Mindfulness Mode

Virginia Muzquiz is known as the Referral Diva. She is an Executive Director with Business Network International, the Chief Connections Officer with Master Connectors, Inc and the host of the Passion+Purpose=IMPACT podcast. Well-known for her ability to connect the people she meets with people they need to know, Virginia is on a mission to help solo business owners connect to their purpose and their passion so they can build businesses that fund their dreams and have massive impact on the community where they live and serve. Contact Info Website: www.MasterConnectors.com Website: Also find Virginia at www.BNIMidAmerica.com Free 'Faithful FollowUp Guide': www.MasterConnectors.com/followup Most Influential Person Callan Rush Effect on Emotions I'm no longer a reactive slave to my emotions. I'm actually a casual observer. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is what ties the mind to clarity. I think breathing is what gives me clarity, focus and vision. Suggested Resources Book: Anything by Dr. Wayne Dyer App: iTunes - Meditative music which I preview on Pandora and then purchase on iTunes Also search for Nam-myoho-renge-kyo. It's a Buddhist chant. Bullying Story I'll tell you a story because it does have that 'if I had known how to deal with it different' slant because I actually had a similar situation. I was 12 years old, 11 or 12 and it was in fifth grade and I was invited to Dana Amoli's birthday party. I felt like, oh my God, I made it. Dana was going to have me over to her house. I was going to get to go to the party and everything. What I didn't know is I was the entertainment. Like if you've ever seen the movie mean girls, like I was the entertainment. So after all the parents went to bed, it probably was 11 or 12:00 at night. The girls, they were all doing that thing where you lay down and you do light as a feather, stiff as a board and lift with two fingers. Well, they got me to lay down, but instead of doing light as a feather stiff as a board, they held me down. They smeared me with green Jello and they shoved me in a closet and that's where I slept. I pounded on the door. I begged for them to let me out. And they didn't let me out until the morning. I can't even remember really what happened because I'm sure that Mrs Amoli was horrified and talked to my mother. I don't remember. That moment is like sticky and in the dark and laughing and, you know, that was just like, it's so wow. It's so present for me and how cruel and ucky that was.

Jen Molitor is a teacher who believes we should teach children, not curriculum. She’s on a mission to empower and unite teachers and parents all over the world. Her superpower is getting teachers to smile and enjoy teaching again. She brings a refreshing perspective that lifts you up when you want to walk out, reminding you of the real reason you became an educator.We are all teachers. Let’s spread the message that powerful teaching is done through the heart. Start there, and as if by magic, the mind also opens to learning. Contact Info Website: www.LiftUpLeaders.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LiftupLeaders/ Blog: Lift Up Leaders Most Influential Person Louise Hay, Author Effect on Emotions I'm more centered. I'm a better mom, a better wife, a better person. Thoughts on Breathing It helps to slow me down, helps to connect me and get in touch with my body in a quicker way. Suggested Resources Book: The Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman App: Smiling Minds (A Meditation App for Kids) Bullying Story I think there are a lot of stories about people being bullied and picking on them and I have some. However, I don't want to share that. I want to share one from a teacher perspective and what I'm seeing in schools because I think it's really powerful. I think it's powerful as a parent too, to model these kinds of things. I think that parents and teachers in this authority type of responsibility, we're taking care of kids, we're in charge of them. We can tend to bully kids ... because I said so and this is how it's done and we have all these other things to get through. So just sit down and this is what you have to do and I don't care if you dropped your pencil, you know, like this kind of thing. And I think inadvertently we are really sending this message to kids that they're not as important. Right now I work as a gifted intervention specialist and instructional coach and so part of my time I work with kids in my room who are identified as gifted. It's a pullout type of atmosphere. So I have between eight and 20 kids in my room and when they come to my room I hear some of the grumbling that happens from what teachers told them in the hallway, like their whole class had to go back to the class and sit down because two kids were talking in the hallway or one kid got in trouble and everyone else had to get the brunt of it. So what I've come to discover is that we need to have more mindful conversations with kids and step out of our ego for a little bit. And if a kid is misbehaving, it's usually because they're discouraged. They don't wake up one day and say, who can I tick off today? I can't wait. It's more of, I'm feeling uncomfortable if something's going on, I'm discouraged. And, I need attention. I need this. I'm going to throw this or get in trouble there. I don't eat the teacher's lounge anymore. I stopped that and it's been helpful. So that kind of complaining and venting about kids and other people. Even as a mom, if there's another mom on the soccer field and all the moms are talking about that person, well that's, that's kind of bullying too. And I think we have to model for others, you know, like grace. I think we have to model grace. Like, no, she doesn't wear what I would wear and maybe she doesn't do what I would do or drive the car that I would, or treat her kid like I would. There's got to be a place for some grace for kids, for teachers, for adults.

Adam Schaeuble, aka The PHD (previously heavy dude), is the host of the top ranked fitness podcast 'The Million Pound Mission'. He reached a point in his life where he weighed 327 pounds and was already having weight related health issues in his late twenties. He decided to overhaul his lifestyle and his fitness and ended up losing over 100 pounds. Feeling inspired, he took what he learned from his own transformation journey and created a bootcamp program that produced over 35,000 pounds of results in his home town of Bloomington, Indianna. Now Adam has set his sights on inspiring over one million pounds of healthy results through his podcast, online academy, and online bootcamp program. Contact Info Website: www.MillionPoundMission.com Blog: Podcast: The Million Pound Mission Most Influential Person Gary Keller, author of the book, The One Thing Effect on Emotions I think it's helped me really deal with anxiety a lot. I've been in the hospital a few times from entrepreneur itis, working too many hours and you know, anxiety attacks, and taking on too much. So being mindful, being present in the moment has allowed me to have like a filter to sort out what is actually happening and what do I actually need to be worrying about? Thoughts on Breathing Breathing. I follow a meditation practice that's involved with breathing. Just being able to have control of whether it's box breathing or just doing kind of a silent meditative practice where I'm just focusing on the breath. I love just doing breathing where I breathe in, count one, breathe out, count to 10 and then cycle through that a few times. And it's just a nice little reset where I can actually do that in between tasks if I'm kind of switching modes from, okay, we do this interview and now I have to do some client calls. I'll do a little bit. I use that to kind of pause and breathe. Suggested Resources Book: Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less by Greg McKeown App: Headspace Bullying Story Well, I think there's a unique thing that happens when somebody loses a lot of weight and we kind of bully ourselves a little bit. Like there's a moment where we beat ourselves up. We lose that confidence. And like I said, we assume that other people are making fun of us so people will beat themselves up a lot along the journey about not being there yet. Maybe they've lost 60 or 70 pounds, but their goal is 80, 90 pounds and they beat themselves up about not being there yet. They're not being present. They're not realizing like, hey, I've accomplished something amazing and be proud of that. So it's probably not the traditional bullying answer that you get, but I feel like, let's start with us. Like don't beat our selves up. Don't be hard on our own self, especially when we're accomplishing amazing things, you know? Be Proud of yourself. There's a coach I've got named Dan Sullivan; he talks about something called the gap and the gain. He says you have to always measure from where you started. That's the gain. Don't measure the gap between where we are now to where we want to get to be because that's like the horizon line and getting there never happens because what happens when we hit our 50 pound goal. Okay, I want 60. Okay, I hit that. Okay. I want 70. If people don't take that moment to breathe and be present and realize that, you know what, that's pretty damn awesome. And like, we all do this, whether it's with weight loss, with anything. I do my affirmations, I still do my lifestyle rehabilitation. I still do it all and I just accomplished another major goal. I paid off my mortgage and I'm mortgage free. I'm 100 percent debt free and I took a few days. I just like, I just, I wasn't going to set the new goal, I wasn't going to set the next thing. I just sat down and just kind of walked around my house and I'm like, this is mine. I don't have to worry about that debt anymore. I can take that and invest in my retirement. I just really got into the moment, celebrated that with my kids, my family, and we talked about it. My son's seven. I talked to him, like I'm going to help, you know, put more money towards their college, he doesn't understand any of that, but I just communicated it to him, but just kind of being in that moment, being present, being mindful and being proud.

Erin Burch is a healer with roots as a physical therapist and yoga expert. She is known as ‘The Body Whisperer’, and if you’re experiencing pain, she can quite simply, give you your body back, using her own system coined as ‘The Burch Method’. Her expertise goes back to a prolonged experience with her body where she reversed a seemingly impossible, painful situation to become a new, pain-free woman. The brand new Erin felt connected and empowered with a fresh sense of freedom. With her clients, Erin draws on the Body’s Blueprint to create profound, lasting results. Contact Info Website: www.TheBurchMethod.com Watch for Erin's Program, "Ageless Goddess Sister Mind", a year long deep dive with a tight knit community which is launching this Fall. The program is for midlife women specifically from age 40 to 65. Learn more on her website www.TheBurchMethod.com Most Influential Person Yoga Effect on Emotions Regarding mindfulness and my emotions; I'm so much better than I was. Mindfulness is your savior in terms of your emotions because when you get triggered, if there's no space for awareness, you are just shit out of luck. Do you know what I mean? Like you can do therapy all day long, but if there's no place for consciousness to be the crowbar; I think of mindfulness as being a crowbar, you know, awareness, mindfulness, attention, you can call it whatever. But, you know, it's the crowbar that gets in between there and opens things up. So you can insert your witness and start to make changes from that place. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing. Oh Wow. I would love to do a lot more pranayama. Yeah, a lot more. I think it's probably, you know, arguably the most potent thing that we can do and I don't do it as much as I want to. It literally. It's the subtle, it's the subtle stuff. It's the little things. It's the millimeters. I've got to tell you, my work is all about like living into the millimeters because that's where change happens and pranayama's like that. It's actually interesting, Bruce, because with all of my training for the last year and a half, I've been waking up feeling like my rib cage is just jammed, can't breathe, wake up in the morning, not gasping for breath, but it certainly isn't free. Right? And it's now after a year and a half doing my mindfulness in my body fullness practice, it's much better and I'm getting more aware. That's what I mean by, you know, when we live the questions in our bodies, stuff shows up, right? Doesn't show up fast necessarily, but it does show up. So I'm much better. But breathing is like, again, like, you know, oxygen. Oh my God, why are we not doing everything we can all day long to increase that? If you think about the size of your lungs, it's about the size of a two liter bottle on each side, roughly. And watch how most people breathe. These little tiny, tiny breaths. So I'm a big fan of it and I'm getting better and better at it. Suggested Resources Book: The MindBody Code: How to Change the Beliefs that Limit Your Health, Longevity, and Success by Mario Martinez PsyD Book: BodyWise: Discovering Your Body's Intelligence for Lifelong Health and Healing by Rachel Carlton Abrams Book: 8 Steps to a Pain-Free Back: Natural Posture Solutions for Pain in the Back, Neck, Shoulder, Hip, Knee, and Foot by Esther Gokhale LAc and Susan Adams App: n/a   A Client Testimonial Story I just got a testimonial today from a woman. I can read it to you. Actually. I did a VIP day with her. A VIP day with me is six hours where we go back to the drawing board and build your body up in a whole new way. Then I spend all the time that we're together training you into that place and teaching you how to stay there, which is really unusual to get that kind of training. Nobody does that. Right. And that's the key, is learning how to stay there. Yeah. Because when you leave a physical therapist or chiropractor or massage therapist office, they're influence stops when you walk out the door. That wasn't okay with me as a PT (Physical Therapist). They would come back with the same body and I was like, but we did such good work and they'd be like, I don't know what I did. And so I've started to unravel the patterns that people use to paint themselves into the corner that they don't like being in. That's what I mean by the trunk, by being in the trunk is, you know, you unconsciously paint yourself into these corners and then you wonder how did I get here and who can help me get out of it? And I'm like, okay, this is how you got there. This is the driver's seat, this is how you got there. And now if you do this other thing, you'll get a different result. Really, really revolutionary. No one's doing this. So here's what she wrote: "If you do one thing this year, hire Erin. The Burch Method and working with Erin will change your life. After one VIP session with her and integrating the Burch Method into my routine, my years of nagging hip and knee pain have disappeared. I travel over 100,000 miles per year in my career. And for the first time I've gotten off the plane without stiffness and pain. I have more energy and more stamina than I did in my forties. Erin is the best at what she does, period."

Sylvia Becker-Hill is an industry expert in the field of corporate leadership and international speaking. She is the author of '12 Leadership Powers for Successful Women'. Sylvia has experienced first-hand, the rise of women’s empowerment. Sylvia fuses her love of science and psychology to help people break through their un-serving dogmas of the past. Her mission is to raise the number of female leaders world-wide in all sections of society, economy and government by 30% in the next 30 years. Contact Info Website: www.Becker-Hill.com Book: Leadership Powers, 12 Powers For Successful Women by Sylvia Becker-Hill 3 Free Videos: Available by Purchasing The Above Book - How to Overcome the Fear of Stepping Into Your Power / How To Overcome the Guilt Around Self-Care / How To Overcome the Shame Around Asking For Money Podcast: Women's Empowerment School Radio (Podcast coming in June 2018) Most Influential Person My husband, Peter Hill. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness helps me to stay out of emotional drama and enjoy the beauty of real emotions. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is my most easiest, most powerful tool. By just taking a deep breath, I raise already my level of mindfulness. Suggested Resources Book: Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver Book: Leadership Powers, 12 Powers For Successful Women by Sylvia Becker-Hill App: Inner Balance from Heart Math Insitute Bullying Story For my own experience, let me say that I had. I had in the past quite a short fuse. Is that an expression which makes sense for English speakers, so when I watched something which was against my values, some injustice, unfairness, it's at school or in business, oh my gosh. That triggered me and being German, I'm straightforward in my communication. So I had the tendency in the past to explode and say what I think and be quite straight and intense and sometimes to a degree which was hurting the other person. It sometimes went over the top and was not appropriate for the situation. There's a difference between stepping up when you see injustice and mentioning it and addressing it or leaching out because you feel subconsciously attacked in your own value system. So there's these two layers of appropriate addressing. Plus because my ego was still attached to my values, being here to act and threaten where my ego was reacting. So mindfulness gave me the tool to be able to even distinguish what I just shared with you. That there are two layers that, that it's not about not saying anything, it's about having the clarity and the confidence to address things which are not okay, but in a way which are productive and not coming from an own hurt ego reaction pattern where I'm protecting more my own values or whatever I'm feeling attacked. Maybe it's an argument, maybe it's a belief system. So mindfulness helps me to distinguish that. I was able to discover that and mindfulness helped me to train, to let go of the ego hurt reaction where I'm defending where I'm attacking the other person because I feel threatened and focus really on the productive part of the interaction. So mindfulness I think makes me a better person where this short fuse; it's now a very long fuse, so it needs now much more to trigger me that I lose control. So mindfulness ultimately gave me more control about the animal parts of me, the ego part, the subconscious mind parts, the parts where in the past I might have gone out of control in a painful way for others and myself.

Anne Gordon de Barrigon is a whale and dolphin expert. She has been running Whale and Dolphin Wisdom Retreats since 2007 and has a Degree in Biology and Animal Behavior.  She has worked as a zookeeper and has trained animals for over 20 years for movies and TV. Married into the indigenous Embera tribe in Panama. Owns and operates Embera Village Tours. Pioneered the whale watching industry in Panama. Contact Info Website: www.WhaleWisdomRetreats.com Free Ebook: You can download 'Messages From the Sea', which is wisdom that I received direct from the dolphins and whales. I'm happy to share that with you. (Get it from her website) Most Influential Person I think that would be the whales and dolphins. For me, they're, they're my gurus. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has given me a deep sense of peace, a deep peace and comfort. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is really important because dolphins and whales are conscious breathers. Dolphins and whales have to literally consciously think to breathe. That means, let's just say you're swimming underwater and you know you can't breathe until you come to the surface. Same with them. So when you are conscious breather for a whale and dolphin, they can't sleep like we can. We sleep because they they'd suffocate without breathing so they sleep with one half of their brain and the other half keeps them moving and breathing or you know, coming to the surface. So when you are fully conscious of your breathing, it also, that just expands to being more conscious and using more of your brain power or conscious of how your physical body moves, which also opens up your mind to being more aware and conscious of the world around you. Suggested Resources Book: Conversations With God By Neale Donald Walsch App: Nature is my app lol Bullying Story I'm not aware of being bullied or just didn't pay enough attention so that it affected me. I have an interesting story that I think you'll like. It was on a retreat here with the whales and I had these people on this trip who were all from the UK. This one young man, he was just 21 and he was so much fun, but he was hyper as all get out. He was just bouncing off the walls. This was not even a spiritual group. They were more of a whale-watching scientific group. Somebody in the group asked, can we do some meditation? I'm like, sure. Okay. So when we went to do the first meditation, this young man said, I don't know if I can do this meditation stuff. I can't sit still for anything. And I said, you know what? That's fine. It's up to you and if you want to just try it and if it doesn't work, just very quietly walk away so you don't disturb anybody. So he was like, okay. So I gave him permission to leave if he needed to. So I started the meditation and when I oftentimes lead meditations, I have an idea of where it's going, but the whales and dolphins enter and they guide me and I just go wherever they want to take us. So on that particular evening they wanted to take us to forgiveness. So okay. We went there and what they asked me to show was to have everybody imagine a dolphin hunter from Japan standing in front of them and then feel what they feel about a dolphin hunter, but then see that this man, this hunter has a family and he has his culture and he has his history and he's just trying to do what we're all trying to do and that's feed his family and live a good life, good healthy, happy life. And that's all he knows how to do; to connect with him on a heart to heart level and a soul to soul level. And then I guided them to hug this man once they connected heart to heart, soul to soul. So afterwards, I was asking for anybody to share and this young man said that was amazing. He said, I saw that Japanese hunter and I punched him. But then when you asked me to look at his heart and his soul and see that he was just trying to get by. I hugged him and I apologized. I'm so sorry that I hit him. And so for me, bullying is about like he was trying to bully this Japanese hunter. If we just open our hearts and our, our souls to connect on that level because the people doing the bullying are doing so out of pain that they're feeling. And so they don't know how else to act out. So we need to open our hearts and move to understand them and give them the love they're so desperately seeking.

Valorie Hubbard is an actor and an expert at empowering other actors. She owns the company, Actor’s Fast Track, where she consults with working actors about their career paths. In her newest book, 'Rule Breakers - Changing The Way Actors Do Business', she shows professional actors how to create and operate their acting career as a successful business – and how to move from being “stuck” into the limelight. Some of her credits include: Castle, Agent’s of S.H.I.E.L.D; How I Met Your Mother; Glee; American Horror Story; Workaholics; True Blood, Resident Evil: Extinction and every Disney show. Valorie lives in Los Angeles with her husband Chef Gill Boyd and dog Gracie. Contact Info Company: Actors Fast Track Website: www.ActorsFastTrack.com Contact: Sara@actorsfasttrack.com will arrange a conversation for you with the right person. Free Book: Text the word 'Rulebreakers' to 38470 to get a free digital download of the book, Rulebreakers by Valorie Hubbard. Most Influential Person Melissa McFarland, who was my original coach in Actor's Fast Track. She was my coach for 10 years. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has calmed my rage down. If I take that five seconds before I make a decision; discernment. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is everything. I mean, you learn that as an actor and so breathing is everything. Everything. It's life, so huge. It's a huge impact. Suggested Resources Book: Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod Book: Rule Breakers: Changing The Way Actors Do Business by Valorie Hubbard App: Stitcher (Podcast App) Bullying Story Well, that's hilarious because really my tagline as an actor, is the adorable bully. Marcy Lewis is the bully. You know, like I've always played the bully. So it's so funny. I've always played that person. When I was little I was teased a lot for being fat. And one of the things that I didn't know and I wasn't taught is, I think breath would have been a very big help. I mean, that's something they didn't know when I was a child, about breathing in and breathing out and breathing in and breathing out. And that time out and that five second rule, that discernment thing, you know, is really big. What happened is, the kid started teasing my friend one day and because it was my friend, all of a sudden I just lost it. Like I snapped and I've had a few of those where I beat him up. He never came back to school. The girl beat him up. The fat girl beat him up. I socked him hard in his face, you know. The lesson always is if you don't say something, if you don't have the conversation, if you don't face and say the truth of what you're feeling regardless of how they take it or whatever, it's like it'll build up to where you explode and possibly injure someone. I mean there were times in my adult life where I, you know, early adult life where I experienced that and I was like, I do not want to experience that again.

Devin Galaudet is editor-in-chief of 'In The Know Traveler' and he's visited 85 coutries around the world. He's in the process of marrying his wife 100 times in 100 countries. He's accomplished 20 times in 15 countries so far. He's appeared on Fox, NBC, ReInvention Radio among others. His writing has appeared in the Huffington Post, TravelAge West, Citron Review, Skylight Magazine. Devin has written a memoir called, Ten Thousand Miles With My Dead Father's Ashes, available in bookstore in September, 2018. It answers the question, what do you do when you lose your father's ashes? Contact Info Website: www.DevinGalaudet.com Book: 10,000 Miles With My Dead Father's Ashes by Devin Galaudet Blog: www.InTheKnowTraveler.com Podcast: Writing Daily With Devin Most Influential Person Anna Korea King (A woman I studied the Western Mysteries with) Effect on Emotions I can't begin to tell you how important mindfulness is towards my day to day life and I think it comes in a variety of forms in religion and spirituality and philosophy and all kinds of different doctrines and things like that. I think what it's given me is to kind of look beyond how I might be feeling in any given moment to understand that I am part of this great fantastic thing called life and I get to appreciate that thing. Again, some moments and some days are more difficult than others. But overall I'm, I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I think getting started, it is very challenging because we want to fall back on old ideas. I was raised in a certain way so I keep thinking, well I'm that guy and the truth of the matter is I'm not that guy anymore and I haven't been that guy for many years. So having that gratitude, you stay on the wheel, so to speak. You keep working on yourself and remaining conscious. The more that happens, all these other doors start opening up. I started developing more gratitude and more compassion for other people. Thoughts on Breathing Well, I think there's a physiological thing that goes on when we get bad news or we're agitated and that becomes more shallow breaths. That becomes less awareness. I think there are just things that go on. And the first thing that I do is try to almost automatically go into a slower breath. I want to fill my lungs up just to either breathe in this good news or just acknowledge it. Okay, here's this thing that's going on, but I don't need to be flipped out by it. So why don't I just take long, slow breaths? Suggested Resources Book: Some Answered Questions by Abdu'l-Baha App: N/A Bullying Story Yes, I was bullied when I was six or seven years old. And you know, it's hard to describe. Again, this is something that comes from the book. My mother thought that I was a Barbie doll and so she would quite literally dress me in pantaloons and ruffled shirts and buckled shoes and I grew up in like nineteen seventies, Los Angeles. And that is a recipe for getting picked on. As I recall, every boy was wearing like sears, tough skin jeans and everybody was wearing work boots and you know, I mean that's the way my father dressed and that's what I wanted. And so I would get dressed up in these costumes that were, it was, I mean, again, you can look back and you smile at it, but at the time it was just demoralizing. I would go, who wears velvet knickers, like other than like somebody from a French Dandy from the seventeen hundreds. But I was. I don't even know where my mother found culottes for boys, but that's how I was sent to school. And so that without question separated me from most kids and I took some lumps over that and you know, again, I don't know if it's ironic, but once my father got wind of it and my father was a pretty prideful guy and I was kind of a slight built guy and my father was just a wide shoulder, big forearms, the whole thing. And he was very much like, you know, I want to transmit my father and use his language, but that would probably be inappropriate for a family audience. But he made it essentially very clear that you are going to stand up for yourself, you are getting into fistfights wherever necessary. And he took me in the backyard and taught me to do things that really were probably on the edge of right and wrong. But looking back at it, it was something that I think for me as a young man, certainly considering the time, that was just part of what needed to take place.

Dr. Rhoberta Shaler is the 'Relationship Help Doctor'. She provides urgent and on-going care for relationships in crisis. She particularly helps the partners, the exes, adult children, and co-workers of the crazy-making, relentlessly difficult people that she calls, 'Hijackals'. She helps them save their sanity and stop the crazy-making. Even the United States Marines have called on Doctor Shaler for help. She's a relationship expert and speaker and author of 16 books. She consults with clents world-wide through the internet and she's host of two podcasts. One is called 'Emotional Savvy: The Relationship Help Show' and the other podcast is called 'Save Your Sanity: Help For Handling Hijackals'. Contact Info Website: www.ForRelationshipHelp.com Free Book: www.Hijackals.com Podcast: Emotional Savvy: The Relationship Help Show' Podcast: Save Your Sanity: Help For Handling Hijackals Get Spiritual Quotes: Go to www.DailySpiritualQuotes.com Facebook Group: Simply Pour Rhoberta Shaler Most Influential Person Joel Goldsmith (Author) Effect on Emotions I think mindfulness levels your emotions. It doesn't take out the peaks and valleys, but you understand that you choose the state that you stay in. Thoughts on Breathing Well, I think it's key to everything. When you stop and you allow yourself to let your shoulders down from your ear lobes, you take a deep breath and you open your chest and you open your heart at the same time. Then when you allow yourself to take a deep breath, it takes 20 seconds for the oxygen and a deep breath to go all the way around your blood system. So you refresh yourself completely. So when you are using your breath, you are actually regenerating yourself and when you do that it calms you and helps you think more clearly. Suggested Resources Book: The Heart of Mysticism: The Infinite Way Letters 1955-1959 by Joel Goldsmith App: Cell Phone Alarm Bullying Story I was in the education world for a long time as a teacher and then I became a school administrator and it was at a time that really stands out for me. When I had the opportunity, I was given an entire extra classroom to do what I wanted. So every morning I would have all the children including all the special needs children sit in a big circle and I invited their parents to come and spend that first 20 minutes of the day with us. And why I did that was there was a lot of unrest. There was a lot of children who were difficult and a lot of special needs children. And there were of course bullies in the mix. And so if we're all participating in something, it became something that everybody then said, okay, to. There were not any people who were not doing it. And what we saw during that time where we would just sit quietly, maybe we'd play with energy a little bit, you know, we'd rub our hands together and make energy, go round the circle or we'd do a visualization or whatever. We saw a real change and then I had an opportunity to be the administrator of a school for at risk teenagers. And of course there was a lot of this going on, you know, make them do this and all that when I got there. And I know that's not the way it's going to work, we're going to feed them. And so, we made a huge change. These kids who were going out and stealing cars and doing home invasions on the weekends; through love and sitting quietly, they changed. From the time that I went there to work, Bruce, the average length of time a child was staying in the school was three months. By the time I left five years later, we had not had a vacancy for 18 months.

Jeff Jones is a therapist, addiction counsellor, interventionist, and now, family recovery coach working online with families with addiction. He’s expanded the context of addiction and created a three-phase program that empowers families to safeguard their loved one in an addictive cycle or recovery, while they engage in a process to stop the addiction cycle in this generation. After putting it online and wrapping a user-friendly online community around it, Jeff is moving towards his goal of empowering families to connect with like-minded others, family-specific resources and expertise when they are ready. Contact Info Website: www.TheFamilyRecoverySolution.com Most Influential Person Thich Nhat Hanh Effect on Emotions So what I'm aware of is that my emotions can like go to extremes, whether it's spiraled downwards or climb upwards kind of thing. And mindfulness for me has been a very helpful antidote to ground me in reality as opposed to right away believe any extreme, whether it's down or up. So I want to reality check it with mindfulness. Thoughts on Breathing When I take slow, deep breaths into my belly and actually push my belly out, it engages my parasympathetic nervous system which slows the body down, which slows the nervous system down, calms the nervous system. I have been using that in meditation. A natural thing that I do is, right away, take a big breath even sometimes before thinking. It has taken a long time to get there. The slow deep breath is always there. It's a resource that will never leave me. Suggested Resources Book: Diamond Heart: Book One: Elements of the Real in Man by A. H. Almaas App: N/A Bullying Story The story that I'm thinking of happened really not that long ago, just a couple months ago. It is interesting how it started out because I have a number of different, addiction mentors. There was one in particular that I had just sent her an email kind of with a compliment of what I learned from her and I was just at a place where I was looking at what I was doing and having appreciation for the different people who I have learned from whose shoulders I'm standing on kind of thing. So I wrote her an email and what I got back from her was a letter from her attorney. So it was confusing to me and I felt bullied by that. It was a great opportunity for me to be aware of what was going on in my own thinking process. I just couldn't really make sense of my giving her a compliment about something I had learned from her and then getting this letter from her attorney. It was kind of like letting me know how to cite her reference properly, like I was stealing some of her information or something. I called her and I sent an email and I said, hey, I got this email from your attorney and like, can we just have a conversation? Which you know, I got another letter from her attorney and just a couple of weeks ago I was at a conference and I saw her and she was sweet as pie to me. Nothing was said about it. So in that situation I felt like I was being bullied. I was aware of what was going on in my mind and painting all these pictures like I'm being bullied here, and then to see her and get no message of that, it was confusing to me, but what I really learned from that from a mindfulness perspective is how I really need to check out my own thinking. Like I can't always believe my own thinking. And if I don't check it out with the other person, it's not really going to be helpful for me to believe everything that my mind says. Now the other side of it is I do feel that I was being bullied.

Tom Singer is a professional master of ceremonies and keynote speaker for corporate, law firms, and convention audiences. He's also authored 12 books on the power of business relationships, sales, networking, presentation skills, and entrepreneurship. Tom is also the host of the Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do podcast where he interviews business leaders who possess an extra dose of the entrepreneurial spirit. Stories from Tom's interviews are shared with his clients and he challenges people to be more engaged and enthusiastic in all of their actions. Contact Info Website: www.ThomSinger.com Podcast: Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do LinkedIn / Twitter / IG / YouTube @ThomSinger Facebook: @ThomSingerSpeaker Most Influential Person My father. My dad was 52 years old when I was born. So in a lot of ways it was like being raised by a grandfather. He had three sons who, when I was born were 10, 12 and 14. And by the way, I had the same set of parents. I was sort of a surprise. My Dad always told everybody that a surprise was an accident that worked out really well because he liked me. Effect on Emotions I think that As I've gone into this whole 50 to 75 plan that I'm shepherding, I think that being mindful of experiences and of saying yes to things, of not getting stressed, of not getting pissed, of just doing all that, I think the emotion that it has triggered more than anything else is joy. I think because I am mindful, that I'm going to have a good time. I think it has unleashed that emotion of joy and I think my wife sees it. I think my kids see it. I think my friends see it. I think my clients see it, so I think that's how mindfulness has affected my emotions. Thoughts on Breathing I don't think that [mindfulness has affected my breathing] other than the fact that it brings oxygen into my lungs that then goes into my blood and goes to my brain. So when I first started running and I couldn't run a mile and I hired my friend who was a runner to kind of coach me through it. He actually pushed me too hard and I triggered asthma that I hadn't had in years. I almost had to go to the hospital. I certainly hadn't used an inhaler in forever. I had to go to the doctor and everything else. So I was mindful of breathing when I couldn't. But the rest of the time, for some reason, once I got up to where I was running three to five miles and then five to 10 miles throughout the training, I rarely am that winded. Suggested Resources Book: The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Dr. Stephen Covey App: My camera app because I pay more attention to things that are photo worthy and maybe that's mindful. Bullying Story You know, I'm just going to be real honest. I have one situation that comes to mind when you asked that question that involve bullying and I'm just going to put it out there. I was kind of the bully and I was probably 12 years old and a bunch of people were sort of mocking, you know, a kid who kind of didn't fit in and I was part of it. And what's interesting is it's not part of my personality, it's not part of who I am. It's not part of who I was at the time and if I had been mindful of not having to be part of that group or whatever, I wouldn't have been part of it. I don't keep in touch with this person. I don't know if it was scarring or if it was just a minor thing, but I've always felt really bad about that. And because of that I've always been really conscious of not falling into that mob mentality and not being surprised by bystander mentality. Again, I wasn't leading the whole thing. I wasn't the bully, but I was part of the group and I mean at the time I knew it was wrong and I don't know why it came to mind when you asked about it, but now I feel kind of like crap for even having been a part of it, just thinking about it again. But I do know that it stayed with me to the point that I never did anything like that again, at least not to that level that I'm aware of. Quote "When you are mindful of your purpose in any conversation, you leave a legacy." Thom Singer

Robert Plotkin is an engineer, mindfulness practitioner, and the founder of Technology for Mindfulness. His background in computer science and engineering dates back over thirty years to his days programming an Atari 800 personal computer, through a degree in Computer Science and Engineering at MIT, and nearly two decades as a patent attorney specializing in patent protection for computer technology. His relationship to Zen Buddhism stems primarily from his study of Japanese martial arts for more than three decades. He is a graduate of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the Center for Mindfulness and practices mindfulness meditation. His fascination with the relationship and interactions between computer technology and the mind is reflected in his book on the automation of creativity in the field of inventing, The Genie in the Machine: How Computer-Automated Inventing is Revolutionizing Law and Business (Stanford, 2009). Contact Info Company: Technology For Mindfulness Website: www.TechnologyForMindfulness.com Podcast: http://technologyformindfulness.com/podcast Look for Robert's new program: Tap Into Mindfulness (Available Soon) Most Influential Person Jack Kornfield Joseph Goldstein, one of the first American vipassana teachers, co-founder of the Insight Meditation Society with Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salzberg Also Nicholas G. Carr, author of The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has changed the way I deal with my emotions. This is where I think the stillness aspect of mindfulness is really helpful. I talked a lot earlier about action and martial arts, in doing that you engage a lot of action, movement of the body. I think for me, sitting meditation has been very helpful in dealing with emotions. Not just being able to notice what they are, but accept that they're there. Before I did sitting meditation, I engaged in a lot of trying to change difficult or negative emotions. For me, sitting meditation has really, really been helpful. When you say dealing with emotion, just being able to be more aware of what they actually are at any given moment, being able to accept them and notice them without being able to change them. I'm sure you know from your own mindfulness practice, sometimes that results in them lingering for awhile and sometimes I found that paying attention to them or even diving into them can result in them dissipating or changing in some way. I'm always working on accepting in advance that whatever the outcome is, it is. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a very, very big part of my mindfulness practice. Always has been. Even from the martial arts training; breathing really fairly fundamental and it's been interesting for me to do sitting meditation. Certainly there are some similarities and differences between how I think breath is approached in the two. In my experience in martial arts training, we do pay attention to the breath. If I can paint it in broad strokes, there is more of a goal or pragmatic aspect to working on and somewhat improving the breath. We work on deepening it, we work on being able to maintain it as more of an even keel. We work on being able to breathe more deeply. Part of it is to develop physical power. There is a pragmatic goal, so to speak, at least as part of the martial arts training and the breath. And so it's definitely been interesting to me to come at the breath and sitting meditation from a different perspective. Although sometimes when I'm doing sitting meditation I will form the intention of both noticing the breath and if I notice that it's shallow, I will relax. But I also some of the time, will merely notice what it is without trying to change it. That's been a different experience for me. Certainly in martial arts training, we often say that it begins and ends with the breath. I think for all the same reasons, I mean breath is the foundation of life. Everything else stops when you're not breathing. And so, that's always been a really significant part, and I do return to the breath. In fact, I did just go back to a meditation teacher who I really rely on for a lot of guidance and was asking her about focusing on the breath and how I hear a lot of instruction these days that seem to imply to me that we should always return to the breath. I've found that in my own practice, I'm at a point where sometimes if I'm experiencing and aware of a difficult emotion that returning to the breath can feel like a distraction. Suggested Resources Book: The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains byNicholas G. Carr App: N/A

Marie White is an entrepreneur, a world traveler, a missionary, and a YouTube host with over half a million viewers. She is the owner of Zamiz Press, which is an inspirational publishing company that offers hope and encouragement to people the world over who are experiencing struggles. Marie is also the author of five books, including the award-winning #1 bestseller, Strength for Parents of Missing Children: Surviving Divorce, Abduction, Runaways and Foster Care. Marie has also lived trauma first-hand, being the mother of an abducted child who remains missing. Contact Info Company: Zamiz Press Website: www.MarieWhiteAuthor.com Get a Free Copy of 'Changing Your Life In Just 10 Days' at the above website. Book: Strength For Parents of Missing Children: Surviving Divorce, Abduction, Runaways and Foster Care by Marie White Most Influential Person Rick Warren (Author of The Purpose Driven Life) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped to keep me from going from one extreme to the other. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is really helpful if you want to live. It’s necessary to bring down your emotions when you are in a heightened state of stress. I like to breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, very slow, taking a moment to concentrate. Suggested Resources Book: Calming the Brain Through Mindfulness and Christian Meditation by Dr. Mark Beischel  Book: Right Here Right Now: The Practice of Christian Mindfulness by Marjorie J. Thompson Book: Strength For Parents of Missing Children: Surviving Divorce, Abduction, Runaways and Foster Care by Marie White App: N/A

Michael Levitt is all about boundaries. He is the founder of Breakfast Leadership.com where he shares his expertise on boundaries with other leaders. Michael also works in the health-care field and has experienced first-hand how important it is to have a grip on boundaries in life and death situations as well as daily living. Michael is trained in crisis intervention from the Canadian Training Institute. Michael is recognized as a healthcare leader, holding the Advanced Healthcare System Leadership certificate from Rotman School of Management, one of the World’s highly ranked business schools, as part of the University of Toronto. Michael also shares his knowledge on his podcast – Breakfast Leadership. Contact Info Website: https://www.breakfastleadership.com/ Blog: www.breakfastleadership.com/blog/ Podcast: Breakfast Leadership: www.breakfastleadership.com/podcasts/ Get Michael Levitt's Book Free Here: www.BreakfastLeadership.com/bruce Most Influential Person Leo Babauta, ZenHabits.net Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped me keep my emotions in check. I'm passionate. I'm in healthcare. I'm passionate about people taking better care of themselves. I'm passionate about the healthcare sector and what it needs to do to better serve the entire community and not just pockets of it. I'm very passionate about wrongs that we see in society, but I keep them in check now because I know that I can only do so much. I can do what I can do and I have to let others do what they can do. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is extremely important to me. I am an asthmatic so my breaths are a little bit more challenging than others. It's mild, [my asthma], but it's something that I know could progress into copd (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) down the road. And for me, I take care of my breathing very carefully. I focus on it when things are tense, I pause and I go, OK, what are my breathing patterns like? And I can take a deep breath and sometimes I'll do the nostril thing where you do a closed nostril breathing. I just really focus on the breathing and it lowers my blood pressure and it just puts me into a moment of awareness and in the moment of now. Instead of worrying about what's going to happen or freaking out about what happened before, it's a good way to really get me connected to where I am right at this moment. Suggested Resources Book: 369 Days: How To Survive A Year of Worst Case Scenarios by Michael Levitt Book: The Tortoise And The Hare by  Jerry Pinkney - This is a leadership book. Some people will question me saying that, but it also helps with mindfulness too, as far as focusing on what's important. From a leadership book standpoint, it's a great book because oftentimes we are the rabbit and we're running around trying to get things done and moving things around where the tortoise is just steady as we go. Let's get through this. It's the same thing from a mindfulness standpoint. Our brains and minds and activities are all over the place where the turtle's step, step, step, step, step, step and turtle wins the race. I want all of us to win the race. So it's one of those books that I will read from time to time to really reconnect with myself. App: Calm

Teresa Przetocki works with companies to help them implement corporate wellness as a business strategy. Teresa is on a mission to create thriving communities within the workplace and she shares real-time examples of how to include mindfulness into employee wellness programs. Teresa is founder and CEO of C&P Wellness Consultants. She's a board certified public health professional, a certified Well Coaches Health and Wellness Coach and she holds her Masters in public health. Contact Info Company: CP Wellness Consultants Website: www.CPWellnessConsultants.com Social Media: @TeresaPrzetocki Most Influential Person My Grandmother and also my Husband Effect on Emotions Oh, that's a really good question. So I would say that mindfulness allows me to put a separation between my emotions. So we're very emotional beings and sometimes we let emotions kind of override us and we think, oh, I'm feeling this way so this is all of my reality right now. I think what mindfulness really has this amazing capacity to do is to bring awareness to it, but then put a separation into it. So then you can look at it non-judgmentally and really say, hey, I'm feeling this way, you know, what does that mean or, hey, I'm feeling this way. And just let it, let it be. Thoughts on Breathing So I've been trying to meditate, I would say a good three years now and I'm excited to get to your book recommendations because I have a great book for you that I want you to actually read. And then I'd actually like to hear what you have to say about it after you read it. But I'm. So whenever you hear of mindfulness or meditation, the first thing that any kind of teacher has said is go to your breath. So I, in my personal experience, have found this to be incredibly easy. It refocuses you, it's always accessible and it just automatically calms me. One of the things that I do with breathing is I like to count to 10 or 20. When you breathe in, it's one breathe out. It's two. And so I normally go to either 10 or 20 and then restart it and I try to do that for a good five to 10 minutes. Suggested Resources Book: Conversations With God by Neale Donald Walsch Book: Bliss More: How To Succeed in Meditation Without Really Trying by Light Watkins App: Gratitude 365