The Science of Breathwork and Opening your Heart to Love with MJ Renshaw

Episode Summary: 

In my conversation with MJ Renshaw, we explore the science behind breathwork, how to create a more open heartspace, and simple, yet powerful ways to connect with your ancestors. We talk about intuition, inner trust and knowing, living in alignment and feminine energy. MJ opens up about her layered and beautiful birth story, and we also talk about her developing relationship with fungi. 

Show Notes:

MJ Renshaw is a mother, a rock collector, and the founder of The Being Method: a course on the science of spirituality. MJ began her career as an osteopath, but felt that there was a lack of feminine essence in her practice. She developed The Being Method to find a flow between research-backed techniques and divine inner-knowing.  

In our conversation, MJ explains how breathwork facilitates the release of trauma that’s stored on a cellular level. We dive into some of our powerful breakthroughs and releases via breathwork, particularly the holotropic method. MJ highlights what we can do to shift into a more conscious, intentional breathing pattern on a daily basis as well. 

MJ shares a simple, yet powerful practice for connecting with your ancestors and talks about how that journey inspired her to open up about her complicated birth story. Though it was radically different than she had planned, she talks about the intergenerational healing that she experienced as a result. MJ and I also discuss her developing relationship with fungi and other plant medicine. 

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on your favorite podcast platform. 

Topics Covered:

• Cultivating a deeper sense of trust in your body 
• How to create heart coherence using your vagus nerve
• What breathwork does to support the body from both mechanical and spiritual standpoints
• Going on an ancestral journey and healing intergenerational trauma 
• Finding comfort floating in in-between spaces of life 

Resources Mentioned:

• The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying 

Guest Info:

• Follow MJ on Instagram: @beingmethod
• Learn more about The Being Method: beingmethod.ca

Follow Me:

• Follow me on Instagram: @tonyapapanikolove 
• Follow Rainbo on Instagram: @rainbomushrooms 
• Shop Rainbo: rainbo.com 

 

Tonya Papanikolov  00:04

Hi, welcome to the rainbo podcast. I'm your host, Tonya Papanikolov. Rainbo and I are on a mission to upgrade humanity with fungi and expand the collective consciousness. This podcast builds a virtual mycelial network of bold, open minded thinkers and seekers. I chat with experts, thought leaders, healers, scientists, entrepreneurs, spiritual teachers, activists, and dreamers. These are stories of healing, human potential and expansion, tune in route and expand and journey with us

 

Show Transcript:

Tonya Papanikolov  00:44

Hi, friends, hope you're all doing really good and enjoying the cooler weather in the fall depending on where you are in the world in the northern hemisphere of North America anyways, it's fall, and hope everybody is staying cozy. I'm excited. I feel like I say this every time and I really mean it every time, which is that I'm excited to introduce you to today's episode guest. Her name is MJ Renshaw, and she is a dear friend of mine, and somebody who I've known for quite a few years now. MJ is a mother, a rock collector and the founder of the being method, a course on the science of spirituality. And she is just an all around epic human being. She's an educator she shares so gracefully and naturally with the world and her audience. And her courses are transformative. And she's just a really special human being to learn from and a guide. 

 

Tonya Papanikolov  01:44

And so we talk about we have a cool episode, we talk about a lot of things that she's up to the power of breathwork how trauma is stored at a cellular level, we talk about the science of intuition. And gosh, there's so many cool things we talk about the vagus nerve, and her experience with mushrooms and how those changed her life. We hear about her opening up about her birth story and how profound that was for her. It's such a beautiful story. And it's just yeah, it's really, it's really special. And we also talk about our ancestors and saying their names. And it actually led me after my trip with her and actually got me to create a little family tree. And it was really emotional. Like I really sat there and said the names of my grandparents and my great grandparents and my great great grandparents. And it inspired like an inquisition into just like who they were what were they like, what did they like to do? And my parents were able to tell, you know me stories about what they remember. And so I hope that maybe that inspires some others to do that. I had like a big cry from that just because it felt like so cathartic. And I just felt so much gratitude to them, and a connection to them. And I think it's just something that we it can be easy to forget to do that. And so this episode was cool, because it inspired me to do that. And maybe it'll inspire you to do that, too.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  03:16

I literally just have this note on my phone now. That's for my ancestors. And you know, you can say their names anytime and it keeps their spirit alive in your heart and brings this beautiful sense of gratitude for where you've come from. And I think MJ for inspiring me to do that. So I will let us dive into today's episode. I know you're gonna love it. Let's jump in. Okay, hi, MJ. We just had a really nice little preamble conversation and chatting about horses and dolphins and all sorts of things. Motherhood, babies, conspiracies. So thank you so much for coming on. I'm so I just adore you. You're a dear friend of mine. I love chatting. We've been on a friendship and intertwined healing journey for like five or six or seven years. So thank you so much. It's an honor to have you on.

 

MJ Renshaw  04:17

Thank you for having me. I was like reflecting on our relationship and all the moments where it's been so divinely timed. And the Reiki you used to give me yeah, just really, really special. And it's just like, you know, when you're just gifted people,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  04:35

I feel the same way. I remember we first connected through definitely through Instagram I want to say and then I had my first osteopathic adjustment through you. I remember coming to your studio at Liberty Village. And then it was like a she's so magical be that healing and osteopathy is magical.

 

MJ Renshaw  05:01

Yeah, it was a fun moment of my career life. Yeah.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  05:06

Well, I'm so excited to have you on. And I would love it if maybe you just gave our community a little bit of a description and background on what you're doing and who you are and who your being in the being method and what you've gotten to, I'd love to also jump into healing journey and that piece as well. But why don't we start with just a little bit of background on you.

 

MJ Renshaw  05:28

I'm MJ Renshaw obviously used to study osteopathy, and that was my career path. And then, in 2019, I realized that it just didn't feel aligned for me, the philosophy and way of thinking was very much aligned with the actual career I was like, I don't know. So I made the switch to kind of creating my own course from which I thought something was lacking. And my own studies, most school programs I've been into are very masculine, very hyper focused on the mechanical, things like intuition, love, spirituality, were almost frowned upon. And seen as like, you know, if you believed in those things, or practice them, you were a charlatan, a lot of patriarchal systems really in place, and most of those schooling, so I was like, you know, I always felt like there was the feminine kind of energy piece missing. So when I finished, I opened up my own course, which is we very much all the masculine stuff, we look at chemistry, we look at physics, just basics to get you through. And we look at anatomy and physiology, so you can understand how the human body works. But on top of that, we also look at developing your intuition, we look at how emotions play into all those things, we look at energy, and you know how everybody feels energy differently, and how you can work with clients one on one kind of understanding all that more elusive, feminine, creative aspects of it almost like the art, I think, of those things. So I created the beam method, and certifies people to be a breathwork facilitator and energy healer and not energy healing in terms of something like Reiki, like that's obviously very different, but energy healing in terms of like, what is the mitochondria? Those function really well, because, like, they're very important, and they are a big part of quantum biology as we understand it. So that's kind of the direction I took was being like, I mean, there was every single woman in my program was like, I'm feel like something's missing. So I was like, wow, someone needs to create it, then yeah, so I tried, Oh,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  07:43

I'm so grateful you did that. I can't possibly agree more that that is like it's so lacking. And we're kind of left to our own devices to figure that out. And I feel like, oftentimes, so many healers that like, come into this line of work, you kind of Egypt, it's like, it's such a transformative process. But there's always like this struggle that leads you to find this, but it's like a mapless journey. And so to have some framework laid down for women, especially, to go through that and to kind of like, marry that with their other studies. And just like for the process of life, I feel is so needed here,

 

MJ Renshaw  08:24

but even on like, personal healing, so you're working with other people and trying to guide them towards healing or working with your own body and being and trying to guide yourself towards healing. There's such an emphasis in the world on like, hyper controlling it. And like, a lot of the times when you go see someone and I'm not saying that there isn't space and time for this, but it's very quantitative. And it's like we'll do these testings, I'm like, we'll look at that. And we'll try to control every single thing down to the mineral that you're eating. I think sometimes that can be too stressed, like can be more stress inducing for someone like a lot, like there has to be that. But also this cultivation of like, Do you know how powerful your body is

 

Tonya Papanikolov  09:07

like and and it's so funny too, because like, as you're saying that it's like sensitivity. And we have this like negative association with being sensitive. But that is in this age, the greatest power anybody can cultivate is having a sensitivity to x, like experience the world through your nervous system through like fine tuned, instantaneous ability to make decisions to know if something is safe to know if something is aligned for you. And to cultivate that through like intuition and the development of a nervous system that you can interact like trust and interact with is so key.

 

MJ Renshaw  09:47

sensitive people are going to change the world because like they're understanding all the things that aren't aligned with humans and our basic survival but also are thriving. And I think sensitive People are they feel that they know what isn't aligned, and they know what's happening kind of in the collection. And I think that they're like fine tuning little things and being like, actually, our houses should be maybe more like this, or we should think about this in terms of EMFs. And like, I just think they're like, slowly changing the world. I love. I'm very sensitive. And so it's my husband, so and you are

 

Tonya Papanikolov  10:24

Simon and I, too. And we're projectors to, which adds to that. Yeah, it's funny. I have had people say to me like, well, it's cool to see being a business owner, because like, I consider you to be this like, intuitive, sensitive person. And so seeing you do that makes me think that I can do it, too. I'm like, Cool.

 

MJ Renshaw  10:44

100%. Tanya, you have that effect on me.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  10:47

That's cool. Well, likewise, mirror and you have that effect on me too. One thing that you said that I want to just like detour into a little bit is, I would love to talk about intuition. And from the perspective of like, how do we cultivate more of it? And what could people expect to find in the being method? And it's a question I got recently, which is like, how do you cultivate intuition? And it's always an interesting process to kind of reflect on. But I would love to hear your thoughts on that. And how to how to instruct somebody to cultivate that trust muscle. And like, another one, I'm sure you've gotten this question is like, how do I know the difference between anxiety versus a gut feeling and an intuition? And I also know that you know this. So because of our womb, we actually have an intuitive superpower, because of the lining of the womb?

 

MJ Renshaw  11:41

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay, the first thing I'll say is, there's like preparation that you can do to access your intuition. And we can look at this from a scientific way, right. So if you want to be heart open, you want to be living in the present moment, not being in fear, there's very simple steps that we can do to get there, right. And it's just creating heart Coherence Using your vagus nerve, there's like, a million different ways to do that. A simple one for me is just like putting my hand over my heart, taking three big deep breaths and thinking about things that I love. Feeling really grateful for them. Like being in that heart open space, you could do something like singing, you could do something like tapping on your chest, you could dance a little bit, a place where you like, if we were to measure you, you would be heart coherence, you would have a high HRV, you would, by all the quantitative measures be calm and relaxed and ready. And this is, you know, if you look at anything that's artists, or writers, a lot of them have ritual, get themselves into channeling and the more you get disciplined with that ritual, the more you will become a clear channel and things will happen. So we'll look at it in a scientific way, which is creating, you know, a high HRV and heart coherence, and then also potentially putting yourself into a theta state. And that's just a very calm, relaxed, non focus receiving state. So you get it when you're driving, you get it when you're in the shower right before bed. And it's, that's when most people get their ideas. They're like, Oh, yeah, that's yours. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, no pen and paper perfect. But you can do that sitting just in your room. So like a practice that I do and did for a long time. It's just saying, like, okay, Source Energy, set a timer for five minutes and be like, What do I need to do to give me guidance, and like, sometimes it's just, like, just show up lovingly, for your family? Great. Sometimes it's something that makes no sense at all to me. But when I do it, like everything, you're just all the things align, and I'm like, Okay, I don't know what's going on. Clearly, there's so many things in this world beyond my logical understanding of it. And then sometimes you'll just get like a really good idea. And if you follow it, it leads you to a life that you never could have imagined. So creating time to listen. And then like you said, it's a trust muscle. And the only way that you can really build that is by being really clear, and your own belief that intuition is real. And that takes a lot of healing, because we live in capitalism and patriarchy. And, you know, a lot of that is like, very empirical and nothing that we cannot see isn't real. So you have to almost like, go through this personal rebellion. And understanding that these things are very real, and that people do experience intuition. And it's been documented a lot. So that personal rebellion, but also the practice, the more you practice, the more you're going to see like, Oh, I didn't listen to the idea, and I missed an opportunity. Rotation, but you'll just start to play around with talking to the universe or talking to spirit or talking to God or whatever you believe in and then angels. And then for me, it was very quick. I was like, Okay, I got some of these angels And then you just start living a life where it's like, I'm not worried about what other people are thinking about me, if they're gonna judge me if I do this, if it's gonna fail, because I know feelings, not even a real thing. I'm just listening to the angels.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  15:15

And it's like so divinely LED. And like, Yeah, I think there's like so many pieces in that, that you're kind of like stepping into this purpose. And I was gonna say higher purpose. And the only thing I really mean by that is just that there's a connection to something bigger and like beyond ourselves. And that's, you know, really powerful for us. I think that there's also a lot of conditioning that happens as women in the space where like, just based on the world we live in, and the society and the ways that we see this, like, really structured way that success looks like and the males that are still really dominating that space, that do it in that way. And that what can momentarily just make us forget and lose our core and our sense of like that flow and intuitive superpower. And it's something that like, even even if you know it, you have to see it and you're like unless unless it's like the fine tune, like okay, the self awareness to be like, right, right, right, right. Okay. This is right for me.

 

MJ Renshaw  16:17

Yes, it's so real like you and I've talked before, like, if you go to self development, wellness, health, podcast world, a lot of it's like, oh, we are men and we are doing,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  16:30

it actually has that like voice over,

 

MJ Renshaw  16:33

I've made the mistake of like, I'm like, I gotta be intermittent fasting. And I have to same process, we evolve with it. And that's fine. Like, it was great. But that that really took me to a place where I was like, actually, I'm completely forgetting that I've got a different body. And my energy type is very different. And I need to honor that. And it looks very different, like you said, to societies and societies viewpoint of what most successful people look like. But the more I honor me, the more I think magnetic I become. And the more I see other people honoring their specific energy type and what they like to do and what makes them feel nourished, I think more than magnetic,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  17:17

absolutely. Can you tell us a bit about the journey of getting to this place here? Where this is all really clear, and it clicks? Did it take a while for that to happen?

 

MJ Renshaw  17:29

Yeah, I think I spent the majority of my 20s doing things that I thought would make other people happy. You know, some people do, I did. I was very concerned with my mom and how she was going to do me selling him, I love her. But that's where I led to go to like these big, intense programs, and I wanted, and it was very much about how people were going to do. And, like, I'll be honest, I loved the clout of saying like, Oh, I'm going to be an osteopath. And like, as a blonde woman, I was like, oh, people are gonna find when you see me as smart, as capable. And that led me to a path of like, the universe basically bonk with me over and over and over, I would have been like, this is not your path. So I was like, I didn't have a period for seven years. Wow, there was bawling out like, I was totally not living in alignment with my life. I was dating people were like, basically, the voice in my head was screaming at me to leave them, but I was so just clinging to them out of safety. And then I think things just got bad enough, like real bad. And I like ended up getting mold and living in my mom's basement at 27. And I was like, okay, so everything has fallen, I may as well take this as an opportunity to do whatever I want. Because like, I've been trying to do the things that impress other people and doesn't ask me. So, like you said, I definitely don't live a life of like, complete pure clarity today. Like I know, right now, I'm still doing things that aren't aligned. But I'm just like learning and I think I'm getting quicker at understanding when something isn't in alignment, and dissolving it. And just being like, I don't care that that's gone. Like I don't need that's not me. Yeah, this career is not me, this relationship is not me. This role is not meaning like, I'm like, those things can just slip.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  19:29

Yeah, I mean, it really does take like something I come back to so often is just the self discipline and the consistency because I think when you have like, if you have a teacher or a therapist or somebody a guide coach, anybody on your path that's helping kind of like Shepherd you along the way. It's always so helpful to hear their words and then it's just like, oh, yeah, right. I know this. I feel like a lot of this stuff is like I remember worrying. And because of the conditioning of our world, it's just so easy to kind of like be transient in these spaces of like forgetting and then coming back to our truth and remembering and having guides along the way, help us come back into that point of alignment. And then as you do that more and more, you end up staying there more often. And that becomes eventually this place where you exist. And I guess the reason I also wanted to ask that too, is because I always like to kind of let people like no matter where anybody is on their journey, because we both started somewhere that was like, I mean, like, riddled with pain and anxiety when I was in my early 20s. Like, just at a total loss, because of the stress I would experience at a corporate job. And like, literally, not there not being a wellness world. And so like, finding things for the first time and like, yeah, being like, Oh, this kind of feels good. I'm just gonna stay here and keep coming to this. Really, really?

 

MJ Renshaw  21:00

What feels good? Yeah.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  21:03

Out of the way out, I love that was just saying that this weekend, like Sarah actually, who is a dear friend who was just on the podcast, she was saying, she was like, I'm healing through pleasure. And I was like, I love that like, yes. But that it takes, it takes time. And it's a lot of like, a lot of discernment. I feel like a place that I've been lately has been like, really like, I don't want to say viciously. But like, so protective, of cultivating and saying no, so that I can stay in alignment and not like, specifically with my morning routine. And just like getting rid of a habit to like, be on like, check my phone, which we all know, inherently, but I've just become like so like, No, I will not do that. I will not I'm not I'm not doing that, like I'm going to create before I consume, and like, what does that look like for me? And it's like really committing to it. And that's

 

MJ Renshaw  21:56

just the perfect blend of that, like masculine feminine energy. I'm creating the structure that allows me to be free and playful and creative. And I think that that's like the the ideal. Yeah,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  22:13

that's really cool. I didn't think of it that way. But it's really true. Okay. And I do yeah, I would love to chat about breath with you, and how just hear about how it's helped you in your journey and the healing properties of it. And I know that would love to just kind of like hear about how trauma is stored at a cellular level? And what breath does to facilitate that release?

 

MJ Renshaw  22:36

Oh, my gosh, good. Question. So I obviously like breathwork is kind of my bread and butter. We I mean in the beam method and on the beam portal, which is just a subscription to do breath work if you want. And I'm not plugging myself, I'm just saying these are areas that you can find that information.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  22:54

But like we all should do the Bing method and the Bing portal because it is transformative. And you are incredible. So I will plug it we go

 

MJ Renshaw  23:03

into the science behind it. Right. So we are looking at I mean, I don't know about you, but I've always been I'm very curious. Like I want to know all the things that I want to know the ball. And it's not possible to know everything because we as humans don't know everything, but we know a lot. And we can look at studies. And so in both those courses, we look at that stuff like what is breath do to the body. And we go from like a mechanical point of view of like, what happens to your liver when you start doing diaphragmatic breathing? And is it possible that your skin issues that you've been taking all these liver herbs for forever, could be just from not breathing deeply and coping your liver along with this natural process? Or you know, your pelvic diaphragm moves in unison with your respiratory diaphragm? So is it possible that some of the disconnection you've had your own genitalia could be from not focusing on the breath? The breath really is such a portal into so many different things, you know, it has this huge effect on our nervous system where you can choose. Do I want to be in a parasympathetic state right now or sympathetic state? Do I feel tired? When I wake up? Do I feel to kind of slowed down a little bit? So we look at it just in terms of like big quantitative, warm all things and then like you said, the emotions are stored in your body. There's so many different perspectives on this from TCM, where different parts of the body like organs will store a different emotion I have never studied TCM so I won't speak to that I can't teach it but I can know that the shape of our cells, each different cell, like a liver cell is different than a cell of no worry. There are different shapes and everything is vibrating. So if you've got a liver cell that's vibrating at a different vibration than an ovary than it makes sense to me that something like an emotion which also holds a vibration might be in resin. So with that, so maybe anger has whatever hertz like it could be like 12 Hertz. I don't know if it just throwing that number out. But maybe the liver cell also vibrates at 12 Hertz. And that's where that emotion can get stored in that frequency there. Yeah, that's the total guess. I don't actually know that that is information at all. But I'm just trying to think of things like, yeah, in a chemistry biology sort of way. I'm like, that's possible. But there's also things that we know like, cellular memory cells will hold memory, right down to our genetics. And that's how we have intergenerational trauma that people will doubt. So if you're, in my case, like my great great grandmother, was Jewish in Poland, dealt with horrific things. And when I was on my healing journey, I was like, Oh, I'm looking at these studies and being like, this could possibly be why I'm having some autoimmune stuff, or why I'm having some disordered eating. And I was like, Oh, this is so interesting to look at it is an intergenerational thing. So there's that so that the cells can hold that memory of something traumatic, something traumatic happens, they will remember it, and they will duplicate, duplicate, duplicate and hold that trauma. And no one knows the actual mechanism of how breathwork or anything can release that. But you can look at things that will just positively impact your genes. So Bruce Lipton's work, and this is like anything this could be singing, it could be just going out into the sunlight every morning, it could be eating foods that feel nourishing to you. All of those things positively influence your genes. So they'll start to replicate in different ways. And you may down the line release that trauma. Another thing that breathwork does is when you do a sympathetic breath, work experience for a long time you actually release DMT, powerful, powerful drug. But that offers like an insane spiritual experience for people. So if anyone out there is like, I want to have a big spiritual experience. I don't know if I'm quite ready. Want to do you know, some sort of substance to help you with that? Like Breathworks? Totally there. And it's like getting high on your own supply.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  27:15

It's the best Yeah, I always like, I've had a handful of psychedelic experiences, but nothing has ever come close to the like, natural psychedelics I've experienced from breathwork. Like nothing.

 

MJ Renshaw  27:29

Yeah, cuz it's the you, right? Be more powerful than you. Yeah.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  27:34

Yeah, it is. It's really incredible. In 2015, when I was I basically like really got onto my path in 2015. I went to esslyn. I did Holotropic. And they didn't prime us for anything. We were in like a workshop. But we did Holotropic breathwork. We had no idea what we were going into. And there was like such beauty because there was zero expectations. Like, no idea what I had never heard of that word. Never really. I'd practiced perineum through yoga, but I had like, just like, Third Eye blasting open, full psychedelia, like an incredible experience. And I've heard that with breathwork. I don't know if it's true. But I've heard that with breathwork. That was like, the first time you practice something as like really big, like Holotropic breathwork. And you get to that breakthrough where you like the DMT kind of gets released that you don't always get a second breakthroughs like that, as often are that like the first DMT release? Like is the biggest I don't know if that's true. Have you heard of anything like that?

 

MJ Renshaw  28:37

I haven't heard of that. But it would make sense to me. It would. That's to me, just in terms of the neurology, okay, I've never heard anything like actual like this. Yeah. But it will, neurologically, but it's possible that what you thought of as being the big one wasn't even that big one. True, right? Because like, people down the line, might be actually able to release more because like, anyone knows when you're trying to release anything, sometimes we're like, okay, but release.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  29:06

Yeah, so it feels safe right now.

 

MJ Renshaw  29:09

And it's like, that's totally fine. Because that's where your nervous system that and that's what sometimes that people email me like, Okay, I'm hearing people are having big crying releases. And I'm not having that. And I'm like, that's fine. You're having the journey and the path that you're meant to have and like, one day, your nervous system will be safe enough to let go and release it all for me. Like I moved out of the city and moved in with my husband. And like, my nervous system, I think took out like the biggest longest sigh it ever had in his life. And I process stuff from when I was like 14 from when I was 23. Like the loss of my brother, the loss of my dad, like it all came out. And it was like I cried in my room for months, but in a good way. And like I would walk out into the woods and just like cry and I was just like, so good to just let it out. I want to wait until my nervous system really felt safe. Yeah. And then that's when it was like, okay, the

 

Tonya Papanikolov  30:04

one thing that that kind of brought up for me was in kundalini yoga, there's like, the breath is called Pavan guru, which is like a breath as the first teacher, and is like the single most expansive unit of the universe, because it just, it starts with this first breath, which also corresponds with like the word and our voice and the ability to connect that to our creative expression. And like, I just, as I learned more about this, too, it's just like such a beautiful tool for longevity and tool for connecting to, we all get a certain amount of breaths in this lifetime. And we basically kind of speed up that process of life by breathing shorter, more frequently, versus like slowing that down to like, maybe, I don't know, three or four breaths a minute or something. And just using the breath, and like, all of the ancient lineages, come back to this one tool that is probably like the single most effective way to like manage our mind and modulate the whole physical experience and like, live longer and feel connected.

 

MJ Renshaw  31:21

Yeah, I was listening to an interview, I really forget his name. So I'm sorry, everybody. Very famous osteopath. And he's like, he's an amazing osteopathic. You can go see him with any problem and he'll like, lightly tickle your head. And wow. And I was listening to an interview with him. And someone said to him, like, what's the meaning of life if you could give anybody everyone like one thing to help them heal to help them find alignment to be the meaning of life? He just like in the interview just went and like took this like big barrel deep breath. And I was like, like, I felt that in my bones.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  32:02

Yeah. Like, you just took a breath.

 

MJ Renshaw  32:04

Or big deep breath. Like slats, like nothing else like? Yeah, really is like, it's just been, it's always there. Like, it's always there. And it's so we're talking about intergenerational things like, I mean, if we believe in evolution, that was a crazy part of our evolution, when we started breathing. Like we climbed out of the water and started breathing crazy. And that big breath that you take ties back to like, I don't know, evolution that well, but like some being somewhere, taking a breath for the first time. And then being like, Oh, God. Big time.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  32:53

Oh, I felt good.

 

MJ Renshaw  32:55

And when we started breathing, we actually changed or we created a whole new atmosphere or so that plants and fauna could grow in different shapes and forms and like we evolved with Earth from our breath. And it's just so fascinating to me. We can't breathe without Mother Earth, and she can't leave without us. Like we're so intertwined in that relationship. And, yeah, I think like, every single person who's come before us, when you take one single breath, I'm pretty sure you're breathing in some molecule that came from them. And it's so beautiful to think about, like, you could meditate on just one breath and understand that you're breathing in everything, like everybody like the true one. Yeah, the little, like, little glimmers of like, All That Beauty and all that terror, and transmuting that in that one breath to something different, something more loving, reaching for a higher thought reaching for a more beautiful world in the future. So there's so much opportunity just in one thing, deep breath. So true.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  34:02

It's so beautiful. How are most of us breathing throughout our day? And what could we do to kind of shift into a longer, deeper breath?

 

MJ Renshaw  34:10

I think everybody breathes differently. And I don't think there's like one prescription for everybody, right? Because we're all different ages. And as we age, a lot of us like our ribs will calcify and things will happen, potentially, I mean, who's to say maybe will live forever, like we have no idea but stuff like that tends to happen. So people grieve differently, especially depending on like old injury or your posture or whatever. So I don't like to get too deep into like, this is how you got to breathe. Don't just breathe like just just three. And don't worry too much on the mechanics of it. But think about like whether you have you know, whatever, whatever parts you have down south, like focus on those and like the feeling the breath down there like feel the breath in your uterus in your vulva, like feel the breath in your balls, like, feel it everywhere in your body lit up into your brain, like it moves your cerebral spinal fluid around. Sometimes when I'm like when there's a thought circling my brain, I don't want to be there, I send my breath up there and like, just imagine it coming down the ventricles and like out the cerebral spinal fluid, and then just out, gone. Gone. So I think the answer to that question, really is just in your conscious awareness. Just come back, just know what's a tool for you, and come back to it whenever you want to. And when you start to realize how powerful it is, you'll come back to it more and more, you'll find yourself out of alignment, like woohoo, I could take literally 30 seconds and do some breathing right now. And come back into alignment. And then you'll find yourself like me, I'm so unconscious with it now, I'll just be like, like, I'll just do it. And then I haven't thought about it or set it up or anything. It's like mindfulness. Like it's just the practices and and anok, like you said before, it just becomes your life, your life just becomes mindful, or your life just becomes a way of breathing that is deeply connected with your own body and deeply connected with what's nutritive. And it's also just on a practical level, you will walk through life being very calm.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  36:26

Yeah. And then I think to like the, there's a discomfort in the body. If you do if you are having a stressful day, or you're in a meeting, and you're, you know, you're holding some tension, and all of a sudden, you're like, Oh, I'm like, my diaphragm is like flexing for an hour on this call, you know, or like, Oh, that's so curious. And actually, like, I'm feeling like tightness in my chest. And like, I really, it's like a physical experience now to if my breath is like, feeling a little dysregulated

 

MJ Renshaw  36:54

Yes, I noticed that I noticed in my heart, because there's a ligament that attaches our diaphragm to our heart. So anytime we take a big deep breath, it actually rings your heart out of any stagnant blood, any, you know, fluid there that shouldn't be there. And I feel like sometimes when I'm trying to connect to a heart space, I can be like, Oh, it feels icky. And this is the beauty of science and spirituality together as you can like, it may actually be inflammation. So if I find myself there, I like take a few deep breaths and like be my heart just feel so much like, more clear. Now I feel like I'm in a clear heart space, I've released stories or limb for whatever. And yeah, there's so much connection between psychosomatic spiritual experiences. Like it's all, it's all connected. I mean, there's a reason why a lot of meditative practices are strict on how you sit. And it's because that posture can affect your cerebral spinal fluid flow, and like, it could lead to potentially a different experience.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  37:58

Yeah, one thing that, as you were saying, we were touching on the intergenerational trauma bit, I just wanted to share that I noticed something a couple of weeks ago. And it's kind of more of like an intergenerational nervous habit that I think my sister and I inherited. And it's not even really that I remember, remember, like, I don't even know if my mom does this, or if it started with my sister and I, but um, a couple of weeks ago, I was like, picking my mouse and just like, kind of like, I don't bite them. But I you know, we'll kind of like it's just a fidget. It's a fidget. And I used to bite my lip a lot. And I said, I have this, there's just these like little hit fidgets I'm trying to I was like, Okay, I think you should stop this. Because it's been going on for a long time. And you have power and control to kind of like, stop this and like, really investigate why that is. So I really consciously was like, Okay, I think this is I'm gonna end this habit. But it's just so it's so interesting. My sister and I both do it. And I actually saw her daughter also doing it and kind of like biting her lip and the way that her my sister and I both would. And so I had this realization of like, oh, that's like, just this little nervous smile is such a small example, but a little nervous twitch, or fidget that can be passed down and down through generations. And it's just so fascinating.

 

MJ Renshaw  39:26

Yes, I totally see that in my own life. Like I have a daughter. And she's one now she's turning one. So we start to see that she's mimicking everything that we do. And so if you can imagine, like, you know, it's one thing to go through your life and think I want to do all the things that's for me today. And then some times you will also have the one and then you'll go through your day and think the person that I created to be honest, manage everything that I'm doing in this day. A and it's wild at that, because you really see the mirror. Places where you're like, feel like yeah, just noticing like, oh, there's something here because whatever it is underneath, like there's something that I can let go. I'm then because I'm noticing it, I'm ready. That's such a good feeling to just be like, I'm so ready

 

Tonya Papanikolov  40:22

to let this go. Yeah, I know that you it took you a little while to share Sunday's birth story. And I just wanted to thank you and tell you that it's an honor to hold via a Memory Keeper of her birth story. And I was like, so excited. And yeah, truly honored to read that and to have like to, for you to share that and not to get into details of it unless you want to. But I love that idea of stories being passed through time and you shared something in that email that was so beautiful, which is one thing that I love about stories is that the more people that hold them in their conscious awareness, the longer they remain on earth, they say As humans, we died twice, once when our bodies die. And once when someone says your name for the last time to cry and actually gonna cry now.

 

MJ Renshaw  41:18

When I first heard that, that changed my life like I would I thought about all the ancestors. And I was like, I some of them. I don't even know their name. They don't even. And I went on this journey to find out all their needs and write them down on my own. And just like Ian has a friend that wakes up at four in the morning and he meditates and does prayer for like a list of 50 people. Wow. I want to just just say their name every so often just go sit in the back and just say their name. And I had held Sunday's birth story, just within the family. I didn't even tell my mom anything. And finally, I was like, I want people to know how she came into this world like, and it was as you read the story if anyone's read the story, it was in my email newsletter, but I'll just give like a Coles notes to Sunday's birth story. It was like radically different than we planned. We planned for like a beautiful bath Humber. And I like in the most romantic way possible projectile vomited for 13. But there was like moments in between the vomit that were really beautiful. Like my husband read to me, we watched a Disney movie we laid in bed and snuggled. So the 13 hours were beautiful. And then finally I was like, okay, my lips are chapped. Like I can't drink water. I have to I need help. So we went to the hospital for just an IV. And when we got there, if anybody knows about birth and labor, if you're not somewhere that you feel safe, your contractions get worse, and mine got really bad. So I was like, I'll take some of that fentanyl, please thank you. And I ended up getting an epidural. And it was such a beautiful experience for me because I'm pretty good at releasing whatever control I have on things like things normally don't go to plan and I'm old enough now where I'm like okay with that. And I remember just looking at en so my husband used to be homeless and addicted to fentanyl. My father was addicted to fentanyl and eventually killed themselves. So here I am giving birth to my daughter on fentanyl. And I look over at my husband and I was like, I totally get you on such a deeper level now. And I get my dad like I had this. Even though I'd worked on it and read Gabor Ma Tei I had done so much work around releasing the story I had as a kid where my dad chose drugs over me like he chose that life over loving me and being my dad. And it always made me feel worthless. Just deep down and Sidious little self worth thing. My dad never loved me whatever no one could. And in that moment of birth, wow, with an epidural. I was like, I get why you would take this like it feels very relaxing and wonderful. And it was just such a little gift to go forward into motherhood with were a nothing's gonna go according to plan and when it goes arrive what it will there's lessons there and healing there and like true beauty there. And yeah, it was just it was wonderful.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  44:30

Like, what a gift. Like what a gift feel that are your dad and like come to this realization through also like your birth like your birth of being a mother and such like yeah, reckoning that is just I love the way it's just so unexpected to

 

MJ Renshaw  44:52

so weird and funny. I was like I will never share this because it's weird like I started getting itchy. And my dad because that's from fentanyl and my dad Like I was known for coming home in the middle of the night and like asking my brother getting into bed with my brother eye and asking us to like, scratch his back. And like as a kid, you think this is like a beautiful loving. But now when it was older and like, oh my god, he wasn't even though those moments are tender, so and like wonderful, but I'm looking at Ian, and I'm being like, can you just scratch my back a little bit? And I was like, oh my god, I'm my dad, I might have on drugs. So the world is a surprising, wonderful place, I tell you, like, it's so weird.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  45:37

Yeah, it is so weird. And it's always just like, humbling. It's like you think you know, and then and like, all we can keep doing is just coming back to like, yeah, we know so little, there's so much. There's so much to unfold into and to keep growing and like it's endless.

 

MJ Renshaw  45:55

It really is. Yeah, it really does. Anytime I'm like, I've got this figured

 

Tonya Papanikolov  46:00

out. I know, I know.

 

MJ Renshaw  46:03

Cold and I'm like, oh, and it's so it's you know, the more it happens, the more you get the feeling comfortable in that space of floating. You could just floating and things are coming and going and you can just be like, hey, my heart is open. I'm loving. And I'm going to cherish every single moment because it doesn't last forever. I know it doesn't last forever, so I'm just gonna cherish it.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  46:29

Yeah, I think it's so easy for us to kind of treat sometimes life like a like a dress rehearsal like, life is gonna start when. And really, it's just like, it's not waiting for us. It's going by it's the most precious opportunity we have. And so fleeting. And I think that's one of the it's one of like, the biggest things that we can open up to, through breath, ultimately to is just this like, oh my gosh, this crazy opportunity to be humans like,

 

MJ Renshaw  47:00

what? Yeah, biggest joke of life is to withhold love. Like, and we think we have reasons. I know. Like, every time I'm doing it like recently, I was I had someone offended at something which I thought was, you know, stupid, and I didn't want to apologize. And I held on to that for about a month. And then I finally was like, whatever. I just emailed them, obviously did some like A Course in Miracles reading Marianne Williamson readings, and I was like, Oh, I gotta do it. I just apologized and sent them love, like, just a real true apology. I don't know how that landed for them. But they sent me back something beautiful. But for me, it released me. And I was like, yes, MJ you have to always just to love like always don't don't waste any time not choosing love. Because you I think we're here to love this planet each other dolphins horses. That's just we're here. Just to find whatever helps you love more of its breath. If it's psychedelics, if it's putting rainbo in your coffee every morning. I do. That's fine. What else? Whatever helps you break down those barriers to love. Yeah,

 

Tonya Papanikolov  48:12

so beautiful. That's perfect. Couple last questions for you. Yeah, I would just love to hear about your relationship with fungi and mushrooms. And I know you take Rambo and so grateful that it's nourishing you and the fam. But yeah, how has like what's your relationship like with fungi?

 

MJ Renshaw  48:31

A developing one. So in university, I took things that I took psilocybin and I actually didn't connect with it at all. Like I had done several macro doses. And maybe it's like the immense amount of Leo in my chart, but I actually found that where people were saying, like, ego dissolve. I was like, I think mine got bigger and stronger. Like I would like be at a party. I'm like slipping my hair being like. And like, obviously, some part of that is good, but it wasn't what I was looking for. So I really actually, I mean, maybe LSD is from a mushroom as well. I don't I don't actually know. I think I heard that. Yeah, but I really connected with LSD. And it wasn't until I was 23 that I came back to psilocybin and sort of micro dosing it. And this was because I got diagnosed with all sorts of things by living life out of alignment. Not saying that everybody gets mental health stuff from that, but I definitely did. And none of the pharmaceuticals really worked for me like I like orgasming so I didn't stay on those for very long and I tried micro dosing the friend had told me to and pretty much since then, I've been they're always in the cupboard like and they're just, I mean, obviously this is just one mushroom, but it has been something that I've floated in and out of relationship with. But like breath, it's just this thing that I know I can connect with again and it really does, it really plugs you in, like, really plugs you in and then you know you started rainbo and I've basically been taking rainbo since you started. And you know, we put our poor forest chews on pretty much everything. And that was like my intro to Introduction to more subtle like taking Rishi or taking Chaga and lion's mane and a beautiful thing that's happened is we moved into the forest and like, now I can walk through the forest in October and be like, Oh, hi. Hi. I'm actually on you right now. So funny that you showed up here. So they're very they're aliens.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  50:54

They're aliens. I mean, like talk about the oneness to like, like the like breathing in oneness and like these molecules, molecules of people's past and you know, like somebody's EX had somebody stress, exhale becomes neurotic, like our nourishing inhale. And same with fungi. It's like walking around and you're like, hey, huge digested my grandpa and you know, and now you're also sustaining me and nourishing me and healing my mind and body and like, what an exquisite trip of life?

 

MJ Renshaw  51:24

Yeah, I think it's so if I look at kind of society, or at least Western culture, we have such a fear of death. And I see like an emergence of people realizing that that's probably not a good thing. And I've got an influx of friends becoming death, doulas. I've got you know, even myself, like I read The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying a couple months ago, and I'm trying to explore that and it's so funny to me that that's going it seems like from my perspective, going hand in hand with people building relationship with and communing with God and getting into that kind of Plutonian energy of like death and rebirth and understanding that a big part of living is understanding death and preparing for it preparing for that not m&e, no dismal way but in a beautiful way, like, I'm gonna choose this life, like, I'm going to be here, right up until my last breath.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  52:25

Yeah, and that lat like, and that last breath could be like our best.

 

MJ Renshaw  52:31

Yeah. Culture. Exhaling from here for that. That's the moment where you ascend and like, you want to prepare yourself and have such a good relationship with death so that when it comes which it will this universal, you can say like, I'm so ready. I'm such a being of love. I'm gonna like shoot up into the stars

 

Tonya Papanikolov  52:52

and held back no love

 

MJ Renshaw  52:54

guy. Like, come back at dolphin or for stallion? stallion. Tanya, you have stallion energy, you're gonna come back.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  53:08

Oh, my gosh, you have dolphin energy? Such an honor. Oh, I could just talk. I mean, okay, so like, future topics. Mold, ozone, methylene blue. We have so much to talk about. I just I love where this conversation went. And thank you for sharing all this wisdom. One. One last thing I want. I love asking guests before we close out is if just if you could share a prayer, a prayer, an intention with the audience. That would be beautiful.

 

MJ Renshaw  53:45

I will steal this from someone great. whose name I forget. But just

 

Tonya Papanikolov  53:56

that's so beautiful. Thank you. It's perfect. A perfect ending. Thank you so much. And just really quickly as well. Where can we find you? How do we connect with the being method and you?

 

MJ Renshaw  54:10

The easiest places right now is Instagram. So just being method at being method. That's me and I have a new website coming down but we don't know what it is.

 

Tonya Papanikolov  54:22

Okay, well thank you so much for the wisdom and all of sharing all these inhales and exhales together and words and the love and all of that. So grateful for you and our friendship and this session together. With deep gratitude thanks for tuning into this episode. If you liked it, hit subscribe and leave us a review that is always very appreciated. Mushrooms transformed my mind and body. And if you're interested in bringing medicinal mushrooms into your life and health journey, check out rainbo.com for our meticulously sourced Canadian fruiting body mushroom tinctures until next time peace and peace out friends.