Susan Friedmann [00:00:31]:

Welcome to Book Marketing Mentors, the weekly podcast where you learn proven strategies, tools, ideas, and tips from the masters.  Every week, I introduce you to a marketing master who will share their expertise to help you market and sell more books. 

Today, my special guest is Kimberly Faith. Kimberly is a powerful healer in the holistic industry. Using breathwork, she's discovered her purpose and inspires others to do the same. 

She's a rebel who challenges societal norms and invites others to push past their limitations and embrace their full potential. 

Her somatic breathwork sessions take participants on a journey of self-discovery and healing, helping them deepen their connection with themselves. 

So, get ready listeners to explore new frontiers of consciousness with my dear friend and colleague, Kimberly Faith.
 
Kimberly, what a pleasure it is to welcome you to the show.

And, thank you for being this week’s guest expert and mentor.

Kimberly Faith [00:01:36]:

Susan, thank you so much for inviting me, for having me. I'm so excited to be here to have a chat and hopefully inspire your listeners.

Susan Friedmann [00:01:47]:

And I know you will, Kimberly. Breathwork is near and dear to both of our hearts. This is very different kind of conversation that you and I are having than I normally have. So let's start off first so that Listeners know why we're going to be talking about this breathwork thing because We breathe. We have to breathe for our life, but what is breathwork all about? 

Kimberly Faith [00:02:16]:

When you ask Someone, do you know what breathwork is, or have you done breathwork? The knee-jerk response is, yes. Of course. I breathe. I breathe all the time, every day. And it's like, no. No. Have you done breathwork? There's a reason there's the word work after breath. Some people think it's pranayama, yogic breathing, And it's not.

Kimberly Faith [00:02:34]:

It's truly breathwork. It's a very intentional style of breathing. We also call it somatic breathwork. Soma means body. It is very intentional, controlled hyperventilation, essentially, to take you to deeper states of creativity, to the mind to shut the mind off and also to restore the body, to activate different areas of our nervous system, to take us deeper into ourself and to heal both the body, mind, and soul. 

Susan Friedmann [00:03:03]:

Wow. Our listeners are probably thinking, well, I'm an author, And I'm looking to market my book. Why is breathwork important for our authors to be aware of, first of all, and then secondly, to even consider practicing. 

Kimberly Faith [00:03:22]:

Yeah. Well, let's take the body first. When we activate the breath and in my breathwork sessions, the very first thing I do is get people to a place of relaxing. We live in a state, especially as authors, speakers, entrepreneurs that we are trying so hard To spread our message to the world, there's a lot of stress, a lot of pressure in that. Our nervous system is composed of 2 parts, the sympathetic, which is the fight or flight and the parasympathetic, which is rest, restore, digest. And we tend as entrepreneurs, author, speakers, but, you know, really trying to grind it out and get our message out That we live in this place of sympathetic nervous system that we never really take the time to activate our parasympathetic. That’s the place where it takes us back to that place of rest, restore, digest. So in my sessions, I take people there and then I take them on the ride.

Kimberly Faith [00:04:15]:

And the reason this is beneficial for the ride and we change, you know, different techniques and speeds of the breath is it really takes you into the space of, I call it, the void, the emptiness. We clear our mind. We silence the monkey mind. Oftentimes, people tell me the 1st couple minutes of breathwork. I couldn't shut my mind off. I couldn't shut my mind off. There's all this chatter, chatter, chatter. Well, once you can do that, once you get into this Breath and body, where it's no longer the mind, where the breath takes over because the breath knows how to go deeper than the mind.

Kimberly Faith [00:04:46]:

We create this void and All of a sudden, we clear space for possibility, for creativity, for inspiration, for letting things go. And I have found, especially when I do breathwork, it's always a different result. It's always a different journey you go on. But more often than not, I leave a breathwork session with all of these ideas. You know, sometimes I almost want to, like, get out of it mid-session and be like, oh, I got to write these down. These are such great ideas, And there are ideas that wouldn't have come to me had I not silenced my mind and just kind of created that empty space.

Susan Friedmann [00:05:21]:

That's so important, you know, just silencing the mind because I know I've got one of those minds, the monkey mind that goes crazy. And I'm here. I'm there. I'm everywhere. And then I know having experienced your breathwork sessions that, Yes. I just can't think of anything. I just have to let it go. It's just an amazing feeling.

Susan Friedmann [00:05:47]:

What came to me as you were saying that I was thinking of, yes, well, people often took a 20 minute power nap. Can you sort of equate it to a power nap.

Kimberly Faith [00:05:58]:

Yeah. That's actually a really good point. I have heard also a number of times When I bring people out of it, first, they say, woah. I thought that was, like, 20 minutes. How long were we doing that? And it's always a lot longer. It's closer to 75 or 90, But people tell me I didn't want to get out of that space. I didn't want to leave. All the time I hear that.

I didn't want to leave. And as a speaker, author, and entrepreneur myself, I also am, like, getting that space sometimes. It's like, oh, no. No. Don't take me back to all the craziness, all the stress, all the pressure. No. Let me stay in this place of inspiration and stillness.

Susan Friedmann [00:06:37]:

You've giving your mind a vacation.

Kimberly Faith [00:06:40]:

Yes. And your body. Your body is I mean, you're healing your body from the inside out. I mean, it's kind of a cure all

Susan Friedmann [00:06:46]: 

in my opinion. When somebody's going into breathwork for the 1st time, and I know, you know, I've been in classes with you, with, you know, multiple people, and there's this anxiety going in. Well, is there anything dangerous about it? I'm going to be holding my breath and doing things that, You know, don't necessarily come naturally. Talk us through some of this so that we don't fear, you know Yeah. This experience. 

Kimberly Faith [00:07:16]: 

Yes. Since breathwork is kind of, like, on the rise, there's still I'd say the vast majority of people don't know what breathwork is and certainly haven't tried it. Most times, at least 50% of my class is newbies that are a little nervous to try this new modality, especially after I give them my intro and explain what they may experience. I always start people off with a nose mouth breath. That activates the parasympathetic. That brings you to a place of feeling like, okay. I got this. I can do this. 

Kimberly Faith [00:07:46]: 

And I build their confidence by creating safety around your breath. And I always like to also remind people that, hey. This is your breath. That's all. Yeah. I have this intro, and I say all these things And the science behind it and all that. And you've been doing this your entire life. You are very good at it.

Kimberly Faith [00:08:05]:

You haven't failed at it yet. And that actually brings people down from a place of stress. So I tell them that. I encourage them as we're breathing. And there are contraindications for people who have chronic illness, some people who have severe heart issues or chronic respiratory issues. I give them tools that they can use during the class as well as keeping an extra eye on them to just keep it slower. The good thing about breathwork is, yes, any breathworker will try and push you into discomfort. That's the whole point.

Kimberly Faith [00:08:38]:

And At the end of the day, you are the boss of your body. You are the boss of the breath. If you feel like you want to get back to a more grounded place, A more safe place where it's more slow and steady like that parasympathetic nervous system, I always give people the tool and the option to slow down their breath, to take them back to that place of safety. And I know, you know, in the sessions that we hold our breath for a certain period of time, And sometimes it gets a little uncomfortable, and I know I've sort of, like, taken another little breath just to keep myself going. And, yeah. You always say that's okay.

Absolutely. And breath holds are actually my personal favorite part of breathwork, And it's also something that's very foreign to people because when I take people through a breath hold, you know, most people think breath hold is inhale and hold, like, When it's actually not, what I prefer to do in my classes is exhale hold, which is a very, very foreign feeling for people unless you’ve breathed with me. Chances are you've never held your breath like that because when you think of holding your breath, you think of, you know, jumping in a pool and swim across to the end of pool. What do you do? You go, and you jump in with full lungs. So holding your breath with no air in the lungs is a very different sensation, And I invite people to relax into it. And what's beautiful about breathwork is there are so many parallels to life. How you breathe, how you hold your breath, how you walk yourself through the experience, and the way you live your life.

Susan Friedmann [00:10:12]:

Yeah. Talk to us more about that. That's fascinating.

Kimberly Faith [00:10:16]:

Yeah. Let's stick with the breath hold example. I tell people the 2nd especially the 1st breath hold because it's like, oh my gosh. I'm going into this, like, This breath hold and no air in the lungs, and I tell them rest, relax, relax in the tension, relax in the stress, relax in the discomfort. And when they can allow their bodies to let go while holding their breath, surrendering to that feeling, I hear all the time they say I can hold my breath a whole lot longer, and that parallels life in hey. You know, you don't think sometimes that you can actually relax in stress, but you can. And you prove it to yourself in breathwork. You prove it to yourself in these breath holds that, hey.

Kimberly Faith [00:10:56]:

It's that equanimity. People think if you're stressed, you got to be stressed. No. You actually can rest in stress and rest intention. And when you can do that dance and surrender to it, you get into a flow state so much easier.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:11]:

Yeah. The idea of discomfort though came up, and you said, I was thinking, well, authors go through a lot of discomfort. and they come to me and, you know, we talk about marketing and promoting the book and selling the book, and it's like, oh my goodness. I can't do that. I don't like to do that. It makes feel sleazy, cheesy, and I don't want to have anything. So it there's a lot of discomfort, and then, of course, the whole idea of writing the book in the 1st place. We've got lots of different levels of stress and discomfort.

Susan Friedmann [00:11:42]:

So Yes. This kind of work sounds as if It's a good medicine.

Kimberly Faith [00:11:47]:

It's wonderful medicine, and you'll find I mean, yes, it's about being in your body, not in your mind, there are parts throughout the class where you kind of, like, take a step back mentally and observe yourself. Like, oh, wow. If the breathwork gets too intense at points, someone can observe, hey. I'm willing to lean into that discomfort. I'm willing to lean into my edge. I'm willing to take it further. Because another thing with breathwork is you experience all these crazy sensations, which in our conscious state, feeling these sensations, like, say, a charley horse, The first thing we try and do is get out of it because it's painful.

Kimberly Faith [00:12:21]:

It's uncomfortable. We don't like it. Well, with breathwork, I always invite people to, a, relabel it. You're relabeling things as pain. What if it's not pain? What if it's just an experience? Same thing with your authors in marketing. What if it's not painful? What if it's not uncomfortable? What if it's just an intense experience that you can breathe through, that you can grow through. So I always encourage people and invite them to really push that edge and feel if they feel a, quote, intense experience in their body, get curious about it. Feel it more.

Breathe into it more. I mean, what a foreign concept. No one when they're uncomfortable doing something, do they try and feel it more? Well, what if that's where the gold is right there?

Susan Friedmann [00:13:06]:

Feel the fear and do it anyway.

Kimberly Faith [00:13:09]:

That's right. Yes. Do it afraid.

Susan Friedmann [00:13:12]:

What else would be important for us to know about this whole concept of breathwork and feeling comfortable doing

Kimberly Faith [00:13:21]: 

it. Well, I think once people start hearing the science behind it and the benefits for the body, I mean, we've been talking about marketing and creativity and really opening up those panels to inspiration and creativity and allowing things to drop in, but there's also the more practical side, the side for your body. When you're promoting a book, when you're marketing a book, there's a lot of stress and anxiety. And after a breathwork session, you just kind of feel, like, balanced again. Like, it helps eliminate depression. It supports addiction recovery. It helps heal trauma and wounds, believe it or not. It helps.

 Kimberly Faith [00:14:05]:

I hear this all the time after breathwork. The next day, I'll get a text or an email from someone saying I slept like a rock. I haven't slept like that in forever. You gain clarity mental clarity. It boosts your immunity. It increases your endurance. It strengthens your intuition. It generates and increases joy and more self-awareness, and that's not even counting the breath hold. 

Kimberly Faith [00:14:28]: 

If we talk about the breath holds, when we do that, it increases your CO two tolerance, which awakens the stem cells in your body. We don't have to be a doctor to know that the stem cells are like the magic juice of the body. It's all about the stem cells. So when we can awaken the stem cells in our bone marrow with increasing our CO2 tolerance AKA breath hold, it awakens the stem cells, and it sends healing to our body where our body needs healing. And if we're experiencing physical discomfort in any way, doing breathwork, I had someone recently at one of our retreats. She was like, I don't know about this whole breathwork thing. It was her 1st time, and she went along with it, thankfully. And at the end, now she had suffered severe, plantar fasciitis, and she was literally, like, wobbling around our house, and she was limping everywhere she went because she had so much pain on her feet.

Kimberly Faith [00:15:21] 

She told me after, She's an entrepreneur as well. She said, I can't believe this. She said, I have no more pain. And the next day, she woke up, and she sought me out. She said, I can't believe I have no more pain. So when we think about the physical end and the good we could do for our bodies physically, that will only improve our mental state and our emotional state, Allowing us to, again, feel more inspired in service of what we do and our calling and our purpose.

Susan Friedmann [00:15:46]:

That's incredible. I mean, I love that story I’m thinking about all the things that this can help as you say, adding more oxygen to the body. And I know you talk a lot about dopamine as well. You get these dopamine fixes.

Kimberly Faith [00:16:02]: 

Yes. I just had someone the other day. We I did a breathwork class a couple nights ago, and We were talking about the dopamine release. And for the next 36 hours, you know, after breathwork, it's easy to think, okay. We're done here. No no. It actually when you do breathwork, you're shaking up a lot of stuff. 

Kimberly Faith [00:16:19]:

 You're releasing a lot. You're breathing in fresh energy. You're getting rid of stale oxygen, stale energy. So there's a lot kind of going on. And when you finish a session, it takes up to a week for the dust to settle. You may be feeling extra sensitive. You may be feeling more tender. You may be feeling super creative. 

Kimberly Faith [00:16:37]:

I know people that for days after all they get is ideas. You have this a lot for up to 36 hours, just this major, like, dopamine dump where you're just kind of feeling you're kind of riding the wave of feeling the high of breathwork. My guru says breathwork is designed to help you feel happy, healthy, and high, and I can attest to that. You are kind of riding the wave after breathwork of feeling great, of feeling this dopamine rush, of feeling healthy, of feeling clear. 

Susan Friedmann [00:17:08]:

 Is there sort of an optimum number of sessions that you should be doing? Is this something that you do once a week? Is it something that you can practice every day by yourself? Is there a time, a number of sessions you should be doing, could be doing? Honestly, the more the better.

Kimberly Faith [00:17:26] 

Now doing a full journey, like, with what I offer at my classes or virtual classes is that's intense. That's kind of Like doing a spring or fall cleaning. That's some serious inner hygiene work. Little things like if you could do 10 or 15 minutes of breathwork, You know, every day, every few days, just something to kind of bring that fresh oxygen in. It's great for the body. And there are so many different tools even if you're in a stressful situation, especially for your authors as they're trying to market their book and they have an opportunity to send a proposal, and it's like, ah, what do I do? You can incorporate something as simple as a box breath. And what that is is you breathe in for a count of 4.

Kimberly Faith [00:18:09]:

1, 2, 3, 4. You hold for a count of 4, you exhale for a count of 4, and then you hold again for a count of 4. So kind of like if you were to draw it out, it makes a box. And just doing that about 5 times will activate the parasympathetic nervous system and bring them back down to a place of okay. I got this.

Susan Friedmann [00:18:33]:

I know that if I felt anxious before giving a presentation, that Even just going into the bathroom and just taking some breaths, you know, counting to 10, breathing in and, You know, holding and breathing out and, you know, that box breathing as you said. I mean, that just really calms you down. You don’t believe that it will until you've experienced it and realize it does. Yes. 

Kimberly Faith [00:19:00]:

And I didn't believe it either. I had, During my training in Spain, when I got certified, they put this, like, device on me that was synced up to a phone. It was saying where my sympathetic versus my parasympathetic nervous system was, and they had me start breathing a 2 four breath, Which if you googled all these different breast styles, there's all these different numbers you can count. At the end of the day, what I tell people, as long as your exhales are longer than your inhales, You're good. You're activating the parasympathetic. So, anyway, they put this device on me, and I was breathing in for a count of 2. I was breathing out for a count of 4 To activate that parasympathetic nervous system, and it was crazy because you could see on the iPhone on the app that was tracking My nervous system, just my numbers go down, down, down, down, down, and it took not even 2 minutes For my parasympathetic nervous system to be activated. 

Susan Friedmann [00:19:53]:

Incredible. And I know that they're doing, and I'm sure they've been doing for years, but it's becoming, as you said, it's been More popular, the research with regard to breath and just even as you say, holding your breath for a period of time. What's the record of somebody holding their breath?  

Kimberly Faith [00:20:06]:

Well, last time I checked, which was like a year ago, so with world records. You know how quickly, you know, that information could be outdated. I believe it's a Dutch guy, and he held his breath. Ex. He wasn't a free diver. When people go for these records, they're kinda just like in a shallow pool. I want to say it's 24, 26 minutes. 

Kimberly Faith [00:20:30]: 

So, what's encouraging about that is sometimes when people are in a breath hold, and I work them up to it. You know, the 1st breath hold do maybe 30 seconds and then a minute, minute and a half. And by the way, I always give people permission to take a sip if they need it. If they feel too overwhelmed, like, I can't hold my breath anymore, They are permitted to, you know, take a sip. It is you know, they're the boss of their journey. However, when you feel say you're at the 2-minute mark, let's That, and it feels like your lungs are almost fluttering, like almost to the point of panic, they say that's still That's only 10% of what you can actually hold, which when I share that with people, it brings people peace and solace. Like, oh, I didn't realize. 

Kimberly Faith [00:21:13]: 

Like, I thought at the 2-minute mark I was going to die. Well, not really. 

Susan Friedmann [00:21:17] 

And I know that sipping. That's what I was referring to earlier. It's like, yeah, I've had to sip on occasion because I was like, I don't feel I can hold it anymore. I need a little bit of air.

Kimberly Faith [00:21:28]: 

Totally. And there are sessions that I go through that I can't either. You know, I teach this and guide it for a living. Sometimes it's just where you're at In whatever's going on in your life, there are sometimes that you could hold your breath really, really well. And there are sometimes that it's just like, well, today is not the day.

Susan Friedmann [00:21:44]: 

I think that's a great segue, Kimberly, for telling us more about breathwork. Hopefully, you've managed to stimulate and lots of excitement and curiosity. So how could our listeners find out more about you, your workshops, which by the way, as you said, You do live and virtually, which I'm like, oh my goodness. She does them virtually. That's amazing. Yes.

Kimberly Faith [00:22:09]:

Yes. About that. I do virtuals like you were saying, and it's just on Zoom. The beauty there is you literally be laying in your own bed. That's awesome. And you could be having your headphones on, so you could be as comfortable as you can be with these virtual sessions. So, I do virtual sessions. I do, you know, private work with people because some people breathwork, I will say, is a very vulnerable thing as you and I have experienced because my very 1st breathwork session was with you.

Kimberly Faith [00:22:39]:

You know, in a breathwork session, people express a lot. They make sounds. They cry. They scream. They laugh. They move their body. So it is a very vulnerable thing in a group setting virtually or in person, especially in person. However, the beauty of doing, like, a private, some people are just more protective, a little bit more private, and that's okay.

Kimberly Faith [00:23:01]: 

They don't want people experiencing what they're experiencing or watching them. So having a private setting gives them a little bit more freedom to really express and let it all out because sometimes, as you know, breathwork is about, like, letting things go and feeling them deeply. I had a lady the other day, and she's like, would you just come to my house and do this for a whole group? Well, yeah. Sure. Why not? Let's do it.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:27]:

So how can they find you? What's your website? 

Kimberly Faith [00:23:29]:

My website is the breathworkgirl.com. A score on that domain, by the way. Very good. And pretty much everything is there. Yep, you can find all my sessions, my in-person, virtual, on Instagram. All the things are housed there, so that's just the easiest place to find all the stuff.

Susan Friedmann [00:23:51]:

Beautiful. Beautiful. As you know, we love to leave our listeners with a golden nugget. What would you like to leave our listeners with?

Kimberly Faith [00:24:01]: 

The golden nugget I would love to leave your listeners with is actually it’s something we've all heard before a 1000000 times, but it's most famous in my heart, I guess, from my 6 year old niece who just passed away of cancer. And when I would donate platelets because I knew they went to cancer patients, I would call her and say, Charlotte, I'm nervous about getting my pinch, meaning my needle. Do you have any advice? And she said, Mimi, just breathe. And that's my message to everyone is to spread Charlotte's message of just breathing because life pinches us professionally and financially, especially as you're marketing a book and trying to get speeches. I mean, there's a lot of pinches on that journey, And my message to everyone is if you can just return to that place and remind yourself to JUST BREATHE!

Susan Friedmann [00:24:54]:

Yes. And I've heard your Charlotte story so many times, and each time I want to cry. And I'm just like, Hold it together, Susan. Me too, girl. Yes. So just breathe. That's so beautiful. Kimberly, thank you so, so much for sharing this incredible wisdom and this beautiful art, art, and science of Really just breathing.

Susan Friedmann [00:25:23]:

So, thank you. And listeners, by the way, if your book isn't selling the way you wanted or expected to. Let's you and I jump on a quick call together to brainstorm ways to ramp up those sales because You've invested a whole lot of time, money, and energy, and it's time you got the return you were hoping for. So go to brainstorm with susan.com to schedule your free call. And in the meantime, I hope this powerful interview sparked some ideas you can use to sell more books. Until next week, here's wishing you much book and author marketing success.

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