Transcript #015 - Breathwork

#015 - Liza Al Sady - Healing with Breathwork - Episode Transcript

Liza Al Sady: [00:00:00] That's why I just call this modality the wise one. It's so wise because Amanda you don't know where your breath is going to take you. You set an intention and then it takes you and shows you because during the breathwork session you might see colors, you might see visualizations, you might, you might meet parts or versions of yourself throughout the experience or you might even meet, you know, people that have passed on.

That you never know what happens throughout this experience. And so every single time it's different and that's what makes it so profound.

Amanda Parker: Welcome to Don't Step on the Bluebells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation takes center stage. I'm your host. Amanda Parker and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides, and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations.

Listen in as they share their [00:01:00] practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life. And don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode. Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blue Bells, where we're joined by the incredible Liza Al Sady, a breathwork practitioner and founder of Soul Space Studio based in London.

Liza shares her wisdom on the transformative power of breathwork, helping individuals access and process emotions to stored in the body. Through her unique approach to conscious connected breathwork, Liza guides people on a journey of self discovery, emotional release, and personal growth. Get ready to learn how to move stagnant energy, embrace your story unapologetically, and ultimately live a life unburdened by emotional baggage.

all through the transformative power of the breath. Let's dive in. I'm here with the wonderful Lisa Al Sady, who's going to be sharing the world of breathwork with us and walking us through really what that is, what it [00:02:00] means and how her journey got her to this point where she's helping to guide others through this really remarkable process.

And also her own very unique process. So I know that there's a lot of different wonderful traditions that, uh, you have carved together to create the work that you do. And I'm just so thrilled to have you here sharing that with me and sharing that with our listeners today.

Liza Al Sady: Oh, thank you so much for sort of making space for me to be here with you and to share some of my practices and, uh, my journey, um, with your listeners.

So thanks for having me.

Amanda Parker: I think I first came across your name through some events that you were hosting at the Mandrake Hotel, which is here in London. And that's how I first came to know about you, dug in very deeply to your website, to your work and thought, wow, this is someone that I really want to speak to.

So I'd love [00:03:00] to, um, we don't have to go into the deep heart of what breathwork is straight away, but just to give people some idea, if they hear this word breathwork, what does that mean?

Liza Al Sady: So breathwork really is sort of an umbrella. Think of sort of breathwork, the same Uh, way we use the word fitness underneath the word fitness.

There's so many different modalities, right? You've got spin, you've got Pilates, you've got yoga. It's like all sorts of stuff happens underneath that, that umbrella. And it's very similar to breathwork. Breathwork is sort of an umbrella, um, word for so many different breathing techniques that Um, you can use to really help you achieve whatever state you would like to achieve within your body.

So, you know, it's, there's techniques for you to use when you want to [00:04:00] relax and chill and sort of go into the rest and digestion. And then there's other techniques that you can use to sort of bring energy into the body, you know, that three, four o'clock slump when you're like, Oh, I'm tired. Gosh, I need something to just give me that energy.

Then there's those breathing techniques. And then of course, there's breathing techniques that go completely into the somatic and catharsis and cathartic, cathartic release. And all of that, all of those breathing techniques that we've been using for a very, very long time come underneath the word breathwork.

Amanda Parker: Well, you do really hear so much about this word. It's become quite popular, and it's hard to know. What that actually means and even practitioners or teachers use it in very well use it loosely but meaning very different things So I think it can sometimes be hard to grasp like Am I using this to get into meditation?

Am I, how can I release trauma with the same thing that I can relax and meditate with? [00:05:00] So

Liza Al Sady: yeah, absolutely. And I think it's quite interesting because you can see breathwork or doing some breathing techniques to be an element of meditation. And a lot of people sort of mistaken and have this idea that meditation is about sitting still and about sort of having no thoughts in your mind whatsoever.

And sort of, you know, sort of the image of a monk, right, sitting somewhere going, I've been meditating for 17 days and I have no thoughts coming through my head. And that's difficult to achieve in the lifestyle that we have. And actually meditation, the root word of meditation is to ponder. Right? It's that witnessing and the idea of the observation, observing what's happening within the body and the mind.

And you can go into meditation through using the breath. So by actually focusing on the inhale and the exhale will get you into a meditative state. But you can also doing, do meditation by looking at something [00:06:00] and just, you know, staring at it without having the notion of saying it's black or it's white or it's shaped this way, etc.

And so you can go into meditation very easily using breathing.

Amanda Parker: Well, it's funny, because before we started recording, I like to do a bit of just a grounding. It helps me center my energy and just help us to connect a bit. in this space and I always have this moment because I'm speaking with really remarkable healers and guides and I'm like why am I leading that so I'm leading you through breath going hold on a second

Liza Al Sady: I loved it I absolutely loved it I'm like Oh my gosh, someone's actually taking like the lead and going, right, let's ground this.

Because usually when I have meetings online, I'm the person who goes, let's step into this space by grounding ourselves a little, you know, and I'm like, oh, I love this Amanda already. I'm here. I'm here for it. [00:07:00] 

Amanda Parker: So if you were to take that explanation and share it with your five year old self, so you're explaining to five year old Liza.

what it is that you do in the world. How would you describe that?

Liza Al Sady: I suppose with a five year old. We forget to connect with the breath and it's actually a lot easier for a five year old to connect with their breath because they've got your creativity and they've got the curiosity that Someone in adulthood has completely suppressed because, you know, they've lost connection.

We've lost connection with that part of us. And so for a five year old, I'd probably say witness the air coming in through your nose and out of your nose. And that's the connection to yourself. I'd probably say that's what your breath is. Um, And you can count on it whenever you want to do anything in life.

Um, and so, [00:08:00] yeah. I think allowing children to experience how the breath goes into the body and how it goes out, and how different it would feel to breathe in through your mouth and out through your mouth. Um, and they will have a, a, a deeper connection with that wisdom, with the breath, just by doing that simple technique, you know, just sit down and just feel the air going into your nose and how cold it is when it goes in and then how warmer it gets when you sort of breathe it out and exhale it out through, through your nose.

Amanda Parker: There was a book that was published probably four or five years ago now by James Nestor called breath I'm not sure if you're familiar with the book. Yes Yeah, and I one thing that stood out from reading that was he did an experiment to see why like why do we have options? To breathe through our nose or a mouth.

What's the What's the deal here? And actually sealed off his nose like [00:09:00] taped it closed for a period of time. It might have been 10 days or two weeks that he could only breathe through his mouth and shared like an astounding list of health complications and trouble sleeping and different things that he literally experienced in his body just from that short period of time of not really getting proper.

And

Liza Al Sady: I love his story. Um, and, and his book, because the way he got into breathwork was actually going to a breathwork session where he sort of had this incredible experience and was like, hold on, what is this? That led him to writing breathe and led him to sort of diving deep and. Dedicating his entire life, right?

His purpose to, to the breath. Um, but that's the purpose of our nose, right? Our nose was created for breathing and it [00:10:00] filters the air. That's the, the main thing. It protects our body from, um, from bacteria and stuff that's, that's in the air. It filters the air and it actually makes it softer for it to land into the lungs.

And so we naturally take 20 percent more air when we breathe through our nose than we would if we have, if we were breathing through the mouth. And that's just by closing the mouth and breathing through your nose, you'll start to feel that difference.

Amanda Parker: That's really surprising because I think most people do not think about how they breathe.

Mmm. Yeah. Like if you start meditating or maybe you're, I don't know, you've attended a breathwork session, but even then most people would not really know how am I breathing.

Liza Al Sady: Yeah. And actually, breathing through your mouth, even though it's a modality that I love and I've dedicated my, my life to conscious connected breathwork, which is a modality where [00:11:00] you breathe through your mouth, breathing through your mouth on a day to day basis is actually activating your fly or fight, um, part of, of your nervous system because breathing through your mouth, those sharp, short breaths is actually sending a signal to your body.

to your mind that you're in danger. And when that happens, you actually put your body in that flight or fight mode. And so just by shifting into breathing in through your nose, even if your exhale is through your mouth to begin with, but that inhale, inhaling through your nose, you're also automatically putting yourself in the rest and digestion.

Amanda Parker: It's also funny because I noticed there's this automatic reaction. If you're even talking to me right now about breathing and it, it happened at an event I attended last night. Someone just mentioned taking a deep breath or something about just thinking about breath. I could hear the collective room just, [00:12:00] 

Liza Al Sady: yeah, yeah, there's a bit of a misconception about taking a deep breath.

Um, and we've kind of been told whenever we're stressed or anxious or whatever, we're kind of like, In that zone of, okay, I need to do something. Somebody would say, take a deep breath, you know, take it, come on, take a deep breath. And actually to get your stress levels down, it's the longer exhale. Rather than the longer inhale.

So what would that

Amanda Parker: look like?

Liza Al Sady: So it would look a bit like this.

Or, exhaling through your nose.

But making that exhale a bit longer, you're naturally putting yourself back into that rest and [00:13:00] digestion.

Amanda Parker: Oh, that is fascinating. There's, uh, I think it might be an insight. No, it might be in the app Calm, which is a meditation app that I have on my phone. And they have a few different short breathing exercises.

And I think they actually do spell out for different kinds of situations what might be the best pattern of breathing.

Liza Al Sady: Yeah.

Amanda Parker: But I never really thought about it before. And listening to you now, it's like, Oh, okay. So there really are thoughts about, okay, if you're in this high stress or anxiety, the best thing to do would be to breathe in through your nose and then either breathe out through your mouth or your nose, but a longer exhale than inhale.

Exactly.

Liza Al Sady: Exactly. So you, it's sort of like, uh, you can call it like the one to two ratio. Um, so. If you're going to breathe through your nose for two seconds, then your exhale is four seconds. If you're going to breathe three seconds, then your exhale is six seconds. And if you do that in sort of a cycle, three, four [00:14:00] times or up to six, seven times, you'll just see yourself straight away.

Um, you know, the body calming down and sort of going into the rest and digestion, which is actually a great one to do before you go to bed.

Amanda Parker: Ooh. Okay. I want to know more, but I know this isn't a masterclass yet. Um, how did you start doing this work? What, what led you to this pathway?

Liza Al Sady: I worked in recruitment for 15 years and it's sort of like, I don't know, I've, a part of me always wanted to be that high achiever, the person who, um, won the accolades, the person who had the awards, and, and all of that, and it was something that later on when I did the deep dive and did my healing and went into my healing journey, I realized that that was actually part of my coping mechanism, that, you know, I felt that actually, This is my only survival mode that I wasn't going to be [00:15:00] able to rely on anybody or ask for help.

And it was only going to be me that's going to look after myself. So I went into recruitment and to begin with, I loved it, right? You're like, you've got all this money and you're like, you know, for someone who's, who used to be a perfectionist and a people pleaser, you're going to an office and everyone's sort of clapping for you for all this stuff that you're doing.

And I'm like, My gosh, you're just reading my patterns and I'm loving it. And, um, and then I, I was a top biller for quite, for a few years. And then I managed a team. And when I did that, I was just completely stressed. I was really stressed. I was really burnt out and I didn't have the tools that I really needed to sort of de stress or, you know, Or to find out more as to why I was doing the things that I was doing.

I was always scared to go into therapy. A part of my mind kept [00:16:00] on saying, Oh, you know, there might be something there that I don't want to work on. Find out about mainly, I thought there was like sexual abuse happening as a child that I kind of wanted to shut down. And so I never wanted to do therapy. I was too scared to do therapy and I didn't have the tools that I needed to sort of help me.

And so I really went into partying. I partied quite a lot. I drank a lot. I took lots and lots of drugs and that was my coping mechanism, but I'll do that Thursday. Barely have any sleep, go into work, put a mask on, you know, smash everything, do the, the targets, do all of that, manage a team, and then go out again on Saturday and Sunday and wreck myself.

And with that, you know, it just felt, I attracted People that were surrounding me that were really weren't serving me. So, you know, I was dating men who were completely unavailable, emotionally [00:17:00] unavailable. I accepted crumbs for love. Um, and deep down I kind of felt that I wasn't good enough or wasn't worthy for For to have a partnership that was super loving and a partnership where my partner had a family that were really loving and supportive, because for me, in my head, I was like, well, they'll never accept me because of my past.

And so it was this massive destructive cycle that I did for a few years and it became, Very detrimental to my health, you know, my friends were really worried about me and I was just, it was coming to a breaking point for me and I just, I think I woke up about five, six years ago and I just looked at myself in the mirror and I wasn't happy with the person that I was looking at.

You know, it was like I was really tired of my own bullshit. So it was sort of time to do something about it. So I started therapy in my own bedroom, [00:18:00] looking online at things, figuring out what this inner child stuff that my friends keep on talking to me about. I didn't know anything about the inner child six years ago.

Um, And I started doing stuff in my own room. So I started recording affirmations because I was like, right, I really want to work on the subconscious mind after sort of learning what the subconscious mind is and how it affects, you know, my life on a day to day basis. And so I recorded affirmations, um, and then I looped them and then I started researching frequencies That align with, um, things like joy and happiness and enlightenment and all that.

And then I'd mesh it all together and then I'd listen to it in my sleep. And so I started sort of playing around a lot with sort of like going on Spotify, looking for hypnosis and just doing stuff that was very different to traditional talk therapy, because I was like, Gosh, [00:19:00] I just can't see myself sitting down and speaking to someone about stuff that's happened to me.

One day, I was on Instagram, and I found a couple who were in, in Bali, and they've become, you know, good friends of mine over the years. And they were doing some sort of meditation, breathing thing together. And I was like, I want that. Whatever they're doing, you know, and I was like, I want that. I want that in my life.

And so I started experimenting with breathing in my room, not knowing that breathwork was actually a thing, right? Cause like at the moment, there's a big, huge trend with breathwork and we're seeing it everywhere. But I didn't even know breathing and breathwork was actually like a thing. And I just felt an instant calmness just by.

manipulating my breath just by changing my breath. And so with the stuff that I was doing, it got me the courage. It gave me sort of the courage to do a type of therapy called RTT, rapid transformational therapy. [00:20:00] Um, have you heard of it?

Amanda Parker: I have, but maybe you can just explain it briefly cause not everyone has.

Liza Al Sady: Yeah. So rapid transformational therapy really works on the subconscious. So, um, you go into hypnosis with a qualified, RTT therapist and, um, the person that I've, the therapist, I absolutely love. Her name is Becca Tears and she actually, I later on found out that she did the same therapy that I did the Hoffman process.

And I think that's why our kind of energy is really meshed. Um, but what you do is you, you, you. You go into hypnosis and then through this experience, when you're under, you kind of feel like you're in a cloud, right? It's between these two different realms and she guides you into these different moments in your childhood where perhaps something had happened and you go through it.

So I had an opportunity to speak to my mom, my mom and brother. When I was under, and through the questions that she had asked me prior, she kind of knew where we were [00:21:00] going, right? With RTT, they do a recording for you, and you listen to the recording 21 days in a row, and you sort of put yourself into hypnosis every time you listen to it.

And I've done, I've gone back to, um, Becca, my, my therapist, Uh, quite a few times along the years, and I cannot tell you what are in these recordings, even though I'm like, hold on, I've listened to these things. So, so like countless times, right? I don't know. I don't know what is in them. So, uh, which is great, right?

Because it means that it sort of works on your subconscious and then that's where the rewiring happens. So I got the courage to do RTT. Um, Which I thought was great for me, but also I had this idea in my head that I'm like, right, what's my quick fix? I need to go. I need to go in 21 days. Right. Okay. Let's do this.

[00:22:00] It was later on that I found out I was like, Oh, this is a lifetime process. I understand now, so I did ITT and then that got me the courage to actually do something called the Hoffman process. And the Hoffman process is actually something that I talk about throughout all of my breathwork experiences, because I hope that if 10 percent of the people that come to my breathwork sessions go and do the Hoffman process, I've kind of, that's my purpose in life.

I've done it. This is a great story about the Hoffman process. One of my best friends went and did, which I'll explain to you what the Hoffman process is in a second. She went and did it. And part of the, the, the ceremony, the sort of like, not the graduation ceremony, but it's sort of one of the ceremonies you do throughout the experience.

A previous graduate. Like myself can [00:23:00] actually go and attend this. And I thought, well, you know what? My friend Lauren is there. I'll go, I'll get an opportunity to sort of cheer her along for the last two days and also be immersed back in, you know, the Hoffman process grounds. And I went there and I was in the circle and I look and I'm like, gosh, okay, Lauren is here, but I am a hundred percent sure I know this lady who's standing here and I'm like, So I ended up speaking to Lauren and I'm like, I know this person.

And she's like, Oh yeah, yeah, she's come to your breathwork sessions. And you were part of the inspiration why you, why she went to the Hoffman process. It's like, okay, this is happening. This is great. We love this. So the Hoffman process is a life's work. It's beautiful. It's a 50 page workbook that you fill out prior to going in.

And it really dissects. It's your childhood, you know, it talks about patterns, limiting [00:24:00] beliefs, shame, guilt, but it goes deep. It doesn't only go into your mom and your dad, but actually it goes deeper in terms of your surrogates, the people who looked after you. And with my childhood, you know, I moved about 13 times before the age of 13.

I had so many people in my life look after me, you know, my mom, my dad, my grandmother, there were stepdads. There was, it was a very turbulent childhood. And so part of it is you start seeing the patterns that you live your life with on a day to day basis. And how deep that line goes, for example, is it just your mom that was a perfectionist or was it your mom, your dad, your grandmother, and everybody who looked after you?

Cause that is a deep line you're going to have to be working on for a very long time. So you go into your patterns, you go into your shame beliefs, et cetera. But when you go into the Hoffman process, it's seven days of being in this beautiful surrounding [00:25:00] smartwatches, no gadgets whatsoever. It's a complete unplugging.

And what I loved about the Hoffman process is that it was all, some of it was talk therapy, but a lot of it was actually somatic and cathartic experiences. There was a lot of visualization and meditation and forgiveness and compassion and learning about your dark side and your shadows. So it was super comprehensive.

There was a moment throughout the session where. You're doing quite a lot of sort of somatic cathartic release, which is you're sort of giving back some of your patterns to your parents. Right. And it's sort of, there's a lot of bashing and movement involved in this. And I woke up the next day and I kid you not, Amanda, I could not move.

My body was in agony. It was painful. But when I stood there for a second and I reflected, I felt so happy. And I felt so happy because I thought, Oh my [00:26:00] gosh, I've been living my entire life with this stuff inside me. This anger, this resentment, this cutting off my family. Being cold, shut down, withdrawn, you know, being a perfectionist, like all this stuff was inside me and straight away there was this like moment of passion of me going, gosh, I can't believe this is what you can do.

You can use your body to release some of this shit you've been holding onto for a very long time. And so as soon as I left the Hoffman process, I. Went to work. I went back to work. I had two months gap. So in the two months gap I just immersed myself in all things Hoffman process. I'm like, you are not kidding around.

I'm not kidding I was like, I want this in here and basically what they say because it's about 80 hours of therapy within that week Pretty much. It takes about [00:27:00] six months for like I'm going to be talking about how to create new pathways to start sort of working and your body to start sinking into this new way of life.

On top of everything that I was doing, I was head of Bell Wellbeing. And I started This

Amanda Parker: was in a recruitment role.

Liza Al Sady: Yes, that was in the recruitment role. Yeah. And I started offering free breathwork sessions to The London office that I worked in and the nine regional offices. And it was every Monday, people will come in.

It was a 20 minute sort of breathwork thing. And I wasn't even qualified at the time, right? I just wanted people to feel what I was feeling when I did these different breathing exercises. And I just loved it. I loved the way people felt. I loved how I felt when I was doing it. And I thought, this is my purpose.

This is it. And so I went and I trained, um, I studied new emotional release. And so I studied, it's with a guy called David Manning, who's based in Germany. And, um, [00:28:00] it's quite a number of things, but the main thing that I use throughout breathwork is, is using different doorways, different parts in the body.

Might be holding on to stagnant energy and old emotions or stories. So I did that and then I wrote on a piece of paper, qualify in breathwork, quit your job, start your business. And completely forgot about that. Peace of paper, right? Cause like, the whole idea of Hoffman process is like, do you not change your life for those six months?

Cause you can go a bit drastic with it all, right? Cause you've just come up from this like, amazing healing experience and you're like, right! We are quitting the job. We are breaking up with the partner. We are doing this with stuff. And then six months later, you're like, Oh shit, I peaked too soon. Let me go back again.

You know what I mean?

So I kind of left that piece of paper, but something, I think three [00:29:00] months after that. I just naturally gravitated towards breathwork and I really wanted to, to immerse myself in breathwork specifically for catharsis and somatic healing. I would, that's what I really wanted to focus on. So I qualified with a guy called John Paul Cremey.

He's based in LA and the reason why I decided to go with him is because he comes from an addiction background and that really resonated with me. And, um, Yeah, I just qualified, I qualified as a breathwork coach and then I started offering free conscious connected breathing sessions to people. And then I was like, right, this is it.

So I quit my job and started soul space studio. There you go. That is

Amanda Parker: really quite a journey. And I'm sure there was a lot of just. I don't want to say hardship, but it was [00:30:00] just, it was not an easy journey to go through and that process of healing while we think it's like so light and fluffy and butterflies, it's facing yourself, facing your fears, facing everything that happened in your life that you're either not happy about or that traumatized you or just so many different pieces of ourself.

And the healing is actually that ability to face all of that and come out the other side and choose your life consciously.

Liza Al Sady: Yes, exactly. And what I hear from

Amanda Parker: you is, like, there's this, I mean, breathwork is your way in to help people find that for themselves. So the breath spoke to you, but it's really that, that's the, platform that you can help connect people on.

Liza Al Sady: A hundred percent. I always think that healing can look completely different to every single person. And, You can [00:31:00] only meet yourself as far as you can take your healing. You know what I mean? That's, that's where, that's where I feel that's the wisdom of the breath. That's where it comes in, is that it creates a space for you to just gracefully meet yourself wherever you are in that journey.

And I, I love it because for me, I find it as an incredible healing modality. There's healing that That goes in the body and the body holds on to all of the stories and the memories that you have gone through even before you were born, when you were in the womb, that family lineage and that ancestral lineage that's linked to you.

And your body holds on to that, right? It holds on to some of the stuff that's not even yours to carry. And sometimes we have this idea that actually sitting down and speaking to a therapist. Of course, it's helpful and it's beautiful and I'll [00:32:00] never say I don't want people to misunderstand what I'm going to say.

What I do love is I do love the idea of using therapy to connect with your body because sometimes there's a bit of a disconnect with between the mind and the body that when we do therapy, it's all about You know, what we're thinking, et cetera, and talking about emotions. But it's very rare that people have grown up learning what the vast range of emotions are.

We kind of, the majority of the population probably only know sad, angry, happy, joy. But actually there's a whole range of other emotions that we, we haven't been taught. And so when you speak to a, um, A talk therapist, for example, sometimes it's very difficult to even articulate where you want to go with it.

And so what I do love, a lot of my clients who come to me who go to talk therapy [00:33:00] and have been going to talk therapy for a while, love this type of breathing as a beautiful compliment, right? It's a complimentary where you go, right, this is a space for me to dive into my body and to find out more about who I really am.

Amanda Parker: It's so, so many people feel tired of having to do the thought work, like having to think and plan. Like, I mean, I'm a person, I'm living in my head so much and I have to consciously come to my body. Things may happen and I feel it, but I am here all the time. And a lot of my clients that I work with, like coaching clients, they're also there.

You're tired, you know your thoughts, you've been with them for so long, and it's such a relief to be able to not do that,

Liza Al Sady: to

Amanda Parker: just be invited to be in your body, or to breathe, or to just literally experience [00:34:00] something different. And there's probably a huge healing power in that alone.

Liza Al Sady: I, um, I had a client of mine, um, who actually started coming to, um, group breathwork sessions with his partner and they're both been, well, he had been going, has been going to talk therapy for quite some time and it was actually his.

therapist who recommended him to come to one of my sessions because she'd been to one of my sessions and she was like, you know, that kind of like really helped me. And it was so such a privilege to actually hold space for him and to watch him go through something that he's been working on for quite some time with this therapist and, and having the opportunity to actually Use his breath to go deeper into the body and explore his own in the landscape.

And the catharsis that happened and the release that he had was so powerful and profound that he's like, I haven't, [00:35:00] I've been going to therapy for two years. I have not experienced this type of release in the two years that I've been. And. You know, there's something so magical with conscious connected breathwork.

Um, have you tried conscious connected breathwork before?

Amanda Parker: No, but I, uh, plan to come to a session in

Liza Al Sady: the very near future. Yes, I can't wait for you. Um, so conscious connected breathwork is a three part breathing technique, right? It's two breaths in and one breath out. And we actually use the mouth throughout this experience.

You know, we go deep into the diaphragm and we fill the air, we fill the belly and the chest with so much air. And it's air that, you know, because of the stress that we have on a day to day basis, because we're always in our head, we tend to be quite shallow breathers, right? We don't take as much air in.

It's all sort of in our upper chest. But when you take [00:36:00] the time to actually go into this beautiful cycle of breath Um, and I sort of do it in a, in a specific way. I go around to every single person to make sure they are going deep into the belly. But it's an active breath, right? It's not like a, that's the, the, the work in the breathwork.

That's what the work is. And it's active and it's full and it's the cycle and it's continuous. And when that happens, things shift in the body. And so many people go, Oh my gosh, I cannot believe this just happened by me changing my breath. You know, you're going deep into the body, right? You're connecting with all of your chakras.

You're, you're shaking things up. I always tell my clients of bring your awareness to a river. Right? And imagine your body just like a river. You know, a river flows with this beautiful water that runs through, it's clear, it's [00:37:00] glistening, it's shiny, you know, it's gently going down. The stream, right? This beautiful river.

Along the way, okay, weather changes, seasons change, and you'll find a lot of debris that starts going into that river. You get rocks, you get pebbles, there's branches, there's leaves. Someone might come in and jump into, you know, the river and, you know, so it becomes murky. That water that was once glistening and clear becomes murky.

And what needs to happen, Mother Earth brings in a storm. Brings in a storm to shake this river up, right? To move some of this stuff that has created blockages for the water to go through. And then after that storm, that water comes back in, and it's nice, and it's clear, and it's crystal, etc. I always say, think of your breath exactly like that water.

When you're doing Conscious [00:38:00] Connected Breathwork, your, your, your breath is taking you to those places in your body that are holding stagnant energy, and are holding old stories, and are holding energy that's not yours to carry. And so when you go through that, things are going to happen, things are going to shift, and catharsis will happen.

That's the whole idea of Conscious Connected Breathwork, that it promotes catharsis. And catharsis is about venting, and it's about cleansing, and it's about clearing, it's an unclogging and a declogging. And so of course when you're moving stuff with your breath, Emotional release can happen sometimes, but I know that there's a lot of stuff at the moment on the internet about how we should not call conscious connected breathwork breathwork for emotional release and stuff like that and I just wanted to clarify What I mean, what my definition is about emotional release because emotional release, you [00:39:00] know, it's not about just releasing crying, you know, with the method that I use, there's a lot of sounding, there's a lot of releasing, um, Frustration and anger through some of the stuff that we do But also emotional release could also be the idea that you're having a chesty cough Which happened with one of my clients.

She had a chesty cough. She couldn't move it for she couldn't shake it for four weeks She came to one of my sessions two weeks ago Then she sent me in a message the day after and she's like Lisa you will not believe I woke up and I was like And hand on heart, I do not, it's so much better at 70 percent better.

And for me, that is the emotional release. That is the bit where your breath is going and shaking stuff up within your body. And that is the release, right? It doesn't have to be there at the same time where you might cry. A lot of people cry, there's tremoring happening, et cetera, depending on your body, right?

[00:40:00] Whether you have a, A, uh, an experience where you're releasing crying emotions or whether you don't doesn't mean that stuff is not happening within your body. You know, catharsis could be that you actually go home and have a great sleep. And the day after you have incredible bowel movements because you've been so stressed and you've been holding your attention in your body.

And for me, that is emotional release, right? That is what a release of emotion is. That's why I just call this modality the wise one. It's so wise because Amanda, you don't know where your breath is going to take you. You set an intention and then it takes you and shows you because during the breathwork session you might see colours, you might see visualisations, you might, you might meet parts or versions of yourself throughout the experience or you might even meet, you know, people that have passed on.

That you never know what happens throughout this experience [00:41:00] and so every single time it's different and that's what makes it so profound

Amanda Parker: Well that touches on a lot of what I'm also Extremely interested in I mean, I'm I'm already too far down that pathway to pretend otherwise But like the mystical element as well, you know, there is this physical release you're really connecting in and And it's possible for there to be mystical experiences, not that everyone will have it, and not that it's a guarantee, but that could actually be a door opener to something that you never even imagined possible in a different realm.

Liza Al Sady: Yes,

Amanda Parker: absolutely. You can tell that's, that's where my interest, I'm like, Ooh, I can have mystical experiences too. It

Liza Al Sady: was so, it was so interesting, about a couple of months ago, I did this session, because You know, part of my passion, or what I'm really passionate about, is mixing modalities together. And this is how I created the Soul Space Method.

So the Soul Space Method is really using conscious connected [00:42:00] breathwork, okay, and using bodywork and psychosomatic. So, you know, throughout the experience I'll come along and, You know, I might sense that your shoulder is tight. I might help you with your shoulder or your hip. I might touch you somewhere that will really help move some of that stagnant energy.

Psychosomatics. There are words that I say and phrases that I say throughout the experience. And when you're in the breath, you, you're not really going to hear everything, but you're going to hear what you need to hear. What's resonating with you. There's a lot of talk about shame and guilt and, um, you know, Energies and what you're holding on to and the grip of control.

And that changes depending on the intention of what the session is about. Um, the music that I play, uh, is all part of it. You know, some people go, you're a bitch. You created this playlist for us to cry. And I'm like, listen, [00:43:00] I'm guilty. I enjoy people releasing, right? Because I feel that we're in a society where.

Expectation is so high and we put so much pressure on ourselves and. Especially for females, even for men, you know, we've got this idea that we have to be strong all the time. You know, you go into a workplace and you can't show emotion and you suppress it. Like, you know, when you say, you know, I had like a lump in my throat and then I had to swallow it.

You know, all of those stuff that actually accumulate in the body. And I know that from my own experience is that when I lay down to breathe, a lot of that shifts, I can release a lot of that by just focusing on the breath. And part of the soul space method is I use, scent. I use specific scent depending on, um, what intention or what we want to release or where we want to go in.

I use [00:44:00] sound of course, and it's a closed eye experience. You know, there's an eye mask because when you don't have that distraction from the mind, That goes, Oh, go on, open your eyes. See what's happening. Who's crying. Who's not, what's going on. You kind of surrender a little bit more to the experience. Um, even though conscious connected breathwork is actually great because it shuts off the inner critic.

It shuts off that ego. It dampens that part of your, of your mind. Um, but that is my passion. My passion is mixing modalities together. To allow the body to completely surrender to the experience. And so all of my sessions are created to be immersive. sessions straight from the moment you open the door.

It's not from the moment you lay on the mat, but for me, it's sort of like, how can I make every single person who steps in through the door to feel safe, [00:45:00] to allow their nervous system to go, okay, this is a safe space. I can just be. Before laying on the mat, so everything is completely planned and taken care of.

So from the sound, to the scent, to the lighting, to the words that I say, it's all preparing you for that moment when you lay on the mat. And so mixing modalities for me is so important. So one of the things that I do, I do the breath and hammock. So it's sort of like we do conscious connected breathwork.

We breathe, we do the whole thing. And then for the rest period, you jump into a floating hammock, um, to, to reset. And of course, you know, it's completely immersive. The light, the sound, everything is incredible. And I had a session about a month ago. It was really interesting because I used specific frequencies, um, during the, the hammock session.

And I think the session was [00:46:00] about radical self love. So a lot of the frequencies that I used during the rest session was all about, you know, love, negative energy, et cetera. And we had a sharing circle at the end of it and it was so profound because it was one of those sessions where half of the class, half of the people who were there had the visualization mystical kind of stuff.

And I'm like, hold up, you know, somebody saw a whale and somebody saw like this horse that was guiding them towards somewhere and somebody else saw, and then someone else was like, I didn't see any of that. And that's okay, right, because every single time you're going to have a completely different experience, and that's what's so magical about it.

Amanda Parker: Well, it sounds almost how people might describe plant medicine, where you go into an experience with an open mind and you have no idea what will happen. You might have an intention, you might have a, [00:47:00] something that you want to solve, but you'll get exactly what you need. Yes. That you might not know what that is, but that you will receive it and have the opportunity to really experience and pass that.

Liza Al Sady: Absolutely. They actually did a study recently on conscious connected breathwork. They wanted to see what happens to the body when you go into conscious connected breathwork in comparison to when you take psychedelics. Because the idea was, is that not many people can get their hands on psychedelics for therapeutic reasons, depending on where you live.

And they wanted to see the effects of conscious connected breathwork on the body. And they found that actually there were so many similarities between going on a psychedelic trip and going through conscious connected breathwork for prolonged period of time and the effect it had on the body and the mind.

And for me that is profound because some of my clients who go [00:48:00] into A session, you know, they do. They're like, oh my gosh, I feel like I've just had an ecstasy pill. What happened there? And that's the, that's the the magic, right? The magic is the allowing yourself to just surrender that surrendering of, you know, what?

This part is going to be hard, some of it is going to be scary, however, I'm going to go through this, and I'm going to do it one breath at a time, and I'm going to see what's waiting for me on the other side.

Amanda Parker: So if people are listening and they really want to. learn more about, well, specifically conscious connected breathwork or just how breathwork might serve them.

Are there like books or podcasts or the resources you might recommend someone to begin to learn?

Liza Al Sady: Yeah, there's so much out there because, you know, breathwork, I mean, conscious [00:49:00] connected breathwork started really in the 70s, sorry, in the 60s. You know, it was the likes of Leonard Orr who sort of started the rebirthing technique, and he actually was in his bathtub.

I love the story because he's one of my heroes. He was in his bathtub and he started doing this, uh, breathing. A guru from India came to him. in a visualization and basically told him that he had to take this breathwork and expand it. Rebirthing breathwork came to fruition. There's so much literature out there that you can go and, you know, you can read about, you know, if you're looking at the traditional sort of functional breathing, of course, James Nester, but then, you know, the internet is back.

Peppered with delicious breathwork stuff. It just, you know, if you want to learn more about conscious connected breathwork, I'll probably say rebirthing, um, because that's where it kind of [00:50:00] stemmed from. Um, and that's why this type of modality is not really, um, advisable for anyone who's pregnant because unless you want to go into labor you're like We need to get the baby out Let's not do breathwork

Amanda Parker: Maybe maybe people will start that then

Liza Al Sady: Yeah, exactly.

Exactly

Amanda Parker: So how can people find you if they want to have a session with you? What does that look like?

Liza Al Sady: Sure, so you can head to www. soulspace

studio. com. I've got all the events there. I've got all, you know, there's a lot of information there about the stuff that I do. Conscious Connective Breathwork and also private sessions. I do quite a lot of couple sessions, which are just. Beautiful and intimate and deeper, profound connection. Um, and all of the events are there as well.

Um, if they [00:51:00] would like to see some of the immersive stuff that I do, then, uh, Instagram would be the best place, which is soul space dot studio. Um, and if they want to chat, then they can send me an email. Yeah. Hello at soul space hyphen studio. com.

Amanda Parker: Great. I'm going to connect all of those in the show notes and tell people exactly where they can go.

I know you do some really amazing events and just. I've seen a lot of it and I'm really excited to experience one, but it's really, really beautiful.

Liza Al Sady: I cannot wait to hold sacred space for you. So yeah, it's um, I look forward for you to, to join any of my sessions when the time aligns. I've also created a little, um, a little love note for all of your, all of your listeners.

So, They can use code, um, Bluebells15, [00:52:00] um, for a little token of love from me to them to hopefully come and experience, um, a session.

Amanda Parker: Wow, that is extremely generous, listeners. You do not want to miss

Liza Al Sady: this. Get yourself here, guys. Get yourself ASAP.

Amanda Parker: Here. Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! And just to check, you do mostly in person, right?

So it would be an experience here in London?

Liza Al Sady: Yes, it will be an experience here in London. I do, I, I do some online stuff and there is a capacity to actually book online for some of my, you know, I've got clients in Australia and in America that go online, um, which is a profound experience if you're, if you're used to doing somatic healing online.

Um, For me, I just enjoy having a hands on approach.

Amanda Parker: Yes. I understand that. A lot of us have gotten too comfortable behind our screens. [00:53:00] Yes,

Liza Al Sady: yes. I'm like, I just want to be there. You know, I just want to make sure that I'm really holding space. You know, holding your hand if you need me to hold your hand.

Amanda Parker: So is there any last advice that you would give to someone who's, They're just thinking of starting this path or they're just curious.

What would you tell them? What would you wish to have known? Mm,

Liza Al Sady: that actually, you know, starting something, doing something that the, the process of it and the end product of it is unknown is always very scary. And going through a healing process or discovering, you know, for me, healing is about discovering more about who you are.

But also the idea of being unapologetically in your story [00:54:00] and accepting and loving every single version of you. Even those parts that you tend to push down, you know, the parts that you don't approve of or the old versions of you that you kind of sometimes go, Oh, I wish I didn't do that. It's about loving and accepting every single part of you.

And You know, healing is hard. You know, you're going to meet parts of you and you're going to connect to different parts that you thought are who you are, but actually are not. And my advice is that your mind, it will create stories and will make you think that actually healing is this really difficult thing, unattainable thing, and that It has to be at the right time.

It has to be at the right location. But what's harder than healing is actually living your life, [00:55:00] carrying baggage and carrying stuff that actually process and learn from and lean on. And, uh, that will make your life so much easier.

Amanda Parker: Those are beautiful parting words. So, Liza, thank you so much for sharing really beautiful stories.

You are a wonderful storyteller. Thank you. And sharing so generously this whole process and your own story, how you got here. So I think that's great. It's gonna really resonate for a lot of people who want change and are hungry for it and just don't know where to begin. So I really appreciate you being here, sharing with all of us.

And I can't wait to get this episode out into the world.

Liza Al Sady: Oh, thank you for having me and thank you [00:56:00] for just giving me space to sort of talk about the stuff that I love and to share my story with you and to everyone who's, who's listening. I always talk about my stories and in my Breathwork sessions, I go deeper into childhood trauma and the stuff that's happened to me.

Um, and the reason I do that is because. I want to give that little girl inside me the voice that she never had, you know, and I want her to know that actually it was never her fault and You know, she's grown up to be an amazing woman. And I really hope by me doing that, it inspires other people to stand within their power and within their story and to actually talk about their story without any shame.

And so thank you for giving me that, that space today.

Amanda Parker: Thank you so much. And thanks to everyone who's been listening and on this journey with us. So thanks for tuning in to Don't Step on the Blue Bells and see you next [00:57:00] time. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Don't Step on the Blue Bells. If you enjoyed this conversation, please give the podcast a five star rating wherever you listen.

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