What happens when breathing and meditation practices become part of daily life? On Supernormalized, host CeeJay Barnaby chats with Annelies Richmond about a journey from a shy childhood in a military family to a career as a Metropolitan Opera ballerina, and then to teaching breathwork and meditation. Richmond is now a senior Art of Living trainer and director of Sky Campus Happiness, where she works to support young people’s wellbeing and happiness.
Richmond says her experience with yoga and breathwork helped her feel more connected to her body and less overwhelmed by the pressures of dance. After beginning a regular breathing-based meditation practice, she noticed a change in how she felt on stage: the performance anxiety that had once felt difficult to manage became less prominent. She describes the practice as helping her gain perspective and respond to stressful moments with more calm.
The conversation also introduces Sudarshan Kriya and Sky Breath Meditation. Richmond explains how she understands rhythmic breathing and meditation as a way to quiet mental restlessness and settle into a deeper meditative state. She encourages listeners to approach breathing practices thoughtfully, and shares her view that learning directly from an instructor can complement trying short guided sessions.
Richmond’s work extends beyond individual practice. Through Sky Campus Happiness, she brings breathing techniques together with social connection and service, with the aim of helping students carry what they learn into their everyday interactions. The discussion touches on how colleges and universities are making wellbeing programs available to students and why community matters alongside meditation.
Warm and curious throughout, the interview makes space for questions from skeptics as well as people already interested in meditation. Richmond’s invitation is straightforward: try a practice, notice your own experience, and see whether it is helpful for you.
Chapters
0:00 Annelies Richmond’s journey
6:41 Breathwork and performance anxiety
15:03 Rhythmic breathing and meditation
28:20 Bringing wellbeing into student life
34:29 Breathwork, faith, and accessibility
Transcript
CeeJay (00:00)
Today on Super Normalized, I’m talking with Annalise Richmond. She grew up in a military family, moving around a lot, trying to find her place in the world, was actually shy at her early age, and then learnt her way into life through yoga and breathwork, which actually allowed her a greater connection to people and to her body and to her experience of life. She takes that.
understanding and then turns that into a method that she actually now helps other people with. And she’s the director of Sky Campus Happiness. And she’s also a senior art of living trainer and a former metropolitan opera ballerina. Quite the story and her mission is to bring happiness to the world and that comes through in this show. So enjoy.
Welcome to Supernormalized Annalise
Richmond. Annalise, you’ve had a quite a twisty sort of life that has led to you helping people with their paths to change through breathwork. I’m interested to hearing about that story and where that inspiration all came from. So you started off.
Like as a shy military kid, first that was bullied and then went into a profession of dancing. So how did that work for you?
Annelies Richmond (01:21)
Yeah, I was a pretty shy kid. I did not like to talk to, you know, new people like most of us don’t. But I moved every two or three years. So I had
CeeJay (01:31)
Yes.
Annelies Richmond (01:31)
to make new friends every two or three years. So actually, I’m thankful and grateful now for that background because I was forced to learn to meet people all the time. And also, maybe even more valuable in my adulthood, is forced to step into different mindsets. Like
Ever I moved, people had different mindsets, cultural opinions, backgrounds, beliefs. So that was a pretty amazing. But yeah, it was hard. I got picked on for sure. When I moved
CeeJay (01:58)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (01:59)
to Texas, it was like I was from a different country. Even though I moved from the East Coast, that’s how Texans are. Ooh, any Texans. Texans think it’s their own country. And they were like, They were like, your accent is so weird. And I was like, I’m not the one with an accent. That’s what I told.
CeeJay (02:17)
So you actually
got forced to become flexible in your world and adapt to it.
Annelies Richmond (02:24)
Yes.
Yeah, and in a way, I really believe I mean, all the things I teach through the Art of Living Foundation and through Sky Campus Happiness are the yo yoga discipline. And I believe that’s real yoga, is flexibility up here in the mind. It’s like your
CeeJay (02:41)
Yes.
Annelies Richmond (02:41)
adaptability, flexibility, so you don’t get so stressed.
CeeJay (02:44)
Yeah, yeah. Well that’s that’s probably the best way to actually put it is that the more flexibility you have, then the less stressed you can be because you know that, well, this isn’t gonna be just like that all forever. So yeah.
Annelies Richmond (02:56)
Yeah.
CeeJay (02:57)
So breath gave your body a chance to change that actually helped stop the hurting and a mind that stopped attacking yourself when you’re on stage.
Annelies Richmond (03:07)
Yes. So yeah, I would say how I really got into all this. Actually I started my ballet career and you know, it’s a tough career. You’re like it’s high pressure. You’re in front of audiences all the time. You’re being reviewed on a daily basis and I did this back in the day where they were still allowed to tell you, you look like you gained a few pounds today. Like your directors were allowed to say that. Well, I pr I don’t think they’re allowed to say that anymore. But anyway.
I did that for many years, then I got badly injured. So and I danced on that injury, then I couldn’t walk for like a year, and that kind of got me like into spiritual seeking. I started reading all these books and like figuring out did I really believe if God or the divine exists, you know. And after that year s I somehow got back on my feet miraculously where I wasn’t supposed to
be
able to dance again according to three doctors I saw I wouldn’t dance again. But I somehow got back on my feet with this wonderful physical therapist and I got my dream job in New York in the Metropolitan Opera Ballet.
CeeJay (04:14)
Wow.
Annelies Richmond (04:14)
And yeah. And then when I moved there, you know, it was higher stakes because the it’s a big theater, you’re performing six nights a week.
It’s in front of like many more people, three or four thousand people. So I w I could I just couldn’t shake the stage fright. I always had it, but it was like worse now, you know. And I I this was like probably my ninth year of dancing professionally at that point. and I was going to yoga class because my physical therapist said you’ll only survive if you do yoga class, you know. But I didn’t realize there was something so much deeper.
CeeJay (04:47)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (04:48)
And a friend of my building was telling me, you have to go to this course. It’s called Art of Living. I’m like, What is that? You know, and he’s like, No. He’s like, if you’re taking yoga, you haven’t gotten the deeper parts of it. The like the deep, deep meditation and the breath work. He’s like, you just have to go. So I went to that and I didn’t really know what to expect. I just thought this guy was passionate and he had a big smile. He looked happy. You know? And he was for business school too. And so
CeeJay (05:13)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (05:14)
I did it after it was just a four-day
weekend kind of experience and I remember feeling at the end of the four days that my body felt so light and pain free, which doesn’t happen to dancers. You’re just kind of always in pain. And I had done this really powerful breath based meditation called Sudhar Shankriya. And it kind of purges your whole system. Like it purges everything. Any
impr old impressions from the past, negative emotions, but I didn’t realize it would do something for my body. So that struck me. First I was like, Whoa, my body feels like I’m 18 again. and then my teacher said, do your practice every day. So I was like, well let me try this. and I did it almost every day, you know, and then after two weeks, two to three weeks, I remember walking on stage one night and I was just like relaxed. I I was just like
Wait, I’m on stage. This is weird. I feel like very aware, but not not nervous, not psychemal Yeah, not anxious. It it just had like
CeeJay (06:08)
Not anxious. Wild
Annelies Richmond (06:13)
Yeah, the stress response was like vanished. I couldn’t summon it up either. I was like, Yeah, there’s people. No big deal.
CeeJay (06:19)
That’s fascinating. So I
it makes me wonder though, that does that mean that the the mind was manifesting the stress of the body?
Annelies Richmond (06:30)
I think I mean what I’ve learned now, I’ve been teaching this Suddarshankriya practice or it’s called sky for short, sky breath meditation
CeeJay (06:37)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (06:38)
for about twenty six years now. And I think
CeeJay (06:41)
Yeah, wow.
Annelies Richmond (06:42)
it just removes the impressions in your nervous system. It removes blocks and impressions. So my maybe my you know, deep fear was like being in front of people, like most people.
performance anxiety. You’re like, my god, there’s so many people, the stakes are high, I gotta do well and like that’s like a bunch of knots in your nervous system, you know?
CeeJay (07:04)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (07:05)
And it’s also maybe like
I felt like it expanded my purview, a broadened my vision of life. And so suddenly a performance doesn’t seem like as big of a deal. Somehow the practice does that because it puts you in such a deep meditative state. I don’t know really how to describe that, but because you have this deep meditative experience, you have this meta view of your life, and you’re like, this is just one small event, no big deal. That’s how I started feeling like a broader vision of it all. And I
CeeJay (07:33)
Mm-hmm.
Annelies Richmond (07:33)
notice it for people. It gives a broader vision of life and it releases all these
weird stresses from your nervous system. So when a problem comes, it doesn’t feel like it’s such a big deal. You’re just like, okay, I I got this. Like it’s okay, it’s just a problem. And that’s how I started feeling and that’s what I hear from my students now. It’s like, a problem comes and I’m like, it’s not such a big deal. So it’s almost like it retrains your nervous system how you’re gonna respond to stressful stimuli.
CeeJay (08:01)
Yeah.
So you started teaching when you still had that terror as well and it helped you to overcome that fear. That you jumped into the
Annelies Richmond (08:09)
Yes. Yep.
CeeJay (08:10)
fire, that’s pretty wild.
Annelies Richmond (08:13)
I mean, yeah, it was almost like I had no choice. Like I really didn’t choose it. At the end of my four days in my Art of Living course, my instructor came up at the end and said, You wanna become a t an instructor, don’t you? And I was like, like I was like I was like
CeeJay (08:24)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (08:25)
no. Like I don’t like to speak in front of people, you know, and
But I did have this little feeling, like, everybody needs this practice. I had that thought in the back of my mind. Maybe he read my mind. I felt other people need it, but I didn’t think I was gonna be the one giving it to them. So he kind of planted that seed and then I did feel like
Over those few weeks it helped me so much. I was like, everybody needs this. It doesn’t matter if you’re performing or not. Living in New York is so stressful, you know? And I started telling my
CeeJay (08:53)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (08:53)
dancer friends about it. And then my dancer friends started coming to the Art of Living class and then they loved it. And so then it became like that. Then I thought, Okay, you know, this is needed. Why don’t I become a teacher of it? You know. Yeah.
CeeJay (09:04)
That’s cool. That’s cool. So
it was that with Guru Dev that that happened?
Annelies Richmond (09:11)
It was with Gurudav, Srishu Ravi
CeeJay (09:12)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (09:13)
Shankar, yeah.
CeeJay (09:14)
Okay. And so that actually just like helped you to walk the talk of the understanding.
Annelies Richmond (09:22)
Well, when I first met him, I was like, he walks the talk. And I was just I realized over my whole life when we moved from like place to place, we would change churches. We would change denominations of Christianity every time according to church and I realized I’d always been looking at the pastors and the preachers. I realized all these years I’ve been evaluating, do they walk the talk?
Is it exactly how it’s said? Is it like changing something in their life? And and then when I somehow when I met Guru Dev, I like, this person walks the talk, you know, and I was like, This is yeah. His energy
CeeJay (09:57)
That’s cool. Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (10:00)
and his energy says it all. It’s kind of beyond words. You just feel the the energy and I was like, This I’m gonna learn from this person. Like this is gonna be my teacher, you know.
CeeJay (10:08)
Yeah.
Yeah. I think everyone radiates sort of some sort of signature energy and then you can really feel it when somebody is embodying what they’re teaching.
Annelies Richmond (10:18)
Totally.
Yeah, you almost learn just from the presence, like beyond words.
CeeJay (10:22)
That’s it. That’s it. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. It’s beyond words. It’s it’s like they’re resonating it and then you just start to pick up the resonance and you’re like, yeah, that can be cool too. So
Annelies Richmond (10:30)
Exactly. Why? Exactly. Yeah.
CeeJay (10:33)
So people hear breath worker and picture either yoga class or a social media hyp social media hyperventilation trend. What is
Annelies Richmond (10:42)
Mm-hmm.
CeeJay (10:42)
sky breath meditation and it’s what’s it actually doing in the nervous system overall?
Annelies Richmond (10:51)
Very good question. well, if you look at it, I’ll maybe explain it first from the yoga tradition or discipline side, is there’s all these limbs. There’s like one way that yoga is categorized as eight limbs of yoga, you know. And it’s supposed to be from the more surface to the deepest. And the deepest, the last limb is some called samadhi, which is transcending completely, where you’re
You know, you’re one with the universe and you’re in bliss and so all the other limbs are to get there. And the first limb is about like outward ethics actually, so that you’re like compassionate to others, you’re doing nonviolence outwardly. And the second limb is inner ethics, like nonviolence toward yourself and all these like cleanliness and all these things.
Then only you get to postures. You get like you have to you’re supposed to have mastered all this stuff, then you get to yoga postures. Then by like the fourth limb you get to a little bit of breath work called pranayama. and so the sky breath meditation does start with a few types of pranayama and many that pranayama does many things. I would say if we want to look at spirituality and science together.
Those pranayamas that are selected for sky breath meditation, they make your subtle body strong. If your subtle body is strong, you can withstand stressful stuff without really losing your center or your strength. And you have emotional regulation. That’s what it’s being called now. Emotional regulation. When your subtle body is very strong, you can withstand all kinds of craziness without getting too shaken.
And I feel like that’s why Guru Dev selected those types of pranayama. But on a physiological level, it’s expanding your lung capacity. It’s making you go from the twenty to thirty percent lung capacity that most adults breathe with back to the eighty to ninety percent lung capacity that you used to breathe with when you were two or three years old. And you wonder why those two and three year olds have so much energy, right? It’s like they’re
You know, they’re using the lower, middle and upper lobes of the lungs. So part of the sky breath meditation, the beginning of it, is opening the lobes of the lungs and it’s also strengthening the subtle body and it’s also making the whole body more healthy through the use of the breath.
CeeJay (13:14)
Mm-hmm.
Annelies Richmond (13:15)
And a second pranayama, this is just the warm up I would say. The second pranayama breathing technique.
recently I had a lecture on it in one of my classes by an anesthesiologist. He said, You know how they got the term brainwashing? He’s like, This one literally washes your brain. I was like, wait what? You know, he’s like, you know how they tease brainwashing, brainwash He said at night your brain washes itself and your penial goyan can get cleaned.
But you’re usually you can’t do that cl consciously. It happens only in deep sleep. And if you don’t get the deep sleep cycles enough, your brain doesn’t get cleaned as much and all kinds of proteins add up and you then you’re more prone for Alzheimer’s and all these kind of things. So
CeeJay (13:59)
Yeah, wow.
Annelies Richmond (14:00)
one of the types of praniyama that’s in the sky breath meditation, he explained that the cerebral spinal fluid, which he studies because he’s an anesthesiologist, in the body, it doesn’t have a pump, but it needs to be pumped.
Everything else in our system has a pump. And he said this one pranayama that we do where we pump the arms. He said it’s pumping the cerebral spinal fluid up and down the spine, which shoots over and cleans your pineal gland, which otherwise only will happen in deep sleep. So he said it’s
actually restoring the whole system. Yeah, and I was like, Wait, what? I said, You need to tell this research to Guru Dev so he did. But it was just really cool ’cause he said there’s an he said in US there’s studies that mm by
Higher teenage years, many US teenagers have calcification around their pineal gland, which means that that penal gland decides your biorhythms, your sleep cycles, circadian rhythm. So if it gets calcification, everything is messed up. Your sleep, you get anxious, everything, you know. So
CeeJay (15:03)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (15:03)
just one of the type of pranayamas in that practice is would clean that, would get calcification off of the penile gland, so it resets your rhythm.
But the deeper part of the practice is the last part, and that’s a rhythmic breathing meditation, which in a way it resets the natural rhythms in your bodies, which is your body is actually like and your brain is like a frequency analyzer. It’s catching all the waves from the universe, you know, and it this Sudarsankriya part it aligns you with the rest of the universe in a way by using rhythm natural innate rhythms in your own breath.
And what’s that that is doing is it’s clearing all the restlessness and all the noise out of the mind. It’s helping change the thought waves, which are happening at a certain frequency. And so by the end of that practice, the thought waves are so calmed you just like naturally go into a deep state of meditation without making any effort. So
CeeJay (16:03)
Mm-hmm.
Annelies Richmond (16:04)
that’s what I love about the practice is you are like like you’re just dumped into this deep, deep state of meditation and you it’s so it’s
Very
rejuvenating.
CeeJay (16:12)
That’s cool. Yeah, yeah.
Annelies Richmond (16:14)
Yeah. Cool.
CeeJay (16:15)
So the rhythms in breath work actually govern internal systems. How do we explain that to somebody who’s a bit skeptic and think this is just a placebo?
Annelies Richmond (16:26)
Well, I think there’s plenty of research nowadays that they could read, it’s just
Breath I mean, there’s a reason breath work is coming up and up in the world is a new thing. Like meditation used to be the thing, now breath work is the thing. Why? But I feel it needs to be the right breath work. It’s not just like any I’m gonna get online and do a bunch of deep breaths. That’s okay. But I would say yogis have been
practicing these kind of yogic breathing techniques for thousands of years and they all have very specific purposes. Some create more heat in the body. that’s scientifically shown. Some create more coolness. Some can make the mind like really energize and some just bring complete calmness. But there’s plenty of research that I mean of all these practices, but particularly sky breath meditation, there’s so much research where it’s taking you from
Parasympath it’s taking you from sympathetic mode of the nervous system. You’re in fight or flight, and your hormones are pumping and your cortisol levels are high, which is the stress hormone. It there’s so much research on how it lowers the cortisol level, the stress hormones in the system. But also it takes you into parasympathetic mode, which is the rest and digest mode. And then there’s plenty of studies of how it changes the brain waves. So it increases beta waves, which are the waves that are associated with.
Focus and heightened alertness. and it increases another wave that brings calmness. So you actually get alertness and calmness at the same time, which is really beautiful. and that there’s so much research behind it. But the newer research shows that Sudarshan Kriya sh changes your gene expression. So you could have
CeeJay (18:06)
Yeah, yeah.
Annelies Richmond (18:06)
some some genes, it’s good that they don’t get manifested, some genes that could you we give you percu.
proclivity to some certain diseases or something. So it changes the gene expression. but in a way it’s cleaning the cells. So I would say there’s just tons of research. I mean, there’s research on how it lowers your blood pressure. That happened for my own mom. She lowered her blood pressure so much she came off medication. And
CeeJay (18:31)
Wow, that’s cool.
Annelies Richmond (18:32)
lowers your bad cholesterol. It does all the but maybe more intensely it brings people out of trauma.
post-traumatic stress disorder, PTSD. It can bring them out of that in seven days. They so f when we have studies with sky breath meditation on PTSD, they have a longer program, five to seven days. But it was done on war veterans in the US and who all had PTSD and at the end of seven days they didn’t qualify anymore for PTSD. So it’s really, really powerful for trauma.
So I think for the s I like skeptics ’cause they’re willing to look. They’re like, let me see.
CeeJay (19:11)
Yeah, for sure.
They’re interested.
Annelies Richmond (19:14)
Yeah.
Yeah. So there’s plenty to read about and see and it makes you makes you kind of amazed and curious, like, let me try this. There’s something to it. Let me try.
CeeJay (19:22)
Yeah, yeah,
for sure, for sure. No, I’m just finding we levers for other people to get in. So So fast
Annelies Richmond (19:27)
Yeah.
CeeJay (19:27)
breath, slow breath, psychic breath, when do you use which? And is there any risk in teaching advanced Korea without a container?
Annelies Richmond (19:37)
Without a container, is that what you said? What do you mean without a container? Like
CeeJay (19:43)
So if if if people are practicing fast breath, slow breath or cyclic breath, when do you use which of those? And is there any risk of teaching advanced Korea breath work like this without a container?
Annelies Richmond (19:58)
Okay. So I would say many people nowadays need more calming breaths. So there’s many types of pranayama that can be used for calm and bringing the mind more into the present moment. I think most people are not in the present moment. Mind is racing, right? Your mind’s racing to the future, then to the past, future past, future past. So mm I would say
according to the person, you need that present moment awareness. You need the calm. There’s certain techniques. There’s other techniques that are used for energy, energizing the whole system. with my experience, I mean I’ve been teaching this since 2001. I started teaching right before September 11th hit. And I was living in New York, so that was like super needed. We taught like crazy after September 11th because of the trauma. But I would say that
Sudarshan Kriya needs live instruction. It’s why that we’ve never put it online on YouTube through the Art of Living because it’s a very powerful technique. You can’t underestimate the power of it. And it needs a trained instructor. because a lot can come up for people. Emotions can come up. if if they’re a war veteran, they could relive some experiences, but then at the end they feel free from it. So for that you really need a facilitator in the room.
And you really need a facilitator who knows what they’re doing. Like,
CeeJay (21:20)
Mm-hmm.
Annelies Richmond (21:21)
I think this will come up in research eventually. Right now, everybody thinks, breathing techniques are just breathing techniques, but no. They’re like, there are
CeeJay (21:28)
No.
Annelies Richmond (21:29)
many levels. And in a way, a kriya, there are a couple of Kriyas taught on the planet now, right? In a way, a kriya is a much more advanced technique. back to those eight limbs I was talking about. The pranayama breathing techniques are only the fourth limb.
Kriya is like between the seventh and eighth limb. It’s a it’s a technique that purifies the system and brings you into samadhi or the the transcendent state. So that needs to be taught like very properly. You don’t want to like if we bring about such powerful techniques, which Gurudev did, knowing he it was such a powerful technique.
He brought it out again. He says these are thousands of years old. And when he tried to go outside of India to teach it first, all Swamis and Saints and people said, No, no, you can’t give away. That’s like the sacred knowledge and it needs to be honored. It should be practiced in a very certain way. It’s very delicate with the human nervous system. He said, No, no, this is the time on the planet where this is needed. It’s needed everywhere. Otherwise, like violence will be erupting all over the planet. And you like look what happened now, right? And
CeeJay (22:34)
Exactly.
Annelies Richmond (22:36)
He said it has to be like it has to have an instructor. Like it’s that powerful that you don’t want to play with those techniques. The right dose should be given and the right way to do it and then guidance for a couple of days. So that’s what
CeeJay (22:49)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Annelies Richmond (22:50)
I believe.
CeeJay (22:51)
Yeah, perfect. So you built Sky Campus happiness because of what you needed at that age. What did twenty-year-old Annalise not have?
Annelies Richmond (23:03)
hmm. Yeah, I think I probably didn’t have the confidence just to be myself. And the ease, like like I could just be me and everything’s gonna be okay. I didn’t really have that. Like it like, my god, I’m in this high pressure career or like like every day is like you know, that kind of you feel like the water’s coming up right underneath the nose.
And maybe I didn’t have as I mean, at that point my whole mind and world was dance, dance, dance, you know, ’cause that’s kind of how you’re trained in the ballet world. But I don’t think I had a broader sense of like what I could do for others in life, you know.
CeeJay (23:41)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (23:41)
And that to me later on that brought a lot of joy. Like, I can help so many other people. I can serve other people, make their life better, not just worry about is my career doing great? Which
I realize after a while that tunnel vision makes you miserable. You know, like, it’s me, me, me, and I gotta do better and I gotta get higher up or whatever. I gotta get the role. And I think that’s what meditative techniques did for me and learning from Guru Dev was like free me from that self obsession. Like that is not
CeeJay (24:13)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (24:13)
just about me. Like you know, like the more I can help others
You know, I also become more happy when I help others be more happy, you know.
CeeJay (24:22)
Ruth. Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah. So when you’re running a a Sky Campus, what do you see in the faces of the participants in the first hour as opposed versus the last?
Annelies Richmond (24:35)
my goodness. I wish I could show you pictures right now. In fact, every time we we teach like a three day retreat, right? And in Sky Campus we call it the Sky Happiness Retreat because it’s about happiness, right? But we are always like, we should have taken pictures pictures on day one, but they’ll think we’re weird. We’re can we take your picture?
CeeJay (24:54)
Ha ha.
Annelies Richmond (24:57)
On the first day, the first hour especially, yeah, you see like some people look like a deer in headlights.
And you don’t really know what’s going on inside. You’re like, what’s going on in there? You’re like, do they not like it? Or they’re petrified to say anything? Or they’re just wondering, what does everybody else think of me? But yeah, some people look like a deer in headlights. Some people our courses are very interactive. We ask questions. Some people won’t young people won’t respond. I mean, they’re kind of shy if it’s a group of eighty people or fifty, like. they look stiff, they look
very anxious. I mean that’s how the body and face looks anxious, you know. And sometimes in their first sitting of sky breath meditation they they seem like, like it’s a little nervous. And then you see that thing start to melt, you know. Even at the end of the first night, I mean now we dive in really fast. Our course used to be six days, now it’s three days. So we teach them our sky breath meditation or Sudrashankri the first day. So by the end of the first night even they look
very relaxed like a puddle on the floor. They’re just like like you know like if we
CeeJay (26:04)
Wild.
Annelies Richmond (26:05)
were on a slumber party at that moment, I think most people would drink it. Like it seems like bad because we would come in on a Friday night. but on the last day, it’s just it’s really beautiful, CJ to see. It’s like they look truly happy. They’ve they’ve done kind of three doses of Sudarshankriya which
It first gets all this old stress out of your system. Sometimes on the first night you just feel like, I just need to go to sleep because it’s like very purifying. And the second day, still purifying. Third day, usually their energy comes up, you know? And so Yeah, on the last day they just look very happy and very free. Yeah,
CeeJay (26:44)
Mm. Mm.
Annelies Richmond (26:45)
I like many of them will share on the last day, like, I haven’t felt like this since I was like
Three or four. I almost can’t remember feeling like this. To say like I feel like really
CeeJay (26:55)
That’s cool.
Annelies Richmond (26:56)
alive, like myself and like and very free. Very free,
CeeJay (26:59)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (26:59)
yeah.
CeeJay (27:00)
Yeah, that’s inspirational. I was gonna ask you though, because you compressed it from six to three days. How did you do that? I mean, did is there any difference in what happens to people? Or is it just did you just realize that over time three days works just as much and just as well as six?
Annelies Richmond (27:17)
I think if people had the six days sp attention span, that’d be wonderful to still do. But in a way, I mean Guru Dev as a kind of yoga kind meditation master really moves with the times. And when I started teaching these Art of Living courses in like two thousand one, yeah, they were five or six days. But I also he’s the one who started saying we can shorten, shorten, shorten, and this is how we would do it and like
He’s like the minimum is three doses. The minimum. He started doing this, especially when it came up to the pandemic. He’s like, okay, let’s shorten, let’s put we now we need to put it online because people need it. And like and then we went back to in person. But it seems like in a yogic way, maybe back then also the consciousness needed more and people needed more to release it all. And it seems now to me as an instructor,
That
it’s almost like people’s stress and nervousness and anxiety is more on the surface and it doesn’t take so long for it to come out. It’s like after two sessions, it’s like a lot of it is already out. And
CeeJay (28:20)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (28:21)
I also think maybe in general, the world consciousness is more open to meditative techniques. So that’s something that the conscious human consciousness is changing. So it’s almost like not as much doses of these powerful techniques are needed to create like a big change.
CeeJay (28:37)
Mm. Why do you teach social connection and service in the same program as Breath?
Annelies Richmond (28:45)
Well, human beings are multifaceted creatures, right? So I always tell my college students or university students, like, okay, you’re not gonna be sitting in a closet meditating for the rest of your life. You’re going to be running around interacting with people, you’re gonna you’re gonna do interviews, you’re gonna have a job, you’re gonna manage people, you’re gonna have a family.
And the knowledge of what you experience in meditation needs to come alive in your life. You know, that that needs to be brought alive. Like if your meditation practice is not making your life better, then like maybe what’s the point? You know, so social connection is there because they’re we’re human beings. And in a way it brings the experience of what they’re experiencing in those deeper meditative states, then when there’s social connection, it brings it into their everyday experience.
But also that the loneliness levels are insane. They’re going like this, this, this, this like now I’m in the International Director of Sky Campus Happiness and I travel to different countries. It’s like when I look at the stats, I was in the Netherlands. It’s like the loneliness is like seventy percent of young people say they’re lonely. It’s like it’s it’s sad. Like it’s i it breaks your heart. It breaks my heart to see that.
CeeJay (29:56)
That’s crazy. Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (30:00)
And like in UK was the first country to have a ministry of loneliness through the government. And so
People
need that social connection. And what young people tell me in our retreats is like, this is like authentic. Like everybody’s just themselves. This is so nice. So they f is the thing, it’s like authentic connection, they’ll call it, because I think if they’re meditating together, everybody’s relaxed. So they actually just act like a normal human being. They’re not putting on all the pretenses. So the social
CeeJay (30:27)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (30:28)
connection is super, super important. Like
facilitated social connection in a nice environment where you’re meditating together, it feels very real. It’s like you feel like you’re getting in touch with your real self and you’re sharing your real self with someone else. So I feel like that’s kind of it’s a healing experience, you know.
CeeJay (30:48)
Mm.
Healing from exposure to social media. Because that isn’t social, right?
Annelies Richmond (30:52)
Yeah. You like you’re you’re suddenly
Yeah. Exactly. You’re you’re in a room being social with all these wonderful people and you’re you stopped comparing yourself. Like that’s the so funny.
CeeJay (31:02)
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or or yelling about
how good that plate of food looks.
Annelies Richmond (31:08)
Exactly. But the leadership
CeeJay (31:08)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (31:12)
of service, like I believe, I mean I’ve learned by l studying with Guru Dev all this time, it’s like, okay, first you teach someone to take care of any mental stress and ickiness. They get it out through the practices. And you teach someone how to fill themselves up with energy with in yogic terms called prana, life force energy. Once
They know how to take care of themselves truly and their life force energy is high. The next step is how can I s help someone else? You know, like that’s like it’s almost
CeeJay (31:45)
Yes.
Annelies Richmond (31:45)
like going i i the the inner circ the inner stroke is half the circle. Like I’m gonna go inwards, I’m gonna fill myself up with prana energy and I’m gonna get rid of all my stress. And then there needs to be an outward stroke.
And
that is like now what can I do for others? How can I use a little bit of this energy that I cultivated through my practice? How can I spend it on others or help another? And that makes it like an ultimately fulfilling circle. When you do some service for others, you actually go deeper in your practices. It’s like a thing. You know?
CeeJay (32:18)
Nice. Yeah, yeah,
yeah. It’s a feedback loop. Hmm.
Annelies Richmond (32:21)
Yeah, exactly.
CeeJay (32:23)
Nice. So when people actually are doing credit classes or orientation, is well-being becoming a part of the degree?
Annelies Richmond (32:33)
Yes, I think what happened during the pandemic for us, because we started the Sky Campus happiness program under Art of Living in about two thousand twelve. And Art of Living started in like nineteen eighty one, you know. So we were k slowly, slowly going to universities and fitting it into academia in some way and some places prioritized well being or wanted to have br breathing techniques or meditation. But in the in the pandemic
we were suddenly meeting a university administration like every day on on Zoom. And they would tell us, the good only good thing about the pandemic is mental health of students has gone to the top of the list for the chancellors and the presidents. Like it suddenly became the priority, and they said it wasn’t before. So everyone was suddenly more interested in having well-being solutions, practical solutions, and everyone seemed to want.
many types. It used to be they’d say, we have mindfulness to us. Now they’re like, yeah, we have mindfulness but we wanna offer stuff that has breath work and social connection and they wanna offer like a menu of well being stuff that so people could connect with, you know? So
CeeJay (33:42)
Yeah, I think
find it encouraging that that they’ve realised the benefits overall of these being included as a part of just normal life. You know, that’s fantastic.
Annelies Richmond (33:52)
Yes.
Yeah. I mean it yeah, it’s a thing and I think more some med schools we’re part of they want to offer at least part of our programming in their orientation, which is good because med schools and for doctors the suicide rate is actually really high, which is very sad. so they’re reali realizing even to integrate these things in orientation
in some places, like in Stanford we have it as a credit class and it’s like ha been housed under they have a whole well being department, you know. So that’s easy to fit it in.
CeeJay (34:29)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (34:29)
In some in some places we’re more through like the rec center, but the rec center sends it the recreation centers if they see there’s not enough well being on the campus, the rec center takes charge of it for the university, but they send it out to the whole campus. So
CeeJay (34:43)
That’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. These things are so needed right now. And yeah, all power to you and your organization for getting it out there. So what happens when you’re working with
Annelies Richmond (34:50)
Well okay.
CeeJay (34:53)
say, some people and you know you’ve got an authority figure or a parent that is a bit concerned, like, is this religion? How do you answer that in one minute? ‘Cause I mean, some people might actually misconstrue what’s going on.
Annelies Richmond (35:07)
Yeah. Well I would say everyone breathes. It doesn’t matter
CeeJay (35:11)
I hope so.
Annelies Richmond (35:14)
what you yeah, I hope so. I wouldn’t want to meet a body that’s not breathing. Yeah. What whatever religion you’re from, or you’re not from any religion, you don’t ascribe to it, you breathe. So this is a tool that
not just takes care of your physiology and your health, it can unlock the potential of your human consciousness, you know? And I would also say, okay, just because breath work and meditation really originates mostly in India, right? From the yoga tradition and the yoga traditions from India. Like you don’t say I’m not gonna eat butter cookies from Denmark ’cause they’re from Denmark. Or you don’t say I’m not gonna have Chinese food ’cause it’s from China or you don’t say I’m not gonna
have a Swiss wat like Sw s Swiss or f about precision, right? I’m not gonna use this watch ’cause it’s just because you know, these techniques or this technology it’s a technology evolved in India. You can’t just say, i so it must be like connected to their religions or whatever ’cause it’s I would say yog yoga discipline evolved as a whole thing of itself, you know.
CeeJay (36:22)
Yes. Mm. Yeah. Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (36:25)
And that’s accessible to the whole world. That’s why like International Yoga Day has grown I think now half the world practices yoga on that day. That’s why it’s grown and grown and grown because people have realized okay, yoga isn’t beyond like religion. It’s not really connected to religion, you know.
CeeJay (36:41)
Mm.
Mm. As a part of your work you’ve taught psychiatrists and gang members in the same room, and also fourth graders on mass, which room taught you the most?
Annelies Richmond (36:54)
my
god. That’s a hard question. Yeah, I first taught adults after September 11th. That was shocking because they would come to my class and they would kind of be in shock. They might have seen someone fall out of a building, like you know. And then I didn’t I was like, I was a new teacher. I was like, my god, this is gonna be hard. But then after three days I would see them come back to life.
So that taught me a lot that people could like overcome like a really traumatic experience in just a few days. I was like, wow, this stuff really works. Like they would look like a normal human being. Their face would get flushed again. but then the first time I went into a school, it was fourth graders. And that was challenging. I think I learned many other things. Kids need structure. We took
We tried to take the desks out of the room on the first day. Was that ever the most stupid decision ever? We had a hundred people We
CeeJay (37:49)
What happened?
Annelies Richmond (37:50)
We
We’re like, well we have our class, we have our yoga mats. We want them to practice their Sri Tarshan Kriya with we want them to lay down after on a yoga mat, ’cause that’s the nice part.
CeeJay (37:59)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (38:00)
What what high schoolers would later call the sleeping part, you know? But I I didn’t know that when you take a structure out of a room for a nine year old, they’re like, you know, running, running, running. So
CeeJay (38:10)
Wow.
Annelies Richmond (38:11)
we Yeah but that was an amazing experience. We had we actually had to put the dust back. They they would sit they would do the games and the
Krea at their desk they would just put their head down. But they would say
CeeJay (38:22)
That’s easy.
Annelies Richmond (38:22)
the most beautiful things. They would say, we’d say, How was it? And they would say, Well, I feel like I’m in the clouds and like we’re having school in the clouds. That would be their experience.
CeeJay (38:34)
I
love that explanation. That’s a really nice way to say it.
Annelies Richmond (38:38)
Yeah.
But maybe yeah, when I taught people who are in gangs in New York, I realized the practicality of this yogic wisdom and maybe what Guru Dev is bringing to the world through his courses. Like I had a guy point out to me when I was teaching in a teenage course, it’s kinda like a detention center kind of situation.
it was our Sky Teens course and they pointed to me like, okay, Miss. They only in those courses they only call you Miss. Okay. Miss. See that they have red bandanas in their pocket. They have blue. They’re from rival gangs. I was like, like in my class. I was like,
Okay, that was an education for me. So I was teaching one of our kind of mindful awareness points that goes along with our practices, which is act, don’t react. And one of the guys was like, Yo, Miss, that’s the stupidest thing I ever heard because I’m not gonna do that in a fight. I don’t have time to stop and breathe for a moment or think to act.
I have to react as fast as I can if I’m in a fight. So he’s telling me all this. And he keeps disagreeing with me and I’m teaching my I’m like, okay, fine. Okay, I get it. I don’t know. Let’s see. Maybe it doesn’t apply. I said, fine, maybe you’re right. But I will like think about it tonight. But I don’t know. Let’s see, you know? So, he came back the next day. He
CeeJay (40:08)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (40:08)
kind of like did his like he had a little saunter the way he walks in. And then
He’s like, Yo miss, this stuff really works. I was like, What? This is what he said to me. And then I like, okay. And you know, they’ve been doing like Sudrash and Kriya every day. So they’ve been really like getting
CeeJay (40:28)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (40:28)
a lot of stress out of their system. They were definitely looking much more calm, you know. He he’s like last night I was walking in the hood and two guys came up to me with a knife.
And I I’m going like and he goes, You know, I thought about what you said. I just look him in the eye, I took a deep breath, I remain real calm. And then they saw my calmness and they put the knife away and walked away.
CeeJay (40:54)
Whoa, defuse the situation. Yeah, right.
Annelies Richmond (40:59)
I was like
I mean, he was trying to tell me, yeah, you can do acro, don’t react, but he didn’t say that. But he was just like, it really works. You know, it was like Yeah, I think when you’re calm, other people like like they they reflect your energy, right? They So that was
CeeJay (41:15)
Exactly. That’s right.
Annelies Richmond (41:17)
huge. I was like, wow, like even in like that kind of a situation. And he had the presence of mind to like apply it. Like it came to his mind. That was pretty amazing to me. Yeah.
CeeJay (41:27)
That’s
wild. That’s wild.
Annelies Richmond (41:29)
Yeah.
CeeJay (41:30)
So for the listeners that are exhausted, spiritually curious, and allergic to both the hustle wellness and guru culture, w where do you think they should start doing this work? And how?
Annelies Richmond (41:44)
Where should we start?
CeeJay (41:45)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (41:47)
well, I think breathing techniques are a must, you know. I love if they’re starting with like an app or something, they want to start with easy light. my favorite is Bliss app, which is like has lots of like baby baby meditations, only three minutes. So you’re like, okay, that was nice. Let me now let me trade five, eight minutes, and it has breathing techniques built in where you can just like click a video and try it.
I think once you try that stuff, you’re like, okay, this is working. Then you need to move on from an app to like live instruction. I feel like there’s nothing like live instruction. So I would passionately encourage any listeners to do an Art of Living course across the world. You know, that it’s all it’s in 182 countries, so it’s offered in every language. We have instructors
CeeJay (42:33)
Whoa. Nice.
Annelies Richmond (42:35)
all over the world. We have 35,000 instructors.
Or if they’re in a university, we have our Sky Happiness retreats in
CeeJay (42:42)
Mm.
Annelies Richmond (42:44)
maybe three hundred universities at this point. But I would say dive in. You can be skeptical. You can definitely be skeptical. Skeptics learn better. Because they’re they’re like at the they’re like when you teach them the home practice, they’re like, I’m gonna try this just to prove that it doesn’t work and they’ll do it and then they feel good.
CeeJay (43:02)
Yeah. I’ve seen that same thing with a lot of astrologers. Some of the best astrologers, the people are like, I’m gonna do astrology to prove that it doesn’t work and they become really good astrologers because of it. So
Annelies Richmond (43:11)
Exactly.
Yeah. I mean yeah, would say the proof is in the pudding. You just go, you try it, you try your day one and it’s more that you feel it inside viscerally. It’s like a physiological thing that’s happening, you know?
CeeJay (43:25)
So what outcome would make this episode a success for you?
Annelies Richmond (43:32)
wow. I mean, I would love if it inspired people to learn to meditate, to learn to do breathing techniques every day. That makes me happy because I know other people are gonna become very happy and I feel like if you have the right practice, it puts your state of mind and your well being in your own hands. I would like love for people to that otherwise we keep blaming it on the people around us or circumstances, we blame them, but
It’s actually in our own hands and yeah, I would love people to learn Sudarshan Kriya. It’s such a beautiful, easy, accessible practice. Yeah. But any any meditation. Just meditate, you know.
CeeJay (44:09)
Sounds it it sounds
like your objective is to bring happiness to the world.
Annelies Richmond (44:17)
Yeah. for sure.
CeeJay (44:18)
That’s lovely. How can people find your work with
Annelies Richmond (44:24)
okay. we ha the Art of Living has a website, artofliving.org. And our Sky Campus program is skycampushappiness.org. I could be found on Instagram, LinkedIn, all over if they want to find me. My name is I don’t know if I need to spell my name. But yeah, I’m there all over.
And
you can find out on those platforms how to take a class with me too. But the Art of Living is a a beautiful community in so many countries. I just did a training with all our Australia teachers last week. Yeah, so
CeeJay (45:01)
nice. Okay.
Annelies Richmond (45:03)
it’s a it’s a beautiful, mindful and positive community to engage with. So I encourage people to check it out. Yeah.
CeeJay (45:06)
Excellent. Yeah. Well,
I’ll provide those links down in the show notes as well. And thank you so much, Annalise, for coming on to Supernormalize and explaining your process, your understanding, and how you got there. That’s it’s fantastic. Your mission to make people happy in the world is a noble pursuit.
Annelies Richmond (45:26)
you CJ, I feel like you’re doing the same thing. You’re exposing people all these amazing mind shifts. Right? And that
CeeJay (45:33)
Yes. Yeah, that’s I’m
trying to normalise the yeah, the unusual things, but they’re not that unusual anymore. So it’s good.
Annelies Richmond (45:41)
Exactly right. It’s
all becoming normalized, just like you’re saying. It’s all become
CeeJay (45:44)
Yeah.
Annelies Richmond (45:46)
normal life. We j we thought it was weird, but it’s not anymore, right?
CeeJay (45:49)
Exactly,
exactly. Thank you so much for coming on.
Annelies Richmond (45:53)
Thank you, CJ, for having me.
CeeJay (45:57)
What a great episode. She’s really cool. I really like her mission. And I I I’m actually inspired to actually go and learn this method of breath work. I’m really into breath work. My wife is a breathwork practitioner as well. So this could be a new way to clear out any of the extra spiritual, emotional, resonance debris in such a way that makes me more connected to the world. So why not, right?
If you’ve enjoyed today’s show, like and subscribe. Also go and see Annalise’s work at her websites and say hello and say that you heard her on Supernormalize. That’d be really, really cool. Thank you very much for listening. And if you’ve enjoyed today’s show, you’ll enjoy these ones too if you’re on YouTube. And thank you so much for listening. If you’re on a podcast.
