being yoga

jaycee thanks for coming down to meet withme. how would you define mindfulness? starting with mindfulness can be just as simpleas just watching yourself breathe. noticing your breath. am i breathing? where am i breathing?is it a shallow breath? is it a deep breath? and just watch your reactions, watch yourthoughts, watch your emotions. and as they come up, just observe it. every day can bean opportunity for you to develop mindfulness.

being yoga, so how would you say that helps with mentalhealth? mental health, that imbalance in the mind,we all have imbalances in the mind. so bringing breath in through meditation, yoga and danceis a very powerful way to begin to identify "where are these thoughts coming from?" "howcan i slow my brain down?" "how can i take

a pause?" and then take the next step of actionfrom the place that serves me the best. can you speak to the science behind what'sactually happening when you’re breathing properly?when you are breathing at a capacity that our lungs have been designed for, your nervoussystem calms down. your general function of the body increases.and so you mentioned meditation. can you tell us a little bit more about how that works?meditation, to me, it's like do whatever feels comfortable for you. you can lie down andmeditate. you can sit in a chair and meditate. but it's a chance for you to pause what you’redoing, drop into your breath and just focus on the breath going in and out. the breathgives you a still point to manage the thoughts

around. so as thoughts start to come up, youcan reach a place where your thoughts are just passing clouds.and then you mentioned yoga. yeah.can you talk a little bit more about the combination of movement and breath?for a lot of people, yoga can be very intimidating because they think that to do yoga, you haveto be very flexible, you have to master all these poses. the entryway for all these things,especially yoga, is the breath. if you can connect your breath to your body, you cantake that practice out into your daily life and really be a living yoga.so for you personally, i know dance is very important. how does that serve your overallstate?

dance was my entryway into awareness, mindfulness,being conscious. just put the body in motion, and the mind will heal itself. just startmoving your body, and when you move your body, you will pull yourself out of your head intothe body, right? it's moving the body in a very organic way of what feels good to you.there are all of these studies showing now that dance is a very creative, fun way to,again, focus energy. do you have any tips for someone who, say,suffers from intrusive thoughts? and as they start to try to observe their mind, and they'restarting to come to face with their biggest fears, how they can really stay focused.so the mantra of, you know, i am not my thoughts. and what comes up to you is what you are releasing.the more those thoughts get really loud and

intense, that’s when the breath needs togo deeper. and staying removed from them and just keep watching them even as their intensityincreases. and let the breath be the thing that moves the thought out. and then let thethought either pass you by, not get attached to it or create a new thought for yourself.the general thing is an overall feeling of happiness and higher quality of life. andthat's what we all want, right? we just want to be happy and feel like we have meaningin our life.