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Is there anything more critical to your existence than breathing?
How do most people answer when someone asks, “What is the most important factor to health and wellness?”, how do most people answer? Most likely, they will say “water,” or “food,” or maybe “exercise.”
Breathing – or the breath – is often the most overlooked health factor. Like our host, Wade T. Lightheart, says: most people can live a couple of months without food. People can live a few days to a week without water.
But what about oxygen?
When we stop breathing, we don’t last more than a few minutes.
This is why Wade’s A-W-E-S-O-M-E health system begins with the letter “A” for “Air.” Breathing is essential at a deeper level than most people understand.
In this episode, you get to hear how the breath powerfully impacts every facet of life from the world’s foremost authority on breathing, breathwork, and something called “rebirthing.” His name is Dan Brulé, and you will quickly be enraptured by Dan’s joy for life and the mind-blowing stories he shares from his incredible life journey.
Dan is the author of the popular book JUST BREATHE: Mastering Breathwork for Success in Life, Love, Business, and Beyond (available in ten languages). He is also the Founder and Director of The International Center for Breathwork and The Breathing Festival.
As a renowned expert and early pioneer of Breathwork, Dan has personally trained more than 250,000 people in over 66 countries to breathe for health, growth, and change in body, mind, and spirit.
His students include Tony Robbins, Navy Seal Commander Mark Divine, Army Ranger General James Cook, Diving Champion Stig Severinsen, author Oren Klaff, and many other Olympic athletes, martial artists, leading psychotherapists, medical experts, and corporate executives.
Tune in to one of this show’s most entertaining and informative guests.
In this podcast, we cover:
- Dan’s backstory – how his calling to be a breath evangelist started at age five
- Dan’s incredible near-death-experience while scuba diving when he stopped breathing
- Dan’s crazy experiences while serving time in prison
- How Dan’s family responded to his passionate focus on breathwork
- What is “rebirthing,” how it works, and the benefits
- Dan’s breathwork process simplified
- How Dan as a “guru” encourages his students to find their own path
- Different breathing patterns you can use
- Dan’s newly available app
Something Dan overheard his grandmother say one day
Dan gets asked by Wade about his family. How did they respond to his unusual calling and career?
Dan says, “My family never really understood. But what helped was my two sons.”
“A good example is my grandmother. She’s a devout Catholic. And when I went to India and came back, she was like, ‘Oh my God. He shaved his head. He’s wearing mala beads. He took the kids with him – he’s the antichrist.’ She was really worried about the kids and me.”
“Well, one day, I overheard her say something. You see, all the old ladies would get together and ask, “What does your grandson do?” “Well, he’s a doctor, he’s this or that. My grandmother never knew what to say about me.”
“But one day, I heard her say to her friends, “He must be doing good. Because if you look at his children, they’re happier than anyone in the family. They’re healthier than all the other grandchildren. He’s doing well in life. Even though he doesn’t seem to be making any money, I don’t know what he does for a job, but it must be good.”
“When I heard her say that, I knew she found a way to make peace with my life – even though she didn’t understand me.”
“My other relatives gave up trying to understand me long ago. However, they gave me unconditional love. That has been a real gift in my life. They never put pressure on me to do this or that. I never got any of that. Instead, I felt like I could do anything. I could go anywhere. If it wasn’t for that, I might have had a different path.”
The first step to life-changing breathwork is…
Here is Dan’s simple definition of breathwork: “I reduce it to the simple, basic aspects: breath awareness and conscious breathing.”
“Breath awareness is meditative awareness. It’s mindfulness training. Attention training and concentration training.”
“It’s how the Buddha became a Buddha. He studied everything. He tried everything and went everywhere. After about twelve years of being a full-time seeker, he thought, ‘there’s nothing else that I can do. There is nobody else to study with. I’ve done everything humanly possible.’ Then he sits down under a tree, and what did he do? He began to become aware of his breath. And that was his awakening. He realized, ‘Oh look – the breath comes, and the breath goes. Interesting. Organizations come, and they go. Look at thoughts – they come, and they go.”
“Experiences, events, pains, pleasures, everything comes and goes.”
“The Buddha discovered the impermanent nature of all existence. That was the key to his awakening. He did this by simply giving up everything else and becoming present with his breath, which is the moment to moment flow of life and spirit, inspiration, expiration, respiration, the root word when his spirit became present to the movement of spirit in life, which was the movement of his breath in his body. That cracked the door open.”
“Soon, you realize that even my sense of self comes and goes…that’s how powerful breath awareness is. It’s how the Buddha became a Buddha.”
Your perspective on breathing will never be the same after listening to Dan Brulé breathe life into a topic that might seem mundane on the surface. Biohackers know nothing is boring about your breath. Learning breathwork is a powerful tool. With patient practice, you can find optimal physical health and the bonuses of higher levels of mental and spiritual wellbeing through breath-focused meditation.
Check out this episode – breathwork is not “work” at all. It is a transformational joy to practice.
Episode Resources:
Check out more about Dan Brule & Breathmastery
Dan Brulé book Just Breathe: Mastering Breathwork
Dan Brulé on Instagram
Dan Brulé on Facebook
Breathmastery YouTube Channel
Dan Brulé on Twitter
Dan Brulé on LinkedIn