Mindfulness for Military Families: Coping with Infertility and Stress with Bruce Langford from Mindfulness Mode

n this special episode of Mindful Warrior Alliance, we’re joined by Bruce Langford, host of Mindfulness Mode, to explore how mindfulness can be a powerful tool for military families and spouses facing infertility, stress, and the emotional demands of military life.

Bruce shares practical techniques for incorporating mindfulness into your daily routine, helping to reduce anxiety, improve mental health, and create a sense of inner peace—even during challenging times like IVF cycles, pregnancy loss, or PCS moves.

You’ll learn:

• How mindfulness can help you manage the emotional strain of infertility and military transitions
• Simple mindfulness practices to reduce stress and increase emotional resilience
• The science behind mindfulness and its impact on mental health
• How to use mindfulness to stay present and calm when facing uncertainty
• Practical tips from Bruce Langford on how to start your own mindfulness practice, even if you’ve never tried it before

This episode is perfect for anyone in the military community or anyone facing the emotional rollercoaster of infertilityand mental health challenges. Let Bruce’s insights help you find calm and strength in your journey.

👉 Listen now, subscribe, and share this episode with someone who could benefit from mindfulness practices. Visit mindfulwarrioralliance.org for more resources, tools, and support on your path to mental wellness and fertility.

Transcript

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Hi, I'm Carrie bge, military spouse, licensed therapist, and founder of Mindful Warrior Alliance. Welcome to the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast, your go-to space for real conversations around mental health IVF, fertility and military life. Each week we connect with leading experts, service members, male spouses, and thought leaders to bring you tools, insights, and stories to support your journey. Whether you're navigating deployment, fertility treatments, or just trying to stay grounded, you're in the right place. joined today by Bruce Lankford. He is a fellow podcaster. He has an amazing podcast mindfulness mode. He is a master hypnotist with the national Guild of hypnotists, and he's been in the field of bullying for 15 years. So he's a self bullying coach. thank you so much for joining us today. Area. It is fantastic to be here. I'm really excited to talk to you and excited to talk to a fellow podcasters. Great. Absolutely. Absolutely. So I'm so curious about hypnosis and how that works in your coaching practice and how you got into that. Can you talk a little bit. Yes I can. And how I got into it is I interviewed a hypnotist on my show, mindfulness mode and, and I was so intrigued with what I learned from her. And she said, you know, you could become a hypnotist. You could use these tools with your clients. And I was so intrigued. I decided to look into it more deeply and I found out, yeah, This is something that can really work much more quickly than a lot of other methods to help my clients. And so I decided to go for the training and ever since then, I've been astounded at how quickly I've been able to help clients and really at, at how much effect it has had. Like it's just completely changed. People's lives very quickly. And for the better, you know, it's just in. Right. Yeah. I think there's something so powerful about the, the limiting beliefs that we have that are part of our subconscious, and our subconscious drives so much of our behavior, but if we are not tapping into that, and we're only paying attention to, our conscious and what behaviors driving our conscious beliefs, right? A lot of stuff slips in between the cracks, which I think you can target with hypnosis. Yeah, absolutely. What a lot of people don't realize is that hypnosis has been, has been accredited by the the American medical association is, has recommended hypnosis since 1958 as an accredited method of. In 1958. I mean, that's incredible that it's been used for so long and that the national, medical association has, has given a thumbs up to this because it really does work very effectively, so many people. Yeah. And I'm curious, what issues in particular have you found that people are, are trying to, use hypnosis for, have you found that it's particularly helpful with certainly. I have I've found it. There are many, many issues that people have that hypnosis can help with. and a lot of them boil down to stress and anger that the client is experiencing, but it can work to change habits. So many people come to me because they have habits that they've just tried and tried and tried to kick those habits and they haven't been able to, and with hypnosis, it just. It just falls away. And a lot of people have come to me because they have said, you know, I just can't get motivated. I seem to be stuck. I just can't get over this one, certain thing. Or sometimes people, come to me because. Of one thing. And then as we talk and we discuss some of the issues in their lives, something else is eliminated. And one example is that, I, had a new client and she came to me. She had a list of things that she felt were issues. And then when I talked to her, I found out that she was experiencing a lot of pain and I said, well, how long have you been experiencing this pain? And where is it in your body? And she says, It's in my feet and it's in my back and it's, let's see. And then she started naming other areas of her body and she said, it's just so painful. I just have so much pain. And I said, how long have you been experiencing this pain? And she said, well, for as long as I can remember, as an adult. And I was, really feeling for her. After we did a session to work on some of these issues. She said, Bruce, this is really strange. This is really weird, but I'm not feeling the pain in my feet anymore. I'm not feeling that. And, and I said, okay, well, let's work on, on some of the pain and some other parts of your body. And we worked on, on her back and we worked on her shoulders and our neck, particularly one shoulder. Okay. She after, even after two weeks, she said to me, it is the strangest feeling. And I don't know what this explanation is, but I am not feeling the pain anymore. And so it's, it's really quite incredible what hypnosis can do to help my clients. Wow. Yeah. I think that's fascinating. I mean, in working with my clients, I think one of the most important things that I bring into therapy is having them get in touch. What their body feels like, when certain interactions are happening and where, where in their body, they're feeling this discomfort. And, oftentimes that people are, some people are more in touch with their bodies than others, for sure. And some are like, huh, I haven't really thought about that before, and you kind of start putting some pieces together and then you can start to target where the pain and discomfort and some of these issues are really stemming from, from the body, you know? I'm curious, what the, the neuroscience to go from pain to, no pain to kind of bridge the gap between where that, where that magic happens, what is it that is so special about hypnosis? How does it. Well, exactly. And, and that's the thing that so many of my clients ask and I like to talk about the science behind this because, a lot of people feel more reassured when they understand the science and, and so on. But the bottom line is that to be a. Hypno hypnotize to who helps people. You don't have to understand the science behind it. And then the client doesn't have to understand the science behind it either. And so scientists are doing a lot of research in this area, and we've learned a lot about the brain in the last. 20 years, we have learned a tremendous amount about the brain. but the bottom line is that when you zero in, and like you said, you began to focus on your, on the feelings in your body rather than your thoughts. We now know that this is, a completely different state of mind. Once you start focusing on the feelings in your body. And so many people are. You know, we have this mindset that we have to think through our problems and solve them through thinking. We have to think it, if it's, if we have problems, you just have to think harder. We have to think more. And in that really isn't the way it is, you know, that it actually takes us down a rabbit hole that causes more problems than it solves usually. And so, you know, scientists are finding out that, there is so. Much that happens as a result of. Of traumas, childhood traumas, especially because we now know that, you know, up to the age of seven, there are events that can happen that can completely cause turmoil in your adult life. And, unless you deal with those, unless you deal with those events that are going on repeatedly in your mind, over and over and over. You will probably be debilitated in some way. You'll probably have some real challenges dealing with this. And so of course the big thing that scientists have determined more recently is that, neural pathways can be created. As an adult, and it doesn't matter what age we are, but we used to think that once you were 25 or so, that was it. Your brain was pretty much sat in those neural pathways that you have or are set up the way they are. And, that's pretty much it, but now we know that so much can be changed in the way you think and the way your brain works. So it's really exciting to be a. hypnotist because you can use these tools and help people and help people quickly, but you don't have to understand every aspect of the science and the neuroscience behind it. So that's one of the things that excites me, Carrie, about this. Yeah, I think it's, it is really exciting and hypnosis is definitely something that's always intrigued me for sure. And I wanted to ask you, what the difference between meditation and hypnosis is if you found. both are targeting the subconscious, allowing you to get out of your conscious brain and go to this, other state of consciousness so if you can maybe explain the difference between hypnosis and a really deep state of meditation, yeah, exactly. That's that's a good question. There is a lot of overlap. There, there is, a lot of connection because when you're in a deep state of meditation, If you're doing it right, and you're doing it effectively, it will be very similar to self-hypnosis and I teach self-hypnosis and I teach people to go into that state on their own and to take themselves to a place where they are, are not doing. Inner bullying that we talked about this self bullying, but instead they're feeding themselves with positives, they're feeding themselves in such a way that they can stay on the right path. They can actually deal with issues that they have, you know, that are going on in their. And their subconscious mind, because this is really the secret is that, you know, we have this subconscious mind that some of us don't realize it's controlling what we do every day and all our conscious mind. We, we generally know what's going on in our conscious mind. And that's just a tip of the iceberg compared to what's going on in our conscious mind, because there are just so many thoughts and so many stories repeatedly going. Over and over and over in our subconscious mind. So if you have. Done some meditation, maybe you meditate every day. That's a really positive thing to do, but if gnosis takes it one step further, and if you get somebody to work with you, who is a trained hypnotist, they can explain to you how you can use what you're already doing with your meditation. And. To the next step where you can use self hypnosis and that person can guide you through some of the challenges you're having in your life and, and use hypnosis to bring you to a better place. Yeah. I, love what you said there and I think. As you said, with the subconscious, we have so many behaviors that are driven by our subconscious and we're operating out of, that place for so much of the day, without even taking a second to really think about where some of these behaviors are coming from. And so we can go on autopilot forever without really questioning what our subconscious mind is is driving here. So I think it's, it's really powerful to, get to the root and to really. Question where some of these belief systems and where these self bullying, statements and thoughts are coming from, Yeah, I think it's important to remember that hypnosis is a state of mind. It's not a feeling. Some people feel, you know, like they're floating a little bit. Some people feel more grounded. Some people feel safer when they're in a state of hypnosis. Some people, you know, feel nothing at all. They just feel like they are themselves, you know? But th the important thing is to understand that if gnosis is something that almost every time. Can can use to benefit themselves. Everybody can be hypnotized unless in a rare instance, like they've had a brain injury or I've found sometimes if somebody is on a tremendous amount of medications that suppress their emotions, that can sometimes cause problems. But generally speaking, everyone can be hypnotized. Okay, cool. I'm curious to hear from your perspective, why people are hesitant, to hypnosis, there's this idea of what it looks like and what it is. Just like with meditation, I find that a lot with my clients. I don't want to meditate. I can't sit there and empty my mind. Like everyone has this one idea. Construct that that is meditation or is hypnosis. And so why do you think people are hesitant or resistant to, to hypnosis and maybe you can kind of break down what it is for people who are maybe. Yeah, well, hypnosis is something that so many people in the world have a misconception as to what it is. And the reason for that is because of movies and TV shows. And, you know, we've seen hypnotists on stage. And when you. Get a hypnotist to help you with some of the issues in your life. It's completely different than the kind of hypnosis that you've seen in movies and TV shows. That's a different kind of thing that stage hypnosis and that is done to. An impact in the audience, you know, but this kind of hypnosis is something that totally benefits you and you will know what's happening. You won't be like in another place where the hypnotist is taking charge and is in control. Hypnosis is a normal and natural state of mind. And what people don't realize Carrie, is that. You have probably been in a state of hypnosis hundreds of times in your life. Like, have you ever had that experience where you were driving to work and you got to work in like, oh my gosh, I don't remember taking the accent. I don't even remember driving down the highway that I always drive down, you know? And that's because you were in. State where your subconscious mind was taking care of things. You were safe. You were, you did take the exit safely and you did drive down the highway safely, but you were in a different place in your, in your conscious mind. And that's why you got there. Realize that, you know, you didn't even remember the details. Well, being in a state of hypnosis is something like that. It's not something to fear. It's not something to worry about. The most important thing is, do you trust the person that. Helping you the hypnotist, right? Because if you, if you trust that person, then you will be able to go into a natural, normal, comfortable state of hypnosis, where they can help you with some of these issues that are holding you back. Absolutely. As a therapist, I was always shocked to hear what percentage of growth and change is attributed to the therapeutic relationship. And in your case with the, with the hypnotist, right? So if you're not in a space where you're able to trust or feel comfortable with the person who is sitting across from me, Absolutely. There's not a lot of growth that's going to be happening there. Yeah. Okay, great. Thanks for breaking that down. I am curious what, a hypnosis session would, look like. If you can maybe walk me through that and walk the listeners through how we would get into that. Are you, are you. Absolutely. Absolutely. The first thing I do Carrie, is I spend time with the client and that's so important because I want to find out where are you now? Where do you want to be? Where are you now? Where do you want to be? And a lot of people. Kind of know where they are now, but a lot of people don't really know where they want to be. They know they don't want to be where they are now. We know what they don't want. They know what they don't want. That's right. And, and, you know, I've been there too, you know, I'm laughing about it, but I get it. I've been there. I think that's one of the things that can really make for great. Hypnotist or therapist is that if you've been there and if you had some challenges in your life yourself, then you will understand your clients a lot more when you agree with that caring. Yeah. So, so that's the thing. I, I talk quite a bit about that so that we know where we're headed, where we want to go and that we need. Where are you right now? What are you experiencing? Are you experiencing pain? What are you feeling? What is this? Are you feeling stuck? Are you in, you know, and we go through all of this and I really spend quite a bit of time on this at the beginning, and I'll spend a two hour session. The first session is two hours, and I want to make sure that you, as a client, you're comfortable with the idea of hypnosis. I want to make sure you're comfortable with me as a person and as a. Hypnotist, but also I want to make sure that you are really clear on what it is that you want to solve and change in your life. And, and maybe you've had this happen too, but I had a client recently and, and I mean, confidentiality is everything for me, with my clients, but I can share this, that on the last session she said to me, I kind of forget why I hired you and for me as a hypnotist, I'm like, oh wow, that's incredible. Because that means she doesn't have this pain anymore. She doesn't have so many of these challenges anymore. Then all I have to do is go back to my notes from the initial session and say, well, do you remember when you said this? Do you remember when you described. Pain in your feet. Do you remember when you described how much fear you had and how much anger you had about, you know, going to work and, you know, I can break it right down and be completely specific and then she's like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's a F it's the oddest thing that I feel like that's like so far behind me now. Sure. So that that's really incredible. And then, and then when we get into the actual hypnosis. What we do is we go to past events that you've had in your life. We go specifically to those yeah. Memories. Exactly. Yeah. Memories. And so when you're in a state of hypnosis, you can go into those places much more easily, and people. After the session people will say to me, oh my gosh, I haven't thought about that thing. That happened when I was seven for years, I almost forgot it completely. Right. And the hypnosis session brought this up and then we go through this and we go through a number of different events. Now some of them are positive. Some of them you might not think are positive. Some of them are very traumatic. We go into that. And then what we do is we back up, go back to before that event happened. And then we replay, we go through the event. We're not trying to change anything except the way you are perceiving what happened, perceiving, ah, That is the key. And the key is to remember, yes, this happened, yes, this did indeed happen. And I clearly remember it, but now you are thinking different thoughts as a result of what happened. You're changing your story, but you're not changing the story of what happened if that makes sense. Yeah. It's fascinating. It sounds like, it's a little bit reminiscent to. EMDR. Have you ever experienced EMDR therapy? Have you done EMDR? I haven't done it. Okay. It's it is pretty fascinating. There is an element of hypnosis to EMDR, so it stands for eye movement, desensitization and reprocessing, but, so it sounds really similar. You're going into that. Memory into that event, acknowledging what happened, your perception of the event, and then reconsolidating that memory so that it's there, but you're feeling different about it and it feels, like they're so far away from it, they're like, oh, I'm just so much more removed from this. cause that's what happens with trauma in these memories is that people feel like they're, re-experiencing this stuff all the time and it's, two inches away from their face and it's just too close for them to function. And so I think with hypno, yeah, with hypnosis, I think that's so cool that you're, that you're able to get there and do that work with people and just. It's exciting. It really is exciting, you know, to, to work with a person who, you know, is having so much, so much pain or, and maybe not literal pain, but pain and where they're stuck in their life, or they can't seem to move forward in certain areas and that kind of thing. Or they have so much anger about a parent or something like that. And then later it's like, yeah, I don't really feel that anger anymore. I feel completely different now. Right. So it is exciting. Yeah. That's so cool. I love it. and so I want to talk to you a little bit about mindfulness, and how you incorporate mindfulness in with your clients and what that looks like, oh, yeah, it dovetails beautifully. It really does because mindfulness of course is all about, you know, living your life in the moment doesn't mean that you can't think about the future. Think about the past at all, but just remembering at this moment. Things are fine. You know, I'm feeling perfectly fine in this very moment in time, and I can control my thoughts. I'm in control of my thoughts. And if I start to go too much into the future and I start to worry, worry, worry about, you know, what's going to happen in a few days or what's going to happen next month. I can take myself. Back I can, I'm in control. I can go back to thinking, oh, Bruce, just take a breath, take a couple of breaths and realize that in the moment, everything is just fine. You're doing fine. And it's the same thing with the past because you know, sometimes people get so focused on the past and what has happened and they're not able to move on and okay. Can completely derail us as well. So mindfulness is a perfect, a perfect thing to be able to teach in conjunction with hypnosis. It really is. Yeah. I think it's so important. It sounds like you do a really good job of that with your clients of empowering them to, you know, believe that they, they have control over their thoughts. You're maybe not responsible for what thoughts are coming in, but what. Do with them from that point, that's where the cool stuff happens. I think that's where you have that opportunity to, to catch that thought and to be mindful of what that is. And, and then, okay. What what's going on around me, that's kind of contributing to me having that thought that then you're really getting into that next layer mindfulness practice, which, is really cool once you get to that point and you start to have a little bit more control over your, environment and your thoughts. Yes, actually. Super cool. So mindfulness is a big, umbrella and it's a trending topic and has been for quite a few years. And I think like we talked a little bit about meditation and the, misconceptions about meditation. Why do you think, people are hesitant or resistant to having a mindfulness practice and what are some maybe misconceptions about mindfulness that you can think. Well, of course the one big thing is people think it's such a wound topic sometimes, you know, not so much now as they used to, but it's kind of like, yeah, I used to be much more like that. Like, oh, this sounds like something from the hippie generation, you know, this kind of idea. Yeah. A lot more people are now realizing that this is more mainstream. More people are doing this. More people are experiencing a better life because of this. They're experiencing less anxiety. They're able to take control of their habits. And when you think about all the positives, you know, it just doesn't make sense not to have a mindfulness practice, even if it's just, you know, some small thing you do every day. It doesn't have to be your whole life is completely centered around mindfulness, but as you start to do this, you may start to do more. Activities are more and more habits that are related to mindfulness, but you, you can choose. having a mindfulness practice, I think sometimes people can think that it has to be so big or that it has to be at the, center of their day or their center of their week or their life. And there are really. Small accessible things that you can do to be mindful. And so I think people often, don't, give themselves enough credit for, having a mindfulness practice I'll talk to a client. I'll ask them about their mindfulness practice. Are there any things that you do to be mindful throughout the day of? No, not really. Mindfulness. Isn't really my thing. Okay. But you walk your dog in the morning and you don't have headphones in and you're not talking to anybody. You're kind of soaking in nature. What do you, think about that? Oh, is that mindfulness? I didn't really know that was, mindfulness. Right? So there's different ways that you can break things down because I think people are kind of naturally incorporating mindfulness into their life, but maybe aren't giving themselves enough credit for the things that they're doing. so what are some small things that you encourage people to, to do, to build mindfulness into their day? A little bit. Yeah, I agree with your carry. A lot of people are doing it and they don't realize that one of them is gratitude having a gratitude practice. And sometimes people have a gratitude practice and they don't even realize that. Right. But you know, if you, wake up and you think, oh, I'm, I'm glad to be able to wake up. And in this home that I live in, and then this country I live in. I mean, that's a gratitude practice right there. Some people make it more, a specific thing. Like they might write down, you know, five things every day they're grateful for, and that can be excellent, but gratitude is a huge part of mindfulness and it can really help us feel better about our lives in another one is realize. That breathing, even though it's something that yes, We breathe every day, putting a little bit more focus on it, realizing that, Hey, I needed to just make sure that I am doing some deep breathing every day. And a lot of times just identifying that, oh, do I feel tension in my chest and in my body, like, what am I feeling in my body? And then I can identify. Oh, yeah, I do feel some tension. What can I do to deal with that? Oh, I can just take a few moments and do some deep breathing and just relax, inhale, just pause for four counts and let it out for four counts and, and just do that several times. Many people, most people would consider that part of a mindfulness practice. But whether you put that label on it or not, it's going to be a real benefit for you in your life. I think it's just so powerful and so important for people to know that they have these tools that are so accessible to them, because the goal is not. People to Pete dependent upon us for forever and the sessions that they do with us. But Haley keep, let's give you some tools that you can have in your back pocket that are so accessible, and that can be so helpful for you throughout the day, because we're not going to be there to. To support people throughout the day, all the time. But, but your breath is always there for you. I like to always it's free. I know it's yeah, it's doing some intentional, Diaphragmatic breath. That's the biggest tool that I like to really empower people to take hold of, it's a big deal and so what does your mindfulness practice look like? I am so curious how you incorporate mindfulness into your day. And so maybe from waking up to your days end, what does that kind of look like? Well, I meditate every day and, for a long time, I meditated for 20 minutes every day. And, and for a long time I use guided meditations and then I transitioned into silent meditation that I just really enjoyed that silent meditation. And then I started incorporating meditation into my, running practice. So at first I, Like to walk every day. So I wasn't a runner and was never interested in running, but I walked every day and first for like 30 minutes, 45 minutes and then an hour. And then I, I decided to start running. That was a year ago. So every day for the last year, I. Going out for a morning run for an hour before I, I get started with my day. And so as part of that run, I do a running meditation and I also do self-hypnosis as I run as well. And like we already talked about self-hypnosis and meditation are closely related. At least they are in my mind, they're closely related. And so I just feel so. Empowered. I feel enriched as a result of doing this running and the meditation. And it just really is something that feeds me. And then part of my mind, fullness practice as well as is keeping a focus on what I put into my body, what food and drink I put into my body. And so I, I drink a lot of water every day and I would say it's, And how much water do I drink a day? I think it's like a couple of gallons or something. I don't really know. I just know that I really drank a lot of water. And, the one thing you see, I used to always feel like I wanted to lose weight. I was a little overweight and, oh, I guess I'm just stuck here. I can't do anything about this. Through hypnosis through self-hypnosis. I learned how to lose the weight. And then I realized that a lot of times when I go for food, or I think I want to snack. If I drink water that really satiates me, you know, And so that's one of the reasons I drink so much water because I just, I reached for water now instead of food. And so I, I find that really that's part of my mindfulness practice too, because I, I notice what my body is telling me now what's my body telling me, am I truly hungry? Do I truly like, what is the reason I'm reaching for food or I'm reaching for. Water or whatever. And so it's almost always safe to drink water, right. It almost always is. But all of those other things you put in your body, it's really good to think twice and be mindful about that. So those are some of the mindfulness practices that I have in my life. Yeah. It's the difference between. Being on autopilot and just being really in touch with the higher version of yourself and your body, you know, people like to call it a lot of different things. I differentiate between my emotional brain and the rational brain, your thinking brain and your feeling brain, but that's the difference between. Being on autopilot and reaching for something that may not be super nourishing and asking yourself one extra layer of a question of where's this coming from? but I, I would love a, a self-hypnosis example. Can you talk to me about what that looks like when you're running? Like, what is that thought stream? What does that process look like? Yeah, absolutely. so, one of the things is I like to think about, my personal beliefs of the world. Like, do I believe that there is a greater power? Or do I believe in, you know, is it, the universe is in God? What is my spiritual belief? And I talked to my clients about this and it doesn't matter. Like they might say to me, oh, I don't have any spiritual belief at all. Or they might say, oh yes. I, I believe in energy. I believe in the energy of the universe or whatever it is. And so I like to go there in my self hypnosis and that's how I teach this as well. And so, one of the things I always start with. God renews my life. And that's a grounding point to start there that every morning, I know that I have this life to live and I have control, but God renews my life mentally, physically, emotionally. So I think about those three aspects mentally, physically, emotionally, and I remind myself. That I have control in all of those areas. And because what happens with a lot of us is we get into adulthood and we start to tell ourselves the story that we do not have control. Right. And on I've certainly done that myself, you know, like, oh my gosh, I can't make money or all my gosh, I, I. Talk to people I'm scared to, connect with people or whatever the story is that you're telling yourself. And we tell ourselves all kinds of stories. And many times they're not true, right? Many times they're false, you know? And so self hypnosis is going through and reminding yourself of the truth. Reminding yourself that you are in control and that this is a new day and there are things I can do today that are positive and are going to help me with the trajectory of my life. Yeah, I like that. Okay. So when you're waking up every morning, that is your. Grounding mantra. Okay. So your grounding mantra that you always come back to just God renews my life and that's something that's just gonna center you. When you, when you have your thoughts going, too far in the past or too far in the future, you keep coming back to God, renews me. Yes, exactly. Yes. And that's me personally. So when I work with my clients, of course, we talk about, okay, what, what could a mantra be for you? What, what works for you? Because for all of us, it's different. Yeah. I think that's something so important to come back to because keep going back to this idea. being on autopilot because I think it's so fascinating. And it's, it's just so true for us that when we don't have these grounding statements and a gratitude practice, mindfulness practice, and something to center us, it's so easy to just feel like you're floating, and so I, think that's really powerful to have something that you can come back to throughout the day when you start to feel like you're floating too far away from what, you know, what your intent. That's right. Yeah. Cool. And so how has your mindfulness practice really benefited? Have you seen any shift in your, energy and your behavior and your. What does that kind of look like for you prior to having a mindfulness practice and then, now when is that? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's really made a big difference. And mind you I've had a mindfulness practice for a long time. So, when I think back. I had a lot of anxiety. I had a tremendous amount of anxiety that I was living with every day and I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't know why that anxiety was there. I had a lot of anger and I didn't know why the anger was there and why every once in a while, you know, I'd have this explosion either literally or internally, you know, I just like, oh my gosh, what's the matter with me? Why am I, why am I exploding this way? And. I really experienced a lot of this kind of thing. And I did not know why at all. I had no idea. And then as I started practicing mindfulness just bit by bit, I started to feel more settled. I started to feel more grounded and, and I started to feel much happier. You know, much happier in my life on a day-to-day basis. And then, you know, I noticed that as these things happened, I became more successful in my business. And so much of all of this was letting go. I realized that ultimately mindfulness boils down to learning how. To let go. And with my clients, we worked so much, we worked so much and then this is like, oh, you mean, that's all there is, is letting go. And I'm like, yeah. And they're like, but how do I really do that? No, of course that's the million dollar question. And then we worked through that. I'm just so grateful that I've learned so many ways to let go, that I have learned how to do it. And, I've been able to teach my clients how to let go as well. So that is really the ultimate part of mindfulness. Right. That's such a key and it's something that's so easy to say just like go, just relax. Just Be better. All of these things, but, tangibly, how. How do we let go? What is your top, tool for letting go and for working with your clients and, teaching them how to let go? What does that look. Well, that's mindfulness so that we come around in a big circle. So, you know, if you truly want to learn how to let go, then you, you just start to implement a few of these mindfulness practices. And don't try to add on, add on, add on all kinds of things in your life, and don't try to overthink it because that's what we all do is as we talked about earlier, that we can. We can make our lives better, but a lot of it is by letting go of some of the things that we're doing in our life. So letting go could be letting go of a, of a habit that no longer serves you to be letting go of a story that no longer serves you. You do it bit by bit, generally speaking, it just doesn't all happen. You know, instantly it happens gradually. And if you're able to let go of a certain story that you've been telling yourself day after, day after day, and then you're able to let go of one certain hat. That is not serving you anymore. Right. Then you're going to feel like a different person with just those two things you've let go of, but letting go is a, it's an incredible thing to accomplish and you just do it by just step-by-step applying some of these mindfulness practices and some of these practices. So accessible as well. So just the, breathwork and slowing down enough. I think the, the most challenging piece sometimes is that when we're on autopilot and we're moving so fast throughout our day, that's when we're in this state of anxiety, things are moving super fast and we forget that it's within our control to. Slow down with our breath and start to take some, some of that power back with the breath. And then our thinking brain is able to click click on, right. Instead of just running yourself into, into a wall. And so, I think that's, that's so powerful letting go and just paying attention to the messages. Your body's so smart. Your body tells you when it's like running on empty and it'll let you know when it's time to let go of things, right? Yeah, exactly. And the thing is in our society, particularly I think that so many people feel like we have to, we have to either pay money, a lot of money to solve a problem, or we have to do something physical. Like I have to buy pills and I have to take those pills every single day, or I have to, you know, buy. Yeah, or whatever it is is right. I have to spend a lot of money and then I have to do the thing and, oh my gosh, it's exhausting to think about it sometimes. And sometimes like a lot of these things we've talked about carry do not cost money. And a lot of things don't even take time. I mean, we already breathe every day. Right. So if you just have. You know this awareness of your breath and you start to notice that, oh, all I have to do is take some deeper breaths. Doesn't cost anything. It's not adding anything onto your life. And all of a sudden you're going to feel better. And the same is true for water as well. If you decide to consume more water, that doesn't cost you anything generally to do that, and it can really improve your. I love it. Free tools from Bruce Lang for mindfulness tools, water, and breath. I mean, so powerful. I love it. And so the question I always like to end with is asking, what advice you would give to your 20 year old self thinking back to 20 year old, Bruce, what would you say to that? Well, I would say to that guy practice some of these mindfulness practices that we've been talking about. I be talking about breath. I'd be talking about consuming water and just enjoy your life. Just really enjoy what feeds you just notice? What is it that feeds you in your life? Is it music? Is it art? Is it fixing race, cars, whatever it is that feeds you in your life, just enjoy it. Just allow yourself to embrace it and enjoy it and, and not let it. Like a pressure, just do what you enjoy and, and, you know, and speaking of enjoying, like a lot of times, it's the way you look at things. And a lot of my clients come to me. Okay. Issues with sleeping and they say, oh, I just can't sleep. I can't sleep. I try, I try to sleep. And then I talked to them about that and I say, yeah, but you know, what are you, what do you do every day? Well, I drive the car every day and I say, well, when you go to drive your car, do you think, oh, now I've got to try to drive the car. Oh dear. I have to try. And they're like, no, I just do it. That's the same with sleep and time you say you have to try to do something all of a sudden it, it changes the way you're looking at that thing that you're trying to do. So, Carrie, if it's okay with you, I want to share a meditation with your clients that they can get for free by going to mindfulness mode.com/sleep, and it's called a sleep naturally meditation, and it will help you with. Easy natural sleep, where you can fall asleep more easily and, and be in a comfortable place as you sleep. Some of, some of my clients have actually said, Bruce, every time I hear your voice now, I feel like as they listen to this meditation all the time, I just want to offer that. To your listeners, Carrie, Free tools are always, welcome meditation, breath, work, tips, water tips, all, all the tips. These are free and accessible. Good information for sure. And if people want to find you, your mindfulness mode. That's right. Mindfulness mode.com. Exactly. Yes. And they can always email me, bruce@mindfulnessmode.com. And I, I love to hear from any of my listeners or any anybody that's heard me online anywhere. Just reach out to me. You know, tell me, tell me what you got out of the interview. Tell me what you enjoyed about the interview or what you, what else you'd like to learn? I I'd love to hear from you. Well, this has been amazing. Getting to chat with you and soak up all of your mindfulness tips. Thank you so much for joining me. My pleasure Kerry. And thank you for what you do in the world. Thank you for putting your podcast out there, which is ready, set, mindful. That's fantastic that you're putting that out there all the time. I know how much work it is to do a podcast. And so thank you for everything you're doing in the world. The world needs more mindfulness, more people can shout from the rooftops, all of these mindfulness tips, the, the more, the better. Okay, thank you so much, Bruce. I'll chat with you next time. You're welcome. Bye now. Thanks so much for joining us on the Mindful Warrior Alliance Podcast. If today's episode spoke to you in some way, share it with your friend and leave us a review. It helps us to reach more warriors like you. Don't forget to follow us on social media and head to mindful warrior alliance.org to connect with our community access resources and stay up to date on what's coming up next. Until next time, take care of your mind. Stay strong and be mindful.