Mindfulness Mode

Perry Marshall is an author, an engineer and an expert in on-line marketing. He's also a thought leader in the area of creationism and evolution. His recent book, Evolution 2.0: Breaking the Deadlock Between Darwin and Design, is a look at Perry's research and his conclusions regarding common opinions surrounding creationism and evolution. Perry concludes that neither side is telling you the whole story. Perry's Google Adwords books have resulted in the 100 billion dollar pay-per-click industry. He's written the world's best-selling book on web advertising called, Ultimate Guide to Google Adwords.

Contact Info

Website: www.PerryMarshall.com

Reboot: www.PerryMarshall.com/reboot (Get On Perry's Email list)

3 Free Chapters of Evolution 2.0 at www.CosmicFingerprints.com

Most Influential Person

Gerry Hogg - a woman from northern Ireland who taught me a keltic way of connecting to nature. One of the biggest shifts I've ever had in my life.

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness has caused my emotions to be a lot calmer. What we'd all like this to be is, now I'm going to do my mindfulness exercises and within three days everything's going to be fine. For me it really took months and years.

We humans are complex beings. We have a lot of garbage and we have deep closets with lots of bones and stuff. Over a period of years, the difference is profound. I used to be a bag of snakes. I'm a lot more composed than I used to be and it's nice.

Thoughts on Breathing

Breathing is important to me to a degree. Probably not as much as some people.

We have two special needs, adopted kids. Anybody that's done adoptions knows that you deal with all kinds of stuff. One of the first things that you do with a kid that's triggered, is breathe. CJ - take a breath.

You can do that with a CEO and everybody's going to say, take a breath. Most people will actually do that. It will work, even in a meeting - "everybody take a breath, breathe out, breathe in, breathe out. It resets.

Suggested Resources

Book: The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Book: The Book of Psalms - The Bible

App: The Blasket App (Includes a Web Cam of The Blasket Islands in Ireland)

Bullying Story

When I was thirteen, it was going in both directions. I got beat up on by a bunch of different people.

I decided I was going to toughen up and not take this anymore and so i started getting aggressive with other people so you could say I was bullying him. He said to me, hey, you and me, we're going to fight after school. I thought, Oh crap. And I couldn't back down.

I let my ego get in my way. So we go out and we have this fight and I lost. A big crowd of kids wathcing the whole thing. At first I was doing well and then I was running out of gas.

He starts prevailing and then I had to give up. Now that's embarrassing. A little more mindfulness, self awareness would have helped. When he said, hey dude, I thought, this is a bad idea, but I did not have enough integrity, enough self-honesty to go, you know what, I would rather apologize to you and not get into this with you.

I should have said, you win, I lose. That would have been a smaller defeat than the one I ended up having. There was actually some schrapnall as a result. It was just bad.

I think this happens all the time with people. It's not usally a fist fight behind a school. But it could be the proverbial fistfight between companies, between CEO's.

These things, like, we're going into this market. And the other person saying, I don't really think you should go into that market. That's a bad idea. Then years later they lose several million dollars and they have to write it off.

Daniel Gefen is the founder of Gefen Media Group and host of the top rated podcast show ‘Can I Pick Your Brain?’ where he has picked the brains of over 100 thought leaders, billionaires and celebrities. He was named the top 25 most influential influencers of 2017 and has been featured in Forbes, Inc and Influencive. Most recently he is the author of the transformational book called "The Self Help Addict - Turn an Overdose of Information Into a Life of Transformation."

Contact Info

Website: www.DanielGefen.com

Book: The Self Help Addict by Daniel Gefen

Podcast: Can I Pick Your Brain?

What is Spirituality to You?

I’m going to start by saying that the minute you say spirituality to me, it doesn’t mean anything.

I’m an orthodox Jew, I’m a practicing orthodox Jew and yet the word spirituality doesn’t mean anything to me because for me, it’s just another word people throw around. You have words like entrepreneur and influencer and all these different words people throw around. Spirituality is one of them. For me, it’s tough. How do you define something that’s undefinable?

I’ll give you an example. How do you define love? How do you explain it to someone who’s never felt love before? If you’ve loved anyone before, it’s easy to explain it.

If you’ve never felt love before, where do you begin to tell what love feels like? If you have not experience a spiritual moment or you haven’t experienced spirituality in your life, then I cannot describe spirituality to you because it’s an experience. It is out of the realm of comparison.

What belief led you to write ‘The Self Help Addict’?

That belief evolved over time. I had to rewrite a lot of things along the way. I would read something I wrote a couple of years ago and I’d say; holy crap, you wrote like that? That’s so wrong. Then I’d edit it out.

About a month before I went to publish, I almost scrapped the whole book. I almost had to rewrite the entire book.

I had an awakening where I realized that everything I’m writing about in this book is all about how to go from being a consumer to a creator. It’s all about how to go from this self-help cycle of constantly taking in more and more information and actually going and doing something with it. It’s actually taking that energy and creating something out of it. Taking all the inspiration and putting it into action; making it real.

What is the Missing Piece of the Puzzle?

You are at the proverbial bottom of the mountain. You keep looking up and you keep saying, ‘wow, it’s so amazing’. But I’m just too scared to go up there. I’m afraid of what people will think of me if I try to climb that mountain. I’m going to make a fool of myself.

You see some people up there already. You have the Oprah Winfrey’s and Tony Robbins and all these amazing people up there and you’re looking up at them like they’re idols.

You’re saying, ‘wow, wouldn’t it be great to stand on top?’ But I can’t do that because I’m not like that. Imagine I came along and I held you hand and I said, Bruce, let’s climb that mountain. I’m going to help you to climb up.

And we start climbing. You actually start taking action and you start climbing and you go higher and higher and higher and you get to the top, so to speak. You get to that point where you’ve been dreaming so much to get to, whether it’s that you’ve become a millionaire. You’ve got your wife and children and you’ve got your nice big house. You’re living the American dream. It’s your mountain.

When you get to the top, you suddenly feel very depressed because you’ve achieved it all and yet you still feel that emptiness inside. That’s worse than when you were at the bottom of the mountain. Why? Because when you were at the bottom of the mountain, at least you had hope.

People who don’t take much action at least they have in the back of their minds that, if I ever do accomplish ‘X’, I’ll be happy. So at least they have that to live for.

The people who make it to the top, the celebrities, the athletes, the movie ce

Dr. William Pawluk, MD, MSc, is a medical and holistic doctor who is considered to be the foremost authority on the use of Pulsed Electromagnetic Field Therapy (PEMF) in North America. Dr. Pawluk has been trained in acupuncture, homeopathy, hypnosis, and bodywork. He held positions at Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland. He is interested in new solutions to stubborn, chronic, frustrating health problems that resolve the cause and not simply put a Band-Aid on the pain. Dr. Pawluk and Dr. Ox both agree that pain management should be focused on healing the cause. holistic pain management. PEMFs provide the most benefit and allow safe, non-toxic, self-directed, self-controlled, at-home pain management.

Contact Info

Website: www.DrPawluk.com

Email: [email protected]

Flex Pulse Machine: $300.00 Discount Use Coupon Code found by listening to the episode

Most Influential Person

Jon Kabat-Zinn

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness has stabilized my emotions. If you practice mindfulness enough, you become aware.

I have to say, I know that most doctors are not aware of the impact of what they say to patients and how they present information to their patients. They only want to present information. The information is more important than the presentation.

To me, doing mindfulness makes me much more aware of what I think, what I say and how I react to other people. You basically stabilize yourself from an emotional perspective.

You cannot ignore your emotions; that's sick too. That's not healthy. What we need to do is recognize them and just let them get washed through us and understand the reason why those emotions happen and what you can do the next time your face it.

Thoughts on Breathing

It is almost impossible to do mindfulness unless you breathe. I used to teach meditation as well. The first thing you teach people is to do the breathing.

What I found is, the more often you do the breathing, you train the brain. You train the subconscious of your intention.

I used to breathe for five or ten minutes to quiet everything down. The more I did it, the less time it took. Now I can basically go into a meditative state with two breaths.

Suggested Resources

Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Book: Power Tools For Health by Dr. William Pawluk

App: Inner Balance and also Stress Check (For Stress)

Bullying Story

In my experience, bullying has been an issue all my life. I’m seventy-one years old now. I’ve always had bullying in my life. I was born in a refugee camp in Germany after the second world war. My parents spoke Ukrainian so we were in a sense bullied by the Germans when we lived in this camp. Then we emigrated to Canada.

My father had a very thick accent and so we were in a sense bullied; not physically but emotionally and psychologically. We were called DPs. DP stands for Displaced Person.

My family came from the Ukraine, because the Germans took them to Germany to work in the factories. But they couldn’t go back to the Ukraine because of the communists. They were essentially people without a country like many refugees are.

I wore glasses and was called four eyes. So how did I deal with it? You go quiet. You can get angry, you can strike back, you have that choice. But I was small so there wasn’t too often when I could strike back. I had to learn how to take care of myself. One of the reasons I got glasses is so they wouldn’t hit me in the face. It was a psychological defense mechanism.

I was in corporate medicine and I was bullied there. A lot of doctors are bullies among other doctors. There’s a lot of ranking that happens in medicine. Where you went to medical school, where you did your residency, whether you’re a specialist or a general practitioner.

You get looked down upon in many ways and you have to learn to deal with this. Mindfulness is just being aware; this person has a problem and I’m not going to go into this problem with them, but I’m just going to accept this because I know who I am. I know what

Emerald Peaceful GreenForest is an arts visionary. She works with men who have already earned their financial rewards and now they want to make their mark in other ways; in the form of a legacy perhaps. Emerald is founder and lead visionary of The Creative Age Consulting Group. It has been said that Emerald is 'A Voice of Clarity in the Sea of Confusion'. Emerald is also the recipient of a Be the Change Movement To Watch Award. She is the Founding Visionary of ArtWalk Nashua which is now in its thirteenth year.

Contact Info

Website: www.EmeraldGreenforest.com

Free Gift: www.EmeraldGreenforest.com/gift (Instant Clarity Exercise)

Most Influential Person

Marianne Williamson author of A Return To Love

Effect on Emotions

What I love about the mindfulness practices is what happens with my emotions is, I'm much better able to identify and have awareness when I am feeling something and being able to choose to acknowledge, okay, I'm feeling this right now and also be able to hold myself back one step. Enough to discern; do I need to do anything with this feeling? And be able to make a choice about that rather than be in reaction.

I am so much less reactive than I was once upon a some. So much less reactive.

Thoughts on Breathing

I love breathing. Yoga introduced me to breathing back in 2001. When I was going through the divorce from my first 'was-band'. I was also in my own spiritual awakening at that time. Breathing was absolutely essential. I would sit at my desk with my bully partner and be on the phone with my soon to be X wasband who was also yelling at me about something.

I had 'breathe' written in little index cards on my desk and I would just look at the index card.

The word 'breathe' is seven letters so I had it written in the seven colors of the rainbow. I would take one breath and just let whatever was going on, go on, while I remembered, oh, I'm going to breathe now. This is important to breathe now.

Suggested Resources

Book: The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

App: Insight Timer

Bullying Story

I can tell a story about when I was in real estate. Both of my partners were bullies. During that time when we were doing that project, it was like, driving, driving, driving to get it done.

There was so much anger and so much dysfunction in the relationship that I had with them. More importantly, the relationship that I had with myself; I simply shut down and tolerated it or I reacted to it and tried to fight the bully or I took it in and then tried to process it at home on my own, feeling like there was something wrong with me and it was my fault and how could I make myself into a pretzel to make this not happen anymore.

If I had been well, and at that time I wasn't, the consciousness that I had then was exactly perfect for the time, but the me I am now, if I could go back to the me I was then, I would most definitely equip her with mindfulness tools.

I would also whisper into my ear that this is not about you, it is about their stuff. I'd help her to create a sanctuary for herself where, even though that's going on out there, she's clear and healthy.

Mariko Hirakawa is an internationally known Yoga-Ayurveda Expert with over 26 years of teaching experience. She is the founder of Visionary Yoga, a personal development company dedicated to accelerating the growth of motivated individuals and companies. A former professional ballet dancer as well as an Ayurvedic physician trained in India, she is dedicated to positioning Yoga as something far beyond fitness – a technology for human consciousness evolution.

Contact Info

Website: www.VisionaryYoga.com

Bonus: VisionaryYogaChallenge.com

Instagram: @VisionaryYoga

Facebook: @MarikoYoga

Facebook Group: Visionary Wellness

Most Influential Person

My spiritual teacher

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness really stabalized my inner world. With that came much greater confidence. It gives you self-control when you have control of your inner state.

Thoughts on Breathing

I'm amazed that more dance techniques don't encorporate the breathing. Breath has it's own innate energy. Inhilation is actually called inspiration. Inhiliation is literally receiving new energy from the universe. Exhilation, I call it the liberating breath, the cleansing breath, the releasing breath and for me it's a very under used resource that we all have. It's so close, and yet, because it's always there, we tend to be blind to it. Ancient systems like Yoga, and all of the mystical traditions really, use the breath as a doorway. The more we can be aware of it, moment by moment, I think the more it's enhances our quality of life and the way we show up into life.

Suggested Resources

Book: Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice by Shunryu Suzuki

App: Relax Melodies (Mix and Choose Different Sound Effects)

Bullying Story

Yes, I have several stories about bullying. When I first came to this country I was nine and a half years old and we were in upstate New York where at that time there were very few ethnic people.

I think my sister and I were the only Asian kids in an entire elementary school. It was actually a boom because we got so much attention from the teachers. I think that made a few of the other kids jealous.

In the beginning, every morning we had to put our hand on our heart and recite the Pledge of Allegience to the United States of America. Those are some advance words like 'individual', I couldn't pronounce. I phonetically memorized it after a few months.

I was just mouthing it and these two kids were sitting across from the table. They were sneering at me and started to push the table towards me saying, 'you don't know what it means, you can't say it'. They started to push me and at that moment I felt so humiliated and helpless.

I didn't know how to counter that because ... the teacher was oblivious and so I let it get to me. I just sat there holding my tears back. If it were me now, I probably see that these kids were just acting out of jealousy. Kids can be quite cruel and it's really tough because when you're a child you're not equipped with the level of self awareness and self-confidence that allows you to fight back or to say something. I didn't have the words. I didn't know the language well enough to fight back like that. It was the first experience of being bullied and I was older than these kids because I was demoted two grades because I couldn't speak any English. It was a tough time. I think life gives us experience and it made me more determined to learn English and to work really hard to master the language.

Guest Quote

"Everyone's on a different level of evolution." - Mariko Hirakawa

Dr. Steven Masley motivates people to become healthier, starting with heart and brain health. He's a physician, nutritionist, best-selling author and he's also a chef. Dr. Steven Masley is the creator of the number one health program for public television called, 'Thirty Days To A Younger Heart'. Dr. Masley has recently written 'The Better Brain Solution", which is the first book to show how the brain can become insulin resistant through diet and lifestyle and to make clear how and why this has been directly linked to cognitive decline and memory loss.

Contact Info

Website: www.DrMasley.com

Free Quiz - How's Your Brain Doing?

Bonus: Better Brain Shopping Guide: The 12 Foods To Add and the 12 Foods To Avoid to Make it Easy For You To Be Mindful About The Choices You Make

Most Influential Person

My step father, Chuck. He had a procedure; and had a massive stroke. I learned what dementia was. It wasn't necessary, he didn't need it. I feel badly to this day that I didn't do more for him earlier on. He said, 'don't let this happen to others'.

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness is calming on my emotions. It feels like love and stability in my life when I'm more mindful. When I'm not, I tend to be more anxious and depressed.

I'd much rather feel loved and focused than anxious and depressed. That's a lack of mindfulness, is anxiety.

Thoughts on Breathing

I like taking a deep breath and filling myself with spirit. I even like to, after I stretch and workout in the morning, I like to take a deep breath.

I feel like green energy pours into my body when I'm taking a deep breath. When I blow out, I'm just blowing out tension.

I use my breath to help me in a kind of meditative, processing way of being more calm and focused. Breath to me is like breathing in spirit.

Suggested Resources

Book: Eating Mindfully: How to End Mindless Eating and Enjoy a Balanced Relationship with Food by Susan Albers

Book: The Better Brain Solution: How to Start Now--at Any Age--to Reverse and Prevent Insulin Resistance of the Brain, Sharpen Cognitive Function, and Avoid Memory Loss by Steven Masley

App: Heart Math[show-notes-resources]

Bullying Story

I got bullied as a kid. I got beaten up. I got kicked around. It was not pleasant.

I can completely sympathize with anyone who has been bullied before. Part of it was just being susceptible. I wasn't being mindful, I wasn't being confident. It wasn't moving with purpose. Preditors picked on me.

Do I know what it's like to be bullied? Sadly, yes. I think we've got to stop this.

I think the food industry is bullying the American population today, making money off of them and killing them.

I think we've got to stand up to that kind of bullying and be mindful and make right choices and not let that happen. Certainly, it's happening to our children.

I would say the whole food industry is bullying our kids today too. When I think about it in the context of what it was like to be beaten up as a kid, and now realize what we're doing to other children today, that really gets me going.

I think it's time for us to stand up and put a stop to bullying. It's also time to stand up and be mindful about our food choices and not let people feed our kids, junk. And us too. We have to be responsible for ourselves too, and stop eating sugary junk and food with toxins.

We have to demand a clean world to live in so we can thrive and feel fantastic and be more productive.

Hailed as “part football coach, part loving dad, and part slightly crazed drill sergeant” Robert Kandell has spent the last sixteen years helping people re-energize their lives and build better relationships through more honest and authentic connection. In 2004, he co-founded OneTaste and took on the challenging task of bringing conscious sexuality to the mainstream market. He built the company from scratch to a high seven-figure international corporation. He left OneTaste in 2014 to start his own Consulting firm helping small businesses become marketable and profitable. Robert is also an accomplished teacher, coach, and lecturer. He brings his enthusiasm and acumen to his weekly podcast, Tuff Love, on subjects around relationships, intimacy, communication and gender dynamics.

Contact Info

Website: www.TuffLove.live

Podcast: Tuff Love

Most Influential Person

My students and my children.

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness has affected my emotions ... I have them now. Growing up, emotions were secondary. Mindfulness has connected me to my emotions. Emotions are my power. They are my superpower actually, because then I can feel and notice other people.

Thoughts on Breathing

I've done a lot of sitting meditation in my life and knowing the power breath, also Yoga and the 'suffering' in a hot Yoga class. Ok, find your breath.

My ability to pay attention to my breath, connect me to my body and I can slow down and adjust and find the optimal pose.

Suggested Resources

Book: The Hero With A Thousand Faces By Joseph Campbell

App: Insight Timer

Bullying Story

I have so many bullying stories. Bullying is something I'm very familiar with. I mentioned I was an overweight kid growing up and I was bullied by my school mates. The bullying ended when I was fourteen or fifteen. Really from ten to fifteen year old, I was bullied.

My middle name is Barry and they would call me Barrier  and they would taunt me. For whatever reason kids bully, there was some thing that happened which made me the object of their bullying.

In retrospect and in talking to a lot of people who were bullied, and a lot of bullies out there in the world, the main reason they did that was fear and their own lack of disconnection. My opinion is that bullying happened because bullies feel disconnected from their parents, from themselves, and there's some pain in there that needs to be expressed.

What they choose is to bully another kid rather than address their own pain. Mindfulness would be for the parents to notice that about their kids. Or even the Principal or school Councils, to notice that about kids and just sit with the bully and not shame them for being a bully. Not shame them for what they do, but get curious and wonder and question and allow that space for that bully kid to be seen and loved and approved of.

I think that is the cure for bullying; when we give someone space to speak and relieve their own pain.

Dave Lukas is an entrepreneur, father, and fitness enthusiast. His successful business, Grasp Technologies got off the ground with what Dave calls, our rag-tag crew of Misfits. Dave realized that we all have an inner misfit, an inner genius, maybe even a hidden genius that is in every single leader, employee, and even you. If only you can unpack that inner Misfit. Around 4 years ago, Dave and his wife traveled to China to meet and bring home their daughter, Hannah Jade. In his own words; it was a surreal and humbling experience. Around the same time, Dave decided to start his own Inner Misfit Podcast, where he would not only interview outstanding individuals with hidden misfit genius, he would also publish episodes where he would directly speak to his daughter, offering advice and wisdom she and others could refer to at any time. Now Dave enjoys life as a grateful, caring father as well as a successful entrepreneur and podcaster.

Contact Info

Website: www.MisfitEntrepreneur.com

Social Media: Dave M Lukas or Dave Lukas or Misfit Entrepreneur

Podcast: Misfit Entrepreneur

Most Influential Person

T. Harv Eker (Author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind)

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness has effected my emotions in that, I've learned to control my emotions a lot better.

When I was younger I used to be very quick-tempered and very quick to react to things. Later I would know that it wasn't the right reaction.

So learning to control in the moment (and some of that is your conditioning too), but learned to control in the moment and stop yourself, I have a process I call, "Stop, Ask, Choose". Stop yourself, ask yourself how you want to respond in that situation, and then choose the right path forward.

I've conditioned myself to do that in a split second over the years for decisions, so it's made a big difference.

Thoughts on Breathing

Every morning I have an exercise that I call "My Daily Prime". It takes about ten minutes. I make sure nothing's on, it's dark, I'm by myself, nobody's usually up.

So I take the time to center myself, breathing, three or four minutes. Just to breathe in deep and get calm and clear in my head.

Then I write the three things I'm grateful for on that day and sometimes they're very deep, and sometimes it's about the beautiful morning, whatever comes to me.

From there I write down my "Three To Thrive". Those are my three things that are the most important I can do for the day.

For instance for today it was this interview. I wanted to make the most out of it for you and for your audience and to be present.

Then I end it with some deep breaths and visioning for the day, what I'm going to accomplish and then I get started.

Suggested Resources

Book: An Astronaut's Guide To Life On Earth by Colonel Chris Hatfield

Book: Wild At Heart: Discovering the Secret of a Man's Soul by John Eldredge

App: I use Pen and Paper as my process for planning.

Bullying Story

Bullying is an interesting thing. It's hard to answer that question now because of what I've learned over the years. It's like anything; you choose whether something affects you or not.

This is from a mental standpoint; from a physical standpoint it is a completely different thing. If somebody's punching you in the face every day, that's a different thing.

The key is to understand that you're only affected by the things you let yourself be effected by. You have that control. The minute you seed that control to someone, a bully, anyone, then you lose your power and you give it up.

It's naturally yours, for you as an individual.

With that being said, I do have an interesting story.

Early on, when I was in Kindergarten or first grade, in my neighborhood there was another boy who was bigger than me. His older brother rode the bus every day.

When we got off the bus, his brother would make us fight. The interesting thing was, that myself and the other boy had been friends because we went to the same pre-school together.

Everyday he would make us fight and we woul

Frankie Picasso is an International SocialPreneur, Talk Show Host, and Champion for Change who has been transforming lives and influencing culture for the past 30 years. Professionally, she is a Certified Life, Business and Master Coach Trainer, Author, Artist, Activist and Philanthropist in training, who just happens to specialize in the Impossible! As the founder of The Good Radio Network, (TGRN) Frankie is the host of Mission Unstoppable Radio, FrankieSense & More Radio. Everything that Frankie is involved in, has Social Impact built in. TGRN is one vehicle for social impact and her artwork is another. As a professional Artist, Frankie’s paintings have been featured in the International Book of Contemporary Artists Volume 6 and can be found on Fine Art America, Frankie’s book Midlife Mojo won her recognition and the Finalist WINNER award as one of the “50 Great Writers you should be Reading in 2015!” She is also a Huffington post contributor, and a member of the Women’s Economic Council and the Evolutionary Business Council.

Contact Info

Website: TheGoodRadioNetwork.com

Email: [email protected]

Facebook: Unstoppable Frankie Picasso

Most Influential Person

My dad

Nigel Varty (Mountain Climber)

Effect on Emotions

I've learned to respond versus react. I learn to ask myself, who am I? In that I get to create the person I want to be in the world.

Thoughts on Breathing

I'm not very good at it. I try to do the slow breathing. I don't know why I don't want to take a full breath. I'm lazy.

I have tried all the mindfulness techniques of breathing. Especially as a hypnotherapist I learn all these things.

I do try to take that earth breath. When you need to get calm, I take this big earth breath; in for seven and out for ten. It does ground you. That is a good technique. I think it's a Hawaiian technique.

Suggested Resources

Book: Midlife Mojo: How To Get Through The Midlife Crisis and Emerge As Your True Self

Book: The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment by Eckhart Tolle

App: Calm

Bullying Story

I've got two stories. I'm going to tell you a story from a female perspective.

I bullied myself and it wasn't until maybe five years ago that I realized. I remember one day when I was so mean to myself; my thoughts were so mean.

I screamed at myself out loud to 'stop it'. I said, 'you would never say that to anyone else. Why are you saying that to you? I know you would never, ever say those words to anyone else, living or dead, so stop it.'

I think especially woman, as it relates to our bodies, we are very cruel to ourselves. We give ourselves cruel messages all the time and we need to stop doing it. The only way to do that is to be mindful and to hear the words that we're saying. It stopped. Now when they come up, I say, no, no, no.

When you stop and you hear your thought and you go, do I believe that? We don't often question our beliefs.

As coaches, that's one of the first things we do with people. We say, what do you believe. In the spiritual terms and the law of attraction, what you believe is what shows up in your life. If you don't have the things that you think you want, it's because you don't believe in them. That's another story.

That's a really interesting way to look at bullying, but we do bully ourselves. The second story is, I was married to an abusive alcoholic. He was abusive emotionally and physically. He was a bully.

He was my second husband. He wasn't my children's dad. If I were to kiss my boys goodnight, he would call them girls. That is a form of bullying.

When it got so bad that I thought my oldest would get between us and hit him, I just stopped that right in it's tracks because I was afraid that he would have a record (my son) and he would never be able to do what he wanted to do in his life.

Second Story. After my accident and I was in the hospital, I had a lawyer and he was extremely mean to me.

This is a story about how I learned to respond instead of react. He would have me in tears, h

Scott is an Ecopreneur meaning he puts people, purpose and the planet before profit. Scott’s mission is to inspire a daily practice of health. To fulfill this mission, he created three social businesses. In 2004, he co-founded the Padua Centre, a community wellness. In 2006, he cofounded DESTA Black Youth Network, helping marginalized youth aged 18 to 25 get back on track. In 2006, Scott founded Organik a wellness broker company. Scott is also a yoga teacher, personal trainer and health coach since 2006. According to Scott, his greatest source of inspiration is found in his daily practice of health.

Contact Info

Company: Organik

Website: www.BeOrganik.com

Email: [email protected]

Instagram: organikmtl

Podcast: The Spirit Bros Podcast (Coming Soon)

Most Influential Person

Steve Sims / Jon Kabat-Zinn

Effect on Emotions

Mindfulness helps calm down my emotions. It's hard to slow down the reaction. The reaction is always going to be there, we want it to be there; the fight or flight.

Mindfulness has created a bit more space between the reaction and the response. Initially it went from one second to [longer].

Now if someone cuts me off on the highway, I can see the emotion come up. Emotions are beautiful, it's just how we deal with them that's the problem or the solution.

I'll see the anger coming up and I'll choose my reaction much more now. I used to be much more reactive and I could get mad very quickly.

I could be explosive at times but now I've calmed that down and created the space between the reaction and the response.

Thoughts on Breathing

The foundation to optimal health is breathing and more specifically conscious breathing. We breathe about 20,000 times a day. How many of those are unconscious?

Really, the link between relaxation and stress is one conscious breath. I'd say, at the foundation of my meditation practice, and even before that, is the breath practice. It's to just catch myself in any situation. It's pretty much the informal meditation practice.

When I'm driving, I'll come back to the breath. When meeting with a client or in my yoga classes I'll come back to the breath as much as possible. Just to know that I'm responding from there and not reacting from the ego.

The breath is the most effective tool to tame the ego, to tame the mind. Instead of that mind being an enemy, or a mean voice in your head, it can become your ally, your best friend, your consultant.

Suggested Resources

Book: Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Book: A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

App: Insight Timer

App: Respi Relax

Bullying Story

I was born in Quebec City, a very French city. I only learned French when I was thirteen. I knew a bit of French, but I went from English elementary school, to French high school.

Back then, being the English kid and coming from a big English family, I was an easy target to laugh at with my French accent.

I never got bullied in terms of physicalness but in terms of laughing at my language, that happened a lot. It would really get me to react in the beginning. I would take it very personally.

It took me years before I learned not to take my French accent personally. Now I just accept it and I speak much better French.

In the beginning, that's where people would pick on me the most. Normally the bullying would make me more more shy and I wouldn't speak as much. Sports really helped me out.

I got really good in basketball and I got more and more friends. I got more respect through the sports and people wouldn't laugh at me as much. I was six foot three [inches] and a bit taller than the others so I could defend myself. I think with the practice of getting better and better at French, as people were getting to know me they didn't pick on me as much. In the beginning, it wasn't super rough but it wasn't an easy ride either.