Digital Social Hour — “Breathe to Heal: Breathwork, Emotions & Real Connection”

Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: MJ Renshaw
Episode: #1518
Date: September 1, 2025

Overview

In this deeply engaging episode, Sean Kelly sits down with breathwork facilitator and science-spirituality bridge-builder MJ Renshaw. They explore how breathwork, emotional intelligence, and authentic connection shape health and longevity far more than trendy biohacks or wellness products. MJ draws on powerful studies, personal trauma, and practical healing experiences to challenge cultural norms around masculinity, stoicism, and the mind-body divide, while advocating for a holistic, heart-centered approach to well-being.

Major Themes

• The universal and underestimated power of breathwork
• Emotional suppression and its profound effect on physical health
• Patriarchal and societal conditioning about emotions (especially for men)
• The link between trauma, success, and purpose
• Science and spirituality: why we need both
• Community, nature, animals, and real connection as medicine

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Healing Power of Breathwork

• Breathwork is an innate tool:
  “It’s something that’s… a built-in mechanism. There is no person on the planet who would breathe in a certain way, say in a parasympathetic style, who wouldn’t feel more calm afterwards.”
  (MJ, 00:48)
• Studies on breathwork:
  Breathwork is shown in studies to benefit anxiety, depression, asthma, and addiction.
• Practical technique:
  “Just for anyone listening… right now, you breathe through your nose. Six seconds in, six seconds out.”
  (MJ, 02:43)
• Mouth breathing dangers:
  Mouth breathing increases dehydration, sympathetic nervous activation, and harms oral health, possibly linking to diseases like Alzheimer’s and heart disease.
• Breath holds, carbon dioxide tolerance, and emotional triggers:
  Techniques like the Bolt Score reveal anxiety triggers and trauma via breath. Increasing one’s CO2 tolerance dampens the amygdala-triggered fear response.
  “Most people have what’s called a low carbon dioxide intolerance… that’s going to trigger your amygdala and it’s going to make you feel fearful all the time.”
  (MJ, 04:25)

2. Trauma, Emotional Suppression, and Health

• Personal trauma and healing:
  MJ shares her harrowing childhood — sexual abuse, family addiction, brother’s death, and her father’s suicide. Breathwork gave her access to grief, sadness, and ultimately, love.
  “When you block out bad emotions, you’re also going to block out the good ones because you can’t selectively block. You’re either going to be shut down or not. You have to stay open to all of life.”
  (MJ, 08:40)
• Health risks of emotional suppression:
  “If you don’t let yourself feel, you’re setting yourself up to be more likely to get cancer. Chronic inflammation. Thirty-five times more likely to die at a younger age. Emotional suppression is statistically like smoking 15 cigarettes a day.”
  (MJ, 09:41)
• Science of connection:
  The Grant Study from Harvard found the single most important factor for lifelong happiness and longevity is deep relationships, which requires emotional availability.

3. Masculinity, Loneliness & the Epidemic of Disconnection

• Men and emotional alienation:
  “Two thirds of the young men they asked said, ‘No one knows me.’ That’s the male loneliness epidemic.”
  (MJ, 11:27)
• The costs:
  Young (predominantly white) men are four times more likely to die by suicide — strongly linked to emotional suppression, social shaming, and lack of safe spaces to feel.
• Social media & AI isolation:
  The rise of digital and AI companionship threatens deeper connection and could worsen the crisis.

4. The Science-Spirituality Divide

• Embracing both:
  “I love science and spirituality simultaneously. That’s a rare combo.” (Host, 24:46)
  “There’s so much intersection… we have so much science on breathwork, grounding, meditation, prayer. They are so important.”
  (MJ, 24:51)
• Cautions around studies:
  “Science has become a religion. People think because there isn’t a study on something that it doesn’t exist. And that’s not true.”
  (MJ, 25:18)
• Biased research:
  “When I see certain studies, [I ask] who’s funding it. That’s where… there’s some corruption.” (Host, 26:39)
  “Intermittent fasting and cold plunging studies were done on men… a lot of women started intermittent fasting and ruined their hormones.”
  (MJ, 27:24)

5. Purpose, Success, and True Well-being

• Trauma-driven achievement:
  “All successful people have trauma. That’s why they’re successful.” (Host, 14:51)
  “For me, I had to re-engineer my entire life… Now I just want to help people.”
  (MJ, 15:05)
• Purpose as medicine:
  “To live a life that is outside of your purpose… is traumatic.” (MJ referencing Gabor Maté, 19:46)
• Redefining success:
  “If your wife divorced you, your kids hate you, you don’t have your health, what’s the point of all the money?”
  (MJ, 20:52)
• Choosing what matters:
  “Sometimes it’s better to stay up late with friends, eat pizza and laugh… That’s healthier than going to bed early, avoiding your friends and waking up at 5am and going to the gym.”
  (MJ, 17:23)

6. Community, Animals, and Healing

• Importance of connection:
  “When you study the blue zones, all of them have community. They’re not eating their meals alone, watching Netflix.”
  (Host & MJ, 18:12-18:19)
• Nature & animals as healers:
  “If you don’t want to connect with another person… connect to an animal. Or a tree. We have studies on hugging a tree—can help you calm down, boost your immune system.”
  (MJ, 47:17)

7. Crying, Emotional Expression & Longevity

• Crying as detox:
  “Crying actually is a form of detoxing. It detoxes cortisol. That’s why crying exists.”
  (MJ, 39:57)
• Emotions and personality:
  “At first it was just an emotion, and then it became a mood, and then it became his personality. And then he was grumpy until the day he died… The key is to feel an emotion and let it go. You don’t want to wallow in it.”
  (MJ, 44:29)
• Emotional intelligence & lifespan:
  “According to the science, that’s amazing… If you’re able to cry, you’re going to live a long time.”
  (MJ, 44:00)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Exchanges

• On emotional needs and survival:
  “Like if you have a baby and you don’t pick up that baby and rock that baby and hug and kiss that baby… that baby will die. And it’s weird that we think as you get older that just goes away because it doesn’t.”
  (MJ, 00:00 & 17:10)
• On healing from trauma:
  “Breathwork could be the way out… I found myself accessing emotions like grief or sadness… You would think it would feel bad, but it actually felt incredibly liberating.”
  (MJ, 06:33, 08:40)
• On masculinity & loneliness:
  “Two thirds of the men… said, ‘No one knows me.’ That’s the male loneliness epidemic.”
  (MJ, 11:27)
• On authenticity in achievement:
  “For me, I had to re-engineer my entire life… Now, I just want to help people.”
  (MJ, 15:05)
• On emotional intelligence:
  “To be a scientist you have to be extremely open-minded and you have to stay open-minded throughout your whole career.”
  (MJ, 25:38)

Sounds & Segments (Timestamps)

• 00:48: Universality and simplicity of breathwork’s benefits
• 03:03: Dangers of mouth breathing and oral health
• 06:33–09:41: MJ’s personal trauma, healing through breathwork, liberation through feeling emotions
• 09:41: The science showing emotional suppression is as dangerous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day
• 11:27: The loneliness epidemic among young men and social parallels
• 14:51: Trauma’s link to success and achievement
• 17:10: The essential role of touch and emotional connection, for babies and adults
• 18:12: Blue zones, community, and longevity
• 24:51: Uniting science and spirituality
• 27:24: Gendered limitations of scientific research
• 39:57: Crying as a form of detox and self-regulation
• 44:29: How stuck emotions can become personality traits
• 47:17: Connection can come from animals or even trees

Resource Recommendations (Books & Figures Mentioned)

• Books:
  • Breath by James Nestor
  • The Oxygen Advantage by Patrick McKeown
  • The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
• Influencers & Experts:
  • Gabor Maté (Trauma & addiction expert)
  • Matus De Stefano (Spiritual memory and past lives)

Workshops, Breathwork Resources, & How to Connect

• MJ’s upcoming book: How to Cry
  — Science of emotional suppression, release, longevity
• Instagram: @beingmethod_breathwork
• Breathwork certification and science-based courses ([link will be in episode description])
• Free breathwork guided sessions via her podcast

Tone & Closing Thoughts

The conversation is vulnerable, evidence-based, and uplifting. MJ and Sean Kelly encourage moving beyond biohacking fads to embrace the human basics—safe emotional expression, sincere community, loving connection, breath, nature. The episode is a rallying cry for breaking cycles of suppression, supporting men to feel, and integrating science with spiritual wisdom for a more vital, meaningful life.

“Fun, pleasure, friendship, hugging—all those things are important for a long, healthy life.” (MJ, 17:23)

“If you’re able to cry, you’re going to live a long time.” (MJ, 44:00)

“The true meaning of success… is a purposeful, connected, love-filled life.” (paraphrased, 20:52)

For more resources, breathwork training, and free sessions, find MJ at [@beingmethod_breathwork] and check the episode links.