An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Coherent breathing: Learn how to optimize each breath. The healthiest breathing rhythm is low and slow. 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out. This will balance your nervous system and make you aware when a situation or an environment that you are in is stressful. Every time I meet someone I breathe them in. I lead with trust.
As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bryant Wood.
Bryant (also known as “iKAR”-The one who touches the sky) is a global traveler who has immersed himself in enriching experiences with the goal bring something authentically his own into the world. He is a Master Breathwork instructor, and is currently certified as a Priest, NLP Practitioner, Pranashamanic Yoga, believer in Inclusive Mindfulness, Motivational coach, and Mental Health Consultant certified through Kindred. Currently Bryant is launching his Breathwork teacher training, Working with his 1:1 clients, and is in high demand to speak and share his wisdom. He is 1 of 3 of the Modern Nirvana team that is fully devoted to paving the way for a more enlightened world.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
My father owned a chain of health clubs as a kid and I have always been around wellness. For a while, I was a very well-known fitness model. As I got older my focus turned away from my body to looking deeper within myself. Being so outwardly focused led to a few eating disorders and some depression. I talk about it so casually now because it doesn’t define me, but I got to a very low point, where I had to do everything within my power to take back my life and discover happiness. After reading every book I could find, and studying all around the world, I found Breathwork. In ten minutes of Breathwork, I finally reached the equanimity I knew could exist and it gave me a baseline to get back to when I needed it. It saved my life. Now my work has turned into worship and what brings me the most excitement is creating experiences to enhance the collective joy.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
One of my clients found her voice. She created enough safety in her system to sing. When she decided to break through tears burst down her face and she just opened up and gave glory to her interpretation of the highest version of herself. It was beautiful. Of course, I didn’t do much, but being a part of these moments felt deeply important.
Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?
I am a co-founder of a company called Modern Nirvana and we host conferences once a year in Austin, TX. For this last one, we had Deepak Chopra speak and we were so excited to have him on the stage we forgot to give him the consciousness award we were honoring him with. I didn’t learn much from this except that I’m sure it won’t happen again.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
My beautiful little brilliant mother taught me how to not waste time on this earth. If you have inspiration in your heart to share the love with someone, do it. It doesn’t matter who that person is; everyone is important and through this, we have the power to change the world. There is not one story that stands out for me but I can recall thousands of moments growing up where my mom would be fully present with people, acknowledge their magic, and then leave them a little bit better than she found them.
What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?
Do one perfect thing a day.
What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?
Learn to like everything that you have to do. Then automate what you are not good at and take really good care of your people.
Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each.
- Coherent breathing: Learn how to optimize each breath. The healthiest breathing rhythm is low and slow. 5 seconds in and 5 seconds out. This will balance your nervous system and make you aware when a situation or an environment that you are in is stressful. Every time I meet someone I breathe them in. I lead with trust.
- Gut check: This practice comes from my friend fish and he learned it from a Lakota elder. Before a meeting or interaction with someone, you both answer these three questions. How are you feeling? Is there anything from keeping you present? Is there anything that you need right now? This will release anything that is keeping people in their minds and help them drop into the now.
- Prayer and the subconscious: I am not here to tell you who to pray to or how. What I will say is that in the silence of your heart is the opportunity to reprogram your brain to let a better quality of information in. Anytime you think about what you want, it begins to create the chemicals in the body associated with that experience. When you are sincere in your ask, you create a state that you have always had access to. I used to get extremely nervous before speaking engagements. Now, before I speak, I say “let my words vibrate at the frequency of truth for the highest good of everyone that listens.” This prayer helped me release the worry about how well I would do and let me focus on just being in service to the crowd.
- Find what works for your energy: Dance, sing, scream, play, cold plunge, walk, and find an activity to do that works best for your energy. Anytime you experience equanimity, you remember that place and it will be easier to get back to it. After trying breathwork on top of the Hollywood hills, all my thoughts emptied and I finally felt whole. Now that I know this state exists, I do my best to spend as much time in this space as possible and let my thoughts and decisions be born from it.
- Nootropics– I use Just Blue troche from Trosciption for focus and energy. Just Blue is 16 mg of pharmaceutical-grade Methylene blue that you place in your upper cheek and absorbs directly into the bloodstream. This is preventative as well as a slight state-altering effect. Every time you take this your tongue turns completely blue it’s an experience. This mixed with certain types of breathwork is my favorite!
How about teens and pre teens. Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre teens to optimize their mental wellness?
I will give you the advice I gave to my younger sister her whole life. If you see someone at school sitting alone, go over and say hi. Cultivating inner compassion and understanding that we are all in this together will lead to positive decisions that are good for ourselves and others.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?
Busting loose from the money game by Robert A Scheinfeld. This book gives you the science and energetics behind money blocks. It also teaches you how to reclaim your power from experiences where you still hold a limiting belief. Two days after reading this book I manifested $50,000 and found $20 bucks in my uber that same day. I split $20 bucks 50/50 with my uber driver to share the love.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
As healers or teachers, we get caught up in the game of how can I do the most amount of good. I found the best question comes from the movie Frozen. How can I do the next right thing? If you have the inspiration to create a world-changing project you will naturally do this. Those of you that look at the sun and smile at your neighbors are also changing the world. We all have our part in making this world a better place. Find your own happiness and then move from there.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
“Someone’s got to do it,” Said my Uncle Kerry, may he Rest In Peace. When you begin to understand that there needs to be a person that does the thing that you want to do, You simply ask the question, why not me?
What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
@ikarwood on Instagram. Make sure to create more than you consume though!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
Bryant Wood of Modern Nirvana: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.