 I was a hockey player and hockey is really where the only place I found value in myself and then in life. It's the only thing I really cared about. I really was indifferent about everything else in life. Everything was suppressed. I don't even know if I was feeling. I was just numb and cold. I spent all my time at an ice hockey ring playing hockey or training. So really I trained in a way to make myself cold. I was a self-destructive ice hockey player and through brain education I discovered self-love. My name is Arthur Leibowitz. I'm from Westchester County and I currently am the assistant manager at the Westchester Body and Brain and the New City Body and Brain Yoga Tai Chi Center. Before brain education anything could really happen in terms of in a relationship or an event or circumstance and I would automatically be completely emotional and reactive towards it. If it's with my family maybe anger or rage can come up. If it's with my future and me looking forward I could be feeling scared and looking for answers. So really depending on the different area of life that we're talking about mentally anyway regardless just very unstable. Emotionally I think I've held everything in. I can't remember the time of properly expressing so from a very young age I was always overreacting with everything. Of course that's not socially acceptable so from that point on when I realized wow this probably won't work maybe in high school I just almost held everything in and it's like my throat and my chest grow tighter and tighter like they're going to explode. Everything was suppressed. I don't even know if I was feeling I was just numb and cold. I spent all my time at an ice hockey rink playing hockey or training so really I trained in a way to make myself cold like nothing can hurt me I'm too hard or cold but really it's just ignoring my true nature as a human having emotions feeling different things. I was okay physically but unconsciously self-destructive I was a hockey player and hockey is really where the only place I found value in myself and then in life it's the only thing I really cared about I really was indifferent about everything else in life so I just trained relentlessly for hockey and what that actually led to was overworking my body and caring my groins both my groins of my abdomen off my pelvic plate and having a three hour open surgery to repair the damage is done when I tore my abdomen off my pelvic plate I was 18 so after brain education mentally I'm a lot more stable I don't necessarily follow the compulsions that occur psychologically I'm more responsive so I respond to situations rather than compulsively and reacting to everything so mentally let's say something sparks up and a situation happens and I want to act out immediately compulsively so I'll take a second and just maybe do some deep breathing and be able to respond more appropriately to the situation as compared to following whatever my mind thinks is appropriate in that situation and it's not just sort of the deep breaths taking a moment and pause that's simple it's having the awareness to begin with that I should take a few deep breaths is usually the the gap between something happening and then me reacting and following my mind or however chaotic or negative it may be is so close that there's no time for me to even think to take a breath so brain education has done for me is allowed me to expand my awareness to realize no matter what situation I'm in I have the choice to take a step back internally take a step back not follow whatever chaos maybe going out of my mind or different things are coming up and just and choose how to respond appropriately more maturely brain education allowed me to sort of sensitize my my brain my body my heart to feel again to feel more deeply and to feel all the things maybe I was avoiding that were holding me back when I stopped avoiding the things that seemed so painful or to allow them to flow out emotionally I felt much lighter my entire life felt much lighter much brighter before I could just have a stiff-faced stiff body not reacting to anything acting like a tough person but really I'm feeling all those things but I'm just completely ignoring it's like my true self or my inner self my heart is right here and I'm just turning and looking the opposite way like almost daydreaming and ignoring but when all the the people are gone and it just me and myself I truly know what's going on inside of myself and I had no tools or resources or help to work on those things so brain education was that for me gave me enough tools so I can look at this inner self that I've been avoiding and appropriately address the issues and release a lot of emotional tension and stress knowing what I know now what I would say to my old self is I would just say it's okay whatever you're experiencing is okay because mostly I just label everything I judge everything I'm like I shouldn't feel this is stupid I hate this you made me feel this way so getting caught up in all that things as compared to just saying this is okay my favorite brain education principle is water up fire down which is a simple energy principle which means water goes up to the head so creating a cool calm clear head and then fire in the belly this struck me and had a big influence on my life because before I was completely unaware and I think my head was always hot I just walked around like a hot head so I didn't even I was completely unaware and just a simple principle of intellectually understanding it and then to allow the proper healthy flow of energy circulation and usually when that happens much more calm and much more grounded and much more centered so I'm able to interact with others and participate in daily life more naturally I was a self-destructive ice hockey player and through brain education I discovered self-love