Transcript
Speaker: Bigger Talks, Bigger Talks.
Speaker: We're back again for another episode.
Speaker: I am so excited because we have a special, special guest.
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.
Speaker: I think your major was cognitive behavioral neuroscience, right?
Speaker: That's a lot to unpack.
Speaker: We'll talk about that.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Welcome to the show.
Speaker: Welcome to Bigger Talks.
Speaker: How are you feeling and how's your day?
Speaker: Yeah, no, thank you so much for having me, Eric.
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.
Speaker: And then I'm at Soho House one day with my friend.
Speaker: I see Eric and I'm like, is that Eric?
Speaker: And I'm like trying to remember where I'm like, he looks so familiar.
Speaker: And then I'm like,
Speaker: being a bachelor, bachelorette nation fanatic is all piecing together.
Speaker: And that's kind of where our like online friendship began.
Speaker: And then here we are.
Speaker: So I'm excited.
Speaker: I've been waiting for this talk.
Speaker: I think there's a lot of synergy and we're into a lot of the same things.
Speaker: So I'm, you know, excited.
Speaker: Spirituality, dark night of the soul, embodiment, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker: We're Pisces.
Speaker: It's a rare season.
Speaker: We're going to talk about the brain and,
Speaker: Maybe some astrology, maybe some neurology.
Speaker: However, before we get started, I'm going to get you to pick a card.
Speaker: Oh, I'm so excited.
Speaker: I've never done this thing.
Speaker: I have these tarot cards.
Speaker: It's called Raise Your Vibration, Oracle cards.
Speaker: And you pick whatever card comes.
Speaker: So I'm going to shuffle.
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.
Speaker: I'm meditating on my end.
Speaker: Before we get into the discussion.
Speaker: And you're in VA right now, right?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I don't know if you can pick the screen, but.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I'm like, I wonder how you know which one I'm going to.
Speaker: like point out.
Speaker: You just gotta point to it and just say.
Speaker: So that one right in the middle, keep going, keep going.
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: Yeah, keep going that way.
Speaker: Keep going, keep going.
Speaker: It's that one, that one, that one.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: What does it say?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The truth is my teacher.
Speaker: Huh.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: The truth.
Speaker: is my teacher.
Speaker: So I'm going to take a look at what does that mean for you today?
Speaker: What does that mean when the truth, and it's crazy, I opened right up to the page.
Speaker: That's crazy.
Speaker: What do you get from that?
Speaker: The truth is my teacher.
Speaker: What comes through for you?
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.
Speaker: My last podcast that I was the guest on might have been
Speaker: I think January of this year.
Speaker: So we've done like a whole year of me stepping away from this.
Speaker: And then going into today, I was like, I'm just going to be authentic towards the experiences that have happened to me.
Speaker: Cause that's the only wisdom that I can speak from.
Speaker: It's my past and it's my experiences.
Speaker: And so that truth has been what I would, you know, share with the world to kind of act as a guiding force.
Speaker: Cause I think it's all this like circulating energy in a way.
Speaker: Like I was inspired by so many people when I started my path of figuring out how to go inwards and how to
Speaker: even be a content creator.
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.
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.
Speaker: And so that's very interesting that that came out.
Speaker: So I'm going to read it.
Speaker: So the truth is my teaching.
Speaker: Before you were in this life,
Speaker: Before you were in this body, you chose to come to earth.
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.
Speaker: This is why ever since you were young, you searched for meaning and wanted to understand the greater mysteries of life.
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.
Speaker: Alignment.
Speaker: Everything that you have done and experienced in your lifetime has led you to where you are now.
Speaker: This moment is crucial.
Speaker: You may be wondering where you go from here.
Speaker: With this card, the universe is inviting you to simply embody your truth.
Speaker: Your truth is who you are at your core.
Speaker: Let that truth rise up and out for the world to see and then you'll remember while you're here.
Speaker: Bible today, I let my truth reveal my purpose.
Speaker: Interesting.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: That's crazy that it had big questions and we're on bigger talks.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: That's going to be what we come in and talk about.
Speaker: And then just kind of the tail end of that of me.
Speaker: I used to call myself a purpose coach before a mindset coach.
Speaker: And I, Oh, really?
Speaker: Yes, that resonates for me more than mindset coach.
Speaker: And then I took a step back because I'm just like purpose is just an ever evolving thing.
Speaker: You let everyone go on their journey to find it.
Speaker: So who am I to be a coach for that?
Speaker: Not bashing on anyone who is.
Speaker: It was just my own internal thinking.
Speaker: And so it's so funny that you use those words.
Speaker: My newsletter is literally in alignment with
Speaker: Yeah, it's crazy how that came out.
Speaker: The universe doesn't laugh when you set your intentions, because you're always about setting intentions, right, and your intuition.
Speaker: So let's get into the discussion.
Speaker: Who is Mr. DuVay?
Speaker: Who is she?
Speaker: She has a beautiful presence.
Speaker: She's an author.
Speaker: She's a podcast host.
Speaker: She's a TEDx speaker.
Speaker: I mean, you went to Virginia Tech, which is a prominent university.
Speaker: but from your lens, who are you?
Speaker: That's a great question.
Speaker: Cause I'm just, you're asking that and I'm like, I don't even know where to begin.
Speaker: I think it's like almost a culmination of everything.
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.
Speaker: So it's almost like a,
Speaker: it's almost like an I statement with that verb or that mission integrated into how he introduces himself.
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.
Speaker: I think that's kind of been a recurring theme for me is helping people redefine what's possible for them in the
Speaker: the crazy stories or crazy decisions or whatever risk-taking behavior I take.
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.
Speaker: And I'm that person who's always like, yep, this is the one, this is booking a one-way ticket.
Speaker: Don't know which country she's going to be in.
Speaker: I think in some ways it plants seeds of, hey, this is possible for you too.
Speaker: Or, hey,
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.
Speaker: And so that was the theme of my steps.
Speaker: And I think that's kind of been that underlying theme
Speaker: notion that I've been trying to spread through all of my content with the book.
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.
Speaker: So I would say that would be my mission as I am aware of at this time in my life.
Speaker: Aside from that, I, I don't know.
Speaker: I'm, I'm,
Speaker: kind of someone who loves to do so many different things.
Speaker: Like I was just telling you, I'm going to a spoken word today for the first time for my poetry.
Speaker: I enjoy hanging out with friends.
Speaker: I enjoy dancing.
Speaker: I enjoy sketching.
Speaker: I dabble in so many different things.
Speaker: And I think that just makes me who I am.
Speaker: I'm all about cultivating experiences.
Speaker: I love
Speaker: trying things that are new and unconventional and kind of paving a very non-traditional path for myself.
Speaker: So that's just really a signature part of who I am walking this life.
Speaker: Sometimes it's lonely, sometimes it's weird, but I think conversations like these help me feel seen.
Speaker: I'm sure it's the same for you and so many people listening.
Speaker: It's the sense of community and maybe having an untraditional path.
Speaker: inflection of your walking testament of so many different things and paradoxes, right?
Speaker: Like, you can't put, we can't put you in a box, right?
Speaker: There's so many things you do well, there's so many things you're great at, and I think that's
Speaker: in my mind for this discussion is for people to know that we're not just one thing.
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.
Speaker: We're so much more than that.
Speaker: And sometimes we got to go through a metamorphosis, right?
Speaker: You touched on two things when you just spoke.
Speaker: You talked about your speech and you talked about, I guess,
Speaker: trying to get to the other side to find the bigger purpose of who you are.
Speaker: Can you kind of, you know, elaborate on in TEDx speech, what the synopsis of that was?
Speaker: And then you talked about your book, and I believe the book is Beyond Your Skin, right?
Speaker: Beyond Your Skin, yep.
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?
Speaker: Yeah, so I think we'll start with the book just because I wrote that before the TEDx happened.
Speaker: And that was really more so like a creative outlet for when I was going through my breakup in 2019.
Speaker: So a lot of those
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.
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
Speaker: consistently like this community, these people, the same circle on social media, I think it was like a blank slate.
Speaker: I didn't know what I was doing.
Speaker: I was choosing a career path that was entirely outside of my major, entirely outside of what school had ever taught me.
Speaker: Like I was teaching myself how to be an entrepreneur with not really having any friends or any community anymore.
Speaker: And so it was another way for me to be like, huh, okay, well, this was kind of the catalyst.
Speaker: It was leaving this environment.
Speaker: This is the phase where I'm experimenting.
Speaker: It's hard.
Speaker: It's tough.
Speaker: I'm going through a lot of
Speaker: deaths and rebirths, if you will, of who am I?
Speaker: I'm almost longing for that community again, but I no longer resonate with it.
Speaker: And so that's the second part of the book.
Speaker: The first part, the second part is healing beyond the skin.
Speaker: So that's kind of the healing process of, you know, just kind of demonstrating that it isn't linear.
Speaker: And then the last end of the book, the last third is awakening beyond the skin.
Speaker: And so that's really stepping into this new version of yourself and
Speaker: who that is in the world and realizing it's possible.
Speaker: So that was more of like a creative kind of arc.
Speaker: You're saying that your breakup initiated the book?
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.
Speaker: I didn't think that it would lead into a book, but then when I started writing... What about the breakup?
Speaker: Like what was it?
Speaker: Was it since you grew out of alignment?
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
Speaker: And so that caused that caused that breakup.
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.
Speaker: So it was all happening at once.
Speaker: I was kind of.
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
Speaker: fight over the smallest things.
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.
Speaker: And so it was in an odd way, like the start of everything.
Speaker: It's my grandpa's passing, the breakup happened right after.
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.
Speaker: And so that's been 2020 until 2019 until now, actually.
Speaker: That's big.
Speaker: Congrats.
Speaker: Thank you.
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?
Speaker: Yeah, I'm not going to lie.
Speaker: I think I was in the grieving phase for a very, very long time with a lot of those things.
Speaker: But I think I'm finally at a place now where I really am on the other side.
Speaker: I don't think there's any more grieving, to be honest.
Speaker: I think there's almost a sense of like I can look back at a lot of those things really fondly and
Speaker: It's taken years to get here.
Speaker: So it's been a progress.
Speaker: I'm not going to lie.
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?
Speaker: Not blaming anyone here that was totally taking accountability.
Speaker: But that was tough before I went out to LA in 2020.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: And I think,
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
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.
Speaker: Like, what is that you think?
Speaker: Yeah, well, I think the thing that,
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.
Speaker: So you, your amygdala and you have your fear-based response systems.
Speaker: That is that amygdala.
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.
Speaker: And then you have your frontal cortex and that's the one doing all the logical reasoning and the processing and et cetera.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so, um,
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.
Speaker: That's because talk therapy is operating in that frontal part of the brain.
Speaker: Whereas if you're going to do something like hypnotherapy or, or,
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.
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.
Speaker: That's why those things are so ingrained in the body.
Speaker: Trauma gets literally stored in our bodies.
Speaker: And so I think when it comes to something like moving on, there is a fear of the unknown.
Speaker: The brain doesn't like things that aren't familiar.
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.
Speaker: A great example of this would be doing
Speaker: Yin yoga.
Speaker: So if you do Yin yoga, the process of it is basically holding every asana or every pose for two minutes.
Speaker: And so that elongated hold of every pose releases the emotions in your body.
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,
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
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.
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
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.
Speaker: And I do still want you to go into like the TEDx.
Speaker: However,
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?
Speaker: It's like, okay, brother, okay, sister, I get it, but you got to still live life.
Speaker: You got to live.
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.
Speaker: doing the work, but what's really happened?
Speaker: What is that?
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?
Speaker: I think it's the latter.
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.
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,
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.
Speaker: And you're going to get triggered left and right.
Speaker: And it's how you integrate those experiences into or integrate those learnings into those experiences.
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?
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.
Speaker: Of course, you're going to be in your little bubble of like, oh, yeah, I'm reading all the books.
Speaker: But where is the it's almost like school, right?
Speaker: You read the textbook, you learn the lessons.
Speaker: And then where do you actually get tested?
Speaker: You get tested on the exams.
Speaker: I think this, you know, analogous to that, it's like, where are we getting tested in the new age community?
Speaker: If people are staying in that bubble, only interacting with people who are also in this
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
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.
Speaker: And I think that gets lost as well when we're constantly striving to be better.
Speaker: It's like,
Speaker: where does that end?
Speaker: Where do you just one day wake up and decide like, okay, cool, I've done it now.
Speaker: How does that, like, where is that metric and how do you measure that?
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.
Speaker: You're like, oh, it really works.
Speaker: You know, they say healing.
Speaker: You know, it happens in an instant.
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.
Speaker: And in my life, you get in this phase was like, okay, why am I reading all these books now?
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.
Speaker: Now I'm reading these books because I think that's what I should do.
Speaker: Oppose what I really want to do.
Speaker: And so I got to this, this download of like, relax and trust.
Speaker: Let go.
Speaker: Don't do anything.
Speaker: Like, don't do anything.
Speaker: you already done enough of everything.
Speaker: Let things take course, right?
Speaker: Like go into the world or go into yourself and let yourself be.
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.
Speaker: And then I couldn't be who I needed to be in the moment.
Speaker: And I think the biggest thing, like you said, is surrender and presence.
Speaker: Like just really being present.
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?
Speaker: How do, what's, what's your secret?
Speaker: Yeah, I think,
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.
Speaker: And it's kind of been this understanding of like, I've done all of that.
Speaker: I've done the daily meditations.
Speaker: I've done the personal development books.
Speaker: I've done the joining all those like one hour workshops with other spiritual and I'm
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.
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.
Speaker: And it was just tower moments after tower moments.
Speaker: For people who are wondering, it's kind of just another way of saying, it's almost like tarot terminology for just
Speaker: saying basically getting humbled and getting grounded by whatever force is out there.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I wanted that city high rise girl experience in my 20s that fell through.
Speaker: I worked at a digital agency, had the best time, had the best coworkers there, loved my loved everything about it.
Speaker: And that just ultimately wasn't in my highest alignment.
Speaker: And so many things in L.A.
Speaker: that I thought I was really identifying with were just falling through the cracks.
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.
Speaker: So for me, it was understanding like there isn't really a sense of control that I have.
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.
Speaker: experience and what I've learned and what I've had to give up.
Speaker: I can't give wisdom from a book that Eckhart Tolle wrote.
Speaker: I can't do that, right?
Speaker: Like that's his, that's his teachings.
Speaker: That's his life.
Speaker: And so, yeah, in terms of what that looks like now and how I practice it, just breathing, like sensory breathing.
Speaker: If I'm taking a walk, just tune in with my breath, ask myself, what are things I can see?
Speaker: What are things I can hear?
Speaker: It's really in the small things, like
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?
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
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
Speaker: Like you gotta do this, you gotta do that.
Speaker: And it's like, take it easy, right?
Speaker: And social media, the world at large, our environments most time programs our behavior unconsciously.
Speaker: And we don't know it, whether it's scrolling on the phone,
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.
Speaker: What are you trying to get?
Speaker: Right?
Speaker: But sometimes we don't think about it because like, oh, it's just another day and I got to work.
Speaker: So I just tell anyone out there, take a breath.
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.
Speaker: That is the history.
Speaker: Is this now?
Speaker: So yeah,
Speaker: But I want to get into Dark Night of the Soul.
Speaker: Because I have experienced that this year.
Speaker: I talked about it on a few episodes prior to this one.
Speaker: My journey in it and how uncomfortable it has been.
Speaker: Nothing makes sense.
Speaker: You question your purpose.
Speaker: You lose friends, relationships.
Speaker: You question the friendships you had.
Speaker: It's like, what is this?
Speaker: Dark Night of the Soul.
Speaker: Why am I going through this?
Speaker: What do I want?
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.
Speaker: So certain things got to fall off for things to come in.
Speaker: So what was your experience in your dark night of the soul?
Speaker: And when did that happen?
Speaker: Because you talked about 2019.
Speaker: You had a lot that erupted in your life.
Speaker: And then you said something about coming to LA, the end of 2021, up until now.
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?
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
Speaker: feel like I had to regain entirely my sense of identity from again.
Speaker: So that was, yeah, that was definitely very interesting.
Speaker: I think that was, you could call them both dark nights of the soul, if you will.
Speaker: I think the first one was very, it was very lonely.
Speaker: It was very isolating.
Speaker: It was very confusing.
Speaker: Obviously being in an environment where you're what, like I had just turned,
Speaker: I was 21 at the time.
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.
Speaker: And so I now have a space to do that.
Speaker: But back then it was like, I was being exposed to all these new ideas.
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.
Speaker: And
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.
Speaker: So that was its own arc.
Speaker: And then 2020 came around, which is when I kind of dove into social media and then
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.
Speaker: And that was really nice.
Speaker: And I met so many of my good, honestly, inner circle now through that experience.
Speaker: LA happened end of 2021.
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.
Speaker: I think I was also just having so much fun at the same time.
Speaker: It was kind of like, it's like weird toxic relationship where they're like high highs and low lows.
Speaker: But for some reason, I just, it was like a feeling of when I landed in LA and I stepped out
Speaker: Like nothing had ever felt like home to me until that moment when I was in L.A.
Speaker: And I'm like, why does this random place feel like home?
Speaker: Like, it's so weird.
Speaker: And it felt like home through and through, even in my lowest of lows.
Speaker: I'm like, I couldn't imagine going back to Virginia.
Speaker: And I think that was the difference where.
Speaker: When I was going through the 2019 experience, the first wave, if you will, I was here.
Speaker: I was in Virginia.
Speaker: There was a sense of like, I don't belong here.
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.
Speaker: It was just kind of like...
Speaker: man, this is just a whole lot of bad luck, like one after the next after the next.
Speaker: But like, obviously, I'm still going to live here.
Speaker: It was like I was in denial that L.A.
Speaker: wouldn't be a place that was conducive for me.
Speaker: I was like, no, this is my place.
Speaker: These are my people.
Speaker: I don't care what's going on.
Speaker: I don't care if my car is getting broken into.
Speaker: I don't care if my part like I have an apartment eviction threat like I didn't care.
Speaker: Until it was very much clear that that place wasn't for me and I just had to accept it.
Speaker: What is that you think?
Speaker: Because I had a friend say the same thing.
Speaker: She literally was telling me that her intuition was telling her like she's not leaving LA.
Speaker: She's not leaving LA.
Speaker: And she didn't renew her lease.
Speaker: And yet she was in the car driving to Sedona to go to this whole exhibit out there.
Speaker: But then I talked to her two weeks later and she's back in Atlanta with her family.
Speaker: Yeah, she still wants to come back to LA.
Speaker: What do you think that is from the universe?
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?
Speaker: So that's a great question, because I think for me, I do believe ultimately in a higher power.
Speaker: Like that, I believe, has more power than us a lot of times, whether or not we like to admit it.
Speaker: Yeah.
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.
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.
Speaker: And it's gotten to the point where it's affected my own health.
Speaker: And so that's kind of what I had to...
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.
Speaker: It won't send these types of even experiences and people in my life.
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
Speaker: certain people in LA who were really making it in this world.
Speaker: I was almost like putting them on a pedestal of like, oh, I'm here now.
Speaker: And these are my people and not the people that I had back home.
Speaker: It was this weird, like ego trip in my own head.
Speaker: Right.
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.
Speaker: So it was kind of admitting like,
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.
Speaker: Well, this is what it is.
Speaker: This is a taste of it.
Speaker: See if this is even in alignment with your values and your morals.
Speaker: And clearly it wasn't.
Speaker: So I think for me, it was almost like a...
Speaker: It's like sometimes we think we want something, but it's not what we need.
Speaker: I think that's what the universe was trying to show me through L.A.
Speaker: And I had a great time there, but maybe like it was, I don't know.
Speaker: Maybe there's just other things in store that we can't see yet.
Speaker: We want something, but it's not what we need.
Speaker: I over say that's a tweet of a moment.
Speaker: Sometimes we might think we want something, but it's not what we need.
Speaker: I always tell people it's good to you.
Speaker: It's not always good for you.
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.
Speaker: You know, I always say if you don't take chances, you can't get advances, right?
Speaker: So you was willing to take the chance to move to LA, to figure it out, to live, to be.
Speaker: It didn't go as planned and it's all right, but you jumped, right?
Speaker: Some people don't even jump.
Speaker: Some people don't even get off the stoop.
Speaker: Some people don't even leave their hometown.
Speaker: Some people don't have the courage to say, you know what?
Speaker: Forget this life.
Speaker: I'm going to create a new life.
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.
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.
Speaker: I'm gonna be very conservative.
Speaker: I'm gonna really like plant my seeds well, take my time.
Speaker: You probably would never be the person you are today.
Speaker: If you get what I'm saying?
Speaker: Because you were shooken up, your world was shaking.
Speaker: You went through this dark night of the soul.
Speaker: It was great moments.
Speaker: There were bad moments and you back home and
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.
Speaker: But if you don't have that, those downloads or that data from those experiences from going to LA, who are you?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: Who would you be?
Speaker: I wouldn't have met you if you didn't come to LA.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Conversation.
Speaker: So I always tell people, plan it safe is the new risk.
Speaker: Good plan safe.
Speaker: That's the, that's the, that's the real risk.
Speaker: Cause if you do that your entire life, what do you have to live for?
Speaker: Like where's your leverage?
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: You know, I don't know if you hit old surveys where people get in their nineties or late eighties and
Speaker: they're in their death bed or maybe they're at the end.
Speaker: It was like, what is it one thing you wish you regret or you would have did?
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.
Speaker: Like, because at the end of the day, what you have is your experiences.
Speaker: Not that you can't be safe and calculated.
Speaker: Don't get me wrong.
Speaker: But you know, Dr. Wayne Dyer said, don't die with your music left in you, you know?
Speaker: Get it all out.
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?
Speaker: Help me out.
Speaker: And it's kind of like, at the end of the day, you just do it, which sounds maybe kind of unsettling.
Speaker: Years ago, I had a thousand hours and I left home.
Speaker: I left Baltimore.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Happens, but I think the underlying theme to it all is your faith, right?
Speaker: It really is.
Speaker: That's all it is.
Speaker: And I think like, again, school doesn't really set you up to believe that.
Speaker: So it's very like much an internal thing.
Speaker: I think innately as humans too, like talking to even, you know, psychologists about it as well.
Speaker: Like some people are innately more, uh,
Speaker: prone to taking very risky decisions.
Speaker: And some people are nearly more risk averse.
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.
Speaker: But sometimes it really is like a very innate thing.
Speaker: And you can have two people in one family who've gone through the same
Speaker: you know, exact upbringing operated in such different ways when it comes to that kind of stuff.
Speaker: So I don't know for me that underlying compass has always been faith.
Speaker: It's always been taking the risk of your decision.
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.
Speaker: I've never done it.
Speaker: And I mean, as much as I've had highs, highs and low lows, um,
Speaker: I still don't think I would trade it for anything.
Speaker: Like you said, it's built a lot of grit and resilience in who I am today.
Speaker: And I'm always going to choose that life.
Speaker: It's always more fun.
Speaker: It's always more entertaining.
Speaker: I have friends in different countries.
Speaker: And it's, you know, I couldn't imagine it any other way.
Speaker: You need to see who you really are.
Speaker: You know, everybody knows...
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.
Speaker: You know, everyone, I believe, if they put their minds on it, can thrive in their environment they come from, right?
Speaker: But when you go outside of your environment and try to thrive, it's a different intensity.
Speaker: But yet, if you can make it, then you got some potential there.
Speaker: And it all comes to like growth and where you are in life and timing.
Speaker: But we still, I still want to talk about timing because I still haven't forgot about the speech.
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.
Speaker: Like how did you get that opportunity and what was it and how was it?
Speaker: Yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker: One of my good friends, she sent me an application to it because it was TEDx Redmond High School.
Speaker: And so that was in the Seattle area.
Speaker: My friend had gone to school there.
Speaker: She graduated from high school there and was in college.
Speaker: So I guess she was already following the school's Instagram page.
Speaker: She probably had mutuals with them and they launched the link.
Speaker: She sent it to me.
Speaker: She knew I was very much in the building phase in 2021 at the moment.
Speaker: I went ahead and applied.
Speaker: I think it honestly just aligned with that talk because the theme was welcoming the unexpected.
Speaker: I'm like, oh, perfect.
Speaker: What better way to talk about how, you know, I demonstrated that over time.
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.
Speaker: So sometimes it's a numbers game.
Speaker: Sometimes it's a matter of, you know, what the talk is looking for.
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
Speaker: back and forth discussion, but then the rest of the actual talk I just kind of filmed and yeah, that was that.
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.
Speaker: So yeah.
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.
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?
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.
Speaker: But
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.
Speaker: Same with everything that I had ever put out.
Speaker: When I published the book, I was like, great, everyone's gonna read about my internal thoughts and feelings during this breakup.
Speaker: That's a really, really vulnerable thing to put out in the world.
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.
Speaker: And it was a really scary moment.
Speaker: But then what do people see on the other side?
Speaker: They just see the Barnes and Noble.
Speaker: She has signings around the country, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: But there was a lot that happened to get to that other side.
Speaker: And so even my first keynote speech that I did at Utah State University.
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.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And so even that, like that entire, like before I went up on stage, I'm just shaking, shaking, shaking, shaking.
Speaker: Like I-
Speaker: Even today, I'm going to do a spoken word later.
Speaker: And I'm not thinking about it right now because I will freak out.
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.
Speaker: Because these are real things.
Speaker: Like these are real emotions.
Speaker: Your brain is trying to protect you from be a criticism, be a failure, be it being ostracized by society.
Speaker: Those are very evolutionary things that our brain is wired to look for and detect.
Speaker: And so the entire theme of that talk was the fact that those things still come up.
Speaker: for every single person, it's Brené Brown's philosophy.
Speaker: Like fear is going to be there.
Speaker: You just put it on the backseat and you do it anyways.
Speaker: It's not like some people are fearless.
Speaker: Like I don't think that exists.
Speaker: And so, yeah, I see that a lot where people are like, oh, I'm not as brave as this person.
Speaker: I'm not, I'm like, they still have the same thoughts come up.
Speaker: They just choose to operate.
Speaker: That's the shadow side of being an alumni or
Speaker: public success because even before this interview, I was anxious.
Speaker: I was just, cause I was so excited.
Speaker: Like, yeah, I'm getting ready.
Speaker: Like I'm about to be on stage.
Speaker: Like, but literally sometimes like, man, you're so confident.
Speaker: You're so, have so much charisma.
Speaker: I was like, yeah, but I'd be nervous as fuck, bro.
Speaker: Like always.
Speaker: Yeah, I got this.
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,
Speaker: your performance to how you show up to how you look to what you say.
Speaker: You might not be thinking about it in your mind, but subconsciously you are.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: So that's just natural.
Speaker: But no one talks about that.
Speaker: We just talk about got to work hard.
Speaker: You got to prepare.
Speaker: Even after you work hard and you prepare, you still are nervous.
Speaker: You still have fears.
Speaker: You still overly
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
Speaker: I listened to a sermon this morning by Devon Franklin and he's like I've been speaking since the age of 15.
Speaker: I'm 45.
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.
Speaker: I'm so nervous right now.
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
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
Speaker: Oh, you'll have more opportunity.
Speaker: And I think the vulnerability aspect of life is what a real power is.
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.
Speaker: To anyone listening right now, I mean, nobody.
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.
Speaker: Trust me, everybody got insecurities and fears that they do not discuss.
Speaker: And we're all work in progress.
Speaker: And it's all about just having love, compassion.
Speaker: And I tell my clients, pace and grace.
Speaker: Your life is not a race.
Speaker: We got to slow it down.
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
Speaker: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker: I did.
Speaker: I took a little break this year just for myself.
Speaker: I'm still definitely up there.
Speaker: You can find me on Instagram at underscore it's Nista.
Speaker: So that's I-T-S-N-I-S-T-H-A.
Speaker: My website is still up as well, nistadubay.com.
Speaker: So
Speaker: N-I-S-T-H-A-D-U-B-E.com.
Speaker: My podcast is still up, Conversations with Nista.
Speaker: So that's on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Speaker: And yeah, you guys can shoot me a message pretty much anywhere.
Speaker: I'm always open to chatting and connecting.
Speaker: So my email should be linked on those places as well.
Speaker: Just hello at NistaDubay.com.
Speaker: Love that.
Speaker: Well, before we leave, can you give us a spoken word on some wisdom that people can take
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.
Speaker: Just give us some type of, that's coming through you right now.
Speaker: Yeah, it's, it's really, it's presence.
Speaker: It's coming for me again.
Speaker: Presence is going to be your biggest guide.
Speaker: It's going to be your biggest compass.
Speaker: It's going to be your biggest teacher.
Speaker: Um, it's going to be where you get all your wisdom from.
Speaker: So I don't think there's any way to prepare for the unexpected.
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,
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
Speaker: This is the life.
Speaker: It's in these moments.
Speaker: It's in these day-to-day pockets of space and time that we create what ultimately our being is.
Speaker: So that's really, I think, pushing people to ask themselves, like, who are you?
Speaker: Who are you without those labels?
Speaker: Who are you with, if you had to introduce yourself without
Speaker: any of the labels that you currently use, what would that even be?
Speaker: Because the beginning of this podcast, you asked me that and I'm like, man, how do I answer, right?
Speaker: Because I ask myself that all the time and I'm like challenging myself.
Speaker: So a little exercise, I think, ask yourself that and kind of see where it takes you.
Speaker: That's beautiful because at the end of the day, just got to enjoy the ride.
Speaker: You got to let go, let God, you got to let the universe at play and
Speaker: Don't fight it.
Speaker: Just be one with it, you know?
Speaker: I love it.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker: I just really appreciate your authenticity today, your transparency.
Speaker: Mr. Dubang, people, follow her.
Speaker: I will put all her information and links in the show notes.
Speaker: This was a beautiful episode.
Speaker: Thank you, Eric, for having me.
Speaker: You're amazing.
Speaker: Thank you.
