MJ Renshaw: Breathe to Heal: Breathwork, Emotions & Real Connection with MJ | DSH #1518

Summary

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

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

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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.

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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

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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)

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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)

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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

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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)

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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

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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.

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“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)

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

Transcript

[MJ]

Emotional connection with other people in order to survive. Like if you have a baby and you don't pick up that baby and rock that baby and hug and kiss that baby, which you wouldn't think is a basic human need, that baby will die. And it's weird that we think that as you get older that just goes away because it doesn't.

[Podcast Host]

All right, guys, we got MJ here. We are going to talk breath work and a bunch of fun spiritual stuff. Thanks for coming on.

[MJ]

Thanks for having me.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Power of breath work. Underrated tool, right?

[MJ]

Extremely under underrated.

[Podcast Host]

I was just talking to you off camera about how I used to do it every day. And when I have anxiety, sometimes I'll pull it out of the bag and instant relief.

[MJ]

The studies that we have on breath work for anxiety, depression, asthma, addiction, they're fascinating. Yeah, it's like off the charts successful. And it's something that's. You can do it at any time. You don't have to carry around all this biohacking tech or buy all these pills. Like, I just love how simple it is and how it's a built in mechanism. So, you know, I love to use the example of supplements because some people think, oh, I want to relax, so I'm going to take Gaba or I'm going to take magnesium. For some people that's going to work really well. But not everyone needs it. Yeah, breath work because it's built in anatomically into our physiology. 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.

[Podcast Host]

So it works on everyone.

[MJ]

Everyone.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[MJ]

There isn't a person out there that's crazy.

[Podcast Host]

You could rarely say that about any medicine, any supplements.

[MJ]

Yeah, I mean, there's some things like, you know, if someone's got, if they're bipolar, there's certain breathworks they can't do. Or if you're pregnant, like there's contraindications to some techniques. But say we're just talking about a very simple technique like inhale and then slowly exhaling. Every single person can do that and it will extend their lifespan. It will make sure that they feel more calm. It can set you into a parasympathetic state. So that's going to be your rest and digest. You're digesting your food better, you're getting better nutrients, you are, your body's going into healing mode. Like you're going to sleep better. It's amazing.

[Podcast Host]

That's fascinating. So there's Actual studies on the extended lifetime with breath work correlation.

[MJ]

I have not read a study that shows that breath work in particular is going to make you live longer. However, we know that if you don't breathe properly, which 95% of people don't, their mouth breathing or their shallow breathing, that can create disease. So we can infer that if you're not breathing correctly day to day, you're not going to live as long.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

The ideal way to breathe, just for anyone listening and they want to know, right now, you breathe through your nose. Six seconds in, six seconds out, pain.

[Podcast Host]

And out of your nose. So you never breathe out your mouth?

[MJ]

No, I try not to.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. I'm guilty of that. That actually works?

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

I used to do it at night, but I need to start again, I guess.

[MJ]

Yeah, I know some people rip it off when they're sleeping, but you gotta try because mouth breathing is one of those things where it's going to chronically dehydrate you. It's going to put you into, you know, a sympathetic state. It's going to ruin your oral microbiome, which we know can be linked to Alzheimer's heart disease.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. There's old books on our breath work, right?

[MJ]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Breathe by James Nastrow. That's like the one.

[MJ]

Love that. If you want to get into the asthma, you could read Patrick. Patrick McEwen's oxygen advantage. He's got a bunch of books, but that, in my opinion, is his best one. It's life changing.

[Podcast Host]

When I was a kid and someone had asthma, they were. They were taught there was no cure. You know, you'd be on inhaler your whole life. So now there's some. Some new stuff with breath work.

[MJ]

Yeah. So he does something called breath holds. So almost the opposite of breathwork because you're not breathing, but it's still considered a breathwork technique. You hold on empty.

[Podcast Host]

That's similar to the Wim Hof method, right?

[MJ]

Yes. For him, you're breathing in a certain style where you're going to put yourself into a sympathetic state. It's very invigorating. And then you do a hold. I don't remember Wim Hof. If you hold like, on full or. I don't remember trying to think.

[Podcast Host]

So you do the 30 breaths and then you hold after that.

[MJ]

Yeah, I think you hold on full.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[MJ]

Oh, after the LX exhale.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Because you do 30 breaths, and on the last one, I think you hold on that one. Right.

[MJ]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

I haven't done it in those days. Yeah.

[MJ]

Me Neither. But. But it doesn't. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter because both styles of breath holds are incredible, incredibly beneficial. I always say, if you want to, if you feel like you don't have a good, good lung capacity, do both. I always. I prefer holds on empty. Just when I think about the anatomy and the physiology, it makes more sense to me because you are working with carbon dioxide at that point. Most people have what's called a low carbon dioxide intolerance, so they can't hold their breath for very long. And that's going to trigger your amygdala and it's going to make you feel fearful all the time.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. That happened to me at first when I started the Wim Hof. I can only hold my breath for like, 30 seconds. I had to train my way up to three minutes.

[MJ]

Yeah. Wow, that's really great.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. But most people, similar story. They. They start that thing and then most people can't even do a minute.

[MJ]

No, I couldn't. So I was doing something called a Bolt Score. You're holding on empty. And at that, at the time that I was doing it, I was marathon training. So I was in like, the best shape of my life. I did my Bolt score and it was extremely low. And I was like, how does that make sense that I'm so physically fit? I have good mitochondria, I have a good VO2 output or a good VO2 max, but I have a terrible score of, like, my breathing. And I think what. You know, this is just my own personal theory. I've never done a study on it, but I think what happens to some people is your body can get stuck. Stuck in a trauma response. And somatically, you just breathe. You hyperventilate almost all the time.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. That's pretty scary.

[MJ]

Yeah, it is pretty scary. It is pretty scary because what happens when you're hyperventilating is you're telling your body you should feel anxious and stressed all the time. And I think we get. I think a lot of people just get caught there.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

And which. I love breath work because you can use any of these techniques to be like, well, maybe that's me. Maybe I have trauma and it's making me breathe a certain way all the time. It's making me feel anxious all the time. I've got, you know, tension in my fascia. I feel uncomfortable. I always feel, you know, I'm just not in the present moment. Breathwork could be the way out of that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Which is so amazing.

[Podcast Host]

Have you had A spiritual experience like that where it just felt like a lot of trauma was released.

[MJ]

Absolutely. Yeah. I didn't cry for about a decade. You know my. My background is I had a horrible first 25 years of my life. Wow.

[Podcast Host]

That's a long period of time.

[MJ]

I know. But you know, When I was 4, an intruder came into my school when I was in kindergarten and I was sexually abused and I know, it sucks. A four. And then when I was eight, my dad.

[Podcast Host]

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[MJ]

It was like addicted to opiates. He beat my mom all the time. My brother and I saw like it was just a horrible. I had to call the cops on him and like put my own dad in prison.

[Podcast Host]

Geez.

[MJ]

And then when I was nine was the first time I tried to kill myself because like why wouldn't you? It's terrible. And then I got a little bit older and my mom got my. Me and my brother away from my dad. We moved to the country. My brother died in a car accident. Then my dad relapsed again and then he killed himself. So it's been like shitty thing after shitty thing. That was the first experience of my life. And then I just shut down. Like I think anyone who's listening who has had any. It doesn't even have to be that traumatic. It could just be like you were bullied or you weren't invited to a birthday party, something or your parent just didn't conn connect with you ever. That's all trauma. And I think I just emotionally shut down. Like I didn't know how to feel anything. And I did breath work and I found myself accessing emotions like grief or sadness or anger that I'd never let myself feel. And you would think that it would be bad or feel bad to feel those things, but it actually felt incredibly liberating. Like I was like this. There's, there's a freedom here because I'm feeling these things. Like say I'm feeling this grief for my brother that I lost or My dad. But underneath all that grief was actually love. Like all the love that I wasn't allowing myself to feel. Because we think that we can block out the bad emotions in life. I don't ever want to feel stressed. I don't ever want to feel angry or sad. But when you block out bad emotions, you're actually also going to block out the good ones because you can't selectively block. You're either going to be shut down or not. And you have to stay open to all of life.

[Podcast Host]

Wow, that's deep. I never thought of emotions that way, but you're right because I went through a period too where I was on antidepressants and stuff. And I wasn't just blocking out the negative. I wasn't happy at all. Yeah.

[MJ]

Yeah. I think what you can't, you cannot experience the, like, elation or the joy without also being completely raw to the like, sadness and the grief or the anger. I think you just. If you want to be present in life and be in a relationship with reality, you just have to experience everything.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

And you know, I have my, my notes here that shows that if you don't let yourself feel, if you don't let yourself feel, you're setting yourself up to be more likely to get cancer. Chronic inflammation, 35 times more likely to die at a younger age. Emotional suppression is statistically like smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez. It's that damaging.

[MJ]

It's horrible. It's horrible for you. But nobody's talking about it because everybody wants to take a cold plunge, which is amazing too, right? Yeah, Cold plunges are amazing. But at the end of the day, Harvard had the longest running study, 80 years. I think even longer now, the Grant study. And it showed at the end of life, what was the most important thing in people's lives?

[Podcast Host]

Relationships.

[MJ]

Exactly. And what was the thing that caused people to live the longest?

[Podcast Host]

Relationships.

[MJ]

Exactly. And what do you need in order to have a relationship with someone?

[Podcast Host]

Emotions.

[MJ]

Yes. Yeah. You have to be emotionally available. If you have no emotional intelligence, say you don't know how to know what an emotion is and don't know how to express it in a healthy way or, or be present with someone while they have an emotion, you'll never have a deep relationship with anyone.

[Podcast Host]

And that's hits deep for me because I neglected that for a majority of my life.

[MJ]

Me too.

[Podcast Host]

I didn't know how to love.

[MJ]

Me too.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. It started with my parents, I think, because they never told me they loved me, even though they did. But I didn't know, I didn't hear it verbally. And that's my love language.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And then that just kind of went on in my friendships, too.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And dating.

[MJ]

So now with your friends, do you tell them you love them?

[Podcast Host]

I do.

[MJ]

Good.

[Podcast Host]

The first time I told them, it was so uncomfortable. You know what I mean?

[MJ]

Yeah. But it's important, especially as, like, you, you know. How old are you?

[Podcast Host]

28.

[MJ]

You're 28, so you're a young man. Did you know that they did a study in 2024 on young men? I think they were a little bit younger than you. 19 to 23. Two thirds of the men that they asked said, no one knows me.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[MJ]

That's the male loneliness.

[Podcast Host]

I've been there.

[MJ]

Yeah. That's the male loneliness epidemic. Right. Like, they don't. There's. We have. Statistically, men are young men, predominantly white men are four times more likely to kill themselves. Why?

[Podcast Host]

That's crazy.

[MJ]

Emotional suppression. They don't know how to feel the emotions that they have or connect with other people. It's no fault of their own. It's because you were raised in a society where, at least when I was younger, if my brother cried, he was called gay.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. A hundred percent.

[MJ]

Like, you're shamed. You were shamed for having emotions. Not that being gay is just the put down that they use at the time, but it is, you know, a lot of them, a lot of, mostly men aren't allowed to feel emotions.

[Podcast Host]

That's still prevalent today. I'd say it's even worse today. Because of social media now.

[MJ]

Absolutely. Because you, you know, young people aren't connecting with real people as much. And then, you know, looking at AI, it's only going to get potentially worse.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, it's going to get worse. There's going to be AI girlfriends.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

There's going to be AI friends. Yeah. There's already some existing.

[MJ]

Yeah. And she does whatever you want her to do.

[Podcast Host]

Yep.

[MJ]

And she'll never challenge you.

[Podcast Host]

So people are probably going to live less if it goes down that route.

[MJ]

People already live less. Right. That's it. Four times more likely to commit suicide. Like, if you look at. Let's look at all the top ways people die in the us. Heart disease, cancer, accidents, which I looked. Overdoses are considered accidents. Suicide. What. What do those all have in common? You can get those diseases or get addicted to drugs because you're not processing trauma and you're suppressing your emotions. Am I saying that every person who's ever had cancer, you know, it's from Emotional suppression? No, but we do have studies that show that you are more likely to get cancer if you don't process things like grief and anger.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Well, each emotion is tied to an organ, right? The Eastern medicine.

[MJ]

Medicine. Yeah. And traditional Chinese medicine. Yes. I'm gonna be honest, I don't know anything.

[Podcast Host]

I believe it, though.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

I've done multiple tests on my body when I'm stressed, and my liver is always messed up.

[MJ]

So you have anger.

[Podcast Host]

I think I do, yeah.

[MJ]

What are you angry about?

[Podcast Host]

I don't know. I don't know, but I'm always stressed. I think stress and anger are probably similar and maybe stress kind of turns into anger sometimes.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

And I'm really hard on myself.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So when I'm angry, it's usually on myself.

[MJ]

Were your parents hard on you?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, but not physically.

[MJ]

Like, they just had a lot of expectations.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Okay. So you're. You're a successful person, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

When you reach a place of success that you want it to reach, like a certain, you know, KPI or figure amount of money, do you feel like, yes, I made it, or do you feel like on to the next thing? That was nothing.

[Podcast Host]

On to the next.

[MJ]

Yeah, I have that too. And it's. I think it's just. I mean, a lot of it just comes down to parenting. And again, no fault of their own because they're also raised in a society where we don't value emotional connection. Right. But that, that's like, it's really up. The successful people feel that way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I. I just had on a guest and they were basically saying, all successful people have trauma.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

That's why they're successful.

[MJ]

I. I was working with a therapist.

[Podcast Host]

I hope you guys are enjoying the show. Please don't forget to like and subscribe. It helps the show a lot with the algorithm. Thank you.

[MJ]

It was just questioning me being like, well, why. Why do you want this? Why do you want to do this book? It's just because my mom. I didn't feel like my mom and dad loved me. So it's like, if I can publish a book, if I can, you know, be, you know, make my business this big, then finally I'm going to be a success to them. But it's not. That's not the way it's going to work. Right. So I had to re engineer my entire life to figure out why am I doing this? And it's, you know, now it's just that I just want to help people.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. People pleasing is an interesting one. I was guilty of that for many years, putting others before me, trying to fit in with people.

[MJ]

How did you stop doing?

[Podcast Host]

I just had to realize it wasn't helping me. Took a while though. I still fall into it occasionally. You know, I don't know what triggers that, but maybe trying to fit in growing up.

[MJ]

Yeah, I mean the fear of being rejected is big.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that was a big one for me. Fear of rejection, fear of public speaking.

[MJ]

There's actually a doctor, I don't remember who it was, but he was saying people pleasing in general, they see a strong correlation between people pleasing and it was. Was mostly women, but a strong correlation between people pleasing and Ms. Really.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[MJ]

I know.

[Podcast Host]

I wonder what.

[MJ]

So this, I mean all of what I'm talking about, these studies, they all fall under something called psychoneuroimmunology. Very legit. It's a branch of medicine. And basically they're looking at how can our emotions in terms of us feeling them or not feeling them or whatever, how do they affect your immune system or how do they affect your hormones? You know, looking at how does it affect your physiology. And like this is relatively new. All the big Studies are like 20, 20, 2021, 2022. Like it's, it's a very new branch, but it's. And they're not huge studies yet, but they're all pointing towards the idea that we as humans a require emotional connection with other people in order to survive. Like if you have a baby and you don't pick up that baby and rock that baby and hug and kiss that baby, which you wouldn't think is a basic human need, that baby will die. And it's weird that we think that as you get older that just goes away because it doesn't.

[Podcast Host]

That is fascinating. So it really needs that love and affection of the baby.

[MJ]

Yes, Physical touch. Physical touch, Love, affection, connectedness with other people. It's something that you are, you require to live a healthy, happy life. But we never ever think about it. We always think, if I want to get into wellness, if I want to be healthier, I have to buy these products. I have to wake up at 5:00am you know, it becomes a to do list of things to buy and things to do when really, you know, I always say to my clients, 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. Do I have quantitative data on that? No, just personal experience. Like I think fun, pleasure, friendship, hugging, all those things are important for a long, healthy life.

[Podcast Host]

There's something there for sure. Because when you do study the blue zones, all of them have community.

[MJ]

Yes. They are not eating their meals alone, watching Netflix.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

They're eating at the table with a bunch of different people. People from all generations.

[Podcast Host]

I love that approach because a lot of these biohackers and people in the wellness space, which is great. I'm part of the. They focus on the physical only.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Never spiritual.

[MJ]

Yes. And it's. It's been. It's been like a learning for me because I went through my own healing journey. I had to heal my trauma. I was infertile. I had ibs. I had all these chronic health symptoms. And of course, at first I bought an infrared sauna, and then I bought a PEMF mat, and then I was doing, you know, all the weird freaky biohacking stuff that you get into.

[Podcast Host]

Like transfusion.

[MJ]

Exactly. I had an ozone machine. I was putting ozone in my butt two times a day. Wow. Did it help? Yeah. But what actually has helped me is like, getting closer to nature and getting closer to the people in my life.

[Podcast Host]

You've noticed the most significant changes. That is fascinating. Yeah. Grounding just hits different when you've grounded some fresh grass.

[MJ]

Yeah, yeah. Not a grounding mat. Like, actually.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I tried them that.

[MJ]

I didn't feel anything because it's an immersive experience. You have birds. You know what I mean? Like, you're seeing like a cute animal.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Trees are. It's like we're. That's what we're built with. We evolved with that. I'm not against biohacking gear. I have it all, and I use it all. But it's a poor replication of something in nature that you, you know, may or may not have access to, but hopefully you do.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah. I think community and purpose are really something people should look into on top of their biohacking things.

[MJ]

Purpose. Big time. Gabor Mate said. And I found this so interesting. He's a Canadian doctor who works primarily with people with trauma and addiction.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I've heard of him.

[MJ]

He's amazing. But he was saying that, you know, a lot of us think of trauma as this event, but to live a life that is outside of your purpose or outside of the life that gives you purpose is traumatic. Think about it. Day in, day out, you're waking up and you're going to a job that you don't. You don't feel anything about.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Like, that's traumatic.

[Podcast Host]

100.

[MJ]

That's your whole life too. You're done at 60 and then what? Because you suppressed emotions the whole time, you just die. Like, like you don't even get to like have fun.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. You can't speak your mind because your boss will fire you.

[MJ]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

There's probably a ton of suppressed emotions.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. That's why something like this where we're super passionate, working on our own schedules, like impacting people, like it feels amazing.

[MJ]

It feels really good. It's the best feeling in the world.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. No, I get messages daily now and it's like, wow, this is an amazing life. Even if I'm not making as much as like doctors or whatever, I would still probably do this. Like that's where I'm at. I'd rather make less and be purposeful than.

[MJ]

That's the true meaning of success. Right. A lot of people think it's going to be something that you quantify. Success is going to be when I hit this number. But if you, you know, if your wife divorced you, your kids hate you, you know, you don't have your health, what's the point of all the money?

[Podcast Host]

No point.

[MJ]

There's no point. Like I would way rather, you know, I've built my life in a way where I'm a mom, I have two kids. I don't want to not ever see my kids because I'm working. I work three mornings a week. That's it. Hard, shut off big boundaries and I want to be in my kids lives. So I got obsessed with Tim Ferriss. The four Hour Work Week. Great book, Amazing book.

[Podcast Host]

One of my first books I've ever read.

[MJ]

Me too. It changed my life because it made me think in a different way where it was like, I, I want to spend my time doing the things that I love. I, I grew up competitively horseback riding. What do I do now? I go horseback riding.

[Podcast Host]

Love it.

[MJ]

That's just what I want to do. I don't. And I think, yeah, I think tech has been such a blessing in that regard and I, I hope that people come to realize that so many things can be systematized and so many things can be, can be done in a way where you can have more freedom.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah. I used to be a workaholic. I still am. But like I used to work seven days a week, 15 hours a day and thinking that was cool. Neglecting all my relationships, my fiance and friendships.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And it caught up to me. My physical health was terrible.

[MJ]

Mental health was like, you have a fiance, how are you going to ever even be Close to that person. Know them really?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. No, I wasn't.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

We were just living in the same house. Roommates. Yeah. That's a common thing these days. I know a lot of people dealing with that.

[MJ]

Yeah. I mean, I will say, like, I understand that some of it's not by choice. People are stuck in a system where, you know, what. What does the system want you to do? Could be complacent. Right. Like, it wants you. It doesn't want you thinking. It just wants you consuming and selling your body for labor, whatever that looks like. And then you work as long as you can, and then hopefully you die so that they don't have to pay your pension. Right.

[Podcast Host]

It's like the rat race.

[MJ]

Yeah. And it's. It's.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I. I'm glad we realized that because our parents really paved the way.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You know, they worked at 9 to 5 and they. They really wanted me to go that. Down that route, but it wasn't for me.

[MJ]

No. My mom. Yeah, It's. It's so. It's so hypocritical because my mom, you know, she was a real estate agent. So entrepreneur. But she, like, cried so hard when I dropped out of school to be an osteopath. And I was like, but it's not my dream. Like, I don't. It's not my dream. She's happy now.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. It paid off now, Mom. So you were pretty deep in college. How many years in were you?

[MJ]

I was four months out from graduating.

[Podcast Host]

Whoa.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You were a senior.

[MJ]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. I was like, I didn't even have any exams left to do.

[Podcast Host]

So you were pretty much done.

[MJ]

Yeah. But this is the thing, like. And I think anybody can relate to this. I've dropped out of college twice, so I did an undergrad for philosophy. I was again, six months away from graduating. I dropped out because I was like, I don't want to do this. Because it seems more ridiculous to stop once you've graduated.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

In my mind, I would own why that made sense.

[Podcast Host]

Well, you're so deep in. At that point.

[MJ]

Yeah. And I was like, I. And then, of course, once you're an osteopath, that's your career. Like, that is your career. And I. When I was in school, you had to start working while you were in school. And I was like, I do not like this. I'm in an office all day. People just come in and out, and that's it. And I was like, that's going to be my life for the next, however, 40, 50 years. Yeah, like I don't, I don't know. I liked helping people and that's what got me to where I am today. Where I was like, okay, how can I take all the things that I enjoy in life? I love spirituality, I love anatomy and physiology. I love science, I love reading the studies. What do I love doing and how can I make that my career? And you could just build your own thing.

[Podcast Host]

I love that you love science and spirituality simultaneously. That's a rare combo to see and see in some way.

[MJ]

It shouldn't be though because there's so much intersection. Like we know we have this science, we have so much science on breathwork. That's a, that's a spiritual thing. We have so much science on grounding. That's a spiritual thing.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

We have so much science on, you know, cold plunges, meditation, prayer. Like we have the science behind all of these things that they are so important. So they should just be under the same camp.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. Please unite, guys. I see the communities go at it in the comments.

[MJ]

Me too, me too. And it's, it's ridiculous. I think, you know, part of the problem that I think, and maybe I'll get hate on for this but like science has become a religion. People think because there, there isn't a study on something that it doesn't exist. And that's not true. We only have studies on the things that we've studied.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

But there's so much out there that we have never studied and we don't know whether it is or isn't. And you have to stay in that unknown. And there's, and there's so much, there's so much science, you know, that's come out as being false. It's ever growing, it's an ever growing process of being curious about the world. So to be a scientist you have to be extremely open minded and you have to stay open minded throughout your whole career. And I, I see too many people get a little bit fundamentalist on, you know, where science intersects with politics or where science intersects with their personal beliefs.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

Science is just science and the studies are just the studies. Hopefully you're going to have a good one and it's going to have a good amount of people and it's going to be verified and it's going to have good people funding it. Right. There's so many ways in which a scientific study can be bad. But I think, yeah, I don't think it's, it's. I, I just feel sadness when I feel, see people arguing about It. Because a lot of the times they want the same thing.

[Podcast Host]

That's true. I'm a fan of it. My, my issue when I see certain studies is who's funding it.

[MJ]

Yes. Big time.

[Podcast Host]

Because that's where I feel like there's some corruption.

[MJ]

So much corruption. So, so much corruption.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Yeah. I mean, and that we've even had people do a study on, say something like some medicine that they don't want to go to market. So they'll purposefully dose a super low dose and then come out and be like, well, it didn't work.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

But nobody's like a layperson's not going to know the correct dose. So you're going to read it and be like, oh, wow, that didn't work. And then you're going to send it to all your family members on Facebook. Right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. No one knows the correct dose.

[MJ]

Exactly. Like there's so there's so many ways in which it can be corrupt.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And all you see is the headline.

[MJ]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host]

Most. I'd say 90% of people don't even read the article or whatever.

[MJ]

They don't. So like you could be touting something as the end all, be all. But in reality it was done on five people and those five people were probably men. So. Right. Like we. That happened with intermittent fasting and cool plunging. Like it came out as being like, everyone needs to be doing this. So a lot of women started intermittent fasting and ruined their hormones. Why? Because the studies were done on men.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[MJ]

And it's actually if someone's in the reproductive age and they're a woman, they probably shouldn't be intermittent fasting.

[Podcast Host]

Really.

[MJ]

Yeah. Because we, our brains are different. Right. Like we, our. Because we. Our bodies are monthly trying to reproduce. It's a lot more sensitive to scarcity.

[Podcast Host]

That's good to know because I was trying to peer pressure my fiance into doing it with me, but I'll give her a reason. And out now.

[MJ]

No, I think men and women are both incredibly powerful and incredibly different for a reason. Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, very.

[MJ]

For like, I always think, you know, people hate on thinking that men and women are different, but if they weren't, we wouldn't have trans people. Right. Yeah, they're different. They're. They're different and as they should be. And it's, it's, it's beautiful.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I was trans in a past life. I did some past life therapy.

[MJ]

Oh yeah?

[Podcast Host]

Have you ever done that?

[MJ]

No, not, not like good. I did it with one woman. Woman. And she said I died in a Fire.

[Podcast Host]

Do you have dreams of dying in a fire in your current life?

[MJ]

No.

[Podcast Host]

Okay. Because sometimes that's a sign of a past life.

[MJ]

I have. I have dreams of whales and crabs killing me. I was a pirate or.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, you might have drowned or you've been a pirate or something in the past life.

[MJ]

That's cool. Okay. What else were you?

[Podcast Host]

Stressed out businessman who died of a heart attack. There was like, five or ten. She did. I forget some of them, but the trans one was interesting. I was a trans. Twice, actually.

[MJ]

Wow. When were you trans? Like, what?

[Podcast Host]

One of them was in Egypt. Ancient Egypt. I have Syrian lineage.

[MJ]

Okay.

[Podcast Host]

I was a trans performer.

[MJ]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

And do you connect with that in this life?

[Podcast Host]

So, like, a lot of my soul mission is to empower women, actually.

[MJ]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

So I kind of do because, like, I'll post videos about, like, woman empowerment and it gets a ton of engagement and views. Makes me feel good.

[MJ]

I love that. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

It's interesting. So I think so. You know, interesting. Who knows? It's all interesting stuff. I know a lot of people probably watching this, like, whoa, what's going on? Right now?

[MJ]

We have a pirate and a trans person here in their new bodies.

[Podcast Host]

I do feel like I have an old soul, though.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Like, I gravitate towards older people.

[MJ]

Interesting.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

They have. I can't remember. I think there was a whole documentary I watched on kids, and they think before the age of three, children can access their past lives. That's the theory. And there's children who can, like, play the piano or know that they were a World War II bomber with a plane. Like, you have to look it up. It's fascinating.

[Podcast Host]

Telepathy tapes or.

[MJ]

No, that's different. But also really cool with the autistic kids. Telepathic. But no, no. These kids remember their past lives. They remember who they were. They can point to themselves. They can say that name of who they were. There's one boy in particular who knew. He was, like, a World War II pilot. He was obsessed with planes. And his parents started exploring it, and it turned wild.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[MJ]

Even, you know, in my personal life, I was asking my daughter one time about her birth, which obviously she should not remember that.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

But she was caught in the birth canal for, like, a while longer than she should have been. And she looked at me. She was really young at the time, and she looked at me and she was like, my head. Like, my head was, like, stuck, and it was. She was, like, pressing on her head and she knew.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[MJ]

It was wild. And I was like, how would she, like. I mean, maybe if you're hyper skeptical. She's probably heard me say the birth story, but like, to who? I'm like, I don't leave my house. I only talk to my husband. I'm not going to tell him my birth story again. Who's there?

[Podcast Host]

I want to watch that.

[MJ]

You want to watch birth.

[Podcast Host]

No, no. I want to watch that documentary about the kids.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

I remember their past life.

[MJ]

I don't remember. I think it may have been a podcast, but it was really, really. Children are fascinating.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I mean, I had one guest, Matus de Stephano.

[MJ]

I love him.

[Podcast Host]

He remembers all his lives. I was asking about all sorts of stuff. That was one of my favorite episodes.

[MJ]

I think, if I were to guess. I don't think I'm from this planet. I don't think that I've been reincarnated. I don't think I've been here very long because when I walk around, I feel like everything is really strange to me.

[Podcast Host]

Really? So you might be a star seed?

[MJ]

Maybe. I think. You know, I don't know too much about it, but I'm always like, everything just seems so bizarre. I don't understand why people are the way that they are or why they're doing what they're doing or. And even as a kid I used to ask my mom, like, why are we here? What are we doing? Like, all of this seems really strange. And I. That feeling hasn't left me. Like, I just still feel. It just seems so weird to me.

[Podcast Host]

Interesting. Could be your first life on here, maybe.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Do you never get deja vu or anything? I get it all the time.

[MJ]

I don't get it.

[Podcast Host]

Crazy. Like, I get it probably almost every day.

[MJ]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Like, I feel like I've been doing this task in another life or, wow, some other point, alternate dimension. I don't know.

[MJ]

Wow.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I wonder what causes that.

[MJ]

You'll have to give me some tips on being on Earth, because I am.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Apparently I've graduated. I'm just here on a soul contract, this life. But wow, who knows? But yeah, over 500 lives, so I got some experience. Yeah, I. I like the spiritual stuff. Do you dabble in psychedelics or you stay all breath?

[MJ]

No, I have. I haven't in a really long time because, honestly, I. I went to breath work and I was like, why? Why do it? But I haven't done ayahuasca. I did acid and a macro dose in a microdose psilocybin. Like, these were in my younger years when I was in my 20s, I didn't really connect with psilocybin. I loved LSD.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[MJ]

I really loved it. It changed my life.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[MJ]

It was like I knew everything was connected, but then once I took acid, I, like, knew everything was really connected.

[Podcast Host]

What were the big revelations there? Like, what. What did you see connected?

[MJ]

I guess everything. Like, I saw that every single. Every single part of my life happened for a reason. And I'm. I'm someone with, like, up story, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

So I saw that, like, there's no way that I could have gotten to where I am without all of that stuff happening and all of that stuff, you know, because we think of, like, I lost someone. I lost my dad. He committed suicide. That's horrible. But I don't know what the afterlife is.

[Podcast Host]

Right. No one does.

[MJ]

There might be something amazing.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

We don't even know if death is good or bad. So it just. It just really opened up my mind to my journey. That you shouldn't take life too seriously and that people really matter. Like, they. The connections you make with people are not on accident.

[Podcast Host]

I do believe everything happens for a reason. Everyone you meet.

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Every bad. Every good thing.

[MJ]

Yeah. And you won't. If you're not open to it. It won't happen for you. But I really believe that, like, things are happening. And once you understand that and start to read it, read the signs, life gets really fun and magical.

[Podcast Host]

100%. That was the biggest shift for me when I made that shift, because I used to have a terrible victim mindset. Like, I used to say, I have bad luck. Why is this happening to me?

[MJ]

I have a lucky tattoo.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah. I love it. And, yeah. Now when bad stuff happens, or if I have a slow month in business or I'm fighting with my fiance, I'm like, this needs to happen.

[MJ]

Yeah. There's like. There's something. There's a learning there. Right. Like, I. And I think when, you know, obviously there's some things where it's like, they're just. They're just horrible. And I wish that they hadn't happened, and I wish that they wouldn't happen to anyone else. However, we can't control it. So all. All the choice you really have is what are you gonna do afterwards? Right. So I could have gone the route where my dad, you know, he was a drug addict. He. I watched him, you know, abuse everybody in my family. And I watched. I watched him kill himself, essentially. And I could have chosen to let that be my story. I could have chosen to let that, you know, Give me all these sort of issues where I wouldn't connect with my husband or whatever. I can choose all those different variations. But you do have a choice, and I think a lot of people. That's really triggering to hear. But you do have a choice, whether you make your trauma your story or not.

[Podcast Host]

You do, because they're doing studies on twins now and seeing how they change as they get old, and it's fascinating.

[MJ]

Absolutely. Yeah. And it's not to say that it doesn't take work. Like, you do have to, like, go through a healing process. But for me, I wanted that stuff to help me impact the world more. Because when you go through something that's really dark, the blessing that comes from that is, like, I get messages all the time from people who have been sexually abused, and I know exactly what they're talking about because it happened to me, and I know how hard it is to go through the journey of healing from that. So that's a blessing. Right?

[Podcast Host]

How common is that these days?

[MJ]

I mean, I don't think the numbers are accurate, really, because most people aren't being honest about it happening because they're not reporting it.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[MJ]

Yes. Especially men.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, men.

[MJ]

Extremely more common in men than we think. I think for women, the last time I looked, it was one in three.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap. That's really high. One in three women.

[MJ]

Yeah. But for men, we have no idea. Just in conversation that I have with men, it's higher than I think we think.

[Podcast Host]

Jeez, that is nuts. I did not know the numbers were that high.

[MJ]

That's horrible. Yeah. I mean, a lot of it's happening as kids, too, which makes it double horrible.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

Um, but yeah, it's. It's like I look just at my father's life. Right. I watched my dad struggle with drugs so much, and he was an amazing person. Rugby player. Like, he was so tender and sweet when he was sober. And then, you know, I watched him just change and die. And I always had this question, like, what was it like, why? Because it seemed like he had a normal life. His parents were together. He had a really loving father. Like, I was just like, what was it? And my mom. I didn't find out till a few years ago that my dad was sexually abused when he was 15. And I was like, oh, of course. Because who is he going to talk to about that? He was raised in the era where, like, you don't go to therapy. Don't cry. That's weak. He's not going to talk to his friends about it because they don't talk about anything deep. Right. They talk about the Raiders.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. So he never told anyone.

[MJ]

Never told anyone.

[Podcast Host]

Geez.

[MJ]

I know. And. And this is happening all the time. This is that that story is common. Like, look at the suicide rates of men. It's insane. And like, are they all sexually abused? No. But do they all probably have trauma? Yeah. And then there's no place for them to talk about it.

[Podcast Host]

What do you think the fix is for. For men to open up more?

[MJ]

That's a really good question.

[Podcast Host]

My book, how to Cry.

[MJ]

How to Cry. But I think that that is it. Right. Like, I think it is understanding that it's not bad to feel your emotions. Right. Like, so I've got the thing in front of me. It's good. We know. It's good for your body. It's good for your wellness. Like, it will help you live longer if you're on a longevity path or if you're on a success path.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

You have to be emotionally intelligent. It's immensely important. It's going to be really hard to be a successful entrepreneur without it. Right. Because it's all connections. So I think unless you want to lie for your entire life, which I think is not good.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. No, that's good messaging. Because right now. Because a lot of people care about their health.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

You could kind of piggyback off that movement, you know.

[MJ]

That's my hope. Yeah, that's my hope. But it, but it is. It's not even piggybacking. It's just an aspect that we haven't thought about yet where it's like, we used to think that our mental health was different than our physical health. Right. Those are two different things. But they're not. Your brain and your body are one. And if you have to take care of your mental health. And what that looks like is understanding when you're having an emotion, expressing your emotion, Having someone to tell about that emotion doesn't mean that when you're angry, you have to punch a hole in the wall. No, that's not a healthy expression. I mean, unless it's your own wall and you just want to patch it up later. Do it. Do whatever you want to do. But when you have an emotion, you actually just tell someone. You name it and you tell someone. That emotion reduces greatly. It's fascinating. Like, even if you're going to cry and you suppress it, your. The cortisol in your body increases.

[Podcast Host]

Damn.

[MJ]

If you allow yourself to cry, it decreases greatly because crying actually is a form of detoxing it. Detoxes cortisol. That's why crying exists. But we. We, like, mock each other for it. And, you know, when I was a kid, I was sent to my room if I cried.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. As a woman.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

That's surprising.

[MJ]

Yeah. I mean, a lot of women are shamed for crying too.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[MJ]

You're too sensitive. Think about why we've never had women a woman president. They're too emotional.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. There's studies on too emotional.

[MJ]

Right. Even though anger is an emotion, a.

[Podcast Host]

Lot of guys can't control their anger.

[MJ]

Yeah. But that they. We wouldn't call them too emotional.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. We would label it anger issues.

[MJ]

Yeah. It's fine. It's just a weird. There's so many weird paradoxes in the world of emotions. But I think at the end of the day, like, if I were to generalize, men aren't allowed to feel sadness and women aren't allowed to feel anger more.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I could definitely see that.

[MJ]

But both are still shamed for both. But it's causing disease and death.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. That's nuts. Yeah. I remember growing up, if you cried in front of your friends, they would rip brutal and you asshole apart.

[MJ]

Yeah, it's brutal. And that trains you, right?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. It trains you to cry.

[MJ]

That trains you. I get messages from men all the time saying, I haven't cried in this many years. How do I even do it? And that's why I wrote the book. Like, I. Obviously, I love breathwork, and breathwork has been a way for me to access my own physiology so that I can express my emotions. Is it the only way? No, there's tons of ways. Right. I think one thing that's made me cry is long distance running. And there's tons of theories as to why. Yeah. Or even the exhaustion theory. Like, your brain gets so tired of blocking you from feeling things, then you just start to feel them.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

But breath work, I mean, I get. Yeah. We have hundreds of testimonials, Thousands of testimonials of people saying, I did the breath work. And I, like, let some stuff go that I've been holding on to for years.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. So they start balling out.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I was so trained to not cry. When my dad passed, I was alone in my car. I found out and tears were coming. I'm like, why am I crying? Like. And I was literally fighting tears.

[MJ]

When was that?

[Podcast Host]

This was two years ago.

[MJ]

Oh, I'm so sorry. Do you feel like you've gone into the grief?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, but not fully. I'm definitely working. Working and distracting myself.

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

So I Still need to fully get through it.

[MJ]

But yeah, I mean, I lost my dad. I think it's been about 10 years now, and I'm still processing it. You want to hear something so interesting? So I moved. I was downtown, really busy doing school, osteopathy. And then I moved to the country and I started living a life that was a lot slower and a lot more safe for my nervous system. And everything started coming up and I was like, this is so interesting. I'm like living the most calm, blissed out version of my life. I'm on the lake. But all this stuff about my dad and my brother and, you know, past is coming up. And I looked it up and it said that when your nervous system finally feels safe, it will start to process the trauma that's happened to you.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. Yeah, that's fascinating.

[MJ]

I was having night terrors. Like, it lasted a year.

[Podcast Host]

Holy crap.

[MJ]

But now I. I feel so much more connected. I don't want to say to my feelings. I want to say I feel so much more connected to my heart. Like I'm able to, like, see people like I wasn't able to before or connect with a friend. Like I wasn't able to before. I was almost pretending.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. I've been there where I'm faking emotions because I'm so numb and so disassociated from everything.

[MJ]

Yeah. And I think that's. I think. I think a lot of people feel that.

[Podcast Host]

Oh, yeah. Now I. I can feel my real emotions. We're talking, like, we're crazier now, but yeah. I'll be watching a movie and I'll actually cry now, just naturally, which before would never happen.

[MJ]

That's good. That means you're gonna live a long time.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

Right. Like, that's what that means. Like, I have people message me saying, like, oh, I cry all the time. Like, is that good? Like, yes, according to the science. That's amazing.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[MJ]

Yes.

[Podcast Host]

Well, there's probably a limit to that, but.

[MJ]

Yeah. I mean, you don't want to get addicted to an emotion because that can happen. Right. Like, I always use my grandfather as the example because my grandmother left him for another man. His personality changed after he was jilted, angry, and he became grumpy.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[MJ]

And then he held on to that story and that became his personality. Right. 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. And that happens to people. And it's know emotions are a chemical Process. So we'll build the receptor for the emotion that you have. The key is to feel an emotion and let it go. You don't want to wallow in it.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[MJ]

Things are a little bit different and tricky for grief because grief, I think, exists your whole life. However, for most emotions, you don't want to have them all the time. You want to go back to your baseline, which is, I think, joy, at least content. Contentedness. Love, I think. You know, I have a theory that most all humans are really, really good. And that when we see humans experiencing or doing awful things, they've just been traumatized.

[Podcast Host]

Agreed. Yeah. Love's a big one for me. I think getting dogs helped me learn how to love also. Should they just have unconditional love?

[MJ]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

They're so healing, so pure.

[MJ]

Dogs.

[Podcast Host]

I love them. I want 10 dogs. We got two now, so 20%.

[MJ]

Just eight more.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, eight more. Would have cats, too, but fiance's allergic. They're not as loving on average in a different way. Yeah, they're more. They're more independent.

[MJ]

Yeah, they're more dogs. I'm a horse girl. I love horses.

[Podcast Host]

How are they?

[MJ]

Oh, my God. They're the most healing animals, really. So there's a saying that cats will look down on you, dogs will look up to you, but horses will look you in the eye. They are mirrors to you. It's. There's such fascinating science on horses, too. They can. From 20 meters away, they can sense your heartbeat.

[Podcast Host]

Wow. So they can know if you're stressed out.

[MJ]

Yeah, they can. They'll smell people, and they'll be able to smell your pheromones and know exactly the emotional state you're in. And it's. It's. You know, I've been with horses my whole life. I was a horse girl. And there are such mirrors to. Like. I competed show jumping, and if I went into that arena and I was, like, stressed and my mind was all over the place, my horse felt that, and I was gonna get dumped off. Right. It was just dangerous. When you're show jumping, so it's like this level of mind and body control that you need in order to do that, because there's an animal who's gonna be a mirror to it. It's. It's. It's a very cool sport, but horses just in general are so cool.

[Podcast Host]

That's interesting. Well, I know there's a horse therapy, right? Yes, that's the thing.

[MJ]

Yeah, it's definitely a thing.

[Podcast Host]

How does that work? Have you done that?

[MJ]

I haven't done it just because I grew up with horses.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, you're probably already doing it low key. Yeah, I want to try that one, though. I love animals, so.

[MJ]

Yeah, they're. Animals are so healing. I think, you know, to bring it back to the conversation about connecting with other people. There's a lot of people that don't want to connect to another person.

[Podcast Host]

Person.

[MJ]

That's fine. Connect to an animal.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, that's a good start. Right?

[MJ]

Connect to a tree. Like we have studies on hugging a tree can help you calm down. It can boost your immune system. So it doesn't have to be another person. If you're not comfortable with people. I understand. Not everyone is going to want to, like, hug everybody, but you can hug a tree.

[Podcast Host]

I gotta try that one out. Well, do you have workshops or events or anything where can people get in touch with you?

[MJ]

Well, my book coming out, how to Cry. If you want to learn about all the science of, you know, emotional suppression or how to release your emotions and what it's going to do for your life, get on the waitlist for my book. Or it might already be published. I'm not sure when this is being aired. And then my Instagram is the best place it's at being Method Breathwork. We've got a subscription to Do Breathwork. I have a podcast that you can go. We've got free breathworks on there if you just want to try it for free. And we also certify people and breath work, so we're the most science fast Breathwork certification that you can do. So if you really want to nerd out in all the science of spirituality, it's all in there. We talk structured water. We talk, you know, photons and mitochondria and all the different things.

[Podcast Host]

I love it. We'll link everything below. Thanks for coming on, mj. Yep. Check her out, guys. See you next time.