Bonus Episode | Just Breathe – An Introduction to Breathwork with Jenna Hedstrom

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How Jenna found her way to breathwork

Hi everyone, thanks for joining me for a special episode of DNA Surprises.

Today I am joined by Jenna Hedstrom, an ERY T500, an expert breathwork facilitator.

She is a versatile yoga teacher and spiritual mentor.

Over the past decade, she has masterfully integrated breathwork, yoga, sound healing, and somatic therapy to transform her own traumas into powerful healing gifts.

Through unique classes, workshops, group programs, and retreats, Jenna's trauma informed approach and extensive background empowers her clients to create breakthroughs unmatched by any other practice.

She serves as a guiding light of healing and transformation for thousands, bridging the realms of mind, body, and soul in her reachings.

I'm so excited for Jenna to join us at the DNA Surprise Retreat.

She is going to lead us through a breath work session where conscious breathing techniques will guide us to explore profound states of relaxation, clarity, and emotional release, which is something that I know so many in this community, myself included, can use.

So thank you so much for joining me today, Jenna.

Speaker 2

Thank you so much for having me.

I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 1

So we're just going to jump right in and let people know a little bit more about, I'm curious how you found this path of being a yoga instructor as well as a breathwork.

Teacher It's a beautiful story and an interesting story that likely a lot of your followers and your audience might relate to.

My whole spiritual journey began with my own very traumatic event, and it actually started when my very best friend in the entire world was shot and killed at a party.

And that was just super pivotal for me and completely unexpected.

And so when that happened and I just got catapulted into the depths of grief and overwhelm and shock and just like literally my entire world shattered open, that was when I found yoga.

And I just started going to yoga.

And I would go and I would literally sob on my mat every time that I went.

And then the more I kept going, the more all of a sudden healing started happening and shifting.

Like I started changing.

Like it was just like I had started having a spiritual connection that I had never had before.

I'll get real woo for a second.

I mean, I started like having visitations and things from my friend that had never happened before in my life, you know?

And so when those things happen directly to a person, it's kind of hard to deny their truth, right?

And so all of that is just opened me up to this whole other world and and I wanted to learn more about yoga, not ever to be a teacher.

That was never ever like not even in the realm of what I was thinking I was going to be doing right.

Yet I went through my 1st 200 hour teacher training and at the end it was like, wait, am I teaching?

Like, is this actually going to happen?

And then opportunities just started like literally falling out of the sky into my lap.

And that was, you know, almost a decade ago, almost 10 years ago.

So.

It was wild.

Yeah.

Since then, you've kind of moved into this breath workspace.

The Power of Breathwork

And when we were planning the retreat, when Debbie and I were planning the retreat, we knew we wanted to have things that would help people physically move and process some of these emotions that they're facing.

And so we talked about yoga, we talked about gentle movement.

And then I reached out to you about potentially doing yoga.

And then you were like, have you considered breath work?

Because I think for what you're doing, breath work would be so perfect.

So for people who don't know, what is breath work?

What is breathwork?

Yeah, definitely.

It's an awesome question because it holds a lot of different dynamics.

When people hear breath work, they might hear one of two things.

They might well maybe three things.

They might have absolutely no idea what it means.

Awesome, cool, great place to be, right?

They may also hear breath work and think, oh, pranayama or pranayama techniques like what I do in yoga class, for example, right?

Like alternate nostril breathing or long deep breathing or breath of fire or all these many different styles of breathwork or pranayam that people might be familiar with just from, you know, doing yoga.

And while that stuff is all really beautiful and really amazing, it's different from this style of breathwork for a couple different reasons.

The first reason is that is very much a OK, let's say for example, I need a quick boost of energy in the afternoon.

I know that I can sit down and I can do breath of fire for three minutes.

Actually did that today, right?

Sit down for three minutes and just as an example and do that breath of fire and then that will instantly shift my energy and get it flowing.

So now I have more energy to access, right?

I know that if I go and do alternate nostril breathing, for example, that's going to reset the mind, that's going to reset the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system and bring a deep state of relaxation and grounding and settling, right?

So when we do these specific techniques, we know I do this technique and I get this result, OK, so that's awesome.

And that's really, really powerful for a lot of the, it's a tool, right?

Breath work in the terms of how we're going to do it at the retreat.

And what I have come into learning about for many, many, many years is that there really is no guaranteed result, right?

Like there's no guaranteed result.

What is guaranteed is that you will have exactly the experience that you're meant to have.

You're going to have exactly the experience that is going to either help you on your healing journey, bring relaxation into the body, bring some sort of awareness that you did not have before, perhaps bring access to forgiveness that you didn't have access to, right?

Just as examples of things that could happen.

And it's different for everyone.

I've literally just personally done in myself thousands of breath work sessions, right?

I've worked with thousands of people and have done and facilitated thousands of sessions.

They are never the same.

They're never the same, right?

They might have a similar essence or flavor, like if there's some specific trauma or some specific pattern or condition that is running through your system, there might be similar flavors, but it's always something different.

And I think that's something when we think about terms of a breath work journey, that's really important to recognize is that it's always going to meet you where you're at and it's always going to give you what you need.

Not necessarily what you need from the mind, but what you need from the soul.

This is a super basic question, yeah.

What is alternate nostril breathing?

But maybe there are other people like me who are wondering what is alternate nostril breathing?

Totally, totally, totally.

I love it.

So alternate nostril breathing is like so and you can do it with different hand positioning, but essentially what you do is you inhale through one nostril while the other one is plugged.

You plug that one, you exhale through the other nostril.

If you inhale through that nostril, plug it, exhale through the other.

So you're literally alternating between your nostrils, which comes in, which goes out, which comes in, which goes out.

And it's great for balance.

It's great for balancing the hemispheres in the brain and creating like harmonic feeling in the body.

Oh, I'm gonna, I'm totally gonna try this after this good one.

Yeah, it's a really good one for sure.

A lot of people that will be coming to the retreat and a lot of people within the community, the DNA Surprise community who are listening now have been through a pretty big trauma that they're working through.

Are there different breathwork techniques for processing different emotions?

Yes.

Are there different breath work techniques for processing?

Different emotions you kind of touched on, you know, if you're trying to get more energy, you might do Breath of Fire and that kind of thing.

But what are the different kind of techniques you might use?

Totally.

I love, I love this question.

It's such a great question.

So when you think about emotions, right, and perhaps you've heard this this before, but it's energy in motion, right?

Emotion, energy in motion.

So emotions are energy.

They're simply energy that move through the body, right?

We as humans have these brilliant minds and we like to attach meanings to certain things.

It helps us function in the world to attach meaning.

And sometimes it's not super helpful, right?

Sometimes it is.

But so emotions in and of themselves, they're simply energy and they are meant to be felt, right?

So they're meant to be felt through the body.

If you think about specific emotions.

OK, so trauma happens, so perhaps anger, right?

What?

How do we breathe when we're angry?

Generally it's like there's not much happening, right?

So mad when frozen, there's not a lot of movement, right?

Or if you think about sadness or you're crying, right?

It's a lot of constriction and generally not a lot of breath that's happening, right?

If you think about fear again, frozen like there's no motion, right?

There's no motion for that energy to move with, right?

So one of the most important aspects of how to breathe with emotions is simply to breathe, to be aware of.

Am I actually breathing?

Because most of the time you're not when you're having an an intense emotion, most of the time your body is not breathing.

You're typically your nervous system.

You're either in fight or flight, right?

Freeze, fawn, wherever you're at, you're having some sort of dysregulation in your nervous system.

And so it's important to recognize that because now just that little self-awareness is like, OK, I'm actually not breathing right now.

And what is the quickest way to create that motion through our body?

Breath.

So if there is heavy emotion like grief, for example, or anger, for example, or what some of these more intense, maybe some shame, maybe confusion, maybe regret, remorse, all blame, like all of these different emotions that likely come with adna surprise as an example, since we're talking about that right when those trauma points come up or when those hits of emotion come up.

TuneIn and just check in in my breathing and simply the technique is wreath, right?

Get the breath actually moving.

And a lot of times what's helpful in heavy emotion is speeding up the breath.

Seems a little counterintuitive, but I'll explain this a little bit more.

Like actually moving the breath quickly in and out.

And what's this is doing is now all of a sudden OK, the emotion, that energy can catch that wave.

And now it's, and often what happens is the body naturally size.

So when that sigh come, and this is not like we're not doing that all on our own, right?

Like the body.

Interesting.

The body naturally kicks in with a sigh, right?

And what does a sigh generally indicate?

Like for you, when you sigh throughout the day, how do you feel?

I feel relieved when I sigh.

Yeah, exactly right.

So the body's natural physiological response to a stressor being over is a sigh, or it's like, oh, I can actually relax and settle.

And it's that split second that now all of a sudden you're integrating your emotions, right?

Your emotions are actually now moving through the body.

They're not getting stuck somewhere.

They're not getting ignored or pushed away, right, but rather actually being felt like the wave of energy that they're meant to be.

And we can kind of get out of that story that comes attached with a lot of emotions, right?

So that's the long answer.

The short answer is breathe, right?

How to breathe more deeply

Like really pay attention to your breath.

And the more that you can breathe, the better.

That is so interesting and I'm reflecting because I sigh all day long.

Yeah, and.

My husband, he kind of pokes fun at me.

Like I'm always sighing and I'm like, I'm not exasperated, I'm just sighing.

It feels good.

And the other thing to that's important with this, what you're talking about is that since it's coming up, we all have breath signatures, right?

We all breathe in a very specific pattern.

So your specific breath signature is different from mine, is different from everyone else's.

It's unique to the individual, how you breathe on a daily basis.

It's a pattern, and we all have patterns of the way that we breathe.

When we feel remorseful, we have patterns in how we breathe.

When we're angry or don't breathe, we have patterns with how we breathe.

When we're really excited, we have patterns of how we breathe when we encounter certain people, when we walk into certain environments.

There is always information between the pattern of your breath and your brain.

So your breath is communicating with your brain a lot of information, right?

And so when we consciously breathe like we are gonna do with breath work, that is a pattern interrupter.

It's a pattern interrupter because we are choosing a very specific new style of breath to breathe consistently.

And so sometimes then the mind is like, wait, no, if you're because what happens when we interrupt a pattern, right?

We create a new habit, we create a new lifestyle.

And that's sometimes really scary to the psyche.

Chamber, right?

It's like, right, Exactly.

And so with what you're saying, right?

Like in your specific case, sighing often, to me, it feels like, especially since you said it feels really good.

It's not like there's something wrong.

It's just like this thing that comes in and just happens and it is the body signaling like enjoyment, pleasure, relaxation, release, whatever it is, right?

And it's up to every individual.

But to me it sounds like that's like your, your body is naturally interrupting a pattern in order to bring some softness, bring some ease, bring some enjoyment, bring some pleasure.

And that's beautiful and amazing.

You kind of touched on some of this, but I would love to just go a little bit deeper into what the benefits are physically and mentally of practicing breath work.

The benefits of breathwork

Yeah, I mean, literally, they're limitless, right.

I so as I was moving through my own grief and my own journey and all of that, going through yoga, going through all the things, the first breath work session that I ever had, I will never forget it.

I mean, I talked to God's Spirit, source, universe, divine, whatever that word is, right?

I had like a direct connection with source.

I had a direct connection with my friend.

I had so many unanswered questions at that time of like, why did he have to die?

Why did it have to be this way?

Why did this, you know, why wasn't I there at that party like all kinds of just ruminating thoughts and questions that were unanswered and were not going to be answered right.

And it was hard to be with all of that.

And in this breath work session, Alexis, like they all of my questions were answered like the most profound spiritual experience of my life.

And when I came out of that session, I didn't ever know that I was holding tension in my shoulders until I wasn't.

I didn't know that that stress and overwhelm was in my body until afterwards.

And I felt more peace and more trust and more just like gratitude really, than I ever had in my entire life.

So that's possible with this, and because I've already talked about it, you get whatever you're meant to get, right?

That was what I was supposed to experience in that moment, for good reason.

That was what led me to the whole path that I am now on, right?

Some people might have a nice nap.

Why is it important to take a nice nap after a breathwork session?

And why is that important?

Well, most people have nervous systems that are super shot.

They are way outside up here in their sympathetic and then they crash way down into the parasympathetic and they do this all day long.

And that's not, we're designed to be more in that like neutral window of just flowing back and forth.

But that's generally not what happens in our society.

Most of us have very overwhelmed, overstimulated nervous systems.

And so when they come into an experience with me and we get to do a breath work session like this and it's resets the nervous system and they fall asleep, perhaps that is the deepest rest that they've had in years.

I've seen chronic pain get resolved, I've seen deep emotional traumas be forgiven.

Anything is possible.

And so why to me, it's one of the most powerful modalities that exists in terms of creating really lasting healing within ourselves because inherently it's somatic, right?

So meaning of the body and when we are working, particularly with emotional traumas and experiences that are quite jarring to life, talking is only going to get you so far, right?

You got to get into the body and you got to get into actually unraveling and, and allowing the nervous system to discharge the energy and breath work is going to do that.

Breath work creates an opportunity for that.

And there are layers and layers and layers.

And so it's highly effective and can be really quick, I mean super quick.

And it can also be, you know, people need multiple sessions.

So it just, it depends totally on the person and where they're at.

But everybody should do it.

Everybody should have a couple of experiences at least.

And I say a couple because all facilitation is different, right?

It's beautiful how much consciousness is expanding.

It's beautiful how much access people are having to certifications.

There is a lot of opportunity for people and go.

For a weekend long training and become a breath work coach.

So there is a lot of access to different facilitators in the market.

A lot of things like that that are happening, which is really beautiful.

And I also feel like breath work is because of the nature of it, it has tremendous power to heal.

And people do go into places within themselves that are very tender, are very vulnerable, not always, but it does happen.

And to me, those moments are so precious and so important that people are practicing with facilitators that have a tremendous amount of experience and capacity to actually be with those parts that can arise.

And so I think just discernment in terms of when you are, if a person is considering going and doing a breath work journey, for example, really look into the facilitator, like really look into the space that they're holding, look into their experience and make a decision from what truly feels aligned and good to you, Especially as the market keeps getting more and more saturated with whatever it is.

Life coaches, you know, somatic healers, therapists, like all the things just I want to empower everyone that if you've had an experience before, go back and try again because it's going to always be different.

And also just do a little more research, right?

Like this is your healing and this is your journey and this is your body and this is your psyche.

And that deserves to be held by someone that can meet you in the most vulnerable of places in a Safeway.

So just be aware of that.

And that's why I'm saying like, give it a few rounds, give it a few opportunities because sometimes you could go in and your mind just doesn't turn off, right?

And that's the layer that you're at, and that's OK.

And it doesn't mean that that's going to be like that forever.

Breath work is always going to show you aspects of yourself that you wouldn't see in other light.

Maybe you know that you have a really overactive mind and you can't get past it.

You can't turn the thoughts off That's OK.

You're going to see that and be even more clear and have more awareness.

And what I always say is awareness is the most important thing that we can have.

With awareness comes choice and now we are no longer living life on autopilot.

Now we are living life very empowered because you can consciously choose, oh, am I going to make this decision based on programming from the past, or am I going to make this decision based on what actually feels good to me in the direction that I'm going?

I love that advice.

And that's something we talk about all the time in this space on this podcast, is that, yeah, you might find a therapist at first and it, it's not a it's not a fit, but that doesn't mean that there that no therapy is for you.

Retreats, yoga instructors, all of it.

There's, there's something for you.

You just have to find it.

This is a question that I really wanted to ask you about because, you know, not everybody who's listening or attending the retreat is, is familiar with breathwork and yoga and, and those kinds of things.

How to let go of your inhibitions and experience something new

For me, the first time that I did any sort of breath work, it was the breath of fire and it was during a yoga session and it felt amazing.

I felt really good afterwards, but I was doing it with like a YouTube yoga instructor.

So I was in the comfort of my own space and I still felt kind of embarrassed doing it because it felt silly.

So how can people let go of maybe some of those inhibitions and just feel comfortable experiencing something new and feeling a little silly, maybe even.

Yeah, yeah.

There's so many, so many different ways to approach this.

First, acknowledging feeling silly or uncomfortable, right?

Like that's the most important thing.

There's nothing wrong with that.

You know, there's nothing wrong with feeling silly or uncomfortable.

And to me, it's a really good indication that you're getting stretched a little bit outside your comfort zone, right?

And where do we grow?

We grow outside our comfort zone.

And so if that's happened or like there's little hesitations or little resistance pieces or like, oh, I don't know if I want to do this to me, the more like that's good news.

That's really good news.

That's like, yes, go that way.

Do it, do the thing, of course, in a way that feels good and honoring of you and your process.

But I would be willing to bet everybody feels like that.

I know when I first started going to yoga, for example, and they would om at the end of class, no chance, no chance.

I was Oming.

I'm like, what is happening?

I mean, it sounds really beautiful and I love what's happening here, but I'm not knowing that, you know, and, and, and even even breathing loud enough for my neighbors to hear while I was practicing yoga.

No chance.

That is weird.

But that I think is all a part of the process, right?

It's like those little embarrassments and those little moments.

It's like that's when we start to learn that we can trust ourselves, right?

That's when we start to learn that like, oh wow.

Whoa.

OK, it might seem really little for in this example, right?

It might seem really minute and almost like it doesn't even matter necessarily that you felt embarrassed or uncomfortable and even in the comfort of your own home, no one else is around and you did it anyway and you discovered, wow, I felt really good after doing this.

And so those little micro moments added up over time like that teaches us, teaches you about yourself that I can do hard things and I didn't the world did not end.

Actually the world like magnified and became even more beautiful.

It felt so good.

And so when we start, especially when we're first starting out on a healing path and journey, like we tend to overlook those like seemingly very little things, but they're so important, you know?

So first, remember, it's totally normal.

Second, remember, it's good thing, right?

Like that's good news because that shows you that there's some sort of expansioning happening.

And 3rd, it's up to you, right?

Like if you come up against those moments and you're like, no, that's OK.

And then maybe an opportunity comes up again and you're like, like for me with Oming, you know, it took me probably a year before I finally was like, so quietly, like, so nobody hears me around me, you know, and now I'm teaching and I'm like, let's do this, you know, So it's, it's just building and building and building and teaching you, teaching your nervous system, teaching you that it's OK to grow.

That what happens when you challenge yourself is actually really beautiful.

So that's what I would have, I would say about that.

Yes, yes.

What do you need to practice breathwork?

Do you need anything to practice breath work?

Do you need to wear certain clothes or like what do you need to do it?

You need a body and you need a breath.

That's it.

Easy.

Enough.

No equipment A.

100% no equipment needed.

What I love though, like it all jokes aside, for like our breath work journey that we're going to do it at the retreat together.

I love to invite everyone to bring things to be really comfortable, right.

So whether that's a bolster to put underneath the knees or a rolled up blanket or pillow, maybe you want to cover yourself with a blanket.

There are people that are like professional breath workers that will bring like little blow up mattress, not like the thin ones, the little blow up mattresses like that you take camping or whatever with you that they'll bring something like that.

A little pillow.

You don't want a big pillow that's going to like shift the positioning of your spine, but something that allows the spine to stay flat so that you're, because you're working with the central energy channel allow you want the the energy to be able to flow as freely as possible.

So spine relatively flat.

If you're doing a journey like this, like what we're going to do at the retreat, then definitely get super comfy.

But you have all of that stuff in your own home and you can just create whatever little nest or Fort you want to.

And then also you don't need that, right?

Like you can literally just sit and breathe or lay down and breathe and that's it.

What to expect during the retreat

Speaking of the retreat, I know we're we're gonna spend some time together as a group and work through some of this breath work and learn about it.

Can you give people an idea of what to expect during our time together?

Yeah, Yeah, I'll give a little bit, a little bit, Yeah.

So really what what's super important to me and, and I know this is a little bit deeper in like this experience with me, you guys will have been together for a little bit of time already.

So you're already building that safety and that bond and that trust amongst each other.

So that is one of the utmost important things to me in this type of space, the connection and the feeling of safety in the body is essential.

So we're going to spend some time establishing that even more when we're together.

I'll share one or two principles that are guiding principles that I live and breathe by, but also teach in all of my sessions, whether it's one-on-one workshops, you know, retreats, yoga classes, it doesn't matter.

There are some, there are 10, but I'll probably go through like two, maybe three of them.

One of them is welcome.

Everything.

OK, So really learning, what does this mean and how do I actually practice this?

Because it's a sounds so simple, but it's quite radical in terms of how we are brought up and conditioned in our society.

It's the complete opposite of what we are taught when it comes to emotions.

So we'll spend some time really understanding this principle and how to apply it through not only the breath work session, but in life.

Because when we learn how to live and breathe by this welcome everything, everything changes in a very drastic way.

So we'll spend some time with that.

We'll spend some time setting intentions because those are, you know, everything is intention.

And when we go into a sacred space and we go into a space where profound healing is available, intention is super important.

We'll journey together, we'll have the experience.

There will be really beautiful music that I have a ton of different music to choose from, but it's always intuitive based on the group that's there.

So we'll have that experience and then at the end we'll come back up and we'll share and whether people want to or not, totally up to them.

And of course I'm going to invite everyone to speak to their experience in some ways, because sometimes that's the most important aspect of the whole experience.

It's a very individual experience, but it's also very Co created.

And so when one person shares, now ideally, maybe somebody else hears that person and they're like, Oh my gosh, well, if that's possible for them, possible for me too, right?

Or perhaps someone shares something and from what they shared, now the other someone else is like, Oh my gosh, it helps them connect dots of something that happened in their session that maybe wouldn't have been otherwise connected.

And then there's just like that shared spiritual connection and it means something different to everyone.

So there's a really beautiful group synergy and connection that can happen through the sharing.

And that's one of the things that I stand for the most is building, I think, community and really being able to be in a space where we feel seen and heard and loved and validated and actually feel that unconditional love that we all crave and also deserve.

So that will be a part of the experience as well.

Jenna, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with me today and to so generously share yourself with us in September to to teach us.

You know, I will say when I spoke to Jenna and she talked to me about all of her credentials and experience in the breath work space before I even knew all of that existed, I was so impressed and like you really live, no pun intended and breathe it.

I'm just so excited to get to experience that with you.

So for people that are curious and want to learn more, how can people find you and connect with you?

Yeah, so a lot of different ways.

If social is a thing for you, I am on Facebook and Instagram, so Facebook is my name.

Jenna Hedstrom and then on Instagram it's Jenna Page Healing and that's Paige.

So Jenna Page Healing.

And then of course you can shoot me an e-mail as well if that is not your thing.

I have a website, jennapagehealing.com that has my e-mail and such on there.

So I would love to connect with whomever, right?

And this I think is a really, it's just important to for me as the being that I am, that I'm an open space, an open book and available to answer questions.

If there's hesitations, if there's fears, if there's like anything, I love to chat about my experience and love to support you in your own remembering of your own essence.

So yeah, love to chat.

Thank you so much for your time today and I will absolutely see you in September.

I'm so excited and I will put the link to everything in our show notes so you can find Jenna online and connect with her there if you want to.

And for me, I'm off to do some alternate nostril breathing.

Yay, let me know how it goes, I love it.