The Outworker
The relationship with oneself is the most important to develop, but the easiest to neglect. These conversations will hopefully allow you to develop that relationship.
The Outworker
#032 - Nick Sweeney - The Power Of Breath Work & The MindBody Connection
Nick Sweeney, a former competitive skier turned breath work coach, shares his remarkable journey of self-healing and transformation. From overcoming career-threatening injuries to developing a powerful mind-body practice, Nick offers profound insights on personal growth and peak performance. We explore the transformative power of breath work, meditation, and shifting from fear to faith when it came to Nick’s wellbeing. We also delve into consciousness, spirituality, unlocking human potential, and how a physical breakdown in our body can be the key to finding holistic empowerment.
00:00 The Foundation of Skiing Career
05:28 Injuries and the Journey to Healing
06:37 The Power of Breathwork
10:48 Belief That You Can Heal Yourself
14:22 Impact of Medical Knowledge
18:44 Being Closed Off From Ourselves
24:33 Nick's Breath Work & Meditation Routine
27:48 How Long It Took for Nick to Heal
29:40 Physical Autonomy
33:12 Transforming Setbacks into Opportunities
35:40 What Inhales & Exhales Represent
37:50 Shifting from Fear to Faith
42:53 Embracing Pain and Fear
47:59 The Essence of 'I Am'
52:10 Connected With and Detached From Self
55:33 Lessons from Coaching and Mentorship
59:04 Transfer of Energy in Coaching
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What’s up outworkers. Nick Sweeney, a former competitive skier turned breath work coach, shares his remarkable journey of self-healing and transformation. From overcoming career-threatening injuries to developing a powerful mind-body practice, Nick offers profound insights on personal growth and peak performance. We explore the transformative power of breath work, meditation, and shifting from fear to faith when it came to Nick’s wellbeing. We also delve into consciousness, spirituality, unlocking human potential, and how a physical breakdown in our body can be the key to finding holistic empowerment.
Tim (00:06.968)
Before getting into your whole healing journey from your injuries, I would love to start off before that with your skiing career and just laying the groundwork and how...
Tim (00:23.562)
important skiing was in your life and how much time skiing took in your life. How old were you when skiing became the main focus?
Nick Sweeney (00:36.735)
I was 12 when skiing became the main focus, but I grew up doing all sorts of athletics and athletics was my life and I thought I was gonna be a basketball player, but that just didn't seem like the path. And it was clear to me that an outlet was needed at some level. I was a hyperactive kid and so I just started cross country skiing in the program and...
had a bunch of friends in the program. So was something I looked forward to every day in middle school where I was like, okay, I got to go move my body in the woods for two hours after class. And then after, yeah, I played football in high school, played cross country and track and a bunch of sports. And that year just...
A fire was ignited within me. There had been some really high level US ski team guys that came out of the program I was in, had a mentor who was, he ended up dropping out of high school to be pro cyclist after beating Lance Armstrong in a race and getting on a team. So I just had a fire inside of me. And so I'd be, it started with just.
I would run up a mountain and then play Friday Night Lights. I was already set on that path of cardio and cross-country skiing and biking and running and lifting. It became all consuming. was everything I did. Stay up late watching YouTube videos. would obsess over supplements, nutrition, everything.
And then by sophomore, junior, senior year throughout that time in high school, I had a coach that just did not believe in me and I could feel it, I could tell. And I was on a team with a couple prodigy athletes. So I felt sort of alienated, but those prodigy athletes also felt alienated. So we would, or I would alone, just go train alone.
Nick Sweeney (02:45.407)
and skip practice and then show up at the races and do really well. And that pissed the coach off a lot, but I didn't care. I was just on that one track focus. was not partying, not drinking, not, you know.
It was my life and it would be through sophomore, junior, senior year, I probably trained around 500 hours on average through those five years. So it was everything I thought about and everything I did. And then that led into a gap year after college where I was full-time ski racing in Steamboat Springs.
Had a collarbone injury, had a concussion, ended up skiing really well at the end of the season though and getting a spot on the University of Denver ski team, which was coming off of like three NCAA championships, basically the Alabama for skiing. And I was like, I am drinking true show up. have the most, the most winningest assistant coach or NCAA skier who just graduated getting his masters as an assistant coach on the team I was at. And then the head coach was just the best coach I've ever had.
And it was a dream come true and I was in sixth shape training like an animal, you know, just on a team with Norwegians and Swedes and Finns and just, it was incredible. And finally, I'm surrounded by a team that was conducive to my improvement and a coach that really cared. And we ended up winning NCAAs that freshman year. And then like,
you know, fast forward through college, I ended up starting a sports nutrition business. I was running that while I was training that was going well, was in really good shape. Ended up falling short of the U23 trip where they take under 23 year old ski racers top in the US to Europe to race and basically junior Olympics. That was a low point, but doubled my resolve doubled my conviction. And then COVID hit.
Nick Sweeney (04:47.877)
And head coach who was a different head coach at the time had to go back to Finland because his family was there. Assistant coach got furloughed and then I injured myself. Pretty much I was we all went home because of COVID. So we were all online and I was mountain biking a lot ended up falling mountain biking on this 80 pound e-bike, splitting my shin down the front, getting a big ball of scar tissue under my big metatarsal in my foot.
Did all the PT I could do for three months. Nothing was changing. Continued down different rabbit holes for 10 months, but basically couldn't walk for those 10 months, at least without pain. I was barred from training, going crazy, going insane. I was in the midst of rebranding that company I was running because of a trademark issue. And then I had a doctor's appointment in October about now.
And they're like, yeah, you might not ski race again. Your career is likely over. We don't really have an answer for you. We don't really have a straightforward solution. This is one of those things that's up in the air. There's no blueprint for it. We're guessing. And went home and I had the belief that I would heal myself. I just didn't know how, but I was spiraling quite hard.
Just went back to breath work. had used breath work for performance prior, cross-country skiing is a lot of breathing anyway. So like I was relatively familiar, but then I started going down the rabbit hole of like pairing my conscious intention and attention with the breath and my physiological expression of the breath, healing myself through, I was just doing it to feel better because I went home and dislocated my rib doing pull-ups. I couldn't do shit. So I had to start. The only thing I could do was breathe. So I was breathing three, 30 minutes to three hours every single day.
30 minutes at least on my back in bed in the mornings and after about two weeks on one session I focused on only my right foot the entire breath work and then I felt my right foot and it was way warmer than my left and that was light bulb moment another light bulb moment was driving got cut off had no physiological reaction my nervous system did not uptick at all heart rate was the same I was like whoa
Nick Sweeney (07:12.177)
I am deliberately increasing my stress tolerance and how reactive I am. I am now able to respond to things. I have a slow trigger response because of this breath work. And so that led me to double down research and practice and then healed myself. I was able to walk and run at three months after that doctor's appointment. So I just got on a positive feedback loop and I just, was like, I don't care if it takes 10 years, I will heal myself doing this.
I want I desperately need to be able to move again and do what I love to do in in nature and just with my friends to walking or whatever like And I was able to captain the team the next year ski US Nationals was basically a victory lap my fitness was never the same but I am eternally grateful for just the ability to be able to do that again and experience that again and
Then the next year, know, I'm concussed. That year I had concussed myself and passed out doing breath work. I passed out doing breath work and in a shower. I passed out driving, woke up in a different lane. And then, you know, I lived through all of that by the grace of God. And now I know what not to do, which a lot of breath work guys don't.
which is why I care so much about safety. I care so much about this is really, really serious stuff that gets to the core of your physiology and your psychology and it needs to be treated with respect. And it needs to really, at the end of the day, kind of be customized for the person's central nervous system and for...
where they're at in life, if they're an athlete, if they're single mom, if they're trying to heal from an injury, it's all a different protocol and you'd start at a different baseline level. that was just something that I knew a lot about, but I was ultimately working in oil and gas at a tech company here in Austin, which was aligned. I'm a tree hugger of the highest order and...
Nick Sweeney (09:19.807)
wanted to have a positive disruption in the oil and gas space and worked at that for two and a half years. A lot of problems, lot of pushback from the industry. Could go down a huge rabbit hole, which I won't, but ultimately wasn't in alignment anymore. And yeah, through that point, I broke my arm and wrist. Doctor said it would be 12 weeks in surgery. I healed my bones in five, doing really the fine tuned breath work that I coach now.
And through all of these experiences, it was just clear to me that this is what I resonate with. This is my passion. I love healing people. I love giving people their power back. love understanding and knowing what peak performance actually is and how to, how to give that power to people. And so that's what I do full time now. I quit over the summer and that brings us up to the present moment.
Tim (10:16.942)
So bringing that down because I had a similar experience where I had a really bad back injury, two herniated discs, no regular medical treatments worked like physical therapy, cortisone shots, chiropractic adjustments. None of that helped me until I was introduced to this thing called tension myoneuro syndrome, which is pretty much understanding the mind body relationship.
So I was introduced to that. didn't just come across that naturally, or I didn't have the thought within myself that I could, from a psychological standpoint, heal myself. I had a doctor helping me and I had books helping me. Why do you think that you as a person were able to, on your own, internally have that feeling pretty early on that
you could heal yourself when you really didn't have interventions from other people who had potentially done this before you.
Nick Sweeney (11:27.713)
think that was honestly just encoded in my DNA and then through my upbringing. Nature and nurture had a play in it. And it was just sort of my default reaction to anything. Like fuck authority. Fuck statistics. I'm not a fucking statistic. And that was just the operating system at the time. So I will keep banging my head against the wall.
until something works and it wasn't until I just went through the door and then it all happened. yeah, it was a mix. It was a mix. But now it's a decision. Beliefs are just decisions and I only decide to believe in things that are going to make me stronger and I truly believe that you can heal anything.
to an extent we're in the 3D realm and you got a broken bone and yeah, you might have some pain for the rest of your life there, but across the board, you can take the power back.
to the nth degree and I truly believe that and I embody that and I try to lead from the front with embodiment. Tip of the spear is me being able to do this and just embodying that is enough for people to believe, to make their own internal decision and then to find evidence of that decision already being true and then there you go.
Tim (13:02.018)
when I had my back pain, it got a thousand times worse after I met with the doctor and got a diagnosis and got an MRI. And the doctor was telling me saying, you have a serious problem here. And then the pain increased times a thousand, like I said. And I think within the medical field, it's almost like,
Tim (13:29.558)
a mechanic where a mechanic is always going to find something wrong with your car. And if you get an MRI or if you go to a doctor, you can always find some type of problem when it comes to the medical field. Do you think there's more harm than good when it comes to the knowledge that can be given to you?
Nick Sweeney (14:04.245)
I don't think you can make a blanket statement about the medical establishment because it's circumstantial. Like for everyone, for all the people that have been helped and healed by the medical establishment, including me, yeah, there's net positive there. Across the board.
We don't know the negative effects of having whatever percentage of Americans addicted to opioids and their subsequent families, the lives that are ruined, the people that have been misdiagnosed, that have placebo hacked their way into disease because of a label that they were assigned. And it's all an interplay, but I choose not to associate with that interplay. That is something that
We as individuals have to take control and power over within ourselves. can't fall into the frame of the medical establishment in any regard or any frame frankly other than your own and give your power away and let the world tell you who you are over you have a herniated disc. Label, label, label, MRI. Prescription, prescription.
and it takes a lot of.
It's hard for people to believe, but first step is the decision. And when people get so low that they come to me, who's some Instagram guy, they're ready to suddenly believe and switch the paradigm to, I have way more control over this than I thought. And I'm actually doing harm in placebo hacking myself worse into more pain.
Nick Sweeney (15:51.871)
disease, stagnation of my injury, because I'm believing the label and I'm believing the outlook. And I've forgotten that abundance is my birthright and that everything in this interconnected field is abundance and pure energy. That the trees outside, the desk in front of you, all of it is the energy, the abundance of the world, and that lies within you.
So recognizing that the kingdom of heaven lies within and really, really feeling that and being of this world but not in it. Seeing this as I'm not my name, I'm not my story, I'm not my body. And then connecting to that and surrendering the rest. You know, that's the beginnings of the game plan. So total reorientation.
Tim (16:43.314)
A lot of the people that you work with, is it people that are coming to you after trying many different things for their pain or their injuries and then giving this sort of as like almost like a last ditch effort out of desperation or do you also have people who are coming to you right away from, you know, the onset of their injury?
Nick Sweeney (17:08.686)
and
Nick Sweeney (17:12.797)
Sometimes they're doing everything they can but want something extra to do, something more. It's something they want to explore and they're wise for wanting to explore it. But it's all over the board. mean, I have some guys that come to me, they're not even injured. They just want to increase their mental performance and efficiency and understand presence and understand what peak performance actually is. So it's a mixed bag.
Tim (17:39.928)
tying things back to your skiing career before your injuries. So I was an athlete in high school. I played a lot of sports and I stopped playing sports because I had a shoulder injury. And then I just got really into the training aspect where I got into working out a lot. That's what I enjoyed. Kind of had the realization that I enjoyed
the work preparing for sports more than the actual sports itself and getting really serious into lifting weights where it was the main component of my life where it's like that's where it felt like my sport was. That's where all my physical time but also my mental time and energy went into my physical performance in the gym. And it felt like over time that
Yes, I was developing in one aspect of my life a lot and that was helping me mentally and emotionally as well. But I kind of had the realization and this was pretty recently that it was also like, okay, that I was being cut off or I was being sort of not developing and other components of my life because I just put so much effort into the gym and it wasn't until I
had my back injury where couldn't work out for a very long time, where I was kind of opened up to other areas of myself within your own skiing career because you had put in so much time and energy, you know, physically, but also mentally, did it feel like before your injuries that you had kind of been closed off from yourself or different components that you really never developed?
Nick Sweeney (19:29.567)
Yeah, 100%. I was pretty much a one dimensional being, only doing ski racing. And then I was a two dimensional being running a business. And then I was a three dimensional being going to school. And that was all of my pursuit and...
Most of my daily actions were out of lack and scarcity and feeling not good enough, feeling unworthy and fear. So it was all fear that I wasn't good enough, looking for approval, the scheming mind completely disconnected from my body. I just convinced myself that I couldn't feel any feelings. You know, I hunt, I would kill an animal, I would feel nothing.
Nick Sweeney (20:21.971)
Odd. And since then I've reached the inflection point where I just lean into faith. I just walk with God. I feel the feelings. I don't concern myself with the thoughts. I have opened myself up to nuclear when I was burning coal for the first 24 years. Coal burns dirty. It is fuel. It'll get you up in the morning for training, but...
then it becomes your greatest weakness when you're actually performing. So that's probably why maybe in part for you when you started competing.
Well, all the demons that you didn't have a handle over came into play and manifested as tension and made the experience not as enjoyable. And A, you were, you were measuring your self-worth based on the results sheet, which is what I did. And you're playing a zero sum game on face value. There's only one winner, but every single thing you've done is progress. So like there's a part of your life that maybe you thought, I could have done more, but.
That's progress, 100 % still. Falling in love with the progress and coming at it from a, I'm doing, I'm just doing it and I'm doing it out of faith and I'm not giving my power away, I'm not stuck in the programs of my conditioning that are keeping me stuck and keeping me not free, I'm not perpetuating my old reality by being chained to my old self who has a bunch of fear running around, unchained. So.
Yeah, it was, it was, you know, I was just.
Nick Sweeney (22:03.113)
I was kind of that guy that just go, go, go, sympathetic overdrive. And then I didn't know much about breathworks when I was healing myself. I basically hyperventilating for 32 an hour every single day on top of two, three, four hours of training on top of school, on top of whatever else, stress. I didn't know what it meant to be chill.
Nick Sweeney (22:28.011)
But then when I concussed myself, I recognized that I was suffering from autonomic dysregulation. was in constant fight or flight, so much charge in my nervous system that I developed the second half of my method, which is all about rest and digest and ultra relaxation and becoming less reactive and being able to respond consciously and skillfully and set myself back into equilibrium, back on the center line and...
You know, I haven't missed a day of breath work now in like four years meditation in three years movement and I don't know how many years it's been. I haven't moved my body for a single day like actual exercise. So it's just those things have compounded so much that then when I was
looking, seeking and open to receiving information that allowed me to let go of what I was ignorant to and what wasn't serving me anymore. I was ready and I did it in an instant. Now an instant being like, over the course of a process, but really like night and day, if you look at it zooming out, you know, one year and I'm in a completely different mind and body. So
Tim (23:39.758)
So what is your breath work and meditation routine look like now?
Nick Sweeney (23:45.531)
It varies. probably deploy over a hundred different types of breathwork throughout a week. Just, you know, I take people from.
You're an automatic transmission. got drive neutral reverse into a manual where you can shift up before workout. You can shift down after workout. You can shift down before a meal and absorb the nutrients better. can shift down before bed and capitalize on the first 90 minute sleep cycle because that's when the majority of growth hormone gets released. now I can shift accordingly to my day. can optimize my recovery window. I can optimize intra workout breathing. So there's so many different types, but the staple method is, my routine
Routine should be your sanctuary. My routine is quite simple, but it's waking up and doing some hard workout, 100 burpees or three sets of pushups or air squats to failure, something really hard or a walk in the sun, doing exercise, Qigong, some yoga, some form of intense movement followed by sitting down.
and having a three-phase protocol that circulate or cultivate energy, cultivate oxygen, cultivate resources in the body.
a breath retention to release growth hormone, EPO, VEGF, stem cell production, increase my CO2 acid base tolerance, and then a coherence breathing pattern to circulate the energy that I just released, and then a vortex breath that then centers me and then I meditate from that place. And the meditation's very, sometimes it's nothing, sometimes it's very passive. Meditation, sometimes it's very active.
Nick Sweeney (25:21.393)
on an object, I'm focusing and consciously directing energy in my body to a certain location. I'm sending love outwards, I'm sending love to myself. I have a sincere wish for myself. Sometimes there's affirmation, sometimes it's a mantra, sometimes it's a visualization, but it's always ending with a vision of my future and gratitude. Because gratitude is the ultimate state of receivership, so grateful for the little things. I can walk today, got food in my fridge, family's healthy, just little
really important things to set myself up to start my day present in an alpha brainwave state, energized in a parasympathetic state and carrying that as far as I can throughout the day, having the remaining mind from that meditation carry me throughout the morning, throughout the day and then in the afternoon I'll probably do another walk.
meditate, breath work, some yoga perhaps, or just a workout, and then back into whatever I may be doing that day, which is really a lot of sitting and talking to the computer, which is great. So that's kind of...
my own personal practice at the moment, but it's changed. And if I'm sick, it would change. If I'm in a training block, it would change. If I'm going on a flight, if I'm hungover, if I'm tired, if I'm too energetic and have too much charge in my nervous system, it's all very adjustable and very customized. And I just follow my intuition with it.
Tim (26:55.32)
So from start to finish, how long did it take for you to feel like you had fully healed from your injuries?
Nick Sweeney (27:05.761)
Well, I still tell people that my right leg is a little smaller than my left. But I believe that I am fully healed. I ran an ultra marathon, no problem. So three months and I was walking 30 minutes, I was running five minutes, doing strength again a little bit, wasn't doing plyometrics, wasn't doing a lot of zone two base cardio on the foot and.
I would say within five months, so May 1st, October, November, December, January, I was back to it. February, March, April, I was ramping through that whole period back to really 100 % where I could then come out the gates where our season started on May 1st and do an 80 hour month. So would say by May 1st, I was 100 % because I was able to complete an 80 hour month and then the most hours I've ever trained that summer.
And if it wasn't for kind of concussing myself, I believe I would have done a lot better that winter, but it all worked out the way it was supposed to work out. couldn't have happened any other way. So by May 1st, I was back to just full blown, a hundred percent. Now I still had some mental residue that was don't push it. Don't do that. it hurts today. this, that blah, blah, But
Those programs lost their grip over time and through consistently relaxing out of the tension, releasing the fear, having the tools to do so, shifting what my reticular activating system was focused on every day, which is basically the part of your brain that's focused on what to focus on. So it a whole mental, physical, spiritual revamp to 100 % by May 1st.
Tim (28:48.052)
One thing that I've appreciated through my own journey, through pretty much using my mind to heal me from this physical pain is the amount of power that you have over your mind and your body. There'd be moments where I'd be in deep physical pain and I would pretty much be able to stop the pain with my mind. And there's this type of autonomy that came over me that I would never feel.
before in my entire life and you truly become a transformed version of yourself, how do you think that sort of power has been built into your life and your identity as well?
Nick Sweeney (29:30.505)
It's everything. It's at the end of the day, I feel quite invincible in my health. Of course, I have a fragile physical body, barring some wild circumstance, which could happen, but regardless, if that happens, I'm gonna be sitting on my hospital bed breathing into the abyss, because...
I feel like I'm my own medical establishment. I don't need a supplement. I don't need food. don't need exercise. I don't need a PT. don't need a Cairo. don't need a surgeon. don't need a dentist. I even need health insurance. Fuck health insurance. But I have it. I got Crowd Health, which is the Bitcoin one which is based.
Yeah, I mean, I get to carry my way through my day with just an embodiment of like, know who I am, I know my inner power at a very intimate level. And I think that's what everyone's ultimately seeking. That's why.
You try to go through some program that's going to build you up into something when really you need to just be looking inwards and introducing yourself to yourself because yourself is the most powerful thing that you can possibly imagine. You just haven't uncovered it. You're just holding a bunch of fear. You're holding a bunch of layers over the onion and you haven't gone into the subtle flame of joy that you can feed into a fucking bonfire and a fire flamethrower towards whatever goals you have. You want to increase your IQ? You want to increase your energy levels?
manifest better, you want to operate on a level of presence and acceptance and openness and embodiment, or you want to heal an injury, or you want to be in control of how it feels to step out at the Olympic Stadium before your gold medal run. It's all there. It makes the unconscious conscious the lever of the breath.
Nick Sweeney (31:19.199)
and then the power of intention, the power of the mind, the attention of your mind, you focus, energy flows where attention goes, so attention and intention, using sounds and frequencies, because you're a vibrational being, and the breath in tandem.
the spoken word, the sounds and frequencies and vibrations of your own spoken word, speaking out loud, saying, I am healthy, I am healthy. I apply my life force to the charge. I apply my life force to the charge. Whatever the affirmation may be, the affirmation is only work if you believe in it. It's about the energy we put behind what we do. And I, because of my experience, can put really powerful energy behind my breath.
Now I'm in control. Now the automatic is conscious. And there are still parts of me that are absolutely unfree and stuck. And there things that I work on on a daily basis, but I know that I have so much control over it. And I have the tools. It's just a matter of actually doing the work, which when you have the tools, the work is easy.
Tim (32:32.59)
Do you think you would have had... Is there an echo?
Nick Sweeney (32:32.937)
You think? You what?
Nick Sweeney (32:39.087)
Maybe there might be garbage truck outside, but that could be
Tim (32:43.662)
think we're good. Do you think you wouldn't have been able to develop those tools as well? Or maybe you wouldn't have even been put in the place where you've had to develop these tools if you weren't put in that unwilling, very painful situation in your life?
Nick Sweeney (33:03.457)
100 % would not be where I am today. And that's what I tell people when they come to me with an injury, it's how can we make this the best thing that's ever happened to you?
you get injured, should double your confidence and your conviction and your swagger. Cause the belief that it's not going to throw you off and that what's meant to be is meant to be. And that this is some, this is an opportunity to capitalize on. This is not a setback frame of mind. What do we believe about the situation? We get to define the meaning in the story. We get to recontextualize it. And for me, I didn't recontextualize it, but then I woke up one day and I was like, wow, literally
what I was able to do on my own, no coaches, no certifications, just breathwork cowboy passing out left and right. Now I get to gift what I have gained from experience to people. And I actually am deeply, deeply fulfilled by that. And I now identify like as a healer.
So I had you in person, could do stuff, we could do active release, we could do myofascial stuff, could do acupuncture stuff, we could set up biofilm busting nasal sprays, could revamp your diet, could revamp your exercise training plan, breath work plan, meditation plan, nutrition plan, everything, supplement, whatever it is. But I get to operate in the realm of the mind more than anything because of this. And that's where I kind of can differentiate myself. like, yeah, breath work is free, do you actually know how to breathe?
Life is one long breathing exercise. So you should know how to breathe You should at least be able to apply your conscious intention to the breath when you desire when you need to center yourself When you need to get more energy when you need to relax when you need to go to bed It's like it's all there and it's all free. So I Don't you know, there's There's so much that I don't know and it's fascinating the rabbit hole goes so so deep but
Nick Sweeney (35:04.315)
That's where I'm fascinated and that's where my passion lies at the moment. And so it was all a massive gift.
Tim (35:14.018)
You've said that every inhale is the purest expression of willpower and every exhale is the purest expression of acceptance and surrender. Break that down for me.
Nick Sweeney (35:25.823)
Well, there's a lot of ways to break that down, but you're breathing automatically right now. You're cycling energy right now. You apply the consciousness to it and pull in your breath from the deepest part of your breath all the way down and then all the way up. You are now bringing consciousness to something that is an automatic energetic pattern.
So when you're breathing in, if you want to breathe in more than normal, you have to apply your consciousness to that. Well, when you're channeling your willpower, I believe you're channeling the will of God. So you being tapped into your own divinity and knowing that on an intimate level and then applying the consciousness to the one of the only things you can control, which is your breath.
You breathe in, your intention and attention is at work. Your body is also now, you're making the unmanifest manifest through your conscious. You take something from the mind and it manifests in the body. You make something that's not real, real. Very masculine. If you want to go into the Tantra philosophy of it, everything is Shakti, everything is energy. That's the feminine. That's the inspiration.
That's the resources. But Shiva is the consciousness. Shiva, we are enacting that splitting of one to two when you breathe consciously.
You are now creating a polarity, you are now creating an energetic circle, you are now changing things with simply the creative spark of your mind and the desires of your mind. So when you inhale, you're breathing in the feminine. You're consciously open and receptive to receiving the feminine. You breathe in the energy, you breathe in the oxygen.
Nick Sweeney (37:35.317)
And then the exhale, you surrender, you accept, open up, you sink into the awareness of the energy you just brought in. You relax, you release the tension.
Nick Sweeney (37:47.681)
It's your last dying breath.
Tim (37:53.218)
You've talked about how fear was a big part of your internal voice when you were younger, especially with skiing. How has that shifted to be more of a relaxed, faith-based internal voice that you have?
Nick Sweeney (38:11.893)
I believe that a lot of it has to do with consistency in practicing new neural pathways, in consistency in working on beliefs that are not serving me and surrendering to things that I'm ignorant of that are not serving me, and recognizing what's real and just being grateful.
I like to think of it because I'm an athlete, well muscle memory takes around eight hours to ingrain, eight to 40 hours-ish depending on how attuned to your body you are. And when you have the thoughts that are distortions that are not true, that are not true of your default state of being which is inner peace and bliss and harmony and love.
presence, power, authenticity. If there's a thought or an external thing that happens that's not a reflection of that truth, then I'd let it go. It's as simple as letting go over and over and over and over.
We have to have the awareness though, to then have the acceptance to let go, and then we have to grieve into surrender, and then we have the freedom to act with courage in the face of fear. I don't believe in being fearless. I believe this body ultimately is trying to live, trying to survive, trying to procreate. But, that makes it so that it's afraid of uncertainty. Uncertainty is just fear. So you have to train the mind.
to stand planted, firmly-footed, smiling, laughing, moving forward, love in action, in the face of fear, courage. So that becomes automated. And when you continually burst open the doors of the wall that was fear over and over and over and all these different things, healing yourself.
Nick Sweeney (40:15.113)
having that hard conversation, doing something stupid in front of a bunch of people and not giving a fuck about what they think, not letting the world tell you who you are or make you contort into something. The nice guy syndrome, the not speaking your truth, lying to yourself and then lying to others, projecting stress outwards because you're a stress machine looking for an outlet. You have to go and trigger yourself first, doing all of those things and then it's muscle memory.
I see the bright colors. I just see the things to be grateful for. I just see all of the reasons why I can do what I want to do versus all the reasons why I'm not good enough, why I should move faster, do more, be better. Those are lies and I sweep them off the table, but only because I got them on the table and I look directly at them.
Tim (41:04.248)
Couldn't agree with you more. And it took my back injury and my entire healing process and all the work that I had to do with that to come to those realizations because those were all everything that you said there would be things that I would struggle with as well. And something that I'm a big believer now is that I don't think it's emotions like fear, stress, just using these buzzwords.
I don't think those are the things that break us down, but it's our reaction to those things. It's not so much the fear, but the conscious thought of, I have fear. And that is what messes us up. But that having that acceptance and sort of just allowing yourself to sit with it. And this is something I felt with physical pain as well. I would always try to just deal with the physical pain.
try to numb it, try to mask it. And then I was completely unlocked when I had a different mindset shift where I was like, let me just feel this pain. Let me just sit with this pain in the moment and not try to run away from it. And I also had the realization is that when you have bad pain or if you're going through tough times,
Tim (42:32.078)
Playing pain's game means trying to run away from it. Pain wants you to be stressful and wants you to try to fight against it. But if you just allow it into your life...
you kind of just disarm the pain and you're not playing its game anymore.
Nick Sweeney (42:51.219)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, you laugh at the demons, you smile at the demons. The demons are very egoic. They're very prideful. You laugh at them. like, you think that's you think I'm going to play your game? You think you have power here? Or maybe it's not demons. Maybe it's pain. Maybe it's a sensation. But what you resist persists. And you close the loop of suffering. You don't want to feel a certain way in your body. So then you get stuck in your head and you start thinking a lot. You're spinning your wheels with the emergency brake on.
doesn't work, it's not conducive to, all of your thoughts are due to unfelt feelings, ultimately. And it is these feelings that we need to meet with courage, because fear is just the fear of fear. It's also just the fear of death. And we can recognize that my injury as a professional athlete,
doesn't mean that when I, I get kicked off this team that I'm going to die alone in the jungle. That doesn't have, that's what, that's what the body thinks. That's what it's assigned becomes life or death. It's not, it's not that.
It's something that we have to be open to and receptive of and conscious of and if we're present in our seat of personal power we can ascertain what really is real, what is the situation that I'm dealing with, what's going on, what are the struggles actually not getting so concerned with the surface but going to the root. What is the root cause that's causing me to affect and act in this way that is ultimately out of alignment and not my truth? And as you shed those layers and it takes time.
It takes work. It's breath work for a reason. It's shadow work for a reason. It's training for a reason. It takes time and consistency. But if you can get on a streak of meditating every day, you will change your life. Every single person who's ever been successful is attributed to meditating to an extent and supercharge that with breath work. Then get your health right. Then try to start to, you have to introduce yourself to yourself. You have to go through a period of self discovery and you have to also maybe go through a period of burning coal and fear to
Nick Sweeney (45:00.003)
recognize, I don't like flying in the fire there. Or at least I don't have control over that hectic energy that is fear. So let me double down on the faith and belief and unconditional self-love for myself and become very, very knowing of that and embody that. And then I can open the jar of fear and sniff it and then put the lid back on before going to the gym. Or dealing with
a rent payment or something that's an issue in your life, chronic health issue, your mom, your dad, something's happening, like how can I be my most powerful during this? What is the upward spiral that is waiting for me if I choose? Because there always is one. We do have the choice of what our attitude is in any given circumstances. But.
I think that a lot of people just they understand the concepts but they don't maybe have the tools or maybe they understand the concepts and they have the tools but they aren't good at being consistent. A lot of this is just remembering to do the things that you said you were going to do which is why part of what I do is just we're doing mental overrides, physical overrides. We're to have six to eight alarms on your phone. Every single one is going to be labeled something different to shift your reticular activating system to make you more grateful, to have you start seeing things in a different way, to have you start slowing down, stop rushing, stop thinking
scarcity. Stop falling into the frame of a label from a doctor or the frame of you know whatever it may be. Remembering to do those things throughout the day. Physical overrides like actually smiling. Actually smiling when fearful thoughts come up and tension arises in the body. Recognize that was that thought is not true. It's a lie. Let me release that thought like cutting the string of a kite over my head. Recognize, release, relax, resmile,
You do that every single day over and over over over over over and over and that's how you are breaking the conditioning down. You're not letting the programming anymore manifest in the body as tension. You let it go. You are gently smiling and at the very least you're getting free dopamine and serotonin and your mind's like, I don't know what's happening with Nick but he's smiling like an idiot for 30 minutes every morning when he's meditating so we must be happy.
Tim (47:18.166)
I think having a great relationship with yourself and I had this experience the other day is if you're in a room by yourself and if you can consciously make yourself laugh, I think that's a large part of having a strong relationship with yourself and going back to that part that you said about making this into a routine and making sure that you're doing it every single day. I think this all goes back to having that injury as a positive.
that injury that unwillingly comes into your life because I was like, I need to do this. Like I do not want to be in pain. I am feeling this pain. Like I need to be doing this work if I want to get better. And a phrase that you use a lot, right? I've heard you talk about it before is simply I am.
Nick Sweeney (48:13.141)
Mm-hmm.
Tim (48:13.432)
How has that allowed you to be present within your life?
Nick Sweeney (48:19.391)
Well...
what's the one thing you can be certain of right now?
Tim (48:26.71)
myself sitting here right now.
Nick Sweeney (48:29.377)
Yeah, pretty much, that you exist and that you is not Tim. It's not your name, it's not your story, it's not your body. I am is the all-encompassing, interconnected, worrying motor of creation and divine, infinite intelligence and potentiality.
Lots of word salads going on today, but that's what it is. I mean, I am is just not, it's just the observer within me. I am Nick, that's not completely true. How could I be Nick Sweeney? There's 18 other Nick Sweeney's. I'm not Nick Sweeney. Sure, maybe I'm my bloodline. Sure, maybe I'm my last name, but that changes too over time. So what are you?
And when you go from being, am this egoic structure of Nick Sweeney in this body, living this life, and he does this, and he posts this bullshit on Instagram and blah, blah, blah, blah. Then you fall into the frame of an inherently limited individual, which is Nick Sweeney. He's inherently limited.
The ego should be honored, respected, used as a tool, but I choose to try to not operate from that. I choose to try to disassociate from that and come at life from the guy with the Xbox sticks playing the video game, not the character in the game.
and making things, make it light, make it joyful, make it adventurous. Now it's like, I get to see Nick from a third eye view because I either recognize, release, relax, or smile, return, and I get some space, I get some awareness from the thought that I was just dealing with. Okay, well, what would the, what is the?
Nick Sweeney (50:14.673)
action that I can take that is most true and most loving and most open and most powerful and most authentic, meeting that fear with courage, meeting that tension with courage by feeling those feelings and allowing them to be with it and just be with it and sit in the shit, stand in the internal storm. A nervous system wants to run away from the thunderclouds that come out. Well, inside you have to stand firmly-footed there and or maybe I'm sitting in my room and I'm thinking about a bunch of bullshit. Well, then I just say the word thinking. Thinking.
Noting. It's called walking, noting, thinking, eating, doing the dishes. Okay, that slowing down.
Being present is everything. it becomes the moment by moment work is really the work. And that's why mindfulness is like probably the highest ROI thing you can possibly learn. It's like, how do I actually become present? And for me, it's been disassociating from Nick and the trials and tribulations and the inherent limitations and coming at it from, I recognize the divinity within me. I identify as God. People are like, this guy's such a big ego.
It's like, no, I recognize that everything is connected, that we are all one. I choose to believe that. And from that place, I have a lot more power. I get to be a conduit. I get to channel. I get to be present. I don't know the next thing I'm going to say to you right now. Now I do because I'm thinking about it. Nick is thinking about it. what is Tim going to think? What is the listeners of Tim's podcast going to think?
I just show up authentically in my truth, not Nick. And there's a lot of techniques to do that. That's why you feel so present when you're competing. That's why you love competing. You're not thinking. System One's not online. Until he is, and he fucks you up. But if you can hold that presence, then you're in your power.
Tim (52:13.24)
That's an interesting duality that I definitely resonate with where you feel deeply connected with yourself on an internal level, but you also equally feel very detached from yourself. Like you said, you're playing with the video game sticks and seeing yourself as the character rather than being the character himself. How do you balance that out between feeling very connected with yourself, but also
almost having this detachment.
Nick Sweeney (52:48.107)
I would say that I feel more connected to myself when I detach from Nick. It's like I understand him better and see where he's coming from more. It's okay, Nick. It's all right. You don't have to do that.
Tim (53:04.59)
I would do the exact same thing where a big part of my healing process with my back, I was told by my doctor have these sessions where he would say talk with your brain. And I basically took that as pretty much having internal internal solo therapy sessions. And it was a struggle at the start. And then I
had the realization or something that unlocked me was.
Tim (53:39.352)
think of like pretty much get outside your body and look at yourself from a third person point of view. Basically like who is Tim Doyle? Like look at yourself as like that is a different person. Like what do you see? What do you observe about them? And then, but also use that frame for work because you know who you are as a person internally as well. And that's what I really think what building a strong relationship with yourself is how good
can you become at just being open with yourself? And I think a large part of that is having that third person mindset where you can look at yourself with a very candid and transparent eye.
Nick Sweeney (54:22.937)
I mean it's difficult. I open Instagram and I see Nick Sweeney. But it's a forcing mechanism for authenticity and what when I am coming from a place of fear thinking about something that is not true then it'll come out and I've also accepted that. If I was completely free of tension and completely free of fear and negative thoughts about myself then I'd be the fucking Buddha.
So compassion and forgiveness and grace for oneself as you get on the upward spiral where you're taking the mask off. I mean, take the mask off every time I get on the computer.
every time I go see someone, every time I'm with myself, how much out of 100 % of during the, at the end of the day, what percentage was I living from Nick and what percentage was I living from God consciousness, universal consciousness, something, higher power, something other than myself, myself as well. It's absolutely connected. It's just what's the frame I'm gonna operate in. Am I gonna operate in the frame of Nick or am I gonna choose to operate from a place
that is not as limited and arguably unlimited. Easy decision.
Tim (55:45.826)
getting more into your coaching now. You've had a lot of coaches in your life with skiing. You said your coach in high school didn't believe in you and then in college you had a great coach. How have your experiences being an athlete evolved into now you being a coach? have your coaches, what have you learned from them? And now how has that transitioned into you being a coach now?
Nick Sweeney (56:13.953)
Yeah, I had nine coaches over 12 years. So I learned a lot, a lot of good stuff, a lot of bad stuff, a lot of things I resonate with and didn't resonate with. I end up attracting people that, you know, resonate with my experience and what I think just from those lessons. So.
how all of that has just been data for me to become a better coach. And I have like five coaches at the moment coaching me. So taking in all of that inspiration and then standing on my own authority, standing on my own business from my experience, from the learnings I have every single day and how I'm progressing allows me to find the vein that's going to get hit with every single client.
What does this guy resonate with? What's his situation? Is it peak performance? Then we're gonna operate in the mind. Is it discipline? Is it consistency? Is it escapism? Is it fear? What is it manifesting as? Is it an injury? Is it pain? Is it something external? So really to just answer your question, it's just been more data for me to show up and have a backlog of that stuff doesn't work.
this stuff does work. I was only getting coached in skiing. No one was teaching me mentality. No one was teaching me breath work. No one was teaching me meditation, nutrition, quantum health, none of it. So I learned like, all right, well here's how to make a training plan. Here's how you should be as fit as possible. Here's how to get your resting heart rate down, over training, periodized, blah, blah, blah, technique, like race strategy, all that kind of stuff. But I can draw parallels from that into now what I do. But.
it's more the coaches that I get coached by now. Those principles are the principles that I wish I had when I was an athlete because all of my experience coming from fear, operating, competing, living out of fear and scarcity and rushing everywhere and that is now something I can now gift the polar opposite to someone.
Nick Sweeney (58:25.397)
Be like, all right, whatever has gotten you here, now that we're talking, it's not going to get you there. That's clear. So then what is the other side of the coin? Well, faith, hope, belief, light, trust, action, and attraction, and then releasing and letting go of that old stuff that will perpetuate itself inevitably into the present moment.
and just being aware of that and letting go of it. And then suddenly you are in your power to an extent where now on a physiological level, you don't have tension. If you don't have as much tension, the energy and resources can flow more freely. You can literally increase the power force production of your limbs and your muscles through the brain and the state that you're in. That's proven. So making that automated.
Tim (59:17.442)
Diving deeper into those intangibles, I had George Mumford on my show. He was the sports psychologist for the Chicago Bulls and the LA Lakers. And he worked very closely with Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. And I asked him, you know, why do you think you were able to connect so deeply with two of the best athletes of all time? And he said it was just that intangible transfer.
of energy that can't be put into words. How do you think that plays in to your coaching? Obviously you have a lot of principles and a lot of X's and O's that you're trying to work with your clients on, but how much of it is also just that transfer of energy?
Nick Sweeney (59:50.401)
Mm.
Nick Sweeney (01:00:05.067)
pretty much everything. Like I could have credentials, could have blah blah blah, I can be a doctor, but I believe that the field is connected. So me and you are connected right now on an energetic level and I just choose to lead from a place of being, from a place of embodiment, practicing what I preach to the nth degree and that looks like being embodied and being present.
So instead of me throwing a bunch of psychological frameworks like a therapist would, or strategies or plans or structures or whatever, I'm just like, hey man, what's going on? Let's talk. Let's see what's up. And that's because it's not me.
I don't know exactly what I'll say. It's a lot of information and data points that I've gotten from my experience and from my consistent learning, but I also get to match that unique experience with the field, with the intelligence that just comes through the creative spark and insights and ideas that come to you when you don't really expect it and they're just bam, they're there. That just happens because you're relaxed, you're open. So if I'm tension free on this call and I...
Suddenly have a thought of fear, what if I'm not good enough, what if I'm not helping this guy enough? I'll just take a deep breath, relax, pause. That's fear, that's not true. Why would I contort my way through this call when I can just be relaxed and speak my truth and whatever comes up comes up? And if I'm made to be an idiot, so be it. I need for nothing.
Tim (01:01:48.066)
That high level of awareness.
Nick Sweeney (01:01:51.841)
I mean, it's a practice and there's, go through the entire fucking panopticon of emotions every single day. I'm happy, I'm sad, I'm up, I'm down, blah, blah, blah, but I get to have those things glance off my shoulders and I get to continue moving on an upward trajectory versus bouncing on the rocks. One thing, one notification in the morning on my phone throws, will throw, used to throw me off and I'd be groveling on the bottom for the day. It's like, no.
We don't have to fall into that frame. don't have to engage with those programs. We don't have to negotiate with those demons. It's not true. It's not what I believe to be true about myself. So release it, let go, and you naturally will float up.
Tim (01:02:34.808)
think that's where that detachment of self also comes into real play again and is a real benefit where when you can step outside yourself and be like, Tim is feeling fear. Nick is feeling fear right now. And then equally able to just be able to release it very quickly as well.
Nick Sweeney (01:02:55.029)
Yeah, and when you get the stormy ocean that's crazy crazy to be still, then it's a lot easier to feel and see the ripples or to drop a stone and make an intention and have it be clearly registered by God, the universe. then you're gonna get, you know, if you only put want out, that's all you get.
So if the basis of manifestation is believing that you have already received it, what Jesus said, then it's a state of being. It's a state of believing you already have that. You already are gold champion, Olympic gold champion. You already have the security, the freedom, the life, the partner. You embody that and you bring that future closer to it. You become that vibrational match for that future.
And then it's a matter of presence and patience. And that was the two things that Michael Jordan was best at. That's what he was known for.
Tim (01:03:57.942)
Nick, where can people go to connect with you and your work?
Nick Sweeney (01:04:02.901)
I'm at based ethos on Instagram and Twitter, B-A-S-E-D-E-T-H-O-S. I'm also on YouTube. Some guided vortex, breath work and meditations there. Yeah.
Tim (01:04:20.92)
This mind-body connection and this type of coaching, think is the future for not just sports and high performers, but I just think the medical space in general and really look forward to seeing your future work.
Nick Sweeney (01:04:36.193)
I appreciate the opportunity to come on and it's a beautiful conversation and yeah.
