The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #303 - Finnian Kelly

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

Finnian Kelly
I'm asking that question, like, do we actually need to go through suffering? Do we need to go through hardship? Do we need to have negative stories about ourselves to grow? Because that's definitely how we've identified.

What happens is we get closer to recognizing the fantasy is not going to come true. That's when the fear creeps in and that can really be paralyzing. Every time we want an outcome, it's because it will give us a feeling. When you get a feeling that perhaps is not in line with the desired feeling, you don't have to resist it. You don't have to fight it. You just have to feel it.

Melanie Avalon
Welcome to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in.

So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Oh my goodness friends, what an incredible conversation today with Finney and Kelly. His book, Intentionality, covered such a breadth of wonderful tools for taking charge of your life, so much insight, and also very practical, implementable steps you can take in your mindset, your career, your relationships, all the things. And we dive deep, deep into all of that in today's episode.

We talk about why you should prioritize feelings, yes feelings, what to do with a fluctuating identity, how to quickly shift your energetic state, the role of agreements versus expectations, a guide to meetings, energy audits, scientific manifestation, and of course one of Finney and Forte's, which is the role of breath work, specifically what he calls circuit breaker exercises. I can't wait to hear what you guys think. These show notes for today's episode will be at melanieavalon.com slash intentionality. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about, so definitely check that out. There will be two episode giveaways for this episode. One will be in my Facebook group, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus the real foods plus life, comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love, and then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post, and again comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right, I think that's all the things.

Without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with Finney and Kelly. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so excited and honored about today's guest that we are here with today. I am here today with Finney and Kelly, and he is the author of a book called Intentionality, a groundbreaking guide to breath, consciousness, and radical self-transformation. Friends, the backstory on this episode, when I saw the pitch about this book, I was so allured by the title alone. It just sounded like everything that I am into with this show and everything that I do with my life. I was talking about this before, but the cover itself is really beautiful and captivating and alluring.

Melanie Avalon
I just wanted to dive in, and I was so excited to read this book because it touched on so many things that we talk about on this show that I'm really passionate about. Our core beliefs and our histories and our trauma and how they lead to what we're doing today, how they create our current circumstances, and then there's really a nice bridging between an Eastern and Western philosophy, kind of marrying that all together as far as things like the mind versus the brain and the subconsciousness and the consciousness and this thing called the universal mind.

Then beyond that, there are so many practical tools and tips and tricks. We can talk about this. Finney has behaviors versus tools into how to actually make changes in your life, and I love when things are very, very practical so that you can actually implement them and see changes from it.

Then on top of that, breathwork is something that I'm very passionate about. All the different chapters have all these incredible different breathwork exercises, which he calls circuit breakers, all with their unique individual goals, and they're very implementable, and there's a practice to actually do them. It's just a really amazing, incredible journey reading this book, and it ends with something about scientific manifestation.

If that did not make people curious, I don't know what will. I have so many questions. I'm really looking forward to this.

Finney Anne, thank you so much for being here.

Finnian Kelly
Thanks so much, Melanie. That was a really beautiful introduction, made me proud of my own work and also made me realize we tried to do a lot in this book.

That's really what I wanted to do. My publisher was like, oh, we could do multiple books with this theme. And I went, no, I want if there was only one book that someone could read, you could actually understand your whole makeup and why we are who we are and then how to go through a process of change, which is ultimately what I'm most passionate about.

Melanie Avalon
It's so interesting to hear you say that because I was looking through my notes again this morning, and I was thinking just about that. I was like, there's so much here.

And I was wondering if you had struggled at all to try to unify it all into a theme. I was wondering if there was going to be pushed back in the process of like, you need to streamline and focus on this or this. Yeah, so did you get everything in or was there still stuff that is for a book too?

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, there's definitely more, and as you know, as you go on this journey, it's always an evolution. So where I might be at right now may not be exactly aligned with that book anymore, but it's a foundational piece that you need to go through.

Just like you can't, in school, you can't just go skip to year 12. You have to go through year one, year two, year three. So a lot of people sometimes go, but that's not even what you're talking about anymore. It doesn't mean it's not true. It's still very true for the person at that point of time. The actual funny bit was the last section, the scientific manifestation. They wanted that to be a whole book, and I refused at the end. I went, no, this has to be, at least have to give some foundational pieces because it's where the magic really happens.

And I'd be frustrated if I got to the end and someone had spoken about something and didn't at least give me a little bit of a teaser of what's possible.

Melanie Avalon
No, I love that so much. And in a way, it really, the scientific manifestation idea kind of does bring together everything you talk about in the book, because it's, again, like I mentioned a second ago, like the East versus the West, the intentionality, so manifesting, which can seem kind of a little bit airy and ethereal, but very practical, like how to actually do this and how to actually make things happen.

And in that chapter, you give examples from your own life and from other people's lives about people very practically manifesting, you know, actual things, which is nice to hear another question before that. Did you advocate to narrate the audiobook for yourself?

Finnian Kelly
I didn't advocate, that was a request from them from the first moment. Oh, really? Yeah, I think that might have been part of the publishing deal, actually.

I'm lucky I have a strange, unique accent, which is appreciated in America. That's funny. In Australia, I'm just another person. I was just in Japan skiing, actually. And I was like, what are all these accents? And then I realized it was me. They're all the same as me. So I like being in America where I'm a little bit of a novelty.

Melanie Avalon
It's so funny. Actually, my co-host for my other show, he's Australian.

Once you have the accent, it's like, oh, like not that you're not an incredible human already, but like really, you know, makes people very alert. I love listening to it, by the way.

Finnian Kelly
Thank you, Melanie. I'll be honest, there's sometimes I'm up on stage giving keynotes, and some of the things that come out of my mouth don't even make sense, but because of the accent, people just believe it and appreciate it, so...

Melanie Avalon
Get away with it.

Finnian Kelly
I'm going to play on that all day long.

Melanie Avalon
That's incredible. I love it.

Well, before we dive deeper into the actual stuff in the book, your personal story, which is in the book, but what led you to what you're doing right now with this whole focus on intentionality? You talk in the book about, you know, how you really reached a crisis moment with your personal life and finances and, you know, everything you were going through. What was that journey like?

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, I think if you see most people's journeys, they they teach what they need the most and they share what they actually need to hear themselves. So I want to really emphasize it's not like I'm this perfect person who lives all this all the time. I live a lot of it most of the time, but it's because I need it.

And that's how it really started was people I went through that transformation experience after I had a moment which forced me to really go inward and explore and start looking at myself and getting to know myself really well. And people started seeing the the change within myself and the impact that had on them. And they just started asking, can you tell me more? And enough people say one thing, eventually start listening to it. Even if you don't believe it fully yourself, you start trusting other people. And it just started to be a natural progression where I started sharing more and more and more. And then it ended up culminating in this beautiful book, which is which is nice for me because it also honors that really challenging period of my life and honors that it was all worth it.

And I've now been able to distill a lot of information. That's probably one of my zone of geniuses is to synthesize information and make it in an accessible format. And also, it means that other people don't have to go through what I did and have seven years of deep inquiry to get to this point. So I'm just trying to accelerate change for other people.

Melanie Avalon
Do you think people do need to go, like some people say that you do need to go through challenges and, you know, hard times to, I guess, appreciate the other side, like, like, what do you think is the role of needing to suffer or be challenged?

Finnian Kelly
So this is a very personal question for me right now and something I'm holding quite present because I've just had my first son and he's six and a half months old and he's absolutely adorable, not from our words, but every person we meet think he's the most beautiful child in the world. Some people actually go, is he an AI baby? It's quite hilarious.

And I have this beautiful moment to understand consciousness or explore consciousness because that's purely what they are at that point. There's no identity, no personality. And I'm asking that question, do we actually need to go through suffering? Do we need to go through hardship? Do we need to have negative stories about ourselves to grow? Because that's definitely how we've identified. We love the story of the rise and then the crash and then the comeback. That's definitely my story and people love it. But what would it be like if you actually grew up with no fear, like full abundance, just positive belief loops.

And like my son, could he grow up literally realizing that he's God? And if we grow him up like God, will he realize that? Now, it doesn't mean he's gonna go through an egoic phase. He just knows who he really is. What would that be like? And I think it's possible. I actually don't think you need to create all this suffering in order to grow. I think it's one avenue and it definitely forces you to become more aware, but ultimately what matters is awareness.

That's the key path of growth is how aware can we be? Now, often we have to get to a point of deep suffering where we're so disgusted with our life and we can't live like this any longer that you're willing to do whatever you need to do to become more aware, which then sets you off on a growth journey. But what if you just were trained to be aware from the first moment in your life? And that's something which I really wanna do for my son. And it doesn't mean there's not gonna be pain. And that's a big difference between pain and suffering. Like of course there's gonna be pain. Like he's gonna be a skier, we live in Aspen. I know he's gonna hurt himself, but it doesn't mean he has to suffer and say, oh my God, my life's ruined now because I can't ski for a few months, like which I've done in my life. He could just go, I'm aware, my body will heal and life isn't defined by my skiing.

So I know I've gone off on a little bit of a tangent then, but it's a very interesting topic because I think sometimes we seek out the suffering and that creates more suffering.

Melanie Avalon
No, it's fascinating. I'm like really thinking about it right now. I'm thinking, I don't know. Okay.

So like on the one hand, like you mentioned with the skiing and the physical pain. So I think having the physical, hermetic stressors and all of that is, you know, good for our bodies. So, so there's that. But then the personal challenge is, I don't know. I wonder if it's like a, I wonder if there's a surrogate for it by seeing other people suffer. So like, not that other people need to suffer, but like seeing that it's a possibility and present, but not actually experiencing it yourself.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, and if you're really connected with our essential nature, when you look at suffering, it doesn't even hurt you or affect you because you realize it's a construct and that's just they're identifying too much with their limited nature and they've disconnected from their limitless and infinite nature. So for me personally, when someone is going through a really hard time, I don't go, I'm so sorry or anything like that.

Like I lean in and I get excited because I can see that this is a moment where potentially they're going to be aware. This could be the catalyst and I actually laugh sometimes in very challenging situations with coaching clients because I'm like, look at the humanness of this. Look how creative we are that we're even thinking that this is a problem. Obviously this is very ethereal and it's the idea that we don't have to suffer and I think what I recognize through this work is that change is available to us every moment. We are changing every moment and it's also available to us to every moment and what would it be like if we just recognized that possibility and took ownership of it and just took that step forward in that direction that we needed, generally the suffering stops. It's the limbo that causes the suffering where we're just stuck in the story of it.

Melanie Avalon
Are you acutely aware, having your son, which by the way, congratulations. Thank you.

Are you acutely aware of like what you talk about in the book about, you know, the seven, the first seven years being so key to all the developmental core beliefs and everything.

Finnian Kelly
almost a little bit too aware if I was sharing Melanie, it's actually

Melanie Avalon
We're still in the seven years.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, it's one of the, it's one of the danger things is when you are so aware, then you can become, you set your ego up to judge you and criticize you. Like with my partner and I have definitely had some moments where we've been triggered with each other and we've done something which I like as a younger person, I was like, I'll never do that to my child, which like raise my voice or have a little bit of conflict in front of them, but we're also human. And I could easily go into a shame spiral about that.

Well, what's that going to do? It's going to create more separation and cause more problems. So instead I remind myself who I am. I forgive myself. I communicate to Ossian, like I share and go, I'm really sorry. Like we got triggered then. I love you. You're safe. This wasn't about you because they are absorbing all of this. So we just communicate as much as possible.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. Yeah. Honestly, because I don't think, I don't anticipate having kids. I don't, I just don't really, I don't know, I'll never say never, but I just don't really see it in my life path right now.

And honestly, one of the things that I would, I think I would be most, I don't want to say stressed about, but concerned about would be a challenge for me would be what you just said, I would just be like, so wanting to be doing everything right with the, you know, this core developmental time and, you know, helping them turn into a fabulous human being. So I applaud you. Thank you.

Finnian Kelly
Thank you. I want to touch on that. Just because the first seven years are the most impressionable doesn't mean that you have to be perfect in those seven years.

What's actually more important is to help the child become aware that, yes, by nature of us being these humans, we've put some faulty code into you. There's a malware. However, you don't have to accept that. You don't have to identify with that. You can go through a recoding process. That's what the second half of the book is really about. Let's show you how to do that. I wish more people recognized that they're not broken. They've got flexibility. It's malleable. Anything can change. That's the most exciting thing on this world right now. It's also the paradox because everyone has such a resistance to change, but the only thing that's permanent is change.

Melanie Avalon
I've been reflecting on that so much, especially when it comes to identity, because I feel like, I feel like people, it's, I think it can be a little bit ironic because I think people seek a stable identity, which you would think would be stable. But to me, it's kind of what you just said, I think the most stable thing is knowing that everything is changes.

So like that, that's almost the most like stable approach to it to be okay, in my opinion, to be okay with the change.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, and recognizing it as well. Sometimes we are so anchored on our identity that this is what I love doing, that we'll keep doing things even when we don't love them anymore. Like I've had that many a times. Like there was a moment where I used to be obsessed with sport, for example. And when I was a young in the wealth management industry, we used to go to get taken by the big companies to all the sporting games, and I loved it so much. I ended up advising a number of sports people and I reached the, I suppose the best moment of my sporting career when I was at after party of the, the, the main medal event with my favorite player. And it was great. And then afterwards I started noticing, I didn't really enjoy going to these events, but my identity told me, Oh, this is such a great opportunity. You've got to, you've got to enjoy this. And I had to admit to myself, sport isn't my thing anymore.

Like I love playing it, but I don't like watching it. And I, for a while there, I was in friction myself. And then once I recognized it and just went, Oh, that's okay. I can change my, my likes and desires. I let it go. And now I don't have that challenge anymore. I used to, I used to play golf. I don't play golf anymore. There's multiple things like that. So what I tell people is when you enjoy something, really enjoy it. Because you may not enjoy it in the future and then let it go. It's okay.

Melanie Avalon
foundational question I had, which is something that you mentioned very early in the book. I think it's when you're talking about your personal story and you talk about how you had a shift or you notice that you were focusing on what you wanted rather than what you wanted to feel and having that shift from what do I want to, how do I want to feel. So my question there is, I love that concept.

And at the same time, how does that align with or how does it work with the idea that emotions are emotions and temporary and we shouldn't identify with our emotions. So how do we focus on how we want to feel without, I guess, over focusing or over prioritizing or should we? Just what's the role there of how we want to feel?

Finnian Kelly
All right, you're now getting to a depth, which is great. You asked about the start of what would you do now in a different book? It's it's where you're getting to, but I'll take building blocks. So traditionally, people focus on outcomes or objectives or goals. We do that every year. We set all these goals. And what often happens is they end up becoming demotivating because we're not on track for the goals or they become limiting because we attach to that goal when we actually have such a greater potential for them or even worse. What happens is we reach the goal and we hoped that it was going to give us something. We don't really know what that was because we weren't really thinking through it very well, and it doesn't. And that's when people have these crashes after they reach their goals.

Like people get depressed and everything, because what ultimately they were hoping it was going to give them was a feeling. That's that's really what it was. Every time we want an outcome, it's because it will give us a feeling. So what I identified was, well, after going through a lifetime of setting goals and achieving them and then ultimately achieving my my life vision at a very young age, I got to this point and the illusion came crashing down. I thought once I get to this point, I didn't know intentionally, but I was I was hoping I would just feel peace and love and joy and wholeness in a in a consistent state. And it wasn't there. And the risk of actually achieving your goals is you have to actually face the illusion that none of this matters, none of the external matters. It's our internal state. So I felt robbed in some regards. I went, wow, like I just spent all these years doing this and it didn't give it to me. And unfortunately, I wasn't prepared for it. And that's when I went through my sort of destruction of my life, which was a gift because it forced me to go inward.

Now, there's other people who live actually in a worse state that they never reach their goal, so they just stay in the illusion forever. They just keep thinking, oh, once I have this, everything's going to be good. And then they end up being old and they look back at their life and go, God, I wish I had done this completely differently. So in order to stop us writing away time and wasting years going down potential paths that aren't ever going to meet our needs, I said, why don't we flip the script? Why don't we put feelings first? And then there's a number of different ways we could have outcomes that would achieve that feeling. If we want to feel free, there's a number of different ways we could achieve free freedom. If we want to feel safe, we want to feel love. There's so many different ways. But if we set the objective that love has to be this perfect man who looks this way, six foot two, has this degree, whoa, we've made it quite hard for ourselves. So it just gave a little bit of flexibility. The other thing it does is feelings are in the present. They're right now. So if my goal is to feel abundant, to feel inspiration, to feel connected, I don't have to wait five years to do that.

Finnian Kelly
I could do that right now. There's multiple ways. I'm at a, I just had lunch. I can feel abundant by tipping more feeling. So I feel like, wow, I have the capacity to do that.

I can connect by being really present with a person rather than thinking about my goals and objectives or being on my phone. And what I've done is in the present moment, I'm doing the behavior that leads to that feeling. So it's the change process happens so much quicker because we're doing it in the right here and now. And that's, that's really what it's about.

Melanie Avalon
I'm loving this and it's actually, it actually really does align with the way I experience life a little bit ironically because it still involves goal achievement for me. But basically I, I really am very goal driven.

I have a lot of things I like to do and I'm very aware that I feel great when I achieve these things and I'm aware that then I do the next thing. So it's like very exciting because I get to, I feel good trying to achieve something. I achieve something. It usually feels very, very good. And then it's exciting because I get to try something new. So I'm not putting the everlasting happiness in that one goal achievement to last forever. Rather it's the behaviors that I'm doing constantly are pursuing different goals and I enjoy that challenge. I enjoy that pursuit and then I enjoy the achievement and then I enjoy going again.

Finnian Kelly
Definitely. Yeah. So there's, there's almost like what you actually are going for is the feeling of progression and feeling of challenge. And, and that's why you enjoy it because it's, it's going to be a never ending process. And that's the beautiful thing about it is there actually is no end game. It's, it's just like, how do I keep having more of those feelings? And it's unlimited. That's the crazy thing.

Like even just connecting to the feeling of love, people have no idea what love really is. And once you connect to it, it just keeps going deeper and deeper and more expansive and more open. And it's one of my most sad things when I see couples think that this is the way it has to be. I was like, no, take a risk. Like there can be such deeper love in this relationship, but you have to go for it. You have to make it a priority.

So, so that's, that's where the feelings now you also said about how feelings are just energy. We don't want, don't want to be hostage to it. So ultimately there's a right to that. So when, when you get a feeling that perhaps is not in the line with the desired feeling, you don't have to resist it. You don't have to fight it. You just have to feel it and feelings are just energy and it'll pass through.

Then what you can do is then put your energy towards the desired feeling and just ask yourself, what's the behavior that would lead to that? And something that you can shift your energetic state really, really quickly. But I, I always say, I want you to feel the less desirable feeling first. Cause that's the most important thing. Cause otherwise you're suppressing it down onto your subconscious, which then actually just creates more of that situation in your life. And ultimately, this is where I'm talking about where I'm at right now. Eventually you don't even have desired feelings. You just want to feel that's, that's really, that's where you bypass it all. You're just like, Oh wow, I am a God's creature and I get the privilege of experiencing all of this. And all you want to be is aware. That's, that's the high, higher book that I'll be writing in the future.

Melanie Avalon
Well, speaking of, I like what you just said there about the agency of acknowledging and experiencing all feelings and then being able to quickly change. Speaking of this idea of quickly changing and the concept of time, I'm very fascinated by the role of time in all of this.

One of my favorite parts of the book actually was where you talk about the different language impressions in the world and how we have all these, I seriously love this section. You go through all of these different phrases that we hear and how they're just not true. One of them was the idea that time heals all wounds and you basically debunked that idea. What is the role of time in all this, both in the past, like I just said, with time-healing wounds and the present, like quickly making changes and then in the future actually integrating all of this and up-leveling ourselves? What's the role of time?

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, so thank you for recognizing that. That was a fun part of the book. It was also interesting to see what I've bought into over my life. And I still find these things.

I'm like, wow, where did I buy into this saying? This isn't true. And that's one of the things I want people to do is start questioning, being curious, just going, is that true? So the time heals all wounds. This was one of those great lies was we hear that all the time. And what I realized was I was at this moment when I was 32 years old and I was sitting there starting to connect the dots of my past back from a 10 year old incident that was now causing the issues in my life right now. And when if time heals or wounds, I should be completely fine. It's been 22 years past. And I just realized, oh, no, it doesn't time.

All it does is enables the wound to be dropped down into out of the conscious mind, into the subconscious and just keep identifying with us each day because in the subconscious, there is no time. It's just happening right now. And so what I realized is there's no time, there's just energy. So what really heals wounds is energy. Like you have to be in the present moment, you have to be willing to feel the feeling that you have avoided in the past. So what I think about with time is, is it's time is now. The time is now. It doesn't matter about when it was, how long ago was, how deep it was. You have the agency to integrate that emotion right now.

And when we do that, we get liberated, we get freedom and we move on. And everyone always keeps thinking, oh, it's too late. I see this with parents all the time. They're like, oh, I've already messed up my child. And I'm like, no, you don't. No, you're not. Your child is your child forever. All you have to do is in this moment, through the current level of consciousness, recognize that you weren't operating at a high state of consciousness before and acknowledge it and then go through repairing process. And I've seen relationships go through complete 180s, which people had written off because they were so stuck in the past about the shame rather than just going, well, what can I do right now? And that's really what I want to invite everyone to do all the time is just, hey, we're here right now. What's one thing we can do? What's one step we can move closer into integrity or into our desired feelings.

Melanie Avalon
have a question about the relationships, but before that something about the time. Do you find, well they say, and I think you even talked about this in the book, but it's often said that people with depression, that that's focusing on the past versus anxiety is focusing on the future in either way, in a negative way. Do you find with all of your clients and everybody you work with that people, like between those two, not to make one more important than the other, but do people tend to struggle with one more than the other? Or is one more difficult to overcome?

And do all the tools in the book apply to both, focusing on the past versus the future?

Finnian Kelly
Great question. I think we all have different coping mechanisms, so I'll give my personal example. The way I coped with the challenging past was to live in the future. And I used to identify by it. I was like, oh, such a visionary. I don't want to be in the present. I'm focusing on the future. But it was actually escapism.

It was like, I can't handle the truth of what's happened in my life, so I'm going to create a fantasy of the future. And we see children do that all the time. They'll create whole stories around what's happening so they can avoid what's happening in the present moment. And we continue doing that in our adult life. So I don't know if one's harder than the other. I just think we have a bias depending on how we're coping and how we're navigating it. What I have seen is there's a risk with fantasy about the future. So a lot of people set themselves up for failure because they romanticize a future. They could describe it as a vision, but it often is a fantasy. And what happens is we get closer to recognizing the fantasy is not going to come true. That's when the fear creeps in and that can really be paralyzing. So I'm more of a realist and just going, okay, let's not create a beautiful scenario.

How do we come back and go right now and how do we face what's true in this present moment? And ultimately what we're all trying to avoid is we're trying to avoid feeling. That's really what we're trying to do. People will stay in a state of anger and guilt and shame for months because they actually just don't want to feel it fully. So they'll just feel it a little bit and then they'll fight it and they'll keep resisting. But if you actually just sit and just fully feel whatever's coming through right now, it goes through us pretty quickly. But we have such an aversion to any unpleasant sensation that we just run away from it. And that's ultimately what the practices of vipassana and breath is just to come back to the present moment and be with what is here right now.

Melanie Avalon
I'm super curious because this is a biohacking show and I have a lot of longevity experts on the show. I'm always really curious, do you want to live forever?

This relates to what we're talking about. I'm just really curious what your answer is.

Finnian Kelly
It's a beautiful question. In some regards, I think I do. Like when I really connect to my essential nature, it's eternal. Like I felt that. I know that.

Do I want to live in this human incarnation forever? I'm not fast. I just sort of go along with the journey and it's something I really struggle with the longevity world. There are so many people who are focusing on all these little hacks to live longer, but they're not living now. And that's really what I would want more people to focus on is how do we live fully now and the way we live fully now is we feel fully now and we accept ourselves and we recognize what we are and then you're not caught up in this egoic structure of I want to be the person lives forever. I think you just completely bypass that. Now, I might be triggering a lot of people in the audience and I was definitely I was one of these people as well. But as I've just gone through this, I'm just I'm just like why like just just live now I I'm doing a lot of things like I have a concierge doctor and obviously I look after my health wellness very very well and at the same time, it's really about how do I just keep living in the greatest essence of of myself and I want to make sure I'm really healthy and vibrant all the way through I'd rather that than living for a really long time.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, yeah, I was super curious what your answer was gonna be because hearing you talk and your awareness of life and what you want to experience and everything, it's very similar to how I feel. And because I feel that way with life, I mean, I would just like to keep experiencing indefinitely.

So my answer, if I had to say yes or no, live forever, I would say yes, just because I want to indefinitely experience what I'm experiencing. And I've been really intrigued by the majority of the people I asked this question to say no, that they don't want to live forever, which was shocking to me before I started asking that question because I thought everybody wanted to just... I'm not saying that you said that you wanted to, but I just thought everybody wanted to keep experiencing indefinitely and apparently that's not the case.

Finnian Kelly
It is interesting, isn't it? And as you were saying that, I was like, why didn't I say yes?

And maybe because I want to experience through another part of God's expression. Like, I want to come through life as Melanie. Like, I want to try that out rather than just going through Finian.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, it's so, so interesting. I love it.

Well, the opposite of living forever. One of my other favorite phrases that you called out as being incorrect was what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And this might be a paraphrase because it's my notes. But I wrote that you said about that. I thought it's just so beautiful. It's maybe a paraphrase, but it was sometimes what doesn't kill us breaks us in other in other painful ways. How do you approach that idea where because the phrase like what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. It's kind of what we talked about in the beginning with do people need to suffer? It's supposed to be empowering and make you feel good about pain and suffering. But then so how do we reconcile that with the truth of no, sometimes, sometimes it actually does create, you know, breaks you in other ways.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, it's when it when something really traumatic happens and you're not at a level of consciousness or you don't have the right support group to be able to support you, you can get stuck in that story in a really bad way and there's a lot of people who have had some terrible things to you and you wouldn't say they're stronger now. They're in mental asylums, they're in jails, they're living muted lives because suddenly the fear like grabbed them, the existential threat of something grabbed them so strong that they were locked in their own prison of their mind.

So I think some of these sayings can be very dangerous because it's often a way to bypass actually feeling the gravity of the situation and it's like, oh, it didn't kill me, I must be stronger and it's like, well, did you actually feel the full ramifications of the event because maybe the event came forward for you to feel this. It's not to make yourself suddenly feel good and that's what people talk about with toxic positivity.

It's the avoidance of the feeling and they just think, well, I've just got to be high the whole time. You don't actually like life is about expanding and contracting and I'm all about the breath and we can't just keep breathing in all day long. Eventually you have to breathe out and that's very similar in life is we have these moments where everything feels really expansive and then the energy shifts and we're in a little bit of a contraction. The more we try to resist the contraction or bypass the contraction, we actually can keep us more in the connection. If we just feel it fully and acknowledge it and just be with it, eventually the energy shifts again.

I like to talk about the tides. The tide goes in, the tide goes out. One way to stop yourself getting caught up with the tide going out is just to plant yourself deep into the earth in the, say, for example, the ocean floor. You'll still feel the pressure of the tide, but you don't have to be bought into it and then eventually it comes back out.

Similar if you're on white water rafting. If you've ever been chucked out of a boat, you don't try to fight the water. You put your legs up and you float down and you trust that you're going to get spit out into an eddy and you'll be completely safe. But the people who fight it get themselves in this trouble. A lot of messages for life here and nature is a beautiful way to see how life works.

Melanie Avalon
I love that. And I was thinking about it actually a lot this week.

I was thinking if something negative or bad happens to you, like, do you need to rewrite that story positively or not? So like my example is somebody stole my wallet this week. So I was thinking about that and I was like, do I need to like rewrite this story in my mind or can I just be like, okay, that, that was not good.

Finnian Kelly
Oh, Melanie, you're getting into something really deep here. The meaning, the meaning economy, we give meaning to everything. Sometimes stuff just happens.

And I've, I, this has been one of my probably greatest learnings over the last couple of years is I would get injured, for example, and then it'll be like, why did this happen? Is it because I did this before I wasn't paying attention. And one of my teachers just said, Finn, that the system is loaded. Like it's completely overloaded. There are a number of different reasons why you could have got injured. You are never going to know and you don't need to know. What you need to recognize is you're injured right now and feel that emotion and then move through it. So there's, there's some beauty in the reflection and, and looking at like, Oh, was there a cause for this effect? But sometimes also it's just, just accept it and move forward. And we don't have to justify everything.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I love that. I've literally, I'm viscerally feeling what I felt this week because my sister and I were trying to figure out, we're like going through our head, trying to figure out like who stole it, like where it could be. And then we each had a moment where like, you know what, we're never going to know. And I had that moment I was like, okay, I'm just going to let that go.

Because there's really no point in reflecting on this anymore.

Finnian Kelly
I don't think. Totally.

And what it often does is it just sets us up for the ego to criticise us, to go, well, how stupid were you, like, you could have done this differently. It's like, well, could you have, or was this actually exactly the way it was meant to be?

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Okay.

I love that. Speaking of meant to be and something you touched on with relationships and also tying it into our fluctuating sense of self and what we like and all of that, when people are in relationships that are not experiencing what you mentioned earlier, like the full depths of love and everything, should everybody try to, if they can have this awareness and awakening, try for that first or some people just not meant to be together and you shouldn't even try to go that path.

Finnian Kelly
Ah that's a question I get asked a lot. So what I think about relationships is they're there to teach us something. They're like the ultimate messenger in our life to help us identify potentially something we haven't integrated or something we haven't recognized by ourself. So whenever I'm in a situation myself where I'm in a challenging relationship or I'm working with someone else, I just ask myself, I ask them, is there something more we're meant to learn from this? And generally, you'll get an answer and it's like, oh yeah, I need to learn how to ask for my needs better. I need to learn how to set boundaries. I need to learn how to open my heart more. And then that's generally a path of action where you're taking agency, you're not talking about the other person. It doesn't matter what's going on for them. You're going, okay, this is what I can do right now.

After you do that sometimes and the relationship doesn't change at all and there's still the same friction points, sometimes you just have to face the fact you might not be the right relationship. And that's where reflection from friends can be very helpful because often we don't know that we're in a toxic relationship.

We can't see it sometimes. So asking these questions, but I do think especially in this modern day world, people are giving up on relationships too quickly because it gets to this little bit of unpleasantness and they're like, oh, this wasn't what I bought into. This wasn't what was on the dating profiles and they leave it and they go for something which is fun and beautiful and distracting. But then three years later, they're just back to the same spot. So I always let people know, do you want to do it now or do you want to do it in three years time?

You have someone you actually know right now who's willing to do this. If they are willing to do this, play this out a little bit with them and don't have any expectations of where it will go, but just see. And that was a lesson that I learned because in my relationship, we had seven beautiful years and I had no idea that there was all these things happening below the surface and then they came up so quickly and they surprised us and I recognized, oh, we actually don't want the honeymoon phase to start with.

What we want at the start is like, let's bring it all up. So my next relationship, which is my current relationship from day one, we had relationship coaches. Even when we were friends, we had relationship coaches. We had energy medicine women working with us and it felt really volatile and really challenging, but it was beautiful because I was like, oh great, we're finding out about these things. I'm not going to be surprised in seven years time. And it led to us now being in a place where we felt comfortable to have a baby because yes, there's still things below the surface, but we had faced a lot of these and that was refreshing.

Melanie Avalon
Oh, wow. So you had relationship coaches when you were friends and it was for the friendship or it was for

Finnian Kelly
There was so what it was was there was a dynamic happening between us where there was a potential and I could see that she needed I was working with this incredible healer and I was like well this would be a gift for you and then we were friends and we went well this will just help our dynamic because we definitely know there's some energy there and we just kept exploring it and it led to this beautiful place and that's why I would love the negative connotation that is with therapists and relationship coaches why not have that from day one have someone in your court who can help you and that's been a theme of our relationship we've gone through different ones but we've always had some support to recognize that we're not alone and often we can't trust what's going on in our heads we need someone else to like bring light on are you there's it there's a story going on there

Melanie Avalon
I love that. And I am all about therapy sessions and everything.

I feel like it's been an evolution of, I don't know why there's such a stigma. I guess I do know why there's such a stigma around therapy and things like that, but I just find it to be so powerful. I can't imagine not having my weekly session.

Finnian Kelly
Definitely. And there's a couple of reasons why there's a negative stigma.

One is there actually are a lot of really rubbish people out there doing it. So, so, so that's, that's one, like when people say, I've got a therapist, I'm like, well, what type? Like there's so many different ones and you think you've got something good and no, there's incredible people elsewhere. And then the second is a lot of the time people get therapy, it's already too late. So then they see the therapy is what contributed to their relationship breakup. And then they create stories around it, whereas no, you just started too late. You'd already done too much damage.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, no, actually to that point I am because I always encourage people like about the benefits of therapy and then I always say but you have to find the right therapist because it's funny. It's a little bit ironic, but I don't like to just casually use the word trauma, but I feel like I've had some slightly traumatic experiences just interviewing with bad therapists like where they just said things that were that I still remember.

So yeah, you got to find you got to find the right the right person for you to that point with relationships and stuff. One of my other favorite parts of the book and again listeners as you can tell there's so much in this book so just get it now because we can't even remotely touch on everything that's in it. But one of the sections was just about very practical things or approaches to have in your relationships to help not lead to conflict and things like that. So it was stuff like having agreements, you know, not expectations, which sounds very simple, but it's so profound. And I've actually been implementing that more in my relationships like Oh, am I in this relationship? Am I assuming an expectation or is there an actual agreement there? And you know, how does that manifest?

Finnian Kelly
and it's a constant process because new expectations will sneak up all the time. And so often we get angry at someone else. They're like, how dare you betrayed my boundaries and everything. And when we got to the depth of it, the other person had never agreed to your boundaries. That was your boundaries, but you never actually communicated to them. So it's very important to recognize them and call them out and also not to agree to them if you can't do them.

So I'll give you a personal example. One time, what happened? It was this experience where Sydney asked me, she's like, well, when you're out now, I'd like you to send me a good night message. That would be really helpful. And obviously I'd love to be able to say yes to that because I'm aware of how important agreements are. When I agree to something, I agree to something. That's a bond and I'm very accountable to them. I sat with that and I just went, I don't think I can do that. When I reflect about my life, I like to be present with people. I often don't like to be on my phone. I'm just not willing to do that. And then I actually asked the question, why now? What's happening that for the last five years, you've never wanted that, but you want it right now. And what that did was it provoked a really deep conversation and she was going through a little bit of insecurity at that time.

And there were some assumptions being made about what I was doing and it forced us to have a really great conversation. And then through that, she suddenly went, oh, I don't want you to do that at all. Like that's actually, don't do that agreement. Imagine if I had said yes to that agreement and I was now feeling constricted, feeling controlled. I'd missed it, she might've been angry to me or I might've rebelled, who knows? And this is where having these honest conversations are so important and getting to the truth of going, why do we really need that? Is that coming from fear or is it place coming from love? And we realized in that moment, it was coming from a place of fear. And we know that whenever we make a decision based on fear, it's never gonna lead to what we actually really want.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And you mentioned in there another word that you talk about, which is the assumptions. And that is so freeing to start to become more aware of because it is crazy how many assumptions we make, or at least, at least for me, I think, and people all the time about other people. Um, so yeah.

And it's kind of like I interviewed, his name was Chuck Weisner, and he wrote a book called The Art of Conscious Conversations. And he was talking about how the idea of standards and realizing that we have our own standards and we assume that everybody else has the same standards, but people have different standards. And once you realize that, that's also very freeing because you're like, Oh, okay, you know, maybe I don't have to be like angry or upset at these people. They, they, they just have different standards. So it's like a different, different language.

Finnian Kelly
totally. I got myself in trouble with this on Friday. I was meant to have a session with a friend and two friends and it was like a deep whoop. They were helping me out with something. And this night I just, my son just did not sleep. I was feeling like tested and broken. And I just didn't want to face anyone that day.

And I needed to go out the mountain and just regroup. It wasn't really about skiing. It was just about regrouping. And I wrote, I didn't, for some reason, I made an assumption that me just saying I was tired because of this wouldn't be good enough. So I said, there's a powder day. I need to go ski. And it triggered my friend so much because he was like, wow, you're not committing to me or anything. And all I needed to do is just pick up the phone and call him and explain. And he would have been completely fine. But instead he created all these different dynamics because he thought I was disrespecting his core needs where I wasn't at all. Actually, we both care about commitment so much, but I was just in a place where I wasn't really able to face anything, but I wasn't vulnerable enough to share that either.

So it was just really interesting dynamic. And this is where one of the greatest prompts I did for my life, like I like different journal prompts that helped me so much. And I'm actually thinking of doing it again is what is the challenging conversation that I'm avoiding right now? And so often you suddenly realize, oh, I'm not telling my employee that they're not performing. I'm not asking my partner that I'm not happy in this relationship, whatever it is. And once you recognize that, and then you start going and doing it, you suddenly realize it's only good things generally come out of having really great conversations like these challenging conversations.

So one of the things that I'm noticing is that sometimes I'm avoiding conflict by messaging. So I'm going to ask a prompt right now, who's the person they need to call today? And that might help me navigate some of the challenges I'm going through right now.

Melanie Avalon
I love this so much. It's actually, it's something I've recently implemented, like pretty recently, which was honing in on when, it's what you just said, whenever I feel, because normally I love, like, I love doing things. I love communicating.

I love like checking off the boxes. So if I ever sense myself wanting to avoid something, like especially a conversation, I'm like, oh, like let's like, let's like tackle that first, rather than keep avoiding. And it's very telling because it really shows me what I'm, it shows me what I need to address, like in my own life.

Finnian Kelly
Definitely. And also this idea, like for me, I often think that I'm the problem and I take on, I create these stories of how other people are going to perceive things. And if we just recognize we're not the problem and we just be transparent with people, generally they're pretty understanding.

Like I had this with you like two weeks ago, I had to reschedule this podcast and I really challenged, struggled with this because I was committed. I don't like moving things, but I was feeling really run down and I wouldn't have been present for it. And I just reached out and you're completely fine. But it was interesting seeing the, the challenge I went through, the pain I went through to get to that place. Fascinating.

Melanie Avalon
I was just about to bring that up. We're on the exact same wavelength because I was going to say that because I've had, I don't know, probably over 300 guests on this show now.

That was, and I've done so many reschedules. That was the first time somebody requested a reschedule, and the reasoning was what you just said that just energetically, you weren't at the best place to have the interview right then. But you did say that you could do it if needed. And I was like, wow, that's, I just really appreciated the honesty and the transparency about that. And I was also thinking how interesting it was that, because I bet other people have rescheduled probably for the same reason and given a different excuse. So I really appreciated that honesty and transparency. And I was like, oh, he's actually walking the walk, or talking, wait, walking the walk of the book.

Finnian Kelly
Thank you. Well, I'm actually curious because this will help me with what I'm doing right now What did that make you do because this that wasn't easy for me and it's something I'm working Towards to really exploring how could I adopt that more?

I'm curious from your side I know I understand you're like that's honesty and truth, but Was there any like oh this guy's canceling or is it just oh wow this actually works for me

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. Okay. So I love this whole topic because I saw a meme about this once and it was something about how we spend, I don't know how it captured all this in a meme, but it did. The idea of the meme was that we spend all of this time worrying and stressing about canceling or rescheduling plants and other people when typically the people are excited for the plans to be canceled or rescheduled.

Not that I was excited, but basically my response to you is whenever people ask to reschedule, it's like, oh, okay. Now I have more time to prep or now I can do something else now and we can do it later. So for me, I can't speak for everybody, but for me, whenever I'm meeting with about anything, because I'm not just podcasting, I'm taking lots of meetings daily, when they get canceled or rescheduled, it's like, okay, more time to do something else.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, even as I was sitting there, I was thinking about how many times where you suddenly realize you're running late to a meeting or a message, and then you get the message from the other person saying, I'm running late. And it's just like, oh, thank you.

Thank you so much. Thank you, Field. So that is a good recognition is that other people are probably feeling the same way as I am. And I think the letting them know, I think maybe the thing that helped you is just being truthful and also saying, if you really need me to do this, I will do it. But it was just a transparency. It's like, you won't get my best right now, but I'll also find a way to give my best. I think I said that as well.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, exactly. And something else I found very freeing, because oftentimes I will need to reschedule things. I don't think it's very rare that it's day of, but I often will reschedule guests that are upcoming.

When I realized, I don't know who told me this or what book I read this in, probably with some book, but it was like, you don't have to give a reason. You can still respect the other person, but I remember who it was. I forgot the name of the book though. But she was saying basically that if you're always giving a reason or an excuse when you need to reschedule something, then you are conditioning people to always need an excuse or a reason. So especially if it's farther out now, if I need to reschedule, I just say, I'm so sorry, I need to reschedule and I don't give a reason. Unless it's, I guess, you know what, I'm going to unsay some of that. I guess if it's ever like a, I don't know, like a really, really, really important person, not that people are more important than others, I might put more of an excuse, but I don't know. I just think we overstress about so much in life and we don't even know what other people are thinking. So.

Finnian Kelly
I'm laughing right now because I've got a new person who I'm doing some business with and every time I call him in, then he'll call me back three minutes later, he'll spend the first few minutes going, I'm really sorry. I wasn't able to pick up the call there and he'll give this excuse and it's like, I don't care.

Literally, I don't think you need to be sorry. Let's get into it. Let's not waste that energy. I noticed myself getting triggered by this just recently, so I appreciate you bringing that up.

Melanie Avalon
And to that point, so many little things from your book now, I'll have like flashbacks to your book because things will happen to my life. I'll be like, Oh, that was in the book.

So for example, you have a whole section on on meetings, and a meeting guide, and how to, you know, how to optimize your time and energy when it comes to meetings. And the other day, because I'm working on a new project, a new project, I'm really excited about. And like, we're moving forward on a good timeline, like, and I think we're moving forward on the timeline, we should be on given everybody's energetic capacities and everything. And my business partner made a comment where he was like, I really think we need more meetings. Like we need, we just need more meetings. And, and I was thinking about your book. And I was like, I think we need less meetings. I don't know that, I don't know that more meetings is the answer here. So yeah, and when I was reading that section, though, I can really see they're like, did your publisher at any point want you to have like a book that focused on like the workplace specifically and meetings and all of that.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, that's definitely an option for us to explore. Yeah, the meeting scene, when people want more meetings, what they're really saying is, I'm feeling out of control. And I think meetings are going to be the way for me to feel in control. Rather than, is this actually going to serve us?

And it's something I do a lot with is just literally go. When people go, I don't have any time. I go, OK, let's look at all the recurring meetings. Let's just like delete them all, delete them all. And they're like, what do you mean? I can't do that. I'm like, yes, you can. You're the leader. Let's delete them all and see what happens. And they suddenly find they get back a lot of capacity. And then some meetings come back. Others, they recognize, oh, my God, I feel so relief. I don't have to do that anymore. And if you're ever feeling relief that a meeting is over or you don't need to do it, it's a sign that it's not a great meeting.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And to that point, I love that the energy audit section. So, you know, going through your life and seeing what is draining you and what's filling you up daily. Quick question about that is some things we just have to do that we don't want to do.

So how do we handle that? Like where we should be putting our energy?

Finnian Kelly
There are so well, you can outsource a lot of things, but there are some things you need to do. So what I do with that is how can you be intentional with about like the time where it's going to be the least destructive to you? Like you don't want to use your really creative time for doing things you don't want to do. You don't want to do negative things where you're like straight away afterwards, you're going to go be a high level.

So I think about where it's going to be in my day and then bring play to it. Like how could you bring some form of gamification or some play or some reward for it? How can you be more aware while doing this really annoying task? Like going to doing things like going to the post offices and all those things where you need lines used to drive me in the same. But now I just go, oh, it's another practice to practice my conscious breathing and being connected to the field. And suddenly then you don't mind any line. Actually, it's a gift. It's another another practice to meditate.

Melanie Avalon
I love that. I love turning waiting in lines and even like commuting and things like that into like research opportunities, like listening to audiobooks and literally it doesn't bother me at all, which is also interesting because it makes you realize how in theory nothing could stress us out or bother us because like the traffic example, like I really don't mind being in traffic.

It's more time to, like I said, more time to listen to audiobooks. But my mom, she just like can't like get so upset. And I remember one time I was, we were in traffic and she was like so upset about it. And I was just thinking, I was like, this like so acutely bothers her and doesn't bother me at all. But there are things that bother me acutely that don't bother her at all. So in theory, I could not be bothered by anything in theory.

Finnian Kelly
You're totally right. It's just our perspective of all the story we've created around it, which is causing all the challenging.

It's like the classic example of weather. So many people literally define their day by the weather and they get so worked up by it. In one place, you define sun as great. In another place, they're like, oh, please bring me rain because they're in a drought. Once again, it's just all our experience with it.

Melanie Avalon
I was thinking about that right before this because I was listening to Taylor Swift's daylight song and she's saying like it's brighter now and I was thinking how I actually love the darkness and the night and I was like well that's an example because when I hear it's brighter now I'm like I want it to be darker now actually.

The breath work is a huge, huge part of the book and you call these breath exercises circuit breaker exercises. One thing I'll say really quickly I don't, do you talk about, I think you do, is one of the circuit breakers does it involve like just nasal breathing and not mouth breathing.

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, that's right, it does. Yup, ultimate maze of breathing.

Melanie Avalon
That's one of the ones that's very popular, I guess, in the biohacking world. And I had never actually attempted to try it. I just assumed. I was like, oh, I don't really mouth breathe. But then I decided to try it the other day. I was using mouth tape and I tried to do it during the day so that I could experience what it felt like. And I was actually shocked. It made me feel like Zen and almost a little bit high. And I was like, what is happening here? So that was a visceral experience I had recently with breath work.

But when it comes to the circuit breaker exercises, because there's so many of them, how do you determine the intention of the different exercises and the goal and the outcome? Why do certain breath work exercises create different outcomes that we're seeking?

Finnian Kelly
Great a great question. So to start with why do I call it circuit breakers? It's the idea that in a in a Circuit in a home Sometimes we can't control the energy from the outside world will get too much of a surge and if that came into the system all The lights would blow up. So we put in these circuit breakers to identify. Oh Overload of energy.

I'm going to shut down the system to protect it So then I could come turn it back on when it's when it feels safe So I recognized well, wouldn't it be nice if we had that in our life? Sometimes energy comes from the outside world which triggers us and then puts this overdrive energy in our system And we basically short-circuit ourselves and we lose ourselves We disconnect from our from our higher consciousness and we operate in that egoic territory we can do a lot of damage in that in that territory, so I realized that we were given everything we need and The breath is really that circuit breaker the the breath is the the moment where you can use the breath and it stops the subconscious program from Automatically kicking in and you can consciously override the system with a new behavior Now I've created a number of different circuit breakers for different situations but I want to emphasize What's most important is to do this do a circuit breaker? Which is the breath rather than getting the right circuit breaker if you pick any of those circuit breakers for any Circumstance you are going to feel better. That's that's something because you've you've stopped the system effectively you stop the automatic program So that's just one little connection why different things Why different circuit breakers have different outcomes is just by the nature of the breath is multifaceted We can we know we can use the breath slowing down elongating the breath on the way out to to really calm us Which may be what we need because we're we're recognizing the system's getting too overheated and we need to calm down Alternatively sometimes what happens is we can suddenly shut down and we're frozen and We can use the breath like with a higher energy to activate ourselves and and to to to open ourselves up so I think that's just why different breaths play out in different ways and we're a complicated system aren't we say we're We have mouths we have noses there's there's different ways to utilize these and through experience I just recognized. Oh that works for this really well, and and that's something which Sometimes I just love to bypass the whole trying to understand and just know like I know from experience this works for me Yes, I can go down the scientific path and try to justify it. But does it really matter? Let's just use it

Melanie Avalon
Is there a personal favorite of yours? Like, personally?

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, I think it's the concentration one, which is a combination of being very present with your breath in and out through your nose for about five seconds, but it doesn't actually matter. It's just about being present. And then it's rubbing your thumb and your fingers together very softly, so you're feeling the sensation in your thumb and fingers. And then you're also rubbing the tongue on the roof of your mouth very softly. And you're paying attention to all three sensations at once. Now, I can be doing that while, I mean, conflict with someone and no one even knows, but what it does is stops the story. There's just literally no thoughts happening there and you can't be activated. And I demonstrate this on stage. I'll be talking to them and then guide them through this process. And then I suddenly yell at them and not a single person flinches because they're in a place where it's like, oh, I can just receive without creating a story that yelling is bad. And what that does is it empowers you when you're in the moment, when you're in conflict with someone or you're getting really challenged, it can just really bring you back to the present moment where some of the other breaths, if you started doing it right there in that moment, someone might be like, what's going on? Yeah, but I still recommend just go do it because it will make them think about it as well.

Melanie Avalon
So with your son being around six months, when do you start implementing breath work exercises with kids?

Finnian Kelly
So we're already being aware when his mouth is open, so we'll just gently close it. And we're doing it from the first moment.

So when he came out, I held him on my chest and I just started doing the most slow regulated breaths because he was obviously in a hyper state, like coming out of this beautiful cave and where he's been nourished and loving these out in this just chaotic world. So I started just regulating him in that moment.

And naturally what happens is when we start breathing, our breath starts getting in resonance with each other. So he's already been doing lots of breath work.

Melanie Avalon
Wow. That's incredible. Oh my goodness. Okay. Was there, was there anything else you want to draw attention to for listeners from your book? You just touch on so many things.

Finnian Kelly
We've gone through a lot. I think the biggest thing is, I really like the words starting with C are really important to me. And it all starts with change. And when you're conscious, you can change. And we do that through three steps of creation, which is to clarify, to conceive, and then to claim. And the more we just connect to these words and recognize that, ah, I don't have to stay in this current state. Anything is possible.

I can change anything. You become liberated. And then life becomes really fun and playful. So I just ask people just to do one thing today, become more aware of their breath. And when you become more aware of the breath, you start recognizing who you really are, what you really are. And that may be the catalyst for your life completely unraveling and coming into a beautiful place.

Melanie Avalon
I love that. I have one more question about that, which is because there's so many and you talked in the book about, you know, tools versus behaviors, which maybe you can clarify a little bit the difference there.

I guess my question is, when it comes to making all these changes and implementing the three C's, what is the role and does it change by person? What is the role of having the intention, the intentionality to change and letting that be the root cause versus basically like a mindset approach to everything compared to making physical changes like doing the breath work or like adjusting your morning routine and evening routine and then letting the habits and that those physical actions create the change? Like, is one more powerful? Does it all go together?

Finnian Kelly
Yeah, I think they're really hand in hand. Like when you make a physiological change, when I change the breath, then naturally my psychological state will change. If I'm in a really stressed out place and I just start slowing down the breath, I'll start feeling a different psychological state. Also, we can change our physiological state. I might be in a really short, shallow breath, and I just get you to go to a memory where you felt a lot of peace and love, instantly your breath will change as well. So they're linked.

So I think they go hand in hand. The keys don't get too caught up in it and feeling like you need to be perfection. That's one of the intentions is embrace discipline over rigidity. It's just about moving in the right direction. And you'll be surprised by just a few behavioral changes. What will change over time? We compound the change, and before we know it, we're a completely different person. And the difference between behaviors and tools are, behaviors are like one approach to get a feeling. Tools are very orchestrated in one particular area. For example, there's a meeting guide tool. This would be a way to run a meeting and it has lots of different ways to behave throughout it. So it's like tools are a combination of behaviors sometimes.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Yeah. So as listeners can gather right now, this book, you will learn so much and there's so many ways to practically, you know, implement all these things and make change. So thank you so much.

I had the best time reading the book and like I said, so many little pieces of it just pop up all the time now for me, which is really, really wonderful. How can people best follow your work, get the book? Are you working on another book now?

Finnian Kelly
I think I'm always working on another book but I don't I don't want to I don't want to put it into the field yet I like working on ideas so the best way is on instagram is the finny and kelly kelly and i'm just finny and kelly dot com on my website and I if people want a really great experience they should go check out our new wellness resort a thermal wellness resort in Portland called cuscata and we've created space that will activate change within you because what it does it will bring you back to the present moment and and that's that's where it all happens so I'm very grateful for you Melanie I can really tell that you did read this book and that's the greatest gift you can ever give me is your presence so thank you so much

Melanie Avalon
I'm just so, so appreciative of your work, and to that point, the last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and it's just because I am really obsessed with this concept of mindset and gratitude, so what is something that you're grateful for?

Finnian Kelly
Oh, right now, I'm deeply grateful for the cooperation that my partner and I are operating together. Being a parent, it was actually her birthday on the weekend and her word for the year is cooperation.

I was like, wow. When she first said it, I was like, I don't even really use that word. She's obviously always smarter than me. The last few days, I was like, oh, I love this word. This is absolutely beautiful because when we're a team, that's all that matters.

I love this word. I love it. I love it. I love it.

Melanie Avalon
I love it. Well, congrats to you on your son and her birthday and the book and just all the things. And this was so amazing and I look forward to all your future work. It's really, really wonderful. So thank you. Thank you so much.

Same with you. Thanks, Vinian. Bye. Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What Win Wine, as well as my supplement line, Avalon X. Please visit MelanieAvalon.com to learn more about today's guest. And always feel free to contact me at contact at MelanieAvalon.com. And always remember, you got this.