Podcast Episode 104: Roop Singh, Transformation Coach and Hypnotist, on Simple Practices to Change Your Emotions and Mindset

Transcript: S7 Ep 104, Roop Singh

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:00)

I'll click record.

Roop Singh (00:04)

Wonderful. Can you see me okay? Can you hear me okay?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:08)

Yes, absolutely. Let's dive in with the intro. Roop, welcome to The Motivate Collective Podcast.

Roop Singh (00:16)

Thank you. I'm glad to be here.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (00:18)

I'm so glad as well. You've had quite a journey. Let's dive right in and share with everybody what your journey has been.

Roop Singh (00:29)

Well, it depends on where you want me to start.

My name is Roop Singh. I'm originally from India, and I have lived in the United States, and now I live in Medellín, Colombia. My life has been quite an adventurous one, especially my early life. I was born in India in a family full of domestic violence and abuse. And as I grew up and I learned more about myself, I realised that my way of functioning, either my body, my mind, all of that is not right. Something is off.

And that all came to a head in 2007, man, when my mother was in the hospital. I used to live in United States then, and then she was in the hospital. I got a phone call from my grandfather, and I just left everything and I just ran to take care of her, to India. She was in the burn ICU, 65% of her body was burnt, and I lived with her or around her in the hospitals. We changed different hospitals for about four, four and a half months. And then eventually I saw my mother pass away as well. And that left a deep impact on me. I couldn't really handle it. I went into, like, a very vegetative state, you could call it. I wasn't doing much. I wasn't talking to people. I wasn't connecting with the world at all. And then a friend of mine suggested that I go do this meditation retreat, a silent meditation retreat called Vipassana. You might have heard of it. So I went there thinking, like, it's more like a vacation. I really didn't know what I was getting into. And that one retreat saved me and, and got me on a path to understanding how the mind and the body work. So I'm happy to go more into what that journey was since two thousand and seven, but that's a little bit of the history from my early childhood.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (02:33)

That's such a story. And let's get a bit of a timeline of also your career as well. We'll delve into the personal story, but what has your career looked like?

Roop Singh (02:47)

Yeah, so I've had two careers in parallel, in a way. My background is in computer science and engineering. So I studied, I have bachelor's in computer science and engineering and then a master's in information systems from a business school. So that has been my background. And I have been at the intersection of technology and strategy for the last, I don't know, 15, 18 years or so. I left my corporate job in 2017, thinking that I would do something on my own, but I had no idea what I was gonna do. Well, once you take the jump and you decide to go on the hero's journey, as the, as the book says, doors started opening up and things started happening for me. So eventually I ended up giving two TEDx talks on the topics at the intersection of strategy and technology, particularly in blockchain and digital assets. About four years or so ago.

No, wait, what year is this? 2026. So yeah, about that. I, since my time in 2007, I had experimented a lot with different types of modalities. For what? For changing a person, for transformation, for living a different way than I have known to live. So I learned multiple different modalities, be it all different kinds of yoga, meditation, nervous system regulation, hypnosis, Jungian psychology, flow state psychology, Gestalt therapy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So last few years, a few of my friends who I have been helping, and they've been around me, have been pushing me to get into this career full time. So recently I have pivoted into coaching and teaching, and teaching courses on transformation. And they take various forms. I'm sure we'll get into it.

So I've had this parallel career. On one side of my mind, I am a very rational, analytical, you know, computer science nerd. That's what I studied, that's how I approach the world. I'm very into the scientific method. And that's a way of thinking and that's a way of being. And then on the other side, I have this more of a inner journey approach, where everything that's happening in you or for you or about you in your life is happening inside of you, is happening inside your mind-body container, connected by a breath. So how do you discover that world, and what changes can you create using the mind-body container? So that's been my alternate career, which is now my primary career.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (05:24)

Did you find that going on a spiritual journey has helped both sides, and helped the rational side of even creating your own business?

Roop Singh (05:35)

Yeah, absolutely. I think I wouldn't call it just a spiritual journey. That's, that's one way people could label it. But for me, the journey is, as I said, in the inner world. See, I've, what I've found is there is nothing that happens in my world, in my reality, that is outside of my mind, body. Everything that, as a human, for everybody, all the reality that is created is through that perspective, is through that filter.

And that is connected by a breath. And the day that connection is broken, you know, what is life anyways? It's moment by moment by moment, breath by breath by breath. And then one day there is no breath and, you know, game over. So the way I look at it is, there is a rational mind that likes to, to think about analysis and, in, intellect and, and has logic and has frameworks and has structure, right? And then there is something that's operating that rational mind. What is that something?

So since I'm from the computer science background, I think of it as, we have a hardware, which is basically our body and our nervous system. And then we have a software, which is what we call mind, or our cognitive, rational self. And everything that's happening is between the software and the hardware. So to answer your question, that journey has helped me understand that both of those are connected. And most people think that they are not.

And if you want to change one, you can enter the body through the mind, or you can enter the mind through the body. So if you want to change one, you can enter through either, either door. And once you learn how to do that, a lot of doorways open for you in the ways of thinking and, when, in ways of being. In fact, I would say something controversial here. Most people think that IQ, or let's call it rational, logic, analytical-based cognitive thinking, is the source or is the epitome of intelligence, and is the epitome of success. And I would say that's actually not true. In fact, a lot of the people that I have worked with have found that they happen to be very intellectually smart, but they have not developed skills in other areas of this mind-body container.

So in fact, their intellect becomes their limiting factor. Their intellect is the one that's stopping them from actually growing and achieving their quests in life that they so deeply desire. Does that make sense?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (08:07)

Does make sense. I'm wondering why the nervous system is the hardware and not the software.

Roop Singh (08:17)

Yeah, so it's just a way of looking at it. To me, the body, which connects with the nervous system, is the hardware. And software, to me, is all your beliefs, all your thought processes, all your ideas, all your rational, logical, analytical type thinking. Right? So we have different modalities to enter either the hardware or the software. So think about it this way: take a person and imagine if, if you've ever used a phone or any electronic device, if the hardware is not compatible with the software, what happens? For example, let's take an actual person's example. Let's say this person's name is Tom. Tom wants to earn a lot of money, wants to be famous, and it has really good skills to be able to do that. But he's not able to do that. He's not able to achieve that. So then you look at the hardware. Turns out that his nervous system never relaxes. His nervous system never actually calms down. He's either in hyperarousal, which is anxious and wired up, or he's in hypo-arousal, which is shut down and just flat and foggy. So, although he has this cognitive ability to do all the things he really wants to do, which is his software, but his hardware is not compatible. Right, now let's reverse that. Let's look at, let's pick up a different person. Let's say Susan. Susan has an amazing hardware, her body is very well functioning, she's healthy, she knows different tools to regulate her body, but her belief system is not attuned to the goals that she wants. So let's say she wants to be a very famous yoga teacher. Okay, great, but her belief is that every person who has a lot of money is not a good person. Or she doesn't believe that she's a good yoga teacher. Or she doesn't believe that if she went into this direction she would be loved as she's loved today. Whatever her limiting beliefs are, that's an example of the software not being compatible with her hardware. Does that make sense?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (10:35)

Yes, it does. Let's pivot a bit, and I'm keen to ask, how did the nervous system help you after what happened to your mother? Let's explore that in more detail.

Roop Singh (10:50)

Yeah, so, I mean, it's been nineteen years or so since then, right? So it's been a long journey. I, I wouldn't claim that one meditation retreat brought me back alive. But over the years, what I learned is, is the following.

There is a lot of stored trauma. There was a lot of stored trauma inside of me. There were a lot of belief systems that were adopted during my childhood. And in fact, if you look around, most of us have that. Most of us pick up beliefs from media, from society, from teachers, from parents, which are not our own. We just adopt those beliefs. And then we also pick up a nervous system, meaning the way you were cared for when you were a child, and then in your middle age, et cetera, et cetera, tunes your nervous system in a certain way. So I had to slowly, using multiple different modalities, uncover what each of those pieces are, right? And you could look at modalities like yoga or hypnosis, or you could look at even psychedelic therapy, and you could look at nervous system regulation, et cetera, et cetera. So I tried a lot of these things, about 19 different modalities in the last 19 years, to discover what are the cheat codes of my body and of my mind. How do I function best? How can I make sure that my hardware and software is compatible? Does that make sense, or do you want me to go deeper into a particular—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (12:19)

You can. And the modalities, you're welcome to look at more of the modalities that you have explored. Any of them.

Roop Singh (12:29)

Sure. So let's look at the latest thing that's, that we've been talking about, which is nervous system regulation. So I think of this as, we as humans walk through the world in various states. What is a state? State is the configuration of your mind and body and your nervous system. Right? You get up in the morning, you have all your resources, you have all your capacity, you're gung-ho, you're excited for the day, the sun is shining beautiful.

Then you get a phone call, something happens to you, it affects you. Then you get a text or you get an email, and then you're trying to make coffee just to get the morning going, and the coffee spills, and suddenly your nervous system capacity is being tested. Can you perform at the same level? Do you have the same mental acuity and dexterity and all that positive belief that you started the morning, morning with?

We tend to lose that during the day, or certain events tend to hit us in a way that we get triggered. And that trigger could be implanted, I don't know, 20 years ago by something that happened, but that sticker still lives inside of us and we've never gotten rid of it. Right? So the question is, in, in nervous system scientific literature, we talk about, there's something called the window of tolerance.

What does that mean? That is a window where you perform the best, where you have all your faculties and your resources, and you, you are not too anxious, which would, we would call as hyper-arousal, or you're not too flat, which we, we would call as hypo-arousal. You're somewhere in the middle, called the window of tolerance. When you're not in the window of tolerance, then what do you, now have tools to get yourself in the window of tolerance?

So let's take an example. Let's say our friend Tom is about to give a presentation at work. He works in a corporate environment, he has a big presentation, he's prepared for it. But just before going there, he starts feeling really anxious. Now, it has nothing to do with his preparation. He is actually prepared. But in his mind, he's very anxious. He's wired. He has all these negative thoughts that are coming. You know, what can he do to come back into the window of tolerance, to deliver the presentation as you practised? Right. So I will relate this to something that I've developed, which I call State Change Mastery. So essentially, there are five different skills that I have found through my own practice from various different modalities. And now, in the last few years, there has been a lot of amazing research, evidence-based clinical research that's coming out, that's telling us how these practices actually impact us as an individual and as a collective. So, what I did is I took a set of those practices and I discovered there are five skills, and I matched them with the research we found. And I created a program and a structure where I teach these five different skills. Each skill has multiple different practices you can learn to get yourself better and, and have more ability on that skill. And I think that is a sort of a c— holistic system that I've developed, where one can come back to a productive self even while one is going through a lot of stress and pressure in, in our environment.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (16:09)

Absolutely, absolutely. The nervous system is such a trend now to be talking about. I'm curious about the other schools of thought that you were exploring. You mentioned some psychological concepts. Which other concepts did you explore in a lot of detail to reach where you are?

Roop Singh (16:32)

So once I got into meditation, and, you know, going back to two thousand seven on the Vipassana retreat, I don't know if you've been to it or some of your audience has, the structure is the following: you go in there, you take a noble vow of silence, meaning that you're not going to communicate with anybody, verbally or non-verbally, right? There is no phone, there are no books, there is no paper, there's no pen, there's no television, you are completely cut off from the outside environment or, or your, you know, daily scrolling habits. So eventually you don't have a choice but to go inside. You have to explore what is happening in your inner world. And there is a schedule. They feed you three times a day and you end up meditating 10, 11 hours a day. The, the wake-up call is at 4 a.m. and the first session is at 4:30 a.m., and you, what you're gonna do? Just shut up and meditate. And I love that.

It was the most challenging thing at that time, right? By day three, I wanted to run away. I was fighting with the teacher, and they were very nice. And, you know, the best part about it is they don't ing— indulge with you in any kind of, like, debate or conversation. They will just listen to you and they'll just say, do a sit. Sit means just sit for the next session. That sit and meditate. So I translate to shut up and meditate. There's nothing else to do, right? And as you do that, things started changing in, in myself. So I discovered how thoughts are actually, they create certain sensations in our bodies. And in deep meditation, you can see, quote unquote, see the thoughts. I could see where my anger was starting from. It started from my belly. I could see when I had a pain in my knee, what thoughts would it produce? You start making those connections. I could see when I was calm, what did my physical state feel like? Or when I was anxious, or even when I was crying, and there was a lot of that, what does that feel like in the physical body? So that gave me an insight into that there is something that is beyond the ana— analytical realm that I needed to study. From there on I got curious about hypnosis. Hypnosis is just one way to enter the mind. Right? So that's a modality that I studied a lot in detail, eventually that I became a certified hypnotist, and now I practise as such. So happy to go into what is hypnosis and, and what myths people have, etc., etc.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:19)

Yes, let's go there.

Roop Singh (19:21)

Okay. So what do you think hypnosis is?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (19:26)

I know that hypnosis is in the mind, and, and it's when we can influence our thoughts, but also we can imagine things to the point where it can feel real, and it's pretty much the mind imagining things. That's my understanding, but what do you say?

Roop Singh (19:45)

Right. That's pretty close. So the scientific definition is, you know, most people think that hypnosis is a foreign phenomena, that somebody is doing it to you. Right? It's actually not that. It is a natural phenomena that occurs in your body already. Here's what I mean by that: our brains, every human brain, vibrates as a certain frequency.

When we are asleep, it is a different frequency. When we are awake, it's a different frequency. When we are, let's say, running, it's a different frequency. When we're having sex, it's a different frequency. When we are screaming and angry, it's a different frequency. The brain goes through these layers of frequencies. There is particular frequencies that we have just labelled that are slower, lower frequencies, that we have labelled as hypnotic trance. So if I told you, hey, have you ever been hypnotised? And I asked this to a lot of people in my workshops, and, you know, I get them to raise hands. Maybe 20% of people raise their hands. So 80% believe that they've never been hypnotised. And then I ask them, well, do you go to sleep every night? You wake up in the morning. So in 24 hours, your brain is actually going through a shift in those brain frequencies, and you are going through a hypnotic trance. There is that space between being fully asleep and being fully awake, you can call that as a hypnotic trance, or you can label that as alpha states, delta states, theta states. And it turns out that now we can measure these using fMRI scans, etc. Where you could see the brain activity while the brain is in that state. And it's a different kind of activity, while, if it, if you can contrast it to a fully awake state or even fully asleep state, you know?

So if we have to look at where can change occur, for change to be lasting, for any transformation to be lasting, it must occur also in the subconscious mind.

Otherwise it won't be lasting, it would be very temporary. Right? So let's take some examples here. What do I mean by change? I use hypnosis. For me, you know, a lot of people have this view of hypnosis in, in LA, you know, they've, they've been to, or, like, stage hypnosis. I'm sure you have something similar in Australia, stage hypnosis, where they're making people, you know, bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken and all that, right?

I don't espouse to that. To me, that's not, it's a waste of a modality, and it's, it's, it's for entertainment, it's not really for transformation. So for me, hypnosis is, is a tool for transformation, and here's how we could use it. Look at two buckets. One is things that you do not want in your life. What are those? Your traumas, your limiting beliefs, your fears, all the obstacles that are in the way of your quests, in the way of living life to your fullest potential, in the way of creating your dreams. Everything is in that one category on this side. On this side, we have everything you do want. And what is that? What do humans want? We want more money, we want better relationships, we want better health, we want better presence, we want better sex, we want a spiritual connection with whoever we think is the universe or God, or pick your label for it. These are the basic things that humans want, right? All of us. Hypnosis can be a tool to reduce or eliminate, delete everything you do not want, and to enhance, improve, create, manifest everything you do want.

Does that make sense?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (23:44)

It can delete things that we don't want. Does that mean it could delete the habits but also the traumas? Do you ever reduce the memories of some things you don't want to remember, or—

Roop Singh (23:58)

I want to get into something you mentioned earlier, that you think of hypnosis of the mind. Now, remember the original framework: mind connects to body, body connects to mind. So, in fact, you could enter the body through the mind. That's what hypnosis does.

You know, it's not like I have one tool, I have one hammer, and I'm looking for a nail. What matters to me is who is in front of me, who's, who's the subject, who's the client in front of me, and what are they looking to do. For some people, it is quite easy to enter through the mind and, let's say, make changes in their subconscious, and then those changes are lasting. But for a lot of people, it doesn't work that way, because that's how their physiology and their nervous system is designed. So what I determined, from experimentation on myself and also subjects, that it is not enough to just remove things from the mind or the cognitive level or even the subconscious level. Subconscious level includes your body. Body keeps score. The trauma that you mentioned to remove, it could be that we did, we do hypnosis, but we also have to do some somatic work, where we're discharging a lot of that stored emotions inside your body that you haven't released in the last twenty, thirty, forty years. And that, in the combination of the two, has an impact.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:25)

Right, so we do have to sort out, again, this is the hardware, it's sorting out the physically stored memories as well as the mentally stored memories. Is that right?

Roop Singh (25:37)

Absolutely. That's, I couldn't have said it better.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:40)

Awesome, awesome. So let's look at some specific examples.

Roop Singh (25:47)

Mm-hmm.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (25:48)

When you are working with clients, audiences, anyone, and I'm curious to know what format you use, are you guiding groups, individuals, and what sorts of, what sorts of stories do you have of how people have transformed in those spaces?

Roop Singh (26:08)

Sure, let's get into that. So I'll address the formats first. We do all three. So there's online courses that we have, and I do in-person workshops, and then obviously one-on-one coaching that could be online or in-person, right? So depending on where somebody is and, and their convenience and, you know, what the topic is, we can use various different formats. But let's get into some, some success case studies, right?

Think about, what are the major triggers, I call them trigger alarms, in a human's life.

Have you heard the story of, of the mailman?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (26:51)

No, I haven't.

Roop Singh (26:54)

The mailman comes to the door, you're sitting watching TV on your, you're sitting on your couch, there's a nice fire lit, it's a little cold. The mailman knocks on the door, you don't want to get up. You look at the door, you, you yell, hey, who is it? The mailman says, it's me, the mailman, I have a message for you. You get up grudgingly and you go to the door, you open the door slightly, and you say, why are you bothering me? What do you want?

The guy says, no, no, I don't want anything. I just have this envelope. I have this message for you. Okay. Well, give me the envelope. Thank you. Bye bye. You shut the door. You come back in the room. You put the envelope on the table. You go back on your couch. Start watching the TV. The next day, the mailman comes again. Knock, knock. Hey, who is it? The mailman. What do you want now? I have another message for you. This time you're really cosy, you have a blanket, the fire is lit, you're watching TV, you don't want to get up, you say, why don't you just leave the message at the door and I will pick it up? The next day the mailman comes, but he doesn't even knock, because he knows your answer. So he just leaves the message at the door. And this goes on for years and years and years. Then there is a storm.

There is a storm that blows open that door, you're still sitting on your couch, and all these envel— envelopes k— keep rushing onto you, and you fall under these envelopes, the avalanche of them.

And now you're buried in those messages you haven't opened in years, and you open one and you don't know what to do with it. What are, a st— these storms in a person's life? It's usually breakup of a relationship, be it divorce or a breakup.

Death of a loved one or death of a pet. Loss of a job, either voluntarily or being let go, a medical diagnosis or a disease, an accident of some sort.

These are the main alarms that get people to wake up. Now, it would be nice if we did wake up without the alarm, but we don't. So when we look at case studies, a lot of people come to me when these alarms are blaring strong. Right? So let's take an example. Let's take a gentleman, I'll not use the real name. Let's call them D, D-Man.

Okay. D-Man just had a s— his second divorce. He's in his mid forties, and he's had a wonderful corporate life. He's, he's been successful in making a lot of money. But because he's had divorces, there is a lot of stored trauma that comes from those divorces that he hasn't sorted out. And now he comes and he says, I don't feel like dating again. I don't feel like connecting with the world. I'm not even performing as well in my life, in my, in my professional life. I don't know what is off, but something is just taking bandwidth inside of me.

And then we start working with D-Man. What we find is that there are a lot of traumas and beliefs that he has had growing up from his father that he hasn't unlocked yet, or he hasn't, let's call it, gotten over, or removed, or processed, or digested yet. So we start working on those. And then he realises that through these divorces, he has lost his identity, he's lost his sense of self, right? Sense of self is, this is who I am, these are my values, this is what I stand for, this is what I'm good at, this is, this is areas I could improve, this is my authentic self. He's lost complete sense of that. So we use tools like hypnosis to start working with him on that journey. And slowly he starts regaining his confidence, his self-esteem.

And in this journey, he realises that he has been taking care of others a lot more than he has been taking care of himself. He has a, what we would call a level of codependency. He has to take care of people. He's great in crisis, but he forgets to put his own boundary. He does not choose himself, he chooses others over himself. And on a longer-term basis, that has an impact on his self-esteem and his self-worth. Right.

So that's an example. And as you work through these things, you, you, you open their minds to the possibility and as well as install these new beliefs and as well as discharge all the trauma that is stored in the body. You, you getting a full picture? Yes. So that's one example. I'm happy to go into other cases.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (32:13)

Let's do one more.

Roop Singh (32:17)

Let's do one more. So this happened at a event recently, like a physical in-person event, right? I was doing an event I called neurohypnosis workshop. Right. So there's parts of nervous system regulation, you know, those five skills that I talk about. I teach that in the event, and then we end up doing a hypnosis on abundance, in fact. So there was this lady there, and she had a very interesting nervous system.

The interesting nervous system was, it's interesting from my, you know, analytical case study self, you know. The interesting nervous system part of her life was that she could not calm down. She wanted to do certain things, but her, she said it herself, that her nervous system shuts down. It doesn't allow her to go there. She wants to, but she doesn't trust. It doesn't allow her to go there.

And, you know, during the workshop, I was teaching this concept of window of tolerance, and we were practising some exercises, which, by the way, we can practise some exercises live here as well. So there was some exercises that I was teaching that are to upregulate. What does that mean? That means when you are groggy, flat, almost in a burnout, when, when you don't want to move, you want the activation.

It's the opposite of downregulate, it's upregulate. So I was teaching that exercise, and she raises her hand and she says, well, why would I want to upregulate? I said, no, no, no, wait. You may not, the others do. Her nervous system was so hyper all the time that she couldn't imagine to activate it further. Right? So now the question is, why was her nervous system that way? At the end, it comes down to feeling safe.

You know this, this fight, flight, and freeze.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (34:14)

Yes, yes.

Roop Singh (34:15)

So in the animal world, if you know what's a giselle, I don't know how to say it, gazelle, giselle, the female deer, right? So the female deer, imagine, is running around in the jungle, frolicking, drinking water from the pond, and she sees a tiger, or the tiger sees her. She senses the tiger. Now there's a tiger across the pond. In that moment, the gazelle has feared.

Why? Because the tiger is gonna eat her. She knows this in her nervous system. She starts running, and she runs in a pattern. She goes into the jungle. Somehow she saves herself and she's not eaten by the tiger. In that moment, what does the gazelle do?

The gazelle shakes, shakes her body intensely for, like, a minute or so. And what does that do? That completes the activation cycle, the fear cycle that she got into. And after that one minute of shaking, the gazelle then just walks around like it's a beautiful day. She starts eating some fruits and talking to other gazelles. Life is beautiful. Now contrast that to a human. Human creates a tiger in their mind.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (35:33)

We do.

Roop Singh (35:35)

W— there was no real tiger in the civilised world that we live in, but we create a tiger in our mind. We feel that the tiger is about to attack and eat us. We start running and we have that activation of fear. And at certain point the tiger goes away, but we store the fear in our body, in our nervous system. We never actually release it. We never come down to a baseline where you can operate normally, so to say, in the window of tolerance, and you're frolicking around like the gazelle, talking to other, other gazelles around. We never do that. We walk around 10 years, 20 years, 40 years, take— keeping that fear inside of us. And that is basically what was happening with her nervous system. Without going into what created that fear, where was the tiger in the first place?

All we need to understand is, the route for her to come to the window of tolerance is to trust that she is safe. Now, how does that happen? That has to happen in the mind, in the belief system, and it has to happen in the nervous system. And she has to shake the fear off, literally and metaphorically. So I worked with her on some of these exercises to, what we call, do somatic discharge, to let go of that the tiger is coming. And that helps her calm down and come to a place that she is safe. And in fact, if you look around the world, if you look at our relationships, if you look at our performance at work, if you look at our performance as, as, you know, as, as humans of the society, you would find a common thread. We all want to be loved.

We all want to be safe, we all want to be held. At the end, that's how we were when we were born. And that's what we crave even now. But there are aspects of us that we have picked along the way that do not allow us to feel that way. I have gone through the same journey myself, and I'm not saying I'm any enlightened being, but the path is the same. To arrive at a place where I am not hyper. I am not hypo. I have discharged a lot of the fears and trauma stored in the past. And I can then operate as a functional human being.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:08)

How exactly can we do these practices by ourselves?

Roop Singh (38:15)

Just in the space and time we have now, I, I'll share a couple and then we can, we can explore more further. Let's try one of them. So let's say you wake up really anxious, and, or you are sitting in your office, it's in the middle of the day, and you're about to get on a call with your boss and you're quite anxious. Here's something that's so simple yet so profound.

So I will demonstrate it, and then I will lead you through it, and we can do it together. How does that sound?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (38:48)

Sounds good.

Roop Singh (38:50)

Okay, great. This one is called a physiological sigh. Right? That's the research-based, evidence-based name for it. So here's how it looks.

We take a full deep breath.

And we let it go with the audible sound of— And as you do, make sure your shoulders are coming down and your back is relaxing and your jaw is releasing. And even if your body sort of slumps down, that's perfectly fine. Meaning, don't try to keep any control over your body, just let it do whatever it needs to do. Okay. Okay. So let me just demonstrate it once. I take a full deep breath.

Mm.

That's how it looks. Okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (39:50)

Voice, you can be a bit audible with it.

Roop Singh (39:54)

You have to be. That is the exercise. If you don't use the sound, if you don't have a sigh, you're actually not releasing. Right? So it's not, you, you, you can't be. It, it is, it is the exercise, right? So let, you want to try it? So—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:11)

Okay.

Roop Singh (40:13)

—here's, right. We, here's another way to help you learn how deep the breath needs to be. Try breathing on a count of twelve.

What does that look like? Looks like this. So we just count to twelve, and then you release with a sigh, completely letting your shoulders down. Okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (40:33)

Okay.

Roop Singh (40:35)

Okay, let's start. Okay. Breathe in.

Release.

Okay, let's do one more. Take a deep breath in.

And release.

Dropping your shoulders, dropping your back, just letting go. Let's do one more time. Take a deep breath in.

Mm.

How does that feel?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:30)

It really works. I can feel the dropping and the loosening just after the— And it takes a bit of letting go of the ego, to be honest, to get a bit vocal with the exercise.

Roop Singh (41:44)

Yes, I understand, especially on camera, doing it first time. I, I get it, right? But if you're alone by yourself, you could just let it out. Just close the door and just let it out.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (41:56)

What other practices?

Roop Singh (42:00)

The course State Change Mastery gets into 40 different practices for five different skills. But let me show you another one that we can do quickly here. So this was an example of down regulation, meaning you are in hyperarousal, meaning you're anxious and you want to come down into the window of tolerance. Now we'll do a practice that does the complete opposite, which means that you woke up in the morning and you are listless. You have no energy. You have no, you know that, that go-get-it energy in the morning. You don't have that. You're just flat. You're barely getting out of bed, right? Right. So you get out of bed, you wash your face, and you're trying to make that coffee or matcha. You know, I love matcha, so that's my morning routine. And you're trying to wake up. So here's what you do. I'll again demonstrate it, and then we'll do it together.

Now, this one I usually do it standing up, but since we are here on camera, we'll, we can do it sitting down. It's fine. Okay. It's called, in English it's called the fire breath. What it is is a rapid breath. So think of it as two breaths in one second, like, it's really fast, right? And your emphasis is on the exhale. So you're breathing in through your nose, out through your nose, but you, your mouth is closed and your emphasis is on the exhale. What I mean by that is you are forcing the breath out of your body. Right? And the way to do that is not to control your body, just to focus your mind on the breath. Don't worry what the body is doing. It's gonna shake, it's gonna do whatever it does. Right. And the trick I use to get good at this, I'll demonstrate in a second. I start with what I call a double inhale. So I have enough of a breath to get my rhythm going. You'll see it in a second, what that means. So here's how that looks.

That was one round. And I would typically do three or four rounds of it. Okay? I do round, a round of ten.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (44:21)

For those who are listening to the audio, how can we explain? Were you doing very deep breaths, or was it very quiet?

Roop Singh (44:32)

What I'm doing is, I'm starting with two deep inhales to, let's say, to, to gather the, to fill up the balloon, the balloon on my lungs. Right. So I do two deep inhales, and then I'm doing rapid, quick breath.

And I'm forcing the air down through my nose. So I'm focusing on the exhale. Right. And I'm doing a set of 10. Then I calm down, come to the centre, scan my body, and then I do another round of 10, another round of 10. So I usually do three rounds.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:07)

That's amazing.

Roop Singh (45:10)

You wanna try it?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:11)

Totally. Okay, I'll give it a go. I have tried this sort of breath in yoga. I have never practised this on camera, but I'll try to get it right. This will be a good one for everybody else to follow, because we need to take this step by step. Are we going straight into the rapid breath?

Roop Singh (45:32)

Yeah, so we're just gonna take an inhale, like a deep inhale to fill the lungs, and then we go— Okay.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (45:38)

It's so fast. I'll get the microphone closer so people can hear how I'm doing this. So big—

Roop Singh (45:44)

You're doing great. It's, it's, it's, it's simple. You'll get it. Like, let's just practise a couple of times. It's like riding a bicycle. You'll, you'll find the rhythm, right? Okay, here we go. One, two, three. Breathe in.

I'm high already.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (46:08)

That's the quote of the day. Do you breathe from your tummy, the diaphragm, or mainly from the, the chest? So—

Roop Singh (46:17)

You know, actually, you are, you, a lot of people have that question. I'm glad you asked it. A lot of people, because it's shallow breath, you think that it is just in the chest. It's not. What's happening? If I could show you, and the way I teach this, is take one hand and put it on your belly and feel your diaphragm moving. Right? It's, it, the breath actually, it, it's, it's a balloon at the end. The diaphragm is, so you expand and then you contract. You expand, you contract.

And you do this, and in fact, there is a legend about this. It's a study that they did on some Tibetan monks where they put sh— wet sheets, wet sheets on them in cold weather. They're sitting outside in the cold, they put wet sheets, and they would do this breath all night long, and they could dry the wet sheets. It produces so much heat in your body.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:14)

That's impressive, they dried the wet sheets.

Roop Singh (47:18)

Yeah, so the, you can essentially control the temperature in your body, because this produces heat. So if—

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:24)

So—

Roop Singh (47:25)

—you have a very cold, you could just do this and get, you know, your internal heater going. Yeah. Go ahead, your question.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (47:32)

Yes, yes. Amazing. Do people ever do this on simply a cold winter day, things like that?

Roop Singh (47:39)

You could. You could. I mean, once you learn these things, you start experimenting with it, you know. I will say that there is, what in scientific literature we will call contraindication, or, you know, disclaimers, or things to be careful about. Don't do it if you're pregnant, don't do it if you have, like, heart issues and, and hypertension and things of that nature. Because what it does is, it, it is really activating your nervous system, right? So in the case of that lady I told you, I told her not to do this in that session. I told her, absolutely don't touch it. Why? Because she's already so activated. She's already so anxious. So remember, what is the purpose? The purpose is to activate or upregulate. If you're already very anxious and very highly, you know, activated, then this is like taking speed on top of it. You know, you don't want to do that. But this is to be used when you are in a lethargic state, listless, don't want to wake up, don't want to face the day, basically.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:43)

Absolutely. It's a way to wake up in the morning.

Roop Singh (48:49)

Yeah, this is part of my morning routine. There are many others. You wanna know another interesting one?

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (48:58)

We could do one more.

Roop Singh (49:00)

Okay, so this is actually so simple that you'll be like, what? This is crazy. Well, why does it work? So they did research. There was a paper that basically figured out, what, in the night, when you're not able to sleep, what is the way for us to get you to sleep? And there are a lot of people that have insomnia, right? They can't sleep. I have that if I drink too much coffee, which I have stopped drinking now. I, I am so sensitive that I cannot even drink coffee. So the paper describes that they designed a special type of bed that rocked. And they put adults in it. And they noticed what is their psych— physiological state and what is happening to their body when they're going to sleep. And one thing they discovered that's amazing is, if you even pay conscious attention, you will realise this tonight when you're about to sleep. Our body, call it the outline, the boundary of our body, that sort of escapes, that softens or evaporates in our mind as we fall into sleep. Right? And there is a particular mechanism that they found through this rocking bed. And then when they researched it more, they actually found you could do it without the bed. And this is the same type of physiological movement that a child goes through. Remember, we, when we were children, we were rocked, and that's where the rocking bed comes from. But there's also a cycle of physiological movement that happens as you're about to sleep. And I will demonstrate that now. So it looks like this. I'm gonna rotate my eyes clockwise, then I'm gonna rotate my eyes. No, wait, I'm gonna start with my eyes left and right.

I'm gonna move my, yes, exactly like that. I'm gonna move my eyes left and right, then I'm gonna rotate my eyes clockwise, then I'm gonna rotate my eyes counterclockwise, then I'm gonna end with trying to look at the tip of my nose, and then just close my eyes and just let go. That's the whole movement.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:21)

What effect does that have on you?

Roop Singh (51:25)

Let's do it together. Let's just try it one, one time, like, for real. Okay. So gently close your eyes. You're doing it eyes closed. You don't have to keep it open. Now move your eyes laterally from left to right and right to left a couple of times. And then rotate your eyes clockwise.

And then rotate them counterclockwise.

And then try to look at the tip of your nose.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (51:58)

Yeah.

Roop Singh (52:01)

And then relax, be natural.

So this is supposed to start you on the process of falling asleep.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:20)

Okay. Does that work for you?

Roop Singh (52:25)

It works most of the time. Again, it doesn't work if I've had too much matcha in the morning. I am so sensitive.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:33)

Even matcha.

Roop Singh (52:35)

Yeah. I, I now normally drink two cups of matcha, and, you know, I have this exact measure I have to put. If I put, if I put more than that, or if I drink three cups, I'm done. I, it's gonna be a problem sleeping in the night. I know that already.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (52:51)

That's something to keep in mind as well. We can have all the practices, but if we're too caffeinated, things will get interesting.

Roop Singh (52:59)

Exactly. So if you are the type that is addicted to coffee, I would start replacing those substances with something like fire breath, or, we have many of those types of practices in, in the course. That's just one of them.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (53:13)

Great, great. Let's wind up with a call to action. If someone wants to learn more from you, where should they begin?

Roop Singh (53:22)

They should go to statechangemastery.com. It's a six-week program where we teach these five skills. And I'll just go through those five, six skills so your audience understand. The first thing they need to understand is, your state can change, and you can learn the cheat codes of life. You can learn these techniques. And they're really simple techniques, like we saw today, that can actually really help you to perform at a higher level and to be really productive in life. So these are, the first one is interoceptive awareness, which just means ability to scan your body and read your physical sens— signals that are happening inside your body. When this skill is high, you record, or you, you identify a lot of the signals that are happening in your body before they become alarming. Right? The second skill is state regulation. So that's what we talked about for the most of today, which is how to upregulate, how to downregulate, how to come in your window of tolerance. So there's exercises, techniques to do both, upregulate and down regulate. And then the next skill is nervous system recovery. What does that mean? That means after a load, meaning, let's say you had a project for two weeks, three weeks, a month, two months, your nervous system needs to recover. And that cycle has to happen on a daily basis, when you go to sleep. If you wake up and you're not fully recovered, then we have a challenge of nervous system recovery.

And that cycle of activation and then recovery has to happen on a load basis, meaning any project you did, and now you need to time off for your system to recover. And there are techniques you can help your s— your nervous system to recover better and quicker and faster and complete. Right? Completer. Is that a word? More complete. More complete. Right. The next skill is emotional capacity.

So we all start our days with certain emotional capacity. And then we find ourselves being reactive, being reactive, being sniping at people, not being as close to, or shut off from, our loved ones or even people we work with. So this skill teaches you how to process or release your emotions without getting really, you know, hippie about it. Emotions are something everybody has. You, you need to learn how to recognise them and then to complete the cycle of the emotion. And here we teach how to do that, so that you don't carry that in your life for the next 10, 20, 50, 30 years, you know, whatever. The last one, which is a, a really strong one, which is somatic discharge. So this is the example I gave with the gazelle. We carry trauma in our bodies, and we never discharge it. So we have found amazing success with somatic discharge techniques, which are essentially bioenergetic techniques that help you release the stored trauma, stored stress, stored anxiety in your body, in your muscles. And these are, again, simple techniques that you could do by yourself. So these are the five techniques, five, sorry, five skills we teach, over 40 different techniques over six weeks. StateChangeMastery.com. You can go there to apply.

And here's a free assessment for everybody to notice, to understand how their nervous system is behaving today. So when you go on that site, you will find, and we can drop links to the assessment. And this is a really interesting assessment that asks you a few questions and then tells you, hey, here's, we believe, what is happening. So it scores you on these five skills. So you can look at your score, and then you could do the assessment in a week or, or a month and see how you have improved your scores.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (57:19)

Amazing. That's how anybody can transform. The listener, you can go to the links that will be in the show notes and discover these powerful methods. Roop, thank you so much for sharing this wisdom.

Roop Singh (57:37)

Thank you for having me. I'm excited for what impact we can create. I mean, my purpose of doing this is really just to create impact. I could go back to my technology world, and I could be in a tech career at this moment if I chose to, but I chose to be in this life because I find it to be more meaningful and more impactful for actual human lives.

Melanie Suzanne Wilson (57:59)

For sure, we need a meaningful life. Thank you.

Roop Singh (58:04)

Thank you, Melanie. Thanks for having me.