Mindfulness Mode

Jonathan Robinson is an author, a psychotherapist, and co-host of the popular podcast "Awareness Explorers." His specialty is providing people with simple methods that lead to more peace, love, and awareness. He is the bestselling author of 12 books, and has been a frequent guest on Oprah and CNN. Articles about him have appeared in Newsweek, USA Today, and Reader's Digest magazine. Jonathan is the host of the Awareness Explorers Podcast. He also speaks at Fortune 500 companies on how to be less stressed while achieving more. Contact Info Website: www.FindingHappiness.com Website: www.ShortcutsToAwakening.com Website: www.MoreLoveLessConflict.com  Get the Free '12 Questions of Instant Intimacy' Free Gift: Listen at end of show Podcast: www.AwarenessExplorers.com Most Influential Person Justin Gold, a teacher that I lived with for 25 years Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has made me a lot less afraid of them, [my emotions], and allowed me to just enjoy them more, not see them as something to get stuck in because I don't get stuck in them anymore. And to allow myself to really feel them and to see them as a friend rather than something I need to be afraid of. Thoughts on Breathing Well, if I don't breathe, there's no mindfulness. Just like knowing the background of awareness as a way to always tap into peace. Breathing is another thing that's always there and it's like a rock that will always be there if you need it. It's a good anchor into the world of presence and whether it be being aware of being aware or being aware of your breathing, it's a great feeling to know that something is always there that you can relax into. Suggested Resources Book: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body & Mind to Face Stress, Pain & Illness by Jon Kabat-Zinn Book: Find Happiness Now: 50 Shortcuts for Bringing More Love, Balance, and Joy Into Your Life by Jonathan Robinson Book: More Love Less Conflict: A Communication Playbook for Couples by Jonathan Robinson App: The Headless Way Bullying Story I do actually have a story. It happened just a month ago. I actually teach mindfulness in prisons. I volunteer and I was in a prison, in a room with maybe 20 hardcore prisoners, rapists and murderers mostly. I said something that really offended one of the guys and he got up and he started shouting at me. Well, you know, this is not a pretty scene. There's no guards there. And I decided to use a couple of techniques hoping that they would calm him down and I wouldn't end up seriously hurt. So I said two things. I said, I notice that you're really upset and that you're really good at expressing your emotions and I really appreciate how real you are. I just want you to know that right now I'm feeling really scared and I'm feeling really frightened with your yelling and I would like to connect with you, but I can't do it when you're screaming at me. So I'm basically saying what's going on in the moment. One, my appreciation about what he's doing, what I noticed about what he's doing and what is happening in me. And it was pretty amazing, the effect. He immediately calmed down. He said, that's cool. I'm sorry, I just got upset by what you said. Then he sat down and we went over the whole thing and we ended up forming a really nice bond. But, you know, something like that could have saved my life because he was about six foot, five inches, 300 pounds. Free Gift Thinking of launching your own podcast? You’ll need a host, a place to upload your episodes. Podbean is awesome. Podbean is built specifically for podcasters, been around for 10 years and the pricing is super competitive. It’s $9 a month, no matter how much content you upload and they have great stats as well. You can help support Mindfulness Mode AND get a month of free hosting with my affiliate link. Go to www.Podbean.com/PodbeanMM

Philip Shepherd is recognized as an international authority on embodiment. His unique techniques have been developed to transform our experience of self and world, and are based on the vision articulated in his celebrated books, New Self, New World (2010) and Radical Wholeness (Nov 2017). The approach he takes heals the frantic, restless pace of the intelligence in the head, which tends to run on overdrive, by uniting it with the deep, present and calm intelligence of the body. This way of thinking is in contrast to the prevailing view of embodiment, which involves sitting in the head and ‘listening to the body. Instead, Philip helps us listen to the world through the body. His personal path to understanding has been shaped by his adventures as a teenager, when he cycled alone through Europe, the Middle East, India and Japan. Philip currently spends his time divided between teaching international workshops, running Facilitators Trainings, and participating in a documentary about his work. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: http://www.philipshepherd.com/ Blog: https://philipshepherd.com/blog/ Most Influential Person Marion Woodman (Featured in Dancing In The Flames www.DancingInTheFlames.com) Effect on Emotions We think of our emotions as personal, private things. We, we feel our experience as private and everything you experience is shared. It's just the nature of our reality. And so to come into that grounded place of wholeness is to feel, not that contained charge of the emotion, but that dilation where it's not that the emotion goes away, but it becomes integrated, it's able to be integrated. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a huge part of what I teach and my contention is that the whole of the body should be available to the breath and if it's not, you're not in wholeness. And we keep the breath out of our legs. We keep it out of our backs, we constrain it. So we, we talk from here and we lose our wholeness by constraining our breath. So it's the foundation. Suggested Resources Book: Radical Wholeness: The Embodied Present and the Ordinary Grace of Being by Philip Shepherd App: Body World (Philip Shepherd's App to be released approximately April 2019) Bullying Story I'm thinking of one [bullying story] that happened very recently. I facilitate teacher strings. So there are people who were learning to teach my work and a woman just wrote me back. There was a woman in her neighborhood who is something of a bully. We actually talked about it during the course and she said, what can I do about it? And I made some suggestions. Well, she got back and sure enough, she went out walking her dog and there's this woman and there's no getting away and the woman comes at her and she'd just dropped more and more deeply into her wholeness, into her mindfulness, into that grounded, receptive chorus, responsive place. And she said, the woman talked for about two minutes and then left looking slightly confused. And normally it would have been like 20 minutes of. And I really took heart from that. She didn't do anything but land in that mindful coherence of her awareness at this moment. I love where that went and how it went. Free Gift Do you want to improve the focus, drive, and productivity of your employees? If so, you can learn how by downloading, '10 Simple & Effective Ways to Increase Mindfulness in the Workplace Now', a free PDF at MindfulnessMode.com/workplacep.

Tim C. Star is a Speaker, author, podcaster, and mindset missionary. When he lost a long-term job at age 54, Tim didn’t work again for 2 years. He also didn’t get depressed or begin to question his worth in the world mainly because he didn’t base his self-value on his career. When he became aware that he wasn’t experiencing what the “experts” said should happen, he wondered why. The answer lay hidden in the early teachings he’d been exposed to since childhood. These concepts helped him gain a different perspective of the world, and of what happened to him. Today, he shares his insights with his followers. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: www.TimCStar.com Podcast: The Universe Between Your Ears www.UniversePodcast.com Most Influential Person Dr. Wayne Dyer Effect on Emotions This is the trick that we're after. I think if you can be in a position where you can assume a third party perspective on what's going on in your life and understand that it's just something that's going on. It's not good or bad, right or wrong necessarily, and you can be removed from it in a personal way. Then the emotions that will be part of it don't have the same effect. The waves aren't as high and the troughs aren't as low. The period in between is longer. You just have a much more stable path through your emotional life. And it's helped me to avoid a lot of grief, losing friends to cancer and things like that. If I hadn't had these ideas in the back of my head, there are a few incidents that would've been so much tougher. Thoughts on Breathing The only thing that's coming to my mind really is as it's applied in meditation, it's part of the go-to, first level instruction when you get a guided meditation that you're listening to. When you relax and your mind starts wandering, pay attention to your breathing in and out. And notice your breath. The reason being that if you're actually truly doing that, you can't think about anything else. Suggested Resources Book: Looking Out For #1: How to Get from Where You Are Now to Where You Want to Be in Life by Robert J. Ringer Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle Book: Any books by Dr. Wayne Dyer Book: My Name Is Prosperity: A Law Of Attraction Story by Tim C. Star Book: Where's My Stuff?: A hopeful skeptic looks at the teachings of Abraham-Hicks and the Law of Attraction by Tim C. Star App: n/a Bullying Story Honestly, I don't think I [have any bullying stories]. I think it was just sort of under the radar. I'm not a big guy. I'm athletic. I was on a baseball team when I was a freshman in high school, but that was kind of a joke. I would've loved to go on the football team but I just didn't. We went out and saw them working full pads in August in Chicago and I thought, I'll pass on that. But the bullying thing, I never got truly bullied. Release Your Overwhelm Get the 'Release Your Overwhelm' Guided Meditation for only $4.99. Bruce Langford helps you abandon your inner blocks. Surrender your stress. Become more focused and raise your personal level of contentment. Achieve more with increased concentration. Download this full-length 30 minute guided meditation by Bruce Langford.www.MindfulnessMode.com/release  

Kevin Murphy is a a community activist, a wrestler, a speaker, and a writer. He is also a former Wall Street managing director. Following his college wrestling career, he served as a youth wrestling coach on Long Island for over thirty years. This led to his induction into the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2009. He's also spear-headed a campaign to raise awareness of the opioid and drug epidemic that's sweeping the country. His varied experiences have given Kevin a unique and eclectic way of understanding human nature. He used this understanding to write the book, The Three Rooms, where he explains how observing which room your thoughts are in at any given time can change your experience of life. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: www.TheThreeRooms.com Facebook: The Three Rooms Most Influential Person Larry Glenn (my wrestling coach) Effect on Emotions Well, I think mindfulness has made me aware of my emotions because I think mindfulness is really about how we feel and it is the merging of our thoughts and emotions. That is what all the mystics talk about, when the two becomes one, you know, the nonduality. You can talk about the soul of the Ottoman and the Brahmin of the soul and the universal mind all merging into one, and the thoughts and the emotions all merging into one. And I think that's, that's so important. And so when I think of mindfulness, I think not only of the conscious awareness of my thoughts, but also how it makes me feel. Keeping in that centered place where thoughts of kindness, love, appreciation, and gratitude, that really does help. Thoughts on Breathing  Well, I look at breathing when I look within and communicate within because I think it's really important to connect with that universal mind that we all have. And, when I've asked that question sometimes within like, 'So where are you? Are you here?' I've received an answer that, 'Yes, I am in your breath.' If I think of my breath as my higher self, I'm always here as long as I'm breathing. I can feel a higher self within me and that's my connection. That connection to the universal mind is within your heart and the thoughts in everyone's minds, but I think of that breath as not just monitoring my breathing. No, I can feel you (my higher self). I know you're here because I can feel the breath and I know my higher self is saying to me, as long as you can feel your breath, you can feel me. Suggested Resources Book: The Untethered Soul by Michael A. Singer App:  The Calm App Bullying Story Having been a wrestler for most of my life all through junior high, high school and college, and I had two older brothers who were wrestlers, so even though I was very small, people tend to not want to bother with wrestlers. What I've always found through the years is, bullies are not tough guys. Bullies are coming from a point of insecurity. We've always had the saying, bullies start fights, but tough guys finish fights. And so bullies don't want to be, you know, run into the tough guy. And so I was always kind of avoided because of being in wrestling. But I do remember a story vividly and I put it in the book, where one day my son came home from school and he was talking about Martin Luther King's birthday. And we started talking about Martin Luther King about how he helped people, even when he didn't need to and maybe people who couldn't stand up for themselves. And we talked about how, how cool that was. I noticed that he really got it and about a week later he came home from school and he told me that there was a couple of kids bullying another kid at school and everyone kind of gathered around and was kind of cheering on the bullies as they beat up this one kid. I can get emotional thinking about it, but he stepped in and he broke up the fight. And it was the first time I ever remember him getting in a fight at school. I could tell it made him feel really good. But think of how it made the other kid feel. Someone said, you know, you're worth sticking up for. Someone said, You are good enough. You are worthy. And when he went home, how meaningful that must have been to him. And so Paul, my son had to have been, he had to be mindful in that moment because he had to be aware of what was happening and the emotions of compassion had to kick in in order for him to step in because what was happening with all the other kids, they weren't being mindful. They were caught up in the moment. They were actually cheering like, oh, look at him. Oh, get that good. Did you see that kick? And I'm sure that after it was over they were probably like, I don't know why I was cheering. I didn't really mean to do that, but you get caught up in it and you need to be mindful when it's happening. And I thought that was a really wonderful story for him and an experience for him. Free Gift Get the brand new 'Sleep Naturally' Guided Meditation by Bruce Langford. A deep, easy sleep is yours to enjoy. Sleep naturally and fall asleep easily. Drift off to sleep with a calm, gentle voice. Rest comfortably, without effort. Click here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/Sleep

Kim Fiske is a respected professional keynote speaker. She's a life coach, an author and a seven figure income earner. Kim is also a thought leader sought after for her ability to convey to audiences provocative concepts and practical ways to deal with what she has coined as the monster under the bed. Kim has been able to change the way people view their relationships, their careers, life goals and journeys by giving them the ability to acknowledge their proverbial monster while providing mechanisms for coping with it. This process has provided relief in the form of an inner peace to those who are seriously seeking. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: www.KimFiske.com Instagram: @KimFiske Facebook: @JKFiske Most Influential Person Dr. Wayne Dyer / Marianne Williamson / Jon Kabat-Zinn Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has changed my world. It's absolutely changed my world. It changed everything because I don't look through the same glasses at anything anymore. It's changed everything. Thoughts on Breathing I remember back in my early days of just quiet time. I was raised in a very fundamental Christian home, so meditation was kind of like a little bit new age-ey. We don't know if it's really of God or not. That was my upbringing. So I called it quiet time and it's what I grew up knowing about prayer, but I never really understood because everybody prayed in a fear-based way. That's not faith. That shouldn't be how we pray. So I learned how to quiet. Once I got my intrinsic value and I cleaned my conduit is what I called it; getting the barnacles and the monster tracks cleared up of my who I am. Then I could visualize. I just kind of got this feeling inside me of being radiant and feeling unconditional love. So I breathe, I breathe. It has to be emotional. You got to feel it. It can't be cerebral. Cerebral, doesn't work. It doesn't do any unwiring or rewiring. It's got to be emotional and you've got to feel. Go to this unconditional place, and sometimes it's hard. And I would fight my thoughts. I remember trying to quiet my mind and that didn't help me because my mind couldn't be quiet. Then I went to self judgment because I wasn't doing it right. So when I started telling people, don't worry about quieting your mind, don't worry about controlling your thought, deep breathe. Then go to this place of, I'm just going to notice all the thoughts that come by. I'm going to notice them and then come back to the breath. Oh, there I go. I just went and noticed another one. Oh, there's another one. So then it stops the judgment about doing it wrong because so many people stop because they can't do it right. And they think they're unique. Oh, everyone else can do this, but me. No. Suggested Resources Book: Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert Book: Becoming Supernatural: How Common People Are Doing The Uncommon by Dr. Joe Dispenza Book: A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of "A Course in Miracles" by Marianne Williamson Book: The Monster Under the Bed: Uncovering the Lie That Drives Us by Kim Fiske App: Calm Bullying Story I have a story in the book about a friend of mine who's a black man that lives in southern California. He went to a friend's house in an affluent white neighborhood in southern California. My friend Jonathan had really done a lot of monster work. He's already very self actualized, mindful, listening, trying to rewire, trying to reprogram from years and years and years of when someone feels discriminated against all their life. And when someone feels bullied basically for their skin color or for whatever. Women can feel bullied because of gender. I even talk about Viktor Frankl in this chapter. I mean he was put into a Nazi concentration camp because he was Jewish. This was the ultimate bullying. And so how do these people, this is who I really want to speak to, is the person being bullied because number one, don't allow the bullying to continue; protect yourself. Put boundaries around. I don't ever ever want to rationalize or justify any bullying being done to you. We teach people how to treat us, so put your boundaries up and know how to protect yourself from it or if you don't know, ask someone. Get some help about how to protect yourself. Free Gift Get the brand new Awaken With Focus 12-Minute Guided Meditation by Bruce LangfordBe alert and focused after waking. Feel invigorated, fresh and dynamic. Let your vibrancy feed those around you. Be the energetic person you desire to be. Click here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/AwakenWithFocus

Mel Schwartz is a psychotherapist, marriage counselor and  corporate leadership consultant. He is the author of The Art of Intimacy, The Pleasure of Passion and his newest book, The Possibility Principle: How Quantum Physics Can Improve the Way You Think, Live, and Love. Mel practices in Westport, Connecticut and Manhattan and works with individuals across the world. Mel is a member of the Society for Consciousness Studies and has been a keynote speaker at Yale University. His TEDx talk, Overcoming Anxiety, is receiving over 1500 views per day. Contact Info Website: www.MelSchwartz.com Podcast: The Possibility Podcast With Mel Schwartz - http://melschwartz.com/possibility-podcast Blog: A Shift of Mind Blog - http://melschwartz.com/blog/ TedX Videos: http://melschwartz.com/talks/ Most Influential Person David Bohm, quantum physicist. Effect on Emotions I believe that mind or a thought in motion, (thought and feeling) are inextricably linked. My bias is that thought probably occurs first, although we may not see it, or be aware of it. So I have learned that when I'm in a particular mood, whether elevated or deflated, if I check in as to what was the last thought I had, I can find the thought that set up the feeling. Now the thing is, once you have the feeling, that feeling then will summon up more similar thoughts, which is why we tend to cycle up or down. But there are different words and labels that we put to describe human experience. So we think of thought being from the neck up. I can't say it resides there and we think of feeling as being in the gut, and who knows. But what we call thought and feeling are different aspects of the same whole. Think about a coin. The head and tail aren't separate. They are different aspects of the coin. Thought and feeling I see as different aspects of human consciousness Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is not sufficiently part of my mindful practices. It's something I need to work on. I tend to reside in my spirit and in my mind. My work is to develop more awareness in my body and to be more conscious and mindful of my breathing. So to the point of embracing vulnerability and sharing your truth. That's work I still need to do Suggested Resources Book: Read Alfred North Whitehead, the philosopher, 19th century. Also read author, David Bohm. App: Spotify - When I need a break from thinking, and from the things that impact me and don't allow my center, I'll turn on spotify and listen to music which will still me and quiet me. Bullying Story This has come up in a number of circumstances around bullying in my work as a therapist. Take an individual in a marriage where one person felt bullied by the other, and in this case atypically. Perhaps it was the man who felt bullied. Now, why was he allowing and tolerating the bullying? Because his self worth, self esteem was questionable. So when other than someone physically bullying you and them being twice your size and in the moment not knowing what to do about it, bullying is often emotional and verbal. When it is such, the question is, if I am tolerating it, why? It reflects back to my core issue with myself. Do I value myself? What do I deserve? What stories and narratives am I telling myself about the bullying and why I might endure it. The story might be, if it happened to a child, if I told mom and dad, they'll be angry at me because I didn't stand up for myself. Or the story might be, the word will get out and then I'll feel embarrassed or ashamed. We make up stories. We have to penetrate the stories we tell ourselves and come to the authentic truth, which is what's my fear? No, we are taught to act strong and to avoid vulnerability. That is a misunderstood and misinformed belief. Acting strong is acting, it's weak. Embracing my vulnerability means that I'm sharing who I am, what my self doubts and fears and insecurities are, and that means I'm not worried about you judging me. That is authentic self esteem. Culturally self esteem is misunderstood. I call what we do other esteem. So you ask a parent, what will give your child good self esteem? Well, if they're popular and they're great in sports and they get great grades, that doesn't give you self esteem. So what we do is we betray our authentic sense of self to manipulate things so that others will like us or approve of us. But when we do that to an extreme, we don't develop a core sense of self. That will lead to allowing bullying. Free Gift Become more calm, focused and happy by reading the top 12 books recommended on the Mindfulness Mode Podcast. This mini 14-page ebook entitled '12 Must-Read Mindfulness Books' outlines each of the top books recommended by guests on the show. Get your digital copy now at www.MindfulnessMode.com/top12books  

Morgana Rae is a ten-time international #1 best selling author and a pioneer in personal development for over 23 years. She’s widely regarded to be the world’s leading 'Relationship With Money' coach. Morgana’s fans call her the “Money Goddess” because of documented stories of clients making thousands, tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars within hours of changing their relationship with money. Morgana writes, speaks, and coaches from a desire to empower idealistic entrepreneurs, coaches, authors and artists to have a big impact in the world and to heal the rift between heart, spirit, and money. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: wwwMorganaRae.com Free 4 Part Video Series to ease you into the money monster www.MorganaRae.com Book: Financial Alchemy: Twelve Months of Magic and Manifestation by Morgana Rae Most Influential Person The Buddha Effect on Emotions I think mindfulness, for me, is why I'm happy. We can't control what happens outside of us, but we can definitely change our experience and make things useful and bring more love and understanding and use everything to make our lives and the world better. Thoughts on Breathing I try to get out to the beach. I think nature, wherever you get it is really, really important. I find when I'm in nature by the water or in the earth, my breathing slows and I start to breathe along with the waves and it just changes me. Suggested Resources Book: Going to Pieces without Falling Apart: A Buddhist Perspective on Wholeness by Mark Epstein Book: Financial Alchemy: Twelve Months of Magic and Manifestation by Morgana Rae App: Choose Muse www.ChooseMuse.com Bullying Story I was the most hated girl in school in the third grade. I moved from the city in Los Angeles and Hollywood out to the suburbs. One was very diverse and a very, very different culture. We called grownups by their first name. It was just very different and then suddenly I'm in this very white bred suburb with different social rules that I didn't understand. So I was the girl everybody hated. I had no friends in school. There was one girl I would play with after school, but she would be the meanest girl at school. It was a life that has only gotten better since then. So I have this aspect of myself that I call my inner fat girl because I was chubby at the time, so people called me fat stuff like I wasn't even a person. It was so dehumanizing and I still have this aspect of my personality that comes out when I'm feeling in a social situation, not good enough, not pretty enough, not popular enough. Like there's something really wrong with me and I have so much love for this part of me fat girl, because a, she needs love more than maybe any other part of me. And I think she's also the most loving because that part of me that feels like the unacceptable ugly outcast who doesn't deserve to exist, recognizes, understands, loves and desires to provide safety for everybody else's inner fat girl that feels like the unsafe outcast who doesn't deserve to exist. So my mindfulness is to take that experience and kind of turn it into gold through service, by bringing love first to that part of myself and really, truly loving her contribution. There's a temptation when we're being abused and feeling the abuse, especially if we're empathic and we're feeling the anger and the rage. It's very tempting either to lash out at the people who are attacking us or even more tempting to lash out at ourselves and hurt ourselves and join the abusers. When we can pause and love the parts of us that we have the most trouble with; maybe you call it the saboteur or the bully. You know, I talked about my fat girl. Each of them is on our team. Each of them has wisdom, and when we can really embrace and love that part of us, it gives us a super power. It gives us the super power of empathy. When I love my inner fat girl, the part of me that feels hated and ugly and lonesome and doesn't deserve to exist and lonely, then I can see and understand and love everybody else's part that feels those ways and then it gives me sort of a super power to heal that pain and that changes the dynamic. I became a coach. Really, truly. I quit acting and became a coach because I was doing it as a hobby and I liked myself better. I liked the relationships better. I was happier. So honestly I became a coach. Totally for selfish reasons because I found it easier to be happy helping other people. Free Gift Do you want to become more calm, relaxed, peaceful, and content? If so, you can learn how by downloading this free 'Waves of Content' Meditation by Bruce Langford. Unlock the secrets of calm by downloading the meditation here at MindfulnessMode.com/wavesofcontent

Ruby Mabry is a serial entrepreneur. She is the CEO of several mental health facilities and she's had over thirty years experience in health care. Ruby's leadership has allowed for the expansion of her facilities that has brought recognition from her peers, social workers, and the agency for people with disabilities. She's also the founder of ZoeFinity clothing and she's an inventor. She's a member of the Greater Haitian American Chamber of Commerce and in her spare time she volunteers with Hospice and with the Lukemia and Lymphoma Society. Her goal is to continue writing more books and giving back because she's a firm believer that you haven't learned how to live until you learn how to give. Her passion is spreading love and positivity and she'd like to continue to contribute and support women empowerment movements. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: www.LiveOnPurposeMastermind.com Most Influential Person My mom. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness is at the forefront of everything I do because I have to maintain a positive mindset to make it through every single day. With the type of business that I'm in, my emotions are all over the place and so I try to think positive, try to associate with positive people, and that keeps my mind elevated. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is very essential to my mindfulness. I began having panic attacks when my mom passed away. It was a scary feeling. I literally needed to use the brown paper bag to breathe out of. That's how bad it was. Breathing basically assists me with my anxiety. I take a deep breath, deep in my belly, and I count to ten and then exhale through my mouth. That relieves my stress and my anxiety. I try to focus on positivity and everything that I'm grateful for. Suggested Resources Book: Moments of Inspiration by Ruby Mabry Book: Other books by Ruby Mabry: What Is A Courageous Woman? / Woman On A Mission Leaving a Legacy / Goodness Abounds App: N/A Bullying Story I have not been bullied; not in school or as an adult. I think honestly, I bullied myself. I had negative self-talk back in the day. I would tell myself I wasn't good enough, I wasn't pretty enough, and mindfulness definitely wasn't part of my vocabulary or in my thoughts. In middle school, my older brother who was born with hydrocephelis, that's water on the brain. A classmate was picking on him and my sister and I got into a physical altercation with this classmate. At the time I knew it was not right. Maybe if I had used mindfulness back in the day, I would have calmed my mind and realized that I need to communicate instead of fighting back. Free Gift Thinking of launching your own podcast? You’ll need a host, a place to upload your episodes. Podbean is awesome. Podbean is built specifically for podcasters, been around for 10 years and the pricing is super competitive. It’s $9 a month, no matter how much content you upload and they have great stats as well. You can help support Mindfulness Mode AND get a month for free with my affiliate link. Go to www.Podbean.com/PodbeanMM

Debbie Lynn Grace is an author, a speaker, an energy worker and an intuitive. She has a deep understanding of highly sensitive people. Over the last thirty years, Debbie has impacted the lives of hundreds of thousands of followers through her programs and live events. Debbie shows highly sensitive people and empaths world-wide, how to dissolve the energy blocks that can prevent you from leading the life that you really truly want; that life of purpose, authenticity, love, prosperity. Listen & Subscribe on: iTunes / Stitcher / Podbean / Overcast / Spreaker / Spotify Contact Info Website: www.DebbieLynnGrace.com Free: Get Your Audio Gift and Join The Community Blog: https://debbielynngrace.com/blog/ Most Influential Person My older sister, Lisa. Effect on Emotions Well, I think the greatest thing about mindfulness is that you allow. I think when people get super emotional, they start to lose sense that they have any choice. You know, they get so out of whack and so out of balance that their mind, that internal pressure, tells them you're a loser. Mindfulness has helped me so much, it goes back to something I say to everybody, which is, if you want to change your mind, you do it physically first because when you change your state physically first, your whole mental state changes. So mindfulness of getting present to your body and then using that breathing and being mindful of that, it changes your emotional state immediately. Thoughts on Breathing I meditate every day with breathing, listening to music in the morning and so I'm very aware of it. I'm also aware of how I react to something and I try and be very mindful of the minute I sense any level of frustration, I immediately get present. I don't get present to the frustration, I get present to my breath and it just releases all that frustration out of my body. Suggested Resources Book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho App: www.BrainSync.com with Kelly Howell Bullying Story That's kind of the story of my life. I mean I was bullied a lot and teased a lot growing up. And you know, I didn't understand of course there really wasn't a lot of research or science understanding what it means to have heightened sensitivities and now the statistics show that one out of every five people is highly sensitive, born with heightened sensitivities. So it's fairly common but the research is only about 20 years old and I'm definitely older than 20. So growing up what would happen is I would sense things around me and I would sense as a little kid, people that didn't feel safe but I couldn't understand why. Like they might be friends of the family and they might be nice to me, right. But I could sense there was something not good and I did and it would upset me and I'd get emotional. And so I grew up hearing Debbie, you know, you're too emotional. I didn't know how to articulate what was going on for me. And the biggest challenge I see with including myself, but I didn't know, which is why I feel really honored to help people that are highly sensitive is that when you grow up, when you have heightened sensitivities, your senses are always on a 10, like on a switch from one to 10. They're always out there sensing things. So some people, they have heightened sensitivity to noise, some to taste, to touch, some to sight. So everybody's sensitivities are a little bit different, are wired differently. But what will happen is you start to want to drown everything out. You want to keep everything out because it hurts your body and it hurts you emotionally. So you lose your own sense of yourself. And so when you're teased and bullied, if you have no sense of yourself, it literally batters your self confidence. So many of the people that come to take my programs, they are so intelligent and they might even have created success in one area of their life. But on the inside they're devastated. On the inside their self esteem is so low so it'll show up in their relationships or it'll show up in their money situation. So how would mindfulness have helped? Well, just the tools of understanding what it means because when you're being mindful and getting present, you're getting present to yourself. You're getting aware of your own space. You're getting access to your internal power because without being mindful, you can't access your own internal power. You're getting access to your intuition and your knowing with clarity it's truth. So if I could teach that to a kid who's highly sensitive and give them a greater sense of themselves, you know, first of all, bullies only pick up on kids that they know have low self confidence, right? They don't bully kids that they sense are confident. So that would have made a difference right there. Free Gift Do you want to improve the focus, drive, and productivity of your employees? If so, you can learn how by downloading, '10 Simple & Effective Ways to Increase Mindfulness in the Workplace Now', a free PDF at MindfulnessMode.com/workplacep.

Jeffrey Gitomer is an author, professional speaker, and business trainer, who writes and lectures internationally on sales, customer loyalty, and personal development. He has written thirteen books on sales including the award-winning ‘The Little Red Book of Selling’, which has sold more than five million copies worldwide.  He has been a featured speaker for the largest companies in the world for more than twenty years. Jeffrey is also host of the podcast, Sell or Die. Working with the Napoleon Hill Foundation, Jeffrey has recently published an exciting new book called, Truthful Living: The First Writings of Napoleon Hill. This book makes available to the public for the first time, Napoleon Hill’s long-lost original notes, letters, and lectures—now compiled, edited, and annotated for the modern reader. Contact Info Company: Gitomer Learning Academy Website: www.Gitomer.com Website: www.GitomerLearningAcademy.com Podcast: Sell or Die https://www.sellordiepodcast.com/ Book: Truthful Living: The First Writings of Napoleon Hill by Jeffrey Gitomer Most Influential Person Earl Nightingale (Also Napoleon Hill) Effect on Emotions Having been through a few divorces, having children, grandchildren, you have to concentrate on their success and their safety and their happiness and their well-being and their health. Everyone has their issues in life and I try to pay attention to what everyone needs for me as a father or grandfather, but I first make certain that I'm okay myself. I can't be the best dad in the world unless I become the best person in the world. And you can substitute dad for anything else you want: driver, teacher, writer, whatever. It starts out with you as a great person. Thoughts on Breathing I used to breathe a lot better, I think when I was meditating. Meditation is one of the things where you get in the habit of it and then you get out of the habit of it. Easy to do, easy not to do - Jim Rohn. I should breathe better. The one thing that I have learned to do is breathe as a speaker, so I speak from my diaphragm rather than from my throat. I'm well aware of that process because I've had a couple of throat operations. Heredity has caused a couple of polyps on my vocal folds and after they were removed I literally went to speech therapy to relearn how to fill my diaphragm with air and then expel it as I'm speaking and take that breath before I start to speak again. So it's, it's a habit now. I guess I probably concentrate on breathing more than most people without actually thinking about it. Suggested Resources Book: A Message To Garcia by Elbert Hubbard (Free Download)  Also, anything written before 1940. Suggested authors are Orison Swett Marden, Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale, Elbert Hubbard. App: Dragon Dictate For Mac Bullying Story Yeah. I was actually bullied as a kid because I'm Jewish and so people tend to pick on Jews, I don't know why. When I first went to Haddonfield Junior High School, which I think they call Central School, I was in the playground and some kid came up to me, Bill Campbell. He said, you new? I said, yeah, I am. You said, you know, we don't really like Jews. And he cocked his fist at me and another kid, Robbie Alleger stepped in front of me and knocked this kid down to the ground with one punch. And we're still friends. Alleger and I are still friends. The guy that picked on me died just within a decade or two. Rob Alleger and me, we talk, we text, we email, you know he was in my high school class, which is about to go through it's fifty-fifth reunion by the way, which is pretty cool Free Gift Get the 'Release Your Overwhelm' Guided Meditation for only $4.99. Bruce Langford helps you abandon your inner blocks. Surrender your stress. Become more focused and raise your personal level of contentment. Achieve more with increased concentration. Download this full-length 30 minute guided meditation by Bruce Langford.www.MindfulnessMode.com/release

Diena Seeger is the founder of iBalans, a company that develops sensory-stimulating training products for mind-body fitness and rehabilitation. The company’s inaugural product, the WAV® uses the principles of neuromuscular science to helps therapists, trainers and consumers strengthen the brain body connection for healthier movement. She also provides entrepreneurship mentoring to students of various ages and serves on the Funny Farm Animal Rescue Board.Her early career accomplishments include implementing a transformative process change for the airline industry, launching an industry first consumer mobile application, and leading a healthcare technology company that created nutritional “prescriptions” designed to prevent disease and enhance well-being. Contact Info Company: Ibalans Website: www.WavTrainer.com Blog: https://www.wavtrainer.com/blog/ email: diena@ibalanslife.com Most Influential Person My business mentor. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has been super helpful in the sense that I don't bring my emotions to the surface very much and it's helping me bring them up a little bit more and share them and be aware and use that for later time. So I think it's really helpful in that way. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a great one because breathing is really a part of brain body practice and our whole core philosophy for stability. So it's core stability for your movement, but it's also core stability for yourself. So cleansing and getting oxygen to your brain and body. Suggested Resources Book: Flow in Sports: The Keys To Optimum Experiences and Performances by Susan Jackson and Mihaly Csikszentsmihalyi Book: Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Brian Wansink App: I choose to stay away from apps and find ways to connect with myself, mostly through movement. Bullying Story I know that you do a lot of great work for children, so I was trying to think of a childhood experience. Something that came to mind for was this. When I was in school there was a girl and unfortunately maybe that stereotypical movie girl who really was the brunt of a lot of not nice things. In retrospect, I'm guessing her home life was probably not so nice either. Like all the things as a kid you don't actually understand. You get it as you're older but you don't have any idea what that is. And I didn't bully her but I didn't help her not be bullied. So I think that while her story and what happened to her pales in comparison like I don't have something like that. What it did do is help me realize that bullying isn't just a one on one thing. It impacts all the people around you as well that are part of that bullying situation. And I think if I could have had; I don't know if it's just maturity, mindfulness, a combination of those two things together that it would have allowed me to really tap into what intuitively I was feeling deep inside but didn't let come out and and how you're almost like, Oh, thank heavens that's not me, but really that's because there's a deeper gut feeling. You're thinking that's really awful, but you're not expressing it or doing something about it. So I think if I had more mindfulness or ability at that point, I would have been able to take and manifest that into an actual action where I could have been part of a solution. I wasn't part of a problem, but I was because I wasn't part of a solution and if you're not part of a solution, you're still part of a problem. So I think of bullying in that way and I think it's really important to bring not just the person into bullying but all the people around them that are also impacting because that'll be a stronger kind of way to go about it.   Free Gift Get the brand new 'Sleep Naturally' Guided Meditation by Bruce Langford. A deep, easy sleep is yours to enjoy. Sleep naturally and fall asleep easily. Drift off to sleep with a calm, gentle voice. Rest comfortably, without effort.Click here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/Sleep

Richard Trevino II is a consultant, a speaker, and a writer with expertise in the area of productivity and leadership. His leadership mastery covers the topics of company culture, conflict resolution and communication, all important aspects of leadership. Richard started the company, Elevation Consulting Firm to help companies grow their people and increase their bottom line. His writings have appeared in Entrepreneur, Addicted 2 Success, AskMen and Thrive Global. Contact Info Company: www.ElevationConsultingFirm.com Website: www.RichardTrevino2.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/richard.i.trevino Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/richard_trevino_2/ Most Influential Person My dad. Effect on Emotions I think it's everything, because when you're conscious, where you're at, you're mindful of what's going on. You understand? Like I said a while ago, you understand that everything can be gone tomorrow. Your life can be gone. Life is very fragile. My wife almost died almost five years ago. We lost our baby. She was pregnant four months. We lived in the hospital for three months. It was touch and go. We almost lost her. She had massive blood transfusions. Life is very fragile. So for me, I think being mindful of where you are and understanding that life is a gift and it's here one moment and it's gone the next. I think that's everything. For me it's freedom because it allows me this opportunity to say I'm going to be me, I'm gonna feel free to express myself and show you who I am and where I'm at right now because I may not ever get another opportunity. Thoughts on Breathing Well, that's funny because I have a new APP on my phone. I have an apple watch and my wife got this for me for father's Day. And so there's actually an app on there that literally twice a day stops me and it's a, it's a breathing exercise. I thought it was silly at first. Like I'm not even joking. I thought it was silly at first, but as I've done it, Bruce, I'm telling you right now, man, there's something to that. It literally forces you to stop and go through the breathing activity and when you do that, I'm like, Oh my God, I'm so much more calm. Suggested Resources Book: Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport App: The Breathing App on the Apple Watch. It reminds me to breathe consciously twice a day. Bullying Story Towards the latter part of my career at this one company, and I won't mention the name right because it's just not my style. But I was literally doing the best I had ever done. My team was actually the number one team in our district and one of the best teams in the region. We were doing amazing work. I was one of the highest paid employees. I was making more money than my manager was. I was one of the highest paid employees. My staff was some of the highest paid agents in the region. we were doing phenomenal. Around us, in our district the teams were falling apart. It was just utter chaos. And I would try to bring people in like some of the agents that needed help and try to put them under our team's wings and help them to make sure that we gave them a fighting chance. However, there was an upper manager, a regional vice president that just had just the ugliest heart and just wanted to just make mean changes and try to, you know, flex her muscle on people and you know, I just stuck to myself and I literally put our team in the corner and I faced everybody to me and I was in the corner and I said, you keep your eyes this way. We focus here. Keep your eyes on me. Do not put your eyes on any of the negativity. Just look here, I'm going to help you. We're going to make it through this and we're going to flourish in the middle of it all. Well, during that time that regional vice president began to bully. That's what really, what was going on. Some people think, oh, that's a management style. That's not a management style, that's bullying people. Harassing people is really what it came down to. She was bullying; flexing her authority on people and didn't need to do that. And then, especially people that were actually mild mannered people, pretty reserved people that would go with the flow with anythingthing. She made it a point to just flex her muscle and to make an example out of them to everybody else. And there was never a need to do that. In the end, I ended up leaving the company. Free Gift Get the brand new Awaken With Focus 12-Minute Guided Meditation by Bruce LangfordBe alert and focused after waking. Feel invigorated, fresh and dynamic. Let your vibrancy feed those around you. Be the energetic person you desire to be. Click here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/AwakenWithFocus    

SustainableThree founder Liz Rutledge is deeply passionate about the environment. Liz has been practicing mindfulness in one form or another since she was ten years old and now teaches mindfulness at Denver area schools. She’s also in the process of earning her Mindful School certification. Liz also teaches how to compost, garden, recycle and participate in other sustainability activities. She is a blogger and has written the blog on sustainablethree.com since 2014. In addition, Liz is a freelance writer and dabbles in novels, editorials, and other blogs. She loves to garden and travel as well as being a wife and mother to three children. She is passionate about focusing on the three areas; your self, your community and your planet. Contact Info Company: SustainableThree Website: www.SustainableThree.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/SustainThree Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sustainablethree/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SustainableThree/ Most Influential Person My Yoga teacher, Tina Porter Effect on Emotions I am maybe able to be aware in a moment of how I'm feeling and course correct if needed. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is critical to my mindfulness practice. I literally have a sticker on the back of my car that says breathe, because I think that is literally where it all is, is in the breath. Suggested Resources Book: Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation In Everyday Life by Jon Kabat-Zinn App: Headspace / Insight Timer Bullying Story I have had moments of being bullied when I was a teen. I had horrible acne and was called pizza face and that was not fun. But I actually have a very recent example that might be relevant to your listeners. I recently made a post on social media thinking that I was being helpful and I was actually bullied quite badly in the comments section after making what I thought was a very positive comment and I just sort of sat with it all day and, and instead of just reacting to the negative reactions that I received from my post or deleting my original comment, I just let it be and I kinda thought through it and I talked to some friends and in the end one of the people that was in that communication thread asked me privately, this is on facebook. if we could talk. And I told her, you know, I'm happy to speak on the phone, but this texting back and forth thing is really not the way I'm feeling heard. I feel like I was completely misunderstood and she said I totally get it. So we had a phone conversation last night actually, and it was not easy to have the conversation because she had to tell me some things that were hard to hear, but I was so glad I did because it opened up a dialogue where maybe if I had just deleted my comments and said, oh my gosh, these people are so hateful, I'm out, that never would have happened. So there's a space that's been created for healing and she's friended me on facebook and she's actually going to send me a book to help me kind of understand. It was about race; a very, very misunderstood topic, I think. And she coached me on how to kind of post a mindfully thought response and I posted it and then went to bed. But it's incredible to me that even as a 47 year old woman, I'm having to deal with bullying even with all the work I do to try to be a good influence in the world and try to be a positive influence in the world. Relax and Breathe Summit Join me, Bruce Langford, on the Relax and Breathe Summit. This free Summit, hosted by Pompe Strater-Vidal, features 22 guests who will offer you simple techniques to find calm, clarity, and focus.Join here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/rab2018

Dr. John Hagelin is a Harvard-trained quantum physicist, life-long educator and inventor and leading researcher on higher states of consciousness. He is the recipient of the prestigious Kilby award in physics, and is renowned for developing a highly successful grand unified field theory based on the Superstring. He is currently President, Maharishi University of Management and the Director of Maharishi University of Management’s Institute of Science, Technology and Public Policy. A physicist by training, Hagelin was a researcher at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) in the early 1980s. Hagelin stood as a candidate for President of the United States for the Natural Law Party. H Dr. Hagelin has been published extensively in the area of supersymmetric unified quantum field. He has appeared many times on news shows such as ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Meet the Press and in major metropolitan newspapers including the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times. He is International Director of the Global Union of Scientists for Peace. Contact Info Email: President@mum.edu Most Influential Person Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Effect on Emotions Emotions are generally more joyful. A lot of the negative emotions of anxiety and depression are stress driven, so if you have a powerful stress buster, and meditation generally is meant to be a stressful. Remember, mindfulness based stress reduction is meant to be a stress buster. The very, very deep rest that comes with tm is an even more powerful stress buster. That completely changes the complexion of one's emotions. So also because meditation takes your awareness deep to very fine, fine levels of feeling one's emotions, tend to get more deeply appreciated. They become richer. You start to feel more like a fine artist who has a very deep kind of feeling for things. I didn't have that kind of refinement growing up. So that's a nice side effect of meditation. Thoughts on Breathing That's very interesting. In the TM technique, you don't really worry about your breath. You just follow the mind as it flows into this state of deep silence and inner unboundedness and your breath goes with it in the sense that as the mind gets deeply rested and settled, the breath gets deeply rested and settled. In the meditative state, the deepest points of meditation, I'd swear I wasn't breathing. Now, if you really pay attention to it, you'll notice that there is a puff of breath coming up the nose and a just a puff of breath coming out, but it doesn't even really get past your head and you're living on that. The requirement for oxygen goes way down. When the body is deeply rested and the cells inside the body aren't burning as much oxygen, aren't burning as much fuel. So a very deep state of rest will soften the breath and my breath is soft even an activity as a consequence of that regular practice. Suggested Resources Book: Strength in Stillness: The Power of Transcendental Meditation by Bob Roth Book: Transcendence: Healing and Transformation Through Transcendental Meditation by Norman E. Rosenthal Bullying Story I don't think I've been myself participating in bullying activity. I tend to always stand up for the underdog, whoever might be getting bullied to within the limits of my own strength and of course as a younger person, I was as vulnerable as anybody and I didn't have as much strength as I would've wanted to stand up more forcefully for people who were being misused. But as a physicist who is willing to talk about consciousness and is dedicated to researching consciousness, that makes me a little bit of an outlier in the physics community because physical scientists don't talk about consciousness. It's like, real men don't do ballet because for a physicist, we study the physical world, we're meat and potatoes people. If we can see it, we can touch it, we can taste it, it's real. This consciousness stuff, what is that, the tooth fairy, Santa Claus? It's a crazy point of view because physicists have consciousness. They should recognize that they are conscious and since consciousness doesn't exist within their physical equations, they tend to dismiss it as something that's not real. Actually, if they take their study of physics more deeply, they will discover that consciousness does fit into their physical equations. That is the very source of physics and every discipline for that matter, but be that as it may, having been a bit of an outlier, willing to talk about conscience, that there are plenty of physicists who have dismissed me. In fact, when I went from Stanford University Faculty to Maharishi University Faculty in 1983, people wrote me off. They thought that was kind of obviously going to be the end of me. It wasn't. I mean that was really the start of my fruitful research in physics and I had developed a doctoral program and got a national science foundation grant to do research in unified field theory. So my physics was fine, but even then, even though my physics was demonstrably better than it had been. I still, I think I probably was considered to be odd because I was into consciousness, into meditation and so forth. So definitely you can tell when you're at a social event or conference involving other physicists, you know, physicists can take an attitude towards you and they certainly did to me. I certainly felt that at times patronizing and so forth. So if you took that stuff seriously and it was certainly tempting for me at times, you know, to react to it, you know, to, to push back in a way that might not be productive, you know, get into an argument or toss an insult back to the other person. But, by about that time in my life, you know, I had been meditating for quite some years and I didn't find myself overthrown by it. I found the whole thing actually a little humorous. I was able to just smile quietly as all this was going on because it was going on. I know it was going on. I wasn't always invited to give the keynote speeches at conferences. Even if I did the keynote research behind it, you know, just a little bit of a second class treatment. It was as though I were an African American in the deep South 40 years ago. You just don't get the same treatment. I mean, you know, it just wasn't the nature of the culture at the time. And I felt a little bit like that. Anyway, yes, being grounded in yourself is really so key. It's really important to be in the driver's seat in the sense that you're not reactive because if you're reactive, if you're defensive, it's hard to know what you're going to say, but it's probably not going to serve you. Right? So being grounded in yourself, your big self, your inner silence, unshakably so. And that's something that's developed over years and years. That's a great antidote to overreacting and from ever getting thrown off of your feet. Relax and Breathe Summit Join me, Bruce Langford, on the Relax and Breathe Summit. This free Summit, hosted by Pompe Strater-Vidal, features 22 guests who will offer you simple techniques to find calm, clarity, and focus.Join here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/rab2018

Dr. Rubye Bray is president of Wu Li Turtle, and WuLiTurtle.com is where she is a certified executive coach, Georgetown trained, and is an expert in the topic of leadership and organizational performance. She created the business breakthrough program where she works with high level professionals from around the world to boost their leadership skills and business performance. Dr Bray was a university doctoral professor for 16 years. She recently retired as a lieutenant colonel with more than 21 years of service and a vice president for a technology firm. She's chaired more than 80 dissertations and in so doing, she has supported leaders in many institutional types, finance, government education, entertainment, health, labor, law, manufacturing, and defense, in locations around the world. Contact Info Phone: 703_864_3769 Email: rbraye@wuliturtle.com Most Influential Person My Mother. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has made it possible for me to respond instead of react. Instead of carrying anger all the time so that when something is said that's harmful and hurtful, I am ready to retaliate with the same type of expression, I now realize that love is the answer. So for everything that happens, it's like, go inside and find what would love do. What would love say? What would love think? How would love behave? That's how mindfulness and slowing down is really blessed and helped me. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing, for me, represents the source of life. When breath ends, we've transitioned to a new place, and so I treasure breath like I treasure love. There is such gratitude and acceptance and, I can't say enough, for the breath. With each breath, I am given an opportunity, a possibility to be my best self, to think my best thoughts, to say the best words. That's the importance of breathing for me. Without breath, I am not. With breath, I am. Suggested Resources Book: Unclutter Your Mind: 500 Ways to Focus on What's Important by Donna Smallin Book: Discover Your Inner Strength by Jim Bandrowski, Stephen Covey, Ken Blanchard, Brian Tracy, Rubye Braye, and others App: Sonic Aid CDs Bullying Story When I integrated Cloverdale, [a middle school in Montgomery, Alabama] I was bullied in ways that were just horrific. It is not enough to be told. I won't use the terms and the phrases. I don't want to put them in the universe again. Things that were believed about black people, things the children and their parents said to black people and things that were done to black people. My mother, embracing nonviolence, simply said, "If you get in a fight and come home and I am made aware, you will have another fight with me." She was so committed to nonviolence, but that didn't mean that I had to be passive, that I couldn't stand up and confront evil, but that I was not to retaliate with violence. And so I found myself whispering prayers, both for me and those that I interacted with, the other children and their parents, the teachers at the school, and the administrators at the school, "Help us all. Help us all." I can remember sitting in church listening to Dr King addressing the importance of nonviolence and not retaliating with violence. That would be like putting gasoline on a fire. You don't fight fire with fire. And it was just a gift. And even now as an adult, there are times when I just project love and light out into the universe, knowing that, like the symbol for the ying and the yang, there will always be light, there will always be darkness. The brightest light helps to balance the darkest darkness. It's like, let me carry this bright light. And in so doing, I don't do it just for me, but to help model the way for others. Relax and Breathe Summit Join me, Bruce Langford, on the Relax and Breathe Summit. This free Summit, hosted by Pompe Strater-Vidal, features 22 guests who will offer you simple techniques to find calm, clarity, and focus.Join here: www.MindfulnessMode.com/rab2018