create the chakras. And so every breath of your nose is stimulating that which is actually drawing energy in and stimulating your brain. This is why, like nostril breathing and alternate nostril breathing has a real powerful effect for mental training and mental development. Most people don’t realize that that’s how. That’s where the mental training comes in. And then combining it with mantra and imagery work, it’s super powerful.

Mark Divine [00:17:21]:

So that’s that. And the other thing is. And I don’t know how this worked, but. But breathing through your nostrils releases trace amounts of nitric oxide, which helps deliver the oxygen to the cells. Right. It doesn’t happen when you breathe through your mouth.

Catherine Divine [00:17:39]:

Makes your cells dance.

Mark Divine [00:17:40]:

Makes your cells dance. Yeah, exactly that. And because you’re breathing, you’re split in the air and you’re going in a nice diaphragmatic breath. That diaphragm is massaging the vagus nerve. So nostril breathing is activating that rest and digest parasympathetic nervous systems right there. Like, there’s so much science now behind this value. Just the physiological value of nostril breathing.

Catherine Divine [00:18:04]:

Yeah, it’s one thing that’s really cool too. One of the students from Kokoro Yoga, Drew, who is doing his PhD in in breath work in Pranayama, and he’s a physical therapist for many years worked in a hospital working with people around breath, tai chi, qigong, you know, master. He said, because I checked in with them, I said, how’s the, how’s it going? And he said, well, science is catching up to what the yogis and the martial artists already know.

Mark Divine [00:18:33]:

Right. It’s going to take a while still.

Catherine Divine [00:18:35]:

And that it just shows that, you know, we’re, we’re an overstimulated world at this point. So most of us need to try to get back into rest, digest.

Mark Divine [00:18:46]:

Right.

Catherine Divine [00:18:47]:

And that I would say would be one of the key focuses for breathing is like, just notice like what’s happening and you know, okay, maybe I need to, like you’re saying breathe in for a count of five. It could be a count of three again if, like you’re really overstimulated, just get that breath in and then breathe out for as long as you can and focus on the exhale.

Mark Divine [00:19:07]:

Right. When you’re pointing to like the, a very powerful relaxation practice, mother’s breath or the one, two breath. Just inhale through the nose, let’s say to four count or five count and then just long, slow, relaxing. And it can be a, you know, like a ha. Like a sigh or just. It can be nostril or, or mouth, it doesn’t matter on the exhale, twice as long in the exhale and you have a very, very calming. Do that three or four times and you’re good. Great way to get to sleep at night.

Catherine Divine [00:19:38]:

It is. And sometimes, you know, the just being aware of the relationship with your breath will change so much. I think, like, we can have all these like, patterns and theories and ideas and practices, but my experience now after, because it’s really what got me inspired and into yoga meditation. Everything my experience is just noticing what’s going on with my breath, right? Has, I would say it’s saved my life in so many ways. It’s, it changed my life in so many ways.

Mark Divine [00:20:20]:

One of the, one of the countless benefits of breath practices is that you, you, you take conscious control of your breathing while you’re practicing. But over time you develop the capacity to be aware of your breath, even in the midst of other things.

Catherine Divine [00:20:36]:

Yes.

Mark Divine [00:20:36]:

And so and because the breath moves the mind, if you feel yourself getting agitated, you’re like, oh, wait, my breath has picked up speed. And so you slow it down and then the mind slows down. We gotta wrap up here for today. This is part one. We’ll come back here and talk more. So your practice is just. We call it tactical breathing. Breathe through your nose.

Mark Divine [00:20:55]:

5 Con in 5 Count out if you can. If that’s a little bit much or you’re not ready for that. Just four count is fine. Slow it all down and pay attention and just watch what happens. Do this every day for 30 days. Till next time. This is Mark Divine and Catherine Divine on the Mark Divine Show. Thanks for joining us.