✨ What if I told you that the key to calming your panic, unlocking your inner peace, and transforming your life is literally right under your nose? Yup, I’m talking about your breath. But this isn’t your run-of-the-mill, take-a-deep-breath advice. I’m diving into the magic of breathwork, how it can release DMT, and calm even the most intense moments of panic.

And who better to talk about this than my incredible guest, Brittany Lilligard, who has used breathwork to reshape her life from the inside out? This is an episode you won’t want to miss. 👉 [Tap here to listen!]

True Story ⬇️

🌬️ When I first met Brittany at a van meetup in Idaho, I could feel her energy. As a fellow nomad and breathwork facilitator, she’s someone who has dedicated her life to following the wisdom of her breath. And let me tell you, her story is mind-blowing. But don’t take my word for it—her journey from suffering chronic panic attacks to finding complete peace through breathwork speaks volumes.

⚡ Brittany shared something deeply profound during our podcast conversation: She used to experience debilitating panic attacks that made it feel like she couldn’t breathe. Imagine that—your breath, the very thing keeping you alive, feeling like it’s betraying you. Sound familiar?

But it was a powerful piece of wisdom from one of her mentors that shifted everything: “If you can’t breathe there, you don’t belong there.” 💡 Boom! That’s when Brittany realized that her environment and lifestyle were literally choking her. From that moment on, she made breathwork her purpose and passion, using it to guide her life, and even unlock deep, transformational moments—like releasing DMT, the spirit molecule, through breath alone.

🌟 This isn’t just about finding calm. It’s about using breathwork to break free from the chains of anxiety, stress, and societal pressure. Brittany’s story isn’t just her own—it’s a roadmap for anyone who feels stuck in fear, uncertainty, or panic. Through breathwork, she found her peace. And so can you.

👉 Tap here to listen to the full episode, where Brittany walks us through her journey and how you, too, can tap into this ancient, powerful practice.

Practical Takeaways:

 1. 💡 Breathwork is a tool to calm your nervous system and stop panic in its tracks.

 2. 🔓 DMT Release: Yes, you can unlock the body’s natural “spirit molecule” just by breathing.

 3. 🏠 Environment Matters: Where you can’t breathe, you don’t belong. Learn how to listen to your breath for cues on where you should be.

 4. 🌱 Personal Growth: Use your breath to clear blocks, ease stress, and find your purpose.

Final Thoughts:

🌟 Your breath is more powerful than you think. Brittany’s journey is proof that by tuning into our breath, we can unlock healing, find peace, and even release our own DMT. Whether you’re dealing with panic attacks, stress, or simply seeking a deeper connection with yourself, breathwork offers a path forward.

So, take a deep breath and ask yourself: What is my breath trying to tell me? The answer might just lead you to your own transformation. 💫

Ready to dive deeper into this life-changing practice? 👉 Tap here to listen to the full episode with Brittany Lilligard, and learn how breathwork can become your tool for healing and growth.

Explore More on the Blog:

If this blog post resonated with you, you might love these too:

 • Healing Trauma with Breathwork: Techniques and Benefits 🌿

 • From Resistance to Euphoria: My First Breathwork Class ✨

 • Soulful Healing: My Journey Through Sacred Ceremonies & Breathwork

💬 Have thoughts or questions? Drop them in the comments below or DM me on Instagram (@victorialeestarr)—let’s continue the conversation! And if this post inspired you, feel free to share it with your tribe. 🌿

Until next time, keep breathing deeply, with purpose, and watch your life transform. 🌱

TRANSCRIPT:

Victoria Starr:
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Raw and Radiant. I am so freaking honored to have my friend Brittany Lilligard here. She is a longtime nomad and international breathwork and movement facilitator, a plant medicine advocate, and I just have full body goosebumps right now just sharing that because Brittany and I met two years ago. It was at my very first van meetup and open roads in McCall, Idaho and unknown to me as I was going there to facilitate breathwork. It was your first van meetup also. Is that correct? That's correct. So thank you for being here. Thank you for shining your light energetically through your words and through your beautiful eyes as they're connecting to mine right now and just like throwing me back.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, it's a pleasure to be here, really, truly, and it's been a lot of fun getting to know you on the road. I'm sure we'll get into this later, but one of the things that I like to say often when people ask me what a nomad is, for me, I follow my breath. So to have connected with someone else on the road, also following their breath in that sort of nomadic lifestyle, it's been a really special friendship. So I'm really excited to be here and to be sharing with your community.

Victoria Starr: Thank you. All right. So that's such a beautiful question. Like that has come into my awareness before recently, is like, what does that mean following your breath? Because you and I both live in this reality that we connect to our breath quite often. And being nomads, like we connect to our breath more often than not. Because it guides us, it leads us. But what does that mean to somebody that is very new into following your breath?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, you know, it's interesting. I'm going to throw just a little bit of science in here, but I'm going to keep it simple. Our breath has a really, really intimate connection with our nervous system and our emotional state. So, you know, I think sometimes we get really frustrated with our mind and with our brain, especially for the type of person who overthinks and overanalyzes things. I very much fall into that category often. Um, but our brain sole purpose is to keep us safe.

Victoria Starr: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Brittany Lillegard: And it's constantly analyzing our environment and making a determination, is this environment the right environment for me or not? And then from there, it tells all of our bodily functions how it should react to our environment, right? This is what I call existing from a brain down approach to life. And most moments of our life, this is how we're operating. What's really beautiful about this brain-breath connection is that we can determine a lot about what our brain perceives. And I say the word perceives because it's not always true, but how our brain perceives the environment by listening to what it's telling our breath to do. So we can gain a lot of understanding about how we interact with our environment if we just take a moment to tap into our breath. Firstly, on the other end though, You know, we also have the ability to work with our breath, to be a co-collaborator. And this is something that I'm really working on shifting my language with. Some of my first experience with breath work has been through pranayama, which is the practice of breath work in yoga. And a lot of people translate pranayama as breath control. And I really struggle with that term because Really, where I think the magic clause is, is in that collaboration, not control. So I like to think of breath work as breath collaboration. So there's those two things. We can learn more about how our brain is seeing the world through our breath. But then if we choose to collaborate with our breath, we can also shift those perceptions of our environment as well, giving ourselves more autonomy over how we show up in this world. And that's what I call living from a breath up approach. So that was a really long answer to your question, but I think it's super important. to talk about that little bit of science and philosophy as well.

Victoria Starr: I love that you brought the science in like first and foremost, because I always say like, there is so much wisdom in our breath. And that just gives context to there is wisdom in our breath. That gives those people that are in the headspace in the mind space of like, I want to know the science, I want to know the facts behind it. And you and I facilitate similarly but different. And we'll get into that later, but I know that you have been a person that has been dealing with a lot of constant panic attacks and you're in your mid 20s. And that is where you began this relationship with your breath. Can you share some of that, Brittany?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. Yeah, so, okay, so it's interesting. I'm actually going to go back even further than that. And I'm going to share a few things that I haven't really shared too openly in this format before. But, you know, I was actually thinking today on a walk. I'd listened to a book, and the book was expressing that oftentimes as children, we know what our purpose is. And that purpose gets really quieted through many different mechanisms. So I was thinking about this like, as a child did I know, did I know what my purpose was and as an adult I know now my purpose is to share the gift of breath, I know that very strongly. But my childhood was plagued with very significant levels of abuse, both emotional, physical, mental, et cetera. And when I was thinking about it on my walk today, what I realized is that oftentimes when those moments would happen, when those experiences would happen, I would connect with my breath. And I didn't know that I was doing it, but I would count my breaths. in those moments because it helps me come back to my core and center, it helps me manage the pain, it helps the experience move faster, if you will. Time is a really, time is a really interesting concept to explore, especially with your breath. But Any other time I've shared my story before, I've always started with, my story started in my 20s when I had panic attacks. And I really realized today, it actually started. I've had a very deep connection, a saving connection with my breath ever since I was a wee wee wee little girl. That childhood, led me to really seek out the American dream. I grew up really poor. I grew up in an uneducated family. My family still very much exists in that paradigm. And I somehow always knew that there could be different for me. I don't know how I knew that as a young kid, other than perhaps there was something in my connection with my breath. that taught me that, but that urge to have different than what I grew up with led me to be the first in my family to graduate high school, the first to graduate college, the first to own a home, the first to own a business, the first to get married. And within all of this, I was really chasing what society's expectations of success were. Um, I had a very well-paying corporate job. Uh, I had a very, very, very nice house. Um, you know, I had the big grand wedding and somewhere along the line, I started having panic attacks. Um, and for those listening who have never had a panic attack, one of the biggest symptoms of a panic attack is it makes it feel like you're, you can't breathe. And when you feel like you can't breathe, it feels like death. And I started having these panic attacks pretty regularly for months. And I was at a conference, and one of my mentors, Dr. Perry Nicholson, probably one of the most pivotal defining moments of my life, He was talking about movement, but he said something that took my breath away. And it was, if you can't breathe there, you don't belong there. And he was talking about movement. I had this huge aha moment that for months I had not been able to breathe. And that was the start of me both understanding that my breath knows exactly what I need. And that was also the start, quite frankly, of my obsession with wanting to learn about the breath and developing a relationship with my breath, to letting my breath guide me through this life. But it was a huge moment for me in realizing and understanding that the things I was chasing were not the things that were best for me.

Victoria Starr: So I want to pause you there for a second. Like first, I want to go back to the little girl and you and how wise she was to count the breaths because that creates such a rhythm within the body, within that nervous system of calm, of slowing down, of self-safety, of self-trust, of self-love. I have goosebumps again, Brittany. that I can see you and for those of you that can't see Brittany right now like she has these piercing blue green eyes and like I can just see her as a little wee wee wee one like counting her breaths and seeing like I'm okay it's safe and counting those breaths and like really innately understanding the breath is the wisdom to to your surroundings and that's such a gift to her. I love, I love this. Um, and then allowing you to get into your twenties and maybe stepping away from that, but still it's within your body. It's within your repertoire and your toolkit, so to say, and recognizing that, yeah, this, this world that we live in, it is such a, such a program that we need to get married. We need to have the 2.5 kids. We need to have the house with the white picket fence. We need to have the corporate job. And all the while, like, you're not happy. There's no joy. There's there's just this this angst for me. It was angst within my system that I don't want to be here. This isn't happy. This isn't this isn't. I know why I'm not here. Right. So where was that pivotal moment for you, Brittany, then like you're here in this and these panic attacks and you have this mentor that says, I'm going to say it again. If you can't breathe there, you don't belong there like that. There's so much power in that literally, because I find myself holding my breath. And that is like a beautiful, mind subconscious programming to wrap it around that when my breath when I hold my breath, I'm in that angst and I don't belong there. So how can I remove myself? So anyway, I went off on a little bit of a tangent, but where was that that pivotal moment for you?

Brittany Lillegard: You know, there were a couple I think, you know, One of the other things that Dr. Perry says often that has also been a game changer for me is that you can't get better in the same environment you got sick in. So combining those two things together, it was like my, you know, I can't breathe here, so something in my environment's not for me. And also at the time, not only was I dealing with these panic attacks, and I didn't know how bad it was at the time, but I also was dealing with really chronic depression, which was a result of CPTSD from my childhood. I was dealing a lot with dissociating frequently. So not being connected to my body with a lot of apathy. But I had a fast paced urban lifestyle and through many mechanisms. somehow just managed to very blindly and numbly keep putting one foot in front of the other in such a way that it looked like nothing was wrong. And after my divorce, I actually started, and I, again, there's moments in my life where I don't understand what triggered me to take those actions because I didn't have examples of them. So up until this point, I had not done much traveling at all. Um, but I decided to start hosting couch surfers in my tiny studio apartment. Um, no one in my world had done anything of the sort. Everyone thought it was crazy. Everyone thought I was going to get murdered. Literally. They're like, you're letting strangers sleep on your couch, like for free. What? Um, but I had so much fun doing it and. And right around the same time. I, there was an Italian man who was supposed to stay for a few days, he ended up staying for a little over a week. And I admired the way he talked about the world so much. I admired his energy so much. And I remember being out at a bar with him. He was on a one year sabbatical traveling around the world.

Victoria Starr: So pause for a second. You're you're doing this in the states like you're hosting in your apartment in the states. Okay. And so you have this Italian man that is staying for a little bit longer. And now you're okay. Keep going.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. So I'm in Chicago. You know, I'm you know, doing my urban lifestyle thing. I've not done much traveling, but I'm having people from all over the world stay with me. And this Italian man specifically, I remember saying to him, I wish I could do what you're doing. I wish I could travel like you. And he just looked at me and it was not rude or condescending. It was just like, why can't you? And I didn't have an answer for him. Even now I'm like speechless thinking about it. Like it just was one of the most enlightening and no duh questions that I've ever received in my entire life. And I was like, huh, why can't I? Why can't I? Yeah. And, you know, putting this all together, it was like, you know what, something in my environment needs to change. I don't like feeling like this. Um, there was something about his energy that really drew me in where I was like, I want some of that and I can do that too. And so within six months I had. sold everything that I owns. I had quit my successful personal training business. And I had a backpack, a 40 liter backpack of stuff and a one way ticket to the furthest corner of the earth, which was Australia, and zero plans beyond that. And it's funny, I look back on it now, I was not into astrology at the time, but the day that I flew out of the US to Australia to backpack around the world by myself is the exact day of my Saturn return, which is mind blowing to me once I realized that connection as well. And for those who aren't into astrology and aren't familiar with what the Saturn return is, Our Saturn return, which is when Saturn loops back to the point in our birth chart when we were born, most of us will go through a couple of them throughout our life. Our first one is around age 27 to 30. It's generally a really pivotal, transformational period of our life. So the fact that that flight happened to be to the date of my Saturn return is also mind-blowing.

Victoria Starr: That is so mind-blowing. Holy cats. Oh my gosh. Yeah, more to dive in on that because there definitely will be another podcast episode because I love all the modalities that you are into now. Okay, so you traveled internationally with this backpack for how long? Like literally everything you owned was in this backpack?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, I mean, I had some longer stints in a few countries. So if you count those longer stints, I lived in India for a year. I lived in New Zealand for a year. And then I had two full years of nonstop travel. So all of that combined around four years of living out of nothing but a 40 liter backpack.

Victoria Starr: Wow. What would make you want to stay longer? And then what would make you want to leave? My breath. Your breath. Okay, share one example, if you could. For somebody that's not connected to their breath, share with, I know you dropped into the beginning of this episode, but share with, you're in this space, you're in this magical space, you're in Australia, let's say, and you're like, how does that look for somebody looking in, tabbing into the breath of staying?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, so I think, you know, it's interesting. When I first left, I had some thoughts on what this trip would look like. And very quickly all of those thoughts, all of what I expected out of that trip was destroyed and in a really beautiful way. And it was from little things. It was from just being so completely open to anything, to possibility. So for example, in Australia, my very first day in Australia, I was couch surfing and there was another woman couch surfing as well, staying at the same house and a Danish woman. I had no plans to go to New Zealand, not, she had just come from New Zealand. And, like, literally she just kept saying like you have to go, you have to go, and I just met her but she was like you, you just have to go. And so two months later, I booked a flight to New Zealand. And very similarly, things happened in New Zealand. I didn't actually know where I was going after New Zealand. My credit card got skimmed. And all of these things just started happening. And then it was just like, I'm in the airport. I don't have a flight ticket anywhere. And someone said something about Bali. So I was like, I guess I'm going to Bali next like that, that is where I'm going like everything just kept going wrong. And then it led me to Bali, and it was just me being so open to other things happening than my expectations. you know, when stuff would come into my field, just listening to how my breath responded to it. Like I remember being in the airport in New Zealand, I had to leave that day, I had no ticket, and I'm like talking to the, you know, gay agent, and she's giving me a couple of options, and as soon as she said Bali, it was just like, Yeah, that feels good. Okay, that's good. Yeah. So it's hard to describe. Other than it's just honestly being so open to anything happening beyond beyond my wildest dreams and beyond my expectations.

Victoria Starr: Yeah, that's full, full, full body surrender for mind surrender. That's just full surrender. And that's so, so, so beautiful. And I'm sure that, like, we're talking about this beautiful experience that you had being international and couchsurfing. And I'm sure there were uncomfortable moments. There were moments where it's like, oh, shit, what have I gotten myself into? And again, how would you deal with those, Brittany?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, there were many uncomfortable moments. And I think, I think the biggest thing is rewriting our relationship with this term uncomfortable or discomfort because oftentimes, not always, there were a few moments where I was genuinely in a situation that could have been very unsafe. Um, but outside of those very minimal situations, um, which again, your, your brain, it wants to protect you. So. Your brain is immediately going to say in those situations, something's not right. And you will feel it in your breath. You will feel it in your bones. You will feel it in your body. That is different on safety is different from discomfort. Um, and. Really, the more you allow yourself to sit with discomfort, the more those edges soften. And so yeah, it's just really like, it's rewriting them and it becomes this little game of, oh, I'm actually still alive. Yeah. Which you know, because you're breathing, right? Like that's the litmus test of I am still alive. I am still breathing. Yeah. And so you start to gather all of these winds where you're like, that was really uncomfortable, but I survived and I know I survived because I'm still breathing. So I guess I'm okay. And you just start to gather all these little winds that soften those edges of discomfort massively.

Victoria Starr: I love that perspective. I love that shift. I love that, rewriting of the words that are that's in our subconscious programming. For me, it's like when the fear comes up, and I get the sweaty pit moments, like my pits will literally sweat. And it's like, that's not fear, I should not be doing it. That's fear, I should be leaning into it falling forward into it. Because that's the next evolution. That's the next growth. That's the next journey. And so I can see how those those two beautiful things if we just get quiet and listen to our bodies and being still in that moment and going, OK, this does not feel good in my body. It's time to move and to relocate my physical self, because that is an unsafe situation. And so shifting those. I love I love that journey. So if we can fast forward now, you're done traveling internationally. How did you get back to the States and what got you into nomad life, into van life?

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, so I lived abroad for a total of eight years. So I did base myself in the Netherlands for several years after backpacking. And then COVID hit. And my relationship, which is what my visa was tied to in the Netherlands, that ended. The world was just in a little bit of chaos. In different scenarios if borders were not closed. I would have made different choices after I lost my visa I probably would have gone back to just extended international travel, but that was not an option for me. So, my option was to come back to the US and. It was interesting because when I was in that period of knowing that I had to move back here, um, I started getting a lot of anxiety and panic attacks again, something that I hadn't had since I left the U S and a lot of that anxiety was around. I didn't feel like I had roots here and picking a location felt really overwhelming. It felt so incredibly overwhelming. Um, so I did what I know how to do. And I listened to my breath. My breath was saying, picking a location is giving you anxiety. So pick them all. And that's how I ended up in a van. Um, making that choice felt too weighty and not right in the moment. So my decision was, um, To let the entirety of the U S be my home. And, you know, it's been almost four years now. And to be honest, I'm still quite enjoying enjoying the lifestyle. Yeah.

Victoria Starr: I can see that and I can see that as being a fellow van lifer, I've sat with and I've thought about, all right, so is it time for me to create some roots somewhere? And like, I have visions and pops, but then my body is like, no, you're not ready. It's you. There's something more out there. There's more growth, whatever it is. No, you're not ready. And so it's still continuing to lean into that. lean into that journey. Yeah. Um, so it's so beautiful. And now I know that, um, like bringing this full circle, you're in this van and now you're getting ready to sell your beautiful while you are selling your beautiful van and you're adventuring into something different. Tell me, tell the listeners about what the difference is and why.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. Um, so by the time this comes out, my van will be sold.

Victoria Starr: We're just putting that, we're putting it out there.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. Um, But this van has been an incredibly beautiful home for myself and Polly, who's my dog. But you know, a couple of weeks ago, I just had, maybe even a month ago, it hasn't even been that long. Some people would consider my decision making erratic and far too spontaneous, but I follow my breath and I have developed such deep trust in it that when my breath says, It's time for a shift. My body says, okay, cool, let's go. And that's exactly what happened. It was about a month ago and I was in my van and I was getting really frustrated because I didn't have space for something. And then I started looking around and I was like, how have I acquired so much crap? Like I felt weighted down by all of the things that I had in this van and I really realized that I miss how minimal my life was when I lived out of just a backpack. You know, I'm also transitioning out of a career that really burned me out the last several years. And I also realized that during that period of burnout, I was buying stuff to try and make make the amount of work, the amount of hard work worth it.

Victoria Starr: Yeah. You're trying to find your self-worth and your self-love in the material objects instead of internal, but you're dealing with that chaos that's within.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, and a lot of it was, you know, this conflict of both having a job that I loved, but a job that was destroying my health. And so I think I tried to make it right by, by leaning into the, the monetary and the stuff exchange that I got out of that job. Um, and that was like a huge insight for me and it, you know, it hit it really quickly. It was just like, I've been covering up a lot of being with myself and dealing with myself with this stuff and it feels really heavy. Um, So part of the solution is to get rid of some of the stuff that I have. But the other part of the solution is to downsize my house, which a lot of people think I'm crazy for because a lot of people couldn't even live in a van to begin with. Yeah. but I want an even more simple lifestyle than I have. So I'm switching to a truck camper that's about half the size of my van. The setup's gonna be way more simple. There won't be enough room for a lot of stuff, which is great because it'll help keep me in check and just provide a better environment for me to deal with myself instead of hiding from myself with stuff.

Victoria Starr: Yeah. Yeah. I totally see that. Oh, what a beautiful, beautiful thing, because I was just at a van festival this last weekend and I looked inside of a truck with a truck camper and I'm like, oh, holy hell, she's going to do that. Like, I'm so excited for you, but I'm looking at it. I'm like, Wow, I don't even know if Olivia, my chocolate lava, and I could fit in there, like, let alone stand in there. And as I'm navigating this dance that her and I do in the van already, like, even shorten that into half, I'd be like, my 62-pound dog, I'd be like, blowing my mind out. But I know Polly. So, like, I want to bring into the space, too, like, our pups, like, because they're so integral in our life. And I mean, for me, Olivia is so, so grounding for me. And so like, how are you going to navigate that in the truck and with Polly and she's younger than Olivia?

Brittany Lillegard: I mean, we'll figure it out. You can't see this right now, but Polly just lifted her head up at me like, yeah, mom, how are you? How are you? But, you know, one of the other things, too, with Polly, she she is much happier. When we are in the middle of nowhere and my van doors are open and we're going on long hikes all the time. And part of the transition to the truck camper as well, um, you know, my overhead will be half the half as much as this van. Um, which means I don't have to work as much, which means we can go on more adventures, which means we can go on longer hikes, um, and get into the places where a Ram ProMaster cannot get.

Victoria Starr: Also, and we just throw that in there that's reality as I got stuck last week. Yeah.

Brittany Lillegard: So, you know, I would never make a decision that I thought would impact her negatively and I I know in my heart that by me having to work both less but also by me having the space to shift my priorities and only work on the things that bring me joy. I will have more space for her and she will be happier as well. I mean I see it like you probably see it. animals in general, but especially our dogs, they're such sweet little mirrors and her mental health mirrors mine. You know, when I have those moments, those days and weeks when I'm especially like overwhelmed and overextended and not feeling great, it starts to manifest in her behavior as well. So I think we'll both be better off and happier for the shift.

Victoria Starr: All right, so when this episode airs, you heard it right here. The van is what's her name again? I can't remember. Yeah, Amanita. She's going to be sold. She will have new. new homeowners, and Brittany and Polly will be in a truck and a camper, and they will be off exploring in nature and getting into the backcountry where, sadly, Alani, my rampromaster, will not be able to get to. But Olivia and I will hike where you are, so I'm totally good with that. So I know, like I said, there's so many different avenues that we can take this, and I just want to bring into this space, too, that you facilitate breathwork, you facilitate breathwork at Vagrant Festivals, and for I know you're very much an advocate for plant medicine, and I would love to hear how you integrate the two. I would love to hear how you have witnessed and seen within your own self the two modalities of breathwork and plant medicine integrated into more spiritual healing and awakening.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. The first ever therapeutic guided plant medicine session that I did, it was when I was living in the Netherlands and was super fortunate, psilocybin truffles are legal there. So you can actually work with those medicines in a much more therapeutic way than You can do that in the US as well. It is much harder to find those opportunities because a lot of people have to work underground. But it was really fascinating because that very first therapeutic session, I had used plant medicines recreationally before. It was a totally different experience than what I had had recreationally. My intention for that experience was to learn how to work with my mother wound rather than against it. So I grew up to a single mom who was very abusive and not nurturing and not around often, and it has significantly impacted me. So in this plant medicine experience, I actually re-experienced my birth, which was really, really, really incredible. Very, very, very healing. I felt a lot of compassion for my mother in that moment. My mother was a young mother. I could feel the fear and uncertainty she had over bringing me into this world. It shifted my perspective because I also could feel how absolutely incredible and remarkable. and expressing your womanhood through birth was. And I felt such deep compassion that she was in a space where she was not able to be empowered in birth, but rather she birthed in deep, deep, deep fear. So it was incredibly healing, but also in a way that experience almost rebirthed me as well. So that was the first part of the experience. And then, You know, later on, I just felt this very like fresh canvas in my body. And what the medicine shared with me is that that canvas, that fresh, delicious, beautiful canvas that had been created in this rebirthing process could be painted with my breath. And I felt this to my core, and it was so much fun to play in this space. And in this space, everything was very blue and very connected to my throat chakra as well. And what the plant medicines gifted me during that experience is that my breath is my purpose. My breath is what I need to speak out and share and gift with others. Yeah, it was such a beautiful experience. But in terms of the integration of the two, can I just call you here for a second?

Victoria Starr: I just want to love on you. I want to love on your soul. I want to love on your heart and having that experience that you were able to see with compassion and grace your mom and all that she was carrying and scarcity and the wounds and the trauma and her own story that through this experience that you were able to center energetically your love and your understanding and your grace and your compassion because like sometimes we're not able to do that in through our own reality because it may not be received the way we intend it to be received and so simply by you doing that energetically like I know from a mama's heart like it is so received and that you were able to come be birthed again with this beautiful canvas of like, okay, where do I get to go now? What do I get to do? Like, I've let go of that heaviness. I've let go of all that I've been carrying from that because we know generationally we carry the stuff from our ancestors. And like, I literally like see you just like giving it back to the women in the past because it's no longer yours to carry anymore. I have full body goosebumps again, Brittany. So I'm just loving on your soul. I'm loving on how beautiful and eloquently you're able to articulate that because that is an experience that a lot of times we're not able to put words to, right? It's an experience, it's an energy, and then all of a sudden you're like, wow, here's this fresh, clean canvas, this fresh, clean slate that I get to show up for me now, my soul's purpose.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah, well, and you know, thank you for those kind words there. They're very felt and very received, but it also brings up something that I have been chewing on for the last couple of weeks as well. We don't. When we think of breathwork, we think often of just like the air that's coming in and out of my nose or my mouth. But generally, you know, we like to focus on the nose a lot. But what a lot of people don't realize is that breathwork speech is a form of breathwork. So the way that I define breath work is it's an intentional manipulation of your breath, which is all that speech is as well. Like you cannot speak out unless if you are exhaling. And so if we don't use our breath in that way, Our breath, it moves, it moves us, it moves energy, it clears things, it helps us move through blocks. Yeah. And when we keep words inside, that energy is not moved.

Victoria Starr: I feel and see and hear where you're going. There's so much power in the throat chakra. Let's go back to the blue that you saw in that plant medicine experience. That's where the breath is. It can get stuck there. as a little child, mine was stuck all the time because it was constantly people pleasing assessing the situation where my mom was to see how I could show up and how I showed up would serve her and make her happy. So like, yes, our breath holds so much within our throat and to have the words and And the strength to be able to speak those words and to know that we're okay to speak those words. That's so beautiful that you articulated that. I love it when you chew on these nuggets.

Brittany Lillegard: I do a lot of chewing in my life. Yeah, so I think, you know, I Just hopefully putting a little bow on this for people who are listening. I think sometimes we overcomplicate breathwork so much. I think we have a lot of expectations that breathwork is only effective if we have a guide or if it's explosive or if it gives us these like pivotal insights or releases. But your speech is breathwork and you can manipulate that. You can paint your canvas through your words. And what an incredible thing to recognize and realize that we can let go of so much just by manipulating our breath through our vocal cords.

Victoria Starr: Yeah, yeah. Poof. That was powerful, mic drop in itself. I'm going to be super respectful on the time and know that I know that we'll be on this conversation again, because I want to go down deeper into microdosing and breathwork and microdosing and plant medicine and mental health and just how it has been a catalyst for you and essentially like saving you because it's so beautiful to hear and see and witness your growth and your journey. Thank you. Thank you for sharing all your wisdom, all your chewed on nuggets. And I always ask all my guests one last question. If you could go back to a younger version of yourself, what age would you be and what would you tell her?

Brittany Lillegard: You know, it's really interesting. I'm gonna try and keep this answer short, but I took an integration workshop. This would have been August, 2020. And one of the exercises that we did during that workshop is we crafted what we call the lifeline. So we put on a timeline all these different experiences of our life. And then, you know, we would look at our career, our relationships, and on one line was time, and then on the white access was like, how positively or negatively you perceived that experience. So maybe at 10 years old someone passed away so that experience would be in the negative portion of your graph and then you would connect the graphs and you could start to see all of these relations between things in your life and how they all impacted each other. And One of the things that someone shared, which was mind-blowing to me, and it was that in a, and I'm gonna butcher this a little bit, I can't remember exactly what study they referenced, but there is a train of thought in psychology that the age you were when you first were required to be autonomous, your life repeats itself in cycles of that age. For me, my mother, because she was a single mom, And we were also very poor and she didn't have a huge support network, shouldn't have babysitters or couldn't afford babysitters for me often. So some of my first memories are being four years old, having to find food out of the fridge for myself because I've been left home alone for hours on end by myself because my mom didn't have a babysitter. And when I was looking at that graph, sure enough, I could very clearly identify these four-year cycles in my life. It was really insightful and incredibly eye-opening. So if I were to go back to any age, I think it would definitely be whenever those first moments of feeling You don't understand as a child that it's because of logistics. You don't understand as a child that your mother's not there because if she doesn't go to work, she can't put food on the plate, which we didn't have enough of to begin with. So I've done a lot of work to rewrite my understanding of those times. But as a child, you don't understand that. As a child, the only thing that you know is no one's here for me.

Victoria Starr: Yeah.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. Right. Yeah. without trying to get overly emotional, I think I would go back to that time. Sorry. I'm sorry. And, you know, let that little girl know that there's a whole world that is here for her.

Victoria Starr: Yeah. And she's so worthy of it all. And I see her on the other side of the screen. She is so worthy of it all. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sending her so much love and looking in her in her beautiful eyes and just holding her and nurturing her. And I'm doing the same virtually to you right here, right now. So thank you for sharing that. And as beautiful as that was and hard, like it is such a gift for other women to be able to see that, listen to the podcast to be able to see that we're all on this journey. We're all on this journey together, walking sister to sister, shoulder to shoulder in sisterhood and recognizing that that we all have similar stories. We all have our hard and it's being able to write that story now and move forward with such elegance and grace like you are doing now. And I am so grateful to be in your space. I'm so grateful to have met you two years ago at Open Roads. So thank you, Open Roads, Van Meetup. Tell everyone that's listening where they can contact you, where they can follow you, where they can find all your magic and medicine.

Brittany Lillegard: Yeah. So right now, um, the easiest place to find me is on Instagram and my handle there is breathwork caravan. I am in the process of launching a brand new breathwork website. Um, that is not up just yet though. So hopefully by time this is published, um, maybe we can add that into the show notes as an absolute fact. Um, but I don't want to reveal the name just yet.

Victoria Starr: So I love it.

Brittany Lillegard: For now, the easiest way, Instagram, Breathwork Caravan.

Victoria Starr: Love it. Suspense. Suspense is always great. It's the anticipation and the excitement of it all. Yes. So thank you, Brittany, for being here. Thank you for being part of the show. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and your beautiful energy. I am so grateful for you.

Brittany Lillegard: Thank you. Likewise. I love you very much.

Victoria Starr: I'm really honored. Yeah, thank you. Until next time, everyone stay tuned for all of Brittany's yet to come breathwork websites and her beautiful energy. And as she graces Instagram, please go find her the breath caravan. And until the next episode, stay tuned, like rate review, do all the things share this across your platform. It helps me to get out my message and just to be an inspiration and a ripple to all the women out there walking this journey alongside of me.