Speaker 1: If you think you're enlightened, go spend a week with
Speaker 1: your family. That's what the spiritual teacher ram Das said,
Speaker 1: and it strikes a chord with so many of us.
Speaker 1: Combine that with the inherently stressful holiday season, and it's
Speaker 1: no wonder that the last few months of the year
Speaker 1: are some of the most difficult for so many people.
Speaker 1: That's why we're opening the doors to the Spiritual Habits
Speaker 1: Group program once again, and I'm inviting you to join me.
Speaker 1: Whether you're looking to develop a consistent daily meditation practice,
Speaker 1: or implement mindfulness practices into your life, or connect more
Speaker 1: deeply to what really matters, the Spiritual Habits Group program
Speaker 1: will give you the tools you need to turn this
Speaker 1: wisdom into daily, sustainable, transformational practice, and you'll do so
Speaker 1: in a community where you belong and feel connected. Finish
Speaker 1: strong with the satisfaction of knowing you showed up as
Speaker 1: your best self with less stress able to actually enjoy
Speaker 1: this time of year. Just go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash spirit your Habits to join the program.
Speaker 1: Enrollment is open now through October twelfth. That's when you
Speaker 1: feed dot net slash Spiritual Habits. Stop laying the blame
Speaker 1: on others and on life for betraying this unsigned contract
Speaker 1: that no one knows about but you, and say those
Speaker 1: things to yourself on your own. Welcome to the one
Speaker 1: you feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance
Speaker 1: of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in, garbage out,
Speaker 1: or you are what you think, ring true. And yet
Speaker 1: for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us.
Speaker 1: We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We
Speaker 1: see what we don't have instead of what we do.
Speaker 1: We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.
Speaker 1: But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It
Speaker 1: takes anxious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life
Speaker 1: worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep
Speaker 1: themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their
Speaker 1: good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this
Speaker 1: episode is Neju Zabian, an activist, author, speaker, and educator.
Speaker 1: Nash Well recently launched a digital school, Soul Academy, and
Speaker 1: a podcast, Stories of the Soul. Her work has been
Speaker 1: featured in The New York Times, Glamour, l Huffington Post
Speaker 1: and more, and She's known for her much viewed ted
Speaker 1: X talk Finding Home through Poetry. Today, Nashua and Eric
Speaker 1: discuss her new book, Welcome Home, A Guide to Building
Speaker 1: a Home for your Soul. Hi Nsull, welcome to the show.
Speaker 1: Thank you for having me. It is a real pleasure
Speaker 1: to have you on. I've admired your work for a while,
Speaker 1: and you've got a new book called Welcome Home, A
Speaker 1: Guide to Building a Home for your Soul, which we
Speaker 1: are going to talk about in a few minutes. But
Speaker 1: we're going to start like we always do, with the parable.
Speaker 1: In the parable, there is a grandmother who's talking with
Speaker 1: her grandson and she says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and he looks up at his grandmother says, grandmother, which
Speaker 1: one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I live my life in
Speaker 1: a way that there's a constant reminder that I have
Speaker 1: a choice in the way that my life goes. Whereas
Speaker 1: before I made all these realizations about building a home
Speaker 1: with him and are building a home within other people,
Speaker 1: I had always felt that I was living my life
Speaker 1: in a way that I was following a path that
Speaker 1: someone else told me was the right path. And I
Speaker 1: genuinely believe that I couldn't be okay as a person
Speaker 1: unless I followed that path. So that immediately took choice
Speaker 1: away from me, and it took away the awareness that
Speaker 1: I had of myself in terms of is this something
Speaker 1: I want to do? Is this something I like? Is
Speaker 1: this something I believe in? Choice was completely taken away.
Speaker 1: I didn't have that awareness of the good sides and
Speaker 1: the bad sides that I had within me because I
Speaker 1: lived a life outside of me, and to come to
Speaker 1: terms with the fact that there is a human that
Speaker 1: is me that had as wants and needs and preferences
Speaker 1: and certain realities about this human that I need to
Speaker 1: come to terms with. Getting that kind of power was
Speaker 1: so different and new to me. You know, jump out
Speaker 1: of the victim mentality of I've been made to believe
Speaker 1: that I have to follow a certain path to be
Speaker 1: a good person. To leave that kind of mentality and say, well,
Speaker 1: you know what, maybe that was the case in the past,
Speaker 1: but now I'm not going to say someone is forcing
Speaker 1: me to walk down a certain path, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say I'm perfect without that part of my life,
Speaker 1: Like I would have been perfect had I not been,
Speaker 1: you know, indoctrinated into believing that I have to follow
Speaker 1: a certain path. So coming to terms with that, like,
Speaker 1: I'm not a perfect person. I actually have sides of
Speaker 1: me that I I don't necessarily like very much or
Speaker 1: like to admit that I have. And I know this
Speaker 1: is a very long answer to your question, but it's
Speaker 1: important for me to preface it by saying, like, if
Speaker 1: you don't know that you have both sides, you're living
Speaker 1: outside of yourself. So to get to a point where
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, there are certain things about me that
Speaker 1: I need to learn about. There are great things in
Speaker 1: my own eyes, not necessarily just through the eyes of others,
Speaker 1: and there are bad things in my own eyes, not
Speaker 1: necessarily just in the eyes of others. To get to
Speaker 1: that level of awareness, that's when you start saying, Okay,
Speaker 1: what are the good things about me? And what are
Speaker 1: the bad things about me? And so, for example, with myself,
Speaker 1: if I hear negative voices in my head any time
Speaker 1: during the day, like say, i hear someone succeeded in
Speaker 1: some way, and the first thing that comes to me
Speaker 1: is I'm not enough because I didn't get to do that.
Speaker 1: And then so that that's the side of me that
Speaker 1: I choose to listen to but not feed, because if
Speaker 1: I were to feed that side, then I'm going to
Speaker 1: behave in a way that gives that side power. And
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, it's me who's in power.
Speaker 1: It's the choice that I have that's in power. So
Speaker 1: when I hear those words, I wanted this reaction to
Speaker 1: be genuine, because if I had crafted an answer for you,
Speaker 1: it would have been perfect and beautiful in everything. But
Speaker 1: I was like, I wanted to come from my heart.
Speaker 1: So for me to get to a point in my
Speaker 1: life where I'm like, I will live my life based
Speaker 1: on where I choose to put my energy and attention.
Speaker 1: It took a long time to even give myself permission
Speaker 1: to focus on myself and on the fact that I
Speaker 1: have a choice, and I feel like that's probably where
Speaker 1: most people feel stock they're still living based on that
Speaker 1: path that they're following that they've been made to believe
Speaker 1: is right. So before you get to a point where
Speaker 1: you can say the side of me that I feed
Speaker 1: is the one that wins, you have to know who
Speaker 1: that me is. I love that idea of listening to
Speaker 1: the bad wolf but not feeding him. It's a really
Speaker 1: great idea. So I'd like to turn our attention to
Speaker 1: the overall theme of your book, which you hit on
Speaker 1: a little bit in that answer, which is this idea
Speaker 1: of coming home to ourselves. And you you talked a
Speaker 1: lot in your answer about knowing who we are, and
Speaker 1: the book to me was really about learning to see
Speaker 1: ourselves from the inside, what's actually going on inside of us,
Speaker 1: what we want, what matters to us, and learning to
Speaker 1: not put so much stock in what's outside, what we're
Speaker 1: told we should be. Who likes us, who doesn't like us,
Speaker 1: you know, all the day as we measure ourselves, and
Speaker 1: the book is sort of about building a home that
Speaker 1: we can live and say a little bit more about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I had this really powerful realization that I had
Speaker 1: spent my whole life building homes and other people. And
Speaker 1: that came to me on stage like I was giving
Speaker 1: my very first ted X talk. It was right after
Speaker 1: I self published my first book. Didn't really think much
Speaker 1: of the kind of work that I was doing and
Speaker 1: its influence or anything. It was just a moment where
Speaker 1: I said, just be vulnerable and say what your heart
Speaker 1: needs to say. And I knew that I wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about this search that I've had my whole life,
Speaker 1: the search for the feeling of home. And I internalized
Speaker 1: the lack of feeling of home in other people to
Speaker 1: mean that I didn't deserve home. And so in that
Speaker 1: moment when I said those words, maybe I'm building my
Speaker 1: home in the wrong place, and I talked about this
Speaker 1: like this and welcome home. It wasn't like a lightbulb.
Speaker 1: It was like a lightning bolt, that realization that maybe
Speaker 1: the answer isn't in searching for home and other people.
Speaker 1: Maybe the answer is in seeing myself as my own home.
Speaker 1: And once I could feel that, it was so liberating
Speaker 1: because now I was no longer defining my worthiness of
Speaker 1: being welcomed and I'm not talking in the literal sense
Speaker 1: of being welcomed into someone's house, but being welcomed into
Speaker 1: someone's life, being loved, being valued, being validated. I'm no
Speaker 1: longer seeking that outside of me. I'm no longer seeing
Speaker 1: someone else's rejection of me, or inability to see me
Speaker 1: or hear me, or love me, or listen to me,
Speaker 1: or give me the kind of love that I deserve.
Speaker 1: I'm no longer seeing that as an indication that I
Speaker 1: don't deserve any of that, because I'm not seeing myself
Speaker 1: through their eyes. I'm seeing myself through my eyes. I
Speaker 1: am the one who gets to decide how much love
Speaker 1: I deserve. I am the one who gets to decide
Speaker 1: to see myself and hear myself and love myself and
Speaker 1: value myself. Once I take that power back, I'm no
Speaker 1: longer walking stranger in the world or like you know
Speaker 1: how a tree extends its roots to wherever there's water.
Speaker 1: I'm not doing that anymore. I am self fulfilling. I
Speaker 1: will no longer walk in the world as a spirit
Speaker 1: person seeking shelter and other people's lives, because I am
Speaker 1: my shelter. Wherever I go, I feel home, I feel loved,
Speaker 1: I feel heard and seen because it stems from within me,
Speaker 1: not from an external source, so as you may have
Speaker 1: noticed and welcome home. I use several strategies that are
Speaker 1: practical to take this super figurative, you know, analogy of
Speaker 1: building a home within, to say this is how you
Speaker 1: actually do it in your day to day life. You know,
Speaker 1: when it comes to self love, for example, one of
Speaker 1: the strategies that I use is, you know, imagine that
Speaker 1: there's a protective power bubble around you. So as you're
Speaker 1: walking in the world, whether you're in the workplace or
Speaker 1: among friends or among family, and you feel judgment from
Speaker 1: them towards you, or they say something that is meant
Speaker 1: to make you feel less of yourself, or like something's
Speaker 1: wrong with you, or you've done something wrong or whatever.
Speaker 1: You imagine a protective bubble of self love around you
Speaker 1: that says, I see that, I hear it. But I
Speaker 1: get to choose. Let's tie it back to the beginning
Speaker 1: of our interview. I get to choose whether I feed it,
Speaker 1: because if I say no, it doesn't affect me. Because
Speaker 1: if the way that someone is trying to make me
Speaker 1: feel does not align with the way I feel about myself,
Speaker 1: how they feel about me genuinely doesn't matter. But if
Speaker 1: I base how I feel about myself on how someone
Speaker 1: else feels about me, then I'm always going to be
Speaker 1: seeking comfort and safety and love and whatever it is
Speaker 1: that feels like home inside of them. Right, that makes
Speaker 1: a ton of sense to me. I want to go
Speaker 1: into a little nuance on it. So a question about that,
Speaker 1: it's more a matter of extent versus intent. Is more
Speaker 1: and more we see studies showing that we are really
Speaker 1: wired up as interrelational social creatures, and so how do
Speaker 1: we balance that knowledge that in a relation and connection
Speaker 1: is part of what it means to be human With
Speaker 1: what you're saying, which is, I don't put all of
Speaker 1: my identity, all of my power out there. You know,
Speaker 1: for me, that's been the dance that I've had to
Speaker 1: go through. Right, The dance has been originally I'm like everybody,
Speaker 1: if you like me, don't like me all that it
Speaker 1: just rains on me and crushes me. And then I
Speaker 1: move into a phase of where I'm more insular, it's
Speaker 1: all within me, and then I venture back, you know,
Speaker 1: I find it sort of this dance and I'm just
Speaker 1: kind of curious how you think about that. That's a
Speaker 1: beautiful question, and I believe every single interview I've done
Speaker 1: about Welcome Home. I've gotten this question, but in a
Speaker 1: different way. How do you balance being home with yourself
Speaker 1: with faunting relationships with other people? Because you know, people
Speaker 1: usually think when I talk about building a home within
Speaker 1: that I'm telling you you don't need anybody be alone.
Speaker 1: That's not what I'm saying at all. What I'm saying
Speaker 1: is once you're at home with yourself, as in you
Speaker 1: are the chooser. You are the chooser of what your
Speaker 1: identity is or what identities you choose to carry. You
Speaker 1: are the chooser of what do I accept and what
Speaker 1: do I not accept in my life. Once you're able
Speaker 1: to do that, the people who fall short of that
Speaker 1: in your life do not deserve to be welcomed into
Speaker 1: this home of yours as if they get a permanent
Speaker 1: residence in your life. Right, So I talk about this
Speaker 1: in the Compassion Room. So I've divided welcome Home in
Speaker 1: a way. As you've already read that, you know there
Speaker 1: are different rooms your home. First we start with the
Speaker 1: road to home. You know, what do I need to
Speaker 1: do to get to a point where I can build
Speaker 1: that home. Then let's build a strong foundation of self
Speaker 1: acceptance and self awareness, because that's very important. You can't
Speaker 1: build a home within without knowing who you are and fully, genuinely,
Speaker 1: radically accepting who you are. Then the rooms of self
Speaker 1: love and forgiveness and compassion and surrender and clarity. So
Speaker 1: in the compassion room, I talk about you know, compassion
Speaker 1: is empathy plus a willingness to help. And when we
Speaker 1: think of compassion, we usually think of compassion towards others,
Speaker 1: but what about self compassion? So one of the questions
Speaker 1: I ask in that room is, if you were to
Speaker 1: make a guest list for a dinner that you're making
Speaker 1: at your house, your actual house, who would you invite,
Speaker 1: like the closest people to you, the people who genuinely
Speaker 1: walk in your life, or live in your life, or
Speaker 1: treat you in a way that shows both empathy and
Speaker 1: a willingness to help, a genuine willingness to help. Who
Speaker 1: are those people? I guarantee you that the people who
Speaker 1: you're trying so hard to prove your worthiness of love
Speaker 1: to will not be on that list because they are
Speaker 1: not showing genuine empathy and a genuine willingness to help.
Speaker 1: They are showing probably judgment, projection of their own emotions
Speaker 1: on you, but who are the people who you identify
Speaker 1: as these people genuinely care about me? And then I ask,
Speaker 1: are you on that list? Do you offer yourself what
Speaker 1: you so easily offer to others? Because if you are
Speaker 1: the type of person who when you invite people for dinner,
Speaker 1: you're like, as long as they eat, I'm happy. You're
Speaker 1: not putting yourself in your life as a priority to
Speaker 1: love and be compare schnit towards and be forgiving towards.
Speaker 1: And so I give you these examples of how if
Speaker 1: you are at home with yourself, that is the best
Speaker 1: thing you can do to connect with the best people
Speaker 1: for you. That's the healthiest thing you can do to
Speaker 1: show up as someone who knows who they are and
Speaker 1: who offers the best side of themselves as well. And
Speaker 1: there's one really powerful question that I always ask people.
Speaker 1: Think of you know everyone around you that you're trying
Speaker 1: to convince to love you in some way, that you
Speaker 1: know the people who you're always on edge, You're like,
Speaker 1: you know, I need to do this, I need to
Speaker 1: please this person in this way. I need to say this.
Speaker 1: If I don't do this, then I'm in trouble. Like,
Speaker 1: think of those people and genuinely tell me, do you
Speaker 1: show up in the interactions that you have with those
Speaker 1: people as yourself or do you say, this is the
Speaker 1: version of a person that that person would love, So
Speaker 1: I'm going to change myself into that version so that
Speaker 1: that person can love me. But are they loving you
Speaker 1: or are they loving the version of yourself that you
Speaker 1: created with the intention of being loved by them? You
Speaker 1: are not receiving that love. The version of yourself that
Speaker 1: has parts of it hidden, that's the version that's being loved.
Speaker 1: You're not fully in holy being loved. So stop seeking
Speaker 1: the answer to how worthy you are of love from
Speaker 1: those who make you work hard to prove that worthiness
Speaker 1: and get yourself to a point where you're able to
Speaker 1: say I'm worthy of love. I don't need to constantly
Speaker 1: work so hard to just get that validation that I'm
Speaker 1: enough as I am. And I'm not saying this from
Speaker 1: an arrogant point of view, like you deserve everything no
Speaker 1: matter what. No, I'm not saying that. But usually the
Speaker 1: people who come to this kind of work are the
Speaker 1: empaths who have spent their whole life doing giving. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just extending themselves and giving their energy and attention
Speaker 1: and time and everything in hopes that the exchange for
Speaker 1: that will be reciprocation of all of that. You know,
Speaker 1: and if you are that kind of person and you're
Speaker 1: listening to this, slow down. Your worthiness of love is
Speaker 1: not based on pleasing someone. It's not based on anyone
Speaker 1: else in this world saying that you deserve something, whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Take that energy back that you're putting out
Speaker 1: to say, please tell me I deserve this, Please validate me.
Speaker 1: You are in desperate need of saying that to yourself.
Speaker 1: It's the most powerful thing to stop and slow down
Speaker 1: and look at yourself in the mirror and say you
Speaker 1: deserve this. You deserve love without working hard for it.
Speaker 1: You deserve respect without working hard for it. If you
Speaker 1: make a mistake, because many people are like, well, maybe
Speaker 1: I behaved in a way that you know granted that
Speaker 1: person permission to treat me in a certain way. Okay,
Speaker 1: apologize for your mistakes, but you never apologize for who
Speaker 1: you are. You never apologize for who you are. When
Speaker 1: you're in a state of being at home with yourself.
Speaker 1: The people in your life who demand you to break
Speaker 1: paces of yourself because they can't handle the whole you
Speaker 1: those people will not exist in your life, you know,
Speaker 1: I say, and welcome home. You might invite those people
Speaker 1: into your home once a year, twice a year, but
Speaker 1: they aren't the people that you regularly invite into your home.
Speaker 1: So they are not the people, practically speaking, that you
Speaker 1: give much of your energy to. When you're at home
Speaker 1: with yourself, you surround yourself with people who again don't
Speaker 1: demand of you too shrink or change yourself. That goes
Speaker 1: back to the question that you asked me. You balance
Speaker 1: being at home with yourself with connection by understanding that
Speaker 1: to have the best connections in your life that you
Speaker 1: could possibly have, you start with being at home with yourself,
Speaker 1: knowing your value, knowing what you have to offer, knowing
Speaker 1: what you deserve, knowing your boundaries, and the people who
Speaker 1: surround you will be extensions of this home that you
Speaker 1: have within and they will feel also like home. I
Speaker 1: want to read something that you wrote because I think
Speaker 1: this speaks to the heart of a lot of what
Speaker 1: you say. And you said, the current culture would have
Speaker 1: you believe that accepting yourself as you are means not
Speaker 1: caring about what people think of you. And don't get
Speaker 1: me wrong, part of self acceptance is not caring about
Speaker 1: what the world thinks. But do you see where the
Speaker 1: flaw is in that definition? It puts the focus on
Speaker 1: the world, not on you. What our culture calls self
Speaker 1: acceptance should instead be called indifference to what others think.
Speaker 1: I just love that, thank you when I wrote that,
Speaker 1: like I was trying to figure out these answers as
Speaker 1: I was writing about them. The process of writing Welcome
Speaker 1: Home was absolutely therapeutic. But yeah, self acceptance. The message
Speaker 1: that social media, the way that the world currently functions,
Speaker 1: wants you to believe is I accept myself. It means
Speaker 1: I can do whatever I want and I don't care
Speaker 1: about what people think. And it's just like you are
Speaker 1: focusing what self acceptance means on everything but yourself. It's
Speaker 1: like you're not investing the time to learn that self
Speaker 1: of yours, and instead you're saying, I must accept myself
Speaker 1: because I don't care what other people think. And it's
Speaker 1: just like, No, you accept yourself by knowing who you are,
Speaker 1: by taking the time to understand that. Once you get
Speaker 1: to a point where you have self acceptance and self
Speaker 1: awareness at the foundation of what makes you this person
Speaker 1: roaming around in the world, what the world thinks of
Speaker 1: you doesn't even come to mind when you're trying to
Speaker 1: prove that you've accepted yourself, because it doesn't matter. It
Speaker 1: doesn't matter to you. I'll give you an example from
Speaker 1: my own life. So when I took the hejab off,
Speaker 1: you know, I remember people being like, how are you
Speaker 1: okay with all this negativity that's being projected at you
Speaker 1: on social media? Like there are people judging you for
Speaker 1: no longer covering your hair and your body, and they're
Speaker 1: saying all these things about you. How is it not
Speaker 1: affecting you? It's because I was the one who made
Speaker 1: that decision for myself, out of full awareness of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I was doing this, and out of full
Speaker 1: acceptance that I as the person leading this path of mine.
Speaker 1: I am the one who makes those choices, not based
Speaker 1: on what anybody thinks. I make them for myself. So
Speaker 1: you see, I didn't in that moment say I accept
Speaker 1: myself because I don't care what people think. No, I'm
Speaker 1: not focusing on what they think. I did this for
Speaker 1: myself because I genuinely believe this is the right thing
Speaker 1: for me. So because I didn't base that decision in
Speaker 1: any way, whether it's positive or negative based on what
Speaker 1: people think or not think, based on what they deem
Speaker 1: as socially and culturally and religiously acceptable or not. I
Speaker 1: made it based on me, So I accept myself without
Speaker 1: saying it's because I don't care what the world thinks
Speaker 1: about me. But a natural, beautiful product of me accepting
Speaker 1: myself and accepting the responsibility that I have over my
Speaker 1: own life is that I don't care what people think.
Speaker 1: So I just hope that whoever is hearing this can
Speaker 1: have a change in perspective that when do you see
Speaker 1: people posting on social media and showing this lifestyle of
Speaker 1: I don't care what others think? Please dig deeper into
Speaker 1: that and think, like, is that really how a person
Speaker 1: shows that they accept themselves or is it through just
Speaker 1: living their life as they want and accepting themselves? You
Speaker 1: don't You don't need to say I don't care what
Speaker 1: people think, right, And you can to some extent not
Speaker 1: care what people think and still not like yourself. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: you know, that's an absolutely possible thing to do. I
Speaker 1: want to pivot to a question that you write early
Speaker 1: in the book that I think is such a powerful question,
Speaker 1: and it is. Let's change the question from why can't
Speaker 1: I have that? To why don't I have that? Say
Speaker 1: a little bit more about that I do coaching work
Speaker 1: with people. That is a classic that will be in
Speaker 1: the coaching question classics right because it is such a
Speaker 1: fundamental reframing. So this is the chapter and welcome home.
Speaker 1: This is the story that actually sold the book. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, I cried as I wrote it, and I
Speaker 1: cry every time I talk about it, you know, I
Speaker 1: I tear up all the time because that was the
Speaker 1: change in that question and understanding where that question came from,
Speaker 1: Like why can't I have that? Was a very painful
Speaker 1: experience to go through to come to terms with, and
Speaker 1: a beautiful release of pain that I had held within
Speaker 1: for so long. So the question of why can't I
Speaker 1: have that in my own life stemmed from my childhood
Speaker 1: where you know, I can tell you is from my
Speaker 1: earliest experiences. I remember experiencing on the inside this feeling
Speaker 1: of something's missing, and I would see it when I
Speaker 1: would see families together or when I would see my
Speaker 1: friends being close to each other having fun, and I
Speaker 1: would I remember feeling that on the inside, like that's
Speaker 1: what I want and I don't have it. But when
Speaker 1: I was around eight or nine years old, and I
Speaker 1: was at my aunt's house and it was the night
Speaker 1: before a big celebration that um we have. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like Christmas, and you know, you get gifts and everything.
Speaker 1: And it was the night before and my aunt asked
Speaker 1: all of her kids to go downstairs because it was
Speaker 1: family time. And the really sad part is that the
Speaker 1: moment she said that, I fully understood I'm not part
Speaker 1: of that. I need to stay because that's how it
Speaker 1: had been in past experiences when it's family time, I'm
Speaker 1: not included because I'm not part of the family. So
Speaker 1: they went downstairs, opened their gifts and I could hear
Speaker 1: them laugh and just be so happy, And I remember
Speaker 1: exactly where I was sitting and how I was feeling
Speaker 1: and listening to everything. I could see my surroundings right
Speaker 1: now and just listening to all of that. I remember
Speaker 1: as a child feeling that question why can't I have that?
Speaker 1: Why can't I have that? And that isn't the presence
Speaker 1: or it's nothing materialistic, it's the love. It's feeling like
Speaker 1: I'm part of something, like I'm important to someone, like
Speaker 1: why can't I have that? And the sad part about
Speaker 1: realizing this, you know, two or three years ago. Is
Speaker 1: I carried that question with me into every experience in
Speaker 1: my life where I got rejected in some way or
Speaker 1: I wasn't included in some way in everything and work,
Speaker 1: in family and relationships and friendships. I always went to
Speaker 1: that question, why can't I have that? And as I
Speaker 1: was thinking about the concept of building a home within,
Speaker 1: I said, I genuinely don't believe that I can have it.
Speaker 1: I genuinely don't believe that that is achievable. So let
Speaker 1: me change the question. Because I refuse to live my life.
Speaker 1: I've lived almost thirty years of my life believing I
Speaker 1: can't have that. I refuse to live the rest of
Speaker 1: my life believing that I can't have that. I choose
Speaker 1: to live my life believing that that is out there
Speaker 1: and that I can have it. What do I need
Speaker 1: to do to go from not having it to having it?
Speaker 1: So it's not why can't I have that? It's why
Speaker 1: don't I have that? So what do I need to
Speaker 1: do to have that? Once the possibility is there, you
Speaker 1: can work towards it. You know, we say this to
Speaker 1: ourselves in so many different ways. Why does everybody walk
Speaker 1: away why does no one ever feel sad about me
Speaker 1: not being in their life? Like we say it to
Speaker 1: ourselves in so many ways that at inherently implies that
Speaker 1: that whatever it is is just impossible for us. Everyone
Speaker 1: else will have it, but we can't because our life
Speaker 1: up to this point has proven to us that we
Speaker 1: can't have it. And once you tell yourself, well, you
Speaker 1: know what, I I didn't have it in the past,
Speaker 1: but I can, so I can work towards it, It's
Speaker 1: such a monumental shift in the way that you live
Speaker 1: your life because you're if you're going out there firmly
Speaker 1: believing you'll never find people who will love you and
Speaker 1: value you as you are, or that you will never
Speaker 1: find a career where you feel like you are being valued,
Speaker 1: or that you can never have family dynamics that are healthy,
Speaker 1: and it's like a self fulfilling prophecy. That's what you're
Speaker 1: going to live because that's what you believe. You will
Speaker 1: shut yourself off from every experience that shows a possibility,
Speaker 1: and you'll be attracted to all the familiar patterns in
Speaker 1: your life that show that cannot be achieved. It's like
Speaker 1: running a race with no finish line because you're scared
Speaker 1: if you stop running, Yeah, you're not getting anywhere that
Speaker 1: you're doing something wrong. But as you're running, you're like,
Speaker 1: but what am I running for? It's like you're constantly
Speaker 1: breaking yourself down and depleting yourself while firmly believing there
Speaker 1: is no finish line. I'm never going to get what
Speaker 1: I'm running for. You know, it really is powerful. The
Speaker 1: other way it's powerful too, I think can be slightly
Speaker 1: more mundane ways. But is you know, why can't I
Speaker 1: have that to I don't I have that? And all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, I go okay, well, in order to
Speaker 1: have that, it would need to be this and this
Speaker 1: and this and this. We oftentimes then go oh, I
Speaker 1: don't want to do all that, so fine. That's why
Speaker 1: it's not that I can't have it. It's that I'm
Speaker 1: too using, yes, not to have it because I don't
Speaker 1: want to do all those different things. Again, this is
Speaker 1: less about self love and more about things we want
Speaker 1: to accomplish in the world. But there's been plenty of
Speaker 1: things that I have realized like, oh, in order to
Speaker 1: do that, here's what I have to do, And then
Speaker 1: I go oh, well, all right, in that case, I
Speaker 1: guess you know, yes, then it moves from feeling like
Speaker 1: I'm not worthy to a choice, like you've talked about,
Speaker 1: it moves to a choice the choices. I'm choosing not
Speaker 1: to extend myself in that way, absolutely, And I also
Speaker 1: think that that's a place where you get responsibility, where
Speaker 1: you say, instead of falling victim to this will never happen,
Speaker 1: this hasn't happened yet, this whatever you say, Oh, you
Speaker 1: know what, I know what I need to do to
Speaker 1: make this happen. But you know, the responsibility falls on
Speaker 1: me whether this happens or not. And if you choose
Speaker 1: not to do it, then you're like, that was fully
Speaker 1: my choice. I understand the consequences of it, you know.
Speaker 1: So it's it's also self accountability as well. But self
Speaker 1: accountability is so much more beautiful than victimhood, than feeling stuck,
Speaker 1: than feeling like this thing that will never happen, that
Speaker 1: you firmly believe will never happen, is controlling your life
Speaker 1: in some way, or like stomping on you in some
Speaker 1: way all of a sudden, It's yeah, it's a sense
Speaker 1: of responsibility, and you know what, so many times I
Speaker 1: know there is a great opportunity out there, and I
Speaker 1: tell myself, you know what, the amount of time and
Speaker 1: energy that this requires of me right now is just
Speaker 1: not something that I am willing to put into it.
Speaker 1: So instead of saying, oh, you know I I can't
Speaker 1: have that because it's just too far away and you
Speaker 1: know I don't deserve something like that, you say, no,
Speaker 1: I'm choosing not to go for it like that. That
Speaker 1: so much more like you know what you're doing as
Speaker 1: opposed to just life is happening to you. Let's make
Speaker 1: a quick tour through some of the other rooms in
Speaker 1: the house. We've sort of briefly hit the foundation, you know,
Speaker 1: self acceptance, self awareness, We've hit self love a little
Speaker 1: bit again, there's so much more. We're scraping the surface
Speaker 1: of lots of things in your book, lots of practices.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the Room of forgiveness. Why is
Speaker 1: this an important room to have in our home? Forgiveness
Speaker 1: room was one of the hardest ones for me to write.
Speaker 1: I went to a coffee shop and I started writing it,
Speaker 1: and I just thought to myself, no, you're not fully
Speaker 1: making that deep dive that you know you need to make.
Speaker 1: Because I wanted to talk about my journey with forgiveness,
Speaker 1: forgiving others and forgiving myself, And I just remember thinking,
Speaker 1: do I have the right with where I am in
Speaker 1: my life right now, with how much power I have
Speaker 1: over my own path, with all that the world has
Speaker 1: given me? Do I have the right to say I'm
Speaker 1: still not fully healed from something? Do I have the
Speaker 1: right to say that person hurt me so much? And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I still have so much work to do
Speaker 1: to forgive, Like, was I not supposed to forgive everything
Speaker 1: before in order for me to move forward with my life?
Speaker 1: Because somehow that made me feel like maybe part of
Speaker 1: the success that I achieve was, you know, to prove
Speaker 1: to those people who hurt me that you know I
Speaker 1: am somebody. And to come to terms with the fact
Speaker 1: that I still had so much to forgive meant that
Speaker 1: I had to let go of so much of the
Speaker 1: shame that I subconsciously attached to having someone to forgive,
Speaker 1: or having something to forgive, or still having work to
Speaker 1: do with my own self forgiveness. And I realized that
Speaker 1: I had tucked that away for a while, saying I'm
Speaker 1: fine without thinking of those experiences. I can live my
Speaker 1: life without them, and So that's when the powerful realization
Speaker 1: came to me that, you know, forgiveness is about letting go.
Speaker 1: It's not about fully closing the chapter on an experience
Speaker 1: and saying I'm fully okay with it. I have come
Speaker 1: to terms with it, I've made with it. Now I
Speaker 1: can forget about it. Sometimes you have to forgive someone
Speaker 1: every single day, and sometimes you have to forgive them
Speaker 1: every five years, every ten years. Forgiveness is not a
Speaker 1: one step thing that happens overnight and that's it. Forgiveness
Speaker 1: is a constant process of choosing to no longer define
Speaker 1: yourself by what someone did to you, to no longer
Speaker 1: define yourself by what they did to you told you
Speaker 1: about yourself. So the Forgiveness Room is all about redefining
Speaker 1: forgiveness as letting go and moving on and moving on
Speaker 1: with the understanding that that whatever it was that happened,
Speaker 1: you don't tuck it away because every time you think
Speaker 1: back to it, you think less of yourself for having
Speaker 1: gone through that. Yes, you know, such a big thing.
Speaker 1: It comes with full understanding. I apologize for interrupting you.
Speaker 1: I feel like once I start going, it's hard for me.
Speaker 1: We're both that way going. Yeah, no, you can say
Speaker 1: what you were going to say, Well, I was just
Speaker 1: gonna emphasize that point you made that that stood out
Speaker 1: to me in that chapter so much, which is one
Speaker 1: of the pillars of that chapter, which is that having
Speaker 1: someone or something to forgive is not shameful, and that
Speaker 1: you know, I think we carry a lot of shame
Speaker 1: about the things that happened to us, you know, and
Speaker 1: realizing that it's our responsibility to deal with with the
Speaker 1: impact of that because nobody else will. It's inside us.
Speaker 1: We got to do it. But there's nothing wrong with
Speaker 1: this because it happened to us exactly. I would say
Speaker 1: that when you think of self forgiveness, that's that's at
Speaker 1: the heart of it, to say, I can look back
Speaker 1: at that experience and be compassionate towards the self that
Speaker 1: was sitting there and having that pain you know, happened
Speaker 1: to me at the time, and say, for example, if
Speaker 1: you are judging yourself for an experience of abuse that
Speaker 1: you went through, and you say, how could I have
Speaker 1: let that happen? I really knew at the time that
Speaker 1: I could say no, but I chose not to say no.
Speaker 1: And how could I? You know, there's so much judgment.
Speaker 1: There's an element of like, I believe that that is
Speaker 1: harder than forgiving the person, by the way, judging ourselves
Speaker 1: for allowing something to happen. And it's just walking in
Speaker 1: with compassion and saying And I'm getting goose bumps as
Speaker 1: I'm saying this. You are not asking for abuse. You
Speaker 1: were asking for love. You are not asking to be
Speaker 1: given pain. You were asking for connection, for understanding. For
Speaker 1: we're giving this person another chance to show you the
Speaker 1: best side of them that they could show you. Your
Speaker 1: intention going in wasn't to be hurt, It wasn't to
Speaker 1: be given something to later forgive. This is one of
Speaker 1: the most powerful strategies. And welcome home. I say, when
Speaker 1: you hear someone tell a story and walk in their shoes, well,
Speaker 1: walk in your own shoes. That's one of the strategies.
Speaker 1: And welcome home. Walk in your own shoes. Go back
Speaker 1: to that person that you were when that pain was happening,
Speaker 1: and be compassionate towards yourself in that moment. Be understanding
Speaker 1: towards yourself in that moment, Be loving and caring, and
Speaker 1: see the person that you were back then. If you
Speaker 1: knew everything that you know right now based on going
Speaker 1: through that experience, you probably wouldn't have gone through it.
Speaker 1: But don't judge that version of you in the past
Speaker 1: from the eyes of the person who knows everything that
Speaker 1: they know right now because you went through all of that.
Speaker 1: And at the very end of the Forgiveness chapter, I
Speaker 1: wrote a poem in like three days and I sat
Speaker 1: and wrote it down in literally two minutes, like it
Speaker 1: just spilt out. And the poem I don't have it
Speaker 1: fully memorized. It's long, but it's like I wish I
Speaker 1: could go back to the exact moment before the moment
Speaker 1: I met you. And I go back and I say,
Speaker 1: I wish I could go back to every moment before,
Speaker 1: every moment I said yes when I should have said no,
Speaker 1: every moment before, every moment that I sought validation through
Speaker 1: your eyes before I saw it. And I list all
Speaker 1: those things, and then I say, but I'm so grateful
Speaker 1: that I can't go back to every moment before, every
Speaker 1: moment that you know I broke down to rise from
Speaker 1: the ashes as a phoenix, that you know even I
Speaker 1: can't ignore that I've become this person. You have to
Speaker 1: stop wishing the pain that pushed you to a point
Speaker 1: where you have something to forgive, you have to stop
Speaker 1: wishing it away, because in a way you're wishing the
Speaker 1: lessons and the strength and and there is an element
Speaker 1: of saying, if I went through that, there must be
Speaker 1: some thing wrong with me. Reminds me of that phrase.
Speaker 1: I don't know who said it, but you've got to
Speaker 1: give up hope for a better past. And the sort
Speaker 1: of work that is in your book, the sort of
Speaker 1: inner work. When you do that sort of inner work,
Speaker 1: my experience is that you start to see those moments
Speaker 1: that were difficult, that we're painful, you start to see
Speaker 1: that they were the seeds of transformation that only happens
Speaker 1: as you do the inner work. Doesn't mean you look
Speaker 1: back necessarily and you're like, oh, I'm glad that happened.
Speaker 1: It's not that, but it's an understanding that through that
Speaker 1: I've become who I am. And if you do the
Speaker 1: inner work and you suddenly accept yourself and love yourself
Speaker 1: as you are, then my experiences regret for me sort
Speaker 1: of vanishes in that moment because I'm like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: who I want to be. Okay, great, So all that
Speaker 1: took me to get here, and so it allows me
Speaker 1: to accept but that only comes from doing the sort
Speaker 1: of deep inner work that your book talks about at
Speaker 1: the end of the day. If there's anything I want
Speaker 1: any person who reads Welcome Home to walk away with,
Speaker 1: it's the moment you catch yourself seeking any kind of
Speaker 1: relief through anything outside of you or anyone outside of you,
Speaker 1: for example, saying well, if that didn't happen in the past,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be where I am right now, Like you
Speaker 1: are abandoning yourself when you do that, because you're saying
Speaker 1: the relief is in something that happened in the past
Speaker 1: having not happened in the past, or the relief is
Speaker 1: in this person seeing that they hurt me and apologizing,
Speaker 1: or the relief is any time you find yourself finding
Speaker 1: your healing in a place where it does not exist,
Speaker 1: Remember to come back to yourself and remember that it
Speaker 1: is a lot harder to discover who you are than
Speaker 1: it is to say I wish that never happened, because again,
Speaker 1: the power is outside of you. And you say, well,
Speaker 1: I can't erase what happened, so I'm going to continue
Speaker 1: living in my life and my life in a way
Speaker 1: that's a response to that, and say, well, that happened
Speaker 1: to me, So I have the right to be upset
Speaker 1: and angry, and you're not living You are not living
Speaker 1: your life that way. It is that you that something
Speaker 1: happened to that's living life. So always bring the question
Speaker 1: back to yourself in a moment where it's so interesting
Speaker 1: that you and I are doing this interview today because
Speaker 1: there's a page and Welcome Home where I describe going
Speaker 1: to an experience where I'm waiting for a text message
Speaker 1: and I'm waiting for that like relief of getting a
Speaker 1: text message and or a call, And then I talk
Speaker 1: about this inner dialogue that I had, like what is
Speaker 1: a text message going to tell me about myself? What
Speaker 1: is a call going to tell me about myself? What
Speaker 1: if what is someone saying something to me going to
Speaker 1: tell me about myself? Why is there so much really
Speaker 1: efen that Why is this person betraying the love that
Speaker 1: I gave them by not reciprocating it to me the
Speaker 1: way that I believe it needs to be reciprocated. And
Speaker 1: then I had this massive realization, he is not betraying you.
Speaker 1: You are betraying you because you are abandoning yourself to
Speaker 1: seek shelter in someone else. You're seeking relief outside of you.
Speaker 1: Do you really need a text message, a call, an email,
Speaker 1: a job, any kind of indication that you're enough? Do
Speaker 1: you really need any of that for you to be
Speaker 1: able to tell yourself that you deserve it all? No,
Speaker 1: you don't. So stop laying the blame on others and
Speaker 1: on life for betraying this unsigned contract that no one
Speaker 1: knows about but you, and say those things to yourself
Speaker 1: on your own. You know, it is so much harder
Speaker 1: to say that to ourselves. The messages I'm getting from
Speaker 1: people about welcome home of them are the self love
Speaker 1: contract that I signed at the end of the self
Speaker 1: Love chapter had me in tears for days. Every message
Speaker 1: I'm getting is about someone realizing that they are in
Speaker 1: desperate need of themselves, no one else, and nothing else.
Speaker 1: That's beautiful. We're nearing the end of our time and
Speaker 1: I want to hit what was one of my favorite chapters,
Speaker 1: although I love them all, which is the Clarity chapter. Yes,
Speaker 1: you know, say, the purpose of the Clarity Room is
Speaker 1: to get to see yourself clearly. You will remove the
Speaker 1: layers that stand in the way of you seeing yourself.
Speaker 1: And I'm a big fan of Clarity because I've become
Speaker 1: so aware of and so convinced of all the filters
Speaker 1: that we see the world through and we see ourselves through,
Speaker 1: and so any sort of ability to get a little
Speaker 1: bit more clarity, I feel like every bit of that
Speaker 1: is a little bit more freedom. And you've got some
Speaker 1: wonderful exercises in that chapter. I'm wondering if you could
Speaker 1: share maybe what a couple of your key takeaways or
Speaker 1: key exercises or whatever you want to share about that chapter. Yes,
Speaker 1: actually have welcome home right here. The first thing that
Speaker 1: came to mind when you were asking me about those
Speaker 1: strategies is the blank canvas mirror, because that, my goodness,
Speaker 1: if you take the time to actually do this activity,
Speaker 1: it's life changing. And I'm not just saying it because
Speaker 1: I wrote about it. I'm saying it because I know
Speaker 1: the kind of power it has. You live your life
Speaker 1: in a way that reflects everything that you've been taught
Speaker 1: to believe was right and wrong. Everything you've been taught
Speaker 1: to believe you had to do and you didn't have
Speaker 1: to do everything that you've been taught to believe that
Speaker 1: if you do this, something must be wrong with you.
Speaker 1: And if you do this, you're a great person. You
Speaker 1: have acquired identities and identified with certain identities bay based
Speaker 1: on all of that. So imagine that you have a
Speaker 1: blank canvas and right out exactly what your life looks
Speaker 1: like right now, how you live your life, what you believe,
Speaker 1: how you dress everything, write it all out, and then
Speaker 1: go to each one of those and ask yourself, if
Speaker 1: I were to choose this for myself, would I choose it.
Speaker 1: That's one of the most powerful things you can do,
Speaker 1: because going back to the beginning of our interview when
Speaker 1: I told you, like, the real work isn't getting to
Speaker 1: a place where you understand that you get to choose
Speaker 1: how to live your life. And most of us don't
Speaker 1: live our life by choice. We convince ourselves that we choose.
Speaker 1: What we're doing is we are saying, I choose to
Speaker 1: do what someone else has told me is the right
Speaker 1: thing to do. That must mean I am right, not
Speaker 1: as in I am right, like I'm right, as in
Speaker 1: like that there's nothing wrong with me. So that's one
Speaker 1: of the activities in the Clarity Room that I get
Speaker 1: people to do and then I say, okay, so E
Speaker 1: RaSE all of it, and what would your life look
Speaker 1: like if you chose everything in it. I guarantee you,
Speaker 1: whoever does this activity, probably of your life is not
Speaker 1: being lived the way that you would choose to live it.
Speaker 1: But that opens your eyes to the level of shame
Speaker 1: or judgment or lack of genuine belief that you have
Speaker 1: the power over your life that's standing in the way
Speaker 1: of you saying, you know what, I don't want to
Speaker 1: do that. I don't believe that, I don't want to
Speaker 1: live by that. Because so many people they know what
Speaker 1: they're not okay with in their life, but they feel trapped.
Speaker 1: They can't not do it because well, what are they
Speaker 1: going to think of me? What is this person going
Speaker 1: to what if I displease? No, I can't do that.
Speaker 1: So and and that's like a different kind of prison
Speaker 1: to know that you are not fully happy with the
Speaker 1: way that you're doing something in your life or living
Speaker 1: part of your life, but telling yourself, but I can't
Speaker 1: change it, because if I do, then I lose the
Speaker 1: love or respect or whatever it is from that person
Speaker 1: and that person and that person, and if I lose that,
Speaker 1: I can't live with myself. So that's one of the
Speaker 1: most powerful strategies in that room. And the other one
Speaker 1: is the unveiling mirror. So I did talk about unveiling
Speaker 1: in the Clarity room, and one of the practically unveiling
Speaker 1: stories in my life was when I took the hejab
Speaker 1: off and everything. But the way I refer to it
Speaker 1: in that room is when you unveil the layers around
Speaker 1: your true self. So I say, if you were to
Speaker 1: look in the mirror and look at yourself, and and
Speaker 1: this is more in a in a figurative kind of way,
Speaker 1: if you were to look at the mirror and try
Speaker 1: to see yourself, if you haven't taken a hard look
Speaker 1: at yourself your whole life or in a long time.
Speaker 1: So say you got married and you got lost in
Speaker 1: that marriage, because now it's all based on how that
Speaker 1: other person sees you or whatever. There is a blur
Speaker 1: that's standing in the way. It's like a mirror that
Speaker 1: hasn't been cleaned in years, and you're trying to look
Speaker 1: at yourself through it, you will not be able to.
Speaker 1: And that blur is made of all that everyone believes
Speaker 1: about you, all the words that you heard about yourself.
Speaker 1: So when you look at yourself, you're not seeing yourself.
Speaker 1: You are seeing all of those messages that the world
Speaker 1: around you, and you yourself in the way that you've
Speaker 1: lived and reacted and behaved based on those things have
Speaker 1: spoken to yourself. So in order for you to be
Speaker 1: able to fully see yourself, you need to clean that blur.
Speaker 1: And cleaning that blur requires is this thing that I
Speaker 1: see in front of me, did it stem from me,
Speaker 1: like actually from my authentic self? Or did it stemp
Speaker 1: from what someone told me about myself? And you begin
Speaker 1: to erase everything that didn't genuinely stem from you, and
Speaker 1: then you're able to see yourself. You're beautiful and you're
Speaker 1: not so beautiful self your you start to just genuinely
Speaker 1: see who you are, the two sides that we talked
Speaker 1: about at the beginning of the interview. You see everything,
Speaker 1: and once you do through your own eyes, that's where
Speaker 1: your choice is important. That's where saying, how do I
Speaker 1: practically like now that I know who I am? What's next?
Speaker 1: Now that I'm clear on who I am as a
Speaker 1: person and how I would like to be living my life,
Speaker 1: what identities I choose to identify with and all that,
Speaker 1: what do I do? I say, do it through action.
Speaker 1: So if you have spent your life, you know, seeking
Speaker 1: love and places outside of you, like wanting other people
Speaker 1: to love you. Well in any moment where you find
Speaker 1: yourself doing that, like genuinely stop yourself. That's how you
Speaker 1: live your life based on this clear image of yourself
Speaker 1: that you've gotten. It's it's not just like I'm going
Speaker 1: to build a home within and I am my own home, okay,
Speaker 1: But but show yourself through action that you are your
Speaker 1: own home, that the person that you've come to terms
Speaker 1: with that this is actually who I am. Is way
Speaker 1: more important in terms of making decisions for yourself that
Speaker 1: have to do with your worthiness and whether you're not
Speaker 1: good enough or good enough or whatever. Your voice when
Speaker 1: it comes to that is a lot more powerful than others.
Speaker 1: So choose how to speak to yourself, because if you
Speaker 1: speak to yourself in a negative voice that affects you,
Speaker 1: that's more powerful than someone else speaking to you badly.
Speaker 1: So it's like it's this sense of responsibility once you
Speaker 1: recognize that you have more power over your life than others,
Speaker 1: not only to shut out or draw boundaries with the
Speaker 1: people around you who speak to you negatively or whatever,
Speaker 1: but also with yourself as well. So in a way,
Speaker 1: once you have that clarity on yourself, you understand how
Speaker 1: amazing it can be, and you understand how detrimental it
Speaker 1: can be. I feel like this has come full circle,
Speaker 1: but because this is how we started the interview, so
Speaker 1: like you can be your biggest ally the best friend
Speaker 1: that you can have, and you can be the reason
Speaker 1: that your life goes to detriment because you are the
Speaker 1: most powerful one in this life of yours. Well, I
Speaker 1: think that is a beautiful place to wrap up. You
Speaker 1: and I are going to continue in the post show conversation.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you a little bit it about
Speaker 1: determining authentic self, because that word is used in a
Speaker 1: lot of different ways, so I want to I want
Speaker 1: to explore that with you, and we may wander into
Speaker 1: another room or two. We might wander into the surrender room.
Speaker 1: We might even head out to the dream garden. But listeners,
Speaker 1: if you'd like access to the post show conversation AD
Speaker 1: free episodes, a show I do call teaching song and
Speaker 1: a poem each week and the joy of supporting something
Speaker 1: you care about, you can go to one you feed
Speaker 1: dot net slash joint Asuell thank you so much for
Speaker 1: coming on. This has been a really fun and meaningful
Speaker 1: conversation for me, thank you for having me, and I
Speaker 1: thoroughly enjoyed discussing everything. This is like, this is what
Speaker 1: I would do regardless, so it feels extremely natural. So
Speaker 1: I I really enjoyed this. Thank you. Ye if what
Speaker 1: you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making
Speaker 1: a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast.
Speaker 1: When you join our membership community. With this monthly pledge,
Speaker 1: you get lots of exclusive members only benefits. It's our
Speaker 1: way of saying thank you for your support. Now. We
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