December 23, 2024 • 19 mins
This special "Best Of Episode" features some of our favorite moments from 2024! If you missed these highlighted episodes and want to dive deeper, listen to the full episodes here from The Deeply Well Podcast:
Clip 1: Adapt and Adjust with Lalah Delia
Clip 2: Balancing The Masculine and Feminine with Dené Logan
Clip 3: Choosing Wisdom Over Influence with Manoj Dias
Clip 4: Examining Friendships with Devi Brown
Connect: @DeviBrown
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Peace of the plan is Charlamagne to God here and
as we come closer to closing out this year, I
just want to say thank you for tuning it into
the Black Effect podcast Network. There have been so many
great moments over the past year. Take a listen to
some of those captivating moments in this special best of
episode episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am deeply Wow. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well Podcast. I have an incredible, incredible guest
joining us today, Leyla Delia. You know, there's a lot
(00:38):
of phrases that are getting thrown around a lot right now.
A lot of a lot of people are like, I'm
an impath, I'm highly sensitive. A lot are. But it's
also there are terms that I think are not always
fully translated. Yeah, and I would love to talk about
that with you for a minute, because you and I
(00:58):
are both empathic, and we are both like very highly sensitive,
like very high. Like we can't be in toxic rooms
because we'll absorb the energy that's present. So you know,
one thing about you and I will pop up and
we'll be in the mix and then you won't hear
from us for months. Yes, yes, but you know that
(01:23):
piece that's something. When I first learned of that phrase
early in my journey, I really rejected that label highly
sensitive because I didn't fully understand what it meant, and
as someone that had lived a life that I felt like,
I don't look like the things that I've been through,
So sometimes people assume things are easier than they've actually been.
(01:44):
I really rejected that because I would say, I'm not sensitive.
You don't know my life. Do you know what I've
walked through? I'm not sensitive, And I didn't really understand
that it meant like deep sensitivity of your physical body,
like on a cellular level, the way that your body
responds to stress, way that your body responds to toxicity.
But that alone is such a profound healing journey. When
(02:06):
you can understand that you know some things that may
be happening to you physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, there's a
whole other category of experience you're having that could be
massively different from other people. Yes, can we speak to that.
(02:26):
Can you speak on what that journey is for you?
Kind of being someone that's highly sensitive, someone that is
incredibly intuitive, and how you adapt your needs around that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Oh? Absolutely, it was. It was helpful for me as well,
because I had language for what I was experiencing, and
like the adage goes, name it to tame it, and
so it helps to know, Okay, well, I have a
sensitivity to stimuli, into energy, into people's fields, and even
to people's thoughts.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, like I can.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I can literally in a room and feel someone's thoughts.
But when I was younger, I didn't know what to
do with that, Like what are you growing up in
the eighties and in night, Like yeah, there was just
no context, language, no language, no community, no support for
any of this. So it kind of swept that swept
under the rug. So we're our generation is the ones
(03:20):
who were awakening to it in a way of like,
oh we're we're We brought the support online. So now
this next generation and the generations to come, we'll have
language forward and community and support and a path already
paved to say it's okay to land here and to
be like this. But I, for the life of me,
(03:42):
I felt so awkward for a huge majority of my life.
It was a lot of masking. It was a lot
of fitting in because oh, no one else is feeling this,
all right, you know, I'm just keeping it to myself.
But at the same time, I'm reading the room. I
know we shouldn't be here. I know I shouldn't be
here for sure, but going along with it. So there's
(04:04):
a lot of killing I had to do through even
that type of thing of not being true to who
I was because no one else could understand it. So
I just kind of just buried it, right and so
now but living in that authenticity, authenticity and in my
power with it changed the game. Like, I'm so happy
(04:25):
that I claimed who I am and I'm proud of it.
I'm happy, you know, I'm I'm full of gratitude for
being able to name like what I'm going through, and
you know, even even on a deeper level of like
recently finding out other things about myself of like, okay,
you're on the spectrum and it's okay, it's okay to
(04:46):
be you know, high functioning and on the spectrum. And
I never understood that before.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I love you. Yeah, And so for me understanding, well,
this is why you had that gift, this is why
you had these feelings, this is why you could perceive things,
this is why people didn't always understand you, and this
is why you were misled or mislabeled, and you know,
thinking back far as like kindergarten, you know, being put
(05:14):
back in kindergarten because I didn't know what was wrong
with me. But now that I understand that it wasn't
anything wrong, it was just different, right, and it was
just something different.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
We are joined by DANAE. Logan.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I believe there's so much about our society as it
has been that's been like a really wounded masculine paradigm.
And so that's like really like competitive productivity at all costs,
you know, just sort of like pull yourself up by
your bootstraps and like really like disengaged from our inner
world in so many ways. Like that's like the societal
(05:48):
paradigm that's been normalized. And a lot of times, like
the things that we revere, like especially in Western culture,
like we really sort of like you know, this thing
of like working ourselves until we're sick, not having any
like vacation days. That's really like those are like the
things that we value societally.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
When it comes to feminine energy, we really think of
feminine energy with a lot of contempt and a lot
of what we believe is feminine energy is really a
distortion of feminine energy. So that's sort of like the insecure, clingy,
you know, codependent like anxious like need someone else to
complete me energy. We think of that as feminine energy.
(06:28):
And you know, as we were saying before, that's in
all of us, Like we will all sort of do
this dance between our wounded masculine and feminine energetics. But
what I started to understand is like we're a society
that doesn't really have any sort of like conceptualization of
what these dynamics are and look like from a healthy perspective.
And you know, certainly with masculine energy, we don't even
(06:50):
know or have models of what healthy masculinity looks like really,
And so when we think about, like what is healthy masculinity,
that is a sense of self, that is confidence, that
is a mission that is like I am rooted in
what I know, I'm here to do, and I got
me no matter what, right, And that's in all of us.
That's the like moving forward from the space of inspired
(07:13):
action versus how it looks from the outside, right, like
from a space rooted from within. But then this beautiful, healthy,
feminine energetic is the energetic within all of us that like,
if I think of feminine energy, the first word that
comes to mind is always trust, because the feminine energy
is like the source energy within all of us. It
(07:34):
is the aspect of us that is like connected to
the divine, and so that is like the receptive energy,
that is the part of us that believes that we
can trust our intuition, trust our internal guidance system, and
know that we will be held. It's the part of
us that trust in life allows ourselves to play and
be free and embodied all of these beautiful aspects of
(07:55):
our feminine But all of us need to like really
have both of those energetics alive and dancing and integrated
within us. But we can't really have that until we
not only have an understanding of what those energetics are
and how they show up, but what it looks like
tangibly to take responsibility for our own energy. And that's
really what I try to walk people through in the book,
(08:18):
like that we are actually able not only to take
responsibility for our own energy in any given moment. But
what's amazing about Couple's work is when we take responsibility
for our own energy. And this isn't just in romantic relationships,
it's in relationships in general, inevitably we will create polarity.
We'll create healthy polarity. So just like a quick example
(08:40):
of what that can look like. So let's say that
I'm like you're like in a we're going to pretend
like we're like battling in wounded polarity for a moment, right, So,
if you were like in wounded feminine energetic, and you're
just like constantly like wanting more from me, telling me that,
like you know, you just like want to hang out more,
and I'm just like not eating your needs, and like
(09:01):
there's all of these ways that you're feeling like you
want more from me, but I'm not giving it to you,
and it's making you feel insecure and unhappy in this relationship.
And so I'm in wounded masculine energy and I'm just
like really irritated and like, oh, you're always pulling on
me and you're so needy and I'm like really trying
to build something at work and why don't you understand?
And I'm just like really in this like guarded wounded
masculine paradigm with you. My work is to shift into
(09:25):
my healthy feminine So if I'm in wounded masculine. I
go into my healthy feminine and that's me in the
space of vulnerability. So I get still and I like
really say, okay, like, what is it that Debbie's doing that?
Like I'm telling myself a story about I take up
space the feminine is like the spaciousness. So I take
up space with the truth of how this feels for me.
I say, the vulnerable thing I say, you know, the
(09:46):
story I'm telling myself is that like, no matter what
I do, it's never enough for you. And that reminds
me maybe of the way that like my mom always
criticized me. Like we get into like the vulnerable conversation
and I take up space with that. And what will
inevitably happen is as I take up space in my
healthy feminine, you will start to create healthy masculine containment
(10:07):
for me. And so you will see me in this
vulnerable space and you'll be like, oh, tonay, I wasn't
trying to make you feel that way. All of a sudden,
you got me. You're containing me. You're like, I see you,
I see how I'm making you feel. That was not
my intention. And we start to be in that dance.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Today's guest Minaj.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I had a career in marketing and advertising and I
got really sick, like physically, very very sick, and I
couldn't work because I had a really big panic attack
one day at work. And there was about two years
that I didn't work. My mother was looking after me,
and it was in that period that I found my
teacher and I started practicing with him every day and
(10:45):
I was getting better. I was getting healed, and my
mental health was coming back. My physical health has come back.
I was pretty much like an eating disorder and I
had really bad panic attacks and things like that. Anyway,
after the two years, I got a job. I was
back at you know, working in this fancy financial institution
(11:06):
in marketing and advertising. And then he asked me to
teach a class and he did it in a way
that was not like expected. I rocked up to take
his class and he said, I don't feel well today,
can you teach it? And I'm like, oh, oh okay,
like I'd never taught before, and so I went there
and I just you know, took in all of what
he said and I started teaching. And then he came
(11:28):
and sat in the class and he wasn't sick, right,
and I was like, strange, like my teacher's coming and
doing this. Anyway, I went back to work and then
every now and again I'd teach this one class, you know,
whenever he was sick. And then he said to me,
one day, eventually life film, you'll teach. And this was
seventeen years ago where I was like and I was like,
(11:49):
I don't want to be a meditation teacher, like you
don't make money. And it was like frowned upon, right,
And I was in a circle of very cool people
going to parties or that anyway, but there was this
little flicker within me that's like I feel really happy
every time I'm teaching, Like I just feel like I'm
in alignment to what you said. I feel like like
(12:11):
I don't have to struggle when I'm doing this one thing,
which is teaching. And so there was a moment where
I was like, fuck it, I'm going to go all in.
I'm just going to teach and mind you, I'm taking
you back like sixteen fifteen years now, and I had
a daughter. I have a daughter, sell but at the
point at that time she was very young. I had
(12:34):
a six figure salary, was making one hundred and fifty K.
I was in my late twenties, and I'm like, oh,
I just feel like this is it. It just feels
so true. So I quit my job and I started
teaching at any studio that would take me. And for
the first year, I made thirty five thousand dollars, Like
you couldn't even barely exist on that, and I kept
on borrowing money from my mom and dad obviously, but
(12:55):
not much because I didn't have much either, But every
time I did it, I was just so happy. And
since that year, I've never like, I've never felt like
I could live off you know, nothing again, but like
I never wanted anything. I never wanted fancy clothes and
dinners or anything. I was so happy. The second year,
(13:17):
this the biggest studio in Australia, is like, we want
you to teach for us, and we're going to give
you a full time job, and we're going to make
you this fancy title of performance coach. And from that
moment on, every decision I made which was in alignment
with what I was feeling at the time and my
intuition took me down the path that I'm on now.
The money came to your point, like the money came,
(13:39):
like the job came, the courier came. But I was
just in alignment. I was doing what I knew to
be true, what I knew to be of benefit to
the world, and I wasn't thinking about how much money
I was going to make. I was like, this just
feels good, Like this just feels right. And I think
to your point, if you put the money thing out
of which is really paradle because we need money. And
(14:01):
I'm not saying just forget money and do it, but
if you genuinely approach your life through the perspective of
I am going to be of benefit to others, there
is something and you might have better language for it.
There is something that conspires to make sure that you
are taken care of. And it might not look the
way that it looks now. And I went through fifteen
(14:24):
years of not making any money to eventually feeling like, oh,
I've got something. And it's a long road, but like
I promise you, if you follow your heart and you
be of benefit to the world, and something happens happen.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So in that year time span, I investigated that with
a lot of different kinds of people. I had eight
lot of conversations. I said a lot, I heard a lot,
had a lot of prayer for just the cleanliness of
the breaks. You know that any break that happened with
anyone in my life, that it could be done with dignity,
(14:59):
with respect, with honor, with grace, with an appreciation for
whatever time we spent together, whatever we learned from each other.
And that felt good. That really settled my heart and
spirit and kind of a lot of space of like
I can, I can really see you from afar and smile,
you know, and feel happy for you and feel you know,
(15:21):
grateful for you. But also know that we don't have
to be an active friendship or partnership anymore. You know
that that's not what our path is at this time.
But if I run into you, can we can I
give you a big hug? Can I? You know? So
in that year that I did that, I shed a
lot a lot of connections, and I created a lot
(15:45):
of space for God to walk into my life, the
connections that really are aligned with who I am in
this moment. And again, in most cases, it's not good
or bad. It's not like new friends were better than
the old, but it's just that we change so much,
and it is so important to be in alignment with
(16:06):
who we are, with the calling on our lives, with
the time, you know. So in that space I met
some new friends that have become some of the closest
people in my life. I had space to just try
new things, to have more time for myself to try
on some new hobbies. And also in the midst of
(16:26):
doing all of that, I did a massive social media purge.
So this is probably three years ago now, but I
always take big breaks from social media, typically in the winter,
and so in December, I think I was following like
a couple thousand people. I don't know how many. I
unfollowed everyone, and then I kept it like that for
(16:47):
a couple months, and then when I was ready to
see social media again. I have since and I'm still
doing it. Been slowly easing myself back into following people,
and so I would just kind of add a couple
people here and there when they popped into my mind.
I would, you know, whenever they came into my awareness
or my consciousness, then I'd be like, oh, yeah, I
want to follow that person back. But that was one
(17:08):
of the greatest kind of unfoldings of this process. Too,
was clearing house on social media. I've shared this process
with a lot of my girlfriends who have since done
it as well. But it was so powerful because something
I realized was I don't have the time, the space,
or the capacity to know the nuance of everyone's life
that I've ever known. Right like on social media. When
(17:31):
I first signed up, which was over a decade ago,
you just followed everybody you ever saw, and you're interacting
with each other, and it felt cool because you were
kind of getting more connected with people you didn't know
well and you know, just able to share different sides
of yourself. And then moving to a few different states,
I was, you know, you kind of get this big
(17:51):
group of people all at the same time. And so
I was just following people that I just hadn't seen,
I hadn't talked to, I hadn't thought of on my
own naturally in ten years. You know, it's not there's
not enough space in my brain to know what everyone
is doing and what everyone who I've known or met
(18:13):
decades ago, what they're reading, what they're eating, who their
kids are, what they like. You know, it's fun when
you can pop in and get that organically. You know,
like you just happen to run into someone on the
street and that's where you do the big ketchup. I
haven't seen you in twenty years? What are you doing?
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I wanted more space for that in my life, like
authenticity of surprise, the authenticity of connection. So I think
I'm somewhere around like four hundred people that I'm following back.
Now there's still people I haven't followed back. I've definitely
got some stuff for that. That's fine, And it made
space to see, like, what do I actually want to
fill my psyche with with all of the ways that
social media floods you're subconscious, you know, I want to
(18:55):
be a little bit more diligent and discerning with that too.
So that was my social media process, That was my
friend purge process. All of that got me up to
this last year and it felt amazing like the last
couple of years having done that have been so rich,
so fun, so expansive in so many different ways, and
(19:18):
it just I felt like it really proved my intuition right,
and I felt so grateful that I took the time
to do that, because it wasn't comfortable, you know, it
is an uncomfortable thing to have all those conversations, to
even check the charge in your body when you do
a massive follow and how people will feel, and you know,
but just being with whatever feeling is present and noticing it.
(19:40):
It's part of the power of the process.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Podcast Network.
Seeing you in twenty twenty five from more great moments
from your favorite podcast
Peace of the plan is Charlamagne to God here and
as we come closer to closing out this year, I
just want to say thank you for tuning it into
the Black Effect podcast Network. There have been so many
great moments over the past year. Take a listen to
some of those captivating moments in this special best of
episode episodes.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
I am deeply Wow. I'm Debbie Brown and this is
the Deeply Well Podcast. I have an incredible, incredible guest
joining us today, Leyla Delia. You know, there's a lot
(00:38):
of phrases that are getting thrown around a lot right now.
A lot of a lot of people are like, I'm
an impath, I'm highly sensitive. A lot are. But it's
also there are terms that I think are not always
fully translated. Yeah, and I would love to talk about
that with you for a minute, because you and I
(00:58):
are both empathic, and we are both like very highly sensitive,
like very high. Like we can't be in toxic rooms
because we'll absorb the energy that's present. So you know,
one thing about you and I will pop up and
we'll be in the mix and then you won't hear
from us for months. Yes, yes, but you know that
(01:23):
piece that's something. When I first learned of that phrase
early in my journey, I really rejected that label highly
sensitive because I didn't fully understand what it meant, and
as someone that had lived a life that I felt like,
I don't look like the things that I've been through,
So sometimes people assume things are easier than they've actually been.
(01:44):
I really rejected that because I would say, I'm not sensitive.
You don't know my life. Do you know what I've
walked through? I'm not sensitive, And I didn't really understand
that it meant like deep sensitivity of your physical body,
like on a cellular level, the way that your body
responds to stress, way that your body responds to toxicity.
But that alone is such a profound healing journey. When
(02:06):
you can understand that you know some things that may
be happening to you physically, spiritually, mentally, emotionally, there's a
whole other category of experience you're having that could be
massively different from other people. Yes, can we speak to that.
(02:26):
Can you speak on what that journey is for you?
Kind of being someone that's highly sensitive, someone that is
incredibly intuitive, and how you adapt your needs around that.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Oh? Absolutely, it was. It was helpful for me as well,
because I had language for what I was experiencing, and
like the adage goes, name it to tame it, and
so it helps to know, Okay, well, I have a
sensitivity to stimuli, into energy, into people's fields, and even
to people's thoughts.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, like I can.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I can literally in a room and feel someone's thoughts.
But when I was younger, I didn't know what to
do with that, Like what are you growing up in
the eighties and in night, Like yeah, there was just
no context, language, no language, no community, no support for
any of this. So it kind of swept that swept
under the rug. So we're our generation is the ones
(03:20):
who were awakening to it in a way of like,
oh we're we're We brought the support online. So now
this next generation and the generations to come, we'll have
language forward and community and support and a path already
paved to say it's okay to land here and to
be like this. But I, for the life of me,
(03:42):
I felt so awkward for a huge majority of my life.
It was a lot of masking. It was a lot
of fitting in because oh, no one else is feeling this,
all right, you know, I'm just keeping it to myself.
But at the same time, I'm reading the room. I
know we shouldn't be here. I know I shouldn't be
here for sure, but going along with it. So there's
(04:04):
a lot of killing I had to do through even
that type of thing of not being true to who
I was because no one else could understand it. So
I just kind of just buried it, right and so
now but living in that authenticity, authenticity and in my
power with it changed the game. Like, I'm so happy
(04:25):
that I claimed who I am and I'm proud of it.
I'm happy, you know, I'm I'm full of gratitude for
being able to name like what I'm going through, and
you know, even even on a deeper level of like
recently finding out other things about myself of like, okay,
you're on the spectrum and it's okay, it's okay to
(04:46):
be you know, high functioning and on the spectrum. And
I never understood that before.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
I love you.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
I love you. Yeah, And so for me understanding, well,
this is why you had that gift, this is why
you had these feelings, this is why you could perceive things,
this is why people didn't always understand you, and this
is why you were misled or mislabeled, and you know,
thinking back far as like kindergarten, you know, being put
(05:14):
back in kindergarten because I didn't know what was wrong
with me. But now that I understand that it wasn't
anything wrong, it was just different, right, and it was
just something different.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
We are joined by DANAE. Logan.
Speaker 4 (05:27):
I believe there's so much about our society as it
has been that's been like a really wounded masculine paradigm.
And so that's like really like competitive productivity at all costs,
you know, just sort of like pull yourself up by
your bootstraps and like really like disengaged from our inner
world in so many ways. Like that's like the societal
(05:48):
paradigm that's been normalized. And a lot of times, like
the things that we revere, like especially in Western culture,
like we really sort of like you know, this thing
of like working ourselves until we're sick, not having any
like vacation days. That's really like those are like the
things that we value societally.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
Now.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
When it comes to feminine energy, we really think of
feminine energy with a lot of contempt and a lot
of what we believe is feminine energy is really a
distortion of feminine energy. So that's sort of like the insecure, clingy,
you know, codependent like anxious like need someone else to
complete me energy. We think of that as feminine energy.
(06:28):
And you know, as we were saying before, that's in
all of us, Like we will all sort of do
this dance between our wounded masculine and feminine energetics. But
what I started to understand is like we're a society
that doesn't really have any sort of like conceptualization of
what these dynamics are and look like from a healthy perspective.
And you know, certainly with masculine energy, we don't even
(06:50):
know or have models of what healthy masculinity looks like really,
And so when we think about, like what is healthy masculinity,
that is a sense of self, that is confidence, that
is a mission that is like I am rooted in
what I know, I'm here to do, and I got
me no matter what, right, And that's in all of us.
That's the like moving forward from the space of inspired
(07:13):
action versus how it looks from the outside, right, like
from a space rooted from within. But then this beautiful, healthy,
feminine energetic is the energetic within all of us that like,
if I think of feminine energy, the first word that
comes to mind is always trust, because the feminine energy
is like the source energy within all of us. It
(07:34):
is the aspect of us that is like connected to
the divine, and so that is like the receptive energy,
that is the part of us that believes that we
can trust our intuition, trust our internal guidance system, and
know that we will be held. It's the part of
us that trust in life allows ourselves to play and
be free and embodied all of these beautiful aspects of
(07:55):
our feminine But all of us need to like really
have both of those energetics alive and dancing and integrated
within us. But we can't really have that until we
not only have an understanding of what those energetics are
and how they show up, but what it looks like
tangibly to take responsibility for our own energy. And that's
really what I try to walk people through in the book,
(08:18):
like that we are actually able not only to take
responsibility for our own energy in any given moment. But
what's amazing about Couple's work is when we take responsibility
for our own energy. And this isn't just in romantic relationships,
it's in relationships in general, inevitably we will create polarity.
We'll create healthy polarity. So just like a quick example
(08:40):
of what that can look like. So let's say that
I'm like you're like in a we're going to pretend
like we're like battling in wounded polarity for a moment, right, So,
if you were like in wounded feminine energetic, and you're
just like constantly like wanting more from me, telling me that,
like you know, you just like want to hang out more,
and I'm just like not eating your needs, and like
(09:01):
there's all of these ways that you're feeling like you
want more from me, but I'm not giving it to you,
and it's making you feel insecure and unhappy in this relationship.
And so I'm in wounded masculine energy and I'm just
like really irritated and like, oh, you're always pulling on
me and you're so needy and I'm like really trying
to build something at work and why don't you understand?
And I'm just like really in this like guarded wounded
masculine paradigm with you. My work is to shift into
(09:25):
my healthy feminine So if I'm in wounded masculine. I
go into my healthy feminine and that's me in the
space of vulnerability. So I get still and I like
really say, okay, like, what is it that Debbie's doing that?
Like I'm telling myself a story about I take up
space the feminine is like the spaciousness. So I take
up space with the truth of how this feels for me.
I say, the vulnerable thing I say, you know, the
(09:46):
story I'm telling myself is that like, no matter what
I do, it's never enough for you. And that reminds
me maybe of the way that like my mom always
criticized me. Like we get into like the vulnerable conversation
and I take up space with that. And what will
inevitably happen is as I take up space in my
healthy feminine, you will start to create healthy masculine containment
(10:07):
for me. And so you will see me in this
vulnerable space and you'll be like, oh, tonay, I wasn't
trying to make you feel that way. All of a sudden,
you got me. You're containing me. You're like, I see you,
I see how I'm making you feel. That was not
my intention. And we start to be in that dance.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Today's guest Minaj.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I had a career in marketing and advertising and I
got really sick, like physically, very very sick, and I
couldn't work because I had a really big panic attack
one day at work. And there was about two years
that I didn't work. My mother was looking after me,
and it was in that period that I found my
teacher and I started practicing with him every day and
(10:45):
I was getting better. I was getting healed, and my
mental health was coming back. My physical health has come back.
I was pretty much like an eating disorder and I
had really bad panic attacks and things like that. Anyway,
after the two years, I got a job. I was
back at you know, working in this fancy financial institution
(11:06):
in marketing and advertising. And then he asked me to
teach a class and he did it in a way
that was not like expected. I rocked up to take
his class and he said, I don't feel well today,
can you teach it? And I'm like, oh, oh okay,
like I'd never taught before, and so I went there
and I just you know, took in all of what
he said and I started teaching. And then he came
(11:28):
and sat in the class and he wasn't sick, right,
and I was like, strange, like my teacher's coming and
doing this. Anyway, I went back to work and then
every now and again I'd teach this one class, you know,
whenever he was sick. And then he said to me,
one day, eventually life film, you'll teach. And this was
seventeen years ago where I was like and I was like,
(11:49):
I don't want to be a meditation teacher, like you
don't make money. And it was like frowned upon, right,
And I was in a circle of very cool people
going to parties or that anyway, but there was this
little flicker within me that's like I feel really happy
every time I'm teaching, Like I just feel like I'm
in alignment to what you said. I feel like like
(12:11):
I don't have to struggle when I'm doing this one thing,
which is teaching. And so there was a moment where
I was like, fuck it, I'm going to go all in.
I'm just going to teach and mind you, I'm taking
you back like sixteen fifteen years now, and I had
a daughter. I have a daughter, sell but at the
point at that time she was very young. I had
(12:34):
a six figure salary, was making one hundred and fifty K.
I was in my late twenties, and I'm like, oh,
I just feel like this is it. It just feels
so true. So I quit my job and I started
teaching at any studio that would take me. And for
the first year, I made thirty five thousand dollars, Like
you couldn't even barely exist on that, and I kept
on borrowing money from my mom and dad obviously, but
(12:55):
not much because I didn't have much either, But every
time I did it, I was just so happy. And
since that year, I've never like, I've never felt like
I could live off you know, nothing again, but like
I never wanted anything. I never wanted fancy clothes and
dinners or anything. I was so happy. The second year,
(13:17):
this the biggest studio in Australia, is like, we want
you to teach for us, and we're going to give
you a full time job, and we're going to make
you this fancy title of performance coach. And from that
moment on, every decision I made which was in alignment
with what I was feeling at the time and my
intuition took me down the path that I'm on now.
The money came to your point, like the money came,
(13:39):
like the job came, the courier came. But I was
just in alignment. I was doing what I knew to
be true, what I knew to be of benefit to
the world, and I wasn't thinking about how much money
I was going to make. I was like, this just
feels good, Like this just feels right. And I think
to your point, if you put the money thing out
of which is really paradle because we need money. And
(14:01):
I'm not saying just forget money and do it, but
if you genuinely approach your life through the perspective of
I am going to be of benefit to others, there
is something and you might have better language for it.
There is something that conspires to make sure that you
are taken care of. And it might not look the
way that it looks now. And I went through fifteen
(14:24):
years of not making any money to eventually feeling like, oh,
I've got something. And it's a long road, but like
I promise you, if you follow your heart and you
be of benefit to the world, and something happens happen.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So in that year time span, I investigated that with
a lot of different kinds of people. I had eight
lot of conversations. I said a lot, I heard a lot,
had a lot of prayer for just the cleanliness of
the breaks. You know that any break that happened with
anyone in my life, that it could be done with dignity,
(14:59):
with respect, with honor, with grace, with an appreciation for
whatever time we spent together, whatever we learned from each other.
And that felt good. That really settled my heart and
spirit and kind of a lot of space of like
I can, I can really see you from afar and smile,
you know, and feel happy for you and feel you know,
(15:21):
grateful for you. But also know that we don't have
to be an active friendship or partnership anymore. You know
that that's not what our path is at this time.
But if I run into you, can we can I
give you a big hug? Can I? You know? So
in that year that I did that, I shed a
lot a lot of connections, and I created a lot
(15:45):
of space for God to walk into my life, the
connections that really are aligned with who I am in
this moment. And again, in most cases, it's not good
or bad. It's not like new friends were better than
the old, but it's just that we change so much,
and it is so important to be in alignment with
(16:06):
who we are, with the calling on our lives, with
the time, you know. So in that space I met
some new friends that have become some of the closest
people in my life. I had space to just try
new things, to have more time for myself to try
on some new hobbies. And also in the midst of
(16:26):
doing all of that, I did a massive social media purge.
So this is probably three years ago now, but I
always take big breaks from social media, typically in the winter,
and so in December, I think I was following like
a couple thousand people. I don't know how many. I
unfollowed everyone, and then I kept it like that for
(16:47):
a couple months, and then when I was ready to
see social media again. I have since and I'm still
doing it. Been slowly easing myself back into following people,
and so I would just kind of add a couple
people here and there when they popped into my mind.
I would, you know, whenever they came into my awareness
or my consciousness, then I'd be like, oh, yeah, I
want to follow that person back. But that was one
(17:08):
of the greatest kind of unfoldings of this process. Too,
was clearing house on social media. I've shared this process
with a lot of my girlfriends who have since done
it as well. But it was so powerful because something
I realized was I don't have the time, the space,
or the capacity to know the nuance of everyone's life
that I've ever known. Right like on social media. When
(17:31):
I first signed up, which was over a decade ago,
you just followed everybody you ever saw, and you're interacting
with each other, and it felt cool because you were
kind of getting more connected with people you didn't know
well and you know, just able to share different sides
of yourself. And then moving to a few different states,
I was, you know, you kind of get this big
(17:51):
group of people all at the same time. And so
I was just following people that I just hadn't seen,
I hadn't talked to, I hadn't thought of on my
own naturally in ten years. You know, it's not there's
not enough space in my brain to know what everyone
is doing and what everyone who I've known or met
(18:13):
decades ago, what they're reading, what they're eating, who their
kids are, what they like. You know, it's fun when
you can pop in and get that organically. You know,
like you just happen to run into someone on the
street and that's where you do the big ketchup. I
haven't seen you in twenty years? What are you doing?
Speaker 5 (18:31):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I wanted more space for that in my life, like
authenticity of surprise, the authenticity of connection. So I think
I'm somewhere around like four hundred people that I'm following back.
Now there's still people I haven't followed back. I've definitely
got some stuff for that. That's fine, And it made
space to see, like, what do I actually want to
fill my psyche with with all of the ways that
social media floods you're subconscious, you know, I want to
(18:55):
be a little bit more diligent and discerning with that too.
So that was my social media process, That was my
friend purge process. All of that got me up to
this last year and it felt amazing like the last
couple of years having done that have been so rich,
so fun, so expansive in so many different ways, and
(19:18):
it just I felt like it really proved my intuition right,
and I felt so grateful that I took the time
to do that, because it wasn't comfortable, you know, it
is an uncomfortable thing to have all those conversations, to
even check the charge in your body when you do
a massive follow and how people will feel, and you know,
but just being with whatever feeling is present and noticing it.
(19:40):
It's part of the power of the process.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Once again, thank you for tuning into the Black Podcast Network.
Seeing you in twenty twenty five from more great moments
from your favorite podcast
Host
Devi Brown
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