Just Breathe: Turning Inward To Live Outwardly With Passion With Barbara Faison

 

Meditation is beautiful in its simplicity. Anyone can do it and it doesn’t require much in terms of cost or equipment. Meditation guide and professional voice talent, Barbara Faison teaches the joys of this ancient practice to beginners and long-time practitioners alike through her online course, Just Breathe. She is also the author of the book, Why Struggle?: Life is Too Short to Wear Tight Shoes. In this conversation with Rebecca Victor, Barbara shares her personal journey that demonstrates the power of turning inward so that one can live outward in a passionate way. She also shares some of the simple practices that she enjoys doing now that you can start practicing from the comforts of your home.

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Listen to the podcast here:

Just Breathe: Turning Inward To Live Outwardly With Passion With Barbara Faison 

We’re here to have an interview with Barbara Faison, a wonderful woman who has an opportunity to share her story of what it is for her to turn inward and then from there, to live outwardly in this world in a way in which she’s passionate. Let me share a little bit with you about Barbara. She is a Meditation Guide and a Professional Voice Talent, who shares practical ways to help you struggle less and enjoy life more. She’s the author of the book, Why Struggle?: Life is Too Short to Wear Tight Shoes, and the online course, Just Breathe, which is perfect for beginners with a desire to learn to meditate and hundreds of meditations and affirmations to help you through life. 

Barbara brings a wealth of experience including over fifteen years of Corporate America, working with iconic brands like IBM and PwC. Her professionalism and high quality of standards for her work are impeccable. Add a lifetime of training in the performing arts, including acting theater, improv, on-camera and a mindfulness ambassador, and you have a professional with a keen focus on all she does. Since August 30th of 2018, she’s hosted a free daily online meditation practice on Facebook called A Slice of Silence Meditation. We have the opportunity to have Barbara share with us her journey and some of the simple practices that she enjoys now. Barbara, welcome. 

Thank you for having me, Rebecca. It is a pleasure to be here with you. 

Most definitely, and thank you. I’m so looking forward to you sharing your story with us. Tell me a little bit about yourself and how turning within for guidance and understanding has helped you. 

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It has helped me for a couple of reasons. I am a person who has a lot of ideas, and I have to remind myself that all of my ideas do not need to get implemented. My eye–to–eye ratio, I call it my idea–to–implementation ratio, may be a little low because I have a plethora of ideas. I had to learn, “Barbara, you don’t need to do that right now.” Some of that is we’re moving into our age, my age, the age of Aquarius, I’m an Aquarian, and so part of that is the ability to think creatively, innovatively and ideas. For me, I have to have those people in my life that will go, “You can’t do that yet. You’ve got to finish this first.” Having a practice such as meditation mindfulness allows me to go, “I’m so proud of myself.” Rebecca, I’ve learned to go, “You don’t need to post and put that out right now. You can hold onto that because you have a strategy.” 

That’s hard for a creative like you. 

Going inward allows me to go, “You don’t need to do that now. Calm down, put that down.” I use Evernote and I also have a little notebook that I write my ideas down if Evernote isn’t handy. I’ll go back and decide when it’s time to release certain things. That’s part of how it helps me. Having those practices that rein me in and then having one of my oldest and dearest friends, we’ve been friends for over 50 years. I chat with her and she’ll go, “You’re not doing that now. You can do it. You just can’t do it now” I’m like, “Okay.” I have adult supervision among us. She’s the adult that reminds me, “No, little girl. You can’t do that now.” 

Is it like a squirrel feeling, “There’s a nut over there?” 

It is. I say as an Aquarian, it’s like you’re on this beautiful flower and it’s like, “That flowers pretty too.” You want to go to the next pretty flower. It’s like, “No, stay right here. Get the nectar where you are.” 

Did you first move in then for the purpose of helping you to quiet down or what was it that drew you in to getting quiet? 

In my mind, I was probably late 20s, early 30s, you go through that period I call it the moving into as they call it now, adulting. We didn’t have a name for it back then. You just became a grown person. 

It wasn’t adulting. 

You paid the bills and you handled your life. I remember that I had done what I was supposed to do. I’d graduated high school, college and had the boyfriend. I guess the only thing I hadn’t done at the time was get married, and I had no intentions of doing that at the time. That’s not what I’m trying to do, but I was doing all these other things and then I didn’t feel satisfied or happy. You’re supposed to be happy when you check these marks or hit these milestones. I was like, “What is going on? I’m not happy.” I was working in Corporate America at IBM, but I don’t particularly care for my job and I have a great relationship, but I felt like I was struggling. That’s the name of my book was Why struggle? 

I was writing at the time and this was way before the book, but I was writing and I kept running into people in the writing world that said, “You need to be still.” “What in the world was that? What are you talking about? I don’t know what you mean.” “You have to sit down and be still.” “What are you talking about?” Keep in mind this was in the ‘90s. It wasn’t like now where you could google and say, “What does be still mean?” I’m like, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” It’s like, “You need to learn how to meditate.” “What is that?” That sent me off looking for what this meditation stuff was. At the time, the only thing that was available were two cassettes. 

Some cars still have cassette players. 

I had one until it got totaled but it had a cassette player. I found Shakti Gawain, who was the fore founder of Creative Visualization, so I got that. I started trying to do it and I was like, “You want me to sit for 30 minutes?” That started me and I played around with it. I remember one of the turning points was I had been doing okay 10, 15 minutes here and there because I decided I can’t do 30 minutes that was that. My visualization skills and capabilities are non-existent. I don’t have that. That’s not my strength. Sitting and trying to visualize it was like, “I don’t see a beach. I don’t see anything.” It’s like, “I see the black behind my eyes,” this is what I saw. 

I said, “I’ve got to figure out some other way to do this.” I remember one day I was working at Georgia Pacific at that time, and that morning in meditation, I got a serious feeling that I didn’t need to go to work that day. I’m thinking to myself because my work ethic is, “I can’t just not go to work,” and I had a car accident that morning. Not only that, I got ready to leave and I used to take MARTA into this particular job. I could go to catch a MARTA station, either left or right. I almost went right but I turned left and that’s when I had the car accident. I thought to myself, “That was some guidance trying to tell me.” I remember calling my boss and he was a cool guy at the time. I know if I had called him and said, “Dell, I just need to take the day off,” he would have been completely fine with it because that’s who he was, but me and all of my, “I can’t just take the day off.” Back in the ‘90s, you didn’t take wellness days. I wasn’t going to take a sick day and lie and say I was sick because I wasn’t sick. All of that started me on a whole different level of appreciation for guidance. 

Especially when you said you’ve got that deep sense. 

It was like, “You don’t need to go to work.” I was like, “What? That’s not happening.” 

“It’s that even a subtle voice inside of me that doesn’t want to go to work speaking to me or is that guidance?” 

“Is that guidance? I don’t know. That sounds like craziness to me.” It’s was like, “I got your craziness.” It completely totaled the car. 

Were you okay? 

I ended up having to go to the chiropractor after the car accident. I was in pain and all that stuff. I call it the acorns, then the branch will fall and if you don’t get it, then the doggone tree is going to fall on you. It was like, “You didn’t want to go for the acorns or the branch, so let’s get the tree.” Let the tree fall on you, “Do you got it now? You could have avoided all of this.” “Yeah, I could have,” but then that would have taken me down a different path and we talked about that. That was a major turning point, milestone or whatever you want to call it for me in terms of not only being in practice, but listening to what comes up. 

Things don’t always come up, even though I’m a meditation guide and all, sometimes I’m like, “Can you help me please?” I’ve learned to say, I call him my crew, I’m like, “God, Creator, angels, archangels, guardian angels, spirit guides, everything that’s positive, listen you all. I need you all to hit me upside the head so I’m very clear. I’m not a subtle girl.” You need to scream, yell, bang on a door for me so I’ll go, “I need you all to help me. Please help a sister out. Help me out. Slap me, please.” 

When you got that sense though, how did it come across to you? Is that how it typically speaks to you? 

No. What I’ve learned, Rebecca, is it’s usually very subtle and I will find myself navigating in doing things. It’s not even like I know I’m doing it. I get it done. I remember one of the ladies, who I love, her name is Serea and she does a soundbite vibration meditation. I met her and I remember talking to her. She also gets intuitive hits and stuff like that. After meditation, I was like the kid, “I’m going to help you break out.” I would say, “Serea I don’t dream. People have dreams and I don’t dream.” She has such a sweet voice. She’s like, “Barbara, you just do. You decide to do something and you do it.” I was like, “Huh?” She’s like, “I guess it’s sometimes a little slow.” I said, “What do you mean?” She’s like, “You decided to write a book and you wrote it. You decided to do a meditation CD and you did it. You don’t dream, that’s not the way you do things. You just decide you’re going to do something, and then you put it into action.” I was like, “She says so, don’t worry about dreaming.” 

That’s why I’ll ask for guidance but a lot of times I will find myself doing things intuitively. I don’t even know I’m doing it. It’s like, “I don’t know, what am I supposed to do?” The next thing I know I’ve done something. It’s like I completed whatever it was that I was thinking about, but I do write things down. One of my practices is life scripting, which is a little bit different than journaling. It’s simply writing in the affirmative as if it’s already happened. I do that and I’ll go, “It feels great to have completed a voiceover for something. It feels great to have my voiceover business be successful.” 

Barbara, how did it feel to have somebody turn and say, “You don’t have to dream, you’re not a dreamer and it’s okay?” 

It’s funny how those little shifts when people give you permission and sometimes it’s not even permission, it’s just that you haven’t thought about it. I hadn’t thought about it in that way. I was like, “Great,” because I don’t do it anyway. 

That’s so nice to learn because I know there’s such a big push here that you have your imagination and you use that. For those who are not visually drawn, then you feel like you’re missing out on something. 

Even in meditation, I’ve learned myself even when I’m sharing with people. I will share with them, everyone does not have the same visualization capabilities. For example, if you tell me to imagine a beach, generally I’m not going to see a beach. I will remind them to get in the feeling of now I can take myself to a place where I would think about a beach and I can feel that. I remember someone telling me, “I’m glad you said that because I don’t visualize either.” I always feel like, “What do I do? This is not natural.” It wasn’t natural even for me to think about, “How does that feel?” Sometimes you need someone to give you that nudge so you know to do it in a different way. 

In the course of your meditating, did you always start with sitting or did you have other ways that you meditated until you could move yourself into a quiet stationary place, or is that where you went? 

No. I’ve always been a walker. Even from a little girl, I would walk the neighborhood. I was thinking about that even when I would go visit my grandmother when I was a teen, she lived out in the country. When I say the country, she lived in Florida and she had a pasture, so that’s how country her place was. I remember that would be part of what I would do is I would walk. I would be doing a walking meditation, I didn’t know it at the time, but I will go walk. A lot of times back then, I would have earbuds or some music on, I wouldn’t just walk. Now, I’ll walk without any sounds or sometimes I might do a podcast, but back then I forced myself to sit down. I’m glad I did because it’s a level of discipline that is beneficial. 

When I think about that, because I know from my own, I have a lot of energy and I remember I couldn’t sit to save myself. Finally, I had someone like you who said, “It’s okay, get up and move.” The walking was what did it for me or dance or yoga, anything that I could move helped me in that process. As you had grown in your meditation style or your inward style, you do the meditation and you do life scripting. What are some other things that you do to assist you on your inward journey of paying attention and of hearing? 

I started doing a Tai Chi class through Kaiser a couple of years ago. They offer free Tai Chi and fell in love with it. Tai Chi, the way they do it is a combination of Qigong and Tai Chi. It’s funny because Tai Chi is more of the form, so you’re doing like a form of martial arts, even though it’s a softer form. I remember when we first started doing it, our teacher always warms up with Qigong and I would just be like, “Can we get to the Tai Chi please because I’m ready to move or anything?” 

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When we went into lockdown, of course we couldn’t go. I started doing Qigong and fell completely in love with Qigong. The breath and the movement are so calming and you’re still getting movement and you’re standing. That’s one of the things that is a combination of Tai Chi and Qigong. I also do EFT, Emotional Freedom Technique tapping because I find that to be a very life balancing practice to help you remove issues and sometimes I just tap for happiness. It doesn’t have to be bad stuff. A lot of my practices now are Qigong–based practices, with the tapping, the EFT, the Qigong, the Tai Chi. I do a little bit of yoga. I tend not to do a lot of yoga because I don’t want to get on the floor. I’d rather just stand but I will do a little bit of yoga. I’ll do it on my own. I do have a Reiki certification that I only use on myself. I do Reiki on myself and just about anything with the breath and the movement, I’m your girl. I love the combination of the breath and the movement because what we do, we breathe and we move. 

If you think about the breath, what about the breath that has captured your interest or captured your passion? 

It’s so simple. If you think about what the breath can do for you, you can take someone’s breath away. You can breathe life into something through your breath. You can calm yourself down. You can get yourself excited and it’s always there. The breath is your friend. It is what you have. If you don’t have a breath, you don’t have life. They can keep you alive, but it’s through breath. You can be brain dead, but if you’re still breathing, you’re still alive. It’s the simplicity of what you can do with your breath and that it doesn’t require a lot of time. You can just sit down. 

One of my favorite practices is what I call hand to heart and three conscious breaths. You put your hand to your heart, take those three conscious breaths. I add on to that and do something I call planting seeds. My husband takes things back. I don’t like to take things back. I like to buy stuff and be done with that. I don’t want to have to take stuff back. He had a ton of stuff that he was taking back to Home Depot and I was aggravated. I’m sharing this story to let you know, meditation does not take you away from any of that. You only recover quicker because you know what’s going on. 

We had gone to Lowe’s and we were at Home Depot and I was aggravated. I’m like, “Why do you have all this stuff that you’d need to take back?” In my mind I’m like, “You don’t have receipts.” My mind is going into all kinds of places. We get there and we’re walking up and he knew I was aggravated. When we got ready, I was like, “We’re going to shift our energy because we want to go in and get someone who’s going to be helpful.” That’s where the planting seeds come in. He was ready to fight and I’m like, “No, we’re not going to fight with anyone.” 

It’s interesting when you set that energy because you get it if you said it. 

I said, “Stop. We’re going to go in. We’re going to get someone who’s helpful, who’s going to appreciate us.” I like my two friends, ease and grace. Ease in one hand, grace in the other. It’s interesting, we walked into the return area and this woman, you could tell, she saw all the stuff in the buggy because we had a buggy. She was like, “Are you returning all of that?” She got called away, Rebecca, and we got someone who was so helpful. I said, “Did you see that? It’s because you wanted the fighting energy and we were about to get it, but she got called away on something.” The person was like, “No, we get people returning gas. They clean out their garage and return stuff like this all the time.” I was like, “Look at that. Thank you, crew.” 

You feel like that little boy on Home Alone, “Yes.” 

I shared that stuff with him. It’s like, “See, this energy stuff works. We were about to get the lady who was going to fight with us, but don’t fight. We don’t need to fight. Everything doesn’t have to be a fight. I know it’s that masculine energy and all that testosterone but calm down.”  

It’s practiced. We often practice in a society that you have to defend yourself. Turning within this helped you understand that you can set the intention for what you want and you can cast your vision. When you think about your inward journey, you began because it was like a calming down. Where have you gone with it now? Where has it taken you and what has been easy about it and what’s been difficult about it? 

I’ll start with the difficult thing. The difficult thing is that we have these expectations of ourselves that, “I shouldn’t get upset.” We should all over ourselves, “I shouldn’t allow it.” I remind myself, “I’m human. I’m here, I’m still alive. There is stuff I’ve got to do, I’ve got to experience and I need to learn.” Stop shoulding on yourself. I’ve gotten so much further along in terms of not being upset by the little minutia and I tell him all the time, “You give me some good stuff.” He is good at when he can see I’m getting a little annoyed or aggravated. Probably, one of the difficult things for me is that I’m by nature a planner. I have a plan. I will have a plan. It is rare that I don’t have something planned. He is a different kind of planner. 

Let’s qualify that a different planner. 

He will want to do something and I will be like, “I know this is what’s going on now, tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday.” He’ll randomly go, “Let’s go ahead and clean out the garage or something.” That was not a part of the plan, Rebecca. I tell him, “I have to mentally prepare myself to do certain things, dealing with finances, looking at retirement stuff.” You can’t just do it. That’s not a drive-by from you. You can’t drive by and go, “Let’s sit down and look at some retirement stuff.” When he can see I’m getting in my planning thing because he now wants me to do something that in my mind should have been planned and I would have been prepared for it, he will say, “I don’t want any trouble, ma’am.” I love it because it’s a pattern interrupt. I’m already in the pattern, ready to fight. I’ve learned to do the same thing with him. I’ll go, “Sir, I don’t want any trouble with you,” when I find myself about to go there. Marriages and intimate relationships are that wonderful opportunity for us to practice what we say we believe. It’s all practice. 

It’s being real with ourselves, being understanding and compassionate, that doesn’t mean because we turn into it that we’re not going to get ticked off. 

They’re all those little things where they have Kermit the Frog and there was a little meditation dishcloth that says, “I meditate and I curse.” It’s not a one and done. It’s not a mutually exclusive society that I meditated to now. I float above and all. I’m still in it every day. 

I’m so glad to hear that, Barbara. This channel, at first, I thought I was not going to have it explicit. I’m like, “No, there’s not going to come a time that these some words are not going to come out of my mouth and my guest’s mouth that would change that to explicit.” 

 

It’s life. We live life every single day. If I may, sometimes it’s some shit going on and we still get through because thank goodness, I have a tool that I can use and one of my favorites is, “Just shut up.” I’d rather be mindful about what I say versus blurt out what I say, and then I can do EFT to get it out my system or radical or something. I have my own little things that I make up. I do the temper tantrum, whereas when you shake your body up, it helps you shake up all of your energy centers. After you finished doing a temper tantrum, you can’t be too mad. You’ve taken all that energy up. 

I remember when my son was little, he would have a lot of energy and as I said, “When you’re angry, you have energy.” That’s all it is, it’s energy. Just go do something, “Go in your bedroom and beat your bed and haul off,” and he did. I was surprised. He did come out and felt a whole lot better.  

We understand that and we also know and I share this with my meditation group is that there are times that I’m like, “I want to be pissed off because I don’t get there very often.” I’m going to marinate in this a little bit then I go, “You know you need to stop.” Just let it go, but I do say I meditate for everybody else’s benefit. You want me to meditate? He does. He’s like, “You’re doing meditation.” “Yes, sir.” He’s not going to try to stop me because he knows. My son is sixteen and I’ll never forget this. They aggravated me so badly one day, Rebecca. I was aggravated with both of them. I was about to drive to take him someplace and his dad with all his lack of planning or different style of planning. 

Different style, plan by the seat of his pants, is that what it is? 

Exactly. He was going to a basketball or something and he’s like, “Can you meet me here and just drop him off?” We get in the car and get ready to go, and then his dad calls and goes, “I’m in the subdivision now.” That didn’t help. I’m in the car with him and he had aggravated me. He’s tried to get out of the car and I’m locking the door like, “It’s not happening.” I’m going to have my little ready and he’s sitting over there like, “Lord.” I was like, “Blah blah blah,” and I’m highly meditated. Just imagine if I wasn’t meditated and he’s sitting there like, “My dad’s out there.” 

“Your dad’s just going to have to wait.” 

He‘s going to have to wait because both of you have worked up my last nerves. 

That’s right and you’re going to know it. 

He’ll go, “Dad, Miss Barbara was coming for us.” One of the things I share with them is there are no fairies in this house. Everything that happens is done by people. There are no fairies washing dishes, cooking breakfast, and all this stuff, so help. Do some things to help around the house. That’s why we have tools, Rebecca. 

“I’m going to go take a walk right now because you won’t want to hear what’s going to come out of my mouth if I stay. I’ll be back.” 

They’ll just, “Okay, we’ll see you in a few.” 

“Go ahead, please.” 

I’m going for a walk. I’ve got my walking stick. I’ve got my hat. I’ve got my key. 

“I’ll be back when I’m ready to talk.” 

“When I’m ready to deal with you all, I will be back. You know if I had a great walk. 

Isn’t that wonderful? The gift of meditation and the inward journey means you can love yourself. 

That’s what I need to do. It’s like, “I need to go sit outside, listen to my birds.” I used to have a dog, my mom’s dog and now, I don’t have the dog. I can’t pet the dog because when you pet the dog you calm down. She would be there. He was a teen. She would sometimes go stand by him like, “You need to leave him alone. When Lacey goes and stands by, we need to calm down.” 

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There’s a lot of energy coming out right now. 

The dog is like, “We’ll stand by him.” 

I think that’s what I love about this journey because it’s not about pretending that we’re something we’re not. It’s not about where we think we’re behaving in the exact way that we “should behave.” As you said, you should all over your pants. “I don’t have enough clothes to should like that.” I appreciate what you’re sharing because that dynamic of realness is critical. 

Hopefully, it will help someone who may have thought, “Maybe I can’t meditate because I can’t get.” “Come on and join the rest of us. Come to the light.” 

“You’ll begin to see the flaws when you come to the light.” 

The beautiful thing about the practice is, though I own who I am and I’m in all of that, I still own it. Something happened, I said to my husband, “Thank you.” He’s like, “For what? You look like you’re upset.” I’m like, “No, but thank you for helping me realize that was my fifteen-year-old that came out.” I say this a lot that we don’t have a lot of discord because it’s not my family dynamic growing up. I realize that sometimes my fully grown 50-something-year-old woman shows up and my husband’s fully grown 50-something-year-old man shows up. Sometimes, my eighteen-year-old shows up and he is a fully grown person, sometimes his 25-year-old shows up. 

It’s depending upon the age of where that wound gets triggered. I was having this conversation with a girlfriend and I said, “I don’t even know if the wounds ever get healed completely. I think they get covered.” When something comes up, you find out how covered they are. Sometimes we realize, “I thought I have gotten over,” because sometimes you just don’t know that you haven’t gotten over something until something comes up and then you realize, “I didn’t realize that my 27-year-old just showed up to that conversation.” 

That pattern has carried itself throughout your life. That’s so helpful. 

I think that’s a beautiful part is to recognize it and I will say to him and I’ll go, “Thank you for helping me see that because this is about me growing. You’re growing too but in this particular case, it’s about me recognizing where I am and how I’m choosing to show up.” 

That’s powerful. From owning that, what has that enabled you to do? When you stand, you say, “I own this.” As owning it, what does that give you?  

It gives me the ability to recognize that I may need to do some more inner work on that particular situation. We know everything is situational. It could have been a situation about something I wanted that he didn’t “give me.” The other side of me is, “I can get whatever I want. I don’t need somebody to give me,” but then there’s that other side is, “It’d be nice if he did.” There’s that duality of all of that. It allows me to go, “Wow,” and to recognize because I’ve determined that I have these core issues, if that’s what you want to call them. 

My core issue is appreciation. I know whenever I’m not feeling appreciated, then I have to look at myself and go, “What is it about you that you don’t appreciate in yourself?” It’s returning back to me, coming back to me and what is that about? “At what age did you start to recognize that you weren’t appreciated or didn’t see, feel, value or appreciated, whatever it is?” This is a return to inward. Something returned inside is never someone else’s problem. It’s how I choose to look at. It is the view that I have with my vision. 

How does owning help you? 

It allows me to be fully me. No one is in my head making any decisions or choices but me. I can’t blame somebody else for how I feel. They’re not making me feel anyway. I’m choosing to feel a particular way based upon some stuff that I probably didn’t realize I hadn’t dealt with or thought I dealt with and I went complete, all of those situations. 

It enables you to take that ownership and so when you have that ownership and the opportunity to see things either way, then would it be fair to say that it is also empowering? 

Absolutely. It is very empowering because I’m the person that makes the decisions about me. I don’t give that to anyone. 

How is what you’re learning helping you now in 2020? How has it been helping you with all the changes that you’re seeing? 

As I shared with you earlier, I decided it’s the solstice. You’re the only work that I’m doing now. I decided that I do my daily meditation at 6:30, and many times I may meditate additional after that or do something specific after that. When it’s cold, I’ll get back in the bed sometimes but I’m not sleeping. I do another practice I called relax and receive. I’ll go, “I write what I need to know, what do I need to do? I’m just here. Let me know what I need to know so I know how to move through my day.” The ability to be intentional with whatever it is I decide to do. That’s powerful when you can move from intention knowing that you’re very deliberate with what you’re doing. That’s why, when you asked me earlier, I just flow now. 

This time has given me an opportunity to focus on my voiceover career, the voiceover work that I do, all of that because I would have been working a job, having to leave and trying to navigate it and put it in. I’ve been able to do some additional training in that area and continue to expand and do things in my meditation world and using my voice that way. That has been priceless. It’s helped me own that in a whole different way, which I’m grateful for. 

 

I can feel that from you and I’ve witnessed you in different situations. It’s been fun to watch the level of command that you have. It’s a quiet command, but it’s Barbara and that’s a pleasure to witness. 

Thank you. 

You’re welcome. I do appreciate it because I think that’s the gift that we all are, these incredibly unique, beautiful beings. When we get the chance to give ourselves permission to explore what that is and then to own it, that to me is wonderful. When you’re thinking about people who are playing with this idea of turning within, because oftentimes we feel like if we’re turning within, maybe we’re not having a fuller life. Would you say that turning within has diminished your outward expression or how has it impacted your life? 

I think turning within has allowed me to live even a louder life because there’s a level of confidence that turning within has given me. Even as a younger person, I was never the person who was afraid to speak up. It allowed me to have a different level of confidence. I think of it as first, you think something then you feel it, then you become it. I feel like I’ve moved into the becoming and the being of whatever this is, this command of who I am. Going inward simply allows me to express myself in a way that, “I’m who I am, take it or leave it.” 

I remember sharing, before I got married, I danced salsa and one of my salsa guys is like, “I can’t believe you’re not married.” I’m like, “I don’t want to be married.” I shared it with him. I said, “Jamie, in a world of vanilla, strawberry and chocolate, I’m clear on pistachio. Pistachio is an acquired taste because I know who I am and I’m not willing to dumb down who I am or be someone different in order to say that I’m someone’s wife.” It’s not that I couldn’t have gotten married. I could have married several people but I didn’t get married until I was 52, and that was because I decided I wanted to have that experience. I was like, “I’ll have the marriage experience now.” 

“I’m ready. I knew who I am.” 

I can do it. I’ve done things that I’ve wanted to do. I’ve got to live my life the way I wanted to without having to say, “No, I can’t do that because.” I didn’t want that experience. It’s an interesting experience and I got the right guy for me to be able to go through this experience because we laugh about it and just enjoy life. 

What would you share with someone who’s starting this inward journey? Is there anything you’d like to share with them in practice or anything about starting it? 

There are a couple of things. Start where you are, and a simple thing you can do is, one of my practices is I have set my phone to alarm at certain times. I changed the word alarm to whatever I wanted to say. I have a 12:30 alarm, a 4:30 alarm, a 7:30 and a 10:30. The 10:30 is I changed the word alarm to say, “Thank you for this beautiful day.” 12:30 is, “Take a moment, take some breaths.” I would say start there because that’s a pattern interrupt and the alarm will stop you, and then you can say, “I’m going to sit here for a minute, notice how I feel,” and start to tune into how you feel in your body, connect with your breath and then move into something else. I think that is the simplest way to get started, taking those moments to pay attention, to notice what you see and tune into your senses when you stop. I call it an SSHTS meditation: Sight, Smell, Hearing, Taste, Touch and Sensations. It will be easier to remember it. 

A woman after my own heart. 

Just because you meditate doesn’t mean you don’t cuss. 

Sometimes there’s just no better word. 

It’s an intentional creative approach to expressing yourself at times. That’s a great way to get started. They can certainly join me. I do a daily online meditation day on Facebook. It is the Facebook Live Monday through Friday, 6:30 AM Eastern. We start at about 6:40, meditate for about 10 to 15 minutes. I’ve got people that don’t have a practice that feels like that’s been a good entry point to them as well. They can come to Barbara J. Faison on Facebook and visit the group. Join the group and get popped right in. They can watch live or they can watch the replay. I have a YouTube channel where there are meditations. I’m on Insight Timer, the app, and all of that. That will be a good entry point because my main thing as an ambassador is to welcome people into the practice to make it as simple as possible, to let them know that you’re not going to be required to go sit with monks for 24 hours with your back straightened. It’s none of that. It’s just to sit and breathe. 

If I had to sit like monks, I probably wouldn’t be meditating now. I have great respect. 

It can be intimidating because there’s still that perception in some areas that’s the only way to do meditation. No, that is a style. There are so many different ways to approach it. 

I’m trying to remember the title. There’s an excellent meditation book by Ram Dass, which is good. The Journey of Awakening, I think that might be what it is, and it’s all different meditation. I love the fact that you’re creating simple ways for people to tap in because we live in a busy world and most of us are tied into that. How can we very simply begin this journey in an easy fashion? 

Meditation meets life every day. For the mother who has children, you have to go to the bathroom to just sit. If you want to sit, set your phone for three minutes. Start there, start where you are. If you’re someone who doesn’t have any other obligations, you might be able to sit down for 10 or 15 minutes. If you have other obligations, you might not, but you can also engage your children and get your children involved because now we have activities that you can do with them. Once they get to a point where they’re able to move around and you can make meditation fun for them, they don’t even have to know it’s meditation, “Let’s play a game.” 

They’ve got some wonderful ones for little ones, for parents and their children. 

That’s the wonderful thing about moving into and shifting into this Age of Aquarius because we know that there are different ways to do things now that are going to be beneficial for many people. That’s the beautiful thing about being alive. Things are shifting and changing. 

I want to thank you so much for being my guest and sharing yourself, your thoughts, your wisdom and humor. It’s been fun connecting and being with you. I’m grateful that my audience had a chance to get to know you and to learn to begin small and that they know if they need some support, they can always check you out on Facebook. 

 

It’s my pleasure. Come Breathe with Barbara, come breathe with me. 

I want to thank my audience. Thank you for being with us. Remember, your journey is yours to be lived the way you want to live it, to learn, to grow and to realize that you’re met right where you are always. You are loved, highly respected and honored. I hope that you’ll have fun discovering you because you’re somebody worthy and worth discovering. I hope you’ll have as much fun as I’ve enjoyed it. It’s been rough at times, and I’m sure rough for Barbara too, as well as joyful to learn this whole art. Until we meet again, know and celebrate your life. Here we do now, so here is to your life. 

 Important Links:

• Why Struggle?: Life is Too Short to Wear Tight Shoes 
• Just Breathe 
• A Slice of Silence Meditation - Facebook 
• Barbara J. Faison - Facebook 
• YouTube – Barbara Faison 
• Insight Timer 
• Journey of Awakening 
• http://BarbaraFaisonsvoice.com/ 
• www.BarbaraFaison.com 
• https://www.Etsy.com/shop/BreathewithBarbara 
• https://www.Linkedin.com/in/barbarajfaison/ 
• https://Linktr.ee/barbarafaison 

About Barbara Faison

Barbara J. Faison is a meditation guide and professional voice talent who shares practical ways to help you struggle less and enjoy life more. She is the author of the book, Why Struggle? life is too short to wear tight shoes, the online course, Just Breathe – which is perfect for beginners with a desire to learn to meditate, and hundreds of meditations and affirmations to help you through life.

Barbara brings a wealth of experience including over 15 years in Corporate America working with iconic brands like IBM and PWC. Her professionalism and high quality of standards for her work are impeccable.

Add a lifetime of training in the performing arts including acting, theater, improv, on-camera, and a mindfulness ambassador and you have a professional with a keen focus on all she does. Since 8/30/2018 she has hosted a free daily online meditation practice on Facebook called A Slice of Silence Meditation.