#25 Breathwork Therapy: Discover How Guest Jules Carpenter Healed Herself from Severe Postpartum Depression

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In this episode of Simply Living Wellness, Donna Abreu interviews guest Jules Kandah Carpenter on Valentine’s Day! She has a powerful story to share – about how she went from extreme postpartum depression, anxiety and insomnia to finding her way back to life and joy.

She attributes her transformation to breathwork, meditation and tuning into Spirit. Having gained so much from breathwork herself, she then went on to become a certified breathwork facilitator, learning the alchemy of breath technique, among others.

Jules is also a pranayama yoga teacher, a second degree Reiki energy healer, and more.

Postpartum disorders are not discussed often enough, and yet so many women suffer terribly from postpartum depression and anxiety. And they often don’t even realize what is happening, or what is causing the depression.

In this episode, you’ll learn about breathwork and it’s powerful healing qualities. You’ll discover the benefits of diaphragmatic breathing and how it’s much more powerful than other forms of breathwork.

Full Transcription

D: I did a Facebook live this morning for Valentine’s Day, and it was about self-love, and the three ways that I think are the most critical or my top ways of loving myself. It was fun to do that.

J: I just had a personal sauna session for my self-love.

D: Jules and I live in the same town in Nevada County, in Northern California. Here there are a lot of healing modalities and practitioners here.

Where you grew up and about your early background

J: I grew up in the Midwest. I’m from Michigan. I lived in a small town. My dad sacrificed his driving time – drove a long way in order for us to live in this small town and go to a smaller school.

I was the baby of 5 sisters. So I grew up in a powerful, energetic home with all kinds of female energy and power, and I got to witness that.  I have an interesting role in that – exploring my sisters and what they were exploring in their world, and then me seeing what wasn’t working for them, and delving into a spiritual practice – actually pretty early in my childhood.

D: Do you attribute that to your sisters or were your parents also spiritual?

J: We were raised Catholic and I didn’t agree with a lot of those practices, and I knew at a young age that there was something more. My sisters left the practice of Catholicism and I wondered why. It wasn’t until I started reading a book on all kinds of religions at a young age when I realized there was more out there than just Catholicism.

That really started a spiritual path for me when I was about 12.

D: I didn’t have that personally growing up. I wrote a blog article about how I found spirituality, but I didn’t find it until much later. I knew about religion and God, but then I started seeing the hypocrisy in religion.

J: It was a huge part of my surviving childhood as the baby.

D: Where did you go next? When did you come out to the West?

J: I met my now husband in my mid-twenties at a music festival. I was offering sound healing. He was offering art installations, and I was part of the crew of art in the music festival – so we were in the background. We met there, fell in love, and I was finishing my Master’s Degree in Occupational Therapy. So I had an opportunity to finish my last course in California – San Francisco.

It was a big jump. My husband just jumped on that. He always wanted to live in California as well. So we basically got to know each other as we moved to the Bay Area for a couple of  years.

I also learned Yoga certification. I was teaching Yoga to that for free – just community classes. I knew I had a strong practice, and I wanted to offer it to people. Then in San Francisco,  I became officially certified. And I had been practicing Reiki for a couple of years, but became officially certified in yoga and really added so much to my practice with Yoga and meditation. I dove a little bit deeper and then started a path of offering it more to people, while I was working with kids in occupational therapy.

D: Your husband does these practices also?

J: Yes he s also a Reiki Energy Healer, and he and I have spent a lot of time in yoga and meditation together. Now we have a practice of meditating together, meditating separately but have couples meditations. He loves breath-work, so that’s always fun to offer that to my husband.

D: I’m a second degree Reiki. But I just use it for myself and my family.

J: It’s so humbling every time.

D: So then you got pregnant…..

J: So we knew we wanted to have a kid, and we weren’t really trying, but we knew we wanted to, but the time when we knew we wanted to is close to when we were eloping in Hawaii. We eloped in Hawaii, had a beautiful ceremony. It turns out I was pregnant during our marriage ceremony. So we hit the ground running as soon as we got back, found a beautiful set of midwives in Nevada County, and my pregnancy was okay. The emotions were really hard for me, but I just figured it was part of the process.

It was also pretty hard on my husband. He just love me through it, and knew that things were changing. After having my daughter, the postpartum feelings came on pretty quickly.

D: You had already moved to Nevada County? Or you came here for the birth?

J: We had already moved. We knew we wanted to get out of the City, so we moved from the Bay Area into the middle of nowhere in Nevada County area.

Then we were married and I was pregnant here in Nevada County.

D: So the birth was with no drugs at all?

J: No meds. It was really awesome to be at home. I feel blessed that I got to do that.

D: So depression started right away. Describe

J: It was so wild. It’s not talked about enough, so in my mind, the idea of postpartum depression was that it randomly happens to people, and it’s so rare, and when it comes on, it’s so extreme…..like you feel like you’re going to hurt your child or hurt someone in your house. In my mind, that was the only way that you could have postpartum depression if those were the things you were feeling.

Thankfully, I didn’t have that experience. The thing that brought me the most joy was my daughter. She really kept me grounded throughout, but it was pretty much within …. Actually I remember the day that I realized it was coming on n a weird way – it was Thanksgiving – two and a half months – and we had a FriendsGiving with all our friends. The whole time I felt awkward talking to my friends. I felt I had nothing to contribute to the conversation. I was quiet. I felt sad at this beautiful celebration. And that’s how I started to know that something was up.

And then two weeks later, we went to Mexico with my mother-in-law and  father-in-law. While we were there, my daughter had a terrible sleep regression – like 45 minutes of sleep. I just spiraled into these really dark feelings about life, and I didn’t enjoy one minute of my trip.

There WERE moments I enjoyed with my daughter and my family, but inside of me, I was just feeling so uncomfortable with who I was and I didn’t know why until midway through that trip.

D: Your daughter wasn’t sleeping so she was keeping you up and you weren’t sleeping????

1. Yeah.

D: Lack of sleep is tough. I think that’s the hardest part about being a new mom. I had postpartum depression, which I didn’t even realize at the time. I think a lot of that was from lack of sleep.

So you discovered it half way through? What led you to suddenly realize what was going on?

J: Every moment of our trip, I felt like I was picking fights with my husband. And one moment, we were sitting in the hot tub, and grandma was watching the baby so we could get a little break. I said to him: I don’t feel good. And he looked right at me and said: I KNOW that you don’t feel good.

I said that I thought there was something deeper going on but I don’t know what.

To be very honest and raw, we came home from our trip and I’d like to black this out, but we had an argument and I lost total control of my body – like I didn’t even know who I was. I was in a fit of rage over something silly.

And my husband was really scared. He didn’t know what was happening. He was frightened.

Once I left with my daughter. I went into nature and visited a friend and came back, and we were both crying and my husband said: I’ve been researching all day, and I’m pretty sure you have postpartum depression.

It was sweet especially after all the rage I put forth. He really supported me to start getting some help. I’m so grateful.

So that was only at four months postpartum.

D: What kind of help did you seek out? For me, they wanted to put me on Zolaft. I had no interest in that. Talk about your journey.

J: Any mom that chooses to go the route of medications, I have no judgment for you. That is hard, it’s crazy. You feel crazy. I felt crazy.

I found an amazing therapist in this area that I was drawn to because he uses a lot of spiritual practices. Our first conversation on the phone, I knew this was different. It felt really good.

In our first session, we barely talked. He guided me into an amazing meditation that was like a lineage of meditations that have been passed on to hm. After my first session, I felt like this is what I need. I continued seeing him, and the insomnia started for me.

My daughter started sleeping and I stopped sleeping. I was also seeing an Acupuncturist for my insomnia, and taking any herb for my mood that I could take. Whatever anyone was suggesting, I was trying to take and nothing seemed to be helping.

The meditations with him, I felt the best with him. It would last for a little bit afterward, but I would often find myself back into my head. At one point, it felt like my whole life dissolved in front of me.

D: Had you gone to a traditional doctor also? You were open and aware enough to start down your path. Not every new mom is there. Which is why we’re doing this call. So people know there are alternatives. It doesn’t mean you can’t go traditionally.

J: Insomnia was also wild. I became crazier and crazier in my head. Sleeping herbs didn’t help. It was wild. At that point, joy had left my body. I would feel joyful with my baby, but outside of that, I felt like I had no joy. I didn’t know who I was anymore. I couldn’t even speak to my friends. I felt like I couldn’t have a conversation without being in my head.  And I was creating scenarios, like things that could happen to my daughter and how I would get her out of it…..over and over again.

Thankfully at that time, I wasn’t working. I didn’t work for about a year and a half. And so I continued seeing  the therapist. One day I saw a preview, an advertisement for a breath-work class in Nevada City and I was familiar with breath-work – had taken a breath-work class when I was 18, in the middle of the mountains.

So I was familiar with some of the transformation there and the magic.

Not exaggerating, after my first night in my breath-work session, I knew that was what the medicine was for me. It was really amazing and it still took me quite a while, but I continued going to breath-work and continued seeing the therapist and got deeper into his meditation.

And then I had quite an experience of finding Spirit/God (I think I tried not to say that word for a long time), but I definitely found God again, but in a different way.

The therapist kept talking about Presence and Spirit, and I really didn’t know what he meant, but I knew I felt something.

One day after a session, I felt the power of this presence in the room. I felt supported. I felt like things were starting to shift and move for me. And I felt like I wasn’t alone in experience anymore, but I didn’t understand it.

I told my husband I found God again, but it’s a different way. It’s not a man in the sky. I was trying to explain it to him. I said I feel like this energy WITHIN me and that’s AROUND me at all times, and I feel so connected. So I explained it to him and then went to bed. So I have insomnia, so at this point, I was “sleeping” in a separate room to try to help my insomnia.

And I went to sleep . In the middle of the night I was awakened by a beam of light. It looked like someone was holding a flashlight on the carpet and it was shining straight up to the sky. It gives me chills every time I talk about it.

I rubbed my eyes. This isn’t real. My dog was in the bed with me and he wasn’t moving. So I thought this was not real. So I moved my head from side to side. As I moved my head, this light was following my vision side to side.

When I first saw it, I thought did I leave a light on? I was taking melatonin, and was so tired. Did I pass out with a light on? And then I realized I felt it. That’s when I felt it. That presence. It was very uncomfortable for me, so I couldn’t just sit there and talk to it. I totally got up and went to my husband. I was pretty scared and startled. But it became clear to me afterward that was me calling it in.. I had just said to my husband hours before that I found God again. And then that experience happened.

D: So do you always feel that or do you have to tune in to feel that?

J: I have come so far and I still have so far to go. But I’ve come so far with this relationship to this within and around me. Breath-work has been a portal of connection for me. I kept finding that every time I was participating in breath-work, I was becoming closer and closer to this feeling of support at all times.

So I started to just ask. I want to be connected to this as much as I can. So it’s really important to me to take time every day to sit and just sit and feel that relationship every day.

D: Basically, is that your meditation, what you call meditation, or do you do something else as well?

J: That’s just a big part of my meditation. I practice a meditation called The Felt Sense, something my breath-work teacher has demonstrated…..just sitting in my body and feeling  the sensations, but also taking the lineage meditation from my therapist and feeling the sense of Presence. And then talking.

Now I just have like free-form, free-flowing conversation. Every time I’m n breath work, It’s like another level of connection. I feel like now I can see clear images of what’s supporting me.

But I give thanks because I know that if I’m not “feeling” connected, I can just lie down on my mat and start my breathing process, and awaken that.

D: About this breathing. The only breath work I’m familiar with is in yoga – about the difference of yoga vs just stretching. In Yoga you’re breathing with the poses.

J: I practiced different types of breathing for so long. So this type of breath work is a diaphragmatic breath. Taking a breath out of your chest and into your diaphragm, into your low belly. I teach it in different ways, but a way to activate and heighten is an open mouth continuous circle of breathing. So there’s no hesitation between your inhale and your exhale. Just allowing them to be connected in and out. You breathe in and take in 3 times more oxygen this way.

No pausing at all.

This changed my life with breathing. It opened my capacity to breathing, so I started to learn through teaching of other breath work teachers. When we breathe our typical breath in this society, it’s breathing in our chest. It actually keeps our nervous system in the sympathetic (fight or flight). So you actually stay in that sympathetic nervous system by breathing into your chest.

When you take your breath out of your chest and into your belly and practice diaphragmatic breathing, even with your mouth closed, throughout the day, you stimulate the Vegas nerve and you bring yourself into the parasymphathetic, which is the rest and digest part of our nervous system.

So I trained myself to no longer breathe from my chest. Now, all day long, unless I’m exercising, I breathe diaphragmatically….and that has also changed my life.

To me it’s truly medicine now. It’s breath medicine.

When did symptoms start going away?

J: It took probably about a solid 9 months until I started feeling joy again in my body, and I remember being outside and actually feeling joy when the sun touched my skin

It took me truly a year and a half to feel like myself again and to come into this new identity. I think I was struggling and attaching myself to this old identity of myself, which I find we often do when we start shifting in our consciousness

It can happen sometimes like it feels scary to leave the comfort of this person that you knew so well. For me I had to just embrace who I was changing into. So that took about a solid year and a half before I could feel I could actually be myself and sit and talk with friends without being in my head.

D: Did you feel you could not be yourself before? Or you were yourself in a different identity?

J: The beginning stages of all, I didn’t feel like myself at all.

D: The depression. But before that, you felt like yourself? But you transformed……who you were before and who you were after.

J: Before was a lot more passive. I didn’t have clear boundaries: energetic and spoken verbal. I was very much a “yes” and a giver and a giver. I didn’t’ see how that was contributing to being burnt out. I felt like it was my role to help people, whether it was yoga, meditation or Reiki. It was my role to help and help.

I also was in a different place. I enjoyed life in a different way. I was stepping into this person who was enjoying life in more of a present way, like wanting to stop and notice the clouds and the sun. And stop and notice how I FELT about situations. And when someone approached me, how I felt about that person approaching me and what they brought and the energy that they brought. So I was becoming a more conscious and present human being, and really conscious with myself and what I was putting out there, what I was receiving, who I was letting into my life, into my family’s life……totally energetically. That was a big eye opener for me.

And within that process, I lost friends for sure. At the time, it was hard, but then I saw the beauty to it and I felt free, and my family was free from attachments of these energies that kept sucking onto our family as well.

I think I stepped into a more direct self-aware role. Owning  myself and who I am and what my journey is in this world in this 3-d form in this lifetime.

D: How much were you doing during the year and a half?  And now how much daily time do you dedicate to these practices.

J: The first year and a half, I was spending time every day with the meditation, and then starting to get into more of a daily practice of the circular breath work. Then at about a year and a half,  I found this program and it came to me and I was drawn to it because it was called Alchemy Breathwork. And that’s how I described my process. It was like alchemy – everything in front of me just had to dissolve in order for it to be built up to be more beautiful and incredible and magical.

So alchemy to me is a powerful work. It resonates in my soul, so I found this program and then it became a dedicated everyday daily practice. So I would spend anywhere from 10 min to 30 min to an hour breathing and meditating. And then I had a 10 min journal exercise afterward. I’d set a timer for 10 min and just write.

D: and that time included the breathwork and meditation. Yoga would be separate and later in the day?

J: My routine now is exercise in the morning, which takes form in all different ways, but exercise, breathe, breathe-meditate, …..my breathing is a meditation to me now.

So exercise, breathe, or just a meditation and then journaling.

D: It takes time, especially in our crazy culture with crazy schedules.

J: It’s not easy. For me it was a matter of feel better or not feel better. So I felt like I just HAD to do it. In order to do that, with a child, with a business I’m creating, and working with kids living with disabilities, I have to get up at 5 AM to do that.  I try to always go to bed by 10 PM.

With my clients, I encourage them to build up to a daily practice. But I’m really serious with people that my life took a more permanent change to wellness when I started a daily committed practice. And, on the weekends, I don’t want to get up at 5 so I have a different routine on the weekends. But it still includes that time every day: exercise, breath, meditation, journal.

D: Where can people learn more about you?

J: I have a website: www.YourBreathYourHealing.com
and I am active on Instagram: @yourbreath.yourhealing

I work in Nevada City. I have a beautiful office space and have one-on-one clients here. I also work remotely. So I can do this work online.