How can proper breathing change your life? As a breathwork facilitator, emotional alchemy coach and leading lightworker for sacred abundance, Mika Shoemaker helps her clients tap into all the benefits of breathing. Mindfulness is an often-overlooked pillar of health but it is just as important as nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep. She joins Justin Benton to provide a course on breathing that will leave everyone feeling relaxed and refreshed. Produced by PodConx www.themiracleplant.org info@101CBD.org Justin Benton - https://podconx.com/guests/justin-benton Effortless Traffic - https://effortlesstraffic.com Breath Work - https://www.mikashoemaker.com/link-page Mika Shoemaker - https://podconx.com/guests/mika-shoemaker Join Our #HealTheWorlders Messenger Tribe at https://bit.ly/TheMiraclePlant_Messenger
How can proper breathing change your life?
As a breathwork facilitator, emotional alchemy coach and leading lightworker for sacred abundance, Mika Shoemaker helps her clients tap into all the benefits of breathing. Mindfulness is an often-overlooked pillar of health but it is just as important as nutrition, hydration, exercise, and sleep. She joins Justin Benton to provide a course on breathing that will leave everyone feeling relaxed and refreshed.
Justin Benton - https://podconx.com/guests/justin-benton
Effortless Traffic - https://effortlesstraffic.com
Breath Work - https://www.mikashoemaker.com/link-page
Mika Shoemaker - https://podconx.com/guests/mika-shoemaker
Join Our #HealTheWorlders Messenger Tribe at https://bit.ly/TheMiraclePlant_Messenger
Justin Benton & Mika Shoemaker: [00:00:00] Um, how are you? Good, nice to see adjusted. It's haven't seen you weeks up here. So we're, uh, we're on the mindfulness pillar of health for the whole of your health. And, uh, you know, you, obviously, when we first started putting this together, you were one of the first people that I thought of, because I know you obviously know my wife, Molly, who spoke her.
Uh, and, uh, you were doing some breath work, um, you know, uh, classes and things of that nature. And Molly was saying how wonderful it was and how big it was stress. And I have done some Wim Hoff myself, and really enjoyed it. And it was really new. And, and, uh, I know that you've, uh, you know, really do it a lot now and you offer classes and, and, uh, just super excited to have you here and share with them.
You know what you do and how it works and how it helps with stress. So maybe, maybe give the audience a little background of how you got into, uh, you know, this breath work and, and what you've seen it do for. [00:01:00] Okay, great. Yeah. So hi everyone. My name is Mika Shoemaker, and it's so nice to see you here. Um, so how did I get into it?
You know, my, my history, my background, I have been meditating since I was seven years old and, you know, I was introduced to transcendental meditation through my father. And so it's something that has been always part of my life, but meditation in itself, you know, I. I was starting to notice, you know, when I talk to people about meditation, they're like, yeah, but I can't sit still.
Or, you know, or when I do sit still, I fall asleep or I can't make my mind blank. Right. So these are all ways that people tend to struggle with meditation. And I was trying to find a way for people, you know, something that people can grasp onto that allows them to go into that. Where you can release some of the mental chatter and the worries and the [00:02:00] daily stress.
And that's when I found breathwork. And I practiced breath for work for about, uh, five or six years until one day there was something, just a message that came to me in the breathwork session that really strongly said, you know, you really need to be able to teach this to other people because it's time for more people to understand the power of breath work and how we can use what's already part of our body.
I mean, when you think about it, you know, so often we go. Oh, I need I'm so stressed. So I need a vacation. Well, how much is that going to cost us? And how can you have that time to have a vacation like 24 7? You can't, but a breath, our breath is something that we all own. It doesn't cost us anything. You don't have to be a master or an expert at, you know, learning how to use your.
All you need is just to remember and start doing these different types of breath work in [00:03:00] order to change your state of being. And, you know, that's one of the things that's most exciting for me is you can do this anywhere, anytime. It's something that we own. It's something that we actually do as long as we're alive, we're doing it all the time.
Right. So, um, yeah, today we'll, I will show you some of the different breath work techniques that you can practice. Um, just, you know, five minutes, a day, 10 minutes a day, something like that. And you can do it either in privacy, on your own room or. One of them. I'm going to show you, you can do just waiting in line at a grocery store or something, because I feel that it's really important that when we have that, uh, time in our day, that we are paused, we get to pause in our daily life.
Then why not use that as a part for time, for opportunity for meditation, a mini meditation, instead of just picking up the phone and checking our messages, you know, that's [00:04:00] where our mind tends to go because. I think the society we've gotten so used to just going for the distraction, going for, you know, checking off the to-do list, going for all of these different things that.
We think we need to take care of, but really if we take care of ourselves, if we take that like that sacred pause and allow ourselves to just be then from there, we are able to take more effective, um, more effective solutions actions, uh, finding the different ways to be without having to react to that.
So, you know, that's why I'm so passionate about breath work and you know, this is, you know, a health summit. So I also want to talk a little bit about the, um, how health comes into all of this with breath work. So, you know, there's this nervous system, right? That w that, uh, regulates our body. There's, [00:05:00] what's called a sympathetic nervous system and a parasympathetic nervous system.
And the sympathetic nervous system is. Fight or flight, you know, it's typically activated by an input that shows us we're in danger. So imagine if you were driving along and a car cuts you off in traffic, and all of a sudden you, you know, you tense up and you're hyper alert and your heart starts to beat faster.
Like this is the sympathetic nervous system just being activated immediate. And it's the type of nervous system that sends all the blood away from our digestive area into our muscles, because historically what we used to have to do was, you know, we'd have to run from, you know, the, the bearer, this April 3rd, uh, the mountain lion or something like that.
We needed to be able to have quick. Responses to have blood going to our muscles so that we could run [00:06:00] really quick or climb a tree or throw a rock or whatever it was to defend ourselves. So that is a nervous system that is very, it's very useful in emergency situations. Unfortunately, most of us are running into this system all the time.
We were running on the system all the time, because we're chronically stressed, you know, stress activates this system. And as a matter of. Exercise does as well, but you know, just like if we were exercising and if we never took a rest, you know, how healthy is that for our body, every body builder and every person who's health has a healthy, um, Exercise routine knows a rest day.
A recovery day is super important and we don't want to be exercising 12 hours a day. We want to exercise, you know, for a concentrated amount of time to build muscle or build that robot capacity. And then you want to [00:07:00] have like a regular routine where you're just doing some mild exercise you're standing or walking, and then you're going to sleep.
So everybody knows that you don't want to be in. Fight or flight nervous system all the time. So what do we do in order to counteract at, we want to get into, we need to learn how to activate our parasympathetic nervous. And the parasympathetic nervous system is called the rest and digest nervous system.
So that's where we are repairing the human growth hormone is released when we're arresting. And most of us know, you know, even if. Growing taller, like that's a human growth hormone that keeps us youthful. It keeps us strong. It allows us to, to, um, maintain our body very useful. Right. It also, the parents have been thinking parents it's such a tongue twister.
The parasympathetic nervous system is really great. [00:08:00] Uh, it activates digestive. And assimilation, uh, detoxing. It gives us better sleep. It allows us to relax and be in a peaceful, calm state. So this is the nervous system that most of us in modern day are looking to, um, bring our body into. And that is a nervous system that really compliments the state of mindfulness and meditation.
So if we're in trying to meditate and our mind is racing as possible that we're in the fight or flight in that sympathetic nervous system. So when we incorporate some breath work to help our body to relax, getting into that calm state, that is when we can have a really great meditation practice. And, you know, also coming from just a mental health perspective, if [00:09:00] studies have shown that breath work alleviates depression, it eases anxiety.
It really helps with PTSD, um, anger or violent outbursts or reactions like, you know, violent reactions, uh, also. It also counteracts any sort of emotional numbing that goes on. Um, depression, typic typically is a numbing of emotions that you don't want to feel. So, you know, when you use breath work to start to open up, it actually opens up the energy channels in our body.
That's when we're able to release some of the emotions that are stuck in our body. Um, also, it's been known to help with social withdrawal because I believe that breath work gives you a sense of a liveliness and most of us when we're feeling alive, when we're feeling good, we are social creatures. It's makes us more wanting to reach out to people.
Right. How, how often have you [00:10:00] heard, you know, since the pandemic that people have. Become just kind of like hermits, you know, and for some people it's really comfortable, the introverts of the world are going hurry. This is great. But then the extroverts of the world are going, I'm going crazy in the home.
Right. So yes, we are out and about these days and hopefully this will continue and be a trend. Realizing that we do need human touch, human contact. Um, but when we are in that mindset of just going within and just getting, you know, just really comfortable with our Netflix and our blanket kind of a thing, then it doesn't really create a motivation to just really go out and be with people.
So, um, When you incorporate breath work, that is when we start to feel vital. We start to feel that natural wellness that, that Springs from within us, which makes us want to be with people. So, you know, that's a little. Side note there. I know I tend to be an introvert, [00:11:00] so that really helps when I realized like, oh, I've been kind of like internal for a little while.
It might be time for me to breathe. So I can really feel like wanting to be a social creature, which is where everybody gets tends to get our happiness from. So, um, You know, and then from a scientific, scientific perspective, we believe that breath work is really great for these types of mental illnesses and mental conditions because it affects the amygdala and the mental, uh, is the part of the brain that is involved in emotional responses.
And with memory function. And usually our memory is tied to an emotional event. Um, and a lot of times I talk about emotional events, like, you know, trauma and the trauma doesn't have to be like this God awful thing. But trauma simply is unprocessed emotions. And when we have unprocessed emotions, [00:12:00] how does it affect our health?
It affects our health because these emotions, you know, our, our human body was meant to process emotion in a sort of like a cycle. So there'll be some sort of trigger. Right. And so let's just take that, um, you know, somebody cuts us off in traffic, right? So there's that. And related to that, we have a thought you might not be consciously thinking in that purse situation.
Oh my gosh, it's so dangerous. But there's something that goes on in our brain that goes danger, danger, danger. Right? So that's our thinking brain. And then emotion is released. Maybe it's fear in this case, it might be anger of how. Right. And unless we actually allow ourselves to feel that now in that moment in traffic, you probably can't be feeling that you have to quickly react.
And that's when the SNS kicks in this sympathetic nervous system kicks [00:13:00] in. But. And typical daily life. We need to be able to actually feel this. So what happens after the danger goes by you go, oh my gosh, you know, somebody cut us off and then, you know, they just keep driving and you're going well, thank God.
Okay. Thank God I wasn't in an actual. Right. The healthiest thing, if you can, you know, now if you're in a freeway, you probably can't just pull over and start feeling, but, you know, once you get to your destination or something like that, the healthiest thing you can actually do is to go in and feel that feeling of, oh my gosh.
I was so scared. I was so angry. How dare that person to actually feel it. And then allow it to release by either breathing or shaking your body or, um, you know, if you're in a private space, maybe even yelling how dare that person. And once you do that, then you're allowed to just complete that cycle of emotion and it doesn't stay with you.
You don't carry it around. [00:14:00] But typically what happens, you know, we get cut off. We're so scared or angry. We swerve and then we go, okay, I'm good. You know? And then all of a sudden the blood just starts to flow in the body and you're still, you know, breathing hard and you say to yourself, oh gosh, you know, what's the deal.
I'm fine. Now. Everything's all. So we cut off that cycle. And what happens is we don't need to be feeling, oh, it's not, it's not enlightened to feel angry. Right. I really want to flip off that person or honk at them, but oh, no, I'm not going to do that. Because if I honk at somebody, they might, you know, they might honk back or they might, you know, get mad at us or whatever.
So we tend to. Sort of logic away or emotions and we decide not to feel it. And what happens then the cycle doesn't complete. It just stays stuck. And our body tends to hold on to that feeling [00:15:00] and emotion because we're going either pushing it away, going. I'm fine now. No, no, no. I don't feel anything or you're pushing it down going, oh, don't you dare feel that because that's, that's a scary emotion.
That's a dangerous emotion. So those things tend to get trapped in the body. And that creates, you know, illness. If it happens too often, too many times for too. So from a health standpoint, we don't want to do that, but also let's talk about how, you know, maybe there's something in your past that you had a fight with somebody and you never, never, just got to say what your perspective was and you feel like you're, you know, You're feeling resentful.
Let's, let's take resentment. Cause that's a big one for a lot of people. You have a lot of resentment and you're holding onto that resentment. How does that affect the daily choices? That you want to make. Um, you know, since we're focused on health [00:16:00] here, let's take an example of, okay, I want to be healthy.
And from now on, I'm going to eat only healthy foods. I'm going to swear off sugar, right. And sugar, or maybe some, for some people it's salty fried foods or, you know, crunchy foods. Right. All of these tend to be. Unhealthy choices. So what happens the first three days you got the willpower working for you?
You're like, I am not going to eat that unhealthy stuff. I'm going to eat only salads and soups and whatever else, and you're making it through and you're like, yeah, I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good. But then what happens on day seven? What happens on day two? What happens on day 45, most likely you've completely forgotten about this, or you haven't forgotten about it, but you just, for whatever reason, you're really wanting to, you know, reach for that candy that, you know, that chocolate, that ice cream, those pretzels, those chips, and you go, [00:17:00] oh, well, you know, because you were relying on willpower.
As opposed to, if we took a look at what's actually inside of us, that stuff that's craving the unhealthy food typically is an emotion that's been activated by something. It might be. Stress that you're tired. It might be somebody, you know, at work telling you that you made a mistake and you're feeling really like stupid.
It might be something like your kids are screaming and you're thinking I've had enough of this. So it's anger. Like it's not fair that I have to take care of these screaming kids. You know, all of these things come up and all of the emotions that have been trapped are going, I want to come out. I want to come up.
I want to come out. And if you know how to release these emotions, then that's great because you will be able to, for a go the cravings and [00:18:00] start to make better choices for yourself on a consistent basis. But if you're only relying on willpower and this is same for anything, whether it's food, whether it's, I'm going to meditate every day, whether it's, I'm going to sleep eight hours from now on, you know, any of it.
If you're only relying on willpower, I can guarantee you at some point, even if you will have the strongest willpower ever at some point. Things are no longer going to work for it. You're not going to be able to maintain it because it's super important to do the things that alleviate the stress that remove the emotions that are trapped in there who are wanting to come out, that you're trying to numb by doing the things like reaching for sugar or life watching too much TV or like.
Um, gambling or, you know, whatever it is, there are all these different things that we go towards. That's not the healthiest for us. And you know, not [00:19:00] to say that we shouldn't do it sometimes. It's okay. You know, have a conscious way of going. I just want to check out, I want to numb out. I'm going to turn the.
Fine. There's nothing wrong with that. As long as he know that there's a balance, right? And the healthy you, you become with the mindfulness exercises that you have learned in the summit and, um, with any of the breathing or anything that you're going to learn coming forward, the, the easier it is for you to make those healthy choices for yourself.
So hopefully that makes sense for everybody. And, um, I wanted to make sure that I give you a few techniques here. Just an actual experience for you all to have. Um, so you can fall back on this at any time. So, um, let's see, as anybody here have any trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, you know, this is a big one in our society.
There's so [00:20:00] much that happens. Um, yeah, Justin, he raised your hand so much that happens in our modern day and you'll hear more. I sleep on day three. Um, and what you can do to alleviate some of the things that, um, interfered with your sleep, but this is one way to really, um, help you relax. So I'm going to do, what's called an alternate nostril breathing.
And if you get this a little bit wrong, it's not a big deal. I just want to make sure that you know, this, um, you know, whatever works for you is the best way to practice breath work. So try not to get too caught up in the how, but just, you know, reminding yourself, oh yeah. Something like this work. And I don't know if I'm getting it right.
It doesn't really matter too much. Right. Okay. But I will show you the correct way. This is the way that I've been taught from a yoga teacher. The alternate nostril breathing is you take your, if, if you're right-handed, let's use your right hand so that the index finger [00:21:00] in the middle finger, put it together and put it on your, uh, on your forehead, right.
Between your eyebrows. And then with your thumb, you're going to plug your right now. And so your left nostril is unplugged. Your right nostril is plugged. So what you're going to do is you're going to inhale from your left nostril. So you plug your right now, strong inhale, and then you're going to hold it by plugging both nostrils with both of your fingers.
And then you release the right thumb and exhale out of your right nostril. And then you're going to inhale from the right nostril, hold, both sides, plugs and exhale out of the left nostril. So you're alternating your breathing, inhale through the left, hold, exhale through the right. Inhale through the right [00:22:00] cold exhale through the left.
Okay. So we're going to do about maybe 10 breaths of this, just so you get a taste of how this actually balances your, your brain. So let's do this together. You're going to plug your right nostril, inhale through the net, left, plugged both sides and hold and exhale through the right. Now inhale through the right
and exhale through the left, inhale through the left. Well hold and exhale through the right. Inhale through the right.
Oh. And exhale through the left,
inhale through the left[00:23:00]
and exhale through the right
inhale through the right
hold and exhale through the left.
Inhale through the left
and exhale through the right,
inhale through the right
and exhale through the left. I forgot to hold them between there, but yeah. So you get the idea now, just notice how you're feeling right now. Most likely you're, you're a little more relaxed. You're a little more calm. Maybe you have a clearer mind. This one in particular is designed to balance your left and right [00:24:00] brain.
So if you notice yourself, You're lying down in bed. You're trying to go to sleep and you've got a whole bunch of stuff in your head. You're going, oh, I need you this tomorrow. I forgot to do that. You know, all that stuff. How am I going to figure this out? All of that mind, chatter will start to quiet if you do this because it relaxes, it balances the left brain, which is the thinking brain with the right brain, which is more of the creative.
Flowy side. So it's really good for, if you tend to be an artist or you want to start to create something, you know, we just did the painting earlier. So, you know, if you want to do a painting and you're feeling really stressed, maybe start with this and go into the painting because it's going to be really easy to see.
Into that right. Brain as well. Or if you tend to be somebody that's all the way out in that dreamland and you go, oh, I really need to like, just answer this email, do a spreadsheet or something like that. You might want to do that as well to really balance the left and the right, [00:25:00] you know, most of the times when.
Solution mode. When we try to find a solution, often we try to rely on just the logical brain when typically what happens is that there's a solution out there already that we just aren't seeing. And because we think to ourselves, we have to find it. We have to find it. We find have to find it. And what we're telling ourselves is it's not there.
It's not there. It's not. But when we do this alternate nostril breathing, it takes us out of the logical thinking for a little bit to balance that part of us that can see out of the box solutions. So this is a really great way to just calm ourselves and go into that. Okay. I'm allowing the solution to come to me as opposed to trying to think my way logic my way through.
And typically it's a faster way to find solution. And usually it's a better solution that we ever imagined. Right. So this is where a little bit of magic comes in with [00:26:00] breathwork too. So I just wanted to, um, you know, just give you that side note there. Okay. So I'm going to give you two more breathing exercises.
The next one is called the square breathing. And I, I, you know, remember I promised you, I'm going to give you a of exercise that you can do while you're in the grocery store. Right. Cause you know, you can do the alternate nostril breathing if you're a super, like, I don't care what people think of me mode, but some of us kind of don't want to be like, you know, standing in line, they're going.
Hmm. Right. So, um, square breathing is something that is super easy to remember. All you have to just visualize as a square in your mind. Everybody can do that, right. And we're going to breathe according to this square. So I'll give you, I'll give you the visualization on how this works, but before I do that, I wanted to tell you, you know what, this breathing is really good for.
Square breathing [00:27:00] has been used by the Marines. They buy the Navy seals. When they're about to go into a really stressful situation, they have trained themselves through square breathing, to calm their nervous system so that they can make the most effective choices and decisions. Split this a split second decisions, right.
That's a really important skill for. For, you know, clearly for the Navy seals, but also for most of us. And so this is going to help you calm your, um, your state, but also give you a very clear thinking brain. So, um, So, this is how it works. So like I said, uh, visualize a square. And so we're going to inhale four counts and you can do it through your nose.
That's the best way to inhale when you're trying to calm down. Um, In, in my, uh, [00:28:00] breathwork circles, I tend to do a mouth breathing and that's used for a slightly different purpose. And so there are different, um, ways to breathe. And so when you inhale through your nose and exhale through your nose, that is the most calming way to, um, it activates the most calm, the parasympathetic nervous.
So, uh, so you're going to inhale four counts and you're going to visualize going up four counts on one side of this square, you're going to hold it for four counts. That's the, the horizontal line of the square. And then you're going to exhale four counts going down the line or the square, and then hold, coming back to where we started from.
So that's how we go. So inhale count. Hold for four exhale, count four and hold for four. So you can see how this creates a square. And this is how it's going to be really easy for you to remember all you have to think of square in four counts. And, and so we'll try this for maybe four or five [00:29:00] frets together.
Ready? Okay. So we're going to inhale through the nose. 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, exhale, two. Three four, hold 2, 3, 4, inhale 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4. Access to three. Four hold 2, 3, 4, inhale 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, exhale, 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, inhale 2, 3, 4, [00:30:00] hold two. Three four, exhale, 2, 3, 4, hold two, three, or last round 2, 3, 4, hold 2, 3, 4, exhale, 2, 3, 4, hold two.
Three four. Good. So, yeah, like I said, this is something you could do anywhere. It will increase the mindfulness. It'll give you just a pause in a day. You can do this while you're like washing the dishes or folding the laundry or cooking dinner, you know, any, when you're driving, even if you're listening to music or doing something else, even, you know, once you start to do it, it becomes sort of a habit.
And it's a really great. Stay calm and grounded. Okay. [00:31:00] So the two exercises that alternate nostril breathing and the square breathing, we talked about, it really activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It's a stress reliever. So now I also want to talk about something that activates just that alertness.
Now I'm not going to put you into fight or flight, but I am going to give you something that sort of like wakes you up, you know, an alternate to that morning cup of coffee, right. If somebody's saying I'm not sure. Coffee anymore. Well, you might want to have something else that replaces it as opposed to just going cold Turkey and not having something to replace it.
So, you know, whether it goes to decaf or a mushroom tea or whatever, or you do this in addition, or instead of coffee, this will be a really great way for you to, if you're feeling sluggish, if you're feeling that, you know, two o'clock blah, or if you're getting up and you're going to. Gosh, another day takes me forever to wake [00:32:00] up.
This is a really great way to energize and get clear-minded. Um, if you've been, if you want to switch from one task to another, if you just did something that was really overwhelming, but you're need to go into use your brain power for something else at work. This is also a really great way to energize and make that just sort of like a shift in your.
So, um, this one is called the ego Eradicator. So it also has sort of a spiritual, um, benefit as well. You know, when we're coming from ego, you know, that's not really. Best place to be. We want to, um, Sue their ego, you know, it's called ego Eradicator. I'm not much of a Eradicator of an ego. I'm more of a like, okay, come here, ego.
Yeah. It's okay. You're safe. You don't need to speak. Right. You're just going to like put it in a safe corner. Um, but basically the idea is like, we don't want to operate from ego. And so the Kundalini yoga tradition calls us that you go, you write it. Because it really allows [00:33:00] us to get in touch with that.
You know, whether you call, um, you know, the higher source, whether you call it divine or God or nature or life, or, you know, whatever it is, your higher self, your soul, whatever it is, we want to get in touch with that. So this is a really, really great way to do all in any of it, you know, for whether you are a spiritual type of person or you're just wanting to kick some habits, whether you just want to wait to energize it.
So the ego Eradicator, you're going to use a specific hand gesture. And in the Kundalini tradition, they talk about, you know, your hands are an extension of your heart. And so we're going from the ego, the thinking brain into our heart. And we're going to use our hands in a way of it's sort of like thumbs up, but instead of just curling your fingers in like this, we're actually going to.
Just curla fingers, not into the pond, but let the fingertips meets the top of your Palm, [00:34:00] where your fingers, the base of your fingers. So it's a slightly different, um, gesture agenda than just doing this. It really puts some strength in your hands and put some awareness there and your. Take your thumb as far away from the rest of your fingers as possible as you can, you know, you don't need to strain yourself and then you're going to lift your arms up in a 60 degree angle.
Not, not all the way up there and not to the side 60 degrees. And, uh, what you're going to do with your breath is this, you will be exhaling through your nose and, uh, you're going to pump your breath out with your stomach. So your stomach will look like it's going in and out, like.
Like really pumping it. And, um, the metaphor I like to use is pretend that there was a candle, six feet away from you. And you're going to try to blow that out and [00:35:00] one blow through your nostrils so you can see how hard you have to exhale and a redo that you're not going to exhale from your mouth. It's three years.
And the inhale part comes just naturally. You're not going to try to exhale, inhale, exhale, inhale. You're just going to focus on just the inhale. I'm trying to blow that out, right? So you can do this as slow or as fast as you like initially you might want to do it slower. And if you start to get a little bit lightheaded, that's pretty natural.
So I want you to be seated, whether it's a cross. Easy pose or sitting with your knees, bent on your legs or sitting in a chair, whatever it is. I want you to be sitting because of that lightheaded mess. Now, if you get really lightheaded, I don't want you to continue to do this really powerful, strong breathing.
Just do calm. But as long as you're not [00:36:00] lightheaded or you're not feeling woozy or anything like that, then try to push yourself a little bit. This is where we're going to activate the sympathetic nervous system. Just enough, just give it just enough of a stressor so that when we're done breathing, the parasympathetic nervous system, it automatically comes right.
So, you know, it's sort of like a trick, just like if you were to exercise, you know, let's say you don't exercise and then you're trying to sleep and you're like, ah, I'm feeling restless and that you can't sleep very well, but one day you go exercise and then that day you get really good sleep. Right. So it's a similar thing.
You activate the sympathetic just enough. For a short period of time so that the parasympathetic can come into play. And this is going to help clear your mind in an energized way. It's going to give you an uppity energy, right? Okay. So, like I said, the [00:37:00] fingers like this, and we're going to put our arms up to 60 degree and I'm going to only ask you to do this for about 30 seconds, because it is pretty intense.
You can close your eyes so you can focus on the breath. Um, that helps me a lot when I just close my eyes and then we're going to do this ready and. Inhale through the nose. And then you're gonna blow out with pumping your belly button towards your spine.
Keep breathing. Just keep pumping that belly. And if you want to go a little faster, you can.[00:38:00]
And it's really, if it gets to be a little too hard, you can start to slow down again.
Just five more seconds. Just put yourself, push yourself a little bit. Keep going. And then at the very end, inhale and bring your thumbs together at the top of your head. Hold your breath, hold your breath, hold your breath and allow your fingertips to go point up to the sky. So it's like this hold, hold, hold, and XL.
And just taking some deep breaths, allow your breath to come back to normal. Most likely your heart is pumping a little faster. You might feel some sort of tingling sensations in your body. If you have your eyes closed, maybe [00:39:00] even some like those, you know, um, fireflies, you might see some of that.
Sometimes if you tend to get lightheaded about stuff and you might feel just, you know, different sensations in your body. That's completely normal. So yeah, just notice your energy. Let's see if it has changed your energetic state, you know, breath work is for me the fastest way to shift an energy. It's an.
So effective and it works for everybody everywhere. It doesn't cost a single thing. It doesn't take very long. You certainly don't need to be an expert in anything. You just got three really powerful tools that alternate nostril breathing, the square breathing, and then the ego Eradicator. These are all excellent.
So, um, so yeah, I just want you to just know that you can exercise this ego Eradicator. I would start with maybe [00:40:00] one minute a day because to do this five minutes, it's, it's really hard. So the ego Eradicator I would do just one minute, but the alternate nostril breathing, maybe you do that from five minutes as you fall asleep or.
Before, or maybe the square breathing, you do it while you're meditating. So these are different things that you can incorporate in your life. Super easy, super fast, and really, really effective. It will. I guarantee you, it will shift your mental state. It will shift the energy in your body. It's going to make you healthier because your body is going to learn how to get back into that homeostasis.
And, um, and then one of the other things I wanted to talk about is that if you are in the, like the Camino valley, Ventura, um, you know, the valley and in LA that area, uh, I do classes, um, from time to time, I'm hosting one on Saturday, but I want you to go ahead and do the summit. [00:41:00] Um, I'm hosting one on Saturday evening in Westlake village.
So, you know, this is a space where I talked to people about more of the spiritual component of breath work, the mental, emotional, and spiritual. We're all, you know, mind, body, spirit, we're all connected. And so I get to do this. Um, shamonic breathing where, when we're in person, we can actually, I can actually help you get to almost an altered state, um, so that you can really.
Touch with, you know, whatever it is that you were wanting to get in touch with, whether it's, you know, releasing some old trauma or you're wanting to find some solutions all the way to, I want to talk to my spirit guides, you know, I want to have an outer body experience. All of it. You know, these are all things that are possible with breath work.
So, um, I just wanted to mention that. So, um, that, you know, that concludes our little breathwork, um, portion of the summit. Justin, did you have anything [00:42:00] else that, um, you wanted to let me know, or, yeah, just a, you got to let me reclaim my, uh, your, your, the, uh, charge there. And that was wonderful. I loved those exercises.
Very cool. I, uh, I hadn't heard of the first one or the third one I had heard of the second one before me Robbins. I think he does a similar breathing, but, uh, and that was a great one with the square breathing. So that was really cool. I enjoyed that. Um, you know, really giving the parasympathetic nervous system and understanding all of that.
The other thing that I wanted to talk about too, was that if anybody wants to get in touch with, with Mika, um, and I know you have a, like a cheat sheet, so I, through that link down there, basically, it's just your name, um, Mika shoemaker.com and that's a forest. [00:43:00] Opt in if you're listening to this and so go check that out and you get some pointers and some tips and a little cheat sheet for.
And, uh, you can get in contact with Nica and get into her world and, uh, hopefully meet in person in, uh, sunny, Southern California. Do you do any virtual events right now or is that something on your horizon? Um, I have done virtual events. I a big fan of the in-person, but it's, you know, I do, uh, private clients virtually.
I haven't done a group virtual in, in a while since, since things opened up and I'm like, yes, in person. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and I know that we're going to break to lunch here in about, uh, you know, in a couple of minutes now, and I know that you're also, um, just, you know, an amazing, um, dietician, if you will, in the sense that you, I know that you're vegan and plant-based and, um, make good choices about the foods that we eat.
And if you would maybe share some of your knowledge or a favorite [00:44:00] recipe, and I know a lot of people. Most people know that the food that we eat in general Harris, America diet isn't necessarily good for us, but maybe share a little bit of your journey of how you became are you vegan, right? Is vegan, vegan, vegan plant-based and all those kinds of things.
But what about your journey to become that? And, and how did that help or improve your health? Did you. As we're breaking the lunch to give people some, some good thoughts for the things that we, you know, it's kind of like, whatever you put on your body, it's either going to help or hurt and share a little bit of that before we go to lunch.
Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah, I say vegan ish because I do, um, I do believe in moderation and listening to my body. So, you know, so far I have not been called to eat animals for the most part, but once in a while I might do both. You know, so, so that's, that's where I go. But for the most part, I would say 95%, I am vegan.
And [00:45:00] what I have found is that, you know, I came from more of a spiritual perspective, you know, and my health really resonated with that spiritual perspective. And one of the things that I heard, uh, people say is that when you're eating meat, you're ingesting fear, hormones. And that actually made sense to me because typically, unless, you know, the animal was slaughtered in a very compassionate way.
And you know, back in the days when we used to, you know, pray to the animal before we hunted it and the animal was actually appearing for. Us to eat it, you know, that was one thing. But in the modern farming, you know, the, the swatter houses, you know, they, they flood the animal with all this stress hormones, basically, you know, it's a really scary situation for them.
And so, and that's what gets trapped in the meat that we're eating. So that's, that's where I started, where I'm like, oh, [00:46:00] Yeah, I don't want to be eating fear, you know, and because I do believe that every health is, you know, it starts with that energy and vibration in ourselves are ingesting and communicating with all the other cells that are coming into our body, whether it's plant cells or animal cells.
So, and you know, the whole vegan thing is, you know, we also, don't like to talk about, we don't like to ingest dairy. Well, typically, you know, Woman who has breastfed probably knows what a torture it is to pump. It's just not fun and how torturous it is to be separated from your newborn. And most, you know, most of the most modern farming practices are done through milk, you know, separating the mother cow from the calf and hooking them up on these machines for years and years and years.
And, and so what's the milk that's produced from that, you know, so. I haven't been called to, you know, go to like [00:47:00] cleaner meat sources. I just haven't, but that's where I started. And, um, so I believe that most of us, when we are making choices for ourselves, if we are going to have meat, then, you know, go to a local farm and talk to the people and see how it is that they're being slaughtered and you know how they did grow up, where they.
Um, you know, pasture raised, were they, are they interacting with other animals and people, or are they in a small cell or, you know, are they crowded? You know, all these things have a lot to do with our health. So, so yeah. And festivals are so amazing. Fruits are so amazing. Fruits are the most detoxifying food in.
Anywhere. And so for me, you know, I love to start the day with fruit smoothies because we detox during the night and we want to be able to flush it out and fruits really help flush out the lymphatic system. So, yeah. So those are just some of the tidbits that I know around. Awesome. Awesome. Any, any [00:48:00] favorite go-to recipes or I assume you've gotten pretty good.
I know. Cause you know, Molly and we definitely are very health conscious and things that we eat and we've come a long way. So, you know, with Shay's situation and all that, I've gotten away from dairy, gluten, and refined sugars and all that kind of stuff. But, uh, you got a favorite go-to recipe or something that, uh, people wouldn't know.
I know that there's a vegan place up. That we have a burger and a, you wouldn't. I want to take some of my good buddies back from the Midwest and have them have one to tell them that some special Wagyu beef, and there's no way they would know that it was actually made from plants. Any, any fun recipes that you like to make?
Here's a really fun way to get vegetables in your body. Um, bell pepper, soup, but it's super, super fast. You don't even need to cook it. So basically you take one red bell pepper, a handful of cashews, um, some [00:49:00] salt, maybe like a half, a teaspoon of salt and some water, just water to taste. And you blended in those high-powered blenders.
And it creates like the creamiest yummy, like sweet and salty soup. And it's only like three ingredients basically, you know? And, but you wouldn't know it from eating it and you're like, oh my gosh, what's the soup recipe. It's only three ingredients. So yeah, that's a quick one. That's awesome. Thanks so much for joining us again, go to the, uh, the little link here that we have for.
To learn more about her breath work, learn more about her environment. And hopefully if you're in Southern California, that you could go see one of her in persons of obviously she does some virtual uh one-on-ones and maybe some, uh, group, uh, you know, virtuals to come. But, uh, yeah, that was awesome. Nick, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing all of your expertise with, uh, you know, health in [00:50:00] general and, uh, breath work, and mindfulness is what we're all about.
Right now in this, uh, pillar of health. And I know I learned a bunch and I'm sure everyone else did too. And, and for those of you that are catching it live, that's awesome. And that's great, but we'll definitely be getting this out for other people to experience, um, and, and, you know, incorporate into their lives.
And, uh, yeah, we're super excited to have you, and I'm sure we'll, we'll see you real soon and have a great rest of your day and enjoy some of that sunshine. We've got ourselves some nice weather yet again, out here, California. Yes, indeed. Thank you so much, Justin. It was such a pleasure. I realize.