192: Ayurveda and Spirituality 101 with Sahara Rose

Namaste. My name is Sahara Rose, and welcome back to the Highest Self Podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. Welcome to the Highest Self Podcast. If it's your first time here, I am so happy to have you here. You're listening to the perfect episode, and if you're a regular of Highest Self Podcast, what up? This is going to be a really good episode. If you're like, oh, my God, I feel like I get so many nuggets about Ayurveda and spirituality and I just.

Kind of want you to run through.

Everything, this is the episode for you. So today's guest is me.

Well, yes, you heard that right.

I was interviewed by my friend Amanda Bucci on her podcast, Bucci Radio. And in it, she really wanted to do an episode where we just dove into, like, the bare bone basics of what Ayurveda is all about. But then spirituality, how we choose our bodies, our parents, our obstacles, what this whole concept of Dharma is all about. Just all of the topics that I speak about in different episodes. This episode is all in one. So if you are totally new to Ayurveda, spirituality, consciousness, this sort of kind of transformational work, this is perfect for you. And if you're like, I'm super used to it. I know everything about it, this is a really good way to maybe hear someone else explain about it. It, because I feel like sometimes we have a knowing of things, but it's hard for us to put it into words. And what I do in this, as much as I try possible, is to bring these terms, these concepts, these theories into really, really practical terms. So this is a really fun episode. I mean, I'm totally just being myself in my flow, sharing these words, this wisdom, but in a really modern and comical way. So just sit back and enjoy this episode. Let yourself take notes if you feel like you need to, or just let it shower over you like a sacred waterfall with a couple F bombs, because that's what's about to happen in this episode. So without further ado, let's welcome me by Amanda Bucci to the Highest Self Podcast. And before we get started, check out these brands that make Highest Self Podcast possible. This episode is brought to you by four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is an incredible mushroom elixir company. I proudly drink their elixirs every single day. My favorite is their chai mix. It is insanely delicious. I quit chocolate cold turkey. And what helped me was drinking this chai mix every day. And best of all, they use stevia to sweeten it. And there's no sugars like the chai lattes you'll find at Starbucks or wherever else. And the mushrooms are really good for balancing your hormones, helping heal adrenal fatigue, healing your body on an adaptogenic level. So adaptogens really kind of relate to what your body needs. So if you are high, stress will bring you down. If you need more energy, it will bring you up. And that's what's so amazing about adaptogen is they adapt to your body. And mushrooms, medicinal mushrooms, have a lot of adaptogenic properties. So you can head over to their website 4sigmatic.com F O U R S I G M L a t I c.com Sahara I have a little shop up there with my favorite four Sigmatic products, so you can try it out. And you can also get 15% off any four sigmatic product using the code Sahara. I'd love to introduce you to the tea brand I've been loving recently, Vaadam Teas. The tea starts in the mountains of the Himalayas and within hours of harvest are packed at their tea facility and shipped all around the world. I'm personally indulging in their master tea assorted pack which contains 15 loose leaf blends, black, oolong, green and white. They pack their teas in single serve premium pyramid tea bags so you can have the convenience of loose leaf tea anywhere. Not just this, but they've managed to eliminate all middlemen from the sourcing process, thereby retaining all earnings in the source region for the farmers. These teas are fair trade, organic and pesticide free and they benefit the farmers directly, which I deeply care about. Additionally, every time you pick up a pack of Vadum tees, a part of the revenue goes towards educating the tea growers children, which makes it all even more worthwhile. Oprah just listed as one of her top favorite things, so I take Oprah's word for it. If you want to try this out, head over to vadamteas.com v a h d a m teas.com and use coupon code Sahara for 20% off. Again, head over to vadumteas.com and use coupon code SAHARA for 20% off.

What's going on everyone?

And welcome back to another episode of Bucci Radio. I am so freaking excited to bring you this guest today and the person who I'm interviewing is Sahara Rose and she's one of my very good friends and I cannot wait to introduce you guys to her. So if you already know her, you may know her from her work with Ayurveda. And she wrote the book Idiot's Guide to Ayurveda. So it's one of her best selling books. New York Times bestseller, I believe. And she also wrote the book Eat Feel how to Eat right for your Mind Body Type. And we'll talk a little bit about that later. She's also, like I said, a great friend of mine. We've been getting to know each other a ton over the last six months or so. We met, I think, for the first time doing beach dancing and we connect on dance so much that I love that she's like always a go to dance partner. And what she's truly stepping into now more than ever is teaching her audience about the new way of being. Really living inside of your purpose, really connecting to your inner truth, your authentic self and your soul. And she's an incredibly well known spiritual guide and leader for people, especially those in the millennial generation who are really wanting to understand how to connect to a bigger purpose. We're not just here doing all the time anymore. Those in our generation, and even just in this time right now, are more interested in purpose than ever. We're more interested in doing what feels right for us than ever. And she does such a great job at breaking down what all of this spiritual stuff and what all this higher purpose stuff means in a way that we can really understand it. So if you guys follow her, she talks a ton about intuition, spirit animals, spirit guides, mystical beings. She talks about, like I said, Ayurveda. And we are going to dive into all of the metaphysical things, all of the spiritual things today with her. And I'm just super excited to have you. So thank you so much for being here.

Ah, thank you so much for that epic intro, guys. She just winged that whole thing. She wasn't even looking at a script. I'm like, damn, girl, I was looking at a script.

I like, I love sharing my experience of the person in the intro. And I feel like all of the, you know, the cool scripty things are nice and everything, but it's so different when you actually have a connection with the person and sharing that makes it that much more grounded in reality. So that's what I love doing for sure.

Yay. I'm excited to be here.

It's so fun. So I think a really easy entry point is to talk about the Ayurveda stuff, mostly because that is a lot of your entry point into the work that you've been doing and then we can dig in a little bit further. But I love that it's such a great place to start for people to really learn to understand themselves. And understanding ourselves is one of the most important things we can do on this planet to start living in our truth. So talk to us a little bit about what all of them mean. I actually took mine, by the way. I wanted to share. I have not taken your quiz until today and I was like, I have more information. I'm so excited. Just for some context, let me find what my thing is and then I'll share it with you. I feel like you'll not be surprised, but I got.

I feel like you're a pitta body and a kapha mind. So let's see.

No, I'm a kapha pitta body and a vata kapha mind. Interesting. My mind is 57% Vata and 43% Kapha and 0% Pitta, which is like, interesting, interesting.

Yeah, yeah. Anyway, so people are like, what are these words? Okay, so, yeah, so Ayurveda is the world's oldest health system and the sister science of yoga based on the mind body connection. So yoga really was a spiritual practice, whereas Ayurveda was the practice of health, lifestyle, meditation, all of the things you need to actually practice yoga. I got into it because I had my own health problems. Really bad digestive issues, hormonal issues, anxiety, insomnia. And I went to so many different kinds of doctors, therapists, etc. They have kept prescribing me medication. And I wanted to know, okay, why is this actually happening? When I was 21 years old, I went to Perimenopause. They said I could never have kids and I didn't understand why. My body was essentially just shutting down. And I was someone who was very passionate about health. I was a raw vegan. I thought I was doing the most. And turns out that the diet I was eating was absolutely wrong for my body and it was causing all of these different issues. Not just the digestive and hormonal body issues, but also the mental issues. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was like every day calling my mom, like, I'm going to start a jewelry line, I'm going to start a skincare line. I'm going to move to Africa. I'm going to do this. That, like, so many ideas, so all over the place that was actually interconnected with my body, with my diet, with all of these things. So I started to learn about Ayurveda and it was like the missing piece of the puzzle. And I realized that everything that I was dealing with was called a vata imbalance. Excess air. I had excess air in my body. Bloating, gas, constipation, feeling col, dry skin, dry hair, like losing weight. No, period. That's like dryness of your hormones. And then air in my mind, like an air head or head in the clouds, or airy fairy, like being all over the place, being scattered, being sometimes just like, erratic. And it was all related to this one imbalance. So I wanted to learn everything there was about Ayurveda. I decided to stay. I was volunteering in India already decided to stay in India, ended up staying there for two years, studying Ayurveda with different healers and gurus, et cetera, but really wanting to modernize it because I actually studied sports nutrition as well. And I was realizing there's such a parallel between the ectomorph, mesomorph, endomorph and the vata pitta kapha, and how scientists now say 90% of your serotonin is in your gut, your happiness hormone. And that's what Ayurveda says. So I wanted to bring them together. And that's when I started to write my first book, eat right for your mind body type, and then go on and continue to write books. So essentially, essentially the non and ghee, bread and butter of Ayurveda is that there are three doshas. The word dosha is energy type. So these are archetypes. Vata is what I was very much so airy. So just think, what would air be like in the mind? Like I mentioned, airhead, scattered lots of ideas, really excited. You're a fast talker. When you date someone, you're like, oh, my God, I'm obsessed with them. And then the next day you're like, yeah, I'm over them. Like, that was me. And maybe if you're listening, that is you. But at the same time, you're really creative, you're artistic, you think outside of the box. So think air. The air is flowing, it's moving, it can't be contained. And it does not have to do with like, oh, I'm a libra in astrology, so am I a vata. It does not have to do with that, though. In Vedic astrology, which is another system of astrology, you can see your dosha in your birth chart.

Interesting. Yeah, I didn't know how, if they were connected at all.

Not with Western, but it is with Vedic. And then in the body, symptoms of air, bloating, gas constipation, etcetera now pitta is fire. I'm going to guess a lot of Bucci radio listeners got some pitta going on. So they're fiery. So what do you think that fiery personality is?

A lot of people will start it, and me too, with fitness as their vehicle or their entry point into learning about themselves, into getting their journey started. I definitely think pitta was my old way of being because I was like constant pushing. But it didn't feel incorrect. It felt like that's, that's how I was just living at the time. Yeah, Achievement, like high achieving types, people that are constantly doing. People that are like excited to push themselves in the gym and fiery. And I don't know, you said like warm more so as well.

Exactly. Yeah. I mean, in a way, like fitness and entrepreneurship are similar in the fact that they're both goal setting. Right. So Pittas love to set a goal and hit it. They like to then like look back and be like, okay, did I hit this goal or not? And like have like their Q1 to Q4 thing and like systematize it. And like training for a fitness competition is so pitta. It's like, okay, let me count my macros out and this and that. So that's what Pitta loves to do. They love to analyze, they're very strong, organizational, analytical, those kind of people, which is needed for fitness and entrepreneurship. But the other side of that is sometimes you can be obsessive. So like orthorexia would be related to Pitta, while anorexia would be more of a vata related thing because anorexia is like, I don't want to eat because I just want to be light and free. Whereas orthorexia is like, okay, let me count. And become like super obsessed with everything because pitches can't skip meals. They have so much fire. They're like, okay, I need to eat. But they love things that are going to get them going. Like did you love coffee or spicy foods when you were very pitta.

All of the energy drinks?

Yes.

Yes.

Because it's like energy drinks.

Yeah, yeah.

It's like pitta juice. Right? You're like, oh my God, this makes me feel even more of my pitta self. I want more of it. And then it leads to burnout, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I hit a. Definitely hit like a plateau with exercising in general. And this year was the first year that I actually have taken like months off of fitness and just some yoga and just slowed down. So it's interesting the cycles that you can go through too. So it doesn't it also seems like based on your experience and then your story and then what you say all the time, that things can adjust based on the cycle of your life as well.

Exactly. And it was very intuitive you to move into the kapha, which is what you. You did. And I'll explain. But from that pitta, you always move into the kapha, which is the next one, the very earthy and calm one. But you don't move into the vata because if you're going from like, really all over the place to like trying to come up with new ideas without chilling out, it's not going to work. You're just going to become like a psycho. So from that heat and energy and then what that looks like in the body is feeling hot all the time, feeling like you're sweating. If your sweat has a strong smell, like, like, I really need deodorant, it actually shouldn't smell like that. It shouldn't really have an odor at all. So that's a pitta imbalance. If you have loose stools, you're just going to the bathroom a lot. Acne. Anytime you see you're breaking out with acne, rashes, hives. Pitta is super sensitive. So if you're someone that like, you eat something a little bit off and your skin breaks out, maybe you're someone that more has bad skin than gains weight. That's all related to pitta. So a lot of men are very pitta. You'll see, they can eat anything and then they get acid reflux, heartburn. Your heart is burning. So it's all of that pitta. So let us know if you feel like a pitta. Hit us up.

Well, they can also take your quiz just to like insert that right now because we're talking about it.

Yes.

Can you remind us the link again?

Yeah. So if they just go on my website, I am SaharaRose.com Sahara, like the desert. You'll just see it right up top. And there's a quiz you could take and find out everything, like step by step, percentage by percentage, what you are. Yeah. It is always fun to get to know more about yourself. Right. Like the best. So then kapha is earthy. So what do you think earthy people are like, Amanda?

Super chill, super grounded, super relaxed. Also gain weight a little bit more easily than lose weight, stuff like that. And I definitely resonate. That definitely resonates with me.

So can you think of any kapha, like celebrities or people that others may know of?

That's such a good question. Chill people that others may know of in this space. I'm like, so bad with thinking.

She's a really famous talk show host. Oprah from the 90s. Yeah. So Oprah, she's like the Kapha queen. So taking a look at her as an example, she has a beautiful, calm voice. She's so nurturing. She has this motherly energy to her. You know, why do we love Oprah? Because of her ability to just sit down next to you and ask you one question, to take you so deep into your truth. Whereas Tony Robbins is gonna get you hyped up and you're gonna be clapping your hands and making some noise and stuff on your feet and da na. It's like pitta pure fire right there. Like, you go to his comrade, makes.

You laugh and get you kind of up in your head a little bit.

Who did you say? Ellen, maybe Ellen. Yeah, Ellen, definitely. She has more of that vata. When I think super vata, I think of Steve Jobs. He's like, I'm imagining a world with these squares that will run our lives. And we're not going to talk to each other because we're going to have these squares from now on. Literally. He invented a new way of being. And it's. I mean, he literally called it after an apple because he was a raw vegan. Vatas love raw foods because they want to feel light. He was always doing water, fast, et cetera. He was vata af. Whereas Tony Robbins, Kobe Bryant, Madonna, those kind of super fiery people, Pittas tend to have strong jawlines. So you can tell them right there, they're, like, easily muscular. Think of the Jennifer Aniston body. That's pitta. Whereas kaphas are more curvaceous, round face. They tend to gain more weight in their hips and thighs. They're just really chill and calm and nourishing. Think Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra. Lots of spiritual teachers are very kapha because of. It's just that grounding that, like, motherly presence. So if you think of the mama bear in your group of friends who you could always come over and she's got snacks, and she's like, tell me about your day. And she'll sit and actually listen. The pitta wants to be like, okay, you have this problem. Here's the action plan. And the vata's like, well, do problems really exist? Like, really metaphysical about it? Or like, okay, cool, I gotta go to Africa. Bye. Like, you know, just sort of whatever. Whereas that cough is just like, so motherly. But the other side of it is. They can suppress their own emotions. They feel like they have to be the rock for everyone else. And if they speak their own truth, then the world will crumble. So Robin Williams is a really good example of that. He was making sure everyone else around him was smiling, happy, laughing, but we did not know that he was depressed. And when you give out so much energy, you have to get it back in somehow, so it leads to emotional eating. So cough is oftentimes late at night. We'll just be binge and binge and binge because they're really filling up this energetic gap that they have. So we're all a combination of all three doshas, but in varying amounts. So you may have heard one and you're like, oh my God, that's like my friend, or that's my ex. But you may be confused about yours. You could be a combination. We're really all three, but in varying amounts. So we're born with a set amount of all three, which is never going to change. That's called your procreate. But then throughout our life, our diet, our stress levels, our exercise, our pregnancy, if you're pregnant or not, et cetera, all of this will change your dosha too. And that's called arvikruti. So really the purpose of knowing all of this is to bring the dosha that you have today most aligned to how you were born. Essentially, it's just to be yourself. But we're going to go through different phases and, you know, sometimes you're going to need more pitta when you're in the middle of a launch, like, that's okay. You don't need to be totally balanced at all times. You know, even the word balance is the French word balance, which is like a seesaw. Like a seesaw is never totally flat. Sometimes it's like this, sometimes it's like that. So think about your health the same way when you're in an as an entrepreneur coming through an idea creation process. The vata is brainstorming, thinking what's next, you know, writing everything out on a whiteboard. That's all vata because it's up in the air, you don't have any stake in the game. Whereas the pitta is the execution, it's the actual doing of it, it's the sending out that email, executing on that business plan, et cetera. And then the kapha is the sac, pause, and the rest to take a step back and be like, wait, is this actually what I want to be doing? Even though I'm good at it or making money at it or other people need it. Is this really the best use of how I can serve? And you can only find that out through going into the kapha. And then when you go really into the kapha, you take that break. You know, you never think of your best idea when you're like, come on, idea, hit me over here. It's always when you take that walk or you take a bath or you do something else that the idea naturally hits and you're like, oh, my God. You run to the computer, you know exactly what it is you need to be doing. So that's why I see the doshas and business as these cycles. Vata idea, creation, pitta execution, kapha, reevaluation.

I love that. Yeah, that's really beautiful. And I love how much they just connect to everything. Whether it's like the way that you're eating, the way that you're exercising, the way that you're potentially in relationship, the way that you're in your business. Like, it's just. It's everything. And I love how much of an entry point that can be to just really, truly understanding yourself. And I feel like one of your biggest purposes on this earth based on just what I know about you and what you share all the time, is just really helping people understand themselves. Whether it's Ayurveda, whether it's mystical beings, whether it's connecting to your intuition. And I kind of want to dive into, like, understanding what and how that connects to the universe and, like, what's going on in the world and spirituality and like, how. What that really means for people and how important it is for them to understand their truth and their dharma, their mission. And then what opens up for the world and for them when they start living in their purpose?

Yeah. So I honestly think that most people don't believe they have a purpose. And that's why they'll never find their purpose. Because most of us are like, oh, yeah, sure, follow your dreams is what they tell you and give you a T shirt of. But it's total bullshit. Yeah, but honestly, think about it. You know, does the universe ever, like, fuck up and after summer they're like, oh, it's spring again? Oops. Like, no. Is anything actually an accident? No. Everything in nature is perfect. You look at a snowflake, it's perfect symmetry. You look at how we just had tons of fires in California, now we had tons of rain to balance it out. Everything in nature is perfect. And we are part of nature. You know, we are born here. For a purpose. We are not born here for an accident. So if you can just believe in that alone, that's going to make you realize, well, if everything in nature is perfect, and I'm a part of nature, therefore I must have a purpose of being here. That's the only way you can start to think, what am I here for? Until you fully realize that, I can tell you about all the mystical beings and all the Enneagrams and all that other shit, which is fun, but it's not going to mean shit to you until you believe that you matter. So I want you right now, if you're listening, like, do you actually believe that you have a purpose? Or do you just. Are you just kind of, like, feel like, I don't know, you were just born here to kill time and lose weight and pay bills and die?

When you put it that way, it's like, can we really believe that that is what we. Like, we have this massive planet. We have the most beautiful things on earth in the world. We look at a sunset and just want to cry because it's so beautiful. We've been able to create all of this technology. We've been able to access small percentage of our brains. There's so much stuff happening in the world. And then we get so wrapped up, like you said, in our little box of paying bills, walking our dog and going to the grocery store and then watching Netflix. And it feels just like, is this it? But if you really look outside, there is so much happening and there's so much that could be happening for you. And it is insane how many people truly don't believe that they have a purpose.

Imagine if every time we looked in the mirror, we wanted to cry about how beautiful it is. Imagine just the feeling that we felt about a sunset. If we even for a second and felt that about ourselves. Yeah, we don't. And it's just as common. It's the sun rises and sets every day. You're here every day. So why is it not important? You have to realize that you are important, that you are not just a creation of your father and mother's sperm that just, I don't know, binded together and made a little human void. You know, you're a soul. So I think a lot of us were like, oh, soul. Like, I get. I have a soul. But what is actually the soul? The soul is universal. From the highest level, we all actually have the exact same soul. From the highest level, we all are actually one. And that's why you'll hear reggae songs we are all one. Yeah. You know, they're actually like spinning true. We are all one. But then from that level. Yeah, from that cosmic highest level where we are all one. Then our soul fragmented. Because it's not gonna be any fun if we're all literally the exact same person. Right? The only thing that makes a gift a gift, a talent, a talent is the fact that you don't have it. I mean, the fact that you can create awesome posts on social media and garner such an incredible community is a gift. If we all could do that, then Amanda wouldn't be shit anymore, you know, because we were all doing it.

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So the universe, in a way, is perfect in the fact that we all have this one soul and then it fragmented. And, I mean, I could go down and say layers. And I describe this in my book, Idiot's Guide to Ayurveda. But we have different layers of our body. So we have our bliss body. That's all of us. We're all actually bliss balls in monkey suits. You know, this is your birthright. Anytime you feel bliss, that's actually who you are. When you're experiencing orgasm, that's actually who you are.

Yes.

So we are bliss. And then we have these different layers. Our energetic layer, our breath layer, our mental layer, and then our physical layer. And each of these layers takes on its own nuance, and those nuances make who you are. So that's why when you meet some people, you're like, oh, my God. Feels like soul fam. Feels like someone that I already know. It's because from these other, other layers of you, in some way, you have similarities. Even though maybe physically you're different, your likes, your interests, your personality is different, but you are not your personality. You know, your personality is just a construct of your experiences and your upbringing, etc. But you are actually your soul. Okay, I know this is like getting really Deepak Chopra on everyone, but it's important to know this because nothing else will make sense if you can't. If you can't grasp that you're not your personality. I remember the first time I read that, I was like, if I'm not my personality, then who the fuck am I? You're bliss. You're bliss, bitch. Like, that should be on a T shirt. It's bliss, bitch. Yeah. And that's what's so awesome about it. Because life was meant to feel good and Life was meant to be fun. And if you're not having fun and you're not feeling good, you're not doing.

This shit right, you know?

So I think we all in our heads have it like, ugh, like, life is suffering and life is really hard. And if I want to get to where I am, I have to experience so much pain to get there. And we set ourselves up for situations that are going to make us experience pain to grow. So if we can just accept that I'm bliss and if I just follow what feels the best for me at this time, though there may be challenges, but it's what will feel the most expansive to me. I will always be guided on my path. So feeling what feels best for you, it's not like, oh, I'm going to take Molly, because that feels the best for me right now. But it's actually looking at what will take me to what would feel best for me in this lifetime. You know? Imagine if you have this lifetime to do whatever you want. You could leave any legacy you could touch any amount of lives. You could do anything. This is just the lifetime that you were handed. What do you want to do? And imagine that you will feel your best completing that thing. That thing is called your Dharma. Dharma means divine purpose. It literally means the reason why you're here. It's the question that we're all looking for in alcohol and in food and in sex and in drugs. We're just looking for purpose. That's it. It's the most eternal question that for some reason, we're all afraid to talk about that I'm just looking for purpose. So then when you can say, I'm looking for purpose, and my purpose is going to feel good and expansive and juicy and fun for the long term, and you follow that, then you naturally just fall into your Dharma, and all paths lead you to Dharma. It's not like you have to know immediately. It's not like you have to like the first. It's like you're out of the World Series, and the first bat is like it. And if you don't hit it, then you're never going to meet your Dharma. Like, no, you can miss it, Miss it, sit down, wait another round, come back.

But.

But there's really only two paths to take. Truth and not truth. And if you take truth, you'll always end up to Dharma. Whether it starts with you being a basket weaver and then you're a jewelry designer, and then you blow glass. I don't know. You may do a lot of shit but you're going to always make it to Dharma. And if you follow not truth, you may make a lot of money, you may have a lot of friends, a lot of whatever it is, but it's never going to feel like I'm here doing what I was put on this planet for. That only I can do. No one else can do what I'm doing right now, because it requires all aspects of me. And this is not something that is saved for social media influencers or, you know, the Martha, whatever I was about to call her, Martha Theresa, Mother Teresa of the world. I just combined her with Martha Stewart. But, you know, total different people, but both living on their dharmas in a way. Martha Stewart got a little sketch about hers, but it's not just reserved for those people. We were all actually mentally to live that way. So if you can accept that and you can follow that, I swear, this is going to be a really good ride for you.

I feel so inspired by everything you just said, and I love that you ended with. And if you can just trust in that, because it really does mean that we have to just trust in it. And I remember the first time I heard that. I am a soul having a human experience, and at my very core, I am love or bliss or light or whatever you want to call it. I love the word bliss. That feels like the perfect word for it, aside from love. And it sounded like truth to me. I had no choice but to believe it. Even though, you know, the science is. I remember you said in a podcast once, the science can't catch up with spirit. It's already there. And then we're trying to catch up, but we can only do so much with our human brains at this current moment. And spirit's already doing its thing constantly, every single second. When you really break it down, when it comes to the seasons and the snowflakes and everything's perfect the way that it is. And, like, how are we just missing that? It really. You can sit and make sense of it as much as you want, but when you actually start living in this way, you're gonna start to feel better, you're gonna start to feel happier. You're gonna start to feel like, oh, wow, I'm living exactly how I feel like I'm supposed to be living. So my next question for you is, in terms of the karmic experiences that we have coming back into the world and the challenges that we're facing, how can we grapple with the fact that these are a part of my journey, these are a part of my path when they could feel so difficult and so wrong and, like, following that. And how did I get bored into this family? Or how did I have to deal with this death or this breakup or this whatever. How do you grapple with the fact that this is all happening on purpose for you?

Yeah. So I want to preface this by saying some of the things that I may say may be triggering for you. If you grew up with a religious background, and in no way is it like you're either spiritual or religious. They can be hand in hand. You can be spiritual, Christian, Muslim, Jew, any religion. This is not a religion. This is just a new way of being. So don't let that close your mind. So I'll just leave that there. Now, again, I can only speak from Vedic knowledge, spiritual knowledge, New Age knowledge. Like, I have had many past life experiences that have affirmed this. But if you want to find scientific, modern research that affirms it. Yeah, I can't give you that because as Amanda said, science still catches up to spirit. And, you know, if you said, oh, I have a laser beam that can see things, 100 years ago, they would have said, you're crazy. Or if I said, oh, I sit in this infrared tube that releases toxins, they'd be like, you're full of shit. And these are all real things that we have today. We have all sorts of technological, which we call technological advances that would have been seen as weird, spiritual, quacky, 50, 20, 10 years ago. So let me just say that. So it is believed that we as souls chose everything. We essentially chose our parents. We chose the people that would allow us to have the best experiences that we needed to evolve. Each lifetime is really about one major key lesson. And for all of us, it's going to be different. So one lifetime may be really about trust another one may be about surrendering to love. Another may be about finding confidence and instilling yourself, etc. You have different lessons throughout, but each lifetime really has one big flavor to it. And if you didn't have any lessons, you wouldn't incarnate here. You would just, you know, stay a spirit. There's no point in being on planet Earth unless to evolve. And Earth is the only place that we can evolve. So we're all here consciously to grow. We chose our parents. We chose these life circumstances that we were confronted, even if they're shitty, even if they're painful, because they were exactly what we needed to overcome to get to where we need to be. So, for example, a good friend of mine, she Was born with her mother doing cocaine literally during her pregnancy. And her mother was addicted to many drugs and she lived on food stamps and was on welfare and had a really hard upbringing. And she recently did a post about how people would say, oh, you choose, chose your parents. She was like, I for sure did not choose this. Why would I choose so much pain and suffering? Like, no, that's full of shit. And then finally she realized that she absolutely did choose all of these things because the strength that she has essentially gotten from overcoming it and the healing that she's doing for other people is exactly what her soul was meant to do. So some of us choose. It may sound crazy, abuse or neglect or heartbreak or whatever else it is, because the strength that you need to get through that is the initiation that you need to get to the next level. Personally, my parents, very against spirituality, you know, Middle Eastern background, thought I was crazy. Actually disowned me for wanting to write a book about Ayurveda. Like, if I in Iran, my home country said this, I would be in jail. Okay? So all odds against me. And when I was like 23, I was thinking, you know what, maybe, maybe I'm just supposed to do what they want me to do. Maybe this life is about sacrifice and I'm supposed to sacrifice what I really want to do to make them happy. Who knows? But it never felt expansive for me. It never felt good. It felt like me settling. And then I realized I had to overcome all of that conditioning, not just for my lifetime, but from all of my ancestors. Because the shit that you're dealing with right now often is not starting just from you. It's your ancestral stuff. The stuff that your mother, your grandmother ongoing have dealt with. For me, it was speaking my truth. The fact that both of my grandmothers were in child marriages when they were 11 years old. That child marriage is like a long standing thing in my entire lineage. Women literally being forced to marry a stranger and never speaking their truth, never even learning how to read because they didn't want them to, like, live lives. For me, literally becoming an author, a podcaster, a speaker, I had to overcome that obstacle. So it's going to look different for everyone. And you're not going to know unless you start. You start getting yourself into the game game. It's very easy to be like, oh, well, I want to know my purpose. And once I know my purpose, then I'll take action. No, honey, that's not how it works. You have to take action. You have to take those steps and in those steps, the path starts to open. If you're looking to make it 100% safe, no chance of failure. It's never going to happen for you. You're always like, I think of Dharma as this beautiful heaven, but it's on the other side of the super dense, like, Amazonian forest. And you have to bring a machete and, like, ch your way through. And you have no idea if there's actually this, like, beautiful heaven on the other side or if it's, like, full of shit and people are just talking about it, but it doesn't really exist. You don't know how long you're going to be in that. In that Amazon for. You don't know what animals are in there. But you just have to trust and keep macheting on until finally you make it. And once you make it, there's no going back. You're there. You're always going to live in alignment with your Dharma, even if that Dharma is something else, because you know your truth and you know your soul. So if you're there, like, at the border, like, okay, I'm on this paved road. Everyone's walking down this road. It makes sense for me to walk down this road, but I feel like I need to go through that jungle, take that machete, and chop your way across. Because I swear, like, me and Amanda and all of the people who've been on her podcast and have been on mine and who are living their dharma will tell you there is nothing more worth it than that.

There is nothing more worth it than that. And I love that you said, once you get there, you'll never get off. Because once you feel what truth is and you live in it, you can't unknow that and you can't unfeel that. And then you're going to constantly be continuously putting yourself on the right path. Dog noises are welcome in the podcast. It's all good. So, that being said, I want to ask you. So we've uncovered and we've talked about why it's important for people to start following this and really actually do this stuff in their lives and not bypass it and not avoid it. Because avoiding it is just going to. It's going to keep showing up in your life and patterns, and it's just going to create a life of misery.

And get bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger until you have no choice.

Yes.

And that's called karma.

Yeah, that's great. Cool. And I can't even imagine how many people are listening to this right now and saying, oh, I remember going through those experiences and coming out on the other side with strength. So I understand in hindsight what the purpose was. So I can feel that and understand that why is it important for the collective consciousness, for the world, for the Earth, for the environment, even? I know you've been talking about that on your stories constantly. Why is it so important that we all start doing this rather than just focusing on the individual here? What's the bigger picture of stuff that's happening in the world? And why do we really, truly need to do this outside of just creating more happiness internally?

Yeah. So in the Vedas, they say, as is the microcosm, so is the macrocosm, which essentially means whatever is happening internally is a reflection of what's happening externally and vice versa. So as a world right now, we are undergoing a massive shift, a shift that began around 2012, which was a shift into the Aquarian age. And this is something that has been written about for really thousands and thousands of years. They marked this date as a shift. It's when the Mayan calendar ended. You know, so people were like, oh, my God, the world is going to end. What's going to happen? Remember, everyone is freaking out, buying batteries. Yeah. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna have some extra water case. But essentially, it was just the end of the old paradigm. So the old paradigm was. The paradigm. Paradigm just means time, Essentially the time of patriarchy. Patriarchy means the rule of the masculine. So masculine energy is very, you know, authoritarian and forceful, and it can be very beautiful, but the patriarchy takes the negative sides of it. It's like, okay, if you want to survive, you have to hustle and you have to step on other people's feet. And it's pretty much, like, mad, right? It's like, you're not going to make it to the top unless you, like, stab some backs and suck some, pretty much. And that was the way of the old paradigm, and that was the way that our parents grew up. And that's why they're going to tell you, like, oh, my God, follow your dreams. No, you need to pay your 401k. You need to do this, you need to do that. Because they grew up in that time, and we've grown up. It's a beautiful generation because we've experienced both. We've experienced that old paradigm. And now, as millennials, like, really, at the start of our adult life, has been in this Aquari time where everything is shifting. And now it's about collaboration and community and each person being their own teacher and their own voice. And now the ways of the old paradigm have slowly shifted away and we're experiencing the very last of it. So we're experiencing the cries of the shadows, because our shadows people may hear. People talk about your light side and your shadow side. Your light side is your highest self. It's you thinking from, you know, that limitless perspective. It's when you're writing or making music or spending time with friends where you feel just full of joy and anchored into your truth. And then your shadow self is, you know, and we all have it. It's your ego self, your fear self, the one that's like, oh, that couldn't work, or, oh, that's probably full of shit, or, oh, that's not for me. Or, you know, just that negative Nancy that's in your mind. I call mine Beatrice. You can give it a name. I have Beatrice and overanalyzing Olivia. That's the one who's like, needs to overanalyze everything. I highly recommend giving your voices names. Yes, but these are the voices of the old paradigm that are slowly dying now. This old paradigm, because it's been in power for so long, it has created massive epidemics in our world right now, the environment being the most pressing. So the old paradigm was all about make money fast and screw everything else. It doesn't even matter. Global, global warming, that's not real climate change bullshit. That's some liberal, that's some lib, rural hippie shit, you know, so it's made it really easy and really affordable and cheap to make, you know, single use plastic. And everything that we buy is in this plastic. And guess what? The plastic can never compose. So every piece of plastic that was ever made in the history of time, if you've ever done a juice cleanse, think about how much plastic you use. If you do a food delivery service, think about how much plastic you use. Just go to Trader Joe's, which we think of as healthy, and just look at the shelves of pure plastic. All of that plastic will always be here. And we're essentially right now dying in plastic. We're not seeing right now. We are the privileged ones. We don't see where it ends up. But we're in Bali. I was just swimming with the manta rays in a sea of plastic. Literally, I was just swimming through pure trash. And these manta rays, their mouths are open all the time, so they're just inhaling trash and they're soon to become extinct. And it's not just about saving the oceans and this because it's the fact that we have to live in it, it's not just do it for the dolphins. It's the fact that the state of the oceans is going to be the state of our health. And if the oceans are dirty, we are so dependent on these seas for so many things. I mean, the seas are going to affect our air quality. If our air quality is full of pollution, full of these things, and the CO2s can't raise, we're breathing that in. So there's literal physical things that are happening. I could talk about environment stuff, but it's also just this paradigm of, you know, the racism and the bigotry that we've become very observant to, that has always been there. But right now, with consciousness rising, we've become more aware of it. So as you become a more conscious individual, it's like it doesn't all happen at once, but you start to care about different topics and you start to notice. So maybe at first it's you notice the pollution, or maybe you notice, you know, racism or this or that, and we can't all fight all obstacles. But you being a more conscious person and putting your dollars into companies that are doing the right thing are what is going to make the world more conscious. And it's where we're inevitably going anyways. But it's just a matter of how hard do we want this to be? Like, do we want to move into the new paradigm? They call this the fifth dimension. So the fifth dimension is the dimension of, you know, flow and love and possibility and synchronicities. If you're experiencing synchronicities, like you see numbers all the time, 11, 11 and 4, 44, et cetera, or a certain symbol you see all the time, that means you're living in alignment, because life is always meant to be lived in alignment. I remember when I first started collaborating with Deepak Chopra after he wrote the forerunner of my first book. He did this Facebook Live, and he was, like, talking about me on his Facebook Live. And I was like the biggest fan girl of him for so long. And it was about meaningful synchronicities and how when you're living on purpose, you start to notice. You think about someone, you see them, they call you. You're at the right place at the right time, you meet the right person. And I remember I emailed him and I was like, hey, Dr. Chopra, is life always meant to be kind of lived in flow? Or are periods of flow meant to be followed by periods of inertia? Meaning, can everything actually always be good? Or after something good happens, does something bad have to happen? Because that's what most of us are taught and most of us believe. Brace yourself, because something's going to hit the fan very soon.

Good question.

Yeah, and I remember he emailed me back. He was like, sahara, if life is not always lived like that, then something is wrong.

Beautiful answer.

So if you could just fathom that. If you're not always experiencing synchronicities, if the universe is not propelling you in the direction of your Dharma, then you're not living in that flow, the Kriya. You're living in that karma. Most of us are living in the karma. We're living in the. Everyday is hard. Every day is a struggle. And because of that, our world is essentially living in that right now. You know, the pollution, this, that. But if you can shift the directions to move towards flow, to move towards what feels good, the universe will respond. You'll start seeing things, meeting people at the right time. You know, if you're confused, just say, universe. Make it easy. Make the right path for me feel good, and follow that. And naturally, without even really trying, you'll find yourself taking. Taking the steps that will take you exactly where it is that you were meant to go, which inherently will make the world a more vibrant place. Because you will be speaking about topics important to you. You will be engaging with people who are changing the world. And together you'll create organizations that can change the world. Honey, you can't help the world while you're broke. You know, you need to step up into your business and step up into the things that may feel scary, to totally complete yourself as that entrepreneur. And then later on, you can delegate all that shit away. But. But sometimes it feels like, oh, my God, I feel like I can't. I'm not that analytical, organized person. I have noticed a lot of people really need to step into their pittas. A lot of women and a lot of men need to step out of it, you know, so it's stepping into, okay, if I'm vata, how can I move more into pitta? If I have the ideas, how can I take action? If I'm taking action, how can I chill if I'm been chilling a lot, how can I come up with an idea and then. And then tying in the cause that's important to you. Just one cause, like what's really important to you, and running with that throughout. Throughout the courses of every step that you take. If we all just picked one thing, the world would be literally solved.

Yeah, I love That I love that we had this conversation because it is so important to think and really zoom out from just our day to day. Like, we started talking about doshas, and even before that, we started talking about actually believing that you have a purpose. And it really comes back full circle with this, that you have to believe that you're important enough and that you are important inherently and that you are bliss inherently, and that's how you actually should be living. And I just really appreciate and love this conversation because if more people who listen to this podcast episode, who go listen to your podcast, which, by the way, is one of the only podcasts I actually consume on a regular basis, because I love what you do, and I'm just so. I'm so ready for other people to really step up and step into that as well. Because I love what you said earlier about how we each have unique, different experiences. So, like, every second of your life, you have a thought about that and you have an experience, and then you have a perception on it, and you take action in certain different ways, and you have different ways of being brought up and then ways of looking at certain parts of the world. So, like, every single second of your life has made you unique. So your unique expression of. Let's just say there's a million fitness coaches or a million health coaches or a million whatever, you have a unique expression of it, and it needs to be put into the world, which I love.

Love, Absolutely, yes.

So let's get wrapped up here. If I can just ask you one last question. If there was something that you want to really leave people with and you want people to go take action on after this podcast, what do you think that would be?

So if there's one thing I want people to take action on, I want it to just be to listen. Because I think that we all know. Know whatever it is we need to be doing, and we're looking for affirmation from other people, from our boss, from this, for that. Like, you know, honey, if you're listening to this, you're conscious, you're woke, you're awake. If you're listening, this deep in a part of you is like, yes, I want more of this. I'm ready for it. And I know it can be really daunting and really confusing to know, like, oh, my God, how do I even begin this journey? So find what feels. Feels most fitting for you at this time. You know, there's a saying that there are a million ways to kiss the sky. And what that really means is there are so many Ways to be spiritual. Whether for you it's doing a meditation, downloading an app. I have an E course on the Insight timer app called how to discover your dharma, so I recommend checking that out if you're curious to learn more. And Insight timer has tons of meditations, all of this stuff. So maybe it's starting with that. Maybe it's going to a dance. Like Amanda and I go to this beach dance, which I heard just started up again and just. Just like ecstatic dancing. Maybe it's going chanting or singing, using your voice. Maybe for you it's Kundalini Yoga or this or that. There are so many ways, and the only way that you can know is if you get in there and you try. So wherever you are, I mean, you don't even need to be anywhere these days. You could just go on YouTube and look these things up. Look up, okay. What is Ayurveda? What is Kundalini Yoga? What's this? What's that? Try these things out. See what feels best for you. Because there's so many spiritual tools out there, and you don't have to have each and every one. In fact, you're not supposed to, but find the ones that really work for you and then allow yourself just to go down this journey of, like, surrendering to where it's going to take you. I think oftentimes we leave, we jump ship too fast. Like, oh, my God, I meditated three days. It didn't work. It's not for me. You know, know, pick something.

Get past the suck phase of it, because you just judge how bad you are at it. And you have to get past the phase of, I'm really bad at this. To, like, I'm in the practice of it now. And then you can determine if it's for you or not.

Exactly. Exactly. So many people I know, they're like, well, my brain can't meditate. You don't understand. My brain is just a real crazy one. Everyone. Everyone's is like that. That's the whole point, right? If we could all do it, then we wouldn't need it. So. So find that thing that you feel like would work for you. Stick to it long enough to see its benefits, and then I don't even need to tell you what to do because you'll be telling yourself what to do.

Exactly. Well, I love that so much, and I truly appreciate this podcast episode. I feel like it was so important. Anyone who's listening, I hope you got so much out of this. If you are still listening, this is gonna be really important for you to actually take action on after. And like Sahara said, you already know what to do. So thank you again so much for your time. Sahara, I love you. I appreciate you. You are incredible. I look up to you and admire so much and the work that you're doing in the world. So thank you for your time and I love you.

Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure.

All right guys, and thank you all for listening to this episode. Go follow Sahara on Instagram at I am saharararose. Her podcast is Highest Self Podcast. Like I said, one of the only podcasts I currently listen to on a consistent basis. And go check out her dosha quiz that we talked about earlier@iamsahararose.com and I'll talk to you guys later.

Well, I hope you enjoyed that episode. It just really brought all of these concepts into modern, applicable terms and I hope you walked away with a deeper knowing of what Dharma Source consciousness, all of these terms are really all about. If you loved this episode, I would love if you could leave me a review in the iTunes store and as a free gift I will share with you the first half of my unrelated release book Eat Right for your mind body type. Simply email a screenshot of your review over to Saharaetfieldfresh.com again Sahara S A H A R aatfeelfresh.com and I will send you over the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your Mind Body type. Thank you and namaste.

Ra.