Breathing in the New Year

Audio call, transcript. TalkToMeGuy Ed Harrold.

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TalkToMeGuy: Ed Harold is a master of something we all do but rarely think about. Breathing. As an author, speaker, and coach, Ed has spent years exploring how conscious breath work can transform everything from athletic performance to corporate wellness to individual well-being. His work bridges ancient contemplative wisdom with modern neuroscience, creating practical strategies that meet people where they are, whether that's in a boardroom, on a training field, or in their own daily lives. Ed's book, Life with Breath IQ plus EQ equals New You, offers a roadmap for discovering how breath connects mind and body, including 30 days of practices designed to reduce stress, build resilience, and unlock human potential. Life with breath reflects Ed's deep belief that we all have the capacity for transformation when we learn to work with rather than against our own physiology. His breath as medicine courses have broken new ground in continuing education.

They were the first non-MD courses offered as CME through George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Ed brings the same fluency and mindfulness-based strategies to healthcare professionals, fitness coaches, psychotherapists, and anyone seeking to understand how breath can truly be medicine. Welcome, Ed. Thanks so much for having me, Richard. I'd like to start by asking if you would please take us through a practice or an exercise of breathing, really bringing us here now into this moment.

Ed Harrold: Okay. So if you feel safe, allow your eyes to close. Allow your eyes to rest back in the sockets. Turn off the muscles you use to move your eyes. And focus your attention in the center of your head.

A place of great knowing and wisdom, knowledge, confidence, the center of the head. And as you focus your attention in the center of your head, imagine the backpack that you've been carrying around for the last 30 years begins to get lighter. And your chest begins to open. And your heart begins to expand. And your lungs begin to relax.

And now you can straighten your spine and bring yourself into what I'll call alignment. From the sacrum to the center of the head. Shifting your attention to the tip of your nose. There's invisible molecules there. And they're swirling around your nasal channels, your cranial nerves, the center of the head, the bottom of the brainstem. And it is gifting you with this moment.

And what you choose to do with this moment is on you. Using the left side of the brain, begin to control the length, depth and pace of your inhale. The in breath, which is actually something that brings energy down. And what happens when you slow that down? And then the exhale, the up breath, the out breath.

What happens when you slow that down? And as you begin to reclaim the high ground in your mind, and emotions begin to settle down. Look, listen and feel in the center of your head. And to refine your internal search. At the end of the inhale, allow a pausing.

At the end of the exhale, allow a pausing. It's that simple. This is not complicated.

We were trained to make life complicated to find external value. And we can let that go right now. And we can let that go right now. Center of the head.

Ed Harrold: Slower breathing than you normally do.

Ed Harrold: Brief retentions in and out of the breath. And notice what's happening.

Ed Harrold: What's happening for you right now? What are you being gifted with right now? And this is no time for self doubt or anxiety. This is time to awaken. It's a wake up call. And you've been chosen to awaken. It's not a burden. It's a blessing.

Ed Harrold: Your journey here on earth is unique to you.

Ed Harrold: Yes, you are a unique person with unique needs, unique desires. And it's so important that your dream is fulfilled.

Ed Harrold: And as you reach inside the center of your head. The messages that you're receiving there are coming from your heart. Your heart. That's your heart, not mine. And begin to trust your experience.

Ed Harrold: Begin to trust where you are. This is the worst moment of your life or the best moment of your life. Trust it.

Ed Harrold: If your bank account is full or empty, trust it.

Ed Harrold: If you're in healthy relationships or less than healthy relationships, trust it. Stay in the game.

Ed Harrold: And as you consciously explore your inner world, and you have command over this thing that we call breathing, and then you have the psychological ability to consciously stop breathing at the end of the inhale and the end of the exhale. And we make this symbolic transition from 2025 to 2026.

Ed Harrold: Take a moment. And notice what's working for you in your life right now. What's flowing for you. Let's bring in you the most joy. And then switch the channel. Maybe taking a moment with where you might feel blocked. Or where you feel disconnected. Or maybe something's not working.

Ed Harrold: And then where do you feel the strongest calling for the next year of your life? Or do you feel the strongest energetic urge? And then choosing to live mindfully with intention, with those three questions, what's working for me? Where am I straining?

Ed Harrold: And where do I feel the greatest calling?

Ed Harrold: Now is the time, ladies and gentlemen.

Ed Harrold: Do not avoid, embrace.

Ed Harrold: It's not well as me. It's thank God it's me.

Ed Harrold: It's time to step up. Just even if it's a baby step and be better. Be better.

Ed Harrold: You don't need to do better. Be better. And then take a deep breath in. Really fill the inner world with light. Exhale out with an audible sigh or a hum. And bring yourself back. Thank you, Richard.

TalkToMeGuy: Thank you, Ed. It's just like I came out into a large, I live near large redwoods. So it's like being amongst the redwoods. It's just quiet. There's a slight breeze. It's amazing in there. Thank you. Thank you. I'm going to refer to a series of articles that you have on your sub stack that I think is just so good.

So good. I'm going to put the link for the, in the show notes for the sub stack. And the articles are the high ground human. And one of the questions that as I was reading through this material.

Is you open early on with humanity is standing at a huge threshold. Some feel it as restlessness. Some as a calling. Some as pressure rising from inside the body itself. Is part of a practice like what you just took us through going to help us clarify what that feeling of restlessness is.

Ed Harrold: Yes. I believe that one of the primary goals. A breath control is to create points of safety in the body. Points of safety in the brain, mind connection. Where we can begin to explore. And question.

Some of the answers. That we've been utilizing. In the past several years of our life. And simply asking ourselves, is this helping.

Or is this hurting. This is the most basic level. It seems like the world today wants to move faster and faster and it wants to move faster and faster. In my brain all the time. And there's a tendency to chaos. And rushing. And feeling overwhelmed. And I'm being forced into situations. Where I feel I'm not totally prepared to be my best. Where I feel like I'm just simply replaying an old story just to cover things up and move Sunday along in the Monday.

And I just, I feel like I've had enough of that. And I think the breath. I think the breath is somewhat misunderstood.

And what it can bring to us. Is there. Is a lot of influence that influencer activity out there around breath and. It can turn into something that. It doesn't need to be. The breath itself.

Is completely conscious. All the time. Unfortunately we are not. We are unconscious most of the time. Scared.

Unsteady. Replaying an old event trying to reframe it even though it's never going to happen again. Or future tripping about what's going to happen when I get rich.

Whatever it may be when I get the promotion when I find the man or the woman of my life my dreams. And we're missing. The now. Or reality realities another word for real life. And that takes place only in the present.

So I think the breath. Wants to help us. Become more present. And have a level of presence.

In the now moment. That allows us to ask the deeper questions of our life. Why am I here.

What am I doing is a am I a value. In a way that provides support. For those of us. Who've become aware. That not everything outside of us can be trusted.

Not everything is as it seems. We must recalibrate. Our internal compasses. To true north. And stay on true north. Stay awake. Do not fall asleep with our eyes open. And really remember why we're here. What our purpose is. And it's beyond anything I could ever describe in the next few minutes of our life. Thank you.

TalkToMeGuy: I was going to save this for later, but it's so perfect for now. So many people are talking about. E. M. M. F. And talking about the scariness of E. M. F. And how they can this and that. And oh my God. And there's panic and fear and.

You know, it's a scene out of Godzilla where he's, you know, throwing buildings around. And I understand E. M. F. Are not good. There are devices that we can either wear or carry or use to help help neutralize much of that. I think the real I think in a certain way it's almost a distraction. To me, I perceive it as a distraction.

In that everybody has to be looking at their phone at all times. We've gotten to a thing where we need some sort of, I'm certain there's some sort of hormone cascade to the stimulation of, oh, did you just see this? Wow. I just, wow.

Wow. And that elevates that sense of. Stress and anxiousness. Both from a, I might miss something kind of perspective to the ability of marketers to sell us something based on some aspect of fear, whether it's a health product or a light product or, you know, whatever it is, it's all about, they're going to get you if you don't use this product.

And I think that's the, to me, that's one of the hazards. And I'm, you know, my hands are both up. I'm a person who spends too much time online reading, but it's what I do. I'm reading. I'm researching. I'm learning. I'm seeing new people.

I'm always on it, but I'm not really interested in the latest TikTok craze and I'm not picking on TikTok directly. It's just an example. And I think it's a real issue of over stimulation. The brain is much more comfortable with what you just took us through and being at peace in the forest or the beach or the wherever at home in a chair reading a book.

Then it is accustomed to this hyper stimulation from constant input of, oh my God, oh my God. I don't really have a great question there. It's more, it's an observation.

And do you have a, what are your thoughts on that aspect of taking us out of where we are now from that exercise you just took us from and do?

Ed Harrold: Well, my first thought is that I am not looking at my phone. My phone is looking at me. Boy, howdy. We are all guilty of it. So there isn't any need for judgment. Is there a strategy that I can interact with AI that helps my life without it becoming an addiction? And I think the answer is yes. But I think we need to devote ourselves or devotion doesn't work for you discipline ourselves around these devices to create freedom in our mind, freedom in our heart and use AI as a way to help us remember who we really are. We are programming the AI and the AI simply can process information faster than us. It can't create like we can.

It can only regurgitate our curiosity, our creativity. So these EMFs and things like this, this blue light, this artificial blue light is different than the blue light that we get from the sun that happens during the midday. So this blue light actually creates contraction around your eyes as the brain wants to keep the blue eye out of the retina and the iris because it's damaging to the brain. It creates stress, but it's so subtle you're not aware of it at the time and it begins to drain us. It fires off the amygdala, spikes our heart rate and sympathetic activity. It's very addicting. So maybe it's a good time of year just you know what your lifestyle is, you know what you have to do for a living and you know you have to use AI, computer, phone.

Are you willing enough to put soft form boundaries and scaffolding around your technology? Finding yourself, your own inner voice to have more value than what you're picking up externally. My advice would be, number one, get out into that morning sun and take in the infrared light of the sun with a focused breath and then maybe ask yourself those three questions. What's flowing?

What's blocked? And where do I feel the strongest charge right now and create mental intentions? In other words, programming your brain for your day and you're not going to meet your goal every day. It's a sin of the flesh. It's all part of the adventure here. Don't judge yourself. Look at our feebles with great awareness, curiosity and humility. None of us are perfect.

We're all doing the best we can. And then get that midday sun, get that blue light but just don't look at the sun. Just get out in it, move your body, look at nature and notice how it makes you feel. And then finish it up with the sunset. Let your day end with conscious intention, gratitude, forgiveness, whatever it may be that's appropriate for the activities that you just engage with consciously. Put your sword and shield down. The day will be over. Now it's time to rest and prepare for the next go round.

So getting out into the sun at the three major times of the day, sunrise, midday, sunset, living with focused intention, slowing your breath down all the time and retraining the respiratory centers of your brain to slow down. Nature does this all the time. Okay. We come out of winter. We have summer. In between summer, we've got fall and spring. In other words, when after nature creates light, it has darkness.

After it has heat, it has cooling. This is very, very simple. We don't need to go to Harvard.

I mean, it's nice to go to Harvard, but you don't need to complicate this stuff. When you're hot, you find ways to cool yourself. When you're cool, you find ways to warm yourself. This is circadian biology. This is our nature. So always looking to push back on your environment and utilizing the environment to help bring our internal landscape into a flow state. Thank you.

TalkToMeGuy: I used to live with a Labrador and I learned a lot from her. Because dogs, I'm a big fan of dogs. I'm very pro-cats as well, but there's something about dogs. And I learned a lot from her in the sense of, you know, when she was tired, she laid down and she took a nap. She didn't push herself. She was like, I can go further.

I can play harder. I can, no, she was like, I'm done. I have to lay on the couch and take a nap now. And when she'd do it, she'd lay down on the couch and give the big exhale and then just settle into being at rest.

Not complicated, not restless, not tossing and turning, just like right into the rest state. And then when she'd come out, she'd be alert and like, what are we eating? Are we eating something? It must be time to eat.

I'm a Labrador. We can always eat. But she was a great teacher of watching the, you know, when she was cold, she'd go out on the deck out back and lay in the sun. And she got too warm from that. She'd come in the house and pass out on the floor for a while. It was very, she was a great teacher.

Ed Harrold: We've lost this, Richard. We've lost our instincts, our internal gut instincts. We haven't lost it totally, but it's way, way watered down. By the time we get to our gut instinct, we've missed the moment. Now they're stressed.

TalkToMeGuy: Yeah. We skip right to stress. Why is that? Well, it's the brain. Yeah.

Ed Harrold: I mean, the brain is a tricky, tricky organ. You know, and I think folks need to understand that all regions of the brain are not created equal. Like if I want to meditate and try to relax, I'm certainly not going to focus my attention in my left prefrontal cortex where I strategize and rationalize and actualize all of my words and numbers to be the professional person that I am. I'm certainly not going to balance my checkbook, looking into my right prefrontal lobe where I meditate because there's no math there.

There is no language. I'm certainly not going to try to create new material, new thought forms, new behaviors, new habits by focusing in the back of my brain where my subconscious brain has complete command over my past. So I think having, you don't have to be a neuroscientist to understand the five regions of your brain. Number one, your right prefrontal lobe is presenting to you a potential future, something that has never occurred before. This is where you find your instincts. This is where you find curiosity, creativity, painting outside of the old ego's lines.

It's showing you an upcoming event if you'll allow it to occur. Your left brain is a wonderful place where you can strategize and rationalize thoughts and math and get things done. The bottom of the brain is just a wonderful place for each sleep sex.

You know, what your basic animalistic needs are. The hind brain, the back of your brain, your seer, your bowel, and small brain is a filing cabinet of everything that you've been involved in this lifetime, every single event since your birth and you came even in the womb is stored there. And it is a huge, fast processing center that when ungrounded, will overwhelm your conscious brain, the front head, the front conscious brain, which moves a lot slower than the subconscious. And then the top of the brain stem, the center of the head, where we were in that meditation. That's where we want to be. So retraining yourself to focus in the center of your head while you're going through your daily activity, while you're going through your life, there'll be so much more peace, you'll have so much more mental power, you'll be so much more in focus, there will be an absence of self doubt, negative self talk and fear.

You cannot bring that to the center of your head because it won't host those programs. So understanding the five departments of the brain, slowing your breath down, then directing your mind into the center of your head, you begin to awaken. What does that mean? Is that some woo woo word or is that a neuroscience word or what it means you become conscious? It means that you're not asleep with your eyes open.

It means you're in the now moment. And that's all there really is. That's where creativity takes place. You must be grounded in that moment. So if you have attention in the center of your brain, top of your brain stem, neuroscientists would call this your classroom.

Some of the ancient mystics called it the crystals, but it's been around a long time. Now when you get control of your breath with the center of your head, you are a conscious co creator of that moment in your life. You can ask your breath, I'm going to go public speak right now, and in the past, you've been in the center of your head. I've been nervous and I've regretted what I've said or it didn't come out as well as what was in the green room. So, breath.

My friend, will you help me make this speech and notice what happens? Or you're going around someone that is not of your religious or political or whatever may be, race. And it's been difficult. Ask your breath. Say, breath, I'm going to this situation and I want to be calm. I want to be relaxed.

I want to be authentic. Whatever it may be, just ask your breath to do that for you before you begin that and notice if it doesn't happen. Notice that the best version of yourself is present and the part of us that gets triggered in this separation has no power over your choosing mind. Say you want to go move your body. You want to go for a walk. Say, breath, help me walk.

Notice if you're not taking the finest steps you've taken since you were 10 years old. So, what I'm offering you is that there's a simplicity to life and you can hack yourself with some simple modern and ancient techniques that will allow you to awaken. Don't allow life to become complicated. Then you're fighting the whole universe. Allow your breath to become a conscious partner with you, your best friend, your mentor, your coach, whatever word works for you. Ask your breath to help you do something and see if you don't do it better. See the simplicity of that. It'll blow your mind.

TalkToMeGuy: Yeah. I'll get back to where we're going. After I did some work with you in a private session, I'd seen you do the nasal breathing. The alternate nasal breathing. Alternate nostril. Once you gave that to me and I started using it, I use that a lot. I guess we have to talk about that for a minute. Even if I'm sometimes out of a stoplight and I'm thinking too much or I'm lost in a thought or I'm not really conscious and I'm breathing, I'm just not aware of... I'm driving but it's like, how did I get from that last place to where I am now?

Because I don't remember that kind of thinking. Or I'll always do it before a show just to bring me into the calm state of that vagal happiness. So I have to ask you about the alternate nasal breathing because I think it is such a powerful and handy tool to have. And you don't need it plug in or turn anything on or ask your aura ring what it's thinking. You just do it. It's amazing. So please talk to us about nasal breathing, alternate nasal breathing.

Ed Harrold: So alternate nasal breathing has been around a long, long time. Ancient sages, seekers, you know, would go out into nature and they'd try to become one with nature. And I think that's still the goal. I mean, your computer is great, but it doesn't make the sun come up in the morning in the moon set. It doesn't spend in this galaxy 1,300 miles a second. It doesn't change when high tide and low tide is coming. It doesn't change seasons. So the ancients weren't distracted.

They could go out into nature and just watch it. And that was the greatest. And at some point, someone began to channel the breath through one nasal channel at a time, rather than breathing through both nostrils. Now, they obviously scientifically they didn't have any idea what they were doing. They were just exploring themselves in nature. And what we began to find is the male and female quality, which plays itself out in nature.

Winter, spring, summer, fall, sunrise, sunset. And the male and female principle coming into an homogenous state of consciousness. So breathing only in the right nostril and feeding your left prefrontal lobe, your doing brain is very male. Science has also discovered that there is sympathetic nerve endings in the right nasal channel. That create a spike of energy in your left prefrontal lobe, the whole mental focus to give you the stimulation that you need to do. And doing is a big part of life. The left nostril feeds your right prefrontal lobe, which is feminine.

Things that haven't occurred yet, birthing new self-awarenesses, new intentions, new values. Remarkably, the left nostril only has parasympathetic nerve endings. The right and left nasal channel are an extension or the gate to the most amazing thing on earth, which is the human autonomic nervous system. One is based in hot and light and the other is based in cooling and dark. And this is a microcosm of the macrocosm of the planet that we live on. This is not woo-woo, this is science. We are deeply connected to it. There is no disconnecting from it as long as you're in this body and your breath is the bridge that does the connecting. Based on what season you're in and longitude and latitude you're in, we'll determine which nasal channel is more open. So if you're in the northern hemisphere right now and it's January, your right nostril is going to be more open than your left because you're in a cool, damp, cold environment with not a lot of light.

If you're in the southern hemisphere right now and it's summer, you're going to find your left nostril is wide open most of the time during the day because you need cooling to keep your internal temperature at 98.6 or 7, whatever it may be. Now, when you begin to channel that breath to one nasal channel and one particular prefrontal cortex at a time, something begins to happen in your brain. There's a wall between your left lobe and your right lobe of your brain in the forebrain region in the most conscious area. That wall is a series of nerves called the corpus callosum. When you breathe in the way that we're going to breathe in a minute, this electrifies the nerve fibers of the corpus callosum, which are normally dull.

What this does is creates a neurochemical called anatomy, which is a cross lateral molecule that remarkably allows your right brain to talk to your left brain and your left brain to talk to your right brain. And in that, you begin to elevate. You begin to use whole brain messages in your mind, regardless of the situation you're in, rather than short, jumpy, bumpy, fragmented messages that are chaotic and all over the place based on everything that you've done in your life or what you might do.

So you're kind of disconnected. So this alternate nostril breathing is a great thing to do before you want to do anything that you care about because you'll be at your best. It's a wonderful way to fall asleep at night. It's a wonderful way to start your day. It's a wonderful day. It's a wonderful way to use the whole brain, the conscious brain.

If you have a presentation, if you have homework, if you have something of value to you. So sit up tall, open your chest, relax your eyes and jaw and balance your skull perfectly on top of your spine. Release and relax your low jaw completely and allow the top of your tongue to rest on your upper palate, studying the amygdala of the brain, the lower brain stem.

It likes to feel that tongue there. Take your right thumb up and close off your right nasal channel. And breathing diaphragmatically like we were earlier. Inhale slowly up your left nostril and trace your mental awareness into the right prefrontal lobe. And look into that as if you were a drone looking into that lobe and hold the breath for a second. Then take one of your fingers, anyone, close off your left nostril, release the thumb and slowly exhale down the right nasal channel. Inhale slowly up the right nasal channel. Focus your attention in your left prefrontal lobe and imagine you're a drone looking down onto those thoughts, those memories and hold the breath in several seconds. Take the thumb, close off the right nostril, release the finger and exhale slowly down the left nasal channel to the lungs are deflated.

Pause. Inhale up the left nostril as slowly as you can. Trace your mind into your right prefrontal lobe and just observe what's there for you and pause. Close off the left nostril, release the thumb, sit up tall and expel the waist slowly out the right nasal channel and pause. Inhale up the right nostril as slowly as you can.

Notice the sensation of energy coming into your body. Focus your attention in your left prefrontal lobe like a drone looking down onto the thought world and pause. Relax. Close off the right nostril, exhale down the left. Deflate the lungs slowly as not to agitate the mind. Pause. And then inhale. Left nostril.

Focus right brain. You will sense huge space there. Don't be afraid of the size of the space.

This is how big your mind really is. Close off the left nostril, exhale down the right and pause. Don't rush. No rushing.

Man-made time is a lie. Inhale up that right nostril. Slowly. Focus your attention in your left prefrontal lobe and stop breathing. Look down onto this left lobe but don't touch it. Just observe it. It's just a suggestion.

It's just information. Close off the right nostril, exhale slowly down the left. Pause. Inhale. Up that left nostril. Pause. Focus in your right prefrontal lobe and just enjoy that space. The absence of negative stress. Get comfortable with that space.

That is who you really are. Close off the left nostril, exhale right. Pause.

Last one. Slow motion, right inhale. Focus on the left lobe and hold the breath in.

Open your heart to your thoughts. Close off the right nostril, exhale left to completion. Bring the right hand down. Take that first sweet inhale through both nostrils into the center of your head. Exhale, release this moment.

Let it go. Notice peace is not a far away place. It's actually right here right now. It's a place you're actually very comfortable in. Thank you, Rich. Thank you for your question.

TalkToMeGuy: Well, I think the one of the amazing parts of that is well, being at peace is always extraordinary. And the, is I think about it in terms of a mechanical thing.

And when I see mechanical, I mean our bodies. It has to be immune system supporting. Probably cortisol level balancing.

Right. And putting the body into a state of just, oh, or ah, because there's no stressor. We're just calm in that moment.

And that's why I find it so handy before a show or when I'm going to do a presentation or sometimes when I'm driving because there are times that, you know, it's a good thing to take a moment of light and do a little breathing.

Ed Harrold: Well, this is a very simple technique. And I think as a culture, we need to embrace simple. We need to embrace simplicity. We need to stop complicating our life. We have to notice where our attention is drawn into confusion and complexity.

And why do I allow that to happen? And then take a conscious breath and come back to simplicity, simplicity. As a young boy, you know, I was told everything of value is complicated.

You know, you study for years and you memorize and you regurgitate and you take big tests. And that's going to show the world how valuable you are at. And you should get a lot of money for that. And the whole thing is a trap.

That's not to say we don't need education, but education is going to have no value. To who you believe you really are as a person. So I can't stress enough how important it is that you have a conscious relationship with your breath. Let it help you. I don't want to go too far out there, but just stay with me here. Ask your breath for help.

If there's something you're struggling with, rather than wrestling with the emotions and the guilt and the shame, why don't you ask your breath to help you with this situation? Many, many good things will happen. Now, look, it's not going to happen overnight. Okay, like whatever you're doing, keep doing it.

But at the end of the day, simplicity. Communicate with your breath. Ask your breath for help. The same way you would ask a friend, a priest, a coach, a mentor, a teacher, whatever it may be. Ask your breath first, because your breath already knows you. It knows your strengths. It knows it's been with you the whole time. No one on earth knows you better than your breath.

Isn't it funny? When you think of something stressful, your breath responds and you start to breathe shallow and rapid and you're organizing an attack or defend plan. How does the breath know that? Or when you're feeling love or you're feeling flow or you're feeling support and your breath is just so smooth and rhythmic. How does your breath know that?

Your breath knows you better than anything on this earth. It has never lied to you. It trusts you. It thinks you're self-realized. It never interferes with you. It's supporting you every single step of the way and we never go to it. Simplicity. Go to your breath and ask it to help you and see if your life doesn't get measurably better in a couple weeks.

TalkToMeGuy: One of the things I love about that, the alternate breathing, but also breath in general, it's obvious but I must say it, I don't need an app for that. I don't need to ask my oar ring. I just need to breathe and see how I feel. And it's always a shift.

You know, I don't need a... I mean, yes, I could look at my oar ring or my watch that monitors me and see that it does a shift. But if I just go quiet for a moment and listen to what's happening inside, everything is a lot smoother. That's my word. Anyway, is that everything is smoother?

Ed Harrold: Well, the ego, the lower ego, the false self, the one that the world created, hates silence. Hates stillness because then we discover that it's a fraud, that that is not who we are and we no longer require the service of X, Y or Z, or that particular storyline anymore in our life.

Notice the world. It loves noise. Noise is the great ego, master. How much noise, how much energy can I suck out of you today? Mindlessly leaving you exhausted and powerless over the neuroplastic state that's available to you in your conscious two prefrontal lobes.

So the battle that we're in is between the forehead and the back of the head, the conscious and the subconscious brain. Using your breath, communicating consciously with your breath, start to rewrite your story today wherever you feel you're a victim. Or someone is holding you down.

Or there's something going on that requires hate or anger. And as you begin to readjust your brain and you begin to not be scared of the dark and you're not scared of silence. Now, now, finally now you can hear the whispers of your heart because your heart is never going to raise its volume to talk over you because it loves you too much.

It's going to wait for the storm to pass and then it's going to whisper something to you, something like, hey dummy, I can help. Next time this shit hits the fan, could you come to me first? Maybe 30 seconds of silence so that I can get into that ticker tape of thought of yours, that crazy monkey mind.

And maybe we don't have to get down that rabbit hole and beat this not out of ourself or get pissed off at my family or some politician or some religion or some country or whatever the noise is. Silence. You can't learn anything new when you're talking. I can't. It's just regurgitating an old program.

Same thing inside our heads. I can't learn anything new when I'm talking. So if you don't like meditation, that's a bad word. Maybe change the word. Maybe quiet waiting.

Maybe silent walking. Pick words that are comfortable to you, that support you. Don't go to words that trigger you. If you don't like the exercise, if you don't like the word exercise, today I'm going to go move my body. I don't have any preference on how I move it. I don't care how many sets or miles or time I do, but put yourself psychologically in a position where you can be successful and not start the amygdala in the ward apartment and create artificial resistance.

TalkToMeGuy: Artificial resistance. That's a great baseball cap. That's really good. I'm going to jump us here slightly. We're going to go from mind to something that's really physical. And it's always been a sleeper. And I don't know why that is. I want you to talk about fascia and why people think of it as just a connective tissue. What are they missing? I can't say this is a disclaimer.

This is a direct observation. A long time ago I was trained in Swedish Esalen massage with special emphasis in deep tissue work. And so I did a lot of deep tissue release work with people. And when you would reach a point working on a client in deep tissue work, and it's really deep, it's an amazing amount of release.

How big, I'll call them butch guys, you know, work out beasts or professional athletes who would suddenly find tears just streaming down their face. When you'd be working on the inside of their thigh or some big muscle group, the thigh seemed to be a good place to store emotion. And I think it's all fascia related. So could you talk about fascia? I don't think fascia gets enough recognition.

Ed Harrold: So underneath our skin is a layer of silver connective collagen tissue that surrounds our muscles, moves through our muscle tissue, surrounds our organs and is inside our organs. It is a hydrated electrical system that holds memory. It is the holy grail, holy ground of the uncharted territory that is going to awaken human beings from killing each other and falling in love with ourselves all over again. We're moving into a point of high frequency.

The earth is in extremely high frequency right now. And this is causing tension. This is causing stress. Unusual layers of stress that we're unaccustomed to. This is our fascia responding to the higher frequency that's being forced onto the planet right now.

So as we move forward in 2026, rather than focusing on training 600 muscles and 200 bones and 300 joints, I want you to imagine just a layer of fascia that surrounds all of that. And whenever you want to take a breath in, hold your breath and squeeze the fascia of your body. Start with the fascia in your abdomen.

Purify your emotions. And then start with the fascia around your quadriceps and handstrings, your glutes and your body, your calves. And then contract the fascia around your biceps and triceps, your chest muscles, your back muscles. And as you begin to contract and cleanse and purify this fascia, you're going to receive all the traditional benefits of exercise, but without going through all the frequency intensity or duration that you've seen for the last 60 years in America, which leaves us exhausted and mirror identified. So the fascia, there's not a lot of science on it in America. You're never going to really see fascia in the mirror in the way like you would see if you were lifting weights or going for a run or you're doing sit-ups. The fascia is an intelligent system that holds electrical currents, memories, habits. The human fascia system is one of the few systems on earth that actually holds memory. There is no such thing as muscle memory.

That's a lie. It's fascia memory. Why is it fascia memory Ed? Because fascia is the electrical current that moves muscles. Muscles wouldn't move without fascia memory. So your life story is stored inside your fascia. Learning how to take care of it and train it using your brain, using your breath, using these isometric contractions will give you huge advantages in regard to falling in love with your life. Again.

TalkToMeGuy: Fascia, why do you think we don't pay attention to fascia? There's no money in it. Oh, that.

Ed Harrold: And you're not going to see a change in the mirror. Remember, everything real is invisible. You're not going to see it with your eyes. You see what you want to see with your eyes.

We could both look at the same thing, Richard, and see something totally different. You don't see with your eyes. You see with your mind. You don't listen with your ears. You listen with your mind. Everything is mind. And if you change the D to an E, it's the only thing that's yours.

TalkToMeGuy: That's a good one. That's a great one. I look forward to, you know, your next book on mind. Everything is mind. Me too. That's really good. I am really surprised to find this is the time at which we get here so quickly, it seems like. I have to make some recommendations for listeners and I'll put this all on the show notes. I cannot recommend highly enough following Ed on Instagram because he does some wonderful short form meditations.

You know, a lot of skiing this time of year. And it's just always, there's just always great short snippets of information for those of people that like short form. It's really great informative heartfelt information.

And then I also would highly recommend people go to his sub stack. It held on sub stack because the great it's it's really good information. That's where some of my questions came from today.

And it's just a really another great resource of, you know, information that it is talking about and thinking about. And then my question for for you Ed is, how do people work with you directly?

Ed Harrold: I work with the majority of folks today via zoom ever since COVID. I don't travel much anymore. Unless I'm speaking or lecturing at an event. So we get right down to it on zoom. And it's really about using your breath as a way to discard things that no longer help you detox the body detox the mind, create a routine that you can practice at your own pace. That's going to allow you to live a more vibrant, healthy, abundant, rich life.

TalkToMeGuy: Just that. It's simple.

Ed Harrold: All you have to be is anything you're interested in in your life, you will learn more about. And if you're interested in learning more about yourself, be happy to help you.

TalkToMeGuy: Wonderful. That was really great Ed.

Ed Harrold: Thank you so much. That was a pleasure. I appreciate you. You as well.

TalkToMeGuy: All right, everybody have a great rest of the weekend and we'll see you next week.

TalkToMeGuy: Bye bye.