Emily Merrell  

Welcome to the sixth degree podcast, the podcast where we grill our guests about the things that make them tick and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily Merrell. Hello, and welcome back to the sixth degree with Emily Merrell. The podcast where we grow our guests about the things that make them tick, and find out how human connection plays a role in their life. I’m your host, Emily, and today I’m so excited to have my dear friend Krishna Don de breathwork coach that works with chakras spirit and the breath to clear the mind and unlock your limitless potential. krishma Welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I clearly I’m struggling over the word limitless today that is going to be a tongue twister for most of the day. And it’s also going to be the theme of today’s podcast. So diving in, first and foremost, what does limitless potential mean to you?

 

Karishma Donde  

limitless potential is all about expanding yourself and going after your dreams relentlessly, regardless of what anyone else is saying around you. And also what your internal self is saying within you and going past that and just harnessing all that you are to be all that you are.

 

Emily Merrell  

I feel like I when I think of limitless potential, I always think of like an Olympic athlete of some sort. Where they don’t take no, they weren’t discouraged from that one coach, you told them, they didn’t have that capability. And they just keep their eye on that prize. So how did that become something that played a role in your life? And you’re not a gymnastic coach, unless I’ve completely missed the list of page in your back?

 

Karishma Donde  

Yeah, I mean, for me, I lived a lot out of my mind, and lived a lot in hustling, and burnout, and just being tired all the time. And a big thing that was missing for me was number one pleasure and fun, but also having this ability and honing in on my intuition of like, what I really wanted to do with my life. And I found that my intuition was really just being covered with insecurities and doubt, and my inner critic, and more than anybody else around me, it was really myself. So I was really just getting in my own way of what I actually wanted. And without having that backbone and feeling it in your own body, it’s impossible to be that person who is relentless, like the Olympic athlete to say no, to stand up what you believe in to find your voice. All those things all impact your potential.

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah, that completely resonates. And I, I think what you said about listening to your intuition, you know, I had the beautiful experience of working with you and even talking, doing a chakra clearing and learning more about intuition. But it’s hard to hone in on our intuition when we, and I’m blaming outside factors right now. But we’re so distracted as a society. You know, with our we’ve got emails buzzing and Twitter’s tweeting and Instagram notifications coming up, that it’s like, how do you? How do you identify your intuition? and know what is actually intuitive versus what’s a stomachache?

 

Karishma Donde  

Yeah, your intuition is like this innate knowing that you have always felt inside of your body. A lot of times what you are describing of having, like external factors is that we as humans, and just like, the way our brain works is we take on stories from things that we have seen since we were little kids. And we take those stories on as ourselves and say, like, okay, we have to look this way, we have to be this way, we have to act this way. And we internalize it. So our mind takes that and says, Well, if you aren’t that way, then these are going to be all the consequences. And so we oftentimes live in fear. And we’re like, Okay, well, we’re not that way, then this really, really, really bad thing is gonna happen. And your brain convinces you of that. Your intuition is more of a bodily feeling. That’s why we call it our gut, because that’s where it lives. It’s in our gut. And it’s not in our mind. So to get to that place, we really have to get out of that space in our brain and ask ourselves, is this really what I think? Or is this something that I inherited from somewhere, or that somebody told me this? And I believed that it was true, like do I actually believe this? And when you sit with yourself and you start asking yourself those questions, you will feel a pull inside of you like no, this isn’t from you, or you Get a memory of where this came from, even if it was like when you were three or four, you’ll start seeing stories in your mind of when this actually appeared in your life. And your body will connect it like, Oh, yeah, this is when this happened. And it isn’t real for me. So when you’re in that space, and it’s like, Okay, well, what do you want to make real for yourself, that’s kind of where this conversation of your limitless potential comes in. And like being anything you want to be. Because once you get out of what society says what your family says, what your friends say, it’s only you in there.

 

Emily Merrell  

Only you and their bass that really, really resonates that feeling that, you know, as much as we believe that other people are here to advocate for us. At the end of the day, we’re the only the only individuals fighting the good fight. And we’re the only ones who can do the work. So I love that the modality of you know, homework assignment for everyone listening, take some time to tap into your intuition. But before you were this wise guru of a human being krishma, were you always like this? Or was this something that you had to go through your own journey to get here?

 

Karishma Donde  

Definitely my own journey masked in different ways. So I worked in corporate that was, I worked in corporate for a decade, before I was doing this work kind of started as a side hustle. always knew that there was natural healing and my family and love to that part, but never really knew what I could do with that I was like, I could maybe be an IRA, like Doctor, like I kind of went in those alleyways, but never fully deep Delve inside of it. The reason I ended up in corporate was twofold. One, I felt like I was running away from my culture, and my family, like I did not want to be in that environment. And the only way that I felt safe to not be in that environment was to get a stable job. So I inside of me knew I always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and didn’t know how I was going to do that. So corporate was my first route. That started shedding light on different things in my life. So Oh, my first personal investment in personal development was therapy. And that came from just having this really crazy experience waking up and being like, I don’t know if I can live with myself. And that made me think, Okay, well, you have to do something about this. Because this is the only life you have, you can’t be somebody else tomorrow. That’s opened up a whole kind of can of worms for me, where that made me experience and explore myself internally in terms of my own trauma that I grew up with in my household, and how I was dealing with that trauma. So it was coming out in many different ways. One being an eating disorder. Being on diet binge cycle, since I was 10, completely unaware of it. Everyone told me dieting was healthy, my family dieted with me. And it was like a really big thing. And because I really had nothing else, and I’d kind of lost my sense of self, I threw myself into dieting, that’s all I did. That was my purpose. And I always thought, like, oh, if I look, this way, I can get whatever I want. If I look like the Indian Kim Kardashian, I can get all the brand deals in the world, you know, and that cycle kind of continued for a really long time. So that’s where I was before this work.

 

Emily Merrell  

Wow. And I love that therapy, in a way was your gateway, gateway drug to self help and development. And I think it’s a great place to start for people who are not quite sure how to delve into self worker into the EU feels so far away from them, you know, a good starting point and a safe starting point is talking to someone about your feelings and emotions. I’ve I can probably spend a whole new podcast on how messed up our system is still, that therapy is not included in a lot of insurance plans and that you still have to have a diagnosis and if you ever get life insurance, they’re going to pull your therapy records. It’s like it’s federal on that later on, but just how I think therapy is such an incredible tool. And a friendly reminder to I know you had a moment where you woke up and you felt like you were just not sure about living. I think therapy is also a preventative tool. You don’t have to have something quote unquote wrong with you or like be feeling a certain way it can be also used in a preventative and maintenance way not always to be used in crisis.

 

Karishma Donde  

Yes, definitely. I can spiral I can spiral with you. I paid out of pocket for therapy for three years and I know like a lot of people struggle finding a therapist and I I was like, No, I want the best like I want on Yelp. And I was like, I don’t care how much this cost. Like, I have to resolve this for myself. So like, I just want all in, which is as you know, my complete nature.

 

Emily Merrell  

You were very dedicated individual, which I love about you. So take us to when you got into breathwork. And you know, just a little story about breathwork. For me, I had no idea what breathwork was when I went to my very first breathwork event, and unfortunately, I was before I knew you, I wish you had been my first but I was with a girlfriend, and I found a sound bath, and it had the experience of a sound bath. And I thought it was such a magical, like warming, just really relaxing. It’s Friday night experience. So I booked tickets for us. We were the first ones to arrive and the guy was there. You’ve probably heard of him guy Douglas, the gong guy, his name, travels the country. And he’s based in LA. But anyways, he asked me he was like, Whoa, so have you done breathwork before? I’m cocky, I’m like yeah, of course. Like I’ve done breathing. Like, I know what Yoga is. I’ve breathed in yoga. And he’s like, Okay, cool. So you know, sometimes it can be emotional, you might cry, a saint, all these things, and I’m looking at my friends looking at me like, what have you done? What have you signed us up for. And that night was the most remarkable night because it was next to my best friend. cocooned in a blanket with an eye mask and oil on my face, and hysterically crying, and hearing my best friend, hysterically cry. And we afterwards, were like, that was awesome and got pizza. But anyways, you know, breathwork is not leaving good breathwork I think it’s hard not to just think of yoga and a little light meditation. So that was my first experience with breathwork. How would you describe breathwork to someone who has no idea what they’re about to walk into,

 

Karishma Donde  

of work is a somatic healing practice. So what that means is whenever we have feelings in our body, we don’t like to feel as humans. So we outsource that feeling in some way, shape, or form, whether that’s food, drugs, alcohol, overworking, what breathwork allows us to do is connect to the feeling to a place in our body. So we can either a restore that feeling, or be process, the hard feelings that we are experiencing. And it gives us a mechanism to healthily release feelings of overwhelm of anxiety of whatever that might look like, without putting any stories around it. So it’s a way of consciously breathing. So we breathe every day as humans, but it’s unconscious. When we are paying attention to our breath, we start realizing that every feeling that we have has an associated breath pattern. So if we stopped breathing, theoretically, that could mean high levels of anxiety in our bodies, it could mean that we’re re traumatizing ourselves in a way, and we don’t realize that there’s trauma that actually exists there. And so what breathwork allows us to do is really focus on where that exists, and then create new stories, new beliefs, and process all of that trauma.

 

Emily Merrell  

So can you give an example of like, what a breathing pattern would look like? And how often is breath work to be done? Like, is it a daily practice is the I’m having a panic attack, I should do this. Now. Practice. Yeah,

 

Karishma Donde  

I mean, the breathing pattern can be as simple as taking a breath in through the nose, and out through the mouth and just doing it in a circular motion, closing your eyes, feeling your heartbeat as you’re doing that. And just keep going for like 10 minutes, I would say that’s the easiest type of breath pattern to start with. There’s another one, that’s a three part which is much more common in the breathwork mainstream, called try active. Or if anybody’s ever tried holotropic breathwork. Before, it’s the same type of breath pattern. And it’s an it’s an all mouth, breathing exercise, it’s in through the mouth. And you’ll first feel it in your belly, a second inhale, you’ll feel it in your trust. And the third exhale through the mouth, and you’ll feel kind of your body surrender. And you can do that breath pattern as well, in a constant formulation. The thing to know is, if it’s more than 10 minutes, then it’s best to do it laying down because then we’re getting into your subconscious. If it’s less than 10 minutes, then you can do it sitting standing or walking.

 

Emily Merrell  

That’s good to know. Yeah, I definitely remember the first time that I did breathwork I, my body very much reacted to it. I like my look down in my hands. He described it before it was gonna happen. He’s like your hands might turn into like a lobster claw kind of situation. And they felt paralyzed in this interesting position. And I felt high truthfully, like I felt super, super high. And then the next time I felt like I’d taken speed never taken speed. But like, that’s what I imagined speed felt like I felt so energized, then the third time I felt nothing. So, you know, each experience has been so unique. But why does our body get those lobster like cans because I know that’s pretty common practice with breathwork.

 

Karishma Donde  

Yeah, so because we’re breathing in a regular pattern, we have more co2 that’s running in our body than normal. So there’s a lot more energy in our body, and that energy wants to leave. So it all comes in to our hands. Some people sometimes feel like, you know, tingles in their body or lightheadedness, as well. And spiritually, we say that when you have energy in your hands like that, it means that you’re trying to control something that you’re not letting go of something that you have, like a tight grip on something. So what does that mean in the context of when you’re breathing, but physically, we can release that through the mouth, called this method called tuning. And it just sounds like this. You just let it go. And sometimes it’s just like a means for the energy to leave the body.

 

Emily Merrell  

Would you be open Krishna to lead us in like a one minute? breathwork? Maybe? Imagine everyone listening is in the middle of their drive or busy day? One, reset? breathwork? Yeah, sure. I always like to put you on the spot. You know, I want to test your know how?

 

Karishma Donde  

Of course, of course, however, there’s a question I feel like is relevant that you asked me that I didn’t answer, which is if somebody is suffering from panic attacks, should they do breath work? And my answer is no. If you’re suffering from a panic attack, you’re going through an out of body experience. So you want to come back into your body as gently as possible. So but there’s two ways you can do that. The first way is if you have a partner or a friend who lives with you, to ask them if you can just lean up against them. And have them provide a stability for you. And just close your eyes and breathe and just like come back until you don’t feel that panic anymore. And just repeat to yourself, you know, I’m safe, safe to be in my body, it’s safe to be here. Now the reason we use the other person is because that person has an energy that we can also take on and resource as our own. If you don’t have a person, you can use a wall and use the walls, the stability, it’s not going to collapse on you, right, like there’s a safety that we can draw in from a stable surface. And just coming back into the body again and closing your eyes and just saying it’s safe to be here. It’s safe to lean against the wall. I feel supported by the ground beneath me and just coming back into resourcing so if you are somebody who suffers from panic attacks, my best practice recommendation is to ease into breathwork don’t go all in don’t go hard Don’t try to like hyperventilate yourself first off the bat, just like ease in and see where your body is and what it’s saying to you in that moment.

 

Emily Merrell  

Whoo I like that. stability. I’m like leaning back against my my cushion right now I’m like oh, this feels nice and stable. That’s great. Yeah.

 

Karishma Donde  

Yeah, as for your requests on a breathwork powder, and that’s just a short reset. You want it to be in silence.

 

Emily Merrell  

I mean you can play music to a few I mean no No, no Don’t this in silence and silence is perfect. Okay. probably get easy I know. I have to say though if you go to one of chrismas in person experiment in person, digital in person, whatever experience with Krishna, her playlists are extraordinary. actually listened to one of the songs today, I’m gonna play this just like to the I release myself song or like, I release myself. Yeah, I’m just to start my morning off, like, I’m gonna just release all the BS that I hold on to and, and start with a fresh page. So, okay, I’m excited. Let’s do this Christmas. All right.

 

Karishma Donde  

So we’re gonna close our eyes. Take a deep breath in through the nose. out through the mouth. Place one hand on your heart. Just feel into the beating where you are right now.

 

Take one more deep breath in through the nose to the mouth. Good. Place your other hand on your belly. And we’re going to start with inhaling and exhaling through our nose on You should feel snap of your belly with each inhale and with each exhale, we’re going to do that 20 times. So when you’re ready to begin together,

 

good, and then we’re gonna do the exact opposite. We’re gonna blow from our mouth and inhale and an exhale, like we’re blowing out birthday cake. We’re gonna do that 20 times, your reading can begin together.

 

Good. inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. three more times, inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. inhale through the nose. Exhale through the mouth. And the last inhale through the nose and holding it at the top. And just holding here for as long as possible. letting any and all thoughts pass by feeling where your body’s out where your heart beats that.

 

When you can’t hold any longer, letting out a big exhale. dropping those hands to the side, slowly opening your eyes and stretching out any places of tension that may have come up for you during that rough pattern.

 

Emily Merrell  

That’s so good. That’s a minute of breathing. And I feel so reset. Thank you. I also do it so well. I have no idea how you come up with it on the spot without me. And hopefully for those listening, your lives are now changed because introducing yourself to breathwork I think is just such a game changer. And crushed by it. You know you’ve done such a great job of making breathwork accessible. You also created the breathwork Society. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

 

Karishma Donde  

Yes. Well, breathwork society is a self care club. I wanted to make healing practices accessible to everyone for an affordable price. Because I do believe that everybody deserves to know how to self heal themselves. So we take the guesswork out of self care by curating events for your mind, body, soul and spirit. We believe that self care is more than just face masks and bubble baths but a moral obligation to yourself to live a happy, healthy and joyful life.

 

Emily Merrell  

And face masks has a whole new meaning this year, basically the pandemic so Krishna, you know switching gears a little bit I know there are so many ways that you you have so many ways that you touch people’s lives with breath work with you. I know you have a new program, a laser coaching program, I believe coming out and chakra clearings. Can you tell us a bit more of how we can learn more about charisma and breathwork society and all of the services that you provide?

 

Karishma Donde  

Yeah, everything is on my website at crush Manon de.com. You can find everything on my Instagram and for breathwork society specifically, if you’re interested in what it’s all about and what it does. You can also go to breathwork society calm

 

Emily Merrell  

and I’m a member of breathwork society and I have to say one of my favorite things that I do is your morning rituals these 30 minute morning rituals, basically, bingo like this is the one good thing that came out of the pandemic was I got really into morning routines or morning morning routines. It’s not morning ritual sorry, morning ritual routine. Tomato tomato. Yeah, same thing but um, I got really good at a morning routine. And having it led by you is just like an added bonus or for 30 minutes. There’s guided movement, there’s journaling, there’s, there’s some little breathwork there’s sharing, I just think it’s such a special way to start your day that I think all of the world should know about and should do. Rather than going straight to your workout class or straight to your office or straight to your computer. Giving yourself minimum 30 minutes just to be selfish, but just you know, self indulgent with yourself.

 

Karishma Donde  

Yes, totally agree. And it doesn’t have to be long.

 

Emily Merrell  

It doesn’t have to be long, just a little change and a little bit of matter of time. Well, Krishna, thank you so much. for sharing all of that amazing, amazing wisdom, and learning about intuition, breathwork definitely needed that reset in the middle of the day more than I think I knew. And my body afterwards is like, Hello, thanks for breathing. Congratulations, you remember how to do it. But I want to switch gears a little bit, and I want to learn a little bit more about you. And so I have a little thing called six fast questions. Six, raise society six plus questions. You know, I have like, 1000 questions for you, typically, but we’re gonna limit it to six today. So my first question for you krishma is, can you tell us an unknown fun fact about you? Yeah, I

 

Karishma Donde  

mean, I don’t know if it’s fun. But I am a survivor of at least five near death experiences. Every Yeah, every family vacation that we ever took as a kid. I’ve had a pretty close near death experience.

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. What can you give an example of one of them?

 

Karishma Donde  

Absolutely. One of our family vacations was in Maui. Maui is beautiful as the best pineapple. There’s a package they offer where you can go and see the sunset in the morning on top of this volcano, and then you can bike down. Well, when I was a kid, I loved biking, that was my favorite thing. But they wouldn’t let me bike next to my dad because I was the youngest. And I was like the cutoff age. And so we’re going down the hill, which shouldn’t be hard. But my the guy in front of me or like the leader, he was saying, like, you need to pedal faster, you’re going too slow. And basically I lost control of the bike, and I fell over into like a 50,000 50,000 foot drop. And a shrub on the side of the volcano caught me. And they had to crane me out.

 

Emily Merrell  

Oh, wait, wait, wait, did you have to go to the hospital?

 

Karishma Donde  

And they did submit me to the hospital and make sure nothing was broken. But yeah, no broken bones. Nothing. Just however. I think I was 12

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. Oh my god. I think we’re gonna also say you fell into the vote came out. Like, oh, here we are. That’s insane. Well, I would not be a biker If I were you that is in and remind me. No offense to you. But I don’t know if I want to go on vacation with you. And I’m not sure I want to spend she knew out of said volcano brush.

 

Karishma Donde  

I mean, I had almost a near death experience with you. Yeah, that’s true. glamping trip. You know, they just seem scary on the spot.

 

Emily Merrell  

No, it just is I like to call it more like invigorating, we flipped off of a ramp up another ramp of a raft like glamping, a ramp, a raft and who knew the Russian River was so fast. I lost my favorite flip flops. But I was happy that we both survived that and we lived to tell the story. So that was a that was a fact. That was a good fact. That was a scary fact. But fun in a weird, dark morbid way. So thank you for sharing that with us. It would be a dream person you’d want to be connected with and why.

 

Karishma Donde  

Um, I feel like you already know what I’m gonna say. But my person is definitely Drake. Love him.

 

Emily Merrell  

I love Britney Kardashian actually.

 

Karishma Donde  

I mean, I have a lot, but like just tops the list right now because I just think the way he runs his businesses, and what he does is so smart. And I look up to that and aspire to that to run my businesses that way one day.

 

Emily Merrell  

You just want to say I started at the bottom down here. That’s basically what to say to him and then like hand them a gold chain. I love that. I love that. Yeah, no, I forgot You’re such a big Drake fan. Is there a show that you’re currently watching that you’d like to share?

 

Karishma Donde  

I’m always watching shows. I recently watched this on Indian show, which I really loved called masaba. masaba was really cute, really short, really entertaining. Gave me context of Mumbai a little bit. It’s about like a famous fashion designer. So it’s based on a true story. And I just really enjoyed it.

 

Emily Merrell  

Was it on Netflix? Netflix, kind of saga saga? That’s That’s awesome. I would love to learn more. And what book are you currently reading?

 

Karishma Donde  

Currently, I’m reading a book called migration. It was one of the top 100 nonfiction of the year, I think. So I was reading that.

 

Emily Merrell  

Yeah. Is that? Is that the one about? What’s that about? I feel like I think I picked it up and then I did migration to novel. Is it about American migrations, like migrations from people from different countries.

 

Karishma Donde  

It’s a fiction. It’s fiction. We were reading it as part of my book club. I’m usually Like fiction books because it takes me away from the business. Whereas if I read nonfiction, I’m like, oh, how can I implement this today? So it serves as an escapism mechanism. And it was, it was entertaining for sure. But it was definitely like I felt cold the whole time was based in cold areas. And it’s a it’s also a little bit morbid. So,

 

Emily Merrell  

yeah, definitely a theme here. I’m seeing it. If you tell me Scott, is your favorite emoji in this next question, I don’t know what I’m going to do. But what is your favorite emoji? Please tell me you’re not teenybopper

 

Karishma Donde  

I love Rainbows, because that represents the Shockers to me. And I also love the sparkle emoji.

 

Emily Merrell  

Those are good. Those are so magical. And then the final question I have for you is Who gave you permission and or inspired you to do the thing you wanted to do with your life?

 

Karishma Donde  

I would definitely say my grandma. I also wanted to attribute my ancestry lines and I mean, a lot of them aren’t alive still. But I’m definitely my grandma who taught me all about Ayurveda and natural remedies growing up in the house and actually made me realize that I have this interest in like this natural talent and natural healing.

 

Emily Merrell  

I know we didn’t even get into your witchy side. That could have been a whole new podcast about your your ancestors and like what, what built you to be who you are. To be continued. Well, Krishna, thank you so much for joining today on the 60 degree podcast was such a pleasure to learn more about you and to learn more about what you’re doing out in the world. Thanks for coming. And for listeners if you want more question, man, make sure to check her out at crush men don’t date calm. And if you liked today’s episode, give us a like follow and share with a friend and we’ll see you next time on the sixth degree.