Healing anxiety and unlocking inner peace – with Wolf Castillo

We are coming to the end of Brilliance of Breathwork Month , and it's been such an amazing journey speaking to coaches , breath workers , people all around the world who do this work , and seeing all of the different perspectives that they bring to the table , all of the reasons that they do what they do , the ways that they see it , supporting other people , and

that's why I'm really excited to introduce today's special guest , wolf Castillo .

So Wolf is a trauma-informed coach , he's also a breath worker and he also is finishing up right now a really interesting experiment that he did where he had people doing cold plunges and breathwork and doing all of this raw work and then they were actually measuring some of the results that people had , and he talks about it here in this episode .

One of the things that Wolf is really passionate about is helping people to learn how to regulate their own nervous systems , how to stop the chatter in their brain that tells them that they're not good enough , that they're bad . Whatever the thing is . That's my own personal story is that I'm bad and that I hurt people .

That's one of the things that my brain likes to say , and some years might say that you're not enough , or whatever those stories are . He really supports people in quieting down those stories and instead living your most aligned what he calls fuck . Yes , and I love that .

This is something that he is so passionate about and , as you're going to hear in this conversation , it's because he himself has struggled with his own mental health and his life and he knows .

He knows at a visceral level , and one of the things that I have gained through this month of talking to all of these individuals is that at some level , we have dealt with something ourselves and that's what makes us an expert to help other people with it , and I hope you take that away for yourself , too that the challenges that we have gone through are some

of the biggest gifts that you have . We hone amazing , magical , sparkly gifts that we can offer to other people through our own trials that we have gone through . So often we downplay that . We think that because we've had struggles .

That makes us unworthy and in fact , it might make you the most worthy to support people in this way , so keep that in mind as you listen to this episode with Wolf today . I would also like to make sure that you know that becoming a founding member of Brilliant Breathwork that opportunity ends on November 30th , so that is coming to a close .

If you want to become a founding member of Brilliant Breathwork , you can go to genliscom slash join , use code Sparkle to save 30% off . Another amazing thing that you get in my retreat that is happening this week , on December 1st , from 9am to 12pm Pacific time . It's going to be amazing when we're having somatic coaching , guided visualization .

A human design expert is coming in and doing a human design workshop . If you've been curious at all about human design , if you have this , maybe this is the first you've ever heard of human design . It's fascinating . It's like the Enneagram , but with like astrology involved . It's so cool and so fascinating .

And then I'm also going to be offering breathwork at this retreat . This retreat is intended to awaken your inner brilliance so you can step into the last part of this year , the beginning of next year and beyond , awakened to the magic , that brilliance that is inside of you .

So if you want to do that , becoming a member of Brilliant Breathwork offers you this retreat for free . You can also simply sign up for the retreat . So if you just want to come to the retreat , go to genliscom slash retreat . If you want to join Brilliant Breathwork as a founding member , go to genliscom slash .

Join , enter code Sparkle and you will come and join this spectacular community who is using the tool of breathwork to support us in tapping into our highest and our best , helping us to release the things that are holding us back , that are tethering us and keeping us stuck , and starting to shine our brightest light out there into the world .

So now , without further ado , I welcome to the podcast the wonderful Wolf Kisteo . Hi , wolf , hello , I'm so excited to have you here on the podcast . We met through a mutual friend , and it's when somebody says you have to interview this person . I always know that I'm up for a good conversation and that my listeners are going to get a great conversation too .

So thanks for coming on .

Wolf and I were actually talking right before the podcast and I was like , oh my goodness , we are such a match on this topic , and also the audience , because we were speaking about Bronnie Ware's Five Regrets of the Dying and that number one regret that we don't live a life most authentically to ourselves , and it's just such a passion of mine to talk about this

so that we all really are questioning am I living a life that is true to myself , wolf ? Why is that something that you care so much about ?

I can already feel myself getting emotional because I know where this conversation is going to go , but like I have it on my wall , there literally of the sticky notes that's on that wall , that's one of them , and the reason being very simply because I am one of the people who knows very deeply what it's like to struggle with an incredible amount of anxiety and

depression , and even to the point of suicidal ideation , because I thought that who I was at a core level was not enough .

And not just like I thought it , but I felt it Like I could tell myself in my head you're worthy , I'm worthy in mantra and do all of that , but when you operate throughout your day and the chatter that's happening automatically not the one that I was doing my best to program , but the automatic is no , you're not , you will never be , you're not worthy of

love , no one will ever love you , you're not good looking like . When that's running through your head all the time , it's maddening and I lived with that for years . So when I got to the point in my journey , my life , where , thankfully , I had someone , I had people who reconnected me to the light and to hope .

That was when I realized that so much of my journey up until that point was the byproduct of trying to meet the expectations and standards of my friends , of my friends , of my family , of society and that very simple idea , the number one regret of the dying to live living a life that was inauthentic or untrue to oneself .

When I committed to being that for myself , I recognized that I had also stumbled across , revealed or remembered the mission or the purpose that I had in this lifetime , which was to be that for myself , in hopes that that light would project into others so they could be that for themselves , because I found a lot of peace there and it just feels good to be who

we are at our core and not a mask or a persona of someone that we're not .

Was it obvious ? Do you think Were you wearing a lot of masks ?

And the closest we can get is if they share with you , and even closer if they share with you and their Channels are open enough to where you can actually empathize , not like I think that I understand and I feel , but like I Feel grief hearing you speak , because you've allowed me to enter into that .

So in some way I Know that some people knew , because I had mentioned it and I'm usually pretty forthright about where I'm at with people .

But People knowing that there was many days where I struggled to get out of bed , let alone keep up with my studies in college , or Really show up and be the presence that I needed to be for the person I was dating or my family no , they didn't . They didn't understand the depths of it .

But to whatever degree I let them know , like they knew I was struggling . But years later when I talked to people about it , most of them were like and no clue , so suffering in silence for sure .

When did you notice them and what did you do about them ? How did you get to where you are today ? Today , you are a breath worker . You do all all kinds of cool things . So how did you get from point a to point B ? What shifted for you ?

I think I've always been super self-conscious , and by nature I say not by nature , by whatever conditioning that happened in my past childhood , teens , whatever it was my Way of coping and feeling safe was to retreat to here . This association became my norm . So I think I have for a long time known

that I've been up here .

But when I really started to get connected to the , the tape recorder and the programming that was going along all fucking time , that came more present around the time I was in high school and then moving into college when I started to , let's say , experiment with I guess I didn't really know what I was doing but like I was experimenting with psychedelics and it

was through that journey and through that experience where I Became really present to the amount of depression , anxiety in my system and I didn't have a therapist , I didn't really have encouragement from my outside People's and spaces to to seek professional help in order to have the resources financially in order to pursue that .

So that was a way for me to start getting present to the dialogues and then , through psychedelics , through Breathwork , actually came a little bit later . It was meditation , it was personal development through business development groups I got into .

It was through a Training , a leadership slash , personal development program called landmark , and then later business development red elephant . All of those in Combination in conjunction with really great coaches , slowly brought me more and more present to what was floating around in my conscious , but also especially my subconscious , projecting into my conscious mind .

So not necessarily a line in the sand , but I would say more over time as I peel back the layers I got present to it . That makes sense .

There was something that led you to , instead of taking this path , which could have been , you know , self-destruction you took this path , which was self-development .

call our bodies . That is , we understand in many ways . We understand in many ways , but it's also incredibly ambiguous in other ways . I Learned as a function of necessity , because I was hurting and thankfully , to your point , I did . I became deeply committed to Me , not living the rest of my life feeling at war with myself .

Yeah , I guess that's the question . What's it , what's at stake ?

We go to jobs we hate , we spend time with people we don't really feel ourselves with , we eat foods , we spend time in places all denounced people , places and things that we're investing our time that don't really feel , as I like To say , like a fuck . Yes , and not that everything at all times gonna feel like a fuck .

Yes , there's gonna be some things that feel like a fuck , no , and they don't feel good . It doesn't feel good , or so what is it good in our mind ?

But if the majority of what we are consuming , if I think of it in terms of food as a metaphor , if I'm constantly eating junk food and processed things that very clearly aren't in alignment with what my body's telling me right , I eat garbage ?

I know for me right now like I love ice cream , but if I eat almost any ice cream , I get bad gas my belly gets all the gurgles it's just not good . That's my body saying Please stop it .

It's shit , hurts , doesn't feel good , and if I continue to not listen to it , my body habituates and it doesn't feel good for me , but it habituates it and it numbs .

And , as I am going to loosely quote from a song that really touches my heart from the luminaires , it's better to feel pain than nothing at all , and to me , the death before our actual death is when we go numb , when we start to make the little things that really bother us okay , right , death by a thousand paper cuts .

It's very infrequent that what kills anything in our life , whether it's a great relationship , whether it's our health , whether it's our finances which for me was a big thing around , like struggling with money , and I got to work on that Like any of these things left untended to , we choose ignorance , we think it's bliss , but really it's ignorance that leads to

numbness , and

numbness from my personal experiences , one of the most depleting and hurtful experiences in this life . So I think what's at risk is being fully , fucking alive , and that's like what for me , big part of what my mission is here is like we feel alive , we feel good , we feel excited .

Yes , we experience sadness and grief , like people pass and there's what's happening going on in the world . That's going on , but we can still come back to our center , to the best of our ability , and experience our aliveness , even in grief , even in sadness .

But we don't live there all the time because , well , that's not a way to live , that's not living at all , at least in my opinion .

I like to move , I like to do things . I'm like fidgety by nature , if you will , or conditioning , let's just say so . The idea of sitting and meditating , anything like that , was not my go-to . And when we talk about more involved breath work experiences some being 30 minutes , 45 minutes , but some I've done even up to like two hours that's a lot of just .

Is this something I really want to do ? Well , the short version I'll give you kind of like the short version of each and you tell me where we want to go from this . But I became very fascinated with wanting to learn how to better regulate myself and also where my coaching journey started was wanting to be able to help others regulate .

But more importantly was can we regulate , can we live authentically and can we equip ourselves in a way where we can handle the inevitable stressors of life ? I am very blessed and very fortunate to have come across a . Well , a friend of mine actually said , hey , there's this breath work training and we were talking about doing breath work .

For me , like we should get certified in breath work , it would be really helpful because we were leading very simple types of breath work .

But to really understand the intricacies of breath work and , as it relates to the nervous system and as it related to trauma-informed approaches , let's know our stuff better , because it's important to not cause more harm than help . We're actually providing right Risk mitigation , harm mitigation and reducing and increasing the benefits that it could have .

And also , selfishly , for my own practice , I want to be able to regulate me better . So a buddy of mine said , hey , there's this practice that was going , there's going to be this container and we said , okay , cool , let's do it .

They called themselves Refuge Leadership Academy and at first what I didn't realize is I thought I was signing up for breath work or breath work training similar to what some people might have heard of as like somatic breath work .

But what I really signed up for was something called somatic leadership , and somatic leadership was the space , the container led by my mentors , fabiano Manino and Nathan Kohlerman , where we started to dive into fundamental principles of trauma and somatics and show me how to essentially process information that gets trapped and lodged in our bodies .

Similar to if a food doesn't get digested and somehow it creates constipation . If it has nowhere to go and you continue to add stuff , it creates dis-ease , it creates illness , it creates an abnormality in the body that then expresses itself typically through pain and uncomfortability .

Well , in the same way , trauma and energetics when those emotions as Dr Joe Dispenza says emotion , energy and motion when those energies can't motion and move through us , they get trapped . And then , when they get trapped , they create abnormalities , which then leads to dis-ease , illness and ultimately , not feeling good , not feeling alive .

So , through the process , we learned okay , let's un-guncify ourselves , let's implement these practices that help us to move into resets so our bodies can be in alignment and be centered and we can function properly . And those simple principles became very , in my experience , one-to-one applicable to what you were referring to earlier the cold experiment .

Now , actually , we started the cold experiment two and a half years ago . I did this training back in October of 2022 , we're in November of 2023 , so a little over a year ago was when that started .

But the cold experiment started two and a half years ago was actually just an idea that me and my buddy had , and I had a very profound experience my own in the ice .

We were like , let's create these containers and see if we can create a positive change where people learn how to , as we say , conquer the cold moments together , to embrace and meet head-on the cold moments in our lives , whether it be in our money and our relationships and our jobs and our careers , whatever it is .

If we can take the metaphor of plunging in the cold ice water or going into a breathwork experience that has a tendency to bring things up , if we can bring this all into this , a singular idea , like we grow through the cold moments together . Let's see what happens .

Well , two and a half years later , we've done over ten events , we've served well over 500 people and , funny enough , actually today's a Monday , we did our last event together as a unit , just two days ago actually .

I will continue to do them in my own way and kind of a different container , if you will , but more importantly , just want to point out that that event to me was when all of it came together all the years of training , all the years of breathwork .

All of it came together in that experience , which we can go into more of that if you want to , but at the high level .

This was where I got to see that when breath , things like breath , things like cold , really when you bring people together under this unified thing called let's heal , grow and expand together absolutely consciousness shifting , absolutely nervous system , as you said before , we started just exhale .

That , to me , is what the cold experiment , breathwork or any other regulatory practice provided me was an opportunity to reclaim my peaceful center . That then allows me to create whatever it is that I want out of my life , and I can say that honestly , because I've learned how to regulate and I've learned how to breathe .

Very simply , this is why my relationships have improved , why I went from being in a lot of debt to being in a better financial place I've ever been in my life , to being able to serve my clients more effectively , and even so far as this past Thursday , a few days ago , when I did a testimonial with a client and they said what was life like before and what

was life like after ? She said that there , I didn't know this . She said there were days , many , many days , where I was just struggling to get out of bed and in that

moment I heard me and her , and then , and now I can get out of bed . I have hope and that voice in my head that used to hate it's hate me so much . Every day I can hear that voice and say , hey , I hear you , I see you .

It's like that reclamation , or we see ourselves as , because I can say like the divine remembrance of who we really were when we came into this world . I think that that's what it affords us .

We hear a lot about all of these things , in fact , like it's like breathwork and cold plunging and all of these things that are kind of like the things that we're doing , and it sounds like what you're saying is it's not about each of those individual things , but the greater whole and the purpose of regulation and finding that piece .

Is that kind of what , surmising what you're saying here ?

Not to say that what we're experiencing isn't enough , but that I'll point specifically to cold , but like the general idea of let me take on a practice that is going to allow me to step further into the version of myself that I know I'm capable of being , or maybe that I don't even know I'm capable of being yet , because we have people all the time who come

to our experiences . In fact , I can't make this up . There was someone who was at our event and I had shared with them my story about absolutely hating myself . And they said . That's where I'm at right now .

I was like I can relate to you and you might not be able to see the version of yourself yet that sees yourself as fucking immaculate , incredible and worthy of love . But I'm going to stand here for it because I had people stand for there for me before I could .

So maybe a little bit more of a dramatic way to kind of jump into this , but for me the cold . Let me start by saying I was born and raised in Florida . It is hot as fuck here . It's hot , it's always hot . It's like 364 days of hot and then one day of like cold , ish . And then you tell people from Minnesota , you know we had a cold day .

It was like four like shut up , we have negative , compete with us . We've negative , like all right , fine , whatever , we don't really get cold here . So we grew up in a I grew up in a hot climate . So when my buddy proposed to me , hey , you should try a cold shower .

This is pre ice baths , I was like no , you can go fuck yourself because that sounds awful Cause , I'm like steaming , hot , piping hot shower . Burn my skin off Like that's what I prefer . It's my thing , why not it's ?

It's just going to be a hard sell . So why then cold plunges ? Why ? How did you possibly bridge this gap in your brain ? Uh , I tried it . I tried a cold shower and after I did it , I felt energized , I felt good . Most importantly , I felt really alive . I was like , okay , maybe there's something to this thing .

So I kept doing cold showers and that led to doing ice baths , and then that led to doing a lot of research around cold therapy and , even deeper , around regulation , nervous system regulation , parasympathetic , sympathetic all of that .

And we can jump into like the stat dropping of , like you know , people when they did the studies , like people who did cold therapy , on average experienced , for the following hours , it was a 250% increase in dopamine , which , for those of you who don't know what dopamine is , dopamine is our neuromodulator of seeking .

Now some people think , oh , it's like what I get when . When I , when I get to a place , it's like actually , no , dopamine is what drives you there . In the same way that if you're driving in a car and you're like there's a cookie at home waiting for me , I can't wait , that's dopamine .

Dopamine is kicking in the entire time , is driving you to go home , get into your house rip open the pantry and boom , you hope there's a cookie there . So when your kids need it , whatever the hell it is . But like dopamine is what's driving us .

They just are goal seeking , neuromodulator and super important , especially for those people who've experienced depression as deeply as I have or at any capacity . When you lack motivation , you say I don't have motivation .

It's like two parts that one is like the motivation is not something you have , it's something that you do , and we also have neuromodulators that are connected to that .

If I have a lot of dopamine not like manic levels of dopamine , but like a proper amount of dopamine , I'm I'm going to be much more likely to lean into going to the gym when I don't feel like it or having making more time to be with my significant other , because I realized that a healthy relationship long term is built on the premise that I invest time in

the same way that I invest money into a portfolio , in the same way that I invest in better foods for my body . So dopamine , you get a significant increase in dopamine . That's one incredible reason .

Another is and this one I'm going to give a shout out to my coffee drinkers , people who did cold therapy we saw an increase in norepinephrine of about three to 400% . Norepinephrine is our primary neuromodulator of energy and alertness in our nervous system .

If we start to bring in the autonomic nervous system , which is a branch of our peripheral nervous system , we have our sympathetic and parasympathetic , which are just scientific ways of saying sympathetic fight , flight , freeze , fawn which even more simplified as saying alertness , awakeness . Then we have our parasympathetic , which is our rest and digest .

The way that I like to relate to these things is sun and moon energy . Sun , sympathetic , wakefulness during the day , alertness , focus , parasympathetic , moon energy rest , relax , digest , eat a meal , go to sleep . This is our recovery period .

Well , from my experience , if you have too much of either one of them , too much of sympathetic , then you're going to get this more rigid , frenetic , anxious , overly stressed out energy too much sun , too much activity . This is going to be important .

If you're listening , it's going to be helpful to check in with yourself and ask yourself where do I fall in this spectrum as we're going through this , do I lean more sympathetic or parasympathetic ? Because it can actually tell you what types of breathwork you need , what types of practices you need .

Having that self-awareness is step one and any kind of transformation or should I do ice baths or not ? Parasympathetic moon energy . This is going to be my calm , my relax . But if I have too much calm and relax , or let's just say a severe lack of the apropanodope , mean I can sink into depression , lethargy .

I don't want to do anything , especially not anything outside of what I normally do . We're seeing , with ice baths , an increase of around three to 400% in norepinephrine , which is driving behavior and alertness . We're feeling more alive and alert and , interestingly enough , when we drink coffee , coffee doesn't just increase energy , coffee .

The molecules in coffee are , I think it's like one . I have to relook this up . Someone doesn't have to fact check me on this , but they're like one molecule .

Off from there's a molecule that builds up in our body throughout the day , and when it builds up and makes us feel tired and what this does is it actually parks itself in the receptor sites in our body that have us feel more tired , so it actually blocks our ability to feel tired . That's what happens when we drink coffee .

Well , interestingly enough , when we do an ice bath , it actually has a similar effect it increases the amount of felt experienced in energy . So not only are we experiencing an increase in dopamine and norepinephrine , which is going to have us feel alive and alert .

But I would say for myself , even more importantly , is that I am literally choosing to embrace a cold moment when I go into the ice bath , when I go into a cold shower .

The science is showing us that our mental , our mental faculties , our ability to think rationally , be up in our prefrontal cortex and to project and to envision that energy , that blood flow , actually leaves our brain and goes towards our body . It's entering a stress response .

And this is interesting because some people say why the hell would I want to stress myself , like getting the cold is a stress response ? Well , in the same way that so is a sauna . Going to those extremes actually helps to reset our nervous system .

But in particular , with the cold , we add what is referred to as a hormetic stressor , and a hormetic stressor is a temporary or acute stress response that , once we come back to our baseline , has us more equipped to handle stress in the future .

We increase our capacity to handle stress such that if it was lower , we wouldn't be able to handle certain events without becoming overwhelmed and anxious .

Right now we've increased our capacity to handle those stressful situations and by nature of doing something stressful like that , we've also taken that metaphorical cup of built up stress and actually dumped it out .

So we've decreased the amount of stress in our body and we've been able to increase our capacity , because when that blood flow wanted to go to our body and say , run , fight , fight , freeze , run , fawn , like when it went to run , if I pause and I breathe and I choose to recenter my nervous system , well , the next time I have a very abrupt conversation with

my significant other or an exchange between me and my boss or my family member , or something happens in my environment that creates a stress response in me , I can actually pause , I can breathe , versus letting myself be subjected to the automaticity or the automatic nature of a stress response , which can typically yield to what we refer to as reacting versus

responding , right Responsibility , the ability to respond . So I would say , in all in all , the cold has allowed me to actually be in the driver's seat of my life , because when my body and my mind says to run , I can say hold on

, pause , breathe , I get to command my attention versus letting my in the moment feelings control and dictate how I show up in any space .

I didn't know a lot of the scientific what you're saying about what's happening in my brain , so it's so fascinating . Thank you so much for describing everything that you have described . How does this relate ? How does the cold plunging ? So you're a coach and you coach people . Do you suggest that every person does cold plunging ?

Breathwork , coaching , Like what do you suggest that ? How do people know ? Okay , I'm a person who wants to live a life . That's true to me . I want to find peace . I want to find you know , I want to be able to regulate my nervous system . What is like step one that you recommend for people ? What would you tell somebody to do ?

Because it's so that the simple answer is you should always talk to your physician with even with breathwork as well , because breathwork and ice baths and things like that anytime we're impacting our nervous system .

If we don't and I don't know the impact that these types of practices could have in our nervous system and thusly what it could create it can end up creating more trauma or more pain or more dysregulation , especially if you don't have a trained counterpart to make sure that you're being supported in a proper way .

Now , that's not to say to freak people out around like ice bats and breath work . I think that there are non-invasive ways to get into the practices . For example , I think I don't know anyone personally from my personal experience and I'm not saying I should take this , I'm not a doctor . You should always consult your physician .

I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having any adverse reactions to say , a cold shower . Ice bats and cold showers , although similar , not the same . Ice bats are way more intense , unless you're out in Colorado and it's freezing and the water comes out as pretty cold . But even still it's not the same .

It doesn't impact the body the same when it's like kind of drizzling on you versus when you're sitting in it . It's a very different experience altogether . So I don't think there's a one stop shop for everyone . I will say just out of like you know the love of my heart , like wanting people to get what they need .

Feel free to just like , slide into my DMs on Instagram if you're curious . I can always send resources . But whether it's coaching , whether it's breath work , whether it's ice bats , I don't recommend it to everyone . I would say , well , step one is it always needs to be any transformation , awareness , always awareness . What is it that I'm seeking ?

And sometimes what is I'm seeking can be easily , more easily , found through what do I feel like I'm missing , or feels dysregulated , or isn't working ? Any of those are saying the same thing what isn't working for me ? When I know what isn't working for me , then the question becomes what can I do ? It could be breath , it could be ice .

I think at that point I used to be adverse to this next answer just because I think I was too proud . But I think from that point there's two ways you can do it .

One you go and you seek some kind of professional help , whether it's a doctor or a therapist or even someone who , for example , like myself , people come to me and ask me around ideas , around ice bats and getting into it . Just reach out to someone that you know like and trust and also you genuinely know that they give a fuck about your well-being .

That has to be the most important thing that they are more focused on you , getting what you need , than putting a dollar in their pocket Super important . But outside of that , you can read books . You can go on YouTube .

There's tons of free breathwork protocols that are on there , simple ones that are very like cooling and relaxing , parasympathetically talked about .

Or if you want something more sympathetic and alert , you can literally go on YouTube and say energizing breathwork or calming breathwork , and they are there and there's not going to be , to my knowing , any inherent risk that's going to come with those .

So I think step one is know thyself , know what you want and also , by product of that could be knowing what you don't want , and then it's getting help . Whether it's free resources or reaching out to someone , those are always great places to start .

And talking , even within the realm of breathwork , you know , we've heard along the way so many different people who teach it differently , who see it differently , who say you know , these are the kinds of people who I help and these are the kinds of people who I help . Here's the techniques that I use .

There's so many different ways and it's the knowing thyself . That point number one that you said is get to know yourself , and there are also experts who can help you get to know yourself . If you're even like , okay , actually step one , that's really hard , I don't know myself . That was me . I get that .

There are people out there , there are coaches out there who will help you to know yourself .

Don't do what I try to do and someone's trying to do , which is figure it all out in one sitting and get overwhelmed Like I can't figure out where to start . It's like step one just find one thing that's working , one thing that's not working and one thing you'd like to call in more of . That's a great simple way to start .

I still have the same hairstylist that we've been doing each other's hair for 20 years and I still fly home to Kansas so that I can get my hair done from her and I live in Oregon now .

But anyway , one of the things that I noticed and I think this just applies to just human nature in general is that people would never so often people wouldn't know what they want .

They would come in and they'd be like I don't know what I want , but where I could start was what they didn't want , because we know what we don't want , like we know what we don't like . That's so easy for us .

So if it's easier for you to start on step two and do those journaling exercises to back into step one , I'm curious what you think about this , but I just noticed that so often it was easy to start there because it's like oh , I already know that that's easy and then I can start to back into what I actually do desire and do want .

but let's just say the masculine energy is more structured and has its path , versus the feminine dynamic is more fluid and , I think , more like water .

So if you have a creek and it has all the different rocks and things , it creates , the structure with which the water can flow and that being the feminine , well , for me , I like to have the structure , for example , those three questions . But I also like to say that feminine is where does your intuition , where does your spirit ?

Whatever word relates to you , your gut , where does it take you ? Because if you don't know immediately what you want , but what you do know is what you don't like , think of it in terms of relationship and you want to figure out . If I say , let's go and figure out your fuck yes , relationship , I always like to play this game , right , what is my fuck yes ?

Well , I don't know my fuck yes as well . Talk to me . Let's do a little bit of my curious anthropology here . What are some experiences that you've had in your past with people that you've dated that you didn't like ? What are some clear red flags ? As I've been listening to what's his name ? Super good looking , funny guy recently .

It'll come back to me , but he does this bit around red flags . He's like guys , girls what are some red flags in relationships ? And if you figure out what your red flags are , then you can say well , I know that it's important to me and someone that I'm dating for them to be empathetic to my experience .

Like they can't just always make it about them and not hear what I'm having to say and always have something to say back . Like they have to be really open to being empathetic and to communicate . It's also really important to me . Just be honest , I'm vain , like someone that I find attractive .

I need to be attracted to them because that's important to me and that's something I want to also have there , because I know that I've had experiences . I'm making this up . I had an experience like a date with someone I just didn't feel as attracted to them . That's something wrong about them .

It's just like I didn't experience in the same way that not everyone finds me attractive , so like , okay , that's something else , as we get more clear about what we don't want . I don't want someone who loves Trump or whatever weird thing , like that is Like whatever their thing is , maybe you do love Trump . It doesn't matter .

I'm not actually knocking on Trump , but like you figure out the things you don't want and then from that you can then look at the other side and say , well , I do value someone who will just like love me as I am , and then you play that game , so I don't think that there's any again . One shoe fits all .

It's like ride the flow as the flow comes to you .

Tell me what to do , and it's like I'll just go jump in the ocean and enjoy it and find out what feels fun to you . But we don't . Is there anything that we haven't covered in this conversation ? Speaking about breath work and the things that can support people in regulating their nervous system , coaching anything that you just want people to know .

Find your community , find your tribe , because for me , a lot of my game in this lifetime has become playing the game of fuck yes and fuck no , because it's the indifference and the ambiguity in the center that , I think , robs us of the richness of the polarity of being really fully in or being fully out in . Either one of those is totally cool .

Honor your fuck yes . Find what your most important truths are and stick to those , because why can't we be the ones who rewrote the narrative where the number one regret of the dying was that they lived a , that they lived a life that was untrue to them ? What if we turn that upside down in his head ? What if we started to live authentically ?

What if we did that and recognized and we didn't have to do it alone , because another one , another top regret of the dying is that they wish they'd been closer to their friends and their family .

Be proximal and be vulnerable and be honest when you're not living in integrity with your truth , because that's the only way that we move towards that full fuck yes , aliveness versus the lying to ourselves and moving towards that numbness . And it's like eating food that's flavorless . Let's enjoy this very terse existence while we have it .

Not that being time with self is important . I actually think it's super important . I think that the greatest healing , growth , transformation , everything I've ever done , those moments I can , almost all of them , contribute to being in a space for people where I felt gotten and fully fucking gotten , and loved and accepted .

So when those urges come for me to isolate because of what's going on in my head , the anxiety , the stress , whatever it is , I'm reminded that the magic is in my peoples and also I reflected back that I am also the magic too , and so are you .

That's been a journey for me because it's fucking vulnerable , to be honest and to be truthful with the people who you love the most , and so we will just skirt it like crazy . But the more honest we are with ourselves , the easier that becomes , and then you're just so much richer for your community when you're richer for yourself .

So thank you for that reminder . What an important reminder . Beautiful note to end this on , can I add ?

This is something I heard way back when , but it really stuck for me and what a tragedy it is that you let me in in your greatest moments to celebrate with you , but you robbed me of the gift of being with you when you were at your lowest , and I think it's really easy for us to be open and to be alive and to be excited when we feel good .

But fuck , wouldn't it be magical if we allowed ourselves to be seen in our lowest lows and realize we were just as level and worthy ? That , to me , would also be really magical . And seeing that there's a gift and being witnessed and held in both , and allowing ourselves to witness and hold others in that as well .

It's holding space for people to feel safe , even at their worst , even in those lows , even dipping into that bag that you have sealed up and double and triple bagged and said I'm never going to look at this again . I'm just never , never going to . You're creating those safe spaces for people to do it .

So thank you for the work that you do and for coming on and sharing on the podcast today .

on and sharing so vulnerably and sharing all of the research that he has done and all of his knowledge that he has gained over his years of coaching people and supporting people everything that he knows about the nervous system . I hope you learned something from Wolf today in this episode .

If you would like to connect with Wolf , you can go follow him on Instagram . Follow the Wolf . He's got all of his links there . I've also included all of the links to his work , to what he does , so that you can follow him , follow along and go back and watch some of his posts from the cold experiment that he did .

Go and catch all of his content over there on his Instagram , check the show notes and you can go connect with Wolf . Thank you so much for listening to this episode . If there was something in this episode that you gained for yourself , I encourage you to share it on social media . Tag me , tag Wolf . We will both reshare your post .

If you tag us , we really appreciate that you would listen and that you would share this informative and transformative content with others out there in the world . You just keep shining your magical unicorn light out there for all to see . I'll see you next time . Bye .