Robin Clements - Transcript

From my interview with Breathwave founder and father Robin Clements.

This is the transcript from my interview with Robin Clements, an international leader in the field of conscious connected breathing. He is the founder of Breathwave, as well as a surfer, yogi and father.

This is an edited transcript for paid subscribers. You can listen to the episode for free here.

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IM: Welcome, Robin to the show. 

ROBIN CLEMENTS: Thank you. 

IM: Could you please give a little sense of where we are right now and where you are right now emotionally, spiritually, geographically, just to situate the listener in this moment?

ROBIN CLEMENTS: Thank you. Well, we find ourselves in the heart of the forest on Vancouver Island up in the highlands, close to Victoria, where it is new land for us. We recently received a Blessing of property here close by, and just recently we've been exploring for a new home, for a Breathwave and to be on these 120 acres in this beautiful space at earth. Springing is our first retreat, and it's a real blessing to be in the forest and, and in the highlands here, where it feels very private and very comfortable.

You know, that wood temple that they've built here out of the trees from the land here, feels like a perfect container for our work. And so I'm in a place where I'm feeling very held, blessed and supported with the work that we're doing. And by the spirit guides, you know, that work with me and the spirits of the land here.

It's been a, a beautiful opening that we've had just in the last couple days of creating a safe container for everyone to really come into their hearts and their authenticity of being really honest with each other as we like to do, and try to hold each other accountable to, you know, what the next step is in our life.

And also to hold some of those old pieces that want to be transmuted. So I'm, I'm feeling really grateful and grounded here. 

IM: So this is my first Breathwave deep dive. And I've circled it for some time. My partner has trained with you for many years and I felt like it was for about few reasons, it was the right moment to come.

And yes, here we are about halfway through this level one training. And the question I have just to set some of the foundations for the listener and for me as I'm still learning, is what is Breathwave? 

ROBIN CLEMENTS: Thank you. Well, essentially it's a, a very complete self-healing modality of conscious connected breathing. And we bring more of a gentle approach to it that's ceremonial and that makes it a little bit unique. You know, some of the offerings of breath are quite clinical today with the amount of information that we've been learning more about the nervous system and trauma in general. And breath work is shadow work.

And so we come up against our trauma, we come up against the past when we start to open our frequency and in the way that we do with our breath and we start to clear the subconscious mind, cuz the breath is really a bridge between the conscious and the subconscious. It's that only function that we have in the body that's both voluntary and involuntary, right?

So we start to access some of the things in the closet and the safety of the container is really primary to the quality of support that we create. And we do that together as a circle. And the design of the circle is really something that's sort of new. That I brought in as Breathwave. That wasn't part of my training.

I was really trained to be a, a presenter, a workshop presenter in the training program that I learned. I stood up in front of a group of people that were sitting sort of in a classroom setting, and we were critiqued on our awareness and our balance and our cadence and, you know, the quality of our voice, et cetera.

And it brought me into my power and showed me some ways that I wasnervous. And you know, how we have that, that existential fear of how we present ourselves to others in a group. But when we sit in circle, there's a different thing that happens in us. There's a quality of discernment and deep listening that happens much differently when we all sit at the same level and no one's closer to the center than anyone else.

And when we pass the feather, the talking stick, everyone has that within them without me having too. Invite that there's just a really deep respect that's cultivated in a circle. And so I love that design and what brought me to that was really the, the sweat lodge initially, and then some of the other teachers that have blessed my path with the Native American traditions and, and other ceremonies. That's really shaped what I'm bringing at this point in my life.

IM: Yeah. For the listener who, who may have an idea or have experienced an ayahuasca journey, for me, it has a similar feel to it, except without the ayahuasca, as in the medicine is the breath. But a similar ceremonial container, a similar sense of just moving shadow work, you know, deep authenticity. It's quite something to experience and, and almost to look around and be like, where's the plant medicine? But it's like, wait, it's here in you, in me. And that's like a, still letting that land for me. 

ROBIN CLEMENTS: Yeah. Thank you. It's recently been said that there's more DMT in the lungs than there is in the brain, and I haven't seen the science of that, but I've definitely gotten a lot more from the breath than I have from other plant medicines.

And I've been quite exploratory in the realm of, of plant medicine work. And I've been really privileged and blessed with a lot of incredible medicine keepers and holders of long traditions that have showed up, especially in my community in Mexico. And to be a part of that and to support the community and those experiences has definitely helped, unlearn some of the things of my past and the things that I was holding onto.

But the breath itself is so unique in that, it's a little bit more self-empowering because you are the one doing the work. It's a self-healing practice, and actually one of the women today shared that it seems really similar to her, but even more manageable because you're able to really participate in it.

And if you feel like you're working too hard at any time or there's too much happening, you can soften the experience by changing your breathing pattern. And that's one of the things that's really easily overlooked in the experience is that not a lot of people have realized that their breath is a very deep reflection of their life and how they're living.

It's the most fundamental relationship that we have. So to be able to become more aware of our breath and how we're breathing, it starts to show us some of the ways where we might be controlling. Or contracting or working too hard. And everyone has some subtle different nuances of how they go about anything.

And it's said that how we do one thing is how we do most things right? And so it fascinates me to be that reflection of a mirror for someone and to bring to their awareness what they might not be noticing, that, you know, they're tightening their jaw a little bit, for example. And that might mean that there's some unexpressed anger that's there.

And so we, we explore with the power of sound and the power of some movement and expression to, to power through some of those things. But there's, there's a real humble conscious awareness that brings more attention to, to the subtleties. And I've noticed how people can create really simple shifts in their breathing and how that can create really profound shifts and how we're relating to ourselves initially.

But also how that reflects in our relationships. And you know, our relationships are up right now. You know, most people are challenged in their relationships with everything that we're feeling that's going on in the world. Our relationships are challenged. And if we're not doing any self work today, then it's gonna be a lot harder to be more conscious.

Right and committed to, to self-growth. And I think that's the really, the framework for sacred partnership is that each person is committed to their own evolution. And there's a lot more rubber that hits the road on our spiritual path and in relationship than it does just being, you know, on our own.

And so when someone goes about breathing without having a proper trained guide to support them, they might not be able to notice that they're using their back to breathe, for example, or that they're not breathing in their chest. And someone can continue their whole life, not breathing into their heart, and they're not gonna bring as much love into their life.

They're not gonna tap into that grief that's been stored there that had shut down the heart in the first place. That might just be ancestral. So it's, it's a real fulfilling and gratifying service to be a beneficial presence in someone's life. And, and to see those positive impacts that it could make on someone's life when they are able to make those changes.