347: 30 Lessons in 30 Years with Sahara Rose

Namaste, it's Sahara Rose. And welcome back to the highest self podcast, a place where we discuss what makes you your soul's highest evolvement. I am so excited to share with you today's episode because this is an annual tradition I do every single year on my birthday, January 14th, and that is my number of lessons from that number's birthday. So this year, it is my 30 lessons that I have learned in my 30 years. So my birthday is January 14th, and believe it or not, this is the fourth of its kind I have done on this podcast. I started this podcast when I was 26 years old. So we have had my 27 lessons in 27 years, my 28 lessons in 28 years, my 29 lessons in 29 years, and now this is my 30th, and I hope I have my new 90th and 100th lessons in those number of years. So now that the numbers are getting a little high, I wanted to share with you kind of the top major lessons I have learned this year, because, you know, 30 lessons is a lot to get through. But really, when I was writing them out, I was finding the common threads of what were the lessons that kept showing up in many different ways. And I want to share them with you. So without further ado, let's dive into them. Number one, Embodiment is the new mindset. This is my new motto, guys. Embodiment is the new mindset. What this means is I've really had this realization, especially this year, of writing my fourth book and, you know, like, really leading a business for the first time, stepping up as a CEO, as a leader, and just being so in it, and realizing that we're at this point of our evolution, especially with just the quarantine and everything happening and all the different media and different information out there, that it's not serving us in the highest way that we have become so addicted to more information, more information, more information. But what we really need is embodiment. You know, I talk about the five stages of the dharmic journey in Discover your Dharma, my new book. But one of the things I speak about is how we realize from stage two to three that I'm not my mind and body that need to be improved, but rather, I am a soul that gets to be known. So what that really means is when we come at it like, oh, you gotta change your mindset. Mindset is everything. Mindset, mindset, mindset. It's almost saying that you are your mind and you're not. Your mind is a tool that you have. It's like this calculator that exists inside of you. And what it's good at is remembering things, gathering information, looking at patterns. We need the mind. It's very important. But you are not the mind. And the mind is not what's actually going to transform you. If an experience is still in your body, it's going to continue to show up for you. The body actually holds much more information than the mind. The mind is, in a way, it's very new, it's much newer in our evolution, especially our lower brain, as I speak about in the book. But it's really just based off of survival. It's based off of how do I look at the things that could potentially get me endangered and, and obsess over them until I get away from them. And back in the day it was, you know, lions and tigers chasing us, but now it's, oh my God, someone wrote a bad comment to me on Instagram. So that's all I'm going to think about. Because the mind is acting like that is something that's not safe for you. So it's going to obsess over that. But actually it doesn't mean anything around your safety. It's just an angry person projecting their insecurities on you and, you know, vomiting it out because they can't hold it to themselves. Like that's actually what it is. So, so when we try to just do the mindset, mindset, mindset, mindset, we don't go deeper than where does this live in my body. Where in my body feels unsafe, where in my body feels like if someone doesn't like me, I'm not going to be able to survive, I'm going to be violated. Where is that? Living in the body. And cognitively we're not even going to be able to move past this because many of these experiences we are not even consciously aware of. They come from our childhood, especially the formative first three years of our lives. They come from our ancestry. Epigenetics is entire scientific modality that really goes into how trauma can be passed on with our DNA. For example, if your grandmother experienced a trauma, that's actually going to show up in your cellular makeup now. So the mind cannot know grandma had a child, marriage. And this is why I'm afraid of, you know, a man taking away my freedom. The mind doesn't know that, but the body feels it. The body may feel every time someone tries to come close to me, I suddenly push them away because that's a body based experience. So the body, in a way, carries codes much, much deeper than the mind cannot. I am not saying get rid of the mind. I'm not going that far. The mind is a great tool, but it's a tool, as is the body. It's. It's. The point of it is to move past both. That's really what we came here to go back to. Infinite source consciousness, which is what we really are. But we have spent so much time, our entire lifetimes, focusing on the mind, the education system, our career system, our media system. Everything has been about acquiring information, which essentially means that you are nothing without getting this information. But it's not about the person that acquires the most information is the happiest. It actually comes to. Are you embodying that information? You know, you could read a new book every single day or take one book and really, really embody it and see what you're gonna get further with. You know, when I wrote Discover your Dharma, that's why I made it like a workbook. Because the greatest lessons that you are going to learn about are the ones that are going to come from your soul. The experiences that you have directly, the realizations that come through your channel. So this is why embodiment is the new mindset. How can we move past the mind, the ego mind that says, I'm not enough. I need to get this. I need to be that. I need to go over there. Over there is happiness. It's not here. And how can we enter the body into how we feel, into what is our lived experience, into what is the language our body is speaking out to us? What does the tension over here mean that I'm holding? How can I let my body speak more than my words, my tone, the way that I express, the way that I energetically hold space, because that's really where the communication is coming forth from. So I could really go so deep into this. It's something I'm very passionate about. But that is my big, big lesson of this year. Embodiment is the new mindset, which takes me into number two. Dance is the greatest healer, unifier and uplifter. So this year, when the quarantine first began in March, everyone was really fearful, you know, myself included. And we didn't know what was going to mean. We didn't know how long it would be for. We didn't know if everyone we knew around us would die. You know, my mom and my brother had Covid at the time. I thought that they might die. So we were all at this really, really fragile place. And we were all. I could speak for myself and many of my friends spending a lot of time on the news, trying to figure out what's happening, trying to read enough articles, stay up to date on all of the things, and new news that was contradicting was always coming up. We were all very, very confused and we were glued to our phones. So something deeper within me came forth, right that first week of quarantine said, you need to get people to start dancing again. So I went on Instagram Live every single day, I want to say the first month of this quarantine, and I danced on Instagram Live. I played different songs, from tribal music to hip hop to reggaeton to Brazilian funk to dancehall, all sorts of music. And I didn't. I wasn't performing, I wasn't doing choreography. I was just dancing and bringing other people on the live and dancing with them and inviting people to put their phones on their bookshelves, on their tables and get up and get into their bodies and release. Release the pain, release the tension. Release whatever you are holding onto. Don't think about it. Don't try to figure it out. Let it go. Dance has always been how we have healed as a collective in Rwanda. I remember, I think I've told the story before, but after the Rwandan genocide, the US Government sent a bunch of top level therapists and psychologists and psychiatrists to work with the people who had went through this very, very traumatic event. And after a few days, this specific village they were brought to actually kicked them out. So the government officials were like, wait, why did you. We just brought all of these top level psychiatrists, psychologists, therapists to you guys and why did you kick them out? And they said, oh, no, no, no, I think you brought the wrong people. Because these people wanted to take us away from our community and have us sit in a dark room by ourselves and keep talking about what happened in Rwanda. That is not how we heal. We go under the sun and we gather in circle and we hold hands and we drum and we dance and we tell stories. This is how we heal. And I really want this to sit with you because look at the way that we think healing is supposed to be. To keep talking about what is wrong, keep going into it, keep going. Now, there is a time and place for therapy. There's a time and place for talking things out for sure. And is that all we have done? Is that our way of dealing with every single problem, to just keep talking and talking and talking about what happened? When's the last time we Danced it out. When's the last time we sang it out? When is the last time we let the sun just permeate through our skin and heal us from a cellular level and just released it? And I invite you to look at your own relationships with these different forms of healing, these ancient forms of healing that, because of racism and patriarchy, are not taught to us anymore, which is something I talk a lot about in Rose Gold Goddesses, my community. But we, long story short, because of colonialism, they, you know, saw the different ways people were healing in shamanic cultures and Middle Eastern cultures, Latin American cultures, and said that this is barbaric and this is no longer allowed. So shamanic practices, shaking, healing, ecstatic expression, orgasmic birthing, all of these different forms of healing were no longer allowed. They were considered barbaric. You could go to jail for doing them. So we have actually been stripped from our most natural forms of healing that we think that it's slutty or shameful or sinful or wrong for me to be in my body, for me to dance, for me to scream, for me to shake, for me to twerk, jiggle, shimmy. These are very natural expressions of the body. You know, if you ever watch National Geographic, the zebra is running away from the lion. Finally makes it breathes, shakes, releases, it goes on to eating its grass. So when is the last time you gave yourself a really good shake? When is the last time you let your hips tell you what to do? When is the last time you let your body guide you, not your mind. You surrender to your body's movement. You lived in the experience rather than thinking about it. You know, we talk so much about meditation as a society, how to be an observer of the mind. Dance. It will instantly take you out of your mind. There is no trying, There is no forcing, there is no pushing. It will just bring you there. And every single human on the planet can dance and actually enjoys dancing. We were built, we were made to dance. It exists in every single culture. Even cultures that have never had contact with the outside world have their own forms of dance as well as music and song. So what is your relationship with it? Do you think dancing is something that you only do on stage if you have a six pack? Or is it your daily form of healing practice? Because that is what this medicine is here to do. And this year in the quarantine, I felt so called to create my healing and embodiment through dance course, where I dive deeper into this why we are so ashamed of dance and our bodies and our physical Vessels and why they carry so much, you know, tension and trauma and contraction. So I created this course for you guys right from my home that includes. It's a three and a half hour long course that talks about how your body wants to move, what that says about you. Are you into more rigid movements, circular movements, static movements, flowy movements, what does that say about your energy? And then follow along dance practices you can do to create circular undulation, shaking movements within your body to bring ground, different forms of energy. So you can find that on the show. Notes rosegoldgoddesses.com Dance and it's also included in your Rose Gold Goddesses membership. So dance has been something that I have loved to do my entire life, but it was something that, you know, I was busy, I had, I had work to do, I had books to write, I didn't have time. But this year was really the year that dance was my daily spiritual practice. Not a day went by that I didn't do some form of dance. I have been sharing it more than ever online, whether it's through my Instagram reels where I do little fun like dance routines, or whether it is just through those lives that I was doing through my DJ sets that I was doing the course, et cetera. But I am no longer afraid to show that side of me. And this year has really been about integrating myself in my fullest expression. You know, my former self had a lot of fear around that. I was afraid that, oh, if people saw me like dance or twerk or belly dance or something, they wouldn't like me or they'd think that I'm not real or I'm slutty or this or that. And I had all of these stories that were told by me instilled in my mind by the patriarchy, growing up in that kind of environment. So, you know, I was so afraid of expressing that side of myself. And I remember a couple years ago I went to this TOR class with my friend Paul and he shared a video of us at the class. And I was mortified. I was so embarrassed. I didn't want him to share. I didn't want people to know. But then he was getting these comments like, oh my God, like, love seeing you guys dancing. And I started to get messages like, oh, cool. And like, I love to dance too. And that helped me see that I was safe. You know, like the body thinks if I show this side of me, I won't be safe. What does that come from? Okay, it comes from back in the times of the village when we were all in this village together. If there was a person that we did not like, if we ostracize them from the community, that person would no longer have access to food, water, shelter, et cetera. So we actually have, again, this body based experience of if people don't like me, I might be ostracized. And I may lose my access to the things that keep me safe. That is why we are inherently very concerned about our reputation. So when he put up that video and I realized I was safe, that gave me a little bit of courage to, okay, well, maybe if I shared all my story and I would put on my story, I would delete it after 10 seconds. Next time I would put it up and I would delete it again. And then I'd put it up and I'd keep it on for longer. And I would realize I'm safe here. And now if I share this much, I'm still safe here. And if I share this much, I'm still safe. I'm still safe. Then I realized it was all just an illusion. And those very people who might have been triggered by it are actually the ones who are the most inspired by it. You know, you're not triggered by something that's not striking a chord somewhere within you. So if you are triggered by my expression, that probably means it is a reflection of your own expression that you haven't fully embraced yet. So what a beautiful permission slip that I am giving everyone to show themselves how to embody their fullest expression, whatever that looks like for them. So I think a lot of us right now have this fear around. If I show this part of myself that I am shameful of, I will be canceled. You know, this was the year of the cancel culture, which I am so against. It doesn't allow people room to grow and it doesn't allow for conversation. I don't want to give this conversation to that. But really what it comes forth is I don't want my peers or strangers on the Internet to dislike me. And, you know, you gotta be okay with some people not liking you. You gotta be okay with triggering people. You gotta be okay, you know, the people who've made the biggest changes in the world were the most hated at the same time. So whatever it is that you're feeling called to share about yourself, to express in discovery of Dharma, I have this practice of your five uncomfortable truths and sharing the things that you're the most ashamed about and how those are actually the most integral parts of your dharma. So own those things. And for me, I further stepped into it more and more and more and more. And it has let my people find me. And that's really what we're all here to do. We're here to embody our fullest expression, just expand our beautiful peacock wings and let our people find us. So the third lesson of this year was stick to your vision. So, you know, in writing a book, it is a quite interesting experience because you have your. Your idea of what should be in the book, what should the COVID be, what should this part be and that part be, Especially when you have, you know, like me, I have been blogging for. In years. So I'm. I've always been, you know, the person making the decisions, choosing. I mean, I don't have anyone else to run it by. You know, it was just me. So. So writing a book, especially in this experience, was so different because there are all these other people who have, you know, their editors and people who choose covers and this and that. So, you know, it really has taught me to really stand up for what my vision is. If I want to express something in a certain way. And I feel very called to that, to not succumb, which might be the easier option to just be okay with it and on, but to actually be like, no, like, I want this to be in the book, or I want the COVID to look like this, or no, I'm not going to water it down for mainstream media, or I'm not going to, you know. Yeah, like, get rid of the sacred essence of this transmission to make it more mass appealing. So it has been a lot for me around sticking to my vision of what I want, what I want to express, and how my channel wants to come through. And I am fine, what with not being, you know, for the average American, that is totally cool with me. That's not my Dharma. So it took me, you know, definitely amping up my warrior side. And that brings us into lesson four, that sometimes you do need to step into your warrior mode. So for me this year, you know, of the nine Dharma archetypes that I write about and discover, your Dharma warrior is my last one. It's not one that comes naturally to me. It's not one that I like to be in. My father was very angry growing up and would have really bad bouts of anger. And I think for me as a child, every time that there was anger in the house, I felt very unsafe, I felt very fearful, and I felt, like, responsible to be the person to calm him down. So I don't like that type of energy. It makes Me feel very unsettled. I don't feel comfortable in it. So, you know, my life, I have been able to kind of navigate past it or, you know, be in the spiritual world where there isn't so much like intense warrior, like combative, like Wall street energy. But this year, I definitely really had to make friends with my inner warrior. I had to step into it, put out many fires, especially around, like, website things and hiring and hiring the wrong people. And I just majorly had to boss up, figure things out, create solutions, just, like, be in my MF boss mode. And I also had to realize that I was stepping into it way too often because I didn't have the right team in place. So I didn't have the right support that could put out these things, who could handle it, who could finish things. It was just kind of like people trying and not being able to finish it and then me having to step in. So it really helped me realize how important team is. Which brings me to number five, finding aligned team. So, you know, I remember, like, hearing about podcasts out team when I before I had a team, and I was like, I wish I even had that problem. So I know what you mean. But I do want to share because I do think it's good to know because team has been such a huge lesson for me. I think before I had any type of team, team meaning like contractors, employees, et cetera, I always felt like, oh, if I just had a team, like, my life would be so much better and so much easier and like, all my problems would be solved and I would have people to, you know, do all these things that I'm doing. The website, the back end, the tech, the. The emails, the customer service, like, I was doing it all for, you know, 10 years. So for me, team has, you know, it has been a really interesting challenge because it's not like you just hire people and then it's like, all gone, you know, Then your next set of challenges comes, which is finding the right people and, you know, managing them and putting systems in place and keeping morale up and people leaving and then having to replace them and having better communication and things not being done and you figuring it out and it being, you know, all of these things that I'm like, whoa, okay, this is what it's like. So finding the right people, speaking your truth, speaking your needs, and also investing in your best, you know, like, I think for a lot of us, like, you know, for myself, I didn't have money. I didn't have money to hire a team. I Would just, if I could, I would just hire like the cheapest, like va, you know, being honest, because I didn't have any income. And then I would start to, you know, hire, you know, a little bit, a little bit more, A little bit more, A little bit more that now I actually feel brought my first full time employee in, which feels incredible. And someone who, you know, is amazing at what they do and very experienced that I can like really pay well. And that has been such an amazing upgrade to be able to have people living their dharma around you who aren't doing it out of, you know, desperation or out of like, they're not sure what to do. So they're just kind of like doing the side thing for you. But like people whose true dharmas are to work, you know, in a supportive role with what you're doing, whether it's, you know, the managing or the customer service or whatever else it is. But that has been so major for me. It definitely was a lesson I probably learned a lot later than I should have. But this year for me, like, business wise, it has been the year of figuring all of that out and being, you know, first time CEO. So I am so grateful now that I have learned a lot of these lessons along the way and for, you know, a more grounded 2021 where I could be more focused on my personal Dharma and not you. So putting out all the fires that it takes when you're running a business. So number six, don't worry about the future. I went down the rabbit hole this year, guys. I did. Did any of you when I'm talking about rabbit hole? I mean, when you are seven YouTube videos deep into some shit that you don't even know is real, when your body is fearful and you're like, oh my God, has my entire life been a lie? Those. You know, I have never been like a huge conspiracy person. Like, I think sometimes we label things conspiracy that are just things that mainstream media doesn't want us to believe in. So I never even resonated with that word. I think that sometimes we could put other, other genuine theories down by calling them conspiracy. But there are also some conspiracy theories. Like, there are also some things that are just like completely made up, that are very obviously used to manipulate people, to put them in a fear based space and then give them a solution, which is this person is now the savior of all of it. And anything bad that has ever happened, it's this group of people. Anything good that has ever happened is this one great person. Y' all know what I mean, and this one great person, by the way, is really, really rude to everyone. A racist doesn't pay his workers in Bangladesh and literally has human slaves. Watch the Vice episode on that. So I think this year really taught us a lot about boundaries with social media, to not believe everything. And it was interesting because I think my biggest scare actually came right in March. That was like when everything was hitting from all different directions. But I had some friends that were really down the rabbit hole and they were sending me all these things like, oh my God, the power is gonna go out for 10 days. Make sure you have like propane and all this stuff. I'm like, I live in an apartment. I don't know how I'm gonna make a fire in here, but I don't know what to do. Or like, the American currency is going to be gone or like we're not going to be able to leave our houses ever again. And like just all of these worst case scenarios and when you're in a very fragile, vulnerable state like we were in, especially in March, April, it's a lot easier to believe in these things. And it can put you in a very, very fear based panic attack state. So I definitely learned my lesson of not giving into that, not giving into these false agendas, not giving them my power, you know, because the more and more we give them our power, the more and more we're actually, you know, co creating it to be reality as we know, whatever we put our energy towards manifests. So if we don't want that, don't give it so much attention. All these people go, my purpose is to be the truth teller and bring down the agenda. And like, fuck the agenda. It's like, okay, all you're doing is raising all of this awareness and all you're talking about is this agenda, agenda. What's your solution here? You know, and going back to your Dharma is your solution. You creating the type of world that you want to be in. You committing to something, you creating sustainable change. You know, reposting some on your story is not making a difference. Let's be real, y', all, it's not making a difference. What's making a difference is you committing your Dharma. You creating the world that you want to be a part of. You finding joy in doing it so you can keep doing it even when things get tough. And you can actually create an experience, a school, a product, a community, a something that can actually make the world a better place. The most courageous thing you can do. And truthfully, the only way we can change the world is by committing to our dharmas. You know, for example, I created my community rose Gold Goddesses, 2000 Spiritual soul sisters there every single day, having really incredible conversations, supporting each other, helping each other really blossom into their fullest expressions and elevate as their highest selves. And this is how we make a change. You know, this is how I have been being called. Someone else may be called through a certain supplement, Someone else may be called through a school or through a coaching practice, or through a product or whatever else it is. But it's not about, oh, I'm going to give up my power to whatever this YouTube video that by the way was created by a person who probably has some sort of agenda wants me to do, but rather you committing to something, giving your life to it, giving your energy to it, it being aligned with your purpose. That's how we're going to make a change. So I think most of the world is just not at that state even quite yet to realize that it's not about consuming the most amount of news. That's not going make you, you know, change the world. It's actually about holding your vibration, seeing clearly enough to focus that energy now on your dharma. So that has been what I have been doing. And it feels so good to have reclaimed my full sovereignty, my full power, and to be completely out any of those rabbit holes, any of those sticky miss agenda E things that they also have no solution for. And if it's so bad and everyone in the government is going to do this thing, well, then what are you gonna do? You know, it's like none of the things they said that were gonna happen have happened. So why should we keep trusting these sources? I am not saying blindly follow mainstream media either. I'm just saying commit to your fucking dharma. So number seven, focus on your present day reality, not what the media is dictating your reality as. So piggybacking off of the last point, it can be so easy for us to continue to find more things that are wrong with the world. There are an endless amount of things wrong with the world. And by the way, that didn't start this year. That started since the beginning of time. There has always been that. You just haven't been aware of it. Maybe you weren't watching the news enough, but the news has always featured bad news. I remember when I was a kid, oh my God, what's going to happen with Elian Gonzalez? Elian Gonzalez, Elian Gonzalez. Okay, now Princess Diana, what's going to happen now? This bonet girl is Missing now this. It's always been something bad in the news. I've never just like. I mean, maybe sometimes there's a segment of like golden retrievers finds his owner after he comes back from the military and they like have an amazing hug. Like, that is the rare. The rare little clip they throw in there sometimes. But 99% of it is. Is fear based because you're going to get hooked. When you are afraid, psychologically, you are hooked. You can't focus on anything else. You have this blind spiraled vision that all you can see is this thing. So that's why they actually use it as their tool. So focus on your present day reality. Focus on what is my day to day life. How can I make that better? How can I make it more aligned, more authentic? Don't tap into, you know, I was finding myself. Oh, my God. And what's happening over here? Oh, my God. And over in India. Look at what's happening in India. Oh, my God. But the restaurants put the this, but the that, but the bath with that. Yes, that's all happening. It's very real. Very real. And if you're not going to go out there and make a difference in that specific thing and commit your dharma to it, then you stressing out about it is not helping those people. You crying about the people dying of starvation is not what's going to feed them. It's you feeding them that is. So let's get to action. Yes, it's natural to have a human response. Yes, I would consider myself an empath as well, but I don't use that term to hold me down. I've done an episode on this, I think so many of us. But I'm an empath. I'm an empath. I feel things too much. No, you need more boundaries. You need more energetic sovereignty. Because we can always have an excuse of. But someone else is having that experience. It's like, so you've mastered your own experience, but because someone else is having your own experience, it's not your fault. It's that person's fault for having a bad experience that's making you feel this way. We gotta take ownership. No, it's not them who's having the bad experience that's making you feel bad. It's your leaky boundaries. It's your inability to harness into your own body and ground into your experience that you are letting all these other people's experience dictate your own. That's a personal issue. Again, I've had it. Had it this year. We all have it sometimes, but I'm calling it what it is. So let's give up blaming the world, blaming the outside, blaming the external, because everyone had a very, very different 2020, and that was according to how you perceived things. So we get to choose. What's this year gonna be? The best year of our lives or the worst? You get to choose. And by the way, the same circumstances can happen to two different people, and their experience of it can be very different. So it's not just your circumstances. You know, my husband lost his company this year. He works in the music business, and it was still one of the best years of his life because he was able to go further into his own truth, his own dharma. We were able to move. So you never know what's awaiting you on the other side. You know, something I write about in the book, sometimes the worst thing that can ever happen to you is actually the best thing that can ever happen to you. For me, being disowned by my family, it ended up being the best thing that could ever happen to me. Because I learned how to believe in myself. I was able to create a life that was authentic to me, not someone else. So let's give up the waiting for our circumstances to be perfect for us to be happy and reclaim that sovereignty that fucking hurts because it requires us to be responsible. But I'm saying this as a sister who loves you, who wants the best for you, who wishes. Someone said this to me earlier, but you truly create your own experience based off of your perception. And that requires you getting into the energetic states to allow you to see clearly, to feel clearly, and to act clearly. Oh, so the next one, your healing work with your family is never done. And some of the most important work you can do. So, like I mentioned, my mother and my brother had Covid back in March, and I was really afraid, mostly because my dad, who is 69 years old, soon to be 70, lives with them. And my dad has health issues. And I was really worried that I would never be able to see him and he would die. So first of all, that's listening to the news because the news made us feel like every single person is going to die. And it also prompted me to do a lot of healing work. So like I said, sometimes the worst thing that could ever happen is the best thing that could ever happen. I really looked into, you know, and I've been looking into this most of my adult life, but further into my relationship with my father, who I've spoken about, who I was not close with, who had anger issues, who has narcissism and, you know, the gifts that he has given me, you know, the lessons that I've learned, all of the things that I wish I could have said to him, all of the things I wish that he could have said to me. And I went deeper into this healing work. I did something called the Sacred Letter Practice, which I teach in rose gold goddesses of. Of writing messages and channeling them back and forth to us. And I cried a lot. Like, sobbed. Cried like I've never cried so hard in my life around the stuff that was coming up for me, around the anger and the sadness and the guilt and the nostalgia and all of it. And I'm so grateful for this work that I did because it was some of the clearing that I really needed to step into the next iteration of my Dharma and my expression. And my dad did not end up even getting Covid symptoms and is still fine today and alive. So I'm so grateful that you know that experience. You know, though I wasn't sure if I would see him again, I have ended up being able to see him again. And we had a really deep, intense conversation. And it's going to continue to be like that. And it's never perfect. It's never going to be in anyone's lifetime. But sometimes these scary experiences can prompt us to look deeper into our life and our choices and our backgrounds and our histories than ever before. I also did family constellation work, which is a kind of healing that is based off of looking at your relationship with your parents and their relationship with their parents, and looking at the patterns that may have come from their upbringing with your upbringing. And then that was extremely healing and profound for me to finding just more. More reconciliation around the whole thing. And I'll do an episode with the family constellation healer on here for sure very soon. But it's not about, oh, you know, everything was perfect. It's about I realized that this happened and I let it go. And just to live your life too. So that was very helpful. And then I could have never imagined that just two months ago. I want to say that my family agreed to do their own family constellation work too. So they each individually did their own family constellations healings to do work with their parents relationship and seeing how their grandparents reflect on their parents and them. So full four lineages of healing work that was done this year that would not have happened again had it not been for that Covid scare. So again, sometimes the worst thing that came to you is the best thing that can happen to you. And I'm so grateful for that experience to just create more congruence with my family life and less of the stickiness or less of the ugh. Like, I don't want them to visit more just genuine love and appreciation. And they don't have to be a certain way for you to love them. You can love them as they are. So the next lesson, and I'll do maybe two more, is that you can live anywhere and you don't have to wait to move. So we moved to Miami this year. It was something that I, you know, always fantasized about, but I didn't even know if it would ever happen. My husband's business was in la. He works in the music and, you know, Moving out of LA seemed like a maybe 10 year plan, but not anytime soon. So this year when his office shut down and everything was closed out, this gave us the opportunity to move. And I'm so grateful that now I'm recording this while, like looking at the expansive turquoise blue ocean from Miami, Florida, which would not have happened had it not been for all of these changes. So I really believe that we're setting the grid in all of the different places because we are being called as sun beings to share our lights there. So so many of us are moving to the woods or the forest or the mountains or the beaches or different countries or wherever it is that you're being called to really plant. You are setting that light grid exactly there. You are being that lighthouse that's activating and awakening everyone around you, not just physically, but also energetically. So I'm so grateful to have been called here, to have my own office for the first time, which is so cool and to be able to set the grid here and continue the light work and continue the embodiment of the sun. So the number 11 is whatever you love about travel, bring it to your home. So this year we could not travel, of course. And I really looked at what were the things I love about Bali like? Bali for me is my happy place, my soul's home. I love it there so much and, you know, I still can't go. So what are the things I love about it? Okay, well, I love just the way, like the earthy tones and the textures and the sacredness and the plants. So I created my home to have that like Bali and Tulum experience. So think about what are the things that you love. Maybe you love Paris like you love like a Parisian cafe. Can you redecorate your kitchen to look like that? You could find so many things. Thrift, you know, used so many places right now that have incredible things. You don't even have to spend a lot of money doing this. It could just be like revamping things you already have, setting it up in a way that you love. But I think this year was really the year of the home, you know, starting with your root chakra, starting with where are you sleeping and waking each night? Where are you spending your days and really paying attention to how important it is. I think in our former lives, we were very on the go. The home was just the place that you slept, and then you got up and you were at the office all day, and then you were at, you know, dinner and this and that. But now we are really in the home. So it's looking at how can I create this to be the most supportive environment for my growth? So what are the elements I love? For me, it is the earth element and the water element. Those are the elements that I'm calling more into more grounding and more just fluidity. So being by the beach, having those elements within me, and that brings me into the next one, which is also doing the things that you love to do, especially. Especially love to do as a child or love to do when you're traveling. So when, you know, Covid really hit. For me, I think that first two weeks, we all, like, found some random passion project that we really wanted to do and we didn't have time to do. For me, it was acrylic pouring. So acrylic pouring is when you have those, like, that cup of all those different swirly paints, and they all, like, you know, glide with each other, and you, like, splash it onto the canvas, and they're all swirling, and they're creating all of these different, like, colors. And then you pick up the canvas and you tilt it in different directions, and it forms into these. These beautiful, like, kaleidoscope, like, sways and swirls. And maybe you've seen these videos on YouTube, but it's something I got really into this quarantine, so I really kept looking out, okay, what did I love to do as a kid? I loved to have a new art project. Like, that, for me, was my happy place of just having a new art project. I could make my own soap. I could make my own stained glass. I could make my own necklace. And, like, how exciting that experience was to make something with my hands. So I have been doing a lot more of that. I have been weaving macrame. I have been making dream catchers, just making things with My hands again, the macrame is quite a longer process than I would have thought. It's a good, like, if you want to, like, sit and zone out, just, like, weave some macrame. And then also I love to do, like, funny skits. As a kid, I love to, like, dress up and, like, play karaoke and, like, pretend to be this character and that character and makeup scenarios. And then in high school, I did improv. And I've always loved just that, you know, very spontaneous side of myself. Like, I could never memorize a line and be in a movie, but, like, I could probably do, like, Saturday Night Live. So I have been loving TikTok and I wanted to say I'm very, very grateful for TikTok this year because it has given me so many laughs. Like, so it has made me feel like I have been part of this community, which is kind of weird to say because it's online, but I feel like with everyone just quarantined and in their homes and on top of that, moving to a new place. What I love about TikTok is it's like these trends that everyone's doing at the same time, and you see different people doing it and adding their own spin to it, learning about different cultures. And, you know, sometimes it's this, like, interesting African dance trend that's going on, or it's this Chinese fashion one or it's this like, certain funny thing. And, yeah, like, finding out nuances of different cultures and subgroups that I wasn't aware of and, you know, making these TikToks and putting on the different outfits and coming up with a different scenario and, like, using the song and like dancing along to it. And it's like, it really put me into that childlike state and it's something that I have genuinely loved to do and has brought so much joy into my life. So I want to say thank you to TikTok. And I have been putting a lot of those TikToks on my Instagram reels too. So some of you guys have been seeing them and it's been very therapeutic, to be honest, and very grateful for that. For this year. 30 year old on TikTok. I would have never thought you told me that last year, but here I am. So the next one. This is a little bit of a. This is a little bit of a heavy one to end on, so maybe I'll do one more after. It is making friends with death. So this year, my grandmother died around beginning of April, so I could not see her. We could not Have a funeral for her. And I was quite close with her. I've spoken about her on the podcast. She was the one in the child marriage. And, you know, she pretty quickly just, you know, she was older. She was 93 years old, I want to say. So she was definitely older, but just quickly transitioned. Within a month, died. So she died. My grandfather right now is in the transitionary time out of his body. And it was actually quite tough because he was really reaching low points right before my book came out. And I was really fearful of what if he dies on the day of my book launch and then my family getting Covid. So death was on the forefront of my mind a lot this year. And I've actually really had to go into it. What happens after death? Why are we so afraid of it? Accepting that one day I will die, my husband will die, my dog will die. Like, going into that, not avoiding it. And, you know, I think death is one of those things that you just kind of don't think about. You just kind of like, know, yeah, we're all going to die one day. We say that all the time. But do we really think about that? Do we really think that, like, all these things I'm working so hard on and stressing about and, you know, holding onto such attachment are all gonna be gone? Like, this is just a glimpse, it's a blink, and I'm gonna wake up and be in another lifetime. So I have been really going into death, and it has given me much more joy of life. And the things that maybe would have bothered me before just don't bother me, because I just know this is just a temporary illusion. And one day we're all gonna die. So it really is true that the deeper that you can make friends with death, you can make friends with life. And all of these different experiences I have now been in with my grandmother and now my almost my grandfather dying, it has helped me see that, you know, you're really left with how you made people feel. That's it. You don't take any of your money, your accomplishments, your success, your resume. None of that goes with you. When you die, all people will remember is how you made them feel, the impact you have made on their lives. And it's just further recommitted me to that. To that passing along the torch, to the empowering others to live their dharmas. You know, what's to come this year for me is something the world really has never seen before. To empower others to. To not only live their dharmas, but to help Others find their dharmas too. I'll leave it there. But, you know, the reason why is because I am thinking far beyond my lifetime. I am thinking like legacy. I am thinking not just legacy in terms of my ego, but in terms of what do I want to leave the world behind with? Because I hope. I am. My grandparents age when I die or older. I hope. But I don't know. Could be today, could be tomorrow, could be next week. So to not let that run your life, but to have that on the back of your mind of do I really want to waste this one precious lifetime stressing out about this thing that someone said to me that just didn't sit with me, right? Do I really want to spend my time doing this, or do I want to focus with what I'm going to leave the world with in after this very, very short lifetime? So number 14 is that ritual is so important. So this year, having rituals was such a sense of peace, clarity, purpose, and joy in my life. Just having different, you know, even just small rituals by myself, of it's a new moon. I'm gonna, you know, put out my crystals or flowers or do this ancestral ritual for Samhain. And, you know, I really, really committed to practicing every ritual possible this year. And that was the beauty of having more time, you know, before maybe, oh, I can't. I can't really do anything for the full moon or new moon. I got this to do. I got that to do. But now it's like we have that beautiful luxury of time and space and ease. What a gift. So giving yourself that time to set your intentions, to set your altar space, to bless your goddesses or your cards or whatever it is that you're working with, and to make life a ritual. So I loved doing so many different rituals and practices. I did womb rituals, ancestor rituals, manifestation rituals, Mary Magdalene rituals, Isis rituals, Yemaya rituals. I mean, every single month in rose Gold goddesses, I'm doing a ritual with the community and diving deep into that goddess's medicine. So it has been so incredible to really be in that ritualistic state and reclaiming this lifetime. For me, as a serious ceremonialist, I am here to create ceremony and to guide people through transformative rituals, to connect them and embody them deeper into their own truth. So to be able to sit in ritual and offer it to, you know, the 2, 000 members in rose gold goddesses every single month and then commit to my own ritual practices through my home, through, you know, people that I'm connected to and us to Gather not to just talk, but actually to sit in prayer and meditation and honoring for the collective that has been very, very powerful. So number 15 is I've really realized more than ever, you know, your. Who your real friends are. I think that in our former world, we were just kind of going around like, oh, you have that friend, you see an event, or you have this person there, and, you know, that's all fine. But I feel like, at least for me, I have a four in my human design, so I'm very community focused. So I was just like, there's always like, oh, I need to text that person back. Oh, I need. I haven't seen that person a long time. There's, like, always this thing I needed to do in terms of, like, oh, I need to reach out to that person. It's always this. This, like, to do list of, like, social interactions. I don't know if anyone's felt like this before, but I'm like, or we haven't talked in, like, four months. I need to, like, do like a meetup or something, coffee date with this person. It was almost, like, stressful. You know, I actually am naturally, like an. More of an introvert, I would say I'm kind of 50, 50. It depends on the scenario. But I definitely recharge by being alone. And, you know, the first thing when these cancellations happen, I was like, oh, God, okay. It gives me a little bit of breathing room right now. And then it really showed you, like, who's gonna actually put in the time to meet up with you on a zoom call, to send each other voice notes, to fill in each other on what's happening with your life? Like, who are the people who you're actually gonna spend that time doing that with? And you want to hear theirs, too. So, you know, I kind of just have a handful of really close friends that I'm in this conversation with, like, almost all the time, that we're very much keeping each other up to date with what's happening in our lives and, you know, sharing and connecting and supporting and, you know, I kind of have, like, bit of different groups with that, but a core set number of, like, real friends and, you know, to honor the ebbs and flows with other friendships. You know, some friendships that I really, you know, didn't see or, you know, that other person didn't really put the time to commit to. And that's okay too. You know, people come in and out of your life. So I think this year really showed us who are our, you know, our quarantine Friends, who are the people who when times are tough and sometimes you're like freaked the fuck out, you know, and like, who are the people you can like send a voice, 7 minute long voice note to you about like everything happening in your life and is going to like listen and hold that space for you. So I am so grateful for those friends. I actually have two of them visiting me right now for my birthday, which I'm just so grateful for. And, and yeah, I mean I definitely do miss the socializing and meeting new people, etc, but at the end of the day it's like your closest friends that you know, when you die, those are the ones that you're going to really remember. So it's to continue to cultivate and deepen those friendships and not be afraid about doing that work. And if you don't have those friends, I totally get you. I didn't even have them the first couple years that I lived in la. And that's again why I created Rose Gold Goddesses. We have groups in, in basically every city, globally at this point. So you can actually find other spiritual sisters in your town and your city or even in other cities based off of topics, based off of interests. We have our new dharma support circles going on, so you'll actually be able to connect with your dharma support circle. So you can put together a group of four women who will be able to do a zoom call every two weeks where you talk about what's going on with your dharmas. You support each other, you give each other guidance, and you can actually find these women in Rose Gold goddesses. So if you want to learn more about that, head over to rosegoldgoddesses.com the link is in the show notes and join us there. So there are other lessons for me. I'll just end with this last little tidbit on that because it's sort of the direction that I'm going in this year. This year for me has been a major year of womb awakening. Entering into the wisdom of the womb. The womb being our house of intuition for the feminine being, our body based gnosis. That means our internal knowing. You know, going back to the first point, away from information and into embodiment, into trust, into the beingness and letting our bodies, our womb spaces, our sacral and root chakras guide the way. So I have been curious about womb work definitely in the past, but this year it has been like a front center. Like how I felt with Ayurveda when I first started to learn about it, how I felt with Dharma How I felt with, you know, many spirituality concepts, past lives. That is how I'm feeling about womb wisdom right now. And anchoring deeper into this body based knowing whether it is womb meditations, the ways that the patriarchy has taken womb based, you know, wisdom away from us in many different societies. The book Womb Awakening is a wonderful place to start on all of that. So this year I am deeply studying womb magic, womb wisdom, womb gnosis, and it will definitely be in the next iteration of my dharma, along with the dance. Dance as a form of healing, as a form of prayer, as a form of meditation, Dance really guiding us forward into this new paradigm where we feel and express rather than think. And again, no shame on the thinking. I definitely think a lot too. But what we're being called to do right now is to move past the logical mind and into this knowing. You know, our womb created all life. Every single one of us has come here from and through a womb. There is not a being on the soul that is not from the womb. The womb is the holograph of life force. It literally is the portal between two worlds. It takes the unseen into the scene and manifests it into physical form. Each and every one of us created the very cells of our being through a womb. And also each of us have existed in our grandmother's womb. So when we tap into our womb space, we heal whatever has been sitting in this cauldron. Collective traumas, pain stories, past life work, lineage trauma, all sorts of things that has been sitting in our womb collectively from generation after generation after generation of not doing this work. And right now, we're, we are being called to look into this cauldron and clear it out and take what serves us, take the gifts and the medicine from our ancestry and release what is menstruate out what is not serving us so we can create more of that holy nectar, the amrita, the majesty, the creation of life, and let ourselves usher this next iteration of what is to come through the sacred vessel of the womb. Which, by the way, even if you don't have a physical womb, we all, male, female, non, binary, have an energetic womb. So this is where I am heading this year. More of the dance, more of the sacred feminine, more of the embodiment, more of the Shakti. My word for this year is embodying my full shakti. So shakti is, for me, it carries a different frequency than divine feminine. When I think of divine feminine, I think of very light, pure. I actually think very white, to be honest, yin, soft, which are beautiful qualities. I Mean, not that white is better than any other color, and I'm not white, but it has this very pure, pure energy to it, which, again, great, but that's not the energy I'm trying to call forth. The Shakti is like the full throttle Ambrita, the woman and her orgasm in her creation and her glory in her heart space, in her power womb. Just like opening her legs up to the cosmos and letting it drip through her entire being. That is what I think of Shakti. I think of the goddess with her tongue out and she is just so full force going towards her dharma, not letting anything stop her, but she's doing it with her hips and her curves and her movement and her feet are dancing through this cosmic web of life. Life. That is what I think of Shakti and this is why it's my word of the year. It is moving into the vibrant heart space, the womb space, into the fullest expression of what our feminine beings can become. Not, not limiting them to be the soft and sweet and light and sensual role. But like, she can be a badass and she can be wild and she can be a kid, expressive and loud and courageous and all of it letting all of the spectrums of the feminine into the picture and letting it be juicy and exquisite and bold and brave and delicious at the same time. So this, to me, is what Shakti energy is all about. And this is what. This is my word of the year. I have been practicing a lot of tribal fusion belly dance, which is my. One of my favorite forms of dance, which is a collection of different forms of dance, from Odissi Indian dance to Balinese temple dances, to pop and lock with different forms of belly dance, Egyptian cabaret style, North African style, Lebanese style, Persian dance as well. So I have always, you know, I started belly dancing when I was very young because of my, you know, my family. But I actually first started performing when I was 15 years old. I performed at my. At my 16th birthday. And it's just always been such a huge part of my life. It's how my body naturally wants to move. It's very like serpentine and the shimmies and the layers and the undulations and yeah, letting that be my daily practice. Letting that be front stage. Letting that be how spirit channels and moves through me and heals and refines and restores and recalibrates and renourishes my system and letting my body be my poetry. So these are some of my 30 lessons in my 30 years. I am so grateful for you. If you are some. Someone that has been listening to this podcast for the past three and a half, almost four years. Please shoot me a DM because I want to thank you and if you are new to this podcast, what a beautiful place to start. Love you. Thank you for being here. And we are going to have a beautiful year. This is going to be truly the year that we step into our dharmas more than we ever have before. And we do it with ease, we do it with flow, we do it with love, we do it with vibrancy. You know, let's not hustle our way to the top and sacrifice ourselves and hurt ourselves just to get there and get the accolade. And then what? You know, let it be juicy, let it be fluid, let it just ooze out of you like an orgasm. Let yourself orgasm your creations, because this is how life was meant to be lived. So if you have not yet, check out my new book, Discover your Dharma, a Vedic guide to finding your purpose. If you have not gotten it yet yet, or if you have gotten it yet, be sure to submit your receipt over on my website. I am saharrose.com Dharma you can submit your receipt over there. I have all the links for Amazon, Barnes and Nobles books, a million wherever you get your books internationally. And I will email you over three epic bonuses which include my Dharma embodiment practice to dance your way to your Dharma, bring yourself to be an energetic alignment for it, my Dharma tapping practice, which will actually help you tap and remove energetic stagnation that's holding you back from your Dharma as well as my discover your Dharma meditation. So these are all available for you when you submit your receipt on my website, iamsaharrose.com Dharma D H A R M A the link is in the show notes and I am so excited to share this book. This book is literally my life's work. It is my soul, is my story for the first time, my story with my family, the obstacles that I have faced, the lessons I have learned, all of it. If you loved this episode, you got to get the book. You're going to love it. It's also available on Audible, so you can submit the receipt there as well. And I'm so excited to just share this message with you at this timely moment in human history where we are collectively for the first time in modern history, really asking ourselves what is our purpose and how can we find our highest form of joy with our highest form of service? And this is what living our dharmas is all about. So check out the new book Discover your Dharma, the link is in the show notes, and I'm so excited to share it with you. Love you guys. Let's rock this year.