How To Heal Your Body and Mind Without Medication with Mona Sharma

If food is information for your body, what information are you giving it? So, yeah, from there at the ashram, it's really just focusing on two meals a day that are super nourishing, super nutrient rich, easy to digest. You're also eating in a state of relaxation, so not while you're driving, working, multitasking, Right? You're just so focused to eating so that you're cueing all of the right hormones and enzymes to tell your brain, like, oh, hey, we don't need to eat anymore. We're good. So it's like you become in tune with your system satiety signal, which so many of us are disconnected to foreign.

I'm Emily Williams, the founder of I Heart My Life and your I Heart My Life show host. I always say I'm just a girl from Ohio with really big dreams and now I work from home running a dream business that helps you achieve your goals and create more joy in your life. This podcast is all about all the topics that really matter to you, and it's about giving you everything you need in one place. Mindset, relationships, wellness, lifestyle, money, business and career. We have it all. This is your one stop shop for all things personal development meets lifestyle. So pull up a seat, get out a pen and paper, and get ready to learn. It's time to create a life that's better than your dreams with the I Heart My Life show. This is episode 254, how to heal your body and mind with Mona Sharma. So today we have celebrity nutritionist Mona Sharma with us. She's somebody I've worked with for the last few months, and she's become a dear friend and someone I have the utmost respect for in this industry. She truly has transformed her life as somebody who had, not even that long ago, two surgeries on her heart because she had a debilitating heart condition and doctors told her that she was just going to suffer with it for the.

Rest of her life and that there.

Was nothing that they could do. And she decided not to take that for an answer and actually go within and use some of the tools that she learned growing up in an ashram with her family to transform her health and her mind. And today, now she helps people all around the world do the same. So this is a really, really touching, beautiful episode that's gonna support you in truly healing from the inside out if that's something that you're craving. And the truth is, all of us need to heal. All of us have something that's coming up that's stopping us from living Our fully expressed life. So go ahead, get a pen and paper because you're gonna take a lot of notes on this one, and I.

Know you're gonna absolutely love it. Welcome to the I Heart My Life show. Mona, I'm so excited for our time together and for you to share all of your wisdom with our community.

Thank you. I'm so excited to do this with you because it's you.

So I discovered you while I was kind of introduced to you virtually through a mutual friend. And I remember devouring your website, looking at all of the amazing things you've done working with Will Smith, other celebrities. But I was most impressed by your journey.

So I'd love for you to take.

Us back and share how you even came to do this work and the personal meaning it has to you.

What a ride. I think it's so important. Like, if we look at where we are today compared to where we thought we would be growing up, I think it's just crazy. We all have such great stories, but, yeah, for me, so before health and wellness, my life about 10, 11 years ago looked very different. This story will be familiar to so many people. So I used to work in the corporate world, so I specifically worked in luxury corporate cosmetics, so was able to travel the world and work for brands like Christian Dior and Tom Ford. And it was exciting at the time, like, living that world of fashion and excitement and cosmetics and beauty and all of the things. But at the end of the day, it was a sales job. It was based on numbers. I was waking up in hotel rooms not knowing what city I was in. And this is all while I was suffering from anxiety, like, pretty bad every day, living in lack of fulfillment. I wasn't fulfilled from my job at all. And I suffered from heart palpitations for quite a number of years, to the point where they got really debilitating. And that led me to have two heart surgeries. And it was in the second heart surgery. And this is all after being on medications, beta blockers as well, that caused me to gain about 45, 50 pounds. So, like, I wasn't in a good space at all. And it was in the second heart surgery where you're awake for the whole thing. My heart was on a massive monitor, wires going everywhere. They were injecting me with adrenaline and everything to try to induce these palpitations so that they knew where to do this ablation, this burning off. And the doctor said, well, great news, Mona. We found it. But if we go through with this there, you might have to wear a Pacemaker for the rest of your life. I was like, what? Like what is. Want to wear a pacemaker for the rest of my life? Like, I was so sick and tired of identifying as somebody who was sick, overweight, on medication. And the irony of all of this is that I knew better. I knew that there was a better way. I'm half Danish from Denmark and half East Indian. And my parents, I've only ever known my mom to suffer from debilitating autoimmune disease, so rheumatoid arthritis. Her whole body's just been deformed. And with my father's insight on Ayurveda, this ancient Indian science of healing the body, he would take us to live at ashrams every summer. Ashrams are these spiritual centers where the focus is on food is medicine, mindfulness, being therapeutic every day, living in community, practicing yoga and meditation and breath work, being one with nature and letting go, not getting stuck on emotional hardships and processing things. So I had this strong foundation growing up. I always joke when my dad would wake me up, tap me on the shoulder at five o' clock in the morning to meditate. It was no fun at all. But he was imprinting, right? Like I had this baseline of education and the motto in our house growing up was food is medicine. Eat it, it's good for, drink it, it's good for you. So in that moment in the heart surgery, I knew that I had to go back to my roots. And I did. Threw in the towel in the corporate world. Finally had enough, I went back to the ashram. This was the Shivananda Ashram. They have locations around the world. I of course went to the one in the Bahamas so that I could be by the ocean. And I became a yoga teacher, a meditation teacher. And when I went back home, I decided to become a holistic nutritionist, not knowing I was going to use it professionally, but really for my own healing journey, knowing that it would be beneficial for myself. And I kind of lucked out. Like I started working with a lot of professional athletes right off the get go. But something really interesting started to happen, like coaching them on the power of food and these ideals that I grew up with. But a lot of these, even these professional athletes who had the massage therapist, the cook, the trainer, the acupuncturist, the everything, they still weren't waking up feeling happy and joyful every day. And so that kind of led me down this path of personal development and eventually becoming an NLP coach also. So neuro linguistic programming. So my foundation Ultimately was showing people how to use all of the rituals, these ancient rituals from the ashram to heal the way that I did. I've never looked back. And how to incorporate that into like the busy modern lives that we live today.

So amazing. So I'm curious to know, I want to break this a little, break this down a little bit further. So you're laying there on the operating table. At what point did you have the realization that you were going to make a change? Was it literally right there in the room?

Literally was. So the first thing was I was crying. Like I just remember sobbing, my eyes crying. Because I was in there for a long time, a couple of hours. And I remember the doctors asking me like, why are you crying, Mona? It's like, are kidding me? My heart is on a massive monitor. You're injecting me with drugs. I have these needles going through my neck and my groin. You're asking me while I'm why I'm crying. And that was like the first reminder of like, gosh, these people in the medical community, like, God bless them, they're doing their job, they're trying to take away what's causing me pain and suffering. But there was no introspection around my stress, my anxiety, what I was eating, my lack of fulfillment, my joy, how I was abusing my body at that time with food and alcohol. Right. So that kind of was like the buildup. And then eventually when they said the pacemaker, I knew in that moment, it's like that I literally saw my life flash before my eyes of me being sick, wearing a pacemaker, not having kids the way that they said that I would, and just me identifying as somebody who was sick for the rest of my life. But with this kind of like background awareness of remembering the ashram and my mom trying different modalities and my father's inside an Ayurveda. And I knew that that is what felt good to me. And you and I, we talked a lot about following the nudges, trusting the nudges. Whenever you get those nudges, it's a yes. Your sou was saying, yes, follow that path. And that's what I did.

And so once you got out of that office or that room, what were the first steps? Like, did you book time? And I don't even know if you book time in an ashram. Is that how it works? Like, is it like a retreat?

Yeah. So this is a full on yoga teacher training. So you basically have to give up everything for the month and a half and you go and you live in this ashram and you follow a really strict schedule. And that's kind of the beauty of ashram live. So everything is scheduled from 5:30 in the morning until 9:00 clock at, at light at night. Every hour is accounted for. And you know, it felt like torture at the time. But the beauty around following a schedule like that, and science is actually proving that that's what induces more flow state feelings. But the beauty around that is that it causes you to shut down all of the open running tabs that are constantly running in your brain, hundreds of them. Right. Every day. So that what you're left to focus on is you, how you're feeling, the reoccurring thoughts that are coming up and sabotaging you, your avoidance of listening to the nudges that are actually cueing you to heal. And so it wasn't easy, especially in, you know, when you're in a deep yoga practice. You know, you've been to yoga class, I'm sure where you see people get up and walk out because they're having an emotional release. And gosh, by week three of the yoga teacher training, those were happening left, right and center, people just getting up. Half the class was empty half the time because that's when everything hit. We're really processing things deeply. But that's also where the magic was. Yeah. And I wanted to run home the second the day that we graduated, but I decided to stay like keep going with the process, dive a little bit more deeper, get more uncomfortable because I knew that in the discomfort is where my healing had to take place.

And what were some of the things that you uncovered mindset wise or fears or things that you know, were contributing to your health issues?

A couple of things. So one, growing up with immigrant parents, I was just chasing success. I just had to be successful. I'm also Indian. I wasn't a doctor or a lawyer or an accountant. So I felt like I had to prove myself in the beauty industry. And I did. I got to the top really, really fast. I got the salary, but I was miserable. I had always struggled with this idea of not fitting in, coming from an interracial couple, going to a Catholic school and then going to the temple on the weekend. There was that and this idea of body image, which women especially, I think for my generation, we just were always in comparison and this feeling of lack and I really live with that. Nothing I did was ever good enough. And as this hardcore driven a type, I proved to myself that I could do whatever I set my mind to. But the fulfillment was never there. It was always, all right, what's next, what's next, what's next? And that's the rep resonate recipe for illness and the recipe for unhappiness, right? And what the hell's the point in living? Every day was just like this autopilot for what? There is no personal joy and fulfillment. And with this Ayurvedic background, our purpose every day, our birthright, is to feel joy, right? And here I am thinking, gosh, I don't even remember when I felt joy. I had to dig back so far into my childhood to remember a feeling of just being happy every day and playful and outgoing. You know, we talk about trauma a lot, and lots of people have experienced different forms of trauma. And for me, something happened when I was younger where I had to. I was forced into stepping into being an adult at a very young age. And I think as a result, I was living my life as an adult. I forgot about being playful. I forgot about being fun. I forgot about seeking fulfillment from activity, and instead was looking at my life like a checklist. High paycheck, good job, good company, seek, husband, seek, friends, seek. But it wasn't out of fun or joy. When we use this word, vibration, my vibration was, like, low. It was constant anxiety and worry, tension, fear. Instead of that vibration of happiness and joy, which we typically get more moments of when we're living an ashram life.

Totally. So I'm definitely emotional about this because you are speaking my language. And so much of what we talked about on the show with our other amazing guests and also in my personal episodes is about finding joy and creating happiness and not just going for the next level or the next thing. And so I'm curious to know, you know, you were at the classroom for a month and a half, but how long did it really take for you to kind of re spark that joy and get that childlike feeling back?

You know, I wish I could say that I was an expert and I had a method for seeking it out. But for me personally, it wasn't until I got pregnant with my son, which was, gosh, 10 years later. And I don't have any younger siblings, so I was never really around children very much. But I remember after having a miscarriage, I miscarried twins. When I got pregnant again, I was just, for the first time in my life telling myself, you stop this negative criticism about your body. Stop criticizing your thighs and your stomach. Stop criticizing yourself for not looking like other people, for not having their success. It's like, constant comparison, which was leading to depression. And so when I was pregnant again, I was like, okay, every day is going to be around loving myself. Which is crazy because, like, we're never taught how to love ourselves, right? And maybe this was something that used to be inherent, but it certainly wasn't for me. But out of my fear of having a miscarriage again, I forced myself to love myself, to tune into my heart, to love my heart more than ever when emotion came up, to process it instead of burying it deep down inside myself, which is what I typically did. And then when my son was here, I would say, you know, and I tell him this all the time. It's because of him that I. He was my teacher. He taught me how to love myself for the first time that I could remember in my life. And then remembering, like, oh, yeah, I'm mirroring things for him. So he needs to know about what it's like to have the type of joy where you're throwing your hands up in the air because you feel so good. And I think if you look at a child, that's just what you see naturally, right? But then something happens where the imprinting, the other people's opinions, the strict parenting, whatever it is, where that spirit kind of dims and dims and dims. So, yeah, when I had him, I. I was seeking joy and seeking more fun. But I certainly, until this day, it's still a practice to seek more of what brings me joy and happiness.

Thank you for explaining that. And I'm curious to know when you quit your job. Well, let me back up. So you decided to go to the ashram, and at what point did you quit your job? Was it before you went there?

Before I went there.

And so for people listening who. Maybe that's not an option for them financially at the moment, do you feel you could have reached this level of happiness even if you were still in the job? If you had certain practices, like what you help people with now, or do you feel it was essential for you to leave that role?

For me, it was essential that I left the role. Something deep down within me just told me that that was not my industry, that was not my purpose, that was my soul light or my soul love. And I literally was just working for the paycheck. And no, you're right, this isn't an option for a lot people, but I think for those people, it's so important for you to do the personal growth and the work on yourself alongside that job so that you stop identifying with it. Everything that I Did because I'm such this crazy a type identified with work. Everything about work was who I was. My success really dictated whether or not I felt fulfilled. Right. And that never came. So I would say, yeah. Can you do a yoga teacher training alongside a corporate job? A hundred percent. Is it going to look different than my journey? For sure. Can you seek out the right coach coaches in your world that will help you dive deeper and like kind of bring this soul feeling alive? There's coaches who really will help you find your sole purpose. Seek that out alongside your obligation until you figure out a path of exit.

Totally. I mean, and let's be real, I don't believe that people need to be stuck in a job that doesn't light them up at all. Anything is possible and so you can find the thing that brings you joy. But I also know that it's not going to be just the role, regardless of what you do, that brings you joy. Because success is that inside job. And you can have tons of money, like you said, all the support in the world, but if you're not doing the internal work alongside of that, then it's only going to take you so far.

And sometimes it takes finding a mentor. Right. For me, I remember, like, gosh, if there was just something about this that really inspired me. And yeah, like the world of fashion was super sexy, but I never had somebody that I wanted to become or mimic or who inspired me to grow. The people that I was looking up to, who were my bosses or my supposed coaches were, they were overweight, they were divorced, they lived to work instead of working to live their life. It was just very different. So I think, yeah. Can you find your role with a different company where maybe the environment is set up to help you succeed and grow as a human being? Yeah. Like companies are really catching on to this idea of fulfillment and seeking happiness at the workspace. But you've gotta go out and seek it.

And so for you, you discussed already some of the amazing mental shifts and the self love pieces, but how did all of these changes and transformations shift your health?

Yeah. So I would say there's a couple things. So one I identified really the fact that I was using food to abuse myself. And this is crazy. Like at that time we were eating out so often and drinking so much that in that world we would even take laxatives. We're like, oh, well, if we take two or three laxatives tonight, that's going to undo some of the damage. Which is like all BS, by the way. Right. But it's like, wow, I'm really willing to, like, compromise the health of my body to undo the damage of food. And, like, there were so many of those magic pills that are on the marketplace, right? Burn fat faster. And there is no magic pill, period. So, one, I identified with that. Two, I recognized that at the ashram, there's an abundance of focus on eating whole, real foods that come from the earth, as I say, without ingredient labels. And I was living in a world where everything I was eating pretty much came with an ingredient label. Packaged, processed food. The more packaged, processed food that you're living, we call this dead food, right? There's no value to it. Foods that come from the earth are full of vitamins and nutrients and phytochemicals. That is information for your body. So if you want more vibrant information so that you feel better, eat more whole real foods instead of the dead foods, which I was doing. And then just really understanding this idea of nourishment. Like, am I eating because I'm emotional? Or am I eating to really use food as fuel for my day? And so learning my eating patterns. So instead of that trend that was happening, have a breakfast, have a snack, have a lunch, have a snack, have a dinner, and then, hey, maybe you want to have a snack again, right? These smaller meals, that's not our ideal. Like, our constitution isn't made for that. And when I dove into really understanding the power of digestion through Ayurveda data, digestion is everything. Like, it's our life force. And digestion takes a tremendous amount of energy. And you know this. Probably one of the first questions I asked you is like, do you wake up feeling energized every day? Right? Like a level 10 energy. I've yet to meet a person. Well, maybe one person has said it. I've yet to meet people who say that they wake up with that energy every day.

Probably Jesse Itzler, right?

Jesse Itzler. Totally right.

Are you loving this episode as much as me? If so, so you are in luck. Mona is actually going to be one of our incredible guest experts in the I Heart My Life membership. So go to iheartmylife.com membership and join the waiting list today. So you'll be the first hear more about how to sign up, get in, become a founding member, and of course, learn directly from Mona.

Right? You have to wait. You have to really understand, like, if food is information for your body, what information are you giving it? So, yeah, from there at the ashram, it's really just focusing on two meals a day. That are super nourishing, super nutrient rich, easy to digest. You're also eating in a state of relaxation. So not while you're driving, working, multitasking. Right. You're just so focused to eating so that you're cuing all of the right hormones and enzymes to tell your brain like, oh, hey, we don't need to eat anymore, we're good. So it's like you become in tune with your satiety signal, which so many of us are disconnected to.

Yeah. One of the things that really resonated with me on your website when I started watching your videos is how you said, well, obviously not only that you lost 40 pounds, you healed your heart issues, all of those tangible results, but you said, this is not about a diet. This is about the intuition piece. It's about tuning into your body and it's also about creating more joy and raising your vibration. And for me, I have such a yo yo dieting journey and I do different programs and it works for a bit, but then I gain the weight back. And so I knew that was a telltale sign that I'd never actually healed my relationship with food and that there was clearly something else going on. So can you speak a little bit to specifically the piece around raising your vibration and just focusing on happiness and how that impacts your weight and your health specifically?

Absolutely. So typically, if we are having like a level 10 day, we wake up, we're like, man, I feel so good today. I got a workout in, I got my meditation and I had a nourishing breakfast. I was able to connect with somebody that I love. Life is like really good today. From that state, we are probably less likely to drive through a Starbucks. Drive through for like the croissant or McDonald's or fast food or whatever it is. Right. It's when we are in those low vibration state of stress, anxiety and worry, not having time, kind of wallowing in our self pity a little bit where we're like, oh, screw it, that screw it mentality. I'm just gonna go have this for dinner. Just gonna go, I deserve to have the whole pizza. I deserve to have the box of donuts. Right? But when we're doing that from a position of low vi on top of not being in a state of health, I always say that you're fueling the fire, right? You're fueling the fire of dis ease within the body. Our bodies are so incredibly resilient. You know that I want you to go eat chocolate and a donut and pizza sometimes. Right. But I tell you to go and do that when your body's in a state of vibrancy. Along your healing journey, you've done the work to take out the trash, the emotional baggage, the stagnancy, the cells that are dead. We've done some work around healing first so that your body's like, okay, she's having a heavier meal today. Probably not the most nutrient dense. It's okay. We can handle this today. Totally different feel now. The challenge that comes for me coaching my clients is that we actually live in a society that sets us up for failure. And it effing sucks. All right? Scientists are hired by big food companies to make foods more addictive than anything found in nature. Higher in fat, sugar, and salt that rewards the reward center in our brain. That makes us think, ooh, this is really good. It gives me an app. I want to have more. I want to have more. We store that memory so that the second there's a moment of temptation, we will beeline for that one thing that triggered the reward center in our brain. Right? So that's why initially my clients, I never put them on diets. But will the first four weeks feel like a diet? Because you are eliminating those foods a thousand percent. But instead of the word diet, we always focus on the verbiage of taking out what doesn't serve me. Removing food addiction. Not because of you, because you are incredible, and I know that you can do whatever you set your mind to, but society has set you up for failure, right? And then it comes down to our willpower, which comes and goes. Like, we really have to make sure we're not going grocery shopping when we're super hungry. We really have to get in tune with our health goals and how we want to feel in this life before we go and buy food, right? And food should be fun. But I think for many of us, and I know this, for you and I, it's undoing. Like, for me, it was undoing more than 30 years of a food behavior around dieting. Don't eat too much. Don't have the carbs. Oh, that's bad food. Can't have that. And that sucks. Like, that's really, really hard to do because you're essentially shedding a massive layer of rest restriction and this diet mentality to step into a new version of being. And I'm still on this journey. Trust me, those food triggers still come back. I still remember the things from childhood where I feel like I deserve to have that. And that, for me, led to binging. Like, I would just binge hard one day and then go hardcore the next day. Right. Like start Monday, I'll start my diet tomorrow. But I was doing that like every two or three days. It was a really negative cycle and ultimately self sabotage. And when we're in self sabotage, we're not in a form of self love. Self love is high vibration. Right.

And what are some of practices that you implement now? If you find yourself going to that place of the triggers coming up for you wanting to binge eat, potentially going to eat something that you know is not a form of self love, what do you do?

Look, I'm human. Sometimes it's just my effort mentality. Like screw it, I'm just doing this and I'm going to deal with it later. But if I'm in a better vibration then I'll say to myself, okay Mo, is this food going to make you feel amazing after you eat it or is it going to feel good in the moment? 9 times out of 10 it's going to feel good in the moment. So with that said, then I'll say, okay, let's just like step back for a second, go out for a walk, play with my kids, start with a cup of tea, just like retune myself to something that's high vibe. I'm a big fan of just going out for a walk. Not even, it could be a podcast, but find a song, like find a song that you know lifts you up instantly. Like, just like it's an anchor for you to remember who you are, why you're here, how you want to feel and what your future is meant to be. And then it kind of is like, oh, okay, there it is, there, I'm back. So instead of me eating like three donuts, it could just be a bite of one. Or instead of me going for the really shitty potato chips, I'll just, just have a small bag of something that I know doesn't have an inflammatory oils or whatever it is. I'm just, I'm doing it from a smarter position.

I'm laughing to myself because I'm just thinking about how amazing it would be if we were taught that those simple steps as children versus like the food pyramid or whatever crap we were fed.

Yeah. And this is crazy because it still exists in our food systems. Right? Like if there's moms who are listening to this, we know a lot of foods have food programs which I'm so grateful for, for the families in need, but they are sent home with these bags of food. Honest, Em, if you saw like you wouldn't Want to eat it? It's, you know, non organic, non fat milk, which does nothing for our kids. A bag of Doritos coffee cake. What the hell does a kid need coffee cake for? Maybe some pasta, maybe slice of pizza. Oh, and then there's like one orange or one little bag of carrots. Right? So it's like it's still happening in our food system. But again, this is a conversation for another day. But that goes towards our entire, like, who's running the show. Big food companies are just like big pharma and we have to understand. And maybe something that's empowering for people. Listen, is every time you make a purchase from those big food companies that are making ingredients or products that are toxic or harmful for yourself, you are fueling their bank accounts in their pockets to make more of those toxic foods which are then making you sick. If you can, while you're grocery shopping, look at a food label and you see a couple of ingredients. One or a couple of ingredients, and you don't know what they are. If you don't know what they are, your body will not know what they are. Which means that it is toxic and it will fuel your emotional, your emotional health. And it's not emotional well being. Right. So there could be a form of empowerment that comes from just making the decision like, oh, this is a toxic ingredient I'm not going to purchase from this company. I'm going to come over here and purchase that instead.

I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Are there any other tips that people can implement right away if they're looking to make the transformation that you made? Anything else that you'd like to share?

Yeah, I would say, well, there's two parts. One, start with gratitude. You know, this whole world of woo woo and gratitude and all these things, it is no longer, longer woo woo. Okay? It is backed by science. Scientists are studying it more and it is the way of the future, period. All right, so it is actually impossible for you to feel stress and anxiety and feelings of lack if you're really in a position of gratitude. So what does this look like in the morning when you wake up, feel gratitude for your body? The fact that it is working its ass off every second of every day to serve you. Your body in this moment, right now is trying to, to heal. Like that's a freaking miracle. All right? It could be, you know, journaling, knowing that a simple three words, I am certain. I am certain I am healing. I am certain, I'm fulfilling my dreams. I am certain I'm going To meet the love of my life. I am certain that I will feel vibrant in my 30s, 40s, 50s and 90s. Right. These I am certain statements might feel a little cheesy when you first start writing them. But once you get into a groove, you'll feel it shift your state and your spirit. And then, you know, I would say if you're really owning in on the healing rituals that I focused on from the ashram, it's just three things. One thing every day that's going to empower your nutrition. Typically for my clients, it comes in the form of a smoothie. Like a morning smoothie is a really great way to mega boost your nutrient intake because you're getting healthy carbs and proteins and fats. One thing from the pillar of movement, find movement that you love. It doesn't have to. We actually know that it's not about pounding it out for an hour at the gym. That could actually be more destructive for you. Find 30 minutes of movement that you love. Yoga, dancing, going to the gym, doing a spin, classes, whatever it is, just own in that. And the third thing is mindfulness meditation, journaling, chanting, whatever it is for you that allows you to stop and be mindful. But one thing from each pillar every day and then turning them into rituals. So we started off with the power of the ashram and that schedule, right? The schedule isn't around creating habits. I think that habits come and go. But if you can turn something from a habit into a ritual, it becomes you. Brushing your teeth is a ritual. Having a shower every day is a ritual. Starting opening your computer is a ritual. Maybe having your coffee, it's a ritual. But why not focus on adding in rituals that actually serve your optimal self every day? And that's one thing from each pillar that you schedule as a non negotiable, no matter what, Ideally at the same time, because our bodies love rhythm and routine. But that's how the healing begins. And letting yourself off the hook some days are going to be harder. You have to give yourself grace. Would you? That book by Michael Singer always comes up. The untethered, tethered soul, right? What is the evil roommate in your head saying to you? Is she critical? Is she being mean? Is she toxic? Or is she supportive? If she's saying to you like, just give yourself an hour, go for a walk, step away. Right? Telling you to love yourself. Reminding yourself that this too shall pass. Just really owning in on the voice in your head. So one thing from every pillar and then giving yourself grace.

Thank you. And one of the things I want to mention, that's kind of a good segue from that is, you know, something you've really helped me with is not being too hard on myself because I have a tendency to have such high standards for myself and my life. For me, when we started working together, I had a very all or nothing mentality. And so there were certain things that you instructed me to do or you recommended I do, like intermittent fasting and giving up certain oils and gluten. And there were days where I was maybe at 50%. There were days where I was at 70, maybe 80. But it was very challenging for me to be at a hundred percent. And so in my mind, that was like failure. And I remember having a conversation with my therapist as well as, you know, and I got to the point where I realized it doesn't have to be black or white. Gray can be an amazing place to be. And part of self love is that acceptance and being kind to myself. And I know when I could have done maybe a better job and I could have walked away from the cookie or whatever the thing is. But the thing that's made the biggest difference for me is just finding more of that self love and that peace and that acceptance with food. And although it may be taking me a bit longer than some of your other clients or whatever, it's. I can feel the shift internally and emotionally. Emotionally, which is different than other experiences.

Absolutely. So let's call that out, because, look, when I was going hardcore, I was a hardcore diet. For me, at the time, it was the Atkins diet. Spending an hour at the gym, insanely restrictive with what I was eating, how I was eating. Like, I literally would not even have, like, tomato sauce on top of something for fear of it. Adding sugar and carbs. It was toxic. All right. Was I getting results a lot faster?

Yeah.

Did I always yo, yo and gain it back a thousand percent? I probably gained back even more right now when this shift happened from ashram life and really focusing on nourishing myself, nourishing my body, nourishing my mindset, nourishing my breath, nourishing my curiosity for what I wanted to do in my life, nourishing the ideas of relationships that I wanted to have. This word nourish was different. Did I feel the weight loss come off? No. Did it take me six weeks, seven weeks, eight weeks later to see a picture of myself like, oh, wow, I lost weight and then I put different clothes on. It's like, oh, my gosh, I didn't even realize that I was losing weight. At that time, it kind of. It's not that it just happened. It was consistent effort that kind of looked like this. It wasn't yo yoing, but it was giving myself grace along the way. So often we start these diets or protocols or working with a nutritionist or a coach, and we want these results to happen overnight, but then all of a sudden with consistency over time as we learn the behavior change, that vibrational change that has to happen, the results will come. But acknowledge the fact that this time, possibly for the first time in your life, you're doing it in a healthy state, in a healthy way that's going to create a change for the rest of your.

And it's not just about a dress size.

And it's not just about a dress size. You got it.

Yeah.

That's where, like, that's where the growth comes in. Right. That's when you open yourself up to possibility. That's when you really believe that whatever you set your mind to, you can achieve. That's when you start to believe. We always talk about, like, the possibilities for a future are actually greater than. Than you can imagine because we want to. We always seek comfort or seeking the feeling of comfort of putting on our skinny jeans. The feeling of comfort when we are dieting for a certain amount of period and we feel like proud of ourselves for turning the cookies. Right. But that's not joy. Seek joy. And I always say, like, instead of, you're not dieting to feel great. Right. The whole point is like getting healthy to lose weight instead of losing weight to get healthy. Focus on feeling healthy and then the results will come.

So beautiful.

So I'm curious to know.

I have a few final questions for all of our entrepreneurs.

Listening.

I feel like you're a master manifester and you're clearly amazing at connecting given the level of clientele that you have.

So can you give us any insight.

Into how you attract such incredible people?

Yeah. It's funny, I would say that this is the first time where that this idea has come up of being a powerful manifestor. Because my blueprint is to feel like everything's hard. Success is hard. Growing a business is hard. Losing weight is hard. Everything has to be hard. But without really noticing. When I switched again from the feeling, people know me, who know me really well. They know that if something doesn't feel good to me, I'm a hard no, it's not. I don't try to convince myself into it. If it doesn't feel good vibrationally, I'm a hard no. Cause I know. No, it's not meant for me. And so what I guess I've been doing over the past few years is just focusing on the feeling and something even with, you know, my relationship. I talked to you this before. Relationships are hard, especially with your loved one. And there's some days where my husband and I do not meet each other here at all. But something that we know is the feeling of how we want to feel in the future. My everyday for work isn't always clear. Growing multiple businesses isn't always clear. But if I focus on the feeling, how do I want to feel? Why am I I doing this? What is the feeling that I want to get for it in the future? How do I want to be living my life in my 50s, 60s and 70s when I'm focusing on that, all of a sudden this brick that's attached to my upper back and my ankles, just like it's liberated and reminded to just be present in the moment. Right? Because I think we all know when we're living in BS or living in laziness or can feel like we're just living every day to work, right? But instead it's really about living everyday feel good. And if we're not doing that, then what the hell's the point?

And do you find that that feeling good and that vibration is what has attracted opportunities and different people to you?

100%. I would say that the greatest opportunities that have come my way have come completely left field. But they always come when I'm living in a state of being that is like honoring me. You know, I said to you that I was always uncomfortable in my skin, always living in self comparison to other people, never being good enough, never feeling like I fit in. But when I'm singing my own note is when synchronicity happens, when I'm honoring my wellness, my meditation in the morning by just doing things to really find what makes me feel good. That's when synchronicity happens for me. And I think people know this deep down. I think that you know this too deep down when you're honoring just like who you really are is when opportunities come up, when you're trying to force things and push things and muscle and like yeah, it's a hustle for sure. But there's a difference between aligning versus pushing.

So my final question for you Mona, is what is one way that people can create a life that's better than their dreams?

What a great question. I love that. Yeah, I would say it's practicing the muscle of imagination. We Often, even with meditation, I think people have this conception that meditation has to look and feel a certain way. The stopwatch is going. They need to sit and be uncomfortable instead of like, as kids, we were taught to daydream. We were taught to let our minds wander. In fact, no teachers probably stopped us from daydreaming right as kids, which is like stopping this, you know, it's how our soul really seeks creativity and fun and things that will ignite us to grow. So give yourself an opportunity to daydream every day. And even, you know, for some people, I would say putting pen to paper is also just one of the best ways to get clarity. But just start imagining. When I'm 60, I want to be running after my kids. I see myself living in this house or people who are more visual. I coach them on how to build their best self snapshot. So how they want to feel in their body, but then turning that into a mood. So before you get out of bed in the morning, I want you to visualize how is it going to feel when you're in a body that is vibrantly healthy? How is it going to feel when you're in the house of your dreams? How's it going to feel when you find love and passion in your work? Forget about the title and the details. Focus on the feeling. How's it going to feel to live in the country that you want to live in? How's it going to feel to live in the clothes that you want, eat the foods that you want? Right? And then just notice when you do that with practice, you're going to have this movie reel that you replay over and over and over what happens. And you know, your mind doesn't know the difference between the reality of you living it in the moment versus the power of your thoughts when it's matched with a vibration of feeling, happiness and joy. If you can make it feel real, then that's when you're shifting your potentiality for the future. And this is still a work in progress for me, trust me. But I just know that when I'm doing this with consistency, life is good. Life feels happy. And my friends can feel it too. Like your vibration out in the world. You can see that people are attracted, attracted to you. It's beautiful.

It's something that's so much more motivating than to stick with, like you said, some of the steps that you gave us throughout this episode. Because you have something that you're aiming for and you can see for your future. And it makes it, you know, more Tangible, Absolutely.

And I think that deep down, and I can say this because I know you too, but this life of service, there's something about whether you are call yourself a servant, leader or not, but just have an aspect of your life that is in servitude. It could be something as simple as making sure that you're the type of person who when you meet somebody, you're leaving them in a better state than when they arrive to you by complimenting them. It could be your profession, it could be a hobby, it could be something that you do on the weekend. But you practice this muscle of serving and you'll notice that the pressure that you put on yourself to be so good and so great and so perfect all the time lessens and it just makes everything so much more enjoyable.

And where can people find you, Mona?

Yeah, so find me on Instagram. I love Instagram because it's like the closest, I think, over the pandemic. We taught ourselves how to grow community that way. So it's at Monash Sharma. I've got my website, which is monasharma.com and then of course, I've got my Jicama website. So it's jicamalife.com where my mission is really on again. Serving people with understanding the power of their gut health, but also that their gut is their intuition and to finally trust your intuition to create the changes that you want to see in the world.

That's your drinks brand.

You got it.

So amazing. Well, thank you so much for such an incredible conversation. I know that people are going to be blown away by this topic and just the way in which you teach nutrition and just everything that you're bringing to not only my life and the community, but also to the world. So thank you so much for everything that you do.

Thank you, Emily. I love this. Thank you. Thank you.

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