#315 Jon Paul Crimi: Breathwork Is 20 Years of Therapy Without Saying a Word

(0:02 - 0:24)
Welcome to the Meditation Podcast. You can find all our episodes on meditationpodcast.org. My guest, based in Boston, just prior to recordings, telling me he's like a bit of Irish in him, which is always good to hear, but he's yet to visit, but we'd be looking out for him. So please welcome John-Paul Clemmie.

(0:25 - 0:30)
Thanks for having me, Roy. I'm not based in Boston. I'm in Oregon now.

(0:30 - 0:34)
I grew up in Boston. Oh, sorry. Yeah, and that's okay.

(0:34 - 0:53)
And then I moved when I was 23 to Los Angeles and I lived there for a good 23 years and now I'm in Oregon for the last eight. Okay, okay. So I suppose you can kind of tell us, I mean, you've moved around, but then, I mean, I know you're, you know, the breathwork and everything, but you can kind of tell us your career and how you got into this.

(0:53 - 1:10)
Sure, it was very unexpected. You know, the actor Matthew Perry from the show Friends, he was a very close, dear friend of mine. And he, someone had taken him to a healer guy and he was telling me about the session.

(1:10 - 1:23)
And I thought, come on, dude, like that sounds ridiculous. That's crazy. But I was kind of open-minded because I had just met Tony Robbins and I had had an incredible experience at the Tony Robbins seminar.

(1:24 - 1:33)
And so Matthew said, well, you're my only friend that would do this. And so I bought you a session with this guy. And I said, okay, I'll do it.

(1:33 - 1:47)
I'll try it, why not? Whatever, I got nothing to lose. So I went and I did this session and it was a different kind of breathing technique than the style that I teach today. But I had an experience that was really profound and powerful.

(1:48 - 2:08)
And so what that did was it sent me down this rabbit hole of like, what else is out there? And a couple people who didn't know each other, two different people said, you need to go try breathwork. And I was like, what is breathwork? And I think your listeners may or may not know, but breathwork is an umbrella term, right? It's like saying fitness. You said, I do fitness, Roy.

(2:08 - 2:29)
And you'd be like, wait, what do you do? Do weightlifting or soul cycle? What kind of fitness do you do? So there's this misconception in the breathwork world because somebody will do box breathing and they'll call it breathwork. Or somebody will do Wim Hof breathing and they'll call it breathwork. And there's all these different types of techniques.

(2:30 - 2:48)
And so the technique that I mainly teach, that I focus on, I know all the techniques, I've done them all. They're all tremendous. Most of them are through the nose to calm you down, to calm the parasympathetic, to regulate you and help you calm down if you're having anxiety or whatever.

(2:48 - 2:54)
My technique is very different. It's through the mouth. And you go, oh my God, I thought you're supposed to breathe through the nose.

(2:54 - 3:21)
Yes, most of the time you are supposed to breathe through the nose, but like I always say, 30 minutes of active mouth breathing into the sympathetic nervous system, which is fight or flight to clear out your stress, your anxiety, your trauma, your generational trauma is totally worth it. So I went to this class and I did this breathwork, this circular breathwork or conscious connected breathwork, it's called. And I had an experience like I'd never had in my life.

(3:21 - 3:27)
I cried in a way that I never cried. I let go of things. I felt clear.

(3:27 - 3:36)
I felt lighter. My brain turned off in a way that I was always trying to turn it off with alcohol and sometimes drugs. And I just felt amazing.

(3:36 - 3:44)
And I came home and my wife was like, oh my God, you look like a different person. And I said, I know I did this thing and it was so wild. And I didn't love the class.

(3:44 - 3:55)
I didn't like the music of the teacher or any of the stuff. I thought it was weird and woo-woo and new agey and not my style. I'm from Boston, right? Like you don't blame your messy life on mercury and retrograde.

(3:55 - 4:05)
Your life's a mess because you made it that way. Stop blaming it on the moon cycle, right? That's kind of how I grew up. And so I, you know, it's just not me at the time.

(4:05 - 4:19)
And so I started doing this breathwork on my own. I'd make a playlist and I'd breathe and I'd clear out all this stuff. And then I started doing it every morning and people around me noticed like clients, friends.

(4:20 - 4:36)
I was a celebrity trainer at the time and personal trainer in the gym. And people started going, wait, are you medicated all of a sudden? Like, why are you so present? Why are you so happy? What's going on? And I said, I'm doing this weird breathing thing. And they're like, what is it? And I said, show me.

(4:36 - 4:51)
And I'd show a client or a friend and they'd have this tremendous experience. And I had this realization early on in one of my own sessions, which was why doesn't everybody know about this? This is 15 years ago. There was no Wim Hof.

(4:51 - 5:00)
There was no Vogue Magazine talking breathwork is the new yoga. None of that stuff was out there. You could barely find anything on the internet 15 years ago.

(5:00 - 5:22)
And I thought, why doesn't everybody know about this? And I realized it's been kind of kept in these new age woo-woo circles. And if somebody did this Tony Robbins style with energy and like a trainer and cool music and they put some science in there, they'd probably have hundreds of people in the room, maybe thousands of people in the room. That's what I had this epiphany.

(5:23 - 5:27)
And I started doing it in that way. I started teaching it in that way. This woman asked me to do a class.

(5:27 - 5:34)
I had never done a class before. And she said, would you do a class at my studio? And I go, I don't know, I've never done a class. And she said, come on, you'll be great.

(5:35 - 5:42)
So I invited some of my friends and Matthew Perry, the actor, he came. And he said, John Paul, this is your gift. This is what you're supposed to be doing.

(5:43 - 5:52)
And I said, really, the breathwork thing? Because it was just something I was doing at the time. It wasn't really where I wanted to take my life. I still wanted a TV show at the time.

(5:52 - 6:04)
I was writing movies and TV shows. And he said, nope, this is your gift. And a couple of years later, the class was packed and sold out and Matthew came to that class and he said, I told you, I told you this was your gift.

(6:04 - 6:22)
And so I'm really grateful to him for encouraging this whole journey that I've been on for the last 15 years. Because without him, it doesn't happen. And so it's been quite a ride and it's been an incredible journey.

(6:22 - 6:36)
And I just, I love sharing it with people. And about nine years ago, I started teaching other people how to teach it. People kept asking me to, hey, would you show me how to teach this? I wanna teach this.

(6:36 - 6:49)
So I started my teacher trainings about nine years ago and I also started doing it online. This was way before COVID. And I knew that this would work online because you only need to watch for the first 10 minutes.

(6:50 - 7:10)
I do a demonstration, I show you the technique, I break everything down, I tell you the things that are gonna happen to prepare you to know that even though some weird stuff is gonna happen in your body, that's totally normal, you're safe. I tell people, listen, there are zero reported incidences of anything bad happening during this type of breath work. I've been teaching it for 15 years, nothing bad's ever happened.

(7:10 - 7:23)
But I wanna prepare people properly because the experience is a lot more intense than people are expecting. It's much more intense than people are expecting. And even though I do my best to prepare people properly, they still don't expect it.

(7:23 - 7:40)
So the first 10 minutes, I do a demonstration, I lay down, I do a demonstration. And then you lay down and you close your eyes and you have your speakers on or your headphones on and it's all about the audio from that point on. So I knew this would work online and I wanted to share it with people all over the world.

(7:41 - 8:03)
And that's what I've done. I've been doing this online for the last nine years and there was this full circle moment last year when Tony Robbins people reached out to me and they said, hey, we heard you're amazing at breath work and we'd like to have you come to our Life Mastery Seminar. And I got to do this online in a Tony Robbins Life Mastery Seminar for 3,500 people.

(8:03 - 8:16)
And that was this amazing full circle moment because I'm like, did you know that Tony is part of my story? Like I met him and he invited me to a seminar and it changed my life. And then I found breath work right after that. So this was this beautiful full circle moment.

(8:16 - 8:30)
And I got to do a class also for this company called Unity in Switzerland last year. It was 900 people in person. So I think it's the largest in-person circular breath work class that's ever been done.

(8:31 - 8:47)
And so it's been an amazing journey of sharing this with people. And now I train other people how to do it and then they go out and help people. And they, you know, I've certified over 3,000 people in my style of, you know, leading this type of breath work.

(8:48 - 9:18)
Excellent. Just because, I mean, a lot of people would know of Matthew Perry, and sorry to hear about your friend, but like, was he had the same kind of humor that people were known or was that his acting? Was that his kind of style? I would say that was his humor. And then some, like, you know, maybe a little more R-rated in real life with a guy friend like me, right? So it's like Chandler, but even better.

(9:21 - 9:38)
So, I mean, I think it's fantastic that you're, you know, training more people because, I mean, I've tried a lot of different ones. I've actually met Wim Hof, I'd done it in Jamaica in, they filled a jacuzzi with ice and done it, but I've done the breath work with him. So we'd done the ice baths as well.

(9:38 - 9:57)
And yeah, very interesting. I've tried loads of different ones, but I've done it in, I don't know how many were there, it was at A-Fest or whatever. And sometimes people, they react, like they've realized, you know, something has really bad happened to them.

(9:57 - 10:10)
And, you know, there's this kind of releasing stuff, but then they go really bad. So when that happens to somebody that's on their own, like, that's my favorite. Like, I know you get the claws, Will, I mean, that happened to me the first time.

(10:10 - 10:19)
I was like, Jesus, what's going on? Your hands are just locking. So maybe touch on the locking up first and then we'll go into the kind of more deeper one. Yeah, sure.

(10:20 - 10:33)
These are great points that you're bringing up, right? So this thing, these claws, this is called techni, is the scientific term for it. It's when your hands cramp up like this and sometimes your jaw can get really tired and you can't move your mouth. That happens to people too.

(10:33 - 10:49)
You know, when I first started doing breath work 15 years ago, I was asking these different teachers that I was working with, like, what causes this techni? And they would give me these answers, like, oh, it's the moon, it's the, you know, you're detoxing off weed. I'm like, I haven't smoked weed in 12 years. I'm not, you know, whatever.

(10:50 - 10:55)
And so it's not that. And so I wanted the science. I want the science.

(10:55 - 11:11)
Like, I'm a trainer at the time and I want the science behind it. And I was doing a class twice a week at the studio and it was sold out and people were packed in like sardines in this room. And I saw this common thread, you know, between certain people who were getting more techni than others.

(11:11 - 11:31)
And it looked like they were pushing the exhale much harder. So the technique is, shh, shh, shh, and they're going, shh, shh, shh, and they're pushing the exhale a lot faster, a lot harder. And they're not really inhaling as much and they're not really relaxing because you want to go, shh, shh, shh, and relax that exhale.

(11:31 - 11:43)
You don't want to push it. The work is done on the inhales. And people, a lot of people think because I'm working on the inhale, I have to work on the exhale, or they just get going so fast and they get into this state where they can't slow themselves down.

(11:44 - 12:08)
And so when you breathe that fast, you are technically hyperventilating and you're not taking in the oxygen properly. Oxygen binds to CO2, and then it absorbs into our bloodstream. But when you're breathing that fast and pushing that exhale, it's not giving the CO2 a chance to bind to the oxygen and absorb into the bloodstream.

(12:09 - 12:21)
And that's what's causing the cramping. I brought this health and science researcher in from Harvard and I said, you know, I have this feeling, these people around the room, they're pushing the exhale harder. And so we did some research on it and that's what we discovered.

(12:21 - 12:41)
So I made a YouTube video about it. Years ago, and several people have copied it since, you know, but I feel like I was the first to discover that this is the real reason that this tetany happens is that you're pushing the exhale too hard. So if you can just simply stop, close your mouth, breathe through your nose, and pause a little bit.

(12:41 - 12:49)
No long Wim Hof breath holds. You don't want to combine long breath holds with circular breath work. And there's a reason for that we could get into, but it's not always safe.

(12:49 - 13:01)
Because when you do Wim Hof, you do 30 breaths in and out, and then you hold, your brain starts to go, come on, Roy, take a breath. Come on, come on, all right, enough, enough. This has been long enough, right? It's fighting you and it's telling you to take a breath.

(13:01 - 13:15)
And then finally you go, and you take the breath. But when you do 30 minutes of conscious connected mouth breathing, your brain doesn't send that same message saying, take a breath, take a breath. And so people can hold their breath until they pass out or have a seizure.

(13:15 - 13:27)
Now, I've never had that happen in a class because I don't allow that. But you can do a short breath hold, say a minute or so, and bring yourself back. If you've got an instructor, they're bringing you back.

(13:27 - 13:37)
I don't recommend this for new people. I do do it sometimes in an advanced class that I teach. And that will build up the CO2.

(13:37 - 13:54)
Because when you're holding your breath, you're building up CO2, right? When you're doing circular breath work, you're throwing off CO2. So they're opposites. So you could be doing circular breath work and then close your mouth, breathe through your nose, do a little bit of a breath hold, and that will build the CO2 back up and that will take care of the tetany.

(13:56 - 14:25)
So what I started to do is empower people with that technique online because I was the first to teach this online that I know of. And I'd say, listen, if you get a cramp, if you get uncomfortable, if you're freaking out, just close your mouth, breathe through your nose and pause a little bit in between those breaths and that'll bring you back. And now I say that in my classes in person because the safer someone feels, the more that they feel in control and that they can pull it back anytime they want, the deeper they can go, the deeper they can let go.

(14:25 - 14:46)
And so with that said, let's touch on the other thing that you talked about, which is some type of trauma coming up, right? Some heavy trauma that happened, say when they were young and it came up during the breath work. Now, the first thing I say is the breath work didn't put that trauma there. The trauma was already there, right? It was already there before you did the breath work.

(14:46 - 14:57)
The breath work is just showing you that it's there and it needs to be dealt with. Otherwise, if it wasn't a trauma that didn't need to be dealt with, it wouldn't be coming up. It wouldn't come up at all.

(14:57 - 15:06)
If it wasn't something that was already integrated and healed, it wouldn't even come up. So it needs to be released. It needs to be integrated and healed.

(15:06 - 15:16)
Some people are freaked out because they're like, oh my God, I thought I had pushed that down into some, I thought I had gotten rid of that. I'd never thought about that again. Like, no, you just pushed it down inside your body, inside your nervous system.

(15:17 - 15:36)
And now it's eating away at you from the inside out, destroying your health. If you don't think that these things, these emotional, these things that you haven't dealt with can affect your health, then go find my eyebrows. Because my eyebrows are gone and I have alopecia, right? Which is brought on by emotional stress, emotional trauma.

(15:36 - 15:46)
So that emotional trauma, that emotional stress made all my hair fall out. It gave me an autoimmune disorder. So emotional stress, emotional trauma will affect your health in negative ways.

(15:46 - 15:56)
Cancer, heart disease, all these different things. So the breathwork is showing people, oh, hey, this trauma just came up and it needs to be integrated. It needs to be healed.

(15:56 - 16:21)
Whether you do that through breathwork sessions or I also recommend having a therapist to go process that stuff with as well. You know, I say on my website and all my class marketing and stuff, I say breathwork is like 20 years of therapy without saying a word. And I got that because so many of my students kept saying this to me after classes, they'd come up to me like, oh my God, that felt like 20 years of therapy.

(16:21 - 16:27)
Oh my God. And so I was like, I'm gonna start putting that on my marketing. And I thought therapists were gonna get really pissed off at that.

(16:28 - 16:43)
Ironically, therapists are the people who send me the most clients, the most students. They just do, because the thing comes up, the trauma comes up that they have locked away and now they're ready to deal with it. Now they're ready to integrate it and talk about it.

(16:43 - 16:53)
And so the therapist is gonna help them talk about it and process it. The one of the biggest things I hear is I thought, I'm pointing to my head. I thought I did all the work.

(16:53 - 16:56)
I did the therapy. I did the 12 step. I did the Tony.

(16:56 - 17:00)
I did this. I thought I did it. Well, yeah, you thought it's in the language.

(17:00 - 17:11)
It's up in your head. You did all the work up in your head, but there's this other stuff in your nervous system in your body that hasn't been dealt with. It's living in that nervous system.

(17:13 - 17:42)
So when you lay down and you start doing this type of breath work and you breathe into that nervous system, that sympathetic stuff, all those issues, all the stuff is gonna start coming up and being integrated. How long are the sessions? I would say, you know, my class is about an hour, hour and 15 minutes. If you're new to it, you're gonna need a little more time to recover.

(17:42 - 18:00)
You're gonna need a little more time. I was having a conversation with someone yesterday and she said, you know, I wish I could have laid on the floor for another hour and just enjoyed the peace that I was feeling after the breath work. And I was like, you should, you should do that.

(18:00 - 18:09)
Like that's what, you know, we want that peace. We're seeking that peace, that quiet. So allow that, you know, give yourself the time and the space for it.

(18:09 - 18:37)
You know, a lot of schedules don't allow for that, but I would say at least an hour to an hour and 15 minutes. And, you know, like if somebody's at home and they've got their laptop, is there a difference when, like say they have the earphones or if they just lay down and they're just listening, does the sound, does it work better with earphones in? That's a great question. I think it works better with earphones, you know, with headphones.

(18:37 - 18:44)
You're isolating it more. You're isolating out the rest of the world. You're canceling out the rest of the world and you get to really disappear.

(18:45 - 19:02)
You know, there is a bit of an altered state element to this type of breath work. You know, some people call it psychedelic breath work and it does put you in a different state. You know, I've been sober, we were talking about this 26 years now and it like, it's pretty incredible.

(19:03 - 19:42)
There's a thing that can happen during this type of breath work called transient hypofrontality. Part of the prefrontal cortex of my brain can turn down or sometimes it feels like it turns off in this incredible way and that's the area of my brain where the ego lives, where the critic lives, right? That's always talking to me, talking shit to me half the time, right? You're not enough, you're not smart enough, you're not thin enough, you're not rich enough, you're not hairy enough, right? I'm saying this because I have no hair if you're listening and not watching. But, you know, so to turn that critic off for an hour or two or whatever is incredible.

(19:42 - 19:58)
That's what I was always trying to do with alcohol and drugs so it feels amazing. And then what it does for me is it turns off my head and moves me into my heart. And so, you know, I'll joke, you know, I have a shirt that says I'm sorry for what I said before breath work.

(19:58 - 20:33)
So I have a fight with my wife who I love very dearly and then I'm mad, I wanna be right, I'm not gonna talk to her for the next year in my head. I'm gonna shun her with my silence for a year. And then I lay down and I do some breath work and then I, you know, I let go because I realized this thing that I was holding onto, my idea of I'm right about this is so stupid and small in the big picture, which is that I love my wife and that I just wanna be happy.

(20:33 - 20:43)
I don't need to be right, I need to be happy. And so I go down and apologize and I say, I'm sorry. And instead of, you know, not talking to her for the next year, which I wouldn't do, I'm joking.

(20:43 - 21:07)
But, you know, people are really big on the psychedelics these days, you know, the ayahuasca and the micro dosing and the ibogaine and all the different things. And they'll ask me about the breath work because breath work produces the same results. There was just a study out of London where it said it literally produces the same exact results as doing these psychedelics, this ayahuasca and these psychedelics.

(21:07 - 21:31)
It's incredible, this scientific study that they did. And they'll say, well, what's the difference? And I say, well, the biggest difference for me is I can't do ayahuasca and then go pick up my kids from school on a Tuesday afternoon, right? You know, but I can do breath work. Yeah, exactly, I gotta bring the puke bucket with me to school.

(21:32 - 21:48)
But I can do breath work and then go pick up my kids from school. I can roll out of bed in the morning and just do breath work for 15 minutes and go into my day a happy, present person. And with, you know, with these plant medicines, the power is in the plant, but with breath work, the power is in you.

(21:48 - 22:07)
So just for me personally, it's just a more realistic solution, a more realistic tool to my problem, which is me. I'm my problem, myself, my mind, my ego, you know, this head of mine. And so it really helps with that.

(22:07 - 22:34)
And I've also seen it work tremendously with people, you know, who are struggling with different things from alcoholism and addiction to, you know, all these other issues of anxiety, stress, grief. It's tremendous for grief. And so it helps in real time, you know, everything out there that people are looking for, people want a quick fix and nothing really is a quick fix, but this actually kind of is.

(22:34 - 22:44)
Like you're gonna feel different in one session. You're gonna feel something in one session. You're gonna have some type of experience in a session.

(22:44 - 23:01)
I don't know what that's gonna be. It's different for everybody and it's different every time you do it. So my class on Sunday morning, which is, you know, live on Zoom, 9 a.m. California time, there's a five-day replay afterwards after that class.

(23:02 - 23:08)
And so you could do the live class. You don't have to do the live class. I have people that come from all over the world who just sign up and do the replay.

(23:09 - 23:29)
But you can do the replay five times and have a different experience every time. You can have five different experiences, literally from the same class, it's a recording, because you're kind of stripping away the layers of things that you've built up over your heart or, you know, traumas that you've stored in your body. You're kind of pulling those away.

(23:29 - 23:50)
And if you do it consistently and long enough, what you do is you clear out all this stuff from your life and then eventually you just get current to what's going on right now today. You're not reacting out of old stories, old traumas, old things that have happened, which was what was happening to me. People used to say, John Paul, you're overreacting all the time.

(23:50 - 23:59)
You're overreacting. I was like, what do you mean? That's the right reaction. And it wasn't, it was an overreaction to the situation because I was triggered from an old trauma.

(24:01 - 24:10)
But I don't have that overreaction anymore. My reaction is appropriately sized for the situation. Sometimes the situation, I am pissed off.

(24:10 - 24:18)
Like sometimes anger is the appropriate emotion for the situation. It doesn't mean I'm never gonna get pissed off again, Roy. It doesn't mean I'm never getting irritated.

(24:18 - 24:53)
I'm dealing with people out there in the world, right? But it's appropriately sized for what's happening in the moment. I mean, obviously you're doing it a lot, but what's, is it kind of once a week? How often do you recommend people to do it? I recommend once a week, unless something happens and then you're going through something more serious, traumatic, whatever, you're going through grief, you can do it every day. For some people who have a lot of stuff that's happened to them, like myself, I had a lot of heavy trauma.

(24:54 - 25:13)
I was stabbed and I was this and that and all these different things. I recommend doing it more often in the beginning and then sort of pulling back to a once a week schedule. And I'm curious with children, is there an age that you said, no, you shouldn't do it? What age? Yeah, yeah.

(25:13 - 25:29)
I don't think anyone under 14 should do it. Even then it depends on the child if they have any sort of stuff, any trauma, anything going on. I've seen it work well for 14 year olds with a lot of stuff and I've seen it not work at all.

(25:30 - 25:41)
So I generally, I don't usually have kids in my class. Sometimes parents wanna bring their children and I'll say, have you done the class? And they'll go, no. And I go, okay, first you need to come.

(25:42 - 25:51)
You need to come to the class and experience it for yourself. And then you can be the best judge of if it's right for your kid or not, right? I can't be the best judge. You need to know.

(25:52 - 26:21)
You're gonna know better than I am if it's appropriate for your son or your daughter. And also sometimes I swear because I'm from Boston and I can't help it. Is there any studies done? Because with the brain, with kind of say Alzheimer's, by doing regular breath work, could it help with that? I don't know.

(26:21 - 26:35)
I haven't seen that one on Alzheimer's. You know, my dad has Alzheimer's. Not Irish Alzheimer's, which is you forget everything but the resentments, but regular Alzheimer's, which is, you know, it's heartbreaking.

(26:35 - 26:45)
I'm watching him go through that now. I went back to see him last year and he didn't recognize me. And you know, it's sad.

(26:45 - 26:59)
I don't know. You know, I have been doing a bunch of research myself because after seeing that, I was like, wow, I know this is genetic and it's in my family. My dad has it really bad.

(26:59 - 27:17)
My uncle and my aunt both had it really bad. And so, you know, I'm doing all the things like sauna and cold plunging and all the things they recommend for Alzheimer's and certain foods and all that stuff. But I haven't seen any research about this style of breathwork yet.

(27:19 - 27:47)
I have seen some research for PTSD with veterans with PTSD and the research is really good. But I recommend getting an experienced facilitator and ideally someone who has had PTSD themselves and then has worked on it through this modality. You know, I've trained a couple of guys, veterans with PTSD and now they're out there doing it.

(27:47 - 28:04)
So I think they would be better suited for it than me. And I suppose if we can touch on that because sometimes people take away, they do something and they do it once and then they go, oh, I see a financial opportunity here. And I think they can do more damage.

(28:05 - 28:39)
So for those that go, how can they decipher who's good and who's not? That's, I'm so glad you asked this because that's what I'm seeing now. And it's like, I'm trying to not let it bother me, but you're right, it can do a bit of damage if they don't know how to hold the space properly, right? Because what I'm seeing, and I'll get an email from someone. I've never done breathwork before, but if I take your teacher training and then I lead my own teacher trainings and I'm like, excuse me? You're gonna skip the part of actually working with people, you know, one-on-one and helping people.

(28:39 - 28:52)
You just wanna go right to showing people how to do something you've never actually done yourself. I can't even wrap my brain around that. Or I'll see someone who takes a breathwork teacher training and then a year later, they're leading their own breathwork teacher trainings.

(28:52 - 29:12)
And I go, you haven't even had the experience, right? So my experience is that I've been doing this for 15 years and I've had sold out classes of hundreds of people for 15 years. So I've seen everything that can happen in a class, right? And I'm teaching from that place. And so I've got, and I've been doing this online for nine years, so I know how to do that.

(29:13 - 29:26)
So I try to tell people like, I'm teaching from that actual experience. What people are doing now is they're saying, oh, I have 20 years of experience in the wellness industry. Hmm, what does that mean? You don't have 20 years of experience teaching breathwork.

(29:26 - 29:45)
You've got 20 years of experience in the wellness industry. What they're really not saying is they were teaching yoga or hula hoop classes for 19 years and they, I don't know, yeah, you're laughing, but I actually saw a woman who did this who was a hula hoop instructor most of the time. And then she learned breathwork and then she started teaching breathwork.

(29:46 - 29:58)
And she said 20 years of experience in the wellness industry. So they're fudging their real experience. And they're not, you know, they're not telling the truth about how much actual experience they have.

(29:58 - 30:14)
And, or I have, you know, I've had people go through my trainings and basically copy the training and then start doing it themselves and without the experience or the knowledge. And it's just, it's a shame. There's no breathwork police.

(30:14 - 30:25)
There's no barrier for entry. And so hopefully, you know, you do your research and you find someone that is really good and they have actual experience. I may not be the guy for you.

(30:25 - 30:35)
I'm not for everybody. You know, my style is, you know, kind of edgy more so than some other breathwork teachers. I'm not as woo-woo or new agey.

(30:35 - 31:02)
I try to bring the science to it, but there is some mysticism. There is some kind of elements in there that I like and that comes in naturally, but I might not be your teacher, but really do your research first. So, you know, with the 3000 or whatever that you certified, how does the whole process look? Like how long were you doing this? How off? How much time? And then as you're going through it, you're doing your own classes, you might just kind of take us through it.

(31:02 - 31:08)
Sure. Well, so I have two different certifications. I have in-person and then I have online.

(31:09 - 31:21)
And so the in-person, I'm only doing twice a year now in California. I was all over the place. I, you know, I was in Switzerland doing it and I was in Florida, all over the country.

(31:21 - 31:30)
And I just said, you know, I love doing this, but I love my kids more. I want to be home with my kids. They're never going to be these ages again.

(31:30 - 31:45)
And I don't need to be the biggest breathwork teacher in the world at the expense of not seeing my kids, not watching my kids grow up. So I only do the in-persons twice a year and I keep them pretty small. I try to keep them below, you know, 20 people.

(31:45 - 31:54)
So 16 people was the last couple of trainings that I did. And then I've filmed those. I filmed them, I think eight or nine years ago.

(31:54 - 32:13)
And then I filmed, I refilmed them again and I rebooted it. So I've got them, I've got a couple trainings filmed and in there, and then I've got all these questions and certifications, and then I do these Q and A's with my students every couple months, like every three months, I do an online Q and A to support them. And there's no charge for that.

(32:13 - 32:42)
That's included in the training that I do. And so I will certify you in person or online, but, you know, and I've watched some of my students just go and become tremendous teachers, like leading these incredible classes and doing a fantastic job. And I, you know, and I tell people, because now one of the tactics that people are using is like, oh, if you don't know what you're doing, you're gonna re-traumatize somebody.

(32:42 - 32:56)
And I said, I don't know about that. I think you can put somebody in a situation where they have some trauma come up and then you need to know how to handle it. But they're using scare tactics to scare people into their trainings.

(32:56 - 33:21)
And it's like, there's a medium ground, there's a middle ground of like, yeah, you don't wanna do a training that's online for $10 for a certification and then say you're certified. Cause I saw one of those recently and I went, oh my God, like, is this real? Like, this can't be real, right? And it's like a three hour course and now you're a certified breathwork instructor. That's not gonna prepare you properly.

(33:21 - 33:37)
And then the other side of that, the other side of that spectrum is two years and $20,000 of going through this training for two years. Well, it doesn't take two years in my experience. There's not like, they're adding in all these things like ecstatic dance.

(33:38 - 33:58)
Like ecstatic dance is great, but it has nothing to do with taking someone through a breathwork session safely. So there's a middle ground, which is where I feel like I land in, where my in-person training is four days long and I will make sure you can lead someone through a session or a class safely. I give you a script, everything to say, everything.

(33:59 - 34:09)
And then we go over literally in real time sessions, you're doing sessions with people. And like, these are the things that are gonna come up and this is how you deal with them. And this is what's gonna come up and this is how you deal with it.

(34:09 - 34:26)
And so how you handle the situations and the things that arise in the room during a class or a session. And I mean, I know prices change and everything. So this is the 23rd of July, 2026.

(34:26 - 34:47)
So people can be listening to this in 10 years time, but what's the price point? Yeah, in-person is, if you get the early bird pricing, it's $3,500 for the certification. And that doesn't include the hotel and your flight and your meals, obviously, that stuff. I don't do that because everybody has different diet plans.

(34:47 - 34:58)
I can't do, you know what I mean? It becomes a job. Oh my God, I did it at one training in Tulum, Mexico. And it's just like, everybody's got a different diet issue.

(34:58 - 35:06)
It's a nightmare. So you go out and you get your own food. I do it in a place that has all these different restaurants and supermarkets and you can choose whatever.

(35:06 - 35:20)
So the $3,500 is for the training. Online, I think it's on sale right now, I think for $2,000. And so it's much, you know, much less expensive online.

(35:20 - 35:31)
It's much cheaper online, right? But then you don't get the in-person, you know, to sit there with me and ask me questions and to do sessions with people in there. That's sort of the downside of that. You're gonna have to go do that on your own.

(35:32 - 35:47)
So you don't get the real-time experience that you would get in person. However, I've had thousands of people do the online training and now they're out there successfully leading people in breath work and without issue. No issues that I've known of have come up.

(35:48 - 36:12)
So I think I've done a great job with my online training, preparing people and getting people to lead safely and effectively. The real key for me is like, if you can make someone safe in the room doing this work, then you can take them deep and they can have an experience. If they don't feel safe, then they're not gonna go there and it's not gonna be a good experience for them.

(36:12 - 36:35)
So it's really about the safety that they're feeling in the room. And also knowing, you know, when to back off or when to push, you know, that's kind of tricky, right? I have the tendency, because I used to be a trainer, to push a little hard in my classes and I'll say, come on, you've done something harder in your life, Roy, than lay on the floor and breathe. You can do this, it's not that hard.

(36:35 - 36:56)
So what I was doing when I first started doing this work is like, I brought the trainer into the room and it worked really well because people need that push in the beginning of breathwork. The first 10, 15 minutes of breathwork is uncomfortable and I don't like it and it's weird and my head is fighting me and it's saying, don't do this and quit. And so they kind of need that push.

(36:56 - 37:14)
And then the second half of my class, I like to kind of crack open people emotionally. So I'll say more emotional type language, you know, where I'll say, you know, everybody wants somebody to come and show up and love them for who they are, the way they are. But we don't often love ourselves for who we are, the way we are.

(37:14 - 37:27)
We teach people how to love us. We show people how to love us by how we love ourselves and how we love ourselves is how we show up for ourselves and do the uncomfortable work. Right now, this breathing right here, right now, is self-love, it is self-care.

(37:27 - 37:33)
Right here, right now, you are doing the work. You are doing self-care. This every breath is self-love.

(37:34 - 37:45)
So I'll say things like that in my class to sort of crack people open emotionally. And I've been navigating that for 15 years, it's a dance. And I tell my students, like, you don't have to say anything.

(37:46 - 38:14)
If you can just get people to breathe and keep them doing the breath work, they're gonna have their own experience, right? It's just about getting them to breathe. However, these are some tools that you can use to move the session in one direction or another. And what about, because I think I did about 10 different types, different people, but they were always included in the event that you went to.

(38:14 - 38:35)
So you was never paying for it, but like not doing the course to be certified, but when people come, obviously you're at a different level because of all your experience and everything. So how much must a person pay per session when they come? Not virtually, no, but in person. And then when someone's starting off, what's the kind of going rate? Yeah, that's a good question.

(38:35 - 38:52)
So I get this question a lot of my trainings and I wanna make it affordable for people. So I charge less, but I get more people too than most people, right? So there's that side of it. I'll have students that do my training and they're charging double what I'm charging for a class or for a session.

(38:53 - 39:06)
And I don't care. For me, it's not about the money, it's about helping people. I always say like, the more people I help, the bigger my life becomes, the better my life is, and the money is a byproduct.

(39:07 - 39:15)
I don't focus on the money. I focus on helping more people, as many people as I can. Now with that said, I wanna answer your question directly because I think it's fair.

(39:16 - 39:33)
My online class is $29, but your first time is $10 off. So it's $19, which I think is the price of a burrito these days, depending on where you are, right? So $19 for your first breathwork class. And there's a five-day replay afterwards.

(39:33 - 39:48)
So you can do that five times, right? My in-person class depends on the city. If I'm here in Bend, Oregon, where I live, it's $45 because it's five minutes down the street from me. If I'm in Los Angeles, it's $65 because I have to get on a plane.

(39:48 - 39:54)
The space is more expensive for me to rent. I have to pay a sound person. I have to pay for a gong person.

(39:54 - 40:00)
So those expenses are much higher in Los Angeles. So I charge $20 more per person. I charge $65.

(40:01 - 40:15)
So those are the rates. They go anywhere from $19 to $65 for a class. And because, yeah, the gong person- But I've seen students of mine charging $75 for an online class.

(40:15 - 40:21)
Wow, that's a lot. Okay. I mean, if it's working, if they're a bluff, you know, get it.

(40:23 - 40:26)
And you know, it's not about the money for me. I don't, you know. Yeah, yeah.

(40:26 - 40:45)
With the gong person. So, like, is the facilitator able to do that? Or do you have to have someone separate? Because you want to be kind of looking after and watching the people and everything. Like, how many people's needed? And are you providing the music then as well? Because sometimes, like I know some of them, some of my brothers like a techno kind of music.

(40:46 - 40:53)
They all have different kind of things. Yeah, I can't stand when someone uses techno music. For me, I just, it's awful.

(40:53 - 41:05)
I want music that motivates me in the beginning of the class. And then in the second half of the class of the breath work, the active breathing, I want music that moves me emotionally. And techno just doesn't move me emotionally.

(41:05 - 41:18)
It's not gonna do what landslide from Fleetwood Mac does. Like landslide from Fleetwood Mac makes everyone cry. Fix You from Coldplay breaks everyone down, right? And so those are the songs I use in my classes.

(41:19 - 41:32)
I bring it, I make a playlist for every single class I've ever done for the last 15 years. Most of them for the last 10 or 12, I think you can find on my Spotify, Breathe with JP on my Spotify. I have all my playlists for all my classes on there.

(41:33 - 41:44)
And I use a lot of the same music because it works in a certain way for me. So I make the playlist. I've got a guy doing this music for me because the music will go up or down.

(41:44 - 41:51)
There's gongs on either side of the room. I'm actually working one of the gongs. I've got somebody else working the other gong.

(41:51 - 42:12)
And then I've got people in the room going around, students of mine that I've trained going around the room, checking on people, making sure they're okay. I used to do all of it. And then I discovered like, what are you doing? What are you doing, Joe Paul? You can't be the DJ and the checking on people and saying everything and playing the gong.

(42:12 - 42:25)
Like I used to do it all, all by myself. I might do that for a small private class, you know, cause I can do that, you know, but I don't do it for the big classes anymore. And I don't recommend it to my students.

(42:25 - 42:37)
I tell my students like, listen, if you've got more than 10, 15 people, you've got to have somebody there helping you. You could do a class of 10 by yourself. But once you start to get over those numbers, you need help.

(42:37 - 43:00)
You need someone else because you need to keep, you know, moving the whole class and somebody might sit up with an issue and you need somebody to go address that for you. With your online, then for people that are doing it, is it pay as you go? Or do you have kind of like a subscription monthly or yearly as well? Yeah, I wish I did a subscription. I never did it.

(43:00 - 43:09)
And there was a reason behind it, something to do with the music and all of that. So it's just pay as you go. Yeah, every week you pay, you know, $29.

(43:10 - 43:28)
And I've had people that have been coming forever for years. And now I'm doing an advanced breathwork class. And for my students that have been coming forever that wanted something a little longer, a little different, and there's some breath holds in there and we're breathing for a longer stretch of time.

(43:28 - 43:57)
And I don't do the whole 10 minute talk at the beginning about, you know, the things that can happen and all that stuff. This is for somebody who's done breathwork 10 times already, at least, right? So we're diving into other techniques and rhythms of breathing and different things. Do you do, or have you seen people bringing it to corporations? Because I mean, we see, yeah, like smaller corporations, smaller companies, but a lot of ones that are doing bad.

(43:57 - 44:16)
I mean, sometimes people are thinking, I mean, I've heard of people saying, yeah, if we could get them to do, you know, the ayahuasca, then they'll actually realize about humanity and everything. But I think breathwork would do it because you don't see people, yeah, I mean, you mentioned yourself, sometimes you just have a, you can get angry and things like that. But I think you're way more controlled.

(44:16 - 44:36)
You're more present during the moment when you're doing it. But is there people embracing it in corporations? There are. I have some sort of, so I have enough experience now with different corporations to go like, first of all, you know, I've had, I've had owners kind of blindside their employees.

(44:36 - 44:51)
You know, like they're at a corporate retreat and they're like, oh yeah, we're gonna go do this breathing thing, you know? And they don't know what it is. And I don't think that that's appropriate. I think they need to be prepared properly because it is very, it can produce a big emotional result.

(44:52 - 45:11)
And then now that person is having kind of a, a real emotional experience around their coworkers and that's not fair. So I make sure that the people know what they're getting into, that they, you know, know ahead of time. I find that, you know, I've done it for Nike in person a few times.

(45:11 - 45:21)
I've done it for LinkedIn online. I think it works better online for corporations because you're in your home, you're in your safe space. This is why I started doing breathwork online.

(45:21 - 45:42)
Like, you don't wanna cry next to Janet from HR, right? It just doesn't, it just doesn't work. Like, you don't, most people don't wanna do that. So, you know, so I think that the online space is really great for this where, you know, you can turn off your camera and you can be in your room and you can just have this big experience and you can let go.

(45:43 - 45:59)
So I find that for corporations, it's tremendous online, but I will have this. So what happens a lot is I do a class and then some woman comes up to me after the class and she goes, my husband would never do this, but I think he could do this with you because you're a guy guy. So I'm gonna make him come.

(45:59 - 46:11)
I go, all right. And then the next class, I see the husband out in the audience and he's sitting there as I'm talking and he, I can see him just going, oh my God, I can't believe she dragged me to this shit on a Friday night and I'm paying for this. And you know, I can see him.

(46:11 - 46:21)
He's just, he thinks it's all nonsense. He thinks it's all BS and I'm like, that's my guy. I'm gonna crack that guy open because the beauty of this style of breathwork is you don't have to believe in it.

(46:22 - 46:53)
If I can just get you to do it, you're gonna have an experience. And ironically, the people who are like the most sort of shut down and keep it all in and don't talk about it and don't do therapy and don't do any stuff to work on yourself. Those are the people who have the biggest experiences in my classes most of the time, right? Not that other people who work on themselves don't, but like people who hold it all in, it's unexpected and they have this big emotional release and they come up to me afterwards and they go, oh my God, I can't believe that.

(46:54 - 47:07)
I thought this was nonsense and I had such an incredible experience. Can I give you a hug? And they start crying on me in the lobby and it's incredible. And then it's like, you know, this is the captain of the SWAT team, you know? And he's like, I'm gonna make the whole SWAT team do it.

(47:07 - 47:30)
And I'm like, I don't think the SWAT team wants to have an emotional breakdown next to all the other SWAT team members that they need to have their back. Why don't we have them do it online? Like, let's do it online for the SWAT team guys. And just curious when you were doing Nike, when you were kind of doing the talking, did you tell them just do it? That would have been too easy, I think.

(47:31 - 47:56)
You know, that class was actually funny because it was these inner city kids, athletes who had turned into Nike representatives. So most of them were like African-American and sort of grew up in the inner city and they were like former athletes. And they had just, this one class I'm thinking of, they had just come out of a seminar where this guy just talked at him for three hours straight.

(47:56 - 48:08)
So, you know, they're kind of restless and they're young, right? They're in their twenties and their thirties. And they come into this room with me and there's nothing but towels laying on this floor. There's like, you know, I think there was 200 of them.

(48:09 - 48:25)
And I'm trying to get their attention and I'm trying to do my presentation and saying, you know, these things can happen and they're goofing around and they're not really listening. It's like that movie, Dangerous Minds with Michelle Pfeiffer, right? And I'm like trying to get their attention. And finally I said, listen, you don't have to listen to me.

(48:25 - 48:34)
But when you start crying like a little bitch, don't say that I didn't prepare you properly. And they're like, oh, oh no. And then like all of a sudden I have their attention now.

(48:34 - 48:53)
You have to know who you're working with, right? This is one of the things I teach my students. Am I working with like inner city, you know, youth or am I working with corporate executives? Who do I have in front of me? That's important. So I had to get their attention because I really wanted to prepare them properly for this class.

(48:53 - 49:01)
And I did. And I was able to say like, listen, you don't have to believe me this thing's gonna work, but if you do it, you're gonna have an experience. Tell me that I'm wrong afterwards.

(49:01 - 49:12)
I want you to come up and tell me that I'm wrong afterwards, but you have to really go for it all out before you can say that. And they went for it and they went hard because these were athletes. So they went super hard.

(49:12 - 49:19)
I was like, oh man, I had to cut it back. I had to shorten the playlist of the class. And this is another thing I'll teach my students.

(49:19 - 49:26)
Like sometimes you need to make it longer. Sometimes you need to make it shorter because they were all going so hard. They all had technique, you know, 15 minutes into the class.

(49:26 - 49:34)
Every hand in the room was up in the air like this. And I said, oh geez, you know, I gotta pull this back a little bit. So I do that.

(49:34 - 50:01)
And then afterwards I do this thing where you reach out and you pull moments into your heart, moments of gratitude, moments of love from your life after the breath works over. And you know what, they lined up and they said incredible things to me. You know, they told me about people that they lost and that they loved and that they missed and that those people came in during their session and they had so much love and gratitude for those people and that they came to them during the session.

(50:01 - 50:13)
And so I've heard that so many times. It's never happened to me personally, but I've heard that every single class I've ever done for the last 15 years. So I know it happens, you know.

(50:13 - 50:27)
I know it happens, you know, it hasn't happened to me. I have, I've had other experiences which are pretty incredible. Like, you know, feeling connected to the universe and higher power and different things like God or whatever, you know.

(50:27 - 50:45)
And again, I don't share that very often because I don't want to set up that expectation for people because it's different for everybody, right? And it's different every time you do it. So I like to let people have their own journey and experience without me setting up any expectations. Yeah, excellent.

(50:46 - 51:02)
And just finally, I mean, with, I mean, you've trained thousands who in turn are going out doing is teaching a lot of people and then they're training people. So the ripple effect is incredible. I haven't, I mean, which is great for humanity when there's more people.

(51:03 - 51:23)
Have you seen any kind of like Netflix series or a movie or anything where there's breast work? Because that's what we needed to get to the kind of, the masses. Like, is there any film or anything where they're actually showing it or a documentary? No, there needs to be a great documentary on it. I'm like, please, somebody do a documentary and I would love to be in it.

(51:23 - 51:48)
I'd love to do it. There was a show, right? So there's a show called Flake and it was in the second season with Will Arnett, right? And so Will Arnett's coming to my class at this time and I'm watching the show, right, with him in it. And in the show, there's a breathwork instructor and he starts making fun of this breathwork instructor and doing breathwork, but he's at my classes.

(51:48 - 52:02)
So I said to him, there was a handful of us, you know, that were going to dinner after the class. I said, you know, you're making fun of a breathwork guy in the class, in the show, and you're doing the class. He's like, I know, it's life imitating art, art imitating life.

(52:02 - 52:19)
I know, here I am. You know, it's a show about relapsing and I relapsed and all this kind of stuff, right? And so we were laughing. Will said one of the funniest things I've ever heard, which was, you know, he'll go, I was doing the breathwork and I'll be breathing and then this song will come on.

(52:19 - 52:37)
And I'm like, why would he pick this song? It's just like, you think like this song's terrible and all of a sudden it makes you like, you hear something in it and it just makes you break down and cry. And it's so true, right? For my classes anyways, I think. I don't know about techno music.

(52:39 - 52:50)
I like to make fun of it for breathwork. I just, but there's an audience for it. I mean, I've gone to classes online and they're playing techno and there's 40 people in the class and I'm like, okay, I guess people are into this.

(52:52 - 53:06)
I mean, I actually like it myself, but I've tried different ones. I've like, so I get totally different experiences. I think the thing for the techno where it could work is that it's got like a beat that you could kind of get into a rhythm with the breathwork.

(53:06 - 53:15)
So I can see that. I can see that effect because there is like some of the old school breathwork stuff is done with drumming. And so that could translate into the techno.

(53:15 - 53:29)
For me personally, I like, I want to be moved and I want to move other people. And so for that to happen, I have to play music that moves me. And I really believe what comes from the heart goes to the heart.

(53:29 - 53:44)
So when I allow myself to get vulnerable, I feel like this is my special sauce in my classes. I allow myself to get really vulnerable and I get emotional in my classes. And people can hear that coming through in my voice during the class, and that allows them to get emotional and release and open up.

(53:45 - 53:57)
Because what comes from the heart goes to the heart. So if you hear my heart open up and you hear me get vulnerable, that gives you permission to do the same as well. I'm just curious because, you know, they've modified the frequency.

(53:57 - 54:12)
I don't know, is it 440 is the bad one? It should be 434 or something, forget it. But if you had like an orchestra with real music, with musicians and done it, I wonder how that experience would be. I'm sure it would be amazing.

(54:14 - 54:18)
Yeah, it would be beautiful. I would be down for it. I would definitely love to try it.

(54:18 - 54:24)
Yeah, yeah. Well, listen, I totally enjoyed it, John Paul. You made sure you let the listeners know where they can find you.

(54:25 - 54:46)
Yeah, my website is breathewithjp.com, B-R-E-A-T-H-E, with W-I-T-H-J-P, not breathwithjp, breathewithjp.com. And I have another website, Breathwork Teacher Training, that's for the online courses. But you can find that through breathewithjp.com. And I'm on all the social media things. My wife runs those accounts for me.

(54:47 - 54:56)
I can't deal with it. But I do all the... I make the videos and she does all the... If you start doing breathwork, you'd relax and you'd be able to manage it. I did manage it for years.

(54:56 - 55:04)
And now I'm just like, I can't. She'll tell me, we have to make some videos for this and for that and the thing. And I'm like, oh God, okay, here we go.

(55:04 - 55:23)
Let's make the videos. And so, I'm on all the things, all the social media, but the main website, if you wanna do a class online or you wanna come to a training, breathewithjp.com. And I always say, have an open mind, try something different, try someone different. You might like my style, you might not.

(55:26 - 55:31)
Listen, totally enjoyed it. And make sure I put the links both on the audio and the video. Thank you, Roy.

(55:31 - 55:35)
Thanks for having me. Yeah, no problem. So, that's all for the meditation podcast.

(55:35 - 55:52)
You'll find other episodes on meditationpodcast.org. You'll find everything about me. Scan the QR code or go to roycollen.com. You'll find all my podcasts, along with all the different businesses I'm doing. If you're looking for virtual assistance, go to va.world. Until next week, take care.