Ep. 21 Breathing on Purpose – Holding Your Sacred Space

Enjoy this fascinating conversation with my guest, Daniel Villalobos, a self-healing coach and gifted breath work facilitator (I've worked with him) to kick off this new season and new year!

Daniel's mission is to help individuals heal from generational trauma and  reclaim their divinity to start living their higher purpose and share their personal medicine with the world.

In this episode, learn how to develop a reverence for your breath  and how to become mindful of breathing on purpose as Daniel takes us on a journey through the sacredness of breath and the purposefulness of life when we consciously breathe and naturally create a playful spaciousness of energy around us to help us continually manifest what we want! Don't miss his special treat of a guided Breath Work meditation near the end!

TIME STAMP:

0:00    Welcome
0:31    Introduction to Daniel
2:37    Breath work and sacred space
6:27    Energy and vibration
9:00    PTSD and trauma
12:06  Generational trauma
16:09  Childhood dysfunction
21:40  Breathing with intention
29:49  Breath holds our stories
36:06  Breathing on purpose
43:24  Do you even want to be breathing?
46:45  Breath and spaciousness
50:47 Stress and anxiety and feeling out of alignment
54:47 Guided Breath Work Meditation
1:00:31 Personal Medicine
1:04:15 Contact Daniel
1:05:56 Closing

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CONTACT DANIEL
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Vonne's Resources
Vonne's Books
“Lessons in Surviving Suicide – A Letter to My Daughter”
“Divine Healing Transforming Pain into Personal Power – A Guide to Heal Pain From Child Loss, Suicide and Other Grief”
“The Power of Change”

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Transcript

Vonne Solis  0:00  
Welcome to another episode of Grief Talk. Everything you want to know about grief and more. I'm your host, Vonne Solis. As an author, life transformation coach, online instructor and bereaved mom since 2005, I'll be bringing you great content that is informative, inspiring and practical. Whether you have suffered a loss or other adversity, stay tuned and tapped in as I cover a variety of topics to help you get where you want to go on your journey to heal and grow.

Vonne Solis  0:31  
Today's guest is Daniel Villalobos. Daniel is a self-healing coach, an intuitive breath work guide and mentor whose mission is to help individuals heal generational trauma. He is certified as a pause breath work facilitator and aims to guide others in reclaiming their divinity and living into their higher purpose in order to share their personal medicine with the world. We're going to learn what all of this means in this podcast episode interview, and I can't wait to get started.

Vonne Solis  1:07  
Okay, so welcome to the show, Daniel. Really, really happy to have you.

Daniel Villalobos  1:12  
Yeah, thank you, Vonne. I'm honoured to be here. Thank you for having me.

Vonne Solis  1:16  
Great. So I have been really, really excited to do this show with you for a few reasons. In the introduction, I introduced you to my audience as someone who is and I have to just read this because my memory is not so good, but who works as a self healing coach and intuitive breath work guide and a mentor. And this is what I especially love. To help people claim their divinity and share their personal medicine with the world. And we're gonna be getting into that in just a little bit audience. But I just really loved I've never heard a term personal medicine before. And so I just love that. And I want to learn about that, in terms of what what you're going to explain personal medicine is and then how, as individuals, we can interpret that and apply it in our life. And I know you're doing that in part to help conscious growth and personal development and individuals to actually rise to be the best that they can be. So I'm really excited if you want to start out Daniel with just letting our audience viewers listeners know a little bit more about the work that you do, and how you came to do it.

Daniel Villalobos  2:37
Thank you Vonne. Thank you. What I do is a combination of a few different things. Obviously, breath work is, is the main, I would say medicine that I'm holding space for. I would say first and foremost, I feel that I'm a sacred space holder. And that's, that's the that's the juice of what I do, I feel like because when you work with me, I create a safe and supportive container for anyone who enters, you know, the space with me. And so within within that, we're exploring what's possible. So it's just using a number of different modalities or excuse me, modes of expression and experience. That's what I personally identify with the most out of everything. Because whatever we do, whatever we're doing in the moment is always, you know, either we're taking up space or giving space. So what I do is I hold space, and together we explore what's possible.

Vonne Solis  3:56  
That sounds so interesting. I love the term sacred space holder. And so when you think I just going to ask a little question here. So when you talk about sacred space, are you sort of referring as the energy that, like our energy field our mental or emotional headspace, like what do you sort of referring to when you talk about sacred space?

Daniel Villalobos  4:20  
I suppose it's, it's a combination of all of that. But yes, mainly the energy field of the virtual container that I'm conducting, but also, I guess, the space that we are, we are joining in beyond that. I feel like technology has us here, right? You're in Canada. I'm in California. And we're able to meet in this little box because of a wire wired  and wireless connection. But our energies are

Vonne Solis  4:55  
They're unified.

Daniel Villalobos  4:56  
Yeah.

Vonne Solis  4:58  
You feel that unity, right? And it's it's not just a visual thing, because when I was working one on one with, you know angel practicing as an Angel Therapy Practitioner, and I did almost all of my readings by phone. And when I converted to phone, it was almost more sacred than actual physical face to face. There were there were less disruptions and you could imagine just who you were talking. I didn't even know what the person looked like who I was talking to, right? So space is space. And I'm just asking you, and we're elaborating, elaborating on it a little bit, just because I don't think a lot of people think of the energy around them, I think a lot of people don't even understand energy around them, and themselves as energy, which does create a space, either embracing or rejecting. And I think it can be a barrier to a lot of things that we attract for ourselves, and how we feel about ourselves. It's what we're doing to maintain that vibration and that sacred space around us. I'm just going to ask a little bit here. So when you work with individuals, and be the container of this sacred space, do you help them sort of identify what kind of space they're holding? And, yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  6:27  
That was actually a very good description of how you went into it about the energy. The connection of both of our energies, and our vibrations. People talk about good vibes and bad vibes. And that's, you know, we're and whether, whether or not we, we label them in that way, right? If we just take that part out even, we're sending out, we're radiating something, right? We all have an energy field. So like you said, some people are not even very aware of it. And it could be part of what we you mentioned in the beginning, as well, there's or prior to this, but when we were talking about this discussion is levels of programming, right? So there's just and that's where I feel like the the phrasing of reclaiming your divinity comes into play, because everyone can hold a sacred space.

Daniel Villalobos  7:26  
And the reason that I love to lead with breath work is because everyone's breath is sacred. We all have this gift. And even after somebody works with me for however long that is, even if it's one session, and however impactful that is, and whatever profound experience or whatever it is the experience they have, they still walk away and their breath is still sacred. And I'm just, I'm just talking to people about that. I'm explaining. I'm teaching. I'm exploring with them. That's why I said, like what's possible, right? Can we can we look at how our energy field is? How it's affecting the world around us. Right? So I love that you dove right in because that's my thing. I get deep really fast.

Vonne Solis  8:15  
Yeah. The what's so interesting is, I'm a little bit afraid of breath work. And I'll be honest, and so for my audience, Daniel and I met in June, virtually. Just prior to that I had seen him in a in a networking platform. And I just was really drawn to work with you to not work with you, Daniel, but I mean, collaborate with you. And so we reached out and we decided to connect, and we connected in the June. And so remembering that call Daniel, and then you said, you know, Can I do a little breath work with you. And I'm like, Ahhhhh, oooohhhhh, but you did take me into a beautiful calm space.

Vonne Solis  9:00  
And I'll tell you why breath work is uncomfortable for me. So for anybody watching listening to this, you can maybe relate. So I have post traumatic stress disorder from the suicide of my daughter in July 2005. And it's never gone away. It wasn't diagnosed officially till 2014. So I lived with it for a really long time. And I had a really long time to have the trauma impact me in a whole bunch of different ways. And so breath work is about stillness. And I've been at this game since I was 25. A little bit before that. So a few decades, folks, and the, I would say in large part, the techniques, the essence of what breath work is for, which is to find that stillness, which is to get to the center of self. We can call it a number of different things and we do call them a number of different things as different generations of teachers come into the public and teaching space.

Vonne Solis  10:04  
But ultimately it and you can absolutely comment on this in just a moment, Daniel, a lot of people, it's, it's they, they go into breath work. And in trauma, also breath work is very important. So if you find yourself rising in anxiety, which accompanies PTSD, and you know, there's this nervousness, there's a survival mode, this is this always looking over your shoulder, what's going to happen next, and so on and so forth. The moment you stop, to just do breath work and be still and get centered, it almost critically, that's what has to happen to even make a decision to not react in the same survival mode.

Vonne Solis  10:45  
So I've been teaching myself to do that.  But then when you but I also learned, it was really interesting that people that have PTSD, and I've learned this  through psychiatrists and psychologists that offer webinars, which I attend as much as I can for the layperson, it can be very hard when you've been traumatized to be still. We don't want our mind still because it, there's the quietness we're supposed to have, and that place in center, but that can be very scary for people, because it can lead to a lot of really, really uncomfortable if not terrorizing thoughts. So in understanding that, and the fact that you do have a focus on generational trauma, I do want to ask you to explain generational trauma. But I would also like to ask, in addition to that, do you have techniques, and we're not obviously going to have time to work with techniques. That's what people would come to you to work with. But suggestions or ways that people who are afraid to do breath work, can learn to just take a risk and and maybe go okay, and try it and, you know, try to benefit the benefit of the breath work? 

Daniel Villalobos  12:00  
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there was a lot. There's a lot in that.

Vonne Solis  12:04  
Sorry. 

Daniel Villalobos  12:06  
Just to just to go to maybe the most recent of what I would describe as generational trauma, I would say, some people might even refer to it as ancestral trauma, if you look at it that way. But essentially, it's trauma passed through generations.

Vonne Solis  12:24  
Could you just give one example. I love that and I and the generational, even maybe cultural trauma, but could you give just a generic example of what something would cause something that would cause generational trauma that we wouldn't even think about in modern day as as generational trauma.

Daniel Villalobos  12:45  
Right, right. And I think you can even say that they're very much connected sometimes that generational and a cultural trauma. So you could say something as recent as everything that happened in Auschwitz, right? So that affected generations of people since.

Vonne Solis  13:10  
Yeah. 

Daniel Villalobos  13:10  
And whether or not you were there, or that was your your, your parents, your grandparents. You were working in those camps. I'm not. I'm not sure if everybody's familiar with that is when I'm talking about concentration camps.

Vonne Solis  13:24  
Yeah, I'm sure most people are. Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  13:26  
In the era of Nazis, right? So

Vonne Solis  13:28  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  13:29  
It's a random one that I picked.

Vonne Solis  13:30  
Yeah. 

Daniel Villalobos  13:31  
It's not like it's something that I focus on. But just thinking about how that if that experience, right, because when we talk about trauma, it's it's usually based on an experience. It's either something that you that's a lived experience, or it could be something that you witnessed or even heard about, right? And it, it had its effect on you, it kind of leaves the stickiness.

Vonne Solis  13:56  
I would say that the Ukraine war is like that.

Daniel Villalobos  13:59  
Right. Right. Thank you.

Vonne Solis  14:02  
No, and while we obviously can't get into that. And we're not this is not a political podcast. But when you look at I mean, I personally have to be really, really careful that when I look read the news, or, you know, well, mostly it's read the news, it's negative, and absorb what and feel what the people are going through and imagine the bombs going off and the fires and the burning and this poor planet. Just having to endure. I mean, this might sound hokey to some people, but the ground burning the grasses, the trees, on fires, the structures on fires, the people running. I am convinced that what's going on just today is going to cause generations of trauma for certain communities of people. Would you agree? 

Daniel Villalobos  14:49  
Right. And it could be I mean, those are all great examples too, because even just you mentioned ground and trees burning, I mean, that's happening all over the world, not just where they're at. I mean wars, there's fires burning all the time. And just that, through that experience, maybe a certain fear, or, or, or perspective and outlook that is formed from that experience and affects how you raise your kids, right? Like I have a, I have an infant right now. And it's very much in my mind, looking at what I experienced as a child, how that affected my youth into my adulthood. And now being at a more centered, aware, you know, conscious place within myself being feeling safe enough to address some of that, that I never processed. Right? So now I can actually I can create a new ripple. Instead of it being this is what I lived through so that's what I'm going to pass along. Right?

Vonne Solis  16:08  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  16:09  
It affected me deeply. And I won't say, I'm not getting specific right, but just certain experiences, that I mean, I'll just say it simply right? Like it was, it was hurtful, or made me feel unsafe as a child, to where it affects the level of trust I have for authority figures. Or, like you mentioned cultural. So there's so many, there's so many layers.

Vonne Solis  16:40  
I know.

Daniel Villalobos  16:41  
Families, school community.

Vonne Solis  16:43  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  16:44  
You know, jobs, like there's all these different experiences.

Vonne Solis  16:49  
I think, do you agree, I'm just going to jump in for a second because I don't want to lose the thought. But so we went so folks watching listening this, we go from understanding the world, as a can be a traumatic place to live in and raise children and be positive and stay centered. Because you never know when the next things you don't know for nukes gonna go off. So this is when going back to what I was saying about I had to be really careful about reading and absorbing news and stuff like that. Certainly at the beginning of the I just want to finish with this at the beginning of the Ukraine war. So I grew up with a Chicken Little mentality. And for anybody that doesn't know what chicken little is. Daniel, do you know what chicken little is having a babe?

Daniel Villalobos  17:36  
The sky is falling.

Vonne Solis  17:37  
The sky is falling, I too, grew up in a lot of dysfunction. And well, I do not blame my parents, because going down a whole other path, which you and I aren't able to talk about today, but I do believe we choose our situations, including our parents. And I'll be doing a show on that. So I take full responsibility. When I decided in my early 20s, to take full responsibility for the experiences eh - it got my mom and dad off the hook. And there were health issues and a whole bunch of different things, a lot of a lot of dysfunction. So starting with that, for the people today thinking about this and going back to what you just said, you can start a new ripple, a new ripple. But doing that, I'll ask you to just sort of verify with me and confirm, you have to be willing to look at where the trauma has stemmed from and heal it to create that new ripple, right?

Daniel Villalobos  18:30  
I believe so. Yeah. And so just to bring it back to the work that I'm doing. So the reason why I consider it a sacred space and it's, it's, it has the capacity to help people feel safe. To feel supported enough and held enough to just be in their body and remember these things. And usually that's kind of one of the things that can happen when you do breath work. Is you start to remember things that maybe you filed away a long time ago. And so it can be scary. And I would imagine that's why some people, maybe even like yourself, are a little frightened just thinking about that kind of practice. Because, oh, hey, I gotta go. I'm gonna go down that road again. I don't know if I can take it right now.

Vonne Solis  19:20  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  19:21  
And so there's, there's a level of presence that's needed, but it's also it's also an act of courage, really, to really to want to do any of the work. Any kind of personal development work, right? So.

Vonne Solis  19:40  
I agree. I agree. But I'm going to admit, I'm terrified to revisit my trauma from my daughter's death. So I've never done it. I've never done it. And I don't know if I'll ever do it in this lifetime. But I'm just I'm curious. I'm going to admit that I'm just gonna be honest with that. Because, but so can you speak to? So people like me, and I'm sure I'm not the only one that doesn't want to revisit trauma. Certain kinds of trauma might be okay. I can go back to my childhood and go, Hey, I survived. I did it. My brain understands that's over. You're a survivor, you did great. And you chose to change your life and make those ripples turn into huge big waves.

Vonne Solis  20:23  
But for the people who are really afraid, what could they start with? What could we start with to just and by the way, I also want to just say right up front, this is not medical advice, people. This is just those of us that are in alternative healing. So this is in support of any medical assistance you do need for trauma or any other affliction that you're dealing with. Mental, emotional. We are in alternative healing, we're just really meant to offer a support to traditional stuff.

Daniel Villalobos  21:00  
Right.

Vonne Solis  21:00  
But at any rate, from your practice, and how you practice and how you work with individuals, what what would you say to the person like how would you how do you make them feel safe enough? Just to even think about? Like, is it starting with just one small memory? One small experience? Like, can you explain that?

Daniel Villalobos  21:21  
I just want to I want I will definitely answer, but I want to start with saying, that wasn't even the focus that I had when I started doing breath work. It wasn't about healing trauma, It was, it was something that I started to observe happening, and very much within myself first.

Vonne Solis  21:40  
Okay.

Daniel Villalobos  21:40  
Of being able to be at a state of equilibrium and balance within my body and my breath. And feeling that kind of alignment. That that's what was happening I was having, and this is another thing that can happen is maybe you have spiritual downloads. Whether that's auditory visual, and I would I would get visuals of, of certain things that would bring me back to an experience. I'd see myself as a child, and, and the thing that, and I wanted to just kind of start with that, just to say that this is still this is still being developed, right? Like this is this is what I feel like is why I'm doing it, right. This is the why. But I also want to just invite everyone to not, you know, that doesn't have to be why you try it. Right? It just starts with awareness. So what I always lead with is even taking a moment to be aware of your breath. Notice your breath. Not even feel the need to control it or change it or fix it.

Vonne Solis  23:04  
It's so weird. I've I've listen, breath work has literally as you probably know, been around for a long, long time. And when in they use it in cognitive therapy, they use it in other types of therapy. There's alternative healing that's been in breath work, meditations, the breath, the breath, yoga, you know, all of that stuff. And I have to tell you, so for the people like myself, who just kind of go intellectually get it, it's. There's gotta be some, I'm not gonna say like, there's got to be some something that is that can help us to really understand breath in a different way. I know it is so important. And without it, we wouldn't be here. But I think the point I'm trying to make is, how can we even and I don't know if you can answer this, but how can we even start to consciously honour our breath without necessarily, Okay, sit down. Now close your eyes and do nothing but think about your breath in and out and the counts 3, 4, 5 in 4 out whatever. Which I love and it's very relaxing, and it does calm you down. But I'm talking about honouring the breath here. And I think you honour your breath. Literally. It to me when you're talking it sounds like you completely have mastered, okay, and if you're not master certainly an advanced student in just honouring. You're aware and honouring your breath. Am I right?

Daniel Villalobos  24:35  
Yeah, yeah. And every everything we do is done for a reason, right? Whether it's conscious or subconscious. And this is why it's such a shift, right? Maybe people are living from their subconscious but they're not really aware of what's in their subconscious. Right. So just bringing attention and intention to the way we breathe. Right? So for me, there's there's a, an intention of paying reverence to the breath that I was gifted with. Because not everybody has this gift right now. Not everybody is living this life right now. Everybody that's going to hear this or see this. Yeah, you're here. Take a nice deep breath in with that. Just even one, even one. 

Vonne Solis  25:30  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  25:31  
You're here. You can breathe. And that's what it is. That's why I said it starts with awareness and presence. Mastery it takes a long time. So I won't even call myself that.

Vonne Solis  25:41  
Right.

Daniel Villalobos  25:43  
But everything we do, we take a breath. Even when we're sleeping when we're not necessarily awake we're breathing.

Vonne Solis  25:57  
I'm going to think about that. I'm going to think about it because I feel different about myself. Again, for my audience, I was just thinking about that. Daniel, as you're talking and I was going, okay, honour your breath, just but not force myself. Just have a reverence for it. And you know what, it shifted my energy immediately. It totally did. Because it's honouring the life force, but there's something different because listen, are they different? Is the life energy different from the life breath? I don't know.

Daniel Villalobos  26:31  
Oh, it is life force energy in my opinion. Our breath is life force energy.

Vonne Solis  26:37  
Yeah. Yeah. Okay, well, I don't want to get down too far that rabbit hole, because energy for me is ongoing, and is here long after our bodies go. But I'm going to really start practicing that for myself because it really shifts the way I honour my body. And one of the things we have to do is honour the physical, our physical presence in this in this life. And correct me if I'm wrong, well, I'm not wrong. But in my experience, I've met a lot of people who are in pain, and don't honour themselves. Think of themselves last. Again, and if we even just go back to the trauma they've experienced. The dysfunction, they've experienced. All those things that perhaps they they didn't grow up with, that fully regulated the brain. In other words, feeling safe and secure, and having a certain autonomy to your presence, which gives you confidence and all sorts of other things. You know, when you grow up, and you don't have that, and you have to sort of fumble along yourself and try and learn these things as an adult. You know, by the time you're in the mid 20s, and the brain is okay, now now it's developed. Well, okay. So you really have to try and start catching up at whatever age after the brain is fully developed to correct all that stuff. And this is what a lot of, you know, the work that people go into healing and light work. And you know, and whatever the the younger generation calls it. In my generation, we called it light work, but it might be different now, I don't know. But at any rate, so there's a huge number of people, I think, that are living with the impact of stuff that isn't healthy for us. And so don't know how to honour themselves. And so one really easy fix in my, in my very enlightened opinion, that just happened now, is to stop for a moment and give reverence to the breath. Huh, so thank you for that.

Vonne Solis  28:38  
I mean, you don't even know maybe that you've affected me and maybe countless others by just sharing that because you're an example. And that's one of the things I think that drew me to you is your calmness. And I'm not going to say that, Oh, Daniel, he's calm 24/7. You probably aren't. But that's not, but that's not the point. The point for me is how we want to conduct ourselves at our most centered of beingness and take ourselves back there. So that is the point that we the place that we choose to function from. And, yes, we're going to be pulled in different directions and have distractions and things that make us act emotionally and the physical stuff. But for me, it's all about whether or not we have the skills to bring us back to center. And that center for you sounds like it's it's your breath. For me, it's angels and higher consciousness and stuff like that. But now I'm going to throw the breath in there, because there has to be a connection between the physical and the spiritual to make this a truly holistic experience and most powerful experience for us. Wouldn't you agree?

Daniel Villalobos  29:49  
Definitely. Definitely. And I, I would say that's part of the experience. And it has been for me. It's it has been for many people that I've worked with that they feel a presence. They feel energies. They feel angels. So I would say it's very much connected, right? Like it's it's I don't even know if I want to call it a gateway, but it's kind of like that. It's like that. Yeah. And it's, it is it's our birthright. It's, it's, and you said it exactly where you know, people are moving and moving and thinking, and, I mean, how much time are you spending in your body? Right? And so our breath is the beginning that brings us back to our body, which holds all the stories, all the experiences. It's been with us since day one.

Vonne Solis  30:54  
Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  30:56  
It has all that. But it also holds a lot of wisdom. It also holds what was passed down to us.

Vonne Solis  31:07  
The good and the bad, right? The good and the bad. So we do, we can tap into the good that hopefully everybody on this planet has experienced something that was pure and good, even if it was just in the first moments of life. So using the breath to tap into that kind of space, and have it eventually, I'm just para, I'm just sort of using my own words here. But have it eventually become the center from which people choose to be present, function, all these things. Right, but you know, adding. I'll just, you know what I'm gonna say, adding it for me, it's adding it as a component to what I already do to center myself. Adding that physical breath part as energy, but also the physical means to kind of grind ground me into the no, you're still in the body. A lot of people in spiritual practice, get very frustrated with being in a physical body. And, yeah, and, and, anyway, so it's one of the things for people and even when people who are on the very early path in a spiritual practice are wanting to know more. They're yearning for more knowledge. They're yearning, they don't they, they know there's gotta be more, there's got to be more.

Vonne Solis  32:37  
That's a very early journey. And I will say to anybody that hasn't reached that awakening. You the first time you have your awakening, your life changes, and you can't go back. You can't go back. You are awakened. And while we all improve our, you know, like live to improve what we know. How much better we can be, etcetera, expand our consciousness, that first awakening, when it happens for you, because you choose it to happen for you, in whatever way it happens, you can't go back. And so those of us on a path to always be expanding ourselves, there is this or there can be this struggle to integrate it with having these physical experiences that in some cases, we think, well, I shouldn't be creating this for my life. Why am I struggling? Why am I ill? Why am I this? Why did this happen? Why did that happen? And then you'll have people go, ah, it's all part of the you know, your what's the same your spiritual being having a physical experience. And while that's very true, there's not a lot out there that necessarily teaches us to balance the physical with the spiritual.

Vonne Solis  33:56  
For me, it was years of like living in the spiritual and kind of just disregarding the physical. And this is why I love talking to you so much, because you're the first person in a long time, and possibly, it's just because I wasn't ready to sort of embrace this before and in the same way, that is showing, well wait a minute, now. We can start. This is what I'm picking up from the the conversation, we can start to honour the body and the physical, which I do believe we have to do, but I mean, now experience that. One thing to talk about it, it's another thing to practice it and experience it by starting with the breath. And that's what I love about that's probably why I met you. But that's that's what I love about what you're doing because it's so simple. Yet it could be very complex. Very complicated, so for people, who as we talked earlier, are afraid of breath work or afraid of being still and even afraid of their own power. But

Vonne Solis  34:57  
Yeah, it takes a lot of courage to be in touch with your own power. And I'm also going to wager there's a lot of people that don't understand what personal power is. And I do a lot of work in that.

Daniel Villalobos  35:07  
Hmmm, I would love to have that conversation with you at a different time.

Vonne Solis  35:11  
Yes, but but I mean, it's, it's wonderful to embrace it. But yeah, so it's kind of starts with the breath. And when I think about it, in terms of not honouring my breath, not even really thinking about it. Hah, I'm almost feeling like I'm doing and have done a huge disservice to this body that has done so much in this life. And provided it's it's given life. Life's been taken, you know, from me that I gave, that I birthed. That's been really, really tough. It can also be another reason why I don't really like breath work because it keeps us living. And a lot of people who are maybe in pain, suffering, maybe they don't want to really be breathing. So there is that component. But that's not really what we're talking about today. Unless you want to.

Daniel Villalobos  36:06  
I would just like to say this since since I sort of stumbled past it earlier when you when you invited me to say what I do and how I got to it. So originally, I think without knowing it as breath work it was one of the ways that I was able to feel like I healed or I rehabilitated from an injury that I had. And this was ten plus years ago, but it took for me to be present. And and, and actually notice how my breathing is affecting everything else, including the pain levels. Because I found myself like a lot of people do when they're having stress and anxiety, which is also something that I've lived with, but having physical pain, you end up holding your breath, as if that's going to do something and block the pain, you know, momentarily. And I love that you talked about the mind body connection and just actually hey, I'm alive. And so that's part of is celebrating the aliveness that we do have right now. And even without it becoming a whole, much, much deeper thing as far as healing trauma or anything like that, I want to I would invite anyone to just if you have any kind of calling to this, and I know this is not the end, but to just think about it as a as a way to honour your human experience and access, access more presence, and just see how that changes. How that shifts for you. And just see what's possible from there. But for me, it started with actually having a somewhat serious injury, which breathing was just one of the things that I did, but medications weren't working. Physical therapy somewhat. But, you know, it was a combination of actually alternative methods, including breathing, which is something we do, right, but it's breathing on purpose. So just that just that first step of saying, I'm going to be in my body. Honour my breath. Honour my body. And I think that's part of the experience for a lot of people, whether it is a physical injury, or it's something very traumatic, that they lost a certain part of their power as you say it. Right? And they no longer feel safe in their bodies. So they don't want to go there. They would rather be occupied on the phone or just I have all these things to do. And I mean, we always do. But that doesn't mean that there's not time for us to just be.

Vonne Solis  39:07  
Yeah, you know, you're, we're meant to have this conversation. Because I speak for you. Well, thank you for sharing, about how you got into it with your accident. And I love what you said about breathing on purpose. Wow. That's, there's a lot to unpack there. And I'm going to be thinking about that a lot. Because, again, we don't have time. I'll probably I'll for the audience I'll I'll expand on, on Daniel's wonderful coined expression breathing on purpose. But I'll talk a little bit more in another episode on solo probably about what what from my experience my background in metaphysics and spirituality, this conflict we have when we're in deep pain and suffering and struggling with wanting to be on the planet. Or we might not feel we deserve to be on the planet. There's a number of reasons why we might not really want to be consciously breathing.

Vonne Solis  40:14  
And like, that is kind of packing a punch for me, you know what I'm saying? It's kind of packing a punch for me. Because the breath is so related, I actually didn't know our conversation was going to turn into this, you know? And so I'm thinking while I'm speaking with you, because it's it's way more than breath. You know? It's it's um. I believe that if we want to be on the planet, we're on the planet. And if we don't want to be on the planet, we will create an exit for ourselves. I mean, I truly believe that. And I'm not necessarily saying, I'm not saying at all, not necessarily, I am not saying we will harm ourselves. I am saying that my decades of, of spiritual practice, and the teachers I worked with, and so on. I feel what fits for me in understanding our choices about life and not living physically is that we can create exits for ourselves and something will happen.

Vonne Solis  41:11  
And I actually had, not long after my daughter died, which is 17 years ago, I had an experience where I was really struggling with wanting to be on the planet, you know. And one night it was around, I don't know, midnight, I don't know, one, I don't know. And I was sort of in a lucid state. I really was awake, though. And what I believe was an angelic visit, because it wasn't scary. I've had visits in the way years ago that were scary. This, and when the angels have visited me, and they've done that about maybe five, six times, it's not scary. It's like, it's like you're in awe. So the presence was there, and basically said to me, you have a choice to be here. Yes or no. Just like that.

Vonne Solis  41:58  
And it was so powerful. I was like, Oh, my God, all I have to do is say yes or no. And you know what? I said yes. But I don't know, what would have happened if I said no, would I have maybe gone in my sleep? I don't know. You know, there's, there's just recent stories not long ago of these, a few of them actually, really young people like young teens 16, 17 and younger, and they just their kids and I think there was a 12 year old, they just didn't wake up in the morning. They just they went to bed and they didn't wake up in the morning. And the reason we heard about these stories they were in the news is because they were children of prominent people. One in the sports world, and somebody else in the in another, you know, was quite quite a public figure. And that stopped me and I thought, Well, why would a child or a young teen or whatever, you just not wake up in the morning, and they can't find a cause? Okay? They can't find a cause. And so going back to that experience that I had, because I was really struggling from that moment on that I said, Yes, I need to be here. I'm not sure I want to be here. But I think yes, I want to be here because I know I need to be here. I never had that visit again. It was the most it was one of the most astounding moments I experienced and I experienced loads and loads and loads of moments and visits with angels and visits with my daughter, and so on and so on for years after she passed. So this is I obviously have when you talk about a gateway, I believe in a gateway.

Vonne Solis  43:24  
I often talk about the heart as a gateway to open up to that spiritual connection. So if you want if you if you're stuck in your physical body right now and you feel, I can't feel or see anything beyond this, you know, lug of a heavy weight that I'm in. And I just mean, it's a heavy corporeal existence, all of our muscle, bones, blood, all of that guck. It's not and when you can feel yourself as energy, it's super light and super pure. And that's why it's the world that's preferable to live in. And that's why getting back to the honouring the breath. Hmm. See, so we're gonna give people myself included food for thought, in terms of how they want to view their experience on the planet, in their circumstances. And do you even want to be breathing? Really? Do you even really want to be breathing?

Vonne Solis  44:22  
I might be going down a little bit like, not a rabbit hole, but just taking it in a direction. It's just food for thought. And so the people that come to you and work with you, Daniel, playing on that little theme for a moment. Do you think they're struggling with that at all? Like, do think with everything I've just said that it is like people struggle with breath work just because they're not really sure or they're not even enjoying their life? So what's the point of breathing? I have to breathe. I'm wired to breathe. My brain is making me breathe, but I'm not sure I want to be let's call it consciously breathing or purposefully breathing. Do you want to speak about that at all? 

Daniel Villalobos  44:58  
Well, from what I said about gateways and um, I started thinking of portals and, and, and what I do as a window or a door into a different possibility. I started thinking there's there's different entry points for for different people of, you know, getting to the next checkpoint of their life, whatever that is. And I feel like, I haven't quite got anyone. I have had some folks who were maybe having some of those thoughts. I've, I've had a number of different people for different reasons that were just grieving, in general. So I wouldn't say there's a big population that is coming to me right now for that. But it is something I've, I've witnessed, and I was, I will say that I resonated with that as well. Just even thinking back to what I was talking to you about not feeling comfortable in my own body because of physical pain. And of course, there's plenty of reasons that we could, we could go deep on, but there's, there's what you mentioned about being in the body. There's being connected to the spiritual world. And, and then there's the conversation about different energies. And what I love about breath work also, is that there's also just kind of playing in the space. In the spaciousness.

Vonne Solis  46:44  
Hmm.

Daniel Villalobos  46:45  
So there's, there's not necessarily, hey, I'm telling you to do this, because I want you to feel your pain, right? I mean, that can can be something that happens that people feel maybe in a better place to be present in their bodies, and acknowledge their feelings. Because even I'll say this, as a man, I know, for a lot of men, they don't want to acknowledge or feel their feelings, right? So that's a whole other conversation. So just kind of speaking to that, in regards to your breath, being able to allow you to feel that spaciousness. Where, okay, I'm, I'm stepping. I'm trying to word this carefully. But feeling that you're, that you are outside of your body but you're still connected, if that makes sense, right? I mean, you talk about grounded another reason people do it is to be grounded to feel more connected with the earth. With this existence. But I guess what I'm saying is they're even just the feeling of spaciousness, I'll put it like that.

Vonne Solis  48:14  
So when I want to understand this, so when you're talking about the feeling of spaciousness, are you talking about it in terms of like, allowing yourself to feel free and almost liberated in, I could call it an energy feel. I could call it in the boundaries we do or, well, everybody has boundaries, but so, but using I don't know another word for it, but that space around us that we claim it and own it, and we can do what we want with it. Are you sort of saying that?

Daniel Villalobos  48:47  
Yeah, it's just a different, it's just a different awareness. Right. So there's, yeah, you could say that.

Vonne Solis  48:54  
Okay, so like playing in this space. So we can do what we want but by being aware of it, by being aware of it through the breath, we can sort of manage it. Again, I'm just I'm coming up with stuff because I'm trying to understand it. We can manage it. We can quote play in it. We can, we can help me here. I'm trying to define it in a way. Like we can see it, view it experience, feel it and not be trapped by it. Is that sort of what you're saying?

Daniel Villalobos  49:26  
Yes. So so again, just coming back to it being a different level of awareness. So what we're experiencing at the time. Instead of feeling trapped, like you say, trapped. I'm trapped in this in this pain. I'm trapped in this experience. I'm trapped in this moment where my life was in danger or or as you're saying, even just questioning my life and being able to just let that be there without an attachment.

Vonne Solis  49:59  
And I'll throw in even anxiety or stress.

Daniel Villalobos  50:02  
Right, anything.

Vonne Solis  50:03  
Which people feel, so managing, so are you saying that we can change what we feel with the space around us by being aware of and managing the breath? Is that what you're saying?

Daniel Villalobos  50:18  
Right? Because it can, it can help you change your state of being right. You talked about regulation earlier. So,

Vonne Solis  50:25  
Yeah

Daniel Villalobos  50:25  
To help with self-awareness, self-regulation of your nervous system, if we want to be even more specific, right? So shifting from a fight or flight mode, or any of those, those other ones into rest and digest.

Vonne Solis  50:44  
Rest and digest, I love that. 

Daniel Villalobos  50:47  
People that have stress and anxiety, we're looking at the past or the future, right? You mentioned it earlier. It hurts sometimes to feel you're here.I don't want to be present. So, stress and anxiety, you're this is, this is this is so much. How does one breathe when they're when they're deep in that that kind of stress or anxiousness or nervousness? 

Vonne Solis  51:17  
Yeah. So what I wanted to mention two things. Okay, so one, when you were talking about, I don't want to be here. So, I don't want to leave audience, the audience, viewers, listeners thinking that, you know, nobody wants to be on the planet. There's plenty of people out there who are have living wonderful lives, and listen, this isn't going to be a conversation for them. But for but for people who and that could be a lot of different reasons. For people that when, when you're thrown into a traumatic situation, it could be loss, it could be accident, it could be any number of things. But some major trauma or even adversity. Just something that knocks you off balance, or you're not living the life you are, you know, can't resonate with. So I'm speaking to the millions and millions of people who are doing the commute and going to the job that's paying the bills that they you know, foresee for the next 30 years or whatever. And for whatever reason, aren't living a purpose driven life. Don't know how to live a purpose driven life. Don't even see it as don't even think about it. It's you know, there in that, that, that status quo could be a rut.

Vonne Solis  52:40  
And I think a lot of us have been there. And sometimes, you know, there are responsibilities, and they take our attention, more than being able to be in a situation where you can live the life you really authentically want to be living. Sometimes time is very important. And then patience plays a huge part in, Well, right now, these are priorities, and this is what I'm committing my life to. But, so a lot of that, and hey, I've been there. Alright, I think a lot of people have been there, and we're doing jobs that this isn't really aligned, and the more you choose to be purposeful in your life, and if that is aligned spiritually, and with an expanded consciousness, and we usually become more purposeful when we think bigger than ourselves and are open to opportunities and possibilities and our potential and our personal power and all of that stuff.

Vonne Solis  53:33  
You know, when we feel out of alignment with that, for whatever reason. It could even be looking after parents, you know. We just think that we will, okay, I now I'm in my 50s. I'm getting close to retirement, and then there are a lot of people I've met, that get stuck in a different kind of status quo. And they've got now responsibilities having to deal with aging parents. And fortunately, I did not have to do that. And unfortunately, my mother died very suddenly by heart issue at 78. And, and so that never became a reality for me. And we would have done what we needed to if we had to.

Vonne Solis  54:06  
So when we experience a lot of anxiety and stress related to everything I just talked about. About living a life we're not authentically aligned with and we're waiting for this or that to be over, the breath, I can the breath work I can see is very important. And I'll speak to also like anxiety triggers. I actually have them. So can you give one quick practice tip we could do to immediately get ourselves aligned back in center. Even if that center is just calm. I'm calm. Do you have at least just one small practice tip that you could give us?

Daniel Villalobos  54:47  
Yeah, sure. I feel this is also a beautiful segue if you still would like to come back to the personal medicine.

Vonne Solis  54:55  
Yes

Daniel Villalobos  54:56  
Topic of discussion. But one that I really love and it's just simply a two-part breath, breathing on purpose. So breathing in through the nose to a count of four, and breathing out from the mouth to a count of six.

Vonne Solis  55:17  
Okay, that's nice. That's nice. Shall we do it you want to just do it real quickly and count it out. count it out. Anybody that wants to just take a pause in the episode, I'll let you with your wonderful soothing voice just count us in and count us out.

Daniel Villalobos  55:33  
Definitely and I would also invite you if you feel comfortable to either close your eyes or just soften your gaze.

Vonne Solis  55:43  
Okay, I'm gonna close my eyes.

Daniel Villalobos  55:46  
Kay. Yeah, and again, as I mentioned earlier, you can start with just noticing your breath. How you're  breathing now. Without any need to change it or control it or fix it.

Daniel Villalobos  56:14  
Feel your feet flat on the ground.

Daniel Villalobos  56:21  
Sitting tall, relaxing your shoulders.

Daniel Villalobos  56:30  
Relaxing your forehead. The muscles in your face.

Daniel Villalobos  56:36  
Your jaw

Daniel Villalobos  56:43  
And slowly breathing in to the count of 4.

Daniel Villalobos  56:49  
One, two, three, four exhaling

Daniel Villalobos  56:59  
One, two, three, four, five, six, pausing for just a moment

Daniel Villalobos  57:11  
breathing in again through the nose

Daniel Villalobos  57:17  
two, three, four releasing again

Daniel Villalobos  57:25  
two, three, four, five, six More in

Daniel Villalobos  57:37  
two, three, four rleasing softly

Daniel Villalobos  57:44  
two three

Daniel Villalobos  57:51  
four, five

Daniel Villalobos  58:02  
Just coming back to your natural breath

Daniel Villalobos  58:13  
Just noticing any shift

Daniel Villalobos  58:19  
Noticing the feeling sensations the energy in your body

Daniel Villalobos  58:32  
and where you feel them

Daniel Villalobos  58:46  
taking one more deep breath in through the nose

Daniel Villalobos  58:52  
slowly taking in as much air as you can

Daniel Villalobos  59:00  
comfortably and then releasing from the mouth with a sigh

Daniel Villalobos  59:15  
and softly inviting in some movement in your hands and feet

Daniel Villalobos  59:21  
any wiggles or stretching

Daniel Villalobos  59:27  
softly blinking your eyes back open

Daniel Villalobos  59:32  
when you're ready.

Vonne Solis  59:35  
Very nice. So for my audience, I did go through that with Daniel and I what it does for me, without getting too personal, is I understand immediately when I take the time to do that, how rigid I am and how much I keep myself in a very stressed posture.

Vonne Solis  59:56  
And I don't want to do and everything I teach is about and by the way, I wanted to say we teach what we learn. So very often what else you're going to teach, right? And so I'm just sharing with people who might come out of that - it was beautiful and thank you for that, come out of that and go, oh but I still don't breathe. I'm not breathing, right or I can't, I'll never get it. Keep practicing. And keep, keep practicing. Because it really changes the whole everything. Thank you.

Vonne Solis  1:00:31  
Let's just close with personal medicine. And tell me if you came up with that, or if it's come from somewhere else, but what it means to you, and how how individuals can think about themselves as offering personal medicine to the world.

Daniel Villalobos  1:00:48  
I want to say I would say it's not it's not mine. It's something that I heard speaking to other people that consider themselves healers. And there being different types of medicine that we can offer. Even an individual that you might have different types of medicine that you can offer that can be healing. That can be relaxing, calming, nourishing. Coming back to what you were saying earlier about having a purpose driven life, getting to that place, starting with your awakening. So I feel like everyone, and I'll just use the word calling, everyone has a calling. Something that they were put into this world to do. And like you said, a lot of us at one time or another or maybe for your whole life get caught up in the I'm gonna go to this job because it pays the bills. And even though I don't like what I'm doing, or I'm miserable, or maybe I like it a little bit, it is not actually what I love to do.

Daniel Villalobos  1:01:55  
And some of us or I won't even go there, but let's say just a personal medicine, right? Like for you, I think that you found it. It's talking about grief. It's talking about different ways to be in touch with more than just yourself.

Vonne Solis  1:02:18  
I get it. It's it's, it's related to your purpose. It's finding that that medicine that you can give to the world, I get it. 

Daniel Villalobos  1:02:27  
Right. And that's and that's an I guess that's why I like that term as it being it's your purpose. But it's a medicine because it's it can be nourishing for other people. It can be healing for other people. And I would say if not most of the time, probably all the time.

Vonne Solis  1:02:48  
Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Villalobos  1:02:51  
We take it ourselves.

Vonne Solis  1:02:53  
Yeah, our own personal medicine because so we don't, we don't have to be on a world stage. We don't have to be taking on a leadership role. We don't have to be, you know, serving others in a greater ability than you know, or greater, excuse me in a greater context than just serving our immediate loved ones. Ourselves. But it's remembering to serve ourselves. To you know, dose ourselves up with I'm just thinking about it in terms like that and give us the medicine we deserve. It could be love. Purpose. All of these wonderful, beautiful positive energy things that we all come to arrive at in different different ways. Thank you for sharing that. I love that. I love that.

Vonne Solis  1:03:39  
We're probably going to have to close this one out. I feel like we unpacked oh my goodness. I almost feel like it was an out of body experience for me. I mean, I'm not crazy, folks. It just I learned a lot and it's fun when you're learning and but that connection and you've given me a lot of food for thought and and a practice something to start with. And I really thank you for that Daniel and I hope anybody watching or listening this feels the same and, and gets out of it what they need to take out of it by watching or listening this episode.

Vonne Solis  1:04:15  
I did just want to let you know that I'll be putting your links contact links below the description in the description. And so how so you know your preferred way for people to contact you and for anybody. You do, you can work with people online. You're based in California but you, can you do do you do a lot of work with online clients and like you?

Daniel Villalobos  1:04:38  
At this point in time I'm doing all virtual. So I work with people all over the world.

Vonne Solis  1:04:43  
Excellent.

Daniel Villalobos  1:04:44  
Yes.

Vonne Solis  1:04:45  
The world is your oyster. I'm sending everybody around the world to Daniel for sacred space and breath work because he's truly gifted. You are truly gifted Daniel. I've I know that because I've been exposed to an awful lot of people who work in in in breath work and stuff like that, but you really. It's, it's, I think what I'm feeling from you is compassion and empathy. And it's not just, it's not just by rote. It's like you really care and you've experienced it and you've lived it and you're working on yourself and for all of us who are in this teaching and healing space, we're teaching and healing ourselves. So you know, we're learning and healing ourselves as we go. So no one's ever claiming to be perfect and have got all the answers. We're just in this together and our stories matter and what we do matters and sharing that is how we heal and grow.

Vonne Solis  1:05:36  
Anyway, it has been my absolute honour and pleasure to spend this time with you, Daniel, and from the bottom of my heart, heart, thank you so so much, and we'll be talking again.

Daniel Villalobos  1:05:51  
Definitely thank you so much Vonne. I appreciate you. Hello to everyone.

Vonne Solis  1:05:56  
Okay, love to everyone. Bye.



Transcribed by https://otter.ai