Breathwork Magic
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, a podcast dedicated to exploring the life-changing power of Breathwork. Discover how conscious breathing can unlock inner peace, resilience, and clarity as we dive into inspiring stories and practical insights. Whether you’re new to Breathwork or looking to deepen your practice, each episode offers wisdom to help you connect more fully with yourself and the world around you.
Breathwork Magic
The Power of the Pause: Breathe to Speak with Confidence and Clarity
What if the key to clarity, confidence, and presence in your daily life is found in something as simple as a pause? In this episode of Breathwork Magic, joined by Alan Carroll, an educational psychologist and founder of A Mindful You, who shares decades of wisdom on the transformational power of conscious breathing—especially when it comes to public speaking and staying present.
Together, we dive into what it truly means to be awake in your communication, how pausing opens the door to connection, and why learning to control your breath is actually learning to command your reality. This is more than just a conversation—it's a wake-up call to stop running on autopilot and start breathing with purpose. If you’ve ever struggled with public speaking, overthinking, or staying grounded, this episode will offer powerful insights and practical tools to shift your energy and expand your presence.
🕰️ Episode Timeline Highlights
[2:20] – Alan’s spiritual journey begins with Autobiography of a Yogi
[4:15] – Training with the EST seminar and stepping into public speaking
[7:42] – The link between breath and vocal presence: becoming a “wind instrument”
[10:05] – Why most people are unknowingly starving themselves of oxygen
[13:45] – Ego vs. being: how silence helps you choose your next words
[17:03] – The three pillars of articulation: clarity, understanding, and fluidity
[23:43] – Lucid dreaming and the metaphor of waking up in your life
[27:22] – Conscious breathing as the gateway to presence and health
[34:51] – The difference between unconscious and conscious anger
[37:36] – Appreciating the journey: the penny-to-a-million-dollar mindset shift
To Connect with Amanda Russo:
~ Sign Up for Virtual Mindful Mindset Mondays HERE
~ Book a 1:1 Breathwork Session HERE
~ Instagram: @thebreathinggoddess
To Connect with Alan:
Welcome to Breathwork Magic, the podcast that explores the life-changing power of your breath. Breathwork isn't just a practice. It's a gateway to healing, transformation and shifting to a new mindset, by letting go of the past and embracing the possibilities of the present moment. And embracing the possibilities of the present moment. I'm Amanda Russo, your host, a certified breathwork facilitator, level two Reiki practitioner and creator of the Mander's Mindset podcast. On my own journey, breathwork has been a powerful tool for releasing what no longer serves me and shifting my perspective to step into my fullest and greatest potential. Each week, I'm joined by inspiring guests blood work facilitators, healers and wellness enthusiasts who share how this practice has helped them and their clients heal, grow and embrace lasting change. So take a deep breath in and out, settle in and let's explore the magic of your breath together. The transformation starts now. Welcome to Breathwork Magic. As always, I'm your host, amanda Russo, and I am here with Alan Carroll, and he is an educational psychologist who specializes in transitional psychology. Thanks for joining me.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much, Amanda. It's good to see you. It's good to talk about something very important.
Speaker 1:I agree. So when did you first discover how powerful our breath was?
Speaker 2:Well, in the spiritual journey which I started out in my teenage years, you know, 60, 65 years ago you're reading the spiritual books and the spiritual book that comes to mind right now that really, you know, rocked my world, was Paramahansa Yogananda's book, the Audubon, or Phoebe Yogi, and so they're talking about India, they're talking about the ashrams in India, he's talking about his guru in India and all the things that people do for spiritual development, and breath is right there on the chart, and so you are consciously thinking about breathing. Then you get involved with yoga, and yoga constantly thinks about breathing. So breathing is connected to the spiritual journey for the last 60, 75 years.
Speaker 1:So what made you read that book in your teens?
Speaker 2:You know, a gift from God. You know it's just the universe. The book appears and it captures my attention. Some books appear that don't capture my attention and some books appear that capture my attention. Some books appear that don't capture my attention and some books appear that capture my attention.
Speaker 2:And my sense, amanda, was that there's something missing, something I don't know, the knowing of which would be beneficial for me.
Speaker 2:And so I just took the I call it the spiritual path, which, in the physical world, would be my education in psychology, because psychology deals with the inner journey, spirituality deals with the inner journey, and so I get involved with the inner journey and then I do training programs that just happen to appear, and the big one that I did when I was in my early 20s was the Earhart Seminars program, the S training in San Francisco, and that was just a.
Speaker 2:It took your head off, because it has to deal with the transpersonal conversation which deals with this thing called the ego and this thing called the being, and you want to make the bridge called the ego and this thing called the being, and you want to make the bridge between the ego and the being. In spirituality they would call it enlightenment, the present moment, the holy instant it's being present in the moment is sort of the goal, and what does that mean? And so then that led to something that I learned in the program. I learned about public speaking and I got my own fear about public speaking and I had to go through the fear about public speaking. But I practiced and practiced and got my degrees and my license in psychology and did that for a while and then all of a sudden I realized that you could earn a living training people on public speaking. And so from 1983 till 2025, I've been in the public speaking business, and breathing is a big part of speaking.
Speaker 1:That's so true Now. So you, when you read the autobiography of a yogi, was that before you got into the public speaking okay?
Speaker 2:that was a just a, a book that accelerates you into that, into that wanting to know more about spirituality, thinking there's something positive about spirituality that's missing in the physical world, that of the materialistic things and what people seem to enjoy and they want to enjoy. I read that book and then in my psychology classes there was one psychology professor, winn Salisbury. He taught the sociology class and he went to San Francisco, saw this seminar with Werner Erhardt and came back to the sociology class in San Jose, san Jose State University, where I went to school, and he said the whole class are all going to San Francisco. And so the whole class went to San Francisco for a guest seminar at one of the hotels and there's probably a couple hundred people there, and you could enroll in the two weekend training and I enrolled and I assisted in the organization on and off for 20 years and I got my public speaking credentials, so to speak, by practicing public speaking within that organization.
Speaker 2:And then I got involved with corporations. My first real communication job was with Digital Equipment Corporation and one of the classes that I took was I was a trainer, so I had the they call it Amanda's soft skills. There's the hard skills, there's the technology, or there's the soft skills, like sales training, negotiation skills, effective presentations, and under that umbrella of effective presentations I got to train public speakers and I did that for over now 40 years. So I better do a good job speaking right now, otherwise people will say what?
Speaker 1:he doesn't know how to speak. That's true. Now, how did you realize that the breath was important in speaking? Was there something?
Speaker 2:that happened. That made you realize that the observation of watching people speak and so I'll demonstrate to your audience is, when you speak, I'm making a sound, so I'm blowing air out of my body, my musical instrument called my body. I'm a wind instrument. I'm blowing air out, I'm vibrating the air. I'm using my tongue and my lips. I'm vibrating just enough air for just as long as a time in order to create a sound. Now, when I stop blowing the air, what you hear is silence. And so, when you're speaking, there's a dance between the creation of the sound and the creation of silence. But 99% of the thousands of people that I have trained and been involved with for the last 40 plus years, at the beginning of the training and you listen for the emptiness, you listen for silence. There's no emptiness, there's no silence, and you can't, and so what you want to be able to do is to have enough consciousness to be able to create the sound and create the silence, and when you can create the sound and you can create the silence, you have control of the number one skill of a professional speaker. Number one skill is called timing. You control the timing of your speaking, and when you create the silence. One of the things that you can do is you can breathe. If you don't create the silence, then you can't breathe and speak at the same time. So you have people who are speaking Very fast about.
Speaker 2:What I want to talk about today is the difference between what's up here and what's down there. Now, the difference that we're talking about is very, very important, and they're almost strangling themselves for lack of oxygen. So what we do is we tell them okay, you know the subject matter, you've got no problem with the content, you've earned the right to speak, no problem there. Now let's just practice pausing between the sounds. And when you practice pausing between the sounds, you can just for fun amount, you just take your fingers and go like this and try to suck air through the fingers. Hard to suck the air through the fingers, but if you put the fingers apart, then you can. You can get big gobs of air if there's a space between the fingers. So the fingers represent the sounds. So if you can create spaces between the sounds, then then the the amount of air that you can breathe in increases dramatically Over 300% increase in the amount of oxygen. And in the spiritual business we'll call it prana. Prana energy energy of the air is increased. So you discover that the breathing between the sounds increases the amount of prana energy, reduces the physical tension in the body.
Speaker 2:You become more relaxed as a public speaker and often people talk about the number one fear that they have is the fear of public speaking. So if you can have them figure out a way of becoming more relaxed while they are facing their number one fear, then you can earn a living doing that. So I've earned my living telling people to pause. Then they relax and they can breathe and they can anchor themselves and they become center and they become grounded. And what's really breakthrough kind of stuff is that when I pause I can actually begin to choose what sound I want to make next. I can actually begin to choose what sound I want to make next.
Speaker 2:And what sound do you want to make next? You can make sounds for the glory of God, for the well-being of love and humanity, or you can make sounds for the preservation of my point of view, amanda, and you don't know what you're talking about. I know what I'm talking about. So then you have the difference between the ego speaking and and your spiritual part speaking. But if there's no space, then you default back to your ego speaking, which is the preservation of your identity. So in psychology, in transcendental psychology, we want to be able to build a bridge between the ego identity, which causes the suffering and leads to hell, versus the spiritual identity, which leads to salvation in heaven. And so then you can begin to practice forgiveness, you can begin to speak more lovingly. You no longer react to the events that are happening, you no longer react with your speaking. You now are able to stay centered and calm where other people are running around like a chicken. You are able to stay anchored and centered and breathe, and breathing abounds you. It's heaven on earth good breath.
Speaker 1:Have you ever found that anybody you tell to pause it?
Speaker 2:doesn't help them or they're not able to get their mind to actually do that. It's a good question, because when you create the empty space in the beginning, people will say empty space, pause, emptiness. What are you you talking about? That's because they've never practiced. They've never practiced stopping and breathing. Why they're speaking? Because they're focused on speaking. They're not focused on not speaking, they're're focused on speaking. So when you watch the professional actor, you'll notice that there's a lot of empty space between the dialogue of a professional actor. Lots of groundingness, lots of quietness, lots of stillness. And once people have tasted that empty space and discover the relaxation, discover the more oxygen in their body, being able to keep their body relaxed, you don't have to convince them. They are now enrolled in the practice and it takes practice. You have to be able to practice breathing, you have to practice stillness, you have to practice pa. To practice breathing, you have to practice stillness, you have to practice pausing so it becomes natural. In the beginning it's unnatural, so you'll default back to your old ways of automatic speaking without any spaces between the two. But now it just allows you to be relaxed while you're speaking and you're calm. You can think you've got clarity, the quality of the articulation of your thoughts.
Speaker 2:Articulation in the public speaking business is one of the primary terms that we talk about and the definition, amanda, of articulation that I like is articulation has three components. Articulation that I like is articulation has three components. If you are articulate then when you speak there's a sense of clarity in what you're speaking. You don't have any ahs and ums and welles or there be ahs or there be ahs. You're able to take the thought that's inside your head and you're able to bring it out into the outer world so that it shows up as clear, no distortion. Second component of articulation is that a person who is articulate can not only speak clearly, they can speak in a way that the audience understands what they're talking about. In a way that the audience understands what they're talking about, and often you know people are, the gradient of the conversation is too steep and people don't understand the deep stuff that they're talking about, so I don't understand it. Well delivered, the quality, the clarity of it is good, but it's just too complex. I don't understand it. So a person who is articulate needs to be able to take something that's complex and make it and simplify it, so the audience can not only get the clarity, but they can understand it.
Speaker 2:Third pillar of articulation, which is where the breathing comes in, is called fluidity. Fluidity is there's now a flow to the conversation. It's not constipated. See, if there's no space, you have constipation. When you begin to pause, you begin to aerate the soil, begin to have a screen door in the summertime, it's not a storm door. There's a flow of energy that can pass through because you're creating spaces between the sounds that you speak and in the spaces you can now breathe, and that will give you a tremendous advantage in your speaking business if you can create those little pauses and inhale the energy when you create the pauses. But you'll notice that most people, amanda, don't pause, and so you know already the quality of the breathing is weak.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's really true. A lot of people don't pause before anything. You know, I mentioned even that speaking. But even just before making a decision, before doing whatever it is, taking a deep breath in, even if it's just one, before you answer the phone, before you whatever it is, to be more present. I think it would help so much, even small little interactions that people have.
Speaker 2:Our conversation right now, just to use the empty spaces. They don't have to be long. I just took a nice deep breath. But in order to take the breath you have to be awake, you have to be conscious, because you use the word the mind. There's a I'll call it a command override switch. So you're driving a car and you have an automatic transmission. And an automatic transmission, you don't have to think about changing the gears, it's done automatically. Manual transmission you have to be able to change the gears. Manual transmission you have to be able to change the gears.
Speaker 2:So when you are operating your body and the breathing is part of the journey, if you're operating automatically, you don't have to think about the breathing because the autonomic nervous system takes care of the heart beating, takes care of the breathing. You don't have to think about it. But if you are awake enough and not seduced by the words that you're speaking, not at the effect of the words that you're speaking you're able to pause and then speak. And when you can pause, you regain control. You have regained control of the voice inside your head, the command of the body, and you can tell the body to breathe. You can tell the body. I want to walk over to that part of the room right now.
Speaker 2:You can tell the body I want to make eye contact with Amanda before I speak. You can tell the body I want to be grounded. You can tell the body I want to make eye contact with Amanda before I speak. You can tell the body I want to be grounded. You can tell the body I want to change my voice a little bit, give the audience a little vocal variety. You can tell the body, gee, I want to explain something and I think I'll use my body in my gestures. I'll create a gesture or maybe I'll bring a piece of mass, a physical object to help them understand. One part of articulation is understanding Physical objects help people understand your thoughts. But if I don't have the space to think about those things, then I just default back to my PowerPoint slides or whatever other vehicles I have. I don't have time to really create the conversation, I'm just in automatic. So you want to be able to pause allows you to create rather than default back to your previous patterns and not have any creativity.
Speaker 1:I have got a different type of question for you. You mentioned about practicing breathing. Do you think people know how to breathe correctly?
Speaker 2:I believe that most people don't think too much about breathing, because it's not necessary to think about breathing. I have to think about earning a living. I have to think about what I have to do now. I have to think. Think about breathing. I have to think about earning a living. I have to think about what I have to do now. I have to think about the family. I have to think about the travel. I have to think about this. I think about that. I've got a lot of things to think about. I don't think about breathing. Thank God I don't think about breathing.
Speaker 2:Well, if you don't think about breathing, then you can't really become a quote professional breather, because it takes practice to be conscious enough to do exactly what you had to say. You said breathe. Take a breath before you make a decision. You could answer a question. Take a breath before you answer the question. Stick gobs of breathing into your life and every time you consciously breathe, you wake up. You wake up from the dream.
Speaker 2:In a dream you dream, I dream you go to bed at night and you wake up the next day and you say did you dream? Oh yeah, I had a dream. What did you dream about? Well, I dreamed about. You know, you got fragments of the dream and then later on the dream just sort of fades away, and so that's the nighttime dream. Well, the thoughts that you thought in the dream at night faded away the next day.
Speaker 2:Well, eckhart Tolle and Deepak Chopra were talking about the number of thoughts that you think during the day, and they said 65,000 to 80,000 thoughts pass through your consciousness every day. All right, so yesterday, amanda, you had 65,000 to 80,000 thoughts pass through your consciousness. Now, how many of those thoughts do you remember right now? And you go, well, they faded away. So the daydream and the nightdream are very, very similar. So, using the metaphor that we live in a dream, then you can give people a little insight, because once in a while in the nighttime dream, you actually wake up in the dream dream. You actually wake up in the dream. So my question to you, amanda have you ever woken up in the dream? You're dreaming. And now you know you're dreaming and you woke up in the dream.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:What was that experience like?
Speaker 1:It hasn't happened to me often. It's been a while. I was just living it out as if it was real life.
Speaker 2:That's right. That's right. You wake up in the dream, you realize you're dreaming. You're no longer at the effect of the dream. You actually can cause the dream, cause what you want to see happen in the dream. One of the ones that I started with it was you're in some high place, you're in some mountain, a cliff or something like that, and it's like 300 feet straight down.
Speaker 1:And you go, oh my.
Speaker 2:God, I'm going to don't jump, you're going to die. But then when you wake up in the dream, you say, hey, wait a minute, this is a dream, I can't hurt myself in the dream. And so then you decide to jump, and when you jump off the cliff, you discover that you can fly. And so then you learn how to fly in your dreams. And that's a very cool feeling to fly in your dreams. And then you begin to realize that I can cause things to happen in my dreams. I'm no longer afraid of the dreams. I am now creating the dream.
Speaker 2:So now we go back to the daytime and people live in a dream. They don't know that they're dreaming. Right now we're dreaming, but we don't know that we're dreaming, because this is live, this is real, this is reality right here. Well, you could wake up to a realization that not only do you have lucid dreams at night, you could also have lucid dreams during the day. And when you breathe, when you take that conscious breath, you wake up.
Speaker 2:And what do you wake up from?
Speaker 2:Well, you wake up from the field of thought, the thoughts that you're thinking, because most people, when they are living their daily life, the thoughts, those 65,000 to 80,000.
Speaker 2:Thoughts are like linears Thought after thought after thought after thought goes through their consciousness and there's no space at all between the thoughts that you think and no space at all between the thoughts that you think and no space at all between the thoughts that you speak. So if I can consciously create spaces between the thoughts that I think, you begin to wake up from the ego, because the ego is comprised of your thoughts. And if you can create empty spaces between the thoughts that you think, it begins to unravel that your ego. You begin to be more relaxed, you begin to enjoy the moment more. A lot about the past, you're no longer thinking a lot about the future, you're just enjoying being in your body. You're enjoying taking a breath and you become more present in the moment and it's healthier. You know you can breathe, you can take those breaths. You no longer get upset. You don't get upset anymore because what's there to get upset about? The ego gets upset, but the empty space you don't get upset.
Speaker 1:Now I'm curious if you've got any suggestions for people, because you've mentioned about how life is just so busy, but for people to tap in to their breath their breath.
Speaker 2:Well, you have to be aware that you can either be unconscious breathing or you can be conscious and breathing, and we'll say that 99% of the people are unconscious breathing. Therefore, they're not taking advantage of breathing. Then they might read a book or listen to a podcast and they talk about well, what would it like to become more conscious breathing? Is there any value in that? So if there's no value in that, then they're not going to practice it. So you have to convince them to do a research project. You know you don't know if there's. You know you don't know if there's value, you don't know if there's not value. But just for fun, take a couple of deep breaths once in a while and and see what happens. And so if person is willing to do that, they'll immediately will notice. When you take a deep breath, a wave of relaxation flows through your body. See, when I speak, it's tense. I'm pushing out the energy, and when I'm breathing, there's no pushing out. The analogy would be shooting a bullet. When you push the bullet out, there's a recoil on the weapon, on the rifle, and so there's a jerking that goes back. So when you speak, there's a tension. Every time I forward, thrust the energy. There's a tension that pushes back on me, but every time I stop speaking and every time I practice breathing, your body becomes tension-free. And tension-free equals healthy body. So you're physically healthy when you breathe. The more breathing you take, the more energy you have, the healthier you'll be.
Speaker 2:One of the teachers talked about longevity and they said well, how do you increase longevity? And most people. Well, I'll vote for longevity. I'd like to live a longer, fruitful, happy, healthy life. And they talked about well, if you want longevity, begin to focus on your breathing. Take in more oxygen, take in more prana energy in your daily routine, and so, in yoga, prana energy in your daily routine, and so in yoga, take in energy, you know, probably speaking. Take in the prana energy, so then you are practicing and you begin to enjoy it. So it's no longer an unnatural experience. It's something that it's like sugar. It's sweet. I enjoy sugar, so I can use that. It's very sweet to take those breaths. It's sweet for your body, it's healthy for your body.
Speaker 1:It really is. It's interesting how you mentioned Research Project, because people have to see that it's worth their while.
Speaker 2:unfortunately, yeah, that's true for everything. You want people to be enrolled in something. You don't want to eat red meat, you don't want to do a lot of sugar, you know. You want to get exercise. My wife's talking about it says you need 8,000 steps a day, like, oh, that's what you want to be, the 8,000 steps a day. Oh my God, 8,000 steps is a lot of steps, and that's just the basic. You know stuff. That's just the basic, you know stuff. So you don't take 8,000, you take 1,000, then you take 1,500, then maybe only do 1,000, then you do 1,800 and so much.
Speaker 2:It's a research project. You see how you feel and when you begin to practice breathing, it settles you. You remember those glass balls, the snowballs that it's glass with the stuff inside and you shake with the water and all the snow goes all over the place. When you are thinking, the thoughts or speaking, it agitates all those things and so you're in this water with all this stuff flowing around in the water like mud in the ocean that you can't see very clearly. But when you stop and you take the breath, all those things settle down and then when you look at the snow globe, it's all clear. There's no distortion in the snow globe anymore. So, every time you take a breath, all the snow, all the agitation, all the thoughts settle and you become clear and clear. Clear.
Speaker 2:What's the benefit of clarity? Benefit of clarity is observation. Observation when you begin to able to observe what's going on out there, when you're able to observe your physical body, when you're able to observe your, the thoughts that I would say to you, based on my ego, defending my point of view, you can then choose whether or not you want to say those thoughts. You can choose whether or not you want to do attack thoughts. Attacking no, you don't know what you're talking about. No, no, no, no, no, no. So those are attack thoughts.
Speaker 2:Well, attack thoughts are very toxic, but it's not toxic to you. It's toxic to me, because I had to generate the toxicity of the attack thought in my reality before I fired it at you. And so people who are angry for example, I'm angry at you for something you did to me that caused me to get upset. Therefore, I'm justified in getting angry at you and putting you in your place, amanda. But what happens is I have to generate that toxicity within myself, and the saying that's often talked about with anger is. Anger is like drinking from a cup of poison that I'm drinking from a cup of poison and I'm expecting you to die and so you don't want to do anger. Anger is like whew. Now, conscious anger is different. If you're consciously angry, then you can choose to be angry or not be angry, but I'm talking about unconscious anger that is detrimental to your physical well-being, to the physical environment that you're living in, to the relationships that you have. You're shortening your life.
Speaker 1:So you mentioned consciously angry and then unconsciously angry.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:What's the difference?
Speaker 2:Tell you a story Back, oh, 40 years ago, had a volkswagen dasher car and I'm driving along and the the engine smokes, something overheated and it like steam. I take it down to bob lewis volkswagen on first street in san jose and I'm working. So I had to go in the morning, I had to leave the car, I had to go back to work and I go back in the afternoon pick it up, and so it's a little bit of a logistic annoyance there. But you do it and I get the car, I'm driving home and I'm driving home, the engine does the same thing. The engine does the same thing. Okay, okay, okay, okay. I take it back to Bob Lewis Volkswagen the next day Saying hey, you guys, you said you fixed it. I had to leave from work, I had to leave, I had to go back, take his hair and fix it. Oh, all right, mr Carroll. So I go back again, pick up the car and drive it home. Same thing happens again. And I said to myself Mr Nice Guy doesn't work, so I'm going to have to be Mr Angry. So I chose to be angry. The third day I go back to Bob Lewis Volkswagen About 8.15 in the morning.
Speaker 2:It's a fairly large service department. There's a big, long desk there with maybe five or six service technicians behind the desk. There's people there, maybe about 20 people in the room, and I walk into the room with my loudest voice and I don't know if you can guess, but I can get a pretty loud voice if I want a loud voice of anger. And when I walked in there I got angry. I was just pissed off. I could have stopped like that. So I was consciously angry and it worked.
Speaker 2:Because, first of all, when you're consciously yelling in a room, what happens to the space? Everybody becomes quiet. Nobody wants to attract the attention of the crazy guy at the door. And then the door that says manager opens up. And when that door opened up, what's the job of the manager? Get the crazy guy off the floor and find out what's going on. So I so when the manager's door opened up, I was. I knew I'd won because he took me in. He gave me a new this, he gave me a new that he apologized. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And there's a saying that the squeaky wheel gets the oil. Well, I got the oil that day. I had no problem with my Volkswagen Dasher anymore. It worked out fine, and so that's an example of I consciously chose to be angry. It worked, but there's a big difference between being the victim of your anger and consciously being angry. It's a big difference.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. I really like how you explained about the research project and your example of steps, like you know, and testing it out, doing this one day, seeing what you can do the next and seeing how it goes. I really liked that analogy, that example.
Speaker 2:It's the. It is the for any behavior, because people often think about the destination I need to be able to do 20. Oh, I didn't do 20 today. Oh, it's terrible, I'm, I'm wrong. Okay, well, you only did. You only did one. Well, you know, it's one of the stories about the person wanted to be rich and they wanted. They wanted a million dollars and they're I want a million dollars.
Speaker 1:I want a million dollars.
Speaker 2:They are walking along and there's a penny Penny on the ground. They look at the penny oh, it's just a penny. They throw it away. God was watching when God saw you. You took the penny that God left there and you didn't like it. Then you're not going to get the nickel Because you didn't appreciate like it. Then you're not going to get the nickel Because you didn't appreciate the penny. Then you're not going to get the nickel.
Speaker 2:Appreciate the penny. You get the nickel. Appreciate the nickel. You get the dime. Appreciate the dime. You get the dollar. Appreciate the dollar. You get the five dollars and pretty soon you are enjoying the journey, the flow of the journey.
Speaker 2:From the beginning, every day, you appreciate the flow of it, the joy of the journey, and all of a sudden you end up with a million dollars. But you've enjoyed every day was flowers, not weeds. And so most people are stuck with the. If they don't achieve the goal, then they're upset. Well, what's the purpose of? You know? Purpose of it is to be here and enjoy the moment, the present moment that you're in, regardless of the exterior forms that are happening outside. You want to be able to enjoy the beauty of life, whatever life is happening around you, you want to be appreciative and gratitude of the opportunity that you're above the earth, above the ground. Right now You're not in the ground. So Tony Robbins says a great day is when you're above the ground, and so you appreciate being above the ground rather than, hey, your life is over, you're in the ground.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's so true. I love all that Well, thank you so much, alan, I really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, I love sharing something that I've been involved in for many, many years, so thank you for the opportunity of speaking to your audience, hope that you are going to be practicing breathing and that I was able to say some things that will inspire you and also help you to guide you and coach you about how to have a more pleasant, enjoyable journey.
Speaker 1:Thank you, I really appreciate it. And where's the best place for listeners to connect with you?
Speaker 2:Well, I am the host of the Mindful you podcast, so you can listen to me talk about what I'm talking about right now. On the Mindful you podcast, I wrote a book called the Broadband Connection the Art of Delivering a Winning IT Presentation. I'm going to pause and take a breath and a drink right now. My website, wwwacamindfulyoucom ACAMC-A. Mindful you is Y-O-U dot com, so that's a way of getting into the internet. You'll see me on YouTube's. Mindful you Now is the Twitter that I have that one, and Instagram. We have those things. But I love podcasting, I love being a guest and I love interviewing people as a host, so I enjoy that piece. That's another way of connecting with me.
Speaker 1:Awesome, well, thank you so much. I will link all of that in the show notes. Do you have any final words of wisdom that you want to leave the listeners with?
Speaker 2:Be aware that you can create an empty space between the sounds that you speak, Whether you're a child or whether you're an adult. Practice pausing and you will transform. You'll transform your life if you can do that that's true.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much, Alan. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Well thank you very much and blessings to you and blessings to your audience. Thank you, you as well, and thank you, guys for tuning in to another episode of Breathwork Magic. Thank you for tuning in to Breathwork Magic. I hope today's episode inspired you to connect more deeply with your breath and embrace the transformation it can bring. Remember, as long as you have your breath, you have options. You're not stuck. You can make a change, you can make a shift. Each inhale is a new beginning and every exhale is a chance to let go of what no longer serves you.
Speaker 1:If you're craving a reset, I'd love to invite you to Mindful Mindset Mondays, now held on the last Monday of every month. It's a virtual pay-what-you-can breathwork session designed to help you recharge and realign. You'll find all the info in the show notes and if you're ready to go even deeper, you can always schedule a one-on-one breathwork session with me. This is your space to work through what's coming up and move energy in a more personalized way. As always, thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for listening. If you loved this episode, it would mean the world if you shared it with a friend or left a review. Your support helps more people discover the magic of breathwork and the shifts it can bring. Until next time, keep breathing, keep shifting and keep embracing the magic with inside of you. I'm proud of you, I'm rooting for you and you got this.
