(Rochester, MN) — February 14, 2022 — Tejinder Kaur Khalsa, MD relaunches “The Last Breath Podcast” today. The podcast helps listeners connect to their higher meaning and greater purpose. This month’s episode, “Sometimes Stopping is the Best Way to Start,” released early this morning and is available to listen to now.
“My life’s mission is to advance peace, justice, and strong institutions through educating our human family on the promotion of good health and wellbeing,” Khalsa said. “I believe this kind of social and individual transformation begins with the breath, and the remembrance of who we were born to be.”
Khalsa’s daily “Last Breath Practice” is inspired by the daily meditative practice of two American giants – Dr. Martin Luther King’s daily “personal commitment” and Congressman John Lewis’ daily “executive session with myself.” Listeners are encouraged to establish their own evening meditation practice – a “Last Breath Practice” – devoting the final few minutes before bed to asking themselves: “When I take my last breath, how do I want to feel?” In a climate of uncertainty and escalating levels of stress and anxiety due to COVID-19, Khalsa believes this question can serve as a north star.
The podcast’s relaunch aligns with Black History Month, however Khalsa encourages listeners to reflect beyond this February. “I want to grow this conversation democratizing meditation as an ancestral practice rooted in many cultures and social justice movements, including the American civil rights movement,” Khalsa said.
The stress management and resilience programming offered through “The Last Breath Podcast” and on Khalsa’s website, thelastbreathpodcast.com, is anchored in evidence-based medicine, while also mainstreaming Black and Indigenous scholarship. Khalsa’s interdisciplinary approach to meditation and resilience is designed to be intersectional.
In addition to the podcast, Khalsa is also launching “The Last Breath Practice” app, a companion to the show that will help listeners deepen their practice. The educational content is intentionally integrated with critical junctures of a person’s workday. “I believe there is no such thing as work-life balance” Khalsa said about the app. “Work and life are one, powered by our one breath of life.” Currently available for Android with access for Apple users on the way, the app has free options like the “Waking Up With Ease” feature. Paid members learn Khalsa’s three step approach – “Feel. Reveal. Heal.” – to navigate whatever life brings their way.
Khalsa completed training as a General Internist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. where she also served as an Assistant Professor of Medicine with the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine. She completed her residency at the University of Calgary and also has a Masters in Gender, Development and Globalization from the London School of Economics and a Bachelors from the University of British Columbia in English Literature.
Khalsa is also a mother and dedicated yogi who married into a family of American civil rights activists. “This daily practice is my family’s way of life and the lens through which indigenous scholarship, the nonviolent movement for social justice, storytelling, medical science, and living as a human being all converge,” said Khalsa. “It is from this vantage point that I deeply listen and relate to everything around me, including in my work as a physician and educator.”
Originally launched in 2020, Khalsa took an intentional break from the podcast to meditate on what she’d learned and to determine its new direction. The Last Breath Podcast will now publish monthly, making new episodes available in listeners’ feeds first thing so they can start each month with purpose. It’s available for free and can be found wherever you get your podcasts.
About : Dr Tej Khalsa MD MSc FRCPC is a peace activist and physician educator for leading global health authorities including The World Health Organization (through a cooperative agreement with TEPHINET with funding from the CDC). Khalsa considers many places home: the ancestral lands of the Dakota, one hour’s drive from George Floyd Square, as well as the desert skies of New Mexico, where she married and had her first child near the ancient Santa Clara and Ohkay Owingeh pueblos. She lives off of her grandmothers’ steady diet of storytelling and finds shelter in listening to her father-in-law sing the Blues. The Last Breath Podcast represents Khalsa’s personal views only and is a free public service.
