WEBVTT
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This program is designed to provide general information with regards
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to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
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the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
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are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial,
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legal counseling, professional service, or any advice.
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You should seek the services.
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Of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
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At the end of the day, it's not about what
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you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
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you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
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who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
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Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
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to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
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to do the same.
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Jenny, Welcome to the show.
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Hey Doug, nice to be here.
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Oh I'm excited. And you tell me that you're in
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Hawaii right now. That is fantastic.
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I am. I'm based on the island of but wahoo.
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I love it here. Feel really blessed to live on
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the island.
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I'll bet that's amazing. I love Hawaii. When I've been
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able to get over there. It's great. Anyway, what I'd
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love for you to do is to share with the
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audience your journey. You know, I know that there's well
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I don't know, but you know, many people are doing
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certain things then all of a sudden they kind of
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have an Aha moment and they change directions, or maybe
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they've just discovered it from the get go, which is
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amazing if you have so share your journey with the
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audience of how you got to this point in what
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you're doing now.
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Sure, well, I'll guess I'll backtrack to about thirty years ago.
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I was living in Los Angeles and working as an
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actor and practicing yoga physical yoga at the time, and
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I started going through some personal challenges in my marriage
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and was really looking for some solace, and I discovered
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the deeper teachings of yoga, the Yogic philosophies of life
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and how they can bring us into equilibrium and inner peace,
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and so started practicing meditation and more breath work and
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really understanding the principles of what it takes to live
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in an aligned way and through the Yogic perspective, which is,
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you know, five thousand years old and over time sort
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of fast forward ten years. I had gotten a divorce,
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I had moved across country, I was recently needing to
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re establish myself in the workforce after having a child,
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and I a decided to open a yoga studio because
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it was my love, it was my passion, and that
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really started the trajectory of where I am today. So today,
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I've been a yoga studio owner. I've been a yoga
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therapist for many, many years, counseling people individually through the
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many practices and philosophies of yoga. I've written three books
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on the topics of yoga and meditation and spiritual living
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and self evolution. And I really love what I have
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been able to do for a career. I love all
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the people that I've gotten to interact with over the years,
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and you know, talking about aha moments, it's really one
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of my greatest joys to see someone awaken to their
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inner self, their their their beautiful, brilliant spiritual light and
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their joy and what really makes them that particular soul
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that they are and step closer towards that, towards embodying that,
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and as a guide for that journey. I feel really
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blessed to have met some extraordinary people over the years.
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Oh that's fantastic, you know, And and you you made point,
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and I appreciate if you kind of expand on this,
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because so many times when I think of yoga, and
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I know most people think of yoga, it's I'm out
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there trying to stretch and trying to do this, trying
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to do that, which I can't do at this point
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in time. But when you talk about the higher level
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of yoga, and now you get into the whole philosophy
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of yoga, that's an entirely different thing. Can you kind
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of share with the audience what the difference is there?
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Sure? Well, one is part of the other, right, So
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the physical postures are a part of what's called the
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eight limb path of yoga, and they prepare our bodies
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and our minds to be able to sit in stillness
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and meditation, and so they make up a part of
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the yogic path. But the yogic path really is so
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much broader than just the postures that have become popular
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in the West. And my first book, True Yoga, It's
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called True Yoga was written because as a yoga teacher,
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I was trying to impart this understanding to my students
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in you know, hour long classes, and I just felt
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like there needed to be a bigger explanation available to them,
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but written in a way that was accessible and modern
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and sort of pragmatic for daily life. Because the texts
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that are the traditional yoga philosophy texts, the Bagavad Gita,
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the Upas, the blanking on the other one right now anyway, utris,
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the yoga sutris. How can I forget that? It's what
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my book is based on. Well, brain faid, okay, yeah,
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so are They are all written fairly esoterically. So for
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the average student of yoga, the person who's going to
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go to a Saturday morning physical yoga class, it's not
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necessarily going to have time to absorb these teachings, these
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esoteric teachings, and so as a teacher, I really wanted
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to write a book that would boil them down in
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a way and apply them to daily modern life, that
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would make them useful for people, if you will. And
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you know, there's so many I'll just take one little
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example out of the yoga sutras. So there's the practice
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of ahimsa, and ahimsa for all intents and purposes is intentional,
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the intentional practice of peacefulness. So it's not enough to
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just not be violent. We have to go out of
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our way to bring peace into situations and into our
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own hearts and minds and lives. And this isn't easy.
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Right on the day to day we live in stressful
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times and everyone that I talk to, their stress levels
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are really really high. So when you're working with a
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teaching like this and looking at what an ancient science
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of spirituality, which is really what yoga philosophy is, it's
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a spiritual science, it's the it's an inner science of
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how to align ourselves with the harmony that can exist
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within ourselves and within the universe when we're in right
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action right And so one of those principles is intentional peacefulness.
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And then we have to kind of break it down
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and look at, well, how do we do that? And
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so that how question is always what I'm working with
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students or clients on in terms of how to, within
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the context of their lives, really how to do that.
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Okay, and you've written, as you say, you've written a
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few books. You've got your yoga one, and then there's
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a couple of other books you're written. Just share with
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the audience what they are and what they're Yeah.
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Sure. My second book is called Breathing Love and it's
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meditation in action is the subtitles. So the principle behind
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that book is meditation for me on the cushions, seated
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silent is a daily practice that is essential. And I
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can't do that and then get up off the cushion
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and go be a jerk in my life. Right, we
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have to carry the quality of meditation, the deep piece
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and equilibrium that we cultivate on the cushion. We have
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to carry it out into the crazy world that we
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live in and apply those. The same practices that we
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utilize when we're sitting and focusing and going inward in
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our stated meditation practice, we have to apply those in
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day to day life. So again pragmatic look at how
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to apply the principles of meditation into daily life. That's
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what that book is about. And then my third book
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is Spark Change and the subtitle is one hundred and
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eight Provocative Questions for Spiritual Evolution. So this draws upon
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the Yogic principle of self inquiry or swadyaya, and self
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inquiry is to me the other side of the meditation
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coin because we have to go inward to be still,
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and then we also have to do a little bit
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of digging in there. So part of it is quieting
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the mind, but then part of it is engaging the
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mind and looking at our patterns, looking at our belief systems,
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looking at the obstacles that we hold within our own
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beings to those to that journey towards alignment and peace
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and inner harmony. And so that book is a compilation
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of questions that I've used with clients over the years
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to help them sort of navigate their inner.
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Landscape and to find ways to move through the obstacles
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that they feel in their lives and to initiate change.
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At a very proactive level.
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Well, and I want to talk about all of those things.
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You know, one of the interesting things that you talk
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about is how long do you meditate each day? And
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what do you recommend and what do you recommend people?
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Number one? Number two, you talk about breathwork, but you
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didn't really talk about that. Is there a specific type
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of breath work? Because I've interviewed so many people with
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different ideas about how the breath work should be. What
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are your thoughts on that? Number one how long And
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number two breathwork.
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Okay, so how long? For sure, half an hour in
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the morning. If I'm being disciplined, I'll do half an
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hour in the evening as well. I don't always do that,
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but that's my ideal practice time. That's not what I
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would recommend to a beginner, though, because you do have
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to sort of work up to it, and I say
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just start with five to ten minutes and develop that
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habit of sitting down and getting quiet. Now, breath work
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is part of the sutra that has to do the
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yoga sutra that has to do with energy management. Fronta
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Yamana is energy, Yama is control of energy, So we
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can control our energy through the breath. And that's where
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all these diverse practices of breath work that are getting
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quite popular these days. It's sort of the next wave
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of yoga that's coming through the West and getting really
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popular because people are seeing that there's power in the
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ability to control your breath. It will the breath naturally
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reflects our emotional state. So if you get angry, or
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if you have a sudden fright or something, your breath
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is going to get really constricted. And if you're trying
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to manage stress by doing breath work, Well, then you're
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going to want to elongate the breath, you're going to
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want to slow it down, You're going to want to
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control it in waves that would be opposite of what
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would happen if you had that anger or fright moment
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where it gets really constricted. Now, I'm not going to
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give a general I'm not gonna apply a general technique
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on a podcast like this because breathwork is very personal
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and it's very situational. And so when I'm working with
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a client, we're talking about what it is that they're
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experiencing in their lives in terms of stressors. I need
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to know about their physiology and any medications that they
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might be on. Do they suffer with anxiety, do they
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have depression? Are they going through some particular grief right now?
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All of these things play into what breath work I
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might do with them, because however we manipulate the breath
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has an effect. And so I don't want to give
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some general practice and be counter into it, you know,
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counter productive for somebody, counter indicated. Sorry, that's not I'm
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losing my words today, counter indicated for someone who might have,
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you know, hypertension, or anxiety or something like that. So
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it is very specific to the person.
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Well, and you know what's fascinating to me, and you know,
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as I'm here in Thailand, I found very fascinating to
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learn a little bit more about Buddhism. And one of
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the interesting things is going back to the original teachings
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and then seeing what's happening now. It actually went from
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the one teaching of Buddha. Now I think there's four
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or five major differences that kind of oppose each other
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at least teach different things. And it's kind of the
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same thing with I would think with yoga, because you know,
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as I look at meditation and I've gone to some
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workshops and so forth with that, and I love meditating.
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But what I've found is that there's a lot of
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you know, focus for many on you know, if this
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is what you want to be, then this is the
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affirmation you want to think about or say while you're
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meditating and so forth. And I'm not sure, I don't
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know the answers I'm listening to this is that part
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of the original yoga lots of of meditating and so
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forth you talk about, which I really appreciate, you know,
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finding that sense of peace and also be able to
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ultimately identify and do that introspective work and find out
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where things are happening that you don't want to be happening.
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What are your thoughts on that, and what.
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Have you seen so on affirmation specifically, I feel that
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they can be very powerful. I would not say they're
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part of the original Yogic teachings. I'm trying just you know,
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scanning through my mind and all the studies I've done
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of the Yoga sutras, and I can't pull a passage
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that would specifically indicate that affirmation per se were recommended.
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That being said, I think how we hold ourselves, how
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we speak to ourselves, the way we think about ourselves,