Podcast
Ep. 24 Transcript: Yoga, Meditation and Ayurveda with Billie Carroll
Transcript
CHRIS NEWCOMB: And welcome to Peer Into recovery, a podcast with the focus on the profession of peer support. For more information about how to subscribe, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Peer Into recovery Podcast. I’m your host, Chris newcomb. Today, we have a great guest. Her name is Billie Carroll. She’s the CEO of the Heart Center, which is spelled H-A-A-R-T. And that’s here in Richmond, and it stands for Holistic Approach to recovery, Resiliency and Thriving Center. And it was started in 2019. Billie has several certifications. We were joking earlier about her being certified to certify. She’s a certified peer recovery support specialist, a certified trauma, mental health, addiction, Ayurvedic specialist. She’s also a certified resiliency and recovery yoga instructor. She’s a certified yoga and neuroscience instructor, a certified yoga for eating disorders instructor, a body positive ambassador, and a yoga and body image coalition partner. She has served for eight years as a certified peer recovery specialist, yoga meditation instructor, and Ayurvedic consultant for the recovery community. She does training and classes specializing in a therapeutic model with a focus on substance use disorder and other addictions, eating disorders, mental behavioral health, and trauma. She’s one of the first teachers to receive certification in yoga and neuroscience. She’s also a member of EYRT Yoga Alliance, which allows her to train other yoga instructors, and is currently offering several class modalities in correctional institutions, homeless shelters, mental health facilities, addiction treatment centers, and domestic violence shelters. She has continuing trainings offered to the peer recovery community in Virginia and is on the PRS stakeholder roundtable. So, Billie, how are you doing today?
BILLIE CARROLL: Thanks for having me, Chris. I’m doing well.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Great. Glad to have you on the program today. And as we were talking earlier, I was really listening to Billie and focused in, and in my ADHD hyperfocus, I forgot to hit the record button, which apparently, they say, is important when you are trying to record a podcast. But, Billie came to the rescue. Billie, I’m going to let you take it from here.
BILLIE CARROLL: Yes. So the breath practice that I gave Chris was called Breath of Light. It’s one of my favorites, and it’s very simple. You inhale seven times through your nose, like you’re sipping in the air, and then you exhale fully through your mouth, and it helps to bring your scattered brain back to focus, and it also helps the nervous system, the parasympathetic nervous system, come on board and calm down the body and the mind.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: And you know, it did calm down my body and mind, and as someone with ADHD, as I mentioned, the brain goes too fast and concentration gets scattered, and with this breathing, you come back into the present, which was really nice. So why don’t you go ahead and introduce yourself? You told me earlier that you have kind of a standard introduction that you use, so I’ll let you go ahead and tell us more about yourself. And how your journey has led to what you’re doing now.
BILLIE CARROLL: Thanks, Chris. So I usually introduce myself as a, I identify as a woman in long-term recovery, and my recovery has been from substances, from childhood and adult trauma, from mental behavior, health diagnosis, including eating disorders. And I have many pathways for all of those that help me in my own recovery. But the thread that runs through all of them is the Yoga, the Meditation and the Ayurveda. And so I came into recovery through the 12 step programs in 20, I always want to say 2022, but that’s not right. 2002, I’m trying to get used to saying that. And so since 2002, I’ve been on a recovery journey. And I rediscovered Yoga in 2004, when I was going through a stressful time. I had taken my first Yoga class when I was 19. And I was actually, it was actually for college credit. So we learned a lot about the philosophy, we learned a lot about science, as well as the poses and the breathing. I was really, really loved it.
And I had a, the way I jokingly say it is I had an on again, off again love affair with it. So I would do it for a while and then it stopped and then I’d do it for a while and stop. But in 2004, I came back to it when I was in recovery, and noticed how much better it was now that I was in recovery, right? That I’d stopped doing some of the things that had happened. And it wasn’t as, it wasn’t consistent, but it was more consistent than it had been. And then in 2013, I finally got a better recovery stance on my eating disorders. And one of the things that was recommended was yoga on a more regular basis. And so I started attending more regular yoga classes and realized how much it helped me with my ADD. You mentioned ADHD, I have ADD, and how much I could focus better. And the whole being able, if I was triggered by something, to stay in the present moment, to calm my nervous system. And I had no intention, absolutely no intention of becoming a yoga teacher. At the time, I had a job that I thought I retired from. I thought, you know, I’ll never find a job as much as I like this one. And so it was not on my radar. But there was this one yoga teacher that I took all the time, who I credit all of this to. Her name is Sarah Lovelace. I don’t think she’s any longer in Richmond. But one day after a car accident, she said to me, you know, Billie, you are a yoga teacher. You just don’t have your certification. Now go get your certification. Only she said it in a lot saltier language, right? Things that you probably don’t want to put on your podcast.
And it was the way I needed to hear it. And so I went and got my certification. I actually studied yoga in the birthplace of yoga, which is Rishikesh, India. So I was over there for five weeks. And then I found out that there’s all these programs for people in recovery and yoga. There’s Yoga of 12 Step recovery, which is created by Nikki Myers. There’s recovery 2.0 by Tommy Rosen. There’s just all of these different modalities that I can learn to help people in recovery. So I took as much and I’m still taking. That might be another issue that I need to address. But I’m still taking all of these certifications that are related to mental behavioral health, substance use disorder, eating disorders and trauma. And that helped me and I see how much it can help people in the community. At this point in time, I’m still not a peer recovery specialist. I didn’t become a peer recovery specialist in 2018. But what happens is I was teaching these modalities, teaching these classes in places like the Heart Program at Chesterfield County Jail and the Saris Center and the Healing Place and places like that. And I was trying to get in more and more places, but I was getting a lot of doors shut in my face. And a dear friend of mine who works for Hanover County Court System said you don’t have the right kind of credentials behind your name. She said if you had a counselor’s certification or something, then that they would probably listen to you more. And so she’s like, maybe you ought to become a certified addictions counselor.
So I looked into that, but I didn’t like that. And the reason I didn’t like that is because they told me I couldn’t share my experience, strength and hope. I can’t share how these things have helped me. And somebody mentioned, I knew about peer specialist, but I didn’t cross my mind. It’s just somebody said, well, maybe you ought to be a peer specialist. So I looked into it and literally a peer training fell into my lap, including a scholarship. Right. And I was able to, I was like, okay, well, I obviously know I’m supposed to do this. And I took my training to the Ferris Center with Marjorie Yates, which I think a lot of people have done. And it opened me up to see that not only could peer specialist give me things that I have, that I’ve learned to the people they serve, they themselves also could really benefit from what I, from some of the things that I teach. And so I reluctantly, because I wasn’t planning on starting a company, that was not in my lexicon, that was not on my radar. I reluctantly tried to start a training center, you know, Heart recovery Training Center. And it has been a wild ride. It is, this is not where I expected to be in my life, but I could not imagine doing anything else.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: It sounds like you found a labor of love in your work, which really isn’t work.
BILLIE CARROLL: Right, right.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: You know, there’s something to be said for doing the work that you do. And we all know work can be challenging, and you have those days when you’re like, why am I doing this? But if that bottom line reason that you’re doing what you’re doing matters enough to you, then it doesn’t really feel like work. It’s more of a mission and a passion to accomplish what it is your heart and mind is set on. And it’s really obvious that this is a great passion for you, which is awesome. You know, earlier I was joking about you having the trifecta of modalities that you’ve been sharing with people and seeing a lot of results from. And it’s Yoga and Meditation and Ayurveda. So why don’t we get into it and have you talk a little bit about each one and how each one has been effective in helping other Pearson recovery.
BILLIE CARROLL: All right. So Yoga, most people think of Yoga as like the physical practice, like downward dog, I’m going to twist you into a pretzel, things of that nature, and I can twist you into a pretzel, but I’m not going to do that today, Chris. And that is part of it, but there’s so much more that’s a part of Yoga. Yoga comes from an ancient text called the Vedic text. There’s so much wisdom and philosophy that I apply in my own recovery to help me kind of stay on the right path. That’s one part of Yoga that I also like to teach. And I’ll give you an example. I teach at the HEART program, and I teach both the men and the women. And when I was coming up with this training, this evolutionary recovery training, I asked them, I said, what is it that I do that you love so much that you want me to incorporate? And I was trying to think, I wanted them to give me things like breathwork or poses, which is another part of Yoga. And what they kept bringing up is the wisdom and the philosophy. The things like, how to, you know, the nine obstacles to a spiritual life, the nine obstacles that can be to your, the same nine obstacles can be to your recovery. And so I was really shocked that they were into this 5,000 year old wisdom. So that’s one part of Yoga.
And then there’s the physical postures, and the physical postures can help release tension and tightness. One of the things that I really love about Yoga, is it can help repair the damage done when we’ve gone, you know, that we’ve done in either eating disorders, or substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder. So we can repair some of the damage that we’ve done through this practice. And it’s accessible, it can be made accessible. That’s the body positive part, I’m the body positive ambassador. I’ve taken specialized training so that I can make Yoga accessible to just about everybody. Because that’s important to me. The other part about it is, it can help release the energy and trauma that’s stored in the body. So there’s a book that’s been very well read in the peer community and in the clinical community as well, called The Body Keeps the score by Besser Vander, I can’t pronounce that.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: I believe it’s Bessel Vander Kolk, which is B-E-S-S-E-L, new word V-A-N, new word D-E-R, and final word K-O-L-K.
BILLIE CARROLL: And he talks a lot about Yoga and how Yoga benefits the releasing of trauma. And it also gives us tools that when we get into situations where we’re in flight, fight or freeze, we can release that chemical imbalance, so we won’t have to carry any new traumas, whether they be small, like somebody cuts you off in traffic, or whether they’d be large like the death of a loved one. That’s one of the reasons why I love Yoga. And then there’s also the breathwork. And there’s breathwork that can go from the simple, like what I taught you with the breath of light, on to the more advanced, so that you have a wide range of things that you can use to help you whenever you need to regulate your nervous system, to give you energy, to help you sleep.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s amazing. It is interesting how 5,000 years of wisdom is still being used. And by those who are finding themselves incarcerated, of course, it doesn’t matter if you’re there or anywhere else. Truth is truth and wisdom is wisdom. And if you are exposed to it and hear it and take it in, then it can change your life in a dramatic way. And you know as well as I do in this work that we love to do, sometimes it can be a little cold, even a little lonely if we get disconnected from other peers and try to go it alone.
BILLIE CARROLL: Yes, indeed. And one of the things that we talk about in the Yoga and recovery world is that the opposite of substance use disorder or eating disorders or any addiction is not just whatever sobriety looks like, but it’s that connection. Because if I stay connected, you know, and Yoga is all about being connected. First connected to who you truly are, right? Not who you think you are, not who society tells you are, but who you truly are. That’s the main goal of Yoga. And then once you get that, then you can be more interconnected with others. And so that’s one of the big proponents of what I teach.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: And how important in modern life, where often we’re pulled in this direction, in that direction to be this, but don’t be that or be somewhere in the middle. Or hey, how about even just being yourself?
BILLIE CARROLL: And when I start every training, every class, whatever I teach, whoever I teach, I start it the same way. And that is that I have one rule in my class. That rule is to honor your body, your mind and your spirit. That Yoga is about being in alignment with who you are. And I never want you to be out of alignment with who you are. And for me personally speaking, whenever I stepped out of alignment with who I was, I usually had to numb that in some fashion.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah, it’s like there’s a part of you that doesn’t align with your true self and is doing a behavior or behaviors and your true self is saying, hey, we can’t do that. Hide it, repress it, repress it. Don’t let anybody know. You know, it’s sort of like keeping the lid on the pressure cooker before it explodes.
BILLIE CARROLL: Yep, stuff it down, deny it, whatever. And then put something on top of that, make it stay down.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: You know, you heard the term skeletons in the closet is one of those phrases people use. I would tell people, it’s not so much that we have skeletons in the closet, it’s that they’re pushing the door and we have our backs against the door and we’re pushing back as hard as we can. You know, it’s kind of like a cartoon when the character is getting pushed and their feet are getting dragged forward in the sand and you see the indent, it’s like, instead of opening the door and let them fly out, get a fresh can of paint, paint the inside, put in a new light bulb and just close the door. And I think things like Yoga and Meditation and Ayurveda can do that.
BILLIE CARROLL: Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: So Yoga, it seems, it’s like a distant cousin or somehow connected to Meditation.
BILLIE CARROLL: The ultimate goal, that deep meditation into oneness, right? So that deep meditation into everybody being connected in one. And there are Yogis that have been practicing for decades, that still haven’t quite reached that, but they have reached other levels of meditation. And so Yoga was originally intended, Raja Yoga specifically, to help us to sit in meditation longer. That was the original reason for the breath work and the postures and things of that nature. Yoga and meditation do go hand in hand. And I’ve learned a lot of practices in studying Yoga, but I’ve also done separate meditation trainings. I actually lived in Seoul, South Korea for a year. I taught English as the second language over there. And I’ve studied Buddhist meditation at a monastery. So I’ve done Buddhist meditation. I’ve done Sufi meditation. I’ve done Christian contemplation. And there’s no wrong meditation. Whatever meditation works for you, is the meditation that’s perfect for you. Right? And I say that because so many people, especially in the recovery community say, I can’t meditate because my mind is all over the place. Well, guess what? It’s doing its job. Now, some of us might have a little bit of an overactive mind.
One of my meditation teachers describes your mind as a puppy that likes to wander off because it’s not trained. And meditation is about training your mind. The way I put it is my mind is to sugar it up two year old that I’m trying to make stand in line at Walmart. Right? So I get the puppy analogy, but that is not my mind. My mind is to sugar it up two year old, and I’m trying to make it stand in a long line at Walmart, and it wants to go to the toy aisle, it wants to go to the candy aisle. But meditation gives you tools and gives you, it’s like giving the two year old your car keys to stand in line, or I guess nowadays giving two year olds your phone to play with while you stand in line. So it gives you tools to stay in the present moment. And why that is so important is because it helps you to create new grooves in your brain. We all have grooves in our brain. There’s a yoga word for it called samskara. The medical term for it is neuroplasticity. And your brain can create new grooves. Meditation helps us create new grooves by sitting in meditation or walking meditation, or standing meditation. There’s all different kinds of meditation. There’s coloring meditation. And when we create those new grooves, then we have a better opportunity to make different choices.The other thing is, and I use this as an example in some of my classes recently, it gives us the gift of a pause, right? So we don’t have to believe every thought. And I’m going to use this example. So I was a smoker for 30 years. Absolutely loved it. Loved it, loved it, loved it. Still to this day, don’t know why I gave it up, but I got a husband out of the deal.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Take what you can get, right?
BILLIE CARROLL: But I would say two weeks ago, I was coming out of the store and there was a guy standing, smoking a Marlboro red box. And I know it was a Marlboro red box, not because I saw it, but because of the smell. Right? I know from Ayurveda that smell is one of the biggest triggers there can be for anybody who’s had trauma or has had a substance or anything like that. It’s like, oh, that’s a Marlboro red box. And here’s the thought. The next thought was, huh, I wonder how much cigarettes cost now. I know they got to be a lot more expensive than they were when I stopped 10 years ago, 12 years ago. And then I had the luxury because I meditate, because I do different things. And also because of my recovery of going, wait a minute, is that thought a beneficial thought? Right? Because the next thought would have been, well, let’s see how much they cost going back into the store. And then I’m on the way to smoking again. Right? That’s a very simple example of how meditation helps me in my recovery. And there have been many others that are similar, but that’s the most recent one.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yeah, like that you said, the power of the pause. How great would it be if we practice that more often, you know, from global scale with wars to butting in front of somebody in line at Walmart. You know, maybe the people in the 60s had it right, like, dude, just get along, man. Peace, man. We can get along. Just relax.
BILLIE CARROLL: That’s true.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: I mean, like, dude, we’re one big happy family, man. Just breathe. I mean, forget whether you have the surfer dude, you know, attitude or not. We’re all on the same rock. Why don’t we get along and pause a little bit and maybe share some love?
BILLIE CARROLL: Right. Exactly.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Well, you know, yoga and meditation really are about the pause. And personally, I practice Tai Chi and Qi Gong. And it’s very interesting because when I take 20 minutes in the morning and do it, it really helps with my ADHD and focus during the day. And all I’m doing is paying attention to my breath and doing these physical moves, which don’t require superhuman flexibility or strength or athleticism. And when I do it, all of a sudden, I’m concentrating and I’m focused and it makes me scratch my head because I’ve been breathing my whole life. I’ve been moving my whole life. But I guess you have to put them together in this sequence. And when you do, they work.
BILLIE CARROLL: Well, the other part of that, the neuroscience behind some of that is when you’re when you’re focusing on breathing with movement, it’s harder to focus. I’m not going to say it’s impossible, but it’s harder to like to breathe and move and make a grocery list. And the more you practice it, the more you train that brain to focus on what you’re doing.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: So I guess that harkens back to neuroplasticity. Is that correct?
BILLIE CARROLL: Exactly.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: And when you said grooves in the brain, I guess another way to say that is like new neural pathways. Is that right?
BILLIE CARROLL: Exactly. Yes. And that’s why, you know, as I mentioned before, I came in through 12-step programs. I did not go to a treatment center, but I believe that that’s probably why they say 90 meetings in 90 days is to create a new pattern.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Yes. And for those who aren’t familiar with the term 90 meetings in 90 days, it comes from AA or NA and other 12-step groups. And the idea is that you take a pause every day, 60 minutes to check in with yourself and how you’re doing with behavior or behaviors you want to stop or change. And it’s just about taking some time and getting to know yourself better so that you can make different changes in your life, embracing health and wellness. And that pause is crucial to quieting our inner dialogue, so to speak. So we’ve got Yoga and Meditation, and now this word I’ve never known how to say until now, it’s Ayurveda. I’m going to say it again just because I can. Ayurveda. And why don’t you go ahead and spell that for us, Billie?
BILLIE CARROLL: It’s spelled A-R-Y-U-V-E-D-A. So Ayurveda. And what that literally means is the science of life. Ayurveda is the sister science of Yoga. So it came from the same wisdom text that Yoga came from. And basically, what it is is it’s a way of living well. So it’s not illness focused like modern medicine is reactive. You know, if you break a bone, if you have an illness, we’re reactive to it. It’s more of a wellness focus, physically, mentally and spiritually. So it’s the whole package. And one of the things that Ayurveda can do is it can prescribe certain Yoga practices as a way of keeping you well. It’s a bit complicated. It’s based on the five senses, as well as the five elements. So there’s a little bit of complexity there. But once you start practicing it, it’s really beneficial, especially to people in recovery, to work with the five senses. How can I tease my five senses so that, I mean, I get triggered by the smell of a cigarette, right? Are there things I can do to keep me well? So I don’t want to smoke or I don’t want to binge on sugar or things of that nature. There’s several different practices. A lot of what I use is I use a lot of the sensory practices. For example, one of my favorite things to do is a lot of people, when they do groups, they’ll do feelings check-ins.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Feelings, nothing more than feelings. That goes out to you, Billie, because I know you like a feelings check.
BILLIE CARROLL: I absolutely hate feelings check-ins.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Come on, that was a great rendition.
BILLIE CARROLL: I’ve been in recovery for 21 years. There are days I have no idea what I’m feeling. I don’t discount feelings check-ins, but I do them in a little different way. This is some of the things I teach in my peer trainings as well as how to do different kinds of check-ins. One of the things that I will do is instead of saying, how are you feeling today, I will say what color resonates with your mood today. I can tell you that I feel yellow, but I might not be in touch with feeling happy. I teach a lot of people that are using MAT. Maybe they’re getting adjusted to their Suboxone or whatever, and they don’t know what they’re feeling either, but they do know, hey, I’m feeling black or I feel brown. I teach at the Critical Psych Floor at MCV, and a lot of people can’t describe their feelings, but they can tell me, today I’m feeling fire engine red, which means that they’re very angry. That’s one of the ways that I use Ayurveda. I do teach a lot about Ayurveda, more so in workshops than in classes. I also have private clients, but I do teach a lot of it, a lot of beneficial practices in the classes I teach as well as the trainings.
In Chinese medicine, we talk a lot about acupressure points. Ayurveda has something similar, we call them Marma points. Certain Marma points that can help you relax your body, certain massages that can help you detox, or certain massages that can help you feel more at home in your body. But one of the things I love is I love to see people have that moment, that aha moment, that, oh my gosh, I had tension and now it’s gone, or oh my gosh, my mind is clear. I guess one of the most memorable events I’ll ever have, there was a guy at the psych floor in MCV, and he was a pretty violent patient. It took a while before he earned the right to come to my class. He was distracted, but he was doing everything that I asked him to do, so I didn’t have him removed. But he was obviously agitated. We went through the class, we did the stretching, we did some breathing, and then I did a guided meditation at the end. And I asked him, I said, how do you feel? And he said, like flat soda. And I said, do you mean calm? And he’s like, oh my God, this is what calm feels like. The poor man had never felt calm. And he had tears at the corners of his eyes. And then of course, I started boohooing like a baby. Like you said, people don’t know what they don’t know. And he had never experienced calm before.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: I’m imagining for that person, hope kind of showed up as well.
BILLIE CARROLL: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: So we’ve covered a lot today. You’ve got the trifecta of yoga and meditation and Ayurveda. So if I’m a peer recovery specialist and I want to get into using any of these modalities with the peers that I work with, how exactly would I go about doing that? Well, I guess going to the Heart Center might be a good place to start.
BILLIE CARROLL: Well, actually, I’m launching a new program called Heart Evolutionary recovery, because what has happened personally in my life is that I had a little bit of a health scare in March, and had some issues in my heart that turned out to be not as big a big deal as I thought it was going to be. But it’s like one of my, she’s my friend and my business partner was like, if something happens to you, who’s going to pass it on? And I had already started with some little like, I’d done some like five hour trainings here, some one hour workshops for peer recovery specialists. But after having that health scare and talking to her, or her talking to me and let me get that straight, I was like, yeah, you need to do what I do. Because I mean, I plan to be around till I’m 90. I hope to be going to the heart program when I’m 90 and teaching yoga every Friday. But I need more people to learn to do what I do.
So I started this evolutionary recovery program. It’s modules to teach you the philosophy, the yoga, the meditation, the Ayurveda. And everything is on my website, which is heartcenter.org. Heart center, H-A-R-R-T center.org. And I had a conversation with people from the Office of recovery Services. And they have worked with me to present a four hour free FREE training. Coming up on June 26th, you can get more information about that on my website. So that’s, it’s a four hour training. It will go into more depth about Yoga, Ayurveda, the practices, the philosophy, all of that.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: That’s really awesome stuff. It’s power packed with information. And, you know, if you find a modality or modalities that work, and it’s not hurting yourself or anyone else, then it’s really something to be considered and to apply in your own life, wouldn’t you say?
BILLIE CARROLL: Definitely, definitely. This is a perfect adjunct to it. You know, I can support you in whatever path you’re already in.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: So any closing thoughts about Yoga, Meditation, Ayurveda, and what you’re doing at the Heart Center?
BILLIE CARROLL: You know, our primary purpose at the Heart Center is really to help people evolve in the recovery. Whether you have one day in recovery, or if you have 15 years in recovery, or 30 years in recovery, what we do at the Heart Center can help you take your recovery to the next level, and that’s what we’re here to do. As far as the peer aspect of the peer recovery specialist, please, we want you to be able to help those that you serve. One of the things that I say quite often, it’s actually a quote from somebody that was really important in my recovery named Marjorie Williams, and that is that we cannot give from our sustenance, we can only give from our abundance. So everything that I teach, I really want people to use and then pass on.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: Billie, thank you so much for all this information and for being on the program today.
BILLIE CARROLL: I’m so grateful that you asked me. I’m so grateful to be a part of it. Thank you.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: To our listeners, we’d like to offer the opportunity for you to participate in the seven breath exercise that Billie took me through before the program. We say, use it at your own risk. Please pay attention to your own body. If this is not something that would be good, please don’t do it. Also, if you’re driving, it’s very important. Do not do this exercise. If you’re driving, do not do this exercise. With that, I’ll hand it over to Billie. Billie, take it away.
BILLIE CARROLL: All right. Finding whatever feels like the most supportive stance for you, seated or standing, and then we’re going to take seven steps through the nose, and then exhale through the mouth. Let’s start though by just first taking a deep breath in, and a full breath out, and then we’ll inhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, exhale. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, exhale. Inhale, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, exhale. And then just allow your breath to come back to a normal rhythm. And notice how you feel.
CHRIS NEWCOMB: I will say in my most relaxed post-breathing voice, I’m feeling sunny happy, and I hope our listeners are too. I want to thank our listeners for listening to the Peer Into recovery podcast, which is brought to you by the Virginia Peer Specialist Network and Mental Health America of Virginia. And if you like our show and would like to subscribe to the podcast, please visit our website at www.vprsn.org. And please leave us a brief review on iTunes. In the meantime, please take care of yourselves everyone. We’ll see you soon.
