When you’re podcasting, you’re always learning. There’s always something new to try or new conversations to be had. This learning is a journey of practice and how we don’t have to take things so seriously, especially in podcasting when it’s meant to be fun. This fun practice means we get to record many episodes, sometimes week in and week out. When you do something long enough, something is bound to go wrong! And even if something does go wrong, it’s OK, it’s part of the learning process and podcasting in general. We are all on a podcasting journey together. Get ready to go from your inner critic and transform that into your inner leader.

I’m so happy to share with you my conversation with Amber Campion.

Amber is a trauma-informed yoga teacher, breathwork facilitator, & mindfulness-based life + leadership coach. For more than a decade, Amber’s work in the field of emotional intelligence, personal leadership, and self-discovery has led her to create embodied trainings, workshops, retreats, masterminds, and online courses supporting wisdom seekers to bring their Full Self to the world.

We talk about:

  • Breathwork and how it impacts our creative work as Podcasters.
  • Beating self-doubt when “we don’t know what we don’t know” where she provides tools of grounding to deal with self-doubt in podcasting.
  • Tips on what you need to do before hitting that record button.
  • Finally, we include a beautiful breathing exercise I think we should all do before we ever get behind our mics.

We also talk about the seven mind traps briefly in this episode, but if you’d like to go deeper on all seven mind traps that include yoga, breathwork and insight journaling, you can access Amber’s 5-day embodiment experience called “Keep the Channel Open”.

Resources mentioned in the episode:

Engage with Amber:

Connect with me!

Our Conversation:

Mary Chan
When you’re podcasting, you’re always learning. There’s always something new to try tech-wise maybe, or a new workflow, or even new conversations to be had. This learning is a journey of practice and how we don’t have to take things so seriously. Especially in podcasting, when I truly believe it’s meant to be fun. This fun practice means we get to record many many episodes. Sometimes a week in and week out and when you do something that long something is bound to go wrong. Even if something does go wrong, which I am going to guarantee you that it will, it really is okay. It’s part of the learning process and podcasting, in general. We are all on a podcasting journey together. And along with my guest for today, Amber Campion.

I am so happy to share my conversation with Amber with you. She is a trauma-informed yoga teacher breathwork facilitator and mindfulness-based life and leadership coach for more than a decade. Amber’s work in the field of emotional intelligence, personal leadership, and self-discovery has led her to create embody trainings, workshops, retreats masterminds and online courses, supporting wisdom seekers to bring their full self to the world. You’re going to enjoy this episode. We talk about breathwork and how it impacts our creative work as podcasters. We’re going to beat that self-doubt down. Especially when we just really don’t know what we don’t know in podcasting, and she is going to provide some fools of grounding to deal with the self-doubt that pops up in podcasting. She’ll reveal some tips on what you need to do before hitting that record button and finally at the end is a beautiful breathing exercise I think we should all do before we ever get behind our mic. This is going to be an episode that is a keeper – star this one and go back to it, so definitely stay till the end for that. We also talk about the seven mind traps briefly in this episode, so if after hearing this episode you’d like to go deeper on all of the seven mind traps and it will also include yoga, more breathwork and insight journaling, you can access Amber’s, five-day embodiment experience called “Keep the Channel Open”. We’ll have the link in the show notes of this episode for you to get that. So let’s figure out what some of these seven mind traps are and everything else that I just talked about. It’s time to get started on the episode.

Amber thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited to talk about all things. Let’s start with breathwork because in my line of work, one of the foundations I always talk about is the voice coaching side of how breath is the foundation of your voice because without it, your vocal cords can’t work properly, or work at all actually. But from your perspective on breath, in terms of doing creative work, and your leadership work, how does breath impact us?

Amber Campion
Oh yeah, I mean, well first of all, in my line of work which I’m a yoga teacher, and a mindfulness coach, and the breath is. It’s the first thing we talked about with regards to how we can manage stress, and how we can stay embodied – staying in our body from the neck down is the way I describe that. So often in situations that might elicit the stress response, like public speaking. We shoot right up into our heads. So we’re in our body but we’re in our body from our necks up. And when we’re in that place there is so much that we can get caught up in, mind traps and this worrying and overwhelm and really listening to our inner critic which I refer to as the itty bitty shitty committee. We can talk more about that and why I call it that. But the breath is what allows us to pull back down, ground, get back into our body, and be able to actually navigate not necessarily get rid of stress. And actually, there’s a certain level, a certain amount of stress hormones that actually help us show up in those moments where we need to be present and we need to be activated. But if it goes too far, we can lose ourselves. So the breath is so grounding for us. And also besides grounding us, it’s a big part of our voice quality which there was a study done because I haven’t talked about this in a long time so I’m not going to know the details, but I do know it was at UCLA. You might be familiar with it, they call it the 7-38-55 rule. And they say that there are three different ways that we’re influenced and influence others, and 55% of it is our physiology our body language. That represents 55% of how we influence others and we’re influenced. But then, 38% is the voice quality. While only words only represent 7%. I think so often we’re thinking so much about what do I need to say that will be right. How do I get it, just write the words, what I say. And while that is important, people are really picking up on the body language and the voice quality, and it’s so often in the public speaking realm and leadership realm, not one of the first things that we talk about – the importance of body language, the importance of our voice quality and the tools we can use to help that, right?

Mary Chan
Yes, totally. I say that too, it is all about the sound of your voice. Especially on a podcast when most of them aren’t part of the video platform, it’s audio-only. So how you sound is how you represent yourself. But at the same time, it’s about your physical body and what you’re doing with that, in order to be able to breathe in and then be able to use your voice. You know like, instead of sitting at your desk with your microphone if you can stand up like I always stand up while I’m podcasting or even on a zoom call or something like that because when you’re standing you have more usage of your lungs and your breath and you’re not collapsing your lungs that way.

Amber Campion
Right, it’s much easier to access the diaphragm when we’re standing. You can do it sitting as well, but it’s so easy. It’s just such a common thing for people in that sitting position to start rounding the shoulders and collapsing. Not only is that going to impact our breath but it’s going to impact our state. When our state is, you know, our state of being. If we’re starting to hunch and collapse our shoulders, then we’re going to go more into this inertia place, this place of self-doubt, worry. But when we’re sitting upright, we’re lengthening across the collarbone, bones, we have full access to our diaphragm, we’re in a more empowered place and there’s so much scientific studies proving this now so it’s not just anecdotal.

Mary Chan
Yeah, you were talking about our posture, there. Is our posture also connected to mindfulness, and you know how you were saying if we sit, and we’re slouching we might think a different way as well?

Amber Campion
Oh yeah, sure. So mindfulness is just about being present in the moment. Being aware of what’s happening right in the moment, and within mindfulness practices, a lot of the tools are just around noticing sensation in the body and noticing the breath. That’s the first step just being on the very visceral level of noticing sensation. I often say in my classes, notice what you’re noticing and feel what you’re feeling. When I say often say it, it’s like a mantra all my students will be like yep that’s Amber’s thing. Because you want to get that embodied – notice what you’re noticing feel what you’re feeling. Then the next level is noticing how those sensations and how the breath is impacting you. So you really do start to become aware, rather than someone telling you, you know when your shoulders are hunched forward, and you’re slouching, how is that impacting your emotional state of being? You start to notice that. And then the next level is, so how is that emotional state of being, impacting how you show up? Impacting what you’re saying, how you’re saying it, whether or not you’re believing in yourself. All of that. So it’s all interconnected. It is like a braid, you know the body, mind, and then the way we show up.

Mary Chan
I love that. Do you have a story to share with that like what’s an example?

Amber Campion
Well, I probably have lots of stories around this, but how I started getting interested in this is, when I became a yoga teacher, many many many years ago – which is so wild to say, you know that it’s, I’ve been teaching for 16 years and it’s just it still blows my mind to say that out loud. But I had never intended to become a yoga teacher. I went through my training to help myself just to help myself through some mental health issues and some emotional barriers that I was guided like maybe you should do a yoga teacher training, this will be a real deep dive into that world and it was. But what ended up happening is I ended up becoming a teacher. And as I started teaching, I really was having like essentially panic attacks teaching. My heart rate was going a million miles an hour, I felt like everyone could hear my heart, and how fast it was going. I would sweat through my shirt. Profusely sweat and not because I was doing the practice and oh I’m sweating. I’m just teaching and standing and using my voice but I’m so nervous that I would sweat through my shirt. I would talk really really really fast, but I felt like I couldn’t control that. And then this is how the itty bitty shitty committee came about is because I was like, you know what people talk about this inner critic like there’s this one voice inside the head that is shaming you, discounting you, imposter syndrome all this stuff right? I was like, but I have a whole committee, like, it’s like an entire clan inside my head it’s so loud, right? That was really, really, really challenging for me and that lasted for like a year which is quite amazing that I kept on keeping on. But there was really something that kept calling me to this path and I kept going and kept going, but what I realized is like, when someone becomes a yoga teacher and this is a lot of things you become a podcaster, unless you’re specifically going into like, I am going to be a public speaker, you’re often, you don’t have training in public speaking. And yet to become a podcaster, to become a yoga teacher, anything where you are actually speaking in front of more than one person, you are essentially a public speaker. And there wasn’t training for that. So, I definitely started going on into trainings around public speaking and learned a lot of things. I think what really helped me though is, while the public speaking training was super helpful to just get me out there, get me consistent get me practicing, what really really worked for me is when I started doing deeper dive into mindfulness training and learning more about the breath and learning more about the things I was sharing before. Of how the breath and how awareness of my body impacts my emotions and then how my emotions impact how I show up like that blew my mind when I started learning that stuff and practicing tools of grounding. That’s what I call them, they’re just their tools of grounding. And it doesn’t necessarily make everything go away like someone’s listening to this and it’s like, I’m like you Amber like it just overtakes me. Over time like now I can get up in front of hundreds of people 1000s of people I don’t get, I mean I’ll get a little bit nervous, but you start to train your nervous system through consistency so it takes time, it takes practice. And while yes, it’s important to practice those things when you’re not in front of people. You also need to practice them in front of people. It’s super important.

Mary Chan
It’s an interesting thing too with podcasting, our self-doubt rises because you were talking about we don’t have this training, most of us don’t have this training. I have a background in radio, but most people come from it where they just have a message they want to share, they want to share their voice. But not knowing that a podcast, now is very much like traditional media in radio or TV, where this is now our stage for our voice and our message, and we do get that I call it the little gremlin on your shoulder, you call it the itty bitty shitty committee which I love. I love a good rhyme and alliteration and all of that, but it hits us as podcasters at times because we don’t know what we don’t know when we’re podcasting because everything is so new, whether it be the tech involved or figuring out how to produce the episode, lots of little things can trigger us while we’re creating each episode. So you’re talking about these tools of grounding, what tools of grounding exactly can you share to deal with the self-doubt?

Amber Campion
One of the things within mindfulness that really helped me is something called the seven mind traps and this comes from the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook if anyone’s interested, so it’s not something I created. And I learned about this years ago and really it changed my life and it’s changed so many people’s lives. So there’s these seven mind traps that if you’re a human being, you are going to experience these. And some of us will experience certain ones with a little bit more zest will say, but the first one is negative self-talk. We’re all doing it but we’re rarely realizing how this is impacting our emotions, our emotions and like I said before, therefore our choices and our lives. And they lead these negative self-talk, this is our itty bitty shitty committee. That this can lead to insecurities, low self-esteem, procrastination, self-doubt, all sorts of things. So that’s the first mind trap. And the first step is just to be aware of it right like, oh my gosh, there is a voice inside my head. And that is not me. That is not who I am. And what I also teach is while there is this inner critic, there’s also an inner leader. But we have to get still enough to hear the whisper of the inner leader because, for many of us, we have allowed the voice of the inner gremlin or the itty bitty shitty committee or the inner critic to get to the point that it’s like a gremlin sitting on the shoulder or an entire committee in our head. And so we have to really slow down and this is where a lot of breathwork tools and embodiment practices can really help us on a deep somatic level, slow down our nervous system, enough to actually hear the whisper of the inner leader. There is someone inside us also who is on our side and has a lot of amazing things to say to us like wow how brave are you that you’re actually doing this because how many people don’t actually do this.

Mary Chan
You mentioned earlier on a somatic level, so can you explain somatic? What does that actually mean? What does that entail?

Amber Campion
Yeah somatic just means of the body relating to the body. So somatic type of work and somatic therapy is about using the body to release and manage our emotions. So we could have talk therapy and talk about it to release and manage emotions, but somatics is of the body. So anything that’s related to using the body to help essentially balance out our nervous system. So, yoga practices, breathwork practices all of that is in relation to that. But even just practicing things like your posture, how you stand when you’re presenting, fidgeting little things that you do and starting to notice like, oh my gosh I do this thing. Like whenever I’m interviewing someone on a podcast, my foot is tapping and my knee is shaking so often we’re doing things like that we don’t even know. And so it’s becoming aware that’s the mindfulness becoming aware that’s that’s happening in the first place. And what that why that’s happening that’s an automatic it’s a tremor, it’s a tremor that you’re doing to release the nerves to release the tension, but it’s an old pattern it’s not mindful so it’s not actually releasing it. It’s you know it’s old. It’s outdated. It’s just like automatic tremoring. And so with mindfulness, you start to find ways that are more intentional or conscious of actually releasing and not just old patterns of like shaking and fidgeting and and rocking and swaying. All of that is fine and it’s like, you don’t want to just get rid of it because then that’s going to shock your nervous system, but there’s a slow way to retrain the brain to find ways that are going to be more efficient, and really actually ground you.

Mary Chan
Yeah, how do you retrain the brain? When you’re talking about all of this, it brought me back to a couple scenarios where when I used to work in radio clients would come in so they’re small business owners reading a commercial for the first time and they get nervous and that’s when they do their nervous tics. One guy would like the tapping his pen on the music stand and I’m like, Well, you can’t do that because the microphone is picking up all this tapping. Or someone else had changed in their pocket, you know, when we still carried around a lot of cash with us, and he would jingle all the change or his keys in his pocket. Or also in podcasting, you hear a lot of mouth clicks where they, actually people will click their tongue when they’re in thought. So, are those the type of things that we can retrain our brain to stop doing?

Amber Campion
Absolutely. And it’s not going to be an overnight endeavour, though.

Mary Chan
Yes, nothing is magical.

Amber Campion
Right, so everything we’re talking about are practices and tools to start retraining. I had a lot of these to like, you know when I first started, if I had not gone through some of the practices I’ve done I would be probably talking to you a million miles an hour where you’d barely understand me. Because that was my way, it was just like going a million, I’m just talking really fast, you know like we talked that was like how I was dealing with the nerves and the sensation. That’s the thing it’s, it’s sensation that starts to overwhelm people because they’re, they haven’t, like really found a way to land with it. Just notice what you’re noticing, feel what you’re feeling. It’s that coming into presence with sensation that we’ve been avoiding.

Mary Chan
So then what’s the next step after that? I know, once people do have that awareness, like, oh my gosh I can’t believe I clicked my pen all the time while I’m talking. So, what is the next step to move past that once we start getting into the work?

Amber Campion
Well like anything else, I feel like it’s practice. Practice not doing it now you have this awareness that you do this and so, like, I started to notice my awareness, now I was teaching in person, so public speaking in person. It was all my patterns of, you know, talking about moving fast to like pacing the room. And so it’d be like picking one thing at a time like okay today when I go and teach, I’m aware that this sensation that I call nervousness moves through my body and it feels like a lot of energy and that’s all it is it’s just energy. So it’s also a lot of reframing. Like nervousness isn’t bad, it’s just energy moving. So I’m now aware that I have this nervous, this thing I call nervousness, this energy moving through my body and it’s, it’s a lot of energy for me right now, because I haven’t totally retrained my nervous system yet. But I’m aware that one of my tools that isn’t necessarily very efficient is pacing. So today I’m going to attempt to breathe deeply, and I’m going to attempt to notice myself pacing. And then when I catch myself pacing I’m going to stop and take a deep breath instead, things like that. So this is how you’re starting to retrain the brain and obviously, there’s a spectrum of how these kind of nerves impacts people so it really depends on that. You know, there’s this, this formula that years ago I learned and I don’t know who it’s from. It was like the path to confidence and it’s just these four steps it’s so simple, but when I think about my years of public speaking, this is exactly how I have overcome and what I would say debilitating self-doubt, is this is the path. The first thing you have to commit to something. For me I love the word devotion more than commitment because I know commitment can be a trigger word for people, I don’t want to commit. But to be devoted to something and commitment I think has this kind of like it’s a dirty word because there’s been this socialization around like people committing to things they don’t really want to commit to but that’s why I like the word devotion. Devotion to me feels much more soul connected like I’m devoted to something that there is purpose behind it that I have a why I have a clear why. And so really one, getting clear on your why, of why you’re even doing that thing so that you can come into that space of his word, his commitment, my word his devotion. The second thing is courage. So now you’re committed to something like I’m going to start a podcast. The second thing is now you have to have courage. You are brave so brave for doing this right? And it’s being afraid and doing it anyway. Courage doesn’t mean that you are fearless, that’s, that’s not what courage is, that it is there, but you are willing to take the courageous path and feel that fear. I think that’s it, being willing to feel the fear is what is going to retrain the brain. After you do that, you practice courage which means getting out there and doing it again giving yourself permission to make mistakes. People do not want perfect leaders, they do not want perfect podcasters, because then we all have to be perfect too and we don’t want to be perfect. We want to be authentic and genuine.

Mary Chan
Yeah the beauty thing of a podcast is that it’s always going to be imperfect because what we learn from one episode we create, we take that knowledge on to the next episode we create. So we’re always learning as a podcaster. Who’s ever going to be perfect. Otherwise, we’re going to be little robots behind the microphone.

Amber Campion
Oh yeah, even one of my mentors, like right now I’m going on like a very extreme like doing, like, five interviews a week on podcasts and my mentor is like, you want to just do as many podcasts but she’s looking at it as like, this is just practice. Don’t take it so seriously. And of course, I take it seriously, you know what I mean like, in other words, don’t be so hard on yourself. Don’t feel like you have to show up, even on your 100th podcast is like the most amazing podcast interview ever, you know? And we do that to ourselves. And so, courage is really the, to me I think courage is also compassion, compassionate courage. We’ve got to be kinder and easier on ourselves, especially when we are the ones going out there and actually doing it. Risking what ever it is that we’re afraid of right?

Mary Chan
Yeah we’re putting ourselves out there.

Amber Campion
And then the third thing, it’s only four steps. The third thing is then you start to develop capability. We don’t even talk about that right it’s like, I’m sure you have an endless stories about your journey as a podcaster. I mean I’ve seen your setup but it’s probably didn’t start out that way.

Mary Chan
No, exactly!

Amber Campion
First it was commitment, that it was courage, then we get started getting more and more capable. We start to actually develop that and and only then do we have confidence. That’s the pathway to confidence. And so, yeah, for people who are like, I just want a quick Band-Aid solution to be totally confident in this thing that I’m drawn to do, I don’t have the answer for them, those people who want that. It’s a journey.

Mary Chan
It’s about recording one episode at a time.

Amber Campion
Yes. Yeah, and just being easier on ourselves right? Like we’re so hard on ourselves I find.

Mary Chan
Yeah, one of the things I usually say when I do any voice coaching is when you’re self-critiquing yourself, it isn’t critiquing as a judgment, but more of a discerning ear. So if you were your own best friend, what would you say? Because your best friend wouldn’t say, Oh, your voice is so annoying. Oh, stop doing that. No! We need that compassion. So when you’re listening back to yourself, what would your best friend say? They might say, I love this that you did, but I also heard this, let’s work on that a little bit, you know like they’ll, they’ll be compassionate about what they’re saying to you, so you have to have that for yourself.

Amber Campion
That’s beautiful, Mary I love that.

Mary Chan
So as we wrap up, you do a lot of speaking, like you were saying, you’re getting on podcasts being a guest. So before you hit that record button or you, you know, crack that mic open, what’s your number one tip before doing a speaking gig?

Amber Campion
Gosh. For me it’s a, it’s a thought that I have, right? I feel like something that really used to hold me back, is that you know I really had this kind of doomsday end of the world, if anything goes wrong here my whole life is over, even if I’m only speaking in front of four people, you know, like. But even if it’s 100 people or 1000 people, our world is not over right, this is a big world and we’ve got lots of days hopefully ahead of us and lots more opportunities. And then the other thing that I now think of have been realized I used to think I like put everyone on a pedestal and then I was this like lowly person. And so, it’s more of a mindset that I go in, of like, even if something goes wrong, it’s okay if someone actually judges me because something went wrong, a tech thing went wrong or I said something that wasn’t the greatest and someone judges me, why am I letting that get to me? Like I’m putting too much like I think that was the big thing like too much weight on all of this. And what it did is it brought levity to me where I don’t feel that I have to be just get everything so right, you know, just I have to get it right. Otherwise, I shouldn’t do it at all. And so I think it’s that mindset of just knowing that people who are listening to, who are there, most of them have no judgments. We’re the ones doing most of the judging on ourselves. They’re most likely appreciative and getting a lot out of what we’re saying. And of course always the breath, I do this thing called the four-part dynamic release breath that I teach in my classes as well which is like a box breath and you just, you inhale for about a count of four to five seconds, and then you exhale, there’s four different exhale. So every time you’re inhaling through your nose for four seconds, four to five seconds, and then the first exhale through the mouth. The second one is through your nose. The third one is with a sighing sound which actually triggers your parasympathetic nervous system, which is your rest and restore. And then the fourth one is to exhale any way that feels most releasing, most freedom to you. And it is so grounding, that’s another thing that I like to do I actually did it before this podcast whenever I feel a little like whoa, okay here we go.

Mary Chan
Would you mind actually walking us through one right now?

Amber Campion
I would love it, I would love it.

Mary Chan
Just as you’re describing that I’m doing it myself, so I’m sure when we’re listening, we want to do this breathwork as well. So I would love it, I would be honoured, if you did some of that breathwork with us right now.

Amber Campion
Oh yeah, we get to close with me in my comfort zone teaching yoga.

Mary Chan
Beautiful.

Amber Campion
All right. So, wherever you are in the world, come into an upright seat so you can take a full inhalation and a full exhalation. Relax your shoulders, relax your jaw. And then go ahead and inhale for a count of 4-3-2-1. Exhale through your mouth, 4-3-2-1. Inhale through your nose, 4-3-2-1. Exhale through your nose, 4-3-2-1. Inhale through your nose, 4-3-2-1. Exhale with a sighing sound. Fourth and final round inhale through the nose. And then exhale, any way that feels most releasing, most free to you. And then just take a moment and notice what you’re noticing, feel what you’re feeling.

Amber Campion
Thank you, Mary.

Mary Chan
That’s beautiful. Thank you. Thank you Amber.

Amber Campion
Yeah, thank you.