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Selfie to Succeed Humans First. A community of curious, free and compassionate humans

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finding gratitude and success in the small things, attracting blessings and rekindling

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with the chaos we inevitably have to go through in life, regardless of age, sex, status, or

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culture. Our vision is to create a place where we experience life and share insights through

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other humans' eyes as fortunately and unfortunately we will only have a chance to experience one at

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a time. So without any further ado. Yeah, it feels like I think there's something that I

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constantly feel is a message to me since the time I went to a healing retreat, you know.

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And so once I came out of the retreat, I realized that there's something that I'm not very

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comfortable with doing, which is to just surrender. Like I'm not great at surrendering. I like to have

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a sense of control and knowing where things are going, knowing that I am somehow driving.

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But then, you know, I think with that experience, what I learned was you can do all those things and

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then you should let the rest be free format. Like do your part and then surrender. And I think

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that because I don't do that, I tend to bring other emotions like overthinking and worry

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and stuff like that. So I was just thinking, I guess it is my next chapter, you know, where I need

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to learn to do my part and then to trust that the universe has my back. Right. So it just, yeah.

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So then I feel like it also liberates you, it lightens you and your energies are in action and

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thinking, but not so much in the holding onto it so tightly that it kind of defeats why you're even

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doing it in the first place. Yeah. Cause it's now it becomes like desperation to make it happen.

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It does. Yeah. Yeah. Or even like, you know, a kind of heaviness because you're just constantly

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now bothered about trying to play so many iterations out in your head. And then in the end,

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it just, it probably works out in a different way or a much better way that you couldn't even

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think of. Usually does. So usually does. Right. So then I think that was my lesson

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through the dujit because I sat with ayahuasca, you know, I don't know if I'm sure you're doing

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ayahuasca. How was the whole experience? Yes. Cause it's something that's so much to do this.

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Like I really want to experience that part of spirituality. So that would be very interesting

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to hear about. It sounds like it was a trip. It was. And you know, I think, you know, an experience

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like that, I think made me think that, I think what, whatever you're like testing for will call

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you at the times that you're supposed to, because to tell you the truth, Susan, like six months prior

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to that, cause I had to book, I had to sign up for the retreat and book everything about six months

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before. And it was like just when COVID, like all the COVID, you know, restrictions were being

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lifted off slowly. Like, no, they were just being lifted off. So, like, I think that was

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like, you were committing to the retreat, but they couldn't open up because this happened in Bali

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and they couldn't open it up for six months at the airports were shut and all of that. So I signed

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up six months before and I became very close to the couple that was organizing the retreat, like

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we'd become great friends. And they were telling me, you know, that, oh, so you're, this is going to

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be a fantastic experience. And, and I just asked a lot of questions and I assumed that, okay, so I'm

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going to be doing like some emotional mapping, some release meditation, like a hot and cold water

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plunge and yoga. And, and, you know, all of those things. So I was just like, okay, digesting that

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this is what's going to happen. And then they said, Oh, it's all going to be prepping you to sit with

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my waska. And I was like, Oh, what is that? You know, that's what I said, because I'm like, what

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is that? And then they had a laugh because they just like burst out laughing and they were like,

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Oh my God, like you are in for a life-changing experience. But the thing was, I actually did

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not understand the magnanimity of it at all, because it's so bizarre that until that day,

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I have literally zero clue of plant medicine, like zero. Wow. It's like I've lived in a world where

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this doesn't exist. Like, I don't know what it is. I don't know what it like, you know, I even,

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I would have even heard things like, okay, people do like LSE or ecstasy or things like that. But

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that's like a drug conversation. You know, like I don't actually, it's different and it's a pill.

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And you know, when people do it and recreationally and all of that, but then I suddenly just got

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exposed to a world. And then I remember like, because he said all those things, I went to

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Google it after, and I couldn't even spell it right. Cause it's not like it's pronounced.

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Right. So I'm like, there's so hard. I was like, what is, what did they talk about? So I

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texted her again. I was like, what are we sitting with? And then she said like, you know, since you

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don't know, and you are just discovering it, I would recommend don't read, don't go too crazy

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about it. Just trust the process. And it was very difficult. Like I decided to try to do that. But

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for the six months, I kept wanting to, you know, find out more, read more. And I tried to tell

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myself not to, it's a long time to be like, okay, this is what I'm going to do. And then I noticed

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that I started to share it with a few people here and there. Like when there were moments that was

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getting closer and I was a bit nervous, I would just randomly tell people. And the funny thing

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was the few people that I chose to share it with, they were, they'd either done it or they were

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insanely pumped that I'm going to do. And they were like, why didn't you tell me before I would

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have come with you? And I was like, okay, why, why are you so excited? So I tried to like gather

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the feelings without reading. And then I went there and we did like five days. It was five days of,

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you know, eating plant-based food, a hot cold water plungers, prayers every day, a lot of

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release. Like we're doing a lot of this emotional release, which was quite scary as well, because

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one, you were feeling light, but you were sitting in a room, which was like, you know, it's

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vulnerable, religiously primed. Like you were, you know, praying and there was all this like,

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I don't know, tobacco and blah, blah, blah and all that. But then you're, you know, also closing

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your eyes and listening to other people screaming or crying or shouting. And I got like, I got scared.

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And then it took me a while to realize that this collective healing is also special. Like there's

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something so magical about it. And then you, you went through the five days of release and prep and

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foundationally laying it right to sit on the sixth night, you know, and it was like a 10 hour process

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and the shaman had come from like, I think Peru or somewhere or Brazil, the Amazon or somewhere

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like that. He brought his own concoction. Yeah. He's like his tools. Yeah. And then he explained,

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you know, that you come into the session and you come with very clear intentions, but zero

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expectations. So your intentions should be so well laid out in your mind that if the universe or if

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the medicine is going to answer you, they know what exactly how to answer you, but have zero

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expectations. If you get no answers, then you know what? It's not your time or the answers will be

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symbolic and you write it down and you will see them later. So it's like, okay, great. But as it

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got closer that night, oh my God, I was like really pooping bricks. Like I was so nervous.

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And then we all had to like dress real light and wear like these, you know, lighter robes, go in

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there. The room was like pitch dark. They had like a few candles. He was singing the whole time. And

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then it was like tea. It was like having tea and you drank like a shot of the tea. And then,

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I mean, I, I definitely know that for like a few years, I would never do it again. Because the first

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part, I keep saying half, I really don't know the sense of time, but we sat for like about 10 hours.

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But the first part, you know, was like, I think it to me, it felt like it reached a place where I

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decided that I was going to die. Like, I'm like, that's it, you know, it's over. And it was more

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because it was like from a, it was more a mental, like mental kind of like a mindfuck, I think.

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Because it just, I just kept seeing things. And not a lot of it made sense, but a lot of it was

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kind of scary. Like it was just, you know, kind of like trying to take over me in some way. And I

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think the person in me, the natural instinct in me to control stuff and to like, you know, keep things

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like in somehow, like, I know what's going to happen. I, that person was trying to control

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these visions and the pain. And so I was lying down that I remember, I like, I didn't open my

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eyes, but I knew like tears were coming out. Cause I think I was just like, help me like, Lord,

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this somebody help me. And it wouldn't stop if you lie down, you sit up, you turn around, whatever,

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it just wouldn't stop. So I remember this moment where I think it was almost like me seeing me.

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And then I was just like, that's it, let go, you know, just that's it. It's if this is how it's

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supposed to be, this is how it's supposed to be, let it go. And I made that decision. And for some

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reason I decided that I'm going to get up and they'd kept like a bucket next to us and a bottle of

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water. They said, you're two friends for tonight or the bucket and the water, because you will be

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purging and then you would want to hydrate. So I took the bucket and I just decided I'm going to

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go to the loop because we were allowed to go to the loop that was like two seconds away.

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I literally like get up and in a split second, I think like I turned into that, you know, the

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character from the grudge where your whole body is like, it felt so weird. The way my body switched

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was so weird. And then I threw up like a waterfall, Susan. It was like no gagging, no effort, no

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struggle. It was just, you know, like it's like a gateway had opened and it was just flowing,

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slow, slow, slow, slow, slow. Finally, it's just like whenever it wraps up, I sit down and I lie

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down. And then suddenly the visions, they just changed. Like I'm in some freaking unicorn galaxy

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met, you know, at the ultimate land of fairies roaming in like romance of baddie fields. It was

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just unreal. I think so. And it was just unbelievably magical that I even remember a moment when I was

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looking at the visions and going, wow, like, what is this? What is this? And I started to have like,

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you know, a few people show up or things show up that I kind of recognize. And I was like,

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what are you doing here? And stuff like that. And then finally, when it started to wear off,

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you know, it was quite interesting because there was music playing and I opened my eyes and

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right above the shaman was like this window. And I felt like the first thing I saw from the window

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was the vision I just had, which was like a purpley sky with like a ton of stars that were just like

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sparking and rotating. And I was a bit confused, you know, that am I still sitting with it or is

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that real? And then, you know, that was the vibe that it carried. And then I started to dance. Like,

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you know, I was just dancing alone, dancing on my own. I felt the need to like sort of, you know,

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take off some of my, you know, wear some like, I don't want to be tight. I just want to be free.

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And when we when we finished and we all had to sit by the fire, just as a collective sense of

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community, nobody talked, you know, most people were just like silent except for the shaman.

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And then I went to the room and I wrote, I wrote a lot because I wanted to capture everything I saw.

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And I didn't a lot of it didn't make sense. So I was like probably later down the line in life,

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I'll figure it out. But the shaman was saying, you know, supposedly zero to seven years is when

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the things you see, they start to manifest. So you it's good to write down because then later on,

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when you see that pattern or you see that color or you see that, you know, symbol, you know what it

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means. And you know that, oh, this is why I saw it. But what I thought from immediate learning,

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you know, was that only when I like I did all the priming, I did all the prayer work,

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I reached the basics. I came, I sat. But only when I let go, I saw light. Yes. Yes. You know,

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so I just came up with this theoretical or like how you say symbolic way of thinking that I think

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I do my part, but I hold on too much. And I need to learn to surrender. I need to learn to trust

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that I've done my best and what is meant for me will not miss me or what is meant for me is going

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to be a million shades better than what I imagine. And I never, you never thought like that. I've

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never thought like that. So I just thought I know, because I couldn't treat that experience as

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anything else, because the moment I let go was literally having a conversation with me saying,

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if this is the place that I have to call it a rap, then this is what it is. You know, let it be.

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That's it. Because that's how painful it got. So I just like, fuck, I need to wrap this up right

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now. I can't anymore. And then it just turns into like, hey, you showed up and I'm going to show up

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a million shades cooler. And that's how this experience was, you know, so that's where this

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whole surrender thing, this is really the backstory. And I've been practicing or literally flexing that

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muscle for a whole year now where I catch myself all the time with that struggle, you know,

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Yeah, is that really, I can't believe it. It feels so good as well. It feels so good. It really does.

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It's a weight. Yeah, absolutely. It's a weight lifted off. You said it. Yeah, it's just it's so light

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lightening of generally how you navigate life. So definitely, you know, I want to be more of that.

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I want to practice more of that. And all right. I love that. I love that. Because even like the

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the vision itself, how it moved from like this obscure place to then this love you, W like,

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yes, literally just love you land like it's so it was I like that word. It was like lovey land,

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you know, that's really what it was like. It was a bit and it was unreal, like the extremities of

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both was just unreal. Like I didn't know that kind of magic can exist. And the other way I didn't

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know that kind of fear can exist. You know, both were like just elevated, very elevated. And I

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thought that's what it meant. The magic is on the other side of surrendering. Always, always.

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And it's so interesting that we started with with our story because it connects so much as well to

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what we like what we've been talking about and see even just the the intention behind the podcast is

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to highlight how we all have that pain and pleasure. It's the balance of life and it's part of

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ourselves. And we just need to also almost let go and open those doors to see it both in order to

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understand how to then move forward. So it was a great way to start. I was like, no, this is too good.

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Thank you so much. Honestly, I'm so I'm so grateful for the fact that we're even here

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after very eventful trials. We both know.

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But I think today was the day it was meant to be today. Like literally we've had zero struggles

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and it's just been so smooth. So it was meant to be today.

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It is. And I guess I'm not going to give an introduction because I'll leave you to explain

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your story because honestly, I'm so excited to hear what led to the version of of you

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of yourself that I got to me because it's a very nice person. And I'm so excited to just

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having had the chance to that our lives crossed like we literally live on two opposite side of

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the world. But somehow we were able to find each other. So very, very grateful. And again,

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I don't want to take anything away from you. So I'll have to say is for today, again, we can

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I'll probably cut this part out because it's irrelevant. It's just going through a couple

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of questions, but we can follow the conversation. Yeah. Yeah. I just because it's something that I

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it's something that I said yesterday as well while I was recording. Yeah. It's like a gesture on

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anything like a cue that we can give each other if we want to like either like add something or

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probe into a little bit more of what someone else is saying. What can we what can we do?

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Can we do? What would I wish maybe we should be like, oh, but it shouldn't be visible, right?

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It should be like, yeah, it's like something is like maybe it should be like that.

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It's like a little longer than normal. Be like, yeah, yeah, no, it's like a normal thing. Just

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it's such a body. It's just a bodily behavior, but like, can we go a little further on that one?

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And I just find that it just helps because especially with the fact that we don't want to

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like, like, yeah, I guess here we are. And well, I wanted to like first thing, like get to almost

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like grow with you, you know, grow with your story. So like starting from like childhood to like

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instead of it more in terms of how was your childhood and the dynamics that you had in your

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in your family. Yes. How is that for you? OK, I think first, I do want to say thank you so much,

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Susan, for having me on this podcast. I'm so excited to be one of your early, early guests,

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if I may say. And I'm also really glad that our paths cross because I think it crossed

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for different circumstances. But it's just been, you know, exciting to see how our lives are kind

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of on a similar wavelength to speak. And so I'm looking forward to this conversation. I'm quite

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excited to be on this this hot seat to tell you, to go back to your question, to tell you a little

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bit on how how was my childhood? I think, you know, I'm ethnically Indian. I was born in the

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south of India in a place called Chennai. And my parents were living in the Middle East in a in a

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country called Oman in a city called Muscat. And so my mom literally just came back to have me

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in Chennai and then she went back to Muscat. So for me, I do think that

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this country or the city Muscat just feels like home. You know, I grew up there. My most formative

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years were in the city. And honestly, the city feels like straight out of a famous five or a

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secret seven because it's just so wrapped up in nature. There's like mountains and a lot of green

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and beaches. And my dad was working in a cement company. You know, he's a chemical engineer. He

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was working for a cement company. So we were living in a community that was a bit far away

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from the main city. So everyone who worked in the company lived within that, you know, like a compound

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to say. And so we had friends, you know, friends from everywhere in the world. So it was like growing

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up with a very diverse bunch of people not recognizing maybe that you're actually Indian

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or you're this or that because it was just fun to be kind of, you know, spending your evenings together

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with people from different parts of the world. And you just you just enjoyed the power in that

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diversity. It was just fun to grow up like that. And I think from a family point of view, you know,

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my parents and my youngest sister and me, so it's just always the four of us. And I think my parents,

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you know, were very conscious of giving my sister and me a full shot at life, like definitely

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emphasizing largely on education, getting both of us to study and to be able to

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kind of, I think, build a foundation that my dad would say things like, you know, education is the

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only investment that no one can take away from you. So I think that was something that was very

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deep rooted in them. And they wanted to create that foundational way of both of us being brought up.

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So we could be whatever we wanted in this world. And, you know, little things like, you know, they

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were very particular that every meal was to be had together, we were not allowed to eat in our own

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rooms, or, you know, just being silo watching TV, like we have to be at the table, we have to eat

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together. And it was something that I think more than my mom, my dad was very particular. So I feel

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like growing up, we were very tight knit. We did a lot of things together, like we were very

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outdoorsy. My parents are big on traveling. So we would travel to different places. You know, they

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kind of made sure like my sister, I was a trained South Indian classical singer, my sister was great

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at the piano, we would go ice skating, we would play squash, like, kind of like built us to be

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all rounded and find things that allowed us to be, you know, like more rich than just a cat and a

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cat. But yeah, my mother was lucky. She decided to start a school since she had something going on

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I feel a couple of things, I think as a family to have had parents who were very particular

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about us bonding together and also developing us in a spectrum of things and not just focusing

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on one aspect of life was a big bonus and a very special but also at the same time,

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I think that, you know, perhaps being brought up in a very diverse background allowed us

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to celebrate who we were as opposed to, you know, kind of, you're, when you're in the

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very homogeneous community, you probably don't understand how to celebrate your differences.

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So there was a lot of, yeah, you just blend in and you fit in and here there was, you

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know, things that people noticed about you that were special that you didn't, you know,

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actually might have never recognized are special and you do the same thing with others. So

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I think that was also a very nice with the way we were, with the way we got to be brought

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up. And finally, I think the place, you know, being brought up in a city that was, I would

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say, not very, like glamorous and not loud and not very, you know, like fast paced. I

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think we were able to be children, like, just live like children should for a very long

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time. Like it was more about, you know, camping outside and like learning to make your own

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fire and like we all like get together in some place and then we'd hike and then we'd

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just like make a route and then call it home and everyone, someone would bring like sheets,

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someone would bring food and then someone would bring like stuff to play. And it was

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just being creative like that. And then, you know, having a group of us just hang out and

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it really does feel now when I look back, like as if I was reading, it was straight

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out of a famous five or Nancy Drew or one of those like great storylines that we grew

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up reading. So I think these things I only reflect on now. I look back and I think about

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them. And I also think a very large part of my childhood though was, you know, my father

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on my father's side, there was a very, very huge influence of being patriarchal, like

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very completely the opposite of how my mother's side was. And they all come from the same

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time. So I don't know how that happened. But on my father's side, they're a very big

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family. My dad has seven siblings and out of all the siblings, my parents were the only

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ones to have two daughters and everyone else had two sons or a daughter and a son, but

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there was always a boy in the mix. And my parents had no sons. And so they kind of even

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though we were not living in India, like they somehow did get bullied and they got bullied

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constantly for you know, it was almost like reminding them all the time that, you know,

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you don't you're sort of incomplete as a family because you don't have a boy or what are your

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daughters going to do or like, why are you educating them so much because no one's going

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to want to marry them. Or now she has so much of an opinion, which which man is going to

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want to tolerate that and you know, things like that. And so I grew up watching that

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a lot in my house and my mom is is a good 10 years younger to my dad. And so I think

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how she coped with it was also very different from how my dad coped with it. So I, I think,

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you know, with all the other really nice things that I feel were special about growing up,

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I also inculcated a huge amount of anger. I and I and I think, you know, just listening

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and watching and seeing my parents feel incomplete in some sort or fighting this, you know, this

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kind of, you know, defeated sort of, yeah, you're just being told all the time, but then

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you're still navigating life, you're still being progressive, you're still educating

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your kids, you're doing things that are not conventional to the work or the time that

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or the societal construct that they are being exposed to every day. They still went ahead

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and did the thing. So I think that that tension, that worry, I experienced it and I saw particularly

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my mom be very, very emotionally, like kind of on a like distraught with like having to

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hear a lot of these things. And some of them were really painful. You know, I think like

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when my sister was born, my mom was, you know, kind of asked to, you know, actually think

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about like leaving my dad because somehow she was made to feel that she carried the

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entire responsibility of having created another girl in the house. And so people were kind

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of trying to tell her that, you know, you, you're just not good enough. And, you know,

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you sort of let my son down and things like that. And I think hearing those things, I

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developed anger as a huge like fuel to my fire and also a very big, I think, emotion

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because I didn't know maybe how to release. I just didn't know where to send it and what

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to do with the feelings that I am watching and experiencing. So this is a huge part of

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my childhood and just, you know, knowing there was a parallel track that I would watch all

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the time. And I think I became a feminist from a very young age that I wanted an equal

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space in the world. I wanted an equal shot at life. I wanted to tell people who somehow

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ever thought that, you know, women don't get, get to live life and aspire to get to live

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life the way anyone else can. It's just needs to be, needs to be told that we're all human

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first. And I think my way of navigating that was not a pleasant one. It was quite an aggressive

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one because I just was carrying so much of this, you know, pent up anger inside of me.

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So yeah, that's, that's how I would define my childhood, you know.

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Thank you so much for sharing that honestly. Because I can see all of that how it then

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comes off in the person that you are right now, like this strong woman that you've worked

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so hard on yourself and you're still working on yourself and keep on pushing and pushing.

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And I found beautiful the fact that you were allowed to discover yourself, like to try

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different things and just triumph, trial and fail. So that is also something that I feel

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like not a lot of people are now having the chance to experience, which limits what they

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think that they can be or what they actually then become. So it's beautiful that you've

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read that chance to, you know, just try different things and see what sticks, you know. But

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also I can see how it built it, how you became so strong because of the fact of obviously

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going through almost having to prove yourself. Because we already carry this weight as a

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woman. Or you're the weaker gender or whatever. I'm not going to come here and list all of

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them because we all know. To be fair, but just seeing how...

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It's so sad when we say we all know, like we all know, but we all do know it. It is

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the truth, isn't it? Yes.

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There's this beautiful quote that Lauren Hill says, fantasy is what we want, but reality

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is what we need. It's reality. But I can definitely see how then someone would advocate so much

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for women as you do, because obviously you felt the actual stigma, the weight, not just

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on yourself, but also you saw your mom and your parents going through that as well. So

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obviously it's great that you've turned it into your strength and you're now wanting

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to provide that for others as well. So thank you so much. We need more of you.

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Thank you.

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Definitely. Especially having a child like that, growing up then into adulthood, how

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was that switch, that change or now, okay, now you are a woman, you know, like you're

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the big W. How is that for you?

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Big W, I like that. I think when I look back, I definitely think that from childhood to

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moving into the teenage years, I think that's probably when I think I felt a lot of inner

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struggle with who I was becoming. I do think that I got labeled a lot as being angry. And

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until then, even though I knew I was carrying a lot of anger, I was still a kid. So it

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was just, it was like comments that didn't bother me or maybe I didn't understand them.

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But as a teenager to be constantly told that, oh, you're being angry or you're going to

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get angry now, or sometimes reminded that this kind of anger is not good for a girl.

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Like it's just not good to be this angry. And so I think I associated that emotion to

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be a not nice emotion. And I also felt within myself that I kind of don't like that I have

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this side to me, but I really didn't know what to do about it. So I think I went through

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a teenage phase where I rebelled a lot because it was just a conflict on the inside and outside

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that I felt the anger was very much justified as a great protection or defense mechanism.

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But at the same time, it didn't look good on a girl. So I think that the conflict on

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the inside made me rebel a lot. And I also think that during that phase, I noticed with

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things like bodily changes, for example, like if you're getting your period and then in

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my home, for example, my dad explained to me all about it, I had a conversation with

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my father instead of my mom. And I found that it was just great that this is how I got to

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understand the anatomy or how we work or how our bodies are and what this means. But then

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I would go back to like say India for a vacation, like with my parents and my sister. And the

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same parenting would switch to like suppose we're staying at my dad's parents house, and

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there is some sort of a religious ceremony or there is we have to go to the temple or

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something. Then, you know, when you have your period, you're not supposed to go to the temple.

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You're not supposed to pray is what we were taught. Yeah, somehow we were made to understand

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that it is not auspicious. Like it is not your body is going through something which

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is, you know, not clean. And so, you know, there was this narrative that you don't you

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don't go to a pious place, you don't actually pray or you don't actually go to a place of

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worship. And so I rebelled more because I felt that my the same parenting in my house,

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I didn't have any friends whose dads were talking to their daughters about what it meant

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to walk into a menstrual cycle or like just getting into this space of adulthood. And

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at the same time, my same parents would completely switch how they behave where they would be

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like, nobody needs to know that you have your period. There is a function at the temple.

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Just pretend like you're sleeping. Just stay at home. You know, so I wasn't allowed to

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tell anyone that I am having my period. I wouldn't be able to say that I'm, you know,

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feeling uncomfortable or any of that. Because if I did, then it's just that household would

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make a big deal. And then, you know, I wouldn't be allowed to like, say, go to the temple

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and pray. And I would be like, kind of having to probably put on practices that, you know,

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I wouldn't understand that, you know, that that type of child that was being. And so

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to keep it all low, my parents were just like, hi, you know, just we don't want to tell anybody

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anything. I just need you to pretend like you're sleeping. I need you to pretend like

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you can't make it to that event because you're tired or things like that, you know. And I

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think I would basically convert those moments into very rebellious conversations, because

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I would ask my parents questions like, you know, if God created all of us and we all

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go to God for showing us the way, showing us the light for being in gratitude, then

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why would that God deny someone who is capable of creating life that this whole cycle is

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indicative that I'm preparing my body for a new, a new home to be able to create life.

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And so my parents would just feel like, what have we done? You know, why have we educated

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her like this? This is the kind of questions. And then, you know, they think that fear that

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my dad's family would inculcate, why are you educating them so much? They're going to have

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too much of an opinion. I think I would see those traces of worry in my parents when I

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was being very rebellious during the teenage years, because I just questioned everything.

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And I felt that they were not prepared to answer them. You know, they didn't want to

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because they were afraid that I was going to make noise or I was going to disrupt, you

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know, the peace or, you know, and they were trying to do a delicate balance, which I couldn't

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understand. Like, for example, you know, in our community, when a girl gets a period,

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there's a celebration, you know, you call everybody together and you say, and my parents

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didn't want to do that because they were like, nobody needs to know like, this is your journey,

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your body, your and I loved that, you know, and I look back, I think that was so progressive

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of them. But then when they're back in that societal construct, they are somehow trying

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to they're trying to navigate it in ways that are not authentic. And I now have the maturity

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to understand that, you know, it was difficult for them. They did the best that they could.

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But I was making it very difficult for them because I couldn't understand. So I would

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just constantly ask these questions, you know, and I think that the teenage years for me

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was a lot of that, like wanting opportunity, wanting to be able to do things that perhaps

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you say, you know, you're not that that might physically hurt you or like I was very big

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on sport. And, you know, it would be like, you don't want to have scars or you don't

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want to get hurt. And I would still be like, I don't understand, like, why does that matter?

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Or academically, you know, I would be like, really fierce because I was always like, I

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was always stopping in school. But I would compete with like a lot of these friends of

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mine were boys and I would get really aggressive and then my parents would be a bit worried

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that, you know, you you don't have to express like that. You don't have to be like that.

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And so I think that was a lot of my teenage life where I was questioning things. I was

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wondering where did they come from? Where do these beliefs come from? Why have, you

375
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:09,440
know, we agreed to follow some of this? And I think that that that, you know, if you ask

376
00:40:09,440 --> 00:40:14,080
my parents today, they will say that she was a rebellious kid because I think they didn't

377
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:24,160
know how to term it. I remember that being a very a little bit difficult on them and

378
00:40:24,160 --> 00:40:29,440
difficult on me as well. And having a lot of arguments and a lot of like difference

379
00:40:29,440 --> 00:40:34,880
of opinion. And I think in the in the end, the thing I used to notice, though, is that

380
00:40:34,880 --> 00:40:40,360
like between my parents, my mom would have a way of handling it, but she would just be

381
00:40:40,360 --> 00:40:44,240
like, you know, what have I done to have to deal with all this?

382
00:40:44,240 --> 00:40:49,520
Oh, my God. Again, another one.

383
00:40:49,520 --> 00:40:54,560
My father, my dad, though, you know, he was very I think a lot of the curiosity and this,

384
00:40:54,560 --> 00:40:59,640
you know, wanting to work on myself. I think a lot of that, I also think genetically or

385
00:40:59,640 --> 00:41:05,600
watching him is how I probably got influenced because he would say these things that were

386
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:11,560
kind of contradictory and we would get into an argument, but then he would sleep over

387
00:41:11,560 --> 00:41:16,880
it, you know, and the next day or two days later, he would come back and and have a conversation

388
00:41:16,880 --> 00:41:21,320
when he's trying to meet me halfway or try to understand. And I think that's because

389
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:28,440
he he liked questioning himself. He liked thinking it through. And so I always felt

390
00:41:28,440 --> 00:41:35,880
eventually, I would feel like I am being heard or we are in this conversation. But I don't

391
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:41,840
think I always felt that I could be me. That was for sure. I think with the teenagers,

392
00:41:41,840 --> 00:41:48,600
I realized that, you know, there was a lot of awareness that who I was becoming was kind

393
00:41:48,600 --> 00:41:57,680
of misfitting to what a good woman or a good woman in this world looks like. Yeah. And

394
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:03,360
I was not meeting those standards. So I think that's when those seeds started to get planted

395
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:12,440
of not feeling good enough, being rebellious, you know, maybe wanting to wanting to be grateful

396
00:42:12,440 --> 00:42:19,760
to people who appreciated me for being the things that I was. So I think it just it became

397
00:42:19,760 --> 00:42:25,280
like, you know, there were these new character traits that were coming into play because

398
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:34,120
just being me was not welcome. It was not enough. It was not enough and it was not well

399
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:41,440
received. So I did feel that. I think I started to feel that weight from that time onwards.

400
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:50,640
Yeah. And that is a there's a heavy there's a heavy bargain that teenage brings as well.

401
00:42:50,640 --> 00:42:56,520
It's a delicate period that it's it links our childhood to our adulthood. But everyone

402
00:42:56,520 --> 00:43:03,760
is trying to make us fit into something that we're not. Yeah. Because everyone is it makes

403
00:43:03,760 --> 00:43:11,520
it easier for everyone else to just fit in and, you know, just go along with the play,

404
00:43:11,520 --> 00:43:17,560
you know. But then here comes Switchy back to with all the questions, challenging every

405
00:43:17,560 --> 00:43:24,360
study score. It's that speaks a lot of your character. And also, I guess that's the thing

406
00:43:24,360 --> 00:43:29,520
that has got us to where we are in terms of the the wave of getting better. And like you

407
00:43:29,520 --> 00:43:35,040
said, even for your father, always questioning and questioning and questioning. It's what

408
00:43:35,040 --> 00:43:42,240
actually gets you to understand who you truly are, minus the societal adjective or labels

409
00:43:42,240 --> 00:43:47,800
that we we have to attach to ourselves in order to show up in society. So that is a

410
00:43:47,800 --> 00:43:54,520
well, that is a very interesting, interesting way. And how were you able to because obviously

411
00:43:54,520 --> 00:44:01,360
this now grows into the thing that we were talking about in our previous conversation,

412
00:44:01,360 --> 00:44:07,760
like the burnout and also how it went into the workplace. So how how did that grow and

413
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:16,840
how did that then crush down? Yes. I guess the blessing is so. No, you know, so very

414
00:44:16,840 --> 00:44:22,840
interestingly, I would say that, you know, so anyways, being Indian, I have to I have

415
00:44:22,840 --> 00:44:29,920
to tell you that there are only a few career choices back then when I was getting to go

416
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:36,120
to school or to university. You know, I either had the choice of being an engineer or a doctor

417
00:44:36,120 --> 00:44:41,680
or a lawyer. And I think for me, they did introduce being a chartered accountant. They

418
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:47,200
said, you know, that was also an option for me. And otherwise, it just implied that I've

419
00:44:47,200 --> 00:44:54,960
basically become a failure because I'm unable to take, you know, academically be able to

420
00:44:54,960 --> 00:45:00,160
become anything like take myself through a journey where I can provide myself and I can

421
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:05,080
live a good life. And so I have to choose between these four different options or choose

422
00:45:05,080 --> 00:45:13,040
to agree that I am a failure. And I generally have always been very competitive. So it was

423
00:45:13,040 --> 00:45:18,240
impossible for me to be like, oh, I'm going to go choose option number five. No, but I

424
00:45:18,240 --> 00:45:25,920
was also very no way, you know, and also to tell you that it was so deep rooted that failure

425
00:45:25,920 --> 00:45:31,440
was just not an option for me. Like the way my parents were bringing us up, it was not

426
00:45:31,440 --> 00:45:38,120
an option. But if I look back with this question, Susan, I also think that I probably added

427
00:45:38,120 --> 00:45:44,040
on to what I was already brought up in the environment that I was because of the because

428
00:45:44,040 --> 00:45:52,280
of the, you know, this constant reminder that my parents have two girl children. And, you

429
00:45:52,280 --> 00:45:57,120
know, it's just the possibility of them being a burden and and what they're doing, what

430
00:45:57,120 --> 00:46:01,880
my parents were doing with me is going to definitely backfire. I felt even more the

431
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:08,020
pressure that there's no way I can feel I absolutely have no room to fail. I am going

432
00:46:08,020 --> 00:46:15,240
to have to carry the storage and make my parents effort. Yeah, because this is when their effort

433
00:46:15,240 --> 00:46:21,120
and their fight makes sense. And so I think I carry that extra. So, you know, then it

434
00:46:21,120 --> 00:46:26,720
helps that I am competitive, it helped that I was very analytical, I was really good at

435
00:46:26,720 --> 00:46:31,760
math, really good at science, I was constantly like topping in school. So I kind of took

436
00:46:31,760 --> 00:46:36,600
that and decided, you know, I'd like to be an engineer. And at that time around, like

437
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:43,440
getting into computer science was really almost like a trend, I would say, but I was really

438
00:46:43,440 --> 00:46:48,320
good at programming and really good at like writing out puzzles and solving them. So I

439
00:46:48,320 --> 00:46:54,160
just, I don't think I've had a deeper understanding of what is passion. I just was like, I'm fantastic

440
00:46:54,160 --> 00:46:59,040
at this. It makes me so excited. Like when I'm, you know, cracking a piece of code, I

441
00:46:59,040 --> 00:47:03,520
just feel like, wow, you know, I've just I've just discovered, I don't know, electricity

442
00:47:03,520 --> 00:47:07,920
or something like that. So I just took the two and two together. And I'm like, you know

443
00:47:07,920 --> 00:47:15,880
what, I'm going to do engineering. And, you know, in that time, like one of the, I mean,

444
00:47:15,880 --> 00:47:20,040
it still is a fantastic school. But one of the greatest schools to get into engineering

445
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:25,880
in India is called the Indian Institute of Technology. And there are only five of the

446
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:30,800
schools and they're literally like an equivalent of getting into Harvard or MIT. It's just

447
00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:38,440
like insane, an insane process to get in top of the top and really harsh, like really harsh

448
00:47:38,440 --> 00:47:43,720
to get in. It's usually a fantastic experience once you're in, but the whole process of getting

449
00:47:43,720 --> 00:47:48,400
in is just like layered and you know, people are preparing for it since their eighth grade

450
00:47:48,400 --> 00:47:54,520
and you've got like so many layers of getting in. And then you've, you also find that like

451
00:47:54,520 --> 00:48:00,920
there's about 200,000 applicants in a year and only 2000 people get in. So this obsession

452
00:48:00,920 --> 00:48:06,440
with half having to get in sometimes people attempted for three years in a row, four years

453
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:14,240
in a row. It's just a very, there's a very rat racy and a very like, I don't know, very

454
00:48:14,240 --> 00:48:21,280
cutthroaty vibe around it. But I somehow, you know, had one of the, I would say the

455
00:48:21,280 --> 00:48:28,080
lamest stories to why I decided to get in. And it seems lame today, but then I just,

456
00:48:28,080 --> 00:48:36,520
you me, it was one of the most pivotal godfathery moments when I'm like, I've got to do this.

457
00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:43,760
There was, there's a cousin of mine, you know, on my dad's side, my dad's sister's son. And

458
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:50,600
just after I think the last person who got into the school, the next person who was actually

459
00:48:50,600 --> 00:48:56,520
slotted in line to be capable of applying to the school was one of my cousins. And he

460
00:48:56,520 --> 00:49:00,840
was, you know, everyone was raving about him. And people were like, cheering him on, like

461
00:49:00,840 --> 00:49:04,960
he's gonna be the next guy in the family is going to make it and all the good stuff. And

462
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:10,240
then just around the entrance exams or something, something happened. I think he wasn't well

463
00:49:10,240 --> 00:49:14,720
or something happened to him. He just couldn't, he just couldn't bring his best self. And

464
00:49:14,720 --> 00:49:20,680
it didn't work out. And then my dad's dad, he was so disappointed. You know, his heart

465
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,760
was literally broken. And he was like, that's it. There's going to be no one else in our

466
00:49:24,760 --> 00:49:33,360
family was going to, you know, ever be in contention. And but to be like 12 or 13. And

467
00:49:33,360 --> 00:49:38,160
I remember it was summertime, we were on our summer break, and we were staying with my

468
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:43,200
dad's parents. And we were walking on the rooftop. And that's when he made this comment.

469
00:49:43,200 --> 00:49:48,520
And I remember looking at him and thinking like, to him, like, I'm just invisible, you

470
00:49:48,520 --> 00:49:54,920
know, it just doesn't matter what I do. He just he can't see me. And so I literally had

471
00:49:54,920 --> 00:50:01,920
that seed planted that I am going to get into the school. And I'm going to show you. And

472
00:50:01,920 --> 00:50:11,840
to be honest, I think that today he doesn't even know that, you know, he was really the

473
00:50:11,840 --> 00:50:16,240
inspiration for me. And I was like, that's it. Like, this is the clarity. And this is

474
00:50:16,240 --> 00:50:23,200
the direction I'm going to go in. And so I basically just, you know, went full all hands

475
00:50:23,200 --> 00:50:28,560
on deck, I went fully preparing for it. And then I did get through. And once I did get

476
00:50:28,560 --> 00:50:34,520
through, I remember telling myself, you know, that I'm just going to have fun now, because

477
00:50:34,520 --> 00:50:40,800
that whole journey for those few years, like I stopped singing, I stopped playing sport,

478
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:46,160
I stopped, you know, doing any of the things that I loved, like, I just was kind of studying

479
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:50,440
all the time, because you had your daily school. And then there was a whole other process to

480
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:56,600
prepare for these engineering entrance exams. I was intense. I mean, not to brag, but to

481
00:50:56,600 --> 00:51:00,640
like give you a little bit of perspective, like, it's the same school that Sundar Pichai

482
00:51:00,640 --> 00:51:05,360
was the CEO of Google, like, that's where he went to do his engineering. So it's just,

483
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:10,040
it's just a lot. And as a kid, it's a lot of pressure to take on. And you know, I was

484
00:51:10,040 --> 00:51:15,280
carrying this unnecessary burden that I can't fail because I need to show this granddad

485
00:51:15,280 --> 00:51:24,360
of mine who I am and how dare he make a comment like that. And so I felt like I, the way I

486
00:51:24,360 --> 00:51:29,440
had to live those few years in high school before I, you know, applied and got through

487
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:34,960
was kind of very, very intense and stressful. And so I decided that once we get like, I

488
00:51:34,960 --> 00:51:42,520
got in, I'm just going to have the time of my life. Literally go back to, you know, being

489
00:51:42,520 --> 00:51:48,800
a whole person that I liked. So I went into debating, into like jamming, into like, you

490
00:51:48,800 --> 00:51:54,000
know, back into sport, like playing badminton. And I just kind of allowed myself to like

491
00:51:54,000 --> 00:52:00,600
come back to life again. And I was also insanely proud, you know, that I was able to do this.

492
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:07,480
And post graduating, I got placed in this oil and gas company called Slumber Jam. And

493
00:52:07,480 --> 00:52:12,680
I just worked with them. I've been working with them for about 15 years now. And it was

494
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:17,360
just fantastic, you know, because I think the dream was to go join a Fortune 500 company.

495
00:52:17,360 --> 00:52:21,800
I had this insane craving from a very young age, I think, because of the way I was brought

496
00:52:21,800 --> 00:52:27,640
up to travel the world, to live in different parts, to constantly like, I have this passion

497
00:52:27,640 --> 00:52:32,880
to learn about other cultures, you know, I love food, I love understanding why we practice

498
00:52:32,880 --> 00:52:38,720
what we practice. And I noticed as a person that, you know, I was without being aware,

499
00:52:38,720 --> 00:52:45,160
I was very comfortable to take on things that I felt influenced me from other people's other

500
00:52:45,160 --> 00:52:51,720
cultures, and to let go of things that I felt is not but I it wasn't awareness, I was just

501
00:52:51,720 --> 00:52:56,600
somebody, you know, that's why we keep saying, Oh, I'm a global Indian, because I kept the

502
00:52:56,600 --> 00:53:01,480
things I loved about being Indian, but I started to release the things that I felt they don't

503
00:53:01,480 --> 00:53:06,520
make any sense. And they don't serve me in any way. But maybe I would have a, you know,

504
00:53:06,520 --> 00:53:10,960
a really close Brazilian friend, and she shares some sort of a practice they have. And I'd

505
00:53:10,960 --> 00:53:15,120
be like, you know what, I really like that. And I'm going to make it a part of who I am.

506
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:21,040
And working in this company allowed me to expand on that, you know, because I went and

507
00:53:21,040 --> 00:53:25,560
lived in different countries, I made friends, really close friends from different parts

508
00:53:25,560 --> 00:53:30,120
of the world. And I realized that, you know, we are culturally different, we have different

509
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:36,200
languages, we look different. But in the core, we're, we're all the same, you know, we're

510
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:41,800
all one of the same. And that I think that realization got me to be more excited with

511
00:53:41,800 --> 00:53:48,720
living a more mobile life. And I married someone who was excited to be a part of that, you

512
00:53:48,720 --> 00:53:55,360
know, was excited to allow the life to be that adventurous and to be like, okay, you

513
00:53:55,360 --> 00:53:58,600
know, we're going to be flying here back and forth, we're going to be moving homes every

514
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:05,480
two to three years. And it made, you know, a situation that, for me, felt very natural

515
00:54:05,480 --> 00:54:11,880
as a craving that I had, but wasn't conventional because all throughout that journey, as much

516
00:54:11,880 --> 00:54:20,160
as I was enjoying the, the ability to play out what my, I don't know, dreams were, I

517
00:54:20,160 --> 00:54:26,760
also constantly was reminded by society that included my parents, my closest friends, sometimes

518
00:54:26,760 --> 00:54:32,040
my own sibling that I'm very lucky, you know, to be married to a person who understands

519
00:54:32,040 --> 00:54:40,080
and allows me to be, you know, what I want. I, yeah. And you know, and at that time, there

520
00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:47,480
was no conversations around why does anyone allow anyone, you know, it was very normal.

521
00:54:47,480 --> 00:54:53,900
So I myself used to constantly being gratitude that I'm so glad that I'm being allowed to

522
00:54:53,900 --> 00:54:59,120
get to play out the life I want or getting a full shot at life, or I'm, you know, really

523
00:54:59,120 --> 00:55:06,520
grateful that my partner allows me to do these things, which according to society, I shouldn't

524
00:55:06,520 --> 00:55:10,880
because you know, I would be told by my own male colleagues that your husband has a business

525
00:55:10,880 --> 00:55:16,320
of his own, like, why are you even working? Wow. I would have to listen to that, you know.

526
00:55:16,320 --> 00:55:22,200
Oh, my God. This is like I'm in the US and posted in Houston. These colleagues of mine

527
00:55:22,200 --> 00:55:27,840
have lived everywhere in the world. They have families, they have kids. And yet, their,

528
00:55:27,840 --> 00:55:32,240
you know, narrative in the head would still be that, yeah, I see you, I see you're clever,

529
00:55:32,240 --> 00:55:38,040
I see your potential. But is it really worth pursuing your ambition at the extent of having,

530
00:55:38,040 --> 00:55:42,440
you know, your, your partner have to do a lot of this extra work and you know, moving

531
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:49,240
and traveling and all of that. And so I think I did what I wanted to do. But I carry that

532
00:55:49,240 --> 00:55:56,040
shame that guilt. You know, I had a lot of friends who were your constant, you're doing

533
00:55:56,040 --> 00:56:00,560
amazing in your career, you're doing amazing as an individual, but you're always looking

534
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:07,200
for that, the one right, you're looking for the partner that is a universal, I think,

535
00:56:07,200 --> 00:56:16,640
you know, Trump or your, you know, Joe Biden or you or me, we're all constantly, we're

536
00:56:16,640 --> 00:56:23,120
looking for that one love that's just going to like change your life. And so a lot of

537
00:56:23,120 --> 00:56:30,000
my friends would highlight, you know, that you have an amazing partner, why are you like

538
00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:35,560
rocking the boat so much. And I used to think that, you know, all of these dialogues, they

539
00:56:35,560 --> 00:56:44,400
basically make me recognize that I don't have the right to be unconventional or to be dreaming

540
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:50,400
fully. I don't because I'm still doing it. But I don't because if I was if I flipped

541
00:56:50,400 --> 00:56:54,080
the narrative, which took me many years to understand, but if I flipped it, and I was

542
00:56:54,080 --> 00:57:00,600
the man, I was the husband, and I was providing an opportunity to my family to live in France

543
00:57:00,600 --> 00:57:05,440
and then in KL and then in Houston and then in Dubai and then in India. And I was elevating

544
00:57:05,440 --> 00:57:13,080
in my career in a space and a speed that was commendable. And I am bringing in a you know,

545
00:57:13,080 --> 00:57:20,040
a lifestyle that is just incredibly comfortable. I think people around me would be like, what

546
00:57:20,040 --> 00:57:26,760
a fantastic guy, like what a great guy, what a great catch. What a sexy guy to be married

547
00:57:26,760 --> 00:57:32,640
to. And this, when you flip it on to me was just like, why are you being like this? Why

548
00:57:32,640 --> 00:57:36,520
are you being so ambitious? What are you running after? You have such a great husband, like,

549
00:57:36,520 --> 00:57:41,200
why don't you just slow down? You know, why don't you focus on making babies? Like, I

550
00:57:41,200 --> 00:57:47,920
have a lot of different things that were told to me and that was not very appreciative or

551
00:57:47,920 --> 00:57:56,120
celebratory of how I was, you know, so I think, why else I did these things? Those years,

552
00:57:56,120 --> 00:58:01,840
I started to carry more and more of these invisible bags of shame and guilt and missed

553
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:08,280
it and incomplete and less of a woman and angry and aggressive. And you know, also when

554
00:58:08,280 --> 00:58:13,400
I got into leadership roles, it only added that, you know, anytime I'm building teams

555
00:58:13,400 --> 00:58:17,640
and if I'm being aggressive and I'll be like, oh, so you're being so pushy or like, why

556
00:58:17,640 --> 00:58:22,360
are you being so agenda driven? Like smile a little, like, just take it easy. And so

557
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:28,960
I had all of that as well, you know, where I was also expected. You know, I should just

558
00:58:28,960 --> 00:58:35,320
chill and I don't need to like be so, you know, driven and running after whatever my

559
00:58:35,320 --> 00:58:41,600
then vision was. And so all that together, I would say, you know, that from the teenage

560
00:58:41,600 --> 00:58:47,080
years of seeing a lot of this patriarchal construct on my dad's side and then moving

561
00:58:47,080 --> 00:58:53,600
on to coming into the working world and also like an engineering school to give you a little

562
00:58:53,600 --> 00:59:00,040
bit of number perspective, like where about 500 kids in a class, like a class of like

563
00:59:00,040 --> 00:59:06,720
whatever batch we get into. And only 80 of us are women. So the percentage is just ridiculous.

564
00:59:06,720 --> 00:59:15,720
So it's like, you know, 500 or 80, 80 women out of 500 applicants, like 500 kids that

565
00:59:15,720 --> 00:59:20,180
have gone in, you know. So again, you're in an environment where you're very conscious

566
00:59:20,180 --> 00:59:25,600
of the fact that you are a woman. And, you know, sometimes like, you know, see examples

567
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:32,040
like we would have, you know, like, say our chemistry courses where you have lab work

568
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:37,440
and you know, you're paired up with somebody. And because of this, you know, very imbalanced

569
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:44,160
ratio and also that, you know, we do live in a world where that age, it's like also

570
00:59:44,160 --> 00:59:48,600
a lot of hormones and all of that is running around. So, you know, I'd have a partner at

571
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:52,960
a lab and like, say you're like pipetting together and the person would think that you're

572
00:59:52,960 --> 00:59:58,400
the love of their life because there's just one for every 10 boys. So it's just, you're

573
00:59:58,400 --> 01:00:02,920
sort of like, you know, in this, not even 10, it's a completely wrong number, but one

574
01:00:02,920 --> 01:00:10,800
for every 40 boys. And so, you know, you're sort of very aware of how much of a woman

575
01:00:10,800 --> 01:00:17,380
you are, you know, and your, how objectifiable you are and how, you know, looking at you

576
01:00:17,380 --> 01:00:21,760
and how you present yourself and how you, you know, carry yourself. These things are

577
01:00:21,760 --> 01:00:27,960
so heightened because you're now in a very imbalanced environment. And then you walk

578
01:00:27,960 --> 01:00:32,280
straight into oil and gas and, you know, I would do things like every new job, I would

579
01:00:32,280 --> 01:00:37,880
have a polo neck and wear scarves for six months. Cover yourself. Cover myself. Literally

580
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:43,480
make only my job talk, you know, what I'm capable of doing. And once I've established

581
01:00:43,480 --> 01:00:48,520
who I am, then I would let myself be what I want to be because I really did love to

582
01:00:48,520 --> 01:00:52,640
dress up. And I love like after you get out of the phase of wearing coveralls all the

583
01:00:52,640 --> 01:00:56,640
time, you're like, get the heels out, get the clothes on, get the colors out, you know,

584
01:00:56,640 --> 01:01:04,480
to feel free. So I would repeat the same pattern with every new role that I'm just going to,

585
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:09,920
you know, not let my body be a hindrance in any way. And I want to just let the job do

586
01:01:09,920 --> 01:01:16,480
the docking and then I will establish that this is who all of Suchi is. And I think it's

587
01:01:16,480 --> 01:01:22,480
a sequence of all of these things that has actually compounded into me eventually getting

588
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:28,200
the gift of the burnout. Because when I look back, I know that, you know, it got fast tracked

589
01:01:28,200 --> 01:01:33,240
in a year or a year and a half where I noticed a lot of the symptoms, but I didn't know to

590
01:01:33,240 --> 01:01:38,920
connect the dots that this is actually a burnout. But you know, when I look back, I think it

591
01:01:38,920 --> 01:01:48,280
starts like small seeds of healing. You know, you're carrying these burdens and perhaps

592
01:01:48,280 --> 01:01:53,160
emotions that don't actually serve you, but they're small, you know, and then I think

593
01:01:53,160 --> 01:01:57,960
as time progresses, because one, you're not looking inward, you're not healing them, you're

594
01:01:57,960 --> 01:02:03,200
not reframing them, you're not doing anything to work with them. You just carry in the bags

595
01:02:03,200 --> 01:02:08,720
are invisible, but they just get bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And then I know

596
01:02:08,720 --> 01:02:14,240
that there's also the real stuff that's happening with life, right? Like say, I did do things

597
01:02:14,240 --> 01:02:19,560
like constantly pushing the envelope, constantly questioning what's convention and trying to

598
01:02:19,560 --> 01:02:24,920
live out a life that wasn't. So I think those sort of actions are also heavy on you because

599
01:02:24,920 --> 01:02:29,880
you are doing things that have not been done before, or you don't have enough examples

600
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:34,600
to see people who have done these things before. So you carry the fear of failure, you carry

601
01:02:34,600 --> 01:02:39,120
the fear of being called out or the fear of, you know, goofing up and then somebody telling

602
01:02:39,120 --> 01:02:44,000
you, I told you, I told you not to do that. And so those are the external pressures you

603
01:02:44,000 --> 01:02:48,880
face. And then you work in a very, very like male dominated industry. You're constantly

604
01:02:48,880 --> 01:02:54,280
worried about being told that, you know, you should have never been promoted to that space

605
01:02:54,280 --> 01:03:00,040
because you know, it's just not, it's a man's job. And I was always aspiring for these like

606
01:03:00,040 --> 01:03:04,760
cutting edge roles in technology. And you know, I always carried that fear that I don't

607
01:03:04,760 --> 01:03:11,400
have many examples around me. So I don't want to ever be told that this was a bad move,

608
01:03:11,400 --> 01:03:16,040
you know, we should have stuck with that guy or we should have brought back that person.

609
01:03:16,040 --> 01:03:24,440
And I think all of those external and internal, you know, like dilemmas that you are just,

610
01:03:24,440 --> 01:03:29,040
you're just navigating life and you let them be and they just grow into bigger and bigger

611
01:03:29,040 --> 01:03:33,680
bubbles that at some point, you know, 10 years down the line or 12 years down the line, it

612
01:03:33,680 --> 01:03:42,760
just manifests as a burnout because you are not ever looking within, you're just letting

613
01:03:42,760 --> 01:03:48,160
them be and letting them grow. And you think that they're all a part of who you are, the

614
01:03:48,160 --> 01:03:52,960
shame and the guilt and the, you know, feeling like an imposter or feeling like a perfectionist

615
01:03:52,960 --> 01:03:58,640
or a fear of failure. You just assume that all of this is you, the misfitting, the not

616
01:03:58,640 --> 01:04:03,160
good enough, the, you know, being a woman, but never being a good woman and things like

617
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:09,560
that. I think you don't address them the way they should be. You don't get to, I didn't

618
01:04:09,560 --> 01:04:18,160
get to want to know me the way I should have. And eventually, you know, I kind of, the circumstances

619
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:25,240
when it got accelerated, I took a transfer from Houston to a city in India called Pune

620
01:04:25,240 --> 01:04:32,040
and I was doing this project or this role where I was trying to build a new tech team

621
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:37,440
of excellence for advanced analytics. It was primarily like AI and machine learning.

622
01:04:37,440 --> 01:04:40,040
Sounds like Kenny's to me, Bob.

623
01:04:40,040 --> 01:04:45,520
So it's just, you know, a team where we are basically taking data and trying to solve

624
01:04:45,520 --> 01:04:51,280
really interesting problems across the company. And so that way to build, you know, a team

625
01:04:51,280 --> 01:04:55,720
that was a mixed set of expertise. So you had the really technical people, the business

626
01:04:55,720 --> 01:04:59,560
people, and then the bridge, you know, people who could do the job in between, like your

627
01:04:59,560 --> 01:05:06,640
coding, your testing and all of the good stuff. And so in that role, I had to do a lot of

628
01:05:06,640 --> 01:05:11,880
people management work and a lot of recruitment and things like that. And I noticed that one,

629
01:05:11,880 --> 01:05:17,080
I moved to a new location. I was doing a little bit of long distance with my husband because

630
01:05:17,080 --> 01:05:21,400
he was in Dubai and I was in Pune. It was a two hour flight. So it was like he flies

631
01:05:21,400 --> 01:05:26,520
in every weekend. It's a bit of a different orientation to how they normally operated.

632
01:05:26,520 --> 01:05:31,320
And then all my friends, I left behind my friends, my sister in Houston, because I had

633
01:05:31,320 --> 01:05:36,360
a really nice, a really great, like, I would say community, you know, like I had built

634
01:05:36,360 --> 01:05:40,960
amazing friendships and my sister was like seven minutes away from me. And so it's quite

635
01:05:40,960 --> 01:05:49,800
incredible and moved away from all of that. And then I immersed myself so much into work

636
01:05:49,800 --> 01:05:55,640
so that I don't feel the emotions of being, you know, like, oh, I'm feeling like I don't

637
01:05:55,640 --> 01:06:04,440
have a sense of belonging. I don't have people to hang out with. And those moments, I was

638
01:06:04,440 --> 01:06:10,360
numbing the feelings, but I started to recognize that, you know, instead of being me, I started

639
01:06:10,360 --> 01:06:15,000
to become recluse. Like, I didn't like the idea of being with people. I didn't want to

640
01:06:15,000 --> 01:06:23,360
hang out with people. I wanted to have, you know, moments where just nobody can find me.

641
01:06:23,360 --> 01:06:28,400
And then I started to feel very restless. Like, it wouldn't take much for me to want

642
01:06:28,400 --> 01:06:33,200
to burst out at you saying, can't you just make that decision on your own? That's sort

643
01:06:33,200 --> 01:06:38,960
of a response, you know. But I think it was just exhausting for me to even think and plan.

644
01:06:38,960 --> 01:06:45,880
And I kind of noticed that I am behaving differently, but I didn't want to do anything about it

645
01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:52,200
because again, I had that voice in my head that said, what are you exhausted from? What

646
01:06:52,200 --> 01:06:57,040
are you feeling so restless about? Everything is great. What are you complaining about?

647
01:06:57,040 --> 01:07:01,400
And I was at that space in my career where the next role was sort of getting me closer

648
01:07:01,400 --> 01:07:07,920
to what my then five-year plan was. And so I'm like, I just have to go, you know, all

649
01:07:07,920 --> 01:07:13,280
hands on deck with my head like deep down, just focus. And then I would find that, you

650
01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:19,520
know, I sometimes would like cancel meetings on a Friday evening to sleep for like eight

651
01:07:19,520 --> 01:07:24,520
hours and I would wake up on a Saturday morning still feeling like a truck has hit me and

652
01:07:24,520 --> 01:07:30,200
I'm so exhausted. And I knew something was off. And then I noticed that, you know, caffeine

653
01:07:30,200 --> 01:07:35,000
started to bother me. So I would drink a morning coffee or green tea. I would be in my office

654
01:07:35,000 --> 01:07:39,840
and then I would get up to walk and I would feel dizzy. And I was like, okay, that's a

655
01:07:39,840 --> 01:07:44,240
bit strange. And I just basically decided I'm going to stop having green tea or stop

656
01:07:44,240 --> 01:07:49,400
having coffee. I didn't want to dive deeper into why it happened. And then it like went

657
01:07:49,400 --> 01:07:54,840
on to further and further like details where it was like, I would wake up and I knew I

658
01:07:54,840 --> 01:07:58,760
had to go to a recruitment fair today. So I would just like literally wear a bulletproof

659
01:07:58,760 --> 01:08:04,200
jacket to be like, just face the day. So I would go put on this entire like, you know,

660
01:08:04,200 --> 01:08:10,720
facade. And then when I'm on my way back home, I would just pass out in the, in the car because

661
01:08:10,720 --> 01:08:17,840
I think it just, I had to bring this energy out that wasn't there. It wasn't there. And

662
01:08:17,840 --> 01:08:26,320
eventually, you know, the body is so intelligent because I wasn't paying attention or addressing

663
01:08:26,320 --> 01:08:32,240
these symptoms. I just started to fall physically ill. And I think it was one thing after another,

664
01:08:32,240 --> 01:08:37,560
you know, was an eye infection or it was like some sort of like, I don't know, lead content

665
01:08:37,560 --> 01:08:43,280
in my eye or there was a back pain that I suddenly like got from nowhere. Or I had like,

666
01:08:43,280 --> 01:08:49,040
non stop colds that would keep coming. And I then used to think that I do have good immunity.

667
01:08:49,040 --> 01:08:54,880
So I don't understand why I'm falling sick all the time. So I decided to go and get one

668
01:08:54,880 --> 01:09:01,360
of those like full body well women, well woman checks. And, you know, I did all of the tests

669
01:09:01,360 --> 01:09:07,480
and turns out there was nothing. I just had nothing to be worried about. And then I just

670
01:09:07,480 --> 01:09:13,400
know I completely lost it. And I told the doctor that, you know, no, I'm not feeling

671
01:09:13,400 --> 01:09:18,640
like myself. Something is off. You have to help me. And then she was brilliant. I mean,

672
01:09:18,640 --> 01:09:23,360
lucky for me, she said, you know what, we need to do a hormone panel check. And so we

673
01:09:23,360 --> 01:09:29,080
did a full blown hormone panel check and my cortisol levels were like insane. They just

674
01:09:29,080 --> 01:09:33,680
didn't completely, I think, shocked her in terms of what the heck is this? This amount

675
01:09:33,680 --> 01:09:37,760
of cortisol in the body means you're just really running on fight or fight. But she

676
01:09:37,760 --> 01:09:43,360
did say that, you know, she wanted me to do a 24 hour check. And she was explaining that

677
01:09:43,360 --> 01:09:48,520
sometimes you could have bodies where your levels of cortisol is already higher. So we

678
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:54,440
did a 24 hour check and then it was the way my cortisol levels were spiking. So that was

679
01:09:54,440 --> 01:09:58,960
indicative that my body is just basically now on survival mode. And it's just acting

680
01:09:58,960 --> 01:10:05,640
like it's being on flight or fight. And so simple decisions are starting to feel a lot.

681
01:10:05,640 --> 01:10:11,960
Hanging out with people is feeling like a lot. And it kind of added, it made all the

682
01:10:11,960 --> 01:10:16,580
dots connected for me. That's like caffeine, you know, but running with so much cortisol,

683
01:10:16,580 --> 01:10:21,120
your body is just feeling like you're dizzy with caffeine because there is no need for

684
01:10:21,120 --> 01:10:28,360
any more stimulus. It's already like running on a very jittery space. So then I just realized

685
01:10:28,360 --> 01:10:35,440
that, oh my God, this answer is everything. So I think I stepped out of it. It's the eureka

686
01:10:35,440 --> 01:10:39,960
moment, you know. And she said, she gave me a really good analogy. And she said, it's

687
01:10:39,960 --> 01:10:44,440
like pulling a rubber band, you know, and you just keep pulling, pulling, pulling until

688
01:10:44,440 --> 01:10:49,640
it snaps. And when it snaps, there's no elasticity anymore. And then she was saying, then you

689
01:10:49,640 --> 01:10:55,600
reach chronically stressed or you're chronically fatigued where, you know, you need medication.

690
01:10:55,600 --> 01:11:01,880
You will need external help to be able to take care because at that phase of being chronically

691
01:11:01,880 --> 01:11:06,240
fatigued, I think, you know, even a decision of do you want coffee or tea or things like

692
01:11:06,240 --> 01:11:12,560
that start to feel a lot. So you do need to bring that bit of balance with some sort of

693
01:11:12,560 --> 01:11:16,760
medication that is available. And I'm sure you could do a lot of mindfulness, but it's

694
01:11:16,760 --> 01:11:22,480
going to be a lot harder. It's going to be a lot deeper. And so that conversation, I

695
01:11:22,480 --> 01:11:27,720
think, you know, and that analogy of the rubber band was really where I was like, I think

696
01:11:27,720 --> 01:11:36,120
I fully woke up saying, wow, this is what has been happening to me. And I had this,

697
01:11:36,120 --> 01:11:43,200
you know, thought process in my head that I have lived a life that's been quite, you

698
01:11:43,200 --> 01:11:49,000
know, aggressive, ambitious, felt very alpha in my career and sort of being able to take

699
01:11:49,000 --> 01:11:55,320
control of what I want in life. But I was thinking that if I am all those things, then

700
01:11:55,320 --> 01:12:01,640
how come I couldn't show up for myself when I was showing a lot of those symptoms? I just,

701
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:05,960
you know, didn't want to honor any of it because I was like, what do I have to be tired? What

702
01:12:05,960 --> 01:12:10,320
do I have to feel restless about? Why am I being angry right now? Like, I really need

703
01:12:10,320 --> 01:12:16,320
to tone down this anger. And I just had more and more ways to tell me that whatever I am

704
01:12:16,320 --> 01:12:23,120
feeling is invalid, is not right. And so I think that, you know, contrast of thinking

705
01:12:23,120 --> 01:12:30,960
that you're this fierce, ambitious, confident, like, I don't know, almost like someone disruptive.

706
01:12:30,960 --> 01:12:38,560
Yeah. And then exactly. And then here you are, literally so unbossing in your life because

707
01:12:38,560 --> 01:12:45,520
you've gone and gotten burned out and you didn't even know to show up to say, hey, I'm

708
01:12:45,520 --> 01:12:50,960
not, this is not normal. I'm not feeling okay. I've got to do something about it. So I think

709
01:12:50,960 --> 01:12:57,720
that's when it kind of struck me a little bit that I don't really think I know myself

710
01:12:57,720 --> 01:13:05,640
and I don't really think I have cared to connect with who I am. And I was, you know, thinking

711
01:13:05,640 --> 01:13:11,960
that if this was my husband or my one of my closest friends or my sibling, I would have

712
01:13:11,960 --> 01:13:16,800
seen their behavioral changes and I would have been like, are you okay? Like, is everything

713
01:13:16,800 --> 01:13:22,960
okay? Like, should we go and get you some help? But I chose for me that, you know, it

714
01:13:22,960 --> 01:13:29,480
was not necessary. I wasn't, I didn't need to go down that path. I needed to hustle harder

715
01:13:29,480 --> 01:13:35,160
and work harder and, you know, just cut the crap. And I didn't share it much with people

716
01:13:35,160 --> 01:13:38,960
because when I would share, people would say, you just need to sleep for a weekend or you

717
01:13:38,960 --> 01:13:44,600
just need to go on a vacation. And so I felt even more that, you know what, like, none

718
01:13:44,600 --> 01:13:49,360
of that is helping me. So now I don't, I don't know what to say to anyone. It's almost pointless.

719
01:13:49,360 --> 01:13:56,000
Yeah, it's almost pointless, you know. And so then this, this analysis and this conversation

720
01:13:56,000 --> 01:14:04,320
got me to eventually think that I have worked on a lot of projects and products that I've

721
01:14:04,320 --> 01:14:10,320
tried to deliver at an organizational level. And I was like, I would like a small chapter

722
01:14:10,320 --> 01:14:19,480
that's about me. And I wanted to take a sabbatical. I was very nervous about what that meant.

723
01:14:19,480 --> 01:14:23,200
And you know, what message I was going to send at that point in my career, because it

724
01:14:23,200 --> 01:14:29,120
was literally, you're at the pinnacle of being catapulted to the next level in the organization.

725
01:14:29,120 --> 01:14:35,480
And I worked so hard to get there. And I was thinking again about a lot of those things.

726
01:14:35,480 --> 01:14:41,520
And after a while, I think it just hit me that, you know what, if I did continue this

727
01:14:41,520 --> 01:14:46,920
way and I did get chronically fatigued or I pass out at the office, you know, people

728
01:14:46,920 --> 01:14:52,960
will care for me. There's a lot of love and admiration for who I was, but I'm going to

729
01:14:52,960 --> 01:14:57,120
go to the hospital and life is going to continue. And you know, they'll find someone to do what

730
01:14:57,120 --> 01:15:03,360
I was doing. And I think that's when I realized that in the grand scheme of things, when I

731
01:15:03,360 --> 01:15:10,600
look back at life, it should feel like I lived a life that was full and beautiful and not,

732
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:16,320
but I lived a life that was driven with fear, fear of missing out all the time. And that's

733
01:15:16,320 --> 01:15:21,720
when I went, decided that, you know, I've been in this organization for more than a

734
01:15:21,720 --> 01:15:27,760
decade. It's been as long as my marriage and it's been a really influential part of

735
01:15:27,760 --> 01:15:34,040
me becoming who I am. And so if they are not able to show up for me, then it was a beautiful

736
01:15:34,040 --> 01:15:41,200
marriage. It gave me and I gave it a lot, but perhaps it's time for it to wrap up, you

737
01:15:41,200 --> 01:15:45,160
know, and not all chapters have to be the whole book. Like sometimes, you know, you

738
01:15:45,160 --> 01:15:51,400
have mutual respect and sometimes, you know, some characters in your life, they get to

739
01:15:51,400 --> 01:15:56,200
be in a few chapters, but epic chapters and maybe the remaining chapters, you know, it

740
01:15:56,200 --> 01:16:00,800
doesn't have to be. So I came from a place of love for me and I made up my mind that

741
01:16:00,800 --> 01:16:06,760
if the, if the person I was going to speak to understands, then this is, this, this is

742
01:16:06,760 --> 01:16:12,600
an epic marriage. If they don't understand, then they're not wanting to grow with me and

743
01:16:12,600 --> 01:16:18,800
I'm going to make that decision. So lo behold, I go and have this conversation and, and my

744
01:16:18,800 --> 01:16:24,280
then a boss who was, who I was reporting into, he just like turns around and he's like, you

745
01:16:24,280 --> 01:16:28,720
know what, I, I've been through something similar and I took a personal development

746
01:16:28,720 --> 01:16:35,080
leave and lucky for me, my wife was able to, you know, take on the family expenses and

747
01:16:35,080 --> 01:16:40,620
she was, her job was bringing in everything we needed. And, and he shared a lot of like,

748
01:16:40,620 --> 01:16:45,080
you know, nuances saying that he, it also allowed him to empathize what it meant to

749
01:16:45,080 --> 01:16:51,200
be a domestic project manager because he had not really played that role before. And now

750
01:16:51,200 --> 01:16:57,320
exactly. So it was just so much more rich in his case. And then he said he would recommend

751
01:16:57,320 --> 01:17:02,920
every seven years that people switch off for a short time because you really get to like

752
01:17:02,920 --> 01:17:07,240
build up on your creativity because you are running, running, running and suddenly you

753
01:17:07,240 --> 01:17:13,400
stop and then you go and work and you get to like calm the noise and think about recalibrating

754
01:17:13,400 --> 01:17:20,120
what it is that you want in your life. So it was such a free flowing conversation. But

755
01:17:20,120 --> 01:17:25,000
if I look at the buildup before, didn't have that conversation, I was just, I was just

756
01:17:25,000 --> 01:17:31,000
like, I know the realizing I just made up so many things in my head and it, it was only

757
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:36,960
when I came from a place of love for me, then it literally just was the most easiest and

758
01:17:36,960 --> 01:17:42,880
the most beautiful conversations to have that I was like, yeah, you know, I guess I married

759
01:17:42,880 --> 01:17:48,720
this, this organization for the right reasons. I mean, I saw in them what they saw in me

760
01:17:48,720 --> 01:17:54,840
and this was, you know, mutual love. And so I went ahead and took that sabbatical, you

761
01:17:54,840 --> 01:18:02,840
know, and I think that was my gift to myself to say that I haven't been there for me for

762
01:18:02,840 --> 01:18:10,400
all these years. And now I want to, and I called it project Suchi.

763
01:18:10,400 --> 01:18:21,400
We love that. We love that. Wow. Wow. It's just like you said, it's like these little

764
01:18:21,400 --> 01:18:26,800
seeds that and we plant seeds and we don't know how it's gonna how it's gonna grow. We

765
01:18:26,800 --> 01:18:33,440
grow it. We either grow it or we we kill it. And eventually it gets to that day that's

766
01:18:33,440 --> 01:18:38,920
like, okay, now it's this is it, you know, you hit that wall and then you decided to

767
01:18:38,920 --> 01:18:46,000
bring that extra love and it just brought back this blossoming flower. Yeah.

768
01:18:46,000 --> 01:18:52,240
You know, I, you know, if you think about it, Susan, I think the way we're conditioned,

769
01:18:52,240 --> 01:18:58,320
right, and the way that we're generally brought up and I think more so for women that we're

770
01:18:58,320 --> 01:19:03,600
constantly put into the scarcity, you know, this mindset of that, oh, you know, if I'm

771
01:19:03,600 --> 01:19:11,800
not gonna apply for that role, then I'm going to miss out forever. If I got that opportunity

772
01:19:11,800 --> 01:19:18,120
and I don't, like, go all out, even at the cost of my health, then I'm never going to

773
01:19:18,120 --> 01:19:24,320
be called into that again, or the narrative would be that I told you we shouldn't have,

774
01:19:24,320 --> 01:19:30,680
you know, a woman in this position for whatever reasons. So this is from a professional standpoint

775
01:19:30,680 --> 01:19:35,600
that way. But from a personal standpoint, take it as you know, like I did these unconventional

776
01:19:35,600 --> 01:19:41,640
rules and I was always reminded that I'm testing my marriage, you know, things, things could

777
01:19:41,640 --> 01:19:48,360
happen. And then if I was to be in a difficult place, it would be hard for me to find someone

778
01:19:48,360 --> 01:19:53,520
because I'm a difficult, I'm a difficult woman, you know, so it's difficult to be with a lady

779
01:19:53,520 --> 01:19:58,680
like this who's opinionated and loud and wants to take up space and wants a full shot at

780
01:19:58,680 --> 01:20:04,440
life and is not a good cook, is not a good domestic project manager is what I like to

781
01:20:04,440 --> 01:20:05,440
call it.

782
01:20:05,440 --> 01:20:06,440
Not everyone's cup of tea.

783
01:20:06,440 --> 01:20:12,600
Not everyone's cup of tea, you know, so in both spectrums of life, personal to professional,

784
01:20:12,600 --> 01:20:19,000
you're constantly made to feel like there isn't enough. And so you have to grab on to

785
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:23,360
the stuff that's great for you. Because if you don't, you're going to miss out or you're

786
01:20:23,360 --> 01:20:30,160
going to lose out or you're going to get, you know, the convention that you were trying

787
01:20:30,160 --> 01:20:36,520
to break, the effort is defeated because then the old narrative wins again that I told you,

788
01:20:36,520 --> 01:20:40,880
you know, that you're a woman, like behave, I told you that you're a woman, you shouldn't

789
01:20:40,880 --> 01:20:46,800
be in that tech role, you know, that's just not you don't have the capability. So you're

790
01:20:46,800 --> 01:20:53,680
almost always operating from a place of less than and fear and the fear of missing out.

791
01:20:53,680 --> 01:20:59,800
And I think it was this moment that I realized that, you know, I'm going to make this decision

792
01:20:59,800 --> 01:21:05,920
only out of love for me. Because I had this vision, you know, that what if I did collapse

793
01:21:05,920 --> 01:21:11,960
in the office? And when I look back 20 years from now, is that how I want my life to play

794
01:21:11,960 --> 01:21:17,960
out that I literally worked to the point where I knew I wasn't feeling well, and I still

795
01:21:17,960 --> 01:21:23,200
pushed, and then I collapsed. And then I became, I don't know, you know, I reached a place

796
01:21:23,200 --> 01:21:30,520
where I needed different kind of support system, vegetable and in its own ways. And I'm going

797
01:21:30,520 --> 01:21:35,480
to look back and say, Yeah, you know, but what's commendable is you killed yourself,

798
01:21:35,480 --> 01:21:39,960
even though you knew that, you know, you are not feeling okay. And I think that's when

799
01:21:39,960 --> 01:21:46,920
I realized that if you're if you're living like, let's say, an average of zero to 80

800
01:21:46,920 --> 01:21:52,120
years, and the grand scheme of that longevity, this is nothing, you're just giving yourself

801
01:21:52,120 --> 01:22:00,680
a period of six months to literally regroup with you. And, you know, the amount of time

802
01:22:00,680 --> 01:22:06,120
that we've dedicated to everyone else outside of us. What is that? That is nothing. And

803
01:22:06,120 --> 01:22:13,520
how can how can I feel guilty about that? So I think, you know, this was this was a turning

804
01:22:13,520 --> 01:22:22,840
point in me, I would say as a very big move. Yeah, in not necessarily understanding self

805
01:22:22,840 --> 01:22:28,000
love, but I would say one of the grandest gestures I made of self love for myself, you

806
01:22:28,000 --> 01:22:33,880
know, where I didn't consult. After a point, I didn't consult with anyone. I didn't share

807
01:22:33,880 --> 01:22:39,880
with anyone. I just chose the few people that I know their lives are going to be influenced.

808
01:22:39,880 --> 01:22:43,280
Like I was, you know, my husband, he's going to know that I'm going to be hanging around

809
01:22:43,280 --> 01:22:48,680
the house like all the time. Or, you know, to talk to my then boss or to like a few really

810
01:22:48,680 --> 01:22:54,280
close friends or to tell my sister, for example. But I kept it really tight knit because I

811
01:22:54,280 --> 01:23:00,400
was like, I don't I think I'm fully clear why I'm doing it. I don't really need anyone's

812
01:23:00,400 --> 01:23:06,320
opinion or unsolicited opinion because you're not walking my walk. You're not in my shoes

813
01:23:06,320 --> 01:23:12,920
and you don't know what it's like to be me. And I valued my feelings, I would say, it's

814
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:18,560
probably the first time I respected how I felt. And I believed that my emotions were

815
01:23:18,560 --> 01:23:26,360
valid. You know, the pain was valid. The worry was valid. The the exhaustion was valid. It

816
01:23:26,360 --> 01:23:32,080
was real, you know, and I think that's that's really where that's really where the pivot

817
01:23:32,080 --> 01:23:40,160
started. Yeah, it's like you also got rid of the expectations that everyone has been

818
01:23:40,160 --> 01:23:44,840
put on you because there is always first it was the expectations of what you should be

819
01:23:44,840 --> 01:23:49,560
as a woman, that who you should be as a daughter, then who you should be as a wife, then who

820
01:23:49,560 --> 01:23:54,200
you should be as a worker. And it's like all these expectations one on top of each other.

821
01:23:54,200 --> 01:23:59,400
Like there's no surprise someone then just starts to crumble under it. And it's so good

822
01:23:59,400 --> 01:24:05,240
that you decided to make that choice to not let yourself get to that point. Yes. But you

823
01:24:05,240 --> 01:24:10,920
can give yourself the time to go before. And that's something that I would advise to everyone.

824
01:24:10,920 --> 01:24:15,880
Like always, always be aware of where you're at so that you can actually do something when

825
01:24:15,880 --> 01:24:23,080
you still have the time to. So that is pretty nice. Really, really good. Definitely. You

826
01:24:23,080 --> 01:24:28,920
know, and I think, you know, if I was to say something that people could do without having

827
01:24:28,920 --> 01:24:34,640
to do a grand, you know, action, like taking a sabbatical and things like that, I would

828
01:24:34,640 --> 01:24:41,720
say, you know, to just honor your feelings, you know, if you're feeling tired, practice

829
01:24:41,720 --> 01:24:49,880
rest, recognize that resting is a huge productivity toolkit that you should have in your backpack.

830
01:24:49,880 --> 01:24:55,440
If you're feeling agitated, then, you know, try to dive deeper at the end of the day into

831
01:24:55,440 --> 01:25:02,440
why, why did I feel aggressive in that moment or why was I agitated? So respect those, you

832
01:25:02,440 --> 01:25:07,360
know, difficult emotions and you don't have to dwell in them and spiral into them. But

833
01:25:07,360 --> 01:25:14,960
I think giving them the respect and recognizing that they are a part of you. And so you do

834
01:25:14,960 --> 01:25:19,760
want to understand, you know, where is it coming from? Is it something that I want to

835
01:25:19,760 --> 01:25:25,480
work on? Is it something that I don't really care about? It's fine. It is what it is. Or

836
01:25:25,480 --> 01:25:30,400
is it something that I just want to sit with and say, you know, I feel this way, so I am

837
01:25:30,400 --> 01:25:37,440
going to not go there. I'm not going to do this to actually respect it enough to be able

838
01:25:37,440 --> 01:25:44,880
to to be able to feel like you've heard yourself. You've seen yourself. You know, this is something

839
01:25:44,880 --> 01:25:50,040
that is just daily tools that you could apply for you. You don't have to get to a burnout.

840
01:25:50,040 --> 01:25:55,920
You know, you you constantly show up for you in smaller ways. And so it doesn't compound

841
01:25:55,920 --> 01:26:03,080
into this, you know, magnanimous, I don't know, event in your life where you're just

842
01:26:03,080 --> 01:26:08,560
like, how you say, like BC and like before burnout, and we should be like BC and AD.

843
01:26:08,560 --> 01:26:22,720
I see what you mean. Yeah. Those things, you know, but I do think that if I if I look back,

844
01:26:22,720 --> 01:26:30,000
I would say that, you know, from a young age being angry, if I had dive deeper into where

845
01:26:30,000 --> 01:26:36,960
is this coming from? How is this serving me? How can I actually channel the anger to be

846
01:26:36,960 --> 01:26:43,680
a productive emotion as opposed to holding it and walking with it all the time? And,

847
01:26:43,680 --> 01:26:48,680
you know, so when when you're suddenly like the buttons are pushed, you're bleeding onto

848
01:26:48,680 --> 01:26:54,000
people that you don't want to. You're vomiting into scenarios that you don't want to. But

849
01:26:54,000 --> 01:26:58,320
it's actually it's basically culminating and it's now ready to burst out of you because

850
01:26:58,320 --> 01:27:03,000
you just didn't want to spend time. Right. So sometimes, you know, now when I look back,

851
01:27:03,000 --> 01:27:07,080
I think about it like there are situations when you've been in an argument or a discussion

852
01:27:07,080 --> 01:27:14,960
that went like fireworks. I just see myself, you know, that I've been in a lot of like

853
01:27:14,960 --> 01:27:19,520
solo musicals where you just have a conversation and you get triggered and you get insanely

854
01:27:19,520 --> 01:27:24,360
angry, then you scream, you calm down, then you cry and then you shut down. And then you

855
01:27:24,360 --> 01:27:30,080
say, how can we have a real conversation because you literally dance like a solo performance

856
01:27:30,080 --> 01:27:34,280
of your own? And the person on the other side is probably just watching you and then just

857
01:27:34,280 --> 01:27:37,920
like, oh, my God, you're like really scary. And then you come down to a space where you're

858
01:27:37,920 --> 01:27:42,640
like, wait, do you really want to talk to me now? Or, you know, because this is just

859
01:27:42,640 --> 01:27:48,480
what you've you've done to yourself because you don't sit down and look inward and say,

860
01:27:48,480 --> 01:27:55,920
where is this anger coming from? It is a justified emotion. But is it a justified behavior? You

861
01:27:55,920 --> 01:28:01,480
can take a minute to you can take that hot minute to look inward and say, you know, I

862
01:28:01,480 --> 01:28:06,280
don't want to be so reactive. I want to respect the emotion, but I don't want to be so reactive.

863
01:28:06,280 --> 01:28:11,680
So then you can dive deeper into that space to be able to free yourself from holding on

864
01:28:11,680 --> 01:28:18,840
to that strong negative set of emotions. And that's something I really do think is an incredible

865
01:28:18,840 --> 01:28:25,840
way of navigating life to respect all of your feelings and to give them a bit of time and

866
01:28:25,840 --> 01:28:32,200
in terms of reflection and to sort of a little bit free yourself from, you know, holding

867
01:28:32,200 --> 01:28:41,040
on to them without kind of understanding. Yes. Why or where or even giving it a, you

868
01:28:41,040 --> 01:28:46,920
know, a perspective like, OK, I do feel like this because of this, but it's not important.

869
01:28:46,920 --> 01:28:50,880
No, you know, it doesn't define me giving it a perspective shift that allows you to

870
01:28:50,880 --> 01:28:57,360
free yourself from that emotion is also great. It's just such a it's such an important like,

871
01:28:57,360 --> 01:29:04,000
for example, once I did get the start on the sabbatical, it was not a fun experience because

872
01:29:04,000 --> 01:29:09,720
it was very, you know, I mean, I will I will talk to you about it. But one of the things

873
01:29:09,720 --> 01:29:15,560
I did during it, you know, was I noticed that every single day not having an agenda, not

874
01:29:15,560 --> 01:29:22,480
having a structure, not having purpose, not having a team to navigate, I felt like I'm

875
01:29:22,480 --> 01:29:27,120
not really sure who I am without my job title. Like, I really don't know what my identity

876
01:29:27,120 --> 01:29:33,680
is. And so I would go into this, you know, sensation of worry from the time I wake up.

877
01:29:33,680 --> 01:29:39,080
Yes. And it would just spiral the whole day into the space of like darkness, where I would

878
01:29:39,080 --> 01:29:45,100
constantly be itching to just go back to take on the next role. You know, like I had a mentor

879
01:29:45,100 --> 01:29:50,520
then who was waiting for me. He already had a role for me. And then I had another senior

880
01:29:50,520 --> 01:29:53,560
manager who was like, you know what, whenever you're ready, just tell me I'm going to grab

881
01:29:53,560 --> 01:29:58,520
you back. And I was feeling this, you know, sensation of like, I think I should just go

882
01:29:58,520 --> 01:30:03,640
write that email and do that. And then I was like, No, I mean, this is probably one of

883
01:30:03,640 --> 01:30:07,800
the hardest decisions I can give myself six months, you know, I could sit down and do

884
01:30:07,800 --> 01:30:13,320
this for me. And so what I decided I came up with this idea that I'm going to slot the

885
01:30:13,320 --> 01:30:26,480
same time every single day to worry. So from 11am everyday, to worry the heck out of my

886
01:30:26,480 --> 01:30:32,960
mind. And at 11, I would set you know, at 12, I would set a session at the gym and I

887
01:30:32,960 --> 01:30:39,840
did get myself a coach then, because I wanted to be learning to disrupt. So I had to cut

888
01:30:39,840 --> 01:30:44,400
it off at 11, you know, take a shower, get ready and I have to go out. And then I meet

889
01:30:44,400 --> 01:30:49,080
the coach and you know, having this conversation doing like weight training or resistance training,

890
01:30:49,080 --> 01:30:56,680
you're suddenly now present. Yes. So I found that having that consistency every day gave

891
01:30:56,680 --> 01:31:04,680
me a bit of comfort that I'm allowed to worry, you know, I get to respect this feeling. And

892
01:31:04,680 --> 01:31:10,960
then it gave me also comfort to know that I have a plan where I can't spiral into it

893
01:31:10,960 --> 01:31:15,920
all day because right after I have a physical activity and an engagement with another human

894
01:31:15,920 --> 01:31:21,520
being which allows me to cut off that energy. And then you you do that for like two months

895
01:31:21,520 --> 01:31:27,740
or whatever, two and a half months. And suddenly, your brain is not very interested in worrying,

896
01:31:27,740 --> 01:31:34,640
you know, it's just like, it's like, I don't have much to be spiraling into. And I don't

897
01:31:34,640 --> 01:31:39,080
know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. And I think you because

898
01:31:39,080 --> 01:31:45,840
you respected that emotion, after a point, your your worries have been attended to, they

899
01:31:45,840 --> 01:31:52,680
have been listened to, they have been respected. And it's another place where I recognize that

900
01:31:52,680 --> 01:32:00,200
honoring all of those emotions as a part of you is important. And definitely not dwelling

901
01:32:00,200 --> 01:32:04,960
on the fact that you are, but spending that, you know, certain amount of time to acknowledge,

902
01:32:04,960 --> 01:32:10,600
to maybe a little bit check in with why or where is it coming from, and then disrupting

903
01:32:10,600 --> 01:32:15,400
it, don't have to solve it, you don't have to reach any eureka moments or whatever, then

904
01:32:15,400 --> 01:32:20,080
you disrupt it. And you know, if it shows up again, create some sort of consistency.

905
01:32:20,080 --> 01:32:25,320
So your brain is also prepared. It's like, oh, nine a.m. tomorrow, I got to worry again.

906
01:32:25,320 --> 01:32:31,360
So, you know, it's okay. I'm okay if today my windows over, I have a slot again tomorrow.

907
01:32:31,360 --> 01:32:38,680
So you start to create a new pathway in the brain that's now the opposite of worrying.

908
01:32:38,680 --> 01:32:45,200
It's comforted, it's seen, it feels acknowledged, it feels respected. And I think the emotion

909
01:32:45,200 --> 01:32:54,400
got you know, it got its red carpet moment. Like, yeah, nice. I love that. I love that.

910
01:32:54,400 --> 01:32:59,160
Definitely want to pick your brain on that because I know that you're now also creating

911
01:32:59,160 --> 01:33:04,600
and putting together something that it's going to aid to also attend to yourself on a daily

912
01:33:04,600 --> 01:33:05,600
basis.

913
01:33:05,600 --> 01:33:06,600
Yes.

914
01:33:06,600 --> 01:33:13,200
And then we can come back and we'll definitely go into that.

915
01:33:13,200 --> 01:33:18,880
And thank you for listening in. And as always, we look forward to the next episode. While

916
01:33:18,880 --> 01:33:25,360
in the meantime, we'll scroll below here on Spotify where we can find the poll. It's an

917
01:33:25,360 --> 01:33:32,840
amazing tool for us to collect a bit of feedback, but also for us to build a pipeline of individuals

918
01:33:32,840 --> 01:33:38,200
that would like to use this platform to come and share their stories and dive into different

919
01:33:38,200 --> 01:33:44,400
topics, you know, get the conversation started. So thank you so much for that. And yeah, I

920
01:33:44,400 --> 01:33:51,160
look forward to speaking with you soon. Take care.