Breathing Unlimited

Affirming mental concepts through the body

An idea in somatics is that through Feeling something in your body you Embody the principle. And it becomes reality, alive, relational. It becomes a thing very real to you, rather than a concept difficult to touch on.

Let’s take self-worth. Or boundaries.

What does self-worth feel like in your body?

And boundaries, what kind of things can you notice, sense or feel whenever you get in touch with your boundaries?

It is challenging to read the bodily cues first.
It takes a good amount of time, awareness and slowness to notice, sense and feel. And then another good amount of time to practice noticing, sensing and feeling in different situations, relationships, environments.

In a way, somatics is about getting out of the conditioned norm towards a true freedom of being you.

Jumping, by the way, is a wonderful whole-body-affirmation of taking your place!

Happy Sommer❤️

Yoga changed my life. Breath saved me.

I had the pleasure of being interviewed for a Master’s Thesis about Yoga and my relationship with the practice.

I do understand how easy it is to say ”I practice yoga all the time; yoga is a lifestyle” etc, and still not really commit to the path of yoga. Practice can be occasional, tidal; asanas are done for cool pictures or as a workout. All that is fine. But there’s also a trap there.

Yoga has become this practice that almost everyone knows of, has tried once or twice, but of which only a small handful really understands anything about.

And over and over again I contemplate this question of why everything tends to get, and be, so superficial.

Why traditions thousands of years old get so mixed with cool new age trends. Why everything needs to be unique and modern and fast and commercial.

And why true wisdom is in these days so hidden that one can walk blindly for the duration of a lifetime never even encountering life’s big questions.

Every picture on this post carries a story. Of how yoga brought me back to life from being lost for a long long time.

Happy International Yoga Day! 🙏🧘🏼‍♂️

🕸️ Experience your Body as a Doorway to wholeness, flow and altered states of consciousness.

Explore your Body as a Doorway into the states of liquid connectivity, resonance, and trance.

One evening, three hours, a deep journey into your Bodyverse through embodied movement and breath that will leave you deeply nourished.

Book your spot through the link in bio! 🕸️🗝️🚪

With

How to stay curious instead of knowing it all

”I am a breathing educator and run Breath Coach Training in Norway and Finland.”

”Oh yes, I use breathing a lot also in (names any modality)”

”Hehe yes I have been breathing all my life”

”I know already everything about nose breathing and deep breaths”

…. Usually after these kinds of sentences the conversation is over. Which is fine. But not completely ok.

As someone who has used the past 10 years in exploring the breath and body, studied thousands of hours, invested over 200 000nok and continues to explore the breath with beginner’s mind, I often wonder why people have this need to ”close the gap” and be so certain that they know it all already.

I am not taking anything away from you or your experience. It is all sacred and valid.

I just wish that we’d stay curious and understand that our breaths and bodies are ENDLESS sources of inspiration. You can never know it all.

Through understanding this somatically, in your body, something seems to open up at other levels as well.

Think about communication that is based on Real Listening and Curiosity rather than proving a point.

Think about science where the preferred quantitative methodology often leads to desperately trying to prove a point rather than to explore the world through experience, phenomenologically.

Doors to healing and resiliency start to open through curiosity, listening and softening to your inner experience.

And I would not be so certain about this without my breath and the doors it has opened for me.

With .meeuwisse

Photo by /

Why taking deep breaths can be a poor strategy for down-regulation and recovery?

👉 Swipe and read!

As always, there are some caveats to be added.

Healthy, free and flowing breath with strong elastic diaphragm usually takes care of healthy oxygen/carbon dioxide balance in the body.

Sometimes the best strategy is not a strict Buteyko style reduced breathing with 24/7 nose breathing.

Sometimes the system needs more of healthy activation, emotional work, authentic movement and breathing practices where the NATURAL RESPONSES of the system are encouraged rather than restricted (even more).

As an everyday health strategy, breathing softly and slowly is undeniably the best foundation to build more resiliency.

In case you’re interested in measuring your carbon dioxide and getting an assessment of your breathing, book an appointment!

Link in bio❤️

Breathing Unlimited Breath Coach Training - a multidisciplinary, in-depth, holistic, body-based, scientifically accurate and spiritually inspired breathing training.

Dive into the depths of breathing at all levels.

For coaches, therapists, bodyworkers, yoga teachers, health care professionals, psychologists, HR professionals and many more.

Last Early Bird Day in Trondheim - 1 spot left!

CONDITIONS OVER TECHNIQUES

How to create the conditions of safety even in seemingly unsafe circumstances?

Life is not safe. And I dare to claim that life should not be only safe because growth happens somewhere on the border of safety/unsafety.

But there are always momentums of safety that can be invited into presence. Like your exhalations as signs of safety for your system.

Momentums are way more important than a static idea of safety. Momentums mean that you can pendulate through life having capacity for all the experiences that come.

The foundational safety in your nervous system is being created by increasing trust to the capacity of the system to come back to safety - always.

Attaching yourself to the idea of safety can turn against itself, into being afraid of unsafety. Whereas the real question should be: how can you create the conditions of safety for yourself.

Conditions win over techniques. Techniques (like breathing) can be used to create conditions, but in my experience the system needs less and less when the conditioning (heh) becomes strong enough.

This is a very natural progress. I hear that for example many Wim Hof practitioners stop doing the strong breathing because there isn’t anything to gain from it anymore. The system becomes more and more intelligent and sensitive, creating similar conditions with LESS.

Another example is actually any technique that is first used for calming down or coming back to safety. It is far more important what kind of conditions are created AROUND the techniques than what the technique actually is.

So once more: how can you create conditions for pendulating back to safety?

There is a tiny (HUGE) misunderstanding that nervous system regulation equals to calming down and spending as much time in the parasympathetic state as possible.

Rest and relaxation are absolutely necessary for a balanced life.

But regulation is a wider concept.

Wherever you are, whatever you are going through, you can regulate. But you cannot always take a rest.

This is why the ”toolbox” for nervous system regulation is much more encompassing than lying down on the floor or doing a breathing exercise.

I like to describe it as leaning into or towards possibilities. HERE it is RESOURCING that matters.

And your resource can be gravity, breath, memory, nature, thought, another person, or basically anything.

Resourcing does not exclude your thoughts and mental space, it allows and welcomes everything. It is the relationship to the stuff in your inner space that matters. (Relation)ships sail and they change. Nothing in you is static and stuck, even though it would feel like it is.

Regulating the nervous system skillfully means being skillfully with what is and applying techniques or methods if/when needed. It is the conditions you build around any given technique or practice, that matter.

The more time you spend with your breath, the more relevant life’s big questions become.

If the breath is rapid and irregular you might start asking: do I give my breath enough time to calm down and flow? Do I rest enough?

If the breath is minimal and sticky to respond to activity, you might ask: am I using my time doing things I love and am passionate about? Do I get inspired on a daily basis?

If the breath seems to be on pause and trapped in a cage all the time you might ask: what am I afraid of? How do I expand myself, create more space for safety and trust?

Ultimately the big question is: Who am I?

The yearning for knowing yourself grows.

Not from the intellectual perspective but from the soul.

All the nuances and subtleties, the expansion and contraction, ebb and flow. Every breath slightly different, yet profoundly the same.

You start to ask the breath: show me more. Show me your true colors. Show me ME.

And eventually you learn to listen. The breath becomes even more subtle. So that the answers are absolutely clear and visible. You listen deeply to see clearly.

Breath pierces all the layers. Breath shows you the way.

8 BREATHING WORKSHOPS in Trondheim 15.-17.9. 💎💎

When the science of breathing meets the art of breathing...

At the one and only breathing mini-festival in Trondheim!

This weekend is filled with exciting breathing knowledge, easily applicable breathing tools for everyday life as well as transformative work around the themes HEAL & RESTORE and GROW & CONNECT.

If you wish to go beyond belly breathing and lengthening the exhalation, and would like to truly understand your physiology, breath, emotional life and interaction, this weekend is for you!

First we calm down and then we grow 🔥

PROGRAM:

FRIDAY 15.9.2023

💎 17.00-20.00 Vagus Nerve Masterclass with Yoga

SATURDAY 16.9.2023

💎 10.00-11.30 Breathing 101
💎 12.00-13.30 Breathing & Stress
💎 14.30-18.00 Breathing and Stress Resilience - Transform Stress to Resilience with Breath & Cold Exposure (includes a dip in the fjord)

SUNDAY 17.9.2023

💎 10.00-11.30 Breath as Athletic Superpower
💎 12.00-13.30 Breathe and Align - a dialog on posture
💎 14.30-16.00 Breathe to Connect
💎 16.00-18.00 Breathwork and Connection Circle

Sign up & embody this magic!

Link in bio .unlimited

Is nasal breathing the route to peak performance? Is it worth taping your mouth shut for a tennis match or a marathon? What kind of breathing training should athletes do if they want to support performance with the help of breathing?

The motivation for an active sports enthusiast or athlete to utilize the potential of breathing is usually a desire for better condition and performance. The desire to last longer, to be able to go faster, to stay focused on the target, to improve accuracy, to increase force production and to recover better from exertion.

When sports commentators notice that someone "can still breathe through their nose”, it usually means an effortless, almost exceptional performance, which clearly indicates very good performance capacity. Breathing coaching sees this connection also from the other direction: the easier you breathe, the longer you last, and the more energy you have. The less you breathe, the more efficient you are, and the more you practice your breathing efficiency during exercise. By training breathing, it is therefore possible to teach the body to work more efficiently and last longer.

So where should you start? What are the cornerstones of athletic breathing training? Swipe and read!

💪 Next opportunity to hear more about breathing training and performance in Trondheim will be during PUSTEHELGA 15.-17.9.

Ticket link in bio .unlimited

Creativity is a process

Not a personality trait or fixed outcome

It rises from spaciousness, openness, fluidity, stability and regulation

It is a process of becoming mindless through coming to your senses (and body)

Certainly there are many ways in, into tapping to the Source

Breath has been the main one for me

I used to have this fixed idea that I’m not creative. Like at all. I was surrounded by people telling the same story. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.

But the process of opening up to Life has proved me that every single one of us can be a channel of bubbling bursting creativity.

Every time my breath shows the way in, I cry. And every time I witness a child’s imagination put down or belittled, I cry.

Love you all, curious souls

👆👆 If you’d like me to write an informative post about what kind of processes in the body-brain are associated with creativity, let me know in comments!👇👇

In this embodied breathwork session you breathe for the purpose of grounding and increasing trust in the flow of life..
You will explore your N A T U R E through slow movement and breathwork while allowing the body-mind whole to let go and create space for new beginnings of the autumn..
The practice begins with somatic movement and continues with breathwork. Throughout the practice, forest bathing and natural mindfulness explorations amplify the sensory experience, help you to ground and return to the essence nature of your being..
The practice can.
👣 Balance your autonomic nervous system
👣 Create more clarity
👣 Ground you deeply
👣 Help you to connect with yourself
👣 Assist in authentic expression of the core YOU.
The breathing techniques are suitable for everyone, so in this session, hyperventilation is used in a circular way balanced with breath holds..
Sign up here: https://mindgrit.no/product/skogenspust/

Breathe. You have arrived.

Breathing Unlimited courses & trainings focus on understanding breathing as a whole and applying the underlying basic principles to a variety of situations & clients.

There is theory. There is embodied experience of your breath. There are techniques and protocols. And there are kick-ass space holding skills that are grounded in your embodied capacity; breathsome presence.

Funny enough, I truly find that the Breath Coach Training and other Breathing Unlimited events are for everyone.

For yoga teachers, therapists, psychologists, leaders and people who wish to help & inspire themselves and others.

I just received a feedback that it is extremely rare to get a chance to GROW this much during a training. And I wholeheartedly agree. Breath is your foundation for growth, the expanded self.

Another feedback:

”This training was an absolute stellar training that increased my theoretical knowledge about breathing, widened my personal experience about my own breathing and breathing techniques, and my skills to coach and train others. I would warmly recommend the course and Sanni as a trainer. Wonderful experience!”

❤️

Links in bio .unlimited

Can you breathe your inner alarm system quiet?

I have a history of being stuck in the threat system. Being afraid all the time. Being super sensitive to new input. Worrying. Thinking that the worst will happen.

When I realized I can actually affect my experience and use different tools for coming back to safety, I felt I had cracked the code. Finally! Healing!

But changing the state is temporary. You can do your 5-minute breathing practice and keep doing it and feel better. Until something triggers the underlying patterns again and the threat is there - again.

Now this might sound utterly unmotivating. Why the heck should I do anything if it doesn’t even help for real?!?

Here comes the key: breath helps you to connect with your body. The more honestly you are in relation to the body, the more you start to listen, see and feel.

Somatic healing touching the underlying patterns and grooves of the nervous system can begin.

This is one reason why Breath Coach Training is somatically oriented. We look at the system as a whole. We learn about trauma resolution models. We practice somatics. We start to understand what re-patterning really means and what needs to happen for healing to take place.

Now it's worth swiping if your experience is that calming breathing exercises do not work for you or facilitate any kind of change.

Breathing training has two important goals:

1) supporting and restoring the body's natural regulatory mechanisms (nervous system, respiratory center, immune functions etc.)

2) building adaptability and flexibility (resilience)

The latter means that strengthening occurs due to appropriate amount of stress. Stress is used as a driving force setting change in motion.

After all, we can never live life in mere zen or peaceful parasympathetic activation, and this is not the intention.

Healthy nervous system and breathing are flexible and adaptable. Like a wave. If the threat system or hyperarousal has taken over and nothing seems to help, flexibility and adaptability have been lost, at least temporarily.

Now we need to understand a bit about the functioning of the brain in order to move forward.

Paul Gilbert's circles of emotional regulation represent three different systems or neural networks between which a person moves in life. The model is actually a much more accurate description of brain function than the much-talked-about lizard-mammal-human brain model (triune brain).

Breath attention in itself moves the system towards the soothing system. Breathing quietens and organizes the mind and synchronizes brain wave activity.

Now comes the most important point: slow soothing breathing alone might feel incongruent to the hypervigilant and stressed state. The exercise does not meet the state, which easily leads to an experience that this breathing thing does not work for me.

By regulating the rhythm and intensity of breathing, one can produce and generate different emotional states; a shift in brain activity.

In an imbalanced state or stuck in a system, this can be just the thing needed to initiate a change.

From incoherence to coherence.
From stuck to flow.
From confusion to clarity.

When you understand the relationships between breath, brain function, rhythms and intensity, you gain more agency over your experience.

See the disclaimer in comments😎

Expand your breath & movement repertoire to expand your thinking. Expand your thinking to expand your breath & movement repertoire.

These are the CORE VALUES of my work, both in coaching and in sharing my work in trainings.

Follow .unlimited to let your breath flow freely.

Same face, new name💎

Mindgrit is now Breath & Somatic Coaching with Sanni

And in Instagram: .unlimited

It’s funny what kind of things can feel like blockages to free expression. This social media space has felt challenging to me as long as I can remember. Partly due to the name of my company!

Ruminating, evaluating choices, allowing the unconscious to come up with something ”perfect”, moving with it, breathing with it, and finally making a decision.

Finally I’m ready to go forward with the unlimited power of breath & embodiment. I welcome you warmly to this space, let’s keep in touch, and hopefully I’m able to create inspiration and musings about my journey and teachings.

Thank you for being here! ❤️

The more natural sensory input you receive, the better your nervous system learns to regulate

The quality of the output = your behavior and experience of the situation changes completely when you learn to give your sensory system input that means something

This is one reason why being in nature is such a holistically different experience for your system than being in a noisy city

But there’s more to it

Your feet and toes 👣
Your hands and fingers 🫲
Your skin 🫂

Moving your feet, rolling something under the soles, wearing flexible shoes and ensuring your toes have good range of motion.

Moving your hands, rolling your wrists and lubricating the finger joints.

Using self-touch to give cues for your whole body to wake up, become back online, breathe better and expand your sense of self.

All absolutely wonderful ways to ground, calm down, be alert, be more present in your body. And for your system to organise itself in this world the most effective way.

Nervous system regulation is so much more than managing stress and resting more and breathing to calm down.

Understand your systems to understand your life 🧠👁️🫀🫁

When the science of breathing meets the art of breathing...

At the one and only breathing mini-festival in Trondheim!

This weekend is filled with exciting breathing knowledge, easily applicable breathing tools for everyday life as well as transformative work around the themes HEAL & RESTORE and GROW & CONNECT.

Early bird tickets are available until 30.6. 👉👉 https://mindgrit.no/pustehelga/

As more space opens up inside, process of remembering takes place. Nervous system settles down. Regulation returns. Life starts to feel more spacious. Breath finds more space. Life starts to breathe.

A practical example: stress often tenses the back side of the body. We lose the ability to sense and feel the breath there. In addition to being a nice releasing exercise, breathing to the back is essential for athletes and movement professionals as well to take care of good breathing capacity in any situation (and reduce breathlessness).

Nervous system health, breath, self-regulation and capacity are all intertwined.

This work is not just for the stressed, the tired, the spiritual or the athletic. Breath brings everything and everybody together. Breathwork makes sense.

Resource your nervous system with breathwork and somatic explorations. Bring trust, groundedness, joy and pleasure back to life, expand your capacity to feel and hold yourself in safety. This is the foundation for self-regulation, healthy relationships and firm boundaries.

So let’s gather in a circle and breathe together. Gently but powerfully.

Breathe for

✨ TRUST
🌱 INNER POWER & POTENTIAL
👂🏻 LISTENING (to the body but also listening with the body)
🪺 OPENNESS
🗝️ BOUNDARIES
💎 COURAGE

Breathe for grounding the nervous system, releasing and recharging, letting go of tension and restrictions in body-mind-spirit, understanding & accessing different nervous system states with safety and support (thereby accessing emotions related to the states) and lighting up the inner world to live fully embodied. Breathe for increasing the Space Within to create more spaciousness in your life.

Come as you are and exhale the old. Come as you are and inhale the new.

The session contains some movement practices, breathing explorations and a breathwork session. Breathwork will be deeply grounded in your own capacity, nervous system friendly and trauma-informed.

We will use a breathing gear system that gives access to different nervous system states from a grounded place. Once accessed, the energy of every emotion can be alchemised to support your growth and healing. As a result, the regulatory capacity of your nervous system increases and you slowly open up to truly respecting your body as well as acting in life from your own center. With strong boundaries yet connected, soft and kind.

A clarification: the session contains some hyperventilation=strong breathwork and is carefully curated to achieve the healing benefits of breathwork. However, if you have anxiety or panic disorder, any heart or neurological issues, I recommend starting with 1-to-1 consultation and even gentler practices.

Welcome to the circle of breath!

WHERE: Trondheim Taiji Senter, Kjøpmannsgata 12

WHEN: Thursday 27.4.2023 kl 19.00-21.00

COST: 300,- (students, unemployed, low income: 250,-)

REGISTRATION: Through Mindgrit’s website: https://mindgrit.no/product/breathing-circle/

Language matters. Words are invitations and carry a meaning. With these adjustments you will HUGELY improve the chances that breath practice is nervous system friendly and will actually lead to a more regulated nervous system.

Language is one big reason why this world needs more breath awareness and better breathing coaching. The deep-seated way of talking about breathing as a TOOL is simply not enough. It is not an embodied way of talking about breathing.

To understand the breath is to become the breath. Soft. Supple. Unlimited.

Breathing Unlimited™ Breath Coach Training in Trondheim☝️ Super Early Bird Offer closing tomorrow 6th of April

Here’s what Randi wants to say about the training:

”Jeg meldte meg på dette kurset først og fremst som et tiltak for min egen helse, i håp om å lære mer om pusten og hvilken påvirkning den kan ha med tanke på stress, smerter og slitenhet.

Jeg jobber selv med mennesker med komplekse og sammensatte utfordringer, og skjønte raskt at alt jeg lærte også kunne være relevant og veldig nyttig for mange av mine egne pasienter. Sanni besitter enormt mye forskningsbasert kunnskap om hjernen og kroppen, men viktigst av alt: hun viser svært god helhetlig forståelse for interaksjonen mellom ulike prosesser i hjernen, kroppen og omgivelsene, og den gjensidige påvirkningen mellom disse. Hun er engasjert og en veldig god formidler, med mye humor og varme, samtidig som måten hun presenterer informasjonen på gjør det både interessant og lett å forstå.

Det har hele veien vært god balanse mellom praktiske øvelser og teori, som har bidratt til at timene har gått fort! Det har også vært med flere dyktige gjesteforelesere, som har tilført kurset enda mer bredde og dybde. En får tilgang til utrolig mange gode verktøy på nettet, med bl.a. videoer med øvelser og forelesninger, i tillegg til mye annen nyttig kunnskap. Anbefaler dette kurset for alle i grunn, men kanskje særlig om en ønsker økt forståelse, kunnskap og hjelp for seg selv, og/eller for å hjelpe andre. For min egen del har det vært verdt alle pengene, da helsa er mye bedre og mine ønsker med kurset er oppnådd.”

- Randi Nyjordet

Apply here 👉 https://mindgrit.no/breath-coach-training-trondheim/

Links in bio

Someone asked me recently how my approach to breathing training is different from the many approaches already existing.

I have always been way more interested in HOW things are done versus WHAT is being done.

In my approach to breath, nervous system and healing, soft is the new strong.

Softness is the pathway to truly listening what is going on. Pathway to truly accepting the grooves, tendencies, patterns, urges and impulses that live in your system and show to the world as your behavior, personality and authenticity.

Some of those patterns and impulses can be self-destructive and signs of dysregulation, dysfunction, even trauma. Regardless of the origin and specific symptoms, the best way to work with the stuck-ness and rigidness is through breath and movement.

There is a time and a place to be in absolute stillness.

There is a time and a place to sway, rock and move gently.

There is a time and a place to be expressive and fierce.

Tuning in is the way to let the body make the right decision for you.

Building nervous system capacity and balance must start from the needs of your nervous system - NOT from-the-outside-dictated practice of moving like someone is telling you, or breathing like someone is telling you. Freedom is in the authentic expression.

My spring classes are all about this. Freedom to choose. Owning your breath. Owning your movement.

How can you find your truest expression through movement, breath, voice and stillness.

How can you listen so deeply that your nervous system settles down and you smoothen the rigidness, hardness, imprints and grooves that show up as chronic stress, depression, fear, anxiety, pain and all that.

My work evolves in cycles. Now I have chosen to focus more on EMBODIMENT. Starting from September, the focus will be again more on breathing therapy and resilience.

✨ Breath and Embodiment - The Journey Within

Thursday 23.3. kl 19-21
Trondheim Taiji Senter

Registration through bio

Welcome ❤️