Are you feeling bogged down by the day-to-day grind?

Maybe you’ve noticed some tension creeping into your body, or you’re dealing with that persistent discomfort that seems to pop up out of nowhere. Well, let’s talk about a game-changer that can help you reclaim your vibrancy—Body Awareness.

Spoiler Alert: This isn’t just another wellness trend. It’s a powerful, transformative practice that can help you heal emotional tension and even tackle chronic disease. And the best part? It all starts with tuning into your body’s wisdom.

How Body Awareness Heals Emotional Tension & Chronic Disease

In my latest Raw & Radiant episode with the incredible Joely Franklin, we dive deep into the world of body awareness. Joely, a breathwork facilitator and body awareness coach, breaks down how emotional tension often manifests as physical symptoms—and if left unchecked, can lead to chronic health issues.

Body awareness isn’t just about noticing when your neck is stiff or your back aches (though that’s a part of it). It’s about recognizing the connection between your emotions and your physical state. By tuning into these signals, you can start to release the emotional baggage that’s been dragging you down.

Interested in how breathwork ties into this? Don’t miss our earlier post on Healing Through Breathwork: My Transformative Journey, where I share how breathwork played a pivotal role in my own healing journey.

Joely Franklin’s Practical Tips for Releasing Tension

Now, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty. Joely shared some amazing, practical tips for incorporating body awareness into your daily routine:

 1. Breathwork: 🌬️ Take a few moments each day to focus on your breathing. Notice where it’s shallow, where it’s deep, and how it moves through your body. This simple practice can make a big difference. Curious about more techniques? Check out our blog on Cultivating Self-Trust Through Breathwork.

 2. Body Scanning: Perform a mental scan of your body from head to toe, checking in with each part. Identify any areas of tension or discomfort, and consciously relax them. Want to learn more about this connection? Our post on The Healing Power of Breathwork dives into how breath, body, and emotions are intertwined.

 3. Intentional Movement: Whether it’s yoga, dancing, or just a good stretch, move your body with intention. Notice how it responds and where it feels tight. Here's a [playlist] to utilize for body movement.

Ancestral Healing: Go Beyond the Surface

Joely also touched on the powerful concept of ancestral healing, which suggests that some of the emotional tension we carry isn’t even ours—it’s passed down through generations. By practicing body awareness and breathwork, you can begin to heal these deep-seated wounds.

This may sound intense, but trust me, the results are worth it. If you’re eager to learn more about ancestral healing, don’t miss our post on this podcast  where we explore how the past impacts the present and how you can break the cycle. [tune in here]

👉🏻 JOIN ME in Sedona for the Ultimate Healing Experience 🌵

If you’re ready to take your healing journey to the next level, I would love to have you join me and my soul sister Ashley D. Adam for the Roots Reclaimed Retreat: A Sacred Journey to Sedona from October 31 to November 4, 2024. This retreat is all about deep transformation, awakening your intuition, and restoring your feminine essence. We’ll be diving into sacred earth altars, somatic breathwork, mama earth medicine, and so much more.

Curious to learn more? Check out all the details [HERE]. We’d love to have you join us for this transformative experience in one of the most magical places on Earth. 🌵✨

Keep the Healing Journey Going

Are you ready to transform your life? Share this post with someone who could benefit from body awareness practices, and let us know in the comments how you’re incorporating these tips into your daily routine!

With love and light,

Victoria

TRANSCRIPT:

Victoria Starr:
Hey, Raw and Radiant Tribe, before we hop into today's episode, I've got something absolutely magical to share with you. Imagine this, a sacred ceremony, a potent retreat, and the chance to transform your life in the most beautiful way. Are you intrigued? Well, let me personally invite you to join me and my soul sister, Ashley D. Adam, for Roots Reclaimed, A Sacred Journey in Sedona Retreat. We're talking about Sedona, one of the most magical and healing places on earth. With its vortexes and high vibrational frequency, it's the perfect backdrop for our retreat happening from October 31st to November 4th, 2024. Ladies, if you're feeling the call to embrace immense transformation, to embark on a spiritual path but aren't sure how to get there, this retreat is for you. It's time to let go of the past and to step boldly into your future. Awaken your intuition and restore your innate feminine essence. Now let me give you a little sneak of what's in store. We'll be creating sacred earth altars, diving deep into somatic breathwork, connecting with mama earth medicine and receiving private soul activation readings. How juicy does that sound? Plus, we've got tribal body painting with some fun jewelry, chanting and drumming, cacao ceremonies, and so much more. If this sounds like the transformative experience you've been waiting for, check out the show notes for more details and to claim your spot. Welcome to Raw and Radiant, the podcast that ignites your spirit and empowers your soul. Are you ready to embark on a transformative journey? Here, we give other women permission to embrace their truth, to find the courage to choose themselves first. Because guess what? You are not alone. Join us in this massive journey of empowerment and courage. Together we'll illuminate your inner spark, empowering you to embrace the radiant light within and show you how magical you are. It's time to unleash your potential and make a difference in this world. Are you ready to step into the raw and radiant version of you? In true transparency and rawness within this show, Raw and Radiant, I do utilize Starlink for my internet service most of the time as I am a full-time nomad in my van traveling around with my chocolate lab, Olivia. There are some pauses within this recording with my guest, Jolie, that we have called as sacred pauses. So please be patient as the Starlink hops from satellite to satellite in the sky And we will be back momentarily continuing our organic conversation and the powerful wisdom that Jolie shares. Hello, beautiful souls, and welcome back to another episode of Raw and Radiant. I am so excited that you're here. I am so excited to bring into this space a beautiful soul, a light that came into my existence, my world two years ago in the beautiful mountains of Colorado through a mutual friend of ours, the breath nurse. Whose birthday it is today. Yesterday. Oh, yesterday. Yesterday. That's OK. OK, because I know she celebrates all month long, as do I. And I am here with my dear friend, Jolie Franklin. She is currently in London. We had the opportunity to spend several weeks together in the Colorado mountains and explore the beauty and the richness that Colorado has to offer and actually just to be able to allow our souls to witness the beauty and the magic that's in within each one of us. So, um, Jolie, thank you for being here. Thank you for being in my world. And just before I have you introduce yourself, I just want to give the listeners a little, um, into who you are. You are a breathwork facilitator. You teach somatics. You are a body awareness coach. You are here as a supportive space to bring into awareness for people their mental, physical, and soul health. You, I know, are magic in medicine, and you lead breathwork events at corporate and community events. you can also be found on the apps, The Breast Source and Brain Tap. And that is such a gift to this world. So thank you for being here. I would love you to just say something a little bit about yourself.

Joely Franklin: Yay. Hi. Thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and to connect with you in this way. And I can't believe it's been two years already. That's crazy. I know it. Yeah. Beautiful introduction. And I am set ever evolving. It's one of those questions where I'm like, how do we even begin to describe and describe who we are because we're infinite and we are so many things. the breath really is at the base of everything that I do and it's an expansion of all of the somatic work that I offer and share with the world and I'm very grateful that I'm able to share it in so many different settings and so many different communities and people in different walks of life and I continue to be a student and a teacher of this work, you know, forever, forever keen to learn, keen to listen and open to insights and, yeah, just really deepening my own mastery when it comes to teaching and sharing at the same time, kind of balancing both and enjoying every step of the way.

Victoria Starr: I love that. I love that you are a teacher and you are also a student and to deepen your awareness into your breath, because, I mean, we both know that that is where the wisdom is. That is where, you know, some could say our soul lies is within our breath because it teaches us so much. if we just are still long enough to listen, right?

Joely Franklin: Yeah, yeah, totally. It's not that the breath is what connects the body to the mind, the soul to the physical, but in, you know, yeah, the outside in it's that connecting piece. So it's, it's beautiful and we can tap into it in our own unique way. And I think that's what's so important is being able to and discovering your own unique way to connect to your breath. And I think that's where, for me personally, my perspective, the magic truly lies.

Victoria Starr: Yeah. I mean, and just to say, just to bring into this space, because those people that are listening in this community, they don't really know what goes on before we connect in these calls. And with each one of my guests, I tap into our own energy separately. I tap into our own breath. And then I bring us into this connection where our energies actually transmute through the Zoom room into the screen and connect to one another. And that's connecting our breath and connecting, you know, our essence. And that allows us to be in alignment, to show up fully as our authentic self, no matter how messy it is. Because honestly, like we're going to stumble over our words and we're going to, you know, maybe say some things that are, inaccurate or, or, you know, just maybe just not truthful. I mean, I'm not saying not not truthful, but just more in a space of like, Oh, wait, that wasn't seven years ago. That was five years ago.

Joely Franklin: Right? Yeah.

Victoria Starr: Yeah. But it's being able to connect with our, our souls, our energy, our essence and our breath and to come into harmony. So I know that you are so so wise and connecting to your body. I would love for you to share a little bit about your background before you got into breathwork.

Joely Franklin: Yes. And like before we I kind of dive into that something that was coming up when you were sharing that was this the the essence and the energy of permission to like mess up and I think that's such a valuable lesson and gift especially for women and those who identify as being of being in a female body you know full permission to mess it up because that's like where the artistry lays so just want to really put that out there because that's a big lesson for me and that taps and links to I guess my journey with with the body and I've always been in a space where the body and breath have been at the root and at the core, but its expression is a change and evolved over time. So I first kind of started out in the professional dance and musical theatre world. And this was 15, 20 years ago. That was my initial, my initial kind of love was with performing and, and being that space for people to enjoy themselves and being, just bringing joy and light to people's lives was something that I loved to do from a very, very young age. And it was possibly one of the most challenging, demanding, expansive and healing experiences. I never want to live through it again, I'll be honest, but I'm grateful that I did.

Victoria Starr: All the things, like all the feels, like all the feelings too.

Joely Franklin: Yeah, totally. And you know, this was when I was a teenager in my early twenties. And at that point I didn't have any resources to feel my big feelings apart from the expression through dance and the expression through my body. And that's when I really started to understand, oh, I'm a human body. I'm not a human brain wandering around thinking all the time. I mean, yes, that's also me, but. You know, I am I am a human body and it's the body that expresses me, my my version of me, also the characters that I'm playing on stage, but it's. it's the body that is the tool. And that's when I really started to understand that from quite a young age and just mirroring other people then starting to understand, oh, like the way that your body moves, the way that it's held, the way that it breathes are all a state, an expression of kind of what's going on internally and what also what you're wanting to share with the world. And something that I learned from a very young age is that can be manipulated for better and for worse. Right, right. Yeah. And it was the better being, you know, creating these beautiful characters on stage, but also I guess for the, not that I love to use the word worse, but I'll use it just for the contrast of the conversation. You know, being a teenager and being able to, you know, use and manipulate my body to get what I wanted. You know, there's different ways of doing it. I kind of went through a very, a beautifully dark portal in my late teens, which meant that I actually left the dance industry for my own mental, spiritual and physical health. It wasn't for me a healthy environment to be in at the time. And I then switched into personal training. So I was a personal trainer for 10 years and completely loved it. Again, still in a space of supporting people in a slightly different way, a little bit more one-to-one, a little bit less out there, kind of really getting to engage with people body-to-body. And that's really where I guess the kind of embodiment piece started to kind of evolve a little bit in the work that I was doing. And I was consistently seeing clients who were injured or who felt like they were unable to move in a way that they wanted or who felt stuck. And I was constantly kind of referring them to physical therapists and to osteopaths and chiropractors. And I was like, hey, why don't I just do this myself? Why am I referring out? Let's add another tool to the toolbox. I went back to school and trained in sports rehabilitation, which in the States is athletic training. So that was, again, another evolution, again, kind of getting a little bit more internal, a little bit deeper with people being able to support them through some really dark spaces. You know, when you live in a body that is in pain, there is a certain level of support and safety that's required to work with that and that's really where I started to develop my skills to work with people on that deeper level. And from there, that's when I really discovered the power of the breath and how the breath really supports the body through those moments of turmoil and shadow and pain. And that's when I discovered yoga and breath work simultaneously. So I was working as a physical trainer and bringing in breath work and bringing in yoga and starting to, I guess, develop my own way of supporting people. And I've never been one person, a person to stick to one technique. No, I'm not just this, I'm not just that. I will pick bits out of multiple modalities and multiple spaces and create something unique and bespoke for you. And that's what I really love to do with people because you know we are all each unique and what works for you today might not work for you tomorrow, might not work for me tomorrow and it's constantly changing and constantly evolving. I really love to play and dance in those in between spaces of we're going to do a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and we're going to put it together. Sometimes it works and it's the most magical experience. Sometimes it really doesn't work. And kind of going back to what we were saying right at the beginning, like for anyone listening that's, you know, a space holder, a coach, a teacher. an educator again for permission to get it wrong, for permission to mess up, for permission to take every session as feedback and to receive that feedback from clients and learn and grow and I think that's what creates such a safe relationship with people is you know when we when we start kind of being like oh this has to be this perfect session that you know I could get a specific result and if this specific result doesn't happen then I failed or it's not good enough and kind of going into into that narrative you know really just allowing things to unfold naturally.

Victoria Starr: There's something that I always like to say is that perfection is only an illusion because in whose eyes is a perfect right so it's having like you said that permission to mess up and it's not it's like just it it's re-navigating it it's a redirecting it it's not sometimes there's the word messing up as has a negative negative energy to it so you know it's just it's that redirection um i'm going to go back to the body as a tool jolie if we can and bring in um your your your body as this beautiful dancer and as this beautiful expression of who you are and being able to manipulate who you are and i want to bring in um like my background because we do walk a similar background I was, or I am an Ironman athlete, a six-time Ironman athlete. And so I was constantly manipulating my body. I was constantly showing up to races, like at a certain weight, can I race faster at a certain weight? Can I be stronger with certain amount of muscle? And it's constantly showing up differently within my body, but yet there was always this outside influence that I was striving and seeking for was that self-worth. from other people showing up. as, okay, if I place, if I rank, then I will be more lovable. I will be more worthy in this world. And I can imagine maybe that's how you were too. If you danced in a certain way, and if you were in different productions, you had this tendency in our humanness, like, I can be lovable. I can be liked more. Is there validation in that?

Joely Franklin: Oh, 100%. And that's something that I really realized as I got older was, being a performer and being in that world was making up for the fact that I wasn't feeling seen in my day-to-day life. I wasn't feeling accepted in my personal relationships and friendships and family and it gave me an illusion of being accepted, being seen, being loved and being part of something and that was something you know we we all need that it's necessary co-regulation is important for our survival as a species and feeling isolated and unable to kind of regulate myself at that age, we find it in these external spaces and for me it was in that industry and in that world.

Victoria Starr: And then for my hour parallel is like I went into personal training also. I was a personal trainer for 20 years and seeing and holding space. And I realized that on all those years I was holding space for other women, other people to show up as themselves and to be raw and to be authentic. and very vulnerable in who they were in their meat suit because a lot of my clients they were older and like you said like they're not being able to move like they used to be able to move or they want to lose some extra weight so it's that external validation of that meat suit and really getting into the core of what are why are they doing this like what is really messing within their life right?

Joely Franklin: Yeah, switching from, you know, if I become X, then Y will happen to just the simple question of like, how do I want to feel today? Yeah. Totally different narrative and different energy and different experience within the process between the two. And one is sustainable in the long term and one isn't as well.

Victoria Starr: Right, right. So coming into the awareness of of authentically being in our human meat suit in today's moments, right? Like, oh, my knee hurts a little bit because I did X, Y, Z or, you know, and how can I move? How can I tap into my breath? How can I just be in the stillness and accepting of who I am?

Joely Franklin: Yeah. And yeah, and really starting to understand. The body holds everything. That's good. And this is something that I really discovered when I was working with clients with chronic pain. You know, from a physical, biological perspective, there is, quote unquote, nothing wrong from like a, you know, you look at someone's report and you're like, OK, you're healthy. You know, there's the joints are in place. The muscles are functioning. Your range of motion is great. You know, you're active. You're doing all these things. You're eating well. And yet your lower back is in agony most of the time. And as a student, I was like, why? I want to know why. This doesn't make sense to me. And it's here. This is this person's reality. This is their truth. This is their experience. And I want to know why. Because one, I was curious. One, I was like, this makes no sense. And also just understanding that the body is so wise, nothing happens for no reason. And I was like, OK, what is that reason? And this is where my own experience with breathwork and somatic work started to enlighten my own education. And I had a really beautiful experience. I think it was maybe the second or the third time that I ever did conscious connected breathwork. where so I have scoliosis which is a misalignment of the spine and it would always be something that I would find very irritating. It would like flare up for no reason and it was always a frustration of mine and this breathwork session it was a really long one it was holotropic so it was you know three I think maybe even four hours it's very very long beautiful practice and It was the first time that I had consciously and with awareness experienced grief. well of this emotion and I could feel it. I could feel in every kink in my spine was a ball of grief and that's what I saw. It was almost like railroad tracks and they were deviating off in these different directions and there would be these tracks that were out of place and they were kind of representing the grief. And as I was breathing with every inhale, I could feel them all clicking kind of back in together, back into place as I was expressing this grief. you know, allowing myself to scream, to shake, to roar, to be an animal. And I think that's what's the really powerful point is remembering that we're animals and we express ourselves as so. And it was a deeply cathartic experience, which, you know, is almost like the phase one of the processing. And the stillness that I then felt after that and have felt ever since you know there's still there's a part of me that rests in that stillness always and always has but I'm now aware of it that really was the the moment where I was like oh this is starting to make sense to me yeah the body holds everything the body will store everything until it's ready yeah and it can't be forced it can't be manipulated it will arise when it's time. And I think that is what is so beautiful about this work is there is no set timeline. We're just creating the space. If the body would like, there is space for it. Like what is here? And it's a constant sort of curious journey through life with no specific end results, just allowing ourselves to be more and more in tune with the body's needs and desires every single day.

Victoria Starr: And it's being patient in that pause too, and being patient in the process. And there's a couple of different things that are coming through to me right now. First, I want to go into the grief, the grief that you're holding on to, because I know I would love for you to express to the listeners that grief sometimes isn't yours. So what you were holding in your body, that could be ancestral. What are your thoughts? What are your perspectives on that ancestral healing in that holotropic breathwork session that you had for those three to four hours? I know you probably can't quantify how much was yours and how much was it prior to you, but take us down that journey.

Joely Franklin: Yeah, so I can quantify it in the sense that during that experience, I saw visually all of the women in both lines coming forwards and breathing alongside me and I connected with my great-grandmother who her name came through and no one apart from my grandfather at the time who was the only person that knew her name her name came through to me so I knew that it was her and it was this there wasn't like a specific reason why the the guilt the not guilt the grief was there but it was me really realizing that I get to be the one to start to open up the family line and to start to not to take responsibility because it's not my responsibility to hold it and to do anything with it. But if I so choose to just say a prayer of this is for me and this is for us and this is for the we and not just my own family and my own generational line, but for every single human being that's ever walked on this planet and imagine the frequency of the planet if we were all like that. It really does change. And what I was starting to love about ancestral healing is that the science is starting to meet it. The science is meeting spirituality and we're starting to understand that, hey, this is a thing, this is real. And it's been known in certain cultures and communities for thousands and thousands of years and the Western world is starting to catch up a little bit and it's a really exciting time.

Victoria Starr: Yeah, it really truly is to be able to bring the two together and to see that I had a similar experience where I was able to see generational females within my past and to be able to see them and breathe with them. And actually it was a whole lot of dancing with them too. It was very nurturing and it was very loving in that space too. So that's so beautiful that you recognize too that this is a ripple effect. This is a ripple effect that is for my generation, your generation, obviously past generations, but future generations to come too.

Joely Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. And in some teachings, they share that, you know, the work that we do in this body in this lifetime, a ripple back eight, eight generations forward and eight generations back, which for me is like,

Victoria Starr: that's massive goosebumps right now like how many how many bodies is that you know we think if you think of a family tree right it's and you think about if that's happening with everyone and how interconnected we all are energetically it's it's really powerful yeah it is really powerful the other direction i want to go down to julie is um and i know that you have awareness of this too is that our grief our anxiety our undealt trauma our undealt heaviness within our body creates disease and and it led me down a path of learning the teachings of nutritional therapy. And that's something that has been within my world. And my stepdad passed away at the age of 59 of pancreatic cancer and no cancer in his family. And so recognizing that I wanted to get to the root, I wanted to understand why, and not that I would ever in his lifetime understand his background and his foundation and the cracks that were in his foundation, but for me to witness, like, So much of our nervous system, our undealt nervous system, the undealt heaviness and trauma that's within there creates the disease in our body. And I'm truly convinced that whatever maybe he went through in his life or in his ancestral, what he was carried down to him created this disease in his body. So being that, that this disease in the nervous system, let's talk about that. Let's talk about how that can just be this either a catalyst to shift and change because we get to let it go or how it can resonate within our body and show up differently.

Joely Franklin: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Such a, such a cheesy topic. It's my favorite. Yeah. It's I'm like, why do I even start? let's bring it to like our own experience like you know if you if you ever had this experience where you might be maybe in public or in a setting where maybe it doesn't feel appropriate and I'll use this sign appropriate because there's any space appropriate. Air quoting. Air quoting that's what it's called. Thank you peace sign. For those of you that are only listening, it's okay. Like if you feel like you want to cry and you're like, well, I can't cry in this space. So maybe you feel physical pain in your throat or in your face or in a certain part of your body because you're trying to withhold it. And it might be like, oh, I'll feel it later or I'm just going to hold it in because it doesn't feel safe right now to express this. I'm not in the right space. That tension, that energy, that emotion, that energy in motion desires to move. That is what emotion is. When we don't allow that energy to move, it gets stored in the body as tension. And this tension from a structural perspective and an energetic and spiritual perspective creates contraction. more contraction we have over time and different parts of the body can in some teachings relate to different experiences and different emotions and different frequencies can then start to express itself as dis-ease, whether that's a physical dis-ease, whether that's a mental dis-ease, spiritual dis-ease, tension, pain, whatever you want to call it. And I had a really powerful experience in my own body. So I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism 2017 and same trajectory. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm very much a I don't take medication type of girl. I think I've had antibiotics once in my whole entire life. Unless death is like, hey girl, it's your time. I'm not taking anything. I don't even take painkillers. I'm not putting any of that stuff in my body, which is my personal choice. And I was very much in this space of this is a moment in time, and it was like this beautiful moment in time where I was like this is a pivot point and I call them pivot points where I can make one choice that will lead me down one path and another choice that can lead me down another. I was like, no, I'm going to fix my thyroid. I'm going to learn about the thyroid. I want to learn about it. I was listening to thousands of hours of podcasts about the thyroid and how to nourish it and what supplements to take. And I got my minerals tested. That's when I started to work more within the spiritual setting and doing vocal work, you know, starting to work with the voice. And that then started to lead to, oh, where have I not expressed myself in my past, which then, you know, ties in with the grief journey as well. You know, it's a whole again, it's. the domino effect of everything is linking towards each other. And this was in October. I had my first checkup in January with the thyroid and everything was fine. Everything was back to normal. No meds needed. And I get it checked every six months and you know, touching words and, you know, it is what it is. All is well. All is really well. And I'm in a space within my body where I can start to notice if my thyroid levels start to shift and I know exactly what to do. And everyone is capable of this. And we can start to really tune into the very subtle shifts that we sense in the body. And we have a toolbox of things that we know works for us. that's when we can start to really live a nourished life. And that will look and feel different to everyone. But there is a physical, spiritual, energetic explanation for everything in the body.

Victoria Starr: Full circle coming back to the body is so wise, sitting in that pause and that stillness, listening to our breath, listening to just being still. quiet, maybe getting yourself out in nature and simply listen. And I know that's really, really hard to do. And there's times where that monkey mind, it does like to travel, it does like to do its thing, that subconscious mind and that pre-programming. I want to now fast forward to you have this beautiful breath technique, this eight minute energy reset flow. And can you give an explanation of what that is? Because you and I have different modalities of facilitating breathwork. And I love that because breathwork has been around for thousands of years, and there's different ways, there's different space holders, there's different experiences. So tell me about your specific technique, Jolie.

Joely Franklin: Yeah, amazing. So it's again, a combination of so many different techniques that I've been, you know, in such a beautiful position to learn from, you know, we have some of the same teachers as well. And it's something that I've really developed from my own experience. And it's a linking of movement, breath and sound. And over the years, I've really noticed that We can focus on one element of the healing journey, whether it's breath or maybe just movement or just sound and vocal work. And that's beautiful and fantastic, but when we can really link everything, that's when we start to really see real change. So it's simple in the sense that it, the technique is simple, but it's challenging because it really challenges the egoic part of the mind, because it requires us making sound. It requires a vibration of the vocal cords, it requires movement in the body that is not what you would see day to day. And it's where we're kind of undulating the spine and we have you know there's associations as to what that means in our society we're making primal sounds or whatever sound your body wants to make again it's not something that is seen in our society. It's a beautiful practice and I love that it really just taps into that uniqueness that we have. So essentially there is lots of different ways to do it depending on if you want to upregulate your nervous system or downregulate your nervous system. So to energize or to relax essentially. But it's taking an inhale and as you inhale you kind of move your body forwards or you move your body with the primary focus being on moving the spine so moving it however you want to move it and then on the exhale you make a sounded exhale so that might sound and or look like if you're watching on video something like this ah oh And it's really just whatever, whatever you want to do is perfect. And I have to say kids are the best example of this breath practice because it's what kids do when they're playing or when they're sounding when they're expressing.

Victoria Starr: There's less inhibition in kids too.

Joely Franklin: They're open to being in the wild. This practice stems from Kundalini and my teacher is a beautiful man called Johan Erb and it's called the Pyramid Breathwork Technique. So I want to honor him in this space as well.

Victoria Starr: I'll make sure I put that into the show notes too. Beautiful.

Joely Franklin: Yeah, I can send you some, send you some deets. Thank you. But it's just, it's so deeply humbling and also to witness other people whilst honouring yourself being in that beautiful space and I've experienced it in some of the conscious connected journeys as well where you can really honour your own expression whilst honouring other people's and are you doing this lying down are you doing the seated tell me about you can yeah you can the the physical positioning again you can do it lying down, you can do it seated, you can do it in a chair, you can do it standing and really make it a full body experience. I'll sometimes bring it into static dances, or if I'm doing somatic movement with people, I can sometimes bring it into yoga practices, you know, as you're doing your sun salutation, every exhale you make, there's a sound and you're moving your body at the same time, you can integrate it into everything. Even something as simple as you know, the body naturally sighs as a way to release stress. That's an element of the technique in itself. That's just the body's natural way. So kind of taking what the body does naturally and making it a little bit bigger, making it a little bit more intentional and creating a practice from it. And that's what I kind of love to do with anything body-based is we're not doing anything new. The body is designed to move, to sound and to breathe. But we're just giving it a little bit of structure. so that the mind has something to focus on. We've got a little bit of a path to walk down. And what is so beautiful is, you know, you can go into this with a set intention if you like, or you can just kind of allow it to flow. And when you really get into it, it's real fun. Hi. Hello. Beautiful. Yeah, so it's It can be deeply cathartic. It can be deeply peaceful. It can be deeply pleasurable. You know, we're working with, you know, the root of the body, the spine, the heart space, the chakra system. But it's truly a liberation practice for me, if I had to define it in a statement, it would be, you know, it's a liberation practice for sure.

Victoria Starr: Hi.

Joely Franklin: Hello. Do you know what's really nice? You know, sometimes we have a tech glitch, but it's, it's almost like just the universe is like, we're just going to take a pause, a little brief interval. We'll be back shortly. I just sit here and I tell myself, Oh, it's like, I'm just going to take some nice deep breaths until we're back. It's fine. So if you're listening and we go quiet, the invitation is to do the same thing.

Victoria Starr: And so, I don't know if you said this Jolie is it like a certain timeframe that you're holding this space for this beautiful.

Joely Franklin: this beautiful energy reset? So I call it the eight minute reset because I personally have a beautiful connection to the number eight. So I'd say eight minutes because it's something that everyone has the time to curate for themselves. Do you do it longer? You can do it longer. You can do it for 45 minutes. You can do it for three minutes if you want. You can do it for just three rounds of 10. It's super, super adaptable.

Victoria Starr: That's the personal trainer in you, three rounds of 10. I know.

Joely Franklin: I'm like, we'll do three sets of 10 and then take a 30 second pause. I'm going to do that four more times. Okay, everyone. 3, 2, 1, go. I know, literally. And it's the dancer as well. I'm like a 5, 6, 7, 8, breathe and out and in and out. Just bringing it all in and mashing it all together. What I love about just breathwork as a whole is it feels like, for me, a beautiful balance of kind of bringing in more of the energetics, like the masculine and feminine energetics, the structure and the flow, because we can kind of create this beautiful, safe container through the structure for the flow to flow, for the emotions to flow, or whatever it is that we want to kind of cultivate. It feels like it's a beautiful way to do that.

Victoria Starr: Got the beautiful sacred structure of the masculine and the feminine within that container. What I do want to ask Jolie, like what's your favorite music to do that to?

Joely Franklin: So I have some playlists which I can share with you if you like. You can put it on the notes if you like. There is no set music that I love. Music is such a big part of my life and the playlists that I create for myself and clients, it's a sacred experience and ritual for me. And I really love to create musical experiences that support the journey. And sometimes we're breathing to classical music. Sometimes it's going to be these beautiful, big soundtracks. I recently did a corporate breathwork session for Disney and I was really tempted to put Disney songs in. I didn't. I was like, I'm going to put Let It Go in there just because it's funny. I didn't. And that was more just, I had to use no copyright free music, which is kind of just a gentle beat and it's a continuous flow, which is very beautiful and rhythmic in itself. Sometimes I'll use like big orchestral soundtracks. The Avatar soundtrack, everybody, is fantastic for breathwork.

Victoria Starr: I would love to have that in your playlist.

Joely Franklin: Yeah, for sure. But I love anything, me personally, anything that has percussion so a drum beat because you know the body works really well with the continuous beats so any sort of drumming can be really powerful because it kind of gives the mind a focus and actually allows the prefrontal cortex the mind to switch off a lot faster when you're listening to a continuous beat. So something like that can be really powerful. And I would also say, you know, what is that one song where every time you hear it, like you can't help but smile and move your body? Use that song. Love it. Everyone knows exactly what song that is for them.

Victoria Starr: Thank you for that permission. Oh, mine just came right away. Mine's Hoosier Movement. I mean, yes.

Joely Franklin: Yes. Yeah. I've done breathwork to the Spice Girls. I've done it to like… whatever you want like there are no rules. There are no rules. I've done it to like heavy rap music where the language is as foul as it gets like whatever you want.

Victoria Starr: And it's like it's different each day too like right you're breathing too and allow yourself to be within that that that space of freedom and expression. Yeah totally.

Joely Franklin: So yeah last question. So going back to this like this concept of and this is something I'm really learning so so much right now it's just removing the duality of this is correct and this is incorrect and this is something that's deeply ingrained into and this is an ancestral piece that I'm really working on isn't it there's a correct way to do things and an incorrect way of doing things and I'm really allowing that to crumble a lot right now and that's my you know my dharma in this lifetime is to to play in that messiness and in that newness and I'm the work that I'm doing is is feels very new for my ancestral lineage. So just really allowing that part of your mind that's like, you can't do it like this because of X, Y, Z, but you can feel there's a part of your body that's like, I really want to do it like that though. just full permission. And that's what I love to offer people. It's just that permission piece of like, come on, let's go. And I'm here with you. I'm holding your hand if you need it, but you actually don't need it. I'm just here.

Victoria Starr: It's just as holding the space. Yeah. And it's that permission. Yeah. There's so many things I want to talk about. I want to really continue talking about the ancestral healing. I want to talk about how you embracing the wild, but I know those are going to be for another show. I would love to have you back on the podcast just to talk more about those sacred pieces also, because there's also authenticity that gets to be woven within that embracing the wild, because what I'm assuming is you're talking about the wild that's within each one of us, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So definitely I'll have you on another episode. So the last thing that I want to bring into this space, Julie, is I always ask my guests one surprise question at the very end. And it is, if you could go back in time to a younger version of yourself, how old would you be and what would you tell her?

Joely Franklin: Oh my gosh, I love this question. And there's always a different answer. Right. But for today, there's a specific memory that comes up and I'm not quite sure of her age. I think She was maybe five or six and at the time I always used to have joint birthday parties with my best friend and every year there was a financial difference between my family and her family. And she would always receive, from my perspective, receive more, receive more gifts. She had a bigger family. There were more people. And my interpretation of that as a young girl was receiving more love. So I would love to go back to that girl who was sat in her garden party being like, oh, she's way more loved than me and just love on her. Like that's not it, like this is it, like hand on heart, you with you, that's it, that's what love is and that's where you can find it.

Victoria Starr: Oh, I love that. I love that visual. That's just coming into my mind and seeing the two of you together. It's so authentic and it's so beautiful. So thank you for sharing that. Thank you for sharing your rawness, your wisdom. Thank you for sharing all of you. Please tell the listeners how they can connect with you.

Joely Franklin: Oh, it's so delightful. So, yes, you can find me on Instagram, JolieFranklin underscore. And you can also find me at JolieFranklin.co as well.

Victoria Starr: Love it. And also on the BreathSource app and BrainTap app.

Joely Franklin: Yes, both of which you can download from the link in my bio on both my website and Instagram as well. And you'll get a free seven-day trial of either app if you head on there through my links.

Victoria Starr: Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing that. So thank you for being here once again. Thank you for being in my space two years ago. Thank you for just allowing our energies to connect and the beautiful mountains of Colorado on those magical hikes that we did in the forest with our friend Rachel Scavola, the breath nurse. And so I am just so super grateful. And yeah, I know I will have you back. All right, those of you that are here listening, I am so grateful for you and your support. Thank you for being part of this community. Thank you for liking, subscribing and sharing, following, passing on this ripple, this beautiful, magical medicine of the breath and Jolie's wisdom. You are the heart and soul of Living Raw and Radiant. Take this energy, this courage, and infuse it into every moment of your life. Remember, you have the permission to choose you. I invite you to stay connected, keep shining your light, and continue to embody the essence of Living Raw and Radiant. Together, we are igniting a movement of empowerment, authenticity, and soulful living. Until next time, my friends, keep living your soul's desires.