The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
A space for women on a growth and healing journey — who want to live. joyfully and feel at home in within themselves body, mind and spirit.
Hosted by Keri Marino, somatic yoga therapist, mentor, and mama, this podcast features soulful stories, embodied wisdom, and truth bombs that land soft but go deep.
Each week, you’ll find short, heartfelt episodes designed for listening on the go — from somatic healing and inner work, to nervous system guidance and the real-life ways yoga philosophy can transform your days. On occassion, Keri welcomes guests who share transformative insights on everything from gut health to psychology.
Whether you’re driving to work, washing the dishes, or taking a quiet walk, these conversations will nourish your mind, body, and spirit — and remind you that your life is a love story you get to live every day.
If you like what you're hearing here, learn more about ways Keri can support you at: www.KeriMarino.com on at instagram @the_nourished_woman
The Nourished Woman with Keri Marino
How Better Breathing Can Transform Your Sleep, Mood, And Relationships with Perrin White
What if the way you breathe is quietly shaping your energy, sleep, and emotional resilience?
In this conversation with Perrin White — speech-language pathologist, myofunctional therapist, and breath coach — we explore the power of functional breathing in the most down-to-earth, human way. From tongue posture and nasal breathing to how your ribs move when you inhale, Perrin shares how small, anatomy-based shifts can completely change how you feel in your body. You’ll learn how to tell if your tongue is truly resting on the roof of your mouth, why nasal breathing is key for oxygen and nitric oxide, and how to bring ease back into your breath (and your nervous system).
We also go deeper — into grief, child loss, thriving as a single woman and becoming. Perrin opens up about how breath helped her move through loss and reconnect to life, and we talk about what it means to rebuild yourself one ritual at a time. You’ll hear us challenge the loud, forceful breath cues often taught in yoga and explore gentler, low-and-slow patterns that create calm from the inside out. This is a grounded, heartfelt reset for anyone craving more energy, better sleep, and a steadier sense of peace.
About Perrin White
Perrin White is a speech pathologist, myologist, yoga teacher, and breath coach who specializes in airway health and nervous system regulation. Through her Functional Breathwork method, she teaches clients to breathe better, feel safer in their bodies, and find long-term healing.
Check out her website and Instagram.
About Keri Marino
Keri is a seasoned Somatic Yoga Therapist and mentor that helps women feel alive, empowered, and at home in their bodies. Through her gentle, spiritual approach, she invites women back into pleasure, presence, and the deeper truth of who they really are.
Check out her website or follow on instagram.
If you love the sound of short daily somatic yoga rituals that help you become a more radiant woman, with bottomless pleasure and aliveness.
Get instant access to 150+ nervous system practices made for women on everyday topics like: digestive health, back care, period relief, core strength and emotional well-being.
Try a 7 day free trial of The Nourished Woman Sanctuary here.
Welcome to the Nourished Woman Podcast, a space for women who've been doing the work to grow and heal and are ready to feel good again, body, mind, and soul. I'm your host, Carrie Marino, somatic yoga therapist of over 16 years, mentor and mama of three. I help women like you fall in love with how yoga makes you feel. Alchemize the hard things you've been through and experience more pleasure and aliveness in your body and relationships. I'm so glad you're here. Let's dive in.
SPEAKER_00:Without misdo.
SPEAKER_02:Welcome back to the Nourished Woman Podcast. Today I have Perrin White in front of me. She is a speech language pathologist, a myofunctional therapist, and a breath coach. She's the founder of Breathe Well, Be Well, and she's also a lovely human. Perrin is one of those people that lives here in my local community of Greenville. I joked with you recently that we seem to just keep running into each other somewhere. I feel like we must like the same places or have the same vibe. But I always love when I run into you because you have a playful nature and you're always ready to smile. And you're also not afraid to be the weird one in the room, like doing tongue positions and stuff. So it's such a delight to have you here. I can't wait to see where our conversation leads us.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god, Carrie, thank you for having me. And also, yes, I do like to be playful. And I started smiling just hearing you say smiling. So I already know this is going to be a good conversation, a nourished conversation, because when we have two people that have the same energetic balance, it makes it really fun to be your authentic self around.
SPEAKER_02:Well, I welcome it. Be your authentic self all up in here today. Yeah. Karen, I'd love to know what is something that is just feeling so nourishing for you right now. It could be physically, mentally, emotionally, relationally, spiritually, like any kind of nourishment, just something that you're like, oh, this is just so good in my life right now.
SPEAKER_00:Honestly, I think it's a hot shower. So we had talked earlier, like before you started press record, just how the cold has come on. And I definitely am a person that weaves in and out of depressive episodes. And I can tell you, like when I'm my unhealthy self, I will procrastinate on all sorts of things, but especially showering, which I know sounds so nasty, but it's like the energy it takes. But if I can just get into the shower, then I start to know that I'm taking care of myself. The warmth feels good, the water feels good. And that's also where I do a lot of weird tongue stuff, like tongue exercises, which always feel nice because my hands are clean. It just feels like part of my routine. But I know if I can at least get in the shower, that's the step that gets me to start taking a little bit better care of myself. So I already know that I'm caring for myself. And really nourish to me means taking care of, fed, well, warm, loved. And honestly, it's those really simple little things that if I'm being truly honest, that the consistency and the simplicity is where I thrive. And if I start to falter on those, that's where I start to falter in life. So shower. Just go take a shower, wipe your face, clean your face, wash your hair, like get metaphorically and anatomically, and literally, like get the grime off new over and over again.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, gosh, I feel like that's so relatable. Just both as a woman of like, there's some effort involved in this whole shower thing. Like I watch my man shower and I'm like, this is easier for you. There's more going on. There's more steps here, especially with longer hair, but also the reality that like when you're feeling lower in one of those lower cycles, that those sorts of things do fall away. And it does take a more conscious effort to say, no, I'm going to go take that shower. I'm going to make that time. It is worth the effort. And then I also know the ripple effect of that for me emotionally and physically, and just the momentum it creates.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, it is even like along those lines of like, all right, if I take a shower, I'm more likely to make my bed. And if I'm more likely to make my bed, then I'm more likely to like actually put on some clothes. And if I'm more likely to put on some clothes, then I might like, you know, go outside my house. And it it's it's really the ripple. And it's like we work so hard to create these routines. And if we can just remember how do we start them, then all the hard work that we've been doing basically our whole life to create these patterns, these neurological patterns, these behavioral patterns, they'll start to initiate and they'll activate. And it goes both ways. Like, you know, like I also have patterns where I don't shower, so then I'll stay in bed. So then I'll like scroll social media and then like tying it into what I do, breathing, tongue rest posture. That's when I start mouth breathing. That's when I am not breathing fully. That's when I like am in these curled up positions that literally and anatomically are minimizing my airway space. And I know all these things, but the emotions sometimes can be so high it can override them. So it's really important to ride the wave of both, you know, behaviorally and emotionally, and then just start with one step at a time. So I I know it can sound trivial, but if I can shower, things are okay.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Absolutely. It changes so much. And I I loved the natural lead in to breathing and how we really don't realize as we're moving through the day, these different postural habits or these behavioral habits that we have and how they're impacting how easily we can breathe well, or how much harder it makes it to breathe well. And then I don't think enough people realize, and I know you and I have a mutual love of breath work. So we understand like when we're not breathing well, we're not coping with our emotions as easily. We're not being as creative, we're not feeling like we have as much energy, we're not, we're not handling with the stresses of life as easily, even like oxygenation to the brain and capacity to think clearly or problem solve or memory, like so much of it is tied in with how we hold our body and then how well we can breathe.
SPEAKER_00:I just want to be like a thousand percent exclamation point, bold, underline, and I'm nodding as you're saying this. I know this is audio only, but but just know my head's like, yes, yes, I agree. And what I think is so important is there's so many different ways to frame breath work, in my in my opinion. And I'd love just to talk a little bit about how those parse out. So where I come in, or my background of how I came in, was essentially started with speech pathology. And really, I was just completely uninterested in looking in people's mouths. And as I progressed through speech pathology, you know, I just didn't feel very comfortable working on articulation skills or anything for the tongue. Like I felt completely disconnected from it. And lo and behold, it's because I was disconnected from my breath. And honestly, you'll find this a lot in the medical community that providers don't always know the best option for you because they haven't done the work on themselves, and they can know a lot of things, and obviously it's for anyone, like they can know a lot of things. But I was a speech pathologist that had a tongue tie and wasn't breathing well and wasn't sleeping well, and didn't know it until she was 34. And so, what I think is interesting with breath work per se, and where I come in, is I want to make sure the anatomy is doing its job. Like, can your tongue rest fully in your palate? Do you have adequate space in your nose to breathe? Do you have enough room or strength stability of your tongue to maintain elevation to your palate to keep the space behind your throat open? Like, do you actually have use of your diaphragm? Like, do you know where your diaphragm is? And it's really important like to connect those anatomical pieces and just making sure the stuff under the hood is working and working well. And then how do we help support those? And then on top of that, it's the the pattern of your breathing, the shape of your breathing, the holds of your breathing, and then you get to play around with all those. And I think all too often the functions and mechanics of actually breathing well are overlooked because so many of us have such dysfunctional breathing patterns that we just assume it's normal and it's common. Like deviated septums are common. Tongue tongues actually, in my world, they're they're pretty common, or at least not if it's not a tongue tie, it's either muscular atrophy or disuse. So, like even from the foods that you're chewing, if you're not chewing dense enough foods, then you're not moving the muscles of your face. And then if you don't move or have resistance against muscles, then they atrophy, and then you know you hit like 40, and your muscle mass in general just starts to decline, and everything feels like it's hitting a wall. But really, we just weren't supporting our body in a way to help maintain all these things. So breath work is really anything that's intentionally breathing. And I think before you even get into the intentional breathing, it's really helpful to understand what's functional, what's dysfunctional, or altered, or mal, as I say, not malaligned or maladapted. But if you understand like your nose needs to be working, your tongue needs to stay up in your palate, and you've got to use your diaphragm, like how do we keep it back to basics, back to basics so that we can be more successful when we start trying all these more altered, altered or elevated or advanced practices. Some of the simplicity is is really profound, and that can be enough.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, no, and I I think it's so interesting because like speaking from me personally, I learned about breath work originally as a yoga teacher or as a yoga practitioner. And you're not taught any of those basics. In fact, a lot of the things that we're taught are like rest your tongue in the bottom of your mouth. And I've learned from you actually through your social media that no, we rest our tongue up on the roof of the mouth. And so I know a lot of the listeners to this podcast, also their entry point into breath work has been through yoga. And then oftentimes I find my experience and not the way I teach breath work anymore, is you're altering your breath before you're actually learning the basics and the fundamentals of like diaphragmatic breathing, for example. They're learning ujai first, they're learning all these other techniques rather than learning how to breathe anatomically well, or to check any of those, like those simplistic boxes that are like every person who rolls out their yoga mat. These are three or four quick things that they could do. So, could you speak to a couple of those things that like any woman could benefit from doing to improve their overall special? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:So I I'm thinking I'm gonna back up before I get into those. There's three rules that I always tell every single client, like whether they're three, 30, 60, 80. And it's one, you're not broken. So understanding if you're not dead, you're not broken. Like your body is working. Because you're still alive and you're still breathing. Like, so you are not broken. And rule number two is your body talks to you all the time, which means you have symptoms, and they're not bad, they're not good. It's a communication that's the way your body's talking to you. And it is basically how do you know you're hungry? How do you know you're thirsty? How do you know you're tired? I it's because your body tells you. These are also like holding your breath, or you snore, or you have to clear your throat a lot, like your body is talking because you're not broken. And then rule number three is you get to learn the language of your body through the language of your breath. So if we take those rules, some of the really entry basic things I do with new clients is I'll have them hold a little bit of water in their mouth for three minutes, and I tell them, don't worry about where your tongue is. All we want to focus on are these four things. So with I'm laughing because before we press record, I told Carrie my wallpaper's been falling down and it just fell down. So there we are. All right. So four things. One, can you breathe through your nose? And I like three minutes because one minute, you can pretty much like compensate. Two minutes, you might be an advanced compensatory skill person, but you probably can like make it by three, you are gonna be exhausted. Like your little muscles of your mouth will be exhausted. So three minutes is important. I think that time frame's sustainable for getting the information we need. And what I would say is one, can you breathe through your nose for three minutes? Two, can you keep your lips closed? And what I mean by that is like is water starting to slowly kind of trickle out of your lips. Do you see your facial muscles, facial muscles shaking? So, for example, like when you're lifting a really heavy weight and you're almost at your max and your whole body starts to shake, the muscles of your face will do the same thing. It's specifically like underneath your lip, your mentalis, right above your chin, those little muscles will start quivering. So, can you breathe through your nose? Can you keep your lips closed? How far down does your breath go? So, for example, do you feel like it only makes it to your sternum? Do you feel like you're making it all the way to the base of your lungs? Like just take some time to be reflective of the journey of your breath and how far down does it go before it turns back around for the exhale? And then lastly, does this feel scary? So this is more the somatic side, the emotional side that I think is really important because if you have poor mobility of your tongue or poor control of your oral facial muscles, it's really scary for you to hold water right in front of your airway for three minutes. And some of this might be from pure novelty. So maybe you start with a little bit of time, or you could even put a piece of paper between your lips instead of holding the water if it starts to bring on too much anxiety. But just ask yourself like, what is my body telling me? Like, what are the messages I'm receiving? And it's not good, it's not bad, it's information. And so from there, you're gonna have a pretty good idea of like, okay, is it hard to breathe through my nose? If it is, go get some breathe right strips at the bare minimum. I mean, this is the easiest, lowest hanging fruit you possibly could get. And if that helps, you probably should go see an ENT. The second thing is, can I keep my lips closed? If you can't keep your lips closed, we need to start working some of your facial muscles. So, for example, like I would love for you to puff your cheeks up with air, keeping your lips sealed, and then just start to move the air around. Think of it as quadrants, so like upper lip, lower lip, right cheek, left cheek, and just kind of play around with moving the air in your mouth without your lips opening and start to get a little bit more control. So these are little teeny muscles, and they can fatigue quickly, but they can recover quickly. So start to think of it as like a HIIT workout where you have high intensity interval training. Chew denser foods, like actually choose some stuff that you have to get in there, and your masters have to do some work and try to keep your lips closed. So half of it is just people are completely unaware, or even is like model to them. So if you can at least bring some awareness, you might get there. Now, how far down your breath goes, that third thing, I think that's helpful because it's just starting to think about basically the road mapping of your body. Like how far down does it normally go? How far down can it go? Can you bring your hands to your sides of your ribs so you can actually feel some of your rib cage? And can you get some rib excursion or some rib lateral rib movement so that you can actually somatically tactile supports get some depth? And then lastly, does it feel scary? This is where you'll probably get people that hyperventilate or mouth breathe or have upper airway resistance or sleep apnea or even just like some high anxiety levels. That's going to be really interesting for the emotional component where you could get some somatic work. And then what I know for myself personally, because everything I treat, I've had as a child and adult. So I was diagnosed with a tongue tie and had my tongue tie revised and had to work through all that. But as a result, I couldn't swallow pills. So as a child who was getting ear infections a lot because my tongue wasn't resting in my palate and eustachian tubes weren't able to drain properly because of the way my mouth developed. Yeah, got lots of ear infections. So you get lots of antibiotics for your ear infection. But I couldn't swallow the pill because I didn't have good control of my tongue because it was restricted and I had to tie underneath that prevented full elevation range of motion. So in my mind, I would always think of this time I was at a dude ranch with my grandmother and I was getting an ear infection. She had to like call in a favor and drive an hour to go pick it up and come back to get the prescription. And of course, here I am, like 10 years old, saying, like, I can't swallow this pill, and immediately just feeling like the worst child ever because my grandmother doesn't understand she's mad, I'm feeling bad, I feel sick, and it's just a hot mess. So things I know that was a very long kind of seemingly unrelated story. If you have that person that hasn't explored those things that has anything related to the tongue, the airway, the mouth, anything, then tell them to hold water in their mouth for three minutes, that's gonna come up probably in tears, probably like I can't do this. And if they have to stop, that tells you all the information you need to know. Like, there's no need to push through the whole three minutes if it's too long or or painful, but understand that there's probably something in their past that told them that the airway needs to be protected at all costs because the tongue or the muscles or the body can't do it adequately for itself, and just be aware that there'll probably be something in there just to explore and start to investigate. All right, well, what does that actually mean? What do we want to do about it? Do I need to find a myofunctional therapist to help me?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Do I need to like work on maybe some journaling or some somatic work, or maybe you know what? Honestly, it could be a lot of things, but that's that's where my brain goes. So I love the three-minute water hole test. I think that's really, really helpful and gives you a treasure trove of information.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, it sounds like it will really illuminate. And I'm imagining that if you're questioning that your breathing practice seems to be a struggle or you're not feeling the benefits of your breathing practice in terms of like clients of mine that are listening. This might be a test that you could do to see is there something, is there some sort of myofascial, myofunctional, oral thing going on that would indicate that I would actually get a lot more out of this if I got some support from someone like you? And that would in turn open the gateway for these beautiful benefits that people like Carrie and you and I are talking about for them to actually feel them, right?
SPEAKER_00:Right. So it in a nutshell, it's how curious can we get? How curious can we get regarding why our body or why our life is doing something or becoming or presenting the way that it is. There's always a reason. We don't always know what it is, or we can't always figure it out. But at least in the realm of breathing and nervous system and how you feel, there's always a way that you can scale it up or scale it down. So lots of times it's scaling it down. So if that water holds too hard, well, we got to look at all the mechanics that have to be working well for that to happen effectively. I need to know like, is your nose functioning? Like, have you ever been to an ENT? Do you get allergies? Have have you ever been able to breathe through your nose? Like, if not, that's a really important thing. And that affects every aspect of your life. I would say too, like, have you have you ever tried to keep your lips closed? Like get some baseline information and just know that the mouth, the mouth is this beautiful, complex, just I would say unending rabbit hole of things that you can look at, like your massaders, your jaw muscles, your lip muscles, all eight muscles of your tongue, the shape of your palate. Like it's all interconnected, and there's people that can help you with it. And just know that you can change. Like you can always change any of these things. It really just is a matter of how curious can you be to figure out what needs help.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. And I've also heard you and I went to coffee one time and you were talking about all the different ways that these I hate to call them issues, but these like imbalances of body can actually manifest in symptoms that people that are listening would recognize. I remember you talking about ADHD. Could you speak a little bit about how some of these can actually manifest as these other symptoms that women might be navigating? And then perhaps it actually ties back into what's going on here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So really how you breathe during the day is going to be a really interesting perspective and reflective light into how you're breathing at night. So understand that breathing is the thing that you have conscious control over, but it's also highly correlated. Well, it's part of the autonomic nervous system. So it means it can go on cruise control. So however you're intentionally breathing is setting the stage for how you will unintentionally breathe. So, for example, if you're holding your breath, if you're breathing through your mouth, if you're breathing shallowly, if you're breathing quickly, more than likely you're going to have trouble sleeping. And sleeping and breathing, these are like the bottom basement foundational skills that impact every single aspect of your life. For ADHD specifically, there's a lot of sleep disorder breathing symptoms that can also present with ADHD. And I know this because I was diagnosed with ADHD in college. What I really know is I wasn't sleeping well. And hey, I've I have trouble with depression. It's not that I'm having a hard time paying attention. I'm exhausted and I'm sad. So instead of giving someone Adderall, I really needed someone to look in my nose to make sure I could breathe through my nose, my tongue was in the right place. I was able to use my diaphragm and I have like a good therapist to work through other things. But ADHD like symptoms and sleep disorder, breathing symptoms that are similar. And children, it looks like actually hyperactivity. So an adult is probably gonna drink a lot of coffee, maybe drink Red Bull. If you're like me, rip a couple of SIGs, you're just trying to stay awake. A kid's not gonna go rip some SIGs and drink coffee, but instead they're gonna bounce off the walls, have a really hard paying attention, they're gonna want to get up and down. And just know that you can have ADHD and have sleep disorder breathing. And it doesn't mean you fix the sleep disorder breathing and you no longer have ADHD. It means it's actually manageable and it's no longer exasperated so that you can actually make progress and create a plan that is sustainable. So in kids, it looks like hyperactivity when really you're not sleeping well. And I call it tornado sheets. So, for example, if a kid is like kicking their legs, tossing and turning, they're not gonna understand, are you a restless sleeper? But they will understand, do you have tornado sheets when you wake up? They're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. With an adult, it probably means like you startle easily or you wake up a lot, or you have drool coming down your mouth, or like I would put some pillows around yourself and see if they move around a lot, but essentially you want to sleep like you're in a coma. Like, I don't want you to get up a lot, I don't want to hear you, I don't want you to breathe through your mouth, I want it to be all through your nose. I want you to wake up and feel good, or at least feel rested. And if you don't wake up, well, like if you don't have if you don't wake up easily, if you feel like you've been run over by a train, if you're having morning headaches, if your mouth is dry, if your sheets are all tussled, I guarantee you you're not breathing well. And that then is gonna impact your nervous system, your ability to stay present, your ability to regulate your emotions. It also is gonna impact how well the blood flows through your body. So the more you breathe, meaning the faster and the more shallow, usually the mouth breathing that's done, it increases the blood flow rate because the blood vessels are a lot tighter. So fast breathing is sympathetic nervous system regulation. It also is a vasoconstrictor, and that then makes the blood vessels a lot narrower. So your blood pressure will raise, which we don't want to have ongoing high blood pressure rates. We want everything to go smooth, we want everything to be able to be at ease, and that's when you get less breaths per minute, that's how you slow everything down. So I know I've kind of gone a little bit all over the board, but in general, if you breathe poorly during the day, I guarantee you you are not breathing well at night. And if you can't rest and wake up refresh, that's actually how your brain is cleaning itself and how the whole body becomes anew so that you can actually take on the day. If you're not able to get that, then the whole cycle just repeats. And so I would say high blood pressure, ADHD, sleep apnea, all these things, and high anxiety tingling in your fingers. I would say tightness around the mouth, tightness in the chest, morning headaches. These are all signs, or these are all things that are highly correlated to your breathing. And this is what a myofunctional therapist or a breath coach or someone that's really, really well versed in the airway, airway architecture can help you with and start to get some success and tackle.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I feel like there you gave such great points for people to sort of self-assess what's going on with me. And then here are some possible ways that I could find relief. Because oftentimes we'll have awareness about something in our body, but we don't know what to do with it. And I think a lot of people don't know that people like you are out there and they're actually an option for them, kind of like how they don't know that yoga therapists exist, right? Like we have these mainstream opportunities. But I mean, in the realm of breath work, I just want to say for our listeners that it can get really complicated. Like there can be very high-level testing that's done, measuring the gas exchange. Like you can really go down a rabbit hole here to find some clarity. For our focus today, I'd love to shift a little bit into like different kinds of breath work because I think a lot of people don't really understand breath work. In fact, I've sold breath work training programs, and honestly, they were kind of hard to get people to buy into because I feel like people underestimate how much their breathing is impacting them and that they actually need it. I don't know if you've experienced that, but I wanted to talk about how like there's yogic breathing, like pranayama, and then there's like breath work over here. So would you like to speak to that a little bit? How there's these different approaches to breathing.
SPEAKER_00:I yeah, I'd I'd love to. And I think mostly we just assume we're doing it fine because we don't have another experience to like try on. And and I honestly had no idea I was breathing poorly until I ended up getting my deviated septum fixed at age 34. And once it finally healed, I was like, what the fuck? This was an option. And I was gonna say, has everyone else been breathing like this their whole life? And it takes a lot of courage to admit your body might not be operating at a hundred percent, because that could mean to some people that they're they're broken, but you're not broken, your body is just asking for help. So I think if You have to someone that signs up for breath work on their own is already probably on that journey. Everyone that really needs it has probably not had those conversations with themselves. So it's really just making sure you can help give them, give them the vision of like this helps with anxiety, this helps with depression, this helps with sleep quality, this helps with athletic performance. And I normally have to like put it that way specifically to get people to come in. But as far as the different types of breath work per se, I just go back to thinking of the mouth and the airway as an instrument. And I really like the idea of pressures and pumps. And I like the idea of using like the nose as one of the parts, the mouth, the tongue, the throat. And you can actually become a shape shifter in a sense because if you clon your nose, you're gonna sound different. If you start to talk really low, you can sound different. And the same thing with the lengths and the depths of your breath. They have different purposes, they have different durations. And it's just to me, it's like just try them all. Try them all and figure out what you want to do. And if you can at least know how to breathe well, then you can try them on. And if you don't like it, you don't have to do it. But honestly, I just teach people how to breathe, how to breathe. And then I stick really simple to sometimes alternate nostril breathing. I like that because it starts to connect both sides of the brain.
SPEAKER_02:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:I love breath holds because it starts to create more space. So we get less breath per minute, which is what I was talking about earlier. I really like some lion's breath because you actually get to stretch out the muscles. And there's my dog. Um I also really enjoy just breathing into the diaphragm itself and starting to play with the shape. So whether it's triangle, whether it's like an inhale, hold, exhale, a square, a box where it's inhale, hold, exhale, hold. Maybe it's circular breathing where the inhale and exhale are equal parts. Maybe it's bumblebee, you know, where you start to get some humming and can get some vibration. But essentially, I want you to think of your mouth and your airway as an instrument, and you get to play all these different songs. So let's make sure you're a master at your own instrument and start to see what's possible. So I I didn't exactly answer your question, but hopefully it hit the the scratch the itch that you were thinking about.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, I think it's I think that's such a fun invitation to play our instrument, play the instrument of our airways. And I feel like it is part of the gift of what yoga gives us a framework for, because generally people aren't walking around thinking about how they might alter their breathing or or even thinking of how they might breathe down low into their pelvic area, for example. And in yoga, we have this structured container where we get to work on all of these things. And also true in the yoga world, we also have a lot of very popular techniques, particularly in like kundalini yoga, is taught by Yogi Bhajan, that are actually counterproductive for what the mainstream person needs, where we're over breathing or we're hyperventilating. And a lot of the breath techniques that I lead in my yoga therapy practice are ones that are working with slowing down the breathing, lengthening out the exhalation, working on kumbaka, those holds that you were talking about, and really working on breathing functionally sound. Because if you're just going in and you're doing a lot of rapid-fire breathing or you're making a lot of noise, like there is this movement in the yoga community of doing ujayi breathing, but like Darth Vader breath. Did you ever hear people talk about like that? Oh my gosh, we need to bury that. Like it is not Darth Vader breathing. We are not trying to be loud with our breath. We're trying to make a soft ocean sound. And so I'm wanting to get at here for the listeners that like, don't assume that the breath work you're doing in a yoga class is functionally sound breath work.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Like you, I want to encourage people to be a little bit of a scientist in terms of when they're practicing breath work. Like, is it making me feel more relaxed? Is it making me feel comfortable in my body rather than activated and more alert or more agitated or anxious or lightheaded so that so that we're discerning? Like, stop doing that.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Quit breathing that way.
SPEAKER_00:What I think too is like, do you know the why you're doing something? And are you making sure to prepare your body for it and then preparing your body after it so that you can leave whatever that experience is at the yoga studio and you don't like take on some of these upregulated feelings or emotions, and they're just like swimming rent-free in your head, and you don't know why you're agitated or like super alert. And I mean, sometimes we need to like get our butt in gear and get things activated and upregulate ourselves. Yeah, go do some of that, but I don't want you to breathe like that the entire day. I think the biggest part for me is I just want you to have breathing flexibility. I want you to be able to breathe really quickly when you need it, and I want you to be able to slow down when you don't. I want you to be able to be present and take a delicious, low, slow, quiet breath to be really in conversation, in connection with someone. And then I want you to be able to up your breathing as you're starting to like move your body during a walk. And I talk about breathing flexibility because to me, it connects to thinking flexibility and it thinks to heart rate variability. So if you're flexible in your breathing, meaning you can upregulate when you need to be alert, you can downregulate when that's no longer needed. You also can be flexible in your thinking, you can be really on point to like make sure you get what you need to say done, but you also can listen and be in curiosity during a conversation. And heart rate variability, it's really simple. Like, I just don't want you to get stuck way high up here, and I don't want you to get stuck way down here. So your anxiety, you're probably if you're an anxious person, you're probably stuck with a really high, high heart rate, heart rate breathing pattern. And if you are in depression, then you're probably like really low. And essentially, I need you to be able to weave in and out of both of them with ease. And that's what I think is the biggest key is like, all right, let's do some upregulated breathing practice, then let's bring it back to baseline. Maybe we do like a low slow breathing practice, then bring it back to baseline. It's always come back to come back home, come back to your base, come back to that spot of stability and foundation. That's the part that's missing, or at least in my opinion, what's missing in most contemporary yoga classes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, that's so insightful for sure. And I also feel like breathing is just so practical. And we can use it in everyday situations, whether it be when we're at the dentist chair, or I've used it in a theater when I feel like I was gonna fall asleep and I needed to wake myself up, or giving birth, or navigating grief, or any of the different things that we walk through. Like we, your breath is always with you. It's one of the tools that you can always tap into and use no matter what environment you're in, unlike a yoga pose, right? And so I know that breath work has helped you navigate some hard things. I know you and I both share the experience of losing a child. And I know that many of the listeners of this podcast are either currently navigating that or have in the past. And I'd love if we could kind of talk a little bit about that journey to really not like, I think we're so afraid of talking about child loss as a culture. And I and you, just based on what I see from you, you're very open about it, and so am I. And I think that also true, I and you have both been women who celebrate the life of those children that are not part of our daily earthly experience in terms of in a body, but they're still very much children that we walk through our lives with.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my gosh. I well, one, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about my daughter, Leona. And and I'm always happy, always happy to talk about her. And I would say it took me a long time to be able to openly share about her without like completely losing it. And it was eight years ago that I had a seven-month stillborn little girl, Leona, and that was the beginning of my becoming because I what I know now is I decided to, I decided to live a life where Leona was here. And so if I didn't want my daughter to see me acting a certain way, I but I basically pretended she was there and I was modeling what a good mom is. And even though there's no like physical child there, she is with me all the time, all the time. So if it's something I wouldn't want to model as a parent, I wouldn't do it. And if it was something that I wouldn't tell her, I didn't tell it to myself. So she was the catalyst that at least allowed me to crack open some of these deep-held beliefs of like the way I should act, should behave, things should be. And I think also you get to a certain age, it's like, I just don't give a fuck anymore. I don't have enough energy in my body to like hide this away because it it was a very real thing that happened, and it was a very profound part of who I am right now. And and what it is is honestly just the breathing itself is a way I can connect to her because I get to be still enough that she actually has a space to talk to me. And what I mean by that is it's just remembering like I'm okay, I'm whole, she's okay, she's whole. And I think if you can get past the this isn't happening to me, but it's happening for me, and not to sound too Polly Anna, but there was just something that cracked open when for me when I lost a child that allowed me to think of the whole world in a completely different lens, and there's no way I would have been able to have that mindset shift if something that profound hadn't happened. And what I think is important too is also knowing that as I get more comfortable talking about Leona, it's basically a gateway drug of like, what else am I gonna be okay talking about? You know, like I've already shh, I've already experienced probably one of the most harrowing hearing experiences that's plausible within my brain. Well, it wasn't plausible until it was. And if that's possible, what else is possible? And this is my healthy brain talking when it's my like really sad, unhealthy, not showering brain talking. It's just how do I provide a little bit more softness? So, how do I provide a little bit more care? And essentially, I think, what would I say to her? And if I don't, if I wouldn't say something to Leona, I don't say it to myself. I might be like, I might begrudgingly not say it to myself, or I might say, like, not yet, give me a moment to like be sad, then I'll get to it. But to me, it just it takes too much effort to be inauthentic, and it takes too much effort to not be the aligned person that I am. And Leona is a very much a part of me because I wouldn't have changed, I wouldn't have changed the path that I was on that was not honestly, it wasn't awful, but it wasn't great, and it wasn't gonna allow me to grow, and it wasn't gonna allow me to to meet wonderful people like you because I would have been stuck in an old mindset and a job that I didn't like and basically numbing myself from things that I just wasn't able to to tackle. And I think if you can get curious enough and if you can start to listen, which is what breathing is to me, is like how do I just actually take a moment to listen, not with the intent that I'm gonna have to fix something, but just to see what my body is telling me. Yeah, that's where you start to get these really nourishing, healing slivers of what's possible.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I feel like, you know, a lot of the women that I work with are alchemizing trauma and emotional pain in order to create beauty and freedom and pleasure and aliveness in their lives. And so I know that I first off, thank you so much for speaking really honestly about your story and about the inner dialogue and the relationship that you've cultivated with Leona and how hard it was to talk about her and then now how you're able to be much more transparent. I mean, you are literally writing a book, including her. Like it is amazing. I know you have a tattoo of her, like and we all get to love Leona because you are willing to share her with us. And I want to reflect that back to you. And I also want to reflect back to you, like in my own journey of child loss, that also was a trauma, like an intense trauma, very severe trauma, and something to alchemize. And I think there really is something to the medicine of our resiliency and our capacity to say, hey, this unthinkably awful thing has happened. And I get to feel all of the feelings, and I get to go to the depths of my lowest place and despair and sadness and hopelessness and whatever it is. And also I get to use it to create something even more beautiful. And also, I get to have a relationship with this person that means the world to me. And nobody else has to validate that that's okay for me to have it because it's my relationship with my child.
SPEAKER_00:Right. I mean, like the thing that's so beautiful is I hope I can like articulate this, articulate this right. I had dinner earlier this week, and one of my dear friends was just talking about how her three-year-old was driving her crazy. And I was just laughing. I was like, Leona never talks back to me when I give her anything. I was just thinking about like how I have been given the gift to work on my inner child because Leona, in a way, is me. It's me. It was who I was when I was a little girl, and basically reparenting myself by parenting Leona. And I just also have like such compassion for all the moms out there that are doing it in real time, because at least my daughter doesn't sass me back when I'm like working on reframing something in my mind. And and it just, I think you can tell the people that have been through something really deep and are still here. And resilience is my favorite word because it's not about if something bad happens, it's when. And then how do you want to walk through it? How do you want to show up? How do you want to take care of yourself? You have to cultivate that, and that is where the emotional part of breathing, the somatic part of breathing comes in because I will feel it in my chest, like my chest will physically feel tight, and it is hard to breathe. Like nothing, nothing anatomically has changed, but my emotions have taken complete control over like my fascial system, the the tightness of my muscles, and that's how you sit and breathe. Maybe you physically go take a warm shower so you can like feel the warmth all over your body. But know that if you are in emotional distress, it a hundred percent will impact your breathing rate, your breathing pattern. So you can either come at it from like journaling or movement or working on like talking with a friend, or you can actually start to shift the pattern of your breathing to start to make some internal perspective slides. And to me, it's just let's get more tools. You need more, and that's what breathing provides.
SPEAKER_02:Right. It's one of those tools that we get to have on our tool belt. And I also love this thought of like, who do I want to be on the other side of that experience? And then what tools are going to really serve me well in that. And and also just the choice of like choosing who you want to be and how you want to invest your energy and your time. I know we were talking before I hit record about really consciously almost paring down and then making more space for what matters most. And so there are three questions I'd love for us to try to make our way into. And one is that you're this playful, you've got this like playful vibe about you. And so, how do you choose that in your life? How do you make room for play or joy or pleasure? Is that a priority to you, or does that just come kind of naturally, or does it come out in social environments? Oh, this is such that's a great question.
SPEAKER_00:That's a great question. And I honestly was talking to a girlfriend this morning, and I've realized so breathe well, be well, my business turns four in February. And I realized I've made that like my entire personality for the past couple of years. And it and I really am starting to focus on like how do I start to separate the two, like parent and breathe well, be well. And I but I also needed that intense focus on infusing all that I had into breathe well, be well, because that's allowed me to become another iteration of who I am. And what I would say is if it's not playful, what the fuck are we doing? If it's not fun, why are we doing it? And also, if it's fun, you will learn it so much faster. Your body will recognize it as something that's safe and something to come back to, and use that as a barometer, use that as a basically litmus test of is this something I want to keep, or is this something that's really not for me? And I I I go both ways, like which I think is I love that I I love that I come across as like funny and playful because I want that, but it's like I also go to the depths, like the depths in my own head, and it's I don't like I don't want to ever live too long and either. So I don't want to stay too playful that I can't I can't have serious contemplation, and I don't want to stay so long in serious contemplation that I can't have fun. And again, goes back to like the breathing, thinking, flexibility. Like to me, if you don't have both, it's just limiting your life's experience. And if we can't smile, if we can't have joy, and if we can't have fun, it feels like a really stark life to live. And I know and I know that I just feel better when I'm around people that bring out that in me. And it also like reminds me that, oh yeah, I do love, I do love those things. And and you get you get to try it on, you get to smile. And I would say the last thing about that, I think I read there was a study done. I'm not gonna be able to tell you who it was or when it was done, but it was something along the effects of talking about your mood and temperament based on your facial expressions, and I think it had to do with Botox. So it was like saying that women that had had Botox and like couldn't move their face or they couldn't smile as brightly, basically experienced less joy than the women that were able to smile. And I it was in a book called Springboard, I think it was Springboard, and it referenced the study in there. But essentially I was like, oh, well, no wonder like people that come to me as we're working on our facial muscles and they're starting to use their facial muscles more and can smile more, maybe are starting to feel better and they're breathing better and all those things. So it's like I might not want to smile, but if I like at least work on it, my body will recognize, oh yeah, there's that joy, there's that, there's that light. So it's like fake it till you make it sometimes really is part of it. Take the shower before you really want to take the shower because your body will recognize it. And yeah, if I can remember, my body knows how to do this. I just have to start, I have to like get the engine going, then it will come back.
SPEAKER_02:That's so beautiful. My body knows how to do this. I just have to get it started. Yeah. And I think that, you know, a lot of the women that I'm that I work with are really interested in how to feel that sort of lightness and that freedom and that playfulness and that ease, and not in a like performative way, but just in like a soul deep expression. And I think part of doing this deeper work, part of making a consistent practice woven into your life is and going into your depths. Like, let's be honest. Like, if you're just living surface level, your access to joy or pleasure is much smaller. Versus if you're like, I can go to the deepest places inside of me, then that means I can also play the loudest or shake my ass the most dramatically on the dance floor or whatever it is. So I want to paint that picture for everybody listening. And I so see you in the conscious choice sometimes that like I can remember that this is an option for me when I forget. One other thing that I know you can speak to, and this is for all my single ladies that are listening, that are either navigating life as a single woman or you're transitioning out of a relationship, or you're feeling ready for a partner parent. I know that you're navigating a conscious, soulful, single lived experience. And so I love to hear a little bit about what it what's that like for you. And do you have any tips for those ladies that are navigating this?
SPEAKER_00:Man, like, well, thank you. Thank you for giving me a platform to talk about being single because it is it is so interesting. But I also know that it's it doesn't matter if you're single or married or separated or dating, like it's always hard. So it's choose your hard. So here I am. This is my life. And what I can tell you is it's Friday, which means I bought myself a steak, which means I'm gonna cook myself a steak tonight because Friday night is date yourself steak night. And I don't really consciously know when it started, but I just know growing up, every Friday night, my dad would grill us a steak. And I think in my head, my pre-Leona self thought one day a man will grill me a steak. And somewhere along the lines of Leona, I got a grill and I just started grilling myself a steak every Friday night. And I fucking love Friday night steak night. Like I don't go out and do other things, it feels like a sacred space to take care of me. And I can tell you actually, as I'm saying this, I know I know what really started. So Leona was born July 1st, 2017, and then you know, you have as with anniversaries, you're like, oh my god, like this is a big day. So I remember the first year, like, of course I'm not gonna go to work, of course I'm not gonna do anything. This is Leona Day, and then a second Leona day came, and then a third Leona day came, and I'm like, why am I not taking more days off just for myself? Like, I don't have to have some tragedy to happen to create a day that I celebrate something for me, and I would celebrate Leona by celebrating myself. That actually, now that I'm talking these out loud, the Leona days were the start of how I began to model to myself how I can carve out time for just me. And it actually became these like rituals and practice that feel more sacred than any holiday. I mean, like I I'm one of those weird people that I don't really love holidays. I don't, I don't get super excited about Christmas or Thanksgiving or Easter or I mean, honestly, Valentine's Day, any of them, but I love Leona Day and I love my Fridays. Like those are my and what I would say is find something just for you. And I I I still struggle with dating because I'll go on dates and I'm trying to decide like, is this right? Is it wrong? And also I'm 41, so it's like they don't have to be like completely right, can't it just be for a little bit? And it's just getting really honest with what do I want? Do I want more fun? Do I want more seriousness? And also let's try it on. Let's try it on and see how it goes. And then also, if we don't like it, take it off and then take some more time with yourself. But I know when I'm my most healthy single self, I'm still and have some kind of ritual, whether it's like daily or every other day or weekly, like there has to be some kind of self-check-in of some nature. And for me, it's Friday night steak nights because it's just for me, it's almost like a reflection of the week. If I'm being really good, I'll have coffee and journal in the morning. It's just like ask yourself the hard questions like, how are we doing? How'd that feel? And the breathing after a date or the breathing before I decide to go out with someone, or when I'm sad and alone, just really like where do I feel the breath moving? How deep can it go? How slow can it go? And really starting to explore, like, where in my body do I feel, do I feel great joy? And where do I feel like, oh hell no, don't do that? Because the breathing will correlate to different parts in your body. So internal yeses and internal no's. Like internal yeses for me are like it's like right in the belly, like the lower belly sacral area. I'm like, oh, this just feels like warm and yummy. And my internal no is like a knot in my stomach and my breathing halts. My internal yeses, my breathing slows and it goes low, and it's really nice and long, it feels easy. My internal nose are like it literally feels like a choking sensation. And if you can figure out your yeses and no's, if you can carve out some self-rituals for yourself, if you can start to carve out what do I need to be okay, and you guard those with your life. Like when I'm my healthiest, I have my rituals, I have my routines, and I have my self-care. When I'm unhealthy, I'm not showering, I'm not showering. And I know when I I know when I get off because my life feels off. So slowly come back to yourself, you come back to those things. So I would say, and envision one thing you can start to do with yourself, some date with yourself, some promise to yourself, just for you, whether it's like coloring in the park or going to get a cup of coffee and just reading a book by yourself, or maybe you take yourself out to dinner, or maybe you cook yourself a beautiful meal and find the thing that feels playful and fun that you need, that you want, and let that be the start of you dating yourself so that you can listen to yourself, so that you can take care of yourself. So then whether you end up partnered or singled or in and out, you're always okay. You always can breathe.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. Oh, that's so beautiful. And and ladies that are listening, I want you to just really hear what Perrin said about the internal yes and the internal no. Because when we're entering into potential new relationships, that's where a lot of our like old programming wires up. And so being able to have that pause and that resource in and then figuring out from not just from that like, what is what is my like sense of urgency doing? Or maybe you're the kind of person who doesn't have the urgency, but you have like the brakes on all the time. And it's that gives you that framework for how can I actually decide if this is a yes for me or a no for me, and then how can I trust that and move on with whatever I've decided.
SPEAKER_00:And and it's also like go slow. Like there's power in a pause. If you don't like jump at something, if you take like time to reflect, you give it a day. Like just know, like, whoa, that's very powerful.
SPEAKER_02:So beautiful. All right. Well, I've got one last question for you today. And it's how has yoga been a part of your growth and healing journey? How has it supported you? How has it been something that you've used or tapped into as you've done all of this wonderful work that it's very evident that you've done to grow and heal and meet yourself?
SPEAKER_00:That's a great question. I well, one, I got my yoga teacher certification during the pandemic 2020. And yoga was the thing that I was familiar enough and had done enough to be like, oh, this is like some good stuff, but I still thought it was exercise for the longest time. Like it's just exercise, it's just a workout class. I didn't fully understand it as a lifestyle or a mindset or a vehicle for which she could find personal growth and development. And really what it was is community. And so it's people that also want to move their bodies. And then when you start taking like deeper steps, so I got so the pandemic hit, you know, life is completely upside down. I thought, why the fuck not? Let's do yoga teacher training. Like, what else am I doing? And it was through yoga teacher training that they're starting to talk about pranayama and they're starting to talk about the breath. I'm like, wait a minute, I talk about this with speech pathology and also with vocal, like voice and vocal stuff. And I realized, like, we're talking about the same things but in a different language. And yoga gave me the language of the body to start to pair together what I'm doing with the mouth and the tongue. And it gave me basically a bigger container to connect it all to because so often, at least in the medical community, we think about like just the nose, just the mouth, just the ears, just the heart, just the lungs. And they're all connected. Yeah. They're all interconnected. And so to me, it was basically pulling back the curtain of when I really got into yoga and the sense of like taking more ownership of my practice. And when I say my practice, it's just how I show up on the mat, how I integrate it in my life, how I start to apply things that I'm learning or doing in a different flow to like how I show up to hanging out with friends. And once I learned how to teach and then started teaching it, I I became to embody it. And then when you can embody something, then you can live it. And to me, it gave me the vehicle, it gave me the language to learn how to be a better speech pathologist, a better myofunctional therapist, because it gave me more tools and it gave me more means to understand this body I've been so disconnected to probably for the first 30 years of my life. And so now I get to learn about her in a different way and have fun with her in a different way and yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yoga is incredible, isn't it? So would you like to take a moment to tell everyone about your business in terms of where they can find you and how if you work with people one-to-one or that sort of thing? Let's let's let people know where they can access the wonderful things that you offer.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, thank you, Carrie. I I'm most active probably on Instagram at breathewellbewell. I have a love-hate relationship with social media, but there's a lot of at least videos and reels that you can access and look for like basically information. You can get an idea of some of the things I do. And then if you are ready for one-to-one care, book a virtual discovery call through my website, breathewellbewell.info. It's also listed on my Instagram handle. And really, what I love is we can go as medical and scientific as you want, we can go as somatically as you want, but I always am going to say start with a virtual call. It's 15 minutes. And it basically just lets us know are we a good fit? Because I actually I think of that as like dating essentially, is provider dating. Like, do I want to work with you? Do you want to work with me? And then if that's the case, we can book an initial evaluation, and that's an hour and a half. And from there, we're gonna basically outline and baseline your speech, your swallowing, your breathing, your tongue range of motion, all those things that's really helpful for ENT referrals. It's helpful for treatment planning. And then I always want to see you at least four times every other week for the treatment sessions because it takes about 60 days for a new habit formation on average. So between the eval and the four treatment sessions, we get 60 days, and we're gonna know do we need more or are you at a place where you're sustainable and you can maintain what you've what you've learned. But I take HSA and I can give you a super bill. And if you're local to Greenville, I can even do in person if if it fits with the the radius for a travel fee.
SPEAKER_02:And that's and for the mamas that are listening that have younger kids or just kids in general, I want you to know I've talked to Perrin about this. She does see kids and adults, so you can work with different ages.
SPEAKER_00:I started age three. I started age three, and that's the youngest I go, and then the oldest I think I've seen is 80. So incredible.
SPEAKER_02:Well, Perrin, thank you so much for taking time to talk with me today. I know that there's been so many different points in our conversation that are going to resonate with with different women at different stages, and I'm just so grateful. Thank you so much for listening to the Nourished Woman podcast. I would love to hear what resonated with you and what you're carrying with you out into your life. Send me a message on Instagram at the Nourished Woman or even in my email. Your messages really mean the world to me, so don't be shy. The beautiful music that you're hearing is by Sean Johnson and the Wild Lotus Band. You can find them on all streaming platforms. I'll see you next week for another episode.