Hania Khuri-Trapper's new book, 'Home is Here,' offers tools of mindfulness

915 this morning. Man, the world is a busy place. As a result, so is your mind. Local author is out with her second book to help calm your mind, where you can find peace, balance in your journey through life. Home is here. Weekly reminders to pause, reflect, and just be. The book is written and assembled by Hanya Corey Trapper, one of the most experienced yoga, meditation, and mindfulness teachers in the Boston area. She's taught mindfulness to military families alongside the foundation of former Celtic Marcus Smart. It's great to have you with us this morning again, and we had your in last time. Your first book came out, honey. It's it's just it's a wonderful book to assemble the photography. Everything about it's beautiful. Thank you so much. Thanks for having me, Jean. So let's talk about the mindfulness. What is your mission with the book? Yeah, so the book, the idea of the book is to help people that are going through struggles. We all go through struggles, everybody. Yeah, kind of pretty much, right? That's exactly right. And there's a lot of techniques in there that people can use, whether it's a breathing technique or whether it's stories and poems and different ideas, but it's all based on the classes that I've taught along the way. So this is years and years of my teachings, kind of accessible teachings that allow people to sort of move through their world a little bit easier. And you have something for like every week of the year, 52 sort of lessons, techniques, etc. That's exactly right. Yeah. So I'm kind of each book. The both books are the same sort of format. It's one week per per message. And they're all different messages. They're just helpful messages that help people move through their day without the, you know, the mind that's always going. It's so cluttered. Just just think when you when you try to sleep at night, you lay down in bed and your mind is going in 100 different directions. It won't calm down. Yes. And it makes you hard to sleep. So this is something that will help in that area, too, with all aspects of your life. 100% mindfulness is just the idea of knowing what you're doing as you're doing it, but also meeting yourself with a little compassion. So, you know, being aware and also being kind to yourself. And when we start to observe what's happening in our mind, we can start to calm it down a little bit and choose a path that's a little less negative or a little less angry and a little bit more compassionate. Do you have a technique that you can share? We can pass along to people at home here. I do. Do you want to do something fun? Of course. We're going to do a breathing technique. But this is kind of a fun one that brings you a little bit more life and joy and energy. It's called Breath of Joy. Breath of Joy. But I'm going to make you stand. Oh, I got to stand up. OK. Standing up for Breath of Joy. We're going to do this together. All right. So what you're the technique is basically a three part inhale. OK. And you're going to use your hands. So inhale halfway up. All right. Inhale out. OK. Inhale all the way up. All right. And then open your mouth and exhale. Let it out. OK. So that's a lot. I know. We're going to do it faster. It's going to go like this. Inhale up. This. This. Inhale up. Inhale up. Inhale up. And then out. That's exactly right. Like you're bowing like this or hands up? Hands up. OK. All right. Let's do it. So ready? Yep. And follow my lead. Yes. OK. Oh, that is quick. OK. Want to try it again? All right. Yeah. All right. Ready? It's going to go fast. All right. All right. I think I got it. Yeah. You do it like three or four times. Three or four times. Yeah. And then that helps to. That helps to actually bring you. Settle you down? No. The actually the opposite. OK. That's actually an energizing breath. It kind of gives you more energy and it makes you. It brings a little more happiness to your day. There are breath techniques to calm you down as well. And if you just think about exhaling longer than you inhale. Breathing in and out through the nose. And then really exhale longer. Why is that technique so successful? Why does that work? Yeah. Because you're activating your parasympathetic nervous system by exhaling longer. Even a big sigh will start to activate the vagus nerve, which is that sort of cranial nerve in the body that that enterates the parasympathetic nervous system and calms the body down. So just a simple sigh is super helpful. Yeah. People do that when they're just they're full of energy and they just need to let it out. Blow it out a little bit. What's been your experience with people who have, you know, all of our minds are cluttered. There's a million different things going on at once, but they've tried your techniques and they've worked for them. What noticeable difference have you seen in sort of their attitude as they go forward? I have seen so much. I can talk about a military family that I met in when I was in Texas. This woman, Rhonda, she had a lot of rage in her life and anger. And her life was very stressful as a military active duty person. And she, when I went to her, I taught her meditation. I taught her breathing techniques. I taught her all about the fact that she has more control over her mind than she knows. And so I taught her these techniques. I left, I came back a year later and I walked into Fort Cavavos in Texas. Rhonda comes running up to me and she's like, Kanya, I've lost weight. I do meditation every day. I'm a happier person. So I've seen this happen. I've seen this work for people, not just the military families that I've worked with, but with all my students every day, even people, everyday people. It works for everybody. We all need to give our minds a break. Yeah. And meditation is a great technique. Where can folks get the book? Okay. So it's available on Amazon. It's available on my website, yogawithkanya.com. And you can link to that through my Instagram. We may need copies for the newsroom because all of our minds here are going, are working all the time, 24 seven. Honey, great to see you. Congratulations again on the book. Great to have you in. Thank you, Gene.