Sudev : Hello, Bethel. How are you today?

Bethel : I'm doing well. How are you?

Sudev : I'm doing great. Welcome to Optimal Breathing, and I'm very excited to have you on board. When Denis told me that you will be joining our team, I couldn't just wait to see what you've got in store for me. Go ahead and let the audience know what you do for a living and how we can collaborate and help the audience learn a lot more about you and the kind of work you do.

Bethel : Sure. So, I started out as an integrative nutrition health coach. That was kind of my first step into the world of health and wellness. Somewhere about two years into that, I met Denis Ouellette, and I attended one of his integral breathwork workshops. It was absolutely transformational for me. 

So I knew at that point it was something I needed to pursue further and wanted to dig deeper into. Then a little bit down the road, I pursued some additional training through Pause Breathwork. 

Now I am a trauma-informed breathwork facilitator, which just means that I come into breathwork with a high awareness around trauma, how to handle that, how to really be aware of people's nervous system, how they are responding in the situation and how to really customize a breathwork experience for them to start over, so that they can get the most out of it and have a really gentle, comfortable experience as they begin to kind of unravel the trauma and the stress that they're dealing with.

Sudev : Great. So are you only dealing with the stress and the trauma part, or what other areas do you cover in breathing?

Bethel : Yeah, so definitely the stress and the trauma piece, that's the part that I really, really love, working with helping people to re-regulate their nervous systems. But I also really love the science side of breathwork as Denis does. So I love just teaching them how to breathe correctly, teaching them what correct breathing on a daily basis looks like because that's really important for them to have that going on a regular basis.

Sudev :  Cool. So, how does your day look like today? If I were to ask you, do you see a lot of patients, do you have them on a regular basis, or how does it look?

Bethel : Right. So, in terms of breathwork, I have a mixture of things. There are people that I see one-on-one who come into my Wellness Center, and we do an hour-long session with them. That's very customized to their personal needs.

I also like to do group breathwork sessions, and I do that once or twice a month, which is really a great experience. It just gives people a taste of what breathwork is about and gives them that kind of first experience. I also do things online, which is also a lot of fun because then I can work with people no matter where they are. 

At first, I wasn't sure how well that would work, but the more I've done it, I found out that doing Zoom sessions with individuals or groups actually works really, really well, and I've been very pleased with how that turns out. 

Sudev : Ok. So you do Zoom sessions also, right? I heard that you consult with people online.

Bethel : Yes. It works pretty well. They're able to be in the comfort of their own home or someplace that's comfortable for them. We just make sure they have their camera on so I can track what's going on with them and how it's going for them, and it can be a really, really great experience for people.

Sudev : Great. If I were to pick, say, three topics to discuss with you, what would they be? The reason why I'm asking all this thing is, as we work with a lot of practitioners, we come across some specializations, and I really want the audience to know what kind of specializations that you offer.

Bethel : OK. So I guess number one, the people I really love to work with are people who maybe have a lot of anxiety or maybe some PTSD or maybe some trauma in the background that they're trying to work through. 

That's probably the number one group that I really like to work with. I also really like to work with people maybe who are having some endocrine or hormone imbalances. A lot of times, that is just out of balance because their whole nervous system is out of balance, and it's often because they have really poor breathing patterns. 

So just being able to come in and help those people learn how to self-regulate the nervous system, which in turn helps to regulate the hormones and the endocrine system, is really beautiful. I found that it's been very helpful for me in that way. So I like to share that with clients as well. 

Another group that's really fun to work with is younger people, whether they're in grade school or junior high school, because that's a time of life when a lot of kids feel a lot of pressure or maybe anxiety or some depression that they're going through, just learning how to navigate and regulate their emotions. So that's another group that's really great to work with as well. 

Sudev : Do you work with people with ADHD or ADD?

Bethel : Yeah, I don't have tons of people in that category, but that's definitely a group that really, really benefits from breathwork. It can be a way again for them to learn how to kind of self-regulate when they are in a classroom setting or a social setting and learn how to navigate those things and learn how to regulate their emotions and recognize when they need to just kind of step back and do some breathing or something to get back on track. 

Sudev : Great. This is our first conversation. If you don't mind, can I ask you some personal questions?

Bethel : Of course.

Sudev : Where do you live, actually?

Bethel : I live in Montana, in a little rural town called Whitehall. I'm in between Bozeman and Butte, really just kind of a one-horse town. We joke that it's not uncommon to see someone ride their horse through the drive-through at A&W. So that's where I live.

Sudev : That's great. Even Denis lives right there, right? 

Bethel : Yeah. Not too far away.

Sudev : In your family you have children, right?

Bethel : Yes. I have a pretty large family. I have six children. The oldest is 21. The youngest is seven. So we've got a full house and a lot going on.

Sudev : Great to know. Do you do anything other than the breathwork, or is this all you are into?

Bethel : Yeah. So I have a variety of things. I just opened a little Wellness Center at the beginning of 2023. So, in addition to breathwork, I offer something called Biofeedback and health coaching, which is what I originally started out in helping people with their diet and lifestyle factors. We do a lot of community classes, and I have another gal who works with me as well, offering other modalities – kind of in the energy work realm. So, we have a whole variety of things that we do here at the Wellness Center.

Sudev : Cool. So that's awesome. I'd like to know more about you and more about the things that you have to offer our audience. Is there any other thing that you want to let the audience know?

Bethel : Well, I guess first and foremost is if they're on your site, they obviously are interested in breathwork. But I guess I would say if you haven't actually tried it yet, you have to do it for yourself. 

You have to experience it to really get a taste of what it can do for you. 

Once you do start with breathwork, try to be consistent, really get into doing it over time because that's when you really, really start to reap the benefits. That's when your health really starts to move in a positive direction, both physically, mentally, and emotionally. 

I love to work with people whether it's one on one, whether it's in groups, I'm always open to getting people's feet wet and introducing them to breathwork for the first time.

Sudev : That's awesome. One final question before we cut it off. So if you get a new patient or a new customer, what would you recommend that they get started off or can they do the breathwork every day, or should they do it once a week, twice a week? What would be the regime you would recommend?

Bethel : That probably would depend a little bit on what their situation was. If it's somebody with a lot of anxiety, I would probably recommend just a short little practice every day just to kind of start adjusting their nervous system and their body to the work. 

But even a couple of times a week can even be good for someone who's starting out and just learning. But you can weave breathwork in so easily, you can just do a little bit right before you get up in the morning or right as you're getting ready to go to bed at night, and it can just even be five minutes just working on learning how to breathe correctly and even just that little bit can be really, really helpful.

Sudev : Cool. So I won't hold you long. I cannot wait for us to have a couple of more sessions like this where someone like me who does not know much about breathwork asks you questions more from a layman's perspective, and you can just educate me and people like me from your wealth of knowledge. So I'll be very excited to learn more from you, and we can cover that in the next couple of videos that we will do together. Thank you very much. I cannot wait for us to start working together, Bethel. Have a great day.

Bethel : Thank you.