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30. Creating From Lack vs Inspiration: The Hidden Energy Behind Your Work · Lately with Lexi

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: If I had to guess, you were probably creating from lack instead of pure inspiration.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I do this all the time, unfortunately.
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  SPEAKER_00: Most of us actually do this completely unknown.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're a creative,
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: an entrepreneur,
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  SPEAKER_00: a coach, or a spiritual seeker, we all run the same unconscious fear loops.
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  SPEAKER_00: We might tell ourselves that we're being disciplined and ambitious,
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  SPEAKER_00: but underneath it, we're chasing because we're afraid.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: We're afraid that we're not enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're afraid that we're falling behind.
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  SPEAKER_00: Afraid that if we slow down, we're going to get left behind.
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  SPEAKER_00: Everything's going to fall apart.
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  SPEAKER_00: The problem is when fear is what's driving your work and your projects,
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  SPEAKER_00: they're going to eventually lose steam because you're losing
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  SPEAKER_00: and lacking authenticity.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we've got to unpack the difference between what does it look like
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  SPEAKER_00: when we're creating from inspiration versus creating from lack and more importantly,
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  SPEAKER_00: how to tell which one you're actually operating from so that you can course correct.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: Creating from lack is what's happening when the ego is in the driver's seat
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  SPEAKER_00: of your life and fear is the engine.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's not necessarily obvious when we're doing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's usually completely unconscious.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when fear is what's driving us, there's this pressure.
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  SPEAKER_00: We forget the truth of who we really are as co-creators with God.
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  SPEAKER_00: Creating from inspiration,
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  SPEAKER_00: on the other hand, is something entirely different, practically the opposite.
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  SPEAKER_00: The intention is clean.
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  SPEAKER_00: The energy is pure.
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  SPEAKER_00: And when our self-expression is authentic, we tap into this flow.
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  SPEAKER_00: We become unattached to the outcomes.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's not because we stop caring,
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  SPEAKER_00: but because we recognize And listen,
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  SPEAKER_00: this does not mean that we aren't ambitious.
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  SPEAKER_00: It just means that the clarity of our heart is leading the way and not our fear.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our passion has got to drive us forward more than our fear does.
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  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, we're always going to stay trapped in this constant loop of wanting more.
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  SPEAKER_00: More money, more recognition, more proof that we matter.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And we've got to remember,
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  SPEAKER_00: creating from inspiration is authentic self-expression that is in alignment
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  SPEAKER_00: with our dharma or soul's purpose.
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  SPEAKER_00: And as a yogi,
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  SPEAKER_00: it is my belief that we're here for a specific purpose,
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  SPEAKER_00: for our soul to express itself in a very specific way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And isn't that kind of the whole point of why we're here in the first place to grow
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  SPEAKER_00: and to evolve?
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  SPEAKER_00: For me, that's the whole point.
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  SPEAKER_00: So from the outside looking in,
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  SPEAKER_00: creating from lack and creating from inspiration can look almost identical,
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  SPEAKER_00: but the energy underneath them is almost the complete opposite.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that energy is exactly what other people feel,
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: whether they can name And here's where it gets tricky.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: When fear is running the show, it never announces itself as fear.
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  SPEAKER_00: It shows up dressed up as ambition, discipline, and drive.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the ego is so good at this disguise that we can spend years building something
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  SPEAKER_00: that might look aligned on the outside,
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  SPEAKER_00: but it feels completely unaligned on the inside.
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  SPEAKER_00: So how do we actually tell the difference?
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  SPEAKER_00: A
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: My podcast,
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  SPEAKER_00: making videos,
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: and my Substack,
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  SPEAKER_00: I had to get really honest with myself about how I was approaching writing
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: and creating videos because something felt off.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: I felt like I was starting to rush the creative process.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was being overly self-critical and forcing perfection.
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  SPEAKER_00: I started to fall out of love with the process of creating,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I wasn't enjoying the journey, which to me is what creative expression is.
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  SPEAKER_00: So by taking a break,
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  SPEAKER_00: I was able to let go of the shame I felt around quitting
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  SPEAKER_00: because I knew I wasn't quitting.
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  SPEAKER_00: I was just taking a pause.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was during that time away from creating that I was able to embrace stillness
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  SPEAKER_00: and I was able to confront a voice that kept saying,
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  SPEAKER_00: you're falling behind, you're losing momentum, you're not doing enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: And guess what I realized?
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  SPEAKER_00: That voice, it had been there the whole time.
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  SPEAKER_00: Carl Jung said it like this,
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  SPEAKER_00: until you make the unconscious conscious,
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  SPEAKER_00: it will direct your life and you will call it fate.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's exactly what's happening every time we create from lack and don't know
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  SPEAKER_00: that we're doing it.
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  SPEAKER_00: The unconscious is in the driver's seat.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're calling the destination our calling when in actuality,
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  SPEAKER_00: our calling is the pursuit,
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  SPEAKER_00: not So if you're creating and something feels off and you want to know
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  SPEAKER_00: whether you're creating from fear or inspiration, pause.
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  SPEAKER_00: Pausing is where truth surfaces.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what becomes clear in that stillness is what's been driving you the whole time.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part that the mind can't solve alone.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've got to incorporate the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: Here's what I mean by that.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if the mind is part of the ego's construct,
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  SPEAKER_00: it is actually part of creating the disguises, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: We convince ourselves that we're creating something from pure authenticity and love
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  SPEAKER_00: and joy, but it's not always the case.
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  SPEAKER_00: We can't just listen to the mind.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've got to look at the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: We do this by peeling back the layers we hide behind and getting brutally honest
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  SPEAKER_00: about how we're actually showing up How we're feeling.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that feeling sensation, it doesn't start in the mind.
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  SPEAKER_00: It starts in the body.
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  SPEAKER_00: So here's an example from my own life.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have dealt with low back pain off and on for over a decade.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what I've learned over the years is that pain is not random.
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  SPEAKER_00: It is a signal.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'll have back pain flare up.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you are at all familiar with chronic pain, I'm sure this
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  SPEAKER_00: So what I've learned is that when I'm not present and trusting where I am in
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  SPEAKER_00: the present moment,
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  SPEAKER_00: my body starts speaking to me until it gets loud enough that I finally understand.
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  SPEAKER_00: Listen, I'm someone with big visions for my life,
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  SPEAKER_00: and I've been fortunate enough to live a lot of them,
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  SPEAKER_00: leading more than 30 wellness retreats around the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: speaking on stages in front of hundreds of people, doing meetings.
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  SPEAKER_00: Meaningful work in sales, meeting my life partner, living abroad, traveling throughout Europe.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of these dreams that I have experienced has led me to the realization that even
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  SPEAKER_00: when you're living your dreams,
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  SPEAKER_00: if your nervous system is still bracing on In order to do this,
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  SPEAKER_00: we have to continually practice trusting the life
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  SPEAKER_00: that we are building is unfolding exactly as it's meant to.
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  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, we've got to let go and surrender outcomes up to God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the more I drop into nervous system regulation practices like breath work,
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  SPEAKER_00: yoga nidra,
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  SPEAKER_00: somatic movement, journaling, meditation, the more the tension in my back will ease.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: In Kundalini Yoga,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: there's a teaching that all disease begins as dis-ease,
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  SPEAKER_00: meaning before anything ever manifests physically as an ache or a pain or illness,
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  SPEAKER_00: it begins on an energetic level first.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the body is one of our greatest teachers, if we let it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Our wounds can become our wisdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: And also we can alchemize any pain into purpose.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yet most of us were trained to push through those signals,
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  SPEAKER_00: to ignore them, to treat them as resistance instead of wisdom.
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  SPEAKER_00: So before your mind catches up,
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  SPEAKER_00: remember that your Think about what creating
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: from lack actually looks like long-term.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you're a service provider,
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  SPEAKER_00: a coach,
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  SPEAKER_00: a healer,
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  SPEAKER_00: it looks like selling a course you don't fully believe
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  SPEAKER_00: because you're convinced it'll hit a certain revenue number.
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  SPEAKER_00: It looks like marketing your work only through your audience's pain points
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  SPEAKER_00: because that's what everybody said converts.
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  SPEAKER_00: Trading from lack can project lack onto others.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you're an artist,
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  SPEAKER_00: it looks like chasing trends because you're convinced going viral is the only way
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  SPEAKER_00: to stay relevant.
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  SPEAKER_00: It looks like catering to the algorithm instead of being authentically you.
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  SPEAKER_00: It may even look like quietly selling out,
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  SPEAKER_00: telling yourself you'll get back to the art that you actually want
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  SPEAKER_00: to create later once you've built the audience, the income, and the visibility.
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  SPEAKER_00: So creating from lack can have us chase validation outside of ourselves.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: You know, something Rick Rubin said that I love is that the audience comes last.
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  SPEAKER_00: Very different than what a lot of marketers say.
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  SPEAKER_00: When it comes to creative expression, the work has to be made for yourself first.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the moment we flip that order,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: the moment we start making the work for what it will get us,
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  SPEAKER_00: we lose the very thing that made it ours.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we're really good at then justifying it, right?
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  SPEAKER_00: We tell ourselves it's okay,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's for the greater good,
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  SPEAKER_00: money belongs in the hands of women or spiritually minded people.
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  SPEAKER_00: We keep building.
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  SPEAKER_00: We keep telling ourselves the next launch,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next milestone,
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  SPEAKER_00: the next number is the one that will finally let us rest and get back to the work
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  SPEAKER_00: the job.
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  SPEAKER_00: We stay stuck chasing and achieving while the relief we were promised never comes.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because what we're trying to fix was never outside of us.
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  SPEAKER_00: No amount of external success can heal an internal wound.
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  SPEAKER_00: So the question is, how do we actually cultivate more
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: There is a way home,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it's almost the opposite of what most of us instinctively reach for
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  SPEAKER_00: when we feel disconnected from our dharma or soul's purpose.
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  SPEAKER_00: Clarity comes from stillness.
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  SPEAKER_00: This is why I'm such an avid fan of daily sadhana or spiritual practice,
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  SPEAKER_00: whatever that looks like for you,
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  SPEAKER_00: whether that's made up of meditation,
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  SPEAKER_00: movement,
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  SPEAKER_00: I mentioned some of these things earlier, future self-journaling, anything.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of these practices are foundational to a spiritual life, to coming back home to yourself.
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  SPEAKER_00: They're a way back into the body, back into the breath, back into union with God.
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  SPEAKER_00: And not just that,
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  SPEAKER_00: but our sadhana helps us to tap into that authenticity,
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  SPEAKER_00: that part of us that wants to be expressed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because our self-expression,
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  SPEAKER_00: when it's oriented from inspiration, is an act of service to the greater collective.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: Vedic astrology has been another transformational tool on my path.
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  SPEAKER_00: It offers insight into your karma,
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  SPEAKER_00: your dharma,
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  SPEAKER_00: your life's actual orientation,
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  SPEAKER_00: so you can stop fighting against the current of your own life and work with it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is quite different from Western astrology,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is more popular and what most astrologers teach.
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  SPEAKER_00: So get your Vedic chart read.
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  SPEAKER_00: I promise you'll not be disappointed.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_00: Who knows?
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  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one day this will be something that I offer.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: But I digress.
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  SPEAKER_00: Just wanted to throw that out there.
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  SPEAKER_00: If you've never heard of Vedic astrology,
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  SPEAKER_00: it is one of my all-time favorite, favorite tools of self-discovery.
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  SPEAKER_00: So whatever daily sadhana you start to practice, there's a thread that runs through earth.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we slow down enough to actually feel our feelings,
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  SPEAKER_00: we start to remember something that we always knew.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are not our work.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are not our bank account.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we certainly don't take our bank account with us when we die.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we are a wave within the ocean that is God, an expression of the divine.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's time we remember.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we step into that remembering through a consistent daily sadhana.
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  SPEAKER_00: When we do this, we start to remember.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are always provided for.
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  SPEAKER_00: We are already free.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: We just forgot.
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  SPEAKER_00: And our life provides us the opportunity to remember.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: Slowing down to go inward isn't avoidance.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_00: There is no missing out.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: One of my teachers always says, what is meant for you will not go by you.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have to have faith in that statement now more than ever and follow it up with action.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now the return to creating from inspiration, it isn't more effort.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a pause long enough to hear what's actually wanting to come through you.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we just talked about how we forget.
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  SPEAKER_00: How the noise of ambition, performance, and fear pulls us away from who we actually are.
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  SPEAKER_00: And how the way back is a long pause, long enough to remember.
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  SPEAKER_00: But here's the deeper question underneath it all.
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  SPEAKER_00: What is it that we're remembering?
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  SPEAKER_00: If you want the yogic answer to...
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Who am I?
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: I made a video that walks through Paramahansa Yogananda's four aspects
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_00: of your true identity and the story of how a serious health crisis
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: at 12 years old led me out of the conventional meditation.
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  SPEAKER_00: So if you want to go deeper into that question,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: I made a video breaking down the spiritual and entrepreneurial journey that unfolded
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_00: When I stopped trusting external voices and started listening to my body.
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  SPEAKER_00: That is where the real shift begins.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I will link that down below for you.
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  SPEAKER_00: You can check it out.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you're curious about exploring or working together one-on-one,
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: links for intuitive readings, energy healings are also linked below.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciate you for listening.