Becoming BREATH - The Podcast

What if everything you've been taught about breathwork is keeping you at the surface?Recorded during the liminal days between Christmas and New Year, Sanni and Katja explore why myth isn't metaphor—it's symbolic instructions on how to human. Why your breath is reciting an ancient mantra with every cycle. And why the scientific materialist worldview might be the most limiting myth of all.What We ExploreWhy celebrating "return of the light" at winter solstice misses the point entirelyStranger Things: the difference between experiencing myth as archetypal instruction vs. "basic sci-fi"How controlling breath equals controlling peopleWhat "mythic condition" means—co-creating reality moment by momentKatja shares reaching complete exhaustion and finding new coordinates of SelfYour breath singing your essenceKey Quotes"Myth is not opposite to reality. The opposite of myth is literalism, flatness, emptiness.""Controlling the breath is the easiest way of controlling a person.""When we try to make mental sense of breath, we lose something—this is where it becomes just technique."

In this episode, Sanni and Katja explore resonance — not as a concept, but as the living pulse that breathes through everything.They dive into how resonance shapes our breath, our relationships, and even our healing. From trauma as an intelligent resonant response, to the magic of coherent breathing, ritual, and sound — this is a conversation about returning to the natural rhythm of life.Together they explore:Why “resonance” isn’t just a buzzword, but the organizing principle of existenceThe difference between doing the breath and being breathedHow trauma itself begins as a resonant response — the body’s most intelligent way of staying aliveThe subtle difference between dissonance and resonance, and how one transforms into the otherWhy rituals, sound, rhythm, and group presence are biological needs The art of meeting internal dissonance with a bigger external resonanceHow poetry and mythopoetic language can restore aliveness to our human experienceThe hum at the center of the universe — and how your own voice can become a doorway back to itThank you for being a part of the Vibe 🫶

In this conversation, Sanni Parkkinen and Katja Markelova explore one of the most slippery and fluid thresholds in the human experience — the space between conceptualizing something and actually experiencing it.Have you ever been breathed by the wind — a visceral moment of dissolving boundaries between body and world? How do we move from talking about life to being moved by life?From doing breath(work) to becoming breath?In this episode:The difference between understanding an experience and becoming it.Why we cling to concepts — and how conceptualizing is both a survival strategy and a form of disconnection.The Imaginal Realm — a living, breathing in-between world where the seen and unseen meet.What “switching coordinates” means and how to shift from human contraction into imaginal belonging.How somatics, movement, and breath can either liberate or confine us, depending on our coordinates.A willingness to be imaginably unstable.Enjoy!

In this episode, Sanni Parkkinen and Katja Markelova speak about the origins and frameworks of Becoming Breath. This conversation is an invitation to step beyond the conditioning of mainstream self-help, trauma-healing trends, and fix-it-fast approaches.In this episode:* The difference between “Door #1” (technique-driven, pathology-focused breathwork) and “Door #2” (relational, field-responsive, mythic breath)* What it means to “hold a bigger field” and why that’s essential for cellular-level transformation* The practitioner's role as a representational doorway to possibility, healing, and mythic consciousness* Subtle perception, ancestral threads, somatic truth, and the deeper intelligence embedded in the breath* “Mythic hunger” and the uncomfortable longing for more life, depth, and truth—even when everything looks fine on the surfaceExpect big questions, nuanced inquiry, archetypal gestures, and truths you can’t un-hear.

In this conversation, Katja and Sanni explore the alchemical nature of breath and what "alchemy" is. They speak about what it means to live beyond the “real world” of mental abstraction, and to return to the direct, lived experience of exchange — between breath, body, and the wider field of life (the Tide).From the threshold moments that transmute exhaustion into creativity, to the fractal intelligence of breath that mirrors the geometry of the universe, all the way to the Meaning of Life ( _yes, we went there again_ )😏This episode is touching on topics:The difference between doing breathwork and becoming breathBreath as a fractal of life — the mandala always drawing itselfHow true alchemy happens at the threshold between control and surrenderThe subtle art of attunement: listening before doingWhat the “real world” actually means (and how to re-enter the lived world)Why catharsis ≠ transformation — and what relational alchemy really feels likeThe physics of surrender without the transactional aspect of “so that...”The role clarity between you and the Tide

In this conversation, Sanni and Katja bring nuance to one of the most misunderstood distinctions in the breathwork world that no one talks about: the difference between breathing therapy and breathing for “healing”. They explore what makes breathwork truly therapeutic - where listening, presence, and relational attunement guide the process - versus approaches that impose technique, catharsis, or correction.What “breathing therapy” actually means (and why it’s not one-size-fits-all-protocol)The fine line between repatterning and overriding the body’s intelligenceTrauma, breath, and the misconception and misinformation of “releasing all trauma from your body”The role of resonance, relational field, and the body’s inherent treatment plan

“Change your breath, change your life” - you hear this everywhere. But what actually happens when we do it? In this episode, Sanni and Katja explore the seduction and shadow of breath manipulation - from traditional pranayama to the latest breathwork trends - and what gets lost when we focus on changing rather than listening and knowing first.They unpack how breath can become both a portal and a trap: a doorway into bliss, but also into dissociation, control, and spiritual bypassing. Through their own lived experiences, they question what it really means to breathe naturally and how true breathwork may not be “work” at all.The hidden cost of “change your breath, change your life”How spiritual practice can fragment rather than integrateThe difference between awareness and manipulationLosing (and finding) the ground of your own breathDissociation disguised as transcendenceWhy the most elaborate breath-manipulation practice might be doing nothing in the long run  A philosophical and embodied inquiry into what happens when we stop fixing the breath and let it show us how to live instead.

In this episode, Sanni and Katja explore the mythology of “right” and “wrong” breathing and how our human obsession with fixing, categorizing, and directing breath to create a certain outcome keeps us from meeting the living intelligence that breath already is. Even when the outcome we are steering towards is more connection to this living intelligence.They touch on the full range of breathwork - from functional to therapeutic to transpersonal - and question whether the breath really needs our control at all.Expect reflections on:Why “fixing” the breath often fragments it furtherThe myth of the perfect breath and the “am I doing it right?” trapHow modern wellness turns relationship into perpetual unachievable self-improvementListening, presence, and the natural intelligence of breathSometimes the most healing breath is the one that breathes you.SHOWNOTES:Sanni talks about Manual Assessment of Respiratory Motion, the MARM test, developed by Jan van Dixhoorn and further studied by Rosalba Courney:van Dixhoorn J. A method for assessment of one dimension of dysfunctional breathing: distribution of breathing movement. In Biological Psychology 2004 Nov 1 (Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 415-416).Courtney R, van Dixhoorn J, Cohen M. Evaluation of breathing pattern: comparison of a Manual Assessment of Respiratory Motion (MARM) and respiratory induction plethysmography. Appl Psychophysiol Biofeedback. 2008 Jun;33(2):91-100. doi: 10.1007/s10484-008-9052-3. Epub 2008 Mar 5.

In this first episode of the Becoming BREATH(work) podcast, Sanni and Katja dive into the living question at the heart of Becoming BREATH(work):What if breathwork isn’t something we do but a web of relationship we enter?They explore how modern approaches to breath often become transactional and technique-driven, and what shifts when we meet Breath as a living force, a field, and a mirror for the art of relating itself.* The difference between technique and relationship* Why “doing it right” misses the point* The art of relating, breathing, and being aliveBecoming Breath is about remembering that everything is forever breathing.Join our professional training in May 2026 in Portugal: https://www.talesofbodyverse.com/becoming-breathwork