[DAWN]
Hi, I’m Dawn Gabriel, your host of Faith Fringes podcast, recording live from Castle Rock, Colorado. I am a licensed professional counselor, owner of a counseling center and a sacred space holder for fellow therapists. This podcast is for those who want to explore more than the traditional norms of the Christian culture. I create intentional space to explore your own spiritual path, a space that allows doubt, questions and curiosity without the judgment or shame; a place to hear another story and dive deeper into how to have a genuine connection with God.

For my fellow therapist listening, I will often pull back the curtain of our layered inner world that comes with our profession. I bring an authentic and experienced way to engage your spiritual journey in order to connect you with your deepest values for true renewal and soul care. But really this podcast is for anyone listening who’s desiring a deeper and genuine connection with God. For those of you wanting to engage your spirituality in new ways, Faith Fringes is for you. Welcome to the podcast.

Welcome back to the Faith Fringes podcast. This is your host, Dawn Gabriel. I am so excited to be back here today. In fact, as I was thinking about recording for this episode, I just was noticing how awesome it is to be involved in networks of people who just really get you and to also be in networks of people who really can push you forward. The guest I have today, I actually met in one of those networks, so shout out to Practice of the Practice with Joe Sanok. He has done Next Level Practice. He also hosted Group Practice Boss where Whitney Owens and Alison Pidgeon, I’m highly involved in that one but through that, when I was presenting at Killin’It Camp with Practice of the Practice, I met Dana Bolt Barber, and I couldn’t be more excited to introduce her today.

We are going to talk about coaching and breathwork and she’s just an amazing person to get to know. So let me introduce her. Dana is a human with a story like all of us. She is a lover of nature, music, chocolate, and travel. She surrounds herself with people who challenge her and bring out her best self. Her desire to support people in finding their way through their own healing stories led her into being a skilled life coach and breathwork facilitator. After several years of social work, Dana’s current spiritual practice is one that was born out of healing from the dogmatic indoctrination of evangelical Christianity throughout her childhood and early adult years. Her two kids and animals keep her busy, her friends keep her sane and her husband keeps her laughing. I love that. welcome, Dana.
[DANA BOLT BARBER]
Thank you. I have to credit my sister and my best friend for that bio, because I told you I’m terrible at writing things about myself, so I texted them and that’s what they came up with.
[DAWN]
I love it. When I read it, I was like, no wonder we connect. All that stuff, I was like, check, check, check. That’s very similar to me. Well, thank you for taking time to come on the podcast. I’m so excited for others to get to know you.
[DANA]
Thank you for having me. I’m excited about this.
[DAWN]
So I did a breathwork session with you just a couple weeks ago and I loved it and I just wanted to bring you on here so people could hear like, what the heck is breathwork? What does that mean? How does that intersect with spirituality, but before, maybe do a short, like, what is breathwork?
[DANA]
Well, I just looked up the Latin meaning of breathe, breath, because it occurred to me. I was like, I don’t even know what that is. Guess what the Latin translation for breath is spiritists.
[DAWN]
Oh my gosh, I love it.
[DANA]
I know. So the breathwork that I do is when I facilitate a session, it’s an active meditation, so you’re breathing quickly. It’s a two step pranayama from the, if you know any yoga language which just means controlled breath. So you’re breathing in quickly through your mouth and then out real fast. You do that for, I usually keep people breathing actively for around 20, 22, 25 minutes and what that does is takes you out of your busy mind and allows you to integrate with your body, integrate with your spirit and just flush out whatever energetic gunk is hanging around in your body. That can be recent gunk. It can be trauma from forever ago or whatever but that’s the quick and dirty.
[DAWN]
Yes, it’s true. When I did it, oh my gosh, like so much came up and it actually is harder than you think at first, like, if you’re just first-time doing. It was harder for my mind to slow down because it’s an actual rhythm and I kept overthinking it, but the whole day I felt great.
[DANA]
It was funny too because wasn’t my dog barking so it was a whole, it’s all kinds of technical issues, which normally doesn’t happen, but you were the lucky recipient of that love.
[DAWN]
I loved it. I loved how my body felt afterwards. So tell us how did you get involved in breathwork? What drew you to this?
[DANA]
Oh I don’t know, probably 16 years ago, when I was pregnant for my first daughter, I started seeing a chiropractor who used breathwork and different breathwork, just like a, so it was the first time I was really in touch with my body. I’m sure we’ll get into like, the way background as you know and super deep, fundamental evangelical Christianity, the body’s bad. So we don’t really have a relationship to it. So that was my first time to understand how to use my breath in terms of relaxation or pain relief and that’s when my first connection to my breath and my body happened.

Then throughout the years, just little random, I’d see random things and find different ways of using breathwork. but then I went on a retreat, I think in 2016 or 17. There was a breathwork facilitator doing the same modality that I do. It was, so big for me. Like it was the first time that I was really, I connected to my very essence and just remembered all that I am, all that I always had been. After that session was over, I just knew that that work was for me. I wanted to give that to the world and to my clients. So that’s how I happened upon it.
[DAWN]
Wow. Can you explain more about what you meant when you said I just connected to my essence? What did that look like? What did that mean?
[DANA]
I mean, honestly that, I think it probably took a few days for me to understand that’s what, there just weren’t words. It felt, the facilitator was saying throughout what you’re experiencing is real. So I just kept remembering that, but I mean my actual experience, what happened was I felt the presence of everyone that I had ever loved and everyone that had ever loved me and the way that I could see myself interacting in the world and with people was really true. That was part of, I guess, the vision that I experienced during that, and just knowing that all the parts of me are okay and just know. Yes, it was a connection to myself on a spiritual level, to my source, beyond anything I had ever experienced before. That doesn’t always happen with a breathwork experience. That’s not a, I don’t think that’s an every day sort of experience, but for me it was so powerful and I’m sure it was backed up by like, I had been at this retreat all week really. I was very relaxed by then and so it was layers and just, it was a whole process, so I think. But my clients who do breathwork have had lots of those experience. Then some have had, you know it’s more physical. It’s interesting how different types of people respond.
[DAWN]
I can imagine. It sounds like one of the main keys is what you said earlier, the slowing down, like you have to slow down and get mindful and the breathwork makes you super present, which opens up this spiritual realm, it sounds like, that allows you to experience it if you’re open to that.
[DANA]
Yes. When you said mindful, it occurred to me that like, it’s more like heartful because you don’t want the purposes to not be thinking, to not be purposefully thinking about something or perseverating on something. It’s more to be really present in your body and with your love and your heart and yes, your core.
[DAWN]
Wow. I love that. So you were saying how that was new to you because growing up sound very similar to my growing up.
[DANA]
Yes. That’s why I reached out and was like we’re going to be friends.
[DAWN]
Yes, I said something, I think during a presentation that indicated that was my background and then you were like, yes, we have to talk.
[DANA]
Then I wrote on your website, listened to your podcast, and I was like, yep we’re going to be friends now because all live in Colorado too. That conference was virtual, so everybody was everywhere and I was like, we could even meet for coffee.
[DAWN]
I know. I need to come to Fort Collins.
[DANA]
Or I could come to Castle Rock either way. Well, tell us a little bit about your background. Do you mind sharing a little bit about that and how you ended up here?
[DANA]
Oh yes. I don’t know, the first 23 years of my life were, well, it was very black and white. I didn’t know anything different. Church was my life. We went, I grew up in a reformed tradition, so there’s a lot of just traditions and rules that you just do. You go to church twice on Sunday, you go all afternoon and evening on Wednesday and that’s just what you do. So all of my friends were from, most of my friends were from church. I lived in a small town so our public school was, we were all, everybody was a Christian. There weren’t very many people who would even dare to say they weren’t Christians. So my whole life, I just had this very black and white filter of like you’re in or you’re out like as we do as with that evangelical dogma.

My first experience meeting people who weren’t Christians, where I went to work in Yellowstone National Park, the summer of 1995, I’m old. It was the first time I met people who weren’t Christians. I was just like, what the heck? Like I was going to a little Baptist college and these people I was interacting with, they shared stories, they shared everything and some of that wasn’t super healthy, the things they were sharing. I didn’t really participate that sharing, but it was so eye-opening to me. I was like, oh, so people who live like Jesus aren’t necessarily only Christians, like only in Southwest Michigan, it’s not the only place where everybody has the market on Christianity or spirituality or whatever.

So I don’t know, that was the first little inkling of, oh man, am I allowed to ask questions? I wasn’t allowed to ask questions as a kid. It was just very, you knew the rules and you followed the rules. I was okay with it. I have always had a very deep connection to myself and now I know also to God, goddess, source, whatever words you want to use. So it all started falling apart after I got married. My husband and I both were super Christians and, for lack of better words, I don’t know what yes, quotes, and so once we got married, I don’t know, somebody gave us a book by Brian McLaren. Have you read any of those, like new Christian?
[DAWN]
Yes.
[DANA]
Also, I will say in college I had a friend who became a very well known pastor, but he was very very good at asking questions and teaching in a way that allowed me to think beyond where I came from, which was awesome. Later on, I went to work in his megachurch and was a youth pastor and stuck with all that stuff. Then once we got married, I was like, whoa. It felt almost like one day I was plugged in and the next day I was unplugged and that connection that I had to everything, I absolutely knew to be true it was just gone. Suddenly, I didn’t know anything. I didn’t know anything. It felt, it was so traumatic.
[DAWN]
I was just going to say, yes, that sounds big.
[DANA]
I mean, every decision I ever made, everything I ever did was through the lens of that faith, of that religion. It took a long time, I would say, 10 to 15 years to process through it all and realize, oh, wait a sec, I still have that same connection to my source. That didn’t go anywhere. Just the words, just the dogma, just the, yes, the peripheral distraction from the actual connection with my source and creator. My faith now is far more deep and colorful and expansive and inclusive than I ever knew as when I identified as a Christian. So I don’t know, and breathwork is part of that because I really connect with my spirit when that happens. I actually forgot what your question was in the first place, hopefully my rambling was fine
[DAWN]
No, so no, it wasn’t rambling. I was like, wow. I have like 10 more follow-up questions from just that. It sounds like you were talking about how you were plugged in and then one day unplugged, was it literally like a day? Did something happen where you unplugged?
[DANA]
Yes. Literally, I remember laying on the couch in that tiny apartment in California where we lived and just being like, I feel entirely different. It was so dramatic and I only had people to talk to about spirituality who were still in that. So my relationship with Josh, my husband is Josh, I’m a little more dramatic. I don’t know the words, but I feel things really dramatically and he is just like the coolest cucumber that ever did live. So I’m like, oh my God, I’m losing my faith. It was so dramatic. He was like, yes, well, I’m just keep reading these books and I do have some questions. We both did move along the same path. It just looked different because of our personalities. So, fortunately, we’re both in the same place and at least he might identify more as a Christian than I do still. That’s okay because he’s a Christian that I want to be around.
[DAWN]
That’s so cool. I mean, I love that you both went through that together at the same time but it looked very different and I love that you allowed that for each other to just have different ways to think about faith and really get to what’s really important.

If you’re a therapist and you are feeling burned out or just needing a break and being around other therapists who really understand what you’re going through, or if you are feeling like you just need some space to connect with God and get grounded back into what really matters to you and your spirituality, I would like to invite you to come to a sole care retreat for therapist, exclusively for therapist. I host soul care retreats for therapists, and I just love holding sacred space for you to just reconnect with yourself, reconnect with God and connect with others who are in the same profession and have probably experienced similar things as you have.

So I’m inviting you. My next retreat is September 23rd through the 25th, 2022 in Colorado. We will have about 10 rooms to ourselves in this little beautiful retreat center in the Black Hills Forest. We have three hot tubs, there’s trails around there, we can see the mountains. It’s so peaceful there. I just want to invite you to come, come and just experience what it’s like to have soul care. We do some guided exercises as group. We also do guided exercises as individuals. I have a workbook that can help walk you through what do I do with all this downtime because I know, even though we are longing for the downtime, sometimes it’s hard to get there. Sometimes we get anxious when we’re there or sometimes we get scared.

So I will have a workbook that helps you walk through that, that gives you exercises to connect with God and figure out what’s really going on inside you. We also have, there’s great food here, we have great conversations and there’s plenty of time to connect with one another and we have a lot of fun. So if you’re interested, send me an email, dawn@faithfringes.com. I only have 10 spots available for this retreat. We like to keep it small and intimate. Again, it’s September 23rd, 25th and that will be in Colorado. Reach out to me, dawn@faithfringes.com to find out more information today.
[DAWN]
The other thing you said that really impacted me was that I still had that same connection. The words change. So internally your connection to what I would call God and you call more the source, that never changed. That’s beautiful.
[DANA]
Yes. I mean, it changed in the sense of that I didn’t hear it the same. I didn’t feel it the same and it wasn’t like I realized that right away. It took several years of still trying to go to church and not be mad all the time. I’m sure my people in my life who stayed, who are still very Christian probably felt like I was a negative Nancy about it for a while because I was so angry and I was hurt and I was just so sad to not have that. It was hard to communicate that and like there’s, as we learn the Bible verse to tell somebody when they’re going through this. We learn, well just keep praying, just keep meditating or not meditating, that wasn’t a word we were allowed to use. Keep praying, doing your devotions, this is a dark night of the soul. In my core, I just knew, I knew like that this is not a thing I’m coming back around to. I am on a different path. Like I’m on a different path and that’s okay. Still threads of that path are still here. That’s okay. Like it’s still black and white.
[DAWN]
Yes. You said it was like a 10 to 15 year journey, which I think is important. I think a lot of people think I have to make all these decisions right now so I can ground myself. In reality, I feel like God allows the journey that’s life, a journey. So can you think about, people in your life, what were some of the helpful responses? You said some people who were still identifying as Christian probably thought you were, but were there some people who were like your husband who were like, oh yes, it’s okay.
[DANA]
Yes, and also coincidentally, my best friend, Leslie was going through a similar, she was in South Carolina and I was in California and we would talk on the phone and be like, we’re having the same spiritual experience? So I had support, I had someone to talk it through, that’s back when we wrote hand letters, like in the mail. For most of the time, most of Josh and my dating was through the mail. Anyway, but so lastly, and I would, we just wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote, wrote to each other and processed that way. That was enough for me. I reached out to some people who, and my sister was on a similar journey, we had a different experience as kids, but yes, I definitely had people, those were my three people, Leslie, Josh, and my sister.
[DAWN]
That’s cool. I love that. Like you said, it’s inclusive. They were all going through different, but similar journeys and you guys just allowed that space. And you were saying breathwork actually was part of that process. Let’s go back to that. Can you share, how did it intersect spiritually or if you have stories of your clients, what have you seen spiritually connecting with breathwork.
[DANA]
Let’s just take a minute to think about this question.
[DAWN]
Yes, it’s a deep question.
[DANA]
I don’t think I connected it spiritually to my breath at all, until that moment, when I first had that breathwork session in 2016. Because it was so clear, my vision, what I was experiencing in my body, in my psyche on a spiritual level was so clear and so undeniable and so real that I knew that I was on the right path for me. I knew that I was where I needed to be. I knew I was held and supported on a level beyond humanity. I’m not someone who believes that God is giving a crap about what food we eat, or, you know what I mean? It’s so much different. We always try to put God into this human, what’s that word? Anthrop, like when you pretend animals are humans like, spiritualness, our creative, yes, we’re not, it’s not a human. So just my experience with that beyond myself was, but yet still part of myself. That makes sense?
[DAWN]
To me it does because, for me, when you were talking, it reminded me of when I first started exponentially feeling God. It was actually when I was pregnant as well and I started doing well, not official EMDR because the therapist wouldn’t do EMDR with me, but she did the guided meditation and the resourcing for EMDR. It got me out of my head and into this experiential spiritual realm and I was like, what is happening? It was like mind blowing. So that’s when I started experiencing God differently.
[DANA]
Yes, you just reminded me. When we went to back to grad school, that was, we moved close to my family and I realized I have some things to work out because they moved away, we got married, moved away, only had to show up and do the things every now and then. So we moved close to my family and I realized, oh, I have some things to deal with. It was the first time I was introduced to ACT therapy, acceptance and commitment therapy. My therapist at the time did a whole meditation visualization thing with me and that was a moment where I was like, oh no, that was the beginning of rebuilding my spirituality, I think. That was probably like in 2008, I don’t know. That’s when the anger started to subside and I could rebuild, just re-allow it to form.
[DAWN]
So when you’re working with clients, do you see them go, do some of them go through a spiritual awakening as well?
[DANA]
Yes, absolutely. Some do, some don’t, some are dealing with anxiety and this is a beautiful way to get your body in a non-anxious place. Yes, definitely, definitely. The more open someone is the faster that happens. But everybody has protection around their hearts. So it sometimes takes work to get there but some people immediately do have a spiritual experience and it’s interesting because everybody looks the same. Like you’re laying there with your eyes closed and so for me, it’s using a lot of my intuition and also just trust that their experience is happening the way it needs to happen.

Like I’m not, I think there’s some language about the healing arts, about people healing that, that I’m learning I don’t really jive with anymore, like to call myself a healer. I don’t, that doesn’t feel aligned with who I am and feels like I’m helping people to heal themselves or to call upon their source to do that together. Like I’m just facilitating an experience and holding that space open for someone. I don’t have any special powers, you know what I mean?
[DAWN]
Yes, it’s so true. I’ve started switching my terminology too, as I do soul care retreats and I say I hold sacred space for you or I facilitate an environment to help you connect with God for your source. So I totally agree with that. Like we’re not in control. There’s another entity, it’s spiritual in the room. It’s like something we have to let go of and trust that our clients. I totally agree. Yep, love that. So I do have one more technical question that just came up. It’s funny, I’m doing like a workshop with teachers on Friday about stress management but I’m doing some breathwork, but it’s not your breathwork. So could you say the difference, like I’m just teaching them how to do box breathing, which is like A for Alpha. How is your, your breathwork is so different. It’s not just, hey, learn this little technique. Yours is really different. Can you just —
[DANA]
It’s intentional and active long.
[DAWN]
Can you explain a little bit more about that, why it’s so different than just breathe in and breathe out? What does it do science wise? Well, not science wise, but why —
[DANA]
I got it, like what’s going on?
[DAWN]
I got you. Like why is it so different?
[DANA]
Yep. Okay, so when we’re just breathing in our normal day, our brain waves are in a beta wave pattern. It’s fast. It’s thinking, we’re thinking, we’re moving and you can slow down your brain waves and reach different states. So when you do this active breathwork that I explained earlier, the two breaths in, one through your belly, one through your heart and then out through your mouth, when you do that for a long period of time, what it does is it just slows down and brings you into the alpha state. Oh boy, I’m getting nervous that I’m going to mess up the names of the brain.
[DAWN]
Oh, don’t worry, no, no.
[DANA]
I’m not sciencey. So I don’t remember those things. But you’re flooding your body with oxygen, so you experience different sensations, but really what’s happening is you’re changing your brainwave pattern so that you can get out of the present, all of the details that you need to remember and do. And it makes space so that you can remember other things or you can experience other things, just slowing down the brainwaves. That’s mega and some people reach the state where they’re commuting with their spirit and that’s, I think that’s what happened the first time I did it.
[DAWN]
It sounds like it. It was so transformational for you.
[DANA]
Yes, yes.
[DAWN]
So Dana, if someone wants to reach out to you and says, I really want to know more, I want to try this, I want to work with Dana and do this breathwork how do they get ahold of you?
[DANA]
Well, my website is danaboltbarber.com. You can start there and send me a message through there. If anybody mentions this podcast, I’ll give you my friends and family rate, which is a lot cheaper than my regular rate for your first session.
[DAWN]
Oh, I love that.
[DAWN]
Just make sure you mention the podcast.
[DAWN]
Oh, that’s so nice and generous. I love that. My listeners will hopefully call you. So you integrate life coaching with the breathwork.
[DANA]
That’s my favorite way to do it, is to work with somebody and we tailor a coaching experience for each person. So some people do breathwork every other time we meet. Some people like to do a short breathwork and a coaching, a short coaching session. So I think for me, I enjoy variety and I love using my intuition to help someone find what’s inside of them. Everybody has all the answers inside of them. It’s my job as a coach to ask questions to bring those things out and using breathwork to, I don’t know, it’s like the experience. And integrate it with your body., Our bodies are just as much a part of us as our brain is it gives us a lot of messages.
[DANA]
I love that. Well, Dana, thank you so much. This has been, I feel like super informational, but also just fun to hang out with you and hear more about breathwork and I hope people will go to your website, danaboltbarber.com and mention this podcast. She’ll give you your first session, friends and family rate. So thank you so much, Dana.
[DANA]
You’re welcome. Thank you for inviting me. I really love hanging out with you. So, thanks.
[DAWN]
All right.

Thank you for listening today to the Faith Fringes podcast. For those of you wanting to take a deeper dive into your own faith journey, you can grab my free email course, Spiritual Reflections on my website, faithfringes.com. If you’re a therapist and would want to work with me, I offer sacred space holding for you through my consulting, as well as my soul care retreats. To find out more, go to my website or email me, dawn@faithfringes.com.

I love hearing from all my listeners. Drop me an email to tell me what’s on your mind. You can also connect with me on social media. I’m on Facebook and Instagram at Faith Fringes. As always, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I would love it if you could show it by your reviews. Go to Apple Podcasts and leave your review so that others can find this podcast and get curious about their own spiritual journey. Thanks again for listening.

Faith Fringes is part of the Practice of the Practice network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you market and grow your business and yourself. To hear other podcasts like Faith in Practice, Beta Male Revolution, Empowered and Unapologetic or Impact Driven Leader, go to the website, www.practiceofthepractice.com/network.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. It is given with the understanding that neither the host, the publisher, or the guests are rendering legal, accounting, clinical, or any other professional information. If you want a professional, you should find one.