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Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.
Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you’re a failure. There is no middle ground.
Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once you expect it to happen over and over again.
Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you.
Castastrophizing: You expect disaster. you notice or hear about a problem and start “what if’s”. What if tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?”
Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who’s smarter, better looking, etc.
Control Fallacies: If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.
Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what’s fair but other people won’t agree with you.
Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem or reversal.
Should: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate the rules.
Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid and boring, then you must be stupid and boring.
Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hope for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment.
Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.
Heaven’s Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel better when the reward doesn’t come.
Gratitude for this work!
From Thoughts & Feelings by McKay, Davis, & Fanning. New Harbinger, 1981
Since I began following and orchestrating the structure of planetary frequencies as they directly relate with the human body, we have found that sound waves which mirror the pure vibration of blocked or burdened centers within the meridian system,create the same sloughing effect that earths fauna have mastered to accelerate healing.
So, what makes one facilitator more highly sought after than another?
Are there not enough individuals seeking internal knowledge and practices that accelerate and elongate periods of joy and wellbeing?
Is the popularity of sound healing a passing phase or might there be more to explore with the agreement that we are vibrational, energy based beings?
Within the animal kingdom, certain levels of injury can be literally “shaken” off and increased findings around conscious movement and spiral dynamics continue to prove to support the release of wounding and trauma through frequency and oscillation.
At the close of countless gatherings, there remains requests for “the play list” or copies of the files created of the soundscapes utilized as a base foundation for our pranayama work.
Many believe that they too can download and replay what has been created to utilize in self-work or to share with others during their classes. There is an element of truth to this and there is also misconception.
First and most important to understand is that nothing created or borrowed from another artist can be sold or traded without their permission. It lacks great integrity and character to sell someone else’s art as our own and its illegal.
After many years of requests for the “Sound Experience”, we made our second compilation appropriately titled “Just Ask” which was a tongue in cheek reference to how long it took us to give people what they were asking for which was for the most part improvised.
I had not yet developed the confidence to get serious about recording. I always just sang whatever came through without knowing what, where or why it did. I didn’t think much of it until I really started to get out of my own way and began focusing on service to others. It was created for my soul, my son, all of my relations that haven’t had the opportunity or chance to and for those who suffer or are silenced in anyway. To me, it became the frequency of love and reassurance, a gateway to limitless possibilities and emotional intelligence.
The time has come again to share, as we are always patiently waiting to respond to that which is being requested. Due to the amount of interest that has been generated, we are offering a one time online workshop which features the process and frequency scale followed to Orchestrate Soundscape in “The Breath Centers” Breath work offerings.
In this course you will learn…
- The Laws of Frequencies
- How Vibration Effects Healing in the Body, Mind, & Spirit
- Inario & Icaro’s
- GarageBand Introduction
- Vocal Coaching
- Insight and music available by Michael Brian Baker of The Breath Center
- Utilizing Sound for Healing Practices, Self Discovery, & Personal Realization
- How to create your Unique Healing Soundtrack
Get the playlist, learn the medicine songs, music editing introduction, vocal empowerment, and dive deeper into the laws & implementation of sound frequencies.
An experimental exploration into the weaving of personal soundscape – a Sound Healer’s Training.
Sunday March 4th 2018
12pm-5pm PST
No Experience Required
Online Class streamed Live from California
Sign Up Here: thebreathcenter.com/gatherings/soundtraining
Early Bird! Sign Up Before Feb 25th and receive 150$ off of Admission
or
150$ off for those who have completed a Training Introduction (Heart Based Awakenings, Pranic Initiation or Integration) or Level 1 Training with Michael Brian Baker.
Payment Plans available. Please send questions to jacquesaudri@gmail.com
Much will be revealed. See you then.
Love, Michael
—
“Sound can redress imbalances on every level of physiologic functioning and can play a positive role in the treatment of virtually any medical disorder.” -Dr. Mitchell Gaynor
“Sound is the force of creation, the true whole. Music then, becomes the voice of the great cosmic oneness and therefore the optimal way to reach this final state of healing.” – Hazard Inayat Khan
“Rhythm is a means of organizing sound into specific energy formulas to harmonize the mind and body. Chanting, rhythmic breathing and drumming form an ancient technology for directly synchronizing the mind/body complex, creating conditions for psychological and physical healing.” – Layne Redmond
“If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.” – Nikola Tesla
“Although all illnesses were imprinted during the gestation cycle, they can be healed through directly raising the frequency of your DNA.”
– Richard Rudd
“Sound therapy is one of the prototypical vibrational healing modalities. Sound produces measurable vibratory feelings throughout the body, depending upon the frequency and amplitude of the sound used. There have been a wide variety of sound healing developments over the last ten to twenty years. Certain sounds most likely have a healing influence upon the body because they influence the geometric patterns and organization of cells and living systems.”
– Dr. Richard Gerber, author of “Vibrational Medicine”
– Dr. Richard Gerber, author of “Vibrational Medicine”
Hello practitioners, coaches and family,
I’ve been asked to write a bit about “highest and best practices” which support the professional facilitation of breath work.
Time and time again, in listening to those who have had “challenging” experiences receiving the gifts of breath work, we have been shown large gaps creating a distortion of professional standards in the practice of pranayama facilitation.
Bless the hearts of those who wish to share the experience of breath work with others. Please note, much damage has been done to the reputation of the work by those unskilled who choose to teach others while refusing training. We believe everyone deserves exposure to transformational practices. We are also calling for a more professional approach to a seemingly simple, sometimes “non-interactive” healing art.
We believe strongly that this gap in knowledge has been created due to the lack of yogic history, theory and training that accompanies trainings available to those interested in the power of the practice.
This “gap” provides many opportunities to increase the integrity surrounding current models and to share with some focus and intensity in The Breath Centers Trainings not only the expansive yogic history and Ayurvedic medical applications of breath work but also the moral and ethical standards that accompany a solid, safe practice.
Here is a peek into subjects that are covered in levels l – lll. Please take into account first, that most who are attracted to Breath Work, are experiencing challenges in their lives related to health, loss, lack and or life transitions. This means that assuming “neutral posturing” and addressing only the “power of the breath” and the fact that the actual healing that might accompany the practice lies between your partner and their higher selves, dreams and highest potential is of the utmost importance.
To take on more is dangerous and suggests you are in part, responsible for the participants outcome which compromises karmic lessons and life experiences that may serve better to integrate over time in the building of their “wisdom escrow”. No one who assists others in self-realization needs to be left “holding the bag” for someone else’s process.
All sessions should be met with deep, gentle, compassion and open with slow Socratic communication followed by acceptance and understanding of ones condition and current goals.
If trauma is to be cleared the facilitator must be prepared to hold space for as long as is necessary while simultaneously considering the container set to support their own needs and availability of time.
Touch must be a permission-based action that does not jeopardize the participants balance as re traumatization is quite common during emotional release. We also combine the “Yoga Alliance Standards” with the general guidelines of HIPAA and suggest strongly exercising the practice of doctor client confidentiality without ever diagnosing or acting as a medical professional.
It is imperative that no one relies on their experience in yoga therapy as an alterative to medical advice from their doctor. Our coaches are taught to vet their potential partners for a clear medical history and current use of medications prior to their sessions.
One of my closest friends recently transitioned after refusing Western Medical treatment. He had made the decision to exclusively utilize Yoga, Cleansing and Ayurveda in his treatment plan. It is difficult for me to reflect on how I supported him in this decision even though it did not “feel right”. Life is far too precious, now he is gone.
The Breath Center has defined with some success a solid portion of “highest and best practices” to share as a section of the current training programs offered. We have seen a level of great success for those who choose to apply these guidelines when practicing with others.
These are but a few points covered during level l and ll trainings. We commit to excel in upgrading and bringing to the forefront current issues not being addressed in the professional practice of breath work and pride ourselves on offering “solution based”, gentle practices that elevate the modality to an ever increasingly respected position within the wellness community.
Looking forward to our collective this month,
Michael
“Liberation can be accomplished by that pranayama which is attained by disjoining the course of inspiration and expiration.”
– Patanjali
The question we often hear is, “If I am infinite & an expression of the Divine, if I am what I affirm of myself in my daily practice – then why do I sometimes feel so small, incapable, and fallible?”
Getting a taste of our limitlessness divinity creates multifaceted results. On one hand – we know we are more than just human. And on the other hand, we are still human.
The enlightenment process is a one of discovery, surprise, and even discomfort. Unwinding the layers of resistance, releasing stories we’ve wrapped around ourselves to comfort us from the winds of vulnerability – can sometimes come as a shock to us!
Breathwork Training with Michael Brian Baker has been called an enlightenment experience, and it is the full ride – moments of deep resonance and personal healing, bliss, awareness of self, and relief knowing that the secrets hidden from ourselves can be seen and profoundly loved on. It is deep, and even challenging as we face aspects of ourselves we have hidden away for fear of failure, success, or rejection.
This is why we laugh A LOT in our Teacher Trainings. In joy, we chuckle at our patterns, at the sweet, childlike nature we are striving in to “get it all right”, at the perfect, chaotic, mind-blowing, heartbreaking, beautiful insanity of it all.
We learn to see ourselves as love sees us.
We have created a container where you explore the hidden aspects of YOU, of the mystery schools, of mysticism, neuroscience, sacred earth practices, and the evolution of humanity.
We share the tools that are sometimes infamously sidestepped or even missed in the excitement of awakening.
What happens when someone goes into a cathartic release on your table? What is happening when YOU are going through a cathartic release? How do emotional, mental, spiritual, physical imbalances play out when exposed to breathwork? What stops you from sharing your gifts when the world is requesting you at its table?
What does it mean to practice breathwork & other healing modalities where the facilitator and the recipient feel safe to heal and hold space?
We want you to have a solid foundation in knowing yourself & your empathic depth, and how this can be either a powerful area of mastery or a leak in your container as a facilitator. We unveil the tools needed to have your feet, heart, and body firmly planted on earth, so that you can stretch high into the etheric worlds, and have your internal safe container to come back to when you have completed your work. We want you to have the scientific information behind this work, the lineage which formed the experience we have today with the practice, the teachers who have passed it down, and why they have passed it down at this time.
Breathwork has the capability, when practiced with integrity, grounded education, morals, & safety, to transform heal and bring lasting and sustainable peace for the recipient.
If you have stayed with us on this ride, you know from your own experience, that this is true. Or, if you haven’t yet had the experience, you may feel the stirring in your heart, the birthing of knowing within you that there there is something more to discover in this journey towards healing. We share the hunger to see awakening happen on planet earth, both for the future of the generations to come, and for the sake of all sentient life.
Deep within our genetics is a code that yearns for liberation, be it from the grind that life presents, from the disagreements in relationships, “current state of affairs”, technology overload, dramatic changes in Mother Earth’s environment, keeping the body alive and vital in often toxic living spaces, and even from ourselves.
Who are you? What are you curious about? What are you birthing in this moment? What area of your life is experiencing the trembling or shaking vibrations of change?
Reach out to us. Share with us. Come be with us at a Teacher Training, at a Community Breathwork, or Private Session.
And know that whether you are emulating Durga with many arms managing your world with vigor, or are “stuck” a little or a lot – you are loved and appreciated.
“Offering inhaling breath into the outgoing breath, and offering the outgoing breath into the inhaling breath, the yogi neutralizes both these breaths; he thus releases the life force from the heart and brings it under his control.” 26-2 The interpretation is: “The yogi arrests decay in the body by an addition of life force, and arrests the mutations of growth in the body by apan (eliminating current). Thus neutralizing decay and growth, by quieting the heart, the yogi learns life control.” – Krishna quoted in the Bhagavad Gita, interpretation by Pramahansa Yogananda
In the mist of the morning, I look in the mirror and accept that one of the most deceptive enemies of the ‘Vital Arts Practitioner’ has caught up with me.
Age. At the very least, it is now in my field.
Silver grey has corroded the once deep brown whiskers on my face which detail the many sleepless nights working in realms I care not to revisit, although my exposure and travel through them has built a strength and knowledge within me that if ever called forward again would guarantee protection and a much softer landing after integration is actualized.
I sigh and am shifted into the gentle awareness that the time I am searching to reclaim, which has markedly “slipped away”, is actually chronicled on my chin, in the lines on my face, surrendered in my eyes. I have earned these “mortal” stripes and the compassion, clarity, magic, and wisdom that it brings cannot be traded for any amount of gold.
I witness two doves outside ascend harmoniously and land in unison atop a light post, and am reminded of the love in my life, partnerships and the commitment made when choosing this body: to experience, then share the reintegration of love and respect with the longing hearts that seek the blessings that come to those focused in service.
Having signed up for this journey, I have gone through quite a stunning process that has thinned the veils and revealed truths that remain less than comfortable for me. These realizations have placed me in precarious situations where clumsy behaviors have left me open to internal deception and parasitic intellects that derive their security from the most potent distortion bought, sold and accepted by the human race which is “fear”.
When first I began to open, I was working a somewhat “normal” job fueled by fear anchored firmly in keeping a roof over my head, food in my stomach, and clothes on my back. It makes perfect sense that those concerns would be embedded deep within me as a result of my direct caregivers being raised by souls subjected to war, famine, and rampant disease.
This realization forged the capacity to associate as “witness” to my outer experiences which slowly developed the internal compassion to dissolve the program and pattern of fear which was buried deep within my foundation. I knew it had been propagated from generation to generation with little or no real presence to what was “current” in “my” actual life. I was carrying the burden of those “too distracted to be proactive”, caught in the program of yesterday and unable to receive the present of the present.
By the age of three, I knew I was different. This awareness was amplified when, fairly early on in my youth, I was branded with the belief system that if I didn’t follow the model set forth for me by my care givers, I would suffer a long painful life. To quote verbatim the words that would insure my failure as a developing youth, “This is not Michael’s world, you cannot do things your way and you will never live up to your full potential, if you do not… (follow the demands we have placed on you with little or no attention given to your design, gifts or desires.”)
When I began following a life of loving service, my long lost childhood knowing of sustainable, benevolent magic was reawakened, which by the way, has much more to do with a deep connection to the earth’s cycles and, more than anything else, concentration and focus on peace and prosperity for prolonged periods of time. Some refer to it as meditation.
Here is a very loose time line that I have seen duplicated many times over by those who choose to apply themselves to and through The Breath Centers Gestation Package, which I lovingly have coined the “The Adult Hogwarts” of our time.
First phase
Dissatisfaction with life path, loosing connection to all relations and finding that those whose advice has been trusted and followed are just as or more lost than we.
Second Phase
Realization that the focus on developing a career to provide a better life for our families and us is a major distraction that creates critical separation between our vital internal connection and those we love.
Third Phase
Clarity that whatever we choose as a new direction in our lives must serve humanity in a way that we can really get behind and that it must include and secure within it a platform for our creative freedom, humor and continued stimulation. It must also be sustainable, meaning it can support no one else’s dreams but our own and has to serve others with such impact that there is little need for old structures that “normally” accompany building a fulfilling life.
Fourth Phase
Choosing a focus of study enveloped in one of the many and varied healing arts and then experiencing doubt and discomfort around the change and objections that accompany ones awakening and separation from mass group consciousness and the ignorance that fuels it. Along with this comes the realization that our ingrained fear around not being able to “make a living” at it is has been unsubstantiated, as we have survived quite nicely albeit a couple bumps which happen regardless in any new life experience.
Fifth Phase
After getting some traction and time under our belts as practitioners, we begin to believe deeply in the art, it’s power, and our ability to facilitate it.
Sixth Phase
Believing we are actually “the healer” and becoming so full of spirit in the right hemisphere and the etheric, we become quite disconnected from daily “real world” responsibility and sometimes even become critical of the process and the systems that are in place to provide contrast for the change coming in the future.
Seventh Phase
The Fall – Spirit can get loud when we are working out of alignment. This is what I call the “Shamanic Spanking” period, where the newly awakening and all high being is thrust back crashing down to earth, be it by loss of loved ones, health crisis, or relationship dissolve. This could be anything that doesn’t mirror the high and holy life experience one has made for themselves while conveniently overlooking their own spiritual bypass and ego as it allows them to check out of their own continued process.
Eighth Phase
Consideration of leaving the whole thing behind and returning to the matrix as a result of too much time spent in the esoteric. Becoming somewhat apathetic to the great numbers of those resolute in denial and distraction and the feeling that the dissolve of the savior complex has left one with little to prop themselves up on.
Ninth Phase
The Slow but Subtle Return
We have all of the connection to the earth, multiverse, spirit and etheric we could possibly need. We have learned that boundaries and permission are the only way we can survive in the assignment we can now really never back away from. Beginning to take interest in the workings and limited reality within the matrix and involving ourselves in discussion and group mind set at which ever frequency it is holding, knowing very well that this is what we came here for and that including all forms of reality at all levels of awareness is the only way to meet each where it is currently residing. We experience a reflecting back of increased possibilities for higher ways of evolving without judgment, critique, or adding to the very energetics that arrest the development we have committed to accelerate and support.
Number 9, the completion of cycles. I am in so much joy I am sometimes uncomfortable with it. It is overwhelming to have all things working together in a way that is abundant yet requires great character and integrity, lest the lesson get tremendously loud. Great gobs of gratitude for the “caregivers” that created the perfect contrast to the discovery of life’s greatest dreams for without their perfect balance of shadow, we would not be basking in such Clear, Sparkling, Benevolent Light.
Celebrating grey, it’s a perfect balance between light and dark…(Wink!)
For the good…
Michael
By Suzy Adra, Level 1 & 2 Graduate
I could begin this post by mentioning the beauty of Ojai and the amazing setting we were in. I could write about each person at the Teacher Training and how they contributed to my learning in ways that were seen and unseen. I could also write about what an amazing teacher Michael is and how grateful I am for his style of teaching and how he ties it all into one coherent whole. I shall choose to write about my own experience, as that is all I really know for sure.
In the training, Michael Brian Baker asked me if I would be okay getting on the massage table to demonstrate a “one on one” session as the rest of the participants watched. I have done breathwork sessions where I become one with the breath, with the music, or blended into nothingness where the breath just takes over, and breathes me. I have also had sessions where I would literally have to get up and go vomit my guts out.
This time with Michaelwas different then anything I had experienced before.
Emergence, Art by Suzy Adra
Michael guided me to begin the breath as usual. As I lay there, inhale inhale exhale, inhale inhale exhale…the familiar dry mouth began, my mind calmed down, and my body started the familiar tingle. I felt Michael working energetically. I could not see him because my eyes were closed but I could feel the energies moving in and around me.
Suddenly, this strange rumbling began from deep within my core… “Can this be for real?” I thought to myself…and then… I began to laugh uncontrollably!
“It’s all a cosmic joke”, kept flashing in my mind’s eye, accompanied by the urge to share it, so I said it outloud.
“It’s all a Cosmic joke!”
Seeds Never Ask Why They Grow, Art by Suzy Adra
More laughter followed, and the more I laughed, the funnier it got, and I just could not get myself to stop laughing.
I had the best laugh of my life!
As I laughed, I realized the extreme sadness that the laughter carried and I recognized that it was not foreign to me. I have always used laughter to distract myself from every misery. Sarcasm has always been one of my favorite things.
There she was, the wounded warrior laying with all the years of waging war with herself, and had she finally made it to this table. After a lifetime had passed, she finally said the battle had to end, laughing her guts out at the insanity of it all in front of twelve complete strangers.
I concluded, I will not accept this “self” abuse anymore.
I will not accept it on behalf of all the women who came before me and who will come after me.
I am not sure how long I was laughing, but it seemed that the entire creation was laughing with me.
The World is my Home, Art by Suzy Adra
I began to feel so much gratitude for the intensity of this release, gratitude for Michael for guiding so gently and holding space, for these strangers who were silently sitting and witnessing this healing with all the patience of a caring, nurturing of the attentive mother.
It is true that we all have the power to heal ourselves. Whenever we are ready, whenever it is ok to let go. When we have forgiven ourselves and integrated the reasons for our suffering. Having someone guide us and bear witness is necessary for this healing to occur and it is a privilege both ways.
I have travelled high and low, learned so many modalities, seeking, searching for resolution. I used the breath for so long and even used it in a recent retreat I facilitated, and yet it is beyond me why it took so long to recognize this breath as the gold.
Have you ever wondered why yoga is so powerful? Have you ever wondered why working out and sports are so powerful? Have you ever wondered why when you dance it feels so amazing?
The secret is the breath.
The breath is our direct connection to source.
The breath never lies, it is the healer, it is truth. It is holy.
Inhale… & Exhale Holy Laughter
To attend a Teacher Training with Michael Brian Baker’s The Breath Center, please go to: thebreathcenter.com/gatherings/trainings
This blog has been shortened and edited for content. To see Suzy’s full blog post, please visit her website here. 
Suzy Adra is a student and practitioner of many disciplines and tools: archaeology, archives, fine art, ayurveda, yoga, meditation, breath work, metaphysics, creativity, consciousness, philosophy, energy healing, and trauma release techniques. Her current focus is on helping individuals access their creative self through several modalities. She believes, that for this to happen, there is a required need to release previously held beliefs about oneself, and the world. Suzy has studied with Michael Brian Baker’s The Breath Center starting in June 2016, and is a Level 1 & Level 2 Graduate. She is available for sessions at suzy.adra@outlook.com .
Are Humans Inherently Destructive?
From a “spiritual” perspective, the answer to this could come easily. “No, we are part of a greater whole, we are one, we are in the Kali Yuga, we all have our dharmic path,” and even more commonly, “Destructiveness is a part of nature” and “Forgiveness and compassion is the only way to heal the past.”
But what about when the violence is still occurs – sometimes even disturbingly close to home? When it floods the media, and when “disharmony” is what drives many of us to our spiritual practice in the first place?
It leaves this important question sensitive and unanswered.
In the movie Wonder Woman, the lead character is faced with the same age-old dilemma. With all of the violence and hunger for war, it is a challenging, if not a completely overwhelming task, to look away from or find resolution for the suffering humanity has seemingly caused itself. Who is to blame? The Gods? Ourselves?
In a time where pointing fingers is more common than balancing or celebrating polarities, we as a society are stalled with unanswered questions.
The truth is, the rising feminine and Creator does not see things in black and white. It is not always us and them. The demons we see outside ourselves are in many ways amplified versions of the very war we battle within.
In the world of duality, each one of us experiences darkness and light within and around us. And every day, every moment, we have a new opportunity step into highest design and tap into “Universal Current” to bring our songs, books, paintings, and projects to the world for peace and transformation.
This IS the medicine to our unanswered questions. It can inspire us to reassess how we can step more confidently into our fullness, forgive AND STILL move forward in our lives with a sense of excitedness, creativity, and passion. We can take the ideas that pop into our heads for collaborations, music, and art and learn new ways share them with the community. This planet is a gift, and with it comes the responsibility of innovation to protect and amplify its beauty for generations to come.
Do you see it? Your Batman/Wonder Woman light is in the night sky, illuminating the many brilliant ideas streaming through our consciousness during these great times of transition.
So… How to capture and bring these ideas from a meeting over tea to form, function, and sustainability?
Next weekend in Santa Cruz, Michael Brian Baker with be sharing a 3 hour Breathwork immersion, with this as the focal point of the circle.
Topics covered will include…
*Highest and best use of idea flow, before function or form
*Tracking, Logging and Nursing as a channel for highest design
*Heart Based Step design – Birthing the either to substance, organically without force
*Designing your circle of influence to best match each individuals independent genius
No matter what you’re reading at this moment, something is being birthed through you. The way in which you take the reigns and nurture it into a reality is a vast and varied play ground of possibility sometimes daunting by it’s sheer magnitude.
Do not miss this opportunity to tap into “Universal Current” as the teacher to support, define and architect your next Earthly Master Piece!
“I used to want to save the world. To end war and bring peace to mankind. But then, I glimpsed the darkness that lives within their light. I learned that inside every one of them, there will always be both. The choice each must make for themselves – something no hero will ever defeat. I’ve touched the darkness that lives in between the light. Seen the worst of this world, and the best. Seen the terrible things men do to each other in the name of hatred, and the lengths they’ll go to for love. Now I know. Only love can save this world. So I stay. I fight, and I give… for the world I know can be. This is my mission, now. Forever.”
Blessed be the Grand Creator through the Individual who Dares to Dream!
Sunday November 12th, 2017
12:30-3:30pm
Santa Cruz CA
For more information & to Sign up:
thebreathcenter.com/gatherings/liveloud
Sponsored by: Bodhi Addiction Treatment and Wellness
Won’t make it to Santa Cruz? Join us in Los Angles Next month for a 5 Hour immersion!
Sunday Dec 17th 2017
Mandala Yoga Center LA
1230pm
Excerpt from Prem Baba’s Book
From Suffering to Joy – The Path of the Heart
Four Keys to Sustaining Ecstasy, Introduction
Question: Yesterday I had one of the most profound experiences of my life. I saw myself dissolved. My body had no limits and all the suffering in me was consumed by love. But when I returned to the world to relate with people, this blissful state dissipated and sadness grabbed ahold of me. How can I maintain the state of ecstasy I experienced?
Prem Baba: It seems that you experienced what Zen masters refer to as satori, or a glimpse of the eternal. Many people experience the eternal without being aware of it. However, if you are attentive and determined, you may use this experience as an arrow pointing towards liberation. Satori is attained by emptying the mind. When you perceive the real being, you are present, and from presence springs truth.
Today we heard some beautiful live devotional music. Some of you sang along and thus co-created music. Creativity, and even the ability to experience beauty, is only possible when the mind is peaceful. If the mind is loaded down with knowledge and thoughts, we can’t create anything new, and we remain numb to beauty. Beauty is an expression of the fresh energy of Being.
“If the mind is loaded down with knowledge and thoughts, we can’t create anything new, and we remain numb to beauty.”
When the mind becomes serene we experience a connection with the eternal that reveals beauty. The more intense the experience of Being, the more we are able to see the brilliance and the beauty around us. This experience of heightened beauty is a sign that we are in a state of Unity. We are able to realize Unity because we were never actually disconnected from the eternal.
Everything begins with presence, with quieting the mind. This is the foundation of the practice. It’s from silence that truth is born. But to abide in this silence we must understand that compulsive thinking is a disease that we need to treat. Western culture conditions us to think compulsively, so that we lose our connection with beauty and truth. We may look at a beautiful view of the countryside without really seeing it, and we may hear music but not really listen to it – because our minds are busy classifying, labeling, evaluating, and interpreting all that we see or hear. The most we ever do is mechanically interpret what the sense have registered: “How pretty!” But in truth we still aren’t listening or seeing because for that to occur we need to be empty, we need a serene mind.
The mind can become so agitated that we no longer perceive our connection to the divine presence. When the mind is agitated, it prevents us from perceiving beauty. It blinds us to our own beauty and so keeps us from creating beauty. The agitated mind will produce more agitation, be it in the form of art, music, or any other means of expression. All the ugliness we see in the world is a result of this agitation. Fear, hatred, suffering, and people’s stubborn insistence on having everything their way – all of these are automatic reactions caused by the agitated mind.
“The agitated mind will produce more agitation, be it in the form of art, music, or any other means of expression. All the ugliness we see in the world is a result of this agitation.”
On the contrary, true action emerges from the heart. Heart is another name for presence, for serenity. The heart is Being. When the mind is serene, you perceive Being. You see that you are connected to everything, and that the body is but a small aspect of reality. You are life itself, and the first quality of life is love. What is the nature of a flower? It’s to perfume and be beautiful. And what moves this flower to exude perfume and beauty? It is love, because love moves all of existence. Love is the essence of life.
When we get a glimpse of the eternal, we feel this love. We are engulfed in love. Naturally, we want to hold on to this feeling, and so we try to get love from others. In the process, we lose sight of our true nature, which is love itself. Maintaining presence when relating with one another is the human race’s greatest challenge. Mental agitation and, at a deeper level, your imprints and sanskaras (the latent mental and karmic tendencies that shape your current life) prevent you from sharing your love with others.
The experience of the eternal will dissolve these imprints. Little by little you will be freed from selfishness, the master thief of consciousness. The freedom to be yourself and to love selflessly will help you sustain this enlightened state.
“The experience of the eternal will dissolve these imprints.”
If you want to experience unity and sustain the ecstasy you have tasted, it may help you to think of your inner path as a series of phases through which you transition, on after another.
Sri Prem Baba is a master teacher in the Sachcha spiritual lineage of northern India. Born and raised in Brazil, Prem Baba worked as a humanistic psychologist, yoga teacher, and shaman before his arrival in India. Prem Baba offers a method of self-discovery he calls “The Path of the Heart,” which bridges psychology and spirituality, East & West. Through self-investigation, the path works towards purifying and integrating the lower self, until one is able to sustain joy. Pre Baba is dedicated to helping people become channels of divine love by sharing their talents and gifts with the world and thus fulfilling their true purpose in life.
What Can Happen When We Gather for Change?
Blessed be the sacred eyes that rest upon this page,
Surrendering into the best life experience in each moment. The true moment to moment actionable deed for the self and ultimate liberation.
Along with that, sending the will that your family, friends and acquaintances are healthy, happy and safe during the “great times of transition”.
For over a decade, I have been in vision of a gathering of our community of conscious seekers that would further support and fertilize the internal work and mission that has been birthed by our concurring intertwined paths.
I saw being invited to a round table of Arts Practitioners from around the globe. A collective of those who have devoted their lives to the selfless service of supporting others through the trials and tribulations that individuals face in their awakenings to the truth that resides deep within the ever blossoming heart space.
It was a yearning to commune with a collective who dreams of change and global transformation so deeply that it fuels their drive to transcend in every waking and dreaming moment, and who feel their life’s calling from a soul level continuously drawing them off the “beaten path” to trail blaze fresh perspective for themselves and their community.
Association with like minded seekers and change makers is the spiritual nourishment required for recharge, inspiration, expanding heart based emotional intelligence, and higher purpose development.
We would meet in a sacred, nurturing environment to share our journeys, discoveries, & radical self acceptance, envision our plans, sit in silent reflection, and receive the acknowledgment & support to move into the next phases our life with ease and abundance.
I waited and waited – but the opportunity never came. This past season while coming through one of the most challenging growth period I had ever faced, I realized clearly that if this event was to take place, I would be the one who would create it.
Although many have an opposition to being called “healers”, this is a calling for everyone who resonates with this opportunity. From Surgeons, Nurses and Life Transition Midwives to Doulas, Reiki Masters and Psychics. From Life Coaches to Yoga Teachers to Psychiatrists, to Addiction Specialists, Sound Healers and Social Workers this Reunion is for you.
The Breath Center has invested a sizable amount of monetary resources to create a safe container for next level sharing, caring, nurturing and healing in an environment once held only for the wealthy elite.
The times of change are now upon us and each and every one of us has much to share. Lets collect and progress together in an active, conscious way. Many of you began this journey with me over 10 years ago and I am inviting you to come nurture yourself this New Years.
Each attendee is encouraged to secure a time slot during the weekend to share their gifts, teachings, visions and dreams that others in attendance can apply in their own lives to optimize their physical, mental, and spiritual well-being.
Take what you need and leave what you don’t. Self-Care in the center focus of this New Years Reunion. Let us feed ourselves with the will to move forward in equal measure to that, which is calling for upgrade and fine-tuning in 2018.
With much humility and hope we present to you The Breath Centers first annual Healers Reunion in Palm Springs California.
We will be gathering in Palm Springs at La Quinta Waldorf Astoria Resort with private rooms, pools, and yummy nutritious meals included. We will have guest inspirational speakers, workshops, and breathwork sessions as well led by Michael Brian Baker & The Breath Center.
Healers Reunion New Years 2018
Who are we?
At any given heart-centered gathering, we could be sitting next to an herbalist who spent the last 3 years isolated in the forest learning from the language of the plants, or an engineer running a multi-million dollar company – or an individual who is both! We are the nurses and the surgeons, and the Kundalini Yoga Teachers bringing Mantra to at risk youth. We are the parents, the Veterans, the trainers, and the actresses. We are the artists, the CEO’s, dancers, real-estate agents, caretakers, & mechanics, unified by our desires for sustainability, prosperity, and global heart-based awakening.
We know that our “careers” & “physical form” & “family of origin” are beautiful and sometimes challenging expressions of our karmic world, and do not separate us but are the unique pieces that connect us like the grooves inside a key & lock. Our diversity strengthens us and creates the dazzling contrast to our deep sameness.
When we lock eyes in a bustling place, we smile with a bit of relief at the connection we see in one another. We are a flock of many feathers, embracing our differences, and celebrating our similarities, and striving, striving, striving for the sacred sweetness of harmony.
We are the Rainbow Tribe. We know that when we say “We are One” we are also saying, “and, We are Many”.
Spread this invite far and wide, to the Red Road Men and Women, The Maori Family Lineage, The Siberian, Quechua, Shipibo, Columbian and African Shamanic Students and Elders. You are being called!
Join us and share your lineage, your alchemic inner wisdom medicine. Bring your laughter, successes, failures, perspectives, ideas, needs, and most importantly, your big beautiful heart!
There are 18 rooms available for this Reunion. The time has come for action. Let this sacred gathering become the fuel for our collective benevolent fire. With a fine dose of humor and laughter we will celebrate this life and the next and plot a plan to leave a sustainable, worthwhile place for our children to inhabit.
Aho
December 30 2017 – January 1st 2018
Waldorf Astoria La Quinta Resort
Palm Springs CA
A somewhat intimate share for eyes that care-
For many many years we have gathered together to shift and transform through the breath in a co-creative container that has been in part, formed by the lovely soul known by so many as Prem Baba.
Every closing has been deeply mystical and powerful, rooted in source and translated from Portuguese into English. What many have not known is that the “hinario” or hymn that we have closed with was written while being sung to the Ganges River in Rishikesh by Prem Baba himself.
Watch here:
In January of 2017, I was planning a journey with the intention of receiving some much needed healing for myself. I had just lost the 3 most influential and important people in my life to cancer. Little by little I was completely take apart at the seams.
I had never sat with my two of my favorite teachers who are still “in body” and I knew deep down that it was time to prostrate myself at the feet of someone who could “see through me”.
My first “go to” was Ram Dass who’s retreat in Hawaii had a waiting list 100 deep. I researched my other “top picks” and found that the Prem Baba Sanga was offering a silent retreat in the hills of the Himalayas so I quickly registered.
Simultaneously one of my dearest friends, who is no doubt the finest Western student of Peruvian, Shipibo teachings I know was planning a retreat to Terapoto for a 21 day dieta. Due to a lag in response from the “silent retreat” registration team and my desire for “intense cleansing” I booked the trip to travel with friends to Peru.
I was heart broken not to have made the decision to travel to India to see Prem Baba but the journey inward that my time in the jungle provided was just the push I needed to clear and process the losses I had incurred and replace those voids with the “internal self love” required to open up enough to really “see” my life again.
Upon returning to the states, much more unfolded. The work was not yet close to complete and I had not yet even begun to establish contracts for the 2017 season. Maybe it was time to take a break from the work, put the chacapa and microphone down and get a job at Walmart? I don’t quite know where I was at that point but erasing any memory of what I had become which was inauthentic or illusionary while in Peru had invariably been completed and I was working with a blank slate.
The first call I made was to Sridhar Silberfein. For those of you who do not know Sri, let me first say anyone with as big of an appetite for sharing divinity with others, who serves in the way he does cannot possibly please and hold the patience required for the amount of egos and attitudes that this guy does without going completely mad. He is largely responsible for brining many Hindu Saints to the West including but not limited to Amma, “the hugging saint” who sees hundreds of thousands of people per year. Even though he was traveling abroad, he still had time for me and communicated in a timely manner through his staff.
I shared with him I had just been cracked open and that I had no contracts for his infamous Bhakti Festivals for the 2017 season. It was within the next few weeks following that I would come to learn that not only would we be included in both the May and September festivals, but none one other than Prem Baba himself would be traveling to the United States to facilitate satsang in the very same room that we have been singing his songs for the past 6 years. I was over the moon! I would still get to sit with him but he would be coming to me! LOL, when it all seems as if it i falling apart, more often than not, it is falling into place.
I did get to sit with Prem Baba and actually was gifted a private meeting with him before his final teaching at the festival. Thank you to the loving souls who facilitated this for me. It was literally a dream come true.
More important than anything else was his teaching. Oh the way baba works is incredible! I love that many who do not yet understand the internal methods for liberation have still to look forward to their awakenings. Like tasting a fabulous dessert before it is served to your family knowing it is going to blow everyone away!
He weaved a share that began “God Head” deep and yet held so much joy and playfulness, to not get cracked wide open by the sheer exposure surely suggests of deep, “pain body” or simply exposure to the wrong teacher. But what teacher who is so adept at love could be wrong?
He spoke primarily of relationship and how the most challenging shift at this time in the true “seekers” evolution is the transition from suffering to joy. Simple? Maybe not so much. It may seem simple to some but the energy that is required to stay present moment to moment can be daunting. Why? Simply because we are programable beings and much of that has been up and to this moment, suffering.
Baba explained of the instrument of gratitude and how if we account for the present moment, that there is nothing but “peace”. Then he gave a simple yet profound tool. “Stop Complaining” he said gently in Portuguese. Then remarked, it is not easy because our default is to suffer.
Just to begin to notice the frequency and programed baseline of complaint that I generate is a profound reflection. It is one slippery slope but one I plan to traverse with great attention and intensity.
Life is great here in the now and I do not want to take that for granted. It can change at a moments notice. I send love and support to those who are working through injuries and the loss of loved ones, depression, hopelessness and just general dissatisfaction. I will the day to come where all of my thoughts are as present and conscious as when I focus to create healing and peace.
We are all just walking one another home and I want to be a great date!
I am so very grateful for this beautiful life and I praise our journey and awakening together as one.
Thank you to everyone who made this year possible and blessings beyond compare to our sacred guardian team!
I’ve recently been included in a podcast series hosted by a dear friend and longtime fellow traveler Zach Leary.
Zack hosts a show called, “It’s all happening” and its content and guests have been nothing short of highly stimulating.
Some of my favorites included his interview with Andy Summers former guitar legend from “The Police”, Ram Dass, Jack Kornfield, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Daniel Pinchbeck, just a short list of the shows I’ve thoroughly enjoyed.
Zach has the unwaivering gift of supporting and fertilizing “loving awareness”. He is thoughtful, extremely well read, thought provoking and has evolved from a lineage of great thinkers. Yes without going into it he shares the same last name as that Harvard guy who…
When he reached out to me about being on his show, I was a bit intimidated. I saw no way that I could be added to his great list of interviews and while I teach that “comparison is the poison of diversity”, I put it off for quite some time before reconnecting and being invited back to share.
For the past 6 years I have been immersed deeply in some of the most esoteric teachings known to mankind. I have traveled to South America and received a 100 year old, antique, Shipibo pipe and been accepted into a lineage that is as earth connected and simple as it is aware and in communication with the intelligences of the “inter-dimensional matrices”.
I was concerned I had traveled too “far out” and that I would not be grounded enough to share from an authentic place of service. Bottom line was, I was not yet ready to expose what I had experienced because I had not yet integrated enough to deliver from a well rounded, neutral perspective. Those who know me well will affirm that I am compulsively considerate of others organic processes. It is not my job or right to step on someones belief systems nor is it fair for me to reveal truths that are not yet ready to be received.
I’m proud of this piece of my character and my birthday is coming. I wanted to do something special. I sat in silence and in the stilness a vision of how my diverse group of friends act primarity from either their “left” anylitcal calculating brain or their “right” creative intuitive hemisphere came in very clearly. I felt into the imbalace and sought resolve. So many believe that to do really deep selfwork one must be disiplined and cut off from outside stimulation. Another belief is that the left brain cannot validate practices that are not “scientifically” sound. I was driven to bring the two together.
What if we could create a New Years ritual that combined left brain luxury with right brain spiritual transformation? This would really put the basic New Years Resolution to the test! I connected with another old friend to create a deeply transformational, spiritual retreat that would join the luxury and pampering of a five star resort with the impact that someone might expect to experience after a week with Anthony Robbins. I am thankful those who may be interested in attending now have an introduction to what we are offering through this podcast interview.
It will be difficult to find the level of transformation and supportive, nurturing experience we are offering for this coming New Years. What many are seeking will occur swiftly and with great ease over one weekend. I know people who invest tens of thousands of dollars in life coaching and mentorship. I have never witnessed more powerful integration and results than when you tap into and are introduced to your own unlimited, renewable energy source.
This is the first interview I have done in 10 years within which I have not been self conscious in the least bit.
Please enjoy my talk with Zach. Time with him definitely reminds one that it is all happening. We speak about hallucinogens, the inertia of sexual energy and how that translates to group breath experience, the technical mechanics of left brain spirituality and humility. He made me so comfortable, I even almost forgot about the microphones.
For those of you reading from me for the first time, I dare you to find anything more powerful with a similar sized commitment than the work I am offering today.
The days of the teacher, guru, life coach and mentor are fading quickly. You are your own master. Learn to look within, come play with us in September, then take what you have learned home with you and then share it with others.
Love spoken here.
If it seems like it is over whelming, when the brain is racing and there seems to be an internal battle between the yearning for calm and rest and what feels like an out of control mental gymnastics competition, there is an open opportunity for magic.
Taking a step back, expanding our awareness and looking at the evolution of communication and the way in which we live our lives, there is a path with clear markers that lead straight to why we are where we are.
Before television and radio, options for mental stimulation were of a more paced and balanced nature.
Reading and writing lead the charge keeping the minds work at an organic pace.
Radio and television brought about the jelly brain, leaving no cooperation or partnership for the brain.
Now we could just shut off and have information chosen by a, key word, “programmer” pumped into our experience without any filter.
The brain would lay dormant becoming weak and prone to images and sounds that would create belief systems full of illusion and plant fresh seeds for compulsive consumerism and the degradation of personal self esteem.
While millions watched images of what people “should” look and act like, judgment of the self took on a whole new meaning.
Today we have the information super highway. We click and click and choose and click. images flash before our eyes scrambling the thought process at break neck speed. the average someone spends on a page is barley enough to even begin to know what is being shared.
This constant flow of information is to many, our life blood. it has shaped our world, the way we share, grow and are seen. it also needs to be respected.
Take a couple days every week away from your computer screen.
The new kill your tv is kill your search engine.
So much to reflect on.
So much beauty in this world…
See?
“Filtering: You take the negative details and magnify them while filtering out all positive aspects of a situation.
Polarized Thinking: Things are black or white, good or bad. You have to be perfect or you’re a failure. There is no middle ground.
Overgeneralization: You come to a general conclusion based on a single incident or piece of evidence. If something bad happens once you expect it to happen over and over again.
Mind Reading: Without their saying so, you know what people are feeling and why they act the way they do. In particular, you are able to divine how people are feeling toward you.
Castastrophizing: You expect disaster. you notice or hear about a problem and start “what if’s”. What if tragedy strikes? What if it happens to you?”
Personalization: Thinking that everything people do or say is some kind of reaction to you. You also compare yourself to others, trying to determine who’s smarter, better looking, etc.
Control Fallacies: If you feel externally controlled, you see yourself as helpless, a victim of fate. The fallacy of internal control has you responsible for the pain and happiness of everyone around you.
Fallacy of Fairness: You feel resentful because you think you know what’s fair but other people won’t agree with you.
Blaming: You hold other people responsible for your pain, or take the other tack and blame yourself for every problem or reversal.
Should: You have a list of ironclad rules about how you and other people should act. People who break the rules anger you and you feel guilty if you violate the rules.
Emotional Reasoning: You believe that what you feel must be true-automatically. If you feel stupid and boring, then you must be stupid and boring.
Fallacy of Change: You expect that other people will change to suit you if you just pressure or cajole them enough. You need to change people because your hope for happiness seem to depend entirely on them.
Global Labeling: You generalize one or two qualities into a negative global judgment.
Being Right: You are continually on trial to prove that your opinions and actions are correct. Being wrong is unthinkable and you will go to any length to demonstrate your rightness.
Heaven’s Reward Fallacy: You expect all your sacrifice and self-denial to pay off, as if there were someone keeping score. You feel better when the reward doesn’t come.”
-John M. Grohol, Psy.D.
Gratitude for this work!
I hope this communication reaches you finding reasons to smile. Especially if things are a bit intense for you now. Life is a classroom that will graciously give us the same lessons over and over again until we get them right and heal. No one came here to lead and unhappy unproductive life. It’s counter intuitive. It is against the laws of nature.
One simple lesson we often overlook is that the foundation of our happiness is related directly to the nutrients we put in our body. You wouldn’t put diesel fuel in a Lamborghini, therefore the fuel you put in your body dictates how effective you can be, controls the way you feel, function and experience walking in your world.
Life must be fed with life to grow and expand. This is not a diet but merely a new perspective on nourishing your body.
Up the ante on lightly steamed green leafy vegetables. Include boat loads of fresh asparagus and broccoli. No salt, no butter. You don’t need that stuff. Stop eating from your lips to your tongue and take in to account what your ingesting and how it serves you. Drink 32 oz of fresh green juice everyday. Visit the produce center at your local market and buy cucumbers, bunches of spinach, celery, kale, collard greens and anything else that looks vibrant and alive. Buy or borrow a juicer. Many people have them and never use them. Dust it off and plug it in. Include a half cup of apple juice if you prefer your juice sweet.
This is cheap, easy, a breeze to clean and the proper way to nourish the human body. Preservatives, pesticides, hormones and other additives in store bought, man made foods leave us bulky, malnourished and depressed. Look at the fuel you choose to put in your body and create a shift into wellness.
If you feel the need for an oil change, plan a cleanse. It is one of the most wonderful experiences you can give yourself.There is no time to waste.
During times of increased stress we can catch ourselves projecting our reasons for not feeling well onto others. It’s not really about anybody’s elses behaviors. Our not being at the top of our game is just a byproduct of an internal fine tuning that needs to be created to shift the foundation of our perspective on life.
Do you know… really know?
We were really humbled and excited to be invited to come and share breathwork at the Oregon Eclipse Festival 2017. We love the wildness of Oregon, the huge trees, fresh air, and the general feel of untamed, buzzing nature in the Pacific Northwest.
After a couple days of celebration, the reality sunk in that we would be out in the middle of nowhere with well over 60,000 people in a somewhat celebratory environment – that may even include the use of recreational drugs. Not to say that the proper relationship with plants and other potions is not valuable. Its more that – with the work that we offer, increased respect and awareness around consciousness and sobriety are a must.
The reason that we are bringing our work to Oregon Eclipse is to represent the population of our community that believes and knows inherently that we are the medicine, and that truly there is no need for recreational drug use in order to find non-ordinary, higher states of conscious awareness. While we in no way condemn the use of any chemical or compound, what we represent in our work is, healing, grounding, safety, nurturing transformation, and a protected space within this festival environment to be held, rejuvenated, and replenished with the energy required to go back out into the festival, full of vitality and breath-centered.
We come to this gathering to be in selfless service as devotees of consciousness and well being, as the particular astrological transit during this time is extremely heavy.
During a solar eclipse, we are cut off from our most vital source of life, the sun. This puts a lot of pressure on the earth. The sun feeds everything on our planet. Physically it feeds the greens which the animals eat, and so feeds the animals that many humans then eat. It feeds the leaves that create the air we breathe, and our cells and our bones with vitamin D.
When the sun is radiating down on the earth, it is also pulling up. Its heat creates a magnetic pull, pulling the blades of grass and leaves up and out away from the earth’s gravity.
In some indigenous traditions, the sun represents the masculine energy – constant, steady, unwavering. Its relationship with the Earth is as old as the Earth itself, appearing in the east and sliding down in the west, daily & rhythmically. When this source of stability has another object inbetween it and the earth, large enough to block out its light in totality, it creates a huge impact energetically.
To be honest, it can kind of make people a little crazy – its not just something to gawk at. Ancient Pagan traditions used to have huge celebrations & protection ceremonies when the sun was blocked, and the chi and sun ray life force was cut off. The reactions that people have during this time tend to lie in all of our shadow stuff – addiction, distraction, resistance.
At this particular festival, there will be large numbers of people off the grid, “celebrating” and cut off from service, comforts, and hiding places all together.
The truth is, its not a party. A Total Solar Eclipse hasn’t happened in 90 years – and what is the human life span? It can stand for a big change.
The Breath Center is a hospice for the Breath Centered, for those who want to go within and seek relief from sensory overwhelm.
We are the spot for awakening, rebalance, and raising the frequency to that of love.
There is no hiding from change and transition. But you can be more present with it, and choose to ride downstream with self love and compassion rather than struggle against the upward current. Swimming in a sea of conscious & unconscious, awake & sleepy, beauty and contrast, can either bring you down or open yourself to who you truly are beneath the layers.
Oregon Eclipse starts Aug 17, and we have 3 discounted tickets left.
Come be with this powerful community, hear the wide range of music, witness the art, the creativity, the ceremony of frequency rising in numbers.
Bring your love, if you dare 🙂
Have you ever lost it?
Really lost it?
“Losing it” is a phrase often referring to an experience that differs from the collectives agreement of reality. It might look like being in the car laughing with one of your closest friends and everything slows, and suddenly you’re not able to breathe – not because of lack of oxygen or the seatbelt crossing your chest, but because everything becomes a simulation. The cars passing by, the skin around your bones, the teeth in your mouth, the whisper in your throat – has become a computer program, and everything you see is clouded by it. It could look like lying in your bed for hours completely entertained by the reality that everyone is God in a “meat suit”, fed by invisible cosmic stardust, followed by getting up to fill iced teas at your restaurant job to save money for a car…
It could feel like you are God, really, and that you could bring peace to planet earth just by being. It could feel as if everything around you is a cosmic joke, even the eating, drinking, & breathing parts.
This isn’t to say that you aren’t God, and that this isn’t a big cosmic joke… In fact the above examples rate high on the “awakening” meter, and are often times the byproduct of a powerful life experience, ingesting of an entheogen, or a disciplined spiritual practice. It can be difficult to go through such an experience, and attempt integration with day to day life, but one doesn’t have to think they are God to relate to what western medicine might refer to as a “loss of sanity”.
We live in a world where handbags cost millions of dollars while children are starving. Someone can stand on their feet all day behind a register caring for thousands of people, and barely be able to feed their families, while a new born opens their eyes for the first time to a life experience where money flows like Niagra Falls to meet their every need around them, and where intelligent sea life washes to shore filled with plastic bags while whole families are dying so that nations are supplied with gas to drive their cars to lavish parties.
What we are exposed to at times hits highs and lows that shakes logic at its very core, exposing us to a reality that seems truer than fiction. We can be left shaking our head and lose our grasp on what is real and what is not.
So how does science define what is real? Physical outcomes can be defined, yet when it comes to the “animation” that lends power to something, like what causes an organism to behave and respond to its environment, science can only go as far as genetics – which in itself is pure intelligence at work!
We are born, we live our lives, and, eventually, we die on this material plane. Humanity has little grasp on the roadmap of what happens to a person after death. There is an unknown that many of us choose to un/consciously bypass so that we can continue to eat our favorite foods, ignore pressing world issues and tuck ourselves in at night before the next day breaks.
Because – sleep and food matter to our bodies, right?
The truth is, this physical reality is sometimes very real. Have you ever looked into the loving eyes of a child? Or felt a loved ones embrace? There is an undeniable realness, in being present, in feeling the wind cool our skin, in the warmth of our morning coffee (or chamomile tea 🙂 ) If a child within our care went hungry, would we sit back like we were God and they were God, and this was all a cosmic joke – or would we take necessary action to nourish their hungry belly? Get it?
“Herein lies the paradox.”
(par·a·dox 1. a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.)
If we haven’t thought about it before, it can feel like nails on a chalkboard, rerouting the full steamed train of our very being. If we have thought about it – maybe too much – it can feel like entering a child’s room, one that constantly needs to be recleaned and reorganized, and makes us begin to frantically re-organize the space- to make it all make sense.
This isn’t real… and this is real.
The pain of life is convincingly real. The pangs of hunger, loneliness, confusion, illness and drama are unavoidable at times. We don’t have to think about it to feel the experience. Its a sunny day, and the birds are chirping – suddenly we remember the events of the day before, we lost a contract that could have “changed everything”, or an argument that brought something we valued to a screeching halt. It asks for us to respond to it – in a “real” “physical” way.
And yet, powerful realizations beg us to see that its not.
Once we’ve seen that we are not our bodies, that anything is possible, and life is a riddle, it can be puzzling to return our gaze to a world where we have responsibilities to a physical form and to other physical forms around us.
Have you ever seen a movie that really moved you, and then suddenly become overwhelmed and pulled yourself out to think about what to make for dinner – only to hear the people around you chuckling at a part that you just missed because your thoughts had taken you elsewhere?
Or been distracted when playing with a happy young child, and after their multiple attempts to engage with you they get frustrated and begin to “misbehave”, and suddenly you wish you could rewind and play with that happy child you’d missed just moments ago?
This is what resistance to “reality” can feel like. It’s where our potential for healing lies. This reality of work, education, food, politics, and relationship is not real (see “insanity” above), yet at the same time it is. It’s less about picking which side we stand on, and more about remembering who we are, and being present to ourselves and feelings the way we would be to a newborn baby. Do we cry when a baby cries? Not usually, but we can feel it.
By revisiting that racing train, by peeking into that cluttered child’s room, by getting more and more familiar with the sensation of nails grinding across a chalkboard, we can learn to steer our ship through the most tumultuous, yet necessary waters.
Swinging to one side of checking out of the movie, to falling head over heels into believing the power of our despair rocks our ship. It keeps us in a loop of an insane reality – which if anything, is stimulating!!
This is real… and its not.
Let’s play it like a game, where we are the observed, the observing, and the observer. Let’s feast, cry, paint, clean – and all the time remember that we are playing, playing a game where there is a thing called love, partnership, rollercoasters, fireworks, and pizza. Where there is heartbreak, war, hunger, and the unknown. Where anything truly is possible, and love & kindness are the most important things.
Loving more unconditionally. Increasing our ability to feel. Learning our limits. Being more in the world and less attached to it. Airborne, and yet grounded, moving, and yet still. God, and yet human.
The Paradoxal Real
Sometimes Change is Downright Frightening
Until it is not anymore…
It was nine years ago that I sat with a “true yogi” friend of mine who had agreed to launch my “breathwork” practice.
I had no idea how to share the profound gifts granted me by my teachers. My day job in the financial markets had crashed and I had just returned from a journey to India, which was planned to show me a new clear path for my life.
Within a few weeks of deep meditation, James returned to share that we would be launching a new school called “The Breath Center”. He had even encoded mantra into the HTML of the website to ensure a foundation of service and protection to those who would come for the experience and teachings.
At that time, even though I held a somewhat normal job, I never quite fit in at the office, bypassing sequential offers from co-workers to “grab a drink” or “blow off steam”.
Immersed deeply in yogic sadhana, all I could think about was God, Yoga, Meditation, Fasting, Pranayama and being in service to anyone that would allow me to be.
It had been five years since I had been gifted profound awakening with Ram Dass and all of my traumatic, victim programs had been erased.
I didn’t have clarity on much but I was absolutely sure I had two things. The first was a very deep and intimate relationship with my guru Neem Karoli Baba and second was whatever I was to do next, it had to be in service to man and womankind.
Over the past nine years I have been equally tested and blessed. In reflection, the people that have come to “the work” and those who have stood by my side in building awareness and support of what we do, have been nothing short of super natural.
I always say that super natural is first and foremost, natural, with an “energetic charge” that is higher than average. Lets just call these folks naturally super!
This month, I feel called to pay homage to those who have stayed close to the work; to those who have believed in a higher vision of world peace and communal living. Those who gave all they have and stay connected with us energetically as we move into the next phase of our development and maturity. I’m also planting seeds of abundance and expansion for all of those who “are yet to come”.
You have and will become my family and my partners on path and now I pass you the torch. While it feels very difficult for me to let go and empower others to step into their genius, I know the time is ripe for the blossoming of others full participation in the support of me and this healing movement.
Eventually the “me” will be removed from the equation but for now the lesson is that we must allow ourselves to be lifted in order to create the same opportunities for others.
The Breath Center has been infused with powerful creative energies that are supporting a new phase in the services and experiences coming your way in 2017!
What has become increasingly clear as this movement expands is that “the juice” in the work is held in the collective. When we come together to form conscious groups holding aligning intentions for the healing of the self and the world that surrounds us, LOVE floods the experience with reckless abandon.
I’m sharing with you now, if you have not yet experienced these groups and the simple power of yogic pranayama paired with conscious sound scape and shamanism, if your “on the fence”, I gift you now this opportunity to unlock your heart and join us for this rare and intimate celebration of “all that is right” in this world.
Humility above all else
Obligation is dead!
Learn to transmute negativity into creativity…
Ever made a promise you couldn’t keep?
Ever refer a trusted person to a service provider only to find out later they had a really bad experience?
Have you ever felt obligated to someone for making an introduction that didn’t quite turn out right?
I open and read about 5% of my emails. I have to admit I’ve even felt invaded when I begin receiving emails I did not sign up for. (Sheep Sound…)
We are very fortunate to offer life-changing experiences that make profound differences in peoples lives. Even still, the options available with which to share these upgrades remains aged, in moderate working condition, and faulty at best. In fact, this whole business of growing a strong contact list, creating a pipeline leading to the “large ticket” offering, writing blogs, updating websites, analyzing percentages and revenue to support a sustainable purpose is feeling a bit outdated!
To stay mentally fit, one of the practices I like to adhere to is to continually partner with our youth to learn from them, follow current trends of how they prefer to communicate with one another, and to understand what is most important to them. It’s an incredible feat to attempt to keep up! When I was young, those in “the know” sought “convenience”. Now it’s speed, agility, breadth, and ease.
What is most important to me is to continue to offer simple experiences that increase emotional intelligence, create opportunity for extraordinary transformation, optimize other’s performance, and increase trust through intimacy within a safe container.
So when I sit down to work on my website, or design a new email, I am sometimes surprised by the amount of resistance I face. I love this work – so why did I feel stuck? Do I feel obligated to master the art of technology?
Recently I had a business exchange with a brilliant, focused individual who was operating with the Energy of Obligation, and I reflected on what it is that drives us to respond in life.
Here are a few simple definitions of “Obligation”
Noun
- something by which a person is bound or obliged to do certain things, and which arises out of a sense of duty or results from custom, law,etc.
2. a binding promise, contract, sense of duty, etc.
3. the act of binding or obliging oneself by a promise, contract, etc
4. any bond, note, bill, certificate, or the like, as of a government or a corporation, serving as evidence of indebtedness.
I have never met a single person passionate about something that has a debt and or penalty tied to it. Debt and penalty may even be key components that reside at the core of fear, greed, envy, theft and all things infertile.
I’m choosing to eradicate the energy of obligation from my life and those who surround me with the intention of creating increased accountability, completion and celebration. The “feeling” of being obligated does not contain enough octane to fuel a worthy life mission and feeling of accomplishment.
Is there a simple way to clear out limiting thought patterns and create a turbo-powered ability to respond leaving lots of time for individual “creative” endeavors?
I am suggesting there is.
I am very drawn to current research on the inner workings of the brain. New findings on the roles of the left and right hemispheres, how to engage the frontal cortex, increased and rerouted plasticity and the simple software upgrades available to support better overall life experience through better health. How do we achieve and maintain transformation on the deepest levels possible?
We are hosting a group training in the coming weeks in Ojai with like minded people who thrive on consistently growing and expanding their knowledge pertaining to cutting edge, performance practices.
Having a client base primarily comprised of life coaches, teachers, pro athletes and high functioning individuals got me thinking about the “privilege of responsibility”.
Whether we are working with top level professionals or those who request support through transition, stimulation, playfulness, commitment, and the length of our attention span are powerfully reliant on our passion.
Please note, this content contains no release or excuse for not taking action in ones life. Responsibility is not an obligation but is being gifted the “ability to respond”. Some of us do not have that ability. Clearly, it is a privilege.
We can, however, shift the way we perceive making promises “with great care”, the importance and weight of “giving our word”, and any feelings around obligation.
To do so, I recommend this innovative & transformational practice to expand awareness around how obligation prevents us from our highest and best intentions, and to increase conscious productivity through accelerated emotional intelligence and the fresh growth required to stay ahead of the competition.
Breathwork for Realignment
I am curious to know if others experience “obligation” internally and “responsibility” externally. Is obligation weighing on my morals and responsibility affecting others?
As I commit to increasing my passion for helping others while patiently waiting for new advances in communication technology, I shed “obligation” and replace it with my grandest creation. My best selling book, #1 Album and World Tour all lie within the fertile soil of my passion to create without “obligation”.
I do this because the truth is I am blessed to share this work with our community and the organizations creating a sustainable future for our children, I love progress, and I am so very grateful to be in service to something that makes a difference.
Michael
Coming soon!
Keep an eye out for a special invitation to The Breath Center’s Celebration of Michael’s birthday coming this September.
Also… look out for offerings of live recordings from Shakti Fest 2017!
