Breathwork After Burnout: The Tool Under Your Nose with John Quirk

0:00 Hey there, before we get started on this week's episode, I would love to ask for your support by reviewing this podcast. We want to share yoga with as many people as possible and this free resource, this podcast is one of the ways that we can do that. And the best way that you can help support us is by giving us a review.

0:16 So if you go to Apple podcast or Spotify or whatever podcast platform you use, Scroll down until you find that star review and then give us some love. Thank you so much, and let's get started with this week's episode. Welcome back to the In Movement podcast.

0:32 This is one of your hosts, Michael Henry in the house. And we have a returning guest. Actually, John Cork is here in the house. Welcome, John to the podcast. Thanks so much, Michael. So John's been on the podcast a few times, I think in the 120 episode range somewhere.

0:50 He came in and shared 3 episodes with us where he talked a lot about his story and retreats and things like that. And this was several years ago now, so John has been staying with me for the last, I don't even know, a week or so.

1:01 He's been in Bali hosting another retreat actually. And things have changed. Things have shifted for John and I'm excited to have him back on the podcast and share his news story, his new perspective. Yeah, Thanks so much.

1:15 It's we were thinking about this yesterday of we don't even know how many days it's been that I've been staying here, which is like such a good sign. I feel like no, no time has existed in the vortex of Bali and being under the same roof.

1:30 So what does that mean from a from like a brain perspective, it's like the it's like the prefrontal cortex is like feeling at ease. You can just flow state. We were talking about that with breath work yesterday. Time just dilates because you get so lost in what you're doing that that part, like you said, the prefrontal cortex just kind of goes offline for lack of lack of a better way to say it.

1:53 And yeah, you have that feeling of just being in flow. It's like just time of bliss. It's there's no time. It's just bliss. Yeah, it's one of my measuring sticks with people. I tell people, you know, I advocate people find meditative states, but we think of meditation is sitting with your eyes closed and your thumb and your first finger touching. And it doesn't have to be that.

2:14 I think it's any time that you lose track of time and space. And that could be, you know, a good measuring stick when you're with somebody. And we've all been there where, you know, you're sitting with somebody and it's like the seconds are dragging by and you just can't wait to get out of the situation, the conversation. And then on the flip side, if you're with somebody that you truly love and love to be around, right? Like we did a podcast the other

2:37 day, my podcast, and it was like an hour and 15 minutes. And I couldn't believe at the end it was an hour and 15 minutes 'cause it was just so much fun. So it's a good measuring stick. Yeah. When you lose track of time and space, that's a.

2:49 Yeah, it's your very present probably too. What's happening instead of worrying about when is it going to end? Yeah. And people that help you get into that state or something, some activity that helps you get into that state is like star it, put a pin in it, go do it as often as you possibly can.

3:04 Yeah, bookmark that. Great. Well, maybe let's just assume some some people don't know who you are. And let's give like a short little preview of yeah, who are you? Yeah, You know, I've been on quite a interesting journey personally, professionally and grew up in and around New York City and Long Island. Super kind of fast-paced, like environment, a lot of frenetic energy.

3:30 And my kind of first working life was as ATV producer in New York City. So I worked for a company called Bleacher Port, which is I think stole the second biggest sports website in the world and was working deadline jobs and super high level stress and burnout and just existential dread of like, what am I doing with my life?

3:49 Because on paper everything looked really good. But internally and existentially, I felt really bad. And so was lucky enough to get fired from that job in my late 20s and took a step back. And, you know, yoga was something that was giving me reprieve, and it was giving me the sense of not only that I was feeling good, but that there was some other intrinsic meaning to life. And there was something past all the physicality and the the doing and the being that there

4:18 was. Yeah. Just like something that you could go to that was deeper and deeper inside myself, but also community, etcetera. And so became a yoga teacher, taught around the New York City area in New Jersey, where I lived in Hoboken for a couple years and then was burning out on that because as you know, like teaching full time is quite an undertaking, you know, 1516, sometimes 20 classes a week. And that's where retreats came in. Retreats became this idea that I

4:44 kind of needed to step back personally and that if other people are interested in that as well, that I could kind of take them on a on a journey and take them a little deeper into some of the things that I was getting curious about.

4:54 Meditation, breath work, metaphysics, just metacognition, the internal journey. And as soon as I did my first one in Costa Rica, I was like, oh, this is I come on to something that was a light bulb, that was a flow state moment, you know, where time sits still. I had a blast.

5:09 I and I was just like pretty good at it pretty quickly. And I knew it kind of brought together a lot of my skill sets and I was like, OK, there's something here. Moved out to California after a couple years of doing retreats just internationally. Started a company where I did a lot of retreats local to Southern California and still travelled. Came to Bali about a bunch, but basically built this company, Socal Wellness Retreats, and I've done 53 retreats now over the last eight years, which is,

5:31 yeah, pretty wild number of retreats to do. And then just in the last year kind of. Started to burn out again and I have this fun mechanism where I get really into stuff and I do it a little too much and then I have to like. Step back and kind of recalibrate and yeah, just decided, you know, I don't want to be doing this amount of retreats.

5:47 It's not feeling fun. It's not feeling exciting anymore. I started to get into doing one-on-one work with people and really taking some of the new skill sets that I developed and going deeper down the rabbit hole of them in their life and getting more intimate about their journey, right? Because like when you get somebody on a retreat, you get a little taste of who they are for a few days and there's an openness and a vulnerability that comes and then. They leave and you leave and

6:08 you're like, just, I want to continue to go deeper and further and help and support and so. Yeah, this, this new venture literally started, I was telling you about it a year ago when we were together in Bali. And I was like, I don't know how this is going to work.

6:21 I was like, I've never been like a coach before. Air coats. I'm like, but this is what I want. And so now a year later, it's manifested into quite a cool new way to kind of offer myself and my services to the world while still wanting to do retreats.

6:36 But also, yeah, just becoming consistently like a new version of myself and being we've talked a lot in the last week that I've been here about being very open, you know, and I love that about you is watching you operate. You're like, I don't know.

6:50 I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow exactly. Like I don't know how this is going to work or flow. I'm going to kind of TuneIn and tap in. And I feel like I've been in a perpetual state of that ever since I decided on this very new path.

7:00 And it's been so scary at times, but really fun and really nourishing. And so, yeah, that's kind of the State of the Union now. Like it's you said, I just did a retreat here, which was super fun, had an amazing group and so much fun. Smaller than I used to do, you know, nine guests where I've known as many as 25 here, but people I really knew and people I was really connected to.

7:21 And so that shift feels really good. You know, I've kind of changed some structures of my business, just hired this awesome woman to come in and support and do some of the things I'm not great at, which was like a big, big boy moment for me, like a big level up.

7:34 So like a lot has shifted and changed. I was on a healing journey for the last couple years with a really bad back injury. Had a basically full stop teaching yoga which. Was kind of sad in a way, and it's been such a big part of my life and my DNA for a while.

7:47 But just realistically, it was not in the cards for me. And I had to heal myself, you know, first. And so, yeah, there's, there's been a lot of big, huge moving parts and shifting in the last 18 months to two years. But I feel as excited and as like optimistic about what's going to unfold, even though I feel way less planned out about it, which might sound weird if you're listening to this, but yeah, so I don't know. That was a pretty.

8:17 I know you said a short version, but I feel like. Yeah, I mean, you gave us like full synopsis. Well, that's good hearing you talk about it is it's nice because it's you kind of see the evolution of John, you know, very quick. But you know, say you gave us a full version of it basically without the increment details, previous podcasts, I'm sure you mentioned more details if you're actually interested to learn more about it and you can obviously listen to John's full story and different perspective,

8:43 you know, so this is again several years later. So my question for you is, having just kind of shared that overarching helicopter view of you up to this point in particularly the last several years, how does it feel to reflect on the changes in the evolution that has happened with you? Yeah, since some of these things that have have happened, like, you know, some of these injuries that you've had to endure and heal from which made you have to pivot and change directions and, you know, misalignments and

9:13 things like that. Like just kind of like an overarching, like not so much a quantitative perspective, but more of like energetic perspective of like how, how is that all been feeling for you? Like what is some takeaways from you? Like, what are some big lessons that you've learned in this experience over the last several years which has allowed you to shift?

9:31 Yeah, I think I'm really proud of the fact that. I've just gotten. Really raw and honest about who I am and how I want to show up in the world. And I think I've dissolved a lot of masks or a lot of performative ways of being that we do, you know, we, we try to fit maybe a certain mold. And we talked about this on the last podcast. When you're a yoga teacher, you know, your initial yoga teaching sort of voice is kind of an amalgamation of your teachers, right?

9:58 You're taking ways that they cue things or the way that they brought you in and out of something or, you know, the way they, you know, just this is what you're doing, you're kind of mimicking. And then you kind of have to find your own voice. And then I think you have to get really honest about the things that still stick and then the things that you need to kind of prune away.

10:15 And there's been a lot of pruning away in the last couple years, right? Of like saying, hey, the size of my retreats is a great example where like I used to want to fill 20 to 25 spots. And now it's like I'm very happy with having a small container of like maybe even 6 to 8 people.

10:32 But if they're really aligned with me and I can make a big impact on them and they really resonate with the work that I do, that that is a greater good than some kind of measuring stick of how many people are going to calm or how lucrative is it going to be Or you know, so I think that like a hyper authenticity and a hyper realism about who I am and how I want to show up. I'm really proud of and cultivated through a lot of the things that I always advocate

10:57 for people, right, which is to spend time. You know, we were talking this morning about the inward journey and the people we want to spend time with. They have some kind of practice of that, be it meditation, yoga, you know, but it's it's really important to to not only.

11:12 Teach people to do that, but practice it right. Like we need to check in and make sure am I actually operating in a way that I want to and you know, I had to frankly like. Disinvest energy from certain people and even certain things like teaching yoka that have been such a big part of my life for such a long time.

11:30 I just had to say this doesn't serve me in this chapter and I need to like free up bandwidth by taking some energy away so there's people that I don't call or really talk to that much. Anymore. And some of them are, you know, we're pretty close to me, and that's OK, you know, And I think there's a part of me that my ego would have been hurt, you know, I would have been sad or upset. Or kind of clinging on to a way that it used to be and I'm just very free of like, no, if it's

11:56 not serving now, then it doesn't. It doesn't need your attention, doesn't need your energy. So that's been massive. And I think something about turning 40 did that for me too. I just, I got like, OK. We've turned a corner here of like 40 years old.

12:09 They feel like I'm like older now. Like I'm like, I don't have time like this, get off my lawn kind of thing. Like I don't have time for it anymore. And yeah, something fundamentally shifted when that number came. I don't know what it was, but it just, I could feel this like, yeah, I don't have to impress people anymore as much.

12:27 Don't worry about that, you know, Yeah, so that was probably the biggest 1, I think. Well, that's interesting because we were talking before about the power of psychology and the mind and, you know, the, the concept of age, which is, I wasn't expecting to go here, but you mentioned it and it makes me think about it as well. And there was a person who's the person? The person is Morgan Freeman.

12:49 Most people know who he is. Someone asked him a question of I forgot how old he is, in his 80s, I think. And the question was like, what's your secret to, to growing older or, you know, aging? And his response was to not let the old man in.

13:09 Don't let the old man in, which is kind of a psychological thing of like, OK, I am getting older. I'm hitting 40 and 5060, whatever. And it's like, are you going to allow that to bring you down or are you going to maybe pivot, adjust, but not necessarily endure the truth of like, I am getting older and I can't do these things anymore.

13:31 But I also think there's truth behind that. So I'm not trying to like undermine what you said. I'm mostly mostly just trying to inform the idea of like, it's kind of a backwards battle. I feel like it's like you're, you have to acknowledge the fact that, yes, there is aging happening and things change, but also at the same time, like it doesn't necessarily mean what, you know, certain definitions might mean about getting older, Like if you're getting older,

13:54 you or just, you know, you can't do those things anymore or whatever. It might just be like, actually I just see the value in things more. And I don't have time for that now because my perspective has changed, yeah. I think more like, in a sense, I look at it as like a positive thing.

14:09 I look at it as like, you know, memento Mori, like remember that you will die, you know, like I just. Became. It's like reprioritizing, almost. Yeah, I just became more acutely aware of like that there is only so much time and energy and bandwidth, right? And you're only going to get so much more of it from this point forward.

14:28 But you could do that at any age, right? Like you could be very acutely aware. I think some people are at younger ages and some people it just hits later, you know? But it's like you just, you have to get really selective about where you're going.

14:41 I, I tell people I do this process with people a lot where we look at their energy as like an investment strategy and money really resonates with people, right? They're very careful about how they spend and disseminate it, but sometimes not so much with their energy, which is kind of crazy, right? But I say, let's lay it out like a portfolio, you know, and let's see where are the investments right now and where's the good return on investments?

15:01 And if you just give people that kind of macro view of it, they're just like, whoa, I'm on Instagram for two hours a day. That's not bringing me closer to who I want to be, you know, and I think that's an important component too, is like, I call it your GPS coordinator, your North Star.

15:16 Like you have to really define who you're becoming. Like who do you want to become? What are the things that you want to create in your life? And then if you get acutely aware that there's only so much time and energy and bandwidth to create that, I don't know, it just like laser focused me into that. Like I don't have time to waste on people or activities that aren't serving that end goal of getting me closer. And that doesn't always mean doing more. That actually can sometimes mean

15:39 more pause, which we've talked a lot about, or more time to be introspective. Yeah, this wisdom that kind of came through just, again, like an idea, like, I'm only going to have however many. And you don't even know, right?

15:53 You literally have no idea. But something about hitting that benchmark and hitting that number on the calendar was just like, like, I want to be really careful about what I what I'm building and what I want to put energy into and who I want to put energy into. Yeah, yeah, That can happen at 253035, potentially 20, but probably not usually.

16:12 You're that young. You're just like, I'm young, I can do whatever I want. Life's great. Yeah. But there's also the element. Just can you mention like what that North Star and kind of like setting your sails, if you will, in a direction?

16:26 I would say that some people probably like, oh, that sounds cool, but like, I don't actually know what I want. Yeah. What do you say to that? How often do you get quiet? I mean, how often do you actually pause? Because we can logically try to work out the equation of life an infinite amount of ways.

16:43 And our brain is such a beautiful thing. I mean, it has incredible potential to problem solve and to go forward and to draw back from past experiences. But most of the people that I encounter who have found that true purpose and have that North Star, there's an element and whether they're actually creating or cultivating a quote UN quote air quote, meditation practice, or they just go on walks with no distraction or they just spend time in reflection. Those are typically the people

17:14 that have honed that ability to be more, I would call it intuitive, right, about how they're moving through the world. So if you don't have a pause, if you don't have a practice of slowing down, I would say just cultivating 10/15/12, like start with a low bar, like of just nothingness for a few moments out of the day and just see like, what clarity and perspective exists there, like truly undistracted, which is really hard in the West, you know, like no phone, like nothing.

17:50 We talked about nature a bit too. I think that's a really powerful potion. But yeah, it's, it's in the pause. It's in there. It's just it's very enigmatic. It's very enigmatic to think you're going to quote UN quote, get something out of doing nothing.

18:04 It's like this reverse equation that we can't, I don't think always do like we want to be able to order it or get it, you know, like enlightenment comes through Amazon kind of thing. It's like it doesn't work that way. You. Send me the link for that.

18:15 Yeah, I wish I had it, dude. Yeah. So infusing it a bit of that energy component of, you know, this, you can use a simple example of like 2 hours on Instagram versus 15 minutes in stillness and quiet. It's like, it's so easy to burn through two hours of Instagram.

18:30 In fact, you might even feel a little bit of shame afterwards if you're just like, oh shit, I've just been on the gram for a long time scrolling and like, I feel drained and like, you know, there might even be that psychological battle.

18:40 Like I know I shouldn't be doing this and there's other things that I could be doing that are better. But then obviously, there's the chemistry of your body that's kind of just now, you know, almost in this like flow of dopamine confusion, let's just call it.

18:54 But I think just how about even the pause before you interact with those things, right? Right. Like there's that 2 seconds before you actually open the app or you actually like, why are you doing? Like, how many of us like have opened Instagram with no purpose? And that's usually when you get lost in the in the sauce, right? Yeah, sometimes the purpose is like, I just want to be entertained or I just want to like look at something funny or I just want to like fill the

19:17 space, you know? So yeah, I guess it is questioning like do you need to fill the space? Opt in. Or or you could even just be like, give yourself a buffer before you fill the space. Like what's another five, 10-15 minutes before you fill the space? Yeah, I was reading something recently where they talked about how Instagram and the dopamine that it gives, because there's no challenge, it's really what erodes our relationship with dopamine.

19:46 So if you do want to scroll, which like you can find value in that, right? Like we've all found an event or seen something inspiring, or we were just talking about DMS. Like I have communities of people for pickleball and different things where we communicate through that.

20:00 So I I don't want to totally delete it, right? But do you do anything that actually feels like maybe you earn that 15 minutes of Instagram? And that was like a real like, whoa, that like stopped me in my tracks, right? So even if I just read a book for 30 minutes to earn maybe 10 minutes on Instagram or something, right? Like just a little buffer where there's something that's a little harder or I have to like, you know, like the cause and effect of getting the result,

20:25 you know, from the hard work. I was like, that makes a lot like I understand it spiritually, neurologically. I was like, that really hit, you know? It's self parenting basically. You're just kind of you're just basically saying, OK. Can't have the iPad till you eat the broccoli, you know. Basically, yeah, you know, and that's the the chemistry behind that is really important if you're just teaching your body to understand that it gets this dopamine from without effort. It's just it's a very draining

20:55 component. Let's just say, you know, without getting too much into the science behind it, I think Huberman is has a podcast where he talks a lot about that. So, but yeah, I think about that often actually. I'm just like, oh, like I'm in this dopamine kind of like swirl and I'm just like, you know, I wish I could be better using my hormones. You know what I mean, 'cause that obviously infuses how you feel and it infuses your energy levels. It infuses a lot of things like

21:20 your hormones. You have thousands of hormones running and, you know, secreting throughout your body. And it's what we do dictates how they ultimately do what they do. Yeah, yeah. And the last little piece this guy talked about was, I have to dig this up so I can reference it better, but he talked about how, you know, if you're bored and you reach for these things that, you know, help you to not feel bored, the saturation of that thing will eventually be

21:46 the boredom, right? So now you're bored by doing the thing that used to get out of being bored and that. That's a terrible cycle to be in because that's where people run into like real like depression and existential dread of like they don't have any kind of feeling of true excitement about anything, right? Whereas again, at least if there's a payoff, right component to it.

22:07 You know, I remember years ago I was at an event and it's like really inspiring guy got up and talked about how, you know, there's just always like these things that we engage in that we know like we're going to feel good in the moment, but they're not really moving us closer to where we want to be.

22:21 And then he's like, and then there's something we engage in that we know every time we do it, every time we do it, it brings us closer to who we want to be. And as he's saying this, I'm like, the -1 for me is like smoking weed. I'm like, I know I like it in the moment, but then I feel bad about it afterwards.

22:36 My lungs hurt. I'm not as like, you know, I eat too much, all this kind of stuff. And the thing that he was like, oh, what's the thing? If you did it, you'd be and I was like meditating. I was like, I like resist it so much.

22:48 But then after I do it, I know I'm like closer to who I want to be. And then his last thing was like, well, what if you replaced that first behavior with the second? Like every time I thought to smoke weed, I meditated and I was like, I was like, man.

23:03 And it didn't take in that moment where I like immediately shifted. But over time and now in like the last year, basically I stopped smoking weed completely. And I, every time I get that urge, I meditate instead. Holy crap. Like do I feel more like on task, on point, more pointed at that GPS coordinate than I've ever been in my child. And it took me, this was like years ago, like 5 or 6 years ago that I heard this.

23:28 And it got better, you know, over time, like I slowly swapped, slowly swapped, slowly swapped. But eventually when I was able to fully like shift it, you know, to always doing that second behavior when I want to do the first behavior, man, like what a game changer.

23:45 Yeah, basically that's a, you know, proponent of habits, healthy habits. You know, we, we get in these routines of things that we do and some of them are good and some of them are not as good, let's say. And some of the not so good ones.

23:59 Yeah, it's OK to have some of those. It's like a little elements of it and you want to scroll, but it's also like how can we create better habits? And you know, there's all elements about that, but that legal Indiana Jones swap. And if you're too young to understand that, then I can't help.

24:11 You. I was going to say how many of our legenders are. I can't help you, but it's basically replacing one thing with another thing as opposed to just completely removing something. Because if you remove something, there's a void there and there's a withdrawal and there's a confusion within your system, your hormones, your all that stuff.

24:26 Just doesn't know how to compute it. But if you're able to kind of swap it out, kind of like almost where you're confusing your system to be like, oh, this is, hey, look at this thing. But actually like this thing isn't this shiny or nicer. And then your system might be like, oh cool, I guess I can deal with that instead.

24:41 And then all of a sudden that becomes your new routine. Yeah. And you like, a new anchor, a new anchor point. Yeah. I think about this a lot with, like, after I got injured, there was like a pretty long journey back to just health and then also like, weight loss because I just, you know, I was reaching for food as like, a way to feel good, you know?

25:00 And it was humbling. I mean, it was humbling at 40, right? That like it doesn't just happen the same way it does at 25 or even 30. And that was again where I had to get like, OK, if there's, you know, if I'm going to start to fast or whatever, like strategy I'm going to take in fasting, which is one that worked for me.

25:19 I'm going to bump up against moments where I want to break the fast and I want to eat and I want to do like, OK, like breath work or what is the activity going for a walk, like right at that threshold where it's like, no, I can't, I can't go any further. Can I just have some anchor point? Can I have some replaceive behavior that allows me to stretch that comfort zone a little bit further And like those little micro wins, you know, and if you can just keep winning those little micro

25:44 battles over the long haul, you know, you end up stacking so many of those wins, you're going to see the results, you know, and I'm not like, exactly where I want to be yet. But man, like from two years ago to now, like health is way different. And like I've been able to lose probably almost 20 lbs like in the last like 12 to 18 months.

26:05 But it really, again, you talked about the psychology, like it, it starts between your ears. It all starts between your ears, you know, like, what's your relationship to these things? And do you actually have some kind of plan of action?

26:17 And then like, what's your accountability? Do you have a coach? Do you have some kind of support? I think that's huge too, you know, and that's part of the reason I want to get into one-on-one because I like seeing the kind of micro, you know, improvements that people make, as I know over the long haul, like the trajectory changes. It's more sustainable.

26:35 It's gonna actually, like, stick. Absolutely. Yeah. So thinking about like, you know, you still do retreats. You're here and you just finished a retreat. Yeah. You know, breath work is a big component now that you really, you know, you're really diving into more. So.

26:48 So we can speak to that. Yeah. But the question that I'm thinking is this like, you know, doesn't necessarily have to be this last retreat, but any retreats. Is there things or lessons that kind of come through that you see that people really have these aha moments that almost helps to set them towards a North Star or helps them to release?

27:03 Or is there anything there that kind of comes through for you with that? Yeah, such a such a good question. I would say 2 of the biggest takeaways I have is that we do a lot of work around self limiting beliefs. And to a man, like the most common self limiting belief from people that are crazy high achievers, like objectively, if you looked at them on paper, you'd be like, this is a full life.

27:25 Like they've done a lot work professionally, they've done like family building, they've gone on trips, they've like lived a full robust life supplement belief. I'm not good enough. Like I, I don't do enough, right? And then on the other side of the section, people who are lost and you don't need that.

27:43 Like, OK, how do I even start to find what I'm passionate about? Their biggest barrier entry of that is like, I just don't feel worthy of it, right? So I would say like that has been a common, common theme. Like I've been shocked at how many times like just that simple belief is not there.

28:02 And then now in the last couple years, digging more into nervous system, we're kind of revisiting even energy work and chakras and like, how do we liberate energy to move it up and to get people like in a state of they do feel worthy right to receive or they are getting into a more intuitive state.

28:21 But the biggest thing is that people need to feel safe. Like there is no evolution that happens until people feel safe in their body, safe in their nervous system. Like that the walls aren't keeping it. And I get it. Like if you're listening to this, like we're sitting here in Bali, I just did a retreat.

28:40 Like, you know, we're experts and specialists in this kind of stuff, lots of yoga and training, all this kind of stuff. And you could look at the world and be like, yeah, how the hell do I feel safe when everything feels expensive, wars are everywhere, etcetera.

28:53 And like there is a path, there is a way, you know, because we in the, you know, pantheon of everything that's going on, really what we have control over is us. We have control over ourselves. And that's my favorite part of kind of shifting from retreats into still loving retreats, but doing more. The one-on-one work is you give people that like direct kind of brunt, like, you know, force like of like it's your responsibility to figure out how to cultivate that and create that for yourself despite what's

29:22 happening, you know, outside of you. And I've worked with people where, I mean, we're talking heavy like trauma like. All the reasons in the world to believe that they're not safe and that not nothing's going to be OK, not even that everything's going to be like nothing's going to be OK. And when they really honed in on that internal dialogue and that internal journey and they shifted it, their whole reality just shifted and changed.

29:48 And what could have been decades of repressed and pushed down emotions and energy that was just stuck and not able to be liberated. It's like a friggin Vulcan. And it's so gratifying to watch because they're like, I didn't know that life could feel like this, you know?

30:03 But if you do not create an environment of safety within yourself and you don't convince yourself that things are working out, whatever that looks like for you and defining what that looks like for you is really important.

30:16 But man, there's just, there's no room. There's no room physiologically, your body's not going to repair itself. You're not going to digest food well, you're not going to sleep well. Like it all starts on that nervous system level.

30:26 And it's challenging for a lot of us. I mean, and again, it's easy to look objectively at the world and be like, Oh no, like it's like not a whole lot of reason to be optimistic and like that things are going to be OK. And I promise you, you can you, you get, it's hard, it takes work, but it's so rewarding and it's so worth it.

30:47 You know, 'cause most of what we're challenged by, most of what we feel, I'll from Yeah, starts at a heavy sign of just can you tell your body and tell your nervous system. Like it's going to be OK if you're listening, it's going to be OK. What about the component of people who, I mean, obviously getting to that stage, you need to become aware of it, you know, so if you're listening to this podcast, that's, yeah, you can't change what you're not tuned

31:18 into. So that's one thing. The second thing is the time component. We talked about this before the podcasts and like this story of there's not enough time, you know, I need to be efficient and whatever, whatever. Like I can't slow down.

31:32 I can't pause. I can't, you know, do these things and in order to feel safe, what do you need to do? Yeah, I mean, it's such a great question. And I think about things like this a lot, the different challenges that so many different people face.

31:46 And even, you know, we've talked a lot, you know, this week together about just how many people there are, how many human experiences there are in the world and how we're just so not aware of what so many of those journeys look like.

32:01 You know, you can look at Instagram, you can look through the lens of social media and you can see a lot of challenge, You can see a lot of immorality, you can see a lot of injustice. And I don't pretend to have the answers of understanding what everybody's journey looks like, right?

32:15 Because somebody who's digging themselves out of a war zone right now or who's, you know, literally like fearing for like where their next meal is going to come from. I don't think just telling them to meditate and do breath work is going to do a whole lot right?

32:28 Like they there needs to be some kind of intervention there for them to be able to actually get to any semblance of like literal existential safety before they can evolve. And there is a percentage of population that is there.

32:40 And I don't have any answers for those people. I think if I look through the lens of like what I'm more intimately like connected to, which is people in the West, do we have tons of challenges? Absolutely. Do we also kind of make the excuse that we don't have time?

32:56 And we really do? I think so. Like one of the first exercises I do with people is when they give me that feedback or push back, you know, like they don't have enough time. I'm like, OK, cool, take out your cell phone. OK, Open up the part where it tells you like all the time that you spend just on the phone itself. And then also like on individual labs, like, is there 30 minutes in there?

33:16 Yeah, there's 30 minutes in there. I'm like, well, can we start with that? Like, yeah, sure. You know, so like that's a really easy like point of entry, you know, because I can't again measure what everybody's life is. I don't know what it's like to have.

33:31 We were talking about I have a neighbor that has five kids and three dogs. I have no idea what that existence is like. That person may not have 30 minutes. They may, I don't know, you know, that would be, that would be close, you know, but I think.

33:43 5 minutes on that one maybe? Yeah. But even that, like I knew I had a, a, a client that I worked with and she had five kids and she would go out in the garage and she would lock herself in her minivan for the 1st 2530 minutes a day. And she would meditate in there because that was the only place like she could go and knew, like she would get peace. And I tell the story of her often because it actually grew to where her family started to realize how important it was for her.

34:07 And then she like built a meditation room in her house. And I get so many people that like build spaces in their house specifically for the pause, whatever their meditation practice looks like. And you just you start to move it up the packing order, you start to move it up your priority list, right? I can tell you all of the physiological benefits of being more relaxed and safe and calm, right? You and I could sit here and have a whole podcast, right? I'm like, what that does for you

34:32 neurologically and how your body starts to up regulate proteins and you literally become, you know, a happier, healthier person. But until somebody believes in it and believes in the the importance of it in their life, it's just always going to kind of wane in the background, you know? So it's like you have to, if you're listening to this, this side that it has an importance to you. Maybe you know, people, you know, people that have taken on some yoga classes or started

35:00 meditating and you're like, oh, they're different. Like something shifted or something changed. Or maybe you just know something's broken and it's not working and you've tried a lot of different things. You feel pretty good when you exercise or you know, you know, if you do something that feels nourishing to you, like spending time with loved ones or eating a really good meal, you get these little slices you know of where life feels good, but still like

35:23 something brewing behind the eyes is not 100% there. Well, then again, I would say to you, like how much time are you in the pause? How much time are you actually spending working on what's going on between your ears? Mental health has never been worse, I don't think in the United States and probably abroad too.

35:41 I'm like meeting a lot of Europeans here who like same thing. Like it doesn't feel fun for them either, right? So at what point are we going to start to prioritize and decide that this is important? And but that's for the individual.

35:54 Like I said, I'm not acutely aware of 8 billion people's challenges and stuff. I can only say anecdotally. And then also it works with thousands of people now I can say like the people that take down that challenge and take on that journey, they pretty much like universally across the border like yes, this was worth it.

36:14 Way higher success rate than pharmaceuticals, way higher success rate than just about any kind of matter to matter Western solution that we have, especially as far as like mental health is concerned. So, and then within that, there's so many resources, so many ways up the mountain, right? People say, I don't know which app to download or which meditation teacher to pick or it's like just do one. We're just sit in silence to start, start, get curious about it.

36:40 Be more curious about that than like what the Kardashians are doing. You know, if you can start to create this as something that's important for you, again, it will find you will find time for it. You will find a way to make it a part of your life, you know.

36:55 What's important to you, John? What's your North Star? What's your yeah? What drives you? What an awesome question. I think radical authenticity is something I've been thinking a ton about. You know, just how can I show up as like the truest version of myself? Not pull any punches, not put on any masks, just really be like insanely like honest about who I am and how I want to show up. And then within that, how can I just uplift as many situations and as people as I possibly can

37:25 without over giving, you know, without, at the expense of then, you know, corrupting or harming myself 'cause that's been something that I've done. I've done that a lot. I've over given, I've over. Yeah. And so how do I protect my own peace, make sure I feel safe, make sure I feel ready to create, And then how do I just give as much of that to people as I possibly can?

37:49 Yeah. But it it really starts with getting intimately aware of like who I am almost like on a moment to moment basis, Like what is this moment need for me? What do I need to serve in this moment? You know, like a level of presence that I don't know if I've ever been in before, you know?

38:07 Yeah. Lovely. So where should we go from here? I'm thinking maybe we could talk a little bit more about breath work. I think breath work is something that, well, for example, when you let Christina and I through a private breath work, breath work session yesterday in our home, which I've already said thank you, but I'll say one more time.

38:28 That was so welcome, beautiful experience. And you know, you incorporate that in your retreats in probably your own practice. So it's just tell me a little bit about that world for you, like breath work, what does it mean to you, you know, and why do you continue to use it and share it with other people? Like, what is it about it that you find is so useful? Yeah.

38:47 I mean, I think, you know, I just touched upon how when people start on the journey of a meditative practice or, you know, metacognition or going inward, it's just a fancy way of saying going inward. I think we can get confused or lost or frustrated on like which tools to use or which way to go up the mountain. And breathwork to me just always made such sense in terms of, you know, if I was God and I was creating a human being and I wanted to give it a tool, right,

39:18 that would allow it to go into these kind of altered states of consciousness or have a meditative experience. What's something that I could give to every single one of them, right? That literally is hidden right underneath your nose, Like literally it's right in plain sight, right? It just makes perfect sense, right? And any of you that have meditated taken a yoga class, you know, you've heard probably at nauseam, right, that there's always an instruction to watch

39:45 your breath and just become aware of your breath and so many lineages, right? It's the first kind of instruction that they give you, right? It's just sit and become aware of your breath. So that was a really easy lean in for me when I first discovered breath or I was like, yeah, I've been a yoga teacher for a while. I tell the story of, you know, the first time I actually started.

40:06 Decided I wanted to start meditating. I'd been a yoga teacher already for a couple years, but I kind of dismissed the meditation part. Very physical practice, not a very meditative thing. And so I sat down, set a clock for 15 minutes.

40:18 I thought that was like a super attainable goal. And I freaked out and I couldn't sit for even halfway. I mean, it's a 7 minutes, 27 seconds. And I looked down. I was like, whoa, it's going to be a long journey. And so when I discovered breath work mostly through Jodispensen Wimhoff method and the now dabbled in a bunch of different things, but it was a key lock.

40:41 It was like a really like profound like whoa, like meditation was at like a six and now it's at like a nine or a 9.5. Like I am going deep. I'm having out of body experiences. I really feel like I'm connecting to intuition and like a profound way and call it God, spirit, universe, 0 point consciousness, whatever you want.

41:04 I was touching that. I was hitting that like I was starting to find that never had that meditation before. It's so interesting though, because you know, in this last two years I've mentioned I've had this healing journey with my, my back and breath work has always been a pretty intense practice for me, like trying to achieve these altered states.

41:25 And then after I would feel these like deeply meditative states. But what I realized with my back injury was that I was like pushing the gas down with everything. Like I was going hard with the cold plunging and the hockey and weights and all the stuff.

41:40 And I like intuitively knew I needed to like back off on the breath, like I needed it to be a gentle like now when I breathe in the morning, it's like so slow. And so someone, it's all through the nose. And it's like totally different than what I let you let you and Christina through yesterday. So the thing I love about it is it's like a Swiss army knife. Like there's so many ways to use and manipulate your breath to achieve different outcomes.

42:04 Like it is this incredibly powerful and diverse tool, you know, and I mean, I've read James Nestor's book like 3 times, you know, his, his breath book. And you know, all of this evidence of all the things it does for you physiologically. And I mean, it's literally your body's best detoxifier is your respiration, is your, is your breathing. It can improve your performance physically. I mean, it, it does like a myriad of things like you, there's no, what I love about it

42:38 is like, there's no pushback. Like if somebody says to me like, oh, breath work isn't useful, Like you can't tell me that you can't, you can't. Like there's just too many things, now that I know about it, that no matter what you're struggling with or dealing with, if you breathe better, you will feel better and get healthier. Like period, drop the mic, end of story. You know, so I love that and you and I are both pretty sciency and there's so much good science

43:03 around it. And then again, the accessibility like anybody can breathe. Anybody can manipulate the way they breathe. And I encourage you like find some tools, find someone allies. I have tons of stuff you know on inside timer and YouTube.

43:15 Like there's vast different resources and teachers but. Just get in the get in the play box a little bit. Feel what it's like to breathe a little faster, breathe a little slower, breathe through your mouth, breathe through your nose, hold your breath. Like just get curious.

43:28 Like get curious about your breathing when you're stuck in traffic and it's like pissing you off. Just watch yourself breathe for a couple seconds, take 5 conscious breaths and notice if it doesn't shift like your state of being, I think you'll find that it will, you know?

43:42 And lastly, I would say I think it's a doorway into the subconscious. I think if you think about the fact that you breathe unconsciously throughout whatever percentage of the day that is for you, for a lot of us, it's probably 9598%, right? But the fact that you can switch and make it a conscious activity and change it, manipulate it and switch it, right, which you like, almost can't do that with any function of your body, right?

44:05 I think in that way, to me, it's always felt like such a unique and apparent doorway into the deeper layers of yourself. Like you can feel how it comes in and out of your body. You can feel how it's literally changing your shape as you become more aware of what you're doing with it.

44:22 And in that way, it's like doorway into your deeper parts of yourself. I mean, it's it's been a game changer for my mental health. I mean, I almost would go so far as to say is like it's saved my life in some ways. Like when I was really down and out, like, you know, it just it was there. It's like something that I was like, OK, I have this in my walks.

44:46 I can go to this, you know, and I would say as a teacher, as a facilitator, it's the biggest needle mover for people. Like when I get them up early and I, you know, they resisted sometimes getting out of bed early and there's no speaking and retreats in the morning. I want people to be in a really clear, unaltered stay. And I lay them down and we throw on the masks. They don't know day one that they're about to go in for like 60 plus minutes.

45:11 And these are people someone that have never meditated a day a minute in their entire life. And I take them through a very similar experience. Not as quite as I told you and Christina, you guys were a little more advanced.

45:21 I took you guys a little further, but I take people pretty deep, like day one and they come out of that and they're like, holy crap. Like I had something shifted me. I felt psychedelic. I got a message. I visited my dad, dead grandmother.

45:37 I saw fractals. I saw the other side of the matrix. Like, I mean, there's so many like crazy experiences that people have and boom, one session. And I love the slow drip of meditation and how like how it takes time to go deeper and get good at it. But it's hard.

45:54 It's hard for people. And so this is more real, it's more somatic. They can feel it. They can feel that shift and that change in themselves. And that's like a beautiful way as a facilitator to get them in the door. You know, like, look, I'm going to give you some other things too, but look, how powerful something just as simple as breath it can be.

46:14 And you put on some binaural beats and you make the temperature of the room just right. Like you got to kind of massage it a bit. But man, is that fun to see. People just have that world literally rocked by how powerful breathing can be.

46:27 And I'm like, you're doing it. Yeah, you're listening to my instruction, but you're the one inhaling and exhaling and inhaling and exhaling and holding your breath Like you made that. You created that. Wow, what a cool light bulb moment.

46:39 So fun. The breath is so simple yet so profound. I say it so many times and it's like I can just fall on deaf ears so easily because it's just like breathing. It's like, what else you got? What else? What else can I do to fix my shit? It's like, well, you know, we talked about safety feeling, you know, basically safe in your environment. I mean, the breath, you said it was the doorway to me. It's the window, You know, another way in the sense of like, how are you breathing?

47:05 That's a window to how you're feeling. So if your breath, you're unaware of your breath and your breath is being restricted in certain areas of your body or you're just not even aware when you aren't breathing and you are holding your breath, situations, conversations, positions of your body, that is an indication of your safety.

47:26 If you don't, yeah, if you do not feel safe, if you do not feel safe, your breath will change. And if you want to change your relationship with safety within yourself, the breath is your doorway, your window. You know, you got to look through the window 1st and then maybe you find the door and you go through the door however you want to look at it. But the point is, is it can be as simple as that. It can be as simple as that.

47:49 I think in a world we've talked a bit about this and you know, I'm glad we get to touch on it. It's like I was wearing a, a whoop bracelet for a while and I was getting really into calorie counting and all these like measurables and metrics.

48:04 And then recently I just decided no more, you know, like I just took it all off. And I I'm, if you're a data person and you're like into that stuff and it helps you. I love that for you. I think that's amazing. And I just knew for me, like simpler is better.

48:18 Like, yeah, it requires effort and presence 100%. But like, again, it doesn't have to be this, like, ultra complicated sort of thing. And again, if I was God, or if you want to think of yourself listening to this as God, where would you hide it? Would you make it so that people had to have an aura ring to be healthy or just say no, it's going to be something that's always with them all the time.

48:40 It's literally as simple as like, it's right underneath their nose. I don't know. That makes a lot more sense to me, you know, like, just objectively. Yeah. How do we simplify it? Yeah, life doesn't need to be so complicated. Life appears to be very complicated because there's so much going on, technology, AI, everything's moving so fast. You know, there's a lot of, maybe it's in my world, but I can just see people like thinking about the 90s and how the 90s are different from now.

49:16 And it's like, sure, you can retroactively like, look at that stuff. But like, what is it they're fundamentally looking at is they're probably looking at elements of the health or the mental health of people related to the distractions or the noise or the things that are affecting their nervous system, affecting their sense of safety.

49:32 Yeah, You know, I just recently saw there was a woman on Instagram that's like parenting kids like it's 1995 because she's just like, I don't want my kids to be around these devices. I don't want my kids to be, like, raised in this world where it's like just so chaotic. I rather it just be simple, slow, basic, because from there, that's where safety comes.

49:55 And from there, you can find your North Star, you can find what you want. You can create, you can be of service. You can, you know, enjoy life ultimately, so do. You think we're like heading for a renaissance of that? Do you think like the pendulum is going to like AI and like over automation and all this is going to like, are we at a tipping point where you think people are going to shift and swing back to the other like direction and just want to like really like scale it down and

50:24 like simplify it and maybe get back to villages and semi outdoor living? I don't know, like do you That's in the cards. I think that there's so many people in the world that there will be definitely pockets of that, but I think the trajectory of the general energy of this planet is still going to be that very masculine moving forward.

50:46 Development, technology, fast money, baseline type of motivation. However, I still feel like there is, it's almost like more people are being curious about the other side of it. And I think because of a lot of the uncertainty and a lot of the, you know, I don't know what it was like to be, to be like my parents and the boomers and just like follow the instructions of like what the government tells you and do all these things. And like you'll have safety and

51:16 security and you'll have assurances with your retirement home and, or not retirement home or your retirement funds and all these things. And it was almost like we got you. And that's their, that was their safety. Now it's like it's hard for people to find safety because they're like, I don't even know if I'm going to be able to keep this job.

51:30 I don't even know if this job can afford to sustain me and my family, my kids, my animals, my house. I can't afford all these things. Like that's the buzz that I'm getting from like Jen's ears and maybe some millennials.

51:42 I was just like, I just can't afford to live. I actually just saw an unfortunate clip of this is going to. I don't know when this is going to air, but the someone like set fire to like a a toilet paper factory somewhere in California or something like that.

51:55 I don't know if that's true or not. Can't tell what's true anymore with AI. But like if that's if that's true, the message in the video was just like, I'm doing this because you didn't pay us enough to live, you know, so it's like that sucks.

52:09 You know, it sucks to have that like feeling of like, I just don't feel safe because I don't have those basic needs, right. So it's it's I, I have empathy for those people that it's like, yeah, it's like, you know, finding the stillness, finding that safety. And kind of like what you said, it's like, I don't know what it's like to be people who are dealing with the the the adjacent of the war, just like living in that that place. And it's easy for us to talk

52:32 about, you know, things when you're in already a safe ish space to kind of cultivate more safety. So I think that globally, people will do what they need to do to move forward and they will grasp and they'll hold on to things that will help them, or at least what they think is going to be helpful for them. And some of those things might actually be survival. And survival is part of the nervous system's way of just kind of like keeping you going, right? So if you're not feeling safe,

53:02 survival is kind of what's going to be the overriding factor there. So, yeah, I mean, I would love for to say yes and be like, yes, I, you know, people are going to be moving into this like renaissance of like shift. And maybe that will happen maybe with the generations, you know, passing through, you know, the, the, the, the newer generations will, well, maybe there'll be a shift there.

53:23 You know, I mean, millennials and Gen. Z's are going to be more of the future. At least you know the older population future until like Gen. Alpha and Gen. whatever the other ones are, you're. Saying all these Gen. things, I literally have no idea what they are so.

53:36 Gen. ZS below is underneath millennials. We're both millennials. Got it. And then I think alphas after that and then B and whatever. Who knows? Well, we can be learning stuff today. Yeah. Yeah. But what I'm trying to get is like I even saw something about like drinking like alcohol consumption recently.

53:53 It's like gone way down. Significantly and, and the, the, the conversation was about like looking at generations and how alcohol consumption has shifted or like what was the higher percentage per generation? So for example, I think it was like what are the top five alcohol consuming generations?

54:13 And it was like a guessing game. And like who do you think number one was? Who do you think #1 was boomers? Boomers I think were around like 49%. We know which I just thought of. Boom. Millennials were like 80 something. 80% drink.

54:29 Drink. Yeah, drink. And that was in front of us. When or where millennials is at. Millennials are #1 they were the highest. And that's our generation. That's our generation of consumption of alcohol. Below that we were, we were at the tail end of like the like just over excess for just excesses state sake. You know, I think like the 90s felt so abundant and it felt like we were safe.

54:52 And then it was like you got into the early 2000s and we're like, all right, let's like mess around with this. Like, let's see how like far we can go. I also think there's a lot of uncertainty for millennials because of, you know, just other different wars and challenges and, you know, what do you call the Y2K and all this stuff like.

55:08 And we're in this weird thing where like we didn't grow up with smartphones and technology. Like we kind of took it on late, you know what I mean? So like we can kind of see what both like this lady who's doing the mid 90s, you know, parenting style. Like we can, we have a nostalgia for that. And that causes like a lot of suffering for people's like, oh, how good we had it.

55:27 But a lot of people in the 90s weren't like that satisfied. They wanted all that extra technology and stuff. So I think we're just like in this weird paradox of that generation being like, we don't really know what we want, you know what I mean? Which is I I think a lot of us had turned to alcohol and drugs because we just felt like we were a bit lost. We were a bit unsure, you know, like, yeah, what are we gonna here?

55:47 We. Come and it's all leading to my point of like the generation Next Gen. Z is significantly lower in their consumption of alcohol. What does that mean? Well, can't be a bad thing because alcohol is poison. Let's be honest, right?

56:02 It's poison. I'm mid millennial. I drank plenty. I haven't drank now in many, many years. But to know that there's a generation that's coming through that has its own challenges, but is also not necessarily consuming a lot of alcohol.

56:13 I don't know. Who knows? Who knows what that means, right? We we're never going to really tell how the the world moves. We can just always hope for the best and try to do our best to leave it a better place than it was when we came into it.

56:26 And I think that's ultimately like what both of us as like teachers advocate for, right? Is that again, like you are responsible for you, you know, and I've worked in the news, like I was in the news cycle. I was very aware of like how many challenges like society felt like we were facing any time. And then it's like I stepped back from that. I was like, I can't influence any of this. And even the the enigma of like seeing it and knowing you can't affect it, that does something

56:58 deeply damaging to you psychologically because we are all empathetic. If you're listening to this, you are an empath like humans are naturally that we want to see each other succeed. And so if you really can shift focus and attention on to how do you make sure again, numero Uno like you are showing up the way that you want to show up in the world? I mean, I think collectively that's what's going to shift and heal us all.

57:27 You know, I think it retreats have been so wonderful to see. I've been able to see like such diverse people, like people that might never say hello to each other on the street. And then they're hugging and crying and having these really visceral experiences of, of healing and growing and becoming more clear like who they want to be.

57:48 And it's proof. It's like such proof that that is possible, you know, and if you get out of the new cycle and you get out all the divisiveness that it, it fills people up with and you, you break that cycle and enough of us start to do that. We don't engage in it and we don't get riled up by it. We don't pick a party, we don't pick a color. We don't if we continue to do that work in and of ourselves, you will want to connect with people more. You will want to see the good in

58:15 people more. If you spend more time with yourself and realize it's all just thoughts and it's all just chatter. It's all the of the mind. I promise you, like you will start to find love for people that you probably never thought you could find love for.

58:30 Even the people that I, you know, withdrew from in this journey in the last couple years, I found a layer of love for them and some of them hate me. Like some of them have told me, like some of the people that are like in my family, like told me that like they really do not like me, you know, and I like I felt it.

58:46 I was frustrated by it. I was angered by it. I lashed out about it. And the more time I sat with myself about it, the softer it got and the softer it got and the more it dissipated, the more. And then there was a tipping point where I actually was like, oh, never mind. I'm not even angry at this person. I love this person.

59:03 I know that they're going through it and they're challenged. They have a bunch of things. I don't know anything about their existence. I don't know what it's like to wake up and be them in the morning. And the more you sit with yourself and the more you spend time in the pause, the more you will feel that, I promise you. Talk to anybody who's had a meditation practice for even just a few months, and they'll tell you it starts to soften the way that you show up into the

59:27 world. You know, that's true strength, I think too. Like, could you be OK without circumstances matching the way you want them to be? That's what everybody wants to do. All these people in power, all these people starting fights and wars and all the stuff, they just want to see it go their way. You know, they just want to see.

59:46 They want to control it. They want to shift it. They want to move it so it has their decided outcome, their logical outcome, right? But what if you could dissolve all that? What if you could just know that you were the master of your own little universe?

59:58 And by showing up more present, more calm. And more aware, right, that you were doing the best you actually could to make everything better. You wouldn't, you wouldn't start these conversations, you wouldn't get involved in all this. It would just it goes away you.

1:00:13 Play your own game. Why? Why would you want to play someone else's game? I love that you said that that way. Yeah, it goes away. It just goes away. You know, people could say you could listen to this and be like, oh, like that ignorance is a privilege or that ignorance is not helpful or whatever. I don't know.

1:00:33 I talked to a lot of people that do this kind of work, and I can tell you just anecdotally, I was as invested in it as you could be. And now I'm not. And my life is infinitely better and I'm infinitely more happy. And I'm able to influence people in a much more positive way where even when I had a voice and I was a producer and I was a writer and I was doing all these things that people would see, I didn't make a one, one millionth of the impact that I've really

1:00:59 been able to make. Now seeing people come back like, hey, not only did I change, but my kids, like they saw it and they shifted and they're curious about meditation or I taught it in the classroom that I teach in or whatever.

1:01:11 Like this little stone that you drop by changing and shifting your energy, right? It becomes a wave and moves outward. But until we all get really serious and autonomous that it's our responsibility to do that for ourselves. And it's not an it's not Donald Trump's responsibility to do that for you.

1:01:28 It's not, you know, I don't even know any celebrities anymore. But it's not their job to do it for you, right? The New York Jets are not going to make me happy or sad anymore. You know, they're definitely never going to make you happy.

1:01:38 You're a New York chess fan. But, you know, like, that's not anybody else's responsibility but yours. That's why I said like radical authenticity is like the thing I'm really leaning into because if I'm mad, that's me. If I'm happy, that's me. I created that, you know, and I you practice it when you meditate, you practice a way of being. It's the practice field for going to do life, breath work, get you there.

1:02:03 Meditation can get you there. Get it working out, having discipline practices, like there's many pathways up the mountain, but if you don't spend any time in that space and if you're not cleaning up what's going on in here, Yeah, it's it's a recipe for us to be, I think where we are, which is over ended, over distracted and as divisive as we've probably ever been. Maybe.

1:02:26 I think the pendulum's going to swing back. Everybody justify. I think it's swinging back, yeah. So I got two more things before I think we can kind of wrap this up a little bit. First question is, is the last thing I'd love to do and if you're open to it, maybe doing a short guided little breath work practice just so that people can kind of get into that so you can prepare yourself. If you're listening, you know, the next few minutes we might just kind of do that.

1:02:53 So if you have a place where you can sit or get comfortable. Yeah, lying down is great too. Yeah. So John can lead us through a little short breath work practice just to kind of TuneIn and maybe even integrate some of the podcasts conversation because that's always really important. That's great to consume, but oftentimes you actually need to really feel into and integrate and that's an important part that's really important to us as a brand. Actually the in movement is to

1:03:16 actually allow it to go inward and move within you. So that was first thing. The second thing, which is a question is for maybe a lot of listeners who have their practices, they're they're going to be maybe not all like us, but they're going to have elements of like I've done, you know, teacher training. I am a teacher.

1:03:35 I've been facilitating for a long time. I'm familiar with a lot of this stuff and I'm trying to help other people connect with it. And maybe it's my family that I'm trying to help connect with it or I'm trying to like confuse this into other people, but it's just like it's hard to kind of get across to them and things like that.

1:03:52 So what would you say about that? What would What comes to mind? Yeah, that's such a tricky 1. I mean, that's really loaded for me personally and something I don't totally want to go into, but I would say kind of like what I finished was saying before is that like if you can start to embrace the fact that you are creating a reality.

1:04:14 And 1st it's just a very kind of inward journey of shifting and changing the way that you think. And then how you take that and interact with the world, you will start to actually it. It takes away that desire to want to change other people or influence their behavior. It becomes way more the practice is how can I be the person that I want to be and maybe hope that inspires other or that people are attracted to you and want to learn that from you, but that you give up the desire to try

1:04:52 to. I say like roll the snowball uphill, right? Like it's way easier to let the snowball roll downhill. So yeah, I mean, I think the sentiment of like, I want to bring this to my family or a Co worker or something like that is beautiful and it's noble.

1:05:07 But I think it it has the potential to get us caught back up in that last kind of conundrum of like, I want things to be a certain way and then they're not. And so I'm going to try to push it and change it, manipulate it, mold it, right? So I would just, I mean, it is like one of my favorite quotes like be the change that you want to see you're wanting and advocating for other people to be that great. But why don't you just be the most 100% like bright light shining version of that and then

1:05:35 allow it to just emanate out with no expectation or no need that anybody else is going to do it too. It's hard, I get it. I mean, one of the first things that happened to me is when I was in my yoga teacher training, I felt so good. And then I walked around Manhattan and everybody looks so angry and so out of shape and I was so judge mental about them and I was like.

1:05:53 Why don't you all want to feel this way? You know, why isn't this your priority? Why are you rushing to Wall Street? You know, banker guy and I talked to my teacher. He said, well, that's just stuff that you're just still not satisfied with in yourself. You know, all the ways that you're judging and seeing others.

1:06:09 It's just things that you just haven't figured out for yourself. So the goal is to just become so, again, radically authentic and aware of like who you are and how you're showing up, that you let that be a magnet. You let that be an example, but you don't try to push it or force it on people. You don't, I mean, any teacher I think out there that I see that is like, I have the answers.

1:06:32 Here's the 10 things you must do everyday. I'm like volume just goes down and off because you don't know. You don't know. You've no idea how this person's life has been. Even people that you know really well. How many people do we know really, really, really well, right?

1:06:53 So you see them every day, maybe at work. You've no idea the inner workings of their mind or what's valuable to them or what their favorite moment was or what their most traumatizing moment was. Right? What do you know? Like 2% of them, Even the person that sits in the cubicle next to you. But you have the answers of how they should live their life. OK, Maybe just try to be a better version of you. Yeah.

1:07:16 I don't know. That's good. I mean, that's kind of how I feel. It's like a just be the beacon, be the lighthouse. You know they'll see it or they won't see it. And when they're ready to see it, maybe they will and maybe they never will be. And that's OK.

1:07:29 That's OK. And if you can influence again, like one of the most gratifying things about doing the work that I've done is I get messages and sometimes they're years. Like I literally just two, two or three days ago, a lady who's a therapist who helps a lot of people, who influences a lot of lives, told me that the retreat she came on a couple years ago was life changing for her. It's like amazing.

1:07:53 She's like the tools, some of the things I learned, they became a part of my, my work as a, as a talk therapist. So now one retreat that she did with me, my little Pebble right, has now gone out and influenced all those people.

1:08:07 And then we got on a call with her, I think 15 or 16 year old son. And he's like, yeah, my mom came back and she was like different and she was happier and all this. And now they're coming to our junior retreat together. And I was like, we're doing this generationally now, you know, when you talked about like the younger generations in their shift.

1:08:27 And I think there is I think there's a curiosity with some of the young people, like there's they're seeing a lot of the ways that the systems and the things are broken and don't work right. But this lady in her shift and her experience with this was the doorway open to now this kid coming and then who knows what he's going to become. So I don't need to yell this from the mountain tops. I don't need to be brow beating and beating my chest of like how amazing I am as a teacher and

1:08:51 you must follow me and breathworks the answer for everybody and all that. I could just keep doing the things that excite me and the things that I think are the best, you know, like a buffet style and telling people like I don't have all the answers, but come try all this stuff.

1:09:04 A lot of it worked really well for me. And then leaving them to like have their own human experience with it. Could we all just do a little bit more of that? Like, could we all just try our best to show up like as ourselves with all the things that work and don't work, share it with others and then be unattached to, like making them have to be the way we want them to be? I found I sound like Michael Singer right now. I'm like really challenged by

1:09:28 it'll, you know, Michael Singer. But I just believe in it so wholeheartedly because again, of the 8 billion people that are on this planet, you know most of them, none. You know some of them very, very little, and you know a few of them decently well. But again, like, do you really?

1:09:48 Do you really? Even the person that you know you think you know the most, which might be your partner or wife, husband, it's still not 100%. They're having 60,000 thoughts a day and you might be Privy to 10 or 20 of those. Yeah, you just don't know.

1:10:04 There's so many inner workings of the mind and, and the the wholeness of us. So become more obsessive about your experience, become more obsessive about your internal environment and the inner workings of you. Just disconnect from all of the noise out here for a while.

1:10:21 Just try it, try it. I mean, just sit in a quiet room for 10 minutes a day. You know, you don't need a strategy, you don't need tapping, you don't need even breath work. Like you could just disconnect for a while. And I promise you, there's so much richness and there's so many answers that you're probably seeking that are in that space, you know, and the way you show up into the world will be different.

1:10:44 You will be changed by that experience of watching how your mind plays these games and tricks and even your body. You'll get a little itch. You'll get a little, I can't sit here. I got to finish and you're like, whoa, I can't even just be with myself.

1:10:55 That was my seven minute, 27 second meditation when I was trying to do 15 minutes. It was like, it was so jarring of like how difficult it was for me to be with me. So why don't you get good at being with you first? And then you could go out in the world and see, like, how hard it is for everybody, all the stuff to coexist at the same time.

1:11:14 It's again, it softens that for you. It will it will soften this desire and this need that everything's not perfect, everything's not right. There's so much injustice. There's so much. Yeah, there is. There is. People are throwing plastic in the oceans and people are, you know, wrongfully doing things other.

1:11:30 But like, there's so much of it. And you could look at that and be like, yes, this is miserable. Or you just get really good at adjusting your own inner environment and then showing up with as much love and as much joy into each moment as you possibly can. And I promise you, the world will start to feel and look a lot different.

1:11:47 You're still going to run into things that are hard. You will. You run into things that are upsetting. You will. But man, it's a totally different experience. Totally different. Yeah. So you touched on, and you said it a couple times, this like Pebble effect, which is really important to us.

1:12:05 Actually, we have a in our branding, we have a ripple, a ripple throughout our website pages, our social media and all that stuff. And that ripple represents the effect that happens when you drop the Pebble in the water and how that it spreads. So as you were sharing that, it made me think of the element of like, OK, cool.

1:12:23 Like, I know this stuff, I'm a facilitator, I have these things and I do want to help these people and it's just I, you know, I can't get through them all right? It's just difficult or I'm new to this and I want to help my family and my parents or my partner or whatever.

1:12:37 The way that I'm seeing it based off of hearing what you said is like, there's this there. It's like a Pebble, like this Pebble that has a ripple that can change and, and help other people and ultimately infuse better in the world overall.

1:12:48 But maybe not everyone is your Pebble. You know, even the people closest to you might not be your pebbles. Maybe the pebbles that are going to create ripples to better the world, the humanity are spread out throughout the world and you connect through them by connecting to different random people that you don't even know.

1:13:09 Maybe it's through public experiences, public classes. Maybe it's going travelling and running into people. And then all of a sudden they resonate with you, they connect with you and they start to be like inspired by you.

1:13:19 Boom, that's a Pebble. And that Pebble goes on. So instead of trying to force everyone that you know to be a Pebble and have an effect, maybe just being open to the pebbles being throughout and being grateful when you come across them because you'll know they'll be like, wow, this person really is interested in hearing about me.

1:13:38 They like to learn from me. They like to they're inspired by me. Why? Because I'm doing my practice and they see it. But you can't force a Pebble that's not looking at you to do anything. So let that Pebble be inspired possibly by someone else. And maybe that person is in your family or relationships or friends and like, maybe you're just not the person to to turn them into a ripple.

1:14:00 Maybe it's someone else, or maybe not at all. Well, I would go so far as to say as all those pebbles actually are your pebbles. If you can dissolve the idea that every Pebble has to match your preferences or be quote UN quote what you want. I mean, suspend your disbelief now. But I mean, there's an idea of like soul contracts, right? Where you come into an incarnation and you actually choose with free will the family that you get because your soul knows that you're going to learn

1:14:31 lessons from them. But do we not also learn lessons from people that we don't want to emulate or we don't want to follow? Isn't it as big to understand what you don't want to reflect or what you don't want to be like? I would say so, right?

1:14:47 Because that's all data. Like you're collecting all of that, right? And the same way like to use the Pebble analogy, the same wave that pushes pebbles up on shore is also then the same one that pulls some back into the ocean, right? So it's like it's this cool little, it's like quite a hypnosis if you ever watch like waves come in because it's churning and moving stuff.

1:15:07 But it's like it's weird how it has this selection process of like what comes back and what stays, You know, you kind of just watch the waves churn on the shore. And I think in the same way, like that's the human existence, right? We are constantly understanding through our own understanding of ourselves, what is a dissonance and what is a resonance. So then we can go follow the ladder right towards more of what we want to become.

1:15:33 But if you also get an example and you also get an experience of something that isn't a resonance and isn't a match, well, now you have that. And you know that I could, I don't want to be like some of the people that I work with.

1:15:46 It's so fun because they're like pretty high level like C-Suite people and they start to do this work and they watch all their Co workers chasing accolades and chasing money. And a lot of them like pull back and they're like, oh, actually I look at how it's making them and I don't want to be that.

1:16:03 I have plenty of money. I'm going to retire early and do this and start going on retreats and whatever. And it's like, but they have that reference point, right? Like even in quantum mechanics, likely the only way that, like, our physical reality is immeasurable, right?

1:16:17 It's the zero point. The zero point is the origin, but everything else has a reference point off of that. But if you didn't have a point of origin, you wouldn't know how to measure anything off of that. So yeah, my contention would be that you need those things. You need those people, right?

1:16:32 That's why this existence can't just be all euphoria all the time. You need to have the examples of things that you don't want to emulate. You don't want to be like, that's good. And could you find the last little set would be could you actually find gratitude for those in the same capacity that you find things that are resonant?

1:16:51 That's evolution. Well, we should just end the podcast now then. Boom, I dropped. All right, let's close this off with, if you're still up for it. Yeah, yeah. We'll do a little short little breath practice and then we'll set people free.

1:17:03 I love that. So friends, this is kind of a staple practice. This is something that I call the emergency brake class. Like you can use this at any time that you need like a quick little reset. We'll do about 25 of 30 round to 30 rounds of this breathing practice and then one simple hold.

1:17:21 And the hold is kind of the the meditation part of it. So I would invite you to give some really good presence and energy to the breathing part. And then when we get to the hold part, that's like your payoff. That's where we want you to really relax. So really simply, you're going to take these breaths either in through your nose or in through your mouth. And what I would say to you is if that you, if you're listening to this and you're like, whoa,

1:17:42 I'm in like a really lethargic, like need energy kind of state or whenever you're using this, if you'd like need to energize, you do it through the mouth. Mouth can move more breath and you can move more energy that way.

1:17:55 Conversely, if you're feeling like, man, I'm a little too uppity, I'm a little too over spun today and you want to kind of use this as a relaxing practice. You just do the same thing, but you do it through your nose. And it's really cool how you can use this breath literally in whatever direction you wanted to go.

1:18:12 So take a moment. If you're practicing this with us, I would advocate for you to lie down and get really comfortable. If that's accessible for you, You can close or cover your eyes and then just do a little short check in. Are you feeling energized?

1:18:27 Are you feeling like you have a lot of energy today? Or are you feeling a little bit lethargic? As you start to settle into your body and as your eyes are closed, you'll become aware of your internal environment and you'll become aware that you are in fact breathing.

1:18:45 You don't have to change your breath yet, but just notice that by putting your attention on your breath, it probably gets a little bit slower. Maybe it gets a little bit fuller. You probably have started to already feel a bit of a shift in your awareness.

1:19:15 So as we begin this practice, if you're breathing in through the mouth, let's start to open the mouth and you're going to take a breath down into your belly and feel your belly expand. And then you're going to pause. Good.

1:19:30 And then you're going to inhale again up into your upper chest, and then you're going to pause again and you're just going to open the mouth and let it release, and that's it. So we're going to inhale into our belly. Pause, Inhale into our chest. Pause and release.

1:19:57 Good. Inhale, belly inhale, chest, let it go. Inhale belly, inhale chest. Let it go. Inhale belly Inhale chest, let it go. Inhale belly. Inhale chest, let it go. Inhale belly. Inhale chest. Let it go, Inhale belly. Inhale chest, Let it go. Inhale belly, inhale chest, let it go. Inhale, belly, inhale chest, let it go. Good, Let's take a full, deep breath in then. You're going to hold your breath, do your best to relax your body, relax your face, relax your jaw, let your shoulders go away from your ear.

1:21:19 Feel that little wave relaxation go all the way down to your fingertips. Good. Relax your belly, relax your thighs, relax your shins, relax your feet and even relax your toes. Good. Whole body relaxed. Just noticing the shifts from that breath.

1:21:56 You might feel a spaciousness between your thoughts. You could just hunker down in that space. Good. We're going to release the breath together. With a little sigh, with a little sound, we'll do that together in 54321. Take a gentle breath in through your nose.

1:22:33 Keep the lips sealed if you can. Exhale through the nose. Beautiful. And then again in through the nose and gently out through the nose. OK, let's do one more big breath in through the nose and gently out through the nose. Beautiful.

1:23:03 Well, thanks for coming along on that ride, friends. Appreciate it. Thanks, John. Welcome. I appreciate that. Yeah, in case people are in the zone, we'll let them be in the zone. We'll put your your details in the show notes if people want to connect with you, if they're curious about anything. So you can have a look down there if you want to connect with John.

1:23:23 Otherwise. Thanks John for coming in. Yeah, Thank you, Michael. Thank you everybody for listening. And yeah, love this. Such a good conversation. So thank you. My pleasure. Thank you. And we'll speak to you next week. Bye everybody.