Breathwork with bestselling author, Catherine Carrigan

Good day, good day, good day everyone! Happy, happy Tuesday! Hot, steamy Tuesday, at least here in Atlanta, Georgia. I'm so excited that you're with us on this particular program because our favorite, not one of our favorites, our favorite guest over the last several years is in our studio! Yay!

Thanks for having me.

Oh, you're welcome. Katherine Kerrigan, 9 Time #1 bestseller. So, we pulled out all the stops. We're also videotaping this, recording this, so we're gonna put it up on Apple Podcasts, we're gonna put it up on YouTube, we're gonna put it on sheddingthebitch.com. She'll be sharing it, you'll be sharing it, and all of you will learn everything about her latest book and more so, her latest tools and techniques for you to kind of reduce your stress, take a deep breath, and really hone in on how you can feel better naturally without drugs and all that. And we're gonna get into all of that in just a second. So, excuse me. I just wanna say thank you so much for the last couple of weeks allowing me to step away, go to a remote island in Ontario, Canada. No electricity, no Wi-Fi. Periodic trips to a café on the mainland. We were literally on an island and would have to boat over to the mainland. It was fabulous, and as a result, we did provide you a double dose of our Ask Bernadette episodes that were done prior to my leaving. So hopefully you tuned in for both of those programs and you gained a lot of information regarding your career, business, or life. As well, I just want to remind you too, some of the other great sticky— what I'll call sticky, that means that you've loved them and you're downloading them and you're streaming them. We've talked about shedding. What is it? I get a lot of times, what is shedding? We— I get what shedding the bitch is, but what is actually shedding? How do you do it? What are the pros and cons and all that kind of good stuff? So we had that conversation. We also got real about your effort in interviewing should you be looking for a job, or even you could apply all the tips that we talked about to going and prospecting for new clients if you have your own business, or if you're just actually going out and engaging in your community. Our before, during, and after tips for job interviews has been very interested— interesting for people, and therefore LinkedIn's loving it and social media is loving it. Take advantage of it. A great amount of tips were provided as to how you could actually up your game in whatever it is that you're trying to attract to you. And we did actually talk about Law of Attraction throughout that conversation. Uh, let's see. And of course you can go to sheddingthebitch.com, Apple Podcast, BlogTalkRadio, uh, to download all of our past episodes, including the previous ones, and they've been numerous, with our guest Katherine Carrigan. So let's talk about what we're going to talk about today, shall we? Today's subject is The Little Book of Breathwork. Let's show them, shall we? Uh, so you'll see this, you can check out the video on YouTube, on Facebook, we'll share it everywhere so you can also see our lovely faces as well. Uh, so what if there was a way you could improve the way you feel naturally without drugs, anytime, anywhere for free? Well, that's what her book answers. You can learn stress reduction through breathing, affirmations, and mantras. No pills, no therapist, just you, your thoughts, which I have a lot of questions about, your breath, and your body. So Catherine's latest 9— not 9, number 1 Amazon bestsellers, The Little Book of Breathwork, is a handbook you can use anytime, anywhere to lower your stress. So this is what we're going to talk about today. And we're gonna get through it all. I'm not even gonna run commercials. We can edit those in later. What you're gonna learn is how to use breathing exercises to reduce high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, asthma, pain, sleep apnea, and breathing problems. Affirmations that will uplift your soul. And I'm, um, I'm a guru, or I shouldn't say guru. I'm a user, regular user of affirmations and hand gestures. This is what I found interesting. Hand gestures called mudras— am I pronouncing that right? Mudras. Mudras.

Close.

Shame. Shame on me. Mudras you can use to increase your inner peace, emotional balance, creativity, and grounding. So let me tell you a little bit about Katherine. She's taught yoga and breathwork for 24 years. In her work as a medical intuitive healer, She teaches people how to heal themselves naturally without drugs. So I want to give you a quote from one of her clients. Some people think breathing is done with your lungs. Katherine makes it very clear that breathing comes from your entire being. I love that. We're going to talk more about that.

All right.

So what if you could reduce your stress normally? Breathwork, affirmations, and hand mudras are highly effective natural healing remedies. Let me give you an idea in case you're just wondering how this relates to you, uh, and how you can use it for other people. Teenagers who refuse to talk about their challenges, you can help them with that. This, this, and you could help them with that. Veterans suffering from PTSD can benefit from this handbook. High blood pressure, asthma, anxiety, Insomnia, we mentioned a lot of these. Of course stress, which definitely, definitely, definitely I could use. And Katherine is everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, YouTube, Tumblr, Google Plus, just, you know, and more importantly, go to Amazon and look for her author page, Katherine Carrigan, and you'll find also all of her books. Get this latest one and then pile up all the other ones right behind it. And I want to give you an idea what they are, okay? What is Healing? Awaken your intuitive power for health and happiness. Healing Depression: A Holistic Guide. Unlimited Energy Now. Banish the Blues Now. Unlimited Intuition. Ladies, listen to this: Unlimited Intuition Now. What is social media today? Very cool, very cool. Little diversion for her because she's master— her and her team are master of social media. The Difference Between Pain and Suffering was your latest, and we talked about that. There's an episode, there's several episodes of Shedding the Bits Radio with Katherine, so check all of those out. And of course, they're available paperbook— paperbook? Paperback, ebook, and audiobook.

Awesome!

I am so excited that you're here. Alright, we're going to show you the book one more time. Lovely, lovely, lovely. I have been posting this image, as well as she, but posting this image everywhere. Amazon.com, The Little Book of Breathwork. Alright, so let's get into this. Oh, before we do though, I'm sorry, I forgot your rich question. We ground our audience in a rich question, what to think about.

Yeah.

So what I just simply came up with, now that I messed up all my papers, what I wanted you to be thinking about is, would you like to learn to breathe easier, literally, and improve your health? I'm simply looking for a yes or no, expecting a yes, and then I want to meet those who say no, I don't need to. I don't know about you, but I think we can all use healing. In some way, shape, or form. So just simply ask yourself that as we talk through this conversation. And if you have any questions, you can always call into the program. I'm keeping an eye on it, 1-818-572-2910. If you're listening to this downloaded later, you can always go look for Katherine out on her social media sites, but also she's gonna be everywhere on our Shedding the Bitch Facebook and Twitter pages. As well as I've been sharing it on LinkedIn since that's where majority of my clients will reach out for and my audience reaches out for advice. So feel free to reach out to her directly though because we want you to get some immediate solutions and support. Okay, so very simply to kick off, why did you write the book?

Well, you know, I'm very motivated to help others and to serve others. Yes, she is.. And I have 26 years full-time experience in natural healing, but I wanted to put together a tool that someone could use for free anytime, anywhere. And bottom line, if you do the breath routine that I teach you in this book, you can probably cut an anxiety attack in literally half or, or even more in 8 minutes or less.

Wow!

So I have to tell you the story about how this came about. As you mentioned, I've taught yoga now for 24 years. And I have to say that before I did yoga, I actually had asthma. And prescribed by a medical doctor, when I was 30 years old, I had to use inhalers. You know, if you've ever had asthma or you've ever had to use inhalers, it's horrible. You feel awful. And I remember I had two different kind of inhalers, and it was actually asthma that motivated me to start exercising. Nobody told me to start exercising, but I thought, you know, I'm a smart person. I thought if I start exercising, at least if I have an asthma attack, I'll have a better lung capacity, right?

Right.

But I would literally get out of breath walking across a flat lawn.

Horrible.

So like a lot of people, I, I remember I joined the YMCA And I went swimming, I went to the weight room, I started doing aerobics classes, but, and all that was wonderful, but I didn't learn how to breathe until I started practicing yoga. So let me go back to how and why I wrote this book.

Okay.

So years ago, I had a client, he was in his mid-30s, and he had kidney failure.

Ooh.

And so if you know anything about high blood pressure, One of the side effects of high blood pressure is that it can damage your kidneys. So there he was, he was roughly about 35 years old, he was married, he had children, and his blood pressure was so bad that even though he took 3 blood pressure medications, they could not get it under control.

Oh, wow.

And he would have to get up at 4 AM every day to drive to the kidney dialysis center. So there he was, mid-30s, uncontrolled high blood pressure, kidney failure. He was not able to work, and so he wasn't able to provide a living for his family. And I do, as a medical intuitive healer, I do all my work prayerfully. And I remember praying to God and going, you know, what, how can I really help this gentleman? So I taught him breathing exercises, because if you have high blood pressure, you're absolutely not breathing properly.. And I used to have a device on my computer, now you can get one on your, connect to your phone from the Institute of HeartMath, and it actually measures your EKG. And if you, if you follow that, what you realize is that people with high blood pressure do not actually exhale properly. Now if you're listening, you probably think, well, I've been breathing my whole life, I got this part, right? But there's so much that I have to say, so hang in there, 'cause this is really important. So anyway, so back to the story. So I remember teaching this gentleman this 8-minute breath routine that I have—

Created for yourself.

Right, created for myself. So then I thought, you know, I really wanted him to have it, so I got a friend of mine to take my little iPhone and film me in the garden teaching the breathing exercises. And now you do this, and now you do that. And they're basically 8 different little breathing exercises that you can do, and you do them in a sequence. And anyway, so I taught it to this because I thought he needs to learn how to do this so that he's— because the drugs weren't controlling his high blood pressure. And if you know anything about high blood pressure, the 2 emotions that drive up blood pressure are anger and anxiety. Okay, and you know, there's systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and one drives up one, the other drives up the other one. And again, you're not breathing properly. So anyway, so I really helped him, and then I started to have a pattern of— I had clients with really bad anxiety. So let me tell you about another client I had. So I had another client, so lovely lady, she was a gay lady, and and her partner, she and her partner have the same name, they've been together for 26 years, they were same name, same hairstyle, and one of the partners got diagnosed with a terminal illness.

Oh, ouch.

And so my client, the one without the terminal illness, she had just tremendous anxiety, tremendous depression, and again, it was completely uncontrolled, right? So I'm like, all right, here's what I want you to do. I want you to wake up first thing in the morning and do these breathing exercises. Because let's say you wake up and your anxiety is like an 8, 9, or 10. Well, if you can even turn it down to like a 4, then you can function, right?

Sure, absolutely.

And absolutely, you know, as a medical intuitive healer, I'm very compassionate. I'm not anti-doctor, I'm not anti-medicine, However, if you know anything about the psychiatric medications, they all have tremendous side effects. Okay, and so I'm like, all right, well, this is something that you can do to turn down the volume on your anxiety, right? And I got a 5-star review on my new book by a reader, and they said that they got the ebook and it made such a difference on their anxiety that they got paperback in order to use it every day. So I wanted to give someone a tool. So even if you have a wonderful friend or wonderful coach like Bernadette Boas, you probably don't want to call Bernadette at 2 AM, and she's probably not going to pick up at 2 AM. But we all need to have techniques, you know, that we can do first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night, or anytime, so you can turn down the volume on stress.

Right. Okay. All right. So did you get all that? Because I learned tremendous in just that piece of— well, first off, I've never breathed right. And the reason why I know that and say that is as a swimmer growing up, and based on my age, you can imagine, you know, when we were swimming, there was no efficiency that like there is today, to the degree that the best method that they were teaching at the time was you never take a breath. The fastest person that gets across the pool, the 25-meter pool, doesn't take a breath. So I was kind of raised and nurtured because I started swimming at 4 or 5, competitively probably at 6, through my teens into my first year of college roughly, and it was based on not breathing. So I would go to the gym and all of a sudden the teacher would always come up to me going, "Breathe," because I'm turning bright red. Yeah, you know, whatever. But let's understand something, um, and it was based on what you just said, but also this comment, um, from one of your clients about the fact that breathing has nothing to do with the lungs. Some people think breathing is done with your lungs. Catherine makes it clear clear that breathing comes from your entire being. What exactly then, well, what are we doing wrong?

Yeah.

And what is breathwork?

Okay, so, all right, so I want to say something. If you don't remember anything that I say during this interview except for this one thing that I'm about to say, this is what I want you to remember.

All ears.

Okay, so just bear with me here. All right, you have a nervous system. It's got two sides. The sympathetic side is the side that responds to stress. Okay, now we all, you know, it's easy to go into stress. And the reason it's easy to go into stress is that every nerve in your sympathetic nervous system is connected to at least 20 other neurons. Now you also have this other side of your nervous system called the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the side that allows you to relax. Now in the parasympathetic nervous system, there's only 1 in 5 neurons connecting. So most of us have to make an effort to relax. Now here's the thing to understand: if you're constantly stressed, which a lot of us just live on stress, we're living on adrenaline, that leads to adrenal burnout, exhaustion, chronic fatigue. It damages your metabolism, it makes you gain weight around your midsection, it makes you Age fast, breaks down your bone, causes osteoporosis, makes your hair turn gray, and suppresses your immune system and hundreds of other things that it's too numerous to mention. So here's what I want you to remember: in any given moment of the day, you can tell which side of your nervous system you are in by the way you're breathing. Okay? So if you breathe, and it's very simple, if you're breathing into your belly, if you can breathe into your belly, then you're accessing the parasympathetic nervous system, right? If you're breathing in your upper chest, you're mostly in the sympathetic nervous system. Now when we're healthy, we go, we alternate. You make an effort and then you relax, right? That's, that's balance. That's how, you know, you work and then you play. You work and then you rest versus I'm just totally wired all the time, right? And I love your message of shedding and shedding the bitch because it's literally about letting go, right? Not holding your breath all the time, right? So if you're holding your breath and you're breathing into your upper chest, you're not accessing the parasympathetic nervous system. Now I'll tell you another story that's also in the book. Years ago, I had a yoga student, and she actually listened to me. You know, what a concept! Because I talked about how when you keep your breathing balanced, it literally balances your metabolism. Because when you're constantly stressed, you're basically burning sugar all the time.

Okay.

And anyway, long story short, this lady listened to me, And she started doing yoga breathing all day long, every day. She lost— I'm not making this up— 22 pounds doing yoga breathing.

She's not changing her diet, no, breathing properly, just breathing properly.

She came to yoga class once a week. Now, me being me, I would have said, you know, exercise every day and eat better and all this stuff, right? Well, the one thing she did was she changed her breathing and she lost 22 pounds. And again, this is possible because when you change your breathing, you're literally balancing your nervous system and that affects literally everything.

Well, I would assume so because like that trainer pointed out to me, if I'm sitting there burnt red, you know, beet red, and I obviously am not working efficiently and I'm obviously building up even more stress within myself.

Yes.

And we'll talk afterwards because I also landed up almost in the hospital right before I was going on vacation. And it has to do with my blood pressure and anxiety and whatnot. I'll share that with you guys on another show.

I'm going to give you the book for sure. Yay, me!

I'll read it by this weekend. Yeah. Because that's how important this is. And I love the fact that she went— she she reached out, and of course I'm always reaching out to her going, "Okay, what's going on now? And what's the latest book and subject and whatnot?" I just knew that this conversation was going to change lives. Your life. And maybe, like we pointed out in her examples, you can help somebody with asthma, PTSD, you know, something— a teenager going through a lot of anxiety, because we know they do these days. So anyway, alright, so We're talking about the breathwork, but I really want to also have you discuss, because I loved it when I read it, about the affirmations and how they contribute to this process.

Okay, well, let's talk about why affirmations.

Okay.

So I'm a woman, you're a woman. One of the interesting things about women is that we never—

just one?

Yeah, our brains actually don't shut off.

Mm, yes, men do.

Like if you ever been on a car trip with a guy and there's this period of silence and you turn to your guy and you go, "What are you thinking?" and they go, "Nothing," and you go, as a woman, you go, "What do you mean nothing? How can you not think of anything?" So bottom line, as women, we really need to give our minds something to do. Right?

Okay.

Makes sense. And so what I did with The Little Book of Breathwork, which is based on my personal practice, I combined breathing exercises, mudras, hand mudras, and I'm going to teach you some really important ones, with some affirmations so that you can give your mind something to do. So for example, one of the mudras in here is for serenity. For increasing serenity, one of my favorite mudras. And some of the affirmations are: I am one with the Divine Presence within me. I experience peace and serenity. I am serene. I am a light of God's love wherever I go, whoever I am with. I am the light. I live in the light. I choose to channel the highest vibrations for the highest good of all. I am it. Peace. So basically—

But before you go forward though, I want— unless you're— there's something on the tail end of that, but some people, because I get the question, don't even understand what affirmations are because they don't never have quieted themselves enough. So first explain what an affirmation is.

Okay, so an affirmation is a positive statement. It's positive, meaning it's life-affirming, it lifts your vibration, it makes you feel good when you say it. You say it in the present tense, not like, "One day I will be happy." One day I will make tons of money. One day it will all be easy. So, and it's some, you want to use an I statement, and I am statements are very, very powerful. So if we combine breathing exercises with hand mudras and positive statements, it can shift your whole vibration.

Okay, awesome. Yeah.

Awesome.

So that's what she read is one of those affirmations that you could use. So when you're driving the car, when you're just like, even when you're involved with others, yet you're feeling yourself go off, you can kind of just quiet yourself and repeat to yourself one of these affirmations.

Yeah. Talking about belly breathing because, you know, most of us were taught, you know, we've got to have this, the tight abs, whatever that is. I wouldn't know. But, you know, anyway, we're taught that they're supposed to be tight. Well, if your abs actually are tight, again, you're not breathing properly. So how do you learn belly breathing? So a couple of simple ways, and especially this, these are good instructional ways if you do have high blood pressure or if you have a lot of stress in your life. So a couple of ways to learn belly breathing. First way is you can lie on your stomach with your head turned to the side. So if you ever— if you know anything about babies, a lot of times when they're trying to calm a baby, they'll lie a baby on the belly with their head turned to the side, and just gravity doing it that way, your belly presses against the floor and you can breathe Breathe into the belly. Another way is, let's say you don't want to lie on your belly, fine. Lie on your back and put a book on your belly. So just a little something, or a pillow.

A little weight.

A little bit of weight so it gives you something to press against. Now again, here's another really big tip. First of all, you have to understand that your acupuncture meridians end or begin in your hands and feet. So when I change my hand positions, okay, I'm doing some mudras right now. When I change my hand positions, I'm literally changing the way the energy flows in my body. Okay, now, so if you realize I'm listening to Katherine and I'm breathing into my upper chest, I'm not using my full lung capacity. I know I'm stressed, so You can follow along with me. If you bring your thumb and your first two fingers together like this, that will drop your breath all the way down into your ribs. But when you bring your thumb and the first two fingers together like this, that will help you breathe into the belly. Really? Yes, just doing those things. Just doing those things.

Light little adjustments.

Yeah. So, you know, I don't know about you, but, you know, the other thing that we women try to do at least is multitask, and of course there's a lot of discussion about whether multitasking is efficient, but let's say you're driving, let's say you're driving in Atlanta traffic, God forbid, and you realize this is stressful. Okay, well maybe you can't shut your eyes and go into meditation, but you can use some mudras. Okay, so here I'm going to teach you some simple mudras for right now. So this one is called Mushti Mudra, and it's really good for releasing pent-up emotions. So what you do is you take your hands, and I'm going to bring my thumb between my middle finger and my ring finger, okay? And then I'm going to wrap the other fingers on top of it like that. So my thumb is between my middle finger and my ring finger, and then I rest my hands Mushthi Mudra is really good for releasing pent-up emotions. So I don't know about you, you all, but I'm human. I get mad, I get sad, and I feel anxious, right? You know, and 100 other so-called emotions, you know, because this is just part of the human experience, right? I just had a well-known company work on my house and they destroyed a whole bunch of things and it was very stressful.

Very bad.

It was a little tough.

You were mudring all over the place.

I was mudring all over the place. Okay, so my point is that there's life and life isn't always easy.

Right.

So if you hold the mushri mudra and do your breathing, it's going to help you start releasing some of those emotions. Okay, now let's say— I love what Bernadette Boas was talking about, giving advice for job interviews. And let's face it, it takes a lot of guts to go out there and tell somebody why they need to hire you and why you're the best. And yep, I want to just take a deep breath. Yes, so there's a mudra called Makula Mudra, and this is for new beginnings, because if you're starting a new job, it's like you're wanting to, you know, create something new and fresh. Nice. Okay, now one of my— I'm going to show you some.

You're always resting them on your—

yeah, you just want to be relaxed. Right, right.

Now let me ask another question though, because we talked about driving.

Yes.

One hand or two hand? Are they—

great question. I'm real practical, and again, I don't want any of you to have a wreck.

No, no, no.

That would really be stressful. So just do what you can do.

Right, okay.

And what you'll find is, again, going back to the mudra that drops your breath into your belly, okay, is even if you can just do one hand, you know, one hand is better than no hand.

Right, correct.

And if you're, again, if you're combining the breathing exercises with the mudras, with the positive affirmations, then again, you're literally shifting your energy.

Yes.

So I'll tell a personal story. So as I mentioned, I'm human. I go through stress too.

I thought you were a robot.

Oh, no. And anyway, what was interesting was when I was working on my book, I finished the rough draft on it in March, and then my accountant made a serious throughs and mistakes with—

ouch!

And anyway, it was this— we just went through this period and it was actually really stressful. It wasn't any fun. And it was one of these things where I have an accountant and a bookkeeper in me, and as you can imagine, accounting is not my strength. And, you know, I remember meeting with my accountant and saying to her, I'm actually not that stupid, and You know, so we were all like, who made these mistakes? Well, it was my CPA, but anyway, proving once again that we're all human no matter how smart we are. But it took us a while to sort of figure it out, but what was interesting was I was editing my book and every time I read my book I felt better. I was like, okay, so I would sit there and I would hold my mudras and I would feel better. Okay, so another great mudra is peace, so is for peace. So what you do is you interlace all your fingers together like this, and then you bring your middle finger up, okay, just like that. And you know, those of us who grew up in the '60s, you know, we're used to the peace symbol, right? Well, this is actually the mudra for peace.

Oh, nice.

And you know, again, I've taught yoga for 24 years, years, yoga is very popular in this country, and a lot of people know triangle and down dog and child's pose and stuff like that, but we don't know our mudras.

I've never heard of it. That's why I mispronounced it.

Yeah, so we don't know our mudras. Okay, and this one, okay, so that one's for mudras. Now I want to teach you the one, Kubera mudra, which is a mudra for abundance. Okay. And what you're gonna do is you're gonna fold your little finger and your ring finger into the palm of your hand and bring your pointer finger and your middle fingers together with your thumb. So on both hands, you're gonna fold your little finger and your ring finger down and then bring your thumb together with your first two fingers. And this is a mudra for abundance.

Oh, here we go, people.

So here's some good affirmations for abundance from my book, The Little Book of Breadwork. God is my supply and my support. The world I experience is the result of the picture within my mind. I now see the divine abundance that is my birthright. I participate in the abundance of the beauty and wonder of the universe. I participate in plenty. I express the true nature of abundance. I channel the frequency of abundance. I have completed the cycle of contracting and now expand my capacity to give and receive. I let go and allow God to provide for me. I feel truly grateful and express my gratitude in ever-expanding ways. I allow my Divine Spirit to to lead me to wonderful opportunities now. I plan for success. I appreciate all my life's blessings and give thanks for all I receive. Now I'm going to shut up for a moment because I could go on.

Well, yes, she could. But I do have a question in regards to that.

Yes.

Is that what you consider one affirmation that somebody would say, or are they picking one of those that makes them feel good at that moment in time? And using that short sentence?

Oh, that's a great question. So technically, an affirmation is just one statement, and sometimes we really connect with one statement, right? Right.

I, I, yes, right? Yeah.

Like when I do healing work, I'll— there's a statement that I say all the time, which is, you know, I, I, um, I channel the love of the light within. I'm a clear and perfect channel, you Love and light are my guides. So I purposely wrote a series of affirmations, and again, you can just see how holding the mudra and repeating the affirmations, it just literally shifts your whole mindset.

It really does. It really does.

So again, being compassionate as women, we really can't totally shut our brains down. It's hard.

Good, at least I know now that I'm normal.

Yeah, we are normal. I mean, I've had so many yoga students over the years, they come to me and they wait to the end of class and they wait till there's no one else around and they'll say, "I'm thinking," like they're the only ones.

Right, right, right, right.

And it's like, it's okay, right? You're normal. So you just realize that you've got to give your brain, your mind something to do, and by giving your signs mind something positive to do, you shift out of that negative mindset.

Absolutely. Now I'm going to ask, because I mentioned we're not taking a commercial break, although I am going to grab my iced tea in just a second. She's doing all the talking and yet I'm thirsty. What do you think about that? But I do have a question because obviously, ladies, and I know we have men that listen to us, but when we put our heads down on the pillow, talk about, you know, not being able to quiet our minds. These, wouldn't you agree, would be great even to do when you're lying in bed?

Absolutely.

You know, so you don't have to be standing, sitting, you can be lying like she talked about with the car. And we often talk about here on Shit in the Bitch Radio about my routine about first thing in the morning before I jump out of bed, I sit still. I do other things now, but I sit still and assess myself from head to toe and back down to see, okay, how am I emotionally, how am I mentally, physically, spiritually, and if there's anything off, then what I would do, I would add to my prayers and my affirmations that I do, I would add some of this, especially the breathing work. That's phenomenal.

Yeah, well, Bernadette, you may not realize it, but you were actually doing a very yogic thing because what you were doing is you were actually— when you wake up in the morning and you check in, how do I do physically? Physically, energetically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually. You're reading your 5 bodies. Right. And when I do a medical intuitive reading, that's exactly what I do. I read not just your physical body, it's like, okay, what's going on? All right, okay, you got a virus, your bones are out, whatever. Okay, then your energy body, your chakras, your breath, your emotional body. What's the emotion?

Right. Right? Right.

And again, shifting out of these negative emotions is huge. What's going on with your mind? What are your thoughts? What are your beliefs?

Right.

And you know, in yoga we say your mind's like a herd of wild horses. I don't know about your mind.

Elephants are in here.

I don't know about your mind, my mind. So again, it's like you've got to direct them.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, and then what's going on on the soul level? Right, right, right. But the way I actually use this is I'm like you. I wake up in the morning, the first thing I do before I even open my eyes is I start praying. You know, I mean, I can't even tell you how many prayers I say.

Yes.

It's like countless. And then I start doing my breathing exercises, and then I start again using affirmations. Because when you consciously begin your day at as high vibration as you can, You literally set the tone for the entire day.

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And you have an opportunity to influence that to be whatever you want it to be.

Yes. And so if I tune in, I mean, like I said, I'm like everybody else. And I remember there was one day earlier this year, I mentioned what my accounting was— accountant was making mistakes. And my wine cellar flooded. I pumped out my wine cellar for 9.5 hours, and then my accountant took $2,000 out of my QuickBooks. And I'm like, ugh, talk about not breathing, right?

Really?

Yeah. But then I was like, okay, you're writing this book, sit there, read your book, practice what you preach. Yes. And yes, so I also talk about how to use book, because in the book I teach you a little 8-minute routine called the 8 Minutes to Inner Peace.

Awesome.

And this is the breathwork routine that I taught to the gentleman with high blood pressure whose kidneys were failing. And it's basically 8 little breathing exercises, again, that you can do anytime, anywhere. They're going to shift your whole vibration.

Okay.

And by the way, I also need to say that, you you know, as you learn this, you're going to be a beginner. It's okay to be a beginner, and when you're a beginner, you may suck and it may be difficult. It's okay. So just realize, just by trying to do the breathing exercises, you're going to be shifting your vibration, right? And again, if you've gone for years of high blood pressure, more than likely you haven't been exhaling properly for years. So, you know, again, it's okay. Just do what you can do. So anyway, you can do the 8 Minutes to Inner Peace, and then sometimes there's particular little mudras that you may really connect to.

Right. Yes.

Right? Mm-hmm. And there's some little affirmations that you really, really connect to, and so here's another one that I'm going to teach you, and it's one for enlightenment. So maybe you're a listener and you're like, I'm perfect. I have no accounting problems.

This is too woo-woo for me.

Yeah, my wine cellar isn't leaking. I'm good. Okay, so here's one for enlightenment. You interlace your fingers and then you bring your pointer fingers together like that, and that is for enlightenment. That's really what— what is enlightenment? It's literally about lifting your vibration as high as you can get it, right?

Isn't this what they use in, you yoga that you bring over your head.

Yeah, that's one of the things that we'll do. And so again, you have to realize that when you take the time to do breathing exercises and prayer and really set your intention to be in as positive frame of mind as you can, it's good for you.

Absolutely.

But you're also affecting literally everybody around you.

However you put yourself out in the world is how the world The world is going to feel it, see it, experience it, and respond to it.

Right.

Yes. So why not?

Yeah. So for example, one of my clients made a really wise comment because I've been encouraging her to get back to dating. And she said, "Katherine, I'm not in the right vibration right now." Ah. You know, and she's gone through a lot of stress. She's working on it. She's doing a good job, but again, whatever you vibrate at is what you attract. You know, so you want to get the great job, you want to make the most money, you want to get the best guy, you want to feel good, you want to have wonderful friends like Bernadette Boas. Well, you want to lift your vibration, and then you're going to attract the best in life. So here are some affirmations: I raise my vibration now for the highest good of all. I allow the highest and best vibrations to flow through me and to me. I yield to divine wisdom. I now release the grip of my ego and allow my soul to guide the way. My ego steps aside to make way for the divine wisdom of my soul. I show up and get my ego out of the way.

Oh, that's even better one.

I allow my will with divine Divine will. I allow God to work through me in mysterious ways. I'm a clear and perfect channel for divine love and light. I welcome divine light and shine forth for the highest good of all. So again, you can see just by listening, it's shifting your whole mindset and the way that you feel, right? So you're calming yourself, you're, you're making your— you're opening yourself up to I am possible. Yeah, you know, to all the possibilities.

Okay, so wow, wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. I'm glad we're doing this in my studio, and she actually lives— we talked about this before— she lives right down the street from me, so it's a beautiful, beautiful thing. But I'll have tons of questions for her personally after this program, and if you do too, again, reach out to her. And what would you want the best direct line to for them to reach out to you?

So you can visit my website, KatherineKeurigan.com. While you're there, definitely sign up for my newsletter so you can learn even more about how to heal yourself naturally. I also run the Natural Healing Show on UK Health Radio. I've interviewed Bernadette Boas, all kinds of cool people who are experts on natural healing from all over the world.

Right. And, um, you talked about the fact that, yes, this is a handbook and What I love about Catherine and her books is they're always— they're not just books for reading. They're books for applying. They're books for doing. They're books for actually making an impact from page 1 on what you're doing and who you are at this very moment in time. And again, like she said, it'll take time. You don't shift. You don't turn on or turn off, you know, on a dime. It takes time, so just be patient with it. But that's what I love about it, is that they are handbooks. But beyond this, and she mentioned an ebook, but beyond this, what are other ways that people can work with you so they don't think it's just in person? And yet I live in Australia, or I live in New York.

So I work with people all over the world by phone, Skype, and Zoom video conference. So I worked this afternoon with somebody in California, so, you know, people from literally all over the world. And again, if you email me, Catherine@CatherineKirker.com, I'm happy to set up an appointment with you.

And then just mention Shedding the Bench. Just say, oh my gosh, you did such a fabulous job on Shedding the Bench Radio. And of course, we are, as a reminder, we are going to post this video of our lovely faces It'll go up on YouTube and Facebook and Twitter and everywhere else as well, so you can take in the conversation physically— visually, visually— as much as you can download it, Apple Podcasts, blogtalkradio.com, or sheddingthebitch.com, and take us with you wherever you go and listen to us anytime. Repeat this, especially as you walked through already, and we're not done yet. I'm just kind of giving you a recap, but she's walked through many, many tips and pieces of advice and processes, so to speak, already. So there's things that you can immediately start working on. And I would advocate actually the video because as you can't hear this or see this while you're listening to us, but I was doing the same mudras. Did I get it right?

Yeah, you did.

Yay! As she was walking through. Them herself, and therefore you can see how they're supposed to be done. And hopefully our hands were raised up high enough. If not, that's okay, you have the little handbook, and there's photographs, and there's photographs. And what's lovely too, because you'll see this if you do check out the video, I always make this comment and I always embarrass her, but you can't help but smile when you see her because she's just very calming and She always has a big smile on her face. So I noticed that throughout the book there's a photo of her introducing chapters, and of course I can't find one when I want one, and it's lovely. Of course I can't find it when I want it. It's there somewhere.

Yeah, so I basically picked the 16 mudras that I use most often and recommend most often that are really going to help, again, shift you out of a negative state.

Yep.

Okay, and shift you into— yeah, that's Anjali mudra.

So, you know, we've all done Anjali mudra, even if you didn't know that you were doing it. That's what you were doing.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, awesome. All right, if you hand me my iced tea, I'm gonna ask you a quick question. We're very fluid here in Shading the Bits Radio. We're not gonna have time to go through them. But I would love to understand kind of a summary of the 10 element principles, the 10 principles of enlightenment.

All right, so I don't make a mistake because, um, now again, we might not have time to go through all of them.

The book, amazon.com, The Little Book of Breathwork, right?

So in my book, I talk about how in order to do anything better, you have to think differently. So let's say you're going out for a job interview, right? Well, as they say, if you do what you've always done, you're going to get the same results.

It's called insanity.

It's insanity. And so I talk about how you need to think differently in order to breathe differently. All right, so the first principle is inhale, but even when you're inhaling, it's like you think about what am I inhaling? Peace, love, prosperity, kindness, goodness.

I don't even think what I'm inhaling, so that's just a revelation in itself.

Yeah, because the truth is there is no vacuum in the universe, right? It's all here, right? It's all one energy. It's all good. So I'm breathing in new possibilities, new clients, new money, new friends, right? Okay, the second principle is exhale, and when you think about exhaling, what are you letting go of? It's literally a letting go. Stress, tension, anger, anxiety, mistakes, accounting mistakes, bloody basement.

You're not letting that go.

Exactly, right.

She's just using it as an example. As an example.

Okay, the third principle is inhale. The third thing you do is breathing in a circle. Now, what's really interesting is if you learn to breathe in a circle, you can make yourself happy like that. Okay?

Okay.

So what do I mean by breathing in a circle? If you pay attention, there's a— you inhale and there's a pause, and then you exhale and a pause. So simply by focusing and bringing your mindfulness to your breath, when you bring an equal length to your inhale and exhale, so you're literally breathing in a circle, 4 counts in, 4 counts out, and you, you, when you do that, you're balancing the 2 sides of the nervous system, sympathetic and parasympathetic, and you move your whole mind, body, spirit into a happy state. So it's a really, again, you know, maybe you're not anxious, maybe you're not depressed, maybe you're wine cellar didn't flood. Maybe you just want to feel happier. So by breathing in a circle, you, you can do that. You can shift in that.

Okay, wait, I have a very quick story. Right before vacation, the reason why I went to the hospital— my doctor's, not really the hospital— was I was out without air conditioning in here for like 3 weeks due to— that's a long story— and money lost. And it's a very, it's a relatively small space. And it was like 90+ degrees in Atlanta. So obviously, and then traveling out in the heat and whatnot, so obviously it was severely— the anxiety plus the heat, and I could just feel my, my whole body was just hot for those 3 weeks. And I thought I was drinking enough and whatnot, but I also— a friend, so a friend of mine, I go to pickleball and and I'm like sweating profusely. And she had, you know, come and kind of pulled me aside and she's just like, "Are you alright?" I'm like, "Yeah, I'm just overheated from—" She's like, "Well, you're also not breathing." Now I hadn't been told that since swimming, since I was a kid. So I'm like, "What do you mean I'm not breathing?" She goes, "You just seem to be like breathing in and then just holding it until you then stop and then you breathe. And so you could go without breathing." And I'm just like, Maybe that's why I'm sweating up a storm. So it was very interesting, you know, that all this is coming in at this time because it was very evident as the impact of not breathing properly. In and out. Yeah.

Okay. No, yeah, because if you look at the EKG of someone with high blood pressure, they inhale and it goes up, and then you're like And? And there's no exhale. It's very interesting, and you can see it. And again, if you're listening, another good tip: the Institute of HeartMath makes a little device that you can attach to your phone. And so again, if you've got high blood pressure, if you've got anxiety or insomnia, you can use that, and it's a feedback device, and you can breathe along to that.

Is it a physical thing that attaches to your phone, or it's an app that you load onto your phone? It's an app.

Oh, okay. And then it comes with a little device that you attach to your ear.

Oh, and that's just tracking your EKG, obviously.

Yeah, and then attach to here. Oh, I love that. So, you know, this is all, this is all tools.

Right. Right? Absolutely. Yeah. All right. We're gonna, we're gonna post that as one of the many tips that we're gonna share following this program. But Institute of HeartMath. Right. Because I put MAP. Yeah. So HeartMath.

It's about $150, something like that.

Well worth it if it keeps you healthy.

Yeah. If the free stuff in my book doesn't, you know, though you can download the audiobook for like less than $5.

I know, but you want the handbook. You want anything that you can use to kind of literally see and all that kind of good stuff.

Yeah. So get all of it. And use, using the mudras because you may find a mudra in here it just changes your life. Right, right. You know? Right.

Yep, absolutely. Was there a couple more? We have a couple of minutes. Yeah. That you would want to mention in regards to the principles?

I know. Yeah, I think that— here's another big one. So a lot of times when you really are going through a hard time in your life, like your wine cellar's flooded and your accountant's, you know, got your swimming pool— Blowing up. And you're just like, how much money do I have? And, you know, will there ever be an end to the floods in my basement? So one of the things I talk about is containing your experience. Okay. So what do I mean by that? So a lot of us turn to drugs, alcohol, food, overworking, overexercising, like 100, you know, shopping, you know, all kinds of addictions, right? Yes, we do. And Whatever your addiction is, whether it's legal or illegal, whether you're taking legal drugs or illegal drugs, my observation is that it's all about avoiding your experience. It's like, this is painful, it's difficult, it's worrying when you don't really— you know, is my wine cellar going to stop flooding? You know, how much money do I have? It's all worrying. So when you contain your experience, what I mean by that is you set aside time, whether it's 30 seconds or 3 minutes or 30 minutes, where you give yourself permission to feel how you really feel.

Break down, scream, yell. Yes. You cry.

Throw things. Exactly, you get mad, whatever, and then you shift your vibration, right? It's like, I'm going to get up, take my dog for a walk, you know, go work out, go play pickleball. So by setting aside a little ritual time, whether it's first thing in the morning, before you go to bed, where you literally breathe through what's really going on underneath, you develop— when you contain the experience, you expand your ability to handle life, because life isn't always easy.

No, it is not, right? Yep.

And sometimes you really are having a panic attack. I've had panic attacks. It's no fun. But when you realize that you are strong enough to breathe through whatever God has given you, then you feel stronger about yourself. Yeah, it's like, I can, I can do this. Okay, I am woman, I'm brilliant, I'm strong, I can do this. I'm going to breathe through it, and then when I breathe through it using my affirmations and my mudras, then you— it shifts your whole view of yourself. Absolutely. It's like, absolutely, I'm a rock star. I can do this. She is like, you're a rock star, you can do this. Yeah. So you contain your experience, and again, whether you can only handle feeling the anger or anxiety for like 3 minutes or 30 seconds and then shift out of it, it's like, you know, maybe I don't need all these drugs. Right. Yeah.

Give it a shot. Right. I mean, I am really going to, and I'm committing it right here. I'm committing that I'm going to give this work and then go back. I do have some tests tomorrow. We'll talk about it after we're done. Yeah. But, and then I'm going to see, you know, in 3 months when I have to go back for my follow-up in 3 months. Kind of where everything is at. Yeah. And I— so this is coming at a perfect, perfect time. Yeah. So I'm so thrilled you're here.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. Thank you for being here.

Okay, so I need to make sure you remind you of every— remind everybody. All right, The Little Book of Breathwork, you can find it on Amazon. And then check out her other books as well. Go under her author page and you'll find Katherine Carrigan. Just Google her and you'll find her Twitter page or Facebook page. It was at Catherine, CatherineCarrigan.com, to reach out to her directly if you want any immediate support or you want to work with her, you know, short-term, long-term, whatever the case might be. Doesn't matter where you live, as she mentioned. She does Skype and Zoom and all those other things, and she has clients from around the world. All right, I am so glad to have had you to have this conversation. I mean, you're gonna impact many millions of lives. So we'll be sure to get this out there and share it. And of course, Deborah of Parker House Virtual Services, she's out there listening to the program and tweeting and Facebooking as well. So we'll make sure you all have all the information. And then I'll look forward— I'm back— and I look forward to having you right back here next Tuesday at noon Eastern time for another episode of Shedding the Bitch Radio. Thanks, everybody.

And just remember, you're strong enough to breathe through whatever happens to you.

Ah, love it, love it, love it, love it. Thank you.