Mindfulness Mode | Interviews & Mindful Tips with Bruce Langford

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230 Relax With Winefulness Suggests Jordan Cowe

July 3, 2017

Jordan Cowe is a certified wine educator, a meditator, and co-founder of Be Wineful. Jordan is one of approximately four hundred people worldwide to achieve the designation of Certified Wine Educator since its inception in 1977, becoming the youngest to do so in 2015. Jordan has taught at

conferences and events across North America spreading interest in unique and unknown wines. Jordan has also suffered for many years from Panic Disorder and agoraphobia [a fear of going outside]. His desire to succeed in the world of wine and live a happy life led him to create his system of Winefulness. He is now dedicating himself to spreading happiness, joy, and relaxation with wine.

[show-notes-bio]

Contact Info

  • Company: Be Wineful
  • Website: BeWineful.com
  • Facebook/Twitter: @BeWineful

Most Influential Person

  • Steve Abma, my therapist.

Effect on Emotions

  • I've become much calmer, much less reactive, so I don't experience anger. Well I do occasionally, but it takes a lot. But I mean I don't experience much anger. I don't experience many extreme emotions. I'm just always pleasant and happy.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • Breathing is essential. You're always breathing so you always have your breath with you.
  • If I'm in an environment where I start to get worked up or start to get stressed out, I can always come back to my breath and I can just shut out everything around me and just focus in on the breath coming in and out of my nose.
  • I can meditate in the middle of a crowded building at this point. I can sit down on a bench in the middle of the casino here. We went for dinner the other night, I freaked out and I just sat on the bench in the middle of all these people. I was able to go into meditation and I used the breath.

Suggested Resources

The Science

  • Bruce: So Jordan what's the science behind this? Is there science that tells us about the combination of wine and mindfulness. What is the science?
  • Jordan: Well it's a mix of things. I mean the sensory side of meditation is very important. So as far as mindfulness meditation it's ability to help many things, that's been widely spread.
  • As far as anxiety, high stress, as far as depression, mindfulness fits there. Now the one thing that has been noted in the past, especially for people with attention deficit disorder which is me, hence why I can get distracted easily. Typical breath, focus, and things like that doesn't always work well.
  • I get distracted very easily and they get frustrated. So having another method into meditation is very useful for them. So I mean obviously in a clinical environment they're not going to be using wine, they're going to try and come up with other systems.
  • For somebody who needs a stimulus that's intense to keep them on track, that's a wonderful side. The other side of it is, wine from a science point of view, for the meditation itself. Obviously a slight bit of alcohol does allow people to loosen up a little bit. It allows people to be open to new ideas. It allows people to accept something different. It puts people into a very happy and relaxed mode for the most part to begin with.
  • The other cool side about wine, as a wine science point of view, it is one of the only fruits where when you ferment it, the complex sugars and the complex organic compounds, they break down into things that smell like other things.
  • When you ferment a blueberry or a peach wine, they smell exactly like blueberries or peaches. But because of the way yeast evolved it can actually break down some of the other more complex components of wine. And so when you pick up a wine there can be hundreds of different aromas emanating from that glass.
  • You're giving somebody something in front of them where there's so many possible reactions and there's so many things in front of them that it forces them to open up to the stimulus. So you just give them one aroma, they smell and they're done.
  • The brain can shut off where you have them sit there with the wine, like up their nose and they're smelling it. They just sit there with it. It's constantly changing.
  • There's constantly new things happening in their brain. It's triggering new memories, triggering new emotions.
  • You can sit there for 15 minutes and your brain will always have a new stimulus. That's the important thing for me.
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229 Listen With Your Body, Mind, and Spirit With Sharon Carne of Sound Wellness

June 29, 2017

Sharon Carne is passionate about the healing power of sound and music. She has developed stress reduction programs making use of the healing power of sound. Sharon has produced sound healing recordings and is frequently invited to speak for corporate and private events – many of them based within the medical community. Sharon also has written a book called, “Listen From the Inside Out”.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

  • My good friend Tina and also my sister.

Effect on Emotions

  • Mindfulness calms my emotions so much.
  • That deep breath is one of the first places you go to. Then whatever situation I'm in, whatever the mindfulness tool I bring in. A sound or an internal sound. One of my favourite things is to listen to the bird songs as I go on my walks. That's my mindfulness walk. My mindfulness meditation.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • The breath brings me right back. It always does that.

Suggested Resources

Bullying Story

  • We had quite an experience in our own family with our older son.
  • When he was in grade 7, he moved to another school. About six of the kids who were his best friends in grade 6 in the previous school were in his group at school.
  • Our older son has always been my teacher for integrity; since he could speak. At that age of grade seven when you're twelve or thirteen and peer pressure becomes an important part of the social milieu and so he would say, I'm not going to do that, that's not right.
  • He started getting bullied, which ended up after several months with an enormous amount of angst. He was crying himself to sleep at night and he came home one day and said, mom, I'm not going back to school.
  • He was just vibrating with stress and frustration and anger. He actually hit a kid, which is why he said he was not going back to school. I said, OK.
  • Another of his friends was being homeschooled at that time so I called his mom and said, what do I do. She coached me on what to do and so I called the school and said I was taking him out to be homeschooled and explained that every intervention I've tried had not worked.
  • So, it was one of the things that really helped Will, whenever he was really super stressed, it would affect his stomach.
  • I found a CD. It was called Chakra Chants by Jonathon Goldman. I said, just stay in bed, Will. I know your stomach's hurting and this is psychological hurting so it was real.
  • I would put the CD on and he would come down sixty minutes later saying, I'm all better, Mom. It was amazing.
  • It helped him so much, having it in the background and encouraging him to allow the sound to do it's work, even though he wasn't focusing on it.
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228 Fear Is Not Real Explains Salt Water Buddha Author Jaimal Yogis

June 26, 2017

Jaimal Yogis is an author and teacher of creative writing. He is widely known for his best-seller, Saltwater Buddha, a masterpiece novel and documentary film which tells the story of a young surfer’s spiritual journey as he experiences monasteries, meditation and mindfulness as part of his fascinating search for eternal truth. His most recent book called ‘All Our Waves Are Water’ is to be released in July. Jaimal skillfully uses the sea as a powerful metaphor to explore questions about the nature of the true self.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

  • My mom. (She always did Yoga and meditation daily).

Effect on Emotions

  • I think mindfulness has enhanced the good emotions and it's helped me let the bad ones go.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • Breathing is my mindfulness practice. The breath is always there. It's something to focus on and it's just so pleasant, just taking a breath and being there with it. It's amazingly rich.

Suggested Resources

Bullying Story

  • In the surfing world, a lot of people think of surfers is like really peaceful, zen dudes, but it gets pretty tense out in the water sometimes.
  • I actually had a story in Saltwater Buddha about a time when I was surfing in Santa Cruz and it gets really crowded and I was just I in my intermediate level of Surfing.
  • I got a great wave, I got a barrel when I got inside and that was one of my first waves like that. I was feeling really confident and got a little overconfident and I dropped in front of a guy on my next wave.
  • That's sort of the biggest faux pas in surfing. When you drop in on someone it's dangerous but it's just an etiquette issue.
  • A lot of beginners don't realize this and if you break rank essentially at one of these uber competitive surf breaks like in films like North Shore and Point Break you know you can really invoke wrath.
  • I did that and and the guy was a young local guy who just started spewing all kinds of invectives and every four letter word and then some. This was for maybe 45 minutes. This guy wouldn't let it go and I kept thinking, should I get out of the water or should I apologize.
  • I ignored him and eventually I was pretty seething inside. It was mindfulness that really brought me out of it.
  • There was a point where he was shouting all these homophobic obscenities at me. I remember seeing his neck bulging and his face really red and I thought the fact that he was really suffering in this situation. He was the one who had no control over his anger. I was suffering too.
  • It was sort of a mutual situation. That little thought of compassion switched me out of it. I wasn't quite as offended. I almost felt a little bit of compassion to this guy who clearly had no anger management skills.
  • I breathed and I remembered a Zen story where a Samurai is seeking an advice from a Zen master and he goes to the Zen master and he says, Sensei, teach me the difference between heaven and hell.
  • The Zen master says why would I teach a cretin like you? You're an uneducated Samurai. This is a high teaching. I wouldn't stoop to that level.
  • This is a very respected Samurai.He picks up the sword and he's about to slice the the monk and just as his eyes are bulging and he's about to drop his sword, the Zen master says, wait.
  • He says, that right there is hell. The Samurai thinks about it and he realizes that he's been given this great teaching and he realizes that his emotions got the best of him. Then he bows to the Zen master. (Hear more on the podcast interview).
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227 Release Weight and Body Shame; JJ Flizanes

June 22, 2017

JJ Flizanes is an author, coach and podcast host of The Fit 2 Love Podcast Show. JJ is vibrant and determined and she’s a great connector of people. She’s currently been working on her newest book, The Invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets to Release Weight and End Body Shame. Today she talks about left brain, right brain, accountability and the topic of shame.

Contact Info

The Conversation...

Bruce: JJ's currently been working on her newest book which she says is her best. It's the invisible Fitness Formula: 5 Secrets To Release Weight and Reduce Body Shame. Tell us more, JJ.

JJ: This book is a culmination of 20 years of work. It is the simplified version, the nuts and bolts, the proof and the science on all levels; science of body, science of mind, science of the spirit. science of biochemistry. It's so vast. Of the five Secrets, three of them are uber scientific and the other two are very spiritual, psychological and mindful. It 's all in the emotional piece.

It goes from one extreme to the other and that's that's who I am anyway. I'm the left and right brain person who is going to bring in both sides because both sides are important. I think a lot of times most of us have our strength in one of those sides. We're either very creative and expressive but we lack structure.

Then we have the structured people who are very frustrated and unsatisfied because they lack the outlet of creativity and emotional expression. I am an empowerment strategist and I combine those two and help people find the balance and use both sides in order to really live your life to the fullest.

Bruce: How can we help to integrate our left in our right brain? Tell us more details about how this can work for us on an individual basis.

JJ: It's important to understand and identify your strengths and weaknesses. Then you're going to know how to ask for help or guidance and to know what pieces you need to implement so if you know that you're a creative free spirit; unrestricted, not linear kind-of-person ,then you're very right right brained.

So what that means is you need structure. It's like masculine or feminine .it's always said that the masculine is the riverbank and the feminine is river.

If you know that you are a creative person and you know that you have creative thoughts ideas and yet you can't implement, you're not very linear.

Structure is what you need and so finding systems, finding people to keep you accountable, finding methods that follow a plan, and again I'm going to really stress the keeping accountable part.

The people that are left-brained or accountable they will get their stuff done.

What they need help with is uncovering some of that emotional creativity. A lot of left brain people are very controlling they need to learn how to let go and how to be spontaneous and how to the expressive and to do things that don't color in the lines.

First identify which one you are. I know there are some tests online t o figure that out. Besides just testing your brain's left or right brain percentage, you can also take a strength finders test.

I really love the Strengthsfinder's 2.0 test. The basic one is about $19.99 for your top 5 strength and that will also give you information about what it is that you are really good at. It will also find what is it that you lack.

There's no shame in acknowledging who you are.

If you continue thinking you can do it all and that you're built to do it all, you stay frustrated for a really long time. You'll wonder why can't I do this?

You're not built that way. Can you learn? Sure, but most likely you just need support in adding those elements into your life but they're not your strength.

Bruce: What can we do to be more organized, more right brain?

JJ: I create accountability for anything I need help with. So let's say if you need to be organized, whether it be hiring somebody to come in with you. I mean it could literally be a friend to come sit with you and talk with you while you're cleaning. You designate on your calendar just like a personal t raining session or coaching session. For this hour this person will come or maybe talk to a person on Skype while you get your work done. You can have a friend or family member sit with you.

You can make it fun. My husband's clued into how to get me to clean the garage or my car or do yard work. He knows the right music to put on because I listen to very specific Latino kind of music.

When I hear that go on I know he wants me to be in a good mood. Sometimes there might be a cocktail involved and there's always music.

You create an environment which creates less resistance. But I would say the most important thing about that is accountability.

Bruce: Let's talk about body shame. Tell us about this?

JJ: I'm a big fan of the late, Dr. Marshall Rosenberg's work which is non-violent communication. What he says is that should is the most violent word we use.

we have an idea of shoulding. You have this idea that, I should be able to do all these things. I've done the same thing, I have a good capacity of a left and right brain. I learn very quickly. There are many things that I can learn to do so I just do whatever.

What I've learned is, even if you're really good at a lot of things and you can do all those things, it becomes a life lesson of, is this really the best use of your time. I would say for a lot of us that's just a life path.

You do all those things because you think you should or because you can and then you see the results and you say, alright it's working and if it's working then you keep doing it but if you spend all this time and you're frustrated and your brain hurts and you feel stressed out, then it's not working. Ev entually you're going to say, I can let this go and I can hire someone else to do it.

Tune In To Hear More of the Interview

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226 Stop Pinching Yourself Off With Negativity Says Allison Sutter

June 19, 2017

Allison Sutter is a contemporary spiritual teacher well known for her ability to seamlessly blend spirituality and practical self-help teachings. She does this in such a way that she makes spirituality relevant to daily life. Allison has created life-changing digital courses that serve students in over 32 countries. Mindfulness is a central focus of her life everyday - that’s how she is so powerful in her ability to help others. She resides with her husband and 3 girls in Chicago.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

  • My mom. (She died when I was twenty but she still influences me).

Effect on Emotions

  • I understand what my emotions are. I understand they're our guidance system so I can bring myself back into a place of feeling good which opens up this mindfulness aspect which gives me all the present solutions that I need for positive transformation in the situation that I'm in.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • As much as I possibly can on any given day, whatever I'm doing, I can use mindful meditation in picking clovers from the grass or I can be sitting trying to connect with spiritual guides or whatever it is.
  • Feeling the depth of the breath and feeling the expanses going into it and finding, in a good way, the abyss below which is connected to everything I guess you could say.

Suggested Resources

Bullying Story

  • There's a story every single day in every school system around the country where one child is so disconnected from who they really are. They come at another kid with a vengeance every day.
  • For my own girls, what I do when they come home with these stories, first we talk about the fact that the person coming at them is disconnected from who they really are. They're so angry, jealous & upset at whatever they got going in their life. It's causing them to feel and act in a particular way.
  • First we center them and then we say, what do you think. Whether it's an immediate friend of theirs or something they witnessed. Are you a bystander in this? Are you helping? So we talk about the situation itself and how they can center.
  • From this place of center they can make a decision. Every situation is different.
  • Last night my daughter got some text messages which caused her to cry and it was about a school project. We talked about how the child sent these from a place of disconnection.
  • If you disconnect and just come at them, it just complicates the issue. Helping them center themselves and just go out into the world as an example of how you center yourself.
  • One person who's centered can literally be the wave of positivity that brings the others into their spirit of influence.
  • Negativity doesn't last forever and it's not who we really are.
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225 A Place Called Earth Founder, Cameron Brown

June 15, 2017

Cameron Brown sold or donated 99% of the things he used to own back in 2016 and proceeded to embark on his latest project known as ‘A Place Called Earth.’ He travels the world, coaching & training people on how to make a greater positive impact. Cameron also creates short films and music that has reached millions of people across the globe, inspiring positive change on a personal, social and environmental level. Cameron believes part of his purpose is to assist in the evolution of humanity and our planet. He is a songwriter and anti-bullying advocate, having written and performed, Close To The Edge, a wildly popular anti-bullying anthem known across the world.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

  • Eckhart Tolle
  • Dr. Wayne Dyer

Effect on Emotions

  • I still get frustrated; I still get annoyed. There's still these things that play out.
  • Being a human isn't about saying I just want to be happy all of the time. It's about allowing yourself to experience the full wave of emotions.
  • That's what's beautiful. You can't know a beautiful day without a really cloudy, rainy day. You don't know light without dark.
  • Life is a sea of contrast. I look back to my teenage years when there were a whole lot of dark times. My life could have gone one way or the other. I could have ended up in a really bad space long term.
  • I'm extremely thankful that I found personal development and emotional intelligence, mindfulness and all the other pieces that make up allowing yourself to experience what it means to be a human and be aligned to why you're here.
  • The moment you can notice and understand you are not your thoughts, you can allow your emotions to flow through you, not get stuck in you.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • I don't even know if I consciously do it anymore. A number of different breathing strategies that used to take conscious awareness to actually do them, there's a framework that I use at the moment which is having unconscious incompetence, which is not knowing that you suck at something, to having conscious incompetence which is, ah, I know this, I suck at this. Conscious competence is, I can do it, but I need to focus, to then being unconsciously competent which is I can do it with my eyes closed.
  • It takes time in the beginning to build in new strategies and patterns of behaviour, whether that's breathing, which it used to be for me to being able to allow things to flow through, to knowing why it is that I'm experiencing it. Having the awareness around that, having the emotional regulation.
  • Whatever the pieces are, it's about knowing and understanding that for a period of time there's going to be a feeling of incompetence and feeling like you're not getting it. Until you move to conscious competence, and actally been to unconscious competence, that's where it becomes part of your identity and this is where a lot of people fall short.
  • Because they build a habit, but it's still conscious competence in the strategy that they're trying to implement. They think they've got it and they focus on something else and they cycle back because they didn't allow it to be an unconscious pattern even when they've got their eyes closed.

Suggested Resources

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224 Be Aware of Your Energetic Vibrations Suggests Simon Crowe

June 12, 2017

Simon Crowe coaches and mentors inspiring people and helps them come alive. He takes people on life-changing adventures into their heart and soul and helps them connect to their deepest purpose. These adventures are both metaphoric and physical, with Simon traveling to Africa recently with groups of his clients. His passion is creating partnerships with influential entrepreneurs, leaders and humanitarians and co-creating visions that positively impact the world.

Contact Info

  • Website: www.SimonCrowe.com Please connect with Simon and tell him about your wildest dream.
  • Website: TheBigIdea.space

Most Influential Person

  • My wife, Stacey

Effect on Emotions

  • To me, an emotion or a feeling is a word that we give to an awareness of a vibration. Why that's important to me is, I've been reading a book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer and what I appreciate about the book is he talks about our emotions. If we're scared of them then we live our lives trying to protect ourselves from our emotions and we create this incredibly crazy complex life full of emotional interactions.
  • If we can just see our emotions as energy, they don't mean anything to who we are ... that distinction between our higher self and our ego-driven mind.
  • What I find myself doing now when I feel strong energy, I try not to label it as a particular emotion. I let it rise up in my heart and my chest. I let it find a way out. Almost like letting the gas bubbles in a bottle escape.
  • If I suppress it or try to change my behaviour, or change the external world in some way, then all I'm doing is keeping that locked in. And so it just keeps returning.
  • How mindfulness has really helped me is, I've become much more aware of those energetic vibrations. I've got a completely different relationship with them now. I get less fearful of them and I now allow them to arise in their energetic form and not connect to the stories that I hold around those energetic vibrations, those emotions, and just watch them pass.
  • I feel so much more resilient and able to deal with situations.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • I have a series of affirmations I say every day and one of them is, I breathe deeply into my belly.
  • I had a yoga teacher one who said, if men just breathed properly into their bellies, then 90 percent of the problems we go to therapists around, would be solved.
  • The breath is a fundamental connection.
  • When I'm meditating that's what I use as my focal point.
  • I bring my awareness and my attention to my breathing. Breath is something which opens me, which expands me, which connects me to the greater cosmos.

Suggested Resources

  • Book: The Art of Living by Bob Proctor
  • Book: The Unteathered Soul by Michael A. Singer
  • App: ThinkUp: Positive Affirmations & Motivation (Precises Wellness LLC)

Effect on Emotions

  • There were times when I was a young boy when I was guilty of bullying other people.
  • I realize that when I was twelve or thirteen, I would pick on the kid in the class for whatever reason.
  • Whatever this person was being singled out for, whether they wore glasses or they looked different, or were from a different background. I would just join in the name-calling and didn't give a moment's thought to the experience that poor person was having and what the impact may have been as to what they thought or felt about themselves.
  • It felt very selfish. But that's only on reflection. I didn't feel selfish in that moment, I was just doing what everybody else was doing. It's because I didn't have that awareness.
  • There were two things going on, there was the action I was doing and there was the ability to think about and assess whether those actions are ones that I really want to be engaged in. Whether it's something that they would have the impact that I would be proud of and now I'm slightly embarrassed to have to tell this story.
  • It was a complete lack of mindfulness, of awareness in that moment.
  • I was just behaving automatically. It was just really ignorance. I hadn't given it a moment's thought.
  • Now with the awareness I now have as an adult, I think that was just really poor behavior.
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223 A Fully Rich Life With Benjamin Foley

June 8, 2017

Benjamin Foley left a 6-figure job in management consulting after being almost destroyed by anxiety and depression. He knew he had only 2 choices; to change his life or to remain on the same path and be destroyed. Fortunately he made the decision to take action and change his path to become a writer and entrepreneur, immersing himself in a healthier lifestyle with a focus on mindfulness. He is now the founder of Fully Rich Life, a blog that is focused on helping men decrease stress and anxiety, find more focus, and be more present. He also writes for various top-rated publications including NY Observer, CNBC, Thought Catalog, and Medium and is read by over 200,000 readers a month on topics including anxiety, healthy eating and mindset. Benjamin also helps businesses tell better stories with strategies that are truly authentic. I am thrilled to share this time with the inspiring, prolific writer, Benjamin Foley.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

Effect on Emotions

  • Mindfulness has helped me understand them [my emotions] and has helped me detach from the stories that they tell.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • Breathing has made a huge difference. It's helped me stop panic attacks years ago and now it helps me gain energy when I need it.

Suggested Resources

Bullying Story

  • I was a bully growing up, especially in elementary school. Mindfulness would have been so huge.
  • Living and growing up in a very, very conservative, Christian environment is probably a lead driver of a lot of anxiety in America. I felt like I had no control at home because I didn't really believe what they believed so they didn't accept me.
  • I needed to be accepted by somebody. I needed to be powerful over somebody.
  • Mindfulness would have been huge, just understanding that we're all kids and we're all part of this thing that we call the human condition. You're not better than them.
  • We kinda had a gang in elementary school and we thought we were more important than we were, for third graders. I spent a lot of time in the Principal's office. Definitely not something proud to look back on but something that ...
  • I love working with kids now.
  • There is nothing I can do to change the past. Like we talk about in meditation and mindfulness, we can only be here.
  • And so what can I do today to be the best that I can and make today better than yesterday.
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222 Find More Joy and Less Stress With Pompe Strater-Vidal

June 5, 2017

Pompe Strater-Vidal is a Zen Sensei, an artist and meditation teacher. She studied art at the San Francisco Art Institute and at Anderson Ranch in Colorado and is trained specifically in Shodo, the Japanese Zen art of brush calligraphy. Pompe is hosting her third Relax and Breathe Summit. This is an on-line event featuring 21 experts speaking on the theme of 'More Joy and Less Stress'. Each guest shares specific techniques to help you release tension and reduce stress. Participants who sign up will receive an email each day over an 11 day period with insights into mindfulness practices that don’t require an extensive yoga or meditation background.

Contact Info

Pompe Speaks ...

  • These days, being a Zen artist always makes me laugh because you can have a Zen bathroom. Zen has become an adjective for simplicity. Someone that I invited to one of my summits, said, 'you really ARE a Zen artist'. And I said, Yes, I'm trained in Shodo, which is the Japanese form of brush calligraphy.
  • I was trained by my Roshi, my Japanese Zen Teacher. Before I became a Zen Monk, I trained in Shodo.
  • I've been an artist my whole life. My father was an artist, so I picked up a brush at a very young age.
  • I love art. For me, art is something that is very joyful and makes me happy. I use my artwork in all my on-line presence. I do my inspirational posts every week, which I get a lot of joy out of.
  • Shodo is about being spontaneous. It's about being in the moment. It's about taking the practice of meditation into an activity into an art form. You use your breath; you breathe it in, you hold your brush, you breathe out and you draw your character for each stroke.
  • It's about letting go in each moment as you're actually creating something. You're using your breath to help you let go. The Zen arts are all meditations.

The Tea Ceremony

  • I did the Tea Ceremony with my Roshi. I am not trained to do it myself.
  • It's about sharing the present moment in a ritualized way. It's the same kind of thing; it's done as a meditation. It's done with a level of awareness and presence and it's very Japanese so at any moment the rules can change and you really don't know why.
  • You're drinking Japanese Tea as you do this. You're drinking Matcha, the frothy Japanese Tea that's become popular and it's very healthy. It's powdered tea and you just whip it with a whisk. Matcha tea has caffeine in it. They say that when you absorb caffeine from tea it's healthier for you. That it does something differently to your nervous system. I'm not an expert, but I am a tea drinker.

Thoughts on Caffeine and Mindfulness

  • I just did an interview the other day with a friend of mine who is returning to 'Relax And Breathe'. She's a nutritionist and a health coach. I like to have people like this on 'Relax And Breathe' to discuss exactly what you're talking about.
  • She talks about the link between nutrition and awareness and health.
  • It's easier to be in the present moment, especially when you're first working with it, when you're in optimal health; when you're feeling good.
  • That said, the purpose is not to only be mindful when you feel good. She was talking about caffeine as one of the big addictions that is in our culture now.
  • The problem with it is that you do get dependent on it and it depletes your adrenals. I'm not an expert in that, but I do know for myself, I have a very sensitive nervous system. I am a deer. I am the kind of person that if you drop a book behind me, my startle response is very high.

  • More About The Relax And Breathe Summit

    I have people with diet, one person who's creating a Monastic Community, I have Yoga Teachers, DavidJi is returning again. I have a wide range of guests. I like to be able to expose people to a lot of different ways to use awareness and to use mindfulness in their life. It's completely free and it airs in June. June 5th to the 16th, 2017. Everyone offers a free gift which is usually some kind of training, pdf, audio or video. Sign up Here.

  • Listen to the interview to hear more ...

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221 Adjust Your Sails With Joel Brookman

June 1, 2017

Joel Brookman has a deep passion for using his expertise learned in the trenches of Wall Street, to guide others in their journeys. He is a Certified Financial Coach and Personal development expert focused on helping people clearly articulate their life's goals and then move on to achieving them. Joel’s experience is working as a Senior Executive for a Fortune 100 Wall Street firm. Presently he is committed to helping as many people as possible through his podcast, ‘90 Second Navigator’, a show which offers practical ways to become crystal clear on what you truly want in life. Joel is a firm believer in mindful breathing; he ends every episode focusing on the breath.

Contact Info

Most Influential Person

  • Eckhart Tolle

Effect on Emotions

  • Mindfulness has made me a much calmer person. Meditation and being able to separate myself from my life situation has done amazing things for me and has reduced my stress in the process.

Thoughts on Breathing

  • Every morning, the first thing I do when I get out of bed is I sit and I breathe. I try to do it somewhere between five and ten minutes and just clear my mind. Before everything comes in; before the day starts, just get grounded. And that's just focusing on the breath and just letting everything else go.

Suggested Resources

Bullying Story

  • I was fortunate. Personally, I didn't get bullied. I don't think I was a bully. I could have been nicer to a few people over the course of my life.
  • The mindfulness part should play a role [in bullying situations].
  • If you can separate yourself from what is happening. In other words, if I am this person who is being portrayed by the bully and I see myself there, then the bully is winning.
  • But if I rise above it, and through mindfulness understand that I am bigger than my life situation; if I can get beyond that, then that can change the whole dynamic.
  • It's a challenge with children, I notice this with my own kids, getting them open to mindfulness between ages 10 and 18, it's tough to do. I talk to my children all the time about it and I always wonder if there's a better way to deliver it. I'm not sure I have the answer to that. There's no escape on social media for kids or teachers.
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