#19: The Warrior's Breath: How a Special Forces Veteran Found Healing Through Breathwork
JANUARY 16, 2025
Powered by RedCircle
Tim Thomas, former UFC fighter and Special Forces veteran, shares his transformative journey from warrior to wellness advocate in this powerful episode of Courage to Heal. Drawing from his unique experiences, Tim reveals how he created some of Australia's most successful veteran mental health recovery programs and discovered the healing power of breathwork.
In this episode, you'll learn:
Tim's inspiring story of overcoming PTSD and finding his path as a healer
The concept of becoming an "energetic millionaire" through mindful practice
A practical approach to starting new habits by "cutting in half and taking 20% off"
Tim also guides listeners through an immersive breathwork experience, demonstrating how simple breathing techniques can transform both body and mind. Whether you're dealing with stress, anxiety, or simply seeking to enhance your well-being, this episode offers practical tools and profound insights for your healing journey.
Tim’s Website and Socials:
https://www.instagram.com/breathworkinbed/
https://www.facebook.com/breathworkinbed
Breathwork in Bed app that will guide you to sleep with peace and out of bed with power:
Transcript
Anna: Hello, friends, and welcome to Courage to Heal. Today, I have a very special person with me. His name is Tim Thomas.
Drawing on his experience in the Special Forces, Tim has created some of Australia's most successful veteran mental health recovery programs. His mission is to uplift people through quality sleep. Tim brings a very unique lived experience in wellness, breath work, and mental health. And I can't wait to find out more about it.
Tim, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you here.
Tim: So nice being here. It's been lovely getting to know you in the little chat we had before this started. And I am a hundred percent committed to adding value to each and every listener here. I run off three things in my world. Everything has to pass a P test.
Okay, it's not in a bottle, it's three P's. I'm ex military, I love my acronyms. So, three P's are powerful, positive, and permanent. And permanency is the most important thing for me, because out there there's a lot of powerful and positive stuff, but how permanent is it? You know, what, You can have this big song and dance event, but then who are you a week later, a month later, a year later?
And so permanency for me is, is very important. And by the, we spoke about this before, but by at the end of this podcast, you're going to have a little technique that you can do that within three breaths, you're going to be able to completely relax your body and mind. So stay tuned for that one.
Anna: Wow. That's a great promise. I love that tidbit and I can't wait to learn what that technique is. But Tim, let's get started by learning a little bit more about you and about your experience in the special forces and really how it shaped you.
Tim: Yeah, sure. Okay. So nothing particularly unique about my service in the way that I have my deployments to Afghanistan and East Timor.
The only thing that My service stood apart was in 2004, the Australian government essentially they knew war was coming. They had money, but no bums on seats in the special forces. And they started a scheme called the DRSF scheme, direct recruiting into special forces. So for the first time in Australia's military history, we, they were recruiting from civilian street.
into special forces. Prior to that, you had to spend two years in a regular infantry battalion before you even apply. So I was told between five and 10, 000 people applied and you had to get through some pretty rigorous screening just to even apply. You had to pass the, the physical abilities, the mental abilities, the psychological, the aptitude, rah, rah, rah, test, test, test.
And of that, Initial intake, 70 were accepted. And at 30, I was the oldest person allowed to apply. And everyone was saying, you're too old, you're too old. And something about me, Anna, is I'm actually dyslexic. I see things in patterns. Some things that are obvious to me, aren't obvious to others. And what was obvious to me was that.
This was the first time I was 30. I, this is the first time I'd ever aged. So if everyone thinks of the age that they are, that's the first time you've been that age, you know, and shouldn't it be us that decides what we can and can't do at that particular age, you know? And so I'm like, yeah, I'm, I'm going to be the one deciding, you know, what I can and can't do at this age.
And, and of, in my experience, When other people say, you can't do this, you can't do this, they're really saying, I can't do this, I can't do this, you know, and in some ways they're trying to save you the, save you the disappointment that they've experienced. So, you know, a right amount of, you know, F you in my mind keeps you sovereign, you know, like no F you, you can keep that stuff.
That's where you stop. And this is where I start. And so with that in mind, I stepped into this direct recruiting where you've got to, you've got to pass all your, your basic, you know grant training and provided you pass the advanced training, then you can do special forces selection, which is 28 days of of really hard, hard work.
And it's not just the, the, the work that you've got to do. You're in this world. You need to have your personal life sorted out as well, because you just get sort of taken up in this spacecraft of special forces. And, and, you know, you've still got a civilian life. I had a, I had a wife at the time and she was due to give birth.
On Special Forces. Selection, right? And they said, look, this is selection. You can either see your kid born or do selection. And you can't do both. And I really had to stop and think about this because I'd worked as hard as it worked for, for, for nine months to just to even apply for this. And if I wasn't to do this, then it would probably be another year and a half before I could do it again.
And I had to look at it from my child's perspective. I thought, well, what does he, what does that child really need? Does he need me there at his birth or does he need a dad with a job? Cause I've, I've got, cause up until that point before I was in the special forces, I was a professional fighter in the early days of UFC.
So back in the nineties, it was semi legal in these underground. Here in Australia, there was no money in it, but you know, we were just banking. We're still training six, seven days a week. But there was no qualifications. There was nothing to get me above minimum wage. And this was one thing that I could do that would, my family, the, the life that I think I could, you know, give them.
And so anyway. Did selection, made it through of the 70 that started less than 15, got through. And you know, went through deployments to Afghanistan, East Timor. When I got out, Anna like a lot of veterans, I had undiagnosed PTSD and I thought I was fine. You know, it's fine. I just, I just had to drink.
Half a carton of grog before I could speak to my then wife. I call her my then wife, not my ex wife because I stand for a positive future. And with, within that space it's funny. I was sort of kidding myself. As long as I could do my job as I saw it, then everything else in my life could kind of go to hell.
And I, I didn't really I didn't really seek help until, till everything was falling down around me. And that's not uncommon. My journey to becoming a healer started in 2011. I think it was April and I was about to kill a man and the Australian government wasn't paying me this time. This would have been murder.
I had reached rock bottom. Everything was falling apart. I thought, what is the, what do you need, what do you have to do in this situation? You have to go see a psychologist. And so I did and I'm, I'm fully triggered. I didn't know the name, but I am, I'm peaking out high levels of stress. Just going to see this random dude I'd never met before.
And I got to pay like two or 300 bucks to go see this guy, you know? And I tell him everything I've seen in service
and at the end, and then the guy wasn't just incompetent. I can handle incompetency. The guy was apathetic. I'm thinking I'm paying this guy money and he just doesn't give a crap. And at the end, after I told him all the stuff I saw in service, he goes, Oh, you think it was a problem with your mom and dad?
And that's just when the whole room froze. And I became very aware of everything that was on the, in that room. And I saw that he had a glass frame psychology degree behind him and I was going to feed it to him. And in my state of disconnect, it made a lot of sense to do that because he was a healer and here he was causing pain to people.
Yeah. I'm going to do everyone a favor by removing this guy. So I get out of my chair to do it. And that's when I hear the words red flag, Tim, and I felt a hand on my chest. And it was like, Tim, you are the toughest mofo, you know, and you are struggling in a system that doesn't want to seem to help. How many other people are struggling in this system?
And then I sat back down and that's when I saw them, Anna. I saw people left and right of me, thousands of them. And they were saying, Tim, if you can find a way forward for you, you can find a way forward for us. And it was at that moment, moment, my isolation got broken. And I said, it doesn't matter if it takes me a week, a month or a decade, I have to find a way forward for me.
Cause that means I'm going to find a way forward for them. And I'm pretty sure if it takes me a month or 10 years, that's the amount of time I'm going to be able to save them. So that was a, the powerful thing that I discovered. I created this goal of saving, excuse me, saving 40 veteran lives from suicide.
Cause in Australia, that's how many we lost in Afghanistan to bombs and bullets, but to suicide, we've probably lost 30 or 40 times that amount. So I thought if I'm going to die happy, if I say 40 guys from suicide and I discovered two things enabled me to achieve that within 12 months. And one of those things came off the back of that terrible experience with that psychologist.
In my state of disconnect, I was gonna do all sorts of crazy stuff and it seemed justifiable. And that's what I saw, that it doesn't matter if the pain's emotional or physical, it'll get to a certain duration or intensity, where that physical or emotional pain transforms into something without the person even knowing it, and that's loneliness, you know?
I'm the only one going through this. I've got these very painful, unspoken words in my heart, and I can't share them with anybody cause I'll just, it's too painful and it'll cause them pain. And so you, you live in in this, this, and as humans, as social mammals loneliness is the destroyer of worlds. And so I started working with a veteran charity and I created these groups.
And I structured them in such a way where people could share and the isolation be broken where some one person sharing and all these people are sitting around with their jaws open saying words like crap. I thought I was the only one. And breaking that isolation is the first step. The second step is getting them out of fatigue, because if you've been alone and isolated for a period of time, you're the only one that's got your back.
You can't drop your guard, not even for a second, cause something bad's going to happen and it's going to be your fault, you know? And it's any, any kind of mental illness gets, gets worse. increased, compounded, made bigger by fatigue and lack of quality sleep. So my programs were successful and impactful because a measurement of success was how much they improve quality sleep.
And that's no small thing and it's, and it's easier said than done, right? But when you understand, and those two things that I discovered weren't on the spreadsheet, you know, there's millions of dollars spent in veteran recovery and mental health recovery, but if you're not breaking someone's isolation, if you're not getting them out of fatigue, it's just water off a duck's back.
So I was kind of known as the guy with, you know, 20 cents and a toothpick could do more than just millions of dollars, you know, misappropriated. And, and I had no training in this other than, I'd gone through it myself, I was dyslexic, so I could just see patterns, I'm like, I don't understand why this works, let's just keep doing it, let's just keep doing it, let's make a way to do more of that, cause that's working.
And
in, in, in that. We just started getting these incredible results. We went from this small house kind of charity set up to, you know, we've now got a big building and now we're nationwide. What nobody knew, Anna, when I was doing all this great work, I started probably about a decade ago every six or seven weeks I'd have to hit the bottle really hard, guys because I made the mistake that a lot of people make and that is, it's one thing to be generous,
my saying the myself, I give of my abundance. So 10 years ago I was giving of myself and I was using helping others as a as a opiate, as like a pain relief, you know, like taking a painkiller for a broken leg, you know, made it feel better for a bit, but you're not fixing the problem. And so I was getting incredibly, I was getting incredible results, but I was getting incredibly fatigued because I was giving it myself.
And I noticed that if I'm just adequate and I give 10 percent away, I'm like, well, I'm down to 90%. You better do something with that 10%. I'd get attached to the outcome. And so I'd, I'd be wanting to flip the desk and knock the boss out. There was my own stuff I was dealing with, but you know, I was, it's, it's one thing to create healing and it's one thing to help others these days.
I start being generous with myself and then I'm generous with others because like I said, if I'm at a hundred percent, give 10 percent away, I'm down to 90%. I've got attachment. You better do something with that 10%. But if I generate 500%, I can give away 20 percent a day and people can love it, hate it, tell me to get lost.
It doesn't matter. I'm in touch with something so much more than can be taken from me. And that's no small statement because we've all been taken from, we've all been hurt. And it was like I only had 50 cents worth of energy and someone takes 25 cents. I'm like, Hey, you better give that back. That was wrong.
You know, I'm right. You're wrong. And I'd spend a year trying to get that 25 cents back. Okay. I forgot the fact that I could be a millionaire. I can make a million dollars the next day. Why am I worried about the 20 cents? And that's what confidence to me is, isn't like necessarily an energy level of, of, you know, feeling awesome all the time.
It's knowing that, yeah, I've been taken from, but I can put back in, I'm in touch with a million dollars. I sort of try and live like an energetic millionaire. So, so generosity is something that, you know, us humans were built for. I'll say it again. I don't give up myself anymore. I give up my abundance.
And that's why your morning routine is so powerful because if you can set yourself up powerfully, you can then go into the day and be, be generous and negotiate from a position of strength. Because there's a, there's a world of difference. If, if I've only got 50 cents and someone takes 20, then that's a massive withdrawal.
But if I've got a million dollars and someone takes 20 cents, I'm like, whatevs. Right. So think of you, I just encourage people to think of energy like money and how you invest it is how you get it back. And this, this is, it's really, it's a really fun way to discover who you are as a person by observing your own energetic investments and what you get back.
Like some people, they play guitar. I'm not a guitarist, some people play guitar and it might cost them a hundred dollars worth of energy, but they get like a thousand dollars back. Some people, you know, like yoga, running. Me, I like breathwork and I believe that, you know, you've been destiny's path. Isn't like a mystery.
It's like a spreadsheet. Like this is the thing that, that lights me up and gives me more than I gave it. And that can be quite interesting what actually lights you up and what doesn't. So, so when you start dialing into your own, you know, energetic portfolio you start seeing that, yes, I need to get healing.
Because pain, low, you know, fear, all these sorts of things there it's like having an investment that just takes and doesn't give back. So yes, we need to get healing, but that gets you to the, to the start line of being able to bring yourself into the world powerfully, finding out who you actually are.
And, and bringing, you know, serving at your highest level and it's, and within that, in that path, so when I was really messed up and I saw those people left and right of me that was, that was how
I started seeing that it's not what I do that adds value to others. It's what I've come through that adds value to others. And we get really caught up in the stuff that we do. Oh, what do you do for a living? Okay. Well, you know what? The real power in that person is what they've come through. And. And it might have taken them a year, but sometimes they can help you get through it in less than a month or less than a conversation.
And so I just really encourage the listeners right now to draw this towards them. Everyone is up against something right now, whatever it is. anything, right? There's some way it could, it could be, there's a type of person you want to be, but there's something stopping you from doing that, right? And ask yourself this golden question, and this is a real question.
How many people do you think are in your situation right now? That's a real question. And I encourage you to give that a number. in, in my, when I, and like my pathway to this awareness was through the veteran space. So that's how I thought about it. But you've, whoever's listening to this, think about whatever you're up against and ask that question.
How many other people are in that? Just one minute.
My chocolate Labrador is snoring so loud. It's a little bit distracting. I just gave him a belly rub. And so, yeah, if you genuinely give that a number and that's, that's a, that's a real thing, right? There are people out in this world and they're all looking in saying, if you can find a way forward for you, you'll find a way forward for us.
And those are the people that at some point in the future they're going to say words to this effect before you even met us. We were so glad you started making choices and decisions that moved you through what you needed to move through because that made it so much easier for us. Thank you. And so let's start, let's start, you know, if you've given that a number, it's not just you going to get healing, it's a million of you going to get healing.
It's a million of you developing that special uniqueness. So you know, I'm not a, I'm not one in a million. I'm a million in one.
Anna: I love that. I love that. You know, I often tell my clients that, that chances are you are never alone in what you're going through. And your story just confirms that, that all of those veterans.
I just thought that they were alone in the horrific things that they've seen and been through, and it took these men's groups to get together and hear other people's stories to realize that, no, you are never alone. And that was their first step towards healing all of that trauma that they've been through.
Yeah. And I love what you're saying about being an energetic millionaire. That's such a fresh concept. And I gather that your morning routine has something to do with it. So maybe you could tell me more about your morning routine and what you found particularly helpful.
Tim: Sure. Okay. So again, it's not what we do that gives us value.
Hang on. I'll just go. It's not what we do that gives us value. It's what we've come through. And my, I would call it like a superpower, a bizarro superpower in the way that I struggle to get up and get out of bed. Okay. I just feel like there's lead weight. I feel like death. It's like, it's like all the, all the bad crap in my head has free reign over me when I'm trying to get out of bed in the morning.
So I'm like. Because I'm like a, so bad at getting out of bed. If I create a routine that works for me and works when I'm feeling absolute crap, there's a chance it's going to work for others too. So that's where I created breathwork in bed, or you might be able to, but yeah, breathwork in bed is, you know, it helps you wake up in the morning instead of trying to force out with willpower and lead weight, you do breathwork.
And this breathwork with some body activation, basically transforms that lead into gold. So your feet are hitting the ground in a state of activation. You've, you've removed all this stuck energy and you're not carrying this, this backpack of misery. That's, that was my experience of it, right? And it's not enough to activate your body.
Cause we're not just bodies, right? We're minds as well. So part of the, the, the routine, you know, cause you in the morning, you get a little notification, you hit it, press play. Part of the routine is doing mirror work, positive affirmations in the mirror. And as much as I'm sort of an old school soldier, I'm like, this is stupid.
Why am I saying these words to my face in the mirror? I'm like, I, this works though. This fricking works. Okay. If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid. And so, so to have that as an automated, you know, guided experience every morning when I'm feeling super low, it's like a, It's like having that structure in place where you can say, Oh, I've, I've started with 2 cents.
We're going to reinvest that, make that 4 cents, 8, 16. And you just keep on investing in yourself. And you do this mirror work. That's when super powerful stuff happens. And you're not, you're no longer carrying This stuff that you don't even know you're carrying because what I, if I can speak to, to highlight the need for a good morning routine, I need to speak to what it is to have a bad one.
And what I experienced, Anna was that my mind was like a garden, whatever I watered grew. And I was watering the weeds of stress and anxiety. And those things grew, grew, grew. And they grew to a certain size where eyeballs pop out of them and they become sentient. They're aware the things that you do that feed them and they're aware of the things that might kick them out of the garden.
And so it was in their best interest that I woke up feeling like crap, that I woke up telling myself that life is crap, that I woke up saying that this is going to be a crap day. And those stress weeds were loving it because they were getting all the resources. And I noticed that if I was to do something that genuinely, would heal me or move me forward.
It would, this, it would try and firstly try and talk me out of it. Don't do it. Stay in your own isolation. In your isolation, you can justify everything. And this is why a lot of veterans or people that need to heal just drop off the map because in our isolation, we can self justify everything, you know?
But the kicker in that, and this is why I sort of do what I do. I realized that all my unhealed crap, I don't get the luxury of taking it to the grave with me. I pay that forward to my kids. I pay that forward to everyone I meet, you know, so this stuff doesn't die with me. And, and, and within that, we're starting to discover intergenerational trauma, especially within the veteran space.
So what I'm feeling right now could have been passed down from the generations before me. So, you know, I haven't met my great, great grandfather, but I'm pretty sure he was an angry dude. And so in my family, anger was a thing. And I literally had to be the one to say, anger ran in my family until it ran into me.
And so when you get the gravity of, it's not just this timeline that we're healing, it's the timeline in front of us that we're healing, it's passed down. And once you get that, you can break the isolation that you're not. You're healing, not just yourself, you can heal generations in front of you and the ones behind you.
You know, they didn't know what they were passing on.
Anna: Right. That is so powerful, Tim. I love what you said, that anger ran in my family until it ran into me. And that is such a fresh perspective, right? It was a cycle breaker that generations before me. carry this weight. And now I can be the one to change that for the generations that come after me. Yeah. Wow.
That is so powerful. And it sounds like it's this combination of breath work that you can do while you're still in bed. And then mirror work where you look in the mirror with saying positive affirmations about yourself. That really was, key in you becoming better.
Tim: Yeah. And I couldn't depend on, I'm a pretty motivated dude, but I couldn't depend on my willpower in the morning.
So that's why I made these little audio tracks where I just noticed when they were saying, breathe in, breathe out, I would start doing that, you know, open and close your hands, rub your shoulder, massage your eyes. I'll do it, do it, do it. And it was just like, That would improve by 1%, 2%, 5%, 10%, and then all these little automated things to, to, to clear all this stuck energy so that you're, you know, you win the first 10 minutes of the day, you win the day.
But again, I needed to have that energetic structure in place to, to guide me into that. And if you really want to go full circle in this, in the, in the Breathwork in Bed Guided Sessions, once you've connected to your body, once you've connected to your mind You're asked to consider the possibility that this connection is not meant to just stay inside ourselves.
If we're going to go full circle, how about we pay it forward? We do an act of generosity. It doesn't have to cost you anything. Could it's just could be something you don't normally do. You might let someone in on traffic. You know, that's my act of generosity. Me, I like picking up cigarette butts mainly because I hate doing it.
And I noticed when I do something, this is just an energetic exchange. When I hate doing something. Afterwards, it's like I get so much more energy. I don't know why. Like, I'm like, this is terrible, but I'm doing it anyway. But then you just, you have so much more energy for all the other stuff that you have in your life.
Maybe it's a comfort zone thing. You get outside your comfort zone and then you've, and it takes re it really takes something to get outside your comfort zone. So you, that gives you energy to, to do other stuff more comfortably. You know what I mean? So, so that, that sequence would connect to yourself.
Cool. But then out of your abundance, connect to some to outside of yourself. And we actually have what's called a generosity news wall. Inside the app where people can post their acts of generosity. Cause it's one thing to do it yourself. And I firmly believe there are more empowered and connected people in this world.
We have the numbers, but we don't have the spotlight. Okay. The current narrative is given to us by, you know, mainstream media and you don't hear from a lot of empowered and connected people. In fact, you normally hear from disempowered, disconnected people. And when I hear people say, Oh, the world's a terrible place.
I'm like, is that you saying that? Or is that the mainstream, you know, narrative speaking through you honestly, are you, are you just, cause that's why I've actually banned all media. It from my world, because as a soldier, I've been to those places that they get reported on and it's got nothing to do with reality.
So just be very mindful if you're saying, Oh, the world's a certain way. Is that your, you saying it or, or the TV speaking through you? So changing the narrative. is something that we're trying to do where, you know, I want to hear that, I don't know, Ted from Texas took his neighbor's bins in, you know, that gets shown up, you know, Sally took her mom for a coffee.
You know, I, I put one up there the other day I was out running and I saw this dog running through the bush and I'm like, it's probably a lost dog. And I, you know, spend the time to befriend it, grab its collar and find a number and call the number and take the time to return it. And it was just like, and I just stuck it on.
I'm like, yeah, that's just, didn't cost me anything, you know, but it's funny how you share these things and people start realizing, oh shit, I'm not alone in this world. There's other connected and empowered people. And, and having that shift and changing that narrative allows us to, I believe, be more powerful outside of our own skin.
Because you know, everyone's been hurt at some point, but if you, if, if we don't get the healing, if we don't have the courage to heal, and this is why I love your name here, then you'll never, you'll never get outside of that. And, and other people stuck in that place are just looking for that person who can just get outside their own skin.
Yeah. You know, I don't even like that person, but they've shown me it's possible. And what if you were that type of person to show them it's possible? And it's actually better if they don't like you, because then they're like, I didn't even like that person. And they're doing something I want to do.
Anna: Oh, that's great. Yes, absolutely. I mean, cause you're right. Healing does take a certain amount of courage and. I love that you've thought through so much of this, that your app basically allows you to do some breath work while you're still in bed, encourages you to do some mirror work with affirmations, and then it actually says, why don't we go out there in the world, do something nice and kind for somebody else, affirmations, And then come back and tell others about it so that we know the world is not this horrible place.
Because you're right. The news is always negative. The news is always showing us the worst of the worst. And here you can actually see, wow, people are kind. People care about one another.
Tim: Absolutely.
Anna: Absolutely.
Tim: Yeah,
Anna: that's fantastic. And all of this is called breathwork in bed. Is that right? Yeah.
Tim: Yeah. You can pick up your phone, put in three words, breathwork in bed.
It'll guide you. I'm not a tech person. It's my first it project. So I said, this has to be bulletproof for non tech people. And I don't want to, the thing about a lot of apps is they want you to stay on your phone. I don't want that. Right. So it'll ask you two questions when you want to sleep, when you want to wake up and we take care of the rest.
You'll just get this notification. You hit it, press play. You get guided to sleep, which is amazing. It's particularly handy at 3am. It's pretty goddamn lonely when your own head is kicking over at 3am to press a button, to breathe a certain way, to get back to sleep. But just be a warning, a warning. You know, how I was talking about the stress weeds, you water them and they go to sleep.
They, they don't want to be kicked out. At 3am, I noticed the stress weeds are used to running the show when your head's gone a million miles an hour, and they will tell you breath work is bulldust, so don't do it. And so many times, even though I've done it a hundred times, I know it works when my head's doing those ones, you know, get me crazy at 3am.
It's it, there's resistance to hitting that button and breathing a certain way. Cause for some reason. Yeah, yeah, those stress weeds don't want to be kicked out, but trust me when I say you start breathing a certain way and Somewhere between breath 15 and 25 they get kicked out and the rest of your brain is like, thank goodness You've kicked them out.
This is working. Keep doing it. All right So just know that you've got power in your corner now, not just to get to sleep but to get back to sleep natural restorative way Did that answer your question? I feel like I, I, I. Oh yeah.
Anna: Oh yeah, absolutely. I mean, I'm going to be trying out this app myself here very shortly because I could definitely use some more breathwork in my life and some more of that calm that comes with it.
And I know exactly what you mean is sometimes when we're really, you know, in the worst state. Our brains go, no, nothing will help. Nothing will help right now. Just be miserable. And just saying, I'm going to do it anyway, because what's the harm? What's the harm if I try breathing for five minutes, 10 minutes?
Yep. I'm, I'm awake anyway. Might as well. And you're right. It absolutely helps. Every time I've done breath work, it has helped me calm my body or bring more energy to my body depending on what I need and what kind of breath work I'm doing. So I will definitely be trying that out. I'm quite excited as a matter of fact.
And Tim, you also wrote a book. You wrote a book called Fight, Flight, Feel, which I will make sure to link in my show notes for anybody who might be curious about it. And in that book, you ask your readers, what if there was something already inside of you that could change everything outside of you?
Can you tell me what that one thing is?
Tim: Well, in the book, I share. What I discovered for me, the one thing inside of me that changed everything outside of me. But that statement is more rhetorical in the way that, If people took the time and I invite the listeners to draw this question to them, if there was one thing you could do that would make the most amount of difference, what would it be?
And it can be something quite simple. And the thing about energy is it gives you the first thing you need to do. And it might not look like anything of where you end up that one thing that could make the most amount of difference. You start doing that. You start investing in that and getting that return.
That'll lead you to the next thing. And then the next thing. So it doesn't pay to think too far ahead. Just think what's the one thing I could do that would make the most amount of difference. You genuinely ask yourself that question. You might have to ask, well, why aren't I doing it? What can I do to implement that?
How do I, how do I do this with ease and grace? How do I, how do I do this comfortably? Because a lot of people get inspired to do some, you know, let's just call it a physical discipline of some kind. And it took me about 30 years to realize, Anna, and this is the advice I give to people. If you want to do a physical discipline, whatever it is, think about what you want to do, then cut it in half and take 20 percent off.
So let's just say, for example, someone wants to say, I'm going to walk for 20 minutes a morning. I say, all right, cut that in half 10 minutes, take 20 percent off. You only go for an eight minute walk. So at the end of that eight minutes, you're like, man, I really wanted to do more. and that will guarantee you doing it again.
So, so this is the thing. It's not the workout that's hard. It's organizing everything in your life so you can actually do it. And if that thing gives you a poor return on your investment, then we usually find a way in all the business to not do it. So if you leave feeling like you could have done more, that'll guarantee you doing it again.
So I'm going to ask everyone a question. What's better doing A thousand we'll call them workouts, a thousand workouts at 60 percent or 10 workouts at 100%?
Anna: Ooh, that's a good question. That's a good question.
Tim: And the correct answer is a thousand workouts at 60%, because that 60 percent is always growing.
So I always tell myself, Tim, you can, you can, when I'm, whenever I'm trying to get myself back in to physical discipline, I say, Tim, you can bleed from the eyeballs in six months time, but right now take it super easy. Cut it in half. Like some people literally drive to the gym, you know, have your gym clothes on, go to a treadmill, wipe the dust off it, and then get back in your car.
Okay, because if we do the things that are easy and comfortable, a lot longer than we can do things that are hard and uncomfortable, fun human fact. All right, but often you have these motivational speakers that let's go do this. Okay, and they push themselves into some sort of physical discipline, but it's creating a state of disconnect in their own body.
You know, they're doing it, they're running, but they're not connected and they're feeling all this discomfort and they need adrenaline to sort of focus past it. So whenever they just think of doing some sort of exercise, I've got tension through their body. I'm like, Oh, that was really uncomfortable. I just, no, just do this.
Come on. And then. That really doesn't last for as long as something that you can do that's easy, comfortable, gentle on yourself. Again, 30 years, and hopefully I'm giving to people listening right now, and they can pick that up in, in far less time. And yeah. Yeah, I hope that lands for those people listening.
Anna: Well, it's certainly ending for me and I'm letting you know right now, I'm stealing that from you that cut it in half and take 20 percent off because I find when I teach mindfulness to my clients, there's so much resistance there to, to mindfulness, to meditation, to body based meditation, like body scans and stuff like that.
And that's always what I say, just try it for two minutes. And maybe it needs to be less than two minutes for some people. Maybe it's 30 seconds. Maybe, like you said, they just sit down in their quiet space and they don't even meditate. They just sit there for 30 seconds and then they get up and go on their way.
That's still better than not doing it at all. So I am stealing that from you. Thank you very much.
Tim: You want something to maximize that? Absolutely. Okay. So remember how I said, you know, there's stress weeds in your head and they're aware of stuff. So. If you are to do something powerful, the disempowered parts of your head know about this.
So, so if you're going to do some sort of physical discipline, meditation, yoga, running, whatever, beforehand, there's always those parts, let's not do this, let's do this later, because they know that once you become powerful, they're kicked out. So if there's something you're resisting doing, It's because there's something you're resisting feeling.
There's a feeling you don't want to feel. It could be something. I'm just so familiar with being stressed out, disempowered and F you everybody. But when I truly become powerful, if I, and I get up into the higher energy levels, You know, the cockroaches scatter when the lights are on.
Anna: Yeah.
Tim: Okay. So they don't want you to turn the light on.
And so just know before it, before you become powerful, all the disempowered parts of you are going to be screaming for their survival. And they scream the loudest before they know. they're going to die. So, so I now use that as a compass. So when there's a part of me, like I had an ice bath this morning and there was a part of me going, don't do it.
Let's just, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, Ooh, I'm, I'm not wanting to do that. Cause there's something I'm not wanting to feel. And in, you know, the experience of the ice bath, you have to let everything go. Cause it's, it's so overstimulating. You can't hang on to your own negativity. It takes so much energy. And so.
You don't just get more energy from, you know, the experience of an ice bath from just because of your own body getting energized, you get more energy. Have to throw out all the disempowered crap in your head. A little concept I like to share with people, especially when I'm doing corporate work is I get them to guess my body weight.
Okay. All right. If you saw a full, I mean, we're probably just recording audio right now, but if you looked at me, you know, you, if, if I was in American talk, it'd probably be 190 pounds. And that's a measurement of mass. Okay. Yeah. So I've got 190 pounds of mass. We've all got, you know, bodies that weigh a certain mass and because it contains mass, it is stuck at, in Australia right now, it's 9 55 AM.
But there's something else we all own that's just as important and that is a mind. Now if we took our minds and put them on the scales, we couldn't weigh them because they don't contain mass. Now that's an obvious, but important thing to keep in mind, because our minds not containing maths, they're not stuck at 9.
55 in the morning. They can go back in time, they can go forward in time, and we're not omnipotent. We've got a certain processing power that they have, and let's just call it a hundred percent. Hundred percent processing power. All right, and let's just say there's something in my past that's unresolved.
That could be taken up to 40 percent of my processing power. So that's 40 percent in the past. So at 955 right now, I've got 60%. And let's say there's something about my future I'm worried about that could be taken up. Let's say another 40%. So I'm down to 20 percent in this physical moment at 956 right now.
And life's pretty hard when I'm at 20%, you know, cause life is hard when I'm 20%. But I put it to everyone listening, when you're at a hundred percent, there's not a goddamn thing that you can't do, you know? So this is why a physical discipline is so important because what you have to understand is your mind isn't looking for a fight here.
It isn't looking to disempower you. In my experience of it, your mind wants one thing, stimuli. Because we're pretty high stimuli creatures, right? And if it doesn't get it from this moment, it goes, well there's nothing keeping me here, I'm going to go through space and time. And this explains why you can have a hundred good things happen to you, one bad, and you remember the bad one, because bad experiences are usually higher stimuli.
So if we don't anchor, like our mind, if we don't anchor it in our bodies with some sort of physical discipline, if we don't give ourselves the stimuli we need in this moment, it'll go, nothing keeping me here, and then voom, future past. And life is hard at 20%, but if we can give ourselves conveniently stimuli from our mind in our bodies, whatever that looks like, breath work, stretching, yoga, running, meditation, and then you've got that processing power, you know, for your day.
And, and that, so that's how I, when I'm talking to these blokey blokes, manly men, I said, getting, getting healing. From your past isn't about becoming like this guru eating celery and tofu on a mountaintop It's about being able to bring everything that you have into this moment right now It's about powering up in this moment and and that's why in Afghanistan I could figure out why sometimes I was courageous and once sometimes I was just crapping myself Because sometimes my processing power was so worried about something that would happen in the future That I was at like 5 percent in this moment.
And when I get that low, I'm like, you know, my breath was automatically saying, come back here. There's too much of you somewhere else. Does that make sense?
Anna: Oh yeah. That makes a lot of sense. Anchoring yourself in the present in your body, which is, that's how you anchor yourself in the present. And, and then, you know, I often use the analogy of.
Anxiety is about the future. Depression is about the past. So you really want to try to stay in the present as much as possible. So I love what you're describing here and how to do that with that physical discipline. And I also really like your point about that when you are resisting something the most, that's when you know you need to do that thing.
That it's literally screaming at you that there is something there, there is something important here that you're avoiding feeling, and we're not going to let you do it, we're not going to let you do it, and that's all the more reason for you to go and do that thing.
Tim: Yeah. The one place you don't want to go is the place that gets you the most reward or, or they have the myth, mythology sort of look of the, the fire breathing dragon and behind it is the cave of gold.
So the one thing you don't want to feel, see, that's where all the richness is. And, and the dis, yeah, the disempowered parts of us know. What makes you powerful? And so reinterpret that, Oh, don't do it. You shouldn't do it as there's something super powerful about to happen. You know? So every time, I mean, I've been exercising for many years, but every time before I work out, there's always those don't do this.
This is crap. Rah, I find something else to do. Play with your phone. Okay. But that is the amount of resistance we get from it is the amount of assistance we get afterwards.
Anna: I love that resistance and assistance
Tim: because I'm wasting 40 percent of me, you know, staying disempowered. So when I get into action, that 40 percent wasting wasted is now in a direction where I want it to go.
Anna: That all makes sense. I love all of these little tidbits of wisdom that you have. And Tim, at the beginning, you said that you have this technique that involves three breaths helps you get calm, manage stress. I will give the stage to you. Please show me this technique.
Tim: All right. And I'm going to do everything I can to make this experience as easy and effortless as possible. Cause remember, it's all about easy and effortless. It's not about forcing it and feeling uncomfortable.
So what we're going to do is simply gently breathe in and breathe out. Done that good.
And this time, when we breathe in, we're going to breathe in again, again, again, again, give that a try. So breathe in and then breathe in again, again, again, again, again.
Now, did you notice a little bit of extra space opening up, up high when you breathe in again, again, again. All right. For the sake of giving this a word and we're going to call it your secondary inhale. All right. So I just want you to breathe in. But then, then find that switchover point where you breathe in from your primary and then into your secondary and really feel that secondary in house.
So take another deep breath in, go from your primary and then go straight.
I love it. Okay. Now, okay. So I'm going to show you how to access this secondary space. What you, what you didn't know between your fingers and thumbs, you've got a turbo button. So if you're trying this at home and you're listening to this, you're pinching the tips of your thumbs. Two fingers into your thumb and pushing down really hard when it gets to your secondary inhale.
So you breathe in on your own. When it comes to your secondary inhale, you pinch your fingers into your thumb as hard as you can and that'll give you your secondary inhale a little turbo boost. So when you're ready, just breathe in and when it comes to your secondary inhale, pinch your fingers and give yourself a little boost.
Breathe in, pinch and boost.
Anna: Wow, it really worked. I felt a boost right there when I pinched my fingers. That's amazing.
Tim: So we're gonna, we're gonna just smooth that out. So breathe in and then when it comes to your secondary, hit your turbo buttons. Okay, so just find that, find that little rhythm. Breathe in, and notice the harder you pinch, the more boost you get.
Anna: Oh, it's so true. I love that.
Tim: All right, and we're only a third of the way there. So we're going to juice this up even more. Okay, we're going to make your secondary inhale feel even better, easy and effortless. So what we're going to do, is we're going to think about chin and our two fingers like a triangle.
Okay? So this is your, your power triangle and you're going to raise your chin and pinch your fingers and stretch out that triangle. So when you breathe into your secondary inhale, your chin's going to be coming up. You're going to be looking at the roof and everything is going to be opening up on the front of your body as that triangle from your chin to your two power button opens up.
So let's give that a try. So I invite you just to blow it out and then breathe in. Hit your turbo buttons and raise your chin. Look at the ceiling. Raise your chin. Raise your chin. Open up, open up, open up, and then just let it fall out.
Anna: Oh, that felt incredible. It's so great to feel the body stretching and feeling more air entering my lung capacity, my lung cavity.
That's fantastic.
Tim: And still, we're not even halfway there yet. So. This time, we're gonna smooth it together. Breathe in, hit the turbo buttons, and really raise up, and it's like your sort of chest cavity is opening up. Like a, like a flower. Okay. Often when we're feeling low and low energy, we'll hunch our shoulders forward and we'll collapse our lungs.
Okay. It's like we're trying to protect ourselves. So proper breathing gives you proper structure. So I invite you to do the same thing again and breathe in and really lift the chin and lift the, the, the chest as well. Like you're trying to lift up your sternum and show everybody your heart. Okay. So whenever you're ready, blow it out and then breathe in, hit your turbo buttons, raise your chin, open your chest, raise, raise, raise, get it in, get it in, get it in.
Now hold your breath and wriggle your shoulders, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle your shoulders, feel it pushing around the place, open it up, stretch it out, feel how good it is to stretch into that space and let it out with a sigh.
Anna: Wow, that, I definitely felt something incredible in that moment right there. Something about getting all of that oxygen in and stretching my body at the same time, that wow, that, that's incredible.
Tim: And it's going to get better. So this secondary inhale, I call that my breath of possibility. When something feels impossible, tension, anxiety, store here.
So when I'm out in public and it's safe to do so, this is my little circuit breaker, my, my, power button, my turbo buttons in my fingers. I need a tactile pinching feeling for me to change the thoughts in my head. So I'll go, okay. To, to make impossible possible. So that top third of your lung is your breath of possibility.
And you know, I can have my hand in my pocket and I can pinch my fingers, you know, and I'm probably a bit more discreet, but this time when you do it, I want you to really suck through your nose as As strong as you can. Okay. One thing my coach taught me and I don't know how true this is, but it seems to work.
He would say snort air through your nose, through your sinuses, because that'll go directly into your brain. Okay, so this time when we breathe in, I want you to breathe in on the last bit, really force it, like, snort and flare those nostrils, so you can have that air going, breathing through your sinuses, through into your brain.
Okay, so we're going to start slow, and then at the end, really power it in and snort it through that nose. You cool with that? Absolutely, let's do it. Let's gently let it all out, out, out, out, out, out. And then on the way in, just start with your own breath, hit those power buttons and snort as hard as you can through your nose.
Raise your chin, raise your chest, snort, snort, snort, open, open, open, hold it, wriggle it, feel that possibility, stretching it all out. Feel that possibility. Twist your shoulders, twist your back. And with the juiciest sigh, let it all out. Oh,
Anna: wow. That again, I know I keep saying that, but that is truly incredible. I love how it makes me feel. I feel like this energy is pulsating through my body from my toes to the top of my head. And I mean, yes, it's 5pm here in Colorado and I do not, I'm not sleepy at all, which I normally would be around this time.
Tim: And this is the wonderful thing about breath. It's so powerful, but you don't hear about it. No one's making money from it. So it's up to people like us, people that are listening, that is. I'm using the collective we right now. If we can lay hold of this, if we can become sovereign inside our own skin and what people discover, Anna, it's not a set of lungs we own, it's a medicine cabinet with a lot of different shells.
So when I'm working with high school students, I'll show them how to breathe past their stress and focus on their exams. When I'm working with corporates, I'll show them how to do an afternoon boost. When I'm working with people who want to go to sleep, want to get out of bed, there is a medicine shelf for everything we need to do, or some might call it a magic potion shelf.
Okay. Cause this stuff is magic. I'm telling you. And, and, It goes beyond words, this stuff. It's really hard to describe it. And there's no bottom to the depth of experience. It keeps getting better, it keeps getting better, it keeps getting better. And, you know, we're gonna do three breaths. But imagine if you spent an hour with me and how it is, you know, there's dipping your toe.
That feels amazing. Imagine if your, all your foot was in there, your whole leg, your whole lower body, everything. That's when it gets super amazing. And people ask me, why do you do two hours of breath work a day? And I said, well, if you had something that felt absolutely amazing, made everything in your life better, made your body fitter, stronger, faster, do it.
Yeah. I mean, and, and ultimately my goal here, Anna is to, you know, often we Search for things in the outside world that essentially we can give ourselves.
Everything you truly want and desire before you left the house. And then, then the day just becomes a victory lap, you know, it's all icing on the cake, you know, because I've, I know that I give to me what I really need. And that way, I'm not worried if someone takes from me, I can just give it to myself back.
I'm the energetic millionaire here. All right. So we're going to take this breath to a whole new level. So divide your, your lungs into three places, your top, your middle, your lower. Okay, Breath of Possibility up here, but down low, down low, is the Breath of Peace. Okay. This is, you know, where your belly button is a bit lower.
And what we're going to do is just what we did. We're going to breathe in, open everything up, hold it, wriggle it and feel it going from your upper chest, middle chest. And then we're going to hunch our shoulders forward, have our head forward. Like we're sort of head almost hanging down to our knees. And we're going to push it down low.
Our hands are going to be on our stomach and you're going to feel that Balloon of air. I'll talk you through it. But the request is here with all this breath work, be sure to be doing this in a safe location. Don't be driving a car, operating heavy equipment. Don't be cutting up carrots. You know, this is something that you need to be fully present with because where we're going to go now sometimes can feel so relaxing that I've seen people fall off their chair.
So you want to be, you want to be in a place where you are supported you know and just, that's just that little caveat. So this stuff's awesome. You know, don't do it while you're balancing on a ladder, right? It's powerful. Like you said, and it's about to get more powerful. Cause, cause we, we, like I said, we're just dipping our toe into this.
So we're going to do this three times. And it's usually by the third time people start doing it right, because this is the first time most people have breathed this way. So we're going to do that thing where we breathe in, in, in. We're going to hold it. We're going to wriggle it, but then we're going to let our head fall forward.
We're going to put our hands on our belly and we're going to feel that balloon in our belly. And we're going to squeeze it, but we're going to try and push it out of our mouth, but our mouth stops it. So it's going to kind of come out like
So you just let it bleed out of your, you know, push your tongue to the roof of your mouth and let it come out with a tsss. So you're resisting it. And if you can make that exhale for 20 or 30 seconds, you'll feel what it can actually do for you when you've got it down low. All right. So enough talking.
We're going to do this three times. I'll coach you through it and be gentle on yourself as we do this. So I just didn't have everyone get their turbo button buttons ready. Okay. Blow it all the way out, out, out, out. And then breathe in, hit your power buttons, raise your chin, open your chest in, in, in, snort, snort, snort that air, snort that air.
Okay. Hold your breath. Wriggle your shoulders, twist your spine, wriggle, wriggle, wriggle. Now let your holding your breath. Let your head relax forward. Let your head relax forward. Put your hands on your belly. Put your hands on your belly. Feel that air going to your belly, down to your belly button. Feel it.
I want you to squeeze it down. Low, low, low. and let it out super slow with a tsss. Try and make that. Hissing sound for as long as possible. Relax everything. Let everything relax. Let everything relax. Notice how you can just let everything relax as you exhale. And then when you're ready, We're just going to breathe in again, hit the turbo buttons in, in, in really snort that air, snort, snort, snort, open it up, wriggle it around, wriggle it around.
Let it fall from your upper chest into your middle chest down low. Let your head hang low. Like your head's almost between your knees. Hold your belly, hold your belly. Push it down low, down to your belly button, squeeze it and let it out with a super slow tsssss. Push it down low, let it out slow, slow, slow, slow, and notice as that air leaves your body so is the tension leaving your body.
Feel your shoulders relaxing, your face relaxing, everything is relaxing. And then there's one last time, we're just gonna open up like a flower as we squeeze our fingers. Nice long in, open, open, feel like, like a flower that's opening up and it just feels amazing to be in the sunshine. Wow, feels good. And then Wriggle it, wriggle it, wriggle it, let it gently collapse forward, collapsing forward, head down, head down, hands on the belly, feel that lovely belly, squeezing it down low, the further low the better, and then let it out super super slow,
really slow, and allow that cascade of relaxation, there's no need to hold tension, just let it out, Now, Anna, I just encourage you to keep your eyes closed, keep your eyes closed and sit on your chair and allow the weight of that chair to support you. Allow that, it was built to support you, it will support you.
Allow your muscles just to be supported by that chair. So often, in our tension, we don't allow ourselves to feel supported and held. It's like our own tense muscles are trying to hold us and support us. But it doesn't work like that. It's only when we allow ourselves to feel supported, relax into that which is supporting us and holding us, that we can really feel like we're held, supported, and we can let it all go.
I invite you to just breathe into your body. If you feel there's a part of you that needs more relaxing, just give it a bit of a snort through your nose to relax it. You can, you can target your body parts with your breath. I normally have tension in my shoulders, so I breathe specifically into my shoulders.
Some people breathe into their face or cheekbones or your knee, your lower back, wherever that is for you. And just notice how you can, you can literally breathe. Into different body parts. Obviously, you're not, I'm not breathing through my shoulders, what I'm doing is putting energy through my shoulders, removing tension so that energy can flow.
Energy flows naturally, but it doesn't flow when there's blockages. So your breath removes the blockages.
And I just invite you, Anna, and anyone listening to gently sort of rub your face with your hands. Gently rub your face with your hands and feel how, when you rub your face, it just feels so good. And if there's a part that you're rubbing, it could be your eyes, it could be your eyebrows, it could be your ears.
If it feels good, and it sometimes just feels better and better the more you rub it. And allow that, that tactile interaction. to just cascade that feeling of relaxation. I invite you to put a hand on one shoulder and just massage one shoulder with one hand. Just do circles and start moving that hand down that arm.
And remember to breathe, put your breath underneath your hand. Feel what it is to combine tactile interaction with breath and move down to your hands. I invite you to sort of interlock your fingers and squeeze your fingers together and breathe into it. Combine your breath with your body movement, you're unblocking and you're connecting and you just feel the energy flowing.
This is beyond words. This is a visceral feeling that we're giving ourselves. Now with that one arm, work up that same arm. The hand goes up the same arm to the shoulder, squeezing as you go and breathing. Remember that we know how to breathe now. We breathe up, up, up, out, out, out. And just notice how good it feels just to be breathing.
and tactilely interacting with your own body. My goodness.
And when you're ready, checking in with your body and acknowledging yourself for that little journey you went on, that was just three full breaths, possibly the first three full breaths people may have experienced in their whole lives.
Anna: Wow, Tim, I have to say right now I'm feeling like I just went to a spa and that would be a lot more money than you just telling me how to breathe properly.
I I feel very relaxed. Like you said that, you know, massaging my own body, there's just something about it because I think there's also some self kindness there too. When you touch your face, when you touch your arms, when you massage your fingers, you're taking care of yourself. And that feels very special.
And the breathing is just amazing to me. So Tim, thank you so much for first of all, this incredible story of how you went from a UFC fighter to a soldier in the special forces, to being a healer through breath work and positivity and generosity. And then for this wonderful practice, I hope my listeners did it with me because I feel incredible.
I hope they feel incredible. Tim, this has been a true pleasure interviewing you today. Thank you so much for stopping by and sharing all of this wisdom with me.
Tim: It's been an absolute pleasure, Anna. Thank you so much for being a wonderful host. I hope that the people listening just get a sense that this power is yours and you've just been introduced to it.
And I, I'm, I am so happy to be the person that introduces you to the love of your life.
Anna: Oh, I love that.
Tim: That's what breathwork is. It's the love of your life.
Anna: Yeah. I'm falling in love already. I can feel it in my body. Yes. Yes. And I already am familiar with breath work, but this is just a whole other level of getting intimate with it to continue our love metaphor here, right?
Yes. Okay. Thank you once again. And for all of you listening, I really hope you leave feeling a little lighter and more empowered as always remember that healing takes time and you're exactly where you need to be. So take care of yourself. And until we meet again. Be kind to your heart.
