Know Ya Flow
Women in flow, share what they know. Hear women's stories of how they've grown, what they know, and how they are living in flow.
Know Ya Flow
From Hairstylist to Healer - Bri's Journey of Authenticity and Transformation with Briana Pharos
Discover the transformative journey of Briana Pharos 🖤 Somatic Practitioner, Breathwork Facilitator & Beauty Ritualist as she shares her path from thriving hairstylist to a heartfelt healer in our latest episode.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to leave a successful career behind to pursue something that truly resonates with your soul? Bri opens up about facing her fears and stepping out of her comfort zone to align her life with her genuine passions. Her candid reflections offer valuable insights into the power of authenticity and the courage it takes to walk a path less traveled.
Bri's story is not just about career changes; it's about embracing personal growth and self-discovery. We explore her experiences with breathwork and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) and how these practices have been pivotal in her own healing journey as she uses them in her coaching practices.
Bri shares how these modalities have empowered her clients to achieve transformative results, highlighting the magic between these healing techniques.
As Bri details her journey from burnout in the beauty industry to finding empowerment through holistic practices, listeners are encouraged to consider their own paths to fulfillment and the potential for profound change.
Our conversation takes a reflective turn as we discuss the nuances of living in alignment with one's values and the importance of self-care. Brie emphasizes the significance of rejecting societal pressures and embracing independence, especially for women crafting their own definitions of success. She shares practical tips on managing life’s chaos using simple tools like Google Calendar, and how slowing down can lead to unexpected growth and contentment. Join us for an inspiring dialogue that challenges traditional norms and champions the power of connecting with your true essence through practices like breathwork and EFT.
If you're interested in working with Bri you can check out her website https://www.beautyandbreath.com or find her on instagram @BrianaPharos
Welcome to Know your Flow podcast, where women in flow share what they know. I'm your host, Lauren Barton. Join me as we talk to women and hear their stories on what they know, how they've grown and living in flow. Welcome to today's episode of Know your Flow podcast. Today on the podcast, we have Brie Farrows with us. She is a somatic practitioner, breathwork facilitator and beauty ritualist. She also is my coach that I worked with for over, I say, a year and a half. We work together in different ways and I'm so excited that she is coming on to the podcast today to talk a little bit about her journey and how she got to where she is now.
Speaker 1:It's really funny when you work with somebody as a coach and work with them as a practitioner, you don't really know like I didn't really know the ins and outs of her story. I just kind of saw her in this one way and I've always been curious because I knew that she had this salon and this big career and this, all of these things in her life for most of her twenties. And now I see her moving into more of a healing space and in more of an authentic place in her life. So I was really curious to ask her those types of questions. We could have gone into a lot about breath work and the ins and outs of that and EFT, which is another thing that she offers, but I really wanted to talk to her about how the fuck did you do what you're doing? How do you move out of this sort of safe space of a career as a hairstylist into this different journey? Like, how do we move out of things that don't really feel aligned for us anymore into a new space where things feel better and where we're doing more of our soul's work as opposed to the work that we feel that we're supposed to do or that's comfortable? And how do we break through that fear? So we talk a lot about that and then, yeah, we talk about breath work and the things that she offers now and the way that she's kind of moved out of doing kind of the traditional what you're supposed to do and what she was used to doing to now into something that feels more fulfilling.
Speaker 1:So I hope that you enjoy this episode. I know I did. Brie has so much to offer and, again, I'm so honored that she took the time to be on the podcast with us and I hope you'll enjoy this episode. So today we have Brie with us on the podcast. Hi Brie, Hi Lauren.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. Brie is my. I guess I always say my coach, like whenever I quote you, I'm like my coach Brie says, or like when I'm working with Brie, she says or we found out, or whatever. So, yeah, it feels really good to have you on the podcast today to share your wisdom, your knowledge and just some of your experiences and things that you have to share. So thank you for being here.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. I appreciate that reflection and yeah, I mean I've learned so much as well in our time together so I'm glad to hear all of that. A little backstory I guess I first met you at and I've like DM do this.
Speaker 1:I don't know, probably two years ago I first met you at and I've like DM'd you this, I don't know, probably two years ago now, that I met you at Jane's class like Jane Edo I don't know her actual last name either and I remember I was feeling like really weird. I hated my outfit and I was like traveling from Virginia to Colorado and I was there and I was like, oh, I feel so weird and out of place and blah blah. And I remember you came up to me I don't know why, but you came up to me and you're like, hey, like what's up? Blah, blah, and you were like what's your Instagram? And we started like follow each other. And I just remember like, oh wow, that girl was really nice to me. That was really sweet.
Speaker 2:And then I started following along on your through Instagram and email, subscribed and all that stuff, and so that was really cool that we met that way and then started working together. Yeah, oh, my gosh, janey, those classes must have been like 2018, 19, 18. Cause I still have my salons. Yeah, yeah, so cool. Oh, I mean, you probably just looked really cool and I was like girl, let's be friends, cause I don't really know anybody in here and you look friendly.
Speaker 1:Let's chat Exactly. Yeah, I think your hair was red at the time.
Speaker 2:Oh, for sure, 2018, then yeah.
Speaker 1:So tell us a little bit about you. So you were a hairdresser for a while. Were you a hairdresser right out of like beauty school?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, let's see, were you a hairdresser right out of like beauty school? Yeah, yeah, let's see. I, when I was in high school, I thought I wanted to study psychology which is funny because kind of ended up doing that anyway but I did not do well in school. Just the sitting still and taking tests, like that whole model of education really doesn't work for me and I did not want to sit in school for another four years. So I was looking at other options. I was like maybe nursing? Oh no, did a shadowing of that? Bless them all, I cannot do that work. And then I think we had a high school career day and somebody from Floyd's 99, this like chain barbershop slash salon place, I'm sure. Yeah, you've heard of it, right, shop slash salon place.
Speaker 1:I'm sure? Yeah, you've heard of it, right, we don't have those? No, we, but I feel like I have seen the sign or whatever Cause. Were you living in Colorado?
Speaker 2:Did you grow up there? I did yeah, and they started in Colorado and then kind of maybe in California. Either way, they're like West coast kind of and they're like a step up from great clips or like cost cutters or something like that I would say. But she came through and she did a demonstration for the class and I just really liked her vibe. It was funny. I was like she's wearing a hat, I can't even really see her hair, but like just the way she talked about her work and how excited she was, I was like all right, that could be a possibility.
Speaker 2:My grandmother was a hairdresser on my mom's side. I was just like you know, that could be. That could be a kind of a plan B. If I don't want to go to school, then I could do, you know, one more year or something like that. I took a gap year and then I ended up going to hair school, tried to be a tattoo artist.
Speaker 2:In between the second I had like an apprenticeship and, yeah, learned how to do like body piercing and worked at a couple different shops, then ended up going to hair school and my one goal getting out of there was to work at Floyd's 99. I actually did work there as a receptionist in high school after that person came and I really loved it and it just seems like can make some pretty good money and just talk to different people and that every day was the was different. And when I got out of hair school, I just wanted to work at Floyd's 99 and I got a job right away and I actually I think my first job was at Fantastic Sam's for like a month but then got a job at Floyd's 99, actually here in Nevada now where I live, but I at the time it was like 40 minutes away, so I was driving 40 minutes for like $500 paychecks every two weeks. I was like this is bullshit, like shattered the dream and then ended up booth renting.
Speaker 2:I found a place that was near my house at the time and this woman was willing to share a suite with me. We're still friends now, like gosh, almost 15 years later and she gave me a lot of her overflow. I had a suite with me we're still friends now, like gosh almost 15 years later and she gave me a lot of her overflow. I had a small following online, so I started to get more clients in my chair and then I just booth rented for the majority of my career, opened a couple different salons as well. They were all booth rent and then, yeah, that's kind of. I was a hairdresser full-time for about seven years before I ultimately burnt myself the out.
Speaker 2:Started doing like fashion shows and photo shoots and working for manufacturers and educating, and so I don't know, I I identify with a lot of the symptoms of ADHD and autism and, knowing what I know now and looking back at that, I'm like, yeah, girl, like a little hyper-focused, it's just obsessed with hair and it was all I did and just lived and breathed it. And then, yeah, burnt myself out real good and kind of started to reel back a little bit.
Speaker 1:That's pretty incredible that you booth rented right off the bat, so you never really like worked for anybody, although that person like gave you their overflow, which was great. But I was going to ask, why do you think you were able to be so successful in it? But it was because you felt like you were hyper-focused in it and you were obsessed.
Speaker 2:I was obsessed and I was so confident, I was so fearless in such a way, that I've tried to embody since it's just, it's not the same. I think there's a beautiful naivety, mixed with just lack of knowledge or experience that comes in your like late teens, early twenties, that I just rode and I just I was. This is my path, you know, and I was really committed and just stuck to it. I got all kinds of tattoos Cause I was like, oh, I mean that's like a whole other side tangent, but they were a big resource for me in a lot of ways. But I got a bunch because I do not want any other job. I'm going to make it so that I can't have any other job and I'm committed to being a hairdresser and being successful at this. And, yeah, nailed it. It was like not my actual version of success. I got to kind of figure that out later, but I definitely achieved what I was taught, conditioned all of that it just came at an expense that I wasn't willing to pay in the long term.
Speaker 1:Did you have any friends or were they all hairdresser friends you worked with?
Speaker 2:They were all hairdresser friends I worked with, or clients or friends that became clients that I only saw in the salon. You know what I mean. Like I remember telling people oh, if you want to hang out, come get your hair done, because that's the only time I'm social. I think a lot of hairdressers have this and I actually, as I started to slow down and not do hair as much, I started to notice wow, like I feel weird, I'm not getting my social connection needs met and I don't know how to do that because this is the only way I did it for so long. But I think a lot of hairdressers struggle with that where they're like I get all of that met at work. I don't really want to talk or be around anybody when I'm not at work. I need me time.
Speaker 1:Was it about the money either?
Speaker 2:Oh for sure the money was so good. Oh my gosh, it's amazing Like I wish I. I didn't, really I didn't come from money and I wasn't taught a lot about finances and so I feel like I spent it just as fast as I was making it. But my tax return or whenever I would file, I'd be like wait, I made how much this year, like what. But yeah, it was definitely like I reached the whatever like six figure stylist thing, like within my second or third year of doing hair.
Speaker 1:And how many hours were you working? Oh, that's a great question.
Speaker 2:At least five days a week. Probably. It was Tuesday through Saturday to start. In the first few years I think I did one to nine. I liked having my mornings, and then I slowly cut that down over time to four days, and then I think I did three days, so I worked towards the end. It was Wednesday through Friday and that was really nice. And then I think I did three days, so I worked towards the end.
Speaker 2:It was Wednesday through Friday and that was really nice. But then I packed in more and yeah, I think when I started doing hair I charged $35 for a haircut and at the end I mean I still do hair now one day a week and now I charge $130 for an hour and it's just like the hourly rate. You're not doing gratuity and all of that, and yeah, so that's over the course of 13 years. But I only did it which this is wild I only did it full time for seven or eight years and I've been doing it now for 13. So I've almost done it part time for the same amount of time.
Speaker 2:Yeah it was weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you were doing all that, living your life super successful, all that living your life super successful. But I will say I feel like 2014 to 2018 were really a time to thrive in the hair industry. Wow, with, like, instagram coming about and all that stuff and like, did you love that whole aspect of social media, growing your Instagram and all that, or not? Really?
Speaker 2:Oh, totally, I was that's kind of how I started to get more recognition in the industry was I grew a following and then I started working with this pretty well-known hairdresser who's based here in Denver and doing shows, and that was how I made most of my clientele, how I got the salon really successful. We won awards and all that more like local stuff. But I taught classes on social media for a little bit. There You're really doing all the things. I remember my partner at the time. He referenced something like the phrase like burning the candle at both ends, and I had never heard that before and I was like what does that mean? And he's like that's you. I was like what are you? I don't get what I mean. I looked it up. I was like, oh, is there something wrong with that? Like I don't understand.
Speaker 1:So then, what happened?
Speaker 2:Let's see. In 2017, it was right before I went to London for the first time with an artistic team that I was a part of we were going to do this really cool show at the Royal Albert Hall, which is the same venue that the Beatles have played, and like a whole bunch of other cool things I was like, oh my God, this peak the peak of my career, probably and I started to develop really crazy neck pain. It was all through my like left side and shoulder and it was like debilitating. When it would flare up and get really bad, I couldn't look to the left and all the hairdressers that worked with me would be like you hurt your neck again, huh Cause. I'd be like walking around, not being able to turn my head, and the shampoo bowls at our salon were up against the wall, which are my least favorite, so I'm having to like turn my whole body. I much prefer behind, but that started to happen and I was 27, 26, no, in 2017, 25 or 26. And I was just really young to be developing chronic pain.
Speaker 2:That had no trigger. I didn't. I was never in an accident, you know. It just happened. I thought, oh, I'm sleeping wrong. So I got, I started changing my sleeping position. I got new pillows, I got a new mattress, I got massages, chiropractic, like everything short of going to a like a doctor, doctor and have. I was scared they were going to be like we need to perform surgery and I was going to be like absolutely not, yeah. So that just started to happen around that time and it would flare up every few months and I would say, oh, I'm just sleeping wrong on it, and that was kind of the first sign for my body that I really couldn't ignore. There were other ones that I had been ignoring for years and would numb with alcohol or you know different partying, and that one was just, you know, I can't fucking turn my head now, so kind of have to listen and I can't exactly remember the linear chain of events.
Speaker 2:But whatever path I ended up finding myself on, I eventually found this thing called network spinal analysis and it's like a specific type of chiropractic work that the practitioner will work with your nervous system in a way that's very gentle. There's no cracking, it's really about breath and it's about just letting the system know it's safe. And so a different hairdresser friend of mine who actually works with Jane Ito told me to check that out. And I went and the guy was like boop, dee, boop on the back of my spine and these two gigantic breaths came out of my body that I was scared of at first Cause. I was like Whoa, this is so involuntary, what is happening? And he's like, no, just let it happen. He's like watching the whole thing, like watching me freak out, and they came out of my body. It felt amazing. It was like such a peak experience. I've never experienced it again, which is probably a good thing.
Speaker 2:But, um, and then I got up and I could look to my left and I was like what the hell was that Like? So that kind of just piqued my interest when it came to working with the body in a more intentional, conscious, aware way. And yeah, cause I'd always I'd been like working out and doing the things to aesthetically look a certain way and quote, take care of myself. But it wasn't. It wasn't helping the neck, it wasn't helping my stress, my anxiety and I think a lot of that was just getting held. And in some lineages of thought they'll say that the left side of your body is connected to your more receiving side, your feminine side, and then the right would be your giving, your masculine, and so I kind of interpret, or like make meaning of this as my inability to receive.
Speaker 2:I was giving a lot at that time, like just giving, giving, giving, doing so much work for free, basically killing myself for what?
Speaker 2:For like more ego-driven stuff that really wasn't helping anything or really wasn't even aligned with my values, and I didn't know myself that well, which I don't suppose most people do in their early twenties. That's kind of the whole point. Right, just figure it out. But yeah, it still flares up now and then it's very, very rare but it's. I can communicate with my body in a different way now and I understand how to treat it and work with it and kind of talk to it, you know, and yeah, but that was kind of the like I was burning out, I didn't know what that really meant, and I think that can be very common for a lot of folks, like you don't know what you're experiencing if you don't have the language for it, and then, once you have the language and context to kind of apply, it's like, oh yeah, that's totally what was happening, shit yeah, well, I also assume too that you were probably getting a lot of praise for the amount of work that you were doing, for how young you were.
Speaker 1:Probably to. People were probably oh my god, you're so young and you have done this and that and that. I'm sure that was really huge and happening a lot. During that time, I'm sure a lot of people were praising you for how much you were working and all that stuff. And I'm wondering too were you mentally feeling like, oh my God, I'm giving so much to these people and I feel burnt out? Or it was just your body? Or were you just ignoring any of the mental chatter, saying, hey, this is feeling like a lot, these people are annoying me. Like, did you feel frustration at all?
Speaker 2:or not really, oh, all the time, all the time. Yeah, I think my former partner would probably say like, oh my gosh, I had to listen to her. I think you know I grew up in a pretty like many, many people. If our parents were born in the 50s, 60s, they grew up with parents who did not know how to communicate very well. We're not at all. It's very rare that they were emotionally available or really had the emotional intelligence required to push a secure human being out into the world. And my parents were a little. You know we're better than their parents in some aspects, but ultimately the environment that I grew up in was very passive, aggressive and manipulative and not clear, not direct, and we have a great relationship now. We've worked through a lot of stuff, but because of that, my strategies for communicating when I was more active in the hair industry were covert.
Speaker 2:Contracts is like a term I would I would call them where I do this for you, so you will do this for me, but there's no communication about that. That's not like an actual agreement. And so then, when they don't do the thing, I'm like what the fuck? Like? I have killed myself to do this for you and you're not going to do the thing for me Like this is give and take what the hell.
Speaker 2:But it's just not actually like a real healthy way to. It's not a healthy dynamic to work with in the world and you are when you give and give and give, there are people who will be like sweet, thank you so much for all this shit I didn't ask you to do it's really benefiting me Like I don't know. I'm not going to reciprocate, but if you want to keep doing it, cool, whatever you know. So, yeah, it was just some really hard lessons that I had to learn about how to communicate the communication that I need from other people. And yeah, I definitely I'm much more of a direct communicator these days. But yeah, hopefully that answered your question.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, clear as kind.
Speaker 2:Yes, clear as kind, the more direct we can be about things. Sometimes people can, because of a lot of us coming from that kind of background, direct communication can come off a certain way, sometimes rude, harsh, et cetera, but it's it's honestly just get to the fucking point. You know. Name your expectations Like, hey, you know I want to create this thing for you or for the team. What would you be willing to compensate me with, whether that's certain privileges, actual currency, actual money, you know, some kind of event, you know, whatever it is. It's like having that more clear direct communication would have been really beneficial for me back then. But yeah, just didn't have the skillset which is usually what pushes us to build it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Because you're exactly right. I think that we do this thing where we there's an assumption that they're going to do this for us because we're doing this for them, but we've never, like you said, have said that that's what we want to do. And then there's fear that if we say what we really want, that they're not going to accept it, then they're going to reject us, and then what are we going to have to deal with? So it's easier to just be passive, aggressive and frustrated because that's on us and we can kind of hold it all in, but really it isn't totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's fine. And so you know it's not fine. I am upset and I feel hurt and betrayed. Yeah, and it's my own damn fault, but I'm not going to admit that to myself because I don't even have the awareness of that. It's a lot easier to blame the external and I suppose that's kind of what happens. I had a lot a pattern of the kind of same feeling situation, the same outcomes with different people and I'm like, okay, yeah, who's the common denominator?
Speaker 2:Like it's not that they didn't have their part in it, but how am I? What actions, what thought patterns, what things are happening in my body, in my mind, that are kind of inviting this pattern to continue?
Speaker 1:And then how do?
Speaker 2:we stop making that happen Totally, and it's just awareness which is a pain in the butt, because if you don't have it, you don't know you don't have it. Yeah, sometimes too late and you're like shit, I could have just um, I like the analogy. Maybe this is not going to land right, but we'll see how it goes. I like the analogy of we're all like driving around in a shit storm and some of us just have really better wipers than others and it's all about how much work have you done to clear your windshield? The shit is still going to keep flying, it's going to keep coming. But how can we do what we can to, like, you know, make sure that there's wiper fluid in there and like, oh gosh, the visual is just making me laugh. I'm so sorry everyone. Like, oh gosh, the visual is just making me laugh. I'm so sorry everyone. But yeah, how do you keep your shit clean when you don't know that you're out of wiper fluid or that your wipers suck and they're old and outdated and they need to be replaced? You know?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't know, I guess you don't until you get so frustrated that you have to find a solution, that you crash and you're like shit. I couldn't see.
Speaker 2:All right, find a solution that you crash and you're like shit, I couldn't. All right, I gotta pull over and fix this, take a break, exactly, man.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, what ended up happening? You ended up being like I don't want to do hair anymore. I gotta be done with this. How did that even work out? Or was it gradual?
Speaker 2:it was both gradual and very fast. I moved at such a pace back then that I didn't really like. A lot of decisions were very reactionary, which it makes sense, right. The polarity of that was how confident and determined and committed I was to being successful in the hair industry Of everything. So I stopped doing shows, I stopped doing shoots, I stopped working for manufacturers and then I just had my clients in the salon, which that was the funding for everything else, most of those other things. I wasn't really paid this shit just side tangent.
Speaker 1:They have you come and do all that shit and they're paying you like nothing and they're basically being like, yeah, but we're inflating your ego, so come Exposure babe. It's really a bunch of bullshit. It's so crazy Anyway.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to do fashion weeks and stuff like that, we were paying most of the time. There was an agreement I had with the person who ran it where if I brought four people to the shows then I wouldn't have to pay. But it's not like my travel or my and this is thousands of dollars. You know that people are paying as well. So that person also was like I'll pay you X amount If you get this many people I did. I never was paid. There was a lot of in that particular dynamic that actions and words did not align and I felt very taken advantage of and used, which is fine.
Speaker 1:Fine sight, it's fine.
Speaker 2:It's all led me here, but a whole bunch of shit happened around that kind of final year that took quite a long time to get over.
Speaker 1:But anyway, sorry. So you're saying yeah, your clients, so that was funding, like everything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, clients were funding everything and it was my least favorite Because it was so much like I loved. I loved my clients and you know, if any of them are listening, I still think about them all the time. There's a small handful that still see me now and I appreciate the heart of them and it's just, it's wild to think that like we've been seeing each other now in this context over 10 years and, yeah, just seeing some people through some amazing life transitions and versions of themselves and yeah, it's a really it's a very deep honor and and yeah, and then the ones I don't see anymore, it's like I still occasionally the pop in my head. I'm like I wonder what they're up to. Sometimes they'll go on Facebook and be like, oh my God, they had a baby, you know, yeah, exactly, but yeah, so that was funding everything.
Speaker 2:And I had booth renters and yeah, I just I had a business partner at the time and that kind of fizzled out and did not end up working out and ended poorly. And then it was just me in the salon with two other renters and I was just tired. I felt like I had worked so hard for so long to get to this place where I realized I didn't want to be. You know, the place I had worked to was that of like working with these kind of bigger wigs in the hair industry, and not all of them but a fair amount of them were alcoholics, not really seeing their families, definitely workaholics, which I mean I already was, so I'll sit right in there and there was just this real like. The scene was just not healthy for me.
Speaker 2:That particular pocket that I found and like, if this is it, you know what I mean, if I'm gonna keep doing this kind of stuff but then eventually get paid buku bucks from a manufacturer to make it worth it, is it worth it? Like I don't really know. And then also, what am I perpetuating? What am I pushing forward about how culture and women and men feel about themselves? Like I don't really want to be part of this negative beauty image thing. You're something to be fixed and there's not. You're something wrong with you if you don't look a certain way and a lot of it is very heavy and white supremacy.
Speaker 2:And I was just as I started to learn more, I was just like ew, this is not what I want my contribution to the world to be. Of course, the art side of it Amazing, so much fun. Hello, creative. I love the aspect of shoots and shows and that it is this art performance or this temporary thing, you know where it's like. We've spent hours putting this whole thing together from you know, from her hair to her nails, the shoes, everything. I loved creating and curating the art aspect of it, but it was just.
Speaker 2:It felt hollow, like it felt for what you know what I mean To push her product, to push a narrative, to keep selling shampoo and keep telling women that they can't have gray hair and they're not allowed to age, and I just, I don't know. I, it's shit that I don't want to be a part of anymore. Yeah, um, it's beautiful and amazing. And then also just somewhat empty and felt like the meaning making of it started to fade and I just felt like gosh, if I'm going to keep doing this, I need to figure out what is the deeper meaning, what's the deeper mission. And I just didn't have the. I was so burnt out I didn't have the faculties to do that, so I decided to close the salon, sold all the stuff in it and, yeah, tried moving like kind of merging my business into a different salon where I was the creative director there.
Speaker 2:I think I lasted like four months because I was like it was a huge pay cut and then I was still expected to work at the same caliber. It was before and was I was not gonna work, I can't do it. And then one of the, the spaces that I had leased, I had subletters in and they had moved out. It was January 2020. I then got in there, redid everything. I was like I'm gonna do ritual. I had spent the last like two or three years, kind of exploring Reiki and breath work and tarot and all these more like kind of started to revert back to things in my childhood that I felt really connected to, and that was like the metaphysics and magic I was really into. Like Wicca, in like sixth grade I remember having a book of shadows and so, yeah, I kind of started to revert back to all of that and like find magic again and I opened my little ritual hair salon called it Oracle Offerings in March of 2020.
Speaker 1:Oh, dang Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that really took the steam out of my attempt at rebranding and moving forward. I was like you know what actually? So that space stayed open for like another year before I was I moved to Oregon and I was like I broke up with my partner six years and it was just like a lot of change at once and I was like I just need to be near the ocean and I need to not do this, I need to not be touching people, I need to just get away. And I started my breathwork facilitation training in February of 2020. So it was kind of perfect timing, I guess, with that.
Speaker 1:So were you like not afraid.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. How did you just make yourself keep doing it anyway? How did you just like keep going? I guess it's the same naive like, were you just like how did you just like keep going? I guess it's the same naive like, were you just like, okay, I have to do survival mode? Or how did you have the energy to keep new ideas and new trying and new things? You know, I at the time this may sound funny, I don't know.
Speaker 2:Before COVID I was getting regular massages and that was my think time, my like idea time. That's where I got the idea to move to Oregon and go to the ocean. Yeah, I want to say I came up with a lot of my ideas, kind of whenever I would get my body worked on because it was the massage therapist would be like connecting my, my three brains or something. That's my idea of what's happening. But yeah, like helping my mind connect to what's going on in the body and and also breath work. Like I did a lot of breath work journeys and those can help me. They still help me a lot when it comes to business ideas and they just kind of help create clarity and clear the path for creativity.
Speaker 2:But, um, the drive to keep going, I think I don't know. To be honest, I just did not really see any other option. You know, like I I was like I can't just go get a normie job. What would I even do? I don't have any, I don't have a degree in anything. Like I don't get paid, like nothing I definitely don't want to serve Like you know what I mean. Like I have no idea.
Speaker 2:So then I just started taking a bunch of certifications and things that would kind of come into my path and during that kind of the last couple of years of doing hair full time I had become like, worked through the funny capitalistic layers of Reiki and got to like Reiki master and yeah, I just knew I loved doing hair and I had been through so much that really challenged my love for it, but I still wanted I wanted it to be. I wanted to create something I didn't, I hadn't seen, which was challenging because there was no like role model for it. But I wanted to create something that felt more holistic, that felt more intuitive and grounded and just less image focused and more feeling focused. That's kind of my rant on that.
Speaker 1:No, I mean, I think it's. I think you're pretty incredible for doing that and for having the vision and for actually being like I want to create this, this thing that I haven't seen before. This feels aligned to me and I'm going to do it, especially being burnt as burnt out as you probably were at the time to and to keep going and to still create that, because, I mean, you could have just said I'm gonna ignore how I feel and I'm just gonna continue to work with these clients and I'm gonna continue to kind of feel burnt out because I'm too afraid to do something different or daring or really follow my heart, you know. So it's pretty incredible that you were able to do that Totally yeah, I mean with that.
Speaker 2:I would just say that fear is there either way. It's like there's no escaping it. I gotta just uh, what's that quote? It's like courage doesn't exist without the presence of fear. You can't be courageous, you can't really be brave if you're not afraid yeah. I don't know what you would be if you maybe just dumb. No, I'm just kidding, I'm. Probably I was a little bit of that too.
Speaker 1:So then, how did it feel when you went to Oregon? Oh, so you got rid of, like, all the salons. Like you like weren't doing hair, you were just kicking it Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I opened the new, smaller space March 2020, closed it. I was open for a week, closed it for three months and I was one of the people in the beginning that was really scared of the whole thing. Like just the way it was being mediized Is that a word Was wild and I'd never really, you know, working with people too, so in such close context, I was just scared and I was like, even when we opened back up, I was like, oh, if it's safe, like I don't know if it's time, but I ended up booth renting it out. So I had someone come in and she rented it full time, so she was mostly in the space. And then I moved to Oregon in the end of 2020, in December.
Speaker 2:I was just going to go out there for my birthday, which is at the beginning of January, and just to see if I liked it and it's winter there. You know, I'm like if I like it and it's winter, then that's a good sign and it was awesome. It was just the beaches were all moody and you know Pacific Northwest fog and all the Douglas firs, like the wind. It was so perfect. It like felt how I felt inside, but it was to see it externally, I was like okay, and I just didn't leave. I like ended up finding a place to live in February and in a little town called Newport which is like unheard of. They don't really hard to find housing there. But for me I was like, oh, that's not easy. It's just on Craigslist Look at that. Oh, perfect price, okay, cool, seven minutes from the beach, awesome. So I felt like it was just, it was whatever greater is. It was like clearing the path for me to just get there and heal.
Speaker 2:And so I had the booth renter in the salon until I think July 2021, she told me she was going to leave and get out of the hair industry as well, and so I came back and had like a big old garage sale, cleaned out my hair show storage space that I had and sold a bunch of stuff, a bunch of stuff I wish I'd kept. Now, to be honest, I'm done. It was like a giant purge. But in Oregon for that first, what would that have been like? Six, eight months, I was traveling back and forth and seeing clients once a month in the salon.
Speaker 2:I think I got out there, back out there in like August 2021, no more salon out there and I was like, all right now, what do I do? And, yeah, it's like living off credit cards and just making a whole big old mess of debt. It was ugh, let's see what else I, when I was out there, I was getting over a six-year relationship of this person I thought I was going to get married to and it was mutual. We both knew it was time and they had moved to a different state and I was like I'm going to go somewhere where an ocean is. I'm out of here, and I just spent that whole. It was like a good solid year. I was out there. I spent that whole year just doing breathwork online. I started my online business in 2020, when all that stuff started to happen, and I just worked from home, went to the beach, hiked a lot, learned how to cook for myself, learned how to take care of myself better. But God, there was so much crying.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh, so much crying and yeah, made friends there. I ended up doing breathwork like a regular breathwork circle at a didgeridoo gallery in Newport and that was fun. I did like a couple tours through Portland and Seattle, ended up getting a camper van and kind of turned that into like my traveling ritual haircut and breathwork, mobile and yeah, eventually I'm a big fan of plant medicine, with intention and awareness and conscious use, and I'd had three plant medicine journeys out there, with Aya and with psilocybin that were don't want to go back to Colorado, fix your shit. And eventually brought me back out out here like October 2022. I'd lived in the van for like eight months, which isn't a whole. Yeah, talk about polarities Very fun, very cool Also. Really shitty sometimes. Very cool Also really shitty sometimes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, for sure. Yeah, life is not necessarily simpler on the road, but I'm glad I did that. It was a really cool experience. And yeah, still have the camper van so I get to vagabond it up here and there. But yeah, ask me something else what else we got?
Speaker 1:So then you came back and like so how do you feel now? So it's been since October 28, 22, and then now we're in 2024. How do you feel now? And how do you feel like that was necessary and brought you to where you are? And how does now feel? Now feels amazing now.
Speaker 2:it's wild that it's been two years since I've been back. The first year being back was really hard. I had plans with some family to kind of create like a little commune house. That did not work out and so I had to adjust and it took a while to kind of find my people here. I actually realized that this year I wasn't aware of it at the time but I was struggling so much because I had no real established life here in Colorado outside of that partnership, outside of the salon. I didn't have a lot of close connections outside of hair. I'd never been single here before, on my own and living my life. So I it was like honestly moving back to a place I'd never been, but that I had all these memories. It was just in some ways like moving to Oregon was kind of testing ground for all. Right now, coming back to Colorado and building my life here, like okay, I did it there, let's do it here, where my family is, and my sister also had a baby and wanted to be near him. So yeah, that first year was rough, to be honest, I was not in a great place. But this second year has been night and day and I'm just, I've really created a really solid base for myself and routines. That was a really big one.
Speaker 2:I did not. I was so routine avoidant for so long because I needed every day to be different. I needed spontaneity, but it was exhausting my system to have to constantly plan and think in the moment about what I was going to do and to have all these floating to do's with no plan and, of course, to like having that salon open March 2020, having that plan and then having it. The world just really we all had to adjust. That made me plan avoidant for a while. I was like I don't need it. I'm just going to float and chill and see how it goes and just fly by the seat of my pants, which is totally one way to live, and it was really. It worked for me for a second, but long-term it's not that sustainable for me. So, yeah, now I have routines.
Speaker 2:I live by my Google calendar. It helps me so much with the symptoms I experience that are similar to ADHD and autism. It helps me not have to think so much. Everything is scheduled and or listed somewhere, and so I'm not using as much of my energy to remember so much and to track myself so much. I have a lot more space and peace and reflection time in my life. I just move slower, you know, like in a really good way. It's a lot smoother and I'm cool with the pace. I'm so over the capitalistic rush of, oh I should be here, I should be there, or comparing myself to other people who are in similar places or quote unquote where I want to be. I'm just enjoying my life and I get to help other people do the same thing, just by being myself and sharing my experiences and listening and hearing theirs and validating them, you know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, pretty cool yeah. So you really were able to kind of reprogram everything just by being, just by being in Oregon and chilling for a little bit and letting all the emotions do their thing, and then finding a different certification to sort of like something to do, something to be a part of, and now you get to just like live your life and offer what you want to offer to people, and like move slower and not have to be in the hustle of oh, I should be doing this, and you literally get to create the life that you want, which is pretty incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, and it's what we all have the power to do and what I've had the power to do the entire time. It's just that I was stuck in these old ideas of how things should be done, or I'm supposed to be doing this, or yeah, just it's like archaic way of thinking. That's like it just steals us from the present, steals us away from what's happening right now and where my body is right now and what I'm feeling right now, rather than just being here. You know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like real presence with everything that you're doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which is like a big ask. As a human being, we can't do that. All autopilot does serve us. Human being, we can't do that. All Autopilot does serve us.
Speaker 2:But there's a real numbness and easily controllable state that we can get into if we don't watch ourselves, and that is, I think, you know, why we look at the world and see it as in the state that it's in is that a lot of people have just fallen asleep to their own power and are complicit in a lot of ways because they can't see any other option or are just too afraid of change.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I think I was so unafraid of change to almost to my detriment, because it was like, no, it is good to have some things stay the same, like it is nice to have familiarity and consistency, and even if it's inconsistent consistency, you can kind of build that in.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, I think we all just have an idea deep in the unconscious mind that our lives are supposed to look a certain way and when they don't, it becomes fuel for our shadow to just beat us up and to make us feel less than and to make us feel like we can't do it or we can't create what we want to see and that's just unintegrated parts that need attention. And if we work with them and communicate with them, find out what they need, meet those needs, then we can integrate them and alchemize all of that energy that they're taking to kind of beat us up and put that towards something that's actually life-giving and we can take care of ourselves better and, in turn, take care of the people around us instead of the backwards way which many of us learn to do as people please right, like where it's like I'll take care of everyone else first and then they'll take care of me and it. It's just not how it works. You got to come first.
Speaker 1:Which is hard when you've never done that before. Oh, a thousand percent.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if I think about it too, I am that I know of the first and only woman to be in her 30s, unmarried with no children living on her own, have owned businesses. I don't need no man and that's yeah, that's wild. Like I think all my ancestors behind me are like like, yes, girl, but there's no role model, you know, there's no examples to pull from. So when it is hard, it's oh my gosh, there was a little bit of an organ there. I was like maybe I'll just find somebody and become a wife and just like have some kids, get some fucking security, because this shit is tiring. I don't like having to provide all for myself. Yeah.
Speaker 1:But no it's so true. We really are in a whole new era where nobody our ancestors were not doing that, women before us were not doing this, and so I think there is a hard balance of how do we respect being a woman and also live our lives in this society and not need a man and have our businesses and have our individuality and all those things you like? There really isn't like a guy. No, there's not.
Speaker 2:And you're pioneering Totally. I mean, women were allowed to have bank accounts until the seventies, or credit cards until the seventies. In the I think it was in the forties, twenties or forties If a woman did have a job in a factory, a husband could complain to the factory that her household chores weren't getting done and they would dock her pay at the factory and she'd still have to work. She wasn't doing two jobs getting paid for one absolutely bananas.
Speaker 2:And I think that I feel a real what's the word? Like responsibility to create and live my own version of success that is not based on what I've been taught through public school, through culture that I'm supposed to achieve or supposed to aim for, because I already fucking did it. You know what I mean. I'm like did it? That was not what I wanted actually, like I just want a slow, simple life. You know, I take care of my community, my community takes care of me. There's this interdependence. There's equitable and fair system in place. You know, I think there's a real resurgence of this as well throughout. Everyone I know wants to start a little farm or a commune or something like that.
Speaker 1:It's like, you know, let's just we've gotten too big for our britches, let's down Like yeah, but I think that it also we have to be, we have to really love ourselves and be sure of ourselves to be able to own that. That's what we want and to not let that programming take over, because it's so easy. Everywhere you look, it's still happening all the way around Like, oh, you should be doing more, you should be doing this. Oh, we'll check this out and that out, and if we really listen to what we actually want, it probably isn't even that, but we have to be able to listen and to be with ourselves. You know, absolutely, I think there's.
Speaker 2:There's such real wisdom in the body and the more that we can get people embodied and really hear in this experience, because there's a saying it's like leave the mystery to the mystery, kind of thing. There's so much we don't know and that's okay. I'm good with that. The more I learn, the more I'm like I don't know shit. And yet, whatever we are, whatever our souls are or the essence of life that is beating through us, the breath that is working through us, whatever it is, we're only here for a short time and I don't want for myself and for other people, I don't want that time to feel wasted or not fully lived. You know what I mean? Like we're here to experience and that means everything. Unfortunately, some things are shitty, some things are really really suck and hurt a lot and you don't want to feel them and they feel like they're gonna stay around forever and it's never gonna change. But I mean, that's the beauty of it all is that like no feeling is final, nothing lasts. I had a workshop called embracing impermanence. That was really popular. That I did throughout Oregon and online, and it really is like that is the kind of the key to all of it is embracing the fact that this is so finite. So, like, what do you want? Yeah, what do you really want to do? This time is going to pass either way.
Speaker 2:I just one of my housemates, beginning of summer, was talking about going to oh where was it? One of the South Asian countries to visit a friend, and she was like, yeah, I don't know. I'm just kind of on the fence about it, and one of my favorite things to do is ask people like, well, what would your deathbed self say? If you can imagine, visualize them like they are on the bed. They're like, you know, reminiscing, they're ready, they're, they've had a full life, they know what's important.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what really matters. Ask them do I go take this trip or do I stay here and save some money? And, um, she didn't share it with me, but I did find out that because she ended up going. I found out from her other housemate that she did. In fact, it was the deathbed question. Like, yay, yes, because it's so real. And sometimes your deathbed self is going to be like, no, you really need rest. They'll tell you, but, yeah, that, um, I don't know that. Visualizing myself at the end of my life to make decisions in the now has always been really helpful.
Speaker 1:So do you feel like that is your goal with your clients now, with breathwork and EFT and just being there to support is to help your clients so that they can be more connected to the essence of themselves and to do what the fuck they want to do. Is that kind of your goal? Or, and I guess, to get into the body, to Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I mean getting into the body, like that is everything that you said before it's a, it's a given. You get into the body and you're going to become more authentic. Because once you really get with what is happening and what some of these things are signaling to you cause it's all about noticing sensation and being with the sensation and not trying to suppress it or push it away or run from it, just being present with what's going on Inevitably we become more authentic. We are more able to hear our true yes and our true no, and so we can tell then when we're doing something that violates our own boundaries in relation to other people or in relationship to work or you know, whatever it is. It's a lot easier to notice like, oh, I'm fawning right now, oh, I feel frozen, like I really love providing context for the nervous system and kind of all the different states that mammalian creatures move through, because it's not just humans, it's this is like studied throughout all different mammals. And so we go through these, the polyvagal ladder where you know you start at the well, you don't necessarily start, but like we can oscillate through dorsal vagal is at the bottom. That's like immobilization, that's laying dead, and then you go all the way to the top and it's social engagement, where you feel safe and you're like socially connected to people, and then in between that is fight or flight, and then there's a couple of things as well in between both of those. But to be able to identify, based on the sensations that you're experiencing and what you're noticing, how you're treating yourself, being able to identify kind of which state you're in at any time, is super helpful, not necessarily even to change it, but just to be aware, because I think we can get too in our heads about things where we're like oh, what's wrong with me? I feel this way, blah, blah, blah. It can give you more context. To give you an example a lot of the things that have been happening in the world.
Speaker 2:If I get too on my phone about it, I'll notice I'm not that hungry, and if I'm not that hungry I usually am I'm either in fight or flight, like kind of one of those two. I'm in sympathetic activation. I'm like feeling like I need to reserve my energy so my body doesn't want to digest food right now. I might need to like get the fuck out of here or fight something, and I feel like more anxious and kind of just more buzzy, like I have a lot more energy, and then providing like I have a lot of tools or like body movements or actions that I can take to move that energy through me so that it doesn't get stuck and I can share that. I do share that with clients as well, but it's really just about noticing so that you can tell where you're at, because just having that conscious like kind of stepping out of the reactionary mind and into the observer, more choice and from there you can choose what you want to do next.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you don't have the option of whatever somatic activity. It's like, okay, I'm going to table this, I'm noticing it, I'm aware of it. Maybe I'll try to like make myself eat anyway, yeah, cause I know I'm going to be hungry later or I'm going to need this for energy later, or maybe you won't. It's all about what feels the most aligned. But just then like move through the rest of your day and then come back to it. You can discharge it in other ways, which is why I love breathwork, because it can really help to just discharge a lot of pent up or unaddressed emotion or activated state that are still kind of playing in the body.
Speaker 1:So can you briefly talk a little bit about breathwork, Because I remember the first time that I was ever like about to do breathwork, I was like at a retreat and I remember I had to sign a waiver and I remember the girl that was going to facilitate it was like talking like on and on and on about Okay, well, if you notice this, this, if you know, if this happens, you know you're fine and I'm like God, she's been talking for 20 minutes, we're just about to breathe. I don't understand why she keeps talking like let's breathe breathe I'm right, I think, do it every day, let's go.
Speaker 1:I'm ready to meditate or what the fuck. And then afterwards I was like what the fuck just happened to me? That was insane. And it's so funny because I was just at a retreat a couple weeks ago and there were a couple people that raised their hands and I love group breathwork too. It like so powerful, the music's puppet, and oh, it's just the best. And there was like a handful of people who raised their hands and they've never done it and I was like sitting there, like here they go, and the one lady she was probably in her 70s and she like said at the end she was like what the fuck was? I like love that, like she's like, oh my, was incredible. So yeah, could you explain a little bit about what breathwork is and how it's different than just breathing, or you know a meditation or whatever. That is Totally.
Speaker 2:Yeah, conscious connected breathwork is an active meditation. It is very, you know, similar in action, as maybe like if people have an experience of kundalini work, it can be similar-ish because those are very active meditations where you're working with mantra and movement. Conscious connected breath work. You're literally just breathing in a particular way. So it's active inhale, passive exhale, not allowing a pause between, and you're just pulling in air, letting it go, pulling in air, letting it go, and for the first five minutes or so it is real work, like I always say, like they call it breath work. You do have to work it and the monkey mind will be like this is weird. Why are we doing this? We're going to give ourselves a panic attack. This is crazy, like.
Speaker 2:But when you're doing it consciously, with awareness, the body will eventually kind of take over or can doesn't always, but it can take over and before you know it you're not really. I kind of think of it as like mother nature's reset. The human body comes with this reset option where you just need to like breathe in a certain way and then a lot of things just recalibrate and like the fog clears and you're like, oh, this is silly, it's really bothering me for a while. Or you know, you might have emotional release or things come out where you don't have the context. A lot of times people might cry or laugh or want to scream or yell or tone, but not have any context for it, not be like oh, this is because of that. One time my mom accidentally left me at the grocery store. You know, it's not like duck, it's just like weather that wasn't let out of the jar or something like that, and it's just been storming in there for a while and then you finally open the jar, it works its way out, it storms for a second and then it dissipates and returns back into the atmosphere.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it's such an enigma, it is such a mystery. It is one of the only ways you can alter your state of consciousness without a substance of any kind. It's very in line with psychedelics. It can be very helpful for preparation, integration, even during psychedelic journeys. That's actually how it was discovered, at least in the West.
Speaker 2:I'm sure this pattern of breathing has existed for millennia. Human beings have been messing with our bodies for a long time. I'm sure it comes from some Vedic tradition, but in the 60s, during the LSD trials Stan Groff is a psychiatrist who was part of those trials. He discovered that if someone was in the medicine with LSD and hadn't quite come to a completion with their journey, that the medicine was wearing off. If they breathed in this pattern, that the medicine would kick back on and they could continue and finish their journey out without having to receive more medicine or, yeah, not finish. And when those trials got shut down, when psychedelics became illegal, stan Groff and his wife Christina decided to explore the breath a little bit more and, yeah, just discovered that it has its own modality that can stand on its own, complimentary to all these other different healing modalities.
Speaker 1:That's really cool. I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah it's. We've already talked for like an hour, almost an hour. I could give you a whole other hour about about breath work. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:It's the coolest thing ever. It really really is. Yeah, and it's crazy. When I know people who haven't done it, you know I'm like wait, you've never. Oh, my gosh, like I feel like everybody at some point or another needs to experience it. Because it's exactly what you're saying of like a reset, of, okay, that thing that was really bothering me or like that, whatever it was. Now I just okay, never mind, that actually doesn't feel that hard anymore, I don't feel as attached to that anymore and it's so cool because it's not, you know, there's no come down. It's not like you feel like shit after, it's not like you know anything. If you just rest and chill and have a good dinner and live your life and you feel better and it's free, your body does it Like it's so cool.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Yeah, I actually participated in a research study this year or this last year with the University of Arizona and the findings were that you can gain more resilience and autonomy through the practice. It's unlikely for it to happen in one session. It could we're not ruling it out, but in long-term, repetitive use of breathwork most people experience a heightened level of autonomy and resilience and then also connection to other people in their lives. One woman in the survey talked about how she did the session and then had to go into a meeting with coworkers who were quite misogynistic and she could really notice how different she felt before the the the breathwork session and then after, in this meeting, she felt less. She was taking things less personally. She almost felt bad for the people her coworkers that were misogynistic. She's like oh yeah, that sucks that they think that way, or they, you know like, oh man, like not taking it so personally and it didn't affect her as much, she wasn't as triggered. I thought that was a really cool part of it.
Speaker 1:So you do breathwork, and then you also incorporate EFT tapping as well with that.
Speaker 2:That is a little bit Totally. Yeah. So tapping is another somatic modality that I found through the beauty that is the interwebs, and it's a combination of Western medicine or Western psychology and Chinese medicine. So you're tapping on the meridian points of the body and speaking about things that carry an emotional charge. So typically you'd start a session with, like, tapping somewhere on the chest or you know really wherever it feels right in the body and it's just communicating safety. It's like, hey, I'm here in this moment, right now. We're not there experiencing that thing. We're here right now and you're just letting the body know it's safe, there's lots of breathing.
Speaker 2:It's not uncommon to experience again the emotional release yawning, burping, farting, like all of these ways in which the human body expels energy and urges things that don't serve us or indicates different state changes. But yeah, so you can work through really anything Like it's also quite a psychedelic or can be quite a psychedelic experience or an altered state experience. At the end of it Like whoa, what the hell. But basically there's a format of questions that I would ask my client and um and you've experienced this where we'll go through the questions and I'll be writing down the answers and then I'll use we'll get into the actual tapping where we move around all of the meridians you know the head, the eyebrows, and I use the person's language, what they've specifically said, because it's speaking to them to help their system express or like identify, express, reframe, repattern, kind of go through this whole framework to help get to a place where they're just feeling less emotional charge about it. It can bring awareness. It can bring like I remember I had a session once with the practitioner. I learned from who it was the first session. I cried and I remember he was like you're a hard one to crack. I guess that was our fourth session and he was like, wow, he finally cried and I was like well, you're a man and I don't know you that well, so it's hard to cry in front of that. Yeah, but like this is why I'm working with you. Okay, but the whole session was literally a part of me was so sad that I don't paint anymore, like why did you stop painting? Like I need you to paint again. And so it encouraged me to start painting again. And so I paint a lot now where it's just, it's just for me. I don't really share it with people, but it's just that part of me like feeding that need. And then that part now no longer you know messes with me and other creators. We're on the same team. I'm giving it its request. But yeah, it's.
Speaker 2:Eft actually was developed by a psychologist who he had a client who had a pretty severe phobia of water and he was studying Chinese medicine at the time. This client could not do anything with water. He tried a whole bunch of things getting her into a kiddie pool. She couldn't do it, she'd just freak out, have a panic attack. And as he was learning about Chinese medicine, he was like I want you to just try tapping right here on your chest and just looking at the water. Over time he had her continue tapping all over the different meridians and she got in the pool. Wow, yeah. So that's kind of how it was discovered, at least the story I've heard.
Speaker 2:But yeah, both of those modalities breathwork and EFT are two that have really, really helped me. And then I've ended up training in and now that I offer to clients in breathwork sessions even I'll let people know like you can tap. You just want to do alternating sides so you know like back and forth. So it's almost like an EMDR kind of thing. But if you're feeling like you need to give yourself some intuitive touch, like tapping is a really great resource to have in that space, and then, yeah, during EFT, like a lot of the time it it's like, okay, deep breath, big sigh of relief, letting the body know it's safe, and yeah, you can work through so much and it's a lot of the time very lasting and you know I don't want to say permanent, but it's very lasting change or shifts that can occur to things that have been bothering people for years.
Speaker 1:I mean I feel like our work that we did have done together has been very you for years. I mean I feel like our work that we did have done together has been very you know things that have been bothering me for years that now I feel like no longer have the power anymore to really control. Or I mean, yeah, every now and then they'll come up, but you can identify them more and be like no, we're not doing that anymore. Goodbye, leave me alone.
Speaker 1:And I told so many people I'm like, oh my gosh, you ever heard of, like EFT, because I really, truly believe in what you're doing and I believe in you know those practices and it really does take, whether it's breathwork, and it takes the experience and resets it and it makes it go man, okay, maybe not that deep anymore, like, maybe not that serious, maybe my mind has been taking over and that's what's been going on. Or EFT, where it's like let me rewrite this and this isn't true anymore, like that doesn't need to be what's true for me anymore, and I think that's just so powerful. I mean people are literally dreaming that that would be the case in so many situations in their lives, and so to be able to offer that to people, I think is just so amazing, and that it actually works, you know. Yeah, absolutely it's.
Speaker 2:I've really I've always looked for things that are going to speed it up, because I think of the, the pace that I used to move at was so fast that I just wanted like I've I've been in and out of therapy since I was 17. And like I just wanted something that was deeper than just talking even though I'm a fucking yapper, I can tell, obviously, but I go go go in therapy sometimes and I'm like I just need a practitioner that's going to be like slow down, what's going on in your body right now.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how are you feeling, can we keep talking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, like, let me just further ingrain this shit in my psyche and my neural network, please.
Speaker 2:I've always wanted to find things that kind of sped the process up. So first that was psychedelics, and then reiki, breathwork, eft, and it's funny because they don't necessarily give you instant gratification. They do in a way like they do, in a way speed it up, but don't at the same time, because it's not like you have to see the shifts happen over time as the triggers come up again and again in order to see that the shift has happened. It's not instant and, yeah, it's such a gradual change and I think that in itself is more healthy and more natural than like an instant. Wow, because it's the integration of it. Right, you can get all of the insights and all of the downloads and the mystical knowledge and understanding and understand hermetic law and all this stuff, but actually integrating it and implementing it and living it takes time because the brain needs repetition and consistent repeating that to actually ingrain anything and to really make it it to embody it. It's just the constant repetition.
Speaker 1:Because I was gonna ask you have that written down that I wanted to make sure that I asked you today was like what does transformation actually look like? You know what do breaking patterns actually look like and I think that you pretty much have said it noticing embodying integration and time. You know it does. It takes time.
Speaker 2:It's one of the most annoying things of my own experience. Sometimes it just takes time Like it took two years to get to Colorado and be like, yeah, I actually really like this and I'm in a really good place.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you have to stick with it for a minute, you know, and and trust yourself, and trust the process, and have the courage and and it's so nonlinear, which is so annoying.
Speaker 2:I really I love that meme that goes around. It's like they should make a healing. That is linear, cause it is. It's. You know, you fall in and out of things. I had a thing this summer happen that I was like what? I thought I was done with this shit. I thought I can't believe. I just fawned for like six weeks straight and was people pleasing my little ass off and then got so hurt, like yeah, I was done, but I caught it a lot sooner than I have in the past, so that's an accomplishment in itself and I communicated better and I set boundaries and I feel really good about the whole. Experience taught me a lot. It's nonlinear, it just keeps going and like, just because I'm someone who has done this stuff and to facilitate it for other people doesn't mean that I'm being human, you know? Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:It just gets easier, you know, but it still happens. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a little bit easier to catch things a little bit more. I'm better at tracking. I kind of can think about it like if I'm foraging in the woods. I've spent a lot of time learning plant identification and I know what's edible and what's not, and now and then I might still pick some poison on accident and be like whoops, that was not edible, but I didn't die, so all is well. But I didn't die, so all is well. Not an upset tummy for a second and. But it worked through and I'm probably stronger for it. My system just needed a little new cells now, so so closing us out?
Speaker 2:at the end of the day, what do you think really matters at the end of the day, I always come back to the most basic stuff Peeing when you need to go pee. Making sure you are fed, nourishing foods, high protein, high fiber vegetables, eating the rainbow, enjoying the things that you're doing in the process of it. You know our bodies don't receive dopamine when we're accomplished. They receive it during the. It's the anticipation of things. So like enjoying the process of cooking a meal, of doing your laundry I know it sounds crazy. Maybe, uh, I know it.
Speaker 2:To a past version of myself that would be like what? Like I really enjoy doing the dishes. I don't know why it just makes it's like a cute little self-care act. I don't have a dishwasher anymore and I prefer it that way. It's so nice. It's all the little simple things that just maintain my life and and set me up to be resourced, to be able to offer space to other people to hold their stuff. That's honestly like. That's what I protect the most is like my time. I'm very intentional about where I'm at in my menstrual cycle and how I schedule myself with that.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I mean what really matters is just taking the utmost care of yourself, because we're all just really like taller toddlers. How would you treat a toddler? Would you tell them like you need to go work out, because if you don't then you're going to look bad and I'm not going to be happy with you. No, you're going to tell a toddler, like you have a lot of energy, we should go put that somewhere, like let's go to the park and play. You know, making it more fun and playful and less self-deprecating and my EFT teacher says this a lot. If beating yourself up worked, you would be different by now. You wouldn't have to be doing it by now.
Speaker 2:So yeah, I think it's the simple things, it's the little things, it's how we take care of ourselves, how we take care of the people around us. Ram Dass says we work on ourselves so we can help the people around us, and I think that is everything. The way we work on ourselves is to genuinely just take care of this fucking animal body. It has needs and they are not going to just go away. It will turn into chronic pain and chronic illness, and I don't bring that up to say that those things are anyone's faults if they happen, because that's not true. But yeah, these things will manifest in ways that we can't ignore if we don't pay attention to them more deeply or learn how to listen.
Speaker 1:Good stuff, sister. I mean, I've said it before, I'll say it now I believe deeply in what you do and I think that you really are able to help change and improve the lives of the people that work with you, and I think that you know the way that you take care of yourself is then able to take care of other people in a way that really, really, really changes and improves lives, and so I'm grateful that you have the courage, I'm grateful that you show up and I'm grateful that you have explored all these parts of yourself and give back to the world. So your contribution, I'm glad that this is it, I'm glad that this is what you do, and I really believe in you. So thank you for sharing and thank you for being my teacher.
Speaker 2:Thank you. Thank you for being my teacher as well, Lauren. All of that is easily seen in me because it's also in you, but I do receive that. Thank you.
Speaker 1:You're welcome. If people want to work with you, where do they find you?
Speaker 2:You can find me on Instagram at Brianna Faros, my website briannafaroscom or beautyandbreathcom. I do ritual hair and traditional hair services one day a week at a salon called the Organic Salon here in Denver, and I host group breathwork sessions that are donation-based. I'm really trying to create a business model that isn't exploitive or capitalistic, which is incredibly challenging in a capitalist system. So trying to find something that is more mutual aid and community focused, but that also helps me pay my bills. Yeah, exactly so. A lot of that has been offering sliding scale to one-on-one clients or like charging businesses a certain rate and charging individuals a certain rate. But yes, so I have a monthly breathwork session that I facilitate at the salon in person. I also do it virtually as well.
Speaker 2:Breathwork from the comfort of your own home can be really amazing. Yeah, that's kind of the extent of it. I've got some other things in the works, but I just work at such a slow pace these days. I'm posting for a second. More things will be coming out. I just really want my work to be accessible and also provide me with resources that I can use to fund the world that I'd like to see, you know, offering Indigenous reparations and ensuring houseless people have more resources and I just I feel like I'm fighting the man in so many aspects just by being alive, and so, yeah, my business helps to support a lot of different aspects of the world that I'd like to see. That is more giving, that is more focused on children and their safety, their basic needs being met. That's kind of it.
Speaker 2:I work with people, one-on-one work with couples, work with businesses and then the public at large when they want to come to Breathwork, my next session I don't know when this will come out, but I'll just say it because it's kind of fun I'm doing a like a friendsgiving event. It'll be in November, and after Breathwork you're always really hungry, so so and I've been on this like cooking, like nutritionist, nutritional meals lately. I'm like, am I gonna be a personal chef as well one day, just following the evolution? Right, yeah, but I am gonna cook a beautiful meal for us that is full of good grounding. Yeah, keep everything very like non-allergetic and we'll be eating that together after our session in November.
Speaker 2:So that'll be exciting that's so nice, that's awesome yeah, I feel like, yeah, I feel like I'm always gonna feed people now after breathwork session, like if I can yeah you're virtual like sorry, but in person.
Speaker 1:There will be snacks, exactly absolutely.
Speaker 2:I love it cool. Well, thank you again. Yes, thank you so much. In person, there will be snacks. Exactly, absolutely. I love it Cool.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you again. Yes, thank you.