Embracing Compassion for Personal and Professional Growth

Unlock transformative insights into mental health and spiritual growth with our special guest, Madhuri Pura Dasa, a former monk. In a heartfelt conversation, Madhu takes us through his remarkable journey from discovering the Bhagavad Gita at 16 to embracing monastic life in India and the West. He shares the wisdom he's gathered from ancient spiritual practices to help you manage stress and challenges in your daily life. Plus, experience a guided meditation that grounds you in the present moment, emphasizing the crucial role of breath and intention.

Next, we delve into the world of conscious business, where I share my own path from Ayurvedic practitioner to guiding wellness entrepreneurs. We discuss the importance of balancing value provision with sustainable growth, moving away from fear-based tactics. Learn how inner work and nervous system regulation can foster a mindset shift from competition to collaboration, creating a more abundant life for everyone. Discover our unique "conscious closing systems" and "monk mindset" approach that blend strategic business methods with mindfulness practices.

Finally, redefine what success means to you as we talk about the necessity of embracing authentic emotions. True happiness lies in giving rather than acquiring, and success should be measured by how closely your daily life aligns with your ideal routines. We'll explore the importance of acknowledging a full range of emotions for mental well-being and discuss foundational principles like safety, radical honesty, and compassion. Stick around to find out where you can access free resources for living a conscious life and how to claim extra benefits. This episode is packed with valuable insights and practical tools for personal and professional growth.

Find out more about Madhuri Pura Dasa here:
https://madhu.life/

Chapters

• 0:00 Breaking Mental Health Stigmas Through Conversation
• 9:15 Creating Abundance Through Conscious Business
• 18:49 Embracing Authentic Emotions for Success
• 29:28 Navigating Life With Radical Compassion

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the Lift One Self podcast where we break mental health stigmas through conversations. I'm your host, nat Nat, and we dive into topics about trauma and how it impacts the nervous system. Yet we don't just leave you there. We share insights and tools of self-care, meditation and growth that help you be curious about your own biology. Your presence matters. Please like and subscribe to our podcast. Help our community grow. Let's get into this. Oh, and please remember to be kind to yourself. Welcome to the Lift when Self podcast. Madhu, I am so Rewind. Gotta do it again. This is my fourth podcast for the day, so I'm like Better you than me.

Speaker 1: 0:47

Yeah, okay, welcome to the Lift One Self podcast. Madhu, I am so thankful you're here and I think we're going to have a playful conversation.

Speaker 2: 0:57

Oh, I'm excited to have definitely a playful conversation, and certainly one with topics that are, let's say, captivating, to say the least.

Speaker 1: 1:05

Yeah, and doing some deep diving. Will you join me in a meditation so we can ground ourselves in our breath?

Speaker 2: 1:12

Don't threaten me with a good time. Let's do it.

Speaker 1: 1:15

And for the listeners, like I always tell you, safety first. So please, if you are driving or doing anything with your visual, don't close your eyes. We want you to be safe and everybody else around you to be safe, and the prompts that I guide us you're able to do with your activity. Yet if you are getting too relaxed again a disclaimer stop and come back to this part when you're in a space where you can feel the relaxation. So, madhu, I'll ask you to get comfortable in your seat and you're going to gently close your eyes and you're going to begin breathing in and out through your nose and bringing your awareness to watching your breath go in and out. You're not going to try and control your breath. You're just going to keep the awareness on watching your breath go in and out, being aware of its rhythm.

Speaker 1: 2:17

There may be sensations or feelings coming up in the body. Let them come up. You're safe to feel. You're safe to let go. Surrender the need to control, release the need to resist and just be, be in your breath, drop into your body, keeping your awareness on your breath. Now, madhu, I'm going to ask you in your mind to create an intention you want to bring forth in this conversation, for the listeners and for ourselves. And when you've created that intention, I'm going to ask you to release it in your mind, allowing it to drop down into your nervous system, down through your neck, through your throat, down into your chest, filling your heart. Your chest filling your heart, filling your lungs, down into your abdomen, into your stomach, into your life force, keeping that awareness on your breath and dropping deeper into the body, allowing that intention to surround your energy field. Still staying with the breath and dropping deeper into the body, while staying with your breath, at your own time and at your own pace. You're going to gently open your eyes while staying with your breath.

Speaker 2: 4:48

How is your heart doing? Physically slow, emotionally happy? Can you let the listeners know who Madhu is? Yeah, we, we, me and divinity from within. I was a monk for years and now I teach what I learned from being a monk for a half a decade with a shaven head and living in a monastery with robes and teaching all day. I am now a quote-unquote normal person that teaches these ancient sciences and techniques in such a way that people living their day-to-day lives potentially in stressful circumstances can overcome or manage the challenges that they're faced with organic, natural tools and approaches.

Speaker 1: 5:33

Where was the monastery that you were at?

Speaker 2: 5:36

Six months a year we would live in India and then the other six months here in the West. That was more or less a visa issue because they'd have to leave every 180 days. That was more or less a visa issue because they'd have to leave every 180 days, but we'd spend six months in a few different villages and traveling throughout India, primarily in the east and the north, and then in America for at least a few months a year. Everywhere from New York City monasteries to San Diego, california, to Denver, colorado, to Toronto, all over the place different monasteries.

Speaker 1: 6:06

Okay, what had you decide to take that oath and take that commitment?

Speaker 2: 6:15

When I was 16 years old, I read a book called the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of those not yet familiar. It's not only one of the oldest written literatures that we have on the concept of self, divinity, nature around us, purpose, etc. But it really teaches on the nature of how to understand who am I in relationship with all other living entities and what is my unique purpose, in a way that I can be a service in this world and actually be a contributor instead of a taker. And what am I? A body, am I mind? Am I something beyond that? Am I divine, et cetera. And when I read that, something sparked a deep interest within me. That was unlike the other philosophy and theology I was studying from the West, where I realized, okay, there's a lot of information there in the world that I do not have access to currently, or that I have not learned, and I know that I don't know a lot. And so at that point I was going to school and I graduated high school at 16, not because I'm smart, because I want to get the heck out of that place. That was not meant for high school, let me tell you.

Speaker 2: 7:18

And when I was 17, I wanted to become a monk, I started visiting different monasteries throughout. I was living on the East Coast at this time with my family, but every weekend I would drive up to different monasteries and check different situations out. And then, as I started practicing these different spiritual, ancient spiritual practices on my day-to-day basis, I started to notice the difference, everything from not relying on particular medications that people said I have to take. First it was ADD growing up, then it became ADHD and then it was anxiety, and so I was always told you have to do this, you have to do that. And I started realizing I could actually control my mind without all of these external artificial things.

Speaker 2: 7:56

Not that they're bad, there's a function for them, don't get me wrong. But I didn't need them, I didn't need to rely on them, and I started to feel the difference. I started to feel the happiness, the relief of being controlled by my mind. And then I wanted to become a monk, but they wouldn't let me because I was a minor. So on my 18th birthday, that's when I shaved my head, moved in, you know, two pairs of orange robes to my name and did that for about five years until graduating and becoming normal, hence the hair.

Speaker 1: 8:26

What had you leave?

Speaker 2: 8:27

Yeah, it's 99% of monks are student monks, in which case about 1% of them will go on to be. We call it lifers, those who become celibate for the rest of their life. They take that lifelong vow, which is not for most, let's put it that way, and so myself, along with most of the monks. In training, the idea is under guidance, you learn for a certain amount of time. For some that means six months, some a year, some five, some 10, some it's longer. It's enough time until you can learn how to integrate the practices in a way that you can then re well integrate into society. You learn them and then bring them into a world, especially in a way that you can support yourself while doing it, as not to get entangled with the degradation society may offer.

Speaker 1: 9:15

That's a mouthful which actually describes a lot of the worldly worlds and how we get lured outside of ourselves to find that kind of safety that's always fleeting, because the safety is supposed to be within ourselves and it's our responsibility. Yet we're told we're not good enough. So how can we create that safety? Because everybody else has the answers. There's no answers within ourselves.

Speaker 2: 9:38

I've heard that narrative before.

Speaker 1: 9:40

Yeah, so you mentioned that you now have a business that helps with conscious business and marketing and helping people to have a conscious center with understanding business. Because you know there is the part where you know everybody wants everything and just take, take, take. And then there's the empathetic ones that feel a difficulty to even ask for others and see a value in what they're selling. So could you let the listeners know a little bit of what you have to offer and why you started it and what that looks like?

Speaker 2: 10:20

Certainly I think I appreciate about you is not only are you so eloquently spoken in terms of the way you relay this, but you yourself are an example of what we're about to explore and talk about and how to actually live in this world and be a contributor, actually be of service, instead of being a taker and a consumer, because that's what we're getting sold all the time is how to become number one, how to, I mean? Anyway, we all know what we're facing in society in terms of just trying to be exploited, and even our own tendency from within can be to want one exploit others. So the way that we counteract that current of society or the current of the mind of wanting to take is taking an approach to present ourselves and our services not just in a way where we're actually providing value and helping, which one would hope is a foundation, but specifically developing. What we've developed is a type of way to generate conversations with qualified leads and prospects and sell them in a way where you're never using high pressure tactics or hard sales or manipulation, etc.

Speaker 2: 11:31

As I was studying deeply finance and marketing and sales after graduating the monastery, I realized, oh no, most of the stuff is based off of fear and emotions and getting people to take action from a place of fear. Stuff is based off of fear and emotions and getting people to take action from a place of fear, and so what I've done and learned from amazing teachers is how to move from an abundance framework instead of how to be afraid and to take action from fear. How do I see where my potential is and create a logical, step-by-step approach to achieve that potential? And I did it actually randomly, or somehow, I would say, divinely in my business.

Speaker 2: 12:07

I am an Ayurvedic practitioner, so I provide holistic health services for years and somehow or other, without doing a crazy amount of learning in the beginning, we were able to grow that first to six figures and then kept growing and doubling it, and growing and doubling it, and eventually I was like, okay, I really have to learn what's going on and don't get me wrong, a lot of challenges as well. But then, as I learned, I realized, oh, there's a way to do this sustainable, where you're never taking from someone else, where you have more, they have less. It's like there's ways to do this where everyone's life gets improved. Everyone's quality of life goes up, and that's when, a few years ago, I went from just helping with holistic services mindset services to actually helping other wellness entrepreneurs and experts with their business. It was just a more efficient use of my time and expertise to help them also make a good living, helping change others' lives.

Speaker 1: 12:58

And I think it's needed because I think sometimes you know, as you said, it's the activation of fear and there's that desperate energy and people have you know well, that's how mainstream media gets to people with all their commercials is that if I activate fear then you're going to try and look for a solution on the outside and I can just sell you anything that makes it feel like you have control. So, really understanding that emotional manipulation that takes place, and for some business owners, you know, it can be really challenging to really come out of the space of competition and come into a space of collaboration Because it's like there's not enough. We're told there's only one king on the hill, there's only one client out there. So how do you help them? Because I'm hearing in that there has to be some inner work that has to take place for them to be able to be in that abundance and regulate their nervous system so that they can come into that oneness.

Speaker 2: 14:03

Certainly. Well, I often say that a drowning lifeguard can't save any, but a strong lifeguard can save many. And this is the idea that in order to actually serve and help others, we need to first help ourselves make sure we're strong and nourished, learn how to regulate our central nervous system, as you're mentioning, and just not fry out the body, which is what the tendency might be to push and push, and push. So the approach that we take is not only just from a strategic standpoint, but it's also a mindset standpoint. So what we do is conscious closing systems, which is how to make the offers that when people your ideal client see, wow. And then how to actually generate leads organically and how to sell, but without ever using pushy tactics, and how to scale.

Speaker 2: 14:45

So there's the system side, and I love that stuff, I've got a knack for it. But the other half is called the monk mindset, which is how do I actually learn how to control my mind, which, by controlling the mind, we very big umbrella statement of what actually that means. But in simple, it means learning to control the voluntary functions of our both physiology and psychology, most of that regulator and nervous system, in such a way so that you can be nourished and solid and centered and cord and whatever vernacular we might want to learn or use be present and actually be able to give from a place where you're yourself are on a strong foundation and you yourself are in a connected, nourished situation. And so I believe in both, because I people who know the systems and they hate everything about their life and they feel miserable and they feel unhealthy and they got poor relationships, et cetera. And I also know people who have done the inner work and aren't making any money, and so I believe in not that everyone has to, but for those who want to, there's a way to any money.

Speaker 2: 15:47

And so I believe in not that everyone has to, but for those who want to, there's a way to do both. And not that we perfected it, but certainly we found a way that works, not just for myself but for the many hundreds of people who've gotten the opportunity to serve. And it's usually a lot more simple than we probably want to think. Usually the mind goes oh, it's gotta be some advanced new. No, it's got to be some advanced new, no, it's just do the basics well. And there's, of course, good strategies and systems behind that. But it's a matter of controlling our mind and then applying strategies and behaviors into our life that will actually provide us success. So that's just a matter of time until we're successful.

Speaker 1: 16:21

The action, taking that action, because that when you're going against well, not going against because you can't override biology when you better understand your defense mechanisms and then you can use fear and you can ride on it. Because I understand that a lot of people are like oh, fear and don't fear. And it's like well, a healthy nervous system needs fear. If you want to be connected into intuition, well then that means curiosity is going to bring you into the unknown and uncertainty and the nervous system is going to get activated to see are we safe to go into these spaces? And you tell it yes, you can use the energy of fear and not be swallowed up by it and be frozen by it.

Speaker 1: 16:59

Is there any language on? I understand the service and giving, yet in that you need to be able to receive, and that is sometimes a missing part where people are not allowing themselves to receive, because it's a really good benefit to be giving and it's a power dynamic to be giving, yet it's a vulnerable state to be receiving and allow yourself to receive. Do you have that language in your program or?

Speaker 2: 17:26

Yeah, well said. I appreciate the way you presented that, because there can be a type of bypassing where it's like, yeah, I'm just going to serve, but at my own expense. And you know, we can only again, we can only give from what we have. And so one thing that we were taught as monks is that the reason you become a student monk for some time in my case it was about five years is to certainly learn and acquire and consume and fortify ourself, first and foremost from a place that then we can give out to others. And the meditation that's often given is fill yourself up so much that you're overflowing, and then you take that overflow and you use that as service to others. So that's typically the conception that I teach and that I consider is that fill yourself up so much that you are bursting at the seams with the content, the stuff that's worked for you, Because I also believe in making the transformation first yourself and then facilitating that to others.

Speaker 2: 18:22

Obviously there's examples. You don't need to be operated on a surgeon who has also had any surgery, as long as they know surgery so well. So certainly there is theoretical knowledge and there's a huge value in that, but to the extent that we can say, hey, I did this thing and I can show you how it worked for me, let me also do it for you. Not only does that take care of imposter syndrome because imposter syndrome means I'm making big claims of what has to happen no, you're saying, hey, this is what I do, this is what's worked, and it's worked for enough people I've helped, so it might probably work for you.

Speaker 2: 18:49

And we're taking this approach. Not only does it help with all these limiting beliefs and we can name them endlessly but it also puts us in a situation where we can vulnerably and honestly help, when, instead of just giving from an empty plate, an empty bucket, we actually say hey, you know, I've got a lot of goodies here and they don't belong to me. Truth doesn't belong to anyone. I just so happen to have great teachers that have thrown a bunch of truths in my bucket and now I can share them with you. And it's the gift that keeps giving, because, giving away truth to you, I never actually lose that truth. I never actually lose that knowledge myself, and so it's the ever exponentially expanding gift of knowledge.

Speaker 1: 19:32

Yeah, how do you help yourself and others when there is this? I know sometimes we can get into this the mind wants to arrive somewhere and that when you arrive, everything will be figured out and everything will be perfect and it'll be bliss and unicorns and rainbows, where you know you get to that place and then it's like wait, where I guys still keep going. So what are? What does it look like in your life and how do you do you, you know, help people navigate those walls that can come up with the mind?

Speaker 2: 20:12

yeah, I think it's important to define terms, because usually we think of success, as you so well expresses, that once I achieve that, then I'll be happy. Once I get that thing, then I'll win. But that's never actually success. Success has to be redefined as when your ideal life and routine is today. Today's schedule looks like your ideal schedule, in other words, when you're doing what you actually want to be doing Now. That in itself takes some uncovering to figure out, like what is it that I actually want to be doing? What am I here to be doing? How can I actually contribute? That in itself is a practice. But once you have some clarity even if it's just a modicum of clarity, of how I can live in this world in a way that again contribute and still nourish myself, the focus or the goalpost of success should be when I am living that life today, because tomorrow is never promised and to the extent that we try to artificially concoct a future that's not guaranteed, we are delaying happiness that's available right now. And even if I mean we can actually be happy and grateful and satisfied with things that we don't even have right now but we know we'll have in the future, it's not that once we get that, we will be satisfied. So success is something that is only experienced in the present, with presence, and the idea behind that is how do I live a life where I am able to be present, which means I'm doing the things I want to be doing, if we're spending all of our days in areas that are just outside of our gifts, outside of our psychophysical nature, the way we've been formed through our conditioning? If we're spending too much time outside of that realm, of course we're going to be dissatisfied. We're going to be looking to the future, but then we're going to be dissatisfied. We're going to be looking to the future, but then we're going to become anxious, or we'll be looking to the past. We'll become depressed.

Speaker 2: 21:52

Success means being present now and then living a life that's actually fulfilling and, objectively speaking, happiness doesn't come from gaining and consuming things. It always comes from giving, and that's why the wealthiest people we might've ever meet I was surprised by this at first. I'd meet very wealthy people doing volunteer work as a monk and I was like wait, you've got like I remember meeting somebody hundreds of millions of dollars and I was like why are you giving your time to do all this? Like charity, work, it's like because this is actually the only happiness. I thought, all these things make me happy. But you know, I achieved the thing. I'm like.

Speaker 2: 22:22

This doesn't make me happy and the only thing that actually provides real satisfaction is contribution. And even myself I heard it enough times and I still had to learn it the hard way, where I was like cool, I have the thing oh, that didn't do it. Okay, you know, okay, I've got the best wife in the world. She makes me happy. And I got love, what I do for work, and I make a great living doing it, and I have good health. And you know, it's never just that. The satisfaction really comes from saying, hey, I really touched someone's life, I made someone's life a little bit better, and that's where that real contentment and satisfaction comes.

Speaker 1: 22:57

Beautifully said. I want to bring you into a space where I think sometimes people are harming themselves, because a lot of times people are talking about the gratitude and the happiness and being a good mental state. Yet to be human is that you're going to feel some of the denser emotions, like anger and fear, and you know feeling, even if you're an entrepreneur feeling the struggles of the silence and not having momentum. So what is something that you would like to offer the listeners or what you do with your own personal life and for others to navigate those waves and those parts of being human?

Speaker 2: 23:38

Yeah, I'll start with saying that the alternative to feeling how you feel is very dangerous and scary. And you know, as you mentioned, one inevitably feels negative types of emotions. And I would say I hope so, because it's all possible we numb ourselves to the natural emotions that come up, but to the extent that we can actually feel what we do feel, because it's not like you have to come up with emotion, no, you got them. It's just the willingness and the feeling of security and safety to say I'm allowed to feel this and I'm okay. So what I would like to offer everyone, and not that I've got, not that you have to take my word for it, but you have full permission to feel how you feel, and that means all feelings and that it's not just the sad ones, that's the good ones. You're like wait, am I too happy? Am I? Whatever it might be, because the alternative is really dangerous and really scary in that we start to numb ourself, we distract ourself. I mean there's a lot of qualifiers to what we would do to stop feeling what we're doing. But pick a card. Any card will do. Whatever facade we're putting up that is blocking us from actually accepting the reality of how we feel we're never going to just stop feeling that way, we're going to postpone it to a later time, and it never gets easier to deal with.

Speaker 2: 24:55

So step number one is saying I have permission to feel this way, and I know that from my childhood. I may remember so-and-so telling me I can't feel this way or I'm not allowed to feel this way, or whatever long list of parameters someone that I think or I thought cared about me gave me as a child around my emotions. Setting that aside and ultimately, from at least a logical standpoint, saying I am not only entitled to feel these emotions, but it's imperative so that I don't become in a much worse situation than I am now by trying to suppress it, and so really find ways to express it in ways that it doesn't harm you or anyone else. It's like feel it all, and if you haven't yet found a way to feel it and express it to others where it's nonviolent, then feel it as much as you can in a contained environment, whether that means through journaling and through meditation yourself or hiring someone doing a professional step that puts you in the same environment. There's always an option. There's always an option as soon as you give up hope. That's when you start to close the doors. You know there's no hope. No, no, keep the door open. There's always hope, and all you have to do is be receptive and be willing.

Speaker 2: 26:04

And it takes us one small step in the right direction to completely change the trajectory of our life. And if that means, oh, it's too hard to feel my feelings, I can't do it. No, it's not Just one tiny, teeny feeling. For just one moment, wait, I felt that Am I still here? I'm still alive. I made it. Wow, that's great. What about two seconds in that feeling? What about five minutes, et cetera. And everything amazing starts with small steps. So what I would suggest, and something that's helped me overcome my deep aversion and fear to negative feelings, is just the permission to feel it and know that the only way I'll be whole is acknowledging what's actually there instead of pretending it's not.

Speaker 1: 26:42

Yeah, how I work, that I provide to people is letting them know the three steps. It's well, your nervous system needs safety to allow the defense mechanisms to come down so you can be vulnerable. You need radical honesty to face yourself and then to feel and not the secondary emotions, your authentic emotions that, like you said in childhood, you may not have been allowed to feel, these big emotions. So when they come up, it's going to be a shit show inside, it's not going to feel good, there's going to be chemical dumps that are being put into the body that feel really uncomfortable and overwhelming. And, of course, it don't understand it because you've never experienced it or felt it before. Yet to rationalize or intellectualize it, that's not what emotions are there for. It's feelings that are coming up that have messages. You're there to listen, listen. It doesn't mean take direction with it or take action with it. It's just feel and listen to the messages and let the body somatically release.

Speaker 1: 27:48

And we at times, you know, in a society where we have a big aversion to pain, everything's anti-pain, this anti-pain that they're numbing and not really being able to use their body as a vessel of being able to have that conduit and that connection with the bigger self, the divinity, higher self, that connection with the bigger self, the divinity, higher self. And so the work that I'm doing is like face the pain, face the fear. Allow yourself to feel these authentic emotions Like you talk about. You want to be authentic. Well, that means it's going to be messy, it's going to be uncomfortable, yet it won't always be like that, yet at the beginning it's going to be, yet it won't always be like that, yet at the beginning it's going to be discombobulating and very uncomfortable. Your work is no longer to run from this and numb it. It's to be able, like you said, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, and do that warrior work for yourself, because there is benefit, like I'm living proof of it.

Speaker 1: 28:47

I had lesions in my brain and I almost died 10 years ago. So meditation helps to bring back the signaling in my body and release a lot of trauma and stored emotions that were in my body. So when I know it it doesn't feel good. I know it doesn't feel good. I wanted to quit meditation many a times yet because I had like death kind of at my door where it was like where else are you going to go, so just go with deeper within. And that takes trust where we're told not to trust ourselves, not trust our intuition, not trust our experience or emotions. So I really like the I say it also yet that permission to feel like validate your own experience Also, yet that permission to feel Like validate your own experience.

Speaker 2: 29:28

I really value the three points that you made in terms of first with safety, and then in radical honesty, and then feel the feeling, but not the superficial feeling, the real one, the thing that's hidden, say, behind the anger, behind the sadness or whatever it might be. And what a beautiful perspective on how to actually verifiably start to say feel your feelings and work through them in a vulnerable way where we can work through it, as opposed to just procrastinate, because that's all we're doing, right, by numbing, we're just saying I'll deal with it later, and it does not get any easier to deal with, that's for sure.

Speaker 1: 30:05

No, not at all all, because it just keeps building up and building up and you know I do it too all the tools that I know in the experience. There's some things I'm like, oh, not right now, and it's like, but you know it's going to be gathering all kinds of suffering and you're still going to have to go through this door. So just go through the portal without all this baggage of suffering. And it's like sometimes I go through the sharp paint, like sharp truth, or sometimes I do the dull lake of denial, yet the two I'm like you're still going to end up at the same location. You're not going to move unless you really face it.

Speaker 1: 30:39

You can try to separate, but that elastic band is going to bring you back. So you know you don't want to splinter anymore, you want to stay whole as a W. I want to bring you into a reflective question. I want to ask you to take your awareness right now and bring it back to your 18-year-old self. And you have three words to tell your 18-year-old self, to carry you to the journey to right now. What would those words be?

Speaker 2: 31:07

Sustainably serve, unceasingly those are three words that spontaneously come up here. Sustainably serve, which means don't just serve, but do it in a way where, as we're alluding to before, in a way that's sustainable, the way that it's not going to deplete you, and do it unceasingly and and with without reservation, because there's just such a deep satisfaction, nourishment that comes in that place of providing and what to speak of the accountability, because if you're trying to teach someone else something, if you're wanting to teach someone else something, you damn well better be sure doing the thing. And all the areas in my life where I have taken longer than I would like to admit to achieve or to accomplish or to experience, could have been shortened by sustainably serving, without secession.

Speaker 1: 32:02

That's the journey, though, and that's the beauty of the journey of recognizing like, and that's why you need radical compassion, because when that impulsivity comes up or that like oh, you could have did, and it's like wait, I'm exactly where I am, I'm exactly where I should be, and the reason why I needed that journey is there's lived experience that I may not recognize right now, yet it's for the service of others that I have that relatability in that, because sometimes, when we get things too easily, it can be very challenging to relate to somebody else because it came naturally to you, so you don't know the struggles that other people and you think that they're just creating it on their own, and so you're not really able to relate with the language of oh, yeah, like, this is a messy thing, and you're going to come at it in different ways, that you always need that radical compassion for yourself, because you'll need it for the rest of your life, because life is impermanent, so you're going to get different experiences and different versions of yourself and, more profoundly, of navigating the as is of life and not what you would like it to be.

Speaker 1: 33:08

Where can the listeners find you? Because I'm sure they're like okay, enough of that? Where do I find Madhu and where can I get in contact with him?

Speaker 2: 33:18

well, we give all of our content away for free and so we have too many courses practically at this point, everything from ayurveda and holistic health to mindset, to emotional mapping, to conscious business, etc. And we are big believers, again, in service sustainability is we just give all the information for free, and what I've seen people charge tens of thousands of dollars for practically. I have no issue, everyone should charge whatever they want, and for us we just like to make it as accessible as possible. So, on any platform, at madhulife, which is M-A-D-H-U dot L-I-F-E. Madhulife, which is M-A-D-H-U dot. L-i-f-e.

Speaker 2: 33:56

Madhulife, if anyone sends me the message oneself let's keep it fun oneself which means I'll know that you came from this particular podcast.

Speaker 2: 34:05

Not only will I get you access to our community, which has, I wouldn't say, a course on anything you think of, but when it comes to living a conscious life, various elements and angles on how to do that and how to support yourself while doing it, from a health perspective, business perspective, relationship perspective, et cetera.

Speaker 2: 34:22

Not only will I give you guys access, but I always like to throw in a little extra treat, but make sure that when you reach out, say oneself so I know you're coming from here, so I can send you a couple of extra little treats as well. We have workbooks that you can do at your own pace, and all of this stuff just to try to make it as accessible as possible to reach the potential life that you know you want to live, you know you can live, and you just need a couple little pushes in that right direction. We're happy to be one additional support system. So madhulife that's our website, that's our name on all social media platforms, et cetera. You just send us a message there oneself and we'll get you set up with, we'll let you know all the different resources that we have to make sure that you have at least one clear next step to achieving the life that you want.

Speaker 1: 35:14

Is there anything that you would like to leave the listeners life?

Speaker 2: 35:18

that you want. Is there anything that you would like to leave the listeners? Yeah, know that there's always an option is that our brain is always creating evidence for what we are thinking, saying and doing. So if we're thinking I'm not good enough, we're never going to feel good enough, that's for sure. If we, you know the person who says I'm never'm never, never lose the weight. The person says I'm never going to find love never finds love.

Speaker 2: 35:40

We have to first give ourself that permission and know that there's endless options and say that I can do this, this is possible. And just by that first step of internally creating the space for the thing we want to exist I always call it that mental real estate. Step one is just know that it's possible, create the mental real estate and then from there just be receptive to the opportunities that come through some might say the universe, through divinity. We're ultimately talking about the same thing an omnipotent, powerful source that loves you more than you've ever been loved, that wants to give you more than you could accept with your two hands. And just becoming open and receptive to that. That's step number one and you're guaranteed success if you do that, as long as that receptivity capability is being practiced and then you'll be happy. It's just a matter of time. Just wait.

Speaker 1: 36:35

Thank you for that. Now my curiosity is playing, so I just want to ask I'm sure that this has been asked to you how do you deal with anybody that's asking you if you could be in comparison to Jay Shetty, because your story, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2: 36:52

Jay, we were monks together actually. He was in the UK and I was mostly in America at that time, but it was now quite some years ago, maybe a decade ago, that we first met in UK, actually at a temple, at an ashram there, and he's such an inspiration besties per se, but he's like an older brother that I look up to and you know, when he I remember when he started to get some traction through ariana huffington I'll have the impose he just kept going, growing and he's such an inspiration for so many and he lives about an hour north of us or so, and so every so often we get to see each other he's. If you don't know who jay shetty is, you're living on a rock now, but go check him out. And and I make all my clients read Think Like a Monk, because it's the content he shares, it's so valuable. This is one of his. I think it was his first book that he put out, and so, yeah, definitely a lot of similarities, because we were both trained in the same system of bhakti yoga.

Speaker 1: 37:50

Thank you for sharing that, because I know that there's probably some listeners that they're hearing it's like this guy sounds kind of familiar and it's like, well, there's another one that you might be thinking about. This is Madu. Okay, so it's not the Jay Shetty, it's the Madu, so make sure you got it right. I want to thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing such a delightful, playful energy and also, you know, really doing that warrior work, doing that alchemy of taking those impurities that you thought that people had projected on you and you transfer, transform them into gold, and not only kept the goal for yourself, you sharing it out with others so that they can understand the journey back home into their body, into trusting in themselves. So thank you for all that you're doing and the light that you're providing into the world, madhu.

Speaker 2: 38:45

The easiest way to respond is ditto. Thank you for creating such a beautiful platform that allows us to actually explore these things and listening in and you know I can speak for all your listeners. I know they're going to agree with me when there's just a lot of gratitude for this opportunity that you create for us to go deep together thank you.

Speaker 1: 39:03

Please remember to be kind to yourself. Hey, you made it all the way here. I appreciate you and your time. If you found value in this conversation, please share it out. If there was somebody that popped into your mind, take action and share it out with them. It possibly may not be them that will benefit. It's that they know somebody that will benefit from listening to this conversation. So please take action and share out the podcast. You can find us on social media on Facebook, instagram and TikTok under Lift One Self, and if you want to inquire about the work that I do and the services that I provide to people, come over on my website, come into a discovery, call LiftOneSelfcom. Until next time, please remember to be kind and gentle with yourself. You matter.