Healing through breathwork and emotional hygiene with Nicole Rager

Healing through breath-work and emotional hygiene with Nicole Rager.

Follow Nicole on:

🪷Instagram: @nicole_m_rager

🪷YouTube: Breath for Life

Episode's Transcript:

00:20
Jennifer Norton:
Have you ever wanted a quick entryway into a deep state of being where healing, insight, clarity, and deep release are accessible almost instantaneously? A Nebraska native now based in San Diego, our guest today, Nicole Rager, has spent the last decade teaching breathwork to people all over the world. She combines her DownToEarth lighthearted nature with a passion for healing, love, and wholeness to bring you an experience unlike any other. She'll introduce you to or remind you of the incredible transformative power that lies within your own body, a tool you'll be able to come back to time and time again.

01:12
Paola Castro:
Nicole Rager:. Or as I would call her, amiguita, I would say to everyone, she's a human angel, a beautiful human angel. Her compassion, kindness, and intelligence are palpable qualities. One can sense where we are in her presence. I met her back in 2017 when were working at a retreat center, and it was love at first sight. Not only an incredibly powerful woman, but an extraordinary breathwork facilitator. She's a healer that uses breath as medicine, and when doing a breath recession led by Nicole Rager:, you're in for a treat in her presence. All of you is welcomed and accepted. Thank you amiga, for being this incredible angel that has given so much to me. Thank you for saying yes to being in our podcast today. Of course.

02:13
Nicole Rager:
Thank you for inviting me, both of you. I just feel so much love like you. Sharing both of you sounds so lovely as you introduced the quality of openness and softness in my heart and the compassion you talk of. I feel you're reflecting back to me beautifully, and it just feels so good. I'm just so happy to be with you. Thank you.

02:38
Paola Castro:
Yes, and we're happy that you're here.

02:42
Jennifer Norton:
Quite.

02:42
Nicole Rager:
Yeah, I can tell. That's so beautiful.

02:47
Paola Castro:
Let's begin asking you, and I just said, and I want to repeat it, when I'm in your presence and when people are in your presence, there is this feeling tone of like, I am fully welcome here. You have this capacity to welcome whatever is arising, which I find an incredible quality, especially for a healer, because many of us and stuff for myself sometimes I'm very quick into jumping into, how can I fix this? How can I make this better? How can I release this? I feel that in your breathwork. When I'm in your presence, there's that space when you're welcoming whatever is arising, and especially I'm talking about our emotions. Can you talk about how you came to this consciousness that you carry?

03:46
Nicole Rager:
Thank you. I'm so happy that you feel that way with me too. That's the greatest honor and gift I feel like I can give someone is to be able to hold that space of unconditional welcoming. As you were talking, I think that there's a way that I get to do that for other people. I want to with such honesty and depth because I need that also. I think throughout my life I've had a pattern or a way of being quite perfectionistic and like saying, I want to fix this. I want it to better, I want it to be the best. There are lots of parts of me that get sad and frustrated when I can't just be enough or I haven't just felt enough, ? In my own healing journey, with breathwork and with other people, with God, when I feel like, oh, okay, I'm enough, it's okay, all this working at whatever is actually okay just to be right where you are, that gives me the most profound sense of relief.

05:06
Nicole Rager:
It's very easy for me, for some reason, to do that with other people. Because of that, I think it's like my greatest need, one of to know that I'm enough. Is that clear? Does that make sense?

05:20
Paola Castro:
Yes.

05:26
Nicole Rager:
We all need it to know that wherever we are is okay. I mean, maybe it's Western culture, maybe it's worldly, I don't know, but that there's something to fix, or even, like, be positive about it, even just pray about it. And I don't know, it's just temporary. Let it go. That kind of quickness to avoid the darkness can be pretty pervasive. We avoid the whole other side of like, wow, what is the depth of the sadness that I'm feeling? The shame, the pain, the anger, all of that? A lot of times it gets shut down because it's too difficult for ourselves and for others to be around. I like to get it, feel it, so it can come to the light.

06:23
Jennifer Norton:
Yes, I know that there's a deep conversation emerging right now around the suggestion in contemporary culture around easiness versus ease or flow, and not that the two are opposites. I don't mean to be dualistic. I feel you're truly an expert on what allowance is, what self forgiveness is. In that moment of self acceptance of allowance, would you speak into that? You touched on avoiding our shadow side or our darker sides and perhaps a habit towards perfectionism, fixing this. I think that, from what I've observed, is species wide. Just that sense of unworthiness and our way through it is through it. It's got to be through it. Any of that stimulating you to speak into? Nicole Rager:, I have not asked you a direct question.

07:29
Nicole Rager:
Yeah, well, so many. Go ahead. We're going to say more.

07:36
Jennifer Norton:
I'm launching concepts at you without an exact question because I know how intuitive you are, so I'm going to stop talking.

07:45
Nicole Rager:
Thank you. Thank you for your trust and see me as an expert in that. I feel there is a part of me that is expert in that. I'll just be very honest with you. I used to feel like if someone said, like, oh, that's just spirit talking through me or spirit moving through me, I thought that was very cheesy, and just like, what does that mean? You know? You guys are so versed in that, the divine qualities. We are the divine. It is the divine emerging through us. If I'm an expert in it's because when I'm in relationship with someone or if especially in breathwork, that's like, I was created to be in that space and for the divine to flow through me as a loving presence and loving exactly what is. I think, okay, there's a couple of things that are my anchors in that, which would be, if it's happening, it's good.

08:56
Nicole Rager:
It is divinely allowed, essentially. Especially as a human, we have these emotions built in for a reason. They all have a purpose and they all have benefit, even if it's just growing the depth of our experience as humans. I guess that's one of my big anchors. Okay, if you're feeling sad, there's a reason for it. What happens if we just soften around it instead of resisting it? Because we know what we resist persists. Yet there's so much unconscious resistance of the darkness, the heaviness, the pain. You all have spoken about that too. Either pain pushes or something pulls, and a lot of times it feels more fun for the light to pull us.

09:55
Paola Castro:
Yeah, that's so well said. And, it's reminding me of the qualities of the divine feminine. Divine masculine, the vine masculine is represented by the sun, light, knowledge. Divine feminine represented by the darkness, by the moon being able to be okay navigating in the darkness without judging it. So, yeah, you're speaking into that. We came into a world where the divine masculine is dominating, and religion is based upon that. Sick for light, sick for clarity, sick to know. God forbids you're an uncertainty. God forbids you don't have light during darkness because you be lost back into our evolution. Yes. If you couldn't see your surroundings, you could be killed. Were programmed to repel that, to say, I don't want to go there. Going back to what I said at the beginning, what I love about working with your being and in your presence is like, there is this moment of like, it's okay, we're going to cry, we're going to relieve.

11:23
Paola Castro:
Because this is my favorite part about doing breathing with you. It's like this big release and you're holding the person saying it's okay. It's a good thing that right now you're feeling all of this.

11:35
Nicole Rager:
Yes.

11:36
Paola Castro:
Thank you for that.

11:38
Nicole Rager:
Yeah, thank you. Let's see, what was the last little bit that was just coming. You've said this too. Whenever there's a darkness or a chaos, there's an order seeking to emerge. It's like the body knows how to find that. We just saw, like I was saying, soften into and relax into and allow, maybe meet ourselves with the love and light, then the body does what? It knows how to heal, it knows how to feel and to release and to transform emotional energy and all sorts of energy. I feel like with the feminine energy, there too of just being pure presence. Sometimes that is the catalyst, often the catalyst for the transformation that needs to happen instead of the driving and the sun and even the seeds. That's another analogy I've been really loving about the feminine. It's like when we put a seed in the soil, it's in the dark, and yet things are happening.

12:53
Nicole Rager:
It has to be in the dark to allow the things to emerge from the unknown. That's kind of how I see the emotion going into the deep dark emotions, too. It's like we go into the void so that something new can emerge.

13:09
Paola Castro:
Yes.

13:13
Nicole Rager:
Thanks for speaking to the masculine energy, because a lot of it's good to recognize the culture we're in. That when it's difficult to slow down or difficult to drop into the feelings or whatever. It's not like something wrong with us, like there's a lot of us, we're kind of trained out of it in a way. Yeah.

13:39
Jennifer Norton:
Such compassionate understanding. I love how you describe things. I feel like you're discussing sacred listening, inevitably. I'm going to reflect that at you. That is this is another one of your talents is showing up and one of your gifts and showing up and sacredly listening and being there for whatever wants to arise, even if it is in the darkness. Can we go deeper now then, to speak about breathwork? This one is coming up in our conversation release. I know that we again, as a species, we carry, at least in our culture, a bit of baggage around, crying around, judging tears as negative, especially in the masculine perspective. Little boys are taught it's not okay to cry. Still, that kind of teaching is going on in our species. Can you speak into release with breathwork? Anything that you'd like to share around that and how that can relate to self acceptance, self forgiveness, and making peace with the tears and the things that want releasing as we get into some breathwork?

14:53
Paola Castro:
Yeah.

14:55
Nicole Rager:
Sometimes for me, in my logical, heavily trained mind, let's say that's why a lot of us, okay, if I remember that I'm a human, if I remember that these emotions, I was born with them, and that it's natural, then it helps me give a little space to like, okay, can I just let it do what it does? Because there's something here. What happens is as we go through life and we experience whatever we experience, we have a stimulus and then we receive and then the body responds in a certain way. The breath is directly, intimately, intricately related with every single part of that. So say you experienced something. I have a great example. I was just before this podcast I was writing with my friend and in a car, she's got a brand new baby, one-month-old and it's one of the first times out of the house.

15:59
Nicole Rager:
Baby is in the back seat starting to cry and she's driving and I can see her whole body is still, she's not breathing at all because that stimulus of the baby crying and her not being able to fix it is terrifying to her. To just like take in the feeling of her baby and herself is overwhelming. What happens is the breath stops or it gets very shallow because if the breath is open and flowing, the organism, the body, our body, mind, spirit, all of it will fully take in what we're experiencing. And sometimes that's too much. Or like you spoke to Jen, you have a response, you want to cry naturally. The stimulus outside of your parents, your authority figure say, no, it's okay, here, look at this. Or Here, play with this, or eat this food or Why are you crying? It's not that big of a deal, .

17:01
Nicole Rager:
So then you have a natural response. Your breath is open, let's say. You get mixed signals from the environment and we contract, which is so great. That's also a built in mechanism, very natural so that we can survive when life comes at us with very big things, accidents, physical trauma, abuse, emotional abuse, just all the crazy that is possible here. The breath helps us to survive and sometimes we get stuck in that pattern, often we get stuck in that pattern because we either don't have the environment or the opportunity to then take a deep breath and allow whatever the actual response would have been, just like terror or shame or grief or whatever. We don't have the opportunity to let it complete itself. Okay, so a lot of us are running around with stuff stuck in our bodies, incomplete responses, our cells have memory to that.

18:06
Nicole Rager:
We get these kind of energetic blockages that weigh us down, make it hard to connect with ourselves, to feel like expressing emotion is safe with other people, with ourselves, and just to be who we are. To your question now about what is released with breathwork? Well, the amazing thing is, Paula, yes, I am brilliant and also your breath is brilliant that if you just allow or have the opportunity and the presence and the willingness whatever to take a deep breath, immediately things begin to shift. If you take a few breaths in, say, a rough work session, the body gets to like, oh, God, okay, find me. I can release all this stuff that I have been holding for so long because I didn't know how to let it go or I wasn't supported or whatever, but it wasn't safe.

19:07
Paola Castro:
I have a question that I've never asked you. I realized, great. So I'm all about breathing. I'm all about taking conscious breaths. If I start a class, if I start with my clients a session, I will be like, okay, let's take a moment, take a deep breath. When I wake up in the morning, let's take a deep breath with myself. I'm aware this is so interesting. I'm aware. When I'm intentional about it, I'm aware. What you just said that your friend was tensing up. I find myself throughout the day like, oh, man, I'm not breathing. I was just telling Jen how very soon I'm going to participate in a plant medicine retreat. It is my intention to and I don't know if I said this to Jim, but it is my intention from this moment until I get to that point, which is in two weeks, to practice more surrender, because I know that I have this chronic pain in my shoulder, on my left side, and in your classes have come through.

20:21
Paola Castro:
This is control. I feel like this is when I stopped breathing. What would you suggest for those people like me, for us, that you could I mean, I feel like I'm very trained into placing my awareness sometime in the morning or when I'm in my club, but my question is, when I go unconscious, do you have a reminder that says, Nicole Rager: breathe? Because I've spent time with you, and I know you do a lot of process to breathe. Like, you talking with Nicole Rager:, and she'll be like, It's beautiful, because I'm like, well, she's breathing right now. She's being weird. I don't know if that's a clear question, but this is something that I'm curious. How can I train myself to be a better conscious breather throughout my day?

21:18
Nicole Rager:
Yeah, well, I think you're already on the path because doing the practice habitually makes it so that you'll notice it more. And I agree with you. It's really helpful to have somebody from the outside, because once you start paying attention to the breath, I mean, I'm lucky in that way that I watch people breathe for a living. If I can just tell hold on a minute. When's the last time you took a deep breath? It starts to feel weird. It's like, Hold on, there's a stagnation. There's still something happening. I'm lucky in that way to be able to help people like, hey, take a breath, and then inviting friends to do the same for you. You could I love setting a reminder on your phone. We use those things all the time, or stacking the habit of like, okay, every time before I go into this class or every time I go to the bathroom, the toilet says, take a deep breath, or every time I brush my teeth, take a deep breath.

22:24
Nicole Rager:
Things that you already have to do just link them because then that will establish, I believe, an awareness deep within you and your breath that like when you start to feel it holding, it doesn't feel good anymore. When you start to open your awareness too, you start to go into different situations and you're like, wow, that I used to be able to go into a mall and have a great time, and now it doesn't feel good anymore for me. It's the same kind of thing, like just making little practices.

22:59
Paola Castro:
I love that. I love the bathroom one.

23:04
Nicole Rager:
You always have realizations in the bathroom.

23:07
Paola Castro:
Yeah, exactly.

23:08
Nicole Rager:
Keep them coming. This came to me when you were talking to if what you're working on is surrender, how can you put your body in positions that feel like surrender? Not just like, okay, I'm going to lay down, but just notice if your toes are surrendering. Notice if when you put your arms out, if your hands kind of clenching because it's all one thing, it's all related. The way you do one thing is often related to the way you do other things. Right. If you want to surrender and let go of control, practice doing it in other areas.

23:55
Paola Castro:
Can you repeat that question? How can I put my body in a state of surrender?

24:01
Jennifer Norton:
Yeah, creatively checking your eye, tension your toes. I love that. Are my toes in surrender? Are they grasping or clenched? Are they relaxed.

24:18
Nicole Rager:
Meeting with compassion right where you are. Oh, why am I toes quenched? How come I can't let go? Oh, wow. Okay. There's a part of me that still is afraid. I know. I see you. Okay, we're doing great. Look, I just relaxed my cheeks. Good for me. Yeah.

24:42
Jennifer Norton:
Before we started recording, were talking about your gifts and working with you as a type of emotional hygiene was saying that's what it feels like to do a breathwork class with you, and we invite our listeners to take advantage of those opportunities, which we will discuss later. I heard you talking about cellular memory, and I'm going to propose also cellular hygiene as a part of your work. You said something really interesting around how you're able to pick up when those around you are not breathing. I'm wondering if you could tip off our listeners to what are the signs when we are cut off from our breath and that it doesn't feel well. I'm quoting you that how do we know what are the signs that our listeners can look for?

25:43
Nicole Rager:
Usually you can tell by the end of the day if you go, Whoa, I didn't do that all day long. That's one good tip off. Even just, like, starting to look around at other people grieve in different ways too. Just breathing in general is amazing and will cleanse your body and start to reset and normalize your nervous system, like taking a deep breath. Some of us breathe, some of us stop breathing, but then also we breathe in less than ideal ways. So you might be breathing a lot. I'm doing great. All of your breath is, like, up high. Your shoulders move, your chest moves, but then there's no movement in your low belly, for example, which would indicate, like, a heightened state of awareness, maybe some anxiety like that's. What happens when you're in anxious state is your breath goes up high, your lungs move to bring in more and more quickly so you could pay it in, I think, to notice where if you're breathing, number one, if there's, like, a big giant side at the end of the day, that's the first time.

27:01
Nicole Rager:
Also just like putting I put my hands on my body a lot below my belly button and then one hand on my chest and allow myself to take a breath from there and see if I can get my belly to receive the breath or allow my belly to receive the breath and let it go all the way to the top and then back out again. Just doing that to see how it feels, like, Whoa, that feels super awkward because we're meant to have, like, these open, flowing, connected breaths, and yet we don't usually, or we're not breathing in that easy, fluid way. Just giving yourself the opportunity right now, maybe if whoever's listening, to put one hand on the belly and one on the chest, close your eyes and breathe in and then let it fall out like a sigh, and then just see how it feels.

28:08
Paola Castro:
It feels amazing to me.

28:10
Nicole Rager:
Yeah. Already something shifts, right?

28:14
Jennifer Norton:
And feel more grounded.

28:16
Nicole Rager:
Me too. That's the big part about the belly breathing, is a lot of us disconnect from our bodies because being in the body feels scary for some reason or another or we get super mental, so the energy just comes up to our heads. Just breathing into the low belly like that brings all the energy back into, like, whoa, okay, here. I'm in a body.

28:40
Paola Castro:
Yeah, it just reminded me of something I want to ask you, too. You said very mental, and I believe that one of my gifts in this life is that I'm very cerebral, meaning I love information, I love learning, I love teaching, expanding meditation feels really nice. It's all very prepared, and I want to make it a habit. What I'm trying to get to is that I feel that it's all well and good, that I do this work in consciousness, and I know many of our listeners will resonate with this. One of the things that I noticed is that my body has a harder time catching up with what I'm doing up here because my heart let's say I'm feeling very expanded in my heart. I'm feeling very unified with God and with everyone. Sometimes it's like my body is like, wait, you're not you're up there, but I'm not.

29:46
Nicole Rager:
I got to catch up.

29:49
Paola Castro:
Can you talk about that, how the body has a harder time to catch up with what's happening in our consciousness?

30:00
Nicole Rager:
That's a great question, right? I think so, too, and I'm grateful because that brings me back to your question or your point about cellular memory. The body, when we don't allow or it's not allowed for whatever reason, the present moment experience, to integrate itself, that's kind of what happens when the breath stops, when we go into trauma response and it isn't allowed to be resolved, then it's not integrated with our being. Okay? It gets jammed, is how I picture it. Okay? There's like a little janky kind of crumbly or, I don't know, tangled energy field is how I see it, like, in my cells of, like, that traumatic memory just gets stored in my tissues, my muscles, my body. We breathe, especially in a connected, fluid way, so, like, your breath comes in and then out and then in and then out, and it's a little faster than you normally breathe.

31:11
Nicole Rager:
It creates this circuit of present moment power one, but also life force energy. You're breathing in oxygen. You're starting to raise the vibration of your physical body, your emotional body, your cellular body, everything is like taking in this high frequency energy, which is your life force, your breath coming in. What happens is you create this high frequency thing in your body energy field, and then the dense energy, which is that what I say, like, kind of jangly, like heavy, dense, maybe muddied or just it's a lower frequency is what it is. It's lower frequency energy begins to entrain to that of the breath. So it literally transforms its frequency. It's like you have these super high vibrational waves, and then it comes in contact with the low vibrational waves, and then the low ones start to move faster. So you literally transform your energy body.

32:15
Nicole Rager:
You transform the memories, the vibrational memory that is in your cells by allowing it to move. Feel that's a lot of times what the release is or feels like is like old energy that wasn't allowed to move now gets to move. Okay? I say that because breathwork and this kind of practice breathwork is one way. I don't know if you said this already on any of your episodes, but the breath is a direct link between the spiritual plane and the physical plane. It creates a bridge for your spirit knowledge to get into the body much quicker and for your spirits to kind of, like, elevate the body. From a scientific standpoint, I guess I'm saying that because if you do breathwork, implant medicine too, those kind of things help clear the dense energy so that your body is already there. Like, it catches up quicker because you're not holding the denseness, you just start opening to the higher frequency.

33:22
Nicole Rager:
Does that make sense?

33:23
Paola Castro:
That's a brilliant explanation, which is like, I'm signing up for everything.

33:34
Jennifer Norton:
The science of breath, which is an advanced understanding. I feel like you're a life force healer and that this is what we're discussing. We're talking about the life force and our relationship with it, which inevitably is our relationship with spirit. Is our relationship with self.

33:54
Nicole Rager:
Yes.

33:55
Jennifer Norton:
For breath to be the first occurrence that we have once we leave our beautiful womb and the last experience as we transition into other form, it's something that we so take for granted as human, as a species in this dimension. It is something so easy to underestimate. I just want to acknowledge as well for our listeners and for everyone out there, we're all breathing. As far as Nicole Rager: is concerned, we're all doing a really good job at it. It's an innate talent, a blessing that we're all carrying around with us, and it's a beautiful relationship that we all can nurture at any time, no matter what the circumstances are.

34:46
Nicole Rager:
Yes.

34:47
Jennifer Norton:
In fact, it's a lifeboat. It can be. In those moments, in the most terrifying moments of my life, sometimes it felt as if the only thing I had to hold on to was breath. The gratitude that arises knowing that my body has been doing that and that spirit life force has been expressing itself through me without me paying attention to it. Yet, when I need that lifeboat, it is right there. When we have a spiritual conversation, we say, closer than the breath, nearer than the jugular. I'm just I'm so very excited for this conversation. It's incredibly rich and compassionate. Your humanity shows so beautifully in your care for this very natural act, this thing we call breathing. And your service towards all of us. I really appreciate you, Nicole Rager:.

35:49
Nicole Rager:
Thank you. Yeah, I appreciate you, too. That was beautiful. A new awareness that you just shared with me, too, that's how we think of spirit is always here, always. We cannot be separated from the love that we're swimming in, that we are, but we can perceive that we are. Meaning, like, we cannot pay attention. I guess how you said that with their breath, it's going to keep going and keep fueling and keep being. When we want to pay attention, it's like, great, here I am. Let's. Play together. Yeah. That's a beautiful relationship. Thank you.

36:29
Jennifer Norton:
Yeah. I appreciate you facilitating that for all of us. What are some opportunities for our listeners to benefit from your services? I know that you do one one. You have weekly class workshops. Can you speak into just of the opportunities that we have to continue working with you? Then, Paula, if I may, we're inviting you back, Nicole Rager:.

36:54
Nicole Rager:
Oh, great.

36:55
Jennifer Norton:
Good.

36:57
Nicole Rager:
I love it. Thank you.

37:00
Jennifer Norton:
I love it.

37:01
Nicole Rager:
I know we can talk forever.

37:03
Jennifer Norton:
I feel that way, too. Yeah. We've only scratched the surface. There's so much more here. I have no intention of cutting our conversation short, and I just feel inspired to ask you, what are some ways that people can take advantage of your services?

37:19
Nicole Rager:
Thank you. Easiest way, I would say, is YouTube. That's a great one. I have a bunch of videos out there that are very approachable and free, and some of my favorite clients have come from YouTube. Like, they feel like they get to know me, and then they show up and they're like, I'm meeting you for the first time, and it's such a delight for me. So that's an easy way. For anybody, there's like a 30 day challenge on there that's got 30 different practices for connecting with your breath. That's a good one. Then, yes, I do weekly live classes, which take it to another level, because then I get to watch you breathe and I get to coach you individually. We create a really beautiful virtual community as well, which just takes things to another level.

38:13
Jennifer Norton:
That is online. That's a class online. No matter where you're listening from, this is something that you can take advantage of immediately.

38:22
Nicole Rager:
And I would it's so powerful. They're so powerful. I have two clients last week just messaged with the same kind of message saying, I don't know how it works. I just know I feel better after and I feel better than I ever have, ? That, to me, is like, if it works. Reverend Lee says that too early. Yeah, she said we do the practice because it works. Retreats, too, as they come next year, I'll hopefully do a retreat in Costa Rica, maybe with Paula. That would be great. And one one. Yeah, you mentioned that, too. That way we can just go deeper into what's going on with each individual. I get to stare at your breath and help you open things up. As we say in transformational breath. That one session can be like a year of therapy or five years of therapy, because we get to the root energetically of what's going on and we can transform it there.

39:30
Jennifer Norton:
That's that cellular hygiene that we discussed.

39:35
Nicole Rager:
Yes.

39:37
Jennifer Norton:
We include those links, Nicole Rager:, and make sure that our listeners have access to you. Sorry to interrupt, Paula.

39:42
Nicole Rager:
Thank you.

39:43
Paola Castro:
Yeah. There's one more thing that you do, and I would love for you to talk about it. You use affirmations when breathing? You are looking at the pattern of the breath. You use affirmation. How come you use affirmation? What is that for?

40:06
Nicole Rager:
That's a great question, too. Thank you. I trained with Judith Kravitz, who is the founder of transformational breath. She's got this whole science around the breath pattern and what it means about you as an individual or what it could mean, because there are patterns, there are unique nuances, of course, and there are different places in the body where we tend to hold certain things. Remember how I said at the beginning, like, the breath is intricately and intimately related with everything, the way we're living and showing up and how we feel about life. That means the subconscious mind is often the thing in charge of how our breath is doing what it's doing. We open up the breath and we get into these sessions, we open up a different state of consciousness where we can tap into the subconscious really easily. If I'm seeing a certain pattern or like I feel like a knot right here, something like that, or your shoulder or something as your breathing, then we can feed in positive Affirmations to reprogram.

41:27
Nicole Rager:
Say if your heart is like, oh, I don't breathe in my heart, that's too scary. It's too scary to open my heart, says the subconscious mind, I'm not worthy of love. I'm just going to keep my heart kind of closed so that if we're breathing along, I can coach you to open that heart and say, it's safe to open my heart, it's safe to love. Immediately not immediately, but the breath begins to change and then the subconscious begins to change too.

41:52
Paola Castro:
Yeah, immediately. I mean, I've had situations where you say something and I'm like, whoa, you just open up under a box, like things that nowhere there's. Fascinating.

42:08
Nicole Rager:
I think that's one of the reasons. Like, Jenny, you said that it's so simple. The breath can be so simple and easily overlooked. I thank you for saying that, because I'm the same. I have thought that what's breathing going to do. I'm breathing every day. I've tried all these other therapies, and why would laying on breathing and some people change that? Maybe even forgot why I was going to say that. Because even if my skeptical mind wants to come in now. After ten years of doing this work. If I put my hand on Paula and I say it's safe to open my heart and her breath changes. Or I don't even put my hand on her. I just say a certain affirmation and her breath goes from doing one thing to another thing. It confirms to me the magic that I know to be true over and over again.

43:09
Nicole Rager:
It's really powerful.

43:11
Jennifer Norton:
Yes. The palpable changes in the physical and also in the invisible. If I say, of course, it doesn't make it any less real.

43:24
Nicole Rager:
It's magic.

43:30
Paola Castro:
I don't know if this is a confession, but my husband and I just watched all the movies of Harry Potter because we haven't watched it. None of us ever watched it. So it was very entertaining. And, it's a movie based on, you guys know what Harry Potter is, but it's magic and all of that. I really got hooked because it brings that idea of magic, of, like, things just happen, and they do the spells and all of that. We're doing that our voice, using our voice, using Affirmation, using our breath. That's how we have access to magic. Now, as an adult, we leave that to the children, but that's just because we've been programmed to believe that. But, yeah, our breath is our medicine. We can access. So, yeah, it is very powerful. I hope that all of you that are listening to this go right now to your website.

44:33
Paola Castro:
Can you say your website? I don't mispronounce your last name.

44:38
Nicole Rager:
It's Nicole Rager: Rager.com. Rager.

44:43
Paola Castro:
Yeah. You have beautiful newsletters that come every week that you're doing, including retreat sessions. Intense.

44:53
Nicole Rager:
Yeah. Free classes, too. I try to, once a month, do a free community class so that you can meet people and we just breathe together. It's amazing.

45:03
Paola Castro:
Yeah.

45:05
Jennifer Norton:
How beautiful. Breath for life is the YouTube channel. How beautiful. Apropos.

45:13
Nicole Rager:
Yeah. Thank you.

45:18
Jennifer Norton:
Pleasure to have had you here with us. I know our listeners have greatly benefited from your presence, as have I. I know Paula has. She truly raves about you. I'm so glad to have you in my heart, and I look forward to our continued conversations, and I look forward to your class on Tuesdays.

45:39
Nicole Rager:
Yes, thank you. Me, too. Thank you for what you're doing and how you're sharing and who you are. I love that in your first episode, you appreciate one another and that it is so honest and real and true. I can echo all of it. Thank you for the peace teaching. You're sharing with the world. I'm honored to be a part of it. Yeah.

46:04
Jennifer Norton:
Thank you, Nicole Rager:.

46:07
Paola Castro:
Thank you, everyone, for listening, and we hope that you enjoyed it as much as we did to find them.