What if the cure to your burnout isn’t a beach in the Caribbean—but a breath?
In this raw and refreshingly real solo episode, host Will Rodriguez opens up about hitting rock bottom—mentally, emotionally, and energetically—and the unexpected thing that helped crack the pressure: his own outbreath.
No, not the calm, serene breath you take at a yoga retreat. We’re talking full-on, primal, “scare-the-neighbors” screaming into the void. And it turns out… it helped. A lot.
🎧 In this episode, Will shares:
- Why burnout had him dragging himself out of bed like a zombie in flip-flops
- How a spontaneous scream became his spiritual pressure valve
- The science and the soul behind why exhaling is so healing
- The link between breath and emotion in ancient cultures—and your daily life
- A gentle guided moment to reconnect with your breath (without needing a passport or a guru)
🧘♂️ Why You Should Listen:
If you’ve been running on fumes and craving relief, this episode offers a powerful, practical, and downright cathartic tool that’s completely free and always with you: your breath. You’ll laugh, you might cry, and you’ll definitely want to try this surprisingly effective technique—though maybe not in your open-plan office.
💬 Listener Challenge:
Have you ever screamed into the abyss and felt better afterward? We want to know! Leave a comment, send a voicemail at skepticmetaphysician.com, and let Will know if this primal outbreath helped you, too. Who knows? You might be featured in a future community episode!
🔗 Connect with Us:
🌐 Website
📩 Leave a Voicemail: skepticmetaphysician.com
📸 Follow us on Instagram: @skepticmetaphysician_podcast
📺 Watch full episodes on YouTube: The Skeptic Metaphysicians
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Hey, there are thanks for joining me on another solo
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episode of The Skeptic Metaphysicians Today. Today, I want to
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talk to you about the power of the outbreath. You
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can say, the outbreath actually saved me, and it's a
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it's a powerful lesson for me, and I think I
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hope that someone out there might benefit from this as well.
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So I guess to start, I just want to ask
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you if you feel like, have you ever hit a
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point where you're you're so drained, like so completely worn
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out that even the act of brushing your teeth feels
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like running a marathon, pill like in flip flops while
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carrying emotional baggage. Well, that's that's been me lately the
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past few weeks. I honestly have been running on fumes.
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Every morning, I'm finding I'm having to drag myself out
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of bed. It's honestly, it's felt like a battle against
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gravity and my own resistance to the daily grind. Like
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I've been so burnt out, so burnt out, so tired,
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so exhausted that I just find it so challenging to
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even get up out of bed every morning. And I
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know what the cure is. I know that all I
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need to recharge, to get rid of the burnout is
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to go sit on a Caribbean beach somewhere, having drinks
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brought to me by a wonderful server while I have
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an amazing book in my hand, and I do nothing
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but just drink in the sun and the vitamin rich
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just power of the energies around that particular scenario. That's
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really what feeds my soul. I was born on an island,
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so it just that's what I need. And it's been
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a very very very long time since I have had that,
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so things I've been building up. Every vacation that I've
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taken has something has come up where I've just not
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been able to relax. Last vacation, those of you who
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have heard the show for a while remember that I
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broke my ankle when I went to Europe. So it's
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been it's been challenging not sharing this with you to
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give you a woe is Me story, but rather to
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kind of level set how I've been feeling so that
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this episode, this story hopefully resonates with you. All that
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being said, there was a point a couple of days
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ago where I reached my limit, my point of breaking
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something inside me actually cracked, not in a breakdown kind
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of way, more like a like a pressure valve finally
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giving out. And I found myself just letting out a sound.
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Actually it was more than a sound. It was a scream.
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It even surprised me. Actually it wasn't planned, it wasn't theatrical,
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it was it was just like this. I had reached
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my limit and I let out a raw, primal, just scream,
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loud enough to startle myself even Well, here's while a part.
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I felt a little better, not fixed, not healed, but better.
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So I did it again, and I found myself just
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letting out the primal scream at the top of my
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lung is just every energy inside me, just aha, going
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out into the atmosphere. And when I finished that, I
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felt even a little bit better. So I did it
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again and again and again until I was literally out
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of breath, when I couldn't scream anymore. Suddenly it hit me,
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that is the power of the outbreath. Now. I know
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it sounds like the kind of thing you'd find printed
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on a mug, got a yoga retreat or something like that.
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But stay with me, this this wasn't about deep, quiet,
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serene breaths. It was about expelling, releasing, letting God loudly, messily, cathartically,
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like I let everything go. Every little bit of my
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energy was involved. It was in that out breath, and
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I felt better. I felt better. Well. I did some
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research after that, and it turns out that even modern medicine,
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while it doesn't always buy into the whole healing power
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breath thing. Well, when you think, when they still tell
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us to take a deep breath before sticking us with
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something sharp or unpleasant, right now, why is that? I
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think it's because somewhere deep in our biology, breath equals comfort, control,
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maybe even hope. Instinctively, we inhale before the pain, and
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we exhale to release it. It's not just a distraction, though,
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That is how modern medicine is using the breath. It's okay,
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take a deep breath and then bam, right, it's a
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distraction of what's happening. But what happened is when we inhale,
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we tense up because we know pain's coming. But when
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we exhale, we're able to release a lot of that
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pent up anxiety and it helps us with the pain.
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Think about it in ancient Greek theater. There literally was
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a chorus built into every tragedy whose job was to wail, moan,
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and grieve for the audience. They were there to let
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the emotion out for you, so you didn't have to
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carry it alone. Today we have therapy. Back then they
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had primal group sighing, And honestly, I kind of get
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it now. When I hit my limit the other day,
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my breath became like the pressure valve, a stopgap, a
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sacred scream, not a cure, but a moment of release
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until I can get to that beach and truly unplug.
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So today, if you're carrying something heavy, why not trying.
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You don't have to scream in the middle of your
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office unless your coworkers are actually really chill. But try first, sighing, moan,
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whimper if you have to. But let that breath move
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through you like it's got somewhere to go. Because it
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does breath, It connects us to the present. It's the
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bridge between our frantic minds and our buried feelings. It's
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the quiet whisper that says you're still here. So let's
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try this. Go ahead and stand by a window and
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stare out into the distance like you're in a dramatic
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indie film. You're just looking out over the horizon. Now,
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notice your first few shallow breaths. Don't judge them, just
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notice them. Now. When you take your next fuel breaths,
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let them be a little deeper, more natural, almost like
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your body's sighing for you. I'll go ahead and let
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your mind wander, let it spill into the emptiness inside you.
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Don't expect fireworks, don't expect clarity. Just breathe, Just breathe.
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Allow that outbreath to come out in a heavy sigh.
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Allow the energy to be connected to that outbreath. Let
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all your tension, all your frustrations, connect to that outbreath,
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and exhale it out as if you were ejecting an
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old cassette tape. Bio. I just dated myself, I realized that.
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But you'll be amazed how powerful it is. In Sanskript,
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breath is called prana. In Greek it's pneuma. Both mean
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life force, and whether you're howling at the moon or
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you're simply sighing into your steering wheel, that breath might
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just be the soul's way of whispering you got this,
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and hey, if all else fails. If that soft sighing, breathing,
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whimpering doesn't work for you, then scream it. Scream it out,
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let it out. Go in the middle of a field
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somewhere and scream it out loud and proud, because hey,
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you are not broken, You are breathing, and you need
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to allow these tensions to come out of you. And
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I found that there is no better way to do
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that than to let it out with my breath. It's
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not just a breathe out. Remember, it's an attaching of
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the emotions into that outbreath. We have it for a reason, folks,
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Go ahead and use it. Don't be afraid. Go ahead
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and scream out and allow yourself to calm the luxury
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of accepting the tensions, accepting what you're going through, and
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accepting the fact that you need to let it out.
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So do it. Let it out. If this works for you,
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if you try it and all of a sudden, the
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primal screams that you let out do help you in
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some way, I would really love it if you reach
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out and you let me know. I know, I know
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that I'm not the only one. There's so much going
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out on in the world right now that there's so
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much pressure building inside each and every one of us.
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We have to find a way to release it. And
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this is one way that I found that worked for me.
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So if you're out there and it works for you,
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please let me know. I'd love to know that I'm
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not the only crazy person out in the middle of
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a field screaming. All right, I really appreciate you sitting
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through my little escapade. I guess for lack of a
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better word, and I don't want you to worry. I
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am feeling better. But at the end of the day,
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aren't we all just humans going through spiritual awakenings. Well,
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let's help each other. If you have gone through this
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and you want to let me know, add it to
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the comments below, or send me a voicemail. Go to
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Skeptic midposition dot com. Leave me a voicemail there, let
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me know how this helped you, how this worked, and
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maybe we'll just do an entire episode of people just
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expressing the wonderfulness of the outbreath. All right, that's it
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for today. Thanks so much for listening, and see you
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on the next one. Remember to breathe out
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00:07:46.439 --> 00:07:50.720
115
00:07:50.839 --> 00:07:53.639
116
00:07:54.959 --> 00:07:59.040
117
00:07:59.079 --> 00:08:03.279
118
00:08:03.360 --> 00:08:04.879
119
00:08:04.879 --> 00:08:10.319
120
00:08:10.399 --> 00:08:14.439
121
00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:19.199
122
00:08:19.319 --> 00:08:22.040
123
00:08:22.160 --> 00:08:27.399
124
00:08:27.480 --> 00:08:30.199
125
00:08:30.240 --> 00:08:36.200
126
00:08:36.799 --> 00:08:39.120
127
00:08:39.159 --> 00:08:46.799
128
00:08:46.919 --> 00:08:52.080
129
00:08:52.600 --> 00:08:56.480
130
00:08:56.600 --> 00:09:01.279
131
00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:03.080
132
00:09:03.120 --> 00:09:06.240
133
00:09:06.320 --> 00:09:09.480
134
00:09:09.519 --> 00:09:12.679
135
00:09:12.799 --> 00:09:14.399
136
00:09:14.399 --> 00:09:16.320
137
00:09:16.440 --> 00:09:20.759
138
00:09:21.399 --> 00:09:24.399
139
00:09:24.480 --> 00:09:27.039
140
00:09:27.679 --> 00:09:29.159
141
00:09:29.200 --> 00:09:31.039
142
00:09:31.039 --> 00:09:33.200
143
00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:37.519
144
00:09:37.759 --> 00:09:41.080
145
00:09:41.080 --> 00:09:44.519
146
00:09:44.559 --> 00:09:47.000
147
00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:52.639
148
00:09:52.759 --> 00:09:55.879
149
00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:57.559
150
00:09:57.600 --> 00:10:00.919
151
00:10:00.960 --> 00:10:03.679
152
00:10:03.720 --> 00:10:06.600
153
00:10:06.679 --> 00:10:09.320
154
00:10:09.399 --> 00:10:15.240
155
00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:17.879
156
00:10:17.919 --> 00:10:22.200
