Ep 211, Breathe: Practicing Mental Hygiene

One of my questions. Days right, fall down, right light, uptown. Asking questions. Welcome to Conflict Managed.

I'm your host, Merry Brown. This week on Conflict Managed, we welcome Shalin Desai. Shalin is the Director of Programs for the Art of Living Foundation, one of the world's largest non-profit organizations, whose initiatives have positively impacted over 500 million people across 180 countries. With more than 25 years of experience teaching breathwork and meditation, Shalin is known for integrating ancient wisdom with modern leadership and well-being practices.

He also serves as Chief Revenue Officer of Shri Shri Tava, a global wellness brand offering natural and Ayurvedic products that promote holistic health through a blend of tradition and science. For over 15 years, Shalin has designed and delivered corporate leadership and wellness programs for organizations including Microsoft, Dell, Boston Consulting Group, Accenture, Salesforce, Eli Lilly & Company, and Merkin Company. His work helps leaders and teams manage stress, build resilience, and cultivate mental clarity while reconnecting with a deeper sense of purpose.

Shalin is known for his Intuitive Life Scan, a breakthrough approach in which trained guides provide unbiased insight into an individual's current situation. A highly engaging speaker known for his relatable storytelling and humor, Shalin inspires audiences with practical techniques they can apply immediately to improve focus, leadership, and overall well-being. Shalin holds a degree in supply change management from the State University of New York and lives in Indianapolis with his wife and two children.

Good morning, Shalin, and welcome to Conflict Managed. Good morning, Merry. How are you doing today? Fantastic.

How are you? Wonderful. I see the sun is shining. I know we're going to have a wonderful conversation.

So to get us started, I would like to hear about the first job you ever had as a young person. So uh yeah i i'll talk about the two first jobs that i had the very first job i had was, I was working at Burger King when I went to school in Buffalo, Buffalo, New York. This was many years ago. And my real job, if you were to call that, was I'm an engineer by profession.

I have my master's in engineering. I joined the company as an intern, a manufacturing company, automotive company in Michigan. And then I was hired full-time there. And now I work for a different employer, but in a similar field.

So let's start with Burger King. What was that like as a first job experience? What was the atmosphere like? Was it welcoming?

Was it difficult? What was going on there? Well, there were a lot of new things. And, you know, I'm originally from India, and I just moved to Buffalo.

And the part of India I'm from is more like Phoenix, hot, sunny, dry. And then of all the places I could have gone to, I ended up going to Buffalo. So it was a very interesting part of my life. interesting time in my life and.

The job was okay, new things to learn, and it wasn't that bad. I was working as a cashier, so it wasn't that bad. It's just that what I was going through in my personal life was kind of exacerbating, was kind of making my job or working there a bit more stressful compared to what it should have been. And that's what I've seen in my life personally also, and working with so many people around the country now, is that it's a combination of both the things many times, what you go through at work and what's going through in your personal life also.

That's so well said. I mean, what a way to see it in relief. You know, you're moving countries, climates, right? And navigating growing up, right?

So there's these huge things going on. And so it's easy to see there would be these added stressors because of these huge life changes that you're going through. And yet it brings into relief that that's all of our story we don't just show up to work as if we're these blank pages and we're just showing up and nothing else is going on such as did we eat did we eat well did we sleep did we sleep well you know the families you know financial issues economic social issues all of that stuff but we're still showing up to work right so that Yeah, that is an interesting, I'm sure, interesting, very formative experience for you.

It was, it was. It was good. I mean, looking back, it was not easy. It was tough.

That was all the tough times of my life. But it kind of shapes you. I found that many times when you get certain hardships, when you go through these things, there are two options. One is you run away from the situation.

You're trying to escape. Or you just be there and go through it and you come out of it stronger. And the funny thing is and you know i now i'm at a point in my life where so i'm a director of programs for art of living it's one of the world's largest non-profit organizations with uh presence in 180 countries around the globe so and i teach the the breathing exercises art of living sky breathing uh breathing exercises around the i've traveled and taught programs in 63 cities the country so now when I look back where I am not where I was before you know anytime in my life and I trying to escape a situation or try to run away from a situation, it ends up coming back to you you know it's like it comes if it's not this employer it's a second employer somebody else it ends up coming back to you and unless and until you learn the skills to navigate through that to work through that and you make yourself strong to handle those things because there are two aspects to any conflict one is of course a situation and i don't want to, discount what people go through and you know sometimes people do work in toxic environments I don't want to discount that, but at the same time, I found that people who are strong, who are more balanced, who are more centered, are able to handle these toxic places in a much better way.

And they come out of it as a winner instead of getting affected by it. Absolutely. And I love how, just while you put it, either we run away from it or we go through it. But the illusion is that we can run away from it.

Right. As you said, it's going to come back in some way, as you said, either the next employer or just in our our own person, in our bodies, in our minds and how, you know, I also hear you talking about resilience. right? Resilience is not lack of hardship, it's what are we doing in the hardship, right?

And so how are we making ourselves through life? And life is filled with everything, the awful, the wonderful, and mostly the in-between where we put gas in our car and do our laundry, right? And so this idea of not, Not escaping, because we're never really escaping, right? But we're just delaying, which usually makes it harder to learn the lesson or to progress.

Exactly. So tell us about engineering. Why engineering? Why did you choose that?

You know, looking back, I also wonder why did I choose that? But, you know, since I was in school, I've always liked math. As that was one thing that i really enjoyed doing i didn't enjoy biology literature and all that but math was came very easily to me so it was just a natural progression to kind of i like that my my dad is also an engineer he's a mechanical engineer and i also ended up becoming a my bachelor's in mechanical and master's in industrial so i think multiple things math was good my dad was an engineer so it kind of inspired you also to go to similar thing.

And I you know brief just something about me more than my engineering I have I do that I really enjoy that and then in 1997 I was 16 years old and my mom introduced me to the breath work as I was mentioning earlier this called the sky breathing she introduced me to that and she was going through some tough times in her life back then and nothing else was helping and And then she ended up doing this program and it really helped her. And she didn't stop there. She kind of got me and my brother also into it.

And she's like, you know, this is things that I'm very close with my mom. And I'm like, she's like, this is something that will really help you guys. Now when I look back, that is one thing, one skill center that I've learned that has helped me throughout my life, throughout my career. Majority of 80 to 90 percent of the things i learned in my engineering school i'm not applying those things in my life anymore i know it's like i've spent thousands of dollars years and years getting formal education i mean when you go to the workplace you have different things that you have to work through i'm not using those but that is one skill set that she kind of uh introduced me and my brother too that has really become handy and that's what i tell people when i teach this so I've been practicing it for some time and then about 20 years ago I decided that you know I want to teach this program to people because this is something life skills is something that people really need you know I always tell people you know you take shower every day bodily hygiene you brush your teeth every day dental hygiene and when you do this breathing exercise and meditation it's a mental hygiene.

And the more people practice this thing the more people are calm the more they're centered more resilient they are more they're able to deal with these difficult situations otherwise i've seen people like i'll share a share an anecdote, so i was teaching this program and i'd gone to california to teach the the art of living's breath work program and there's this couple who were on the course both super successful the guy He's a pediatric gastroenterologist. His wife is a pediatric cardiologist, super specialized doctor, super successful.

And they really enjoyed the course. And then they messaged me that they want to connect with me a week after. So I got on a call with them. And they're like, you know, Shalin, this thing has been a game changer for us.

She's the the wife was like you know we go through even i mean they're very successful i mean like even though we we've been doing this for so long you know what really whenever we come home we would bring the stress at home and the interesting thing is she's like well even when we were that we were with our kids it's just that we're not fully with them because the stress is in with us all the time and she's like after taking the program i realized that the minds are so calm we're so quiet and we're able to be so centered now when you're at home we are 100 with the kids.

And to me it's a small thing but it's a big deal because the stress that you carry from what you're going through at workplace it just doesn't stay limited to the workplace it spills over to all the aspects of your life yes absolutely so are you still being are you still an engineer or do you work full-time for the art of living foundation i am an engineer and i also volunteer and teach the programs with Art of Living. Okay. Yeah. So how did you decide that, But that is a passion project of yours.

So I hear that you saw the benefit of it. But it's one thing to do it yourself and maybe even, you know, train people every once in a while. But you were very involved. What was it?

Was it just that you saw how helpful it was and needed and this basic sort of hygiene that people aren't aware of? Yeah, that one thing is for sure. Like, it really helped me. I mean, I would look back and I'm like, you know, I have all these things that this master's in engineering.

But if I didn't have these tools with me, this skill set with me, I would not be able to navigate my workplace the way I was able to navigate. And to be honest, I would also see some of my colleagues, some of my colleagues who were way more brilliant engineers than I was, way more intelligent, way more smart engineers than I was. But somehow they were not able to get the most out of their work or either the relationship with her boss was not great or something, you know, there's a hard skills and there's soft skills.

And the hard skills are very strong, super strong, but the soft skills are really lacking. And that's something that came very handy for me. You know, I'll share a little funny incident. During our annual reviews at work, one of the reviews, one of the annual reviews my boss wrote in my performance review that shalin is the only guy i see smiling on a monday morning and i did not know it was that big of a deal but at your work also you know people like to be around people who are pleasant who are easy to work with.

And again we don't want to negate having difficult people to work with difficult, supervisors to work with but what is in our control we don't cannot always control what the other party does, but we can control what we do and how we react. So I saw those things, Mary, and I'm like, you know, this is something everyone should try, the art of living, breathing exercise. I'm like, everyone should try. It can benefit everyone.

And now I even teach these programs in a lot of companies, a lot of corporations. I've brought in a lot of Fortune 100 companies programs. It's been very helpful. You brought up something that I think is really important for people to hear, myself included, is that if we are waiting for a good work environment, or we can only have a good work environment when we have a boss that resonates with us, or we like all of our co-workers, all as you said all these external things then we are really putting ourself in a precarious situation we are at the mercy of somebody else's maybe emotional state that they stay or or leave and we are we're waiting for them we need them to act for us to feel good for us to have a healthy work environment and certainly i also never want to minimize when there really are bad behaviors is when people are misbehaving, of course.

But if we see that what we can control, like we can control our mood, which is amazing, right? I mean, that's really amazing because many times we think, well, I'm irritated because of you. I'm irritated because of what's going on outside of me in my community or wherever it might be. And so I am not happy because of the outside.

And that is a narrative that people can choose to have but it is a disempowering narrative when we see oh mood that is something that I can control I can think about I can start to want to regulate that does not mean that we don't have bad days or that we're unaffected by things but, But mood, which I don't think we pay much attention to, is largely within our control or our outlook or how we're choosing to think about somebody else's behavior as about them rather than they see some deficiency in us or something like that.

You absolutely nailed it. That's exactly what it is. It's like, you know, we cannot control the external factors. We just cannot.

what we do have to say over our moods or how resilient we can be or how centered we can be when the situations come. Many years ago, I'd watched this movie, I'm sure you have a horrible bosses. Yes. It's a funny movie.

These three guys, they have difficult bosses. But it's funny in a movie, but when you're going through it, it's not that funny. No. And at the same time, you cannot always hire a hitman or try to run away from the situation for most people for majority of the people i work with they have to stay put and they have to deal with it it's not like you always have the luxury of going and finding a different job and everything especially with what's going on right now you know with the economy and all that it's not that easy but what's easy is to train your own mind to deal with this kind of situation to train your own mind to let it not affect you train your own mind to have that pleasantness within you that happiness within you realizing that the external factors are not going to give me joy or happiness you know the happiness is somewhere within then when we do that then that's when we start living a life you know as an expression of happiness and not just as a pursuit of happiness.

I just heard yesterday, and this was more applying, I think, to dating, but I think it also works with what we're talking about. And so this person said, imagine that you go home and you're famished and you want something really yummy to eat and that you're tired and you're thirsty and you go and you look through your kitchen and there's nothing. You just have nothing in the cupboards and maybe the water's not even turned on and you are just so parched. and somebody comes to the door and they've got a pizza and they say would you like this pizza and, The only condition is, I have to come in your house and we're going to eat it together.

Well, if you're in this really famished state, right, and you've just been, you know, rummaging around your place and you're parched and you're tired and you're really hungry, you're going to, might, let this stranger in so that you can eat this pizza. But imagine if your fridge is stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables and you've been having a wonderful sleep regime and you are hydrated and you're fed in this way and then somebody comes to the door with this pizza and says hey you want this free pizza but you have to invite me in you're probably going to say no thanks i'm good yeah right and so i think it's it was it's really interesting like what we invite in but we don't always notice it so we think these outside things are making me but then the question is well how did i show up in the first place right what am i looking at when that door opens what am i needing from the outside and we are persons and we do have needs we have the universe we have universal needs and wants and we need connection and we want to be treated with dignity and respect right but if we are always looking for that from the outside because we don't have the internal resources then we're at the mercy of what comes through that door right is this you know is this a well-made pizza from somebody who has good intentions or is this you know not with somebody who does have bad intentions and so what are we willing to let in has a lot and how we process what is letting we're letting in has a lot to do with how we're showing up and that's what we can control is how we're showing up and therefore what we even see at the door what we even see in the other person who is minimizing me.

Trying to get me in trouble Trying to whatever We can see that as a lack in them Instead of a lack in us, exactly exactly that's what it is and maybe what i found is the interesting thing is many times people know this thing that you know this is what i'm going through i have to deal with it they the. Good thing is a lot of i talk to people they realize that they need to change few things really tweak few things on how on what they let in what they don't let in but what people find difficult is how to do it how to have that strength you know i always tell people like you know neither at home nor at school you've ever been taught how to deal with your own mind we have been told don't get angry don't get stressed you'll be told not don't get these negative emotions you'll be told all those things and we all know those things there are books and libraries of books with about living in the present moment you know be your own thing whatnot not but those things are in the books but how to apply that in your life is the key and coming back to the breath that's what i found the breath is such a beautiful it's a secret to make the to have a good to say have a say over your mind because you know your mind is very tricky very interesting you cannot control where your mind goes it goes in so many different directions.

It's like you fly a kite it goes in so many different directions but with the help of the strength you can manage the kite and breath is that strength with the help of the breath breath is something which is with us all the time you're able to manage your mind you're able to control your mind you're able to calm your mind and the more we tap in you know we take maybe eat about four to six pounds of food every day. Maybe we eat half a gallon of water every day or I know, but we breathe about 28,000 gallons of air every day.

We put so much attention on, as you mentioned, hydrating yourself. We put so much attention on eating the right food. But we barely put any attention on the breath. I found that when people attend to the breath, especially with the help of the breath work and all that we do, it's so effective.

One of the recent studies that we had on the sky breathing that is taught in the Art of Learning program, it was done at Yale University. And they found at Yale that when the students practice, because it's no longer that, okay, you join a workplace and you get stressed, you have anxiety. We are seeing anxiety in students. I mean, at such a young age, in kids, we are seeing, and they found that when the students were doing the sky breathing that we teach in the order-flowing program, all the stress markers, the cortisol, everything went down.

Anxiety went down. Symptoms of depression went down. And the well-being hormone went up. The oxytocin went up just by practicing the breath work so there's so much science you know you asked me about me being an engineer so i have a logical mind for me when i started practicing this thing like this is good but what's the science behind it i was always very curious about that and now we have so much science behind this how this helps reducing your stress hormone increases your well-being hormone and that is something that we all need you know i i always.

It's a joke but it's a fact that you know our entire human race you have two things in common one is that we all breathe and second is that we all are stressed you know we all experience some extent of stress and with the help of the breath you can much better navigate the stress in your life. That's such a, you said that so eloquently, the fact that I imagine just about every listener knows these things, right? Like, what can I control and what I can't control? And then the question is the how, right?

The practical, because all the words in all the books, the question is in the concrete particular, but what about me? How is that going to help me right now, today, in this situation in which I find myself? And dear listener, if you're not in a situation right now, just wait a few minutes because it's around the corner because we're part of the human community and things come up, right? So what would you tell somebody?

How do they start to tap into the string, this breath, so that they can have all the benefits that you just talked about? Sure. So, I mean, they can go to our website. It's artofliving.

org. I love the name. It's a beautiful name, Art of Living. And .

org, they can go on the website. You have different programs that they can attend and they can start benefiting from it right away. And it's what we like about the programs that we teach. And we are teaching this around the country.

Almost in every city, we have the programs. You also have it online. What I like about that is you learn it from a live instructor. And once you've done it, you have access, you have lifelong access to the instructor.

And anytime you have any questions, they can guide you through it. Because when I started teaching, I would get people like who have tried different meditations and all. And they're like, you know, I've tried meditation. I sit with my eyes closed and all I do is daydreaming or work on my to-do list.

So it's like, you know, I tell people that trying to do meditations from an app or from a YouTube is like trying to learn swimming, watching a YouTube video. You know, you need someone to guide you to kind of, you know, hold your hand, to tell you this is what you do. What you don't do and that's where it's going there this that's what's very very effective i found with the programs is that somebody is there to able to guide you guide through it and at the same time after you've taken the program you have weekly meetups so they can attend it online or in person so it's very effective in people being able to continue the practices after they've learned because many times people have this concern that very good at starting something i'm very good at learning something new, but I'm not able to follow through.

And so that we don't have that issue because we have such amazing support structure once they've taken the program, they can keep tapping onto it and continue with it. So majority of the people who have taken the program, they keep doing it, they keep practicing it afterwards. So this way of breathing, is it a form of meditation? Is it not?

Is it both and? Good question. Very good question. It's both actually.

So, see, meditation, many times people think there's a big misconception about meditation is that meditation is concentration. And sometimes you sit and sit with your eyes closed and you try to concentrate, you try to focus. You end up having a headache after some time. And I tell people, you know, don't make your meditation practice one more reason to be stressful about.

Don't stress about your meditation. because people try to sit with their eyes closed you focus, focus, focus and, I've seen some memes from Kung Fu Panda, you know, like, come on, peace of mind. I don't have the whole day. It's kind of a thing.

So people try to do those things that don't work. What's unique about the sky breath meditation is that with the help of the breath work, you sit, you breathe in certain rhythms, a guided breathing technique. You sit and breathe in a certain rhythm and set up a certain way. And at the end of it, the mind naturally comes to a meditative state of mind.

So it's not like you have to do something to be to that state, to get to that state and for most people it doesn't work but with the help of this breathing exercise your mind is naturally in a meditative state, You know, when I first did this thing, I was 16 years old. And I mean, to be honest, I don't think I had many stresses in my life back then. And the first time I practiced the sky breathing, I was blown away, blown away. I mean, I had never felt that light in my entire life.

That day when I went to bed in the night, I woke up in the morning. And I'm a good sleeper. And even now, back then also I was a good sleeper. But I don't remember waking up so fresh.

And I'm like, whoa, this is something cool. Because nowadays, a lot of people I teach, I connect with, sleep is a big issue. Sleep and anxiety is a huge issue. Even when they sleep, they take some medication and stuff.

You wake up, you don't wake up fresh. And imagine if there was a way where you sleep through the night and you wake up in the morning so fresh every single day not just once or twice a week every single day and you look forward to uh to your life such a beautiful way of living the life and there's a way to do that it's not something that you just hear in some books or anything like that i i tell people that this is something everyone can experience and benefit from it i have a question for you which in people's, busy lives, I think, okay, great.

Now I've got to add one more thing to my busy schedule. So somebody might think, okay, if I'm going to embark on breathing, breathing better, this, how long does this practice typically take? You know, so Mahatma Gandhi used to say that, he would always say that, you know, today I'm so busy, I'm so busy. I don't have time to meditate for 20 minutes.

Today I'm so busy, I have to meditate for one hour. So the more busy you are, the more you have going on in your life, the more is the need for this thing. That is for sure. People often think, you know, I have free time, I'm going to learn this thing.

But I have been, I joke with people that people always think, I'll do it in summer, I'll do it in winter. And sometimes people say, once I retire, I'm going to learn this thing. So it's not something that you do when you have a lot of free time. In fact, it's something, the more busy you are, the more is the need for this thing.

And as long as how soon people can start benefiting from it. My experience as I shared, and when I learned it myself, I saw it from day one. And when I teach, it works right now. It's not like you have to do it for six months and then you start seeing some benefits for me when i learned i felt as i mentioned i felt very light i felt much happier i feel very fresh and the biggest thing that made me continue with it was that i realized that my focus and my concentration really improved and i didn't have to spend so much time doing my school work i had more time to play to hang out with friends and stuff i'm like this is not bad you know i'm putting less time i'm getting more out of it i'm like this is pretty cool so that's how i kind of continued with it and the bed it works on day one yeah i mean i agree with you if you if you are so stressed you have so much going on right you can't afford not to right it's you know because if we don't have our mental health and our physical health then.

You know, it takes more time. Everything takes more time. Everything's more labor-intensive. So since you've been practicing this for your whole adult life, I want you to maybe think about conflict, like how you deal with conflict at work.

And since you have had this in your back pocket, you have been practicing this. I'm sure you've gotten better, obviously, as the decades have gone on. But as a younger person, maybe when you first began being an engineer how did you deal with conflict at work and has that changed as where you are right now you know what one of my first experiences I joined this company as a as an as an automotive engineer and it was. One of the people that I used to work for as an intern and I continued full time with them was very like a very strong, very strong type A personality.

I mean, things have to be very loud. Things have to be their way. And sometimes you're in meetings with a client and they'll end up saying things that were not exactly very respectful. And I would think, you know what, I also know what I'm doing.

And even if you disagree or you just don't like what i have done you can almost mention it to me, more on one you don't have to do it in front of everyone so that is one of the examples i mean as you work we all deal with different personalities and different people and what really helped me because what i was what i was doing is that i didn't go into the reactionary mode where i kind of you know didn't get into a pissing contest with them many times i've seen people get very angry and they're right they're rightfully angry and you get in a pissing contest and many times you get into this pissing contest with the person authority and you end up losing it because you know you end up getting a short end of the stick because you know the supervisor or the person of authority always has more power than you do so and for me what really helped me because of my breath work and all i didn't get that even though it was bothering me i won't i I won't lie.

It wasn't bothering. It was definitely bothering me. I was getting irritated, but I didn't get into that mode of reacting to it right away and doing something that I would end up regretting afterwards. So this happened a few times to this person, with the supervisor.

And then once I went to his office and I talked to him, and I was talking, I realized that he was a bit of a pleasant mode back then. And I told him that, you know, I appreciate that all the things that you have done and that you're doing, you really know what you're doing. And i said i just have a request sometimes and you mention this in front of everyone of course and stuff it doesn't. It's not very, I don't feel, you know, very respectful back then.

I'm like, and I told them that, you know, I understand where you're coming from. You want to fix, you know, you want to make sure that I do better in what I'm doing and I improve in my career. I know that you're looking out for me. This is one thing I have a concern about this thing.

And I just mentioned it so nicely in a manner that that person back when I mentioned to him, he became very defensive back then. But it's like, no, no, I have to do this. But after that, he stopped doing it. And he started giving me good performance reviews also after that and what helped me was that dealing with the situation with a calm peaceful state of mind made a huge difference because many times i've seen people you're in a situation where you don't like and you go and when emotions take a front seat logic takes a back seat and the emotions come so strong that you You lose your effective way of communicating what you really want to communicate.

And then you don't have, because then the emotions are so strong, the communication is not effective. You're not able to get through what you want to get through. And it ends up being counterproductive. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, when we react instead of respond, we have limited our options. And many times spoken things that we later regret. And so I think this is really I want to pursue this line of thinking I think it's really important sometimes people come into thinking about conflict management or getting better at these sort of navigating conflict as I want to be done with conflict I want to be done with the upset I want to be done with things bothering me and. From my point of view, well, I can understand that, but that's an inhuman.

It's not going to happen. We are going to be upset. Things are going to bother us. And so the point of getting better at dealing with conflict is not to have no emotional responses, right, to become like computers, but to integrate our emotional responses with our values, with...

So that they're hand in hand with the kind of life that we want to live so that we are not tossed about by our emotions but that we can make sense of them and act on them instead of them acting on us i don't know that we can act on them in a way that is fruitful right so sometimes it's like i'm going to fly the flag of my emotions or i'm going to deny them and stuff them all down and neither i think is really beneficial emotions are really good information and we need to understand them but understand them in the right way so can you talk a little bit more about how i mean do you agree or maybe you have a different perspective that we're not trying to you know completely be stoic and oh exactly no you got it that's it that's what it is see.

It's even to regulate your emotions and channel your emotions in the right way it's very important very important and uh emotions come i mean we need the emotions I tell people it's anger is not always a bad thing sometimes but getting angry and showing anger are two different things you know when you deal with your kids you work with your kids you know you have to show anger it's not like a parent you know as a father it's not like I stay angry with my daughter with my son for days you know you have for certain times you do show certain anger to get things in a right way so emotions are a very important part of who we are there's no way we can, suppress in fact when you suppress them they always come out the wrong way and coming back to the breath I always teach there's a connection between breath and emotions, so if you see how's your breath when you're happy, It's much lighter, you know, effortless breathing.

How's the breath when you're frustrated? Sometimes it's like a long sigh. Remember that? Like, we do that.

And how's the breath when you're angry? It's fast, it's heated. There's a connection between breath and emotions. And the interesting thing is that reverse is also true.

With the help of the breath, you're much able to manage your emotions. So emotions is what makes us a human being. You know, we are human because we have emotions. But how to better regulate your emotions how to let your emotions work for you instead of you working for your emotions it's the key is the mastery that we all need to learn and when we have that when you have a say over that any situation you have you know we live as as you mentioned a few times you know we live in a world we live where we are the different personalities, and no matter how good you are what you do you're always going to.

Interact and come up with people come across people who are difficult or who are different personalities and you are not necessarily bad people but different than who you are how you would do things and that's where this emotional regulation this savor your mind having that calm peaceful mind comes so handy so and you know it's like i don't know if you watch football but i love watching football and you know tom brady as you all know is like best quarterback in my like we have seen in football long i i you know i'm from indianapolis i follow colts i was never a big fan of brady but uh over a period of so many years i've come to admire him and what's really really cool about the guy is that no matter how stressful or how behind they are he's calm he's centered is able to not getting affected by the situation is able to make the right throws and the right play the right game and that's what sets you apart is that when different things are coming at you how you're still able to maintain your calm and peace and deal with that adversity that is.

Staring at your face absolutely and i love you said this word that i just think is so beautiful is handy, right? This handy that's being able to emotionally regulate yourself, right? I mean, talk about hand. I mean, it's just such a great word because it's so useful to be able to do this because we don't know when we might be triggered.

We don't know when we're just at lunch and all of a sudden something happens or somebody we're with says something that we feel like is completely out of the blue. So when we get escalated, okay, so what are we going to do next, right? So sometimes things just happen and that's life things happen to us and then the question is how are we going to respond and react right and so if we have trained ourselves. And as you said, being able to emotionally regulate, we hear lots about people being dysregulated, and we hear a lot about emotional intelligence.

And as you've said earlier, not much about how to actually accomplish these things. And so I hear that you say from day one, trying this method, is it hard, do you think, I mean, I know you've been practicing it since you were a teenager, but is it hard to make it a habit? it? Is it constantly being mindful of it?

Is that what somebody should expect? Or is it like driving? Once you've learned, it just becomes second nature? Or is it someplace else in the middle?

So it's both, yes. It's not like you have to be constantly aware or mindful. And that doesn't work for people. You have to constantly keep reminding yourself, you know, let me be mindful, let me be mindful.

It can cause so much stress, telling yourself constantly to be mindful instead of that you naturally train your mind to be like that to be more present, and that's what the breath work does it's not like so you know i was talking to one of my, one of my friends his wife took the program with me and then after a couple of weeks we got in together well all of a sudden we had gotten together our families had gotten together for dinner and i was asking how's our practice going she's like i'm loving it and she's like you know But I still get angry She still keeps getting angry at my daughter, And then I'm like that's fine But how long does the anger stay now And she's like you know That's what the difference is though I get angry but the anger doesn't stay that long anymore, And that's the thing.

After taking the program, you're still going to be human. You're still going to get the emotions. You're still going to get angry. You're still going to get stressed.

But those things won't stay very long. Those things won't become your second nature. And it's just you keep practicing every day. And for me and millions of people around the globe have taken the program, it becomes easy to continue with it because it's very easy to practice.

And once you keep practicing for some time then naturally it starts becoming your true nature you know it's like back in the olden days, I mean how they would dye a cloth is that you know, take a white cloth, put that in a red dye and then leave it outside in the sun to dry for the entire day by the end of the day, most of the color has faded away again you soak it in the night again you put it out there, you do it for five six times, after that, the color is so strong, it doesn't fade away, Same thing with the breath work, we start practicing it every day, it just starts becoming your second nature.

You won't have to put in effort, you don't have to keep reminding yourself that be mindful or anything like that. Your mind gets trained that way naturally, effortlessly. Yeah. I mean, when we think about like developing habits or developing virtues, right?

You don't, you know, to get them, it takes some effort, obviously, and practice. But once you have practiced and you can develop this sort of muscle memory, kind of like driving a car, right? If you know how to drive a car and then one day you sit in the driver's seat and you're like, now what am I supposed to do? Don't drive, right?

If you have that thought, right? Because it should be normalized to you if you do it habitually or it can become a part of you. I think it can sound scary to, so like I spent most of my life conflict avoidant, stuffing down my emotions, trying to control other people around me, their emotional states, right? It's real people pleaser.

and so to think about sitting with anger or jealousy or bitterness right like why would i ever do something so horrible as that why would i ever entertain these kinds of emotional responses as they're as if they're the enemy and i'm not allowed to feel these sorts of things but i have found in my own journey that when i don't label emotions like that and if i actually sit quick because I'm still I probably the rest of my life will be in this process but I say okay Mary it's okay now what are you feeling right now I still I'm intellectualizing things it's still not so easy just to feel it but I'm trying more to sit and it is as you say it's so interesting that when I sit with something that I don't like anger or jealousy or bitterness or discontent whatever it might be.

It doesn't last. It's not devastating like I thought it was going to be. And it doesn't last. And it doesn't linger.

And then I'm free to do something else, to think something else, to move on. It's really quite amazing. It is. It is.

It's magical. I feel like every single kid, you know, I have a 14-year-old daughter and a 12-year-old son. And we got them also introduced to this thing at a very early age. Because you mentioned the emotional regulation is so important.

And we found that it's really helping them, in their schools, in how they deal with their friends, how they deal with their parents. So this is something I feel like every single human being should experience this thing and benefit from it. Because as a human race, in one aspect, we have progressed so much. We have made so much technological advances and whatnot.

We have iPhones and computers, and we can do all kinds of stuff. But in certain aspects of our life, I believe we have gone in the wrong direction. I saw a study from the CDC, a study from the Center for Disease Control. This was in 2020 that more than one-fourth of the American population is either suffering from anxiety or depression.

And this was six years ago. I'm sure it's gotten worse now. Yeah so what good is all the comforts in your life all the technological advances in your life. Having you know netflix anyway you only want to watch a show you can watch what good is all those things when you can't be happy when you can't be joyful so at some point of time we have to come back to and being joyful being happy is our nature when we kind of do this breathing exercise and all they tap into that inner core of joy, that happiness.

So it's not like you're learning to be happy. You're learning to do something which you are not. These things are your nature. You know, I'll give a scientific example.

Like if you look at the atom, at the smallest structure in the atom, what's in the center of the atom? Do you remember? The nucleus? Nucleus, exactly.

And nucleus is made up of neutrons and protons. And the periphery in the atom is electrons. So if you look at the smallest structure in the matter, at the core, it's all positive. The negativity is only on the periphery.

Same thing with us, you know, these negative emotions, anger, stress, jealousy, they're all on the periphery. The core, every single human being is joy, is peaceful. And with the help of the breath, you just go back to that nature of being joyful and peaceful. And then every act you do, you do it as an expression of joy, not trying to get joy out of some action.

It is a really different way of thinking about where joy and happiness and fulfillment come from, if they're coming from the moment from the outside, rather than something that is already present to be tapped into. It's a particular view of human nature, which I do happen to agree with. So, I imagine, I mean, what is the case that a lot of people have been very hurt, and let's stay with work examples, you know, been hurt at work, felt minimized, maybe betrayed. And let's suppose that they are suffering from these feelings where they don't trust, where they have bitterness, and they feel uncared for, and it's layers, years, How does what you're talking about help somebody to do something different to alleviate the suffering, the real suffering that people experience?

Yeah. At the end of the day, the suffering is what? Like it is triggered externally. And then you've taken things in.

People have been behaving the way they have been behaving with you for so long. You've gone through injustice. You've gone through underappreciation for years. You've been told things about yourself which are not true and you know it's not true but you have to keep living keep living with it because at the end of the day you want your paycheck coming in so you have to you know it's a hard fact or harsh truth of a life to live with it so it's you have some control over what others can do but very little control but only thing you have control over is how you deal with these things and you give the pizza example what you want to let into your system and what you want to keep it outside and that can happen through the breath work through the breathing excess you can you're able to have that shield around you where you don't take a lot of these things in and you're able to more importantly even the stuff that is sitting in you're able to throw the trash out and that is so it's like you go to a therapist you and again nothing against that and that's also important go to a therapist you sit with the therapist and they'll tell you you know you're feeling this way because somebody did this thing to you or your mom said this to you when you're five years old your dad said this to you when you're 10 years old you kind of dissect what happened and it's got some benefits to it but more often than not you come out with more regrets and grudges against people and this is this the breathing exercise sky breathing is like.

You leave the trash can outside, and the trash pickup comes on a Monday or Tuesday and takes the trash away. It's like that. You don't open the trash can, look at it. This is the trash from Tuesday.

This is the trash from Wednesday. You don't do that. Just throw everything out. And that's what the breathing, this Thai breathing, why it's so effective is that it just years and years of the founder of Art of Living, Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

He's a world-renowned humanitarian. and he uses beautiful example it says that if a room has been dark for decades for years you don't need decades of years to make it to bring light into you just switch on the light you bring a candle the light just comes in so you may have gone through this darkness for years in your life but you don't need light to be introduced for years for for you to get rid of the darkness light just comes in that prana the energy life force energy comes in and you're able to actually let go of that years of trauma and bad feelings that's great that's really yeah i love that the darkness right you don't need to unlayer it right open a window turn on a light and exactly.

So my last question for you is as you look into the future of work what do you think needs to happen so that not only will all workers be treated with dignity and respect, but that they will be encouraged to thrive and flourish. You know, I think in both ways it's required, not only just employees learning to regulate their own mind, even I believe if every single employee, while they're hired, they taught certain breathing exercise, certain tools, so that either you end up being a victim or you end up being a culprit.

And we need to address both the aspects, not just one aspect. You cannot just keep addressing the victim all the time. You have to address the culprit also. if everybody were given these tools to deal with it.

And many times I tell people, like one who has shared a funny anecdote, like a very interesting anecdote. This was many years ago. I was riding in a cab in New York. And this is before you and me had Uber and stuff.

And the cab driver, I was just chatting with him. And then someone just completely cuts another cab driver, completely cuts him off. And if my cab driver had not applied the brakes at the right time i mean we would have definitely got into an accident and instead of my cab driver honking and yelling at this guy the other guy starts honking and yelling at this at my cab driver and my cab driver just didn't say anything just kept took a different then start driving so i told him i'm like like you should be the one honking and yelling not either way around so he turned back looked at me and he's like sir you know he has trash inside so he's throwing out the trash outside i don't have any trash inside why Why should I turn anything out?

And that is so powerful if everyone, future of workplace, future of human race, if you all are taught at a very early age, young age, to emotionally regulate yourself, to be able to handle your emotions better, I believe 90% of the situations that we end up seeing at workplaces can be avoided. Wow. That's very powerful. That's a great way to end.

Well, thank you so much for sharing with us today. And I encourage everyone to go to theartofliving.org. Is that what it is?

on theartofliving.org to learn more. And I know I'm going to check it out because I am very interested in getting better at regulating my own emotions, my emotional responses. So thank you so much for being on Conflict Managed today.

Thank you. Thanks. I really enjoyed our conversation. It was very, very engaging and very...

I loved how the whole thing went. Thank you for having me. Take care. Shalin, thank you so much for being on Conflict Managed.

I really love everything that you're talking about. I am going to check out theartofliving.org because I definitely know that I could benefit from this. I have tried a variety of different avenues as I am on a quest to be better emotionally regulated so that I can show up in the world and the way that I want to show up.

So thank you for the work that you're doing and for bringing that to our attention. Conflict Managed is produced by Third Party Workplace Conflict Restoration Services and hosted by me, Merry Brown. You can find us online at 3pconflictrestoration.com.

Come back. We have new episodes every Tuesday. And if you would like and subscribe wherever you are listening or watching this podcast, it's much appreciated. Our music is courtesy of Dove Pilot.

And remember, conflict is normal and expected. Let's deal with it. Until next time. Take care.