Dr. Mindy Pelz: On this episode of The resetter podcast, I have something really special for you. I have brought someone who is near and dear to my heart to the resetter podcast to have an incredibly deep conversation. So this is Kate horseman. She is my breath worker. If you've been listening to my podcast for some time, I have mentioned her several times, she has been a huge part of my healing journey, my perimenopause menopausal healing journey that I have been on for pretty much the last decade. And in the last year, I found Kate's work. And I really wanted to understand breathwork. And I know a lot of you have had those questions. A lot of you have reached out to me to ask me what breathwork is, there's a lot of confusion about what type of breath work should we be doing. And so I wanted to bring Kate to the resetter podcast to really just dive into her style of breath work. So if you've been listening to the different podcasts over the last couple of weeks, Dr. Sarah Godfried, in the last podcast before this one talked about breathwork as a form of healing trauma. And that's exactly what Kate does, that her style of breathwork is trauma work. And she is one of the most beautiful souls that you will ever meet, you just feel love in her presence. And she does what I would call a therapeutic breathwork, where you inhale through the mouth, and exhale out through the mouth. And as you'll hear in this podcast, it puts you in to this very interesting place where your body talks to you and your body tells you the traumas that it has been holding on to. And sometimes that's like a memory that pops up. Sometimes that's a feeling. I share in this episode, how I originally went to her to heal the trauma of my near death experience in my 30s. And you'll hear what happened in my first breathwork session with her. But what I really wanted you all to hear is what's possible for your health, whether you have an unresolved trauma that you know needs to be healed or
you're stuck with your weight. Or perhaps you just feel like you lost your vibrancy of life. Or maybe you have a condition like Sarah pointed out an autoimmune condition that you know, potentially has a root of trauma that is unhealed. This is the episode for you. I can't emphasize enough how I feel like every woman over 40 should get a session with Kate and really dive into what your body is telling you as you go through the menopausal experience. Because there's an opportunity there to release what no longer serves you, and to step into an incredibly beautiful, authentic version of yourself. And you'll hear Kate and I talk about that. So this is a heartfelt conversation. It is deep, please listen all the way through, we go into the practical at the end, you'll hear Kate's journey. And I hope that this resonates with you. And this touches your life. If this is a tool you need, I hope I brought you a resource that will move you along your healing path. So Kate horseman, I love this woman. And what I maybe love the most about her is she if you go to her Instagram, she calls herself a professional listener and a steward to the soul. And that is exactly what you're about to hear and exactly who she is. So enjoy. Welcome to the resetter podcast. This podcast is all about empowering you to believe in yourself. Again, if you have a passion for learning, if you're looking to be in control of your health and take your power back. This is the podcast for you.
Well, let me start off by welcoming you to my podcast. I feel like I'm seeing you so much on a screen. And now I feel like I'm inviting you into my podcast home. So welcome. I'm so happy
Kate Horsman: you're here. I'm so pleased to be here. And it does feel like there's a bit of a different quality of like, Oh, I get to come into your living space. So thanks for having me.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: It's funny. I was thinking today that one of the things I love about people that I've invited into my universe are people who have had their own struggle, and found a really interesting solution and then decided to turn around and teach it to the world. And the phrase that I've heard a lot is from pain to purpose. And I think it's a beautiful phrase, and I think you really really typify that. So I would love to start this conversation with your journey. You can give us a call have notes version, but your journey and how you even came to this place of diving into breathwork.
Kate Horsman: You know, one of the things that I find myself in now in my early 40s is how resonant some of the first first first places of purpose really came to me when when I was a child, I thought it was going to be a doctor. Right? I was so so curious about, about what was going on for people, I wanted to help people, there was also a lot of health and illness issues in the household. And so there's this way that I always wanted to be a helper. Things got really sidetracked for me, as I put my energy, my focus into dance, and ballet, and it was very high level dancer was training, you know, very young age, eight hours a day, you know, Toronto, Winnipeg, and over in Europe, here in Canada, and eventually New York. So a lot of the focus of my life, I was really this artistic being. And it was a beautiful place for me to be an expression. But at the same time, I was moving through a lot of my own internal pain, there was a lot going on for me. And I often come back to it even more recently thinking that I'm so grateful that I had dance, because it was one of the places where I could be in my body with expression, it looked like something was actually hurting or harming me, because this this sport, this art was just, you know, pretty intense and life altering. But it actually saved me in a lot of ways. So there was a lot of stuff happening for me, there's a lot of trauma, and I didn't have the didn't have a way of processing it, of expressing it. And, as we know, our brains are just so brilliant at finding strategies to support whatever feels like too much. And for me pretty early on, this looked like changing the relationship to food and my body in order to find safety in myself. And so from a very young age, I actually developed an eating disorder and struggled with anorexia from you know, ages 1112 to 20, something, it became very, very ingrained such a juxtaposition, or maybe even paradox is a better word, have something that harmed me so much
and almost cost me my life also saved me from it. It created a distance from which I could actually be in my body and the experience of my life. So during this process, I definitely felt as though I had limited access to different types of care, holistic therapy, and really deep relational containers. Like I don't I don't remember having someone close to me, you know, sit down and be like, what's it like to be you right now? Especially from like a helping context. I think, I think people saw what I was becoming, and there was something of like, Oh, she's on this trajectory. She's on this path. And even in helping spaces. And this is something again, that sort of like leaps forward into my work. It didn't feel like there was this humanity. It was like, we were so focused on symptoms. And actually, when we look at eating disorders, and some of the treatment there, it's really focused around symptom management and behaviors. And I get why it's an important part of it. And there's something so much, so much beyond that. So just bringing that that, that humanity into it. And I actually didn't even know what was missing until, you know, later in life, and people will come into my world and I'm like, Oh, my gosh, that is how it's supposed to feel. That's how helping, can can look and feel consents. So miraculously, through, you know, there's really rather dark times, I pulled myself out, and I found a health and safety in my body. But I also don't feel like I felt that freedom from my pain, my trauma, right, I may have been in a body that was working better for me, and I wasn't as interrupted by this illness. But I still had to look at what felt so so painful that I had to try and disappear completely. Right. That's, that's how much ever the way I
Dr. Mindy Pelz: interpret that is like, there was a there was a health crisis going on. There was no support to give you a way out of the health crisis. And you found a place and this is very, there's a lot of a lot of people. I mean, there's a lot of versions of this. I was this in my early early 20s with chronic fatigue. And so when you found that way out that thread out how old were you
Kate Horsman: 2122 Yeah, 2122. And I would, I would say that, you know, I was forced into this sort of initiation of surrendering to life or surrendering, you know, to not life. And I feel like I did that rather young and I have had to continue doing that facing that, that edge of surrender, to see what, what is there for me, right, and so, pull myself out enough to be a part of the world. Yeah, and right away there, I was, like, I have to do something with this. I like if I can do this, anyone can do this. Like, I kind of beat the odds. And so I plunged right into my training to be a counselor. So that was like, more traditional route. And I really, really enjoyed that. I was like, oh, like, yeah, maybe I can do this. And then by the end of that as like, oh, wait a second, like I'm, I'm still, I'm still a really young person, that's still hurting a lot. And so I press pause on that. But in the meantime, I kept adding different dimensions to, to healing, to understanding myself to modalities. Because I think, you know, I didn't know this at the time, but I was creating this framework in which there could be layers, in this really holistic way of supporting a human being right that which I, I didn't have, like, I essentially think that I created the conditions for someone like me to come come through, right,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: that's such an interesting interpretation of the pain to purpose. Because I think what a lot of practitioners that I've sat with, would all say that there was a missing part, to their journey back to a whole version of themselves. And so they created that, and then they went around, then they turned around, and, and taught that, and what I want people listening to understand is that, you know, when I grew up, it was very much you had a problem. And so you went to the doctor, you were given a diagnosis, and you were given a treatment, it was very linear. And today, in today's world, I really feel like that linear path is no longer successful. And what is really appearing are is more of sort of a hybrid of many different modalities that are able to create, like you said, a healing container for people. And that's what I heard. And what you just said is like, I needed to create a different version that had never been created before. And the freedom of that if you're in a chronic situation, if you're in it in a moment where you just can't find the door out when somebody has found the door out and then created a whole room for you to step into. So I just want to point that out. Because what I find is that a lot of my listeners, I found this when I was in practice is they're still looking for that one thing, and there is no one thing, I almost feel like it's look for the person who has had your situation and pulled themselves out of that to you know, to you know,
Kate Horsman: Mindy, you're so right there. I think that we don't emphasize enough the healing power of relationship. Right. And so when we can be in relationship with another person, even if they haven't, don't have that shared experience, which I do think is absolutely beneficial, especially with certain types of conversations. I do think that finding the person where you feel like you can just be in the room with and you should feel supported. And even like that, even that space, or that silence can be filled. And it's not about all what I need to be different. Can you can you hold me here? Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Can you see me as in? Can you see me? And I think that's what we're really missing in our healthcare system. Is, is we don't we're not practitioners, I'm just gonna put everybody in one big bucket, or not seeing the person in front of them. And especially if there's insurance involved, and there's a system involved, then all of a sudden, we've only seen there's only a process, there's not a person. So, so yeah, I just want to point that out. Because it's really I think is is where healthcare is going is following somebody who had what you had created a solution for themselves and then turned around to lift other people up in it. It's going to be a relational health care, not a systemized health care. And I think it's just you just said it so beautifully. I didn't want to Yeah,
Kate Horsman: no, no, thank you for highlighting that. I mean, I going back to sort of that transition period from being someone that was still moving through their stuff to stepping in is still moving through their stuff. As a human, but helping other people with it, I felt so unseen in so many moments of my life. And again, there's this interesting, it kind of gives me chills this, considering, like, I attempted to unsee myself to just become almost invisible, right. And then to be to be more in my body, which is so much of my work now and helping people come into their bodies, to be able to witness is, is just such a blessing. And if anyone leaves my space feeling more seen, or more heard, then I have done my work, right? Yes,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: you have. And many of people have done that, including myself, left your space and feeling exactly that, you know, one of my favorite parts about you, let me just say, not you, yourself. But when I went to your website to actually read the like clinical you, I was like, wow, like your might
have a lot of different pedigree going on here. But let's dive specifically into breathwork. I want to point out a couple of things that took me a really long time to try to kind of understand this. And the first was Bruce Lipton's work, and how your thoughts become, can cause an inflammatory response within the cell. And I've brought him on the show, we've chatted about that. And that was very much like, Wait, this, this is so counterintuitive to what we're taught in a traditional healthcare system, our thoughts are in creating cellular inflammation. And then the second one you and I have talked about before, which is the Body Keeps the Score. And that that book, I think, changed so many lives. But it really did an incredible job of explaining how our tissues hold on to these traumas. And and so when I think about traumatic work, I almost think we have to bypass the brain and go straight to the body, because the brain doesn't hasn't been able
Kate Horsman: to figure it out. Amen. Amen. Right. I think that there's this way that our brain can come in and, and start to reorganize it with us, but our body has to be a part of it. It remembers. Yeah, it remembers so, so much. It remembers everything. Wisdom available there. Right.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And I know that there's a lot right now, where they're talking about they don't believe talk therapy works anymore. So you know, have and coming from a clinical background? Have you noticed that? What's the difference from your shoes, being talking to somebody about their problem, as opposed to letting the body talk? Yeah, what's going
Kate Horsman: on, and maybe for clarification, never worked in the clinical space, but definitely still as professional counselor, right, and which is just a much more what we would call traditional, you know, Western talk therapy, right? I sort of quote unquote, traditional because what is more traditional, if we go back in time, were some of these other practices that we're starting to get into now are breath, psychedelics, you know, energy medicine, these are those are all very old and ancient and much more traditional than what we you know, fit into the box of our talk therapies now. But yeah, so sort of to mirror the same way that I was starting to notice that there was this gap in my own somatic world, I have not even connected with my body. I felt like there was this missing gap with with clients, that, of course, you'll notice this, I will pause and be like, oh, cool, what's happening there? What's,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah, you say that? Yeah, that's like,
Kate Horsman: trying to sort of reorganize this back to like, what our body has to say. And so there are subtle ways that we can do that. But then there's, you know, much deeper and direct ways if we have the capacity to do that, like psychedelics like breathwork that put us in direct path with some of what's there, the material of our lives into your love or traumas lives in our body, and wants to be acknowledged that free break apart? Yeah, catalyzed.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: So with breathwork, what I have found as I've shared my journey with you, and some of the aha was that I've had, as my body has spoken, is that there are a lot of different types of breathwork. And it seems to be kind of confusing for people. It sure so can you talk yeah. Can you talk a little bit like I would call the type of work you the breath work that I've been doing with you, I just call it therapeutic breath work as opposed to I in the morning. Sometimes I'll pop on other ship app really like that app? Or write them off? I did Wim Hof for a while, like those, even though those were both breaths, they were vastly different. Are they not
Kate Horsman: different? They're totally different. And I think it's so important to say and What can I say about this that is helpful for the listeners? You know, I think that there's breath exercises. And then there's breath experiences, you know, when you when you share with me and both, and both are so valuable, I too, I dip into something much more experiential that requires much more support. And then I also in the morning, I'm like, Oh, how can I fill these lungs? How can I increase the volume of my lungs so that I have the health benefits, and the clarity and some of the instantaneous stuff that breath can give us, right. So there is a purpose and a place for both, and there is a separation between them. So with this style of breathwork, and, you know, I think, again, in trying to create something that was unique and authentic and honest to me, I did want to incorporate some of the values that I was coming in with and being able to hold to human experience. So some of those skills as in professional counseling, oh, if stuff comes up, I can process that with someone, we can talk about that together, there's a little bit more containment men, some of these circumstances were just like, Oh, we're opening up the field, and there's so much coming through. And that can be really destabilizing for for people. And so, yeah, so So what we're doing in these moments, where we're going towards this act of breathing, is we're actually beginning to stress the body out, in a sense, the breath isn't about us resetting our nervous system, although we'll probably get there on the flip side of it. During, we're actually activating, right, we're probably getting into the sympathetic state, for breathing so big and so large, kind of opening our body up. And that's sort of me sort of being a little bit artistic in those words, but we're, we're lessening or softening our default mode network. So the first 10 minutes, 15 minutes of breathing can often
feel like a little bit of a struggle, continuously breathing with a lot of energy. And therefore the brain is like, Oh, I'm not quite used to this is this Are We? Are we sure we were supposed to be doing this. So there can be this little internal battle that's going on. And then once you get past that part, we drop into the body, or the soul or the spirit or the energy field, there can be so many layers to that. So then, you know, a breathwork session can last anywhere from 10 to 50 minutes, depending on where someone is at and what we're working through. And this is where we are participating, there's sort of four layers that I sort of see within this type of breathwork therapy, we're going towards surrender. We're creating the conditions, to let surrender come through in a way that feels supportive and safe. That we are deepening. The second is going through experience that we are connected through our emotional experience, our embodied experience, there have been very few moments in most people's lives where it's actually been okay, or even not okay, but to go towards emotion, right? That these cries are, these whales are holy, like whatever happens here, I can be in the experience of it. Yep. Yeah. And then the third part of it is being able to be a bit exploratory about it. What what, what is this? Can I connect with myself more deeply because of it, you know, a lot of time people in, we're accessing somewhat of an altered state of consciousness, we have access to our intuition, to insight to vision, to more sensation to trust to truth. They all have these qualities that are just refining. You know, who we are. And then the fourth stage is reintegration. And this is often the place that people just kind of rush by. With psychedelic work, we kind of hang out here a little bit longer. breathwork not so much. But we've taken all of this medicine, and we kind of are like, Oh, I feel kind of born again. Wait, what happened? And if we've done our
job, we're like, pulling our medicine bag with us and bringing that out into our life. What is it? What is what did I find there? What did what was that like for me? And how can I bring that into? Yeah, what is being asked of me?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You know, my interpretation of what you just said is, it's very much like fasting. It's because you're going into a hypoxic state right? When you're breathing when doing the breath work like you let me not you and I even talked about this last night, like, there was a little bit of concern for me of like, oh, I don't know if I'm really wanting my legs to be tingly today or my hands to be tingly. And yet my educated brain knows that that's a hypoxic state that I have put myself in And it's in the absence, that we often find those answers just like fasting when you when you go into a fasted state, so many people, I always say people go there because they're like, I want to lose weight. And I always say, Join us for losing weight. And then I hope you stay for transformation you see, because the longer you stay with these fasting principles, the more you uncover about yourself, because it's in the absence of food that you can hear yourself. What I heard, what you just said was, it's in the absence of oxygen, in some sense, that default network comes down. And you start with Yeah, not accurate. You can you can, you could disagree. No,
Kate Horsman: I think you're right. And like, I guess, where where I come in. I'm like, yeah, and there's like, I think it's the absence of control.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Oh, yes. Well, they're both absence of control. Yeah.
Okay, wait, okay. Wait, yeah, this is good. So I love you. So when there's an absence of control?
Kate Horsman: That's where you find the answer. That is that is that is the Deep Dive Into Mystery. Yeah. Right. And that is that, why is
Dr. Mindy Pelz: that so hard? Why is that so hard to embrace? Yeah,
Kate Horsman: I mean, for each of us, there's a different reason, right? But I think we're conditioned to hold on to control. We also see it everywhere. We're also highly individualistic. And we're like, Oh, I gotta, I gotta keep myself safe. And then if we've actually had been harmed, we're like, oh, no, I actually, it's not safe to lose control. Right. So. So it's like, a thoughtfulness even in. Yeah, why we want to hold on, there's probably a very good reason why letting go of control feels so hard. So we have to honor that. And at the same time, again, if the conditions are right, and the people are right, and those forces can align? Can we practice what it would be like to let go just a little bit more? Can we dance in the mystery of unknown? Because the unknown hasn't hasn't been working out for us, too? Well, right? No,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: it hasn't? No,
Kate Horsman: I really think of, there's a beautiful episode of I'm not sure if you're familiar with Michael need. He talks about myth. And I love bringing myth into conversation as well, because I think we ought to be a little bit esoteric and creative about these experiences. Again, it's not this linear, there's no binary like, let's let's bring a little bit of juice into it. And he talks about the story of like the caterpillar to butterfly. And I think our culture is sort of grabbed on to this effect that the butterfly or the caterpillar just grows wings, it goes through through this, this process and it's and it's, you know, in this state until it like, grows its wings and, like expands it was this beautiful thing. And it is, but what we also forget as the caterpillar actually dissolves into other goo, it is these are the mat imaginal cells, there is a complete dis illusion of what was that allows it to step into what it has always meant to be. Oh, right. Oh,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: that is so good. Oh, wow. Yep.
And I would say you know, as scary as that sounds, it's scary. The The other thing I this is where I thought you were gonna go with the butterfly one is they always say that if you cut if you were to take a chrysalis and cut it open, that the caterpillar would cannot emerge it has to it actually has to push itself out through make that difficult moment so that it can turn in and it can't go into the butterfly without the difficult moment
Kate Horsman: that pressurization of like what Yeah,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: but I really love that. The other side of that I never thought about like, you know, we always talked about the butterfly when it comes out. Now it's this beautiful butterfly, but I never thought about what what happened to the caterpillar, like it turned into goo. And, you know, that has been my experience, as I've been working on my own healing journey is that there is a, you just it's like a, like a trail of goo.
That just keeps getting left behind me. And I'm like, Well, I guess I don't need that anymore as I moved to my version of my butterflies. So I think I'm so
Kate Horsman: brave, right? And I think we do need those reminders. Because when we come up against these edges of our life, we actually think something is so wrong with us. And this could be a moment of how right there is with us and I don't want to diminish our pain. I know that one but I also think that these are initiatory moments and we've talked about this too, that are just in so so important to be thoughtful and and cared for. Because if we go towards them in right relationship, whatever that is, with our healers, with our support group with our community, we have the chance to see through what was always meant to be, right. It's not about fixing it's about, it's about remembering, like, literally re mmm, membrane, like our body back together. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. And one of the experiences that I've had with breathwork, and just diving into, you know, my journey, my own emotional journey has been that I spent most of my life avoiding the difficult avoiding the trauma, thinking that that was going to help save me. And what I've actually learned in the last two years is it's actually going into it, like, just go right into it. And whatever that trauma is, it dissolves. And that that really was a whole new experience for me, because I was what I always say, I grew up in a lemonade family, where everybody made lemonade out of whatever lemons. And what I've learned is sometimes if you take a bite of the lemon, and you actually don't add any sugar to it, and you just embrace the whole lemon, that there's there's a, there is a sweetness in that as well. And and I think breathwork really is that kind of experience, because you don't know the traumas that are organizing your thoughts right now. And you know, that I when I first came to you, one of the things that I thought was what my brain was was curious about was a story and Body Keeps the Score about a young couple that was in a car accident. And they survived. They witnessed some pretty horrific it was a multi car car accident, but they survived and they witnessed death. And they could never sleep afterwards, because they felt like if they just let go, that they were actually going to die. And you know, for me that I resonated with that from my near death experience. And so I thought, oh my gosh, I wonder if something like my sleep pattern, I wonder if something like my inability to relax or sit on the couch is because of this near death trauma that I had in my 30s. And what shocked me and I just want to bring this to light, because I thought this was so interesting is Do you remember that for one of the breathwork sessions we did, where I was like, I want to go back to that trauma and see what my body has in store for me. And I lose, I
literally went back into the anaphylactic experience.
Kate Horsman: Yeah, it was so powerful, so powerful. But that but
Dr. Mindy Pelz: then, you know, is interesting, because then it just felt like I was freed from it. So talk a little bit about how does that happen? How does the body hold on to emotions. And when we use breathwork as a way to access it, it shocks me what the body does and what the body reveals to you. I'll
Kate Horsman: try my best. I mean, I think that there's still so much again leaning into this mystery and, and not to kind of cop out of the question. But there's still so much we don't really know and understand about this. And there's parts that we can we can write or our bodies are like these tension. So bodies, of course on a cellular level, there's there's things that change, there's hormones that happen, there's our nervous systems impacting all of this, right. But we know there's no denying that there's so much life that is lived there. And when we have the opportunity to go towards a bravely, like you said, and I think it's worth saying, maybe I'll just a little friendly reminder for those working through trauma. If this is one of the places, you'll find the containers that feel like they can hold it like they're large enough, connected enough to hold what's there. Because I think beauty of like, knowing that there's so much work out there psychedelics, breathwork assisted therapy, we can sort of feel like I can just I can go to the workshop, and it can happen, it can. And again, making sure that you have the right people around you to work through that. Like oh, Mindy was so such a blessing to move into those spaces with you. And I'm so glad that we could do that in the way that really honored the way that's shown up for you for so long. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: You know, what was interesting? I think I told you this is that for years, when I would tell the story about the jelly fish, my throat would contract. And after that session, like the whole the tightness in my throat probably went down by like 75%. And I could actually tell the story and as I started tell the story, it was like it wasn't physically gripping me anymore. And I and one of the interesting things and AHA is I'm having about trauma Right now is that trauma doesn't always show up like a depressed human trauma can show up as weight loss resistance. trauma can show up as chronic pain trauma in the body can show up as an autoimmune condition. You know, trauma shows up as overwhelm, and insomnia, and anxiety and quick to react to stress. These are things that we haven't given enough value to, we sort of push them aside medicate them and have a glass of wine do command and kind of ignore them. Yeah, to manage the symptom in the moment. But if the you know, what I love about the Body Keeps the Score idea is that if the body had a language, it would talk to you in symptoms. So when and if the brain, you know, the brain is not meant to be in constant state of reaction. So at some point, the nervous system gets maxed, and the body system gets maxed, and then everything starts to fall apart. And what I have experienced in breathwork, is now you get to go in and heal whatever has tanked, the body has destroyed the body's ability to regulate
Kate Horsman: itself, part of that is allowing sometimes the impulse of the trauma or the memory to complete itself, right? Sometimes, when they talk about trauma, it's like this, this unfinished impulse to be able to run away to say something to have a motion, right? It deserves completion. And that is some of what we are doing when we're able to access, especially the emotional world of the body, because we, again, are moving further and further away from our bodies, therefore moving further and further away from our emotions. So if we allow this expression to come through, there is something that shifts in the body where it's like, you know, after after a big cry, and we do one of these, oh, something just reset itself there. On a future level, you know, these moments where you were experiencing, and hopefully this feels okay to share, it's also not totally unique. You, you trusted what was happening with your body, and you had movements, you were assisting in this process, you're like, oh, like, trying to get free, right. And I've seen this before I've seen people, he'll start to scream or start to sing, or do a shake. And it's like, okay, we're not actually thinking those things through write. Hopefully, there's just enough. Yeah, and that's safety, and the whole experience, how allow that sort of completion, like the body knows what to do. And in those moments, you were assisting yourself, which is to say that the medicine is within you, which is the really fascinating thing, about breathwork that I think makes it, you know, just very unique from other modalities, and I love other modalities, they've been so beneficial to me. And we're not outsourcing anything to anyone other than our amongst
Dr. Mindy Pelz: my God, that's so beautiful, which is ties really into again, my my prayer for all both men and women is just understanding that, that you do have this healing power within you. And sometimes where you become so disconnected from it that you need an experience like breathwork or fasting, my biggest thing I love about fasting is when people are like, Oh my god, I lost 30 pounds, you changed my life. And I'm like, oh, no, no, I didn't change your life, you changed your life, you you stepped in to a healing power within your body that nobody taught you how to where, where, where that lived. And I feel like that's the same analogy with breath work, that my experience with breath work has been that you're stepping into a medicine that's within you, that you you it's it's hard to find until you go into these, this breath pattern experience, then it's like all of a sudden the medicine reveals it. It's
Kate Horsman: completely intrinsic and fascinating. You know, even thinking about the it's a first thing, breath, first thing you do when you come into the world. Well, probably like there's a few other things happening too. But like you take a breath. And it's the last thing you meet when you leave the world. It is connected to you through all of that. And so yeah, again, I think some of the emphasis on breath is healing is so powerful right now, whether we're talking about breath exercises, or events. Again, someone like James Nestor has a wealth of information on like the science of breathing like yours Starting to actually trust that there's something extremely valuable about this set of lungs, right? And not just this set of lungs, you're settling this yourself, you know, there is, yeah, a wisdom and a power there than meets us. Each time we take a breath, right. And I think if we were to look at it through, you know, a meditation standpoint, you know, that's always been the thing is like with each in breath, and with each out breath, we have a chance to begin again. And in this state, we're like, we're ramping it up exponentially.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah, but I also see it like, it's a form of detox. It's like an emotional detox. So Tammy, you're going into, yeah, this rapid breath, and the emotions are coming out, which is why it's so beautiful to have someone like you assisting you through that experience, they're coming up and out. So it's, I also and you know, the lungs are a detox organ. And so but but the type of breathing, and I want to go into what a session looks like here in a moment, but the type of breathing that we do with you, it feels like an emotional detox, it's like what needs to come up and out today, so that my body can start to be more at peace and be more coherent. So I that I just want it like I really emphasize and as scary as that sounds, it actually isn't scary to when you're processing it. To me, it's more like, Oh, I didn't know that was there. And thank you body for sharing with me what you've been storing, I'm now ready to, to acknowledge it, and move from it. So talk a little bit about like how a session works, like what and we should probably talk about the type of Brett what it feels like to go into this breath. Because my experience has been well, a, you're such a loving him. And that it's you create even on Zoom, you create the most beautiful container. So you know, everybody I've sent your way I just am like, you just you're gonna love her, you just there's not a there's not a judgmental bone that I have found in your body. And you really have done a phenomenal job as as creating a container that allows these emotions to come up and out without judgment, which I think is really important. So talk a little bit about what a session looks like. So people can kind of wrap their eyes, their their logical brains
Kate Horsman: are beautiful. So of course, again, my sessions may be a little bit different than than other people's. For me, it begins with heart centered conversation, right? We have to build the relationship of trust in order to go to the places that could be hard. Right? And so this could look different for everybody. Some people be like, I'm curious, but I'm not really ready. So okay, well, let's just spend time there. And so so we spend time there. We also spend, you know, as much as much as we can on creating intention. But what I will say with this is this gives the mind a place of focus. Whether we get there or not, isn't really the point. Right, I think I think it helps to ground as an anchor is in moments where we feel the instability of what's coming up. And if we have our heart set on, really, like I've been going through this hard thing, and, and I want to get deeper, or I want to connect with myself more beautiful, that could be a long and continuous intention that we hold together. When we go into the active part of breathing, you know whether, you know, I have some people in person and a lot over zoom, we're doing the whole experience laying down. Hopefully, in somewhere that feels really comfortable, like safe. I always think that beauty is very important in our healing. So however you can create intentional space is is is important to me, it feels important to you. And we do a little bit of grounding. And this just allows us to anchor into what feels alive in our body right now. Because we're gonna go from like, Here, we've been working like all in this space of the mind. And we're going to drop into the body pretty quick. We just create a little bit of room for that. And then as we start to do the act of breathing, let's just to phase breath, we're breathing deeply through our belly than our chest and exhaling. And we get into this rhythm, right? And this is, again, those first five to 10 minutes can feel a little bit
uncomfortable. This is where we might have some agitation in the body or the mind doesn't want to go there or it's scared or it feels panic, because for some of us, we live up there. And we think that, you know, something bad's gonna happen. And so again, with like, attuned awareness of like, Who's Who's with you, you know, yeah, can hold you through that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I just want to point out that, you know, you're like when we're doing it, I've got my head said in I'm lying down my eye. Is your closed, you're guiding through it. It's a journey. And yeah, so it's like, and then you do such a good job of sort of setting up. Like, it's not like you just rush into the breath work, but it's almost like a, it's like a visualization. Like, you're sort of guiding me into a visualization. And then you have incredible music. In fact, last night, when I went to bed, I was like, I think I need Oh, I'm sending it to you. That was, yeah, that was really good. And, and then the music kind of helps create for me, it definitely gets me into that emotional place. And, and then you're starting the breath work. And it's it's a mouth mouth breathing, like you're not using your nose, which is how you get to these to this other state. It's not an inhale excess,
Kate Horsman: right? That's right. And this is contrary to some of what we will hear about healthy breathing. When we're breathing healthfully during the day, obviously, we want to use predominantly our nose, right, leaving through our mouth isn't a long term healthy move. But in these moments, it it actually is right and James Messer, as well talks about this, because people question like, why would you do this, if you're supposed to be breathing, you know, through your nose? So So yes, there is this way that I'm sort of accompanying you on a journey, you know, your your body and your sensations and your emotions aren't going to guide us. And then wherever need be, if there's assistance, then, you know, there's, there's a hand there ready to like, you know, catch you catch whatever material is there. And yeah, the the music is a part of it, it's can be evocative to the emotions allows us to drop in, you know, to something that, you know, could could feel touched, right, we have these layers where our hearts have not been opened. And so we start to breathe, essentially, it's a heart opening experience. And we're even breathing through that heart center, right? If we're talking about this from a chakra place, you know, in the belly, and then yeah, in the heart, opening this up, and there's gonna, there's gonna be some stuff. So having having things like music or connection, or Yeah, and any supportive dialogue can sometimes just facilitate us where we're going.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: My experience is that we've, we've done different versions of the breathwork sessions, where I've set an intention, because I love intentions. And then there's been a few where I'm like, I don't know, let's just breathe today. And then, those always shocked me, because, like, memories come up that I that the brain had hidden from me, and and there's been some pretty intense ones that was like, whoa, wow, I forgot about that. And then when it comes to the surface, it feels like, there's a like, wow, that happened at that age. And that must be why i Now behave this way. Like, it creates like a, like an anchor back into the past to understand the behaviors and the way your mind is working in the present. And I'm not sure I mean, I've done lots of psychedelic journeys, and I haven't found it always to be that body experience. Whereas this feels like, again, the body's like, Hey, I kind of memory for you. I feel like you should, you should maybe work this one out, let's let's bring this one up. And it's they it doesn't feel scary to me. I mean, I've mean, partly because you're so loving, but also it feels like a release, it feels like, oh, wow, that was in my nervous system that was there causing the depression and the anxiety and the lack of focus. Wow, well, let's unpack that. And, like, get that out. And so I just, I just want to say that because it is I don't know another vehicle that allows you to go into the storage bank of the body in that way. And I think if you're hearing this, it sounds scary, but it doesn't feel scary for me. I don't know if the other clients you work with, you know, if they sort of have maybe over time they, as they trust you more and more, they have that same sort of experience. But I know a lot of people have said to me like breathwork sounds scary. And I'm like, Really, it sounds like it sounds freedom.
Kate Horsman: Me too. It sounds like freedom and also sometimes moving towards scary things is how we get more free. So it's again, like goes back to that dissolving the dissolution of the caterpillar is like letting go can be just really terrifying. The beautiful thing is is you know, the risks are kind of minimal, especially if held appropriately. Yes, it you can practice what's scary and in a safe way. Right? Yeah, we can. We can pump. We can pump the brakes, or we can also press on the gasoline. Right and we have those choices with breath work that again, I think make it a little bit unique today. This process whereas, you know, going and doing ayahuasca for everybody might not, you know, be the right thing, oh, I can practice what that would be like to sense into myself a little bit more. And if it feels too much, okay, I can pump the brakes, I can also process why that is I can then pump the gas again and, and go towards it. It's it's scary and freedom and and both belong?
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. And what I've noticed is that, you know, in those moments that those really vulnerable thoughts come up, my brain does have a moment where like, am I going to speak this? And I And I've said this to you before, like, I'm not sure I'm gonna say this. No, I'm gonna say it. And then I say it, and then it just feels like relief. So you know, for people listening, I also want to say that, like the brake and the gas pedal is controlled by the breath work, you can decide to slow down or speed up. And then you can enhance the experience or you can slow the experience down. And then when the memory comes up, or whatever shows up for you, you also have the choice at that moment, if you're going to actually verbal, Absolutely
Kate Horsman: not. Absolutely, you remain in choice, which, again, with other other systems, you might not have that. So I've had, I've had people that have had sort of what I seem to be big experiences, and they just want to hold that for themselves. And we respect that and honor that and give you instructions of what to walk away with. And let's come back next time. So can still be on your terms, right? I think, because so much of the culture is in this overshare. And it's like beautiful, like we want some liability, but it's also like, we don't have to share everything, the choice, and then that gets to be totally yours. And if you're getting stuck in something. Cool. Let's talk about it. Let's, let's see what's there. So, yeah, what's
Dr. Mindy Pelz: the difference between an individual breathwork session and a group breathwork session. So, you know, my inclination is always to kind of go into the individual space, it just, I feel like I've spent so much of my life in a more group public space. But then I had that experience in a Bheatha, where I was in a group doing breath work, and some profound healing happened for me there. So do you, do you see any difference between the healing response if it's done on an individual level than a group level,
Kate Horsman: you know, it's really hard to say, because I've also had beautiful experiences in group and, and, and outside of group. And I think it's important to say that a lot of our healing work, it's so beautiful, especially, you know, some of the work you're doing, Mindy is bringing people together. And so I think there's something really interesting there that as emotion comes up, it's like, oh, other people's emotions are coming up. And you're kind of, like, everyone's kind of in an experience now. And I think I think there's something magical there. I am also really drawn to some of the deeper places. And so I can't say for certain that the individual is, is more depth oriented, but I do know that there's more capacity to hold what's there. And that feels important to me, because again, in the sort of system where it's so easy for things to be overlooked or not attuned to, right, we're in these really open states, and we miss an opportunity to go towards someone to hold their hand or say, I'm, I'm right here with you. Yeah, I don't want to miss that. So for me, it's, it's an intuition thing. And also just something that feels, you know, deeply resonant. In my work, and for other people, it will be really different. I always think that if you're working through something that feels important, make sure to give it the importance it needs. Right. So yeah,
Dr. Mindy Pelz: yeah, yeah. Yeah. And I can see, and I can see a benefit for both. I mean, the experience in in Bheatha, that was so profound for me is that when when this emotion came up and out, these two, two women in the group just held me and I and it was like a really another one of those moments of women healing women. And and it just, it was like, again, I think this is so different than talk therapy, to me talk therapy is like, I have this thought, I have this problem. And then there's sort of a redefining of it. Well, how about you look at it this way? What if you look at it that way? Yeah. And
reframing and you're really good, you got some good reframing as they
Kate Horsman: say everything. Right? No.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Right. And some things just need to come up and out and then they're done. And that has been my experience. I mean, the deep stuff, obviously, any big trauma you're gonna have to keep coming back to to keep healing but I really think there's something unique about breathwork where it's like up and out. Here it is, it's and the body just shows It shows it reveals it to you. So who do you think? I mean, the way I
use you is probably that sounds horrible. Okay, you
Kate Horsman: can use, you can use me all you want Wendy.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Wait a second. I don't I don't
at all. Thank you. Great, thank you the way my experience of leaning in to your presence and your wisdom, it is it's very abstract. And sometimes I don't know what we're going to talk about. Sometimes I don't know what's going to show up. But then I've told you this before a days afterwards, there's just so much clarity, and it's like, whoa, and I see my life differently. And I didn't even know that that was a possibility, or that something was blocking me from reaching a happier, healthier, more vibrant state. So and then sometimes, like, when I first came to you, I was like, I had this near death. We gotta we gotta, we got to deal with this. What do you find people coming to you? Do they come with a condition? Do they come with a known trauma? Do they come with curiosity? I'm sure it's all of that. But it just so if people are listening, and they're like, this sounds interesting. I want them to sort of understand you don't really have to have a very specific thing to come to. And if you do have a deep trauma, I mean, I personally, I just think you're the gal to go to, like because of the container you've created. That's that's
Kate Horsman: done my work then. Yeah. So I think it's important that people know that. There's a variety of reasons why people might want to connect with this work, not least of which is a deeper connection with yourself. Right? It can be it can be as simple and as profound as that. Right? We're so disconnected from Yeah, our authenticity, our voice, our heart. Yeah. And so for a lot, especially, you know, this, this imagined demographic that you've been working with, this is like an interesting chapter in people's lives, where they're going towards, like a lot of feelings, a lot of emotions, a lot of changes. And so I think that, that, in and of itself, is cause for exploration in whichever avenue that you want to take. It's like, I want I want to know me more, I want to connect with what feels important to me. I think I generally hear quite often, I want to feel more connected to my body. I want to feel connected to my emotions. I want to trust myself more. I feel I feel like there's something bigger for me, I feel like I'm not I'm just like, you know, a little bit removed from my life. Like, those are some of the more general, you know, ideas. And then and then for others, you know, if they're working with specific issues, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, and we might be walking with like, what, what the fear is there, but it would be like to let go a little bit more. So it does really run the range. And there doesn't have to be a problem with you. Right. And let's, let's acknowledge that alone. It's like, again, we're, that's not even part of, of this framework. There. You have never been broken. Yeah. Right. But you don't you don't need to identify with like, oh, like, this just isn't right. It can be like, I want to know myself more.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Hmm. And that you know, that so beautifully said, because it ties in, as you know, to my, my feeling about perimenopause. And so many of the women that listen to this podcast are 40 and over. And one of the things that I've noticed as I've been teaching hormones to the world, is that when we hit our 40s, as these hormones go come down as they're naturally supposed to do so do our neurotransmitters. And so you've got like eight to 10 neuro chemicals that are massively shifting, and my experience now that I'm postmenopausal 54, like if I go back and I look at my 40s all the way, you know, the last 14 years, as this, I call it, the neuro chemical armor as the armor has been coming down, it's become harder and harder to hold back those traumas. And it's not a conscious thing. But for me, it's look like it looks like God, I have a lot of anger. Where did that anger come from? Like, the rage in my early 40s That would come out I would shock me. And I'd be like, what is that? Or, you know, the inability to focus, you know, that's a very common Peri menopausal symptom, or anxiety or depression or insomnia. What I have found is that in all these Peri menopausal symptoms, it is this armor coming down and giving me the gift of really understanding what my body In my soul, my mind is wanting to let go of and what is wanting to come forward. And so I just want to point that out because I think that breathwork has a lot of people intrigued. It's becoming very much part of the cultural conversation. And it was actually Sara Godfried. That really made me think about perimenopause recently as a version of trauma, that this neurochemical armor coming down is trauma. And it reveals your trauma. So what tools do we have, when that happens? And when we look at the traditional health care system, it's very focused on Oh, you have depression, let's give you a you know, an antidepressant? Oh, maybe we need to do some patches, maybe we need to do some creams and
some trophies, and my as you know, one of my new feelings is like, no, let's get to know ourselves. Because that armors coming down, and there's some shit in there that we haven't dealt with, that we now have the opportunity to come into loving containers like yours, and say, help me guide me through this process. So that when I go on, get into my 50s, and 60s and 70s, I am the best version of myself. And that's really like how I see it, and is the way I sort of have language to it. And I don't know if you've seen that with more Peri menopausal and menopausal women. That yeah,
Kate Horsman: and I mean, you've been noticing it in myself, too, right? And I think that idea of like, what, what we resist, persists. And at this moment, or this time is like, oh, we can't actually resist it any, any longer. And anyone, that's where this sort of, and again, that sort of phrase, I've talked about where it's like an initiation into this next, this next metamorphosis, this next realization of who we always were right. So I think I think it does, and it can help with that it leads us towards something not away from something. And we know that, especially when it comes to our emotional world. Yeah, if we, if we, if we kept pushing it down for a long time, we might have to be with the expression of it for a while. How do we befriend our grief? or anger, our sadness, not because we're going to be swallowed by it, but because we're going to be liberated by it by acknowledging its present? Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Yeah. And I feel like when we use medication, and I'm not I know a lot of women are getting great results with their HRT and their bioidenticals. And some are getting even great results with their antidepressants. But when we're using that, we're, we're also missing the opportunity, and to heal and to step into the most authentic version of ourselves. And what I would love to see is every prescription that's written for HRT, so is a prescription written for breathwork. And and could it be possible that here's something that's going to slow the exiting of these neuro chemicals, but then here's a tool to work on rediscovering yourself and healing what you may have never had time to heal. That's the that's like the vision that I have for perimenopause and menopause, is that breathwork becomes at the core of the transformation that it takes from going from 40 to 54.
Kate Horsman: Where I'm Yeah, yeah, beautifully said. And I really appreciate that it's not an either or it's an end, right, that there's there's this way that, you know, we're kind of just done with these sort of 111 time solutions. It's like, Oh, let, let let let's, okay, you need this support. And this comes along with it. Let's see where this takes us now. Right. Yeah, there's something something really beautiful, you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: know, as I was recently teaching the polyvagal theory to a group and I went, you know, for people, I've talked about it on this podcast before, but, you know, at the base of the polyvagal theory is where our nervous system is the most relaxed, where it dips in to fight or flight, and then it goes into relaxation. And one of the ways that you know, you are in a state of a healthy nervous system where the nervous system is regulating itself well, is curiosity. When you when a problem presents itself, and you're curious about it, as opposed to reacting to it, that's where you start to find that your nervous system is regulating itself getting itself back into coherence. So I use the word curiosity, and I was like, Yes, I think that's the highest vibration we can be at, as we, you know, go through I'm just going to keep it on the perimenopause phase. Like as we go through the changes in our hormones. How do we be curious about this change that's happening in our body and what could possibly what good could come of it out? As opposed to villainizing it, and that's where I found breathwork to just be a tool, I'm not sure I would, I would definitely not be in the mental state I am today without it. It's it because I feel like my body got to have a say, in this new version of me that's emerging.
Kate Horsman: Thank you lungs. Thank you lungs, right? Yeah. Thank you
Dr. Mindy Pelz: legs, thank you, thank you every cell in my body. So it's a true honor. It's
just like fasting. You know, fasting is an honoring of the wisdom of the body, I feel like breathwork is an honoring that the body needs to release. And it needs to let stuff out in order for it to keep moving to its highest place. So.
So with that in mind,
tell me if somebody's interested in connecting with you, if they want to try it. Like I want people to understand you don't have to come with a clinical diagnosis. You can just be like, I heard this podcast, it was beautiful. I'm curious, curious. And a lot of areas.
What does that look like? And
how would they find? So
Kate Horsman: yeah, thank you. And thank you for curiosity. And that, that way that we actually drop into curiosity is through the experiencing of our emotions, and there's so many frameworks that actually sort of highlight that. So I love that, that we landed there. It's like, oh, I can be with my experience. That can be curiosity. Yeah, yeah. Best way to connect with me is through my website. Kate horseman.com. I'm on Instagram occasionally. And that's also a place and that's at K Foresman. Health. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: I wouldn't call you an Instagram introvert. That's, that's, that's a good way of putting it. Yeah, like they're sometimes sometimes you're not. So it's beautiful. Well,
I mean, I encourage everybody to reach out because and we, you know, one of the reasons I want to do this podcast is because I really want to bring you to my reset Academy and do some group work together so that we, because there's so many menopausal women in there, they're on a healing path, I really your wisdom, your experience is profound. And I can't wait to do it in a group setting like that. So I do have one last question.
I don't even know if I told you, I was gonna ask you this question as an exciting
thing. And I'm curious what I'm,
I'm curious what you're gonna say. So
it's a question I've been asking all year. And that is, what is health mean to you? And do you have a health goal that you're working on right now?
Kate Horsman: I imagine that this is a question or an answer that will continue to change for me at this moment. Yeah. At this moment in time, health means being in deepest connection to what it's like to be me to authenticity. And what it's like to be a little more free.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Was freedom for you.
Kate Horsman: That connection, connection to self? Meaning and connection with others? Yeah. Being interest being a flexibility being in emotions. Yeah. I love that.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And do you have a health goal right now?
I mean, that's it's hard, hard to have a goal when you have that definition of health.
Kate Horsman: To stay on this path. That might not be the exciting answer of like, Oh, it's this thing. And I'm working towards it every single day. But I am in it's ambiguous. And it's a long term commitment. Yeah.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: And it's peace. That's what I also want to say is that what I'm noticing in my own healing, and as I come back into coherence with myself, that I have these moments of like, Ah, this feels so good. I can just be sitting in my, my office here and be like, ah, what is this feeling of peace inside me right now? I don't know what, how to describe that. But I never want to lose that. And I think that's the way I would interpret what you just said is that you have found a path of authenticity, that puts you in a grounded, loving, connected place, and you will spend the rest of your life trying to stay there and deepen it even more that that would be the internet, I
Kate Horsman: think well said. Right, right. It's there will be other parts that, you know, initiate me more into life. And I'd like to stay in my skin a little bit longer and feel totally at home. And
Dr. Mindy Pelz: so I just adore you. I just I can't thank you enough for showing up the way you do. So. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
Kate Horsman: you for who you are. Yeah. Thank you.
Dr. Mindy Pelz: Thank you so much for joining me in today's episode. I love bringing thoughtful discussions about all things health to you. If you enjoyed it, we'd love to know about it. So please leave us a review, share it with your friends and let me know what your biggest takeaway is.