Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / 97. Megan Monahan, Meditation Teacher & Author

Transcript

97. Megan Monahan, Meditation Teacher & Author · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: Think of it like a mental workout, Like what's the
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Speaker 1: muscle that you're trying to build in your meditation? Is
0:05
Speaker 1: it that you want to be more present? Is it
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Speaker 1: that you want to be more intentional? Is it that
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Speaker 1: you want to feel more of a sense of like
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Speaker 1: trust and connection to intuition. Is it that you want
0:15
Speaker 1: to feel less stress? Is it that you want to
0:17
Speaker 1: sleep better?
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Speaker 2: You know what is it?
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Speaker 1: Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? What are you craving and notice
0:24
Speaker 1: in your life? And it will show up. It's the
0:26
Speaker 1: beauty of meditation. Notice when those things start to shift.
0:43
Speaker 3: Hey, Hurdlers, Emily a body here bringing you Episode ninety
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Speaker 3: seven of Hurdle, a wellness focus podcast where I sit
0:51
Speaker 3: down with inspiring individuals to talk about everything from their
0:54
Speaker 3: big wins to how they've gotten through some of life's
0:56
Speaker 3: toughest moments. On the show, you can expect unerability, motivation,
1:01
Speaker 3: and candid discussions with everyone from top athletes to aspiring
1:05
Speaker 3: entrepreneurs on what it really takes to follow your passions.
1:09
Speaker 3: My mission is simple to inspire you to be your
1:12
Speaker 3: best self, move with intention, and have some fun along
1:17
Speaker 3: the way. Today I am chatting with meditation teacher and
1:20
Speaker 3: author of Don't Hate Meditate, Megan mo Hand. She tells
1:24
Speaker 3: me in the episode that the practice literally saved her life,
1:28
Speaker 3: something that she got into totally on a whim, alongside
1:32
Speaker 3: one of the most recognizable names in the space, Deepak Chopra.
1:36
Speaker 3: Before I get into Meghan's story, a quick word from
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2:46
Speaker 3: talk about Megan. After googling seriously wellness Southern California, Meghan
2:52
Speaker 3: found herself at a week long program at the Chopra
2:55
Speaker 3: Center that awakened her spirit. In episode ninety seven, we
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Speaker 3: talk about how meditation has positively influenced her in so
3:02
Speaker 3: many ways and really enabled her to forgive her father,
3:06
Speaker 3: who struggled with alcoholism. It was through her practice that
3:09
Speaker 3: she was able to truly see him for who he
3:11
Speaker 3: was with an open heart before he unfortunately passed. In
3:15
Speaker 3: twenty thirteen, we talked about how she left a job
3:18
Speaker 3: in music industry and LA for San Diego and started
3:21
Speaker 3: working at the choper Center for two and a half years.
3:24
Speaker 3: After that stint, after rebalancing her mind, body and spirit,
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Speaker 3: she took a leap of faith to move back to
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Speaker 3: LA and start teaching the practice. Like I said, She
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Speaker 3: says it saved her life and she hopes that it
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Speaker 3: can change all of ours as well. In today's episode,
3:39
Speaker 3: we highlight everything from simple strategies to incorporate meditation into
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Speaker 3: your life. We debunk myths about what meditation is versus
3:47
Speaker 3: what it isn't, and also dive into both of our
3:50
Speaker 3: personal relationships with therapy and how it has positively impacted
3:55
Speaker 3: us for the better. I'm telling you, Megan is a
3:58
Speaker 3: ray of light. Her own honesty and openness. It just
4:02
Speaker 3: really really resonated with me. As always, I love seeing
4:06
Speaker 3: you guys interact with the show on Instagram and Twitter
4:09
Speaker 3: at Emily Abadi at Hurdle Podcast. The last week of
4:14
Speaker 3: the lace ups on Instagram absolutely blew my mind. It
4:17
Speaker 3: is so awesome to be part of the hurdle community.
4:20
Speaker 3: Thank you for inspiring me to do what I do
4:23
Speaker 3: every single day. If you have a hurdle moment of
4:26
Speaker 3: your own to share you just want to say hi,
4:28
Speaker 3: you can always reach out to me over email. It's
4:31
Speaker 3: Emily at hurdle dot us and if you're in town
4:35
Speaker 3: New York City. This week on Sunday, I am hosting
4:39
Speaker 3: a live discussion at the New York Roadrunners Hub with
4:43
Speaker 3: the help of New Balance twelve PM in honor of
4:45
Speaker 3: International Books Day. I would love to see you there.
4:49
Speaker 3: For more details, head on over to the show notes
4:51
Speaker 3: and click the link in the episode description to OURSVP.
4:55
Speaker 3: With that, let's get to hurdling.
5:08
Speaker 2: Today.
5:08
Speaker 3: I'm sitting down with Meg and Monahan. She is a
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Speaker 3: meditation expert, a meditation teacher, also a published author. How
5:15
Speaker 3: cool is that to say that after your name?
5:16
Speaker 2: It's the coolest.
5:17
Speaker 3: It's the coolest.
5:18
Speaker 2: Meg.
5:19
Speaker 3: Where do you come from?
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Speaker 1: I come from? I was born in Manhattan. I was
5:22
Speaker 1: raised mostly in North Jersey, did a little state in
5:25
Speaker 1: Long Beach, California, but mostly Metropolitan New.
5:28
Speaker 3: York, Metropolitan New York. And where do you live now?
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Speaker 2: I live in Los Angeles.
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Speaker 3: It's much It's much, much, much more sunny there.
5:36
Speaker 1: It's sunny and warm, and you don't have to think
5:38
Speaker 1: about what kind of footwear you're wearing.
5:40
Speaker 2: It so lovely, you're.
5:41
Speaker 3: Not at all spiteful.
5:43
Speaker 2: It's so lovely.
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Speaker 1: I just I always am reminded when I come back
5:46
Speaker 1: here that New York makes you like not fight for
5:50
Speaker 1: your survival. We don't have to be that dramatic, but
5:52
Speaker 1: but you have to think about.
5:54
Speaker 2: Your survival more.
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Speaker 1: You have to think about what you're wearing and what
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Speaker 1: you're walking in and if you need and really if
6:00
Speaker 1: you need to like shield yourself from the elements.
6:03
Speaker 3: The elements you.
6:03
Speaker 1: Have to get yourself places with your feet, and you
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Speaker 1: don't have to do any of that in Los Angeles.
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Speaker 2: No, it's much it's so much easier life.
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Speaker 3: Sit in traffic or quite some time.
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Speaker 2: I don't have to think of any of that, none
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Speaker 2: of that.
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Speaker 3: All right, Well, I'm always super intrigued to sit down
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Speaker 3: with anyone who describes themselves as a meditation expert or
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Speaker 3: someone that works heavily in meditation, because I think the
6:27
Speaker 3: mind is just this like inconquerable. I don't even believe
6:31
Speaker 3: that's a real word thing. Yeah, so I'm super just
6:35
Speaker 3: interested to hear about where you started. And obviously I
6:38
Speaker 3: don't think someone becomes a meditation expert overnight. So talk
6:43
Speaker 3: to me about your humble beginnings. You said growing up
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Speaker 3: and living in California.
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Speaker 1: Living, I said a little bit in California, mostly like
6:49
Speaker 1: North Jersey. But yeah, I didn't grow up with anything
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Speaker 1: relating to meditation. I didn't grew up meditating or having
6:54
Speaker 1: a relationship with mindfulness or even just really an awareness
6:58
Speaker 1: that I could take a break from believing all my thoughts.
7:03
Speaker 1: You know, I know a lot of people that teach
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Speaker 1: meditation that grew up with a lot of that language
7:08
Speaker 1: in their upbringing and their conditioning. And mine was very
7:11
Speaker 1: just New York. That was my conditioning, and it was
7:14
Speaker 1: very charmingly deprecating and self deprecating and sarcastic and cynical
7:20
Speaker 1: and jaded. And I was a great New Yorker and
7:23
Speaker 1: found myself working in LA in my early twenties in
7:27
Speaker 1: the music industry and being so stressed for a lot
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Speaker 1: of things and a lot of reasons that we can
7:32
Speaker 1: go deeper into. And I found meditation because my therapist said,
7:35
Speaker 1: you need to do better at managing your stress.
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Speaker 3: Okay, So first of all, what were you doing in
7:40
Speaker 3: the music industry?
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Speaker 1: I worked at I did a few things. I worked
7:42
Speaker 1: at Innerscope for a bit, which is one of the
7:44
Speaker 1: big labels. I worked for ICM, which is one of
7:47
Speaker 1: the big talent agencies. I was there the longest and
7:51
Speaker 1: so I was always an assistant. It was very glamorous,
7:54
Speaker 1: and it was one of those jobs which is what
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Speaker 1: music industry is until you become like a big wig.
8:01
Speaker 1: You know, you get paid very little for a whole
8:03
Speaker 1: lot of responsibility.
8:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was a lot.
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Speaker 1: It was long hours, and it was cool, and my
8:10
Speaker 1: ego was really fed by the fun things that I
8:13
Speaker 1: got to do in the conversations that I got to
8:15
Speaker 1: be a part of, and that was really interesting. But ultimately,
8:18
Speaker 1: once I started meditating, it was really clear that I
8:21
Speaker 1: wanted to talk about that, and that my perspective and
8:24
Speaker 1: my ability to really my ability to take that world
8:28
Speaker 1: as seriously as you need to take it in order
8:31
Speaker 1: to thrive in it just totally change.
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Speaker 3: So what are the fun things you're doing at this time?
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Speaker 1: Well, you've like, you know, you get tickets to any
8:39
Speaker 1: show that you want, and you get to go to
8:41
Speaker 1: like screenings and premieres, and you get swag and you know,
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Speaker 1: like Rihanna knows who you are. You know, like there
8:48
Speaker 1: are cool things about that when you're twenty two obvious,
8:51
Speaker 1: you know, like fifty cent knows my name. Like that's
8:53
Speaker 1: kind of cool for like a nineteen twenty year old.
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Speaker 1: But ultimately, that doesn't, you know, fulfill you?
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Speaker 3: Yeah, totally, And I mean it gives you so much
9:01
Speaker 3: clout with your friends and it makes.
9:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, yeah, it's cool.
9:05
Speaker 3: It's cool.
9:05
Speaker 2: Course it's cool. Yeah.
9:06
Speaker 3: So how First of all, you mentioned your therapist. So
9:11
Speaker 3: how old were you when you started going to therapy.
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Speaker 2: I was in my I was in my early twenties.
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Speaker 3: Okay, so around the same time it was.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was that first, my first therapist. Really, I
9:22
Speaker 1: guess I never thought about that.
9:23
Speaker 3: But what motivated you at the time to actually seek
9:27
Speaker 3: out therapy.
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Speaker 1: I was dealing with a lot of stress from my job,
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Speaker 1: from my personal life, and that started coming through.
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Speaker 2: In ways that I had never navigated before.
9:38
Speaker 1: Physical symptoms and challenges and anxiety might be the right word.
9:44
Speaker 1: I don't know if I would have called it anxiety
9:45
Speaker 1: at the time, but just things that I hadn't ever
9:48
Speaker 1: had to handle within myself. And so I started going
9:53
Speaker 1: and it was incredible.
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Speaker 3: Physical.
9:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, physical.
9:56
Speaker 1: I took get my gallbladder taken out when I was
9:58
Speaker 1: twenty two from golf's from stress.
10:01
Speaker 2: Wow. I started having.
10:02
Speaker 1: A lot of autoimmune symptoms and autoimmune kind of flare.
10:06
Speaker 3: Ups that must have been really scary.
10:08
Speaker 2: Yeah it was. Yeah, it was not great.
10:11
Speaker 1: It's not a sign that you're thriving when you get
10:13
Speaker 1: non vital organs removed. You know at twenty two, it's
10:16
Speaker 1: not a sign that things are going well, right, And yeah,
10:19
Speaker 1: and I started to get all these really really awful
10:22
Speaker 1: physical symptoms from like the stress in my life.
10:25
Speaker 3: And was that something that the doctor knew right off
10:27
Speaker 3: the bat that the stress was causing these issues or
10:30
Speaker 3: was that something you kind of had to figure out
10:32
Speaker 3: along the way.
10:33
Speaker 1: So the doctor that I went to for like the
10:37
Speaker 1: whole gallbladder thing was amazing. She was incredible. She gave
10:41
Speaker 1: me like a great and very minimal scar. I love
10:43
Speaker 1: her to death, But there wasn't a whole lot of mind, body,
10:48
Speaker 1: whole like total well being, holistic health. It was very
10:52
Speaker 1: much like, you have terrible gallstones and we should take
10:55
Speaker 1: your whole leader up. Looking back, I absolutely would not
10:58
Speaker 1: have had that done so chalantly, because even though you
11:01
Speaker 1: don't need it quote unquote, there are things that I
11:03
Speaker 1: now deal with because I don't have that right. And
11:06
Speaker 1: so I definitely, because I now have a different relationship
11:09
Speaker 1: with my body and with physical symptoms, especially knowing that
11:12
Speaker 1: they are often coming from, or at least in part,
11:16
Speaker 1: fed by some sort of emotional imbalance as well, I
11:19
Speaker 1: would have handled that very differently.
11:21
Speaker 3: Were you hesitant to go to therapy at first.
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Speaker 1: You know, I don't remember, but I don't think.
11:25
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, I don't think so.
11:27
Speaker 3: I recently started going myself, and I'm thirty one, so God,
11:31
Speaker 3: that took me a while. But I recently started going myself,
11:35
Speaker 3: and I think there are just so many barriers that
11:37
Speaker 3: kept me from going for so long. I mean, obviously,
11:39
Speaker 3: accessibility is probably the number one thing that a lot
11:43
Speaker 3: of people cling to when they're like, oh, I can't
11:45
Speaker 3: afford it, and you know, mostly I just can't afford it,
11:48
Speaker 3: and so that for sure kept me for a long time.
11:50
Speaker 3: But also on top of this idea that I wanted
11:54
Speaker 3: to believe that grabbing wine with my best friend was
11:57
Speaker 3: the same thing as going to therapy.
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Speaker 2: It's not so sad that it's not right.
12:01
Speaker 1: I'm such a bummer that, you know, cognitive talk therapy
12:05
Speaker 1: isn't the same as you know.
12:07
Speaker 3: Sometimes it can be the exact amount money though.
12:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think if I remember correctly, my insurance covered it,
12:13
Speaker 1: which made it easy, yeah, and not not not a barrier,
12:16
Speaker 1: as you said, total in that way.
12:18
Speaker 2: But I really liked it.
12:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I've gone back periodically when I've had to
12:24
Speaker 1: work through things and I'm so fortunate that I work
12:26
Speaker 1: in wellness now, so I've access to so many heelers
12:30
Speaker 1: and people that are just in my life. So I
12:33
Speaker 1: don't I haven't gone to therapy in a while, but
12:35
Speaker 1: I've definitely dipped back in. There are some situational things
12:37
Speaker 1: that I just have not been able to navigate through
12:41
Speaker 1: on my own, and I needed a bouncing board.
12:45
Speaker 2: And it's I think it's incredibly.
12:46
Speaker 3: Helpful totally, and I think it's interesting as well. And
12:48
Speaker 3: obviously we'll get into you know exactly what you're doing now,
12:51
Speaker 3: but to hear someone who does, you know, for so
12:55
Speaker 3: much of their day to day help other people through
12:58
Speaker 3: their own issues, Yeah, to be outright and say, hey,
13:03
Speaker 3: sometimes I need help.
13:04
Speaker 2: Too, Yeah.
13:05
Speaker 1: I think we all need. We all need people or
13:08
Speaker 1: places or things or experiences to hold space for us
13:13
Speaker 1: to have an experience, whether that's a healing experience, whether
13:16
Speaker 1: that whatever.
13:17
Speaker 2: That might be.
13:17
Speaker 1: And that's the thing that I get to do when
13:19
Speaker 1: I teach and when I lead meditation, and when I
13:21
Speaker 1: work with people, whether it's one on one or at
13:23
Speaker 1: an event, is like hold space and create this container
13:26
Speaker 1: for you to just like let go and be wherever
13:29
Speaker 1: you are wherever you are, and I do that a lot.
13:32
Speaker 1: I receive that a lot in workouts that I go
13:35
Speaker 1: to with like really certain people that can hold that
13:37
Speaker 1: energy for me so I can just like let go
13:40
Speaker 1: and exist. And I think therapy is a really powerful
13:43
Speaker 1: way for that to be in your life as well.
13:45
Speaker 3: Okay, so you make the hard decision to go to therapy,
13:48
Speaker 3: And what's going on at this time? Obviously you mentioned
13:51
Speaker 3: some physical symptoms, but what else is going on in
13:53
Speaker 3: your life at this time that makes you take this leap? Yeah?
13:56
Speaker 1: You know, I realized that all these physical symptoms that
14:01
Speaker 1: I started having were really a result of not dealing
14:04
Speaker 1: with this huge thing in my life, which was my
14:06
Speaker 1: relationship with my dad, and specifically like prior to all
14:10
Speaker 1: of these things really like blowing up within me literally
14:14
Speaker 1: finding out that my dad was dying. My dad was
14:17
Speaker 1: an alcoholic and he had liver cancer at the time,
14:21
Speaker 1: and a doctor said he has a year to live,
14:24
Speaker 1: and that very tangible like time frame and prognosis and
14:29
Speaker 1: reality is something that I always knew. I grew up
14:34
Speaker 1: with my dad, and I knew he was an alcoholic,
14:35
Speaker 1: and I knew that this would probably be something that
14:38
Speaker 1: took him out of my life way sooner than I
14:41
Speaker 1: would like. But there's something different about like knowing that
14:45
Speaker 1: that will likely happen, and then having, you know, a
14:48
Speaker 1: doctor and a white coat say your father has a
14:50
Speaker 1: year to live, and all of a sudden, in that moment,
14:53
Speaker 1: all of the things that I hadn't dealt with, all
14:56
Speaker 1: of the things that throughout my whole life, I would
14:58
Speaker 1: just say to the world, or to my parents or
15:00
Speaker 1: to my friends, like I'm fine, Like I'm fine, everything's fine.
15:04
Speaker 2: You know, that was my mo o. I didn't.
15:07
Speaker 1: I thought I was doing this epic job sort of
15:09
Speaker 1: dealing with all the stuff, but really I was just
15:11
Speaker 1: ignoring it and saying I'm fine and burying it further
15:14
Speaker 1: and further and further, or specifically in my gall bladder.
15:17
Speaker 1: And at that moment, it was not fine. It was
15:19
Speaker 1: so not fine. And mentally that was a realization and
15:24
Speaker 1: then physically, I think that just unlocked.
15:28
Speaker 2: All of these things, right.
15:30
Speaker 3: And did you at the time, I know, obviously you're
15:33
Speaker 3: talking about the need to be more honest with yourself
15:35
Speaker 3: and hence your decision to speak with someone, But did
15:38
Speaker 3: you at the time open up it all even more
15:41
Speaker 3: to your father or have more conversations with him because
15:44
Speaker 3: of what you were kind of uncovering.
15:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, especially once I started definitely in therapy.
15:51
Speaker 1: You know, I heard some really hard truths in therapy
15:53
Speaker 1: about my relationship with my dad, my codependency, you know,
15:57
Speaker 1: my for a really long time, you know, codependence.
16:00
Speaker 2: He has such a perception because people say all.
16:02
Speaker 1: The time, I'm not codependent, I can be by myself,
16:04
Speaker 1: and it has nothing to do with that. Codependency for
16:07
Speaker 1: me was very much that my well being was in
16:11
Speaker 1: tandem with how he was doing right. And so the
16:13
Speaker 1: moment that he was not okay, in a very real way,
16:16
Speaker 1: I realized that I was not okay, and my ability to.
16:21
Speaker 2: Feel like I could.
16:22
Speaker 1: Control the situation right was so clearly not not a thing,
16:27
Speaker 1: and that just totally shook up my reality. So absolutely
16:31
Speaker 1: I started talking to him about that, and then once
16:34
Speaker 1: I started meditating and doing a lot of work, I
16:37
Speaker 1: started this journey of acknowledging my emotional toxicity and the
16:42
Speaker 1: things that didn't feel okay, and the feelings that I
16:44
Speaker 1: had that were not okay and where there was anger
16:47
Speaker 1: and where there was resentment. And I started to really
16:50
Speaker 1: digest that and process that and let that go, and
16:52
Speaker 1: then I started learning what forgiveness was right, which is
16:56
Speaker 1: not something I had ever had to really authentically offer
17:01
Speaker 1: myself or someone else or really embody.
17:04
Speaker 3: What happens with your father.
17:06
Speaker 1: So my dad ended up going. My dad ended up
17:09
Speaker 1: living longer than a year plot to west, and he
17:13
Speaker 1: did pass away several years later. And he, you know,
17:17
Speaker 1: he never was sober. He stayed an alcoholic. You know,
17:19
Speaker 1: all these things that I that really triggered all of
17:22
Speaker 1: my things, all of my worth things, all you know,
17:24
Speaker 1: all of the things as a daughter. I got to
17:26
Speaker 1: this incredible place with him where I was able to
17:29
Speaker 1: you know, love him unconditionally and let go of an
17:33
Speaker 1: outcome and accept the reality for what it was, except
17:37
Speaker 1: him for who he was in this moment. And and
17:40
Speaker 1: the amount of like peace and love that can be
17:44
Speaker 1: invited in because of that is incredible.
17:47
Speaker 3: I think that's so valuable. I remember I was driving
17:51
Speaker 3: with a best friend of mine so many years ago,
17:53
Speaker 3: and she said to me that it takes a strong
17:55
Speaker 3: person to allow people to play a certain role in
17:57
Speaker 3: your life that you hoped that they wouldn't.
18:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you know, my dad, he and I always
18:04
Speaker 1: were so similar, and we were so close.
18:06
Speaker 2: He quit his job when I was born.
18:07
Speaker 1: My mom, like was the breadwinner and had the very
18:09
Speaker 1: like career oriented path, so she went back to work.
18:12
Speaker 1: My dad stayed home with me and raised me for
18:14
Speaker 1: the first five years and is deeply spiritual and someone
18:18
Speaker 1: who I still have such an immense connection with. But he,
18:22
Speaker 1: I mean, he's the reason that I found my purpose.
18:24
Speaker 1: He's the reason that I know who I am. He's
18:26
Speaker 1: the reason that I He's the reason for it all,
18:30
Speaker 1: and his dysfunction and our dysfunction is the reason for
18:34
Speaker 1: it all.
18:34
Speaker 3: So you start to think about adding meditation and do
18:38
Speaker 3: your routine, and at first, what does that look like
18:40
Speaker 3: for you?
18:41
Speaker 1: So I.
18:44
Speaker 2: Googled it.
18:45
Speaker 1: My therapist literally one day said to me because I
18:48
Speaker 1: was having at the time, I was having really bad
18:50
Speaker 1: chronic hives for like months on end, like six months,
18:54
Speaker 1: eight months kind of situation. And my therapist was talking
18:58
Speaker 1: to me and I said, you know, my doctor, this
19:01
Speaker 1: Western doctor that I'm saying, wants to come on xanax.
19:03
Speaker 1: She was like, you know, I don't think you need
19:05
Speaker 1: to be on xanax. I don't think you have a
19:07
Speaker 1: chemical imbalance. I don't think you have anxiety that needs
19:10
Speaker 1: to be medicated. I think you just need to navigate
19:12
Speaker 1: your stress differently and learn from a different perspective how
19:16
Speaker 1: to how to process your life. And so I went
19:21
Speaker 1: home and I googled meditation. Actually didn't even google meditation.
19:24
Speaker 1: I googled wellness Southern California.
19:28
Speaker 2: That's how little like, that's how little I knew.
19:30
Speaker 1: And that's how you know. At the time, it wasn't
19:32
Speaker 1: what it is now. There weren't apps, there weren't studios,
19:35
Speaker 1: none of that existed when I was doing all this,
19:38
Speaker 1: it was about twelve years ago. And I found the
19:41
Speaker 1: first thing that came up was Deepak Chopra and he
19:43
Speaker 1: has a wellness center in Southern California in San Diego.
19:47
Speaker 1: And I called my mom and I said, do you
19:48
Speaker 1: know who Deepok Chopra is? And she started laughing because everyone,
19:51
Speaker 1: I guess except me knew who Deepak Chopra was.
19:54
Speaker 2: And I said, you know, what do you know about him?
19:58
Speaker 2: And is this legit? Do you think?
20:00
Speaker 1: And she said, yeah, like you should go check it out.
20:01
Speaker 1: And so I went down there for a day and
20:05
Speaker 1: I scheduled. They had Western doctors that were there doing
20:09
Speaker 1: total well being mind body holistic sort of medical sessions
20:13
Speaker 1: that you could do. So I did one of those,
20:15
Speaker 1: and I took a free intro in a meditation class
20:17
Speaker 1: that was like my first like dipping the show in.
20:20
Speaker 3: All of this was on the same day.
20:21
Speaker 2: All that was, yeah, just a one day okay.
20:24
Speaker 1: And so I did this medical consultation and I heard
20:27
Speaker 1: things that I'd never heard before about about ayer Veda,
20:31
Speaker 1: which is the oldest healing wisdom that is known to man,
20:34
Speaker 1: over five thousand years old, based in India. You know,
20:36
Speaker 1: the doctor was telling me to rub my hives and
20:39
Speaker 1: to tell them and to talk to them and to
20:41
Speaker 1: say I hear you. I'm working on and I know
20:44
Speaker 1: there's an imbalance, like I'm working with you to like
20:46
Speaker 1: develop this whole different relationship with these symptoms. And that
20:51
Speaker 1: was kind of wild but also felt really good.
20:54
Speaker 3: If someone was to tell me to literally speak to
20:57
Speaker 3: my body, yeah, I would.
20:58
Speaker 2: Be like yeah, m.
21:01
Speaker 3: Really Yeah.
21:03
Speaker 1: It was so different And the only thing I can
21:06
Speaker 1: say is that, combined with everything else that happened that day,
21:10
Speaker 1: I had this feeling of calm and this sense of
21:13
Speaker 1: like returning back to something that I already knew but
21:18
Speaker 1: didn't know right, and it was I don't I don't
21:21
Speaker 1: know if I would say it was a spiritual experience,
21:23
Speaker 1: but like, maybe it was a spiritual experience within myself.
21:25
Speaker 3: And you're still working at the record label.
21:28
Speaker 1: I was working ICM at the time, but yeah, I'm
21:29
Speaker 1: still working music full time.
21:31
Speaker 2: Yeah.
21:31
Speaker 1: And I went to the meditation class, this intron of
21:34
Speaker 1: meditation class, and my first thought was, Wow, this guy
21:37
Speaker 1: teaching it is really hot, Like, I wonder if he
21:39
Speaker 1: works here, maybe I could like take a course here
21:41
Speaker 1: and we.
21:42
Speaker 2: Could start dating. Full disclosure, That was my first thought.
21:45
Speaker 1: But the meditation thing was cool and I was into that,
21:47
Speaker 1: and and then I ended up going back down there
21:50
Speaker 1: for a week. So I did this one day and
21:52
Speaker 1: I was like, Okay, I'm into all of this. I'm
21:54
Speaker 1: buying into this feels authentic, these people feel knowledgeable, and.
21:59
Speaker 2: I trust all of this.
22:00
Speaker 1: And so I went down for a week and it
22:02
Speaker 1: was a really big leap of faith because it was
22:04
Speaker 1: money that I definitely didn't have to spend on this
22:06
Speaker 1: really immersive seven day like total mind, body, spirit, cleanse
22:10
Speaker 1: and rebalancing, right, And I went down there, and after
22:13
Speaker 1: that week, it was just so clear to me that
22:16
Speaker 1: that that's the world that I wanted to be in.
22:18
Speaker 3: So interesting because you know, like I like running, but
22:20
Speaker 3: I was never like, you know what I'm going to do,
22:23
Speaker 3: I'm just going to start running full time.
22:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was I had the sense that I could
22:28
Speaker 1: like heal there and through all of this work, and
22:31
Speaker 1: then I had this really driving desire that I guess
22:34
Speaker 1: I would now call like a sense of purpose to
22:37
Speaker 1: share this with other people. Right, because I experienced such
22:42
Speaker 1: a profound transformation with meditation, with yoga, with using araveta
22:47
Speaker 1: and iravata principles in my life, I experienced such a
22:50
Speaker 1: transformation that the idea of helping other people that were struggling,
22:54
Speaker 1: you know, mentally, physically in some way, it was just unthinkable.
22:59
Speaker 3: Describe to me what it's like there.
23:02
Speaker 2: Yeah.
23:03
Speaker 1: So at the time, it was in north San Diego
23:07
Speaker 1: County on the property of a resort called La Costa.
23:11
Speaker 1: So it's this very it's like the classic southern California
23:14
Speaker 1: like white with like the terra cotta roof and like
23:17
Speaker 1: this gorgeous resort.
23:19
Speaker 2: Setting and.
23:22
Speaker 1: The chop per center at the time was there, and
23:26
Speaker 1: you know, it all smells like sandal wood and you're
23:29
Speaker 1: just getting really taken care of. Yeah, it was just
23:32
Speaker 1: this overwhelming sense of being like loved on.
23:37
Speaker 3: And I think that so often, you know, and this
23:39
Speaker 3: can be for anyone, whether you're in a serious relationship,
23:42
Speaker 3: if you're unattached, if you're married, if you're not married.
23:44
Speaker 3: So often we feel so alone that we just want
23:47
Speaker 3: that sense of love from someone. So to be able
23:50
Speaker 3: to walk into this atmosphere and just feel so overwhelmed
23:53
Speaker 3: with like this bigger sense of like I got you. Yes, yes,
23:58
Speaker 3: it must have been insane.
23:59
Speaker 1: Absolutely, you know, And it didn't hurt that part of
24:01
Speaker 1: that week involved like balancing daily iervatic massage treatments and
24:06
Speaker 1: food was you know, it was just.
24:07
Speaker 3: Really like you're being taken care of, right, Okay, So
24:10
Speaker 3: after this week you have this overwhelming sense of purpose,
24:14
Speaker 3: which I mean I feel like many people that go
24:16
Speaker 3: through there probably feel the same way. And you return
24:20
Speaker 3: to your job job.
24:23
Speaker 2: How was that within a year? I mean within a
24:25
Speaker 2: year I quit. Yeah. Yeah.
24:26
Speaker 1: And it wasn't that I hated my job or that
24:29
Speaker 1: I hated that industry. It was that I felt such
24:32
Speaker 1: a poll to.
24:33
Speaker 3: This other thing, right, And so what do you even
24:36
Speaker 3: know is possible for you with this poll? Like it's
24:39
Speaker 3: not like you can just go there and live this
24:41
Speaker 3: life where they're taking care of you all the time.
24:43
Speaker 3: Obviously you need to make some sort of living.
24:45
Speaker 2: Out of it. Yeah.
24:46
Speaker 1: It was one of the first things that I can
24:48
Speaker 1: that I can clearly point to and say I and
24:52
Speaker 1: I teach about this now. But I took such a
24:54
Speaker 1: leap of faith and surrendered completely and was placed in
25:00
Speaker 1: the highest possible expression of the desire to like work
25:03
Speaker 1: in wellness because again, much like my ignorant googling, where
25:06
Speaker 1: I was like wellness southern California when people would say
25:09
Speaker 1: to me like, well, you know, I talked to my
25:10
Speaker 1: mom or whoever in my life and they'd say, well,
25:12
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? And I would say, well,
25:13
Speaker 1: you know, I want to work in wellness.
25:15
Speaker 2: That's it. I didn't know.
25:16
Speaker 1: I didn't have any experience, I didn't have any direct
25:19
Speaker 1: skill set to be doing this. I just knew I
25:22
Speaker 1: wanted to work in wellness and I wanted to help
25:24
Speaker 1: share what I had been exposed to with other people.
25:28
Speaker 1: And the first thing that I did was apply for
25:30
Speaker 1: a job at Lululemon, because that's what you do when
25:32
Speaker 1: you're twenty four and in Los Angeles and you want
25:35
Speaker 1: to work in wellness, right, you apply to a job
25:37
Speaker 1: at luth Lemon, no brainer, which which I didn't get sadly,
25:40
Speaker 1: although I'm an ambassador now so it really it all
25:42
Speaker 1: worked out in the end, but.
25:45
Speaker 2: I didn't get that.
25:46
Speaker 1: But and bround that same time, I and I'll just
25:50
Speaker 1: tell you this, like quick story. I ordered some herbs
25:53
Speaker 1: from the Choke for Center. So I was taking all
25:56
Speaker 1: these Irabata herbs. I ordered a bunch online. They sent
25:58
Speaker 1: everything to LA and they sent me the complete wrong order,
26:01
Speaker 1: and I was so annoyed, Like the New Yorker knew,
26:03
Speaker 1: was so annoyed, and how do you do this? And
26:05
Speaker 1: don't you have people to check these things? And right,
26:07
Speaker 1: so I went into that very judging place for a
26:09
Speaker 1: minute and I called them and I said, you know,
26:12
Speaker 1: I need to, I guess send you this stuff back.
26:14
Speaker 1: And who do I talk to about getting the correct shipment,
26:17
Speaker 1: you know, et cetera. And they put me in touch
26:19
Speaker 1: with the person in products. And the person in products
26:22
Speaker 1: who was working there used to be my like contact.
26:26
Speaker 1: So every time you go to an event there you
26:28
Speaker 1: have a person that helps kind of walk you through
26:30
Speaker 1: that whole journey. And she said, oh my gosh, how
26:33
Speaker 1: are you.
26:33
Speaker 2: I remember you.
26:34
Speaker 1: How's it going in LA And I said, well, you know,
26:36
Speaker 1: what's going great. I want to work in wellness, so
26:38
Speaker 1: I'm just seeing what that looks like. And after about
26:41
Speaker 1: ten minutes she said, you know, I think you would
26:43
Speaker 1: be so great in this position that's open here. And
26:46
Speaker 1: I said, oh, okay, and she said, wyant't you send
26:49
Speaker 1: me your resume? And two days later I went down
26:53
Speaker 1: and I was hired on the spot, which never happens there.
26:56
Speaker 1: And three days from the beginning of this whole thing,
26:59
Speaker 1: I sig a lease for an apartment that I could afford,
27:03
Speaker 1: but like, couldn't afford unless I ended up being.
27:06
Speaker 2: Good at the job, kind of a situation. And I
27:09
Speaker 2: moved down within a week.
27:11
Speaker 3: So you sent them your resume, which had nothing to
27:14
Speaker 3: do with me, ye know nothing.
27:16
Speaker 2: How was that?
27:16
Speaker 3: Were you nervous about that?
27:17
Speaker 2: I wasn't. No, I don't.
27:20
Speaker 1: And again it's sort of an inexplainable sense of trust
27:25
Speaker 1: and surrender and almost like I don't need to do
27:28
Speaker 1: anything except get out of the way. I don't need
27:31
Speaker 1: to do anything except be in massive alignment and integrity
27:36
Speaker 1: with who I am and like the values that I
27:39
Speaker 1: have and trust that I will be dropped where I
27:44
Speaker 1: need to be. You know, we get like so in
27:45
Speaker 1: the way of making the things happen that we want
27:48
Speaker 1: to happen in our life. Same thing with like getting
27:50
Speaker 1: a book deal. I always tell people getting a job
27:52
Speaker 1: working for Deepak Chopra without applying for a job and
27:55
Speaker 1: without having any experience, and getting a book deal are
27:58
Speaker 1: the two easiest things that have ever happened. And I
28:00
Speaker 1: know that makes no sense because those aren't necessarily easy
28:02
Speaker 1: things to do, but they took the least amount of
28:05
Speaker 1: like external effort and the most amount of internal alignment.
28:11
Speaker 3: So talk to me about your first day on the job.
28:12
Speaker 2: What are you doing.
28:14
Speaker 1: So the first job I had there was being a
28:16
Speaker 1: program consultant, So the person who when you want to
28:19
Speaker 1: go to an event or when you need to kind
28:20
Speaker 1: of navigate the various offerings and healing modalities available there,
28:25
Speaker 1: you talk to this person and tell them what's going
28:27
Speaker 1: on in your life and they say, here's how we
28:30
Speaker 1: can help you.
28:31
Speaker 2: So I was that person.
28:33
Speaker 1: So I essentially just got to build relationships with people
28:36
Speaker 1: that were just like me at one point, looking for healing,
28:39
Speaker 1: looking for inspiration, looking for a purpose, looking for all
28:42
Speaker 1: of it, and So I spent about three and a
28:45
Speaker 1: half years doing that and it was incredible, And I
28:48
Speaker 1: was exposed because of that job to all of the
28:52
Speaker 1: teachers that taught through there. So whether it's like Wayne
28:55
Speaker 1: Dyer or Mary and Williamson or Eckhart Toll or obviously
28:58
Speaker 1: Deepak Schopbra. You know, I just was immersed in this
29:02
Speaker 1: world of exposure to all of that and to people
29:06
Speaker 1: and their journeys. And during that time, I also got
29:10
Speaker 1: certified to teach meditation, which was incredible. So that's where
29:12
Speaker 1: I did my training and my studying and all of that.
29:17
Speaker 3: What's that like, what's the process like to become certified
29:20
Speaker 3: to teach meditation?
29:22
Speaker 2: So when I did it, it's changed a bit.
29:24
Speaker 1: But when I did it involved going to a seven day,
29:28
Speaker 1: like thirteen hour a day meditation retreat with Deepak. It
29:31
Speaker 1: involved going to a four day iervatic immersion, so kind
29:36
Speaker 1: of like a crash college course in Iervidic wisdom. It
29:41
Speaker 1: involved about one hundred hours of home study like books
29:46
Speaker 1: and testing and mini memorizing things and learning, and then
29:50
Speaker 1: it involved a week of again like pretty like thirteen
29:54
Speaker 1: hour day teaching practice, teaching testing.
29:57
Speaker 2: It was a lot. Yeah, it was yeah, Yeah, I see.
30:01
Speaker 1: So many like meditation teacher trainings now that are like
30:04
Speaker 1: a quick, you know, day long and I'm like, ooh,
30:07
Speaker 1: it takes so much longer than that to have body
30:10
Speaker 1: these things. And I had the added obviously, the added
30:13
Speaker 1: bonus of working there.
30:14
Speaker 2: So I was I was in it.
30:16
Speaker 1: You know, I really left my life. I left LA
30:18
Speaker 1: for about three and a half years and just immersed
30:21
Speaker 1: I think.
30:22
Speaker 3: What's I think what's also interesting? And I sat down
30:25
Speaker 3: recently with Knox Robinson. He's a runner and a writer
30:28
Speaker 3: that lives in New York City, and he and I
30:31
Speaker 3: were talking about what happens when you do something like
30:35
Speaker 3: hit a marathon personal best. And there's also there's almost
30:39
Speaker 3: like a moment where you kind of have to mourn
30:42
Speaker 3: what was and open up to what can be. And
30:45
Speaker 3: so for you completely abandoning this other life to now
30:50
Speaker 3: open yourself up to all of these possibilities, did you
30:54
Speaker 3: at all have moments of hesitation or were you scared
30:58
Speaker 3: or I mean, I'm sure it felt quite vulnerable.
31:01
Speaker 2: I definitely felt vulnerable.
31:03
Speaker 1: I felt extremely guided by like an internal intuitive force.
31:11
Speaker 1: I will say, so it didn't feel it didn't feel scary,
31:15
Speaker 1: it felt different and new and unknown.
31:19
Speaker 2: And one of the biggest byproducts of.
31:22
Speaker 1: Meditation is this sort of comfort in the uncertainty, this
31:28
Speaker 1: comfort in not knowing and again starting to embody in
31:33
Speaker 1: align with such a deep sense of trust and surrender
31:36
Speaker 1: in my life that had already started to happen for
31:39
Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, and it also just kept feeling
31:43
Speaker 1: really good. So at no point in that in that
31:47
Speaker 1: first three and a half years did I ever experience
31:50
Speaker 1: anything or or have a moment where it didn't feel
31:55
Speaker 1: it could feel it could feel scary, or I could
31:56
Speaker 1: feel new, or I could feel intimidating, or but it
32:00
Speaker 1: didn't ever feel bad.
32:02
Speaker 3: Right, And So when you were going through the training
32:05
Speaker 3: to become a meditation instructor, did you know that you
32:08
Speaker 3: definitely wanted to teach?
32:11
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I didn't know what that looks like, right,
32:14
Speaker 1: because I because I didn't have any idea what and
32:17
Speaker 1: it really wasn't an industry at that time, right, So
32:19
Speaker 1: I didn't know what that looked like.
32:21
Speaker 2: But I felt very compelled.
32:24
Speaker 3: To share, right. Yeah, I think that, I mean, because
32:27
Speaker 3: you do hear of a lot of people that go
32:29
Speaker 3: to things like yoga teacher trainings, and then even you know,
32:32
Speaker 3: do that again and a few rounds of it. And
32:34
Speaker 3: I know many individuals who haven't actually gotten to the
32:37
Speaker 3: point where they're teaching. It was just a really spiritual,
32:39
Speaker 3: special experience and opportunity for that.
32:41
Speaker 1: A lot of people do that, a lot of people
32:43
Speaker 1: with a lot of trainings, Yeah, do it to just
32:44
Speaker 1: like deepen their own relationship with with a meditation practice,
32:48
Speaker 1: with a yoga practice, with cook it, you know, with
32:50
Speaker 1: whatever it is.
32:51
Speaker 3: So also, like three and a half years in, you're
32:54
Speaker 3: living in this completely different place from a personal standpoint.
32:57
Speaker 3: How is that because I'm sure you left behind friends.
33:00
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if your family moved out to la
33:01
Speaker 3: or what was going on with that.
33:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I've always been I'm unminally child.
33:06
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's why, but I've always been
33:08
Speaker 1: a really independent you know, my mom jokes when she
33:11
Speaker 1: would drop me off at like sleep away camp, then
33:13
Speaker 1: I'd be like, okay, bye, and she'd like do you
33:14
Speaker 1: want to hug? Like should we have a moment and
33:16
Speaker 1: other kids are crying, and you know, I'm like six
33:18
Speaker 1: years old, like I'll see later. So so it felt
33:22
Speaker 1: it always felt really excited. It still does really exciting
33:25
Speaker 1: for me. To go to new places like I love
33:27
Speaker 1: traveling by myself. I love going to cities where I
33:31
Speaker 1: don't know anyone. I've always found that exciting. And I
33:34
Speaker 1: went to I went to a co op college, which
33:37
Speaker 1: is a I went to Northeastern in Boston, which is
33:39
Speaker 1: traditionally a five year program, and you go to school
33:42
Speaker 1: for six months and then you go get a job
33:43
Speaker 1: for six months. So I had these six month job experiences,
33:48
Speaker 1: and I went to LA for all of mine. So
33:49
Speaker 1: I actually went to LA for the first time by
33:51
Speaker 1: myself when I was nineteen. Wow, for six months, okay,
33:53
Speaker 1: but I didn't know anybody, so so no leaving LA
33:57
Speaker 1: going into San Diego was like easy, easy work, easy,
34:00
Speaker 1: crazy easy work. My parents at the time were living
34:02
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles. They both retired pretty early and came
34:07
Speaker 1: out to visit me and then didn't leave for.
34:10
Speaker 3: Like a few years, okay, which was great. Okay, So
34:13
Speaker 3: you are a certified meditation teacher and you had this
34:19
Speaker 3: great job which you must have turned out to be
34:21
Speaker 3: quite good at and I was able to afford your apartment.
34:23
Speaker 2: Yep, I was killing it.
34:25
Speaker 3: So then what happens next?
34:27
Speaker 1: So and I think that there must have been a
34:29
Speaker 1: part of that intuitive voice that said you need to
34:34
Speaker 1: leave before you get too comfortable here. Interesting because I
34:37
Speaker 1: had this all not all of a sudden, but for
34:40
Speaker 1: about six months, I had this very burning desire to
34:42
Speaker 1: leave and go back to LA and teach meditation. And
34:45
Speaker 1: I again, kind of like the first time, I had
34:47
Speaker 1: no idea what that looks like or how I would
34:49
Speaker 1: make money doing that. I had no clients, and I did,
34:54
Speaker 1: and I quit my job at the Chopper Center and
34:58
Speaker 1: moved back to LA with when I'm not necessarily advocating
35:02
Speaker 1: major life leaps of faith out of you know, security
35:05
Speaker 1: nest or blanket.
35:06
Speaker 2: But I moved back to LA and I.
35:09
Speaker 1: Started quote unquote teaching meditation, and I had a side
35:14
Speaker 1: A friend of mine has an event company, so I
35:16
Speaker 1: had like a side job with him. And then I
35:18
Speaker 1: just started being open to teaching meditation. And I had
35:22
Speaker 1: like one client in New York that I would like
35:25
Speaker 1: remotely meet with, and I slowly started getting introduced to people.
35:29
Speaker 1: And then the first ever drop in meditation studio, Unplugged
35:32
Speaker 1: Meditation was about to open in LA and I got,
35:36
Speaker 1: you know, I got a job teaching there and and
35:38
Speaker 1: it just all again. It was a lot of trust
35:41
Speaker 1: and a lot of surrender and a lot of being okay.
35:45
Speaker 2: Not knowing right.
35:46
Speaker 3: And I think what's really interesting about this is it's
35:49
Speaker 3: not like someone sat you down and they were like,
35:50
Speaker 3: this is exactly how you do what you want to do. No, no, no,
35:53
Speaker 3: So that could have been a little bit disconcerning what
35:56
Speaker 3: I was doing.
35:57
Speaker 1: Again, I felt guided by some thing so incredibly strong,
36:03
Speaker 1: so much stronger than any fear that I that I
36:06
Speaker 1: may have had. Right, And so, how does that first
36:10
Speaker 1: year of teaching go for you? It was, I mean
36:13
Speaker 1: I was in I mean, I was hustling for three
36:17
Speaker 1: four years. I'm still hustling, just in a like slightly
36:20
Speaker 1: more concerted, you know, intentional way. But for a while,
36:23
Speaker 1: it was just NonStop like whatever I can say yes to,
36:27
Speaker 1: whoever will let me come to their office and talk
36:29
Speaker 1: about meditation, whatever event will let me come and lead
36:32
Speaker 1: a meditation.
36:32
Speaker 2: It was just a lot of planting seeds.
36:35
Speaker 1: And I did end up getting kind of pulled back
36:39
Speaker 1: into the chow per Center as well during that first year,
36:42
Speaker 1: and I which was a really amazing blessing, you know,
36:45
Speaker 1: I left that left that job really clean and with
36:48
Speaker 1: like nothing but love and gratitude.
36:50
Speaker 2: And like, I wish everyone well and thank you for this.
36:53
Speaker 1: And then really quickly they were like, well, but what
36:55
Speaker 1: if you come back and just do and just help
36:57
Speaker 1: us with the events and just come And so for
36:59
Speaker 1: several year I worked with them and it would just
37:01
Speaker 1: go down to San Diego or go to the events
37:03
Speaker 1: and help on the back end of those, which was
37:07
Speaker 1: an incredible experience and gave me a whole other skill
37:09
Speaker 1: set around events and planning transformational experiences and events and
37:15
Speaker 1: weekends and things like that.
37:16
Speaker 2: So that was pretty incredible.
37:18
Speaker 1: And then that ended up just with Chopra specifically transitioning
37:23
Speaker 1: into me hosting and teaching at the event.
37:25
Speaker 2: So it's really been quite a journey with that, right, And.
37:30
Speaker 3: So when does I'm just like saying yes to absolutely everything,
37:35
Speaker 3: Like when do you feel like you kind of get
37:36
Speaker 3: a little bit more of your footing?
37:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, the after the first after the first
37:43
Speaker 1: year and a half, maybe I stopped doing any side
37:46
Speaker 1: work and just was teaching. So I was saying yes
37:50
Speaker 1: a lot then as well, because I created a whole
37:52
Speaker 1: lot more space. And then I would say after that
37:55
Speaker 1: next year, so maybe like two and a half years,
37:58
Speaker 1: three years, it was a little more Okay, I have
38:02
Speaker 1: some like direction and I know where I'm trying to
38:05
Speaker 1: take this. I also was, you know, how I think
38:08
Speaker 1: about it is like I was really putting in reps
38:10
Speaker 1: as a teacher and finding my voice as a teacher
38:13
Speaker 1: and becoming a great teacher because it, you know, even
38:16
Speaker 1: if you have raw abilities to communicate or to you know,
38:21
Speaker 1: inSpot whatever that might be, it's still practice, right learning
38:25
Speaker 1: how to learning how to hold space for people, learning
38:27
Speaker 1: how to hold space for a room, learning how to
38:30
Speaker 1: you know, read a room, and energetic. You know, there's
38:32
Speaker 1: a lot that goes into it. So I was I
38:34
Speaker 1: always think about it as I was doing just all
38:37
Speaker 1: the reps.
38:37
Speaker 3: Sorry, you're established, you're teaching meditation, you're living in la
38:41
Speaker 3: And can you say for sure at this point that you're,
38:44
Speaker 3: like July happy about where the path has like where
38:46
Speaker 3: you have me entered your way down the path?
38:48
Speaker 2: So happy? Yeah, so so happy.
38:50
Speaker 3: And when you're going back and forth between where you're
38:54
Speaker 3: living and the Chope or Center, do you think again
38:56
Speaker 3: about returning to do anything there full time?
39:00
Speaker 2: No? You know, San Diego is gorgeous.
39:03
Speaker 1: I was in North County, so it was really it
39:06
Speaker 1: was much slower pace and coming from New York to
39:11
Speaker 1: LA is one thing. Going from LA to San Diego
39:13
Speaker 1: or North County San Diego was was a very different thing.
39:16
Speaker 1: And at that time I knew that I needed some
39:20
Speaker 1: fire to drive me and to keep me going because
39:24
Speaker 1: because I was having to create nobody, you know, nobody
39:27
Speaker 1: was I didn't have a full time job, right, I
39:29
Speaker 1: didn't have someone giving me days off. I didn't So
39:32
Speaker 1: it was really up to me to continue to like
39:37
Speaker 1: motivate myself to do this thing even when I was tired,
39:40
Speaker 1: even when I you know, it's hard to be.
39:43
Speaker 2: Like an entrepreneur.
39:44
Speaker 3: I guess the failure would call it.
39:45
Speaker 1: It's there's like a constant low grade hustle and weight
39:50
Speaker 1: of that and the energy of LA and the ambition
39:54
Speaker 1: that is there is something that I really could feed
39:56
Speaker 1: off of and still do in a really positive way.
40:00
Speaker 3: And where does the book deal come into the mix?
40:03
Speaker 2: So, yeah, that happened.
40:05
Speaker 1: That happened, you know, several years later, at the end
40:08
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty eighteen, I guess twenty seventeen, maybe I
40:12
Speaker 1: was emailed by a publisher and the publisher said, have
40:15
Speaker 1: you ever thought about writing a book for millennials?
40:18
Speaker 2: On meditation, and I thought, yeah, I thought about that
40:20
Speaker 2: I could do that.
40:21
Speaker 1: And so I sent them kind of a rough I
40:25
Speaker 1: just sort of thought of a book. It's not people
40:26
Speaker 1: always sayday, is this the book you've always had in you?
40:29
Speaker 1: I like no, because someone asked me and I said sure,
40:32
Speaker 1: and so I emailed them some notes and that ended
40:35
Speaker 1: up not being a good fit with this one publisher,
40:37
Speaker 1: but it got me thinking about what a book would be.
40:40
Speaker 1: And during that process, my friend introduced me to his
40:43
Speaker 1: book agent, who then started helping me navigate that conversation.
40:47
Speaker 1: And when that didn't end up coming to fruition, she said,
40:50
Speaker 1: you know, why don't we finish your proposal and then,
40:53
Speaker 1: you know, we'll shop it.
40:53
Speaker 2: Around and see what happens.
40:55
Speaker 1: And so I wrote a book proposal and I figured
40:58
Speaker 1: out how to do that, and we shopped it and
41:01
Speaker 1: sold it and I wrote a book and that was scary.
41:04
Speaker 2: The other leaps of faith weren't so scary.
41:07
Speaker 1: Writing a book didn't feel scary until I signed a
41:09
Speaker 1: book deal and then I thought, I have to write
41:11
Speaker 1: a book now, Like I'm not a writer. I mean,
41:14
Speaker 1: I'm a good writer, apparently because I wrote a book
41:17
Speaker 1: and I think it's great. And I didn't have a
41:19
Speaker 1: ghosttrainer or anything. But but it wasn't like I had
41:21
Speaker 1: a process or you know, any idea how to do it.
41:25
Speaker 3: How long did it take you?
41:27
Speaker 2: And how long is the book I had?
41:29
Speaker 1: It's fifty thousand words, Okay, so it's like it's like
41:32
Speaker 1: a book book, like a real book.
41:34
Speaker 2: Like two hundred something pages. I wrote it in six months.
41:38
Speaker 3: And during this time, were you still teaching and doing all.
41:41
Speaker 1: Of the thing?
41:42
Speaker 2: Yeah?
41:42
Speaker 1: Why would I like take time off and give myself
41:45
Speaker 1: extra space to do this massive project that I signed
41:47
Speaker 1: a contract for.
41:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was still teaching, okay.
41:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I meant to ask you, so, how long
41:54
Speaker 3: after you had arrived at the chow per Center did
41:57
Speaker 3: you notice that a lot of those physical symptoms started
42:00
Speaker 3: to go away?
42:02
Speaker 1: Oh, they started to really pacify within I would say,
42:06
Speaker 1: within like a year. Yeah, And I kept having things
42:09
Speaker 1: that I've been dealing with, and I actually just recently
42:11
Speaker 1: found out something that I think is probably the core
42:13
Speaker 1: reason for all of it, which is kind of exciting
42:16
Speaker 1: that I'm rebalancing a little bit more exciting.
42:18
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, it sounds like, wow, the
42:21
Speaker 3: one issue it might be a little problematic.
42:23
Speaker 1: Well, it's the thing that I can balance that was
42:25
Speaker 1: probably causing all of the other like chronic things that
42:28
Speaker 1: I've dealt with. But yeah, I mean since I went there,
42:31
Speaker 1: I've had such a different relationship with with my body,
42:33
Speaker 1: which has been talk.
42:35
Speaker 3: To me about what it feels like when your book
42:38
Speaker 3: comes out.
42:39
Speaker 1: Oh man, I had to live while I was writing
42:42
Speaker 1: the book. I could so clearly see myself having written
42:44
Speaker 1: the book. That's why even when it got scary, it
42:47
Speaker 1: never got debilitatingly scary, because I could so clearly see
42:52
Speaker 1: the future moment where I was on stage talking about
42:55
Speaker 1: the book, or where I was sharing the book or
42:56
Speaker 1: write doing meditations from the book. So while I was
42:59
Speaker 1: writing it, I was kind of constantly living in this
43:02
Speaker 1: future place because that's what made it doable. Yeah, and
43:06
Speaker 1: that's what allowed me to trust that I would figure
43:08
Speaker 1: it out and like, you know, into it what I
43:11
Speaker 1: needed along the way or hear what I needed along
43:13
Speaker 1: the way. So when it finally came out, it was
43:16
Speaker 1: a little not that it was underwhelming, but it was
43:19
Speaker 1: like the timeline caught up with where my mind has
43:22
Speaker 1: been for six months, if that makes sense, kind of
43:25
Speaker 1: been training for a marathon, like you get to the marathon,
43:28
Speaker 1: You're like, oh, I've been in this place in my head,
43:29
Speaker 1: like every time I train and every time I so
43:33
Speaker 1: the actual moment, the actual moment that it felt real
43:36
Speaker 1: was I did a book launch at LA and it
43:39
Speaker 1: was it was on a Friday night in West Hollywood,
43:42
Speaker 1: and it was amazing and like one hundred people that
43:45
Speaker 1: I just adore came and just threw so much love
43:49
Speaker 1: at me. And that's what felt really, that's what felt
43:52
Speaker 1: very real and very much like, oh, this is in
43:55
Speaker 1: the world and you know people are receiving it. And
43:59
Speaker 1: I did my first book sign, you know, like that
44:01
Speaker 1: felt very surreal and cool.
44:05
Speaker 3: So then talk to me what life looks like these days.
44:10
Speaker 2: Life is, Life's nice.
44:12
Speaker 1: I'm working on another book, so I'm entering that whole
44:16
Speaker 1: project again.
44:17
Speaker 2: I am teaching. I'm still teaching.
44:22
Speaker 1: I'm hoping to travel a little bit more for speaking
44:25
Speaker 1: events and for conferences. I'm still teaching with Deep October
44:28
Speaker 1: and his events. It's not all that different. It's just
44:33
Speaker 1: a little more. I have a little more space. So,
44:37
Speaker 1: like the hustle and grind has definitely slowed down a bit.
44:40
Speaker 3: And now I mean, I'm sure all the time you
44:43
Speaker 3: get people messaging you saying things like I just feel
44:46
Speaker 3: like I cannot everybody, it is not in my wheelhouse.
44:50
Speaker 3: I am not meant to meditate. So if you had
44:54
Speaker 3: to tell this person, which you've done so many times before,
44:57
Speaker 3: like two or three things to help them make space
45:00
Speaker 3: for meditation, what is it that you tell them?
45:03
Speaker 1: Number One thing I hear is I can't meditate. I
45:05
Speaker 1: have too many thoughts, to which I always say, everyone
45:07
Speaker 1: has thoughts. As long as you have a pulse, as
45:09
Speaker 1: long as you're a life, you're going to have thoughts.
45:10
Speaker 1: Meditation is not about silencing your mind, So don't.
45:13
Speaker 2: Try to do that.
45:14
Speaker 1: And once you get okay with the fact that there's
45:16
Speaker 1: going to be activity, it's so much easier right to
45:20
Speaker 1: sit in it. Number two, I would say nothing needs to.
45:24
Speaker 2: Happen for it to work.
45:26
Speaker 1: You know, we have this idea that it needs to
45:27
Speaker 1: feel like a certain something, or you need to have
45:30
Speaker 1: the aha moment, or you need to, you know, see
45:33
Speaker 1: the Buddha riding a unicorn whispering the meaning of life.
45:36
Speaker 1: For it to be a good meditation, all you have
45:38
Speaker 1: to do is do it for it to be a
45:41
Speaker 1: good meditation. And then the other thing I would say
45:44
Speaker 1: is look for the benefits of your meditation to show
45:47
Speaker 1: up outside of your meditation, Right, So what does that
45:51
Speaker 1: look like? So it looks like getting clear with why
45:54
Speaker 1: you're doing it first, first, and foremost. So you know,
45:57
Speaker 1: think of it like a mental workout, Like what's the
45:59
Speaker 1: muscle that you're trying to build in your meditation? Is
46:02
Speaker 1: it that you want to be more present? Is it
46:05
Speaker 1: that you want to be more intentional? Is it that
46:08
Speaker 1: you want to feel more of a sense of like
46:10
Speaker 1: trust and connection to intuition. Is it that you want
46:12
Speaker 1: to feel less stressed? Is it that you want to
46:14
Speaker 1: sleep better? You know what is it physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually?
46:19
Speaker 1: What are you craving and notice in your life?
46:22
Speaker 2: And it will show up.
46:23
Speaker 1: It's the beauty of meditation. Notice when those things start
46:26
Speaker 1: to shift. Because what tends to happen, and it's happened
46:29
Speaker 1: with so many people that I've worked with. We all
46:31
Speaker 1: start meditating for whatever reason, and then that reason starts
46:34
Speaker 1: to pacify and it starts to get better, and then
46:37
Speaker 1: we stop meditating because everything got better.
46:39
Speaker 3: But that's like what everything everything? We starting We start.
46:42
Speaker 1: Working out, We start cleaning every Sunday because it makes
46:45
Speaker 1: us feel great on Monday, right, whatever it might be,
46:47
Speaker 1: and that we stop doing the thing that made us
46:49
Speaker 1: feel good because we feel good right. With antibiotics, Yeah,
46:54
Speaker 1: we pay attention to like where the pain is exactly.
46:57
Speaker 1: So I would say, be really conscious of why you're
46:59
Speaker 1: meditating and really look for.
47:02
Speaker 2: That to show up.
47:03
Speaker 3: And then I mean, do you have any simple strategies
47:05
Speaker 3: or tools that you suggest to individuals who are having
47:09
Speaker 3: a hard time jumping on the bandwagon?
47:11
Speaker 1: I would say to start scheduling it, like put it
47:14
Speaker 1: in your schedule every morning, first thing that you do
47:16
Speaker 1: when you wake up.
47:17
Speaker 2: So that's the next question, went to do it?
47:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think that and this has definitely been
47:23
Speaker 3: my experience in the past, is that like first thing
47:25
Speaker 3: in the morning is hard for me because I if
47:28
Speaker 3: I do it, then I either need to get moving
47:31
Speaker 3: or I need to go back to sleep. So for me,
47:33
Speaker 3: what I did find was either if I came back
47:36
Speaker 3: from the gym after I showered, then I could meditate,
47:39
Speaker 3: or and this is a little bit wacky, sometimes I
47:42
Speaker 3: lean into it at like four o'clock in the afternoons
47:44
Speaker 3: every time.
47:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, like earlier in the morning is usually better if
47:48
Speaker 1: you have a lot of things that you do, or
47:52
Speaker 1: if you then have to get up and go to work, right,
47:54
Speaker 1: because everything will see more important or more fun than
47:57
Speaker 1: sitting and doing nothing, which.
47:58
Speaker 2: Is what meditation feels like.
47:59
Speaker 1: Until you start to like feel the benefits and see
48:02
Speaker 1: the benefits and like see the magic unfold in your life.
48:04
Speaker 1: Meditation feels like sitting and doing nothing, and everything feels
48:09
Speaker 1: more fun than that, everything feels more important than that.
48:11
Speaker 1: So if you have like a day, I like to
48:14
Speaker 1: meditate after I work out. Also, so my perfect morning
48:17
Speaker 1: is waking up, working out and then coming home and
48:19
Speaker 1: meditating and having tea. Like that's the ideal morning for me.
48:23
Speaker 1: But if you have a lot going on, the more
48:26
Speaker 1: the earlier you can do it so that it's not
48:28
Speaker 1: in that list of things.
48:29
Speaker 2: Right. Does that make sense? Yeah?
48:30
Speaker 3: Because I think that we all wake up and we
48:32
Speaker 3: feel like the day is the mountain.
48:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, or and or the other time I usually
48:38
Speaker 1: say is after the most productive part of your day,
48:41
Speaker 1: which for a lot of.
48:41
Speaker 2: People is between like four and seven.
48:43
Speaker 3: Interesting, okay, And what does your meditation practice look like now?
48:48
Speaker 2: So I teach mantra meditation more than anything else.
48:51
Speaker 1: That's the lineage that I was initiated into with the
48:54
Speaker 1: chop for center. Okay, So it involves silently repeating a mantra,
48:58
Speaker 1: which is a Sanskrit for mine vehicle. So it's this
49:01
Speaker 1: phrase that you silently repeat. A really good universal one.
49:05
Speaker 1: I give people mantras based on their birth information. But
49:07
Speaker 1: a really good universal one is so Hum. It's the
49:11
Speaker 1: one I use in the book so Hum, which is
49:13
Speaker 1: the sound of your breath and also distills down to
49:15
Speaker 1: the essence I am. And the reason that that's a
49:18
Speaker 1: really great universal one is because you can link it
49:21
Speaker 1: with your breath as you inhale, silently repeat So as
49:25
Speaker 1: you exhale, silently repeat hum.
49:28
Speaker 2: And then you give your mind two things to anchor to.
49:30
Speaker 1: You have that breath, which is always there, and your
49:34
Speaker 1: mind can anchor to that thought, which is what a
49:37
Speaker 1: mantra is. You're just repeating this one thought and this
49:40
Speaker 1: one thought. Because it's in Sanskrit, and because your native
49:43
Speaker 1: tongue is not Sanskrit, it doesn't mean.
49:45
Speaker 2: Anything to you.
49:46
Speaker 3: A lot of people, you know, whether it be on
49:48
Speaker 3: social media or when you sit down with them, they
49:50
Speaker 3: seem they look at someone who seems although you might
49:53
Speaker 3: not feel this way all the time, grounded and present
49:56
Speaker 3: and here to help. When you look in the mirror
50:00
Speaker 3: or what is it that you see looking back at you.
50:02
Speaker 2: Now, gosh, I feel and I see such a This
50:07
Speaker 2: took so much work. I did not wake up like this.
50:09
Speaker 1: For the record, for the very official record, I see
50:12
Speaker 1: a lot of contentment. I see a lot of peace.
50:16
Speaker 1: I see a lot of trust. None of those things
50:19
Speaker 1: really are things that I would have ever said at
50:21
Speaker 1: one point in my life, and especially the lightness.
50:24
Speaker 3: And then you have an opportunity right now to offer
50:27
Speaker 3: yourself a piece of advice. When your father is told
50:31
Speaker 3: he has a year left to live, when you are
50:34
Speaker 3: going to therapy, and oh dear, working yourself like crazy
50:39
Speaker 3: in the music industry, you have an opportunity to offer
50:41
Speaker 3: yourself one piece of advice during that hurdle moment. What
50:44
Speaker 3: do you tell yourself to let everything go and to
50:48
Speaker 3: let love in, Let love in.
50:51
Speaker 2: That's it.
50:51
Speaker 3: Thanks so much for sitting down.
50:52
Speaker 2: Thank you.
50:54
Speaker 3: Please take a moment and leave a quick review by
50:56
Speaker 3: clicking the link with the description to this episode. We
50:59
Speaker 3: all have multiple hurdles in life. I want to hear
51:01
Speaker 3: about yours. Reach out to me at Emily at Hurdle
51:04
Speaker 3: dot us. Connect with the podcast on Instagram and Twitter
51:08
Speaker 3: at Hurdle Podcast Meg. Where they find you? How do
51:11
Speaker 3: they keep up with you?
51:11
Speaker 1: Oh, you can find me on Instagram. It's at Meg Monahan.
51:16
Speaker 1: That's the thing that I'm most active on. I do
51:18
Speaker 1: have a website that has some information and infhone the book,
51:21
Speaker 1: which is just my name Meganmanahan dot com.
51:24
Speaker 2: And you can get my book on Amazon, at.
51:27
Speaker 3: Bookstores wherever books are sold.
51:29
Speaker 2: Wherever books are sold.
51:31
Speaker 3: I am at Emily Abodi another hurdle conquered. Catch you
51:36
Speaker 3: guys next time.