Episode 112: Breathwork with Kat Jenkins

You are listening to the Overcome Pornography for Good podcast episode 112, Breathwork with Kat Jenkins.

Welcome to the Overcome Pornography For Good podcast where we take a research-based, trauma informed and results focused approach to quitting porn. This approach has been revolutionary and changed thousands and thousands of lives. I’m your host, Sara Brewer.

Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast this week. I’m really excited about this interview with Kat. Kat is a coach in Overcome Pornography For Good, and she recently finished some certifications in breathwork. This is an extremely powerful tool that I’m excited to share with you. 

We’re going to dive into it here in this episode, so I won’t talk too much about it now. But what I will say is that I talk about stop, drop and breathe. Stop, drop and breathe when we’re processing urges. And we’re learning a lot more about the breathe aspect, this breathwork that can help your body get back online. 

If you’ve heard me use that term before, we’re going to talk about it more in this interview. But get back online so that if you ever feel really out of control or like you know what you should do but your body’s just not there and your thinking brain isn’t really working as well as it could, and you’re just kind of running on autopilot, breathwork is a beautiful skill to help you get back in control. 

Anyways, we’re going to talk more about it in this interview. Please enjoy this interview with Kat Jenkins on breathwork. 

Sara: Hey, everyone, welcome to the podcast this week. This week we have Kat Jenkins on as a guest. Kat, you want to say hey? 

Kat: Hello, I’m so excited to be here. We’re talking about something super exciting, too. I love this subject, I love talking about this. So I’m excited. 

Sara: Cool. Yeah, we’re so, so happy. So Kat is a coach in the program. Have you been on the podcast? You have. 

Kat: I’ve been on the podcast once, yeah. 

Sara: Okay. Do you want to introduce yourself a little bit? 

Kat: Yeah. Yeah, so I’m Kat Jenkins. I’ve been working with Sara for a little over a year now. And so I work with one on one clients in the program and I get to help with Ask A Coach. And if you’re in the program, you probably have seen me on some of the live coaching calls, I get to do that too. I love working here. And I love all of the people in the program, it’s such a great place to be. 

Sara: Cool, yeah. Tell us a little bit how you got into coaching or what your other niche is that you’ll coach on when you’re not coaching in the program. 

Kat: Yeah, so I got into coaching and have been a coach for almost three years, maybe four. I forget because it goes by so fast, right? So a little over three years, I think, I’ve been certified as a life coach. And so I just was at a point in my life when I just really wanted to feel like I was affecting people’s lives. 

I was working in a job where I was just kind of like, eh. And I found coaching through podcasts and things. And so I just was like, this is it. This is what I want to do. I love coaching. I love talking about self-development and helping people to think about things in different ways. And so that’s kind of what got me into coaching. 

And my niche is kind of breathwork right now, which is what we’re going to be talking about today. So I’m kind of transitioning into that and doing just open life coaching for whatever comes up for people. That’s kind of what I love to see right now. 

Sara: Awesome. Cool. Yeah, which, I mean, with porn we’re not just coaching on porn, we’re coaching on all the stuff that is kind of around it. Porn is the symptom, but there’s a lot of roots happening. Cool. And tell us about your family. 

Kat: So I’m married, have three kids all on their way to leaving my house, it feels like. I have a son on a mission right now, he’s in Ohio. And then I have two kids still at home. I have a senior and a junior in high school, so really I’m like, oh my gosh, they’re going to leave and grow up and move on. So it’s kind of sad and happy. It’s sad and happy. 

Sara: Yeah, I am not even near that phase. 

Kat: Which is good. It’s a good place to be where you’re at, I kind of wish sometimes I could go back. 

Sara: Yeah, I mean, right, you’re always probably, like we just got to try to be present, I guess, with where we’re at. But I’m laughing because I was a little bit late to our interview because I was just getting my kids off this morning. 

And I have a two year old, she’s almost three, and she was throwing the biggest fit. And she just, it’s like as she’s getting closer to three, it’s becoming even more terrible. And her terrible twos were pretty terrible. And she’s just like, I can’t even describe the ferocity in her that is just constant. 

Kat: Well, I think you’re pretty lucky because your kids will probably care about you and want to be around you, not that my kids don’t care about me. But as teenagers, they do like to find a lot of like, “Hi, Mom, I’m in my room,” or “Hi, I got other things to do. I’m with friends, I’m doing other things.” So enjoy this time of life. 

Sara: Enjoy the clingy. 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: Enjoy the fits, is that what you’re telling me? 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: Okay, well, let’s get into breathwork. So that’s what we’re going to be, that’s our topic for today. Kat approached me recently, her and Tina, who, as you guys have heard Tina talk, she’s also in the program. They’ve done a breathwork certification recently and she wanted to do a breathwork workshop in the program. 

And so this next month, well, when this is released, I don’t remember what day this is going to be released, but it’ll be like a week or two after that, the breathwork workshop you’re going to do the program. And I want to learn more about it. And I’ve heard it’s amazing. And I also wanted to have you come and talk on the podcast about it. 

So that’s our topic today. Tell us a little bit about breathwork. What is it? Why is it a cool thing? And why are you starting to coach around it? Why do you like it so much? 

Kat: Yeah, that’s such a good question. And I think that it’s interesting, because breathing is like a natural thing that we do, right? Like, we can breathe without even thinking. We don’t have to think about what it’s like to breathe, just like we don’t have to tell our heart to pump. We don’t have to tell our food to digest. We don’t have to do some of those things. 

And so breathwork is interesting, because it is an automatic thing that we then get to utilize as a tool for ourselves when we are conscious about how we breathe and what that breathing looks like so that we can affect our nervous system in a beautiful way. Because that’s really what it’s all about, is our nervous system being in balance.

And so breathwork is just a super simple way that we can affect changes in our nervous system. And it’s available to everybody. That’s what I love about breathwork, is it’s not hard to do. It’s a super simple, easy process if you’re willing to just practice and take the time to do the practices. It will change your life immensely and in such a short amount of time. Breathwork is like, it can change you almost instantly, change what’s going on with your nervous system almost instantly, which I think is also amazing. 

Sara: Very cool. I love that. I love that it’s available to everyone. And sometimes when I think of nervous system regulation stuff, I’m like, okay, I’ve got to go find a certain place where I can just scream and no one can hear you or whatever. Anyways, but breathwork it seems, yeah, really, really accessible. 

So when you say nervous system regulation, let’s talk about that. What do you mean? What are the benefits here? 

Kat: So I think that’s a good question too because what I want to help everybody realize is we’re already doing nervous system regulation on a daily basis, whether it’s, maybe it’s smoking, right? Maybe we regulate – And all of it is working. Everything that we choose to do is working for us, which is why we choose to do it, right? 

Like in this program, men are using, or women, people are using porn on a regular basis to process and regulate their nervous system. They use that instead of other things. And so I think it’s important that we know, like if we go to Netflix, if we’re using those buffers, we’re using those in order to regulate our nervous system, but there are other ways that we can do it. 

And the problem with doing those buffers, they create that net negative. Over the long term we see those effects, and they’re effects in our life that we don’t want, right, that we’re not hoping for. And so I just want everybody to know we’re already doing it and the things we’re doing are working. But let’s implement a new tool. Something that we can use that will also do the same thing, but in a much more healthy way. And the long term effects of this are going to be beautiful for everyone, if we start to implement them. 

Sara: Yeah, so good. It reminds me of just on the coaching call yesterday when I was coaching. That was one of the questions was like, I have a really big thing happening this week and I’m just stressed. And I think I want to just give myself a break and just try again next weekend, we’ll just use porn this week. 

And I said, you know what? If that feels good, do it and let’s get back on the horse next week. But also, let’s recognize too, maybe there are some other ways that we can get this nurturing or this regulation outside of porn so that you also aren’t just miserable, so that you have the support that you need. And we can find other ways to do that, that are not porn, which is what I’m hearing you say. 

Kat: Yeah, there’s tools out there that we’re using, but this is also a tool. Which I think, like we said, breathing is automatic, we don’t really have to think about it. But it’s really a tool that we can use to help us to do things in a positive way that’s going to be beneficial not just for the moment of regulating, but in our long term well being and in our happiness, and in our goals and what we’re trying to do in life. 

Sara: Cool. So let’s even back up a little bit more because, like when we say nervous system regulation, me and you we’re like, oh yeah, we know what that means. But people, I mean, it’s not super common maybe unless you’re in the health and wellness field to hear that. 

Kat: Yeah, so great question, right? What’s our nervous system? Why do we need to regulate it? What’s going on there, right? So we have our autonomic nervous system, and there’s two parts to that. 

And there’s the sympathetic, which is our fight or flight, we’ve all heard that, right? Like, when we get stressed, when we start to, like our breath will start to go faster, right? We’ll breathe faster in this state. We’ll breathe in a quicker way when we’re in that sympathetic nervous system, when we’re in the fight or flight. 

And then there’s the other part of our autonomic nervous system, which is this parasympathetic nervous system which is our rest and digest, which is the place where we breathe slower, where we let our body relax, where we feel more at ease. And so there’s kind of those two parts to that. 

And so regulating it is – And that’s an interesting thing to talk about, too. Neither of those are bad, we need both of those, right? We need to be in both those states at different times in our life. And throughout the day, you’ll notice you’re going back and forth between your parasympathetic and your sympathetic nervous system constantly. 

It is a flow and it’s a balance. And that’s what this is, breathing is helping us to keep ourselves in a balanced way when we feel like we’re only working from our parasympathetic nervous system, when we’re only working from our sympathetic nervous system. We want to get that back into balance so that we feel regulated, right? That’s what regulation is, is when we are in this balance. 

Sara: Yeah, really good. I like that, like the yin and yang. 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: Yin and yang of this. And so we’re not demonizing or saying it’s bad, or if you’re activated or fight or flight, like that’s not bad, that’s good. And this other part of you, the rest and digest, that’s good, too. And we just want to make sure they’re working in ways that are serving you, instead of – Well, like what’s an example where you might want to use breath work where you might want to regulate or whatever we want to call that?

Kat: Yeah, and I wanted to talk about three different reasons why, three different benefits of breathwork and why we want to use breath work, because that’s, I think, also an important thing to talk about is why we’re doing it. Because if we don’t know why we’re doing the breathwork, why it’s important, we won’t stick with our practice, we won’t do the thing. 

And so I just wanted to share maybe three different reasons and three different benefits of breathwork and why we would want to implement it into our lives and what the benefits are. 

So, and the first is that we can quickly affect our nervous system. In a super fast way, breathing can affect the state that we’re in. And I want to talk about this because states, like if you can change your state, the state you’re in, you can change the story that you’re telling about yourself and the story that’s going on. 

And so one example that I recently saw this in action was have you seen Limitless with Chris Hemsworth on Disney plus? 

Sara: No, but that’s the one where he does crazy stuff, right? 

Kat: Yes, so in the first episode it’s all about stress. And so she’s teaching him how to, you know, he has to go up to this building that’s, I don’t even remember, like hundreds of floors up or whatever. And they’ve got this crane out. And he has to walk along this pitch and it’s huge, and he’s so far from the ground. 

So he’s like preparing himself to do this thing where he has to walk out on this long crane thing and then walk back. And so she teaches him some breathwork things. And when he’s out there doing this, he’s out there and he’s gotten to the end of this crane, he’s at the end of this. And he’s sitting there and his breathing starts to quicken. And he starts, like his heart rate is like getting super, super fast. 

And he stops for a moment. And so at that moment he’s in this state of like, I don’t want to be here. I’ve got to get out of here. This is scary. I’m freaking out. I want to just escape this, right? And so he’s in this fight or flight. He’s in his sympathetic nervous system. 

And so as soon as he goes to the place where she’s taught him some breathwork, she’s taught him how to regulate that nervous system, she’s taught him how to calm down. He instantly starts breathing and his heart rate drops and he gets into a different state. 

Now his nervous system is in a state of I’m more rested, I’m more calm. And his story now is, I can do this. I got this. He’s like jumping across the thing. He’s like, I’m feeling comfortable in this situation. Whereas before, when he was in his fight or flight, when his heart was racing, when he’s got this stress response coming because he’s not comfortable where he’s at, his story is like, I’m freaking out. I can’t do this. This is scary, which, for our clients that we work with in the program, we find this all the time, right? 

Sara: Right. 

Kat: They get into this stress response. They get into this place where they’re like, it’s too much. I can’t handle this urge. I can’t go through this. I’ve felt this too much. It’s too heavy, it’s too strong, whatever it is. We get into that stress response and we get into that fight or flight and it just feels heavy. And when we’re in that state, our story is I can’t do this. This is too hard. Whatever it is, right? Like our story is really heavy. 

But when we can utilize breathwork and when we can understand that we can change that state, the state that we’re in, and move into a much healthier, like rested, get our brain back online, we talk about that a lot, right? Getting back online with our brain so we can start utilizing that higher brain to make those decisions, our story changes instantly as well. 

Now all the sudden we’re like, hey, I got this. I can do this. 

Sara: Yeah, so just to reiterate that online versus offline, we’ve talked about it before and we use it a lot in the program. But the idea is, when your brain is online, that’s when you’re able to use your prefrontal cortex and make decisions. And we do so much thought work and coaching. We’re coaching around thoughts and beliefs, and it’s really hard to be in that place when your brain is offline. 

So when you’re online, you can do that. When you’re offline, that’s just when you’re activated. The thought work isn’t really working, the thought work isn’t really affecting you. You’re not able to be in that place to think super rationally, which makes sense. If you’re in fight or flight, you can’t really think super rationally. 

So what we want to do is we want to get back online so that we can use that part of our brain going forward. And breathwork sounds like a really beautiful tool that we can now learn to help ourselves get online in an effective – there’s been so many studies around it – a very effective way, very quick, and very accessible way where you don’t need anything but you and your breath. 

Kat: Yeah. And I love that, change your state, change your story. Change what you believe, change what you can do, change what you’re thinking, change all of that. Now, all of a sudden, we can start making better decisions when we’re online. 

Sara: Cool. Awesome. So was that one? 

Kat: That was the first one. 

Sara: Okay. 

Kat: We can affect our nervous system, we can change our state, change our story. So that’s really exciting. That’s a really good reason for us to want to utilize breathwork, right? 

The second one is that it really helps us with that stress response. So we talked a little bit about that, and I think that when we get in that stress response we’re very reactive, right? Like we react to whatever comes up, instead of doing a response. Like instead of responding to the things that come up, we get very reactive. 

And then when we stay in that stress response, when we don’t allow ourselves the time to get back into our parasympathetic nervous system, get back into a relaxed state, and we stay in the state of that stress response, now all of a sudden all we’re doing is reacting. We just keep reacting, and then we react, and then we react. 

And what I want you to notice about those two things is like whether we’re reacting or we are having a responsive effect, we’re getting the same result. For instance, we’re stressed, we want to do something, use a tool to manage our nervous system, whether it’s breathing or whether it’s maybe looking at porn, right? 

So if we choose to look at porn and we do a slip-up, right and we stay in that state of like, oh crap, and we start to shame ourselves. And now we’re reacting to the shame. We’re reacting to the things that keep coming. And we don’t allow ourselves that time to do, for instance, in the program we use to learn and move on, right? 

When we stop and we take a step back, and we allow ourselves to calm down from that state of stress and the choices that we’ve made. Now, all of a sudden, we can use something like that, a tool like breathwork, to slow ourselves down, to do a learn and move on, to respond to what just happened instead of reacting to it, even though we’d get the same result, right? 

If we’re reactive to that, we might look at porn, whereas if we respond to it we might look at porn too. But I think the most important thing to remember is our recovery time because when we stay in that reactive, reactive reactive, we never get the chance to recover from it. We never get a chance to reset, right, and start over. 

Sara: Yeah, okay. 

Kat: And I think it’s important that we respond to it and then we recover from it, right? Instead of being so reactive. 

Sara: Yeah, really good. Okay, cool. Love it. And what’s the third reason? 

Kat: So the third reason is that we all want to feel better, right? We all want to feel better all the time. So breathing can really affect our mood. It can affect what’s going on for us. And breathing is how we feel, and how we feel is breathing. And so you can notice this in other people, right? 

If you walked up to maybe a car accident or a scene where somebody was having maybe a stress response from an accident, you would notice their breathing might be really heavy. And we can see this all the time. We can see what state people are in based on how they are breathing. 

So we breathe how we feel. So we can affect how we feel by how we choose to breathe. 

Sara: Yeah. 

Kat: It’s all connected. It’s so cool. 

Sara: I mean, I’m even thinking of when you’re watching someone using willpower to push away an urge, or like really stressed or worried or fearful when they feel an urge, you can see the breath or you can even see the shoulders kind of up. And the body’s kind of caving in a little bit. 

Kat: And we’ll notice they’ll breathe in their shoulders versus in their diaphragm where their breath should be coming from, right? And so when we start breathing from our accessory muscles, the muscles that aren’t supposed to be breathing, like they’re not our really deep muscles that are really where the breath should be coming from, we just get really shallow breaths. And we’re not really like comforting ourselves and giving ourselves that time to slow down. 

And there are times to be in that state, right? Like, that’s not a bad place to be when there’s an accident. Or if we have to, you know, if a car is coming at us we want to get in that fight or flight so we can get out of the way, so we can save ourselves, so we can protect ourselves. But staying there is where we don’t want to be. 

Sara: Okay, yeah. 

Kat: And so noticing we can change how we feel, we tell that to people all the time, right? Take a deep breath, everything’s fine. We’re okay. Right? Like we give ourselves those cues to notice breathing is important because it does change how we feel. 

Sara: Yeah, and I think, and tell me what your thoughts are about this, but around pornography and sex in general, anything sexual, there’s a lot of almost trauma responses. And I use that term very broadly, in the sense where because of things that we’ve been taught, because of so much anxiety around it growing up. 

Especially for so many people who have struggled with porn and like, what does this mean about me? And what does this mean about my worthiness? And what does it mean about all these things? It really is activating .It's so activating to have a sexual urge for a lot of people. It’s so activating to slip up. It’s really distressing in the body because of the learned responses. 

And so what I’m hearing you say is breathwork is a way for us to start to calm that down and to feel better, not just so we can go into justification and we can do whatever we want. But because and, I mean, anyone who’s heard my podcast understands this, but because when we feel better, we’re able to make decisions that help us live the life we want to have. We think we can change ourselves from feeling like crap, but we can’t. 

Kat: Yeah, yeah. And breathwork, I think, is exciting too because you talk a lot about the pendulum, right? Like we swing from highs to lows and everywhere in between sometimes. 

But we end up thinking we have to be like one or the other, high or low, right? And so it’s like we do react, it’s a natural response to react to the highs and lows of life. That’s kind of what the news is all about or whatever, right? Like, we want to be shocked, or we want to be like all of those things. 

And so I think it’s good to point out that when we’re high, breathing can bring you back to balance. When we’re in a low, when we’re depressed, you know, maybe we get to a point where we’re like, I’m just going to give up, this is too hard. I can’t do this anymore. That’s more of this low, right, the other side of the pendulum. And breathing can bring us back to that center again, right? 

So whatever state we’re in, whether it’s a high or a low, whether we’re super stressed and upset or we’re deciding to give up and we don’t want to do this anymore, like either one of those, breathwork can help us regulate that and bring us back to that center place where we’re in this balance. 

Sara: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think I understood like when you’re high, how it can bring you back to center. But I didn’t think about low. How does that work? 

Kat: It’s so interesting, it’s the same breath. Like you don’t even have to change the breathwork. And I’ll teach you more about that in the workshop that we’re going to do, how to do this because right now we’re just talking about why. Why we do this, why it’s important. But I’ll show you exactly how, but it’s the same breath. It’s not like you have to change anything. We don’t have to know anything different. 

Sara: Okay. And when we’re talking about breathwork, is it like patterns of breathing, practices of breathing, is that kind of the idea? 

Kat: Yes. What I like to teach is we do kind of like a morning breath, we call it fire, water, and then an ice breath, a nighttime breath. So we’re waking ourselves up, we’re giving ourselves energy. 

And we don’t even have to just do that in the morning. We could do that at different times a day, which is why sometimes when we’re in this low, or before we exercise, or when we need a pick-me-up, there’s a way that we can breathe so that we can get back to neutral to get back to a regulated place. 

Sara: Oh, cool. 

Kat: And then we have the water breath, which is like you can use it any time, whether you’re high, whether you’re low. It’s a great breath to practice any time of day. 

Sara: What? I’m so excited. 

Kat: And then we have a nighttime breath. It helps us sleep and helps us get to a place where we can – And sleeping is huge, too, right? Like being able to sleep so that we can make better decisions the next day, so that we can feel like we can actually get back with our life when we’re not sleeping well. So breath helps with that too. 

Sara: Oh my gosh, I’m so excited to learn and to practice with you. I’m very excited for this workshop because, oh yeah, the sleeping. This last year, which I’ve mentioned a few times on the podcast, as I’ve just been doing some trauma healing, it’s gotten better. But my sleep for a long time was really rough. And it’s because I just couldn’t calm down. Just couldn’t calm down, couldn’t calm down. 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: And occasionally I still have that come up. And so that’ll be fun to learn. I have done, I mean, I have done some breathing exercises and have been taught some breathing exercises. It’s not specific breathwork, I don’t know, maybe it is. But I have been finding like even just keeping my breath rolling, I tend to pause a lot. So breathe in, and then I pause, and then breathe out and I pause. 

And when I keep it rolling, it helps me, and really focus on the rolling, it also helps me. So I’ve experienced little bits of this, but I’m excited to learn more. And in the workshop you’re going to be taking us through exercises, and it’s going to be a little bit more of a deeper dive that we don’t have time for on the podcast. 

Kat: Yeah, where we can actually like practice it together. And so you can see what that feels like for you. And you can ask questions if you have them. Because that’s the last thing I want to talk about, is that vagus nerve, which is part of our parasympathetic nervous system. It’s really the thing that actually helps us to calm down, and breathing really stimulates that. 

And when we breathe in a certain way specifically, it can help us to really tap into that vagus nerve and give us that opportunity to self-soothe, instead of using things like porn, instead of using things like smoking, or drinking, or Netflixing, or shopping, or food, right, sugar. Instead of using those things to soothe ourselves, we can utilize breathing as a way to soothe ourselves and tap into that vagus nerve so that we let our parasympathetic nervous system get back online. 

Sara: Yeah, cool. I love it. It sounds very powerful. 

Kat: Yeah, I’m excited. 

Sara: Yeah, me too. Okay, anything else that you want to share with us about breathwork? And also, let me look and see if I have any other questions. 

Kat: Yeah, so I hear a lot of the clients like, okay, I’m working through processing. I’m confused, I don’t really know what to do. I don’t know how to get back into my body. I don’t know what that looks like in the drop part. I don’t know what that looks like in the breathe part. I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying. 

And it feels confusing, I think, sometimes. But this is such a good point for me to make that you can tap into your breathing, which is going to help you tap into your body, which is going to help you to allow yourself to process those emotions. 

And so I think the way that we breathe is important. And coming to this workshop to learn what that looks like when we do stop, drop, breathe, now we’ll know what to do in that breath part of it. We’ll know how to do it. Well know how to utilize it and how to incorporate it so that it feels much more natural and easy for you to process those urges and the emotions when they come up. 

Sara: Yeah, super good. I get that question sometimes, what do you mean by breathe? 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: And so this will be really great to address a really intentional way that we can start doing that. 

Kat: Yeah. I mean, any breath is going to help, obviously. You don’t have to breathe in a certain way for breathwork to help. But when we do, when we’re conscious, when we’re deliberate about what that means, now we have control over that nervous system about keeping it regulated and about how we’re going to utilize it that’s best for us, that’s going to be most beneficial for us. 

Sara: Yeah, and I also like, you know, stop, drop, and breathe, maybe it isn’t like step by step by step. Or maybe you start step by step by step, but it’s kind of cyclical. So maybe you start in your breath, and that helps you drop into your body, which is what I’m hearing you say. 

Kat: Yes. 

Sara: And it’s more cyclical and not step, step, step. 

Kat: Because thinking I’m going to breathe could help us do that stop part, right? Like thinking I’m going to utilize this tool can help us even in that like, oh, wait, I’m going to do breath work instead of... And that helps us to stop. That helps us to then drop. That helps us then to move on and process those emotions. 

Sara: Yeah, really good. Okay, cool. 

Kat: The boring middle is unfortunately where we need to be. I think that’s like sometimes we forget, but the goal is really to stay in the boring middle as much as we can. 

Sara: Well, and I think if you can stay in the boring middle, you can create a really exciting life instead of having really exciting ups and downs. 

Kat: Yeah, like that reactive, right? Like that reactive life. Now all the sudden we’re responsive and we can take on more, too, in that boring middle. 

Sara: Yes. Really good. Okay, so we talked about benefits. We talked about how it works. We’ve talked about how it can be applicable to quitting porn because pornography is also a way that we’re using to regulate our body. 

Kat: Yeah. 

Sara: And if you’re trying to quit porn, we might need to find some new tools to regulate your body. And this is something, too, that, you know, we do talk about increasing your ability to be uncomfortable and increasing your emotional resiliency and how important that is. And it’s important to come into quitting porn, not with this idea that we’re going to figure out a way so that it’s super easy and that it’s not painful, and it’s not hard. But I think sometimes we have a little bit too much of a focus on that. 

And there’s also a big focus here on there’s also other beautiful ways to nurture yourself, to regulate yourself so that you’re not just miserable all the time. And there’s going to be a period of a river of misery, but the breathwork is going to help decrease that river of misery and make it at least so that you can swim through it, you’re not drowning. 

Kat: Yeah, and I love that you said that because it really affects our ability to use the agility of our nervous system, right, to be able to switch back and forth as needed. Because sometimes when we get stuck, we just don’t realize that there’s another way. We’re like, I don’t know, I guess I’m surviving. I guess things are working. I guess things are there. 

But as we start using breathwork, it really helps us to be able to vary that nervous system and it’s like manipulating it in the way that’s best for us in the moment. 

Sara: Cool. Great. Love it. Love it. Okay, you guys, so her class is on the schedule for March. It’s going to be recorded, so if you’re in the program you can access it anytime and you can go back and redo it. Or if you can’t make it live, you can go and watch the replay. 

And then Kat is in the program, so if you have any questions about it, you can always ask it. Send it to Ask A Coach and specifically say, “Can Kat answer this question about breathwork?” And she’ll get back to you. She also does coaching calls monthly in the program. 

If you’re not in the program, come and join us if this sounds like a good next step for you, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. There’s a pay in full option, there’s payment plans option. It’s a lifetime access program, so once you join, you get access to everything forever. 

You get access to weekly coaching calls. We get two monthly marriage coaching calls. The whole program system of working through the milestones to learn the skills that we talk about. All these extra workshops we have, you know, how to have difficult conversations, we’ve had sex coach workshops. We’re going to have more sex coach stuff coming in, this breathwork workshop. Anyways,  there’s so much good stuff there, sarabrewer.com/workwithme. 

There’s also, for those of you who might want to get in, but the six month payment plan isn’t available to you, we’re trying out a 12 month payment plan. That’s not there on the website, so if you’re interested in the 12 month payment plan, email us at [email protected]. 

So that was a lot of information, but you’ll see all the information at sarabrewer.com/workwithme. We’ll link all of that in the show notes. Kat, thank you so much for coming on.

Kat: It was a pleasure. I had so much fun. 

Sara: Yeah, me too. All right, we’ll talk to you guys later. Bye bye. 

I want to invite you to come and listen to my free class, How To Overcome Pornography For Good Without Using Willpower. We talk about how to stop giving in to urges without pure willpower or relying on phone filters so that you can actually stop wanting pornography. 

We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn’t to have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. We talk about how to stop giving up after a few weeks or months. And spoiler alert, the answer isn't to have more willpower. And then lastly, we talk about how to make a life without porn easily sustainable and permanent. 

If you’re trying to quit porn, this class is a game changer. So you can go and sign up at Sarabrewer.com/masterclass, and it is totally free.