Change Your Breath, Change Your World -- TedX Talk

They told me never to look in the mirror.

Not my first time,

At least.

But I did.

The first time I tried cocaine,

I looked between two fat,

Powdery lines,

Right into my own eyes.

For a brief moment,

I saw the woman in the mirror for who she truly was,

A bright,

Fiery soul,

Beautiful,

Passionate,

And whole.

I blinked her away.

I diverted my gaze,

And I took a deep inhale.

I didn't believe in her,

And for three years,

I ignored her.

I buried her under my rage and my grief and my mistrust of men and my hatred of God for abandoning me.

With late nights filled with alcohol and cocaine,

I created the dramas that validated my beliefs,

That I was unworthy.

People were not to be trusted,

And life was against me.

The yoga tradition says that if we do not live in alignment with our highest purpose,

Then we will never truly be happy.

Every late night escapade and hungover morning took me further away from my purpose,

My calling.

Until one sleepless night,

I felt so overwhelmed in my loneliness and my fear that I wept out loud for help.

My tears suddenly stopped.

I felt a wave of calm come over me,

And I fell into a deep sleep.

In that moment,

I'd experienced the nature of my true self.

That moment helped send me into a new direction.

Six months later,

I left for the jungles of Costa Rica to become a yoga teacher.

Here I am 10 years later,

Standing on stage at TEDx Asheville.

I was so excited to be selected as a speaker.

However,

My excitement quickly faded into full-on freak-out.

What if I screwed up?

What if my talk wasn't good enough?

What if I wasn't good enough?

Long gone were the days of using alcohol and cocaine to cover up my fears.

Instead,

I binged on Netflix for about a week,

Maybe a little longer.

When I realized what I was doing,

The first thing I did wasn't to sit down and write.

The first thing I did was to sit down,

Breathe,

And meditate.

I know what stress and drama feels like.

After years of practice,

I also know what it feels like to be centered.

Breath and meditation take me to my calm,

Steady center,

Where I can align with my highest potential.

Raising consciousness is one of this year's themes for TEDx Asheville.

From a yoga perspective,

We cannot raise consciousness.

Consciousness just is.

It is the intelligence that makes life happen,

And there is never a lack of it.

What is lacking,

However,

Is our ability to perceive consciousness.

And what we need to raise is our awareness.

Awareness keeps us rooted in the present moment.

Can I not only be aware of what I'm eating,

But how I am eating?

Can I be aware of my thoughts,

But also how those thoughts make me feel?

Can I be aware of how I move from one place to another,

From one activity to another?

When fully aware,

Life is experienced from a calm,

Steady foundation.

It is from this foundation that we align with and connect and experience consciousness.

Consciousness cannot be experienced if we're stuck in the past,

Or if we're worried about the future.

Consciousness can only be experienced in the present moment.

And there are many ways to avoid being present to uncomfortable feelings and to subdue stress.

Maybe it's alcohol,

Drugs,

TV,

Food,

Or perhaps it's social media,

Retail therapy,

Your to-do list,

Sex,

Exercise.

So think of a time when you felt overwhelmed.

What did you do to comfort yourself?

And how did that make you feel?

Stress,

Illness,

Anxious,

Repetitive thoughts distract us from who we really are.

Now physics was not my strongest subject in school,

But I do remember Ohm's law,

Which states in its simplest terms that when there is a lot of resistance,

Energy will not flow freely through an electrical conductor.

And when resistance is low,

Energy will flow more freely.

So think of your body as a container or a conductor of energy.

Our negative emotions and our negative thoughts act as resistances to the flow of energy.

And when we have a lot of resistance,

We become more susceptible to bodily disease and mental dis-ease.

And when there's a lot of energy and it flows better,

The better we feel.

The body is a container in an archive of everything we were born with and everything we've experienced.

Both the yoga tradition and modern science suggests that unprocessed emotions and experiences are actually stored in the body,

Especially from the navel to the pelvic floor.

So how many of you have a junk drawer in your home?

Go ahead.

You know that one place where you store all the things that you don't know what to do with and you're not ready to let go of?

Well,

In the body,

Our pelvic bowl becomes the place where we cram all of our emotional junk.

Trees carry powerful feelings.

Psychoanalysts have shown that in order to avoid tapping into those uncomfortable feelings,

People will actually shorten the breath and limit it to the chest.

This keeps energy and awareness away from what is stored in our pelvic junk drawers.

Problem is,

Junk drawer never gets clean.

In fact,

It only gets messier and more full.

We expend so much energy trying to contain and avoid the painful memories and emotions that are in our pelvic junk drawers that we have less energy to really fully thrive from our purpose to live our lives.

Each of us has a vagus nerve that runs from the brain stem.

It wanders down through all the organs in the body.

It ends in the belly with filaments that extend down into our pelvic floor,

Our pelvic junk drawers.

And the vagus nerve is essential for the functioning of all of our major organs,

Including the brain,

The heart,

The liver,

The kidneys,

And the lungs.

When activated,

The vagus nerve acts as a brake pedal,

Slowing down an overstimulated nervous system.

Guess what?

Every single breath you take activates the vagus nerve.

The deeper,

The more full the breath,

The more powerfully activated the vagus nerve becomes,

Positively affecting organ health.

Deep breathing through the nose also stimulates the prefrontal cortex,

The portion of the brain that is responsible for higher mental functioning,

Decision-making,

Self-observation,

Language,

Reasoning,

Emotional control,

And social interactions.

Every hurricane has a center,

An eye of the storm,

Where things are more calm.

Deeper breathing patterns take us into our calm,

Steady center,

Where we can observe and witness the obstacles and resistances that stand in the way of us and our best selves.

Intentional breathing patterns help us feel more connected to other people,

To communicate more clearly,

To be less reactive and less likely to be triggered by life events.

And the breath supports us in seeing what is in our pelvic junk drawers and mobilize the energy to help clear it out.

So the breath is far more powerful than drugs,

Alcohol,

Or a bag of Oreos to steady you.

And unlike Oreos,

You know,

And those other things,

The breath has long-lasting benefits that improve over time.

So think about that for a moment.

Simply by learning to breathe consciously,

You can positively impact your long-term health and the quality of your life.

A few years ago,

I was struggling again.

I'd had another failed relationship.

I was discontent in work,

And I was suffering from chronic migraines.

Resistance was building,

And my body and my mind were suffering.

Even though I was practicing the physical postures of yoga regularly,

I wasn't practicing being aware or being present.

I wasn't practicing breath or meditation consistently.

I was unsteady and ungrounded in my yoga practice.

During this time,

I took a class that didn't do any of the rigorous physical postures I was used to.

Instead,

Breathing techniques were integrated with basic postures throughout the entire class.

At the end of the class,

I sat up on my mat,

And I was like,

Wow,

What was that?

I felt more immediate changes in my body and my mind and my emotions than I had ever experienced before,

Ever.

Now,

I didn't gain enlightenment from that one class,

But it did heighten my awareness.

I learned that there are so many different breathing techniques to support us with wherever we are in our lives.

If we learn how to use these techniques intelligently as a support mechanism for greater health,

Our lives can change.

The yoga teachings are very clear.

We must have a calm,

Steady mind in order to connect to consciousness,

The unchanging essence of who we are.

But who has time for one more thing?

You do.

Media kicks did a study that shows on average we spend 50 minutes of our day on Facebook alone.

If we were to include YouTube,

Instagram,

Snapchat,

And Twitter into the mix,

It extends into over two hours of our day.

Social media has been shown to have detrimental effects on our physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

And even spiritual well-being.

So what if we took five minutes,

10 minutes,

Maybe 15 minutes,

And applied that time to techniques that have known immediate and long-term benefits on your mind,

Body,

And spirit?

Life is full of choices.

We all get to choose.

So let's choose now.

Sit up nice and tall.

Place your feet on the ground.

And close your eyes.

Take a nice deep breath in through your nose.

And then exhale through your mouth.

Let's do that one more time.

So breathe in.

Let it all go.

And then become aware of the sounds around you.

Feeling the sensation of your clothing on your skin.

Feeling the length of your spine.

And then bring your awareness to your nose.

And feeling the breath move in and out of each nostril.

The coolness of the inhale and the warmth of the exhale.

And then bring your awareness to the back of your throat.

Feeling the subtle movement of breath at the back of the throat.

And then bring your awareness to your chest.

Feel the rise and the fall of the chest with each inhale and exhale.

And can you begin to lengthen your breath?

So that you feel the breath move all the way down into your belly.

So when you inhale,

You feel the belly soften and expand.

And when you exhale,

You feel the navel hug towards your spine.

So breathing in,

The belly softens and expands.

And breathing out,

The navel moves towards your spine.

And begin to create a rhythm of breath that is reflective of how you would like your mind and your body and your emotions to be calm,

Steady,

Effortless.

And can you begin to lengthen the breath even more?

Drawing it down deep into your pelvic floor.

Bringing breath and awareness into your pelvic juncture.

And when you breathe in,

Drawing in nurturance and ease.

When you breathe out,

Releasing stress and anxiety.

Breathing in revitalization.

Breathing out fears and old stories.

So breathing in what you need and letting go of what you do not.

And it becomes effortless to breathe in what you need and to let go of what you do not.

And then shift your awareness to the center of your heart,

The place behind your breastbone and front of your spine.

And sense a quality of stillness in the center of your spiritual heart,

The place where the essence of who you really are resides,

That which is always calm and steady and peaceful.

And then bow your head down just slightly.

It's a gesture of releasing the mind into the wisdom that lies within your own heart.

Take a deeper breath in and out,

Feeling the clothing on your skin and the length of your spine.

And then lift your head,

Open your eyes,

And just notice where you are.

In this moment,

In your body,

In your mind,

In your emotions,

After only a few short minutes of breath and awareness.

Sufism uses the analogy of the human heart as a polished mirror that reflects the light of our highest self,

Our highest potential.

Unfortunately,

The mirrors of our hearts are often covered with the grime and the dust of our suffering,

Our blame,

Our shame,

Our regrets,

Our anger.

The breath helps us begin the process of clearing that away.

Today,

I no longer divert my gaze and breathe in a drug that helps me avoid my emotional junk.

Instead,

I use the breath to steady me,

Take me inward,

Where I find the courage to uncover and bear witness to my pain.

When I clear out the clutter,

I discover underneath inherent joy,

Beauty,

Strength.

I can look directly into the mirror of my heart,

See myself clearly,

Take a deep inhale,

And breathe in life.

Spiritual teachers have taught for millennia that if we want to change the outer world,

We must go inward.

If you're willing to take the journey to greater self-knowing and healing,

The simplest,

Most powerful tool you will ever find is the breath.