Change Your Breath, Change Your World | Lynsie McKeown | TEDxAsheville

They told me to never look in the mirror, at least it wasn't my first time, but I did the first time I tried cocaine. I looked between two thick ceramic lines directly into my eyes for a brief moment. I saw the woman in the mirror for whom she. She truly was a bright and fiery soul, beautiful, passionate and complete. I blinked her away, looked away, and took a deep

breath

. I didn't believe in her and for three years I ignored her. I buried her under my rage in my pain and my distrust. of men and my hatred of God for abandoning me with late nights filled with alcohol cocaine I created the dramas that validated my beliefs that I was not trustworthy in people and life was against me the tradition of yoga says that if we do not live in alignment with

your

highest purpose, then we will never truly be happy, every late night escape and every hungover morning to be further from my purpose, my calling and a sleepless night.

I felt so overwhelmed by my loneliness and my fear, but I cried out loud. Seeking help, my tears suddenly stopped. I felt a wave of calm wash over me and I fell into a deep sleep at that moment and experienced the nature of my true self. That moment helps me take a new direction. Six months later, I went to the jungle. from Costa Rica to become a yoga teacher Here I am, ten years later, standing on the stage at TEDx Asheville. I was so excited to be selected as a speaker, however, my excitement quickly faded into complete panic, as if I would ruin my talk.

It wasn't good enough, what if it wasn't good enough? The days of using alcohol and cocaine to hide my fears are long gone. Instead, I binge watch Netflix for about a week, maybe a little longer than I realized I was doing the first time. The first thing I did to sit down and write, the first thing I did was concentrate,

breath

e and meditate. I know what stress and drama feels like after years of practice. I also know what it feels like to be centered. Breathing and meditation lead me to calm. Stable center where I can align with my highest potential raising consciousness is one of this year's themes for TEDx Asheville from a yogic perspective we cannot raise consciousness it is simply intelligence that makes life happen and what is missing is never missing without However, it is our ability to perceive awareness and what we need to increase is our awareness.

Awareness keeps us grounded in the present moment. Can I not only be aware of what I am eating but also how I am eating? Can I be aware of my thoughts but also of my thoughts? How do those thoughts make me feel? Can I be aware of how I move from one place to another, from one activity to another, when I am fully aware that life is an experience from a stable and calm base? It is from this base that we align and connect an experiential consciousness. It cannot be experienced if we are stuck in the past or worried about the future.

Awareness can only be experienced in the present moment and there are many ways to avoid being present with uncomfortable feelings and master stress, maybe it's alcohol, drugs, TV, food or maybe. It's social media retail therapy,

your

to-do list, sexual exercise, so think about a time when you felt overwhelmed, what you did to comfort yourself, and how that made you feel stress, illness, anxiety, thoughts. repetitive that distract us from who we really are now. It wasn't my strongest subject in school, but I do remember Ohm's law, which states in its simplest terms that when there is a lot of resistance, energy will not flow freely through an electrical conductor and when the resistance is low, the Energy will flow more freely, so think of your body as a container or conductor of energy, our negative emotions, our negative thoughts, act as resistance to the flow of energy and when we have a lot of resistance we become more susceptible to bodily and mental illnesses, and When there is a lot of energy and it flows better the better we feel that the body is a container in an archive of everything we were born with and everything we have experienced.

Both yoga tradition and modern science suggest that unprocessed emotions and experiences are actually stored in the body, especially for the navel to refer to. the pelvic floor, so how many of you have a junk drawer in your house? Well, you know that place where you keep all the things you don't know what to do with and aren't ready to let go of. The body or pelvic bowl becomes the place where we accumulate all our junk emotional memories that carry powerful feelings. Psychoanalysts have shown that to avoid tapping into those uncomfortable feelings, people actually shorten their breathing and limit it to the chest, which keeps energy and awareness at bay.

From what is stored in our pelvic garbage doors, the problem is that the garbage drawer is never cleaned, in fact it only becomes more messy and full, we spend a lot of energy trying to contain and avoid the painful memories and emotions that we have. in our pelvic junk drawers. less energy to truly thrive fully in our purpose of living our lives. Each of us has a vagus nerve that runs from the brain stem and runs through all the organs of the body and ends in the abdomen with filaments that extend to the pelvic floor. The pelvic jump gates and the vagus nerve are essential for the functioning of all our major organs including the brain, heart, liver, kidneys and lungs, when activated the vagus nerve acts as a brake pedal that slows down an overstimulated nervous system.

Guess what each one is? The breath you take activates the vagus nerve the deeper, the fuller the breath, the more powerfully the vagus nerve is activated, which positively affects Oregon Health. Deep breathing through the nose also stimulates the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for higher mental functioning. do self-observation language reasoning emotional control and social interactions every hurricane has a center and I the storm where things are calmer deeper breathing patterns take us to our calm and stable center where we can observe and witness the obstacles and resistances that stand in the way the path of ourselves and our best selves, intentional breathing patterns help us feel more connected to other people communicate more clearly be less reactive and less likely to be triggered by life events and the chest supports us and see what the internal pelvic junk drawers are immobilize the energy to help cleanse it so that the breath is much more powerful than drugs, alcohol or a bag of Oreos to stabilize you and, unlike Oreos, you know, and There are other things, breath has lasting benefits that improve over time, so think about that for a moment simply learning to breathe consciously can have a positive impact on your long-term health and the quality of your life.

A few years ago I was struggling again. He had had another failed relationship. He was unhappy at work and suffered from chronic migraines. Resistance was building. My body and mind were suffering even though I practiced the physical postures of yoga regularly. I didn't practice being aware or present. I didn't practice breathing or meditation consistently. I was unstable and ungrounded in my yoga practice during this time. I took a class that didn't do any of the rigorous physical postures I was used to, instead breathing techniques were integrated with basic postures throughout the class. At the end of the class, I got ready and thought: wow, that felt! more immediate

change

s in my body, mind, and emotions than I had ever experienced before.

Now I didn't get enlightenment in that class, but it did increase my consciousness. I learned that there are so many different breathing techniques to help us. Wherever we are in our lives and if we learn to use these techniques intelligently as a support mechanism for greater health, our lives can

change

. The teachings of yoga are very clear. We must have a calm and stable mind to be able to connect with consciousness the immutable essence of who we are, but who has time for one more thing, what you do, media kicks, you didn't study it, that shows that, on average, we spend 50 minutes of our day on Facebook alone, if we included YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter in the mix, it would easily spread.

For more than 2 hours of our day social media has been shown to have detrimental effects on our physical, mental, emotional and even spiritual well-being, so if we take 5 minutes, 10 minutes, maybe 15 minutes and apply that time to techniques that we know immediately and in the long term. Long term benefits for your mind, body and spirit, life is full of options that we can all choose, so let's choose now, sit nice and tall, place your feet on the floor and close your eyes, breathe deeply through your nose and To the next one. do it through your mouth, let's do it one more time, so breathe and let everything go and then become aware of the sounds around you, feel the sensation of your clothes on your skin, feel the length of your spine and then bring your pay attention to the nose and feel the breath entering and leaving each nostril, the coolness of the inhalation and the warmth of the exhalation and then bring awareness to the back of the throat, feeling a subtle movement of the breath in the back of the throat. back of the throat and then bring awareness to the back of the throat. your chest feels the rise and fall of the chest with each inhale and exhale and you can begin to lengthen your breath so that you feel the breath move to your abdomen, so that when you inhale you feel your belly soften and expand and when As you exhale, you feel your navel hugging toward your spine, so the breath in your belly softens and expands, and as you exhale, your navel moves toward your spine and begins to create a breathing rhythm that reflects how you would like it to be. your mind and your body and your emotions should be calm, steady, effortless and you can begin to lengthen your breath even more, bringing it deep into your pelvic floor, bringing your breath and awareness into your pelvic junk drawer and, When you breathe in, you breathe in love easily.

When you breathe out, you release stress. and anxiety breathing in revitalization brings up fears and old stories, so breathe in what you need and let go of what you don't need, but it becomes effortless to breathe in what you need and let go of what you don't need and then shift your awareness. to the center of your heart, the place behind your breastbone, in front of your spine, and send a quality of stillness to the center of your spiritual heart, the place where the essence of who you really are resides, that which is always calm, firm and peaceful.

It means tilting your head slightly downward, it is a gesture of liberating the mind and the wisdom found within your own heart, inhale and exhale more deeply feeling the clothing on your skin along your spine and then lift your head. head, open your eyes. and just notice where you are in this moment and your body and your mind and your emotions after just a few minutes of breathing and awareness. Sufism uses the analogy of the human heart as a polished mirror that reflects the light of our higher self. Unfortunately, the mirrors of our hearts are often covered with the dirt and dust of our suffering, guilt, shame, regret or anger.

Breathing helps us begin the process of clearing that. Today I no longer look away and breathe a drug that helps me avoid my emotional garbage, instead I use my breath to stabilize myself, carry me with words where I find the courage to discover and witness my pain when I clean up the mess, I discover Beneath the inherent joy, the beauty, the strength, I can look directly into the mirror of my heart I see myself clearly, I inhale deeply and breathe life. Spiritual teachers have taught for millennia that if we want to change the outside

world

we must go within if we are willing to take the journey towards greater self-knowledge and The simplest and most powerful tool you will ever find is the breath that