Timeless Spirituality
Timeless Spirituality, hosted by Daniel "The Past Life Regressionist," is a captivating podcast that explores the depths of spirituality and its connection to time. Join Daniel and his guests as they delve into past life regression, astrology, and the timeless essence of existence. With occasional humorous moments, this podcast offers profound insights, making it a unique blend of enlightening entertainment. Tune in to connect with your inner self and uncover the totality of who you are and who you've been throughout time.
IG:@thepastliferegressionist
Website: thepastliferegressionist.com
Timeless Spirituality
Ep. 89 - Somehow, I Made It Through: Ritu Chowdhry
For this episode of the miniseries, "Somehow, I Made It Through," Ritu Chowdry shares her tale of surviving a heart attack at 24, on the heels of a previous suicide attempt, which brings into sharp relief the universality of mental health struggles. Through her eyes, we travel from the gripping uncertainty of life with epilepsy to the bustling streets of Bombay, where independence is sought and self-care becomes non-negotiable. This episode reaches into the heart of mental health, affirming that it knows no boundaries and is entwined with our physical well-being. Ritu's story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of taking ownership of one's mental and physical health.
Ritu's IG: @itshowyouareseeingit
3-2. Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I'm doing good, slightly tired, but yeah, it's been good so far.
Speaker 1:So good, it's a bit of a time difference for us. It's 11 in the morning for me right now and 1130 pm for you. Well, yeah, 1148 pm, so it's 11.18 am for me, because you know, time is a big thing on the show so I better be specific with the time. So, yeah, there's a 12 and a half hour time difference.
Speaker 2:You wanted to be that specific about time.
Speaker 1:It's true, yeah, so yeah, specificity is important here. Anyways, now that my goober phase is over, are you ready for the first question?
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:What is your favorite song about time and why? And also my hands are going up for the guessing game.
Speaker 2:You know, each time you try to define time, it's any way or least, and then you're stuck between five minutes to save the world and 27 minutes too late. So whenever I think of time time it's such a paradox, it's, it's funny, it's pulling you on one side, it is teaching you on the other. It lasts only when you attach a story to it, otherwise it just is so yeah, that's time it Otherwise it just is. So, yeah, that's time. It doesn't matter, but it is.
Speaker 1:So no favorite song about time.
Speaker 2:I just said the song. There were two songs.
Speaker 1:What were the two?
Speaker 2:There's a song called Five Minutes to Save the World, with Justin Timberlake and Madonna.
Speaker 1:Who was the other one?
Speaker 2:madonna madonna. Okay, and the other song 27 minutes too late by mltl michael lester rock I have no idea, I've never heard either song really.
Speaker 1:yeah, I just I thought, well, I guess I all, since I haven't heard those songs before, and when we've talked before you get very philosophical, so I guess it kind of it just sounded like you were being philosophical there. 25 minutes. I'm like, okay, she's just talking about time. You know, she's like Socrates standing up in front of the crowd right now.
Speaker 2:Thumb my hands down because I have no idea. Yeah, what are you doing with your hands on this live?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I put those up. So you see that I don't that I'm not typing anything in, like you know, really quick, 15 minutes to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I'm like what are these hand gestures? I'm just like alien movements. Who else is trying to like? Show me what I'm saying right now. Yeah.
Speaker 1:It game right now. Yeah, it's just so you see, I'm not cheating, that's it I take the integrity of this game very seriously. I see that all right so yeah, are you, I'm gonna have to listen to those. So thank you for introducing me to those with the philosophical titles, which really probably aren't that philosophical. But anyways, as everyone will see from the conversation we're going to have, you'll understand by the end, like, okay, he's not completely off of his rocker. Anyways, are you ready for the next question?
Speaker 2:Let's do this.
Speaker 1:What do you believe in?
Speaker 2:You know, daniel, whenever somebody asks me about belief, whenever somebody asks me about belief, I think belief is formed over a period of time, when you go on attending to a certain feeling and then you start acting on it and then it becomes like a belief system for you. When I see life, through all that has been, all that has happened, I've realized that whatever has stayed consistent can be called as a belief system. The rest are like transient observations that you're going through, and this kind of struck to me about a year and a half back, when I realized that, as a child, there was a certain thing I wanted from the world. With my limited knowledge of the world and by the time I'm here today, when I'm when I'm probably going to be 40 in two years that one wish hasn't changed.
Speaker 2:It's simply been that when I leave the world, I believe that there should be a little more love in it than it has, and I think yeah, that's what I believe in that there's a lot of opportunity for all of us to coexist, while accepting our differences, while knowing that on the material plane it's not all going to be hunky-dory, but how we do it, we could have a different behavior format to it where love is not about. I mean, it's not about the songs, the poetry, the jazz, essentially, but it's integrity, it is empathy, it's understanding, it's keeping, it's taking that pause. It's like doing things with much more conscious effort because somebody else's sorrow is directly hitting you and you're not even realizing that you're becoming a part of it. So, yeah, that's what I believe in a little more love, something.
Speaker 1:But I'll do with that I heard a song title in there too, I heard how we do it. So then of course, I thought this is how we do it, this is how we do it. I don't know if that's necessarily a song about time, but okay, and I mean, look that, that was beautiful. I think that that was such a thought-provoking response to a very ambiguous question. I think, ultimately, what it shows is that a belief system is tailored to the individual, that it doesn't necessarily have to be oh. I believe in X, y and Z. That is my doctrine, that is what I follow, but it's something that may not even be in the here and now. So I I think that that was.
Speaker 2:That was great but I do believe in it and I've been trying to put a book together with, just like human stories, where you see how when you, you know, when you include the third principle, how an output changes, how it's always not cause and effect. I mean, it is cause and effect but you could alter the effects. You have those tools like if you just can't walk down.
Speaker 1:I'm still working on that one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, most of the world is so, am I?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's how you don't get so much work done, because you're also procrastinating and so very yeah, all right, I gotta stay focused now because there's so many different directions we can go in. But we have, we have some that's true, the meaty stuff to talk about today, and I just realized that kind of harkens back to a conversation. We had no pun intended with the meaty there, because yeah, anyways r Ritu was just telling me about. She saw cows flying at one point when she was younger, and that's true.
Speaker 1:I mean there's more to that story, but I okay, so are you ready for the next question? Yes who is Ritu?
Speaker 2:I wish I knew. I really wish I knew, because with every passing day you just get to know yourself even more microscopically. Like each time you want to hold anything, which is an absolute belief system, it comes crashing down like a house of cards, like universe has this strange way of telling you that you actually not are anything. So each time when I say who is Ritu, it's like okay, which Ritu am I talking about? Like there are so many of them. So how do I ever define myself? And just like specifics. So yeah, I really don't know. I don't have an answer to that yet fair enough.
Speaker 1:So there's a new game I'm playing. Now for the next question. We have some options here and the the question is how have you grown in? And I'm going to pull out a very handy dandy card here as I as I shuffle it around for the dramatic effect. As you can see, I'm not holding anyone specifically, so the game is not rigged.
Speaker 2:I maintain the integrity of this game as well, so I just hope it's adhd friendly so that I remember details in that timeline. So how have you grown in the past month? Where are we? 17th of October, 17th of September, oh, I just finished designing a house for a friend which I saw, which I did not see coming, so that happened out of the blue. And in the middle of that I had a beautiful incident which obviously involved lack of judgment on terms of human behavior on my part and it had consequences, so which took me about like six hours a day to be completely inflamed by it, bodily, mentally for it to take over, until I had to like, literally like, do, like, okay, it's two inhales and one exhale, and let's do this and let's get this out of my system. So that was one key moment where I felt triggered after a really long time last month, while in the middle of it I was trying to like, create something arty and also make a living, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think the fact that it took few hours and not a week that's all I see is this growth, oh yeah, I mean it's the growth component of, if I'm hearing you correctly, what took you a few hours to feel and get over may have taken you a much longer time previously.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool. I think that's great. So I guess there's anticipation on my part also, because you've told me some of your story already, so I kind of understand what's to come. And, as we previously spoke about, this is a new experience for me talking about this topic on the show, so I'm kind of I'm like a fish out of water, because this is only the second episode that I've recorded so far in this vein. I'm still learning, so I'm going to have to pull up even my cheat sheet questionnaire here. Why are you speaking out about mental health?
Speaker 2:Because it all starts in the mind. It all starts in the mind. It all starts in the mind. I guess this time, when I took less time to get over this episode, was probably because of something that happened in the past three years in my life three or four years in my life which kind of gave me a lot of perspective that you can't be responsible of other people's opinions of you Because, at the end of the day, you're not affected by the person. The person is holding a certain opinion about you and hence acting in a certain way as per the story that they've told about you and hence acting in a certain way as per the story that they've told about you in their head. So when that has happened, you can't be wasting precious years in your human body to cry about something that actually doesn't matter. When you look back into it, when you, like you know, backtrack, you realize each and every aspect of your lives is as per the story that you've told around it, the picture you've drawn around it, and your body is constantly talking and nobody's listening. Your body stores so much emotions and you're going through a journey of sickness. You're going through a journey of overall, you know, degenerative gene quality, because you're not listening to your mind, you're not listening inside, you're not listening to your body.
Speaker 2:It's always telling you that your time on this planet, in the human body, is very, very limited. It can be one consciousness and infinity and all of it. It's creative, gone through like multiple births, but each birth has to be done with the dignity that it deserves. And it starts with the body. And the body is taking a tour for all of your mental madness doors, for all of your mental madness. It's a beautiful planet, in spite of all its oddities, in spite of all that we complain about, try about, try to be spiritual about. But it starts at the ground, that the, at the base foundation, which is your body. And if I have to save the body to experience this world, I have to save the mind, which is perceiving what it's perceiving. So that's where, yeah, you just get in, because you've seen so many patterns of human behavior across different races, cultures, countries, widely divisive as our borders would want us to know.
Speaker 2:It's not difficult to communicate without language. There are certain base emotions. We all know that is happening at a mass scale globally. So imagine what is your cumulative health index that comes down drastically. We're going to be having more upset people. More upset people are going to upset more people. It's just a one-way shift cycle, like do we need that? You don't. There is a way one can like live, probably slightly better, like nobody's saying like equality for all, it would not happen. That's not nature to begin with. So there will be duality, there will be disparity. It's not going to be like the hunky-dory world, but if you're going to get fucked, then you might as well get fucked in a good way, right? Why do you have to make the process so painful?
Speaker 1:Let's talk a little bit about your story. I just want to hand the reins over to you because when you told me your story, well, let me start off by telling the audience what I told you. So you live in India.
Speaker 1:You were born and raised in India, and I live in the West Coast of the United States, in California, los Angeles, so I always had a view of what India was and my dad went on a trip there for business back in 1996. And when he told me about what he saw, it was, I mean one. It made me appreciate what I had in many respects. But he talked about the drive from the airport to the hotel and he talked about what was going on in the streets, which I'll let you cover. But that was 27 years ago and I had had this picture in my mind of what India was, based off of what my dad told me and just what I've seen elsewhere. But what I never took the time to think about and consider was what was happening in the homes that were located on those streets. I never thought about that because all I thought about was the picture that was presented to me of what the world saw to me, of what the world saw. But I think it's something that's universal that we don't know what goes on behind four walls and there are stories that are played out inside of homes that we have no idea what's going on there, and that's not to say it's not, you know, nefarious or anything like that, but we see things from the outside. So, having that conversation with you, it brought that world to life for me in a way that I had never experienced before, thought about, because I had never talked to someone who lived in one of those homes. So one of the reasons I wanted to have you on to talk about your experience growing up, and especially with mental health, is because it is universal, and I believe that your story can resonate with someone in the southern states of the United States or in Canada or in Europe, because I think it's something that goes on everywhere. It's just that the exterior surroundings may look different and with that, oftentimes what I find with a lot of my clients who came from a more privileged upbringing is whenever they're talking about the things that they went through, they're always saying something to be effective.
Speaker 1:But you know, I had it good growing up, so I have nothing to complain about. Well, maybe you were provided for and you didn't have to worry about where your next meal was going to come from, which I'm sure, like I never had to experience that. So I'm sure that in and of itself brings a heaviness that I can't even fathom. But what I also tell them is just because, well, something that was brought up to me when I was a child, and I'm sure many other children, is they're starving children in Africa. Whenever something would come up, I'd be told well, they're starving children in Africa. And my feeling is. I'd be told well, there's starving children in Africa. And my feeling is well, I'm sorry that there are starving children in Africa, but I still had a bad day. So I feel bad for the starving children in Africa. But why does that mean that my day wasn't bad? You?
Speaker 2:can't be infantilizing your emotions because somebody else is starving.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and that's why I just feel it's so important to have a voice like yours here to share your story is because, while what everyone's about to hear I will never know, you know, still knock on wood. I will never know what that's like, but once things for damn sure I will never know in this life what it once things for damn sure. I will never know in this life what it was like to grow up in the setting that you did. I will never know that, and that's a good thing. I'm happy. No offense at all, but yeah, I hear you Like.
Speaker 1:I guess it's my way of also telling everyone. Just because your circumstances from the outside may not have appeared to be as horrific as what you're about to hear, it doesn't invalidate your experience, whatever you experienced as a child. It's good that she could laugh about this.
Speaker 2:I love it, I love it, I love it.
Speaker 1:But I just I hope that no one finds themselves comparing themselves to you and say, well, I've got nothing to complain about because I didn't grow up in that. No, your, your struggles are real, it's just different.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, you just got different things to do, buddy.
Speaker 1:Very different, very, very, very different, very, very, very different. But uh, it's universal, you'll learn it regardless.
Speaker 2:You'll learn it regardless. You're yeah.
Speaker 1:The way it expresses to you might be in a completely different way, but do not be mistaken, it's going to come for each one of us so with that, as we speak in a jolly manner at this point, as I'm sure it's going to somber out a bit, now you have the floor. What's your story?
Speaker 2:So I grew up in a place I was born in Calcutta in India, which has a historical background of it being the epicenter of the freedom struggle. Being the epicenter of the freedom struggle, there's been a lot of partitions, a lot of political history and cultural history attached with the place. My parents are from Calcutta, I mean actually they're literally from East Pakistan, which is like Bangladesh. Their parents had probably moved post-partition. So there is a mixed culture of apparent knighthood and titles and stark reality that I never got to grow up in Calcutta. I grew up straight in the neighboring state of Bihar. So while all this literature and you know culture blah, blah, blah was being glorified, as by my mother while she was trying to raise me in Bihar, there were dead bodies falling outside. Bihar has been notorious for its crimes in a very, very nonchalant way. So, as a child, while you're trying to be a do-eyed in a missionary convent school there you're praying to Jesus on your feet be a doe-eyed in a missionary convent school where you're praying to Jesus on your feet, and while there's a proper division in the class, where you know the privileged look a certain way, the middle class has its own struggles and then you have the poorer people who, anyway, have given up on their status, and yet how you know the teacher is coming and how there is, how there is differentiation in behavior. You observe all these tiny, tiny details of contrast and social behavior. How there is people pleasing, how there are divides in the society, how people can kill each other pretty blatantly and be very non-apologetic about it can be compensated with money instantly. Human life is as good as the last kingdom that you have, probably. And in the middle of all this, your mom is trying to teach you literature. She's trying to tell you the world is this beautiful place, you should excel in exams, you should be a good, obedient girl, you should not question the system.
Speaker 2:While when you see her own interaction with my father or you know when, essentially as a child, when you can see your mother went and you see the topics that she picks up, and then you know the person that she is as time went, you realize that these battles are not their own battles. They're fighting concepts with each other. And then, from an atomic state, you see it multiplying as around. And I think when you see death at an early age, as a child, even pre-puberty, where before your hormones go awry and you have these really colorful notions about life. When you see things for as they are, before puberty hits you, you see life for what it is and you do see death as the only unalterable truth in a physical body. Everything else is fleeting.
Speaker 2:So while I was growing up in that space and I went through my first abuse and my mother asked me to keep my mouth shut and it was my neighbor whose wife she was friends with and when I went and told my mother, she told me that I should not be talking about it outside because the friend has asked for forgiveness. So you understand very early that you are born to a parent who was trying so hard to be a good parent as per the societal norms which would ensure A place to fit in, whichever strata it is, but there is an urge To fit in so that you can be called A respectable person in the society. Actually has no idea Of the pain that I am going through. She has no idea Of my perception of the world, how I am seeing the world, how, while she is so hell-bent on teaching me something, the fact that you have a child, you have a responsibility of molding the clay, which means you have to spend time with the clay, not just tell the clay to mold on its own like, hey, I'm giving you heat from here, why don't you make something out of it?
Speaker 2:So when you observe that, that your mother, your first primary womb connection, or your parents, are caught between a battle of of survival, societal acceptance, the denial of the fact that life need not be fatalistic, they are in complete ignorance of the fact that whatever drama is happening, it's directly being affected by the government which is in power Because there is a huge aspect of money in all of this. In any fight that happens because it gives you power, and the more power you have you're more insecure Because you don't know when you're going to lose it. Then you see that happening in households in fights, not just in governance, and you see this really elusive pull of power while you see the absolute, unignorable dead. So I stayed there in Bihar for about 13 years. I would not say that abuse did not happen any further. It did. So I guess I figured it out long enough that I have to fend for myself, like nobody's going to look out for me and I'm going to look out for myself. Yeah, that's how life happened, and I think then it's been puberty some phenomenal relationships from where I learned absolutely nothing apart from the fact that I was trying to run away from my mother, and finally, when life at 38, where I've, like, traveled and lived in so many cities all over the place doing multiple kinds of things and like which has ranged from filmmaking now designing homes, trying to set up a company. But, yeah, in all of that I think the only story that has kind of been constant is like what I told you in the belief system.
Speaker 2:I still believe that the things that I went through as a child, where I saw my parents fight, my mom hitting me practically with everything, having her own management issues while having her breakdown in her cells my dad was barely present. I had a younger brother later on my fights with my mother and the system. Essentially I realized I was not fighting my mother, I was fighting the system, I was fighting a school of thought that became so hard that I did contemplate taking my life, and the first two times it was it was pretty benign and by the third time, when I tried taking my life, it was so well planned that it could not have not gone wrong without a divine intervention. I have a brother and each time I wanted to take my life and not actually want to kill my mother, because probably you know it had gone. That mad I was like no know, somebody else cannot suffer because of what I feel for her. Like he has a right to live. I don't know what I was wrong with me and her. That doesn't mean it's going to be wrong with him and her. I can kill myself, I can remove myself from the equation.
Speaker 2:And the third time when I'm like properly planned it, I still remember I partied the fuck out the week before and then I went to this Chinese cafe, ordered some manchao soup. You know, figured how to, you know, get the signature of my doctor because you wouldn't get it without a prescription. So you did the whole forgery and you're looking like how full you're. You know, the assistant, that they don't even like cross-check. They saw it and they gave it, and I was even before I'm dying and I'm like, isn't the system I was trying to save? Like they're so daft.
Speaker 2:And then I go back. I have about 150 pills. I take two bottles of water. I was like, okay, this has been a great life, this's all gonna be over and it's gonna be chill and everybody can live in peace. And that is a day my brother walks in, who never, comes into my room and shows a fit at why I'm not waking up. Therefore, the next seven days I was sleeping because I was staying with the hospital and all of that. But when I came back, that's, I think that's when I realized that living might be really, really tough, but it'll be probably slightly more tougher than all of this effort that I went in just to die and then I was alive. They were like you know what, let's do life.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, that's how my childhood started. How old were you?
Speaker 2:at that point 17.
Speaker 1:Now, was this before or after the health struggles that we talked about?
Speaker 2:That is in between.
Speaker 1:Are you comfortable talking about the health struggles? Yeah, yeah, totally. So what came up there?
Speaker 2:When I was in my mom's womb I had convulsions. Then, when I popped out, I had an epileptic attack around, I think, first in 91. Something happened and then it kind of had a relapse in 94. And I was on epilepsy medication that went on for a really long time. Then, like I said, I chose to live, after trying to kill myself a couple of times, and when I chose to live I had also left my mom, literally physically. I was, she was in Calcutta and I was in Bombay. I'd moved to Bombay and I had started life knowing that, oh shit, I have to take independent decisions and you know I'm an adult and I've got to do this shit and I'm like what? 22 right three.
Speaker 2:So I joined a film post-production company I don't want to name it and it's hectic level of work. So it would be like I was working on bollard films in the day and at night. You are reporting to london vancouver and they had three different timings and three different set of egos. Like it's eventually an ego management job of others and yourself when you're young and you think, yes, I've left home and you know I'm going to be the next wolf of Wall Street and you know I'm going to kill it and it kills you. It just literally kills you and it kills you. It just literally kills you. So I was literally working 24 hours a day and surviving on tons of coffee. I was smoking endlessly. I had my own ego of perfection with the job. I had to throw so many goddamn fucking points to myself that others, like a tiger, is roaring down getting job done in. You know you're kicking it.
Speaker 2:I was watching a movie. After some seven days of constant pushing my buttons of performance and in between, like I think a few minutes before the interval, I started feeling so the left side of my body is completely wrong, my right side is completely normal. It's like there are two different entities. So you're trying to figure it out all on your own because there's been like hyper independence after any trauma. So you're like no, I'm not gonna tell anyone that something weird is happening and I think I need a help. I'm going on drinking water and my body is taking the water as it's like we're in sahara or, you know, in dubai. It's dry, your body is dry, it's just taking in water so gradually while I'm watching the movie and I've also finished the movie, so you also have a little bit of attention there, while your body is going numb. Gradually from the left side they've gone from temperature to pain to a certain numbness. My right side is completely fine.
Speaker 2:I have come out of the theater. I've told my colleague that, okay, we have to get back to work, but I just wanted to stop at a medical store on the way. So he's like you know, it's june, it's a hot month, so maybe you know it's the ac and coming out and stepping out and all of it, it's giving your body mixed signals. You're probably catching a viral. So I very bravely go and get myself a coffee and the moment I had first sip I realized what a big eater you are, because that's like the recipe for harakiri the first sip of coffee and I knew that something massive is happening. I remember I just poured the coffee.
Speaker 2:And now this point from where the theater is to where my office is it's you have to cross a jungle in between. So you have a toll point, then you have a jungle, you cross the jungle and then there is office. Meanwhile my friend's driving and as we had crossed the toll point and the jungle started, my nails have started going, going inside the car seats because you know something is happening, which you don't know what it is. Gradually it reaches a point where it feels like somebody's holding your heart, it's clenched into their fist and they're pulling it from your back. You're not even like pulling it, so you're like. So your breath, the pace at which you get your breath, is slowly lessening down. All the ideas, the expansion of thought and all of that that we believe in is diminishing, because you're struggling for just a breath. And this was the time you did not want to die. And here was dad staring at your fucking face.
Speaker 1:So just to spell it out for everyone right now, you were having a heart attack. Yes, and how old were you at the time?
Speaker 2:24.
Speaker 1:So you had a heart attack at 24? Yeah, Okay, so sorry. I just I wanted to to make that very clear for everyone. You weren't speaking in metaphors, you were having a heart attack at 24 years old.
Speaker 2:This is happening. Yeah, yeah, this is happening. This was literally what my body was going through. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then what happened?
Speaker 2:So till I think, uh, until the point it actually happened, I was trying to save it till the last breath. I uh exactly knew the people whom I did not love, or as people who did not love me, people whom I actually loved, and I've never really told all of it. Your truth is like, right in front of you, right, you can't seek it there. You just can't Like all of your inhibitions, concepts. Everything is gone. It comes to a breath. Your entire body is putting all it has out there to just get one fucking breath.
Speaker 2:So I remember coming out of the car and falling face flat on a dhani bag which has kind of saved my face till day, that dhani bag. And after I was in the hospital, I wake up next afternoon and apparently I was stating numbers which were of roto shots, like the certain shots that need to be worked on. So the cleanup jobs were left. So you remember shot numbers at the back of your head. So when you're coming back to this reality again, you've so you came back to post-production I came back to post-production so that happened.
Speaker 2:And that's when, uh, the doctor announced that it was not a panic attack and he's a doctor and I should take his analysis with much more serious faith and my boss said that you need a break. And I did not like that feeling. It kind of I think that's it it kind of dramatically did 50 percent of the job of understanding that the body doesn't give a fuck about what your mind is thinking. The day it decides to flip, it's gonna flip. So your time is really, really limited on this planet. So, yeah, that was my hashtag with my studying of it.
Speaker 1:That's what it taught me I remember when you told me that it took me a couple seconds, you kept going off the story. I was like, wait, wait, wait, hold on. A second Hold on. Did you just say you had a heart attack when you were 24? You said, yes, so cash. I was like, oh, okay, and this is after you told me about your upbringing and I'm just what, what?
Speaker 2:I guess you tend to be too blessed to be too fucked.
Speaker 1:Like what I can't even imagine what that must have been like, which you know leads me to my next question, which is what was the turning point for you? Like that point when you really decided to use, not only wanting to leave the earth, but then the subsequent heart attack and being caught in this perpetual cycle of go go, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. Got to live for nothing, go, go, go, go, go, go, go. How did you find purpose in all of that?
Speaker 2:That's a great question Because I've not told about I've not ever talked about it to anyone how it has actually occurred. So I've gone through a couple of relationships in my life and these have been long relationships. These have been sweeting relationships. I like to see the good in people and, uh, which is also a personal belief system which can fuck you up and be as so fucking ramy because you don't want to accept the duality and the fact that there is dark matter. You know, know there is shit that exists and you know you can't. It's not an acrylic pour on a black canvas that you're going to like put white and it's all going to be like really bright and this man or this mother whom you can't change will not change because they're square. So when I went through all these relationships, I think I learned nothing about love. I knew it was easy to love animals, it was easy to love strangers, but to love your own while having your boundaries, while letting them grow or the fact that they won't even be your own, like you won't get to own them.
Speaker 2:And I truly learned about love when I was not in a relationship where I put myself into this process. It started with isolation in this celibacy and all the textbook penances and you realize that, uh, why are you trying to do all of it? And you know you try to be that great student of spirituality and celibacy and isms and all of it. Your gut is constantly telling you that the person that you're doing it for is an asshole and you're like, no, you know there is power in the deluge and you're going for it. And each time my gut was right and you hear that I told you so information about this particular situation, I would be put right in the center of it.
Speaker 2:Time and again, time and again, like there was a proper pattern recognition that one could do about the fact that when you pedestalize somebody, you don't love them. You cannot. Then you're separate from them and the fact whatever you're liking in somebody else is an aspect of you which is resonating and it's right in front of you. So do you love them or do you love yourselves loving them? So if you can spend that much time on somebody else and that level of dedication and discipline and commitment, then all you're getting is walls all over.
Speaker 2:Then it's not the problem with the person, then there is something you are pouring in the wrong container. So let's start by you, you know, just like cutting all ties, whether it's a relationship format or whether it's just esoteric format, and let you start spending time with yourselves, with your fallacies, with your flaws, with yourcomings, because you realize, no matter what you do for people, the humans are such a funny race. With our current mental health graph, whether it's now we have names, we have ADHD, we have narcissism, we have BPDs, all you just know you were fucked.
Speaker 1:I put that on bumper sticker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but people will still go on with life, right. There is like as much, we're saying we're evolved and we're futuristic. As many problems as I have with the kind of environment I got as a child, I would still go back and, you know, totally treasure those old school moments, because there were also good moments in there. There were moments of pause. You would wait for the telephone to ring, you would write letters, your food was, there was. It was not a life of instant gratification. You had time to spend in the nature. There was nature always available to you, just to be.
Speaker 2:So when you realize that you're actually very blessed with the kind of transitory times that you've been in, and if you don't get webbed in, you can actually utilize a lot of your mental bandwidth to do things that you love doing and that pays you as well. And when you're happy you can make. And when you're, when you're happy, when you're holistically happy and I mean at all levels you know you have a financial discipline to maintain, you have a physical discipline to maintain, you have a mental discipline to maintain. You just have to do that. That, if you it right, will practically take up all your day, and I think that's what has been one of the biggest turning points in the last couple of years. I learned love without being in a relationship, and it taught me how to do life, and it taught me how to do life Well.
Speaker 1:I mean one. I think that you're serving I'm sorry to take the pedestal now and put myself on it. No, You're serving as a perfect mirror for me in seeing how I'm learning about my communication style through you. Right now, I think really, what you're saying is the turning point for you, and where you found purpose is when you started to live for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like it's, it's. It's that simple. Like when you're, when you anyway go through a geographical glitch, then there is a mental glitch in the parental upbringing, then there is a glitch in the system in terms of gender dynamics, then there is a glitch in your concept of love and society. So, just to figure out the glitches, you've already been depleted of so much energy all your life, and then, whatever remaining it is, you want to put somebody else on a pedestal, whether it's a god, whether it's a human, whether it's your dog, whether it's a thought, which obviously means you want to overcompensate for something which you think you don, to overcompensate for something which you think you don't have any other ways and it would only come from that specific source, while when you're just still in doing your thing, you're not trying hard, you're not, like you know, achieving something better. Things happen to you, things which are more vibrationally a match for you, and then, oh shit, this is what the universe is trying to protect me from. Okay, I like this shit.
Speaker 1:Do you have any final messages for everyone? Anything that's coming through right now that you feel that you'd like to share?
Speaker 2:You know, no matter whatever I share, I mean it's always going to be a personal perception. So, no matter whatever I share, I mean it's always got to be a personal perception. So, no matter what anyone says, always question it. Know that everybody's window of life is very, very different. But, having said that, there are 27 emotions, as per Wikipedia, in the human body and I think the most primal of them we all feel or we all know it's. We should not have imaginary barriers in our head of not deciding to reach out, thinking that somebody else will not get you. They might not get you. They might not get you in your physical specifics of you know what the color of your wall was, but they will know how much your heart ached when you went through something like that, because you can only feel that much. So, yeah, connect to people. When you feel shit, it's good to ask for help and don't drive yourselves crazy, because then you'll be driving others crazy, which is not a cool thing to do either. Yeah, that's about it.
Speaker 1:And where can everyone reach you?
Speaker 2:Oh, they can reach me on Instagram. They can reach me on Instagram. You can reach me on Instagram. They can reach me at my email and yeah, and if you don't find me, ask Daniel, he'll guide you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'll go ahead and include those in the show notes and I mean, I would just like to thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story so much fun.
Speaker 1:Absolutely fascinating. You know, just talking to you it gives me a different prism to view the world through and to learn more about my experience. I'm so glad I mean I say this with all seriousness right now, like this is not a joke If you ever find yourself putting on a retreat, like in a desert or something like that, I'll be there, because I could just imagine what it would be like to see you pick up a handful of sand and then start talking about that sand. You know the philosophy of all of it. It's just, you know, it's fascinating listening to you talk.
Speaker 1:And I'm just, I get so excited listening to your stories. I mean not that I take joy, you know what I mean. That's like you know foot in mouth right now, but like this is someone who could pick up a handful of sand and find the meaning of life. Life is funny.
Speaker 2:I think everything is talking to you if you're listening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would just again really like to thank you for coming on and sharing your story, and thank you, dad. Thank you'll leave me. Yeah, I would just again really like to thank you for coming on and sharing your story, and thank you, dad, thank you for having me. It's always been very, very honest and funny well, it's my pleasure and I can't wait to see where the rest of your journey takes you, and, uh, I'm glad you're still here thank you, thank you so I always finish these by saying yay yay.