Today we’d like to introduce you to Laurie Ellis-Young.
Hi Laurie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
Empowering people, locally and globally, to survive and thrive by using the extraordinary power of their ordinary breath is now my major life focus. I’ve learned that it comes down to this – Breath is Life. The quality of our breath directly impacts the quality of our lives. I am head-over-heels impassioned by sharing “Breath Literacy” (the wisdom and knowledge of how to breathe optimally moment-by-moment, breath-by-breath and in circumstances all throughout life) through Breathe The Change LLC and Minnetonka-based nonprofit BreathLogic in four areas:
• Medical & Wellness (clinics, hospitals, healthcare conferences, palliative care, hospice, assisted living, yoga studios, community centers)
• Education (pre-K to post-graduate, specialty learning)
• Corporate/Business (presentations, trainings, lunch-N-learns)
• Humanitarian/Peace work (NGOs, conferences, retreats, trainings)
My journey to the breath began in 1970, in my small midwestern hometown when somehow a book on yoga “fell into my lap”. Reading it made me aware I was breathing. This awareness changed my life. It led me to the heights of the Himalayas in Nepal, the depths of the Red Sea in the Arabian Peninsula and many places in between, seeking teachers and experiences to learn literally and figuratively how to best breathe through the highs and lows of life to create inner and outer peace.
An airline career enabled me to travel extensively and put stress management skills into practice. After 13 years, I left my airline job to become a yoga teacher, pursue a master’s degree in counseling emphasizing breath, and guide people on transformational journeys to places like Thailand, Nepal, India, Tibet, Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, France, Germany, Japan, Cambodia, Laos and more.
On one of those journeys to Guatemala, I met a dynamic and talented woman, photographer Nancy Chakrin. Together we authored a book Friendship: The Art of the Practice (Tristan Publishing), showing women from decades 10-100 practicing yoga in the Twin Cities and other places in the world. These and other photographs became an exhibit called “Yoga: On and Off the Wall. Wherever it was displayed (HCMC, Fairview Hospital, Boynton Health, The Marsh, and more), I myself or others, would engage viewers in wellness practices. This was the beginning of presentations and trainings in many Twin City’s venues and the co-founding of BreathLogic.
Later in life, I met my psychologist husband George in Guatemala while he was community director for St. Paul non-profit CommonHope. Together we lived almost two years in a project outside Guatemala City, later working with international organizations in Kosovo, Cambodia, the Middle East, and most recently Ukraine, where George set up a mental health program for Peace Monitors for OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe). We were based in Kyiv from 2016 – 2021, and we wrote most of our book, Breath Is Life during our time there.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
As number six of seven children in a financially strapped household, any aspirations of travel had seemed impossible. Nevertheless, I studied Spanish on my own in high school and majored in it along with International Relations at university. I discovered that the University of Valencia in Spain had a program costing less than my state university. I applied. The same day I received my acceptance, my boyfriend asked me to marry him. I said I would. After Spain. He countered with “now or never.” I grappled with choosing marriage or Spain; for me it was the expected vs. the unknown. I had already been a bridesmaid many times and part of me wanted to be the bride. Even though it hurt, I chose “never” and Spain opened the door to a different world of learning and adventure.
I turned 21while living in the rainforest of Costa Rica, sleeping in a hammock at night, snorkeling with fish and communing with birds, monkeys and iguanas during the day. Spending months traveling through Central America felt like heaven –incomparable natural beauty, yet also a taste of hell –I witnessed deforestation and pre-civil war conditions for indigenous people. These experiences awakened in me a strong ecological and social conscience. I returned to the states knowing I needed to travel, care about the environment, and act for peace.
Often through the decades, I have wrestled with sadness about the conditions of humanity and the planet, and at times I felt deep despair. I know those feelings did not help me or anyone else. I always remember a man I met in Hiroshima named Masaji. He was 14 when the atomic bomb destroyed his home and killed his parents, sister and brother. After two years of anguish, he was able to begin healing by literally breathing in peace and breathing out pain. This technique -The BIP/BOP Breath (Breathe In Peace/Breathe Out Pain -whether it be physical or psychological pain, is now being shared around the world. Recently at a special training in Cyprus, I taught it to Ukrainian psychologists for their own self-care and to aid their clients. They report it is helping mothers who have lost sons to make it through the day.
This work feeds my soul. As a volunteer organization with incredible talent, the biggest obstacle has been the lack of funding for greater outreach. Luckily the mainstream is beginning to realize the significance of breath. I used to have to convince people, but now with evidence-based results and a plethora of new research, we welcome all donors and support to help us reach our potential in serving others.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I love being based in the Twin Cities and also having worldwide connections and influence. It has been quite humbling and also empowering to work with extremely diverse populations on five continents: girls rescued from brothels in Cambodia /Girls Taking Action (GTA) and Boys of Hope (BOH) in the Twin Cities /students and educators worldwide /children at risk and children of privilege/people with devastating illnesses and their caregivers/children and adults dealing with anxiety and trauma –whether from fear of public speaking, sleeplessness, social injustices, poverty or war.
I am heartfully grateful for having been able to travel and learn all I have. I’ve found that working with our breath is practicing kindness and well-being inside/out. There are many ways to work with one’s breath and I look at other breathing organizations as colleagues and not competitors. My far-reaching dreams with BreathLogic and Breathe The Change are to help make a huge difference in the world: to make the greatest positive impact possible on the greatest amount of people possible.
Co-authoring Breath Is Life. Taking In and Letting Go: How to Live Well, Love Well, BE Well with my husband George is one of my most fulfilling accomplishments. We came to breath differently, he came through neuroscience and I came from practice. The many treks I did alone and then with groups in high mountains were my greatest teachers of the importance of oxygen. Our book is a master course on ‘Breath Literacy’ and has been translated fully into Spanish with excerpts into Ukrainian. We aspire to the goal of sharing ‘Breath Literacy’ to the point where it is established curricula in schools around the world. Oxygen is what fuels learners’ brains and aids information to move from short-term memory to long-term memory.
Many people know the power of our thoughts but it’s when we put the power of our breath behind our thoughts that we truly can achieve momentum in accomplishing anything we want to do. Breath is our fuel –physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. If we aren’t paying attention to our breath, we are not maximizing our potential: to focus, to heal, to create inner peace and a better life.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
In the winter of 1998, I was living in a “tree house” on Lake Atitlan, Guatemala. I’d been sponsored to write a book and chose to do it on the shores of what Aldous Huxley called the most beautiful lake in the world. It was, and is, a tropical Mayan paradise too high for mosquitoes with lush vegetation, volcanoes, shimmering waters and beautiful people. I was giddy with happiness until guilt crept in while thinking about people I loved in the cold, dark north who were suffering for several reasons. I felt my personal joy diminishing until coming upon two quotes:
“There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits unto the world.” –Robert Louis Stevenson
“Follow Your Bliss.” –Joseph Campbell
Halleluiah! By doing what makes our hearts sing we are helping the world!
My bliss/happiness is:
1. Taking time for myself to feed my body and soul (beginning my day with breath and wellness practices).
2. Spending time in nature and helping the environment (my husband and I stewarded a reforestation project on Lake Atitlan for 22 years).
3. Traveling and cultivating local and global family (Since 1991, I’ve lived mainly overseas but my main base and tribe is always the Twin Cities.)
4. Learning about other cultures, peoples, places, and realizing we are all global citizens. (In the Twin Cities one can do this just by visiting diverse neighborhoods.)
5. Writing, training, and developing programs to share BLIPPs (Breath Literacy’s Instant Power Practices).
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.breathlogic.org https://www.breathethechange.com
- Instagram: breathethechange
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/laurie.e.young.3/ https://www.facebook.com/BreatheTheChange/
