Jacob Sartorius: I take a breath. I buy myself a moment

This episode explores Jacob Sartorius's journey from teenage celebrity overwhelmed by social media fame to discovering peace through breathwork and mindfulness.

1. The immense pressure and scrutiny faced by young celebrities can lead to significant mental health challenges.
2. Simple mindfulness techniques like breathwork can offer profound relief and a sense of control amid chaos.
3. Interactions that start negatively can be transformed into positive exchanges through mindful responses.
4. Personal stories of celebrities like Jacob can inspire listeners to explore and adopt mindfulness practices.
5. Seeking professional help and exploring unconventional therapies can lead to breakthroughs in mental health.

1: Introduction

Anya Profumo introduces the episode, setting the stage for a deep dive into Jacob's personal narrative.
Anya Profumo: "Over the next several weeks, we are going to run some of your favorite episodes from the meditative story library."

2: The Fair Incident

Jacob recalls a frightening chase at a fair, illustrating the intense public attention he faces.
Jacob Sartorius: "I'm sprinting. Whirling rides and chiming games fly by to my left and right, everything a blur."

3: Discovering Breathwork

Jacob discusses discovering breathwork through his therapist, leading to significant personal changes.
Jacob Sartorius: "After just five breaths, I feel my body start relaxing."

4: Meeting Wim Hof

The episode details Jacob's trip to the Netherlands to learn directly from Wim Hof.
Jacob Sartorius: "After years of antidepressants and anti-anxiety medication... it's oxygen that finally has me feeling like myself again."

5: New Approaches to Challenges

Jacob reflects on how mindfulness has transformed his approach to stressful public interactions.
Jacob Sartorius: "Just a breath. Enough, though, that I buy myself a moment of reflection before reacting."

1. Practice deep breathing daily to reduce stress and increase mindfulness.
2. Explore mindfulness resources and possibly seek professional guidance to learn effective techniques.
3. Implement small acts of mindfulness in everyday interactions to transform potential conflicts.
4. Consider physical activities that incorporate mindfulness, such as yoga or guided breathwork sessions.
5. Stay open to unconventional therapies that might offer unexpected benefits.

Jacob Sartorius has been making music and short videos since he was a kid. By age 14, he had millions of social media followers who loved his honest, heartfelt content. But on the flip side of that love, he discovered a darker side to his celebrity — one that took him by surprise and threatened his own well-being. Until a simple technique, and a new friend, helped him find a way back to himself, one breath at a time.
Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story: meditativestory.com

People

Jacob Sartorius, Wim Hof

Content Warnings:

None

Anya Profumo
Hi listeners, I'm Anya Profumo, a member of the meditative story team. Over the next several weeks, we are going to run some of your favorite episodes from the meditative story library. This is an opportunity for us to share the content you've told us you love as we rest, recharge, and plan for the future. Please enjoy. Now, onto the show.

Jacob Sartorius
Soon I'm having the reaction I'll continue to have in the weeks ahead and then the months ahead. The best way I can explain this feeling is like I'm blasting off in a rocket in my mind to a place where nothing exists but space and time. And I'm just away from everything.

Until now, the world was so intense that it just consumed me, forcing me to react to one thing or another. Now, though, I close my eyes and I can separate from the world in this truly peaceful way.

Rohan
Do you ever wonder what its like to be really famous? As a kid, Jacob Sartorius started making music and short videos about the things that mattered to anti bullying mental wellbeing. And by age 14, he was a huge celebrity with millions of followers who loved his honest, heartfelt songs and videos. But of course, there is a dark side to that level of celebrity too, one that took Jacob by surprise and threatened his own well being. In todays meditative story, Jacob talks about recognizing that struggle, about how a simple technique and a new friend helped him find a way back to himself, one breath at a time.

In this series, we combine immersive first person stories, breathtaking music and mindfulness prompts so that we may see our lives reflected back to us in other people's stories, and that can lead to improvements in our own inner lives from. Wait, what? This is meditative story.

I'm Rohan and I'll be your guide.

The body relaxed, the body breathing. Your senses open, your mind open.

Meeting the world.

Jacob Sartorius
It'S a muggy afternoon. My friend and I head to the fair. The Virginia summer is in full swing. Neighbors fire up grills, the drone of distant lawnmowers. Screen doors slam.

We arrive around four. That mellow time when the sun's chilled out for the day. But it's still daytime. I'm 14. I've been coming to this fair for years.

I know the vibe by heart. The cotton candy, the cheesy music, the carnival games it's impossible to win. The smell of the grease on those rickety rides, the feeling of the school year finally being over. I'm stoked. My friend and I head up to the booth.

We buy our tickets. We start to explore. When these two kids spot me from a distance. I don't know them, but that doesn't stop them from walking right over. This is thanks to a strange new chapter I've entered in my life.

It started a few years ago when I make this little anti bullying video that goes viral. After that I start making other videos and music. Those go viral too. Not a little viral, but crazy viral. Life's gotten strange, but the full strangeness won't surface for another few moments.

As these two fans start walking over, these other kids spot me too. They're not fans. Bullies have tormented me for as long as I can remember. And these new kids, I recognize the look in their eyes, the casual meanness. They start making their way toward me from over by the Ferris wheel.

This familiar wave of dread washes over me. My stomach sinks like Im on one of those rickety fer rides. It sinks further as I watch. Even more kids start coming over too with that same expression on their face. My friend and I start backing up, trying to put some distance between us and them, but the them keeps growing and suddenly theres a dozen people coming my way.

My friend takes off and I pick up my pace. Theyre getting closer now. Two dozen of them. Most of them arent bullies. Theyre just caught up in this weird moment.

And when a few of them start to actually run toward me, they all do.

Im sprinting. Whirling rides and chiming games fly by to my left and right, everything a blur. I'm scanning for an exit. Behind me I hear yelling and laughing and the slap of many sneakers on cement and for a split second I have the thought this is an actual nightmare. Then I spot an opening in the surrounding fence and I dash into the surrounding neighborhood.

I'm huffing and puffing pure adrenaline at this point. Every now and then I glance back and incredibly there's like 40 people now. My heart is pounding. I'm out of breath. And that's when I see one of the bullies is holding something big and gray in his hands.

At first I can't tell what it is, but then I realize it's a cinder block. I hear him say he's going to throw it at me and suddenly a flash of black and white rushes into my field of vision. I guess a police car was in the area because its speeding up and driving between me and the stampede, cutting them off. The cop gets out, yells get in. I dive into his backseat, my chest heaving.

For a few minutes I just sit there looking out the window, trying to get my head around whats actually just happened. He asks why these people are chasing me and I realize I dont even know how to answer that. Suddenly im not sure what I do now. 1 minute im an ordinary kid going to school, riding his bike around doing kid stuff. The next minute I'm a household name around the world and some of those households want to throw cinder blocks at me.

How do you make sense of that at any age, much less at 14?

The answer is I don't.

Life after that day at the fair gets better in the months and years that follow. I really do get to live my dreams, to make it as a songwriter, to impact as many people as possible. For as long as I remember, I've had this feeling deep down that I meant to connect with people. When people send me a note that they're having a hard time, I tell them I understand, I've been there. I got you.

But life after that day at the fair also gets worse because being a social media celebrity means that you have all these people who love your art and your words and your thoughts, and in a certain way, they love you. It also means you have other people who actively resent you and seek out opportunities to publicly express their dislike of everything you do. I basically became a walking, talking Internet comment section, attracting the kindest, most thoughtful supporters and the cruelest, most heartless detractors. Maybe someone out there could find peace in that insane whirlwind. Not me.

I'm not even old enough to see an r rated movie and I'm supposed to know how to deal with a daily no hourly barrage of love and hate from millions of people. Making things even more confusing is that so many people long for this crazy life I'm leading. Meanwhile, the life I long for is the one I used to lead on the days when it all feels like too much. I think back to my younger days when everything was simple and calm. At the top of our long driveway is a basketball hoop, and as a kid I spent hours shooting there.

Ill go out early in the afternoon and stay past dusk until my mom rings the dinner bell. Sometimes another kid from the neighborhood walks by and joins in. Sometimes I imagine im Javale McGee from the wizards cause he has big ears like me. So I love him. Its basically that simple.

Everything feels simple.

S one mple feels light years away now. Stress, anxiety, depression, these are my new reality. All day I put on the necessary show of being happy and fun, and then night comes around and I often cry myself to sleep. One day I wake up from that and instead of getting out of bed, I just lie there. My brain wont stop spinning.

I pull the covers over my head. Morning turns to afternoon, but im only vaguely aware of time. From under my sheets I watch the sun slide down my bedroom wall and then gradually fade into night. I drift off here and there, the line between sleep and wake not even being clear. Sometimes theres sunlight on my walls.

Sometimes theres nothing. Two days of this, then three, then four. I dont want to talk to anyone. I dont want to move. Ive created a world more intense than I can handle.

Eventually I rally, but not before a scary thought enters my head. I dont know whats left for me and my journey.

Rohan
The journey ahead can be a scary thought for sure. But another way to relate to it is as an invitation to curiosity. We don't know so much about what will happen next. Can we meet it then with interest? With awareness?

With openness? Let's try that as we move into the next part of the story.

Jacob Sartorius
I know my life as a social media celebrity isnt exactly the norm. But what I learn from everyone I meet is that so many people live with some version of this anxiety and overwhelm, even if they dont get chased by mobs. Life these days is stressful, and so often we respond to that same old choice, fight or flight. But what if there could be a third option? One morning I'm talking to my therapist and an interesting look crosses his face.

He asks me a strange have you ever tried breathing? I have been alive nearly two decades at this point. I've breathed quite a bit, but he was talking about a specific kind of breathing, a technique invented by a dutch guy called the Iceman. His real name is Wim Hof. My therapist says he's this extreme athlete who's developed a whole therapeutic system of ice baths and a special breathing routine.

It was like my therapist was talking about Superman, and he really believed that I'd benefit from trying. To be honest, its hard to get your hopes up about breathing, but I agree to try it. Hey, its free. I read up on the steps online and then I sit or lay down. I close my eyes, try to clear my mind as much as I can.

I inhale deeply and I let it out.

I do it again. Let it out. Do it again. Quickly. Then again.

Then again. This might sound nuts, but after just five breaths, I feel my body start relaxing.

My shoulders drop a little more. My neck relaxes. I follow the air as it flows into my diaphragm, into my belly, into my chest. I let it out. After about 30 breaths.

I take a big, deep breath in and hold after exhalation until I feel the urge to breathe again.

Now, somewhere in there, a kind of reset happened to between me and everything else. I understand. For some, going in search of a spiritual advisor, a guru may just not be right, and that's cool. But I'm short of options and have to try something different, something that I didn't necessarily ever see myself doing. About a year later, I'm on a plane to the Netherlands.

After years of antidepressants and anti anxiety medication and probably 10,000 hours of therapy, its oxygen that finally has me feeling like myself again. Ive decided I dont just need to meet the Iceman, I need to make a whole documentary about him. Wim Hof lives outside of Amsterdam in this glassy, sun filled house surrounded by lush woods. Hes agreed to let my buddy and I visit him there and shoot footage for a documentary. Im determined to share with other folks what ive found for myself for so long.

My life is a source of panic and negativity. On cue, I find myself at that same miserable intersection. Fight or flight. Fight or flight. And now, for the first time, I have a third breathing.

Wim Hof turns out to be a real character. Gray beard, intense stare, the energy of a seven year old. Over the course of my visit, we do all these activities together. We jam on guitars, drums, we do breathing exercises. We talk.

And finally we go out to his porch.

Its winter in Holland, so its freezing. I can see my breath. He walks over to this big metal box that looks like its gotta be a freezer on its side. He lifts up the top. Its full of ice water.

He elbows through a thin layer of ice at the top and then climbs in without flinching. And after about five minutes of him just sitting in there, he looks at me, grinning, making it clear that its my turn soon. Im having the reaction ill continue to have in the weeks ahead and then the months ahead. The best way I can explain this feeling is like im blasting off in a rocket in my mind to a place where nothing exists but space and time, and im just away from everything. Until now, the world was so intense that it just consumed me, forcing me to react to one thing or another.

Now, though, I close my eyes and I can separate from the world in this truly peaceful way.

Rohan
Let's enjoy this with Jacob. There is freedom here.

Absorption, connection, peace.

Which of these qualities can you access right now, however quietly?

Jacob Sartorius
As for the world itself, its never going to stop. Being challenging. One Friday evening, I'm at the local bowling alley with some friends. I'm back from the Netherlands, and it's been a long week of working on the documentary. I'm extremely relieved to have a low key night with my friends.

The sounds of pins crashing in the distance, the gleam of the polished lanes. People doing their little dances. After a good roll, I'm in my happy place. Suddenly my nerves tingle, and I sense a shift in the vibe.

Some middle schooler a few lanes over has recognized me from afar. Hes walking over. By now I know the difference between a friendly approach and a hostile one. I see the phone in the outstretched arm, the group of friends watching, laughing in the background. Hes coming to mess with me.

But something unusual happens in the past when a hater gets up in my face and tries to get my goat. Well, it works. That primal urge to react kicks right in. My pulse quickens. My anxiety cranks up.

You are invading my space. Red flag. But now I watch myself do this new thing. I take a breath. Nothing elaborate.

Just a breath. Enough, though, that I buy myself a moment of reflection before reacting. A buffer. Not just between me and phone guy, but between me and the moment. I watch myself extend my own arm and offer a friendly handshake.

Hey, man, how's it going? It's crazy. In an instant, the whole situation shifts. This dude was clearly planning to say something snarky. You know, try to get a video of me snapping at him or something.

But instead I respond with love. He's visibly confused. It's like he too suddenly has a moment of reflection. I watch his face soften, and I continue. So you here with friends?

Awesome. Same. Reactivity is a chain. And when you break that chain, the effect is dramatic. I watch as the guy sheepishly stuffs his phone in his pocket and instead shakes my hand.

That's it. We make small talk for a second, then hes walking back to his group. No video, just a friendly exchange between two strangers in some bowling shoes. Obviously, ive become a huge believer in breathing and cold therapy. I mean, theyve changed my whole operating system, but it doesnt matter how you get there.

The point is whats possible when you do. So much of my life has been reacting to my life. And by creating that buffer, I'm able to break some of my worst patterns.

Those peaceful days shooting baskets at my house until the dinner bell rang. I'm closer to that now. I feel whole, like I'm wrapped in a warm blanket. Knowing deep inside that I'm good.

Remembering to live right now. Everything else will be or has been. I just need to be here.

Rohan
Thank you, Jacob. I really enjoyed that. I don't know much about being a teenage celebrity, but I do know the value of how the breath can bring space to the moment. And sometimes that's enough to help us reframe what we're facing. While I'm not quite brave enough for the plunging yourself into freezing cold water part of Wim Hof's approach I really like his breath work techniques.

I have not trained in them myself, but they are part of a constellation, a constellation of traditions, modern and classical, in which people have gone deep into the relationship between the breath and body and mind. Using the breath to affect body and mind. The mindfulness traditions I know tend to take a different approach to Wim Hof and what I want to do in our short closing meditation together. This invite you to try out three breathing techniques that have been particularly important to me at different times. The first is deceptively simple.

When I first got into meditation and started to pay attention to breathing, I noticed that my natural breath was really quite shallow. It only really went in my mouth and nose, to my neck and back again. A teacher of mine at the time asked me to explore if I could breathe beyond my head and into my chest, and then beyond my chest and into my belly. So let's try that together and start by knowing what it's like for the breath to just make it to your neck. A short breath.

Wow. Doing that now actually feels quite weird for me.

Then allow the breath to be a bit longer. Known by the raising and falling of your chest and without forcing anything, going beyond the chest and into the belly. The breath, long and full, but still gentle.

Play a little with these different endpoints for the breath, the head, the chest and the belly. Interested in how they feel, what feels familiar, what feels different.

I remember so clearly that just after a few minutes of breathing into my belly, my body just clicked into it and it became where my breath wanted to be. So I totally connect with Jake of similar experience when guided by his therapist. That first time, the first big insight I remember having about the breath was about letting go of control. The breath is brilliant because while you can control some of it, you cant control all of it. So I can make it long if I want, but I cant avoid an in breath coming after an out breath.

As I started pulling on that thread, the more I made my practice, leaving the breath alone, not trying to do anything with it, not wanting it to be like anything. In particular, just watching it and noticing the urge to get involved with the breath to make it different, and watching that urge too.

It becomes the richest of practices. Attention, awareness, right on the breath, but not getting involved. And when I notice my mind getting involved, seeing the impact of that and letting it go, that practice goes some pretty interesting places. And it's been a good friend.

The third mindfulness technique I want to share is a natural extension of the first. In the first, we allow the breath to move beyond the head into the chest and then the belly. What if we let it keep going? What if there's no particular place? We know the breath, but instead we know it everywhere?

It's called whole body breathing, and it too can take your places right now for you, it might be a clear and strong feeling, or it might be something you need to bring some imaginative energy to. Either way is good. The whole body breathing in, the whole body breathing out the whole body breathing the breath free to work its magic across the body across the body mind the whole body breathing in the whole body breathing out the whole body breathing thank you Jacob. I so appreciate the realness you brought today. And thank you wim for supporting Jacob and all the people you have reached.

Hey, I might even go for a cold swim one day. Who knows?

And thank you. You're doing great. Go well on behalf of the team at Meditative Story, thank you for spending time with us today. We love creating the show for you, and if the show serves you in a meaningful way, we'd love to hear from you. Would you take a minute right now to write us a review in your podcast app?

When you leave a review, it really inspires our team and we're a group who derive so much energy from understanding how meditative story impacts you. It's also a way for you to pay it forward by helping others discover the show. So if leaving a review speaks to you today, we'd really appreciate it.

Meditative story is a wait, what original? Our executive producers are Darren Triff and June Cohen. Jay Panjabi is our supervising producer. The series is produced by Dorothy Abrams. Original music and sound design by Ryan Holliday.

Our script writers are Peter Keckley, Florence Williams, and Hannah Brenture. Technical sport from Robin Wise mixing and mastering by Brian Pugh.

Special thanks to Emily McManus, Anna Pisino, Sarah Tata, Kelsey Capitano, Tim Cronin, Sami Oputa, Leah Sarametis, Colin Haworth, Janeme Ezekwena, Charlie Menezes, and Adam Heine. And I'm Rohan Gunna, Tilaka creator of the Buddhafi Meditation app and your host.

Visit meditativestory.com to find the transcript for this episode.