Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to David Richards. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
David, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
I had organized another trip to India to return to the Yoga ashram that I had journeyed to in the foothills of the Himalayas a few years back. My first trip there proved to be a truly transformational experience. I learned ancient breathing practices, mantras, mudras, and expansive “actions” called Kriyas. After this first trip to India I spent the next several years diving deep into these practices, making them a central point of my daily life. The changes I felt inside of me and witnessed in my behaviors, patterning, and thinking were remarkable. So back to my second trip, My itinerary had me flying LAX-NYC-New Delhi, upon arrival the duration of my trip was to be about 5 weeks. My initial flight was delayed leaving Los Angeles, and I missed my connecting flight in New York. Several hours spent in the airport trying to rebook flights, book lodging for the night and receive vouchers/refunds proved to be unsuccessful. I finally decided to book another flight on a separate airline and deal with the refunds when I return home, I paid for a hotel for the night, and collected my luggage to leave the airport with hopes tomorrow’s travel are smoother. With all my belongings I went to the taxi line, got a car and headed off to my hotel, while in the car I am talking on the phone with my partner discussing the last few hours and trying to collect myself. I get out of the car at my hotel, check in and go upstairs. I hang up the phone and go to grab my luggage to get my toiletries bag out to wash my face. When I look down I see my carry-on book bag, but not my suitcase. I realize in that moment I had left my suitcase in the car that had driven me from the airport. Panic sets in as all of my items for the next month are in that suitcase. I had paid for the taxi in cash, and had declined a receipt. I called all of the numbers I could find online about what to do if this situation happens. After exhausting all of the numbers I found, I had not received any helpful information and the situation looked pretty grim. So, I went downstairs to the lobby, explained to the concierge what had happened and decided at this point all I could do was go outside, pray, and hope that the driver would find the suitcase and decide to bring it back to me. Again I called my partner and was filled with so much sadness and embarrassment as I talked to him in disbelief that this had happened and the doubt that filled me that I would actually be able to go on this trip now being so unprepared.
About an hour later a taxi without a passenger shows up and is getting yelled at by hotel security for being in the drop-off waiting area without having a passenger. I hung up the phone and ran over to see who the driver was, it was the man who had driven me! He gets out of the car, opens the trunk and hands me my suitcase. He said he had gone back to the airport, waited in the line to get his next passengers and when he went to put their luggage in the trunk of his car he realized my suitcase was still there. He said he saw the luggage tag that said to New Delhi, where he happened to be from originally, and told his passengers he was sorry but he had to return this luggage right away. In that moment I was so overwhelmed with gratitude that this stranger had decided to act with so much compassion towards me, a person he knew nothing about and owed nothing to.
I will never forget that defining moment, feeling so supported by the Universe, especially after feeling so doubtful. Feeling so much gratitude, and feeling more than ever that what is meant to be will be. The remainder of the travels to India went off without incident and the next several weeks I was there were some of the most deeply reverent and aligned experiences of my life.
To trust when the path is not clear or the reasons not yet revealed is one of the fundamental lessons of our human experience. It is a practice that we are constantly refining and are forever challenged by. With such an open heart I say thank you for the opportunities to trust.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Hey there, I’m David, founder of Cosmic Breathing. I teach yoga clases, guide meditations and lead breathwork journeys. I discovered yoga about 9 years ago when I first moved to Southern California. I will never forget that first class, taught by a teacher that I still practice with to this day, the resistance I had to even going, the struggle during the class, and the euphoria after. I practiced many different types of yoga over the next several years, and one day expressed an interest in doing a teacher training to deepen my own practice. The person I was talking to, unbeknownst to me, had completed a teacher training in Rishikesh, India a few years prior and she recommended, that if I could, to go to the source. So, I applied for a scholarship with the school/ashram, was accepted and granted the financial aid, and a few months later I took my first trip to India. That trip changed my life, for the first time I felt that I had truly been guided to a place. After completing several trainings, including multiple in India over the next few years, I felt the call to begin to share these practices and teachings that had so helped me with others. I launched Cosmic Breathing to connect with anyone who seeks transformation, discipline, release, expansion and healing. There is no dogmatic belief system, no religious affiliation, no experience is necessary, and all sexualities, races, and gender expressions are welcome here.
I utilize a variety of techniques from the Yogic Vedantic Himalayan tradition to create these customized offerings. I offer a variety of class structures, available in group or 1 on 1 settings, development of personal daily practices, and personalized initiations into meditation. The upmost importance is placed of maintaining the integrity of these techniques as they have been passed down by the yogic masters for thousands of years.
Yoga asanas are the shapes we make with the physical body, we practice how to align the body, activate the different systems of the body, cleanse and detoxify, bring the system into equilibrium, quiet the mind with physical exertion in order to prepare for meditation.
Breathwork is utilizing controlled breathing techniques to access deeper states of consciousness and awareness. Some of these techniques are deeply meditative helping us to calm the mind, ground the physical body and move towards greater stillness while others are expansive, energy building, expressive and activating.
Meditation initiation in the Vedantic Himalayan tradition is a specific set of breath, activation, mantra, that is helping us move in the direction of stillness. This is not a “no-thought” exercise, but instead a continued practice and refinement of the mind. We work with the mantra and when we find ourselves engaging in the thought based mind we simply return to the technique and connect with the breath.
My teaching style is deeply rooted in respect to the lineage, combined with my love of learning, and the desire to share the practices that helped me heal so deeply with others. I am truly honored to have had the opportunities to learn so much of this ancient wisdom, and it is such a joy to teach it as well.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
A lesson I had to unlearn was saying ‘Yes’ to everything. My first career was in the high end beauty world, as a hair colorist. I received my training at the L’Oreal flagship salon on 5th ave in NYC and worked alongside industry leaders and educators from all over the world. After this chapter I had a life changing opportunity to continue my career in Beverly Hills, California at a world renowned salon as a hair color specialist. In these environments it is fast paced, highly competitive, normal to work long hours, physically demanding and mentally exhausting. There is a sense of pride that you feel for being able to work in this level of establishment, a sense of accomplishment after so many years of hard work. There is also a sense of doing whatever it takes to keep yourself relevant, busy with clients and continuously moving up the ranks in the industry. I didn’t realize until years later that for me this was coming from a fear based place. I was saying ‘Yes’ to every client because I was afraid if I didn’t I wouldn’t be taken seriously by my peers/management, that I would be missing important opportunities to establish new relationships with clients. That if I said ‘No’ I would not have enough. This lead to practically no work-life balance, I was working 6 days a week and 10+ hour days without breaks or food were not uncommon. When the pandemic hit and salons were turned upside down by closures, health protocols, clients’ safety & comfort levels, everything changed. For the first time since I had been in this industry, there were no more multiple clients at the same time, no more squeezing more appointments into a full day. My interactions with my clients were no longer mediated by a third party at the salon, but instead people were reaching out to me directly. I had to opportunity to say yes or no, and I still felt guilty at the possibility of saying ‘No’ in the beginning, but like anything else after time and practice it became easier to establish boundaries and limits. I began to give myself this permission to say ‘No’ in other areas of my life and my life began to become more balanced, I had more energy and felt more at ease.
When launching a new project it is easy to fall back into that trap of ‘I will do whatever it takes’ and I had to check myself a lot when it came to Cosmic Breathing to make sure I maintained that alignment and balance in regards to conducting business. But now I can feel it pretty immediately when choices I am making are making me feel depleted or I am acting from a place of lack instead of something that I have energy and capacity to take on. When we just bulldoze our way through something, sometimes we miss that subtle feedback telling us there’s a better, more efficient way to do something or simply that something is not for us. I always try and remember to be so incredibly kind to myself while I navigate this, I know it will never be perfectly done, so why not show myself some grace.
Training and knowledge matter of course, but beyond that what do you think matters most in terms of succeeding in your field?
I believe in order to guide, hold space, teach, anything we are doing to help others, we must lead from a place of the upmost integrity. I think what is the most helpful to succeeding is being in a constant state of reflection and refinement. We have to practice whatever it is we are sharing. Constantly checking in with what is motivating us in that moment, and being aware of : is it financial? is it Ego? is it status? is it to be seen a certain way? These are just some of the traps we fall into as teachers. And maybe it is inevitable we will all have moments where we catch ourselves out of alignment, but through our own personal work we are able to recognize this and work ourselves back towards center. My role in sharing what has helped transform my life, is to teach it as purely as it was taught to me. To maintain the “seat” of the practices as they have been passed down through this lineage. I am not trying to take ownership of anything, to re-brand it as “David’s” anything, absolutely not. Instead its from a place of let me share with you what has helped me, what I have learned and I hope it resonantes with you however is true for you, I hope this assists you in your joy and healing. Something that has always resonated with my from this lineage is that we meet all modalities with an open heart and bow to them. There are so many techniques and practices, that there is no one path to truth, and why not celebrate them all? This is what works for us, what works for you is also wonderful, maybe you can teach it to me sometime?
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.cosmicbreathing.online
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cosmicbreathing/
Image Credits
IG: @ramontgarcia @cayliedee @damicreator