Women Are Still Being Ignored in Healthcare And Here’s Why

I cannot be an advocate, more than ever before in history, to turn down the noise and what you think you should be doing, especially in a world where we are influenced so heavily the second we go online. Your perfect healing protocol should be as unique as you. And because our lives are so different, we go through cycles and seasons of increased stress and relaxation. But right now, you know, if I were to step into your level of stress in your body, what would I feel? We've become adapted to living with higher and higher and higher levels of stress. That needs to be the first thing that we manage and the second thing, and you can all do this right now. If you were to tune in, you're working with me one on one, and I were to say, what is the one thing that you need more of to feel a sense of ease in your life? And whatever that was, that should be the first thing on your list of priorities for your health and wellness, not what an expert or an influencer is telling you to do.

Please welcome Mona Sharma, Shayun and Samantha Prabhu.

Good morning, everyone. Good to see some of you. Let's dive right in. So today we're talking about redefining health in the women's space. And for decades, wellness is really something that women were sold. It's not something that we've been able to build ourselves. It's been heavily influenced by the masculine market. And today we, as creators and experts in this field, know that this is something that we can redefine. So this conversation is really about how we can create more visibility and awareness and empowerment in this space rather than remaining invisible. To kick things off, some of you, so you know, my name is Mona Sharma. I'm a celebrity nutritionist, podcast host, and also an entrepreneur for Mona Health, which is the world's first Mona Health AI digital platform. Digital to democratize healthcare. And of course, the lovely. I'll let you introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Samantha, actor, entrepreneur, podcast host. And I'm truly excited to be here because this is a completely new stage for me. Always on stages, connected to films and entertainment. Today is new experience and I'm honored to be here sharing the stage with you, with two amazing women in health.

Grand rising beautiful people. What an honor it is to be here today and sharing this space and time with all of you. My name is Shayun. I'm a hardist, I'm a healer, a philanthropist, a mother, and I am the founder of the Lightforce center. And I help empower people to heal themselves before they move on to their purpose. But before we get into all of that, I just want you all to just close your eyes for one second and let's all take a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth and just ground in. I know it's been a really crazy hectic summit, but let's remember that we're all here for such a beautiful purpose, and we're all collectively here to learn and to grow. And so just connect into your heart, put your hand over your heart and just make a really beautiful intention for yourself, for everybody else, and stay here and take three deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth. And give so much love and gratitude to yourself for this new year.

And.

For everything that you are and the journey you are going to become.

So beautiful. It's such an honor to share this stage with both of you. And something that I really want all of you to know is that we would not be here had we have not each of us gone through our own personal health crises. So in this world of achieving, doing, actioning, moving forward, I promise you, and I really want this to land, nothing matters. If you don't have your health, life stops. Right? So keep that in mind and recognize whatever you're experiencing today, do not ignore the symptoms. So let's start on that. Let's start with you, Shay. My beautiful Shay. As a creator, how do you decide what truth to share? Especially when vulnerability today amongst women, it's often discouraged. Right, and why do you think that women are responding so strongly to that right now?

Oof.

That's a good one. Well, I think most importantly that when truth is served with intention, that becomes the connection, just like anything else. Your intention for everything, where you can really connect in. And, you know, we live in a world of society, and we were taught to suppress our voices and not say what we really want to say or do what we really want to do. But I feel like it's so important for you to actually open up your throat chakra and really understand how you can collectively tell your truth in everything that you do. You know, you can even change the molecular structure of water with intention. So imagine if you put all of that intention into what you're actually doing in your health, your wealth, and I feel like, vulnerability. Everybody is so vulnerable, but I don't know about you. I don't want to sit in a room and have small talk with people. I want people to tell me the truth. I want to know what is really happening, what happened in your past, how you're helping the future. Because what are we here for if we're not helping one another? And what are we here for if we're actually not serving? So I think when you learn to actually speak your truth, and it can be the hardest thing and it could be really scary, but once you face that fear, I always say create a place where you can replace the fear with curiosity. And when you're curious, you learn. And when you learn and you surround yourself with people who are there for a purpose, whoever's in your circle, the top five need to be top right. If you're the smartest one, it's not going to work. Yeah. Okay. So I have a question for Samantha. How do you decide which causes messages or conversations to amplify for women, especially in a world that often expects actresses to stay silent or surface level?

I think exactly when I started making health content, everyone, everyone went wild. Because as an actor, you're expected to look pretty and act. That's about it. And I think that's what we should all try to do is challenge these cultural norms and expectations. Women should be able to ask questions and not operate from shame and guilt and fear, which is what. When I first started my podcast on health, there was a lot of making me feel really shameful and guilty for asking these questions. And I think that after overcoming that, I'm more stronger than ever. And I know that I'm on the right path because every woman should feel enabled to ask these questions to these health providers and demand equality and be in complete control of the choices that they make with their bodies. So I remember when I started out, it was a very dark place and I felt helpless. There was information around me. I was looking for information again for context. I was suffering with an autoimmune condition for many, many years now. And I was. There was content out there, but I did not know where to begin. It was only when I actually quit my job for two years and focused on my health that I started to see a way forward. But not many people have this opportunity and this privilege to just quit everything, quit their job and focus on their health. So the point here is to not allow anyone to feel as helpless as I once did and not allow them or make them feel gaslit by the system. I think that's what's happening. You're more often than not gaslit by people in health. So I think the point of what I do is to make honest and evidence led knowledge available to any man and woman who seeks that clarity and who seek to reclaim their health. My next question is to Mona Actually, I wanted to ask you this, like, what do you think is the biggest gap in women's health? Is it technical? Is it cultural? Can technology really help, you know, overcome these barriers that culture has put in place?

Yeah, it's such a relevant point today. Just speaking up here with, you know, women with darker complexion. We are heavily misrepresented or underrepresented in the world of health and wellness. And those cultural gaps, they really exist today still, which is, it's so upsetting, you know, as a woman who is suffering from any symptoms. And this is an opportunity for my woman sitting in the audience. How many of you are suffering from symptoms? Stress, worry, anxiety, fear, digestive issues, poor sleep, moodiness, no energy. And in our culture today, in our world today, we're taught to normalize these symptoms. And often when we don't have resources. Sam, to your point about not knowing where to go, we feel crazy. And doctors tend to be the gatekeepers in their white lab coat that we go to see, and all of a sudden we lose our power in front of those people. So this is where I think technology can really be a benefit for all of us today because it's bridging the gap. Finally, we're able to seek information on studies and relevant data that is happening in the world today that is specific to women's health, which has never been done before. Up until now, we've been following protocols that have been made for men, clinical studies that have been made for men, diets that have been made for men, and here we are. We've been struggling and suffering the entire time. So what gets me really excited and kind of the entire foundation for Mona Health, my app is this digital avatar that addresses all pillars of wellness. We are so much more than the physical body, addressing our mind, body, spirit, and every symptom in between. So a good takeaway from this question is to ask yourself, like, do you know who your care team is? Do you know who to go to and trust for issues around your endocrine, your hormone system, your sleep, your well being, your digestion, your happiness, your mood. These are all things that need to change if we're going to step into optimal health. All right, so next you're up. So you've been chosen. You've chosen to use your platform. Really, your platform is something to really empower women's well being. And having been interviewed by you, it's something that you feel. It is such a passion project for you. And it's not just building your brand. You really feel that you've Got this passion behind it. What's one conversation that you intentionally keep bringing into the mainstream? Because women need to hear it, even if it's uncomfortable.

It has to be women's agencies over their choices and their bodies. I think we are often told that we need to keep quiet, we need to cope, we need to accept half truths. And although this conversation is uncomfortable and it challenges cultural norms and upsets the status quo, it is absolutely necessary because, and I know firsthand, you know, after all of the trolling because of this pivot to health, I do know how shaky this ground is. When you start to ask questions, it really, really upsets the status quo. Right. And I think, which is why I have come to understand that this is more important than it has ever been, that women should be treated with equality and should be in control of their own choices. They should be allowed to make their own choices and nobody should be making these decisions for us. So I think women's agency is a basic right. It's not something that we should struggle and fight for it. It should be something basic that is available to us. So I think that is something that I talk about and need to keep reminding myself as well. Shayum, you've worked with high functioning women, but also you've also. The high functioning women sometimes are also overwhelmed. What are the common signs that you have noticed that a woman faces? But she's learned to live with the stress in her nervous system, she's learned to live with it.

I think that's a great question and I think it also goes for everyone, not just women as well. Is that I think the biggest lie or fabrication? There's so much, but especially in this world and if you live in such a fast paced city like here or anywhere else, is to be endlessly functional. Like you're just expected to always be functioning. And you know, it's like a rat race, right? So it's like eat, sleep, entertainment, repeat, right? But where is the actual taking care of yourself coming from? So I believe that you know, emotionally when you're not functioning, you're just coping and you're just merely existing, right? So I think the prerequisite to everything is to take care of what's actually going inside emotionally first. Otherwise you can't really function at your highest level. Right? The prerequisite to anything from your purpose to your full embodiment of who you really want to be, you have to take care of all of your emotional stress, right? Would you cut your hand today and then go around bleeding all over everybody or would you tend to your wound, would you band aid it? Would you take care of yourself? The same thing goes for your insides. Like you, you have to take care of, of your emotional wellness before anything else. Otherwise it can turn into something physical. And oftentimes, you know, I think the most signs that you're asking for comes with it shows up as anxiety, stress, fear, depression, you know, and then also, you know, just not living in your truth and doing what you really want to do, being with who you really want to be, showing up the way you really are as a creator. You really have to take care of yourself first. Otherwise, you know, a lot of people are trying to function at their highest, wanting to, you know, really live in their purpose, but they haven't taken care of what's going on inside. So you're gonna get a wounded person giving wounded results, right? But you have to go to the root cause of everything, no matter what. You know, it could be something from your childhood that's making you show up even today as depressed or sadness, or it could be your current situation, and until that is fixed, you can't really do anything. At your best, you'll try, right? But the best thing and, and, and the most important thing that any of us can do right now is literally sit down and take care of yourself, make time for yourself first. You will have a 40% productivity rate in any and everything that you do. If you sit down in the morning, first thing you do, gratitude, and don't touch your phone and literally sit down and clear, you know, check in with yourself. How many of you go? We're servers, right? We go and serve everybody else. How are you doing? What can I do for you? Imagine if you sat down with yourself and checked in and said, hey, Shayun, how are you today? What can I do to enhance your, you know, total enlightenment for the day? What can I do different today that's going to make me be able to perform better, but in a way that's not going to make me overworked and not, you know, increase stress. Right. Cortisol is number one with everybody usually right now. And to release and bring back our serotonin. The only way to really go about that, I think, is to take care of your emotional health 100% first.

Actually, I would like to ask this question to the both of you. How does one begin to start living in their truth?

Yeah, I think we can all attest that we had to turn down the noise on what media and society was telling us to do and finally turn into our own constitution. Something that I help my clients with all the time is discover the blueprint to your biology. So you came into this world as this unique being with different background, different needs, different body, different physiology, different genetics. So, so why on earth should your healing protocol be the same as anybody else's? And so attuning to that first thing in the morning, that sense of self, which we all know very clearly. To elaborate on what you said, that's the secret. It's stillness, which goes against what society is telling us to do, which is be busy, do more and work harder.

I think the best way to come back into your truth and find out who you really are is self work, 100%. But if you think about it, right, we were born perfect. We are born out of love. Everything is from the foundation of love. And everything else is taught, right? You were taught fear. You're taught as soon as you come out of the womb to fear God. You're taught to inject yourself with whatever you know and make. It's just all a game. So I think really what you need to do is education and wisdom and really research everything that you're being told, because a lot of it is not true. And to get back into your truth, you don't need anything else except for the truth and the power of something greater than us and, and spirit and love. Just always come back to yourself and you have to really do the work and say, but what am I here for? What is going to make a difference on the planet? And what am I going to do to help educate and help other people get to that place? You know, and you really just have to, you have to always come back to what it is you really want to do, not what you were told you should do, not what your parents told you you should do. And as all of you are, I'm sure, creators and entrepreneurs, it's a very, very tasking and daunting thing to be able to go out and say, I'm not going to do the safe thing. I'm going to do what I. You know what, Maybe I think safety is right, but when you can release that and when you can come into your own armor and say no. The power of no is my. It's my favorite word. I don't like it being used to me, but it's my favorite word. When you can say no, when you set boundaries to everything else, your real truth comes out, right? I have a lot of people here who are my. Who are healers at Lightforce center too. And it's one of the main things that we teach is your inner truth can only be seen when the veil is lifted. And when the veil is lifted, everything starts to show up for yourself. The way in which you show up for yourself is how you get to your truth. And the only way to do that is really go in.

Right?

The power of everything that you want and who you want to be is already inside of the answers that you have. And most people want to give their power away to somebody else, to a healer, to a guru, to a coach, to, you know, somebody else. But really you have the answers inside. But most people aren't able to just even sit with themselves, to even ask themselves such deep questions. But when you learn to sit, you know, I say to people like, did you do your 40 minute meditation today? Oh, I don't have time for that. Like, well, if you don't have time for that, then you need to sit longer. Because if you can't sit with yourself for 40 minutes, then there's a big problem. Right? You have to trust in yourself more than you're giving the power to everybody else. And I think that your truth will come from that, Mona.

So let's, let's finish off with some rapid fire. I think this is probably the best thing. So here we go.

Oh, we're going there, we're going there. You don't want, you don't want the last question.

One thing women should stop apologizing for when it comes to their health. I'll start with this. I would say it's like, what would you say? Rest. It's the fact that we don't need rest. My greatest tip for anybody that I work with is to not ignore the symptoms that you're suffering with. Something that we're told all the time in society is that our symptoms are normal, but our body is communicating with us every second of every day. So if you have, if you're sitting here with female biology, you have to understand that your path is not linear. It's about rhythm, it's about cyclical balance. It's about finding balance within your life by, through stillness. What would you say?

I would say self care isn't selfish.

Good one.

I would say the same thing. Rest and boundaries. I think it's absolutely, you have to stop and pause, otherwise everything else is going to, to fall apart. Oxygen mask on first.

Always. The biggest lie that women were told about being healthy. I would say that health is about restriction, hardcore and doing more instead of regulation ease and feeling restored.

I would say health is not about looking a certain Way. Often we are told that, you know, it's about size and it's about a trend, but it isn't. No one should decide for you.

Trends for sure, 100%. The biggest lie is a trend. You could drink all the green juice you want, you could go to the gym as much as you want and have all the muscles. You can go to the yoga teacher. But until you take care of what's inside, none of that matters. It's just all band aids.

And I love this question because there's so many incredible men sitting here supporting us to how can men and institutions support us in this journey? And I would say this is really about just the understanding that our system today was built on a masculine archetype. And now recognizing that our superpower lays outside of that paradigm and through us when we can seek more flow and alignment, that is our superpower.

Believe us. Treat us as equals and do not make our decisions for us.

How can men support. Are you ready? I think that it's really first and foremost, I think it's really important for the divine masculine to rise because we have all of the same kind of archetypes of like fast paced men life, all of that. I think it's really important, number one, first and foremost for the men to heal first to be able to show up for a divine feminine like you. You can't have an unhealed man. And I think that respect and boundaries and just showing up with so much love and compassion for whatever it is that we choose to do in our journeys, especially if giving back.

So good. All right, in one sentence, let's all say with the future of women's health, it's only going to work if you are healed.

If we are trusted to make our.

Own decisions, I would say if it's no longer about the individual and our own suffering, I don't know. Is anyone here over complicated by what health and wellness actually means today, what it takes to be healthy? I would say let's turn down the noise and go back to basics and connect with each other. Healing was never supposed to be an individualized state of suffering. We used to come from villages and extended families and support networks. I think it's time that we go back to that. All right, we're going to open it up for about five minutes of questions. I think there's going to be someone around with the mic today. I see someone back there. Do we have mics ready to go? There's a woman back there with her hand up.

Morning.

Quick question. You know, all of you come from different backgrounds, but have a strong influence on how women look at their health and well being. How do you personally create a space in terms of storytelling, visibility and responsibility, especially in a world that prefers perfection over honesty?

Such a great question. I guess I'll start as somebody who works with people every single day on healing. I cannot be an advocate, more than ever before in history, to turn down the noise and what you think you should be doing. Especially in a world where we are influenced so heavily the second we go online. Your perfect healing protocol should be as unique as you. And because our lives are so different, we go through cycles and seasons of increased stress and relaxation. But right now, you know, if I were to step into your level of stress in your body, what would I feel? We've become adapted to living with higher and higher and higher levels of stress. That needs to be the first thing that we manage. And the second thing, and you can all do this right now. If you were to tune in, you're working with me one on one, and I were to say, what is the one thing that you need more of to feel a sense of ease in your life? Answer that question and whatever that was, that should be the first thing on your list of priorities for your health and wellness, not what an expert or an influencer is telling you to do.

Okay. You know, I was thinking about that and for the longest time as an actor, it's my. It's almost my job to sell perfection, right? Yeah. And I've been so deep in with my own personal struggles and my own limitations and my own search for validation that I had forgotten that what I did and my decisions influenced many girls around me. And it took me 15 years for me to understand that. It took me so long for me to understand that. And if ever I have influenced a girl in a wrong way, I would like to apologize because I was also still working on myself and it's taken me a long time to be who I am today.

I think this is really important. It's a really, really beautiful question, by the way, as a creator. And individuality is super important, and so is authenticity. And so instead of following the trends and what you think people are doing and whatever it is that your impact is, you have to stay true to yourself as who you really are. So, for example, I'm a healer, right? And at the beginning, everyone's like, why do you dress that way? Why are you high fashion? Why do you. Do you. You have to do whatever your soul, self expression, expression is, and whatever you feel is the best way to go about your life and create in that way. People want authentic people. People don't want rehearsed people that are, you know, just throwing out quotes. Do what you want, wear what you want, be who you want to be, but do it healed and do it with love and compassion to who you truly are. And I think that's the best way to create a solid, beautiful audience.