107: Using Meditation to Stress Less and Level Up with Emily Fletcher

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who, at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Meditation is a common theme with the top performers I've interviewed on Leveling Up. Over the hundred interviews I've done, all of the guests have listed some form of meditation as a must in their practice for achieving success. Today I interviewed Emily Fletcher, who is the founder of Ziva Meditation, and she's a leading expert in meditation for extraordinary performance. Join in today and learn exactly how the once overstressed Emily Fletcher. Fletcher leveled up and created everything from nothing with Ziva Meditation. Today on Leveling Up, I've got Emily Fletcher here, the owner of Ziva Meditation. And I am so excited to talk with you today because meditation is a heavy theme amongst guests that I have on, but I know most of my listeners are not quite there yet. They're not all meditating. So I am so excited to talk with you today, Emily, because I am assuming even though you've got this calm focus about you as I'm talking to you right now, I'm assuming that's not always who you are, and maybe you weren't born meditating and having that vibe.

Welcome.

Thanks for being here, and take us back to who you were before that.

Yeah, so I had a pretty different life before. I was a meditation teacher. I was on Broadway for about 10 years. I did 42nd street, the Producers, Chicago, A Chorus Line, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. It was super fun. But my last show was A Chorus Line, and my job was to understudy three of the lead roles, which means you show up to the theater, you have no idea which character you're gonna play. So, you know, sometimes you're just chilling in your dressing room, and then someone gets on the loudspeaker and is like, emily Fletcher, we need you on stage. So you start panicking and, you know, anyway, sometimes I'd be on stage and finding which character I was gonna play. And so it was. Some people are very good at this job. I am not one of them. So I was living my life in this constant state of anxiety and fight or flight, and that led to insomnia. So. So I couldn't sleep through the night for about 18 months. I started going gray at the tender age of 27.

Wow.

Then started getting sick and injured. And it was really confusing why I was living my dream and miserable.

And you think you're being healthy because you're on Broadway, moving around, being active? I would assume so, yeah.

I mean, I mean, like, look, I was healthier than the average bear. You know what I mean? Like, yes, I was dancing. I was doing eight shows a week, six days a week. But, you know, it doesn't matter how much you're moving. If your brain is in constant fight or flight mode, then you've got adrenaline and cortisol running through your body. And that can really wreak havoc on so many different things. And it was confusing because I really thought that once I achieved this dream, my whole life would be perfect. And instead it was like I was rocking myself in fetal position, listening to Eckhart Tolle on repeat. And so anyway, long story short, this amazing woman was sitting next to me in the dressing room. She was understudying five of the lead roles and crushing. And I was like, what do you know that I don't know? Yeah. And I rolled my eyes and didn't really believe her. And so I just kept having insomnia, kept going gray. And then finally, I was so embarrassed about my performance that I thought, I have to try something. So I went along to this intro to meditation talk. I liked what I heard, signed up for this four day course. And on the first day of my first course, I was meditating. Now, to be honest, I had no idea what that meant.

Yeah.

But I was in a different state of consciousness than I had ever been in before. I liked it. And then that night, I slept through the night for the first time in 18 months. And I have every night since. And that was 11 years ago.

Oh, my gosh. Okay. I want to dive into this more because this is so relevant even for me. So selfishly for me. I've got a lot of questions also. So I get what you're saying there. Like, I'm that type A. I'm that go, go, go. And know a lot of my listeners are too. And I also get that there are benefits of meditation and I struggle with it. Now, I do know what you're referring to. I've been in that state of different consciousness and I'm like, this is incredible. And then I sleep amazing and I have all kinds of awareness. It's incredible. I struggle getting myself to that frequently. So then I give up. So I Would love to dive a little bit more into that. Like, because that. I don't know that that happens for everybody. That it's a quick process. So how did. Do you think that worked for you? And then how do you coach people through that? Like, how did they get into that state?

Good question. Because I think you're right. I think most people who like, try quote, unquote meditation are not necessarily accessing that state of consciousness and they're not receiving the types of benefits that I did. Because in addition to it curing my insomnia, I then stopped going gray. I was going gray in my 20s. I'm 40 now. I have one gray hair. It was legitimately going gray over a decade ago. I didn't get sick for eight and a half years.

Oh, wow.

I was like, this thing is not a joke. So I left Broadway, went to India, and then started a three year training process to teach it. And I've taught over 20,000 people to meditate now. And it's not just like, just sit down and close your eyes and clear your mind, because that's what a lot of people think. And then of course, they're not getting results from it. And then of course they're gonna quit. Right. Frustrated. And they feel like they don't have time.

They're doing it wrong. They think they're doing it wrong. So why.

Yeah, and like, I dedicated my book to anyone who has tried meditation and felt like a failure. It's like, you're not a meditation failure. You just haven't thought yet. And so the real secret sauce here is that you want to make sure that you're doing a meditation style that was designed for someone like us, someone with a busy mind and a busy life, versus a type of meditation that was made for a monk. And where this gets confusing is that most of the quote unquote meditation apps out there, like a lot of the free apps, a lot of the YouTube videos, a lot of the drop in studios, are actually teaching what I would call mindfulness. So mindfulness is derivative of a monastic practice and it's very good at dealing with your stress. And then now I would define mindfulness as the art of bringing your awareness into the present moment. Which is beautiful.

Guided meditation would do. Right. Because you're listening to a story and you're being present with that.

Exactly. Like someone's guiding you through. You're directing your focus in some way. Very good at creating a state change. Like if you have a headache and you take an aspirin, it creates a state Change.

Yeah.

Now, the type of meditation that I teach at ZIVA is all about creating a trait change, right? So we're actually going and healing the body on the cellular level. And this style of meditation is very good at getting rid of your stress from the past. Okay? So mindfulness, very good at dealing with your stress in the now state. Change, Ziva. Meditation, very good at getting rid of your stress from the past. All that stuff that gets stored up and accumulated in your cells over time. And ultimately that's creating a trait change. It's increasing the white matter in your brain. It's strengthening the corpus callosum. It's increasing neuroplasticity, it's increasing neurogenesis. It can reverse your body age BY Somewhere between eight to 15 years. And I know that's talk about a lot. Relatively new science, actually. The woman won the Pulitzer two years ago for her book the Telomere Effect. And she's basically researching how stress shortens your telomeres, which is the thing that's directly responsible for your DNA health. And so if your telomeres shorten and weaken, then your DNA strands unravel quickly, which affects your body age. So with meditation, you're basically strengthening and lengthening your telomeres, which I like to think of them as like the casing of. On the end of your shoelace. You know, if you had a shoelace, a little plastic cap at the end, and if the plastic cap comes unravel, then your shoelace unravels. Yeah. That's what telomeres are to your DNA. And if your telomeres are weakened and shortened by stress and they unravel, then the DNA strand can unravel.

Oh, wow.

Anyway, so the thing. The point of the story is that this is not just like, a cute, like, fun thing to do when you have some extra time. You know, like, this is some serious, like, mental hygiene. This is like taking your brain to the gym. And the impacts of this and the benefits are, like, almost limitless. So, anyway, point of the story is that I think that I had such a dramatic experience because I actually took the time to get trained and to be trained. And then what I do with my students is I walk them through a matriculation. You know, I give them the keys to the car and I give them the driving instructions so that by the time they move through this training, they don't need me anymore. They're not dependent on me. They don't need someone guiding them through. They don't need a sound bath or a gong or incense or finger symbols or even uncomfortable positions. Like all you need to do this once you have the training is a place to sit. And then it becomes infinitely portable. And I'd say the more important piece is that the return on investment of time becomes exponential.

I love this.

Really valuable.

So you really just opened my mind to a few things there. So I didn't realize that. But it makes sense that a lot of the apps. Because I find I like guided meditation, because I don't, I don't. I do start being really present with whatever I'm listening to. But I like what you said, that that's actually mindfulness. So there's some benefit. But it's not dealing with the actual problem, it's just dealing with the right now it's reactive. It sounds like it's like we're dealing with right now.

Yeah. One is like an aspirin and the other one is like a vitamin. One is actually like fortifying you, making you self sufficient.

Okay.

Getting rid of that stress from the past, which is the very thing that's up, leveling your cognitive performance. Yeah.

So I've got a bunch of questions about that. Before I ask those questions, I'm curious about this because this is what's coming up for me. So a lot of times in the high strong stress, maybe you were doing this, they add more stress to themselves by having caffeine or taking focus things like stimulants. So is that doing the opposite then? Or is that another band aid? Because I know for me, for instance, if I have caffeine, it actually calms me in a weird way, it makes less me focus. Does caffeine and stimulants create more aging and create the opposite of what meditation would do?

Well, I think that this is very largely dependent on your body type. So in Ayurveda, which is like the sister science to the meditation that I teach, Veda means knowledge and Ayur means longevity. So Ayurveda is the knowledge of longevity. And it's all based upon your unique body type or your unique dosha is what they're called. And for someone like me who's very vata dominant, which is like air and space, when we are imbalanced, we tend towards insomnia, we tend towards nervousness or anxiety. And so for me, caffeine is toxic, Right. Like if I have it, I'm a total nut job and it makes me crazy. Okay, now someone who's more coughing, who has more like earth and water in them, caffeine can be very normalizing. It can be like that. They actually need that stimulation. And so I don't think that it's good or bad. I think it's just knowing how it impacts your nervous system and then also knowing when and how to use it. You know, the devil's in in the dose with almost any drug, including medication, and even water can be a poison at the wrong dose. And so I did give a talk, though, at the Google headquarters here in New York, and it was called why Meditation Is the New Caffeine.

Okay.

In it, in this talk, I mentioned how caffeine is molecularly very similar to a chemical called adenosine. And adenosine is the chemical that your brain produces to tell you that you're tired. And so what caffeine does is it goes in and it blocks the brain's adenosine receptors. The brain doesn't have the ability to feel tired. So the caffeine isn't actually giving you energy. It's masking your brain's ability to feel tired. Tricky is that when that adenosine leaves the receptors, all those chemicals have still been being produced, and then the receptors. So you get more tired. But, you know, again, the dosage matters. And, you know, I would say, though, if you're struggling with anxiety, it might be wise to back off the stimulants.

Yeah, yeah. Exacerbate that. Okay, so back to the meditation. How do you. Because I know you have your own method, but I'm curious, like, how do you get somebody to first experience. Like, if somebody's listening right now, they're like, okay, I'm hearing you. I want the anti aging. I want the stress management. I want all of it. But my head wonders, but this, but that. What would you tell them to start with?

Yeah. So the place I would say to start is to know that the point of meditation is not to clear the mind. Okay. The mind.

Interesting. Because we all think it is.

There's, like, one dude out there telling everybody that in order to meditate, you have to clear your mind. And this guy's publicist is better than Kael's publicist. And, like, we gotta find this guy and we gotta teach him how to meditate. Because so, like, if you've ever sat down to meditate and been like, okay, brain, shut it down. Sure would love a snack.

That's what I do every day. That's exactly how I meditate.

And then you feel like you're failing, and then you quit. Because none of us will do anything for very long that we feel like we're Failing at here's the good news is that the mind thinks involuntarily, just like the heart beats involuntarily. So trying to give your brain a command to shut up is as impactful as trying to give your heart a command to stop beating. It does not work. And yet this is the criteria by which everyone is judging themselves. And this is why everyone thinks it's hard. And this is why the world is filled with ex meditators.

Wow. Okay. You just made me feel a lot better. I feel normal again. Okay.

Yeah, you're not a failure. You're not a failure. Chances are you just haven't been taught yet.

Yeah.

Other thing that I would say is that in addition to knowing that the point is not to clear the mind is the other piece I would say is starting by knowing that it is a skill. Meditation really is a skill. And just because it's simple doesn't mean that it's weak. Just because it's simple doesn't mean that it's easy necessarily.

Okay.

And just like any other skill, it requires some training. You know, none of us would be like, you know what, tomorrow I'm going to start a 21 day Japanese challenge, and for 20 minutes a day, I'm going to speak Japanese. And if you don't know how to speak Japanese, that challenge is not going to go very well. You're like, konnichiwa. And like, that's going to be like the end of it. You know, you're going to be like, I quit. And so it's just knowing that it is a skill, and I would even argue it's a skill that is directly impacting your brain, responsible for every decision you make and printing every cell in your body. And so it's like, if you're too busy to meditate, well, what else are you spending your time doing?

Yeah, you're right.

This is your brain.

Yeah. And I've heard that if you're too busy to meditate, you need to meditate twice a day.

That's what I've heard now. But the other thing I will offer to make, you know, people who are feeling guilty not feel guilty, is that no one has time to waste. Okay. Like, we're all busy. Time is our most valuable resource. And if you are not getting a return on investment from the time that you're putting into the meditation, then of course you're too busy to do that.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I think a lot of people are feeling that because they're doing monastic practices. Right. They're Doing a state change, they're like, oh yeah, that felt better. I felt nice for those 10 minutes. That was relaxing for that 10 minutes when I listened to the app. But they're not getting rid of the stress from the past. They're not really seeing an increase in performance capabilities. So their sleep isn't better, their decision making capabilities aren't sharper, their intuition is not higher, they're not more creative. And so they're not seeing these like world changing benefits that everyone talks about. And they're like, oh, it must just not be for me.

And it just becomes one more thing on the to do list then.

Exactly. And then you're like, and then no one has time for that. But this, what I find is that if you invest 2% of your day in meditation, right? So it's 15 minutes twice a day. That's what I teach in my online course. 15 minutes in the morning, 15 minutes in the afternoon, the other 98% of your life becomes more amazing and pretty quickly, you know, a couple weeks in. I mean, you do have to do it every day. You know, it's like there's shocking new science coming out suggesting that meditation does not work unless you meditate.

So if you like, if someone's listening right now, obviously we'll talk about your course too in here. But if they were like, okay, I'm hearing you and today I'm going to take 15 minutes. Is there something that they can do or what would you advise them? If they're just going to sit quietly.

And think, I would say don't do that. Do not just sit quietly for 15 minutes. Because then you're just going to be like, what am I doing? This sucks. I'm having so many thoughts like you're not going to get a return on investment. It will be time wasted and you're going to be frustrated on the other side. So do I recommend that? What would we do? Get some training. Like you go get some training. Yeah, go get some training. Like find someone that you respect. It's best to learn face to face if you can. If you can't. There's a million online course, not a million, but there's probably like, I don't know, like two or three good online courses. And then I also have a book. You know, you and I, learning from a book is challenging. Admittedly, like the book is more like the science behind why you want to meditate. But I do teach a technique in the book. But if you just want 15 minutes of just like sitting, then you could do Any of the apps. You know what I mean? Then just do have someone guide you through.

But I get what you're saying, like, instead of just. It's just like telling somebody start a workout problem. You wouldn't say just go to the gym. You would say take some time to learn it first. Yeah.

Like take a workout class or meet with the trainer for a few days or like, figure out what you need to be doing for your body type. You don't have to go to the trainer every single day for the rest of your life. But if you have no idea how much weight you should be lifting or how to stretch or how to warm up or cool down, like, you're just going to get so much more your time investment, if you know what the.

F. And Emily, you're totally making some light bulb moments for me. Because the same thing, like people that say they want help with starting a business, like, they don't just sit in a chair and start their business. They take the time to learn. So yeah, it is interesting that the idea around meditation, people always assume I just sit quietly and quiet my brain like that there's something wrong that we've been taught. Because like you're saying it's so important in your life. Take the time to get invested and learn it. So talk to me a little bit about. Do you know the difference? I hear so many different types of meditation now. It gets a little overwhelming. Like, I just learned about transcendental or what. What are all the differences and why? What makes one right or not right. And is there. Is it just like picking a flavor of ice cream? Like, I don't. What is. How do you know what kind to look for?

Yeah, good question. So you're right. There's thousands of different types of meditation, especially right now. Like, meditation is the new black and it's super popular. And I actually think it's the most popular new app in the App store is meditation apps.

Yeah, I have like 20 of them on my phone.

Yeah, I was actually at a party once. I was at a wellness party once, and this woman asked me what I do, and I was like, I'm a meditation teacher. She was like, oh, my gosh. And she pulls out her phone out of her purse, presses a button, puts it back in her purse, continues to drink her red wine as we walk into the party. And I was like, hold on, what just happened? And she's like, oh, well, I didn't want to miss a day on my meditation app. And I was like, but you're not meditating I know, but I didn't want to miss it. I was like, who are you lying to?

Yeah, that's funny.

That's funny. Yeah. So there's thousands of different types of meditation, and it gets confusing, you know, because people are like, well, cooking is my meditation and exercise is my meditation, and Facebook is my meditation.

Those are all mindful exercises.

Yeah, yeah. Like, you could cook mindfully, you could. Exercise gets you present. Walking in the woods makes you present, which is awesome, but it's not meditation.

Okay.

So I like to take these thousands of different styles and put them into three categories for the sake of simplicity. And they are the three M's, Right? So we've got mindfulness, meditation, and manifesting.

Okay.

I think most different types can fall into at least one of these three categories. Mindfulness and very good at dealing with your stress in the now. Anytime someone's guiding you through, anytime you're directing your focus, visualizing something, imagining your chakras, mindful walking, bringing your focus to a certain point. And that's what most people are practicing, and they're calling that meditation. Now, the meditation that I teach at Ziva, you're actually giving your body rest that is five times deeper than sleep. That's not an insignificant point, because not only do you feel more awake when you come out on the other side, it's like a supercharged power nap, sitting up, but without the sleep hangover. So, like, not only are you giving your body this rest, but you also de. Excite the nervous system.

Okay.

When you de. Excite something, you create order. And when you create order in your body, that is the mechanism by which this lifetime of accumulated stresses can start to come up and out of the cells, up and out of the body. So this is really why you get the return on investment with this type of meditation.

Okay.

And this is what I would call, like, the lazy man's meditation. And it's made even though it's based on something that's 6,000 years old. It was made for people with busy minds and busy lives. It was actually designed to be integrated into your life versus the monastic practices, which is the kind of taking you away from life, where that's why we think like, oh, I should just not want that dress, and I shouldn't want to sleep with that guy, and I shouldn't want to make him a million dollars. And it's quite a monastic way of looking at things like, well, if I could just stop wanting these things, then I would be happy. One of the tenants in Buddhism, which is, you know, Life is suffering. And if you can transcend your desires, then you transcend suffering. And that's a nice idea, but. But it's very monastic. Like, if you're someone who's in the world and has sexual preferences and sexual desires and, you know, a desire to be in the commerce world and exchanging ideas and in civilization, you're going to have desires. And so, according to the Vedas, which is this beautiful ancient body of knowledge that comes out of northern India, according to the Vedas, life is bliss, 24 hour a day bliss. That's your birthright. And everything else is stressful. Right. It's what we're doing in this style of meditation, which is systematically going through and getting rid of these stresses in our nervous system so that we can experience what we would consider to be your birthright, which is 24. So that's this type of meditation. Now, then there's also manifesting. Right. That's the third m manifesting I would define as consciously creating a life you love. It's a creative visualization. You know, the athletes use it, Olympians use it.

Yeah.

The world's highest achievers are using. Basically, they're calling it creative visualization. I call it manifesting because I like alliteration. So we've got mindfulness meditation and manifesting and this. You could put prayer in this category. You could put anytime you are visualizing a performance or a presentation that you want to go eight or something, all be mindful practices, or if you set your intentions for the year. And actually, interestingly, the Ziva technique is this trifecta we teach. Mindfulness is like the appetizer. Meditation is like the main course. And then the manifesting is the delicious dessert. That's where we get to hitch this time up to the wagon of our dreams and use this meditation time to supercharge what it is that you want to create in your life.

Wow. Okay, I'm sold. I'm like, where do I. I got to do all this?

Yeah. Well, if you want, I'm happy to gift you the course. You can do it and you can tell your folks about it.

Oh, my gosh. I'm totally. This is meant to happen that I'm interviewing you right now, today. Yay.

Thank you.

Okay, so I want it because we're on, because we're leveling up and we share so many stories. What's interesting is I really wanted to tap into meditation because I know my audience and myself need it. But I also know you mentioned earlier that you had your own personal leveling up Story of like really having hardship and creating a whole business and empire. Really? Can you speak a little bit into that? Because I think that's. And I want to know, did meditation help with that?

Thousand percent. There's no way I could be doing what I'm doing right now without meditation. So, yeah, so it was kind of a weird story. So, you know, it was on Broadway, went to India, did this training to become a meditation teacher. But I wasn't in India that whole time. Part of that time I was in Los Angeles, I was in New York. And I was, to be honest, when I started teaching meditation or even teacher training, I thought, well, this will be a cute side gig. Yeah, something cute that I'll do. Like, and if acting is slow, then I can teach more. And if teaching is act more. And it'll be because these are these two things that I love so much. And so anyway, I was in Los Angeles and I moved there originally because I wanted to pursue TV and film. And I was in acting class and auditioning. And I was also, the way I was paying my bills is that I was working at this vodka tasting freezer in Beverly Hills. So it was a 23 degree walk in freezer, like a vodka tasting room. And so my job was to be like a sommelier. So I knew the tasting notes, country of origin, and distillation processes for 92 different vodkas. Okay, I'm in there like slinging vodka till 2 or 3 in the morning. And when I'm not in the VOD box, which is what it was called, I would be like transcribing books by hand in Sanskrit, doing my teacher training. Like, and so I would, I would sling vodka two in the morning and then wake up at 6am at dawn to meditate all day and then go back to the vodka tasting freezer. And so my whole life is called like From Vodka to Veda. Oh my go. I'm busting it. You know, I'm in acting class, I'm auditioning, I'm waiting tables.

You're hustling?

Yeah, I'm hustling. And I'm. And I'm not able to pay my bills. Like I got like three roommates. I'm trying to creatively like cover my rent with all my roommates. And I was taking money out of my like retirement savings that I earned.

When I was super stressful, I would imagine.

Yeah, yeah, it was like, it was intense. Like, I mean, I'm at this point, I'm meditating a ton, like 18 hours a week or something. Which was not. So it wasn't like that kind of stress. But there was still like a purging of my identity, mourning the loss of leaving my Broadway career and also financially just uncertain. You know, I was literally like, not even making ends meet. Like, I was not going from paycheck to paycheck. I was having to withdraw from my savings, which, you know, never feels great. And so when I graduated, I started teaching and I would. And I would teach like, you know, five or six people on my boyfriend's couch in my boyfriend's apartment. So I moved from LA to New York basically to be with my boyfriend at the time. And he very kindly let me use his apartment to teach out of. And I was teaching five or six people. And then it grew to like 15 people, 20 people. And then finally, like, we couldn't fit in our tiny New York City apartment. And so I would rent my friend's fitness studio at night because she only taught during the day. And the New York Times ran a full page ad on her studio. So then I got kicked out of her studio, so I had to get my own studio. And anyway, it was just bit by bit, thing by thing. And there was this one week where I was in final callbacks to play Velma in Chicago the Musical on Broadway. I was launching the world's first online meditation training and I was opening up the east coast division of my acting school. And I was like, nobody wins here. And so that's the week I quit acting. I called my agents and I was like, I love you so much, but I am more invested in this meditation. And so then I went all in on the meditating. And then it was fascinating to see how nature reciprocated that. Like, you really put all of your energy into something. It was like the return on that.

Plus I felt like you were like, really in your purpose and your passion. I feel that it's critical for people to get clear on their vision and like what their purpose and passion is. Because when you have that, I think, and you're clear on it, things will work in your favor to help you get that out.

And it was like I was still using my lifetime of performance training, but just more directly to help people.

Yeah.

So, yeah, then ever since then, it's just been growing so beautifully. And now I've taught over 20,000 people to meditate and the book has sold 35,000 copies. And, you know, we've got a beautiful studio in soho now. And it's just, you know, we just taught in London and I'm going to Toronto and it just feels like we're in a different. It feels like a different chapter of life. And I feel so grateful. I have an amazing team at Ziva that are all rock stars. And it's just as an actor, you spend so much time auditioning. And I was, you know, quote unquote, successful actor. You know, I was a working actor for 10 years. And still it feels like your. Your investment that you make is not necessarily reciprocal. You know, it is, because the universe. I perfect accountant, but you just spend so many times making deposits in the bank account, the energetic bank account, and now it's so. I feel so thankful to have this thing where I can put time or energy in and it's reciprocated. You know, I love that. I just feel so grateful to be able to share this gift with people.

So did you ever imagine it would be. It would take off to the level that it has?

I mean, you know, you have your dreams and then you have your goals. There's like the big dreams and then there's the goals. And I think that this is starting to match my big dreams, but it certainly surpassed my goals.

Totally.

Yeah. And that's fun. Yeah.

Oh, I can totally tell. You're so in your vision and you're calling and it's so awesome. And I'm trying to picture you like a stressed out individual because I just don't see it anymore. Because looking at you like this, calm, focused, soothing, you seem like a meditation teacher.

Well, I've been doing it now for 11 years, so. And I guess that's one thing. It's like, do you really want to learn meditation from someone who's like, angry and stressed and sad? No, I get angry and stressed and sad, but I just don't see.

You know, what I'm guessing is I didn't know you before this. I didn't know you then. But what I want, people always say people don't change, but I think if you do change your thoughts and your actions, you do change. So you can change because you're probably a totally different person than you were 20 years ago, right now.

I do. You know, actually, the best compliment I ever got was from an actor friend of mine. He and I had done a few shows together before meditation. And then I went deep down this meditation rabbit hole, and then he and I did one more show together because my husband, that guy, that boyfriend, you know, that was letting me teach, he's now my husband, and he had never seen me perform. And so I wanted to just do like one final hurrah so he could see before I ended that chapter. And so anyway, this actor friend of mine, we did this final show together and there was some girls there, some young girls, like 18, 19 years old. And they were like a little, not starstruck because I'm not a star, but they were like starry eyed around me and asked questions like I was some, like, I don't know, some fancy person. And my friend, his name is Denis and he looked at these girls and he goes, emily was not always like this. I love you. Because he's known me through this whole journey and he's work that I've put in, honestly, because it's work. You know, meditating every day, twice a day is not for sure. Like there's a million days that I don't want to meditate. There's a million days where I'm like, oh God, this again. But you just do it anyway. And then just bit by bit, day by day, sitting by sitting, you just get lighter and brighter and happier and more joyous, more intuitive. And then, and then before you know it, you're like, oh, this is, this is life. Okay, cool.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I have a question that I ask everybody, so I'm going to ask you this too. I already now I already know one of your answers, I'm sure. What are the answers? But if somebody's listening to you, listening to this right now and they are in their own personal rock bottom, so maybe they're in the financial stress you were in or whatever it is, they're in their own rock bottom and they are ready to make a change and start creating everything from nothing. If you were to give them three pieces of advice on things that they should start doing right now, to start shifting that, what would you tell them?

Well, I mean, you're right. Number one is your meditation.

That's like a trick question. Yeah, one of those questions, like she's an.

I know her answer, but look, I mean obviously that's my obvious answer, but I just want to really like drive this home. And if you're stressed and overwhelmed and your whole body is in fight or flight, there is no chance that you are making decisions as well as you could be. You know, if you're making fear based decisions, if you are in survival mode, you probably don't even know what your dreams are. Can't even hear your own intuition anymore. If you've been living in survival mode for that long. And so step one is like if you want to change the projection, you have to change the projector.

Okay.

Like you just. There is no way around it. You can't paint a happy face sign on top of a horror flick. Right. And a lot of us have a horror flick film playing in our brains and we're trying to paint a happy face on top of the movie screen.

Right.

No, let's just change the projector first. Let's get out of Fight or Flight. Let's get out of survival mode. Let's. Let's accept where we are. You know, and I think, you know, step one is really acceptance. You have to accept where you are. You have to surrender to the fact that you're in a ditch. If you want to get out of a ditch, you can't pretend that you're not in a ditch. It's like, accept, surrender. And I think that the meditation helps very much with that acceptance and that surrender. Then once you start taking action, I would say relentless prioritization. And that to me is different than focus because I think that we get a lot of very masculine, male dominated business advice in the business world. And that's great. You know, there's a lot of men that are in business and I know that we're not even binary anymore. But for women, you know, there are like hunters and gatherers. Right. And hunters are very good at doing one thing at a time. And as gatherers, we can do, we can hold many things in one awareness at the same time. But that's different than multitasking. Right. And so if you are a multipreneur, if you are multi passionate, that's fine. I actually think you can very, especially in this day and age, you can use your different talents to create something unique. But all of it requires relentless prioritization.

Yeah.

Like always knowing, like, what's the number one priority? What am I going to start my day with? What am I going to carve out my time and put it on? And I guess a step two to that would be make sure that once you figure out what your priorities are. Look at last week's calendar and see how much of your time you were allocating to your top three priorities.

Yeah.

You know, not next week's calendar, but last week's calendar. You know, what did you actually commit your time to?

Yeah.

And then a third thing would be, I mean, you hear this all the time. So it's a little cliche, but it is. Surround yourself with people that are either vibrating at the level that you want to vibrate or feel the way that you want to feel or doing the things you want to do. You know, it's like if you're, if you're just hanging around with your friends, getting high and complaining about there's no men to date anymore, then it's real easy to just stay stuck in that complaining and that toxicity. But if you start to hang out with people who are doing the kind of stuff that you want to be doing, it's just like, inspiration is a communicable disease. Stress is a communicable disease. Actually, obesity is a communicable disease. Yeah. Like all this stuff we are influenced.

By all energy is contagious. Like all energy.

We are influenced by the decisions and habits and thinking patterns of the people around us. So you want to take care, like, who's in your sphere now? Obviously you don't have to like divorce your husband and break up with your family and say like delete your best friend's phone number from your phone. But maybe instead of just kicking everybody in your life out, maybe just start to add in one or two people who are vibrating at a little happier, higher frequency and then just bit by bit note, who feels nice to be around.

I love that. I say that in nutrition. I always say add it. Instead of working on all the stuff you shouldn't have, like focus on adding in more of the good so you make less room of the bad. And that's what I'm hearing from you too is you add in more of those high vibration people. It makes less room for the ones that are not making you feel so good.

That's right.

That's great. This is so good. Emily, where can people find you and where can they get your program?

Yeah. So you can find all of our trainings. We do live and online trainings at ziva. That's Z I V A meditation dot com.

Okay.

And the online training is really sweet. It's really simple. It's 15 minutes a day for 15 consecutive days and giving you the keys to the car and the driving instructions. You do learn that mindfulness, the meditation and the manifesting and then we're all over social media just Eva meditation.

I love it. Thank you so much.

My pleasure. Thank you for having me. What a delight.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable and come interact with me over on Instagram Ataliejofit. I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.