268: Being Spiritually Sassy with Sah D’Simone

Namaste, it's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the Highest Self podcast. A place for discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. March is fully here. I mean, 2020 has been crazy, but I'm actually really loving the sacred pause that all of this stuff, media stuff is, is giving us. So a lot of people are canceling events right now. A lot of people are spending a lot more time at home. And I think it's energetically what the world really needed right now. We all need to go inwards. We all need to find peace inside of ourselves. We all need more grounding. And I'm taking this time, you know, more time at home. I'm not going out to as many events and, and dance classes and stuff, which, you know, I really do love to do. But the beautiful side of it is I began painting again. I've always loved to paint. Growing up I was very artistic. So I painted this beautiful yoni, which is on my Instagram at I am Sahara Rose. You could check it out. I put some rose petals all around it and you know, just spending time in my, in my home, in my sanctuary, and just taking care of the little things that are around your house that you don't think about because you're always on the go. So there's always a silver lining through everything. And I do think another thing that this could help us with globally are less flights because, I mean, I can't even imagine how many flights go out around the world every day, but that's a lot of pollution. So, you know, my husband and I were talking about, we were like, maybe this whole thing is a theory like planned by Mother Earth that she wanted us to not travel as much and they cancel all airplane travels for two weeks or something. And then suddenly we see these like huge trees and flowers, flowers and vines just blossoming all over us. And Mother Earth comes out and says, you know, I've been waiting to blossom and bloom, but there's been so much pollution in the skies that I haven't fully been able to. So all it took was just two weeks without, you know, airfare for me to be able to fully blossom. So who knows what will happen, But I really am sending everyone love. I know how difficult it is, especially in areas that are affected right now with the virus. And I'm just sending everyone so much love and so much support in this time and just remember to come back to the heart. You know, I think the most dangerous disease is fear itself. And you don't have to be afraid to take action. You know, you can keep washing your hands and live with love. It doesn't have to be both. Preparing. Washing your hands doesn't mean that you're surrendering to fear. We could take care of ourselves without freaking out over it. So it's that divine balance of Shiva and Shakti, of yin and yang, of physical and non physical that we do live on this crazy planet where these things happen that we don't understand and are difficult and are painful. And when we fully associate ourselves with it and get lost in the media, it really creates a lot of stress and tension inside of us. I mean, I went to Holi festival of colors this week and before that I was like really looking at the news because I was planning to travel. I was planning to go to Dubai in like a couple days and be gone for almost a month between Dubai and Bali. And I ended up canceling that trip just because of the uncertainty of what's happening. So I was really like looking at the news every day, which I normally don't, but it was like, whoa, it could really scare you. And then I finally went to Holy festival of Colors and there were still kids dancing and celebrating in these beautiful colors and we were like rolling around in the dirt and it was just so good to like get out of the bubble. I think if we just watch the news, we think like the apocalypse is happening, the world is dying, no one's going to survive this. And it can really trigger all of our fear based ways. But then when we go out into the world and we see that, you know, the birds are still chirping, you know, people are still walking outside, like life still goes on, it really just puts things back into perspective, which is really what we need at this time. So wash your hands, you know, stay hydrated, stay healthy, take care of your immune system. And this goes all year round. You know, it's not just right now, it is good right now to, you know, take vitamin C, zinc, colloidal silver, all of these things. But also all year round, take care of yourself. Don't be a vibrational match for dis ease. You know, stay in high alignment so you're not a vibrational match that it can't, can't affect you. So there's so much to say on this. Maybe I'll do another podcast episode. But I also don't like to give in too much into the fear because I like to keep it, you know, high vibe and what we focus on persists. So let's focus on the beauty and the love that is all around us and the. The support that is all around us. And this brings us into this week's interview, which is with my dear friend, Sada Simone. So he was just our featured guest in Rose Gold Goddesses this month. Every month I have a featured guest, one of your high self podcast guests who comes into Rose Gold Goddesses and does a private workshop exclusively for the Rose Gold Goddesses, which is recorded. So even if you join now, you'll be able to join. But he did a workshop all about working with Green Tara, the goddess of compassion and forgiveness. And I've known Saw for three, four years now. He's such a dear friend, soul brother of mine. And what I love about Sa and that I really share in common with him is he is deeply spiritual. He's deeply tuned in. He has definitely huge spiritual practice. It's a huge part of his life which we talk about, of the Buddhist tradition. And also he's so fun and playful and sassy and dancing and oh my gosh, when him and I are together on a dance floor, oh, shit, shit's going down. So I love that he has these both sides of him that he like, meditates and like chants to the goddesses and the mantras and, you know, has this real devoted side to him and then also the side to him that is fun and playful and sassy and flamboyant and does what he wants. So I so resonate with that. And in this episode, we talk about this duality that exists in all of us, the having desires while being spiritual. Because I think lot of us think we have to have one or the other. We're either spiritual or we're sassy. And he really shows that it is both. We can be playful and we can get down on our meditation pillow, you know, and we talk a lot. Just like we go really deep into having this balance within ourselves. What does it mean to be devoted? What does it mean to be disciplined? How can we make that more playful? What is the importance of joy in your life and really breaking it down? So this is definitely like a vortexy type episode. Whenever I have one of my good friends on, we're always just like. So I think if you've loved those kinds of episodes, you're gonna love this one. And Sa is just such a delight. Just his vibration, his voice. As soon as you hear it, you're gonna be like, I feel at home with this guy. And he's really just such a blessing in my life. So I know you're going to love him. Too. And without further ado, let's welcome Sada Simone on the Highest Self Podcast. Are you that person that all your friends and family members come to when they need wellness advice? 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Yeah, thank you so much, my love. I'm so happy to be here. Hi, everybody.

Hi. So the first question I would love to ask you is what makes you your highest self?

Self. What makes me my highest self? Oh, this is so juicy. Oh, my God. I think every day that I get to drop into my heart in practice, you know, that I awaken, that I reconnect with that part of me, that I let that part of me. And my highest self in my vocabulary would be the heart. Like, how do I awaken my heart? How do I awaken the part of me that knows, you know, joy, that knows no suffering, that's never phased by pain, that's never phased by anything. That's just like at always at ease, at always in balance. That in meditation, in dance, in community. Oh, my God. Just chatting with you for the last. How long have we been here?

Not long enough.

Yeah, exactly. But, yeah, I think. I think there's a. A few non negotiables, daily non negotiables for me that get me to awaken, to reconnect, to being complete communion with that part of myself. And it's evolved. Used to be in the past, used to be like in prayer, meditation, in doing breath work. And in the last few years, dance has become a huge part of it, you know, and I'll share more about that. How the spiritual path had made me serious and how I lost my sass. How I lost joy. I became too serious and now lost, like such a foundational piece of the healing path, which is to be playful. Playfulness. I've lost that. Oh, my goodness, girl, where did you go?

We need you to be spiritually sassy, naturally. So I think a lot of listeners who've come across your Instagram, the first thing they notice are your dance videos. And for those of you who have not seen his dance videos, you need to check it out right now. I'll put his Instagram in the show notes. But he is just dancing, full of life, full of joy. There's no choreography, there's no memorizing anything. It's just you in Pure joy. And also you with your mom, who has just gone through chemotherapy and you moving to Florida to be alongside her for the past couple months. And to see that level of joy in such a situation that could have broken people down is so inspiring. So can you share with us how these dance videos came to be?

Thank you. That's an incredible, delicious question. And it's sort of like a foundational piece to. To like me being where I'm at today, you know, from like living in India, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, and living in dharma centers, in monasteries, in ashrams, and modeling after the people who I thought were ultra spiritual, Modeling after the people who I thought were like the mega spiritual people. And seeing how like I was subduing my heart and I was just like modeling after them was like mind game. It wasn't the heart, it wasn't matters of the heart. It wasn't me awakening joy, compassion and wisdom. The Brahma Vihadas, the four qualities of the heart part was me just like playing another trick. And I was like, oh, wow. But if it took me a while to realize, like, oh wow, my mental obscurations, my tendencies are so creative that now I'm modeling after these people and thinking that that's what's being spiritual is like that that's what healing looks like, is being all Namaste all the time, not laughing out loud, not looking like a high vision mega boss queen all the time, you know, not dancing, not really bringing about, emoting joy back into the world, you know. And through this path, I was like, oh my God, something is really missing here. Because the healing, the transformation was taking a place where I had more spaciousness, which was great, but I wasn't like really feeling 100% like myself in your vocabulary. I wasn't feeling like my highest self, you know. And then I just from. I would spend a few months in India and I would go to Bali for a few months. That was like how I did for three and a half years. That was like the journey naturally. And so from having this like back and forth, you know, dropping in, being complete silence in India and then going to Bali to go full shaktima, like really awakening, dancing, sensuality, joy, sweaty dances, I started to notice, like, oh, wow, this perfect balances. This perfect balance is where I feel most my like, my true self. And then when I engage with people, I'm present and sassy. I'm courageous and kind, you know, I'm brave and loving. Like, I'm not. There's no missing aspect to what I'm doing. It's like I'm whole. I'm fully myself. And then here's the real juicy. Two juicy things that really took it to the next level. I had an opportunity to sit with Jetsuma Tenzin Palmo, this living Saint who spent 12 years in a cave. I had an opportunity to have a private audience with her. And she says, in Buddhism, there's six of the paramitas, six perfections. There's six qualities that you never hear me say to perfect anything, but there's the qualities of the heart, the qualities of your heart itself. I think these are things that we can cultivate and work towards developing to its fullest potential. She says these six qualities are in the. In the Buddhist literature, the Buddhist. The ancient literature. And. But I think you're here to teach the seventh one, which is not on the literature. It's joy. And I was like, oh, I fell off my chair legit. I was like, oh, my God. You're literally, like, telling me the thing that I've. That I knew I needed to bring into the space, right? And that doesn't end there. The next thing was from all this travel, from finding these teachers, wanting to go after all this stuff, I realized that the Buddha had this group of main disciples, these main students that were the closest to entering to the next stage, right? One of them, Ananda, which is that archetype that a lot of us know to be the spiritual, the ultra spiritual, wearing all white, and nothing wrong with any of this. Honey, you know what you need? You know the teacher that you need. You know the kind of practice that you need for you to go to your next stage. But I know that for me, and I know that for Sahara, for us, being spiritually sassy, awakening the qualities of the heart and dancing our sorrows away, dancing our. All of our pain away, it's been, like a huge part for us, right? And such a bonding thing for us. And then there's another disciple, another student, Manjustri, who I have tattooed in my right heart here. I found out later, after I had taken an initiation from the Dalai Lama on the Manjushri empowerment, which is a wisdom. It's to simplify. It's like a wisdom God. It's a wisdom archetype. His mantra is Omara pazanadi. Omara pazana di. Just like hearing the words awakens wisdom within you. And so I got this initiation from the Dalai Lama, and I started to research, who is this Manjushri? Why am I taking this initiation? I just knew I wanted to Take this initiation, because it's a wisdom initiation. With all the speaking things that I'm doing, I need to. To have wisdom as a foundation to everything I'm doing. So I started to research, and guess what I found out? That Monjushri is the perfect embodiment of people like you and I, who are loud, who are bold, who are extra, who are dancing. The Buddha never told him to shave his hair. The Buddha never told him to stop dressing flamboyantly and fiercely. You know, of course, everything you hear me, I'm paraphrasing. And it's gonna sound ultra sassy because it's through my filter, but can you imagine that? Like a his. It's like historical evidence that this being lived. And the Buddha appreciated him for that. And the Buddha said, you are the one who holds the wisdom of the world. You are the one that holds this ultimate wisdom, access to ultimate wisdom, subliminal wisdom. And when I heard that, I was like, oh, my effing goodness, why isn't this out there? Why are we only knowing about the archetypes that are telling us all to just be like this, you know, super namaste all the time. Don't laugh too loud, don't dance too sexy, don't look too good. Don't do this. It's too much too extra. You too, too, too, too, too. And here's Manjushri, like, saying, no, honey, do it all. Because that's the path. That's the path. And that's the path of tantra, right? That's the path of perfect, complete, subliminal transformation. And I know that people like you and I and a lot of people listening, if you have access to extreme emotions, you are perfect for tantra. You're ready for it. Because it's. You can. You can transfer this fiery energy to get to know your heart, to get to awaken your highest self. Okay, that was a long answer for so beautifully said.

Oh, podcast done. Okay, so something that I have been questioning in my own mind, and you're really the perfect person to talk to about is a lot of Buddhist texts that I have read. It's all about non attachment. To let go of desire, right? To overcome the desire. And then tantra, especially like Indian Tantra, not Tantric Buddhism, but that's what you specify in. So I'm curious. Yes, it's all about going into the desires and that your desires are divine and sacred pathway. And the pathway. So how can we have desires but still have non attachment?

Well, so here's the thing. A lot of what's out there in the. The people know a lot about Buddhism. You know, when I say I'm going to a meditation retreat, they usually like, oh, you interview pasta. And I'm like, no, honey, like the Buddha thought. It said that the Buddha thought the same Dharma 34,000 times. Some people say 3,000 times. Even if it was just 34 different ways, it's enough. But he thought different versions of it for different kinds of people. You and I would have heard what, that. What he had to say about, like, renounce everything and go live in the cave and be like, okay, boo. Thanks for that. Look, I'm going to go this way. You know what I mean? I'm going to go back to Bali and dance my song girls away and meditate after the sweaty dance with the green juice in my hand, you know, while someone's braiding my hair and I have glitter everywhere. You know what I mean? Naturally. But what's kept a secret was tantra. Because to go into the path of tantra, you do need to have. It's what they call a foundation. You have to have some. It's not prerequisites, but you just have to have a strong foundation to know that we have cravings, that we have these tendencies, that we have these desires. And are we allowing these crazy tendencies, these crazy desires to run our lives? Or can we enjoy the delicious chocolate and be like, oh, wow, this chocolate's so good. And that's okay. Yes, allow it to pass. The problem is like, as we're having one bite, we're already thinking, oh, my God, I'm gonna eat this entire chocolate. It's gonna make me feel so good. And if I don't have this chocolate the same time, the same way tomorrow, my life will suck. That's the problem. Attachment, when we think about it and we distill it to its down source, it's like a drunk state of mind where we are literally glorifying the good qualities of everything, where we're exaggerating. It's an exaggerated state of mind where Sahara makes me. She is the sole source of my happiness, you know, Or Sahara is the sole source of all my misery. And that's the mind of attachment. The way psychotherapy looks at such is completely different from what the Buddha thought. So that's kind of like a simple way to look at not having attachment. It's not the. It's just, how do you have. How do you look at your desires? How do you look at your cravings? How do you look at Your tendencies. And how do you use this fiery energy to really go in? Can you. For instance, I'm going to give you a great example. I've had addiction to cigarettes, to coke, to alcohol. And I was sharing in one of my courses recently, one of the lessons when I was talking about habits and cravings, all of it together. And I was saying, you know, there are times when I was living in New York, and I would walk myself to the bodega, to the corner store with the fiery energy that I needed to have a cigarette now. And if I didn't have that cigarette, my world would crumble. But in that moment, sometimes I gave in and I walked in the grocery store and the bodega, and I bought it, and I just. I smoked it, and I felt growth after. But in that moment of switching the fiery energy of the craving, turning it inside, choosing to breathe, choosing to uncover the heart near your vocabulary, choosing to uncover the highest self, the creative power that came from there. I came back home and I wrote. I came back home and I danced. I came back home and I. And I envisioned the world. The magic that comes is so powerful. One of my teachers says that the most beautiful things that we have in the world have been created from that energy where they transform the energy of the craving. They transform. Transform the. In the energy of desire into creation, buildings, architecture, books, whatever it may be.

Absolutely. And that's all sexual energy. Right. You know, we oftentimes, let's say you have a sexual urge. Well, that is the same urge that will write you your book or record your podcast or create a civilization, whatever it is you want. It's all coming from that sexual energy, which is your life force. And, you know, you're really the first person. First person that I see who connects that to Buddhism, because I often see that there's, like, that tantric path that is all about the sexuality. And, you know, sometimes the shadow side of that is the lack of boundaries, or, you know, we've seen it in Bali, a lot of just, like, messiness that's happening in that community. And then Buddhist, when I just think of stereotypical Buddhists that I see out there, I think of no sexuality. I think of asexual. I think of overcoming the body. Like, the body is this. And the one thing that I never understood was that they said that the world is suffering and that we have to just overcome suffering. And that was something I also fundamentally didn't feel like. I don't feel like my world is suffering, and I have to overcome it. So I Would love to hear from you who has experienced that mindset of you came to it because you were trying to alleviate suffering, but now your life is so beautiful. So how have these practices transformed for you?

That's right. And I think there's a lot of misinterpretation about that too. And I know I'm misinterpreted too. It's like the Buddha, what he observed is that the human condition there is a lot of suffering because we've cluttered our connection to our hearts. We're so misguided about the world. We're so misguided about who we are. We're so fixed in that identity. Ram Dass said something so beautiful. He says, we're so busy. And I'm paraphrasing. He says, we're so busy holding onto our unworthiness. We're so busy. And in Buddhism, you translate that as like, we're so busy holding on to our. Our pain. We're so busy glorifying our negative qualities instead of looking in. Right? And when we think about what the Buddha actually thought, he didn't teach suffering. He taught joy. You know, he didn't teach the path to suffering. He thought the path the polar opposite. He. He taught. He had. He guided us all to awaken joy. How do we look at pain through the lens of the heart? How do we look at suffering through wisdom, through joy, through compassion, through love. And that's really the foundation of it all, is how do you use the compass of the heart, the four directions of the heart, to look at all the pain, all of the problems that exist in the world. And then what we say, like what the observation of the Buddha, the world is suffering is because the human condition, there is a lot of things that are inevitably going to happen. We come into earth. A lot of our births are very painful. We get sick, we age, people die, we die. There's a lot of things that are, like, inevitably going to happen. But then he said, pain is inevitable. Suffering is a choice. And that choice, when we have choice, we recognize that when choice arises, that's where joy lives. That's where compassion lives. That's where wisdom lives. That's where love lives. That's where the higher self lives. It's in that moment of choice. And what I observed in my own life by studying Tantric Buddhism and embarking myself in taking these, these. These vows, it really is about, like, you know, really like this deconstructing. And I was talking about the internal garden of the mind. Like, how do you unravel the garden of your mind. How do you become the master gardener of your mind to really water the seeds that lead to. To awakening? How do you become the master of your emotions and your thoughts and stop giving in to destructive emotions, stop giving into thoughts that lead to suffering. And the Buddha is very clear about that. He says there's only two kinds of thoughts. Thoughts that lead to enlightenment and thoughts that lead to suffering. Same thing with emotions, destructive emotions. There's emotions that lead to destructive feelings and destructive thoughts and feelings that support your awakening. And I think a lot of the times is we're just suppressing or exaggerating our emotions, and we're forgetting that expressing and exaggerating are two of the same coin. Right? Two sides of the same coin. So, you know, again, a long answer to a powerful question. But I think ultimately, when we're talking about the world, there is suffering. The observation that there is suffering, there's the human condition, there's a lot of pain. And then you look at the statistic. The ACE study talks about 62. I like to say 2/3 of the US population has experienced trauma. And as a Buddhist, we say, you know, that the other one third, they're just not documented. Everyone has gone through stuff. We all have baggage, you know, and all these practices, all the stuff we're doing is just like moving the stuff out of your bag. Like, can we get this backpack to be a little bit lighter? And what can we put in there? Could it be joy? Can it be wisdom? Could it be compassion? You know, could it be Sahara's books? Could it be my books? Could it be things that support you to be your highest self, to let the heart lead?

You know, so beautifully said. I love that analogy of we all have the backpacks. What do you want to put in yours? And you can swap things out. You know, you could have a sticky relationship with a parent, and maybe you do a little bit of work on that so it gets a little bit less sticky. You know, maybe your hand is not like getting absorbed in there every time you think about. About it. So now you can think about it without as much trauma and stigma around it. Then next time you can you clean up a little more and clean up a little more and. And, you know, and I think that people need to know that it's not instant and he's not. What Saw and Buddhism are not saying is like, oh, well, you just choose your emotions. So if you're sad, that's your fault. You chose that, like, experience your sadness, experience it shows up. But I think a lot of people where they have an issue is how much do I experience the emotions I'm feeling. Jealousy, sadness, anger, whatever. And when do I know to stop and then choose happiness? Like, when is it, when is it bypassing and when is it not? So what do you say about that?

I love this. This is a huge.

Of course, we're just going deep on this one.

I love this one. You know, and only you truly know. You know, I think that's a big thing. It's like what I tell all my students all the time. It's like, when is enough enough? You know? And one thing I say, it's like, would you rent the same horror movie and watched 200, 250 times? It's your choice. Would you replay that painful memory in your mind 250 times, a thousand times? Or would you revisit a couple times and say, I've learned, I have grown, I have regret, I have forgiveness. I'm becoming the next best version of myself. I'm letting my highest self. I'm letting my heart lead the way. You know, I think spending too long on anything, you know, it's. We ruminate. When you ruminate, you know, you know, scientifically, it's inflaming our body's chemistry. It's creating more routes in the, in the mind for more of that to prevail. And what comes down to it, it's like, yes, feel the feels, experience the emotions, but then choose to say, you know what? Oh, wow, that was really heavy. That was really intense. But the question is, what do you do as it arises? Do you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by, and be overcome by it? In Buddhism, there's something so beautiful, it says, it's like, experience it, but don't drown in them. You know, like dip your feet, get to know the water, get to know the texture, get to know what's going on. But then are you going to go deep into that water every time? You know, do you need to get, do you need to get into the bathroom, take a shower with all your clothes every time? You know what I mean? It's like, no, it's okay to just touch the water and feel like it's warm or it's freezing cold with just the tip of your fingers, you need to get under the full shower. And I'm hearing myself say this for the first time now, but I think it's only, you know. But the question is this. Take an inventory, an inventory of your emotions. How often are you sad? How often are you Happy. How often are you in. In a state of envy or jealousy? Or how often are you. I just like, like really mopey. Take an inventory and then realize, okay, do I want to live this life for how much longer? Or do I want to choose the path of freedom, the path of love and wisdom, compassion and joy? And then we need to recognize this there. And this is where the line and your question leads to this beautifully. But it also leaves you, the listener, to figure this out for yourself. It's like each and every time a thought of sadness comes up of this, like, let's think of a feeling of hatred, right? Something very heavy or fear, as a destructive emotion arises, it comes with all of its family, right? It comes with all of its, like full on friends. And what comes up? All of your painful memories. It comes up all of these destructive thoughts. And then what happens? You not only are believing the feeling of hatred to be who you are, then you're believing these thoughts, then you're believing this painful memory, and then you're immersed. Each time you believe a thought to be the truth of who you are, you're planting more of these seeds. You're watering the seeds of hatred within you. Remember, we have the garden of our mind, right? I talked about being the master of your garden all the time. We have all these seeds in the garden of our mind for all the our best qualities that lead us into our hearts, that lead us into our highest self, to use our vocabulary, or the ones that lead us backwards, that keep us in a state of fear, that when anger and hatred and doubt arises, we have no way out. But we are going to take a shower with all of our clothes again instead of just touching the water and feeling like, oh, oh, honey, it's cold. It's freezing cold. So the real question, the real lending for you listening and for me has been when is enough enough? When can I like, realize that what I'm experiencing is real but not true? That is the real switch. It's real because I'm experienced, but it's not true because it doesn't define who I am. And that is a very rooted in Buddhist psychology. It's real, but not true. We realize the thoughts, feelings and emotions, they're real because we are experiencing them. We're not neglecting them, we're not avoiding, bypassing them, but we're not exaggerating them and we're not suppressing them. We recognize, oh, it's real. Oh, here's Bianca. I call my inner critic Bianca. Oh, Bianca's back.

Oh, and she's minus Beatrice.

Oh, Bianca's back.

The double V's.

And they're back, honey, and they're in full power. They took over Mariah Carey's megaphone and they're on the stage, they're guiding the whole show. So it's real, but it's not true, because what, the whole internal chaos is happening. It's not true because it doesn't define my day, doesn't define my tomorrow, doesn't define my month, doesn't define my life. But when we allow ourselves, when we give in to destructive emotions, what happens with your perception of yourself in the world? You believe that's who you are, and you believe that your entire day and tomorrow, next year, whatever, will be that. And then every time you do this, honey, you're watering those seeds for more and more of that to grow in your garden. Then guess what you're doing? You're creating a garden of. Of redwood trees. Massive, ancient, huge trees. There are. This represents anger, this represents fear, this represents doubt. And then you can't go in there with a garden scissor and. Or a lawnmower, you know, you need to bring a chainsaw. And what. How do you get a chainsaw? By then choosing, you know, choosing to, like, feel the fields, but not give in. Giving in is the key. Being overwhelmed by is the key, you know, and you can only have spacious awareness when you train the mind. That's the real thing. And the Buddha said, you're going to be able to notice a feeling arising before it has even manifested. Oh, that is so juicy. You know, because. And Buddhist psychology says the feelings arise first, and then thoughts populate, and then the. The whole reactivity circuit takes place. We see, speak unkindly, we act in ways we regret. Right. So it's. When do you become a witness to the whole process? When do you become aware that it's all happening and it's training the mind, right? Concentrating the mind. That's why meditation is such a huge part of what I teach. Concentrate the mind every single day. And when you do that, you are actually able to see the reactivity circle playing out. You can see, oh, this feeling leads to these thoughts, these thoughts leads to these words, these words leads to these actions. I actually am choosing to not do any of that today. I'm going to go here.

Mm. I love that so much. Thank you for the analogies. I think that really hit home with a lot of listeners right now. I'm sure there are a lot of, aha. Moments like, oh, shit, I've been watering this red tree for a very long time, and I want the roses. I don't want the anger tree.

That's right.

So what I have actually noticed is sometimes, actually quite often, anxiety is a blessing because it's a warning sign. The thing that I'm getting anxious about is a boundary that I have not in place or is not being met or a need that I have. And I feel like sometimes it's easy to brush it off and be like, I don't want to feel that way, but it's actually showing up. For you to look at it, maybe, you know, something with a friend, they keep on triggering something within you. Like, if you can take that anxiety and take action on it, I see it as a blessing. Where I see most people do is they never take the action, and it just lingers, lingers, lingers.

You said it. You said that this is. This is tantra right here.

So how is this tantra?

Because you're using the energy of anxiety, which is a destructive emotion, to transform your internal world, to transform the external world. You're using triggers as a pathway to wisdom, you know, and you said something, and I was like, closely to. I was about to. I had just released a meditation on using triggers. And I remember. I don't know exactly what you said, but you had left your bag on top of a car.

Yeah.

Or something like that. Did that happen?

Yeah, I left my wallet on top of my car, and I drove off and someone stole my wallet and tried to, like, open up all these credit cards with my id. And it led to, like, you know, that happening. I had to go to the DMV and change things. And then I found out I had a parking ticket. It was unpaid, and, like, led to all of these things that kept showing up. But actually it ended up being a physical manifestation that I wasn't being on top of my money in my life. I just wasn't checking my bank statements and this. And I was like, well, whatever, I'll deal with it later. That's right. That spirit literally had to take away my wallet, so I would have to go look into all of it. So, again, that trigger was the blessing.

And what I remember watching being like, this is so perfectly genius, what you said. You said it's a redirection. That's the word.

Rejection is the redirection.

Exactly. And that was so freaking deliciously like, oh, my God. So perfectly stated. Because it really is. When we are experiencing negative emotion, we're experiencing triggers when life is throwing us all the stuff it's like, how can we use all this to wake up more? How can we use all this to bring about to develop our qualities?

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When anxiety is here, we literally give in and we plant more seeds and we water all the seeds instead of like, how could I use this energy that's like really like a pit in my stomach and cluttering my view? How could I pause right now? All right, this is making me feel like this. What do you do in the moment? You can dance, you can breathe, you can write, you can call a friend. You can take inventory what's happening inside. You can really use that energy to create. You know, how do you use destructive emotions as a pathway to creating something powerful back into the world? And most important thing that I say this often. You only get to keep these gifts, these learnings that you have. Once you share, you know, it really requires you and I'm not saying to step into the role and go, go off and and like I need to teach this right now, but share with somebody else. I say this so often. It's like people are like, oh, I want forgiveness, I'm seeking forgiveness. And I'm like, okay, if you're having a hard time with it, what do you know about forgiveness? Share with somebody else. That person experienced forgiveness. The eyes in our face are not seeing that we've been forgiven or forgiven taking place, but our heart knows, you know. So if you're feeling anxious and you're like, okay, let me check in with somebody else, you know, let me See how, Let me see how X, Y and Z is doing right now. And in that very moment, what you're doing, you're liberating too. Sentiment beings from suffering. You're connecting two beautiful hearts out of the mind into the higher self into the heart place, you know? And this leads me to something else. I just want to share briefly about when I was at the bottom of the pit and one of like, the darkest depressions that I've had. I had this like, beautiful connection with one of my teachers. And it came as a vision. And I don't. I don't usually share this so often, but it came as a vision. Amma, Amma G appeared to me in my mind's eye. And what the vision was like, you want to get out of your depression? Go serve. Go be of service. And I was like, okay, you want me to stop being selfish right now and thinking that my well being is the most important well being in the entire world, that I need to prioritize myself, that I need to be. It has to be all about me. You want me to change that and go off and help people? Okay, fine. But first, it wasn't that easy, right? I needed to sort of redesign that mindset. But when I did show up to the park with all these homeless people, what that did for me, it literally was like walking into the garden of my mind and ripping away all these old weeds that had me hooked and believing that depression, that. Believing that my mental illness and the suicidal addiction were who I am and I was never going to be free of them. As I walked into the park and I made sandwiches and I wrote loving notes on the brown bags for them and I gave it to them. And it was painful. That process was very painful. I didn't want to do it. The depression was so debilitating that I was in. I was like, literally almost like paralyzed by my mind. But the fact that I did it, every single action that we do, you know, that's not necessarily for our well being, but it's for the well being of others. It's liberating you, honey. It's liberating you. So I walked into this park and I'm giving these sandwiches to these people. And it was a 45 minute experience, but it was like, like, you know, 15 years of therapy that happened in 45 minutes, you know, And I don't know how I got talking about this park, but it really is like, how do you transform negative emotion? Oh, you're talking about the anxiety. How do you transform negative emotions into Creativity. And I think when we came here for your birthday, you talked about this, you know, transforming that energy. No, we're not necessarily negative energy, but our preconceived idea, the sexual energy is negative. How do you transform that into creativity? Yeah. Oh, my God, this is good, honey.

Beautifully said. And I. And I so agree. Of getting out of your own head. I think a lot of us think, well, I'm not healed enough to be able to help anyone else. I need to get to this level till I can share. And it could be to a homeless person. It could be to a little cousin you have. It could be to your local school or whatever it is we have. We don't. If you're listening to this podcast, honey, you have done. Done some work. Like, the fact that you're even in this conversation, this deep in with all of these topics shows that you are someone who has really done a lot of work, and there are 99% of the population waiting to. To hear from you. And again, it doesn't mean you have to, like, leave your job and try to do this as a career, but it could be. Honestly, it's like, imagine if I had a candle and I tried to not show you the light. I would burn myself, right? Imagine if I tried to cover this. This. This light. I'm like, I don't want you to see. It's just. For me, it's. It's the. The fire's not big enough yet. I would keep burning myself and the fire would go out. It's only if I share it. I light your candle. This is how we have a candle out right now. So it just helps me see it. But it's so true, because then when I light your candle and look, a candle, the fire is endless. We can go have thousand of us lighting our candles with that exact same flame. So why do we feel like our energy? This is a thing that I have right now. Know, I don't. Tell me if you agree. I feel like in the spiritual community, there's a lot of this, like, talk of, like, your energy is finite. So, like, be really careful, like, how you use your energy. And, you know, I agree. Like, we don't have. We need a sleep, we need to rest, we need to chill. I'm all about that. But I think that we're spending so much time on, like, oh, I'm not ready, or like, our fragility that we're not going out there. And like, so many people listening to this will be like, I'm an empath. I can't help homeless people or. Or whatever. Right. And I think it's, like, great. Like, we're all empaths. If you're a human, you're an empath. You feel other people's emotions. Part of being a human. So we need to let go. Like, we're. We're using this. We're not realizing it's just as much as that rich person who says, oh, like those homeless people, they're never going to be able to be healed for us to say, I'm too much of an empath, so I can't be around homeless people. That is you not willing to look at a part of yourself that exists in that person, that you being around them is so triggering that it literally makes you weak. And you running away from them is not what's going to make you stronger. It's you sitting with it.

That's right.

And seeing, wow. You have the same hopes and dreams and visions as I do, and that expands what is possible for me too.

Oh, my God. This is so bereal on so many levels. And this leads to the. The trigger as a redirection. Right. And I say this so often. People message me all the time. You make me so happy. You're such an inspiration. I love you so much. I'm like, boo. Yes, thank you. I appreciate all the support. But the truth of the matter is the seed of happiness is in you. The seed of. Of inspiration is in you. What you're seeing in me is in you. You're saying that I make you happy. That's not the truth. I'm just a little bit of.

Or when they say goals, I'm not your goal. You're your own goal. Never put your goal on someone else.

That's right. They see you as a goal because they have that within them.

Exactly.

They are. They what? They're inspiring in you. They have it in them. And that's something we really have to. This takes us to this next stage of, like, being completely accountable for your internal world. No one can make you feel anything. And that's a huge. That's a very difficult thing in a place where. In a culture where we're. We're sort of told to.

Well, I'm triggered by you, because this and that. And it's like, yeah, I think the communication is really beautiful and speak your truth, but at the end of the day, you're in charge.

You're in charge, Boo. You're in charge. And you're only going to change your triggers when you sit with them and you recognize that this person is simply a gardener. They're not the master gardener, but they're literally just a little bit of water into a seed that is a within you. You get angry when this person does X, Y, and Z. The seed of anger isn't in you. They're just a little bit of water. They're just a little bit of sunlight. You know what I mean? It's that simple. And same thing with a homeless person. If a homeless person triggers you. And I was saying this. I was sharing this the other day on my stories. It's like, how often do we see somebody anxious at a coffee shop, or we see somebody in fear at a restaurant or whatever it may be, or someone biting their nails or talking to themselves, and we are like, oh, my God, I like you. I don't want you in my life. We shut down. We don't expand our hearts. We don't open up our. We don't really awaken in your vocabulary. We don't want to awaken our higher self to be like, oh, wow, here's a human being with the same hopes and fears that I have, really wishing to be free of suffering, really wanting to be happy and have all the cause of happiness. And in that very moment that you say, I don't have anything to help you. I'm gonna turn this way. The very moment you close your heart, you're watering those seeds. More and more of those seeds within you. In that very moment, if you can expand and open up. And what do you do? I'm not asking you to sit in front of them, be like, hey, boo, what can I do for you? You know, I'm not asking you to do that. I'm asking you to simply drop into that moment. Notice that the seed has come up, up. The seed has blossomed. The baby, the dormant seed has become a sprout in your mind, right? Anger, fear, hatred. Ugh, you're gross. I don't like you. You're this, you're that. Your anxiety is triggering me. I need to go away from you in that very moment that you can pause, breathe, awaken your higher self in your language. Or my language will be awaken your heart. Drop into your Buddha nature. Send them a blessing. That's all the offering, that's all we're asking, is for you to just say, hey, I recognize that you have the same hopes and fears that I do. I recognize you have the same potential that I do. May you be happy. You could just say, may you be happy. Maybe fear of anxiety, whatever it may be, and what you're doing is you're sending a signal. It's rippling to the entire field where they're all connected to. And if you're doing this and you're hooked up in a scientific lab, you know, you have your. I forgot the name of the machine, but EEG scans, mri, whatever it may be, the research shows that what's happening in your body's chemistry, it's being upgraded. Blessing people, it's actually blessing yourself. Why would you not do that? Why would you choose to be hooked on a negative emotion? Why would you choose to be hooked on a destructive emotion? Why do that? Become a blessing factory. As you're walking on the street, bless everybody. What happens with that? You enter into a state of. I like to call it a miraculous estate, where, like, gratitude, awe, and wonder become a default. You're no longer seeing people. You're no longer zooming into people's flaws. You're seeing people's beauties. And then what happens with that? You see your own beauties and you celebrate your beauty and you celebrate your success instead of the other way around. This and then leads to the next thing. When you're on Instagram, you're only seeing people. They're better than me. They're doing this thing, or, I don't like this about them. They're this, they're that. In the other space, if you're coming from this blessing mindset, from this miraculous default, you're literally on Instagram, or whatever it be in life, you're like, oh, my God. I celebrate all your successes. I rejoice in your beauty. I rejoice in all the merit that you've accumulated for yourself, you know, because nothing came about to be just like a snap of a finger, honey, it. Sometimes people make it seem like it's so easy and simple, but it's not. It's. In Buddhism, we say it's many, many, many lifetimes in the making. Our conversation right now, we've been plotting this for so long, you know?

So if you're listening to this, it's too late. You've already been blessed.

That's right.

We're blessing you. You can't take it back. We love you. We want the best for you. May you be free of suffering.

May you be free of suffering. May you always recognize that you have a choice. You have a choice. And that choice is right here within you. The blueprint of your. Of your awakening is right here at the center of your being. My teacher says it's as close to you as Your eyelashes. We just can't see it because we're so hooked, you know, we're so trapped. We're still trapped in that little part of our garden, that small little area of our garden where we believe to be the whole garden. No, Boo, look around. There's beautiful white roses growing all over you, but you're so hooked in that one little area. Get out of that area. Take inventory of your emotions. How often you in that space, you know? And then I always say to my students, it's like, what do you do to cultivate the best qualities in your life? What do you do? What brings you to that place? And look at your goals, right? When you've set a goal in mind. And then all when you think about, I want to do this thing, and it has all these negative emotions attached to it. Fear, insecurity, doubt, shame, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, great. How do you then look at that goal and see what's on the opposite of these negative emotions? And then when you look at that other page where you drew the goal and you look at the positive qualities that represent the opposite of the destructive qualities, does that make sense?

Absolutely.

And then you create these little pop bubbles of like, what do I do to cultivate courage? What do I do to cultivate creativity? What do I do to cultivate love? What do I do to cultivate wisdom? And then you make a list of things. I'm not saying, go drop everything you're doing. Go move to the Himalayan. Be a monk in a cave. No, Boo. Cultivate courage will be for you to. As you're walking. If you live in New York City, where I currently live, and you walk by a homeless person, don't just walk by them like they're nothing or nobody. They don't have the same potential that you have. Pause for a second and just wish them well. That's an act of. Of bravery. That's a courageous act. You're literally awakening all the potential for your goal to have a completely different set of emotions hardwired to it. Emotions that will set you free.

So beautifully said. And, you know, I often, when I see people, especially disabled people, I'm always, you know, when I was young, I think I got this from Aladdin or something. I always felt like your wishes were, like, you only had a certain amount of wishes or whatever, and it's this, like, finite scarcity mindset that they even, like, put into our heads. But I remember when I would, like, see someone who's like, really Sale, I was like, okay, I'll Use one of my wishes on them, like, may they be well. And now I realize, like, I have infinite amount of wishes and I can keep every single person I meet. So I'm always sending love to people. If I see an old person trying to cross the street or whatever it is, and it, you know, and I don't think that that's, like, where you should stop either. I think you should also donate and be of service and. And that's. Right, of service in as many ways possible. But let that be the minimum of that. You're just blessing everyone you meet.

Say it. Let that be the baseline. Let that be the beginning. And what happens is if you're introducing a new style of thinking, right, and all of a sudden you've. You've been hooked in. In envy and jealousy and hatred and all this, like, misconception about yourself and the world, and you're listening to this podcast and you're like, okay, let me introduce a blessing. Let me become a blessing factory for a day. Let me see what it's like to, you know, the person at the coffee shop. Although I don't want to really engage with her because I'm listening to this podcast in my ears. But, like, let me pause for a second and just like, hey, you know, in my mind, I'm saying, maybe as you introduce a new set of thoughts, what's gonna happen? You're gonna redirect your mind. As you redirect your mind, as you're creating new path, new pathways in your brain, as you're really uncovering more of you truly are, as you uncovering the qualities of your highest self, as you uncover the qualities of your heart, what happens is the way you speak to people, the way you act around people, it's gonna be mixed with love, compassion, and wisdom and joy. So when you act from that place, honey, be ready to be surprised, because you are. You are in for a freaking delicious ride that is beyond anything you could ever imagine. I mean, honestly. Hello. Like, look at what we've been able to create, you know, by really introducing thoughts of enlightenment, by redirecting the mind, we have charge of our internal world, honey. We do.

We absolutely do. So something that I have been really on a journey to create is to learn from Joy. I realized that many of us and myself, the times that I've learned the most, have been through hardship, through family issues, whatever it is. And I truly believe that it is possible for us to fully learn from Joy. And it's something that I'm calling in to be my reality. But then sometimes I'm met with, you know, an issue in my relationship or whatever it is, and I'm like, why do I keep learning from the triggers and this? And I want. I want to elevate my frequency. So learning purely through love, through dance, through union. Do you think it's possible for us to only fully learn from joy?

That's such a delicious question, honey. Oh, my God, that's a big one. I think we do need to, like, clean up that garden a lot and sprinkle a lot of seeds of joy. Sprinkle a lot of seeds of. Of all the. The creativity. Sprinkle all the. The seeds that lead to awaken our best qualities, the cultivate and develop our best qualities. And then, yeah, it said that the historical Buddha had to cultivated so many positive merits, Right? We cultivate merits. Well, as I translate it to be, it's like spiritual money. Every time you send a blessing to a player, a silent blessing in whatever you're doing, you're cultivating this spiritual money. Your spiritual bank accounts is getting bigger and bigger and bigger, and your karmic bank account's getting smaller and smaller. The negative karma, the things that you hear to purify and grow and learn from, it's decreasing. So it said that the historical Buddha had cultivated so much positive merit in his lifetime that his mindset was always in a state of joy, always in a state of wisdom, compassion, and love. And across the yogic sutras, across, you know, Ayurvedic teachings, it all leads back to that. The source, at its core, at its base essence, is Satchitananda in Buddhism is the Brahma Vihara. It's all blissful, wise, knowing, loving, compassionate, and to then sort of round up in your question. I think we can learn from joy, you know, but what happens is we get too attached to this experience. So we try to hold on to the good feelings the same way that we try to be. We have an aversion towards the negative feelings or some. Some of us have been habituated to hold on to the negative feelings. We do the same thing with the positive feelings. We hold on to them as, like, our utter. Like, this is, I need this right now, and if I don't have it for the rest of the day, I can't do it. But what if we can expand, you know, even wider from that place? And one thing that I. That I recommend doing is that, like, write down, you know, what's coming up for you as you're experiencing a moment of, like, ecstatic bliss. What? Write down what's coming up for you in a moment that you experience ecstatic joy. Because we're so trained to write down what's coming up for us when we are experiencing negative emotions. Write down what's on the other side and think about that and create from. Look what's on that list and then let's work on creating that.

Well, I think the reason when I think about those moments of ecstatic bliss or joy, dancing, sexual union, et cetera, I'm not even thinking about writing. You know, I'm so present in the being that that doesn't come to mind. Whereas when I am stressed out, it's almost like so much for me to be present in that I can't contain it, that I need to write it down to release it.

That's right. That's right. So do have this beautiful moment of ecstatic joy in. In sacred sexual union. And then as you're as that feeling is sort of wearing off, accept it, that's passing. And then see if you can put pen to paper and just like become aware what, what's in here still, you know, what is. What are the family members that come up with when Joy is around? Because we always think of like when a destructive emotions are on, what are all the sisters that come with? Oh, it's anger, it's fear, hatred. And then we write those out as a way to process, to heal, to transform, to transcend, to awaken more joy, love and wisdom. But if we're looking to learn from Joy, then we have to sort of like, you know, become more aware of what is it that comes up when Joy is around, you know, and the most important thing is to not hold on to it as like, I need this to be as it is, otherwise my life sucks. That's a big thing. Like we have completely attached to positive emotions and completely averse to negative emotions. And can we navigate the waves of life? You know, in the Mindfulness Sutra, it's a very traditional Buddhist text, it says there's three main waves that navigate through a mind. Three waves that crash into the shore of our mind. Pleasant and pleasant and neutral. When things are pleasant, we hold onto it. When things are unpleasant, we push away. When things are neutral, we're sort of of, you know, looking for the next thing. And in a moment of choice, your best qualities arise. In a moment of pause, your best qualities arise. So as your pause, as you're experiencing a pleasant moment and you're like, oh, this is pleasant, cute. In recognition that it's pleasant, in recognition that it's that it's making you feel good. In that very moment of awareness and not complete being defined by it, you're awakening your best quality. You know that what happens is they don't. They're not triggered by external circumstances. They're always coming from the inside out. A lot of the positive emotions and negative emotions that we experience, it's gets triggered by circumstances, right? External things or even internal things come up. But the qualities that we're talking about, this moment of joy, this ecstatic joy, love and compassion, wisdom that comes up, it's always from the inside out. You know, happy feelings, negative feelings, they're transient. What's innate, what's unconditional, subliminal. It's the qualities of the hearts, the qualities of the higher self. And that is what we're here to awaken that.

And I think that our vocabulary around joy is so much more limited than our vocabulary around sadness. Right?

Oh, my God, this is beautiful.

Like, we always can say, like, I'm anxious, I'm depressed, I'm jealous, I'm this, like, we have a bazillion words, but we're like, I'm happy. Like, what does that even mean? We don't even know what it feels like. So we look at it at happiness as these, like, gross expressions of happiness. Like, I'm at Disney World. And we're like, that must be what happiness is. And then the mundane of just like, the fact that nothing's bothering me today, we don't realize that we're happy in that time. So then even when we are, like, when it's just a normal day, we're just like, blah, blah, blah, not realizing that we would have killed for this day a couple days ago. So I think us realizing that we aren't like, if you're listening to this podcast, like, you're. You're joyful right now. You're happy right now. You're satisfied right now. I'm not talking about what happened a couple hours ago. Right now you're happy. You're here.

That's right.

And claiming that and recognizing that and then finding the textures of it. You being on a roller coaster is a very different type of happiness and excitement than you just, like, getting into bed after a long day or you receiving mail. Like, but this is all still joy. And we just, again, we look at that ecstatic moment. But that moment can only be ecstatic because it is. Is temporary. Even in ecstatic dance, there's one climax, and then you go back to just fluidity and embodiment and we are craving to live our lives in this climax, you know, and that's what I see a lot that's happening in the law of attraction movement. It's like, how can I be so happy all the time? And it's like, we can't be living on ecstasy pills. Like that's just not how we were designed because our dopamine can't handle it. How can we find joy in even what we would consider the mundane pain?

This is the real offering.

Yeah.

That is the complete awakening of the heart, is bringing the qualities of the heart to everything. And then, and then there's not. The highs are not so high and the lows are not so low. It's. The baseline has changed. The garden of your mind is now, you know, sprinkled with all these. I've say white roses. I don't know if you guys like white rose. Do you like.

I love white rose.

You do, right? And I'm just. Oh, you know. Rose gold.

Yes.

Yeah, exactly.

That is my gold dipped rose right there.

That's right. Oh, I saw it in your birthday. So imagine a garden of your mind, you know, filled with gold roses everywhere. And imagine that that is the baseline that we're talking about. Like this unconditional joy that is as you're just walking your dog, as you're sipping your coffee in the morning, as you're driving to work and it's sun. The sun's coming up.

And not distracting yourself in that moment. Not exactly. Okay, what's going to happen next? Okay, let me check Instagram. Oh, what is my email? Realizing you're joyful right now.

That's right.

And then you stop chasing for it.

That's right. Recognition is the key to watering those seeds. You know, it's okay right now. And simplicity, I think a lot of times, and for me it's been a big thing. As I shared with you on your birthday, it was like, what are my keywords for this year? Is there's no rush. And it's. Simplicity is the key because I think when things are simple, we believe something is missing. We have this like, you know, continuous undertone of being dissatisfied. You know, nothing's ever good enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not this enough. You know, life is not this enough. This baseline of the set of dissatisfaction has. As we change, changing it. And understanding that when things are simple, it's because it's literally wonderful. It's. Simplicity is joyful, simplicity is kind, simplicity is grace. And I'm really like tapping into that more and more into my daily life, like, simplicity is like the way, you.

Know, And I think that we live in a world that's a buffet, right? So even if we're at the all you can eat buffet, I'm like, well, you got the pasta, I didn't get the pasta. Should I be getting the pasta? And it's like your stomach is only this big. Like you can't eat everything. And there's going to be a lot of experiences that you might want to do in this lifetime, but that's not what this lifetime is about. You have to choose what is the most exciting for you, what is the most pressing for you, and give that your all. I think a lot of people, they feel like there's so many options out there, so they just stand paralyzed and they don't do anything. They're just looking at all the never ending buffet. They're like, what if I choose the wrong food and then I don't like it and then I didn't eat that one. And it's like, just have your meal. That's your meal, go for it. And then once that doesn't feel good anymore, have something else. You know, I think we run away from just like that simplicity. If we think about back in the day, back in like ancient Indian stuff, it's like, like I'm a medicine woman and this is what I do. Like I'm a. Whatever. This is what I do. For us, we have this like constant FOMO to everything in life that it keeps us in this perpetual state of dis. Ease, unhappiness, dissatisfaction. When those people, because they didn't even know those options existed, it actually helped them. So it's not that we need to go back in time and like let go of our options. And it's still beautiful to have. Like, we were just like talking about all these different ideas that we have and it's still beautiful to do it. But choose your thing that you really want to be yours. Get to the bottom of it. Like Buddhism for you. Like you, since I've known you now, three years, like you have been like going from teacher after teacher and like really getting to the bottom of this to the point that you're able to have your own interpretation of it. But how do you just like, I don't know, read a couple Instagram posts of the Buddha, like, you would not have been as immersed in this to even realize it at its core. To then be like, okay, there's actually this whole entire interpretation of it that the world doesn't know about. And I did the same thing with Ayurveda. Had I not gone to the roots of it.

Yes.

I would not have been able to be like, well, there's actually this whole other approach. So, you know, this is really an invitation to anyone, whether it is a spiritual lineage or painting or whatever it is. Like, commit to yourself enough to get to the root of something, to really honor it. I think commitment is something that's really like missing and unsexy in our society. And it's again, we're like serial daters and everything in our lives.

That's right.

So get to the root of something. Understand it like even like a human. Like when you understand that human at such a deep level, it's from there you're able to come up with different ways to interact. Like a marriage, a lifelong marriage. You've, you've seen so many sides to that person, but so many of us are like, I didn't like how you cut your toenails. Next, next, next.

That's right.

And, and what is that saying about ourselves that we're not able to look at those quirks or those different parts, parts of ourselves?

Beautiful. Oh my God. Commitment, Such a big thing, the discipline. And it goes back to worshiping your heart, to worship your higher self. That's what we're asking for. Because every single one of you listening, every single person in the world is here for a reason. You are deserving of this earth. And you have a mission here. And that mission is you find your own unique way of conveying love, compassion, wisdom and joy. But back into the world it might be for me, teaching, writing, speaking. Same thing for Sahara. For you might be making jewelry for you might be. I mean, I use this, this example often. It might. For you might be making clothes. For you might be whatever may be that you're doing.

And that's what you did in your past life. You were fashion.

Exactly. Oh my God. So true.

Not to love and magazines.

That's right. And, and transforming that, and making sure that, that once you recognize that that's what you're here to do, that's your way of conveying love, compassion and wisdom back into the world. It's sacred. When I look at that piece of jewelry that you made from that place, although it might not have an om sign or anything Sanskrit related or anything spiritual related, it might just be that because you've created from that place of joy, that place from your heart, the higher self created, the love the heart created. When I see this and when I put it on imagine the imprint that's creating people's mind clients. It's reminding them that they too have that potential. It's reminding them that they too, have something special in them. That's something special, needs to be shared with the world. We need this, honey. We need your magic. As you're listening, we need your magic. The world needs it, like now.

Yes, we do. And something that you shared on my birthday, and we were going around and dancing our intentions. You were saying that this year you want to choose devotion over discipline. And I really loved that because I think a lot of us, when we think of the word discipline, we think of this like this. It's like this hard thing I have to do from the outside. And it's this, like, very masculine texture. But, like, devotion is showing up for your practice not because you have to do it, but because you want to do it. And that. That carries this, like, sacred vibration to it. So this work, this healing work, the forgiveness work. And Sa has so much of it, you know, check out his courses, his meditations. So much. It's like a lot of heavier stuff.

That's right.

But you're doing it in a way that is uplifting it, and it's a sacrament to the divine, and that makes you want to show up for it.

That's right. Say honey, loud and clear. And I love the discipline of Essence Devotion. I think Mia Shed shared that, but I let you rip it because that was so beautiful. And it's something like. As I'm receiving as a teaching too, because, you know, discipline, if it's not so supported by joy, if it's not supported by wisdom, by kindness, by grace, then there's no point doing it. Then become rigid. And then what's going to happen to you is what happened to me years ago. You're going to become a serious practitioner, and you're going to be. You're going to think that being spiritual means you have to be a serious person. And I say this often to my students, if you've become serious on a healing path, turn the all the way, honey. Go the opposite way. You're not uncovering what you're here to uncover, which is. Is joy, which is compassion, wisdom, love, simplicity, and this sense of devotion. You know, we're all longing for our hearts. You know, we're all longing for our hearts. We're all longing for the deep communion with ourselves, with the. With the most awakened part of ourselves. This is what devotion is about, is making a commitment to connect with a part of you regularly. And Again, as the Buddha shared with you. As the Buddha shared, and as Sahar shared with me earlier today as I was telling her about ideas of relocating and how to take my practice to another level. And you do all this work until the point that you could just be in a state of meditation, that you could just be in a state of complete awakening. Your perception is so wide to hold space for everyone and everything. Constantly. You're completely aware of our interdependency to everything and everyone always. That we're constantly co creating reality. And everything we're sharing here, it's because of cause and effect. We're completely the utter creators of our entire. We're the creative directors of our entire experience, the good and the bad. Right. And. And that what you shared is. Is like imagine when you know you walk in a state of devotion.

I think that's the offering I have. Like, I'm like, I have so much I want to talk to you. I will have to have you on the podcast again. But guys, Saw has been such a dear friend of mine. Three years ago. I thought it was five years ago because it feels like.

It feels a lot forever ago.

But it was definitely early 2017, like, beginning of the year.

Oh, my God, yes.

When I joined Moon Club and you were the first webinar that they had done. I don't even think I really watched the webinar. I just saw you. I was like, I need to become his friend. You know? And you hadn't even fully stepped into your sassiness at that point. Like, you were carrying it on a personal level, but it wasn't part of your work.

It wasn't.

You were still in that more like Buddhist teaching route, but I could just. Just feel it in your vibration. And then you invited me to come to the yoga and science conference because Ed Stern had invited you. And then that's when I showed up late. And Deepak Chopra walked on stage and I walked up to him, which led to the forward of my book. And then I remembered, then I met you. I was like, I just walked up to Deepak Chopra and did it up. That's right. And I have the postcard still, because we went to lunch after and your friend Pacha wrote this postcard that says, welcome to the table. And the mark of the date is the day you met Deepak. And I'm like, so grateful that I have that. But you were the angel in my life, because had I not connected to you, I wouldn't have been at that conference and I wouldn't have Walked up to Deepak Chopra and like, so many ripple effects after. And now I'm just so grateful that he was definitely like our teammate in a past life because now you're working with him and connecting with him and we're both going to be teaching on his retreats together. And it was just like, oh, my God. Own, like, past life relations. I'm like, I'm so curious what all three of our lives were. We were on the step squad.

Yeah, that's right. Oh, my gosh.

So I always consider you just like such an angel on my path and someone who I truly consider a soul brother. I feel like if I were in a male body, I would be you. And, you know, having you at my wedding and it connecting you back to your Lebanese roots and, you know, and the healing of that. And I'm just so grateful for our friendship.

Thank you. Same here, my love. Honestly. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you you so much. And feeling is mutual. And if you were in a male body, honey, I'll be all over the aisle.

So where can listeners connect with you? Follow you, take your courses. All of good stuff.

All of it's on ig, all of it's on Instagram adisimeone. I put all the links there and you can just find all the courses there. And, you know, all the amazing stuff. Right now there will be the transform your inner critic into a healing ally course, which is an amazing, red hot, powerful, delicious course. And the extremely popular one, which is the shifting from a mindset of scarcity into a mindset of abundance. Both courses are, you know, really playful, very rooted in contemplative psychotherapy and Buddhist psychology, really bringing you everything that I've learned to transform my life to share in a way that's like, relatable and digestible, that you will feel empowered to become your own powerful. You know, we. The. The tattoo that I have in my left arm is become your own refuge. You know, take refuge in your heart. Take refuge in your higher self. So you. All the ways that I teach, and it's really to empower you to step into that role and make change in your life. Because, you know, life is short, you guys, and it's beautiful and it's delicious and you're. Please stop hiding your magic.

Yes. We need you. Well, thank you so much for being on the podcast. And funny story, guys, we were at Bali Spirit Fest this year and we started a torque team.

Oh, my God, that's crazy.

So we started a twerk team and we were just like us and Our friend Vondana, who's been on this podcast too, we were, like, just twerking. We were inspiring so many people and bringing so much joy, because even Bali Spirit Fest has that spiritual, serious vibe to it too. It's like a lot of people who are there to, like, get very deep into the kirtan, and we were just like, having joy and fun and being playful, and it was just so beautiful to share that experience with people. But then also see how it gave so many other people permission to just get a little bit more wild and expressive and playful and childish for themselves too.

That's right. Oh, my God. My God. This. And did we go up to this guy and said, we're part of this professional twerk team?

Yeah. And he was like, I need your guys business card. And, you know, and it's like, things like that of just like. We were just. We didn't plan this. We just literally started improving. And then we were like, twerking in the cafeteria, and it's just like, you know, I feel like that's what we need more of. Like, back when we were like, you know, kids, like, we kids in general would just make up a character, and like, suddenly I talk in a British accent, and then you go from there, and we don't. We just don't do that anymore. And why did we stop, you know, having accents and trying out different characters? Why are we so stuck in just ourselves? I'm sick of it.

Stopping with this fixed identity. Like, allow your surprise yourself. When you surprise yourself, you allow other people to surprise you too. Oh, and that is so beautiful. Oh, my God, this is so delicious.

Yes. So just come hang out with me and Saw. We should do like a retreat workshop, meditation, ecstatic dance, all the things.

Oh, my God. Yes, yes, yes.

So let us know if you want that.

Yes, I love that.

Thank you again for being here.

Love you, you. Thank you.

Such a good one. I hope you love that episode. Sa is one of our expert guests in Rose Gold Goddesses. So if you're interested in learning more and diving deep in a workshop with him, head over to Rose Gold Goddesses. You will see it right there. Rosegoldgoddesses.com the link is in the show notes and be sure to check out Saw's Instagram where he is dancing. He is such a delight, Such a pleasure to be around. I adore him so much and I'm am so honored to be able to support him in this way. If you loved this episode, I would love to send you a free gift which is the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your Mind Body Type. This is a different book than Eat Feel Fresh, my first book ever which is not released anywhere and I am gifting it exclusively to those who leave a review of my podcast in the itunes store. So all you got to do is head over to itunes where you may be listening to this podcast and leave a review. Take a screenshot that you've left it and email it over to me@saharaetfeelfresh.com again that's Sahara S A H A R aattfeelfresh.com and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book Eat Right for your Mind Body Type which goes all into Ayurveda, doshas, plant based nutrition, body types, all of the things in a really fun and engaging way. So this is my gift to you for free for supporting the podcast. Every single review I personally read. It really helps the podcast be listened to by more people so we can raise the vibration of the planet together and I am so grateful to have you on this journey. Thank you so much for listening and I'll see you on the next episode. Namaste.