186 Breathwork, Orgasms and Trauma Release with Natasha De Grunwald

Join me and Natasha De Grunwald in our gritty conversation about navigating menopause with breathwork. Natasha is an expert in breathwork and trauma healing, and we discuss the profound impact of breathwork on women's health, particularly during menopause. Also in this conversation, we talk about…

🌱 The Role of Touch in Trauma Healing

🌱 The Trauma Release Method Explained

🌱 Embracing Joy and Self-Discovery

🌱 The Power of Seismic Orgasmic Breath

🌱 Understanding Female Sexuality and Healing

🌱 Navigating Menopause and Emotional Healing

🌱 The Importance of Retreats for Transformation

So if you’re ready to be educated and inspired, tune in now.

DM me for the link or see link in bio or just search The Menopause Mindset episode 186

Natasha’s Links:

Website: www.natashadegrunwald.co.uk

Sally's Links:

[Free Guide] Healing The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtraumatheguide

[On Demand Masterclass 2 hours] How To Heal The Trauma Underlying Your Menopause Symptom Severity [£17] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/healingtrauma

[On Demand Workshop] Redefine Your Values at Menopause and Live Life in Alignment With Them [£27] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/redefine 

[Online Practitioners Diploma - Self Paced] Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

[One to One] Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

So my guest today is Natasha De Grunewald. Natasha is a published author, an international breathwork, trauma and somatic expert. She's the founder of the Trauma Release Method and the Seismic Orgasmic Breath Experience. She's based in London and Brighton and travels internationally to host

Transformational Retreats. So Natasha, welcome to the podcast today. How you doing?

Natasha (00:33.89)
Thanks, smiling widely here. I'm very well, thank you. Really good. Yeah, I've been playing tennis today, so for about three hours. So I'm feeling all nice and relaxed now after that practice of mine.

Sally (00:46.668)
I going to say, I wonder what that glow was. You're really glowing at the moment, which is really nice to see. So I'm excited because you have been on the podcast before and last time you were here, we were speaking more about the body and Thai massage and we were talking about the Thai perspective of health. I remember you talking about wind a lot, like the wind element.

Natasha (01:12.556)
Mmm.

Sally (01:14.39)
And I was thinking about that the other day, because I had really painful TMJ as I was walking along the seafront and it was really, really windy and that concept popped into my head actually. So maybe we can talk about that a little bit. But it was a lovely conversation. But today you're back with other aspects of your business, breath work, trauma release, retreats, and we're going to cover all of that. So I would love to start with breath work.

if that's all right with you. Can you explain a little bit more about what breath work is and how it can potentially support women going through the menopause?

Natasha (01:42.486)
Yeah.

Natasha (01:52.118)
Hmm, I can, yes, indeed. So, I mean, breathwork is very popular right now. It's kind of very fashionable. And, I mean, there's many things I could say about it, but I think in relation to people who are in menopause, it's very good for helping regulate your nervous system. And there's many, many different practices that you can, different ways of breathing, and they kind of do different things. And that's not...

going to be new to anyone. I'm sure any of your listeners will know that already. I think that because when you inhale, inhale and exhale and you do it with kind of conscious awareness, you can, you can get stuff moving through the system. That could be your nervous system. Well, it will be your nervous system, which obviously has a direct link to the endocrine system, the hormones.

the cardiovascular system, so your kind of heart tree. the breath can really... Because every time we've had some kind of trauma in our life, whether that's falling over and scraping your knee as a child when you came off your bike, having a sexual trauma, having a car accident or anything really, you did something to your breath. Your breath, you...

took a breath or you held your breath. And so the breath is actually very key to healing what is there in the body. And so it can be used as amazing medicine that is just sitting there under your nose to really to move things, you know, and when we're going through menopause, there's a lot moving, there's a lot changing, right?

It can be disconcerting. can be sort of discombobulating. love that word. We can feel quite out of sorts. We can feel quite out of contact with ourselves. don't quite often don't know who we are anymore. Sometimes we're like, my God, I know exactly who I am. know, all those sort of, all those things can be going on, but there's always a big shift happening in the body. And the breath is like this incredible sort of expansion and contraction that

Sally (04:04.334)
Hmm.

Natasha (04:12.48)
we can work with consciously to really get things moving and to get clarity and, you know, for things like brain fog, for low energy, for sleep issues, even for like having better sex, we can use the breath. you know, yeah, I mean, I, yeah, I love it.

Sally (04:28.781)
Hmm.

It's such an amazing tool, isn't it? I've done a few breathwork sessions now and there's been some facilitators that I think have not been great, bit too regimented. And then other facilitators who have like not been present enough or not been, I don't know whether they were scared of what was coming up for people. Maybe they were, think they were training actually. So I think it's really interesting.

I don't know what I'm trying to say, like an interesting framework around holding the space for breath work, for actual breath work sessions I'm talking about here. Maybe we can talk, maybe you can speak to that a little bit. But I did want to just speak to something that you said earlier. Before I came onto this podcast, I had really bad brain fog, okay? And I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna do this. I went into my bedroom, laid down and did the breath of fire. You know, the...

Natasha (05:10.962)
Hmm.

Natasha (05:31.654)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Sally (05:32.398)
where you just pant in and out through your nose. Totally different. Brain alive now. How mad is that that it can just change your physiology straight away?

Natasha (05:38.498)
Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, the body has so much wisdom. There's a reason that we breathe and there's a reason that we can have all sorts of different breathing patterns. I mean, you know, we give birth, you do something with your breath. When you're dying, something happens to your breath. I was with my dad when he was taking his dying breath and it was quite phenomenal. There was this like part of me that was had my professional hat on and I was kind of observing him and just thinking,

this is really interesting. And the other part of me that was like his daughter and watching her dad die. you know, it was, you know, but the breath is actually amazing. And you know, when you have sex, do your breath, you hold your breath or you deep breathe or, know, and it can be used in so many powerful ways. So it doesn't surprise me. think what is

Sally (06:15.99)
Yeah.

Sally (06:24.686)
Hmm

Natasha (06:32.906)
amazing is how popular it's becoming. But I also want to just speak into what you just said about the facilitation, because obviously I have people from all around the world contact me way more regularly than I would like to tell me about experiences they've had with facilitation, where it has re-traumatized them, where they haven't felt safe. And like you just said, you you felt like, because you're very perceptive, you you felt like maybe that.

person in training was a bit scared by what was coming up because the breath holds trauma. you know, if people don't know how to hold, you know, space, it's dangerous. And I literally have so many people sadly contacting me saying, I feel really re-traumatized because I went to a breathwork experience. And that is just something I'm really passionate about. I rant on about it quite a lot on Instagram, because for me, safety is my core value in my business.

And the idea that something that is so beautiful as the breath is causing harm because people shouldn't really be doing that work yet. Maybe they haven't done their own work or they're not experienced enough or whatever. It concerns me. in the trauma release method, which I know we're going to talk about, actually, could teach people to do group breath works because it would make me a lot of money, but I won't because safety is my core value.

And I believe that people who do breath work facilitation should do it one to one first for a couple of years, because you learn so much and it's safe, you know, and you start holding group reads and every single person in the room is doing something with their breath. And there's this crazy energy that starts moving between everyone and internally. And that is a lot to hold, you know, and yeah, it's.

I think it's, you know, that's the kind of dark side of the fashion in the wellness industry, you know.

Sally (08:29.216)
I see. Yeah, yeah, I see. I noticed that actually. it feels like, because I had a one to one breath work session recently and it was absolutely profound. It was just like, I mean, my mind, I'm very used to going into the theta state anyway. I can kind of click my fingers and go there. But with...

with the music and with the energy of a very skillful facilitator, you know, holding my hand and enabling me to kind of go there, but also really titrating it and coming back when she felt I needed to. And even that, with that level of titration, actually sent me into a, I don't like the word healing crisis, but it was a healing crisis the day after. And I just was like really ungrounded, felt really unsettled. And it took,

I would say a good two to three weeks to really start to integrate all of those parts that had been kind of opened up like raw wires, you know, that we're trying to look for another wire to connect with to get the brains, to get everything coherent again.

Natasha (09:36.524)
Yeah.

Natasha (09:40.77)
Yeah, and I think that's also where good facilitation comes in because a good facilitator will be offering ongoing support and you'll know where you can go. There's an anchor to your facilitator, you know, whereas that is clearly is often not happening, sadly. So, yeah.

Sally (09:52.536)
Yeah.

Sally (09:57.92)
You need to know a lot about psychology, psychotherapy, the trauma, the therapeutic process. It's not just let's breathe for a bit and you'll have this experience and then you go home. I love the fact that you're teaching your clients about trauma as well, your practitioners about trauma as well.

Natasha (10:18.85)
Yeah, yeah, I think the thing is as well is that, what was I going to say about that? It's just gone out of my head. Yeah. And I'm just, what was it? Yeah, don't worry. It will come back.

Sally (10:30.008)
That's okay. It will come back. Yeah, it will come back. I want to go back to menopause. If someone's listening to this going, yeah, that all sounds great, but you know, I'd like, I'm not ready to go to a breath work session yet. Even a one-to-one, how could people potentially use breath work exercises? Like what are some of the easy, basic breath work exercises that you can do to help?

regulate your nervous system.

Natasha (11:02.759)
I mean, really, it's very simple. It's taking an inhale through your nose and an extended exhale through your nose, ideally. But if it needs to be through your mouth, that's fine. But really, like really lengthening and slowing down that exhale. It's also looking to slow down the breath because we tend to breathe too much. And, you know, because

Sally (11:28.14)
Mmm.

Natasha (11:32.67)
often people are breathing into places like anxiety or stress when the breath will change in those in those kind of situations and you'll find that you breathe faster and more shallow and so then that sort of perpetuates a bit of a cycle so and obviously anxiety is often something that menopausal women are dealing with so just like slowing down the breath.

Sally (11:55.982)
Definitely.

Natasha (11:59.746)
just slowing it down just like even just taking some breath but keeping them really slow and even you know I don't really recommend breath holding unless you're being facilitated because there's contraindications to that but if you wanted to try just a very tiny little breath hold at the end of an exhale that will also help regulate the body because

generally we're taking in too much breath. And that actually is disease causing it kind of heightens the nervous system, right? When what we want to do is, is sort of down regulate things. So by breathing a little bit less, you see it sounds counterintuitive, but it actually, it's actually what the body needs. But I would say that if your listeners are wanting to experiment with that, I would say go and do it with a facilitator because

Sally (12:44.245)
It does, yeah.

Natasha (12:57.736)
like we said, the breath holds trauma and stuff can come up and you know, they want to do they'll want to take you through a consultation to make sure that you maybe you don't have high blood pressure and things which is contraindicated with breath holding for any length of time. But we want to train our body to breathe less and that will actually help us have a much more regulated nervous system.

Sally (13:19.306)
Okay yeah so slowing the breath down, deepening, so deepening and slowing the breath down gives us that more grounded energy. It's more parasympathetic, reduces the cortisol.

Natasha (13:26.24)
Yeah, yeah.

Natasha (13:30.248)
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, and also breathing through your nose, like we all need to be breathing through the nose, the mouth breathing. I was just with I have a membership, monthly membership. And one of my people in that today was just talking about the fact she did a breath work session with me on Mother's Day. And since then, she's noticed she's now breathing through her nose.

Sally (13:39.636)
Okay.

Natasha (13:56.008)
And it's been, you know, she's been absolutely amazed by it because she's been a mouth breather. So it's like sometimes like the right session at the right time with the right facilitator and your body knows it's got so much wisdom. know how to breathe, but generally we've been born into a shocking environment. When we were born at first breath can hold a lot of stress and then we can be in a pattern of stress breathing. So learning to come out of that stress breath.

Sally (14:10.082)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (14:15.223)
Mm-hmm.

Natasha (14:24.738)
is really key to helping regulate hormones and how good we feel and how good we look. Let's just get really, let's just talk about our looks exactly. Do you want to get that girls? Yeah, exactly.

Sally (14:30.784)
Mmm.

Sally (14:35.534)
Let's own it. I love that you just brought that in. That's fantastic. We don't talk about that enough, you're right. Okay, so yeah, birth trauma. So being born, you know, none of us remember it really, but being born is, our bodies remember it, okay, so it's that implicit memory.

Natasha (14:57.398)
We do actually, our bodies do.

Natasha (15:03.04)
Yeah, it's like the breath remembers quite often. Yeah, quite often you can go back to your birth through the breath. That's also quite amazing.

Sally (15:04.77)
The breath remembers. Okay.

Sally (15:11.764)
Yeah, you can actually. Yeah, I experienced, God, I experienced some crazy stuff on that breath journey. I went back through, like I was going back through past lives. sort of, I went back to the origin. I was in Africa before Africa, I was in the Middle East. And I understood some things about why I've rejected my Sicilian half origin. I'm half Sicilian.

And yeah, it's just so weird. Loads of stuff's coming up around that at the moment because I'm now getting my Italian passport as well. So it's like this whole identity thing, all stemming from that breathwork session. So birth trauma, it's a traumatic experience, right, when we're born. And, you know, we're not

Natasha (15:42.818)
you

Natasha (15:47.404)
Nice.

Mm. Mm.

Sally (16:00.812)
breathing through the mouth or then we're not breathing in the way that we breathe now when we're in the womb. So we're just kind of alive and floating in this lovely amniotic fluid. It's warm. It's, you know, we're with another person all the time. All our needs are met all the time. And then suddenly we're thrust out into the world. It's cold. We're breathing in a new way. All these people are around us. We've got all these lights on us. We're separated. You know, it's that original kind of separation anxiety. Do you think that

a lot of the trauma that we experience actually goes back to birth, like predominantly for most people.

Natasha (16:36.526)
I think it has a big impact. There's lots of studies and things around what you might see generally in a C-section baby or a baby that had run-twos and four-septs or a really long birth or whatever. There's actually patterns that emerge from that and things like having been

What's the word, you know, when you're, um, yes, induced, that's the word I'm looking for. I do as well. Thank you. It's like co-creation happening here. Um, yeah, you know, things like that will set up anxiety in the system. Those is kind of, so yeah, I do think it has an impact, but I don't think that means that we can't move through it. I think the breath can be really helpful.

Sally (17:07.594)
In... induced?

I love that that just popped into my head!

Yeah.

Natasha (17:34.242)
in understanding, it can never change the birth, but that's part of who we are, but it can definitely help us move through some of the habits, patterns, beliefs, or even physiological experiences that we hold in our body that can move from our releasing it or breathing into it or processing it, or I don't know what the words are because they will, yeah.

Sally (17:38.936)
sure.

Sally (17:51.98)
Yeah.

Natasha (18:03.596)
They get a bit jumbled all those words, don't they? But yeah, think there's, know, we have so much innate wisdom and it's, you know, it's easy to come back into balance with the right things.

Sally (18:03.682)
Yeah.

Sally (18:17.526)
Yeah, that's right. I think a lot of what we do that creates dis-ease in the body is holding, whether that's unconscious patterns or just reactions to sort of daily nuisances and things like that. And breathwork for me allows me to just sort of let go, be in that kind of letting go-ness of what really the nervous system needs to heal. Sorry, were you going to say something?

Natasha (18:47.302)
Yeah, I was gonna say that the breath also has this brilliant thing that happens which is it mirrors what we're like in real life so because you were talking about letting go the breath helps you to let go which it does but also for some people they will find that they find it really hard to surrender the exhale and You know because often when I when I'm doing like connected breath nose breathing You take a greedy inhale and you surrender the exhale

Sally (18:55.05)
Okay.

Sally (19:06.433)
Okay.

Natasha (19:16.47)
But that surrendering of the exhale can be really hard if you're controlling, which like most women are really controlling because we've had to be, you know, it's like how we've kept safe and how we've like taken, you know, charge of our lives and things like that. But it shows itself in the breath. It's really interesting. So it is good for surrendering and letting go. But sometimes that's a difficult thing, but it brings up a lot. And then you're like,

Sally (19:34.901)
Okay.

Natasha (19:44.266)
I see that my breath is just mirroring how I am in life and it's very fascinating. Yeah.

Sally (19:49.43)
The psyche is being mirrored in the breath. Yeah, that's so interesting. It comes back to that phrase, how you do anything is how you do everything. Yeah, yeah. So that, that just that kind of actual letting the breath release itself rather than forcing the breath out, which is what you can see, isn't it, in some breath work sessions where that, that exhale is really being forced out.

Natasha (19:58.722)
Exactly, yeah.

Natasha (20:17.131)
Well, that's quite a masculine breath, I would say. It's very pushy. I know there's a lot of Wim Hof lovers and all that sort of stuff, but actually exhaling really hard changes, again, the physiology. And in the sessions that I hold, it's something that I definitely kind of encourage people to.

Sally (20:23.168)
Mm-hmm.

Natasha (20:43.804)
not do because it can create a sort of, it can create something called tetany, which is where your hands and stuff cramp up, which is not dangerous as such, but it's, and some people love the feeling of it because it's quite intense and it does pass after the breath work experience is finished, but it does indicate that you're breathing out too hard. And it's again, I think for women,

Sally (20:50.008)
Hmm.

Sally (21:05.966)
Bye.

Natasha (21:09.212)
It's like that. We're so used to pushing ourselves, right? We're so used to working hard. And so again, this is where the breath can be such a beautiful medicine, because where can we soften? And I actually teach, because you talked about this earlier, I actually, the way that I like to facilitate breath work is connected breath, but through the nose. And it's very nervous system aware, because I think that our bodies respond best.

Sally (21:12.546)
Yeah.

Natasha (21:38.274)
to a gentle and slow approach to healing. We don't need to have those big cathartic experiences that everyone sees on Instagram and thinks, wow, that looks amazing, I wanna try that. I'm not saying they're not fun, they are, but in terms of healing trauma, they're not that helpful. actually, there's too much, too quick, and it bombards the nervous system, and we can be left very dysregulated with a lot coming up.

So I just work with this really slow, gentle approach to breathing and especially, well, not especially for women actually, because this is really beneficial for men. I work with a lot of men as well, even though my demographic tends to be women, men come to me anyway, but we all just need to like, chill out, slow down.

Sally (22:26.424)
Do know what popped into my head when you were saying that? That kind of masculine approach without wanting to sound like a staunch feminist, even though I probably am. That approach to breath work or to trauma work or to healing trauma seems like a traumatized approach to healing trauma. It's like it's getting lost. This idea of healing trauma is getting lost in the person's coping strategy.

Natasha (22:29.708)
Thank

Natasha (22:37.014)
Thank you.

Natasha (22:48.641)
Exactly.

Sally (22:55.17)
that coping strategy of grit and determination and you've got to heal your trauma is going into the way that they're facilitating. It's these multi-level...

Natasha (23:05.036)
totally.

It's a bit like back in the day, used to be no pain, no gain. It's that kind of approach, but coming out sideways in a different way with the new sort of fashion, know, the new wellness fashion is the same, same old demo. And, know, we all slip into it. I was doing a practice in my Inspire Club today and it was like a kind of ancient sort of tapping practice. And I suddenly thought, wow, I'm doing this really fast. What if I do it really slow? And then it was like, aha.

Sally (23:11.735)
Right.

Sally (23:18.081)
Yeah, you're right.

Natasha (23:36.322)
that feels really good, but I had to like keep coming back to slowing it all down. So yeah, because we're just fast, aren't we? Everything's fast. And especially if you're a bit ADHD and all those kinds of things, everything's fast and it feels like boring if it's not fast, but actually, like that's where the work is, right?

Sally (23:36.482)
Yeah.

Sally (23:52.674)
Yeah, yeah the work is in not doing the work sometimes is undoing not doing up yeah like backing off. What's come up for me is that how is how the the nervous system is an inroad to the rest of the body.

Natasha (23:59.68)
Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Sally (24:11.852)
So you said the nervous system in a sense controls the endocrine system. It can also control the cardiovascular system. I would imagine it can control all the systems.

Natasha (24:24.514)
Yeah, I mean, if you've got pain in your body, it's the nervous system is what is speaking to you. know, it's, you know, when I've done dissections and things, muscles are kind of not that interesting, really. They're just kind of like these sort of, I don't know, like, there's not a lot of depth in a muscle. But when you're looking at the nervous system and what it's doing, it's really fascinating. So.

Sally (24:30.669)
Yeah.

Sally (24:49.527)
Yeah

Natasha (24:50.508)
Yeah, and the breath is very linked to the nervous system, you know, so, yeah.

Sally (24:56.462)
So in that sense, the breath is an inroad to the nervous system, which then affects the rest of the body and can get into all those other systems.

Natasha (25:02.922)
Yeah, but I mean, things like, yeah, touches an inroad to the nervous system as well. would say, yeah, touch is a very often really overlooked component of trauma work. Because first of all, like we can have trauma to the body, like a C-section is cutting into every layer of the body that is a trauma.

Sally (25:08.225)
as well, yeah.

Natasha (25:30.474)
and the body holds it as a scar and a scar holds trauma. you know, I think one of the things that can be really overlooked that a lot of people aren't talking about in the trauma field is trauma to the body and then how that is affecting how you live your life and how you feel and how you stand and how you breathe and all the rest of it. So sometimes starting with the body is really profoundly healing and

is often and not always because sometimes people feel very unsafe in their bodies but it can be a way in where the breath is too much, talking is too much, know it can all those things they're just too much for people so the working gently and precisely with the body.

is a really amazing way of opening someone up. And I remember for years, you know, before I sort of really dropped into realizing what it is that I do, you know, and I was Thai massage teacher, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, this isn't what I do. And it took ages to find what it was. And actually the seismic orgasmic breath, which we'll talk about was

Sally (26:32.558)
Hmm.

Natasha (26:52.988)
actually where I just massively dropped into realizing what I'm here for and then my whole business changed. I mean it had been changing anyway. Why was I saying that? I love this menopausal brain going on.

Sally (27:07.728)
God, don't ask me. I was listening, obviously. But so you were talking about, yeah, touch. You're not just a Thai massage teacher. You found another sort of identity within that.

Natasha (27:13.954)
Why is it off on attention? It's talking about touch. yes, I know, I know.

Natasha (27:21.813)
I

It was just basically realising that this is so interesting. I'm doing a consultation with someone, trying to work out how I'm going to work with them. And they're very guarded about what they're saying. So I figure out kind of what I'm going to do with them. I put my hands on them. I do some of the techniques that I work with. And at the end of the session, like the floodgates are open. They're telling me all the stuff. They're talking about this, that, the other.

Sally (27:37.719)
Mm-hmm.

Natasha (27:53.332)
And then it's like, okay, because the body is a way in. The body is the way in. And this is really overlooked. mean, there is like the whole somatic approach to healing, which is like a, you know, bottom-up body first approach, but it's still often working with talking. It's not always working with touch. And touch is one of our oldest, you know,

Sally (27:57.72)
Yeah.

Sally (28:10.574)
Yeah.

Natasha (28:22.466)
our body knows it and it craves it and it actually thrives with it. So it's yeah, it's really, it's really quite interesting working often being able to go that way rather than that way.

Sally (28:37.88)
Yeah, very much so, because we often think of trauma as well as being something that happens to the psyche. But you're going in with, you're offering a different perspective saying that actually we have a lot of body traumas. mean, birth is kind of a body trauma. No.

Natasha (28:40.162)
Hmm.

Natasha (28:56.384)
Well, the body holds the trauma and it's not separate to the mind because we are not separate. But if we want to really heal trauma, we've got to go into the body as well because that's where it ended up. Even if it was like psychological abuse trauma.

Sally (29:12.012)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Sally (29:19.565)
Yeah.

Natasha (29:19.944)
it's ended up in the body. we can sort of reverse engineer almost using the breath, using touch, bringing in the coaching, getting people into what they notice in their bodies because people are so disconnected. And if there's been trauma, which there has for everyone, you know, basically it's...

we start living outside of ourselves because it becomes quite scary to be in our bodies and feel what's there. People are scared of what they feel. They worry that when they feel things, it will never stop and they'll never move. You know, it's like, I don't want to feel that and I don't want to look at that because that feels really scary because then you're letting go of a coping strategy that you you set up when you were a little kid and

Sally (29:56.503)
Yeah.

Sally (30:08.205)
Yeah.

Natasha (30:09.47)
and you know it really well and it's worked kind of okay up until now but actually we get stuck in that, know, so it's like how can we integrate things to really help people move through those traumas and touch is one, breath is one, coaching is another and those are the tools that I mainly work with.

Sally (30:23.127)
Yeah.

Sally (30:30.688)
Yeah, I love that. I love that approach to healing trauma. Yeah, can you tell us actually a little bit more about your own personal trauma release method and how, again, it might benefit someone going through the menopause transition?

Natasha (30:50.818)
The trauma release method is really an accumulation of all the things that I've worked with over the last four decades, which is, you know, I've studied around the world, I've worked, I've done a lot of human dissection, I've worked with people for decades and decades. And I started to figure out what it was that was actually

really effective, but also that meant that I could sustain it in my own body and in my own ability to hold what I'm working with. Because people trust me because I've had my own trauma and because I've done a lot of the work on myself, I have a kind of quite a strong grounded presence of someone that can be trusted. And so I started having people coming to me

for body work, for Thai massage, all the rest of it, but it never just stayed as that. It always opened stuff up. And so I realized, okay, people trust me, people wanna work with me. And I started bringing in more of the different things that I had done myself and my own healing and that I trained in and studied and researched and all that sort of stuff and created the method from that really. I've been working, yeah, I've been working with that for really many decades now.

And it's really, I love teaching it because I love to see where it's going, where my work is going into the world now. Like I said to you before we came on online, I've got a nurse, an A &E nurse signed up, clinical psychologists, know, high level people in wellness are coming in and doing the training with me, which I take, you know, really like means a lot to me because I can see what I'm doing is going out.

far and wide now. And yeah, it was very exciting. And then in terms of my own trauma, had my first boyfriend was sexually abusive to me. was 14, between the age of 14 and 16. And he beat the crap out of me, to be quite honest, not my two front teeth out, all of that. So from the age of 14, I was doing the inner work. So I'm now

Sally (32:50.029)
Yeah.

Sally (33:14.008)
Yeah.

Natasha (33:15.754)
I'll be 54 this year, I think. So it's been, you know, I've done a lot of work on myself to move through and come out and I'm really quite joyful and I love what I do. you know, it shows up, don't get me wrong. Of course it does still, there's still layers of it. But I'm...

I'm really like, I'm really like happy and joyful most of the time. I bring a lot of joy into my life. And I'm not scared of looking at things. Sometimes it's difficult, know, relationships and stuff like that. They trigger a lot of old wounds, but I kind of know myself and I know how to get support and I know how to move through. So yeah, this is what I like to share. This is what I...

Sally (33:47.608)
Yeah.

Natasha (34:09.836)
This is what I do. is, and, you know, the seismic orgasmic breath, which is something else that I do. The first time that I ran that, what I saw happening in a room with 50 people who came to breathe with me. Can I tell you the story of it quickly? So I just out of seemingly nowhere, obviously it wasn't out of nowhere, this seismic orgasmic breath dropped in to my consciousness.

Sally (34:25.93)
Yeah, please do!

Natasha (34:39.746)
and I applied to run it at the Breathe Festival, which is a festival that happens every year for geeky breathwork, breathworkers. And they said yes. And they put me, they put me on at the time that one of the head speakers at the festival was doing her, her thing. And I just thought, oh, you know, five people will come. And literally we couldn't have got one more. Then we had to pack people in like sardines. There was a queue, you had to turn people away.

Sally (35:07.768)
Wow.

Natasha (35:08.202)
And I was like, this is really interesting that so many people want to come and experience something called the seismic orgasmic breath. And they obviously didn't know what it was. And what it is really is I hold a space where you breathe into pleasure in your body. And there are very strong guidelines, but basically self-touch is encouraged.

Sally (35:34.702)
Okay. I can imagine.

Natasha (35:34.924)
So it gets quite wild. Let's put it that way. Everyone is in their own body and they're breathing. But what it's really about, even though orgasms do happen in the space, what it's really about is releasing shame. And what it's really about is people having freedom in their bodies.

Sally (35:41.026)
Love it.

Sally (35:48.685)
Yeah.

Natasha (35:59.778)
to experience pleasure. As I'm talking about it, I've got like goosebumps because it just is so powerful and so important. And this was a room full of men, women, all genders, all ages. There was a mother and a daughter there and the stuff that moved in that space, and I've run it quite a few times since, and it's always the same, is so healing. And the collective who realize

how much trauma and shame they're holding in their bodies and how that prevents joy and freedom and pleasure, which is something we are born to experience. And the seismic orgasmic breath just is like a portal to opening that up. It's amazing and I love it and I just love it. So it's got a really amazing name, but it's actually got a really deep, profound.

reason that I created it and it was when I held that that I just was like, this is what I'm here for. This is it. You know? Yeah.

Sally (37:00.066)
Yeah.

Sally (37:05.778)
Yeah, yeah, you knew it just dropped into you. it is so, I mean, pleasure is so important for women and for oxytocin, which is at the top of the hormone hierarchy. If we don't have enough oxytocin, the likelihood is we're operating with cortisol at the top, you know, and then all our sex hormones get deprioritized and we just feel icky and joyless and stiff and achy and all of that. So it really is...

Natasha (37:23.052)
Mm. Mm.

Sally (37:34.242)
but I think a way in. I mean, this doesn't sound like a beginner class for someone that's been buttoned up for many, years. Would you, I mean, what would you say to that?

Natasha (37:39.426)
you

you

Well, I would actually say that if it's something that piques your interest, then go for it because you've actually been breathing your whole life and all we're doing is holding a space for you to breathe in a certain way. so I think, I really think it doesn't matter if you've never done breath work before, if it's like, that sounds like something I want to do, then I would, I would do it.

Like, why not? The breath is your medicine. We can trust the breath to be the medicine, especially when it's in a really well-facilitated space. You know, and I have a team that work with me and they've done all the seismic orgasmic breaths with me. We've got a very strong team. So there's a big sort of support network there as well. I don't just hold it for 50 people on my own. That's not safe. So, yeah, yeah. It's, I would say if it piques your interest.

Sally (38:20.962)
Yeah.

Natasha (38:40.406)
get in touch, you you can only do it with me. And it's not tantra. It's, you know, it's none. It's not any of those things. It's the thing that I created. Yeah. Yeah, although.

Sally (38:41.452)
Yeah.

Sally (38:48.238)
Do you have your eyes closed when you're, yeah, so you're not kind of, you're not voyoring.

Natasha (38:55.628)
It's a very internal kind of experience. Yeah, so it's kind of bonkers.

Sally (39:03.724)
has definitely... yeah it sounds bonkers it's definitely piqued my interest okay

Natasha (39:11.498)
Yeah, well, the breath can help your orgasm, right? And, and often learning how to breathe into the genitals is, you know, it's pretty liberating. And then can I talk about the genitals a minute as well, because something that I've noticed over the 30 years that I've been working predominantly with women is they often like, as I said, the body opens up.

Sally (39:25.41)
Yeah, please do.

Natasha (39:38.518)
their ability to express. So often women will talk to me about their sex lives. They'll talk to me about having vaginismus and dryness and all of this. And I actually, and this is only my anecdotal evidence, but I think the body is speaking, right? I don't think, I think it's like that

Sally (40:03.619)
Yeah.

Natasha (40:08.27)
gateway is closing for a reason. And I really wanted to speak into this today because I think a lot of women have so much shame and disappointment with their bodies around this. But I want to just say that there's a reason your body, if you are suffering from that, why that is happening. And it's actually your body working for you, not against you.

Sally (40:12.035)
Yeah.

Sally (40:33.613)
Yeah.

Natasha (40:33.866)
And I really want that to be a message that I think is really important because it's so sad to me that I see so many women turn that sort of disappointment in their bodies on when actually their body is trying to, it's sending a message. Like something's out of alignment with the person that you are trying to have, let's say have sex with this, if that is proving to be sore and uncomfortable. Obviously there's the physiological thing that happens.

Sally (41:02.967)
Yeah.

Natasha (41:03.596)
to the vulva at that time, but I still believe that a lot of that is happening because of something else. There's something more deeply rooted. And I've seen this, the women that I've worked with, I've seen it change when they are in a better, healthier place, expressing their needs, not fawning, not people pleasing, not just doing everything for everyone, softening in their own bodies.

Sally (41:12.44)
Yeah.

Sally (41:17.218)
Mm-hmm.

Natasha (41:33.12)
Like, I really, it is really possible to be juicy again and not be in pain. I think that's a really important thing for women to know.

Sally (41:37.372)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (41:43.788)
Yeah, I love what you've said there about it's not like a condition that happens to you. It's not like your body is shutting down, your body is speaking to you. It is shutting down, but it's shutting down to protect you for a reason. And the reason is because you're not enjoying the sex that you're having or there's some kind of trauma around that area that's come up from the past. And often at menopause, sexual trauma can get reactivated.

Natasha (42:06.978)
Mm-hmm.

Sally (42:11.918)
because of the hormone changes, because our psyche is changing. And so the sexual trauma that you might have blocked out can now kind of come up to be looked at again as an opportunity. So it's finding the right practitioners, isn't it? Because if you go down the sort of traditional mainstream menopause route, it's just like, yes, some people get vaginal atrophy at menopause and you can just use a...

Natasha (42:24.352)
Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (42:37.358)
an oestrogen pessary which can be life-saving for many women but denying what else is going on is not helpful I think. I think there's always that mental, emotional, historical perspective that if we don't tune into we're missing really what menopause is all about actually, the metamorphosis.

Natasha (42:49.11)
Mm. Mm.

Natasha (43:01.346)
Mm hmm. I mean, menopause has been an amazing experience for me. I've loved it. I have. I mean, it doesn't mean I, you know, I've wanted to throw off my jumper a few times in this conversation, but, you know, I've had it fairly easy, I would say. And that's probably because of the 40 years of work I've done on myself and

Sally (43:07.694)
Good for you, girl!

Natasha (43:26.242)
I don't drink alcohol, haven't for seven years. Although I used to be quite, you know, I used take quite a lot of drugs and things like that. So God knows what's coming for me because of that. you know, there's so much isn't there that is positive about this time. You know, the healthy rage that we hold in our bodies, you know, the throat and expressing ourselves and the throat is so linked to what the vulva and the...

you know, our genitals look like they absolutely mirror each other. So this is why I think, you know, if there's stuff going on down there, like what is it that your body needs to express that's been suppressed? You know? Yeah.

Sally (43:57.315)
Yeah.

Sally (44:04.32)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, like if you've got vaginismus and like throat issues, it's like, isn't it, it's, they've just shut down that everything's closed and there's a lot of holding and then we wanna, but release has to come, I think, a pace that is safe. You can't just, I mean, I don't know, you might have a different perspective on this with your seismic or gasmic experience, but for someone that is holding in both those energy centers,

Natasha (44:12.48)
Yeah, yeah.

Natasha (44:17.442)
Mm.

Natasha (44:28.962)
you

Sally (44:35.736)
How does healing, I mean was gonna say how should healing happen? But I guess it's totally individual for the person. But what's, what in your experience is not safe or not good when we're looking at like letting go of stuff in those areas? Okay.

Natasha (44:54.946)
Pushing it too fast, too quick. think having someone that knows how to facilitate and knows how to get you to connect to what is there, to understand what the body is saying, to open up to the messages that are there, to connect to sensation, to connect to emotion, connect to feeling, and also to look at the thoughts that you've had, and then also to create new thoughts, because often we are creating our lives based on the past.

And that's actually never going to get us very far. So we have to almost quite often work with someone who understands about taking everything on board, feeling what you feel, being present with what's there, putting a full stop and making a choice. And I think menopause is a time where we get to start all over again. Like we get to choose, like we get to be in a really powerful place in our lives.

And it's often a very difficult place, right? Because often our parents are getting elderly, our children are leaving home. You know, we might actually just think, my whole life needs to change, you know, because something is so big is happening in this cycle in our lives that we almost don't even know who we are anymore. And so this is why things like having support,

doing things like retreats, like women who allow themselves to go and get space, to have an incredibly brilliant life changing time so that they actually are like, drop into this is what I want. This is what I've been holding that I'm not gonna tolerate anymore. This is what I want for myself. This is what I choose. This is how I want to live my life. And I think at this time in our lives, we often want to leave a bit of an impact. We want to make a difference and

You know, it's very interesting to me that the trauma release method has only ever had women sign up for it. Even though I've done a call out to men, I've been like, men, we need you in the trauma field. We need you to come and do your trauma work on your own bodies and learn how to hold it for others. We really need you. No, it's all women. And I think women are really stepping up. And I think that's really good. But also it's a shame that it gets like

Sally (46:56.93)
Yeah.

Sally (47:11.342)
Yeah.

Natasha (47:17.644)
We don't want it to be burdened on our shoulders alone, but we want to be able to choose it and be powerful women with what we know.

Sally (47:25.1)
Yeah, wow, what you said there was incredible. And I do get that sometimes, that resentment sometimes that crops up, yet again, doing the trauma work is falling on women's shoulders. Obviously there are men doing it, obviously, but I do think in exactly the space that I see, but maybe it's because I'm in that space and I don't see the other spaces as well, but.

But yeah, like you, have more women coming into my world. I do treat men as well, but not as many.

Natasha (47:57.494)
Well, what I think is really interesting as well is that because I was talking to another breathwork teacher about this is that there are men doing the trauma work and that is amazing. And so I really, it really means a lot to me seeing men learning how to work with those kind of, you know, energies, feelings who are connecting to their own feelings that can hold a woman and

can hold each other like men looking after each other. I find that so moving and amazing and that is definitely a area which is so necessary because there are men completely messing up the world at the moment. So I think that is really important and I've totally lost my thread again.

Sally (48:29.198)
Yeah.

Natasha (48:52.814)
I love it, just going off on a tangent. yes, now I know what I was going to say, it's come back. It's just that it's interesting to me that often people are very drawn to going and training with the men.

Sally (48:55.918)
Doesn't matter.

Sally (49:10.979)
Yeah.

Natasha (49:11.092)
It's almost like the women are doing the healing work, but the men get this sort of training. This is who I should go and train with. That slightly more than irritates me because it's like women, shamans were women. They were like, it was women that carried the medicine. It was women that did the healing work. It was, you know, it's in our blood, but also.

Sally (49:18.434)
Yeah, I see.

Yeah.

Sally (49:32.831)
I see, yeah.

Natasha (49:39.954)
Like this is why I'm like I want to be I want to be known as an amazing teacher because I am an amazing teacher but it's so interesting how many people will go and train with a guy because he's got the energy of like the man in authority. Do you know what mean? It's really interesting.

Sally (49:50.263)
Yeah.

Sally (49:54.604)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I get what you're, sensing into the energy that you're talking about there. And there is this disparity that I see with that kind of masculine approach to training gets the credibility, the authority, because it's very, it's very big and it's very magnetic.

Natasha (50:20.418)
Yes.

Sally (50:21.25)
And as you say, the training, like it's like training. Yeah, I wanna train. But actually, I think what's so important is to go with a trainer that's not just done the training and I'm pointing to my head here, the actual embodiment side of things as well. And really done the work, the emotional work, the clearing, the sitting in the circle with the other women and...

Natasha (50:23.948)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (50:48.462)
why not? Why can't we? I think it should be, I did listen to a podcast, Stephen Bartlett's podcast the other day about the Lost Boys report and it was really, really, really interesting now in how feminism has shaped some young men's attitudes towards women. You know, the incels and all of that that we've seen with that program, adolescence. And now I can't remember why I was going to say

Natasha (51:08.898)
Hmm.

Sally (51:15.746)
That's what I was going to say. So I think it's, yeah, it's about, things need to balance out. I think men need to do more of the emotional labor and women need to step up into their sense of empowerment and authority so that they can be those magnetic, attract the clients and attract the wealth. That's where we need the equality. Yeah.

Natasha (51:17.15)
You

Natasha (51:42.481)
Yeah, and I think it is really, it is really happening and it's a really amazing thing to watch women step into their leadership. It's beautiful and I just find it, I find it really inspiring being in those spaces with women that are claiming

Sally (51:50.007)
Yeah.

Natasha (52:00.512)
their value and what they bring to the world, you know, and I think menopause is a bloody great time for that, to be honest. Yeah.

Sally (52:01.43)
Yeah.

Sally (52:06.89)
Yeah, it really is. Yeah, I definitely feel that change within me. So you support, you work with wellness practitioners, don't you? You're essentially training them to do what you do and to become phenomenal leaders themselves. So you've got a nice little community of people that you're working with to help support them to be those leaders. But you did mention about retreats. So you run retreats as well. And can you just speak a little bit more about why

retreats are so beneficial for women going through the menopause.

Natasha (52:41.366)
I think getting away from your daily responsibilities, getting away from any responsibilities and going to a place where the sun is shining, the stars are there, you're fed, you don't have to think about cooking or cleaning. You can just relax, but also because my retreats aren't like yoga retreats, they are transformational retreats.

I teach workshops, get people to do stuff they've never done. I encourage people to look through a completely different lens and perspective at what, so it kind of, shifts what people have learned to believe about themselves. Parts of themselves that they've deleted or edited or thought weren't okay, we bring them back on board. We do lots of like somatic stuff.

there's lots of laughter, lots of tears. it's, one of my retreat is called expansive because it is so expansive. And it's important for women because there's a lot of stuff that they're holding onto, holding it all together, holding the family together, looking after this, doing this, doing that. There's no time to find out what the hell is going on inside themselves. And so therefore they're often

women at this age, it can be quite lost. Like, what do I want? And there's no time to even figure that out. And so going away, completely away, investing that time in yourself, which is a big deal for women who basically don't have time for themselves most of the time. So that in itself is so important. And then just gathering with other women. mean, one of my

retreats, my inspiring leadership is actually for men and women. Because I don't want to be too like gender, you know, it's not about your gender, it's about you as a person, what you want. But my retreat called expansive is for women. And it just

Natasha (54:56.034)
It's just changed what all these women that have come on my retreat have thought was possible for themselves. have, even now it's what, eight months since the last one, I still get people contacting me now saying, this is still changing. My life never went back to being like it was, but in a good way, not in a scary way, but in the way that was needed for that.

stepping into that cycle of your life properly. And I think we just have to get out of our everyday for that. We can't find it when we're sitting in front of our computers or just doing the dishes or picking up the kids or looking after our parents or walking the dog or any of the other things, running a business. We need the space. We need to get away. And we need to be with...

Sally (55:28.386)
Hmm.

Sally (55:49.026)
Yeah.

Natasha (55:52.074)
other women who are going to hold us, light us up, inspire us, be our new friends, because often at this time of life as well, old friends are dropping away. We just don't connect to them anymore. We're changing and they're maybe not changing with us. So we need new communities. So just for so many reasons. And it was amazing for me because I also just expanded and I was like, this is what I do. I take people away for experiences and

Sally (56:16.361)
Mmm.

Natasha (56:21.512)
it changes their lives and it's just, yeah, I'm really passionate about it. So I've got, I've got, well, at the moment they're all in Marbella. Yes, yes, beautiful. It's Malaga, you fly to Malaga and then it's the mountains around there and it's beautiful. It's, there's, there's something magical about the land there. I

Sally (56:22.478)
Mmm.

Sally (56:28.236)
Where do you hold them? Sorry.

are they? That's in Spain isn't it? Yeah is that southern Spain?

Natasha (56:51.284)
I love it. And I'm probably going to, I'm thinking about running an ancestral retreat where we connect to ancestors and maybe do a lot of womb work as well, I'm thinking. But that's just an idea in the pipeline at the moment. have got. Yeah.

Sally (57:08.216)
That sounds really witchy, I like that. And my friends just bought a house over there as well. So I keep getting drawn to that part of the world. My new therapy supervisor lives out there and I'm really drawn to her. My best mate in Brighton's moved out there. My dad can't stop talking about it and he goes there all the time. You're talking about it now, so.

There's definitely, what do you think is so magical about the land over there? Have you sort of thought about it?

Natasha (57:34.946)
That's funny.

Natasha (57:42.27)
It's really beautiful, like the mountains are beautiful and the sun is shining. It feels like it's got this energy of sort of potential. It's like got a slightly kind of exciting but also quite grounded feeling to it. This is how I experience it anyway. I mean, for me, there's loads of tennis courts out there. So I go and play a lot of tennis as well when I'm there. I've been there about every two months over the last year. I go there, I go there loads, yeah.

Sally (58:09.729)
Wow.

Natasha (58:13.026)
but it just, I don't know what it is. I just have a real connection to Spain and to that part of Spain. yeah, I don't know. It feels easy as well. It's not like a difficult place to get to or, you know, it's just like everything feels nice and sort of easy and flowing. And when people come to a retreat, it's really nice when they arrive having had a lovely journey and you know, everything was kind of

Sally (58:19.564)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Sally (58:39.149)
Yeah.

Natasha (58:41.734)
easy, not like more of a struggle. Yeah, and not too expensive, right, as well to fly there. So I think you should come.

Sally (58:42.336)
easy to get there.

Sally (58:46.558)
Hmm yeah yeah well I think that I think I should definitely. When is your next one? Do you have a date for one?

Natasha (58:53.373)
Hahaha!

So I've got one in June, which is a very intimate retreat just for six people. I've got three spaces on that currently. We're filming this in April. And then I have another one at the end of August, which is expansive. And I think that's about half full already as well.

Sally (59:15.658)
Expansive not expensive, by the way.

Natasha (59:18.082)
expensive. It's not expensive. It's really not. And the value of it is just, you know, it's huge. Yeah. It's something you'll never forget, that's for sure.

Sally (59:25.122)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I've done some retreats actually and they are, they always stick in your mind. I did Skiros one year in Greece. That was just phenomenal life-changing stuff. I can't remember the other ones I've done. I did one in, can't remember where it was, it was a yoga retreat. I think it was in Spain actually, it was many, years ago. Little memory laps there, but thank you so much Natasha. I've very much enjoyed this.

Natasha (59:56.683)
My pleasure.

Sally (59:59.618)
conversation, the second one that we've had. And I'm going to be breathing properly through my nose, relaxed. I'm going to be thinking about my body as well and my aches and pains. What are your tips for TNJ? This is like asking very selfishly here, but I definitely have over the last year, this kind of jaw, neck, tongue, throat thing. I'm sure it's probably linked to my sacral chakra as well.

all that kind of stuff down there.

Natasha (01:00:28.034)
I was just about to say that. Well, I mean, the TMJ, which is the temporomandibular joint for people who don't know what that is, is a very significant joint in the jaw. And it has a massive impact on your posture, your digestion. I mean, all sorts of stuff is linked to the TMJ. won't go into that too much now, but

Sally (01:00:36.942)
Mm.

Natasha (01:00:57.524)
It actually directly mirrors the pelvis and the heel bone. sometimes women tend to clench their pelvises, they clench their butt cheeks, they hold on for dear life. They also clench their jaw because there's stuff they're like not wanting to say and they're just tense and all of that as well. So possibly you're clenching your jaw, grinding your teeth.

Sally (01:01:00.686)
Natasha (01:01:24.386)
you know, these kinds of things that is really showing some sort of tension that's going on. Then we'd want to look at why is that happening? And obviously I do TMJ realignment and stuff like that anyway, with some of the techniques that I work with. And I'd probably realign your pelvis at the same time, but like you already identified for yourself, there's something else going on there. Your body knew you said it. So.

Sally (01:01:46.04)
Yeah.

Yeah, it knows, it knows. I just also decided to declare this publicly as well. Because I've got no shame. I've no shame.

Natasha (01:01:56.13)
Exactly. It's been such a pleasure. So nice to speak to you again and like such a great conversation. I've enjoyed it so much.

Sally (01:02:03.778)
Yeah.

Sally (01:02:11.668)
Amazing. Well look, if you've been inspired by Natasha go and check out her website, follow her on all her social media channels. Where are you most active Natasha? Instagram, yeah okay that's cool. So we'll put all your links in the show notes and thank you so much.

Natasha (01:02:22.196)
Yeah, Instagram.

Natasha (01:02:29.794)
Thank you so much. See you soon.

Sally (01:02:32.78)
See ya!

Peace.