Mindfulness Mode

Susan Blais is a leadership coach on a mission to transform the world of work one leader at a time. She made the long climb from receptionist to CEO of a billion-dollar division of a Fortune 100 company over 26 years in the health insurance industry. She helps leaders understand and implement the critical balance between relationships and results, so they can unleash their people's talents to achieve bottom-line success and fulfillment for all. Contact Info Website: www.SusanBlais.com Telephone: 818-444-seven-seven-four-four email: susan@susanblais.com Most Influential Person Roy Masters Effect on Emotions It has leveled them out. I can be radically up and down and all around and I have, because of that practice, been able to get much more centered and calm. The highs and lows are more moderate instead of crazy. Thoughts on Breathing Because I tend to do everything quickly, in the old days I would want to skip the warmup and go right to the workout. I think, oh yeah, breathing. I have come to appreciate how powerful it really is and that's one of the techniques I use with my clients when they start getting upset. I say, let's take a minute here and take a couple of deep breaths. It's amazing how the simple act of taking a quiet calm breath or two or three can change your whole outlook. Suggested Resources Book: How Your Mind Can Keep You Well by Roy Masters Book: Cure Stress: How Your Mind Will Keep You Well by Roy Masters App: Cure Stress (By Roy Masters, Get it at the App Store or at the website: www.FHU.com) Opening Quote You can go into that refuge and have a place of calm so that no matter what life throws at you, you can handle it with grace, with calm, and with quiet. - Susan Blais Bullying Story One of the CEO's that I worked for; it was one of those situations where I was the golden girl for the first few months that I came in and I was doing all these amazing things. I was brought in to start a new division and was making great gains and doing all kinds of wonderful things and at a certain point I crossed him by inadvertently telling the truth to the chairman of the board when I guess I was supposed to massage the message a little bit in a different way and I saw it happen. I thought to myself, uh oh, I'm in trouble. And from that day on, for the next two years, he bullied me horribly, doing things like: embassassing me, calling me out in front of my team, having conference calls with my peers, and just treating me as if I was an idiot. All kinds of things like that where it was just miserable. That kind of behavior destroys people. Unfortunately, it really does. It really bothered me. I was going to quit but then fortunately the company was acquired and I got to cash out in a much more positive way. But I was going to leave because I realized that I was not being my best. If you bully people, and try to beat them down; guess what? Their performance goes down. It's like, we're going to beat people into success? That doesn't work very well. I definitely used elements of mindfulness during those years to keep myself strong. I used my Roy Masters meditation; you can do it in seven minutes. I would do it several times a day. I'd have to go into my office and calm down, because I would be upset coming from a meeting with him where I had just had my head beaten in, figuratively, and now I'm going to meet with my team. So I've got to get myself together. I'd go into my office for a few minutes and calm down, get myself back on center and then go out to them. That's another critical thing that happens in organizations is, you have the waterfall. It starts at the top, the head person beats on the next level, and they beat on the next level, and they beat on the next level. I used to literally have an image of an umbrella and I would say, "no, it stops here. I don't care what you do to me, I'm not going to treat my people that way." I always treated my people well. We had our own little corner of the world that was fun and functioning and positive. But that took a lot of effort and mindfulness to do that because I would have to bring myself back to center before I interacted with them again.

Michele PW (Pariza Wacek) is the best-selling author of the "Love-Based Business" series of books that share how to sell more with love and build a solid, profitable business on a foundation of love. In addition, she owns a copywriting and marketing company along with writing and publishing fiction. To grab your free book "How to Start a Business You Love AND That Loves You Back," visit LoveBasedBiz.com Contact Info Website: www.LoveBasedBiz.com Blog: www.LoveBasedBiz.com Podcast: Love-Based Money Free Book: How To Start A Business You Love and That Loves You Back Most Influential Person Christina Rio, My Spiritual Mentor Effect on Emotions Because of mindfulness, the vast majority of the time I feel inner peace. It's like a contented feeling. Sometimes fear-based emotions will come up and sometimes I'm also full of happy or joy. For the most part, mindfulness has allowed me to live my life in an even keel where I feel peaceful and contented. I think that's what a lot of people would like. Thoughts on Breathing So many of us do shallow breathing. The problem with those shallow chest breathings is that it's not very good for your physiology. Focus on the belly breath. Even just putting your hands there gives you something else to focus on. It's a lot better for you as you go through it. Suggested Resources Book: The Big Leap: Conquer Your Hidden Fear and Take Life to the Next Level by Gay Hendricks App: The Mindfulness Bell Bullying Story I was horribly bullied as a child. In elementary school, in middle school, and even my first job I was bullied. It was both boys and girls, mostly girls though. My boss was a woman who was really bad about it. Yes, I do think knowing mindfulness would have helped. You can actually change your environment when you change yourself. I know that my reaction caused it to get worse. If I had simply just stood there and didn't react to what they were doing, they would have left me alone. That's what the key is. They were preying off me crying and getting more upset and off of me just not knowing what to do. That's where they're getting their power from. If you don't give them the reaction they're looking for, then they have no power over you and they likely will find somewhere else to go. Because I had such a strong 'only-child'. My mom didn't go to a lot of play dates. This is absolutely not my mom's faulth. I don't remember having friends my age until I was older, school-age, like five, six, seven. I know I had trouble dealing with social situations. I think that's what made me a target. Over the years I learned how to read social situations better. I slowly learned how not to put myself in the situation where bullying would happen.

John Stix is a transformation specialist. John co-founded Fibernetics; the 5th largest telecommunications company in Canada. He has implemented a holistic shift in culture, strategy and values-based actions within the company. John credits his personal transformation with enabling him to lead his company through a significant shift in mentalities. John’s success with workplace culture and helping others discover the same journey for themselves, has led him to consulting and speaking across the world. While continuing to lead his organization and build several others, John has delivered keynote speeches at venues from private insurance firms to a group on behalf of the White House. John witnessed the positive change that occurred within his own company when he decided to focus on unity, teamwork, empathy, happiness and gratitude. After introducing his “I’M IN™” corporate initiative, John received the Best Employer Branding award in 2015 from the Canadian Human Resources Association and was also a finalist for Leader of the Year. As an entrepreneur, John has been a visionary, thought leader and mentor taking start-ups to enterprise level organizations and figuring out innovative ways to keep all employees highly engaged, through all stages of growth and transformation. John’s most recent venture as president of KidsWifi, is allowing him to transform the way parents view the internet and to protect kids globally while online. John’s plan to deeply care and empower employees and allow them to be their true selves, not only translated into a passion, but to happiness. Happiness then led to productivity and productivity led to the results. Contact Info Company: Fibernetics Website: www.Fibernetics.ca Website: www.LivingInward.com Most Influential Person Jody Schnarr (My business partner and best friend since I was sixteen.) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has allowed me to be able to understand what deeply matters to me because mindfulness to me is connected to the inward journey. Without living inward, how can you find out what truly matters to you? It’s almost like, over time we’re become numb within all of the pattern and busyness that we think is living. That’s through no fault of who we are, that’s society, it’s busy. It’s going to be for the rest of my life and I think for all of us for the rest of our lives. Mindfulness for me has allowed me to feel what truly matters to myself as an individual more and have the confidence and understanding on how to process those feelings and communicate them and live my life within them. Thoughts on Breathing When I practice prayer, (my own ways of being mindful), that peaceful area and then focusing on the peace inside me, my breathing changes. Throughout the day, if you really could look at your breathing, I think it’s safe to say we all shallow breathe. We’re breathing rapid, not deep. I notice that when I enter into a really peaceful, mindful state, my lungs fill up. I’m not even planning for it. I breathe deeper. I feel wholistically more relaxed. Sometimes I use breathing techniques to try to center back to breathing. I think breathing and mindfulness is so connected. There’s tremendous anxious wisdom embedded within all of the yoga teachings and yogi teachings. Breathing techniques and understanding the power and importance of proper breathing seems to be incredibly important. Suggested Resources Book: N/A App: N/A Bullying Story Being bullied comes in so many different forms. Sometimes the verbal accusations can be so terrible. I remember as a young boy, not confident in who I was, like any young child trying to figure out their place within schools. I moved around a lot. At the one school I was going to, I remember this one individual for whatever reason didn’t like me and wanted to focus on me as an individual that they thought they could bully me. If I would have known more of these types of thoughts of how I could take time to be in a state of peace or to try to find these centering moments, even as a younger boy. I think a lot of this stuff, mindfulness techniques, but also the understanding that for children, their own way of mindfulness is important so that they don’t feel intimidated by techniques. That would have gone a long way to helping me stay in a peaceful state through these sets of experiences. I believe within mindfulness you can also think of a tremendous amount of solutions to your problems. Because you’re in a peaceful state and your mind works much better in that peaceful state. That would have helped me try to figure out as a young boy, how I can also come up with solutions to help me understand the problem I was in. Thankfully what happened was, love ended up dominating that and we became friends. A peaceful state ended up emerging from what was looking to be a terrible state.

Sophia Wise One is an expert in the field of vagina therapy. She's also the creator of the skill building, 'I Love My Life' card game and Oracle Deck. Sophia is fiercely passionate about helping her clients find and express their true self so they can discover their inner wisdom. Sophia has done bodywork for twenty years and has worked as a certified Holistic Pelvic Care Provider Tm, Reiki Master and LMT - Child mystic & shamanic practitioner. Sophia Wise One can help you move through pain, blocks, trauma, stagnation, and difficult transitions to find healing, creative renewal, embodiment, and juicy living on the other side. She is always asking, “Who would you be if you were truly yourself?” Contact Info Website: www.SophiaWiseOne.com Instagram / LinkedIn / Twitter: @SophiaWiseOne Podcast: Vagina Talks (To be launched soon) Most Influential Person Larry Ward (Peggy and Larry Ward are two Dharma teachers) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has resulted in my ability to feel my feelings. I used to weep and when I would weep three to five times a day, that is what I would refer to as a motive dissociation, a hyperactive dissociation, like a hyper shutdown dissociation. I would leave my body while I was weeping and screaming. Mindfulness and the practice of really being with what's happening has brought me into an experience of actually feeling my body, feeling my feelings, which allows them to come and go. It allows me to actually have a peace inside me that I thought people were lying about happiness and peace; that inside space. On the hardest days now, there's a peace and a happiness that's grateful to be here, even if I'm sad and exhausted and vulnerable. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a part of everything. It's just like, in - out. Meet the space in between. Like in - meet the space, the turning point. We're inhaling life force, we're exhaling life force. We're creating life force and we're birthing life force. The breath is the energy, is the life force. We're either actively in the flow or we're fighting with being and existence. Just recently I got in one of those edgy, not pretty patterns. I was screaming and crying and I couldn't get my breath. I watched myself. I watched my stubbornness not want to breathe. I watched my stubbornness want to hold my breath. I said, ok, you know what stubbornness. You can be stubborn but I'm still going to breathe. Suggested Resources Book: Wild Feminine: Finding Power, Spirit and Joy in the Female Body by Tami Lynn Kent Search "Wholistic Pelvic Care" and your State or location for information online. App: Insight Timer Bullying Story I was blessed with some beautiful education while growing up, so I was made fun of. I've been the weirdo my whole life, even amongst a hippy school. They said she is even weirder than the rest of us. So I got called a lot of names: a freak, a weirdo, etc. In high school, my best friends would make fun of me, but they were funny so I would laugh and then they got mad at me. I'd say I don't mind being the butt of a joke. So there were elements of bullying and there was shrinking there that happened. I'm also really blessed because I had a lot of mindfulness in a lot of those circumstances and had a lot of compassion for the people picking on me. The real answer that I want to share with you. I was my worst bully. I was probably about 20, I had dropped out of college school. I had followed my hands to massage and become a bodyworker. I was weeping anywhere from two to five times a day. I had just found out that I was in the process of tracking and kind of getting in the process of managing my PMDD. Somehow I found myself in a meditation and I went to visit my inner child and there she was. It was just an empty space and there was this little girl in a corner and she was very upset and I went to walk towards her and she was pulled away from me really hard. I looked at her and she was bloody. It was terrible. I was standing there in this vision and I said, 'who did this to you?' What happened? She wouldn't look at me. She wouldn't turn towards me at all. I looked down in my vision and I was standing on a pile of bricks and every time that little girl asked me for something, I would throw a brick at her. Every time she said that something hurt or that she needed something, or she was scared, I would say, stop it, you're the problem, go away. It was so clear that this innocent, sweet being, who just didn't want to be hurt by the world or by the person I was dating or by family patterns. Anything she asked for, I just begged her to go away and would scream and throw things. So I started a practice right then and there and it took a couple of weeks, but every day I would go back to this vision. From right at that moment, I said, I didn't know I was doing this. I would never do this on purpose. I can't believe I'm that person, but I am. No one else is here and you're terrified of me. And so I stepped away from the bricks and I said I didn't know, but now I know and I won't do it again. I understand that you're mad at me. So I went every day in my vision and say to her; I'm here and I'm sorry and I'm not going to do it again and I'm just listening. Slowly she softened and I would say just four or five days of going back to her and pleading my case, but giving her space. I  always had that image of beauty and the beast when she's cleaning the wounds. The rag and the bucket. She came towards me and I said please let me tend these wounds. I know I  created them, but please let me tend them. So I cleaned the blood off her arms and then I would bring this balm, healing oils, and I cleaned her up and I would balm the wounds. She wouldn't talk, but she would let me do that. Then about two weeks later, I would go and the wounds were starting to heal and she started to talk. She talked the way that kids talk. I'd asked her serious and sometimes playful questions and she would answer. Then slowly the wounds healed and she began to play. The bricks were gone and she would come and sit with me. I would go and do this journey and we had to come up with a new system. I said, if I'm not paying attention to you, you've got to pull on my skirt. That's my most powerful bully story.

Sean Douglas is a U.S. Air Force Veteran, Master Resilience Implementer, Professional Speaker, International Radio Show Host, Performance Enhancement Expert, and Author, with almost 10,000 of speaking and training time. He inspires and motivates you to “Live Your Brand” so you can grow personally and professionally. Millennials to 50 year old Professionals hire Sean to teach them Mental, Physical, Social/Emotional, Spiritual Resilience Skills that empower them to withstand, recover,and grow through adversity, stress, and life's changing demands in a highly interactive and engaging environment, utilizing online coaching sessions and face-to-face workshops. Sean equips people with the tools necessary to live EPIC lives, and leaves people better equipped to manage change effectively. Contact Info Website: www.TheSuccessCorps.com Facebook.com/TheSuccessCorps or Facebook.com/SeanDouglasSpeaks LinkedIn: Sean Douglas Podcast: Life Transformation Radio Most Influential Person Julianna Raye Effect on Emotions I know when I start getting anxious, scared, happy I literally feel those emotions and I know those emotions are coming up. I can feel myself getting mad. I am more in tune with my body. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is huge. When I smoked, I used to say that smoking was a stress reliever. What do they tell you in stress relieving class? They tell you to go take a ten second break, breathe in, breathe out. I would say, that's what I'm doing when I'm smoking. Breathing is so important because the more oxygen you get to your brain, there's a lot of science behind the breathing technique. Suggested Resources Book: The Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor Book: The Power of Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale Book: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod App: Headspace (The paid version is also excellent) Bullying Story I'm a maintainer on the F15. Some things that we do are funny so we think. We are really tight knit, like we are brother and sisterhood and we treat it as that. This is our family. We will defend you forever and we will pick on you like brothers and sisters. What we'll do is we'll take young airmen and we'll say, we have this crack in the intake of the airplane. We just found it and we need you to come and look and see what we see so you can learn. When we pull back the intake cover, we ... (listen to hear more of Sean's story).

Allana Pratt is an intimacy expert who inspires her clients to be unapologetically true to themselves, their love-lives and their businesses. Featured on CBS, TLC and Fox, this cum laude graduate of Columbia is the author of 4 books, Coach to celebrities and Host of the sexy empowering show, "Intimate Conversations Live." Contact Info Website for Women: www.AllanaPratt.com  (Complementary Training: 'Vulnerability is the New Sexy) Website for Guys: www.GetHerToSayYes.com (Complementary Training: 'How To Be A Noble Badass) Most Influential Person Satyen Raja of Warrior Sage (Check out Satyen's interview at www.MindfulnessMode.com/71) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped to balance my emotions and equilibrate them rather than have them run me. So I'm not afraid of them. I sit in the fire and take the ride with them, knowing that if I don't resist them, on the other side is wisdom, is a lesson. Thoughts on Breathing I like to imagine I'm making love with the universe. I'm having sex all day long. The mindfulness breath practice is making love to the universe so I, with my inhale, allow myself to be penetrated by the universe and feel how delicious and tantalizing that is on the inhale and then I give the universe my essence. I penetrate the universe with me as I exhale and I just feel my posture changing and I smile from the inside out. Suggested Resources Book: The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have by Mark Nepo App: Insight Timer Bullying Story All the bullies are deeply inside. They've been wounding that little you, internally. They've been bullied on the outside so there's no place safe to go in or out and then they just react. If you can get them to be present & mindful and let them feel seen and heard. You don't have to agree that it's ok to hit Joey, but you can acknowledge and validate  your stand from their point of view. They have every right to feel that way and you get it. You're not here to fix them, just to get them. Something really deep happens inside. You exhale all the way to that safe place that we've all been looking for. On the outside, seeking, seeking we can find it on the inside. My bullying story is, I was a people pleaser growing up. My dad was drunk and stoned and I just wanted to make sure I didn't get in trouble so I grew up as a young woman not speaking my truth. I attracted my dad to heal my wounds. So he was a bully; my son's father. I just put up with everything, just so that he wouldn't yell and scream at me. That was his way of controlling me and my way of letting myself be controlled. We got a divorce within one year when I discovered he was not who I thought he was. I took total ownership that when I chose to marry him, my mom was dying and I wasn't very mature or enlightened and I just wanted a checkbook, pulse, sperm. I just wanted to replace the relationship that I was losing. I know that's not very kind or enlightened, but that was the best I could do at the time, feeling so sad. So within a year, I didnt' chose somebody great, but I have a great son. As time went on, he just wouldn't stop fighting with me. I guess from his point of view, you said forever. And I stopped after a year. To him, his point of view must have been humiliation and rejection. So his anger and his bullying came after me and of course I'm just triggering his mother or his past. Our son said, I want to kill myself at nine years old. I can't handle the fighting that non-stop happens with you and dad. I had done every non-violent communication course. Every therapist, every counseller, everything you could think of. Until I realized, wait a minute, he doesn't want to get along with me. He loves to fight. So I let my son live with his dad primarily for six months, just to see. Let him win. Let him look good. Let him be father of the year. I'll sacrifice my time to save my son. But he took it and he used it against me to say that I was a flakey, unstable mom and that I had abandoned him. And he won after almost five years in court of trying to fight for the truth. I'm unconventional. I'm an entrepreneur. I don't have a PHd, but I coach people and I talk about sex. So he painted this horrible picture with this old school, archaic family law and jury system and he won seventy percent custody and I got thirty. He humiliated my career. The bullying never stopped. My mindfulness practice, even up to this very day. Right now he's convinced my son that I'm horrible and selfish and so my son's living with him and has blocked my from the phone and I have no contact with my son. I'm literally in the midst of a bullyng moment. But this becomes our mindfulness practice. How can I still have compassion, not condoning, but have compassion for why he's behaving that way. Because I believe that bullying is ultimately a reflection of the inside. Where is my unloved part of me? Where can I love myself more? Where can I be more in allowance and look past the anger coming at me to the wounded heart, to the cry for love? Everything's ultimately a cry for love so I'm doing my inner work to take responsibility that I didn't marry him for a deep commitment and love. I was scared and really own that and apologize so that I don't get emotionally triggered by his behavior and i just be that grounded, present, mindful person that allows this whole lesson to unfold and keep growing and not be that bitter ex-wife bitch who blames. That's not going to get us anywhere nor teach my son any good lessons either.  

Crystal Olivarria raised over $70,000 from grants and scholarships to help pay for her own college education at two private colleges; The Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in San Francisco and Holy Names University in Oakland, California. Crystal has helped others get into their top chosen college, generate money via grants and scholarships and get hands on experience in their related career field. Crystal provides a safe space to explore options in depth while providing guidance that result in children being able to reach their full potential more easily. Contact Info Website: www.CareerConversationalist.com Social Media: @CrystalOlivarria or @CareerConversationalist Most Influential Person My dad. He always taught me to be creative and resourceful. To be resourceful, you have to be mindful of what resources you have and basically how scarce they are. Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has made me very aware. It's helped me understand people better because I've noticed my emotions go like this all the time based upon whether I ate, whether I didn't eat, whether I got enough sleep, whether I didn't. Just being really mindful to myself about how I'm feeling, how things are affecting me makes me think about other people when I come in contact with them. Maybe they're having a really bad day and I don't know what they went through. Thoughts on Breathing Whenever I feel like I'm going to have a breakdown, I just remember to breathe. As a kid I used to cry a lot when things weren't going my way. People would say, take a deep breath. Before anything can get better you need to breathe. That's step one and even as an adult I remember that. No matter now things are going, the first step is to take a deep breath. Suggested Resources Book: The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Dr. Laura Schlessinger App: Notepad on my phone Bullying Story I've been on both sides of it. I will definitely say I've been in school and I know what it's like to be harassed and tell and teacher and the teacher not believe you. I've also realized that a lot of times, bullies are emotionally weak and they're struggling and the way they can raise their self-esteem is to pick on someone else. I know when I was in high school, I used to watch this girl being bullied and a lot of it was verbal. They were constantly putting her down no matter what. She was quiet and lonely. So she thought, they want to be my friends and the conversation would start out nice and then would go into this downward spiral. One day I asked her why she was letting these kids bully her. She didn't know what to say. She said, I don't know what to do. So I stepped up and ended up being a bully back to these other girls, just to give them a taste of their own medicine. It didn't matter what they said. I just had this attitude of, I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off of me and sticks to you. It really surprised them because they weren't used to having someone hold them accountable for how mean they were. Fortunately, they never bullied the girl again.  

Mike Bundrant is a master NLP practitioner. NLP stands for Neural Linguistic Programming. He is the founder of the INLP center in California where they specialize in learning and teaching NLP. He's a former Psychotherapist and is cofounder of Healthy Times Newspaper. He's also a featured blogger on the world's top mental health website called PsychCentral dot com. Mike has a unique perspective on self-sabotage; he knows how to empower his clients to reach higher levels of emotional health. Contact Info Company: INLP Center Website: www.inlpcenter.org Facebook: www.facebook.com/inlpcenter Most Influential Person Peter Michaelson (www.WhyWeSuffer.com) Effect on Emotions In terms of my emotions, I would say mindfulness has effected my positive emotions by helping me own them more and making them more alive and my negative emotions by making them workable. It hasn't banished them, it's just made them workable. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is part of my mindfulness meditation in the beginning. I don't have a breathing mindfulness practice. I just make sure I take a few deep breaths in the very beginning of my meditation and really focus on the tension that full lungs create, the muscle tension. When I let it out and relax, I just notice the tension release and my chest fall. Two or three rounds of that and then I don't really return to the breathing. It is an area that I've been interested in learning more about. Suggested Resources Book: The Phantom of the Psyche: Freeing Ourself From Inner Passivity by Peter Michaelson App: Good Habits (It's not a mindfulness app, its a habits app - it increases mindfulness because it increases awareness. Bullying Story This reminds me of self-bullying, when we bully ourselves. Mindfulness can be so helpful if we're bullying ourselves because usually if I hear an inner voice, I'm not even aware that this is an inner voice I'm responding to as if it were real. These inner voices use the word, 'you'. You're going to fail, you're no good. It’s talking to you as if you’re someone else. We respond to them as if someone else were saying this to us, and we believe it. And so, mindfulness can help this in so many ways. First becoming aware. You have to stop resisting these voices. This is happening and mindfulness is not just about the positive. Negative things are so much better if they’re experienced mindfully. When my inner voice says, people are not going to like you, I say (and I hope listeners are going to do this). This is the story so many people I’ve worked with have told me. You hear the voice, you listen to it and then you repeat it, but you change the you to an I. Ok, you are going to fail, the voice in my head just said that to me. And I say, Ok, I am going to fail. And then you tag on the word and. It’s sort of like saying, ‘tell me more’. So, I am going to fail … because I am no good. And tell me more … I’m not going to fight you. I’m just going to acknowledge that you said this to me. This inner voice said this, I’m going to own it. After a few rounds of doing this, a couple of things happen. First, it goes quiet. People say to me, I’m not hearing this voice anymore. They say, what does that mean. And I say, just enjoy the quiet. A lot of us are not used to a quiet mind. And sometimes that voice, after being heard says … oh, it might not be so bad. That’s how mindfulness can make a huge difference to how we bully ourselves. Bullying is an inner game. Whether it involves someone else, or ourselves, it all starts on the inside. To me, bullies, people who bully others, they’re chasing their own helplessness and trying to empower themselves but it only leads to more helplessness. It’s an inner phenomenon. The bully is the last person in the world who is going to admit to their helplessness.  

Joie Cheng, (M.S.W. Masters of Social Work), is the Self-Love Luminary. She's passionate about helping women love themselves so they can live their best life possible. Joie is a certified professional coach, mentor, healer, circle facilitator, and trained yoga teacher. Joie has a degree in Social Work and Psychology. She is the best-selling author of her book, The Naked Truth: A Woman’s Journey to Self-Love. This book conveys Joie's personal journey of healing herself naturally from depression through self-love. Contact Info Website: www.JoieCheng.com Book: The Naked Truth: A Woman's Journey To Self-Love by Joie Cheng Free Gift: The Seven-Day Self-Love Challenge Most Influential Person Deepak Chopra Effect on Emotions I think mindfulness has helped me to not get attached to the stories you get in your head about what something means and just saying, there's a thought and I can just let it pass. I don't have to be attached to it. Thoughts on Breathing Breathing is a really good way to instantly become aware and instantly drop into our body and notice our breath. That's a really simple practice that we can do any time of the day. Just take a couple of deep breaths, especially if we're feeling stress, or are tired or whatever, just to take a few deep breaths. It's an instant state change. Suggested Resources Book: The Naked Truth: A Woman's Journey To Self-Love by Joie Cheng App: The Timer on your phone. When the alarm goes off, just be aware of what you're thinking. Bullying Story I was fortunate not to have a lot of bullying when I was a kid. There was this one girl when I was in Junior High, who used to make fun of me for being my race, my ethnicity. She would do that 'eye' thing where she would move her eyes. And she'd say things. Actually I think that I was grateful because mindfulness did help me because I didn't internalize it. It think a lot of kids take it in and they think, oh, there's something wrong with me. So they really think that it's about them, rather than realizing that it's about the other person. When someone bullies you, they're feeling insecure. It really has nothing to do with the person that's being bullied. I just want to say that I really appreciate you making that connection between mindfulness and bullying  because I've never thought about that before and it made me think, yeah, you're right, mindfulness really can help with bullying.

Serena Denmark is a certified Hypnotherapy Instructor. She teaches her clients to identify unconscious patterns and use NLP and hypnosis to make deep, rapid, lasting changes. Serena experienced a midlife crisis and came to the conclusion that her beliefs were killing her. That’s when she attended an NLP course where she was the class guinea pig. Through this experience she found her new passion in NLP and never looked back. Contact Info Website: www.BeLimitlessHypnosis.com FB: @SerenaDenmark FB: Be Limitless With Hypnosis and Other Cool Stuff Most Influential Person Colleen Fletcher (Spiritual Teacher) Effect on Emotions Mindfulness has helped me keep that anchor to calm. It's like the pond or the ocean with the ripples on top and the stillness underneath. Even when I may feel agitated or irritated or annoyed, it's that duel experience, that higher perspective alarm, to observe yourself in the moment. I can feel the ripples, but I still have that stillness underneath. Thoughts on Breathing The breath is so powerful, just physiologically, when you breathe really deeply, you're increasing your intrathoracic pressure which puts stimulation on the vegas nerve which literally slows your heart rate down and interrupts your blood pressure so physiologically, deep breathing calms you down. Also I believe that as we breathe in deeply, we're breathing in prana or chi so we're increasing our wonderful energy that we're bringing into our body. Once you practice the self-hypnosis that's on my website, as soon as you even start to focus on your breathing, you've trained your mind to go into that place of relaxation. Suggested Resources Book: The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle The Downloadable Self-Hypnosis by Warren Martin App: N/A Bullying Story I grew up in Zambia and I went to a missionary boarding school there. It was kind of in the boonies. It had been started around 1925 and I attended in 1973. Everything was kind of set in time. It was really interesting. They had a water wheel to generate electricity. We had electricity four hours a day. No television or radio; completely cut off from the rest of the world. Hot water was a drum that had a fire built underneathe it. We were away from our parents and there was no outside input, there was no one to run to and no one to discuss your problems with. I think a lot of those schools back in the day were strong on discipline and maybe light on love. Kids are going to find a pecking order. That's just human nature. I was at the bottom of that pecking order and there was one girl in particular who kind of pulled the puppet strings of everyone and I had what I considered a best friend. We would both be willing to betray and abandon each other if we were chosen to be the favored friend by this girl at the top of the pecking order. There was a lot of betrayal, a lot of lost trust and just a very, very, lonely experience. This girl said, you can't sing, your hair's ugly and she had all the power in my mind. I felt bad about myself. I didn't really know how to bond with people because I had moved around a lot. I had lost my ability to really open my heart to people and connect in a real way becauase I didn't know how to trust anymore. I went to the boarding school from age 10 and was there about 4 years. They censored our letters so there was really no communication or way to reach for help.