In this episode, Soniyaa discusses her journey from an existential crisis triggered by the death of a close friend, to becoming a practitioner and teacher of holistic healing.

She explains how understanding the connection between thoughts, emotions, and energy can help individuals reclaim control over their wellbeing. Through her center, Illuminations, she offers integrative approaches to help clients achieve physical, mental, and emotional balance.

Soniyaa also touches on her challenges in establishing her business in Dubai and her mission to make holistic healing a recognized profession.

Takeaways:

1. Soniyaa Kiran Punjabi emphasizes the importance of understanding our inner world, as our thoughts and emotions significantly shape our experiences and overall wellbeing.
2. The journey of holistic healing begins with gaining clarity about the root causes of stress and anxiety, allowing individuals to take control of their lives.
3. Practicing gratitude and mindfulness can profoundly impact one’s mental and emotional health, fostering a sense of safety within oneself.
4. Illuminations offers various holistic approaches that integrate the mind, body, and energy systems to promote healing and personal evolution.
5. Soniyaa discusses the significance of consistent daily practices, likening emotional resilience to muscle building, which requires dedication and effort over time.
6. Recognizing symptoms of burnout early, such as insomnia and emotional triggers, can prevent a complete breakdown and encourage proactive self-care.

Chapters:

1. 00:15 - A New Beginning
2. 02:28 - Awakening to Inner Power: The Journey of Self-Discovery
3. 12:12 - The Journey of Self-Healing and Empowerment
4. 26:41 - The Importance of Mindfulness in a Distracted World
5. 28:40 - The Connection Between Breath and Mindfulness

Foreign. Thank you so much for having me, Augusta, and so lovely to be here sharing with you.

Just give the audience an understanding of, you know, your path so far.

Right, excellent. So my story began in a very interesting way. One of my friends passed away in a car accident when I was a lot younger.

At the age of 19, I went through a bit of an existential crisis where I began questioning the meaning and purpose of life. You know, we're all attached to our ambitions, our dreams, our to do lists, and we run around life thinking we have all the time in the world.

And then within moments, life is unpredictable and the world we live in is so, so much not in our control. Right, because there are things that have happened in our lives with so many incidents that are ongoing in this day and age.

And then you realize that life's unpredictable and when things don't work our way, it leaves us feeling completely, you know, questioning life. And that happened to me at a very young age where I really began questioning the meaning and purpose of life.

Because our time on this earth is limited and we spend so much of it worrying, stressing, burnout, anxiety, stress.

And so that led me on a journey where I began meeting many different practitioners and healers and teachers on really understanding our own well being from the level of our thoughts, from understanding how your mind works, for really understanding what our energy is and how this energy has the capacity to create every aspect of your life and of course the emotions which drive us.

It really opened me up to a whole world of understanding who we really are and the powerful gifted resources we have, such as our, our energy body, our subconscious mind, your emotional body and your nervous system, and how all of these work together in tandem to create every experience of your life.

And so then it makes you question that if you have created a life around you which is causing you to stress, worry, feel anxious, constant loop of negative thinking, it then helps you to take a step back, reflect, look within you and realize that you have the power to uncreate it and recreate the life you want. Whilst we cannot control what's around us, what we do have the power to change is what is happening within us.

So it took us a series of three to four to five years to actually make people aware of the power and potential that they have within themselves from the purpose of, of, or from the perspective of their thoughts and how their thoughts are so potent in creating the reality that they experience. How their emotions are a driving force because your emotions are energy and emotion.

How your energy actually changes your level of expansion and contraction and eventually affects your biology.

So we understand today that that which makes us feel expansive, such as joy, appreciation, gratitude and doing what you love, automatically our biology responds by creating happy hormones like dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and endorphins.

But the moment we feel contracted, such as fear, anger, stress, worry and burnout, our energy contracts and we end up feeling stress and cortisol in the body toxins. And that eventually makes us sick.

So then the question comes in is that if we can make ourselves sick, why not use these gifted resources such as our mind, our body, our energy and our nervous system to make ourselves well again. And that led me for my life path and purpose.

This was and you know, with a very clear mission to help people live happier, healthier, more purposeful lives by looking within themselves on their own journey of physical, mental and emotional well being and as the path to their own personal evolution.

But with the passage of time, because we were speaking so much truth that people could align and resonate with, be it in the corporate world, be it in the educational space, and be it within individuals on a one to one basis for their personal lives, People started really waking up to the understanding of well being and how we have so much power to create the life that we want.

And so today what we do at Illuminations is we help people with on a one on one space by offering a unique integrated approach of holistic healing, of determining the root cause of what's creating this imbalance in their first place.

We use a powerful integrative approach, working with the subconscious mind, the nervous system, the emotional body and the body's natural healing intelligence to be able to create a sort of resolution in any, any area of their life, be it in their health, career, relationships and self expression.

And eventually we, we evolve this into a training academy where we're actually one of the most renowned spaces in the Middle east to help people to become practitioners.

Because Soni Bharat gave so much value from their one on one holistic healing and mental health sessions that they decided to take this on as a career to help other people. And so today we work both in the educational space with teachers.

We work obviously in the corporate space, as you are already aware of, with the increasing levels of burnout, stress, anxiety that are very, very prevalent. And of course, we work with individuals in their personal space as well.

That's amazing.

Do you think that when somebody comes and they come into your center or they come and they message you, or they get in touch and they're facing burnout or that point in their life where they're really. Yeah, they're really at the edge. How do you start with someone like that? Like, are there, are they very specific?

Is there a very specific path you take them down that's kind of one fits all or is it very, very, kind of personal?

Absolutely. So the first thing we do is we focused on the root cause towards resolution by helping them, number one, gain clarity.

A lot of people don't even know the word, what holistic healing actually means. Right. People don't know how the subconscious mind works. People don't know how the nervous system works and how it determines your overall health.

And so the first step is clarity. So they come in for complimentary one on one consultations. We provide them with this clarity.

And the moment they have clarity, there's a kind of light bulb, aha. Moment. Oh, this is the reason of why it's happening to me. Automatically the stress levels kind of decrease because now they're not lost in the dark.

Right. And then once we provide them with the clarity, we use many different methods.

We use psychological methods, we use in terms of emotional healing to identify the root cause which is triggering their symptoms. Right. Once we determine the root cause. Because everything in life starts with a thought. Every thought generates an emotion.

This emotion affects your energy, which expands or contracts you, and eventually manifests into your body and to your reality.

So we want to understand what is the thought process that's triggering this symptom to continuously repeat in our lives all your symptoms, many of the symptoms are coming from limiting beliefs which are coming from past experiences. So our job is to. And then we store these limitations both in our mind, our body, and the nervous psyche system.

So our approach is to basically go into the root cause resolution using many different holistic approaches. And then we provide them with a variety of different complementary consultations for them to choose what resonates with the most.

Because at the end of the day, nobody knows yourself more than you. We just provide you the platform to have awareness, to show you the integration between your mind, your body and your nervous system.

And to help you understand the Causality model. What is the cause which is triggering the symptom, right, to resurface continuously in your life? And that is normally what the free consultation is.

And we provide this to every client, both online, on site.

So people who walk into our center, and from there, they normally end up meeting a therapist, they end up joining a program, they end up joining a training, and that is where they actually start their journey of personal evolution.

Amazing.

For people listening who, and I'm sure there are thousands of people who listen to this podcast who will be sitting there thinking, you know, I'm okay. I don't need this kind of help. Everything's great.

What kind of symptoms do you think people should look for when it comes to things like burnout or times when it's. When it's time to, you know, have a check in on their life before it becomes too much and then it's actually burnout?

Absolutely. So you know how they say ignorance is bliss, but awareness is transformation? Augusta.

And so, you know, we have cultivated this need to control, right?

We are raised, and we come from educational backgrounds which tell us, which focus a lot on the technical skills to be great at math, to be great at science, to be great at history. And if you focus on these technical skills, you will be excellent in school. From school, you'll be able to get an amazing job.

An amazing job is going to give you a great pay, and the pay will make you happier, right? And life is all well and good till you have a breakdown, right? Because when we store this pain, right, this pain will whisper and we will not listen.

This pain will tap you and you will still not listen. This plane will shout, it will still not listen. And eventually this plane will.

This pain will blow up into a health breakdown, into a relationship, either a divorce, into losing your job because nothing in life is permanent, and into stress, anxiety, and health issues.

So when this pain manifests itself and you finally get a blow or a slap, you know, we say in, you know, in our space that sometimes the universe awakens you to awaken you. And this is the time when people, unfortunately, actually wake up. But the symptoms are always there.

The symptoms will be very present in, you know, probably not being able to sleep. The insomnia, the symptoms will be present in the fact that you having emotional triggers with your partner, right?

So you're constantly having fights and arguments because you think it's about your partner, but it is simply an unresolved conflict coming from your past experiences. And then the triggers will become so bad, the conflict. And you say oh, this partner is not right for me.

However, because we come from an educational background that tells us in order to solve things from inside, you have to look for solutions outside. But remember one thing, the pain is coming from you, mainly from your childhood, from your belief systems, from your limiting experiences.

And what ends up happening is you cannot use an outside solution to solve an inside problem. However, because we come from an educational background that tells us your success in life is determined by everything outside of you.

But today we understand that 80% of your success actually is contributed by your inner world. And what is your inner world is your thoughts, your beliefs, your attitude, your perception. And that determines your actual success in life.

But we were never taught that.

And so what we will try to do, because we have used external strategies as coping mechanisms, we will either leave that relationship, we will either try to fix our problems by changing our jobs, we will try and fix our problems by changing relationships, or resorting to unhealthy habits like smoking and addictions as a way of trying to relieve the stress.

But eventually we understand that these are simply numbing, coping and avoiding mechanisms until we are left to sit and address our pain by listening to them. And that is when the journey of self healing and self empowerment.

How many times have we seen people's lives completely transformed when they went through a breakdown? Right, because nobody questions life when life is working for them.

But the moment something happens in our life, this pain is actually a wake up call. It is basically another analogy for saying pay attention in words now and that becomes the journey of where people start to actually wake up.

But the but the but but the important thing is people don't need to wait for that end breakdown to be able to change. They can see it in their everyday coping mechanisms. If you're scrolling on social media constantly, what are you doing?

You're simply trying to regulate safety with your nervous system. When you're constantly watching Netflix, what are you trying to do?

You're trying to binge, to regulate, to increase the dopamine for your nervous system. When you're constantly attracted to junk food, what are you trying to do?

You're looking for quick fixes to self regulate and eventually hoping that these symptoms will go away. But many times what we teach our clients is that you do not need to look for safety outside of you.

You have the power to cultivate that safety from within you. And we use many powerful science based evidence tools such as heart brain coherence to help you signal safety to your body and your nervous system.

So before you actually Reach for that junk food or constantly binge on Netflix.

You can regulate yourself and then make an informed, conscious choice based on the power of the present moment rather than self regulating to avoid pain coming from unresolved conflicts from past experiences.

What advice would you give to people perhaps who know nothing about the space?

And maybe tips they can do on their own just learning about it and maybe, maybe small, small things they could do at home to help themselves to start, to start to see if this actually shifts their energy before they go the kind of full blown.

One of our jobs at Illuminations is to water down and simplify the journey of holistic healing, mental health and personal growth. And people make it very complimented, you know, complicated Augusta.

But I'll tell you one thing, all trauma and all breakdown is the result of you not feeling safe in your body and your nervous system. That's it, right?

At a time in your past when you didn't feel safe, you found many different coping mechanisms to avoid this pain so that you never have to feel this way again. So instead of trying to look for the meaning of why you're behaving like this, where is it coming from?

It's obviously very self reflective and it's essential at one stage. It's not always required for every buddy, I would say just regulate your nervous system by signaling yourself to feel safe again.

And how do you do that? Very simple science, evidence based tools, right?

So we spoke about earlier about the fact that science proves, right, that the moment we have emotions of expansion such as gratitude, joy, appreciation, connection, right, passion, and we sustain this feeling automatically.

It lowers your brainwave frequencies and signals not to your mind because the mind can play tricks with you, but it signals to your body that you are safe. And so one of the most powerful techniques I tell my clients is focusing on an approach called heart brain coherence.

So we can do this really quickly, but the goal is to basically place your hand on your heart, right, and close your eyes and sustain a feeling by going into a time in your life where you felt safe, where you felt at peace. It could be a moment of hug or connection with someone like you hugging your beautiful daughters, right?

And sustaining that feeling for a period of time for maybe a minute or two. And then another powerful technique is after you do that, just focusing on things in your life that you are grateful for.

And these don't need to be very grand events that have happened.

It can be simple gestures such as waking up in the morning and doing your cup of coffee or matcha, you know, a connection with your child who walks in the room. How grateful am I to have this beautiful child in front of me who I love so much?

Going to work and being able to contribute your vocation with passion and purpose, maybe your partner, Things which have may previously gone unnoticed.

So studies show that the moment we experience and start recapping your day, and I'm not talking about an event recap, every single day that you have and moments that have previously gone unnoticed and constantly express gratitude. The moment you express gratitude, your brain actually changes, right? Your gray matter actually changes.

And studies have shown this your energy expands.

And then finally you take deep breaths in 5, in through your nose and exhale with 10, exhale out your mouth and you repeat this for 10 to 12 rounds automatically. Your sympathetic nervous likes system, which is your gas pedal, which is your adrenaline, which is constantly on overdrive without you knowing it.

And that's exactly what leads to the burnout. It regulates and it goes back into the parasympathetic, which is your rest and digest.

And if you can bring yourself back into the parasympathetic nervous system automatically, you've self regulated. And this practice takes augusta not more than five to seven minutes.

So people who are very technical, people in your industry who understand numbers very well will understand that this is only 2 or 4% of your entire day, right?

So can you give yourselves, the question is, can you give yourselves that 2 to 4% to basically cultivate that sense of well being so you can show up in this world in your most happier, healthier and most empowering health. And that's what I, that, that would be my one message.

Yeah. Well it's amazing. Obviously you've been on this journey for 18 plus years now in this, in this sector, in this space.

And I want to kind of go back to the beginning because obviously you said, you know, it took you two years to get a license. Why were you so passionate about starting some, you know, a very innovative business back in a time when people weren't ready for it?

What was the real passion behind that?

You know, I was in India for six months. You know, I'm originally Indian, never lived there, but you know, and we are from India, from the land of spirituality and mysticism.

And so I spent six months learning everything about well being, from energy work to mental health, psychology, hypnosis, working with your emotion. And when I came back on that flight back to Dubai, I made a promise to my own self. I said, you know, I've gained so much value.

It has completely changed my perception and perspective. Of life and perception will change your beliefs and your beliefs will change your behavior.

And I found a change in my behavior in such a manner that issues which were once triggering me, which were making me feel nervous or not good enough. I completely changed my perspective to the same situation by changing my response patterns. And it happened so effortlessly.

And when I felt that personal change, I made a promise. You know, I made a promise to myself that I wanted to continue to cultivate my own practice.

And I never really even thought this to be a business. It was because I gained so much value. I wanted to share this awareness and wisdom to other people. And if they gained the value, that was great.

And if they didn't, that was also fine because probably wasn't at the time. And that was very inspiring. That was very. That was my single most driving factor for me to be able to grow this work.

And it also happened very organically that the moment I started, I couldn't find any practitioners.

Everybody was working in the comfort of their own homes and they were very nervous to actually go out there and see wellness and well being as a full fledged serious profession, as you have bankers, lawyers, doctors. And I wanted to change that. And I said, you guys are amazing, you're doing amazing work. Why are you hiding in your homes?

Why don't we create a platform when you can actually spread your awareness, create your impact, share your purpose with other people so you can inspire more people. And that was what motivated me because I gained so much value. I wanted other people to feel the same way in their own capacity.

So your purpose has been empowering people in your career in many ways?

Yeah, absolutely. I see people's lives changed. It makes me feel so great that at some level a profession is great when you can actually create that impact. Right.

You know, when you can make that difference, which is beyond financial reward, which is beyond anything. And. Yeah. And that's what keeps me going today.

Do you, do you think it takes a long time for people to see the results now? Everybody today wants quick wins and quick answers to everything. How long do you think it takes for people to start to see a shift?

If they start to practice things or they come to you and they start to start to work on themselves?

So I Tell everybody. And my goal is to empower people so that they can come cultivate a daily practice, right?

So just as you go to the gym every day, if you want to build muscle, if you go to the gym once, you will not be able to cultivate, right, that muscle. Like you will not be able to build that muscle if you just did it once in your life.

In the same way, the muscle of emotional resilience, the muscle of making an informed, conscious choice about the way you want to live your life, of being mindful about your emotions, these are all like muscles. So if you do it once, it doesn't have the impact.

So it's really not about the retreat, it's not about the practitioner, it's not about the one on one sessions, it's not about the work workshops, it is about what you do in your everyday life.

And I have always noticed that those people who cultivate a daily practice of inner work by simply practicing heart brain coherence, which I explained earlier, the visualization, the gratitude and the breath work, automatically they will begin to see their life change in ways that will shock them. And so it completely at the end of the day depends on you. We all know that we need to go to the gym in order to build muscle, right?

But not every one of us actually stays consistent to it. So like anything in life, it's a matter of being consistent and being dedicated to your practice like anything else.

And that's when you see the most and maximum amount of results. But number two is person's willingness, right, their openness to take a hundred percent responsibility for their life.

So we say most people who come in, you know, they think life is happening to them, but eventually the goal is to shift that consciousness that I am the creator of my reality. Whilst I cannot change what's happening around me, I have the power to change what's happening within me.

And as a beautiful byproduct, their perception shifts, their belief systems change and eventually their behavior is what changes. And once their behavior changes, what they put out into their reality is of course what they will get back.

Yeah. Do you think then controlling one's mind and being in a very good place in their own mind is as important then as their physical body.

Do you think it's connected?

Absolutely. Today healing is intuitive, right?

I always tell my clients, it's like you're ordering pizza without the base and if you order the base and with no cheese, you're not going to have a full experience. Today, healing is integrative. It's not just about the body. And it's not just about the mind.

You know, it's an integrative approach where we work in a. Because we are multi dimensional beings operating on so many levels, right?

You operate on the level of the brain and the nervous system and the physical body. You operate on the level of your energy body, you operate on the level of your emotions and of course on your thoughts.

So all of these need to be taken care of in tandem in order for you to actually see long lasting change. Because let's say for example, a person is healing a memory from their childhood that has caused them pain, okay?

It takes three months for them to change the memories in their cells because cells hold memories.

So even if you've resolved the issue on the level of the mind and the subconsc conscious mind, if you've not addressed the issue on the level of the body by consistent daily practice, that is when the cells start to change.

Yeah, super interesting. And do you, and do you think that, do you think that people should implement this into their life?

You know, when they're young, like what age do you think for carrots out there, what do you think people should start being involved.

So today's study in latest study in trauma shows us that the first seven years are the most crucial years because children are most hyper suggestive, they're most vulnerable, they're highly impressionable, right?

So the impressions which they are surrounded by coming from their social, economic, environmental and religious inputty end up shaping who did come as adults, right? So we all understand the concept of the fact that 80% of your issues of adult life are rooted from your childhood.

And our understanding is, is that when a child goes through any, any issues in their environment which are not supportive to their well being, it ends up becoming a key issue for their trigger and pain in their adult life. So 100%, however, even have gone through challenging experiences.

Children, it's very easy for children to heal because there's a lot of neuroplasticity simply because children don't have a fixed mindset yet. So of course they can learn a new sport very easily. They learn languages so easily.

So just as they learn these new things, they can also learn to cultivate emotional resilience. They can also override their emotional issues.

So you, you know, so we teach children breath work, we, we teach children how to visualize, we teach children how to express themselves, their emotions, right? Because sometimes holding onto your emotions and not speaking them out in a safe space.

If children are taught this at a young age, of course this will have a very positive impact in their later life. Right.

So most of the time, when people regress through issues of the pain that they're facing in adult life, they end up regressing back to the first seven to 10 years of their life.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And have there been times since you've.

Been on this journey that you've gone.

Back to basics with yourself to, you know, maybe, maybe do. Do your practice again more? Have there been difficult times where you've lent on a specific, specific type of practice to help you get to.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, many times I feel that disease is a distraction of the 21st century. You know, distraction, sorry, is the disease of the 21st century. Right.

Our lack of ability to focus. And that has been a huge challenge for me as well, because we run business with a lot of clients.

We have constant WhatsApp messaging, we have constant emails, we have constant bombarding, which overloads the nervous system. And I have experienced lack of focus on myself. I. I struggle with ADHD as well. You know, my ability to stay focused on a task.

And I know when you're in that flow state, the magic that we have the power to create. Right. But very, sometimes it can be very challenging to remain in that flow state.

So I started experience, I started practicing a lot of mindfulness, right. Where I began to give myself the permission to do nothing.

So to close my eyes and to just watch my thoughts without trying to control them, without trying to manipulate them, understand where my thoughts are moving along, and then very gently, try to get a little child. So, like, let's say you're quite like, you know, in a room, when you're trying to close your eyes, you're going to have many thoughts.

The first thoughts can be like, this is so silly. I could be doing so much to, you know, like to check off my to do list. Why am I even here?

But we understand that today we've become more of human doings than human beings. And the greatest reward that you can give yourself is the act of being.

So when you close your eyes and you see your thoughts running around, your thoughts are like little children. They're always going to try and distract you from the present.

So what you have to do is very lovingly and virginly bring it back again to focus on your breath and remove the distractions. Because life is like that, right? We have so many things coming our way.

Somebody pulling us in this direction, somebody's pulling us in that direction. And that is the number one cause of an overload on the nervous system today.

And I find that the more technology, the more we're connected, the more of a problem that is becoming.

And so I find mindfulness ended up helping me with that sort of, you know, using practice to be able to help me focus and strategize and stay aligned. Basically.

Yeah, we've. You've spoken a tiny amount about breath work and breath.

Do you have any advice around that in terms of people perhaps putting that into their daily routine or their practice?

Absolutely. So your breath is connected to your mind, okay?

If you breathe very shallow and you're not able to breathe deeply, it means your breathing waves are more anxiously. You're in a more high stress situation, the more you're able to express, expand and calm your breath, right?

You're able to relax, you're able to relax, you're able to regulate your brainwaves cycle slow down.

So in the, you know, back in the ancient yogis and in ancient wisdom, you know, we used to say your life is not measured by your age, it is measured by the number of breaths you take, right? So the longer you breathe and the slower you breathe, the more your life expands sounds, the shorter and more shallow you breathe.

It is a beautiful reflection of where your state of mind is. So like imagine like you have a lake, right? And the lake is very calm, right? If your breathing is very deep, it means the lake is very calm, right?

If your breathing is very shallow, it means there's a lot of wrinkles in the lake. And so in order to calm your state of mind, it is very important to expand your breath.

And of course, there are many different types of breath work techniques. There's alternate nostril breathing.

But one powerful breathwork technique that I subscribe by to regulate the nervous system is to put your hand on your heart. Because studies have shown the heart sends more signals to the brain than the brain sends to the heart, right?

So the moment you create a sense of gratitude and positive emotions and sustain those emotions for a few minutes, you breathe in for five counts and you exhale very gently for 10 counts. Most people cannot even expand as they exhale into ten count. And that will be the beautiful reflection of where your mind is.

So as you start to continue this practice, the idea is to breathe in very slowly and your exhale should be longer than your inhale. And if you can do five to ten counts, you're definitely on the right track.

Many people, they can't expand their breath as they exhale and they finish in four or five counts, it means their breathing very Shallow and they need to work on their breathing. They're not utilizing their capacity of their breathing and lack of capacity of using the breathing contracts you.

And we all know what happens in the energy of contraction. It will make you feel more stressed, it will hold on to stress. The stress is happening all the time. It happens through the constant calls.

We have it constant through the meeting. Your ability to hold on to that stress without releasing it, you're not able to release it appropriately.

So it's like you are polluted in your energy space. So like for example, just as you have a shower, you want to focus on your personal hygiene, you must focus on your energy hygiene.

Because you pick up from conversations, from environments, from constant overload, you pick up energy from other people. And you want to make sure that your energy is whole and complete within yourself. And people used to be able to think, oh, this is woo woo wellness.

This is. There's no science backing to it. But today with new latest studies, science and research, we understand that everything is energy.

Energy is vibration. Vibration is frequency. And frequency can be measured. Frequency can also be measured in the body.

And so when you're not breathing properly, unfortunately, we're holding onto the stress that comes our way without expanding and releasing it in a healthy manner.

Yeah, I'm a big believer and I know, you know, in energy and energy relating to performance. Do you think there is an element.

To this practice which it's like, the.

Better you get with your breath, work and your own mindfulness, your performance can increase and your capacity to earn will increase.

Absolutely. Because today everything is about your capacity to be able to change, Right. Shift to the next level. Right?

So any new job, any new task, any new skill, okay, your brain for your brain, that is the biggest thing, right? Your brain doesn't like change. Your brain likes to stick to what it knows, because what it knows, it's what feels safe.

So when we talk about the neocortex, the neocortex is like the new is part of the brain. It's like a helmet, right?

So every time you're faced with a new like new activity or new task, our ability to procrastinate is much larger when we're not regulating ourselves. Because what is known is safe, what is unknown is unsafe. And we will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar head.

This is the nature of the brain and the subconscious mind. And it is doing so because it is, it's like a protective reflex because it is saying, only speak to what you know, but what you know is safe.

What is Unknown is unsafe. So like I said earlier, it all comes back to safety. And your brain and your nervous system is going to always choose a familiar, familiar space.

And so when we practice breath work, when we regulate safety to the nervous system, you are telling your brain that you are safe. It's okay. If you take that new task, you're still safe. And as you do that, that is one, just one of many different ways your performance increases.

And of course we understand mindfulness. Change is the gray matter in the brain, right? It increases neuroplasticity.

Our ability to be able to accept change, to accept growth, to accept transformation is safe for us and not unsafe.

We've probably got used to accepting pain. And change away from pain to feeling good is also hard for the brain.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

It's been amazing. Seriously interesting conversation and thank you so much for time, Sonia. And I think we'll, we'll obviously leave your, your link in the website.

Also have online courses where I teach this live to people.

So we have a three hours certification online, both like locally here in Dubai, but also online for people to actually learn how to regulate their nervous system, use powerful analytics tools to be able to manage their mind, body, emotions and nervous system. So yeah, if I will share the links with you and then you're more than welcome to share that with the audience and thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for listening and yeah, thank you for your sharing. There are many things we both could have done on a Tuesday afternoon, but we've chosen to grow and share together.

So I'm really grateful for the opportunity.

Yeah, no, amazing. Thank you, Sonia. And I think for the audience, we've reached the end of another episode, so. So we'll see you again the next episode.

And yeah, stay connected. Thank you.

Take care.