Patricia:
All right. So Karen has been holding Sacred Space for women to feel, claim, and express the truce of their bodies, hearts, and souls for over 15 years. As the owner of Open Heart Healing, she’s been guiding women to stretch, grow, and expand into the fullest expressions of themselves. She’s a certified women’s empowerment life coach, a circle facilitator, a Reiki Master, and a JourneyDance facilitator. She also leads workshops and soul-enriching retreats. She is the real deal. Karen most loves to gather women together in circle where they feel safe and supported to show up as their real selves and dive deep. She knows from her own experiences that the way to a woman’s freedom is through her body, her emotions, and sisterhood.
Patricia:
Karen is a recovering good girl, a long time seeker, a tree hugger dancer, mom of three young adult boys, and resides in the DC Metro area. She lives in a beautiful woodsy area. It’s really pretty. She married her soulmate and college sweetheart, and this intimate relationship is her greatest barometer of personal growth. And I’m going to share that with you a little bit further down the road as well. So you can read it again if you missed all those important things. I think we need to teach zoom how to make a circle instead of a square.
Karen:
Yeah, I agree.
Patricia:
Maybe you can work on that. So I want to introduce before I get Karen to talk to us, I wanted to introduce this book idea. And for those of you who don’t know Laura Di Franco, she is the author of books about the Warrior Journey, and she speaks in very broad strokes about how we can improve our own wellbeing through being more aware of ourselves. And it’s pretty exciting stuff. So she brought together a group of I think 24 authors and gave them what 48 hours to send her back some essay, some stories, some chapter. So I want Karen to talk about that aspect first and then we’ll get into you aspect as well. How’s that sound?
Karen:
Yes. Thank you, Patricia. Such an honor to be here. Glad you’re all are here. Yeah. It was 48 hours to give her the chapter name, title, the topic, not even the title, just the topic because of so many of us… She posted something in our private Facebook group, I had been studying with Laura and doing various things with her over the years, so I knew her really well. And she posted something, it was two weeks out in the pandemic, and things were so… I’m sure we all remember that time things were so chaotic and we had no idea what was going on and what was coming. And certainly, stress was so high and she does one day got this brilliant idea to reach out to all her healers that she knew and have everyone bring a chapter to this book, this collaborative book.
Karen:
And so I was actually even just two weeks out from returning from India. I went out to India for this retreat, right as the pandemic totally switched. So I was in that space too, when she reached out, I just knew, you asked I will do it. And I have a most… The other authors, we all had different modalities in our pockets, different tools in our kits. And so it just all came together where we-
Patricia:
I’m going to ask you to speak up a little bit louder.
Karen:
Oh, Yeah. Yeah. Let me turn my-
Patricia:
I’m kind of losing you.
Karen:
Oh, no. Okay.
Patricia:
So, I wanted to start off just by reading the very beginning of the book in the introduction and because I think it’s important for all of us to be on the same page about this book and where Karen’s coming, her chapter enters. So true healers teach their clients how to heal themselves instead of only trying to fix them. When we empower others to connect to their healing wisdom, intuition, power, and energy, we heal the world. And I think that sums up what this book is all about. And it’s divided into chapters. Each author has a different chapter and some of the things I had never heard of, and I consider myself pretty well-read in the field of self-healing and alternative or what should be normal healing practices. But there’s everything in here from writing as a tool, Reiki, self-acceptance, heart connections, guided imagery. Are people nodding from these? Okay.
Patricia:
So then we get into about the middle of the book. Actually, just almost exactly in the center of the book is Karen’s chapter about breathwork. And what I thought was really interesting too, is that we scheduled this a long time ago. Not with me, not really thinking through the idea that fall is all about lungs, and here we are in the fall and we’re experiencing this change of temperature and the freshness of the fall air. So talk a little bit about how the seasons and this breathwork that you connect to so well connected.
Karen:
That’s a great question, Patricia, can you hear me better now?
Patricia:
A little, yeah.
Karen:
Oh, I don’t know. Okay. Sorry about that. I don’t know what else I can do. I have my volume all the way up.
Patricia:
Okay. Just.
Karen:
Yes, I will project. Well, even though you mentioned the seasons and that is so right. This time of year it’s the fall is about releasing, letting go, just as the leaves are falling from the trees, we’re also… things are dying within us. And so, but it’s also, COVID. COVID has been about the lungs, respiratory, so that is pretty amazing. Yeah. And so all the more reason for this tool, this practice of breathwork. And, I mean all the time, it’s a great time to practice breathwork. So, yeah.
Patricia:
So I think it would be nice if we could just do one little round of just everybody because we’re going to talk about breath, work a lot. I’d like you to be intentionally aware of that. And you can do a little practice of what is breathwork. So you want to guide us in… Just even just a couple of minutes just to give a flavor. We can do more later.
Karen:
Okay. Just a flavor. Okay. So why don’t we just put a hand on your belly? Put a hand on your belly and we’ll just take a moment and just observe our breath. And it’s in my chapter there it’s the first breath is the healing breath. And that is really about just coming back home to our natural breath because over our lifetimes we have developed not the most ideal patterns in our body, and no fault of anyone or ourselves. It just happens. It just happens from living. So just close your eyes and simply breathe.
Karen:
It’s so simple and yet so profound our breath, and just feel any movement in your body as you just breathe don’t try to change it. Don’t try to lengthen it. Simply observe your breath. Notice you inhale, the cool air coming into your nostrils, any movement in the belly. And don’t worry if there’s no movement. It’s we’re just being curious and observing and then acts as with every exhale, notice, feel the warm air leaving your nostrils and any movement in the belly. And I’ll just leave you here for a few seconds to just be with your bra. No judgments. Just Feeling your breath. [inaudible 00:10:51] and leaving the body Beautiful. And you can open your eyes and release that hand. And I’d love to hear how that was. What did you notice if that’s okay, Patricia?
Patricia:
Yeah, that’s great.
Karen:
You’ll have to unmute if you’re talking.
Patricia:
Well, let’s keep going. And if you have something to share, you can either wave your hand or you can unmute. Oh, there’s one, Alisa.
Alisa:
I know this is not related, but I’m going to say it anyway. I noticed how many pounds I put on during COVID.
Patricia:
That’s very related. Are you kidding?
Alisa:
Nobody felt good, but I just put, I guess I hadn’t put my hand on my belly in a long time. So, thank you for helping me with that. That’s going to guide me to another goal.
Karen:
So you made a connection to your belly, to your…
Alisa:
Yeah, I did. I said, “Oh my God.”
Karen:
Yes. To your love belly.
Alisa:
Yes. Okay. Yes, it is my love belly. I love food. Okay. Thank you.
Karen:
Thanks for sharing.
Alisa:
So that’s sweet.
Patricia:
I just want to share before we go a little further on, you’re welcome to ask questions anytime. You can either put them in chat and I’ll ask them for you, or you can unmute and just wave your hand. So we know you have a question to ask. So I think I’d like to ask you Karen too, if you don’t mind delving into what happened to you 30 years ago and why breathwork now seems like the answer for you.
Karen:
Yes, yes. It’s one of the answers. And it’s been a big… It was really initial. It was my portal into all my other modalities and practices. So 30 years ago, I was married and I had my first baby. He’s what, 24, so 24 years ago. And it was really then that I became quite wrapped up in mothering and beginning to lose touch with my body, with my sense of self. And I ended up in some yoga classes and it was really there that was my gateway into beginning to access my body once again. And our culture, our society emphasizes from here up.
Karen:
And that’s definitely the way I was raised was the intellectual, the rational, the straight line. That’s what mattered. Education, knowledge is what was most important. And so I was very cut off, and so many of us from the neck down. And breath helped me over time to open up the different parts of my body and the different parts of myself, really. Because when we access our breath we are accessing not just body, but even our emotions, our energy in ourselves as energy. The way that we express ourselves, breathing can help even open up our throat and how we speak. And it’s so much.
Patricia:
So I’d like to bring some attention to the part of your chapter that talks about tools, and how some tools are really simple. Like for breath work you don’t need to bring anything to the party. You just bring yourself and like any good yoga, Yogi Ne will teach you is that yoga is all about the breath. So as long as you’re breathing, you’re doing yoga. So and I liked that. You said breath is always available anytime, anywhere, it’s free, it’s easy, and it’s also powerful, and it’s contagious. When you yawn somebody else yawns when they’re looking at you. It can affect people around you. If your breathing changes, then your breathing might change. And it’s a… I remember using that as a super effective tool with a very independent thinking daughter when she was a little tight, I just lower my energy, and boy, she dropped right with me, usually.
Patricia:
You could notice shifts in your energy just after a few minutes of practice as we may have just experienced. So I like that you make it so obvious that this doesn’t require any special clothing or equipment and like any exercise, it’s always good to warm up first. So what we just did, I would consider a warmup. So anytime you feel like you’re just [inaudible 00:16:46], can’t connect to the world, just put your hand on your belly. That’s a really great way to connect back to your energy, yourself, and your heart appreciating yourself. So how did the life coach part of your life happen? How did breathing turn into life coaching?
Karen:
Right. A long and windy path with detours too. I had been teaching yoga for about 15 years and I was so grateful that I got into that path. And I started to… My energy was just shifting elsewhere and I had gotten certified in Reiki. And so I was going down that path of Reiki. And so I started to see clients for Reiki alone, and what happened was in my Reiki room, we’re sitting down before we get to the table across from each other and chairs, and the things that people were bringing to me, it was all over the map. Whatever they were bringing, their issues, family relationship, self-care, emotional things, from even and then to physical illness and chronic illness.
Karen:
And it became, I’m a little fuzzy about what was I doing here in these one-on-one interactions, and I was questioning well, are we going down a therapist? I’m not a therapist. And I owned that and put that right up front. So sometimes the boundaries it wasn’t clear on. And then I was also gathering women and circles at that time as well. And I just knew something was missing. I needed some more training to make those boundaries clear, and to bring more tools, and to know how to take care of my clients and help them access themselves at a higher level. And so that’s where, yeah, I ended up getting certified in coaching.
Speaker 1:
Pardon me. Karen, could you tell us now this is what Reiki is?
Karen:
You bet. Yes.
Patricia:
I’m just going to say we need to make sure get everything defined. So you do Reiki and then I’ll-
Karen:
Yes. And I know. I’m so glad you asked. Yes, thank you. So Reiki is energy healing. So if you know, you are energy. Your body, your breath, it’s all energy, your emotions are energy. So you have that. And then you also have an energy field around you, and it can go out from a couple of inches to six feet out, and it says there’s egg shape all around you. And there have been such advances in photography now, where they can see these auras, it’s called, or energy fields. And, so it’s simply life force energy.
Karen:
And so Reiki is taking that channeling that life force energy that we all have access to, and bringing it down and to the client. And the Reiki has its own intelligence as all energy. And so it knows what you trust that it knows where to go. And I hope that answers. And so it’s using light touch or no touch. So you’re either have your hands on the client’s body or hovering. So, as I said before in the energy field above, which is where I tend to-
Patricia:
[inaudible 00:21:07] relaxing, usually.
Karen:
Yes, it leaves you deeply, deeply relaxed, and it even compliments any form of other treatment that you’re receiving, whether you’re receiving acupuncture, which is another type of energy work too. I have had people on chemotherapy come to me for it. So it’s-
Patricia:
Stroke survivors who have a lot of tension or folks who are surviving with Parkinson’s can find a lot of ease if they open up those channels, not even it for brief moments, it just really relaxing. So that’s the Reiki side.
Karen:
Yes.
Patricia:
Coaching side, we had a life coach a few months ago, Phyllis Levinson, who wrote a Life-Ku book about life coaching. And, so life coaching is very different than social worker therapy. And it’s all about being the facilitator to help your client move forward rather than telling them what to do. It’s about-
Karen:
Right.Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s helping them access their own inner wisdom, their own ability to discern what’s best for them. Yeah.
Patricia:
So, I rattled off all of these things that Karen does now. And so she has created this whole field of energy around using these different modalities, Reiki, yoga, women’s circle, life coaching, so she can offer a very in-depth perspective on the possibilities that you have within you by tapping into these different places, which I think is a really cool idea. So let’s go back to the practical side again. And I was looking at something that was talking about five-minute health breaks or breath breaks. Do you want to talk about that? What is that about?
Karen:
Yeah, it’s really taking what we just did with the hand on the belly or whatever works for you. It might be as we go further in the tools in my chapter, it might be a deeper breath and just spending five minutes with that, it could be first thing in the morning, or before you sit down to… before you eat your meal at lunch or because what happens, we tend to walk around our days holding our breath. And that’s what I would give you as if you wanted something to take away from this, notice as you go through the rest of your day and tomorrow when you’re holding your breath, not for judgment or none of that, just to be curious.
Karen:
And, so that could be those check-in points. Am I holding my breath, when you’re making your bed? Are you holding your breath when you’re taking the dog out? Are you holding your breath when you’re having a conversation with your partner? Are you holding up your breath? So you’d be surprised how much breath-holding we do. And then what happens is we wonder then we start to feel tired, more tired or irritable, or fatigue. So it can have all kinds of effects.
Patricia:
One of the things that a lot of my colleagues have been talking about in the healthcare field is how, when you wear a mask all day, which is so very important when you’re out with other people that it’s exhausting because you’re breathing in similarly obviously, you’re getting fresh air through the mask as well, but it’s very much contained and it’s challenging. It’s exhausting.
Karen:
Yeah. Yeah. It’s the mask that [crosstalk 00:25:34] and it’s our own fears when we can feel safe in our home, but then we go out in these eight or nine months, and that’s like I’ve noticed I have done that. I’ll be at the grocery and I’m with my mask and you’re afraid, vigilant about who’s around you and what you’re touching and I’m holding my breath. So, yeah. Yeah. It’s interesting.
Patricia:
So let’s go through some of these other practices, the first and foremost breath that you teach is the healing breath, and you recommend it’s done as we did before with our feet flat on the ground, or you could be lying down. And it’s all about noticing that your breathing just simply being aware and it is something we do without noticing all the time. And I think we would be psychotic if we noticed it too much at the time, but just [crosstalk 00:26:35].
Karen:
I think taken it too extreme. Yeah. Because we can take things too extreme and that’s never healthy.
Patricia:
And then I love that you go on to a releasing breath. So a releasing breath is about letting go of stuff. And maybe we could try that one with everybody?
Karen:
You bet.
Patricia:
Okay. You guys ready? Yes. Thumbs up. Okay.
Karen:
Okay So if you can put your feet flat on the floor, that’s always a good idea even not for grounding and being in our bodies, feeling connected to the earth below you. So this breath is going to be inhaling through the nose and exhaling with the mouth open. I find it’s more… We tend to hold a lot of tension in our jaw and that connects to our belly, to our pelvic area, and our belly. So opening the mouth and it looks like this. So it’s not this, you notice how that’s a different breath. So we’re just going to do, okay.
Patricia:
[inaudible 00:27:52] didn’t let out a sound.
Karen:
Or a sigh. Yeah. Let out a sound is always yeah, that’s it. Yes. Okay. So we’ll inhale through the nose. You can even do inhale through the mouth and exhale through the mouth, but I find your mouth gets dry and it gets tired. So inhale through the nose and exhale. So you’re making that H-A or H-A-H or A-H sound. So let’s do that several times in a row.
Speaker 1:
Isn’t this just the opposite of what swimming to crawl do?
Karen:
What do they do? I’m not a swimmer.
Speaker 1:
They open up to breath in and then when they put their head in the water, then it comes out through their nose so that they don’t get-
Patricia:
Water in their lungs.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, exactly.
Karen:
Yeah. So I guess it is the opposite. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1:
Where you’d go when you’re doing [crosstalk 00:29:04].
Karen:
We’re inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth to create that, releasing that calming that, just when you’re all full of just so many thoughts or so much stuff clogging you. You know that feeling, tension, and stress?
Speaker 1:
Isn’t this part of everyday common sense, of people taking a deep breath when they feel anxious or when they’re scared before giving a talk or something like that.
Patricia:
It’s not universally known. That’s what’s so interesting is that some of us do know it and some of us don’t, and that’s one of the things I was going to share with you about, Laura Di Franco, she said, “I’m so impressed that these women came together and were brave enough to believe that their words just spoken to one other person would make a difference.” And that’s how our intelligency of the planet changes is because of people who are willing to step out and say, “Well, actually I do this.” And everybody goes, “Oh, wow. I didn’t know that was a thing.” All right.
Karen:
Do you want to try more of the releasing breath? Yes.
Patricia:
Yes. A few more rounds of that. And then we’ll do[crosstalk 00:30:33]
Karen:
Let’s do a few more rounds. Yeah. I feel like we need a little more. So even close your eyes and just connect. That helps us connect more. So inhaling through the nose, any sound that wants to come out, exhale. Inhale through the nose.
Speaker 1:
I’m trying it. Inhale through your nose. [crosstalk 00:30:59].
Karen:
And exhale.
Speaker 1:
A deep breath.
Karen:
And take two more at your own pace. And it’s your own unique sound, really. There’s no right or wrong sound that can come out.
Speaker 1:
[inaudible 00:31:20].
Karen:
You have a question, Alisa?
Alisa:
I just wanted to say, it’s interesting what you said about the jaw. And then somehow I made the connection. I was looking at Patricia smiling and using her jaw, but she was chuckling. And I wonder if laughter when people laugh, they release their jaw. They relax the jaw and they say that laughter is supposed to be so good for you.
Patricia:
Yes. There is a whole study of hahalogy. I could get some expert on a future time. It’s a great… Not only is it about opening the jaw, but it’s about breath. You breath a lot deeper when you laugh. Have you ever had a belly laugh?
Karen:
[crosstalk 00:32:21]. I mean that you saying that just reminded me about the belly laugh-
Patricia:
And singing. Singing is another great way to tap into your breath. And whether you, just sing out loud in the shower or in the car, or with your echo, or with Alexa or whatever it’s really great. It’s a great way to bring more breath into your[crosstalk 00:32:52].
Karen:
Thank you. It’s a whole practice. Laughter, yoga, I’m sure there’s other things.
Patricia:
So, some of the other things that come up in your chapter that you talk about are calming breath, resetting breath, balancing breath, and pleasure breath. And each of these has just a little different way to witness your breathing, how you can affect your breath, and how it can affect your mood. And I’m all about mood-altering breath, as opposed to mood-altering drugs. Yes. So, you want to describe some of these other breathwork?
Karen:
Yeah. Yeah. The calming breath would be a great one to do here. So I’ll explain it first and then we’ll try it out. How’s that sound?
Patricia:
Perfect.
Karen:
So the calming breath that I… And these are my titles to these breaths. You might go somewhere else and they’ve named it something else. So but to me, this I’ve named them to how they feel in my body, so this calming breath is you’re counting. Especially at first when you’re not sure about your breathing. So again, it’s observing and, so you’re just breathing in maybe for a count of six and then your ex, I’m sorry, you’re breathing in for a count of three and then you’re exhaling for twice that count. So the idea is your breathing, you’re exhaling longer than your inhale and why do we do that? Why do we want to do that?
Karen:
Because when we’re exhaling more slowly than our inhale, we’re kicking on what’s called our parasympathetic nervous system. So our sympathetic nervous system is that fight or flight. That’s when we’re holding our breath and that’s when we feel tense, and stress, and anxious. Anybody ever feel those, especially during these times? The parasympathetic system is what regulates. It helps us calm. It helps us reset ourselves. And, so that’s the idea behind the twice as long exhale as the inhale. And I call it, it’s two to one ratio. Two exhale to one inhale. Okay. So any questions?
Patricia:
Let’s give it a whirl.
Karen:
Let’s give it a whirl and I’ll leave it up to you. You can stay with your inhaling through the nose and exhaling through the mouth, which is awesome. But if that might, in the beginning, make you feel you’re not used to it, so it might feel uncomfortable. So just do all through the nose if you want. Again, this is about finding your own inner healer and what is works for you. Okay? All right. So let’s just take some normal breath and you might put again one hand or both hands on the belly, the lower belly, below the navel.
Karen:
And just again, observe your breath like we did earlier, you’re normal everyday breath and then slowly begin to deepen the breath, and you want to be sitting upright, relaxing the shoulders and the jaw and pursing your lips if they are, unclench your teeth and keep deepening your breath, every breath, grow it a little deeper. So find your deepest breath of the deepest breath that does not cause any amount of strain. And then on your deepest breath, count your exhale at your slowest pace. I’ll say that again. So at your next exhale, when you’re ready to exhale, count the breath. So it would go one, two, three, four, and so on. And that will find your number, your point to start up. So, whatever your count was, inhale for half of that count, I’m sorry. Yes. Inhale for half that count. And getting my math right. So if you exhale for six, you’re going to inhale for the count of three.
Karen:
Remember your exhale longer than your inhale. And we don’t want to get too heady about this. So don’t get hung up on the math and counting. Slowing down the exhale, feeling your hands in your lap, you’re shoulders relaxed. Dig another minute with this. And stay in that curious mind. Maybe that curious self might wonder, “I wonder if there’s space to exhale for seven. Or maybe that was too much, I’m starting to feel a little tight in my jaw or throat. I need to just back off a little, not push it.” And finish your, this last round of breath, expelling the exhale completely. Navel, when you are complete in your exhale you’ll feel your navel moving back towards your spine when you’re in a healthy breathing pattern. I don’t even like to use that word. I call it optimal. And whenever you’re ready open, I’ll know that you’re ready when you open your eyes, take your time. And even before you open your eyes, just notice how you’re feeling. So just feel your overall sense of being. Yes. And so how was that? Unmute yourself, Alisa. There you go.
Alisa:
I just wanted to say that was good. But you had talked about breathing and how you stopped from breathing that kind of thing. I’m curious because breathing is an automatic response. We all breathe automatically. And how does it happen then because I noticed as I try to do it when you said about not holding your breath, I realized that it was work. It was work on my part to keep going with my breaths. And that’s why I have that question. Why does that happen? Because it’s supposed to be automatic, but then we hold our breaths.
Karen:
Yes. That is such a normal question. And such a great question. Yeah, I get that a lot. And it’s like a muscle, our diaphragm, you think about, if your respiratory, the diaphragm is that muscle that helps us breathe. That encourage, that is the breathing also. So it’s practice. Yeah. And at first, it is going to be a struggle. It is. And I congratulate you and honor you for giving it a try.
Alisa:
I think-
Karen:
Noticing that about yourself. So you’re aware of that.
Patricia:
And I think we also say stop breathing and we don’t really mean that. What we mean is that you’re changing your breath. You feel like you have to breathe quickly or you take an inhale and you don’t let it out right away because you’re talking [inaudible 00:42:51] and then you let it out. So it’s not like we’ve stopped breathing. That’s we’re not [crosstalk 00:42:56].
Alisa:
No. No. I know what you mean Patricia. I know, but I just realized that I was holding my breath and that I consciously, it’s supposed to be unconscious, but I consciously have to say no, keep breathing. Right.
Patricia:
There’s a lot of systems in our body that we don’t control on a day-to-day, but we could. And sometimes by accessing those portals, we get to be stronger humans. So it’s always a good thing. Muscles, all sorts of things.
Karen:
Our thought patterns.
Patricia:
Our heartbeat, heart pattern, the fluid that our brain and spine flow in has a rhythm that’s called craniosacral work. There’s all levels to this. So this has been really fun, but I want to give a little bit of time to ask two things. One, if everybody will think about one thing that they’re going to take away from today’s session. Because I’m curious to know what you’ve heard or what you’ve learned. We had one person say I’m heading out. It’s not my bag. And I honor that too. And then also because the end of this book ends with a paragraph about gratitude, and gratitude is the energy I want to purposefully end the book with, and hopes you’ll read this last page and imagine all the people in your own life that you’re grateful for. Maybe even some of these fantastic authors. And I’d like to applaud Karen for getting herself in this book. And also Karen, will you tell us [inaudible 00:44:44] and then at the end, can you just tell us what’s next for you? Like, do you have something else coming up that we should know about?
Karen:
So I have coming up-
Patricia:
Hold on to that thought. So Sarah, tell us what you learned from today. One thing you’re going to remember.
Sarah:
I had to learn to unmute. One thing I’m going to remember is notice when you’re holding your breath because that’s something I find myself doing, but I don’t pay that much attention to it. So now I’m a lot more attentional and pay attention.
Patricia:
Great. Thank you so much for joining us.
Sarah:
Thank you. I really enjoyed it.
Patricia:
Alisa.
Alisa:
Yeah. Mine is to do the breath, to realize the breathing and making the breath more relaxed, more vital in a way. That’s a kind of thing that I didn’t realize until listening to you, Karen. So I appreciate it. Really appreciate it. And I’m also wondering whether you could see an aura.
Karen:
No, I do not. I have on occasion, but it’s not my expertise.
Alisa:
Okay. That’s all. Thank you very much.
Patricia:
Thank you, Irene. You want to share?
Irene:
Yes. Thank you. It’s been really helpful. I feel like it’s really brought… Well, two things it’s really brought to my consciousness that when I’m feeling anxious to go first to my breath, I don’t think about doing that. I think about maybe relaxing my shoulders or my body. But relaxing my breath feels really important. And the other thing is someone last week tuned me into this free app called Breath Ball. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Breath Ball, but I’ve started doing that. What if I wake up in the middle of the night, it’s a free app and you have a 5 or 10 minutes.
Irene:
You can program this ball that gets larger on your phone screen as you’re inhaling and then smaller as you exhale. And there’s a little ding in the transition. And I found that when I do that for five minutes and there’s a whole explanation with it that I didn’t read, I just did the exercises. It actually does neurologically help you relax and sleep and it’s free. [inaudible 00:47:16] I found it really helpful but, thank you, Karen. I feel like now the breathing in certain situations will be the go-to in terms of me thinking about it.
Patricia:
That’s wonderful. Thanks Irene. So Karen, will you tell us what’s next for you?
Karen:
I have been… I don’t have anything that has space right now. My December events are filled. And so things will start coming out next year. So what I have actually been busy doing is this new modality of JourneyDance, and I just recently got certified in that. And so that’s been my COVID thing, is stepping into dance more which is such a joy of mine and embodiment. So, that’s my latest passion is dance. And so I would recommend going to my website and subscribing, becoming a subscriber and you’ll get that my latest, my newsletters with what is coming up for 2021. And I also, if you’d like to schedule a discovery call 20 minutes, call just if you would like more, some assistance or guidance, more with your breath, or anything else that might be up for you. I’ll be happy to do that for you.
Patricia:
It’s great. So Karen’s information is all here. Discover more here at her website and here’s her email.
Karen:
And you can come up with the email.
Patricia:
So I’m going to leave that up there while I give a quick promo to our next book chat.
Karen:
Can I say one thing, Patricia? So this book that I contributed to was volume one, there’s actually two more volumes that are already out and up on Amazon, mostly all-new, different healers and modalities, and volume four is coming out in 2021. So Laura Di Franco has really put it a lot.
Patricia:
That’s great. I like the way that she’s honoring all these different healers and giving chance to breathe out into the world. [crosstalk 00:49:29] well known and there may not be as well known. So it’s a good way to give you guys all a boost, really sweet paying it forward. Really cool. So thank you, Karen, because this was really, really nice to have you here today.
Karen:
It was so enjoyable.
Patricia:
I look forward to hearing more about what’s coming up for you. Feel free to pass information onto me so I can get it out to folks that are interested. Next month, well tomorrow starts next month. So December 28th, which is an auspicious day for this author and for me, this is Leora Hoffman’s book called Catch Me a Catch, and we thought we put this out because everybody’s always looking for love around the holidays. She is a matchmaker of people over 55, and she is a delightful woman and she has a great story to share. And both her parents and my parents were married on December 28th. So we thought that was just too wild. So that’ll be coming right up and I’ll be sending out emails about more… She’s delightful.
Patricia:
And she’s also a new author just realize that people had asked her a million times what’s your story. And she said, “You know what, I’m going to write it down.” And how I got to this place. So she’s a recovering attorney, who’s now a matchmaker, and she is just adorable. So again, I want to thank Karen and everybody for hanging in there with the technology and getting us here to our wonderful place. These are some other events that Assisting Hands Home Care Potomac is doing this month. We’ve got what’s your plan, talking about small eight-person family homes, where you can have a loved one live, where you can’t care for them any longer. We are always doing self-care yoga every month with Marie Daley, who is just a delightful yoga instructor, very mellow.
Patricia:
And then I lead Death Cafe every month and this month it’ll be on Tuesday, the 15th. And we talk very openly about death and dying without any religion or politics preferred. And then I mentioned, Catch Me a Catch. So remember that Assisting Hands is here for you. We have so many resources. Our website has all of these events plus others, and I’m gearing up for our 2021 book chats. And actually, Irene has a new book coming out, and I’m not going to do any spoilers on that because we don’t have a date yet, but I’m really excited. And I’m looking forward to hosting Irene in the future. So if you have a friend or family member that has a book coming out and you think it would pertain to aging well, because that’s what the theme is for all of my work is how do we age well? How can we get to the resources that we need? Then please shoot me an email, drop me a line, give me a call, make me zoom with you, whatever feels best. So thank you guys for coming and again-
Karen:
Thank you. Thank you.
Alisa:
Thank you so much.
If you would like to schedule an appointment to discuss your Alzheimer’s and Dementia care needs or to set up a free in-home evaluation with one of our nurses, call us today in MD at (301) 363-2580, or in VA at (703) 556-8983. We are located in Bethesda, MD, (301) 363-2580, and Reston, VA, (703) 556-8983.
