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Healing And Growing Through The Unexpected - Nistha Dube image

Healing And Growing Through The Unexpected - Nistha Dube

Spiritual Fitness with Eric Bigger
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271 Plays2 years ago

Nistha Dube is an author, mindset coach, podcast host and keynote speak. Nistha mission is to empower individuals to cultivate intentionality, and purpose in their daily lives. She's a beautiful soul who offers a lot perspective in this conversation.

   In this episode we discuss:  

- Her awakening and Dark Knight of the Soul 

- Following and trusting your passions enough to pursue them with faith  

- Knowing the truth about wanting something but not needing it 

- How not knowing is the pathway to knowing 

- The benefit of curiosity and failure 

- Not choosing the safe path to Win at all odds  

Follow Nistha on social media: https://www.instagram.com/_itsnistha/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igshid=OGQ5ZDc2ODk2ZA==  

Work with Nistha 1:1 (Website): https://www.nisthadube.com  

Listen to her podcast "Conversations With Nistha"

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/conversations-with-nistha/id1521863560

Subscribe To Bigger Talks Podcast: https://zencastr.com/Bigger-Talks

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Transcript

Introduction to Nista Dubé and Her Journey

00:00:03
Speaker
Bigger Talks, Bigger Talks.
00:00:05
Speaker
We're back again for another episode.
00:00:07
Speaker
I am so excited because we have a special, special guest.
00:00:13
Speaker
Nista Dubé, and she's an author, mindset coach, podcast host, and we can't forget a beautiful keynote speaker, TEDx speaker, Virginia Tech graduate.
00:00:27
Speaker
I think your major was cognitive behavioral neuroscience, right?
00:00:34
Speaker
That's a lot to unpack.
00:00:35
Speaker
We'll talk about that.
00:00:36
Speaker
But
00:00:38
Speaker
Welcome to the show.
00:00:39
Speaker
Welcome to Bigger Talks.
00:00:40
Speaker
How are you feeling and how's your day?
00:00:44
Speaker
Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me, Eric.
00:00:46
Speaker
This is super cool because I feel like the backstory towards us getting here was like back at Soho House in July where I stopped making a sleep book to ticket to go out to LA because things were just so weird for me on the East Coast.
00:01:00
Speaker
And then I'm at Soho House one day with my friend.
00:01:03
Speaker
I see Eric and I'm like, is that Eric?
00:01:05
Speaker
And I'm like trying to remember where I'm like, he looks so familiar.
00:01:09
Speaker
And then I'm like,
00:01:12
Speaker
being a bachelor, bachelorette nation fanatic is all piecing together.
00:01:16
Speaker
And that's kind of where our like online friendship began.
00:01:20
Speaker
And then here we are.
00:01:21
Speaker
So I'm excited.

Shared Interests in Spirituality and Personal Growth

00:01:22
Speaker
I've been waiting for this talk.
00:01:23
Speaker
I think there's a lot of synergy and we're into a lot of the same things.
00:01:27
Speaker
So I'm, you know, excited.
00:01:28
Speaker
Spirituality, dark night of the soul, embodiment, whatever you want to call it.
00:01:33
Speaker
We're Pisces.
00:01:35
Speaker
It's a rare season.
00:01:36
Speaker
We're going to talk about the brain and,
00:01:39
Speaker
Maybe some astrology, maybe some neurology.
00:01:41
Speaker
However, before we get started, I'm going to get you to pick a card.
00:01:45
Speaker
Oh, I'm so excited.
00:01:46
Speaker
I've never done this thing.
00:01:49
Speaker
I have these tarot cards.
00:01:50
Speaker
It's called Raise Your Vibration, Oracle cards.
00:01:54
Speaker
And you pick whatever card comes.
00:01:57
Speaker
So I'm going to shuffle.
00:01:58
Speaker
And then whatever your energy picks on, we get to read it to the audience and people listening and see what's going on.
00:02:06
Speaker
I'm meditating on my end.
00:02:10
Speaker
Before we get into the discussion.
00:02:13
Speaker
And you're in VA right now, right?
00:02:16
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:16
Speaker
All right.
00:02:18
Speaker
I don't know if you can pick the screen, but.
00:02:22
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:23
Speaker
I'm like, I wonder how you know which one I'm going to.
00:02:25
Speaker
like point out.
00:02:26
Speaker
You just gotta point to it and just say.
00:02:29
Speaker
So that one right in the middle, keep going, keep going.
00:02:32
Speaker
I don't know.
00:02:32
Speaker
Yeah, keep going that way.
00:02:34
Speaker
Keep going, keep going.
00:02:35
Speaker
It's that one, that one, that one.
00:02:37
Speaker
Yeah.
00:02:38
Speaker
All right.
00:02:39
Speaker
All right.
00:02:40
Speaker
What does it say?
00:02:42
Speaker
Wow.
00:02:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:46
Speaker
The truth is my teacher.
00:02:49
Speaker
Huh.
00:02:50
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:50
Speaker
The truth.
00:02:51
Speaker
is my teacher.
00:02:52
Speaker
So I'm going to take a look at what does that mean for you today?

Mission and Identity Beyond Labels

00:02:57
Speaker
What does that mean when the truth, and it's crazy, I opened right up to the page.
00:03:01
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:03:04
Speaker
What do you get from that?
00:03:06
Speaker
The truth is my teacher.
00:03:07
Speaker
What comes through for you?
00:03:09
Speaker
It's funny that you ask that because I think going into today's conversation, I was telling you off air, I've taken a pause from all of this.
00:03:17
Speaker
My last podcast that I was the guest on might have been
00:03:21
Speaker
I think January of this year.
00:03:22
Speaker
So we've done like a whole year of me stepping away from this.
00:03:25
Speaker
And then going into today, I was like, I'm just going to be authentic towards the experiences that have happened to me.
00:03:30
Speaker
Cause that's the only wisdom that I can speak from.
00:03:32
Speaker
It's my past and it's my experiences.
00:03:34
Speaker
And so that truth has been what I would, you know, share with the world to kind of act as a guiding force.
00:03:40
Speaker
Cause I think it's all this like circulating energy in a way.
00:03:44
Speaker
Like I was inspired by so many people when I started my path of figuring out how to go inwards and how to
00:03:51
Speaker
even be a content creator.
00:03:52
Speaker
And so now being on this other end where I've, I'm almost like re-identifying how I even introduce myself and if I even want to call myself certain things.
00:04:01
Speaker
And so it's really the truth of my experiences and what has shaped me into who I am today that are allowing me to even spread wisdom.
00:04:11
Speaker
And so that's very interesting that that came out.
00:04:15
Speaker
So I'm going to read it.
00:04:16
Speaker
So the truth is my teaching.
00:04:17
Speaker
Before you were in this life,
00:04:19
Speaker
Before you were in this body, you chose to come to earth.
00:04:23
Speaker
Not everything was set out for you, but you set the intention that you would leave this world in a better state than you found it.
00:04:32
Speaker
This is why ever since you were young, you searched for meaning and wanted to understand the greater mysteries of life.
00:04:39
Speaker
It's why have you spent time asking big questions, developing your intuition, talk about that today, and open up to the universe in your spiritual practice.
00:04:49
Speaker
Alignment.
00:04:51
Speaker
Everything that you have done and experienced in your lifetime has led you to where you are now.
00:04:56
Speaker
This moment is crucial.
00:04:58
Speaker
You may be wondering where you go from here.
00:05:03
Speaker
With this card, the universe is inviting you to simply embody your truth.
00:05:09
Speaker
Your truth is who you are at your core.
00:05:12
Speaker
Let that truth rise up and out for the world to see and then you'll remember while you're here.
00:05:20
Speaker
Bible today, I let my truth reveal my purpose.
00:05:25
Speaker
Interesting.
00:05:26
Speaker
Okay.
00:05:28
Speaker
That's crazy that it had big questions and we're on bigger talks.
00:05:34
Speaker
Right.
00:05:35
Speaker
embodiment when literally off air for people, you know, who are listening right now, you were like, we're going to talk about embodiment.
00:05:42
Speaker
That's going to be what we come in and talk about.
00:05:44
Speaker
And then just kind of the tail end of that of me.
00:05:47
Speaker
I used to call myself a purpose coach before a mindset coach.
00:05:50
Speaker
And I, Oh, really?
00:05:52
Speaker
Yes, that resonates for me more than mindset coach.
00:05:55
Speaker
And then I took a step back because I'm just like purpose is just an ever evolving thing.
00:06:00
Speaker
You let everyone go on their journey to find it.
00:06:02
Speaker
So who am I to be a coach for that?
00:06:05
Speaker
Not bashing on anyone who is.
00:06:06
Speaker
It was just my own internal thinking.
00:06:08
Speaker
And so it's so funny that you use those words.
00:06:10
Speaker
My newsletter is literally in alignment with
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's crazy how that came out.
00:06:16
Speaker
The universe doesn't laugh when you set your intentions, because you're always about setting intentions, right, and your intuition.
00:06:23
Speaker
So let's get into the discussion.
00:06:28
Speaker
Who is Mr. DuVay?
00:06:30
Speaker
Who is she?
00:06:31
Speaker
She has a beautiful presence.
00:06:33
Speaker
She's an author.
00:06:33
Speaker
She's a podcast host.
00:06:35
Speaker
She's a TEDx speaker.
00:06:37
Speaker
I mean, you went to Virginia Tech, which is a prominent university.
00:06:41
Speaker
but from your lens, who are you?
00:06:44
Speaker
That's a great question.
00:06:45
Speaker
Cause I'm just, you're asking that and I'm like, I don't even know where to begin.
00:06:49
Speaker
I think it's like almost a culmination of everything.
00:06:52
Speaker
I think the idea of identity is so interesting now because it's one thing that I really resonated with Jay Shetty for sharing this is he doesn't even introduce himself as like a coach or a speaker, but he introduces himself with his mission and what he wants to do in the world.
00:07:08
Speaker
So it's almost like a,
00:07:10
Speaker
it's almost like an I statement with that verb or that mission integrated into how he introduces himself.
00:07:14
Speaker
And so I think for me, if I were to phrase it along those lines, it's really helping people cultivate inner awareness towards their lives and almost like redefine what's possible.
00:07:26
Speaker
I think that's kind of been a recurring theme for me is helping people redefine what's possible for them in the
00:07:34
Speaker
the crazy stories or crazy decisions or whatever risk-taking behavior I take.
00:07:39
Speaker
And I think not even from a career front, but seeing that in my personal life and how I do that with my friends.
00:07:44
Speaker
And I'm that person who's always like, yep, this is the one, this is booking a one-way ticket.
00:07:49
Speaker
Don't know which country she's going to be in.
00:07:50
Speaker
I think in some ways it plants seeds of, hey, this is possible for you too.
00:07:56
Speaker
Or, hey,
00:07:57
Speaker
your world isn't going to end if you do something that may seem really, really scary or out of your comfort zone, there's something on the other side that could be bigger.
00:08:05
Speaker
And so that was the theme of my steps.
00:08:07
Speaker
And I think that's kind of been that underlying theme
00:08:10
Speaker
notion that I've been trying to spread through all of my content with the book.
00:08:14
Speaker
It was the arc of, okay, I'm suddenly into this journey of inner awareness and understanding, and I'm outgrowing these things in my life that I once identified with, but Hey, what's on the other side, there's all this liberation and freedom.
00:08:28
Speaker
So I would say that would be my mission as I am aware of at this time in my life.
00:08:35
Speaker
Aside from that, I, I don't know.
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm, I'm,
00:08:40
Speaker
kind of someone who loves to do so many different things.
00:08:42
Speaker
Like I was just telling you, I'm going to a spoken word today for the first time for my poetry.
00:08:48
Speaker
I enjoy hanging out with friends.
00:08:50
Speaker
I enjoy dancing.
00:08:51
Speaker
I enjoy sketching.
00:08:52
Speaker
I dabble in so many different things.
00:08:54
Speaker
And I think that just makes me who I am.
00:08:56
Speaker
I'm all about cultivating experiences.
00:08:59
Speaker
I love
00:09:00
Speaker
trying things that are new and unconventional and kind of paving a very non-traditional path for myself.
00:09:06
Speaker
So that's just really a signature part of who I am walking this life.
00:09:10
Speaker
Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes it's weird, but I think conversations like these help me feel seen.
00:09:16
Speaker
I'm sure it's the same for you and so many people listening.
00:09:19
Speaker
It's the sense of community and maybe having an untraditional path.
00:09:23
Speaker
inflection of your walking testament of so many different things and paradoxes, right?
00:09:28
Speaker
Like, you can't put, we can't put you in a box, right?
00:09:33
Speaker
There's so many things you do well, there's so many things you're great at, and I think that's
00:09:38
Speaker
in my mind for this discussion is for people to know that we're not just one thing.
00:09:42
Speaker
We're not just our, you know, the ancestors we were born in or the tribe we come from or the city we was raised in or the show we were on or the friend group we had 10 years ago.
00:09:53
Speaker
We're so much more than that.
00:09:54
Speaker
And sometimes we got to go through a metamorphosis, right?
00:09:57
Speaker
You touched on two things when you just spoke.
00:10:01
Speaker
You talked about your speech and you talked about, I guess,
00:10:06
Speaker
trying to get to the other side to find the bigger purpose of who you are.
00:10:10
Speaker
Can you kind of, you know, elaborate on in TEDx speech, what the synopsis of that was?
00:10:15
Speaker
And then you talked about your book, and I believe the book is Beyond Your Skin, right?
00:10:19
Speaker
Beyond Your Skin,

Catalysts for Personal Growth and Healing

00:10:20
Speaker
yep.
00:10:20
Speaker
So can you talk on those two and kind of give the audience a little bit more of context on the speech and the book so they can have an understanding?
00:10:28
Speaker
Yeah, so I think we'll start with the book just because I wrote that before the TEDx happened.
00:10:32
Speaker
And that was really more so like a creative outlet for when I was going through my breakup in 2019.
00:10:39
Speaker
So a lot of those
00:10:41
Speaker
pieces in that poem or in that poetry book are from the 2019 phase of my life where I was just writing for myself and without any intention of, oh, this is going to be out in the world.
00:10:51
Speaker
And then it was interesting how like over time with kind of rediscovering who I was outside of that relationship, outside of the place I was in my life during that time, which was in a college environment with a college friend group, identifying with my major, identifying with
00:11:08
Speaker
consistently like this community, these people, the same circle on social media, I think it was like a blank slate.
00:11:15
Speaker
I didn't know what I was doing.
00:11:16
Speaker
I was choosing a career path that was entirely outside of my major, entirely outside of what school had ever taught me.
00:11:22
Speaker
Like I was teaching myself how to be an entrepreneur with not really having any friends or any community anymore.
00:11:29
Speaker
And so it was another way for me to be like, huh, okay, well, this was kind of the catalyst.
00:11:35
Speaker
It was leaving this environment.
00:11:37
Speaker
This is the phase where I'm experimenting.
00:11:39
Speaker
It's hard.
00:11:40
Speaker
It's tough.
00:11:40
Speaker
I'm going through a lot of
00:11:42
Speaker
deaths and rebirths, if you will, of who am I?
00:11:46
Speaker
I'm almost longing for that community again, but I no longer resonate with it.
00:11:49
Speaker
And so that's the second part of the book.
00:11:51
Speaker
The first part, the second part is healing beyond the skin.
00:11:56
Speaker
So that's kind of the healing process of, you know, just kind of demonstrating that it isn't linear.
00:12:01
Speaker
And then the last end of the book, the last third is awakening beyond the skin.
00:12:05
Speaker
And so that's really stepping into this new version of yourself and
00:12:09
Speaker
who that is in the world and realizing it's possible.
00:12:11
Speaker
So that was more of like a creative kind of arc.
00:12:15
Speaker
You're saying that your breakup initiated the book?
00:12:21
Speaker
The breakup, yeah, in a way, because that's when I started writing a lot of the pieces that are in the first part of the book.
00:12:28
Speaker
I didn't think that it would lead into a book, but then when I started writing... What about the breakup?
00:12:32
Speaker
Like what was it?
00:12:33
Speaker
Was it since you grew out of alignment?
00:12:35
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:38
Speaker
It really was was that I think it just I grew into such a different person than I think I even ever was in the four years that I was in college.
00:12:47
Speaker
And so that caused that caused that breakup.
00:12:49
Speaker
But that also caused me moving away from my friend group at the same time as the breakup that caused me moving away from the jobs I was applying to.
00:12:56
Speaker
So it was all happening at once.
00:12:58
Speaker
I was kind of.
00:12:59
Speaker
almost in a way getting pummeled in every direction that was the summer that I lost my my grandpa who was the one who gave me my name and my name means faith and determination so it's almost a weird testament of like well and he gave me that name because when I was little he's like there's something about this girl but I swear she's it was in a funny way because I would always fight with him when I was little and I lived in India we would like
00:13:22
Speaker
fight over the smallest things.
00:13:23
Speaker
Like I would snatch the newspaper from him and he would snatch it back and he would kind of joke around and be like, this girl's really determined to get what she wants.
00:13:31
Speaker
And so it was in an odd way, like the start of everything.
00:13:35
Speaker
It's my grandpa's passing, the breakup happened right after.
00:13:38
Speaker
Pandemic happened right after I moved away from my college major, my entire friends, and then I dove into this entire new world having no idea what I was doing.
00:13:47
Speaker
And so that's been 2020 until 2019 until now, actually.
00:13:50
Speaker
That's big.
00:13:51
Speaker
Congrats.
00:13:55
Speaker
Thank you.
00:13:56
Speaker
Do you think in that process of maybe now, do you think you might be still grieving all those things or are you kind of somewhat on the other side of it and going to the next level or phase?
00:14:06
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
00:14:08
Speaker
I think I was in the grieving phase for a very, very long time with a lot of those things.
00:14:12
Speaker
But I think I'm finally at a place now where I really am on the other side.
00:14:16
Speaker
I don't think there's any more grieving, to be honest.
00:14:18
Speaker
I think there's almost a sense of like I can look back at a lot of those things really fondly and
00:14:24
Speaker
It's taken years to get here.
00:14:25
Speaker
So it's been a progress.
00:14:28
Speaker
I'm not going to lie.
00:14:29
Speaker
There was a lot of grieving, especially because I was in my hometown, not being able to partake in those things anymore because of my own decisions, right?
00:14:38
Speaker
Not blaming anyone here that was totally taking accountability.
00:14:41
Speaker
But that was tough before I went out to LA in 2020.
00:14:45
Speaker
into 2021, I was just here, like going through the motions of trying to be in this new world with the reminders of everything from my past around me.
00:14:53
Speaker
So I would say LA was a nice breath of fresh air in the sense that like, I was in a brand new environment with, I think, a lot of what I was looking for in terms of community and values and friendships.
00:15:06
Speaker
But there were moments where I would come home to visit my parents and I would be home for a couple of weeks and those reminders would still come up.
00:15:14
Speaker
And I think,
00:15:15
Speaker
it's finally at a place now where it's um I've really done the inner work to be like I can appreciate those things and there isn't that sense of fallback why do you think it's so hard for people to move on after like past relationships hurt old memories what maybe in your field of study when you were in school or from what you've learned over time from the neuroscience space what is that is it something in our brain something in our body like what
00:15:42
Speaker
What keeps us like stuck in the past so much, even though we might've moved forward, but mentally we have it or our nervous system, our body has it.
00:15:51
Speaker
Like, what is that you think?
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, I think the thing that,
00:15:55
Speaker
forget, and I know this has helped a lot with my one-on-one clients and coaching is understanding that those are very two separate parts of the brain.
00:16:03
Speaker
So you, your amygdala and you have your fear-based response systems.
00:16:06
Speaker
That is that amygdala.
00:16:08
Speaker
That's the part of your brain, the limbic system that's operating off of like pretty much fear-based, um, stimuli and keeping them safe.
00:16:15
Speaker
And then you have your frontal cortex and that's the one doing all the logical reasoning and the processing and et cetera.
00:16:22
Speaker
Right.
00:16:22
Speaker
And so, um,
00:16:23
Speaker
I think if, you know, maybe a lot of people listening have heard this where they say, yeah, talk therapy is great, but a lot of people go to talk therapy and still remain stuck in the past.
00:16:32
Speaker
That's because talk therapy is operating in that frontal part of the brain.
00:16:37
Speaker
Whereas if you're going to do something like hypnotherapy or, or,
00:16:41
Speaker
Different creative forms like dance and art and somatic breathing, those are really targeting that specific part of the brain, the limbic system, and really calming down a lot of those like repressed memories.
00:16:54
Speaker
Memories are also stored in the hippocampus, but they're really targeting those parts of the brain that may be almost in hibernation mode or operating subconsciously when we're talking about all the inner work and the therapy talk and jargon stuff.

Understanding Trauma and Healing Practices

00:17:09
Speaker
That's why those things are so ingrained in the body.
00:17:11
Speaker
Trauma gets literally stored in our bodies.
00:17:14
Speaker
And so I think when it comes to something like moving on, there is a fear of the unknown.
00:17:20
Speaker
The brain doesn't like things that aren't familiar.
00:17:22
Speaker
And so I think that's why nowadays, like, yes, there is all this talk about therapy, but I think more than that, there should be talks about integrating the body into the healing process because that's where so much trauma is stored.
00:17:36
Speaker
A great example of this would be doing
00:17:38
Speaker
Yin yoga.
00:17:39
Speaker
So if you do Yin yoga, the process of it is basically holding every asana or every pose for two minutes.
00:17:47
Speaker
And so that elongated hold of every pose releases the emotions in your body.
00:17:51
Speaker
And so it's really interesting because if you're going to stretch out your hips, your so as you do that for two minutes,
00:17:58
Speaker
um there are specific poses where people just start crying and i've done it before where i've held a pose for two minutes and i'm like where is this emotion coming from and um it's it's very fascinating so i think that side of healing needs to be really talked about and integrated into a lot of our experiences when we talk about doing the inner work it's not really just the logical frontal part of the brain in my opinion you can journal for
00:18:23
Speaker
days, weeks, years, but still get triggered right back into the same patterns if you're stimulated enough in an environment where that comes up.
00:18:35
Speaker
um energy and i think uh what i've discovered in my life is that engagement within the body right within the mind actually helps change opposed to it's like if i'm coming to speak at a conference and i'm just speaking to people for 35 to an hour it's great but are these people really retaining the information
00:18:56
Speaker
But if I'm doing exercises with them and I'm getting them to join me in my speech, then you have more impact, you add more value other than just your voice, like you said, in the healing.
00:19:07
Speaker
And I do still want you to go into like the TEDx.
00:19:14
Speaker
However,
00:19:16
Speaker
because we're in this moment, do you think most of us, or not most of us, just in the spiritual community that we get stuck in this healing phase and we just constantly healing and healing and healing?
00:19:25
Speaker
It's like, okay, brother, okay, sister, I get it, but you got to still live life.
00:19:30
Speaker
You got to live.
00:19:32
Speaker
Why do you think we get so captivated or caught up in just this, I'm healing, I'm healing, I'm healing, and I'm just like, okay.
00:19:40
Speaker
doing the work, but what's really happened?
00:19:44
Speaker
What is that?
00:19:45
Speaker
Is that like some type of cycle that we get stuck in because we don't know the way out or we think that's the way out for some reason?
00:19:53
Speaker
I think it's the latter.
00:19:54
Speaker
I think that, and I, I've been there kind of in that new age, you know, sphere where I've been caught up in the healing and the constantly better, like the constant betterment of oneself.
00:20:06
Speaker
And I think it is a, almost like a, ironically, it's like a paradoxically negative cycle where I think it's holding us back because, um,
00:20:16
Speaker
When people say the healing journey isn't linear, what I think that means is, yeah, you do a little bit of the work, you go back out into your community, back out in the world, back out into this very 3D material world that we live in.
00:20:28
Speaker
And you're going to get triggered left and right.
00:20:29
Speaker
And it's how you integrate those experiences into or integrate those learnings into those experiences.
00:20:35
Speaker
But I think when we're caught up in the, oh, I'm doing the work and I'm reading the books and I'm journaling, which I've been there, right?
00:20:42
Speaker
But if you're doing that in self-isolation and you're not even connected to your community, of course, you're not going to get triggered.
00:20:48
Speaker
Of course, you're going to be in your little bubble of like, oh, yeah, I'm reading all the books.
00:20:52
Speaker
But where is the it's almost like school, right?
00:20:55
Speaker
You read the textbook, you learn the lessons.
00:20:58
Speaker
And then where do you actually get tested?
00:20:59
Speaker
You get tested on the exams.
00:21:01
Speaker
I think this, you know, analogous to that, it's like, where are we getting tested in the new age community?
00:21:07
Speaker
If people are staying in that bubble, only interacting with people who are also in this
00:21:11
Speaker
like kind of this wave of oh I'm also bettering myself let's go on this yoga retreat to Bali it's like well there is a real life outside of that too and I think it's just a matter of where does the duality come in because I I'm all about that I'm all about like the yoga girlies the journaling girlies having my group of girls I want to do those retreats the sound baths like I'm so into that as well but it's like where does that integration come and where do you not get lost in that and
00:21:41
Speaker
Also, the idea of presence, and we'll go into this, but just being raised Hindu, I don't know if I identify with a certain label when it comes to religion, but being raised Hindu and having really studied Eastern philosophical texts, so much of the learning and the wisdom is found in presence.
00:21:58
Speaker
And I think that gets lost as well when we're constantly striving to be better.
00:22:02
Speaker
It's like,
00:22:04
Speaker
where does that end?
00:22:05
Speaker
Where do you just one day wake up and decide like, okay, cool, I've done it now.
00:22:10
Speaker
How does that, like, where is that metric and how do you measure that?
00:22:13
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's been my challenge over the course of time because you're doing the work and then seeing the results and seeing you jumping timelines or quantum leaping and having success.
00:22:23
Speaker
You're like, oh, it really works.
00:22:25
Speaker
You know, they say healing.
00:22:26
Speaker
You know, it happens in an instant.
00:22:28
Speaker
Like someone will say something and you'll read something or you'll let go some energy and you're like, boom, then you'll get a text from someone.
00:22:35
Speaker
And in my life, you get in this phase was like, okay, why am I reading all these books now?
00:22:42
Speaker
You know, like a few days ago, I was thinking, oh, I used to read these books because I wanted to grow and I wanted to be better.
00:22:51
Speaker
Now I'm reading these books because I think that's what I should do.
00:22:54
Speaker
Oppose what I really want to do.
00:22:58
Speaker
And so I got to this, this download of like, relax and trust.
00:23:01
Speaker
Let go.
00:23:02
Speaker
Don't do anything.
00:23:03
Speaker
Like, don't do anything.
00:23:05
Speaker
you already done enough of everything.
00:23:07
Speaker
Let things take course, right?
00:23:10
Speaker
Like go into the world or go into yourself and let yourself be.
00:23:16
Speaker
And I will tell you, you know, people listening, like we're supposed to record this episode a week ago and I just wasn't feeling my best, but that's because I over pushed myself and just not rest.
00:23:29
Speaker
And then I couldn't be who I needed to be in the moment.
00:23:33
Speaker
And I think the biggest thing, like you said, is surrender and presence.
00:23:37
Speaker
Like just really being present.
00:23:39
Speaker
How do you be, like, how are you, what is your practices to be more grounded in the moment and not be so healing and working on self and looking ahead?
00:23:48
Speaker
How do, what's, what's your secret?
00:23:51
Speaker
Yeah, I think,
00:23:53
Speaker
Well, to get there, I had to be humbled, humbled, humbled, humbled time and time again, which was my LA experience in 2022 going into now this year as well, 2023, where I've been back from LA just at home.
00:24:06
Speaker
And it's kind of been this understanding of like, I've done all of that.
00:24:11
Speaker
I've done the daily meditations.
00:24:12
Speaker
I've done the personal development books.
00:24:14
Speaker
I've done the joining all those like one hour workshops with other spiritual and I'm
00:24:20
Speaker
for people who can't watch the video version, I'm saying that in quotes, because even that label I hesitate to use now, but I've done it all.
00:24:28
Speaker
And then I was given opportunities to be put into very material spaces, like working at a digital agency in downtown LA, one of the most materialistic cities ever.
00:24:40
Speaker
And it was just tower moments after tower moments.
00:24:44
Speaker
For people who are wondering, it's kind of just another way of saying, it's almost like tarot terminology for just
00:24:49
Speaker
saying basically getting humbled and getting grounded by whatever force is out there.
00:24:54
Speaker
And so, yeah, I wanted that city high rise girl experience in my 20s that fell through.
00:25:01
Speaker
I worked at a digital agency, had the best time, had the best coworkers there, loved my loved everything about it.
00:25:07
Speaker
And that just ultimately wasn't in my highest alignment.
00:25:11
Speaker
And so many things in L.A.
00:25:13
Speaker
that I thought I was really identifying with were just falling through the cracks.
00:25:17
Speaker
And it's interesting because now I think every part of that experience that I wanted to hold on to and that I wanted to identify with has been totally, just totally like snatched away from me.
00:25:28
Speaker
So for me, it was understanding like there isn't really a sense of control that I have.
00:25:34
Speaker
And I think that surrender has really come through my experiences, which goes back to our tarot hole today is like I can only give wisdom from what I have experienced.
00:25:44
Speaker
experience and what I've learned and what I've had to give up.
00:25:47
Speaker
I can't give wisdom from a book that Eckhart Tolle wrote.
00:25:51
Speaker
I can't do that, right?
00:25:52
Speaker
Like that's his, that's his teachings.
00:25:54
Speaker
That's his life.
00:25:55
Speaker
And so, yeah, in terms of what that looks like now and how I practice it, just breathing, like sensory breathing.
00:26:02
Speaker
If I'm taking a walk, just tune in with my breath, ask myself, what are things I can see?
00:26:07
Speaker
What are things I can hear?
00:26:09
Speaker
It's really in the small things, like
00:26:12
Speaker
holding my phone, if I catch myself just scrolling, scrolling, scrolling, I'm like, hey, Nista, put this down, or hey, just delete Instagram, taking it really like one step at a time and instead of trying to do like a billion things at once, which I used to be there is now just like, okay, what's one small thing I can do?
00:26:31
Speaker
for me like I got really into like sketching and doodling again this week and so that's just been something I've been doing like removed Instagram from my phone got like my sketchbooks out there literally sitting right there and um that kind of helped me just like focus and get into my creative flow again so yeah and I think the biggest thing that I've discovered is especially this morning and I was telling you know I have members in my group a mentorship group I said man be aware of
00:26:59
Speaker
social media in the media of the world and how it programs our bodies our psyches and then getting up this morning because i'm like okay my energy's back i felt my body like like like on go mode like anxious and i'm like there it's now like this what's going on but i realized i programmed myself to get things done to execute but it wasn't that i couldn't do those things it's like that's great it's like look my energy my energy was more like anxious energy
00:27:29
Speaker
Like you gotta do this, you gotta do that.
00:27:30
Speaker
And it's like, take it easy, right?
00:27:34
Speaker
And social media, the world at large, our environments most time programs our behavior unconsciously.
00:27:42
Speaker
And we don't know it, whether it's scrolling on the phone,
00:27:46
Speaker
you're judging yourself based on what another person has or doesn't, or you feel like, oh man, I'm like, it's the end of the year.
00:27:52
Speaker
What are you trying to get?
00:27:55
Speaker
Right?
00:27:56
Speaker
But sometimes we don't think about it because like, oh, it's just another day and I got to work.
00:28:00
Speaker
So I just tell anyone out there, take a breath.
00:28:03
Speaker
Like you said, take a deep breath, look at your phone, look at the things around you and really be present because that's all we have.
00:28:12
Speaker
That is the history.
00:28:13
Speaker
Is this now?
00:28:14
Speaker
So yeah,
00:28:16
Speaker
But I want to get into Dark Night of the Soul.
00:28:23
Speaker
Because I have experienced that this year.
00:28:25
Speaker
I talked about it on a few episodes prior to this one.
00:28:29
Speaker
My journey in it and how uncomfortable it has been.

Lessons from the Dark Night of the Soul

00:28:33
Speaker
Nothing makes sense.
00:28:35
Speaker
You question your purpose.
00:28:38
Speaker
You lose friends, relationships.
00:28:40
Speaker
You question the friendships you had.
00:28:42
Speaker
It's like, what is this?
00:28:44
Speaker
Dark Night of the Soul.
00:28:46
Speaker
Why am I going through this?
00:28:48
Speaker
What do I want?
00:28:50
Speaker
And for me, being a spiritual being, as we all are, but in my mind, I know I want a different and new life.
00:28:57
Speaker
So certain things got to fall off for things to come in.
00:29:01
Speaker
So what was your experience in your dark night of the soul?
00:29:05
Speaker
And when did that happen?
00:29:07
Speaker
Because you talked about 2019.
00:29:08
Speaker
You had a lot that erupted in your life.
00:29:11
Speaker
And then you said something about coming to LA, the end of 2021, up until now.
00:29:17
Speaker
Are those kind of one and the same or kind of like different moments to kind of sum up both of the dark night of the soul in a sense?
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great question because I almost feel like the 2019 thing for sure was the dark night of the soul because it was something that I almost
00:29:37
Speaker
feel like I had to regain entirely my sense of identity from again.
00:29:44
Speaker
So that was, yeah, that was definitely very interesting.
00:29:47
Speaker
I think that was, you could call them both dark nights of the soul, if you will.
00:29:50
Speaker
I think the first one was very, it was very lonely.
00:29:53
Speaker
It was very isolating.
00:29:55
Speaker
It was very confusing.
00:29:57
Speaker
Obviously being in an environment where you're what, like I had just turned,
00:30:02
Speaker
I was 21 at the time.
00:30:03
Speaker
So experiencing these things at 21, when, you know, like you and I are sitting here talking about this right now, but at 21, like if I talked about tarot or law of attraction, or I had everyone around me looking at me, like I lost my mind.
00:30:15
Speaker
And so I now have a space to do that.
00:30:17
Speaker
But back then it was like, I was being exposed to all these new ideas.
00:30:20
Speaker
I was going down this, you know, call it a rabbit hole, call it a new sphere of ideas, whatever of new age and experiencing that.
00:30:29
Speaker
And
00:30:30
Speaker
That felt in and of itself very lonely and like I wasn't able to understand what I was going through or even let alone who to share it with.
00:30:38
Speaker
So that was its own arc.
00:30:40
Speaker
And then 2020 came around, which is when I kind of dove into social media and then
00:30:45
Speaker
Left and right, I was meeting people in the new age community and forming those relationships and finally being like, man, even if this is virtual, finally, I have this sense of like community.
00:30:54
Speaker
And that was really nice.
00:30:55
Speaker
And I met so many of my good, honestly, inner circle now through that experience.
00:31:01
Speaker
LA happened end of 2021.
00:31:04
Speaker
I think that was in many different ways, the dark night of the soul where I really had a fantastic time in LA, even though a lot of things were falling through the cracks.
00:31:13
Speaker
I think I was also just having so much fun at the same time.
00:31:16
Speaker
It was kind of like, it's like weird toxic relationship where they're like high highs and low lows.
00:31:22
Speaker
But for some reason, I just, it was like a feeling of when I landed in LA and I stepped out
00:31:28
Speaker
Like nothing had ever felt like home to me until that moment when I was in L.A.
00:31:34
Speaker
And I'm like, why does this random place feel like home?
00:31:36
Speaker
Like, it's so weird.
00:31:37
Speaker
And it felt like home through and through, even in my lowest of lows.
00:31:41
Speaker
I'm like, I couldn't imagine going back to Virginia.
00:31:43
Speaker
And I think that was the difference where.
00:31:45
Speaker
When I was going through the 2019 experience, the first wave, if you will, I was here.
00:31:51
Speaker
I was in Virginia.
00:31:52
Speaker
There was a sense of like, I don't belong here.
00:31:54
Speaker
But I think when I was going through those experiences in LA that were falling through the cracks, it wasn't a feeling of I don't belong.
00:32:00
Speaker
It was just kind of like...
00:32:02
Speaker
man, this is just a whole lot of bad luck, like one after the next after the next.
00:32:06
Speaker
But like, obviously, I'm still going to live here.
00:32:08
Speaker
It was like I was in denial that L.A.
00:32:11
Speaker
wouldn't be a place that was conducive for me.
00:32:13
Speaker
I was like, no, this is my place.
00:32:15
Speaker
These are my people.
00:32:15
Speaker
I don't care what's going on.
00:32:17
Speaker
I don't care if my car is getting broken into.
00:32:19
Speaker
I don't care if my part like I have an apartment eviction threat like I didn't care.
00:32:24
Speaker
Until it was very much clear that that place wasn't for me and I just had to accept it.
00:32:28
Speaker
What is that you think?
00:32:30
Speaker
Because I had a friend say the same thing.
00:32:32
Speaker
She literally was telling me that her intuition was telling her like she's not leaving LA.
00:32:37
Speaker
She's not leaving LA.
00:32:39
Speaker
And she didn't renew her lease.
00:32:41
Speaker
And yet she was in the car driving to Sedona to go to this whole exhibit out there.
00:32:48
Speaker
But then I talked to her two weeks later and she's back in Atlanta with her family.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah, she still wants to come back to LA.
00:32:56
Speaker
What do you think that is from the universe?
00:32:58
Speaker
Because if your soul or your spirit is telling you one thing, but the universe is showing you different, what is that you think?
00:33:05
Speaker
So that's a great question, because I think for me, I do believe ultimately in a higher power.
00:33:10
Speaker
Like that, I believe, has more power than us a lot of times, whether or not we like to admit it.
00:33:15
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:17
Speaker
And so for me, the way I interpreted that in my own life was like, this simply just isn't meant for me, or maybe this isn't an alignment for me at this time in my life.
00:33:26
Speaker
And so I'm going to listen to that because every time I try to go back to the city, something or the other is falling through.
00:33:33
Speaker
And it's gotten to the point where it's affected my own health.
00:33:35
Speaker
And so that's kind of what I had to...
00:33:38
Speaker
I was like, okay, the place that's truly right for me that I'm truly going to grow the most in and thrive the most in won't do these things to my health mentally or physically.
00:33:48
Speaker
It won't send these types of even experiences and people in my life.
00:33:52
Speaker
And that was something I had to like really kind of get myself to open my eyes to and almost be like, I feel like I was putting
00:34:01
Speaker
certain people in LA who were really making it in this world.
00:34:05
Speaker
I was almost like putting them on a pedestal of like, oh, I'm here now.
00:34:08
Speaker
And these are my people and not the people that I had back home.
00:34:11
Speaker
It was this weird, like ego trip in my own head.
00:34:14
Speaker
Right.
00:34:15
Speaker
And then it's funny because the people in my life who are from back home have stayed with me through and through the people from that experience, no one's here anymore.
00:34:23
Speaker
So it was kind of admitting like,
00:34:27
Speaker
I feel like it was almost a taste of like, okay, Nista, you want to dive into this world of entrepreneurship and being a CEO and being that boss-ass girl going and living your high-rise.
00:34:36
Speaker
Well, this is what it is.
00:34:38
Speaker
This is a taste of it.
00:34:39
Speaker
See if this is even in alignment with your values and your morals.
00:34:42
Speaker
And clearly it wasn't.
00:34:44
Speaker
So I think for me, it was almost like a...
00:34:47
Speaker
It's like sometimes we think we want something, but it's not what we need.
00:34:51
Speaker
I think that's what the universe was trying to show me through L.A.
00:34:54
Speaker
And I had a great time there, but maybe like it was, I don't know.
00:34:58
Speaker
Maybe there's just other things in store that we can't see yet.
00:35:01
Speaker
We want something, but it's not what we need.
00:35:06
Speaker
I over say that's a tweet of a moment.
00:35:09
Speaker
Sometimes we might think we want something, but it's not what we need.
00:35:12
Speaker
I always tell people it's good to you.
00:35:13
Speaker
It's not always good for you.
00:35:16
Speaker
You know, but I think the biggest thing that I'm learning from you is that you jump like you was willing to take the risk.
00:35:23
Speaker
You know, I always say if you don't take chances, you can't get advances, right?
00:35:27
Speaker
So you was willing to take the chance to move to LA, to figure it out, to live, to be.
00:35:33
Speaker
It didn't go as planned and it's all right, but you jumped, right?
00:35:38
Speaker
Some people don't even jump.
00:35:41
Speaker
Some people don't even get off the stoop.
00:35:42
Speaker
Some people don't even leave their hometown.
00:35:44
Speaker
Some people don't have the courage to say, you know what?
00:35:47
Speaker
Forget this life.
00:35:48
Speaker
I'm going to create a new life.
00:35:50
Speaker
And maybe, you know, for you is that that experience is only going to make the next experience wherever you go, even that much greater.
00:36:00
Speaker
because you went for the post to imagine if you just stayed home for those two or three years you were in LA and just like, I'm gonna just save my money.
00:36:08
Speaker
I'm gonna be very conservative.
00:36:09
Speaker
I'm gonna really like plant my seeds well, take my time.
00:36:14
Speaker
You probably would never be the person you are today.
00:36:17
Speaker
If you get what I'm saying?
00:36:18
Speaker
Because you were shooken up, your world was shaking.
00:36:20
Speaker
You went through this dark night of the soul.
00:36:22
Speaker
It was great moments.
00:36:23
Speaker
There were bad moments and you back home and
00:36:26
Speaker
I think that's the beautiful thing about chasing your dreams and honoring your soul and your purpose is that you're so curious that you're willing to fail and fail forward, hurt yourself in the midst of it, just to learn the greatest lesson of your life to create the ultimate life that you deserve and that you're ultimately going to live eventually even now.
00:36:47
Speaker
But if you don't have that, those downloads or that data from those experiences from going to LA, who are you?
00:36:54
Speaker
Right.
00:36:55
Speaker
Who would you be?
00:36:56
Speaker
I wouldn't have met you if you didn't come to LA.
00:36:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:00
Speaker
Conversation.
00:37:01
Speaker
So I always tell people, plan it safe is the new risk.
00:37:06
Speaker
Good plan safe.
00:37:07
Speaker
That's the, that's the, that's the real risk.
00:37:09
Speaker
Cause if you do that your entire life, what do you have to live for?
00:37:15
Speaker
Like where's your leverage?
00:37:17
Speaker
Right.
00:37:17
Speaker
You know, I don't know if you hit old surveys where people get in their nineties or late eighties and
00:37:22
Speaker
they're in their death bed or maybe they're at the end.
00:37:25
Speaker
It was like, what is it one thing you wish you regret or you would have did?
00:37:30
Speaker
I just, I would have rethought that relationship or I just would have went for it or I would have just not worked for corporate or my job for so long.
00:37:41
Speaker
Like, because at the end of the day, what you have is your experiences.
00:37:46
Speaker
Not that you can't be safe and calculated.
00:37:49
Speaker
Don't get me wrong.
00:37:51
Speaker
But you know, Dr. Wayne Dyer said, don't die with your music left in you, you know?
00:37:57
Speaker
Get it all out.
00:37:59
Speaker
It's crazy too that you say that, because it's like, I even would have people who were back at home who wanted to make those decisions reach out and be like, how do you do this?
00:38:11
Speaker
Help me out.
00:38:11
Speaker
And it's kind of like, at the end of the day, you just do it, which sounds maybe kind of unsettling.
00:38:19
Speaker
Years ago, I had a thousand hours and I left home.
00:38:22
Speaker
I left Baltimore.
00:38:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
Happens, but I think the underlying theme to it all is your faith, right?
00:38:31
Speaker
It really is.
00:38:31
Speaker
That's all it is.
00:38:32
Speaker
And I think like, again, school doesn't really set you up to believe that.
00:38:36
Speaker
So it's very like much an internal thing.
00:38:38
Speaker
I think innately as humans too, like talking to even, you know, psychologists about it as well.
00:38:44
Speaker
Like some people are innately more, uh,
00:38:47
Speaker
prone to taking very risky decisions.
00:38:49
Speaker
And some people are nearly more risk averse.
00:38:51
Speaker
And those are just sometimes things that, you know, it's not even sure you could attribute it to like, oh, childhood trauma, whatever.
00:38:58
Speaker
But sometimes it really is like a very innate thing.
00:39:00
Speaker
And you can have two people in one family who've gone through the same
00:39:04
Speaker
you know, exact upbringing operated in such different ways when it comes to that kind of stuff.
00:39:08
Speaker
So I don't know for me that underlying compass has always been faith.
00:39:12
Speaker
It's always been taking the risk of your decision.
00:39:14
Speaker
I've done that time and time and time again, I'm always going to be that girl, no matter what, like I, I can't even imagine choosing the safe path at any point in my life.
00:39:22
Speaker
I've never done it.
00:39:23
Speaker
And I mean, as much as I've had highs, highs and low lows, um,
00:39:28
Speaker
I still don't think I would trade it for anything.
00:39:30
Speaker
Like you said, it's built a lot of grit and resilience in who I am today.
00:39:35
Speaker
And I'm always going to choose that life.
00:39:37
Speaker
It's always more fun.
00:39:38
Speaker
It's always more entertaining.
00:39:39
Speaker
I have friends in different countries.
00:39:41
Speaker
And it's, you know, I couldn't imagine it any other way.
00:39:45
Speaker
You need to see who you really are.
00:39:48
Speaker
You know, everybody knows...
00:39:50
Speaker
who you are when the sun is out and everyone in the block knows you in the neighborhood, you got your friends, you got the school you grew up in, and you got your best friend from childhood.
00:40:00
Speaker
You know, everyone, I believe, if they put their minds on it, can thrive in their environment they come from, right?
00:40:07
Speaker
But when you go outside of your environment and try to thrive, it's a different intensity.
00:40:13
Speaker
But yet, if you can make it, then you got some potential there.
00:40:18
Speaker
And it all comes to like growth and where you are in life and timing.
00:40:23
Speaker
But we still, I still want to talk about timing because I still haven't forgot about the speech.
00:40:30
Speaker
Please give us a synopsis on the TEDx speech because I think that's so important to people listening and that's going to watch this episode because I don't even have a TEDx.
00:40:39
Speaker
Like how did you get that opportunity and what was it and how was it?

Public Speaking and Embracing Vulnerability

00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah, it was really cool.
00:40:47
Speaker
One of my good friends, she sent me an application to it because it was TEDx Redmond High School.
00:40:53
Speaker
And so that was in the Seattle area.
00:40:55
Speaker
My friend had gone to school there.
00:40:57
Speaker
She graduated from high school there and was in college.
00:41:00
Speaker
So I guess she was already following the school's Instagram page.
00:41:03
Speaker
She probably had mutuals with them and they launched the link.
00:41:07
Speaker
She sent it to me.
00:41:08
Speaker
She knew I was very much in the building phase in 2021 at the moment.
00:41:14
Speaker
I went ahead and applied.
00:41:15
Speaker
I think it honestly just aligned with that talk because the theme was welcoming the unexpected.
00:41:19
Speaker
I'm like, oh, perfect.
00:41:21
Speaker
What better way to talk about how, you know, I demonstrated that over time.
00:41:25
Speaker
And I think it just clicked because honestly, I had applied to so many other TEDx's and, you know, hadn't even heard back.
00:41:32
Speaker
So sometimes it's a numbers game.
00:41:35
Speaker
Sometimes it's a matter of, you know, what the talk is looking for.
00:41:39
Speaker
um it was virtual so I remember I was in LA first month there got COVID everything that I had never experienced in my life back home was happening to me in the 12 months that I spent in LA like left and right so I remember having COVID and then filming my talk um and yeah it was cool there was like a live interview portion of it so that was films and so the students there were uh you know we kind of got to do like a little
00:42:09
Speaker
back and forth discussion, but then the rest of the actual talk I just kind of filmed and yeah, that was that.
00:42:17
Speaker
It would have been really cool to do it in person, but that just wasn't, you know, there wasn't space for that at the moment with the pandemic.
00:42:23
Speaker
So yeah.
00:42:24
Speaker
A lot of the talk itself was about kind of everything we've been talking about so far, leaning into the unknown, taking those risks, putting the book out, deciding to do content.
00:42:34
Speaker
And what I really wanted to get across in that talk was the fact that every time I did make one of those decisions, it was really scary and it was really uncomfortable, right?
00:42:46
Speaker
Like, I think it's very easy to be like, oh, yeah, take risks and go live your life and book the one way ticket.
00:42:52
Speaker
But
00:42:53
Speaker
Even for a lot of people who do that, in the moment in my first Instagram live, my palms were sweaty and I was so nauseous and I was just gonna self-sabotage the whole live and be like, nope, nope, nope, I can't do this back in 2020, but I still followed through.
00:43:08
Speaker
Same with everything that I had ever put out.
00:43:11
Speaker
When I published the book, I was like, great, everyone's gonna read about my internal thoughts and feelings during this breakup.
00:43:17
Speaker
That's a really, really vulnerable thing to put out in the world.
00:43:21
Speaker
And I remember having like my heart rate just went up and I was like, you did that, you did that, you did that.
00:43:25
Speaker
And it was a really scary moment.
00:43:27
Speaker
But then what do people see on the other side?
00:43:30
Speaker
They just see the Barnes and Noble.
00:43:32
Speaker
She has signings around the country, blah, blah, blah.
00:43:35
Speaker
But there was a lot that happened to get to that other side.
00:43:38
Speaker
And so even my first keynote speech that I did at Utah State University.
00:43:43
Speaker
That was my, I think I was telling you off air, like my I made it moment in the sense of like, it was my- You always wanted to be a speaker as a young child.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:43:53
Speaker
And so even that, like that entire, like before I went up on stage, I'm just shaking, shaking, shaking, shaking.
00:43:59
Speaker
Like I-
00:44:00
Speaker
Even today, I'm going to do a spoken word later.
00:44:02
Speaker
And I'm not thinking about it right now because I will freak out.
00:44:05
Speaker
And I know when I'm going to be sitting there, I'm going to be shaking, shaking, shaking until I go on stage.
00:44:09
Speaker
Because these are real things.
00:44:10
Speaker
Like these are real emotions.
00:44:12
Speaker
Your brain is trying to protect you from be a criticism, be a failure, be it being ostracized by society.
00:44:17
Speaker
Those are very evolutionary things that our brain is wired to look for and detect.
00:44:21
Speaker
And so the entire theme of that talk was the fact that those things still come up.
00:44:27
Speaker
for every single person, it's Brené Brown's philosophy.
00:44:30
Speaker
Like fear is going to be there.
00:44:32
Speaker
You just put it on the backseat and you do it anyways.
00:44:34
Speaker
It's not like some people are fearless.
00:44:37
Speaker
Like I don't think that exists.
00:44:38
Speaker
And so, yeah, I see that a lot where people are like, oh, I'm not as brave as this person.
00:44:43
Speaker
I'm not, I'm like, they still have the same thoughts come up.
00:44:47
Speaker
They just choose to operate.
00:44:49
Speaker
That's the shadow side of being an alumni or
00:44:53
Speaker
public success because even before this interview, I was anxious.
00:44:56
Speaker
I was just, cause I was so excited.
00:44:58
Speaker
Like, yeah, I'm getting ready.
00:45:01
Speaker
Like I'm about to be on stage.
00:45:02
Speaker
Like, but literally sometimes like, man, you're so confident.
00:45:07
Speaker
You're so, have so much charisma.
00:45:08
Speaker
I was like, yeah, but I'd be nervous as fuck, bro.
00:45:10
Speaker
Like always.
00:45:13
Speaker
Yeah, I got this.
00:45:14
Speaker
Like that's not even true because what happens is as a performer, you're sensitive as a artist, as a creator, you're sensitive to,
00:45:22
Speaker
your performance to how you show up to how you look to what you say.
00:45:27
Speaker
You might not be thinking about it in your mind, but subconsciously you are.
00:45:30
Speaker
Yeah.
00:45:30
Speaker
So that's just natural.
00:45:31
Speaker
But no one talks about that.
00:45:33
Speaker
We just talk about got to work hard.
00:45:35
Speaker
You got to prepare.
00:45:36
Speaker
Even after you work hard and you prepare, you still are nervous.
00:45:39
Speaker
You still have fears.
00:45:40
Speaker
You still overly
00:45:42
Speaker
consumed with someone might say or what could go wrong because you're trying to control outcomes that it's not even there but that's the mind trying to keep you safe so it's always an honor for people to like step out and step up because you never know what they're feeling internally mentally emotionally
00:46:01
Speaker
I listened to a sermon this morning by Devon Franklin and he's like I've been speaking since the age of 15.
00:46:08
Speaker
I'm 45.
00:46:08
Speaker
I have 30 years of speaking but I got my first movie role this year and I was he's like before he was going on set or before he had his time to speak he would pray to God like God just keep me through this.
00:46:19
Speaker
I'm so nervous right now.
00:46:20
Speaker
I'm so nervous and he was so afraid that someone was like man he need to go back to speaking because he's horrible
00:46:25
Speaker
right yeah this is a professional man in the professional ranks who's feeling this because it's like he's nervous and it's okay to be nervous it's okay to have fear it's okay to know that you don't know the outcome and i think if we just kind of like stay present and say i don't worry about the outcome i just worry about the income is what i can't control i'm gonna be my best i'm gonna have fun and gonna be me however that plays out and then
00:46:53
Speaker
Oh, you'll have more opportunity.
00:46:55
Speaker
And I think the vulnerability aspect of life is what a real power is.
00:47:00
Speaker
And I think you sharing that in your book, the TEDx speech, even on this episode today is phenomenal for people listening because no one has this shit figured out.
00:47:10
Speaker
To anyone listening right now, I mean, nobody.
00:47:12
Speaker
They might look like it because maybe they have a little bit more material possessions or seem like they got some money or they good looking.
00:47:20
Speaker
Trust me, everybody got insecurities and fears that they do not discuss.
00:47:24
Speaker
And we're all work in progress.
00:47:26
Speaker
And it's all about just having love, compassion.
00:47:29
Speaker
And I tell my clients, pace and grace.
00:47:32
Speaker
Your life is not a race.
00:47:35
Speaker
We got to slow it down.
00:47:38
Speaker
speed it up you know um how can the listeners people listening to Ogomi Washington how can they connect with your content connect with you you say you do one-on-one coaching where did we find you did say you was off instagram and on are you still visible on social media i mean i'm pretty sure people love to connect with you in some capacity
00:48:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
00:48:04
Speaker
I did.
00:48:05
Speaker
I took a little break this year just for myself.
00:48:07
Speaker
I'm still definitely up there.
00:48:09
Speaker
You can find me on Instagram at underscore it's Nista.
00:48:13
Speaker
So that's I-T-S-N-I-S-T-H-A.
00:48:17
Speaker
My website is still up as well, nistadubay.com.
00:48:20
Speaker
So
00:48:21
Speaker
N-I-S-T-H-A-D-U-B-E.com.
00:48:24
Speaker
My podcast is still up, Conversations with Nista.
00:48:26
Speaker
So that's on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
00:48:30
Speaker
And yeah, you guys can shoot me a message pretty much anywhere.
00:48:32
Speaker
I'm always open to chatting and connecting.
00:48:34
Speaker
So my email should be linked on those places as well.
00:48:39
Speaker
Just hello at NistaDubay.com.
00:48:41
Speaker
Love that.
00:48:43
Speaker
Well, before we leave, can you give us a spoken word on some wisdom that people can take
00:48:49
Speaker
and utilize for 2024 because we also, we did talk about the TEDx being the unexpected and how to prepare for the unexpected or how to just go with the flow.
00:49:00
Speaker
Just give us some type of, that's coming through you right now.
00:49:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's really, it's presence.
00:49:06
Speaker
It's coming for me again.
00:49:07
Speaker
Presence is going to be your biggest guide.
00:49:09
Speaker
It's going to be your biggest compass.
00:49:10
Speaker
It's going to be your biggest teacher.
00:49:12
Speaker
Um, it's going to be where you get all your wisdom from.
00:49:15
Speaker
So I don't think there's any way to prepare for the unexpected.
00:49:18
Speaker
I think, um, I read this thing on Instagram the other day is we worry so much about things that come up in the future, but I really don't think it's, uh,
00:49:27
Speaker
it your brain learns how to handle the situation when it comes up no matter how much you're worrying for it when the situation comes up you will kind of rise to the occasion and realize you have more strength than you expected so the only thing that you can do really is enjoy the ride and it's kind of the theme that you and i've kept bringing up throughout this podcast is like be here now be here now be here now because
00:49:49
Speaker
This is the life.
00:49:51
Speaker
It's in these moments.
00:49:52
Speaker
It's in these day-to-day pockets of space and time that we create what ultimately our being is.
00:49:59
Speaker
So that's really, I think, pushing people to ask themselves, like, who are you?
00:50:05
Speaker
Who are you without those labels?
00:50:07
Speaker
Who are you with, if you had to introduce yourself without
00:50:11
Speaker
any of the labels that you currently use, what would that even be?
00:50:14
Speaker
Because the beginning of this podcast, you asked me that and I'm like, man, how do I answer, right?
00:50:18
Speaker
Because I ask myself that all the time and I'm like challenging myself.
00:50:22
Speaker
So a little exercise, I think, ask yourself that and kind of see where it takes you.
00:50:27
Speaker
That's beautiful because at the end of the day, just got to enjoy the ride.
00:50:34
Speaker
You got to let go, let God, you got to let the universe at play and
00:50:39
Speaker
Don't fight it.
00:50:41
Speaker
Just be one with it, you know?
00:50:43
Speaker
I love it.
00:50:44
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:50:45
Speaker
I just really appreciate your authenticity today, your transparency.
00:50:50
Speaker
Mr. Dubang, people, follow her.
00:50:52
Speaker
I will put all her information and links in the show notes.
00:50:57
Speaker
This was a beautiful episode.
00:50:58
Speaker
Thank you, Eric, for having me.
00:51:00
Speaker
You're amazing.
00:51:02
Speaker
Thank you.