Show notes
“Feel it to heal it.” Ali Levine is back with us today sharing her HBAC story! Ali was first with us on Episode 166 where she shared the details of her transformational VBAC. Ali and Meagan reflect on the growth they both have experienced since they last chatted. Ali is now a certified breathwork practitioner and intuitive stylist. She talks about how through regulating the breath, we can better surrender and allow our true selves to shine through. Ali experienced this firsthand as focused breath helped her stay calm through her baby’s shoulder dystocia and allowed her to surrender to the guidance of her midwife. She was able to achieve the home birth she knew she could have! Ali shares how important breathwork is in allowing us to release fear, anxiety, trauma, stress, or any other negativity that our bodies hold. And it’s a process! By giving our bodies lots of opportunities to breathe, relax, and release, we allow beautiful healing to take place. Additional LinksThe VBAC Link Podcast Episode 166Ali’s Website Awakening with Ali PodcastAli’s Breathwork AppThe Lactation NetworkHow to VBAC: The Ultimate Prep Course for ParentsFull Transcript under Episode Details Meagan: Hello, hello everybody. You guys, it’s December. How are we at the end of 2023? I cannot believe it, but I am so excited to be kicking the month off with our friend, Ali. She has been with us before, so welcome, Ali. Ali: Thank you. Meagan: Yes, I’m so excited to have you on the show again. She shared her C-section and VBAC journey a while ago because she is Episode 166 and we are now at 264 so almost 100 episodes ago. Ali: Wow. Meagan: So crazy. She’s back today to share her HBAC story, but not just that amazing part, she’s also going to talk to us about breathwork and her journey to become certified as a breathwork practitioner. She is a breathwork practitioner, intuitive stylist, and transformation expert. What exactly is a breathwork practitioner and transformation expert? Can you tell us a little bit more about that? Ali: Yeah. Well, I’m just so excited to be back here with you. Can I just say when you said about 100 episodes, I had such a reflective moment as we were sitting here? I’m like, “Wow. 100 episodes.” Thinking about how much both of us have evolved and grown and shifted, I feel like that’s so important to start with because as mothers, I feel like we don’t necessarily get that time to reflect and look at our growth and look at our evolution. So much of doing that allows us to continue to move forward. I’ve learned so much in my journey. It’s not only the healing work around it but the true reflection and celebration of, “Wow. Look how far I’ve come.” Yeah. I first came to you guys. I was listening to the VBAC podcast. I was pregnant with Amelia almost five and a half years, almost six years ago. She’s five and a half. It’s crazy. I was listening to your podcast and I had my C-section with her. I started listening to The VBAC Podcast to start to understand what was possible and what I could do, then 2020 came and I had Arlee, my second daughter. I had my VBAC in the hospital and then as you said, moving forward into 2022 and having my son and my first HBAC which is a home birth. It’s so cool. You said about 100 episodes and it’s so cool. It’s like, “Wow.” Think about that and the time and evolution even with your podcast and what you guys were doing what you are doing now and when I met you guys and when we first connected, getting to share my story then and then coming here. So I just think it’s really cool to start with that first, right? The journey before we talk about what are these “titles” that we all have. I feel like it’s so much more important and so much juicer. You just feel it so much more when you hear, “Hey, yeah. Okay. This is what people call me, but really at the end of the day, what’s the journey? What’s the story?” That’s how we are going to support each other, help each other, and be of service. So hi, everyone. I’m Ali Levine. If you don’t know me, go back and listen to, of course, my other stories. I’m so excited to be here. A certified breathwork practitioner is someone who, of course, is certified in the work of breathwork. Breathwork is regulating your nervous system through different types of exercises. When people hear regulating their nervous system, some people don’t even know what that means. To break it down really simply, basically think about visually that you have almost this computer in the bottom of your body that is sitting like this hard drive. Think of your whole body as a computer and the hard drive is sitting basically at the bottom, kind of near your womb space and kind of near your stomach in the lower area, okay? It’s sitting there. It gets filled up consistently with files and junk and stories and limiting beliefs and people around us, family, friends, all of the things and our own things. It all fills up. Meagan: As it does every day. Ali: Every single day, every single moment. It’s just the way that life is. What happens is that system basically moves into a disregulated system. Speaking of birth, when we talk about having a baby and when our baby is first born, of course, they take their first breath when they actually enter this world earthside. If you look at your baby and you watch how they breathe, they breathe from their stomach to their chest deeply and out. That is a sign of a parasympathetic nervous system which is the true homeostasis of how we enter into this world. It is a rest and digest place. Most of us are not in that state anymore. We are in a sympathetic nervous system. So when we speak to breathwork, we are moving ourselves back from that reactionary state of that fight, flight, or freeze, that triggered state that happens continuously and moves us back into the flow of how we came into this world which is so perfect of course speaking to birth and what you talk about on the podcast. When you think about that and you think about that flow and how that feels in the body, and you start to come back to that rest, that’s what breathwork does at a very basic level. That’s what is means to regulate your nervous system. The basic benefits of breathwork are just allowing the nervousness to fall off– anxiety, depression, sadness, and stress. It gives you better sleep. It builds up your immune system. It builds up your gut health and all of these things because you are bringing more oxygen into the body and then you do it on a normal basis. We are all breathing, of course, because we have to breathe to be here on the planet, but we are not actually consciously breathing so what breathwork does and what it means is that not only regulating your nervous system, but you are allowing different types of breathwork exercises which is what I guide you in being certified in this work and trauma-informed. I take you through different exercises through your nose and through your mouth. Maybe if we have time, we will do a quick one so that people can experience it. Meagan: Yay!There are different ways of doing it and there are all different types of breaths that will lead you. It can be anywhere from literally two minutes to an hour getting into a full meditation. When you do this practice over and over again, you start to notice that not only do you start to release everything that you are holding consciously or unconsciously, but you do start to notice the benefits that I spoke to. What I like to say is that I help people, especially mothers and women, shift from lower states of consciousness to higher states of consciousness. You go from that triggered state, that reactionary state into actual authenticity of who you are as a soul, more peace, more love, and more calm and you are able to show up better as a mother, as a partner, and all of the things that you do in your job or whatever it may be. That is where my heart is. When we say “practitioner”, some say “facilitator”. Some say “practitioner”. Practitioner for me speaks more to my soul because it is more about the practice, the art, and the modality, versus facilitating the space. Of course, I do both, but I feel like I allow and open that up. It’s where I shine and help my clients. The intuitive peace of styling as you know, when we first met, I had been a celebrity wardrobe stylist for many years and I rebranded after my motherhood journey and postpartum depression and all of the things I went through. The intuitive is more tapping into what I learned from my own journey of what really feels good on you versus the trends. What really feels good on the body because it’s all connected– mind, body, and soul. Even when we start the day, even if we are in our sweats as a busy mother, it’s being conscious of, “Maybe I don’t want to wear that gray t-shirt because I’m going to notice that my mood actually shifts.” Helping people get conscious in their closet and understand that there is a frequency to everything. Everything is energy so what you put on in and out is so important. Hence, intuitive stylist. And then of course, that brings us to transformation. The more you do this and embody this work and allow that surrender, you can move into actual transformation which is what I love to help people with because I’ve gone through my own transformations over and over again. Meagan: Yes. I love that so, so, so much. You had written in your bio, “You help your clients breathe through their closet to tap into the design of their soul and come home to themselves through the wardrobe of their dreams”. That’s so cool. Ali: Thank you. Meagan: I just love it. I just love it. I love it so much. Thank you so much for breaking it down and explaining because it’s like, “Okay, breathwork practitioner. What is that?” You know? Just hearing you, I can hear your energy and I can just feel it. Oh, I could just feel it from you. I can see it. I mean, they can’t see you but I can see you. I can just see it and feel it. Oh, I’m so excited to dive into this episode. Review of the WeekMeagan: But of course, we have a Review of the Week, so I’m going to hurry and do that before we jump right in. Okay, it’s not a super long one, but it is by kchidster. It says, “Amazing. Thank you, thank you, thank you. This podcast was my saving grace. Could not have had my VBAC without these ladies and their stories of encouragement and wisdom. A must-listen to anyone wanting to TOLAC.” If you are new to this podcast, that is a trial of labor after a Cesarean. It says, “Keep up the great work. I thoroughly enjoy listening. Ladies, we can do hard things.” I could not agree more. Women of Strength, you can do hard things. There are sometimes things that sound impossible or feel impossible and like Ali was saying, maybe our compartment is on overdrive. We’ve got too much going on and we need to get things going and start working through our breathwork and finding ourselves again, but it is possible. It is 100% possible. Ali’s stories Meagan: Okay, darling. Oh my gosh, I mean, you just spoke for three minutes maybe and I’m like, “Ahh, let’s just keep hearing from you,” so I’m going to turn the time over. Ali: All right, cool. Well, thank you. I’m so excited to get to share this journey. So where do we want to begin? Should we start going back? Meagan: Your HBAC, yeah.Ali: Okay, my HBAC. Yeah, okay. Meagan: Well, and if you want to re-highlight a little bit, if you want to hear the full story, episode 166 is the full episode, but why don’t you talk about like we were saying at the beginning, the journey through 100 episodes, but there was a journey before that too, so touch on all of the journey. Ali: Okay, cool. All right, well thank you. Yeah. I mean like you said, I love that review that came in of how you can do hard things. I think so much, especially as mothers or mothers-to-be, we can get so in our minds. We can get so in the limiting beliefs and like, “Oh, I can’t do that or I won’t be able to,” or we are told by someone that it won’t happen. It can’t happen. But guess what the most amazing thing is? We are divinely created this way so when we can get out of those limiting beliefs, when we can get out of the mind which is why breathwork is so, so powerful, we get into the wisdom of the body and we can actually listen and receive our body.Then we recognize, “Oh, actually, I can do this and more,” which is why obviously, people who are listening to The VBAC Podcast are having these amazing VBACs. Same with my story, it was like, hey. I had a C-section five and a half years ago back in 2018 with my first daughter. It was quite a traumatic birth. 42 hours led to a C-section. I wanted to have a natural birth with a midwife at a birth center. It didn’t work out that way. She didn’t progress. You can go back and hear the whole story, but I didn’t progress. Didn’t happen. Fast forward and I had the C-section. Then after that happened, I went through a pretty heavy postpartum depression journey. After finding myself all over again, or a new version of Ali, and reinventing myself and finding that empowerment and that freedom and all of the work I had to do, meditation, affirmations, prayer, and all of that led me to breathwork. That was where my next journey began. Breathwork really started to change my life in how I showed up, how I viewed my body, how I viewed my story, my baby, and my motherhood journey. It went from being a very dark place to a very bright place and seeing that there was healing within that. There were lessons within that first birth. There were all of these things to learn. I think that’s important to say, Meagan, because I feel like I personally, and I’m sure many other mothers can agree, shamed myself and they guilt themselves through what I could have done, what I should have done. They play the victim mode.I was blaming everybody around me– my parent, my friends, this person, that person. We can blame all we want and we can have all of this shame and this guilt, but it doesn’t actually do anything for us. It actually debilitates us from moving forward. So the more we heal that space and then also see it as, “I had lessons to learn here. There was growth here. There was evolution,” which is what I had to do in my own healing work and really move myself out of the victim to the victor in my life. Move myself out of the victim mode in saying, “I’m going to blame you. I’m going to blame you,” and take full responsibility because, at the end of the day, we have to be responsible for ourselves and say, “Okay. I chose to listen to stories. I chose to take on the noise that came to me,” instead of creating sacred boundaries and understanding that I do have the wisdom. I do have the knowing. So that’s what led me to you guys and listening to your podcast and then finding a chiropractor for my second pregnancy with my daughter to finding a doula who helped me advocate for myself and understand that I could ask those hard questions to help me fire my doctor who told me I couldn’t have my VBAC. I’m putting quotes because they love to tell you that you can’t do this. And then, of course, this is not medical advice, but advocate for yourself. Ask the question, “Why can’t I? What is it?” For me, it was literally just someone who saw me as “You had the C-section, you’re always going to be a C-section.” I wasn’t willing to say yes to that. I wanted a VBAC. I wanted to advocate for myself and luckily, in having those sacred boundaries and having the empowerment and healing I had done, I was then able to move into 2020 and have my second daughter and have a VBAC. During that time, obviously, we all know what went on in the world during 2020. It was a crazy, crazy, traumatic time to say the least. I was also living in California at the time so it was extra crazy. I now live in Tennessee, but I was living in California at the time. The fear, the limiting beliefs, and everything started coming back up for me. I thought all of the healing work I had done wa…
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