 My name is Tariana and I was born and raised in Nicaragua. I moved to the U.S. when I was nine years old and have been living in Miami. I am the manager and main instructor at the Body and Brain Coral Gables location in Miami. So before brain education, I was actually suffering a lot from anxiety and panic attacks. I had been trying other kinds of yoga, meditation, other different kinds of spirituality, but it wasn't helping me at the... it wasn't helping me how I really needed the help. I didn't know really how to manage my thoughts. I didn't really know how to manage that emotion or any kind of emotion for that matter. I suppressed a lot my emotion or I analyzed my emotion thinking, oh, if this is sad, then what's the opposite of sad? Oh, happy. Okay, I will just be happy now. It was something that, yes, of course, temporarily in my mind it helped and it worked, but inside I was still holding a lot, a lot of emotion. I had just graduated college with a bachelor's in chemistry and my plan was to work full-time and before going to grad school for chemical engineering. All of a sudden, I started to develop panic. It was a lot of suffering that I had to endure. Physical condition actually was on the outside, looked very well, but internally I was very unhealthy. I started to get this idea of, am I really passionate about what I'm doing? I had to kind of start questioning, is this something that I really want to do for the rest of my life? And even though I was good at chemistry, is that really my passion and is that really something I would like to do? From those questions that were unanswered, I think a lot of that anxiety came and so I'm not connected to my thoughts. I'm not connected to my emotions. I'm not connected to really these deep preconceptions and ideas and all of a sudden everything just starts to open. This big, big doubt about my life purpose actually created huge anxiety and huge panic attack and I think a lot of us, you know, we make a choice in high school or whatever time about our path of our life. We follow this path or this kind of structure that society has built for us or that our family has built for us, the expectations of our family, the expectations of our friends, the expectations of society. And we make a choice and we go down this path. For me it felt like I had gone down this path but really truly inside of me I started to feel, oh, did I make the right choice and is that something that I really want? So that's really the underlying cause that really helped me just open everything. I really felt very caged and I felt that I couldn't really express who I was. I couldn't really just be passionate and utilize my energy. And I said, ah, this is how it's going to be actually all the time. That's when I started to really ask myself, what do I want? What is it that I want beyond those ideas that I had of myself, beyond those personalities? What do I really, really want for the purpose of my life? And how can I start to get on the path to fulfilling it? One aspect of brain education that helped me so much into understanding and even overcoming my anxiety was being able to be in the present moment. As a chemist and brain, I used to think a lot, analyze, calculate, think about the future a lot and then even think about the past a lot. That was something that I didn't quite know how to do. How to be here and now? How to bring my mind to the present moment? When you are feeling anxiety, it is because your mind is not here with you now. It is somewhere in the future, somewhere in the past or dreaming or anywhere. Your mind has become separated from your body. Little by little, through the practice, I started to feel my body more. Exercise, meditation, mindful exercise at that, meditation to bring your mind to your body. That was one of the biggest tools that I received, the most valuable tools that I received and noticing actually that my mind did not want to be in the present moment. In the present moment, I had to face a lot of different emotions, different actually even darkness inside that I didn't want to face all this time. Little by little, I had to keep coming back to the present moment to myself and facing all of these darkness, all of these emotions, all of these preconceptions, all of the stubbornness that I had inside as well. And I was able to stay here now, stay centered. I remember that after one workshop that I took called Initial Awakening, I was able to sense what the center of my body was, the dungeon. So two inches below your belly button and two inches inside. This is the center of your mind, the center of your body. I took the workshop. After the workshop, I felt so calm, so relaxed. I had never experienced something like this before. Of course, it's something that you have to keep practicing, how to stay in your body, how to stay centered, how to stay connected to that point. So of course, time passed by and something else, especially emotional triggers for me were the ones that really kind of awakened my anxiety. And I remember after that workshop, something happened in my life with my family and that aroused more emotion inside of me. And I could remember, I could feel that kind of anxiety coming again and that panic starting to rise. And from the tools of that workshop, I was able to focus on my breath, focus on my energy, focus my mind and my center. And all of a sudden, I was able to stop my panic attack. That was like mind blowing. So anyone that's watching this video that has ever gone through a panic attack, you'll understand there's nothing that you can do almost at that moment to stop it. It's not something that you can switch with your mind. Oh, I'm fine. I'm not going to die. There's really almost nothing that you can do at that moment to really change it. You just have to kind of let it go through and then finally it subsides. So that for me was so mind-blowing and shocking and it was something that really inspired me because I thought it was almost like magic, like a miracle. I was suffering all of these months with panic and anxiety and even before that with just, you know, nervous and anxiety and not being able to feel comfortable with myself or feel confident in myself. And within just one month of practice, being able to manage my anxiety and manage my panic, I was so inspired to share these tools with anyone that I could share with. One thing that helped me a lot in understanding or overcoming my anxiety was being able to realize that I needed help. Ask for help. Ask for help and you're going to see it. There's actually a lot of people that want to give you that help that you are seeking and that are more equipped actually to help you into maybe that have gone through the same things that you have gone through and will be able to guide you through it. If you would like to experience deeper the principles and the exercises, the practice of brain education, I am currently at the Body and Brain Center in Coral Gables where we teach everything about brain education through simple mindful exercises, energy meditation, and through deep mindful understanding and questioning of yourself. So I would love to help you and I hope to see you soon.