MVP 11 | Healing

Through the transformative power of healing practices, we can break free from the pressures of our past and find a path of self-discovery, inner peace, and a powerful connection with ourselves and others. Join us as Deborah Charnes, a former high-pressure PR professional, shares her journey of finding the path to healing and inner peace. From the fast-paced world of public relations, Deborah shares how her life took an unexpected turn that led her to embrace the profound healing power of yoga, mindfulness, and meditation. She explains how her experiences led her to understand that anxiety and perfectionism are actually symptoms of a prolonged fight-or-flight state. Deborah then discusses rewiring the brain and how it can create a ripple effect across future generations. She cites scientific evidence that highlights the positive impact of meditation on our brains and bodies, and its potential to rewire our genes for the better. With her book, “From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram: Wisdom for the Mind, Body, and Spirit,” as a guide, Deborah reveals a plethora of accessible tools and practices that can be tailored to individual needs and preferences. Whether it’s through meditation or active mindfulness activities, she emphasizes the importance of finding what resonates with you personally and allowing it to flourish in your life. Tune in now and discover the best healing practices for you!

—

Listen to the podcast here

 

From High-Pressure PR To Powerful Self-Transformation: The Healing Power Of Mindfulness And Meditation With Deborah Charnes

Our guest is Deborah Charnes. For decades, Deborah managed hundreds of news conferences, editorial board meetings, press briefings, and interviews. She worked with security, communications, and advanced teams for John McCain, Hillary Clinton, President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, President Joe Biden, Dr. Jill Biden, Bernie Sanders, megastar Jennifer Lopez, and Vice President of El Salvador.

If that is not enough, there was a lot more going on in her life. For her to balance the chaotic scales directing major league campaigns, it was essential for her to learn the practices and modalities to soothe her stress on the 24/7 schedule with mind, body, and soul lifesavers. Being a lifelong learner, she is now dedicated to being a yoga therapist, helping others find balance and meaning in their mind, body, and soul. I cannot wait to dig into this conversation because there is such a dichotomy of roles there. Thank you so much for joining us, Deborah. This is amazing.

Thank you so much. It is an honor to be here with you.

It is an honor to be with you. Thank you for sharing your time. That is quite a story and a succinct introduction to all the things you have experienced in life so far. If you could expand on that and tell us a little bit about that journey, starting with how in the world you got to have such a prestigious position in the White House.

I wasn’t in the White House, but I did things with big heavy hitters. I like to tell people that, in reality, it might not necessarily seem all that prestigious when you are doing all the work. Especially, I worked a lot with security teams. We would coordinate to do the walkthroughs and the security sweeps and make sure that everything was safe for our VIPs.

 

MVP 11 | Healing

 

I also did work with one of the major airlines in South America, and I traveled several times to South America for this client. I traveled on one occasion with the head of security for the entire airline because we were bringing the CEO and his wife to this country. We were doing a lot of different public relations activities. A lot of people sometimes think, “Public relations is all the glamor.” There are a lot of unglamorous things that we have to do.

I enjoy working with security because I want to feel comfortable with everything I’m doing and be sure there are no glitches. I welcome working with security. I also work with communications teams and teams. In the case of JLo, I worked with her sister, who is a television personality. Her sister was the one-on-one contact we were working with.

How did you come to have that level of clientele?

First of all, I have worked for a long time in the industry. I started doing low-level things. When I was in high school, I worked for the newspaper. When I was in college, I worked for a radio station. I was also a freelance journalist when I was in college, living in Mexico. I have always been involved in the news media and the communications field.

My area of expertise was US, Hispanic, and Latin American marketing because I’m bilingual and I lived in Latin America. It was natural for me to go that route. Some of the other names we didn’t mention are there was also a big laundry list of Latin recording artists I also worked with. I would go on the road with them. I’m not talking about going on the road for concerts, but I was going on the road with them to promote whatever we were promoting. They were my spokespeople. I would do the media training for them in both English and Spanish or one or the other. I would book all of their news media interviews and take them on the road.

Speaking of the unglamorous because this is a funny anecdote. One time on the road, this was not me, but it was one of my employees. She told me that around midnight she had to do a last-minute run to a place like a 24-hour Walmart. She had to go and buy underwear for one of the female celebrities because she forgot to bring them with her. That is an example of how sometimes it is not always glamorous.

You never know when you are in those types of situations what you are going to end up having to do or go find to help your clients.

I began the US Hispanic marketing field a long time ago when the marketing field for US Hispanic market was starting to grow. My first client was a major multinational, and I was responsible for so much. I even wrote a speech for the CEO of this major multinational. I met with him directly to go over the speech. Later in my career, I met with and worked directly with the CEO of another multinational.

It was because of my niche that I was exposed to more things. I loved what I was doing. I never stopped. I worked hard, and as a result, I worked seven days a week, 80 hours a week, and it was constant, nonstop, and constant pressure. As an example, with one of the events where you mentioned the laundry list of the politicians and the big names, there was one time when the security staff came to us and said they had inside information that there was going to be a disturbance. That is not uncommon.

Another time I worked for a Spanish language broadcaster who was well-known throughout the Spanish-speaking world. I was traveling with her. She was a delight to travel with. She was wonderful, but she also had a stalker. We had to have a security team at every place that we went to be sure that that stalker was not there. A lot of times, people don’t see what goes on behind the scenes.

My little bitty experience with that was I worked at Shoreline Grill in Austin, Texas. Austin is the capital of Texas. That Shoreline Grill at the time was one of few high-end restaurants, and we had a private room that was underneath the restaurant and looked out at the time, Town Lake, which is now Lady Bird Lake. President George Bush, a lot of other politicians, and well-known folks would have events there. It seemed cool, but we had to shut down the entire restaurant.

Every single person that worked for the restaurant had to get background checks. If you were a person that worked an event before, you would get called back even if you hadn’t worked at the restaurant for a few years because you had already passed the security detail. It was interesting to have that go through that process as a server at a restaurant. It was a week-long ordeal to have dinner. That is for the people working it. It is not for the people who were organizing it. They had been working on it for months or maybe even a year.

One of the politicians not on the list I mentioned was Ronald Reagan when he was president. When I was fairly new in my career, I was responsible. I don’t know how, but I got this done. I got an entree to an event, a Rose Garden reception with President Reagan. I brought two little children. They were winners of an art contest. One of them was from Corpus Christi, and the boy was from Phoenix. We were able to donate to President Reagan, the children’s art, and the children themselves.

It was a beautiful event. However, something happened. We had to submit all of our security clearance way in advance. When we got there, mine had expired three minutes before. They had to put everything through the system. I was not allowed into the Rose Garden reception until the tail end. I never saw what took place, even though I was responsible for it. I didn’t get in.

How frustrated were you? Were you happy that at least the kids and the primary goal of the dinner still were accomplished?

I could see it in the newspapers and on TV. That was what mattered.

Deborah, going through all of this can be quite stressful. Some things don’t quite work out. There is extra security information, ex-boyfriend stalkers, and all things that are out of your control. You try to organize and control as much as possible. Stay ahead of as many things as possible. You are juggling. I wasn’t in PR, but I have been in marketing forever. I know the juggling act of multiple clients, projects, trips, and campaigns. Have you always been into the balance of life and yoga? Is that something 9you had to find because of your stress and career?

I was introduced to yoga, meditation, mindfulness, and breathwork when I was young because of physical issues. I had chronic back pain. I also had digestive disorders. I went to specialists. I got my diagnoses for each one. I found that the best solution to my back pain was to remodel my spine and rework my muscles to support my spine. I must have been twelve years old. To this day, I still have to always strengthen my core to protect my back. I don’t have any back pain, but I will always have the physical structure that causes pain. I need to rework everything to prevent it. That is one reason also why I became a yoga therapist.

I came to that early into that recognition that simple things we do, pastoral habits, can affect our comfort. As far as digestive disorders, I also learned early in life. I must have been about 12 or 13 years old. My diagnosis was my problems. I will have them for life. It is stress-induced. It is a physical issue, but the stress aggravates it. That is the truth about almost all illnesses. Stress aggravates everything. That is why I, early on in life, found breath work, in particular meditation, was the only solution to my digestive disorders.

The simple things we do and the pastoral habits we have can affect our comfort. Click To Tweet

The diagnosis will never go away. I will have it for life. I was diagnosed when I was an adolescent. The last time I had an issue was several years ago, but it was the day of my father’s funeral. I know how to manage my stress, but some things are harder to relieve. I posted an article on my website. I have a blog at TheNamasteCounsel.com.

On my blog spot, I posted about someone who has a fascinating story. I met this person when he was representing John McCain. I met him at one of the events that I was doing. He was with the advanced team, and now he is a major yogi. He looks different. He is doing a workshop that I will be attending. It is about teaching ourselves or allowing ourselves to grieve.

That is a perfect example of what yoga is that most people don’t recognize. My book, From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram, recounts life lessons from twelve different masters or gurus who I have found in my life. Each of those lessons is something I have incorporated with my clients from a yoga therapy perspective. They are things that most people don’t realize, “That is not yoga.” In the West, in particular, we think of yoga as a physical practice, and it is so much more

MVP 11 | Healing

From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram: Wisdom for Mind, Body and Spirit

It is a way of living a whole lifestyle and many different things. I would like to go deeper and further into the yoga lifestyle, some of the practices you recommend, and what mindfulness is to you. One of the things that popped up for me was, several years ago, my husband at the time and I were both in our heads. We were stressed out, even when we weren’t necessarily in stressful jobs. We both worked our way up. I put myself through college. We are high achievers and high-stress people.

He had the book by Dale Carnegie, How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. In the book, there are many stories about people who are on the verge of death. It was when they gave up on life and said, “I will let go.” They started to become healthy again. It was the stress, the worry, the commitment, and the connection to what we think of in this modern world that was causing their disease or amplifying the inflammation in their disease rather than something truly real and external. It was all internal. As soon as they let go, they started to heal.

MVP 11 | Healing

How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

I also have always felt I am too much in my head as a yoga teacher, and as a yoga therapist, I look at every single person differently. I assess everyone in large part from an Ayurvedic perspective, but also postural, musculoskeletal, medical history, emotional history, and traumas. I find many of us are taught in our society to use our brains more than anything else. There are several chapters in my book refer to going back to childlike play and embracing your inner child because children enjoy things. They want to have fun. They sing, dance, jump around, and laugh.

I have been working since I was sixteen. I’m always like, “I need the paycheck. I have to be perfect with everything I do.” It is so much the mind that tells us what we need to do, but we don’t sit back and enjoy. One of the beauties of the book, and I tried this to do this on purpose, are those life lessons from my dozen gurus are all accessible, free, enjoyable, and proven tactics to ease both physical, emotional, and spiritual pain.

One of the chapters I want to mention because many of us are, especially at a certain age, juggling work and life. We have so much on our shoulders. If you know anything about Louise Hay and what she says about shoulders, I went through a period in my life when I had a burden on my shoulders. I ended up with what is called in the medical industry a frozen shoulder. There is a Latin name that is the official name. I could not even use my mouse pad with my right hand. I truly do believe what Louise Hay says, “Emotional causes these physical issues.” It is important that people take a step back.

One of the chapters in my book is about a digital disconnect. The chapter title is Shabbat is Your Reboot in the Digital Age. The concept of this is, for people of any religion, you need to turn things off and let go the only way you can recharge yourself is by unplugging. There is an author who I love who is based out of Northern California, Anne Lamott. I quote her in the book. Anne says something about everything that needs to be rebooted. If it doesn’t work, you need to reboot, including ourselves.

That is the concept with this secular Sabbath or digital disconnect. I admit. I’m one of those people. I’m always on my phone. My phone is my everything. It is my camera. It is a phone, although I don’t use it that much as a phone. It is my alarm clock, calendar, music, and reminder. I can ask Siri or Google. It is my set of encyclopedias and the connection or the reliance some of us have on social media which takes over.

That is why I do believe that everyone should take some time out on a regular basis. I recommend once a week with the concept of Shabbat and disconnecting. With all of my chapters, I have my guru. They share their words of wisdom about why the concept works. I give my personal experience or testimonials. I have supporting evidence in terms of clinical studies and research findings. I did a lot of research. I have 150 footnotes. Most of them are the cause of the research I have. I didn’t want to be one of those people that say, “This is good for you.” Prove it. Even though I work in the holistic field, I have always been science-based.

That is one of the beauties I believe about yoga therapy. First of all, most people don’t know what a yoga therapist is. Many yoga therapists are MDs, RNs, LCSWs, and PTs. It is common for a yoga therapist to already be a professional in the healing healthcare field. We still rely on everything from the healthcare world, such as diagnoses, imaging, and lab tests. We provide a different layer to what we recommend.

That layer would be looking at the holistic person. Talk to us more about what that defines, or go further into what yoga therapy looks like for you.

Every yoga therapist is different based on their training. I know one person, and she gave an endorsement for my book. Aside from being a yoga therapist, she is a psychotherapist that works with family and marriage counseling. She may be more driven to do certain areas. A lot of the ones I know are physical therapists. Their form of yoga therapy will be much more similar to physical therapy.

What I do, my training and my passions are more in line with Ayurveda. I studied Ayurveda in India before I studied yoga therapy. One of the reasons why I liked my yoga teacher and said, “I’m going to study yoga therapy with you,” was because of her knowledge and respect for Ayurveda. Ayurveda is a life science from India. I find many parallels between Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine. I have read a lot about traditional Chinese medicine. I am certified in acupressure. I am not a doctor in any sense, but I incorporate a lot of the concepts.

Both Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine have many similarities. They are both on well-being. The focus is to have a sense of balance. When I say balance, there are many different ways that you can have that balance. It is not about work-life balance. It is a different type of balance. It is all about wellness, finding what is best for your individual wellness, and recognizing that what works for me is not what works for you because we are completely different people. What may be good for you may harm me.

I will give you an example. All my life, I have been cold. What I mean by cold is I need to put on a coat. When I was a child, my spot at the dinner table was next to the oven. In the winter, I would sit on top of the radiator because I was always cold. My mother, on the other hand, was always hot. She was always sweating. She would always tell me, “Put a sweater on.” I was always freezing.

From both traditional Chinese medicine and an Ayurvedic standpoint, we recognize that people like me lack the fire element. My mother had too much of the fire element. A simple example of what I would recommend for someone who has too much fire, or in our hot summer Texas days, what I would recommend for many people, regardless of their level of fire, is to drink peppermint tea because peppermint is cooling.

On the other hand, what I do is I always have hot liquids. I have hot liquids twelve months a year. I add a lot of spices, including hot pepper and other spices that are considered heating. Those are some of the things I need to get myself more balanced. One of the chapters in my book is all about the digestive fire, and it is based on my Ayurvedic trainer in India, who is a trainer worldwide. He talks about how the gut affects our entire well-being, including our emotional health. That is what I learned when I was a kid.

We are getting in our Western world to understand that a little bit more. My family didn’t care about healthcare. They went through life and said, “If you are sick, you’re sick. Take Advil.” the American way. I have been slowly teaching myself over time, but both of my children have stomach issues in different ways.

One of the things I found interesting several years ago is for strep throat. My older son never had a sore throat. He had almost a migraine and a stomach ache. I would take him to the doctor and I would give them the symptoms. They would say, “He has some little virus. Take him home.” I said, “No, test him. He has strep throat. He can’t go to school tomorrow. We need to know this. This is how it shows up for him.” They would say, “Okay, Mom wants to test.” They typically know a little bit more sometimes. They watch their children for years.

Every time I had that inclination, it was positive. I read about it at an acupuncture office in one of their magazines. That is how it shows up for some people. I realized that every time my kids had a stomach ache, they would have a headache. They have a tuned-in gut-brain connection. Everybody has it, but it shows up physically quickly for some people. For their emotional health, they have a headache and a stomach ache, and the opposite happens. When they have a headache or a stomach ache, it affects both of them, and they have an emotional reaction.

I found that most people don’t believe me in Wimberly, Texas. That is what is happening in their bodies. That is a virus. I’m like, “There is so much more going on than throwing a pill at it.” I love your suggestion. I am reading your book, but I am a slow reader. I haven’t gotten through it. I’m excited to learn and read all the stories that you have to share.

I love that you shared with us a few tips and tricks or strategies for the hot and cold and the fire inside of you. I’m curious what are some of your suggestions for overcoming that emotional weight that we put on ourselves. I practice physical yoga, breathing, and meditation, but we are soaked fast in our day that we can’t take twenty minutes or an hour to practice. What are some suggestions you have for people who are finding their emotions and stresses are building up in their bodies?

Everybody is different. I believe that stress affects every single person, but it can affect them in different ways. For the concepts in my book, I offer many different solutions, which can be done in as little as ten minutes a day for free. At the end of the book, I have a link where you can download a 40-day tracker that I recommend.

Stress affects every single person, but it can affect them in different ways. Click To Tweet

When I have a yoga therapy client, I do a 90 or 120-minute intake session. That includes checklists that they submit in advance. I spent about another ten days putting together recommended protocols for them. I recommend everything in my book. The benefit of this 40-day tracker is you can try each tactic in my book for 40 days, and you keep track of how it affects you.

As an example, one of them might be singing every day. Who is not going to enjoy that? I personally believe that everyone is going to feel better if they sing every single day. I have another one where it is laugh every single day. I personally believe that everyone will feel better if they laugh every single day. If you take each one of the ideas and concepts, try them for 40 days, and see how you feel before, during, and after, everyone responds differently to different things.

As I mentioned in one of my chapters, when we are talking specifically about yoga, the person is my guru for talking about yoga and the brain, and in particular, yoga for PTSD, stress, anxiety, and depression, when he talks about yoga. He is always referring to 1) Physical. 2) Breathwork. 3) Mindfulness. 4) Relaxation. What he says is, “Yes, if you look at the physical component, it will help. If you do the mindfulness component, it will help. If you do 1, 2, 3, and 4, the benefits are even greater.” The sum is greater than the parts.

One plus one does not equal two. It can equal three. It is the same thing with my book. I believe some people will find some of the elements more comfortable for them to do. They can work it into their day, lifestyle, family, or routine again. It is part of mindfulness to track how you are feeling all the time. I have this 40-day free downloadable tracker because any lifestyle change or habit to break a habit requires 40 days. Once you get to that 40 days, everything should be smooth sailing.

MVP 11 | Healing

Healing: It’s part of mindfulness to track how you are feeling all the time.

 

There are triggers. If you are in your own world and you get this flowing habit, but you visit your family or something that is a big stressing trigger, it might shift you back. It is important to be mindful of what you are getting yourself into before you do. You can try as best as possible to see those stressors coming.

One of the things I was thinking about was when you said you could do all the individual things. One thing overwhelming for people when they think about this holistic lifestyle altogether and healthy seems like there is so much change that needs to happen. I have said this many times on the show. My whole “wellness journey” started with realizing that I was a shallow, short breather.

Before a call, if I picked up the phone, the results of the phone call would go differently. I mostly did that when I knew it was going to be a big call I didn’t want to have. That transitioned into, “This one requires a walk outside before I have the call.” We know when those big things are coming. You know the difference. I realized how much that was changing the outcome of my conversations. I started saying, “I can meditate for five minutes.” It is hard for Americans to sit still for five minutes. I can sit still for five minutes. It expanded beyond that.

I realized how much my world was changing. I started with breathing, meditation, and realizing that I didn’t necessarily have to do a full hour of big physical exercise, but if I did 15 to 20 minutes of yoga, that brought in combining breathwork and mindfulness. I have been carrying around severe back pain since my mother was diagnosed with cancer. She passed away a month after she was diagnosed. I have been holding onto it. That, combined with all my other life stressors, I thought at the time I was in my thirties, and I said, “I cannot live with this or think of the concept of it getting worse for the rest of my life.”

My parents were always of the mindset that you take more drugs to cover it up. I thought, “I can’t do that starting now. I have to figure out a way to get over and past it in a natural and healthy way. Surely my body can do that.” I went on my own path and journey. What I have realized is I was holding on. I was physically tightening my entire body from my jaw down through my hips 24/7. Even during my sleeping time, I was holding my muscles tight all the way from my jaws. I would get things like pain in my head resulting from my jaw tension and pain in my hips resulting from my back tension.

The simple exercise of mindfulness is helping me to move past it. I have done physical therapy, acupuncture and chiropractic, and physical movements of the body. It is retraining my mind to be mindful of my body and let it go. That is the thing healing my body and releasing pain. I mention that because it is important for the readers to realize there is more to what we carry than what we think that outward physical diagnosis you received when you were thirteen.

I could take pain pills for the rest of my life, but how would that affect my work, my relationship with my children, and all of the different things? I want to flow the river, skydive, and do lots of things. I don’t want to slow myself down. I don’t want to put a veil on my emotions. I wanted to mention all of that personal history, like your personal history of why it is important to do, even if it is a little thing that leads into a bigger thing or even if it stays with that breathwork before your call. It can change your life more than you realize.

I’m sorry about your mom, and that was quick and unexpected. I was talking about grieving and how this man I know is leading a workshop to help people grieve. When you get to the end of my book, you will read about my mom. I’m not going to spoil it for you now, but I was like my father in many ways. My father was this big macho man who never showed his feelings. I lead First Love Yourself workshops. I talk about how many times we wear armor around our hearts to protect ourselves and the same thing with a mask over our faces.

I was taught it is positive to be strong and you don’t cry. You can deal with anything, but we are human. We need to let those feelings out. Through the physical components of yoga, you are able to release a lot of the energetic stagnation. One of the concepts in both Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine is to allow the flow of energy to go up and down through the meridians. If there is a blockage anywhere, it affects your overall health.

We are human and we need to let those feelings out. Through the physical components of yoga, you are able to release a lot of the energetic stagnation. Click To Tweet

I wanted to mention as far as the breath work. One of the most important aspects of yoga is the deep breathing. We know, and there is so much research to prove this, that when your exhalation is deep and longer than the inhalation, the parasympathetic system kicks in, and the sympathetic system is your fight, flight or freeze. Almost all of us need to counteract the fight, flight or freeze because even driving in a car activates the sympathetic system. That is why mindfulness, breathwork, and all the different elements of yoga help boost the parasympathetic, also called the relaxation response.

My guru for all of those concepts in my book, From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram, is a neuroscientist affiliated with Harvard Medical School. He has been studying yoga in the brain for many years. It is not about some guy from wherever who says, “It is going to help.” He has spent many years researching this for the finest medical institutions. The whole concept of yoga is the connection of the mind, the body, and the spirit. We also have to connect sometimes our body to nature, the planet or a higher source, whoever we see as a supreme being, and all of those help for our well-being.

Thank you for saying all that. All of these practices we have been talking about, the physical relationship with our own body and the healing power, reminded me that these practices can also help heal relationships because they are healing your relationship with yourself first. One of the things I realized is because of childhood trauma, I was held in that fight, flight or freeze state.

What I thought was standard anxiety, perfectionism, and high achieving was a fight or flight state. I would be in that highly anxious fight or flight place, or I would give up instead of finding that peace and the ability to have a conversation. For people who know me, I’m not a combative person, but because I was always in that fight, flight or freeze place, my closest relationships were difficult to maintain over time. All of the work that you mentioned and the work and the tools in the book are helpful for every age, stage, and ailment or to keep you out of those ailments because it is not a personal piece with yourself. It is also the relationships you have with the world and others.

The other thing is generational trauma. Aside from us picking it up from prior generations, we can pass it on. One of the things I talk about in my book is we have the ability, and most people don’t know this, to rewire our brains. When we rewire our brains, we are also affecting future generations. I can read a short segment, but this is not from my guru. It is in the chapter from my guru, who is a neuroscientist.

I want to read a quote from Rick Hanson. His book is called Hardwiring Happiness. He talks about how we have the ability to remodel our brains. He says, “Scans confirm that meditation leads to positive changes in the amygdala, which he calls the alarm bell of your brain and other regions, as well as increasing cerebral flow, the core function of the autonomic nervous system, responsible for fight or flight, changes with meditation. The duration of the practice of yoga is directly related to the structural reshaping of the brain. Moreover, some of the effects are long-lasting and intergenerational as the practice rewires not only the brain but our genes.” That is a wow.

MVP 11 | Healing

Hardwiring Happiness: The New Brain Science of Contentment, Calm, and Confidence

I will read one more. This is going to be a quote from my guru, the neuroscientist. He says, “Meditation turns on genes that are good for us. It is happening at the core of ourselves. We are changing our brains and bodies when we meditate.” It is simple. What I talk about in chapter one is you don’t have to be sitting on a cushion quietly for an hour to meditate. There are many different types of meditation. I practice many different types every single day. I have an ADHD personality. Yes, I can sit and meditate for an hour at a time without moving, but I have other forms which I enjoy and are more active.

A lot of people feel like cycling, running, or getting out and doing a repetitive physical activity is the only way they can meditate because they are not able to sit still. If you have, like me, all this tension and my posture isn’t great. All those things sitting for an hour become physically painful. It is not good for me at this phase and stage of my life and body, but there are many different ways. Thank you for mentioning that and reading those parts of your book. The book is From the Boxing Ring to the Ashram: Wisdom for Mind, Body, and Spirit. I highly suggest you all pick it up.

If you pick up one thing at a time, do it for 40 days, track it, and see how it affects your mind, body, spirit, and relationships. Add another mindfulness yoga or another tool, or replace it with something else if it is not working for you in your world. I can highly attest to all of the different modalities. I want to mention that if you want to find Deborah, she always has lots of events going on that are healing for your mind, body, and spirit and connecting to other humans. Would you like to be found? I know you are on Instagram, and you have your website. Where can people find out about your book and your other offerings and wisdom?

I want to be found, and both my Instagram and my YouTube are under my name, Deborah Charnes. My mind-body website is also DeborahCharnes.com. When you go to my website, there will be a button for the book. That is where you can also read about the book, read reviews, read what my endorsers said about the book, or order a book. Whether you order one or if you order bulk, you get a discount. All of that is available on DeborahCharnes.com. Go to the button that says, Book. All of my events will be listed. I would love to hear feedback. I love to know what people have tried and how it worked for them.

Thank you so much for sharing your story, wisdom, and the book. I have already started reading it, but I’m a slow reader. It is taking me a while, but I’m looking forward to learning. I am hoping to connect with you at your next event next Friday in Wimberley, Texas. I’m excited to know you now and have you in my circle. I’m looking forward to connecting with some of your gurus. It is exciting. Thank you so much for everything, Deborah.

Thank you. It has been a pleasure to be here.

I’m looking forward to many future conversations. I also would love to hear any of the readers out there. If you read the book or find some of her modalities and try it out, I would love to hear the results and feedback. In the meantime, we need to thank our supporters of this show, Vine Collective, Eminence M&A Strategies, and Tower Commercial Real Estate. I also want to thank you for reading. If you liked it, tell your friends and follow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook. The mission of MVP Business is to dig deep into the lives of true leaders so that others can follow, knowing that the path isn’t always easy, but the journey is worth it. Enjoy the day and live with passion.

 

Important Links

Subscribe