Reclaiming Consciousness

Before today's episode notes, I have a BIG ANNOUNCEMENT:

After 4+ years of continuously making and sharing new episodes for you, Reclaiming Consciousness will go through a 90-day pause. 

As with everything in life, I feel an evolution is needed for the show, and although I have a few ideas on my mind on what the next chapter will look like, I prefer to keep it as a surprise for you until the day comes. 

Obviously, all the episodes will remain available for you. I'll also be creating playlists on Spotify, organized by topic so you can easily find your favorite content.

As always, THANK YOU so much for being there. See you soon!

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"There's just a lot of facilitator stories where the facilitator's almost chasing catharsis, 'cause that feels good for the ego. They wanna see the screaming and the big cries, and they're chasing it at the expense of the agency of the breather, and that's when it can become re-traumatizing."

Today I'm joined by Megan Ashton, founder of Unity Breathwork, and this is a conversation every single person who's ever considered breathwork, or who's already facilitating it, needs to hear. 
Megan spent almost 20 years chasing healing through holistic nutrition, clinical hypnotherapy, shamanic work, and a genuinely traumatic week with ayahuasca before conscious connected breathing finally did what nothing else could. We get into her own history with alcohol dependency and bulimia, and how breathwork succeeded where so many other modalities failed her, including me, since I went through something strikingly similar myself.

But where this episode really goes deep is the safety conversation almost no one in this industry is having out loud. Megan and I talk about the real danger of combining breath holds with connected breathwork (including seizures she's witnessed firsthand), the guru complex some facilitators fall into, why chasing catharsis can actually re-traumatize people, and what "trauma-informed" is supposed to mean versus what it's become.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Megan's 15-year healing quest: nutrition, hypnotherapy, shamanic healing, and a traumatic week with ayahuasca
• The Bali breathwork session that finally released decades of grief and ended Megan's eating disorder
• Why most addictions are rooted in trauma, not willpower
• Alyse's own experience healing an eating disorder through breathwork
• Why talk therapy and EMDR hit a ceiling: the case for working bottom-up through the body
• Red flags in facilitators: chasing catharsis, guru energy, forcing the breath, exploiting vulnerable states to sell
• The real danger of combining breath holds with connected breathwork
• What "trauma-informed" actually means (and why a 50-hour certification isn't it)
• How to vet a breathwork facilitator or training program before you commit

CONTACT MEGAN

• unitybreathwork.com
• Instagram unitybreathwork
• Facebook unitybreathwork
• Trauma-Informed Breathwork Facilitator Training
• Free Conscious Connected Breathwork Journey
• Breathwork Retreats (Sayulita, Mexico)

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**

• When you leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts and send us a screenshot of it, we'll send you a $250 credit that you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Join me in The Metamorphosis which is my 3-month, groundbreaking, flagship program to rapidly and efficiently clear the familial and ancestral trauma that is blocking you from experiencing the wealth and freedom that you desire.
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start again at the end of September.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"There's always a reason why you feel how you feel, and if you tell yourself that you shouldn't feel that way, that doesn't function or change anything... I think that the whole therapy model is deeply flawed, and that's not talking $hit to any therapist. "

It felt like the right time to say some things I don't think enough people are saying. In my work, and in the way I look at healing childhood wounding, clearing trauma, and creating real transformation, I see the same misapplications over and over. People take true, powerful concepts like karma, or teachings from Buddhism, or "just do your inner child work," and apply them so black-and-white that it actually keeps them stuck instead of setting them free.

In this episode, I'm getting into why feeling your feelings is a skill nobody actually teaches you, least of all in a therapy program (mine never mentioned trauma once, in a full master's in counseling psychology). I'm also saying something I don't think enough people are willing to say: how screaming and crying your way through a breathwork session, or doing plant medicine without integration, can become its own form of avoidance. 

This is the paradigm shift I'm building my work around, and I wanted you in it with me.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Why concepts like karma and spiritual bypassing keep people stuck instead of setting them free
• The difference between healing childhood wounding and having a consistent spiritual practice
• The real meaning of "addressing" your feelings
• Why a full master's program in counseling psychology never once mentioned trauma
• The truth about holotropic breathwork, screaming, and when catharsis becomes avoidance
• Why plant medicine can show you the truth without helping you live it
• The moment I realized my own coping mechanism was leaving my body
• The Metamorphosis Method® vs. Traditional therapy

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**

• When you leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts and send us a screenshot of it, we'll send you a $250 credit that you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Join me in The Metamorphosis which is my 3-month, groundbreaking, flagship program to rapidly and efficiently clear the familial and ancestral trauma that is blocking you from experiencing the wealth and freedom that you desire.
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start again at the end of September.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"Your mom can be one of the people that you love the most in the world and that you feel the most connected to, and also one of the people that hurt you the most... I always used to be in this place where I'm like, 'Why does everyone love my mom so fucking much?' She drives me insane."

This week I'm getting personal about the mother wound, not the framework, but my actual relationship with my own mom. Your mother can be someone you love deeply, someone everyone adores, someone who did everything she could for you, and still be the person who wounded you most. Both are true at the same time. And when the wounding is subtle, when your mom was "a good mom," it's actually so much harder to see, because part of you keeps insisting it must not be that.

I share the boundary I had to set when I first started my business, the moment my mom finally didn't take my work personally, and the quieter pattern underneath it all: learning as a kid that support wasn't safe, that I had to handle everything alone. Have you ever wondered why your mom triggers you when she's genuinely a good person?, or Why you can't seem to receive support even when it's right there? 

I'm sure this episode will help you see things more clearly.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Holding two truths at once: loving your mom and acknowledging she hurt you
• Why a "good mom" wound is harder to see than obvious neglect or abuse
• "Don't make it about you" - Setting boundaries with my mom early in my business
• The validating moment my mom stopped taking the work personally
• "It always comes back to your mom" - recreating her, or the feeling of her, in your relationships and business
• Why crying about a fight isn't emotional processing... and what is
• Feeling an emotion through the lens of where it started
• Riding the emotional wave to completion without suppressing or spinning
• Learning that support felt unsafe and how hyper-independence becomes a cap
• How unconscious coping mechanisms quietly drive your results

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**

• When you leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts and send us a screenshot of it, we'll send you a $250 credit that you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Check out The Mother Wound series on my YouTube channel
• Join me in The Metamorphosis which is my 3-month, groundbreaking, flagship program to rapidly and efficiently clear the familial and ancestral trauma that is blocking you from experiencing the wealth and freedom that you desire.
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start again at the end of September.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"You have set up this pattern where you completely abandon yourself unconsciously and make it about the other person because you believe on an unconscious level that that is the way that you will get love, connection, and ultimately survive."

Codependency is one of those words I've avoided for a long time, not because it isn't real, but because I think it gets oversimplified in a way that misses what's actually happening. The deeper I go in my own process and the deeper I take my clients who've been doing this work for a while, the more I see that the layers of codependency we're dealing with aren't just behavioral. They're energetic. They started before we had language for any of it. And they've been running silently underneath every relationship, every decision, and every moment we've felt depleted, resentful, or like we're hitting a wall, without understanding why.

What I've been uncovering, for myself and for the women I work with, is that so much of what we think is just "who we are" is actually a set of coping mechanisms we created in childhood to survive the emotional environment we were in. The way we automatically say yes. The way we absorb other people's feelings and lose track of our own. The way we don't even realize we have a choice.

In this episode, I'm diving into what the deeper layers of codependency actually look like energetically, why they're so hard to see, and what it's meant for me to start pulling on these threads in real time, including some very personal things I've been navigating.


TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Why codependency goes far deeper than its mainstream definition
• How childhood coping mechanisms get wired into the nervous system as survival responses, not conscious choices
• The mother wound as the blueprint for every relationship pattern that follows
• The Boomer generation, Pluto in Leo, and why narcissistic tendencies in parents are more common than most people realize
• Why highly sensitive, empathic women often can't tell the difference between their own feelings and everyone else's
• The moment I recognized I'd been operating from guilt and shame every time I said yes
• How the same patterns that come from trauma become your greatest gifts once they're alchemized
• The energetic and astrological context for why so many of us are in a deep unraveling right now
• The questions to ask yourself when you're stuck, depleted, or repeating the same patterns

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**

• When you leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts and send us a screenshot of it, we'll send you a $250 credit that you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Check out Breathwork to Heal Anxiety on my YouTube channel
• Join me in The Metamorphosis which is my 3-month, groundbreaking, flagship program to rapidly and efficiently clear the familial and ancestral trauma that is blocking you from experiencing the wealth and freedom that you desire.
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start again at the end of September.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

 "Your life is a garden and whatever you cultivate is what springs up, and if you don't pull out certain weeds, it ends up choking out the good stuff."

My good friend, Dr. Word Smith is back for the third time. He flew into Philly, we sat down with zero agenda, and what came out was one of the most honest, layered conversations I've had on this show about relationships, childhood wounds, codependency, Buddhism, karma, and what it actually takes to change.

We get into why intimate relationships are the sharpest mirror we have for our unprocessed childhood material, and why most of us don't even have language for what we didn't receive growing up, only a feeling that something was missing. Word shares his own journey through toxic shame, perfectionism, and self-criticism, and what it looked like to actually move through it over 25 years of real inner work. We also dive into Buddhism, the concept of seed planting, why just changing your thoughts doesn't work, and why the feelings and the body have to be part of the equation.

Then we go deep into codependency, the slow, invisible way it builds, how it rewards you just enough to keep you stuck, and what it means to finally hit the wall where continuing the old way is no longer an option.
We talk about the container: what it means to have a safe space where your body knows it can finally feel, and why that safety isn't a luxury, it's the actual mechanism of change.
We close with a tease: we may be co-facilitating a retreat this fall. Stay tuned.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Why intimate relationships trigger us more than anything else
• The moment Word finally understood what toxic shame was
• How to trace shame back to childhood: what questions to ask yourself
• Why affirmations alone don't work, and what you're missing when you skip the feelings and body
• Buddhism, karma, and seed planting
• Codependency: a survival mechanism that stops serving you
• The perimenopause layer: why women in their 40s suddenly can't tolerate the old patterns anymore
• Self-abandonment disguised as being a good mom, wife, partner, and how to start seeing it
• The container: why your body knows when it's safe to feel, and why that space is the key to processing
• Fall retreat announcement. More details coming soon
  
  

CONTACT DR. WORD SMITH

Dr. Word Smith is an energy worker, coach, Buddhist scholar, and Chinese medicine doctor with 25 years of experience helping people with manifestation, healing, and result-based transformation. 

• Visit drwordsmithwisdom.com
• Follow on IG dr.wordsmithwisdom

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**

• When you leave a review of the podcast on Apple Podcasts and send us a screenshot of it, we'll send you a $250 credit that you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Join me in The Metamorphosis which is my 3-month, groundbreaking, flagship program to rapidly and efficiently clear the familial and ancestral trauma that is blocking you from experiencing the wealth and freedom that you desire.
• Check out my newest video on my YouTube channel What's the Inner Critic + 7-Min Breathwork to Release It
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

 "The only way to not feel uncomfortable is to take full responsibility for your inner landscape."

I have one of my favorite people back on the show, David Cutler, and this time we went somewhere I've wanted to go for a while. We talk about men, feelings, and why there's still such a massive gap between men and women doing this kind of inner work. 

David shares his own story with a lot of honesty, including the moment at 13 when his dad made it clear that crying wasn't allowed anymore, and how martial arts, music, and embodied practice became the thing that kept him connected to himself when culture was pushing him out.

We talk about where emotions actually live in the body, what it means to take self-responsibility without turning it into self-blame, and why codependency isn't the opposite of independence: it's the opposite of interdependence. 

We also get into positive projection, the blueprint our early relationships create for how we experience love, and what actually shifts when you stop outsourcing your emotional landscape and come back to yourself. David is one of the best manifesters I know, and by the end of this episode you'll understand exactly why.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• What gets shut down in men around age 13, and the cultural enforcement behind it
• Why emotions aren't in your head. Most men have lost access to that
• The "cobwebs": what it takes to come back into felt connection with yourself
• Holding the energy in session but falling apart everywhere else... what's actually happening
• Self-responsibility without self-blame
• What it means when you can't yet see your own goodness
• Codependency is not the inverse of independence
• The fear that dissolving codependency means disappearing
• Manifestation as a byproduct: when there's nothing in the way, things just unfold

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**  

• When you leave a review of the podcast, send us a screenshot and we'll send you a $250 credit, you can apply to anything else in my world.
• The Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Breathwork Certification is a 6-week intensive designed to help you use this specific breathwork modality to accelerate your own results, and hold space powerfully for others.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT DAVID

• Sign in to David's Energetic Circle
• Follow on IG davidleoncutler
• Get the Prove Your Power Program

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"You can't really help the world from burning if your house is on fire. Once I accepted that, the real true quantum nature of healing, that it ripples out and it has these outsized effects that we can't see... it was like a massive relief."

Today we have Aubrey Morgan Yee, systems alchemist, futurist, author, and founder of Our Beloved Futures. Aubrey holds a PhD in Alternative Futures and Indigenous Politics, and her life's work is helping people remember that the future is not a fixed point. It's something we're actively co-creating, moment by moment, with every choice we make and every wound we refuse to carry forward.

It struck me how her path to that understanding mirrors what I see in my own clients: the moment you stop trying to fix everything outside of you and turn the work inward, everything changes. We talked about what it really means to live through a time of collapse, not from a place of fear, but from a place of radical possibility, and why the most powerful thing any of us can do right now is heal ourselves first.

We also explored how the systems we were taught to rely on were never as stable as we believed, and how the unraveling happening in the world right now is also an invitation. An invitation to remember who you actually are underneath the programming, to reconnect with what genuinely lights you up, and to start building a life that belongs to you rather than one you inherited by default.

The caterpillar doesn't ask why it isn't a butterfly yet. It just does what it's here to do.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Healing yourself is the most political act you can take right now
• Realizing "I couldn't outthink my way to safety"
• How Aubrey's relationship with alcohol became the catalyst for her deepest transformation
• What systems collapse actually means for your inner work...it's not as scary as it sounds
• Uncertainty isn't the problem: it's where pure possibility lives
• The gift hiding inside the things that feel like they're falling apart
• How to start consciously building the future you actually want to live
• The butterfly metaphor

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**  

• When you leave a review of the podcast, send us a screenshot and we'll send you a $250 credit, you can apply to anything else in my world.
• The Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Breathwork Certification is a 6-week intensive designed to help you use this specific breathwork modality to accelerate your own results, and hold space powerfully for others.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT AUBREY

• ourbelovedfutures.com
• Get the Book Our Beloved Futures
• Get in on Audio / Ebook 
• Listen to Beloved Futures Podcast

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"People say that they want to change, but behind every new job, new romance, big move is a potentially uncomfortable conversation, experience, shift... True change requires you to do things that are gonna feel really uncomfortable." 

Right now, the energy is intense, and if you've been feeling it, you're not imagining it. In this episode, I sit down with my longtime friend and fellow guide Andrea Donnelly for one of our honest, unfiltered conversations about what's actually happening beneath the surface of all this collective chaos. 

We dig into why your triggers are so loud right now, why that's not a sign that something has gone wrong, and what it really means to stay the course when everything feels like it's dissolving.

We also get into something I see constantly with my clients: the trap of waiting until life looks a certain way before you allow yourself to move forward. Whether you're holding back in your business, your relationships, or your healing, we talk about the programming underneath that pattern, where it comes from, and how to start loosening its grip. This one is real, raw, and full of the kind of perspective that actually helps you breathe through what you're carrying.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Why the matrix comes hardest when transformation is most available
• Being triggered doesn't mean the work isn't working — it means it is
• The butterfly metaphor: what it actually looks like to dissolve before you transform
• "I'll be happy when..." — the unconscious trap keeping you stuck in delay
• Whose definition of perfect are you subscribed to?
• Feeling the full spectrum: why shutting down the pain also shuts down the joy
• Becoming a student of yourself as the most advanced thing you can do
• Energy work as reclaiming authority over your own field
• Why the goal was never a perfect life — it was the ability to move through things fast

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**  

• When you leave a review of the podcast, send us a screenshot and we'll send you a $250 credit, you can apply to anything else in my world.
• The Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Breathwork Certification is a 6-week intensive designed to help you use this specific breathwork modality to accelerate your own results, and hold space powerfully for others.
• Download The Core Wound Solution Private Podcast Learn the simple process that took me from broke school counselor to 7 figures and has helped 100's of my clients do the same.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ANDREA

• weareheretoremember.com 
• IG @seawitchery
• Cosmic Alchemy Academy — Ongoing program through December, focused on reclaiming your divine intelligence and working with energy in tangible, practical ways. Next call: April 21st. 
• Future Medicine Certification Program — Andrea's full methodology for mastering your own energy and becoming a certified practitioner.

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

"You're afraid of feeling the uncomfortable emotions. You're already feeling it. It's a lot more work to avoid it or resist it than to actually feel it, because when you actually feel it, it doesn't last for that long." 

Back from a week of deep body work in Arizona, and I came home with a lot to say. Something shifted for me around the way trauma actually lives in the body, not just conceptually, but in a visceral, pinpoint-it-exactly kind of way. And it's changing how I think about the fastest path to transformation right now, in this specific moment on the planet.

In this solo episode I'm getting into why so many people are feeling called to shed old versions of themselves: the patterns, the relationships, the ways of showing up that just don't fit anymore. With the outer planets shifting signs and Aries energy dominating the collective, we are in a genuine rebirth cycle. And the emotions coming up aren't a problem. They're the portal. 

I also share about my new Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Breathwork Certification, who it's really for, and why learning to facilitate breathwork will make you better at everything, whether you ever work with clients or not.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

• Deep somatic healing: what a week of body work revealed about trauma
• Why you're feeling called to shed what no longer fits right now
• Your authentic self vs. your survival self
• Anxiety is just suppressed emotion trying to move - what to do with it
• Why breathwork works when everything else hasn't
• The surprising reason holding space for others accelerates your own growth
• The Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Certification: The why, the what, and the who's it for

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**  

• When you leave a review of the podcast, send us a screenshot and we'll send you a $250 credit, you can apply to anything else in my world.
• The Metamorphosis Method Level 1 Breathwork Certification is a 6-week intensive designed to help you use this specific breathwork modality to accelerate your own results, and hold space powerfully for others. Investment: $997. This week only: subscribe to my YouTube channel, comment on your favorite video, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Send me screenshots of all three and I'll send you a $300 discount code.
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start at the end of March.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]

We’ve all felt it... that sharp, lingering sting of being left out in middle school or the weight of a friendship that suddenly went cold. Why is it that our relationships with other women can feel so much more complex, and sometimes even more painful, than our romantic ones?. In this episode, I’m joined, once again, by my dear friend Dr. Robyn McKay to dive deep into the wounding and the healing of female friendships.

We start with a vulnerable reflection on our own journey, from meeting in a mastermind to the unwavering loyalty that defines our bond today. We explore those early childhood wounds, from the "middle school matrix" of social hierarchy to the hard, protective exteriors we build as teenagers to avoid being hurt again. As business owners and leaders, we often focus on our professional output, but the truth is that your ability to scale and lead is deeply tied to your capacity for authentic connection.

This conversation is our invitation to value your friendships as an act of valuing yourself. Reach out to that old friend today...you might make their day.

TODAY'S HIGHLIGHTS

(00:00) Why Adult Friendships Are So Hard
(07:55) When Friends Walked Away: Middle School Trauma
(14:50) The Party I Wasn't Invited To
(21:00) Regina George and the Mean Girls Effect
(27:54) What Your Mom's Friendships Taught You
(34:00) Breaking Down in Friendships: When to Stay or Walk Away
(42:26) Reality TV Ruins Female Friendship
(50:19) Why Women Need This More Than Romance
(56:00) Creating Sacred Containers for Connection
(60:00) "Be the Friend You Want to Have"

**WAYS TO ENTER MY WORLD**  

• When you leave a review of the podcast, send us a screenshot and we'll send you a $250 credit, you can apply to anything else in my world.
• Practical solutions, breathwork sessions, journaling prompts, and more... That's what's happening every Wednesday on my YouTube Channel It's a 1:1 space where you'll find lots of resources, no matter if you're a business owner or not. Make sure to share, like, and subscribe!
• Starting a business or working with clients? You need to sign up for The Metamorphosis Method This is the only Breathwork and Trauma Certification Program that closes the gap between spirituality and therapy to create predictable and permanent results with your clients. We start at the end of March.
• Questions? Let's jump on a call 

CONTACT ROBYN

• drrobynmckay.com 
• Follow on Instagram
• Listen to She{ology}

CONTACT ALYSE

• YouTube @alysebreathes
• alysebreathes.com
• IG @alyse_breathes
• [email protected]