June 30, 2025 • 43 mins
Pooja Bakhai shares her incredible journey from a terminal cancer diagnosis to complete healing through deep self-exploration, plant medicine, and energetic alchemy. Discover how confronting trauma, trusting intuition, and embracing conscious living transformed her life—and how it can transform yours.
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Inspire Vision Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
Inspire Vision Podcast is broadcast on K4HD Radio (www.k4hd.com) part of Talk 4 Radio (www.talk4radio.com) on the Talk 4 Media Network (www.talk4media.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast TV Show is viewed on Talk 4 TV (www.talk4tv.com).
Inspire Vision Podcast is also available on Talk 4 Podcasting (www.talk4podcasting.com), iHeartRadio, Amazon Music, Pandora, Spotify, Audible, and over 100 other podcast outlets.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the end of the day, it's not about what
you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
(00:51):
to do the same.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hear, Joe, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, I'm excited. So where, if where are you living.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm living in North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
All right, great, And you know, as I've read your biolin,
as i've read you got on your website and so forth,
I'm fascinated by your journey and i'd like you I'd
like for you to share with the audience. You know,
it's always interesting and I say this every time, but
it's true. It's always interesting to find out how people
have reached this point in their life where they're doing
(01:25):
what they're doing, because it's not always what you plan
to do.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. Do you want me
to start right now and go ahead?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, go ahead and go for it?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well I have, Yeah, I do have a uniquely wild journey.
I feel it really started for me. The turning point
was my terminal cancer diagnosis, which was in twenty nineteen.
And at that time I was a student PhD student
at Harvard and I thought I was living like my
(01:58):
dream life, because you know, I was doing something that
I could use to help people, and I was learning,
and I was at a dream school. And when I
got the diagnosis, I just was really confronted with many
many things because it was I was so close to death.
I really it really changed my perspective on life. And
(02:25):
I'm not gonna lie. Up until that cancer diagnosis, I
had a lot of other illnesses that were sort of
overlooked or not diagnosed or mysterious like couldn't be explained.
And so this diagnosis was something like it just demanded
my attention. Yeah and yeah, just at that time, I
(02:48):
started questioning a lot of things in my life. And obviously,
you know, one of the things I question is just
like why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am
I living the way I'm living? And is it truly
what fills me up? Because I think if I was,
I don't think I would have gotten sick, That's my belief.
(03:08):
I don't think my body would have asked for this redirection.
And so I really tuned into my body and it
felt like to me that it was asking me to
pause and look at look at it, and look at
this and say, what what's going on? And through this
(03:29):
process I found a different path. The path that I
found was completely on plant, and it took me to
four different countries. I worked with a lot of different
plant medicines. I had never worked with anything like that before.
I had to make a lot of intuitive decisions just
(03:51):
following my gut. And I think for me, a lot
of people, some people get in diagnosis of an illness
and they cure the illness and they're on their way.
They don't really necessarily upheapal their life like I did.
But for me, as you can tell, it felt like
there was something deeper going on, so I just needed
time to explore that and understand what was really going on.
(04:14):
And throughout my journey, I basically unveiled a lot of
repressed trauma that I had for my childhood. And that's
really something today that has completely changed my life again,
but in a better way because it's the better way
(04:36):
because it's the truth, and it allows me to fully
be grounded in a more honest reality of my own
body and my own relationship with the world around me
and my own self. And I think that for me
has been really beautiful. And this whole journey has also
sort of mirrored the growth of my business and the
(04:58):
work that I do with my clients. So it's been
beautiful to be able to go on this journey of
healing and also to be able to give back that
that that helps me just stay stay the course even
when it gets hard, because it brings me a lot
of meaning. And I know that that's why I'm here,
(05:19):
you know, on Earth with us. So many of us
are here well.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
And you mentioned that you traveled to a number of
different countries and you were doing plant medicine and that
type of thing.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
How if I can ask, how is your cancer?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
It's cured?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Is cured?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yes? And did that?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
And did that happen?
Speaker 5 (05:38):
I mean, what does your doctors say when you come
back to your check up and there's no cancer?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
They my cancer. Actually, I'm going to give you. I'm
going to tell you a little secret. My cancer went
away fairly quickly. Wow, Like I'm telling you within a month.
That's something. Yeah, And I don't talk about that a
lot because it's hard for people to understand that, and
even it's hard for me to understand that. Sometimes. It
took me a while to wrap my mind around it, honestly,
(06:07):
and the doctors didn't believe it.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
So but this was this was terminal you said, terminal cancer.
So it was a stage four stage four holy cow.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, And that's what what told me that I was
doing something, like something was going on. That was like,
I mean, it didn't develop overnight, and yeah, it went
away so quickly that it's like it does make you.
It does make you think like, what's what's really going
on here? And the reason I started going and doing
(06:39):
that healing work is because while the cancer was gone,
my body was in very very wor shape like I
had a lot of other strange illnesses, and I kept
telling ask the doctors what is going on? And I
kept thinking I still have cancer. Must be cancer. They
were like, no, it's it's gone. We don't know what
it is. We can't help you.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
So did it just go away without you doing any
time plant and any type of work? Or were you
doing some things? And when you can kind of align
with what you were doing with it going away?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I did have two courses, so the full treatment is
twelve courses of chemo. And at the time I wasn't
like on this traditional medicine path or understanding energy the
way I do now. I was a biology major college
and I taught biology to high school students. So I
(07:32):
when I tell you, I really had a shift. It
was a really big shift. And I come from a
family of Western medicine doctors U and oncologists mind you,
So for people who don't know what that is, it's
people who treat you know, doctors who treat cancer. So I,
you know, I at the time, my relationship with my
family was I felt like I couldn't just I didn't
(07:55):
want to do the western medicine treatment, but I didn't
feel I wasn't brave enough to stand up to my
entire family and be like, I'm just gonna just gonna
wing it, you know, and just just figure it out. So, yeah,
it was two courses of chemo and that's still really
that really confused the doctors. Yeah, they were like, no,
you got to finish the chemo. We don't we don't,
(08:15):
we don't fee what we're seeing essentially, Yeah, even though
that's what shows on the scan. So yeah, it's a
good question.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Well, that's amazing because as you started to travel, obviously
you got into plant medicine and that type of thing.
What else, what else as you were traveling did you do?
And then we're going to kind of talk about what
you do now and some of the philosophy behind that,
particularly the philosophy of energetic alchemy.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, when I was traveling, so you know, I had
travel before, I'm not I wasn't new to traveling. I'm
also from India and I was born in the States,
so my families immigrated from India and had me in
the States. I always felt a strong connection to India
(09:04):
and I speak my native tongue is Gujarati and so
I I had traveled there many times on my own
and also with my family. I had lived there on
my own for a period of time. And I had
lived in Chile during college as a study abroad that
I extended because I think, I just, I just I
(09:25):
just enjoyed learning in different cultures and learning different languages
and just immersing myself in a new environment. It is
really really I loved it. And I and I know
you live in I think Thailand, is that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Right, I'm in Thailand right now, yes, yeah, So it's not.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You know, I pay attention to stuff like that because
I think there are certain types of people who just
are called to that more or who want to go
and you know, experience other other environments and other places.
So I first went to Mexico, and oh, I said
that whole history, because my previous travels were usually pretty planned.
I mean it was like I would be working a
(10:01):
regular job or a student, and then on my breaks
or like first study brought, I would go. This type
of travel was not that kind of thing. This was
like I picked up all my stuff and I just
went and I did no plan. And my intention was
really to learn and to heal and to connect. I mean,
(10:21):
I didn't really have. It wasn't like I was going
on vacation, even though a lot of people thought that's
what I was doing. So I went to Mexico first,
and that just happened through just a series of coincidences.
I met some people they said, Oh, we have a
room available, you can stay at our house. Oh, actually,
we're not going to be in our home. You could
just stay there as long as you want until we
(10:43):
get back. So I was there for three months and
I had a lot of breakthroughs there and then I'm
actually telling this story very shortly, in a couple of
weeks on stage. But I was actually talking to a tree.
People think I'm crazy when I say I talked to
plants or animals. Maybe maybe some people know how to
talk to animals, they might talk to their companions. But uh,
(11:04):
I was sitting by this tree and it essentially had
a moment with it, and I was asking for guidance.
And I mean I did that intuitively. I don't I
don't know why I did that, but I did it intuitively,
and the tree tree provided some guidance of your you're
going You're going to the Amazon jungle next, and I I,
(11:25):
this wasn't like a mental game for me, Like, I
started to cry. I felt it so much. I felt
like it's like when somebody tells me something that's like
really resonates with you. I started crying. I told my
friend I left to voice no for him because I
needed to just make sure this was real. I was like,
I'm just telling you, so when it happens, you can
you can be like Pooji, You're not crazy, you know.
(11:46):
But he he always supports me, and so yeah, I
ended up going to the ended up happening. A few
days later, I got a in touch with my friend's
brother who had some land in Ecuador. He wasn't living
in the Amazon jungle, but he had just bought that
land and he was like, just come on over and
see where you you know, see where you see where
it takes you. I said, well, yeah, that's the kind
of drena I'm on. So I'll think about it. And
(12:08):
a couple of weeks later, I felt like I had
enough signs and support from the universe and from inside
that I felt like it's the right thing to do.
So I bought my ticket, went to Ecuador, and in Ecuador,
I started off at Mindo. That's where this uh, this
friend's land is. That's where I met my now husband
and dog five years ago. Yeah. Crazy. And then a
(12:33):
week later the guy I met, so I met my
husband and another guy there and we that was one
of the first ceremonies that I was in Ecuador. And
after the ceremony, the guy who had come to hold
the ceremony, he said, Oh, we're going to the jungle
next week. You want to come with us. I was like, Oh,
here we go, Here we go. It's happening, you know.
(12:53):
So that's how it started. And my husband now husband,
was on that same was in that same group of
people went to the jungle that that that time. But
then we ended up living in the Colombian Amazon rainforest
almost a year after that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Wow sometime.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah. And you know, with plant medicine, and I'll just
say this, I have no idea if people listening have
a connection with plant medicine or have work with it,
but I do like to talk about a period of
integration that's so so important, which is just time away
from the plant medicine. I think integration is important has
been important for me with any big life changing experience
(13:31):
because it's like for me, I like to have that
space to understand how to apply it, how to how
to change my life based on what I have, what
I have learned. And it's hard, you know, to make
change it. Sometimes it takes.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's really tough.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
And you know, as you did that, and as you've
gone on and on, and now you're at this point
in time where you're working with people, you're coaching people,
and and I guess, as we talk about and I
brought it up initially, the the energetic alchemy, you know,
and that's on your website. I want to understand explain
(14:08):
to the people what that means, and then we can
talk about kind of what your thoughts are about all
of that and so forth.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Okay, Well, the way I see it, and I mean,
I think science is sort of patching up in a
lot of ways with quantum physics and everything. And is
that energy? I mean, and if science has that energy,
you know, energy matter can be transformed. You can't create
it or destroy.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It, right, And.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
The way I see it, in simple terms, it's just that.
And so I think it's beautiful when you apply that
principle to coaching because it gives people an opportunity to
not shy away from. So energy is a neutral term.
(15:03):
It's like if I'm feeling in an emotion and I
like this, I heard this emotion energy and motion. If
I'm feeling an emotion of grief or pain or rage,
these are very human human emotions and people on this earth,
(15:27):
everybody has had some type of difficult experience or challenging experience.
And so I like this energy view on energy because
it doesn't take a judgment on what you're bringing to
the table. Whatever you've got, the cancer is just energy.
It's just energy. And then once we know what is
(15:50):
this energy, what's in there is? What is it about?
Why is it there? Because the physical for me, the
physical is a last layer, last layer. A lot of
energies are you can feel it, like when you sit
down with somebody, you can feel sometimes you might all
of a sudden start feeling tired, or sometimes you might
(16:12):
start having certain thoughts. Even if you really pay attention,
what environment are you in, what's going on? That's all energy.
It speaks all of the time. In nature, you sit
by a tree, you might feel different than if you
go and sit next to sit in the inside of
an elevator with the doors closed. It's different. So this
this energy, once we become aware of it, whatever it
(16:35):
is in our lives that we want to change, to
become aware of it, it's much easier to change it,
and we can do it without judgment. We can really
embrace it and learn about it, become curious, and then
we can change it. We have that power.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Well, as you mentioned, you know, you had various illnesses,
including the cancer, and you reference the fact that you
thought it kind of went back to a lot of
your childhood experiences. Can you do you mind being a
little bit transparent about that and talk a little bit
about how your experience and those subconscious experiences that you have,
(17:07):
which I would assume we're mostly subconscious, Yeah, affected your health.
And as you work with people, now, how do you
help them to understand that. You know, if they're not
feeling wealth, they're feeling sick. So many times it can
be related to things in that subconscious experience that they
just don't even know is happening.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yeah, it's wild, and it definitely can be It's definitely
it can be a hard thing to do sometimes because
it really asks us to take a lot of responsibility
over what's happening in our bodies. And a lot of
times when the body's asking us for attention, are expressing
something and energy, it's doing it because we haven't paid
(17:54):
attention to that subconscious trauma or thought or belief, right,
And so of course there's an initial level of resistance.
So let me first talk about my experience and then
I can talk about how I address it with clients.
So for me, it was just step by step by step.
First step was I knew to trust my intuition that
(18:19):
this was something deeper. I was doing a lot of
things in my life, and I just looked around. I said,
a lot of other people are doing these things, but
they don't have terminal cancer, stage four cancer. So I'm
not blaming myself, but I am curious as to what's
going on with me. I'm young, I've been eating well,
(18:39):
I've been exercising my entire life. I've been running marathons.
I've been teaching yoga, doing yoga. What's up? What's up?
So just getting curious is step one. And knowing and
understanding and following that and the knowing of that I
had that this is something deeper, and then honestly, I
(19:00):
started noticing it in smaller ways in my body. First,
like the cancer itself. That was a big beast to
tackle energetically because it's wrong, right, But I started noticing
it with simple things like first. And I can't really
explain it. I mean, I met a lot of different healers,
like acupuncturists and energy healers, people who learn who know
(19:22):
more about Eastern medicine, where there is more of a
connection between where they talk about the body as as
a form of nature, and there's you know, there's a
lot of connections between what's going on within your subconscious
and what's going on in your life, and I mean
in your body. So I met these acupuncturists, I read
some movies. Hey, I don't know if anybody here has
read her work, but she has essentially a chart. She
(19:46):
breaks it down because she saw so many people with
reoccurring illnesses and mental patterns so to speak, and they're
general patterns that she saw were associated with those illnesses.
And I saw I'm trying to give an example, but
I saw like a correlation. It was kind of beautiful
(20:07):
the way that I saw it saw it because it
was like a metaph It was like poetry, like a
bit metaphorical. So like, let's say I have a problem
with my leg or my ankle. Let's say I twist
my ankle. What is the foot used for? What is
the ankle used for? Let's think about it. Okay, well,
my ankle. It helps my foot move. And what does
(20:27):
my foot do for the body. It helps me walk,
it helps me ron, it helps me skip, But figuratively
or metaphorically, it helps me walk forward, move forward, right,
And I mean, obviously you can walk backward. But we
know what I'm sort of getting at. And so I
remember an acupuncturist giving that example when she taught a
course about this that I took early on in my
(20:49):
cancer journey, and she said, you know, she had experienced that,
and then she had done some journaling about it, and
she had become aware that this was because she was
afraid of taking a certain next step, that she had
this angle injury. And she said it healed, you know,
fairly quickly after she figured that out. I'm like, well,
that's crazy, that's crazy. Do you just have to pay
(21:10):
attention to it and then it just heals itself. It's
like a conversation, And I think Over the years i've played,
I have had enough things have come up in my
body to have to attend to them, and I've healed
a lot of different a lot of different things by now.
One big thing, one big issue I was having after
(21:30):
my cancer was my thyroid. I was like, all of
a sudden, had thyroid issues. They had no idea why,
but my thyroid hormones were all out of whack. And
you think about it, what is the thyroid. It's the
throat chakra. It's here in the throat chukra, and what
do we use the throat for. The throat chukra symbolizes
our ability to stand in our truth, to speak our truth.
And at that time, now I understand at that time,
(21:54):
I was going through an entire identity shift, and I
had no idea how to stand and speak into my truth.
It took me years to become confident in this new
way of being, in this new way I was living
my life, and I had a lot of initial criticism.
It makes sense why I was scared, but I started
to understand that once I started to look at things
in this way, it really helped. And for me, the
(22:16):
cancer was a big one. And I gave you those
small examples, so you're not shocked when you hear this
one with the cancer Journey. It took me longer to
understand what that was because in Louise Hay's book, and
I think in general, cancer is seen as something that
is built up anger and resentment, like deep, deep, deep,
(22:38):
deep resentment. And it makes sense because if we resent
something enough, we kind of just want to end. We
get to the point where we just don't want to
live anymore. That's I mean, and I think that's what
it was for me, honestly.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Well, I mean, you referenced that book.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
So does the book talk about different ailments and how
that realized different emotional things? Uh?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
In a poetic way. It's a book of poetry. And
I do have a series of poems where the cancer
speaking to me, and it's called love Letters from Cancer
from uh huh and so yeah and that and that.
In those set of poems, it just the cancer. It
was after I was healed. But essentially it was like, well,
the cancer was healed, but I don't think the energy
was healed. And so the cancer was like cluing me
(23:25):
in on some of the things that were going on,
and the childhood traumas essentially that I uncovered was a
lot of childhood sexual abuse and traffic. Yes, and that
is that it's still the memories are still coming back.
The floodgates opened years ago. But when I uncovered those,
(23:45):
I really was able to understand. Wow, this this makes
a lot of sense to why I not just had
the cancer, but I had so many illnesses growing up
as a child that I, uh, I couldn't figure out well.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And that's that's fascinating to me, because what you're really
saying is if you were experiencing trafficking and those type
of things as a child and yet you did not
remember any of that initially. Yeah, no, Wow, that is something.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And I can't say there were no clues, like other
than the illnesses I had had some like nightmares, you know,
and a lot of times for survivors of that kind
of thing, memories do come back in dream time because
it's like a safer place and it's also the place
where the subconscious and the unconscious is working. And yeah,
I had had some clues. I had some I had
(24:35):
I would say memories now, but at the time, I
just I said, no, that's not possible because a lot
of the people who were involved, were family members. So
I kept Yeah, I was going to say, this is impossible,
this is impossible.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
It sounds like you came It sounds like you came
from a good family. I mean, here you are at Harvard,
working on your PhD, able to travel, You're doing all
of that, and yet somewhere along the line those memories
started to come to light.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah, it was devastating, but it was really really liberating
at the same time as paradox.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
Well, and you know, you know what I find, and
you know, I look at my life, and I look
at others, and as I've researched and looked at all
of this, what I find is sometimes we find ourselves.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Inclined to behave a certain way.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
For instance, I know that my grandfather used to, you know,
hit my dad with a belt, and I'm sure that
he got hit with a belt and so on and
so forth.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
My dad literally changed that.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
There were six children, we never got spain ever, and
so he literally changed that. But what I recognize is
so often we have that DNA memory, or we have
those subconscious elements that we just don't remember that are
so much affecting our lives.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And as you say, some if it really causes a
lot of stress.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
From a scientific standpoint, Now you have that rise in cortisol,
and even though you're not aware that that stress is there,
subconsciously it is. The cortisol arises and that can cause
all sorts of health issues. So to me, that's fascinating.
The other thing I find fascinating is you, as you've
been starting to talk about this is talking about because
(26:19):
you've obviously started to blend the ancient elements with the
modern elements. And you know, I've been recently fascinated by
Vedic meditation.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
And philosophy and so forth.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
And what I found which is so interesting is that
there's one specific quote in the early Vedic statements that
talks about the fact that there are neural I'll use
modern Daid language, but there are neural pathways that can
be changed. And now we have science showing us that
(26:56):
that can happen. And so, as you're working with people,
how do you bring in that ancient Eastern philosophy with
the modern philosophy and how well is it accepted?
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Well, I would say people love it. I do it
pretty like you like how you just explain it to
the audience, and to me, in words that we understood
or in a way we understood. I don't usually, you know,
it's like I don't start speaking in my native tongue
(27:31):
or start sharing even things that the indigenous communities that
we lived with may have shared in their ways or
their words with us. I always share it in a
way that's relatable with people. And I think the coolest
thing I've noticed is that people also have today in
the modern world. People that live here in the States
(27:52):
are going about their lives, they have the people who
come to me have this yearning to actually incorporate these
ancient practices in their life because it's almost like a remembrance.
You're talking about DNA memories and things being passed generationally
that are painful. Yeah, and then there's also DNA memories
(28:15):
and things being passed and generationally that are where we're
deeply connected to the earth and to the land. And
so I think it's cool they I think that they
want they love it. I mean, because the modern world
can only give us some much, and it's great things.
There's great things about technology. There's great things about living
(28:36):
in a place where people, you know, like people have
the freedom to go about their work and people are
excited about creating new things and this, that and the other,
but then people also get tired. People also want to
learn how do I slow down? How do I understand
how to change my neural pathways? And for that we
just bring in these tools meditation. We meditate together in sessions.
(29:00):
We can move our body together. In sessions. We'll do
breath work, we'll do trans work, we'll do all sorts
of things. We play, you know, and they don't. They're
not so far apart, I think is what people find well.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
And you know you you talked about I went to
your website and and I loved I loved what you
had in there. But we talk about you know, one
thing you said knowing, feeling and being, and I love that,
that philosophy of knowing and you know, feeling and then
being and and really as you're talking about this whole
(29:37):
concept of the energetic alchemy, as I looked that up
because I really didn't understand that, so I went to
chat GPTE and got a great, great description of it.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
But it's really that inner work.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Of moving is it talked about it moving from fear
and doubt and anger in your life to something of
love and joy and happiness? Can you can you share
any stories without mentioning names, but can you share any
stories of clients that you've worked with where you've seen
a dramatic change in their lives, where they've experienced dramatic
(30:11):
change in their lives with the work that you've been
doing with them.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, of course it's hard to pict just one. But
I'll just hear one tidbit and I think it just
because it really inspired me lately. This is a recent story.
I still work with this client, but she was having
a lot of She's a grandmother, so she's in her
a different stage of life than me. But she was
(30:38):
having a lot of problems with her family and a
lot of things I think were coming to the surface
that had been going on for years but she hadn't
really realized. And she goes home for the holidays, sees
her grandkids, but has a lot of issues with a
lot of other people, and she starts to feel just
really sad, isolated and angry, and she starts drinking. And
(31:04):
she had been drinking throughout her life, but this, at
this moment of her life, she really hit a rock bottom.
She told me later on, and she didn't even come
to her sessions. Nothing. She didn't go to work. She
went back home and just started drinking. And I share
this with you because it's funny because when we met,
(31:27):
when I heard I met, when we first started working together,
we were really working on because she was really sort
of afraid of her darkness. That was her relationship with
her darkness. And we could say any any anybody's darkness.
You know, if you fear your own darkness, you could
also fear the darkness and others or in the world.
And so we really were working on shifting her relationship
(31:51):
with her darkness and her quote unquote negative emotions. And
then this happened, and in a way, she really let
herself go into the darkness. I mean, in a way
we could say it's because she was avoiding some emotions, sure,
but she's went she just went into it. And then
(32:16):
I got really worried because all sorts of things happened
today these days, you know, all sorts of things. So
I got real worried. But I said, Pooja, keep her
wits about you and just trust that she's going to
reach out when she's ready, and she reached out to me.
We started working together. I said nothing about her absence.
I because that's what was my knowing and intuition is
(32:37):
do not judge. Just let her have her process and support.
And she is now like not drinking, She gave a
b alcohol. She meditates every day, she goes to her
yoga every day, she's she just fills her life with
(32:58):
nourishing friendships. She needed to unders stand, like they're just
shifts she made. She she she she came to me
to work on relationships, and she essentially learned that experience
that And maybe this isn't as dramatic as what people
want to hear, but to me, small things are big things.
Big things are small things. She came to me because
she wanted to work on relationships, and she found through
(33:19):
this experience of how she can't just put herself in
any situation and expect that she's gonna feel happy and
joyful and be able to take care of herself. And
so she sets some boundaries with her family, She sets
a lot of boundaries and how to let go of
a bunch of relationships that were kind of toxic and
(33:40):
not serving her. And she's focused on herself. And I'm
not I'm not exaggerating. This woman is actually a very
healthy woman. Aside from the alcohol, She's eats really well.
She knows a lot about longevity. She looks great, she
has high energy, and she is looking into starting her
own her own her own practice focused on longevity. And
(34:03):
I just love that And that's what we're working on
right now because she's really clean up her life and
she's being consistent. This is an everyday thing that she's
not just talking about this stuff, she's really doing it.
And so that's something that really inspired me. And it
just goes to show that sometimes, like you know, sometimes
we some of us do need to hit rock bottoms
or a rock bottom. It's not about the rock bottom,
(34:26):
it's about how we learn from it. What do we
do with that, you know?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
And I think that brings in the awareness And as
I look at that is that, you know, how do
people suddenly become aware?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
And as you say, sometimes it's hitting rock bottom.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
And you know, as you're working with her, as you're
working with other people, how do you help people to
understand Because I think one of the biggest challenges people
face subconsciously, I'm not good enough, I'm really no good
you know, gil shame, all of that type of stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Is there when we're not even aware of it.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
How do you help people to number one, understand their
authentic self and the fact that there's a soul there,
there's a spirit there that is godly, that is full
of light and love. How do you help them to
get to that understanding of their authentic self so that
they can then start to move forward and change their
(35:19):
life once they actually believe that.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Hmm, that's a great question. I think the first things
we do is just look at It might sound obvious,
but we look at patterns in their life and we
identify where do these patterns come from? Because the authentic
self isn't something that needs to be created, it's already there.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
So the challenge is looking at what's been blocking, what's
been the what's stopping you from expressing it, not necessarily
from taking the actions that you want in your life,
but even deeper, deeper, what's stopping you on the inside
from allowing to yourself to trust that part of yourself.
(36:02):
And so we look at that, We really we go,
We go as deep as they want to go, and
we identify like so, like this this is a modern
coaching tool. It's so common but we identify the limiting
beliefs because they shed light on where the neural where
what are those neural pathways that are just that have
been working since childhood to keep you this way that
(36:24):
you don't want to be. And it's a it's also
just the way I like to call it in simple terms,
it's like slowing all of that down. It's like when
you have a coach, when you have a space to work,
you can actually to become aware of the subconscious. We
have to slow down our relationship with our own minds,
our own bodies, our own emotions. We have to take time,
(36:45):
we have to we get to look at Okay, what
was what? Where is this coming from? What was the
first thought I had? Why did I have that thought
about myself? What's going on there? So it's just like
the simple work, but it's powerful, it's powerful and once
they become aware of the authentic self, when we address
the blocks, the authentic self comes through no problems.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Oh that's wonderful.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And as you mentioned, you know there's so many methodologies here,
but you talk about yoga, which really has to do
with that semantic the movement of the body, which is
I've talked to various different people. You know, for many
of them, that's so important you talk about meditation and
how important that is for people. How often or how
(37:28):
how many times do you find resistance from your clients
as you're starting to work with them when you start
talking about meditation or you know, movement and all of
those type of things which you know and I know
actually help to handle all of that. How do you
help them to understand that all of these different things
that you're talking about literally have been not only helpful
(37:51):
to you and to others, but it will be absolutely
helpful to them.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
To them, well, I always like to start where people
are at, because if we don't meet meet people where
they're at, we can't we can't really do much, you know,
we've lost them. So the cool thing is most people
are actually pretty open to this kind of stuff. They
(38:19):
just if there's things holding them back. The first level is,
let's say like they they've never meditated before, but most
people at this point have heard about it from somebody
somewhere on Instagram, something like that, you know, in a movie,
like people know what it is now and more or less,
more or less, what's holding them back from doing it
(38:41):
or practicing it. I mean on a deep level, it's
just usually a feeling of great discomfort of just sitting
with themselves. But on a more on other levels or
other other things that could be holding them back that
I've seen, it's just like they feel like they should
be doing it a certain way. They have these ideas
about what these things should look like or be like.
(39:05):
So they'll say, oh, I tried it once and it
was horrible. I had so many thoughts, I felt so uncomfortable,
so I just stopped. And so a lot of times
it just involves us sitting down and talking about, like,
what is their experience with this stuff been, what are
some of their preconceptions and these stories they're telling themselves
about what this is supposed to look like and what
(39:26):
it's supposed to do. And then also I address some
of those things like that's normal if you never sit
down with yourself, if you have never sat down and
sat in meditation, before you sit in a silent meditation,
a lot of stuff's gonna come up. That's a good thing,
you know, good job, congratulations. It's a lot of it
is just reframing, you know, what their experience has been
(39:48):
with this, what this is supposed to look like breaking
down some of those rules and ideas so that it
feels more accessible to them. And then some people they
have their things. I love going to certain yoga class,
or they love doing a certain like guided meditation. They
just need the support of the accountability. They want to
tell me at the end of the day, I did it,
I did it, I did it.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
I check in with them. So there's that, which is great.
And then if they're not comfortable doing those things outside
of the session, we'll do them in the session and
we'll play with it and they end up loving it
and they usually will ask me, can we do a
meditation today? You know? And it's so nice because you
feel the benefits over time, you know. So they they yeah,
they love it well.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
And what I found and I think it's interesting for
people to know that, you know, there's not one type
of meditation, as you say, there's a guided meditation, there's
a meditation with you know self veggio and yeah, you know,
or I'm just I've just started really getting interested in
the in the vedding meditation.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
So now I'm starting to listen to the chance and.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
And doing that I see cool and you know, I
think it's important for you people to understand keep trying
until you find something that works, find something that works
for you. When that happens, then all of a sudden,
you're doing a good job. So how do people find you?
Number one? You've got a book that you've written, which
is a book of poetry, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
And it's authored with my husband. It's both of our
poetry dancing together in the form of a book.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Okay. And what's it called?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Cosmic Wilderness?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
All right? How do people find it?
Speaker 4 (41:21):
They can just find it on Amazon the company's website.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
And if people want to talk to you specifically, how
do they find you?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
How do they find you?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
They can just go on my website. It's my first name, Pooja,
my last name Bakai Poojabakai dot com. And there's a link.
There should be plenty of links to book a console
with me and we can have a chat.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Great.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
So as we close, what would be a finalness is
that you'd like to leave with the audience.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
You know, I've been thinking about this one throughout the call,
just tuning in and feeling into what that is. And
I would say my final message is to just trust yourself,
trust your intuition, trust your heart. All right, that's simple.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Well, Buoja, thanks so much. It's been great.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
It's fascinating to me how people have different journeys.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
But when it's all said and.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Done, people on these type of journeys end up in
a similar situation where you're finding that love, you're finding
that piece. You're helping other people to get through some
of those issues that they had so that they can
find it also, so kudos to you that you're one
of those people.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Oh, thank you. And we're all works in progress, so
I'm still working on my piece and my joy, but
I'm really happy to be here and thanks so much
for having me.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Oh and aren't we all working on that? But anyway,
thank you so much, and folks, thanks for listening. I'm
hoping you enjoyed this and go to the website because
there's some great information there. I was there a couple
of times and it really is wonderful. So anyway, this
is doctor Doug. You're saying thanks for listening, and not
a stay
This program is designed to provide general information with regards
to the subject matters covered. This information is given with
the understanding that neither the hosts, guests, sponsors, or station
are engaged in rendering any specific and personal medical, financial, legal, counseling,
professional service, or any advice. You should seek the services
(00:23):
of competent professionals before applying or trying any suggested ideas.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
At the end of the day, it's not about what
you have or even what you've accomplished. It's about what
you've done with those accomplishments. It's about who you've lifted up,
who you've made better. It's about what you've given back.
Denzel Washington, welcome to Inspire Vision. Our sole purpose is
to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you
(00:51):
to do the same.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Hear, Joe, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 4 (00:56):
Thank you.
Speaker 3 (00:57):
Hey, I'm excited. So where, if where are you living.
Speaker 4 (01:01):
I'm living in North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina.
Speaker 5 (01:04):
All right, great, And you know, as I've read your biolin,
as i've read you got on your website and so forth,
I'm fascinated by your journey and i'd like you I'd
like for you to share with the audience. You know,
it's always interesting and I say this every time, but
it's true. It's always interesting to find out how people
have reached this point in their life where they're doing
(01:25):
what they're doing, because it's not always what you plan
to do.
Speaker 4 (01:29):
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah. Do you want me
to start right now and go ahead?
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, go ahead and go for it?
Speaker 4 (01:36):
Well I have, Yeah, I do have a uniquely wild journey.
I feel it really started for me. The turning point
was my terminal cancer diagnosis, which was in twenty nineteen.
And at that time I was a student PhD student
at Harvard and I thought I was living like my
(01:58):
dream life, because you know, I was doing something that
I could use to help people, and I was learning,
and I was at a dream school. And when I
got the diagnosis, I just was really confronted with many
many things because it was I was so close to death.
I really it really changed my perspective on life. And
(02:25):
I'm not gonna lie. Up until that cancer diagnosis, I
had a lot of other illnesses that were sort of
overlooked or not diagnosed or mysterious like couldn't be explained.
And so this diagnosis was something like it just demanded
my attention. Yeah and yeah, just at that time, I
(02:48):
started questioning a lot of things in my life. And obviously,
you know, one of the things I question is just
like why am I doing what I'm doing? Why am
I living the way I'm living? And is it truly
what fills me up? Because I think if I was,
I don't think I would have gotten sick, That's my belief.
(03:08):
I don't think my body would have asked for this redirection.
And so I really tuned into my body and it
felt like to me that it was asking me to
pause and look at look at it, and look at
this and say, what what's going on? And through this
(03:29):
process I found a different path. The path that I
found was completely on plant, and it took me to
four different countries. I worked with a lot of different
plant medicines. I had never worked with anything like that before.
I had to make a lot of intuitive decisions just
(03:51):
following my gut. And I think for me, a lot
of people, some people get in diagnosis of an illness
and they cure the illness and they're on their way.
They don't really necessarily upheapal their life like I did.
But for me, as you can tell, it felt like
there was something deeper going on, so I just needed
time to explore that and understand what was really going on.
(04:14):
And throughout my journey, I basically unveiled a lot of
repressed trauma that I had for my childhood. And that's
really something today that has completely changed my life again,
but in a better way because it's the better way
(04:36):
because it's the truth, and it allows me to fully
be grounded in a more honest reality of my own
body and my own relationship with the world around me
and my own self. And I think that for me
has been really beautiful. And this whole journey has also
sort of mirrored the growth of my business and the
(04:58):
work that I do with my clients. So it's been
beautiful to be able to go on this journey of
healing and also to be able to give back that
that that helps me just stay stay the course even
when it gets hard, because it brings me a lot
of meaning. And I know that that's why I'm here,
(05:19):
you know, on Earth with us. So many of us
are here well.
Speaker 5 (05:21):
And you mentioned that you traveled to a number of
different countries and you were doing plant medicine and that
type of thing.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
How if I can ask, how is your cancer?
Speaker 4 (05:31):
It's cured?
Speaker 3 (05:33):
Is cured?
Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yes? And did that?
Speaker 3 (05:37):
And did that happen?
Speaker 5 (05:38):
I mean, what does your doctors say when you come
back to your check up and there's no cancer?
Speaker 4 (05:45):
They my cancer. Actually, I'm going to give you. I'm
going to tell you a little secret. My cancer went
away fairly quickly. Wow, Like I'm telling you within a month.
That's something. Yeah, And I don't talk about that a
lot because it's hard for people to understand that, and
even it's hard for me to understand that. Sometimes. It
took me a while to wrap my mind around it, honestly,
(06:07):
and the doctors didn't believe it.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
So but this was this was terminal you said, terminal cancer.
So it was a stage four stage four holy cow.
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, And that's what what told me that I was
doing something, like something was going on. That was like,
I mean, it didn't develop overnight, and yeah, it went
away so quickly that it's like it does make you.
It does make you think like, what's what's really going
on here? And the reason I started going and doing
(06:39):
that healing work is because while the cancer was gone,
my body was in very very wor shape like I
had a lot of other strange illnesses, and I kept
telling ask the doctors what is going on? And I
kept thinking I still have cancer. Must be cancer. They
were like, no, it's it's gone. We don't know what
it is. We can't help you.
Speaker 5 (06:56):
So did it just go away without you doing any
time plant and any type of work? Or were you
doing some things? And when you can kind of align
with what you were doing with it going away?
Speaker 4 (07:10):
I did have two courses, so the full treatment is
twelve courses of chemo. And at the time I wasn't
like on this traditional medicine path or understanding energy the
way I do now. I was a biology major college
and I taught biology to high school students. So I
(07:32):
when I tell you, I really had a shift. It
was a really big shift. And I come from a
family of Western medicine doctors U and oncologists mind you,
So for people who don't know what that is, it's
people who treat you know, doctors who treat cancer. So I,
you know, I at the time, my relationship with my
family was I felt like I couldn't just I didn't
(07:55):
want to do the western medicine treatment, but I didn't
feel I wasn't brave enough to stand up to my
entire family and be like, I'm just gonna just gonna
wing it, you know, and just just figure it out. So, yeah,
it was two courses of chemo and that's still really
that really confused the doctors. Yeah, they were like, no,
you got to finish the chemo. We don't we don't,
(08:15):
we don't fee what we're seeing essentially, Yeah, even though
that's what shows on the scan. So yeah, it's a
good question.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Well, that's amazing because as you started to travel, obviously
you got into plant medicine and that type of thing.
What else, what else as you were traveling did you do?
And then we're going to kind of talk about what
you do now and some of the philosophy behind that,
particularly the philosophy of energetic alchemy.
Speaker 4 (08:44):
Well, when I was traveling, so you know, I had
travel before, I'm not I wasn't new to traveling. I'm
also from India and I was born in the States,
so my families immigrated from India and had me in
the States. I always felt a strong connection to India
(09:04):
and I speak my native tongue is Gujarati and so
I I had traveled there many times on my own
and also with my family. I had lived there on
my own for a period of time. And I had
lived in Chile during college as a study abroad that
I extended because I think, I just, I just I
(09:25):
just enjoyed learning in different cultures and learning different languages
and just immersing myself in a new environment. It is
really really I loved it. And I and I know
you live in I think Thailand, is that.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Right, I'm in Thailand right now, yes, yeah, So it's not.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
You know, I pay attention to stuff like that because
I think there are certain types of people who just
are called to that more or who want to go
and you know, experience other other environments and other places.
So I first went to Mexico, and oh, I said
that whole history, because my previous travels were usually pretty planned.
I mean it was like I would be working a
(10:01):
regular job or a student, and then on my breaks
or like first study brought, I would go. This type
of travel was not that kind of thing. This was
like I picked up all my stuff and I just
went and I did no plan. And my intention was
really to learn and to heal and to connect. I mean,
(10:21):
I didn't really have. It wasn't like I was going
on vacation, even though a lot of people thought that's
what I was doing. So I went to Mexico first,
and that just happened through just a series of coincidences.
I met some people they said, Oh, we have a
room available, you can stay at our house. Oh, actually,
we're not going to be in our home. You could
just stay there as long as you want until we
(10:43):
get back. So I was there for three months and
I had a lot of breakthroughs there and then I'm
actually telling this story very shortly, in a couple of
weeks on stage. But I was actually talking to a tree.
People think I'm crazy when I say I talked to
plants or animals. Maybe maybe some people know how to
talk to animals, they might talk to their companions. But uh,
(11:04):
I was sitting by this tree and it essentially had
a moment with it, and I was asking for guidance.
And I mean I did that intuitively. I don't I
don't know why I did that, but I did it intuitively,
and the tree tree provided some guidance of your you're
going You're going to the Amazon jungle next, and I I,
(11:25):
this wasn't like a mental game for me, Like, I
started to cry. I felt it so much. I felt
like it's like when somebody tells me something that's like
really resonates with you. I started crying. I told my
friend I left to voice no for him because I
needed to just make sure this was real. I was like,
I'm just telling you, so when it happens, you can
you can be like Pooji, You're not crazy, you know.
(11:46):
But he he always supports me, and so yeah, I
ended up going to the ended up happening. A few
days later, I got a in touch with my friend's
brother who had some land in Ecuador. He wasn't living
in the Amazon jungle, but he had just bought that
land and he was like, just come on over and
see where you you know, see where you see where
it takes you. I said, well, yeah, that's the kind
of drena I'm on. So I'll think about it. And
(12:08):
a couple of weeks later, I felt like I had
enough signs and support from the universe and from inside
that I felt like it's the right thing to do.
So I bought my ticket, went to Ecuador, and in Ecuador,
I started off at Mindo. That's where this uh, this
friend's land is. That's where I met my now husband
and dog five years ago. Yeah. Crazy. And then a
(12:33):
week later the guy I met, so I met my
husband and another guy there and we that was one
of the first ceremonies that I was in Ecuador. And
after the ceremony, the guy who had come to hold
the ceremony, he said, Oh, we're going to the jungle
next week. You want to come with us. I was like, Oh,
here we go, Here we go. It's happening, you know.
(12:53):
So that's how it started. And my husband now husband,
was on that same was in that same group of
people went to the jungle that that that time. But
then we ended up living in the Colombian Amazon rainforest
almost a year after that.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
Wow sometime.
Speaker 4 (13:09):
Yeah. And you know, with plant medicine, and I'll just
say this, I have no idea if people listening have
a connection with plant medicine or have work with it,
but I do like to talk about a period of
integration that's so so important, which is just time away
from the plant medicine. I think integration is important has
been important for me with any big life changing experience
(13:31):
because it's like for me, I like to have that
space to understand how to apply it, how to how
to change my life based on what I have, what
I have learned. And it's hard, you know, to make
change it. Sometimes it takes.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
It's really tough.
Speaker 5 (13:47):
And you know, as you did that, and as you've
gone on and on, and now you're at this point
in time where you're working with people, you're coaching people,
and and I guess, as we talk about and I
brought it up initially, the the energetic alchemy, you know,
and that's on your website. I want to understand explain
(14:08):
to the people what that means, and then we can
talk about kind of what your thoughts are about all
of that and so forth.
Speaker 4 (14:17):
Okay, Well, the way I see it, and I mean,
I think science is sort of patching up in a
lot of ways with quantum physics and everything. And is
that energy? I mean, and if science has that energy,
you know, energy matter can be transformed. You can't create
it or destroy.
Speaker 3 (14:37):
It, right, And.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
The way I see it, in simple terms, it's just that.
And so I think it's beautiful when you apply that
principle to coaching because it gives people an opportunity to
not shy away from. So energy is a neutral term.
(15:03):
It's like if I'm feeling in an emotion and I
like this, I heard this emotion energy and motion. If
I'm feeling an emotion of grief or pain or rage,
these are very human human emotions and people on this earth,
(15:27):
everybody has had some type of difficult experience or challenging experience.
And so I like this energy view on energy because
it doesn't take a judgment on what you're bringing to
the table. Whatever you've got, the cancer is just energy.
It's just energy. And then once we know what is
(15:50):
this energy, what's in there is? What is it about?
Why is it there? Because the physical for me, the
physical is a last layer, last layer. A lot of
energies are you can feel it, like when you sit
down with somebody, you can feel sometimes you might all
of a sudden start feeling tired, or sometimes you might
(16:12):
start having certain thoughts. Even if you really pay attention,
what environment are you in, what's going on? That's all energy.
It speaks all of the time. In nature, you sit
by a tree, you might feel different than if you
go and sit next to sit in the inside of
an elevator with the doors closed. It's different. So this
this energy, once we become aware of it, whatever it
(16:35):
is in our lives that we want to change, to
become aware of it, it's much easier to change it,
and we can do it without judgment. We can really
embrace it and learn about it, become curious, and then
we can change it. We have that power.
Speaker 5 (16:46):
Well, as you mentioned, you know, you had various illnesses,
including the cancer, and you reference the fact that you
thought it kind of went back to a lot of
your childhood experiences. Can you do you mind being a
little bit transparent about that and talk a little bit
about how your experience and those subconscious experiences that you have,
(17:07):
which I would assume we're mostly subconscious, Yeah, affected your health.
And as you work with people, now, how do you
help them to understand that. You know, if they're not
feeling wealth, they're feeling sick. So many times it can
be related to things in that subconscious experience that they
just don't even know is happening.
Speaker 4 (17:30):
Yeah, it's wild, and it definitely can be It's definitely
it can be a hard thing to do sometimes because
it really asks us to take a lot of responsibility
over what's happening in our bodies. And a lot of
times when the body's asking us for attention, are expressing
something and energy, it's doing it because we haven't paid
(17:54):
attention to that subconscious trauma or thought or belief, right,
And so of course there's an initial level of resistance.
So let me first talk about my experience and then
I can talk about how I address it with clients.
So for me, it was just step by step by step.
First step was I knew to trust my intuition that
(18:19):
this was something deeper. I was doing a lot of
things in my life, and I just looked around. I said,
a lot of other people are doing these things, but
they don't have terminal cancer, stage four cancer. So I'm
not blaming myself, but I am curious as to what's
going on with me. I'm young, I've been eating well,
(18:39):
I've been exercising my entire life. I've been running marathons.
I've been teaching yoga, doing yoga. What's up? What's up?
So just getting curious is step one. And knowing and
understanding and following that and the knowing of that I
had that this is something deeper, and then honestly, I
(19:00):
started noticing it in smaller ways in my body. First,
like the cancer itself. That was a big beast to
tackle energetically because it's wrong, right, But I started noticing
it with simple things like first. And I can't really
explain it. I mean, I met a lot of different healers,
like acupuncturists and energy healers, people who learn who know
(19:22):
more about Eastern medicine, where there is more of a
connection between where they talk about the body as as
a form of nature, and there's you know, there's a
lot of connections between what's going on within your subconscious
and what's going on in your life, and I mean
in your body. So I met these acupuncturists, I read
some movies. Hey, I don't know if anybody here has
read her work, but she has essentially a chart. She
(19:46):
breaks it down because she saw so many people with
reoccurring illnesses and mental patterns so to speak, and they're
general patterns that she saw were associated with those illnesses.
And I saw I'm trying to give an example, but
I saw like a correlation. It was kind of beautiful
(20:07):
the way that I saw it saw it because it
was like a metaph It was like poetry, like a
bit metaphorical. So like, let's say I have a problem
with my leg or my ankle. Let's say I twist
my ankle. What is the foot used for? What is
the ankle used for? Let's think about it. Okay, well,
my ankle. It helps my foot move. And what does
(20:27):
my foot do for the body. It helps me walk,
it helps me ron, it helps me skip, But figuratively
or metaphorically, it helps me walk forward, move forward, right,
And I mean, obviously you can walk backward. But we
know what I'm sort of getting at. And so I
remember an acupuncturist giving that example when she taught a
course about this that I took early on in my
(20:49):
cancer journey, and she said, you know, she had experienced that,
and then she had done some journaling about it, and
she had become aware that this was because she was
afraid of taking a certain next step, that she had
this angle injury. And she said it healed, you know,
fairly quickly after she figured that out. I'm like, well,
that's crazy, that's crazy. Do you just have to pay
(21:10):
attention to it and then it just heals itself. It's
like a conversation, And I think Over the years i've played,
I have had enough things have come up in my
body to have to attend to them, and I've healed
a lot of different a lot of different things by now.
One big thing, one big issue I was having after
(21:30):
my cancer was my thyroid. I was like, all of
a sudden, had thyroid issues. They had no idea why,
but my thyroid hormones were all out of whack. And
you think about it, what is the thyroid. It's the
throat chakra. It's here in the throat chukra, and what
do we use the throat for. The throat chukra symbolizes
our ability to stand in our truth, to speak our truth.
And at that time, now I understand at that time,
(21:54):
I was going through an entire identity shift, and I
had no idea how to stand and speak into my truth.
It took me years to become confident in this new
way of being, in this new way I was living
my life, and I had a lot of initial criticism.
It makes sense why I was scared, but I started
to understand that once I started to look at things
in this way, it really helped. And for me, the
(22:16):
cancer was a big one. And I gave you those
small examples, so you're not shocked when you hear this
one with the cancer Journey. It took me longer to
understand what that was because in Louise Hay's book, and
I think in general, cancer is seen as something that
is built up anger and resentment, like deep, deep, deep,
(22:38):
deep resentment. And it makes sense because if we resent
something enough, we kind of just want to end. We
get to the point where we just don't want to
live anymore. That's I mean, and I think that's what
it was for me, honestly.
Speaker 3 (22:52):
Well, I mean, you referenced that book.
Speaker 5 (22:54):
So does the book talk about different ailments and how
that realized different emotional things? Uh?
Speaker 4 (23:03):
In a poetic way. It's a book of poetry. And
I do have a series of poems where the cancer
speaking to me, and it's called love Letters from Cancer
from uh huh and so yeah and that and that.
In those set of poems, it just the cancer. It
was after I was healed. But essentially it was like, well,
the cancer was healed, but I don't think the energy
was healed. And so the cancer was like cluing me
(23:25):
in on some of the things that were going on,
and the childhood traumas essentially that I uncovered was a
lot of childhood sexual abuse and traffic. Yes, and that
is that it's still the memories are still coming back.
The floodgates opened years ago. But when I uncovered those,
(23:45):
I really was able to understand. Wow, this this makes
a lot of sense to why I not just had
the cancer, but I had so many illnesses growing up
as a child that I, uh, I couldn't figure out well.
Speaker 5 (23:56):
And that's that's fascinating to me, because what you're really
saying is if you were experiencing trafficking and those type
of things as a child and yet you did not
remember any of that initially. Yeah, no, Wow, that is something.
Speaker 4 (24:12):
And I can't say there were no clues, like other
than the illnesses I had had some like nightmares, you know,
and a lot of times for survivors of that kind
of thing, memories do come back in dream time because
it's like a safer place and it's also the place
where the subconscious and the unconscious is working. And yeah,
I had had some clues. I had some I had
(24:35):
I would say memories now, but at the time, I
just I said, no, that's not possible because a lot
of the people who were involved, were family members. So
I kept Yeah, I was going to say, this is impossible,
this is impossible.
Speaker 5 (24:47):
It sounds like you came It sounds like you came
from a good family. I mean, here you are at Harvard,
working on your PhD, able to travel, You're doing all
of that, and yet somewhere along the line those memories
started to come to light.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Yeah, it was devastating, but it was really really liberating
at the same time as paradox.
Speaker 5 (25:07):
Well, and you know, you know what I find, and
you know, I look at my life, and I look
at others, and as I've researched and looked at all
of this, what I find is sometimes we find ourselves.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
Inclined to behave a certain way.
Speaker 5 (25:24):
For instance, I know that my grandfather used to, you know,
hit my dad with a belt, and I'm sure that
he got hit with a belt and so on and
so forth.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
My dad literally changed that.
Speaker 5 (25:35):
There were six children, we never got spain ever, and
so he literally changed that. But what I recognize is
so often we have that DNA memory, or we have
those subconscious elements that we just don't remember that are
so much affecting our lives.
Speaker 3 (25:54):
And as you say, some if it really causes a
lot of stress.
Speaker 5 (25:58):
From a scientific standpoint, Now you have that rise in cortisol,
and even though you're not aware that that stress is there,
subconsciously it is. The cortisol arises and that can cause
all sorts of health issues. So to me, that's fascinating.
The other thing I find fascinating is you, as you've
been starting to talk about this is talking about because
(26:19):
you've obviously started to blend the ancient elements with the
modern elements. And you know, I've been recently fascinated by
Vedic meditation.
Speaker 3 (26:31):
And philosophy and so forth.
Speaker 5 (26:33):
And what I found which is so interesting is that
there's one specific quote in the early Vedic statements that
talks about the fact that there are neural I'll use
modern Daid language, but there are neural pathways that can
be changed. And now we have science showing us that
(26:56):
that can happen. And so, as you're working with people,
how do you bring in that ancient Eastern philosophy with
the modern philosophy and how well is it accepted?
Speaker 4 (27:10):
Well, I would say people love it. I do it
pretty like you like how you just explain it to
the audience, and to me, in words that we understood
or in a way we understood. I don't usually, you know,
it's like I don't start speaking in my native tongue
(27:31):
or start sharing even things that the indigenous communities that
we lived with may have shared in their ways or
their words with us. I always share it in a
way that's relatable with people. And I think the coolest
thing I've noticed is that people also have today in
the modern world. People that live here in the States
(27:52):
are going about their lives, they have the people who
come to me have this yearning to actually incorporate these
ancient practices in their life because it's almost like a remembrance.
You're talking about DNA memories and things being passed generationally
that are painful. Yeah, and then there's also DNA memories
(28:15):
and things being passed and generationally that are where we're
deeply connected to the earth and to the land. And
so I think it's cool they I think that they
want they love it. I mean, because the modern world
can only give us some much, and it's great things.
There's great things about technology. There's great things about living
(28:36):
in a place where people, you know, like people have
the freedom to go about their work and people are
excited about creating new things and this, that and the other,
but then people also get tired. People also want to
learn how do I slow down? How do I understand
how to change my neural pathways? And for that we
just bring in these tools meditation. We meditate together in sessions.
(29:00):
We can move our body together. In sessions. We'll do
breath work, we'll do trans work, we'll do all sorts
of things. We play, you know, and they don't. They're
not so far apart, I think is what people find well.
Speaker 5 (29:16):
And you know you you talked about I went to
your website and and I loved I loved what you
had in there. But we talk about you know, one
thing you said knowing, feeling and being, and I love that,
that philosophy of knowing and you know, feeling and then
being and and really as you're talking about this whole
(29:37):
concept of the energetic alchemy, as I looked that up
because I really didn't understand that, so I went to
chat GPTE and got a great, great description of it.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
But it's really that inner work.
Speaker 5 (29:50):
Of moving is it talked about it moving from fear
and doubt and anger in your life to something of
love and joy and happiness? Can you can you share
any stories without mentioning names, but can you share any
stories of clients that you've worked with where you've seen
a dramatic change in their lives, where they've experienced dramatic
(30:11):
change in their lives with the work that you've been
doing with them.
Speaker 4 (30:16):
Yeah, of course it's hard to pict just one. But
I'll just hear one tidbit and I think it just
because it really inspired me lately. This is a recent story.
I still work with this client, but she was having
a lot of She's a grandmother, so she's in her
a different stage of life than me. But she was
(30:38):
having a lot of problems with her family and a
lot of things I think were coming to the surface
that had been going on for years but she hadn't
really realized. And she goes home for the holidays, sees
her grandkids, but has a lot of issues with a
lot of other people, and she starts to feel just
really sad, isolated and angry, and she starts drinking. And
(31:04):
she had been drinking throughout her life, but this, at
this moment of her life, she really hit a rock bottom.
She told me later on, and she didn't even come
to her sessions. Nothing. She didn't go to work. She
went back home and just started drinking. And I share
this with you because it's funny because when we met,
(31:27):
when I heard I met, when we first started working together,
we were really working on because she was really sort
of afraid of her darkness. That was her relationship with
her darkness. And we could say any any anybody's darkness.
You know, if you fear your own darkness, you could
also fear the darkness and others or in the world.
And so we really were working on shifting her relationship
(31:51):
with her darkness and her quote unquote negative emotions. And
then this happened, and in a way, she really let
herself go into the darkness. I mean, in a way
we could say it's because she was avoiding some emotions, sure,
but she's went she just went into it. And then
(32:16):
I got really worried because all sorts of things happened
today these days, you know, all sorts of things. So
I got real worried. But I said, Pooja, keep her
wits about you and just trust that she's going to
reach out when she's ready, and she reached out to me.
We started working together. I said nothing about her absence.
I because that's what was my knowing and intuition is
(32:37):
do not judge. Just let her have her process and support.
And she is now like not drinking, She gave a
b alcohol. She meditates every day, she goes to her
yoga every day, she's she just fills her life with
(32:58):
nourishing friendships. She needed to unders stand, like they're just
shifts she made. She she she she came to me
to work on relationships, and she essentially learned that experience
that And maybe this isn't as dramatic as what people
want to hear, but to me, small things are big things.
Big things are small things. She came to me because
she wanted to work on relationships, and she found through
(33:19):
this experience of how she can't just put herself in
any situation and expect that she's gonna feel happy and
joyful and be able to take care of herself. And
so she sets some boundaries with her family, She sets
a lot of boundaries and how to let go of
a bunch of relationships that were kind of toxic and
(33:40):
not serving her. And she's focused on herself. And I'm
not I'm not exaggerating. This woman is actually a very
healthy woman. Aside from the alcohol, She's eats really well.
She knows a lot about longevity. She looks great, she
has high energy, and she is looking into starting her
own her own her own practice focused on longevity. And
(34:03):
I just love that And that's what we're working on
right now because she's really clean up her life and
she's being consistent. This is an everyday thing that she's
not just talking about this stuff, she's really doing it.
And so that's something that really inspired me. And it
just goes to show that sometimes, like you know, sometimes
we some of us do need to hit rock bottoms
or a rock bottom. It's not about the rock bottom,
(34:26):
it's about how we learn from it. What do we
do with that, you know?
Speaker 5 (34:31):
And I think that brings in the awareness And as
I look at that is that, you know, how do
people suddenly become aware?
Speaker 3 (34:37):
And as you say, sometimes it's hitting rock bottom.
Speaker 5 (34:40):
And you know, as you're working with her, as you're
working with other people, how do you help people to
understand Because I think one of the biggest challenges people
face subconsciously, I'm not good enough, I'm really no good
you know, gil shame, all of that type of stuff.
Speaker 3 (34:56):
Is there when we're not even aware of it.
Speaker 5 (34:58):
How do you help people to number one, understand their
authentic self and the fact that there's a soul there,
there's a spirit there that is godly, that is full
of light and love. How do you help them to
get to that understanding of their authentic self so that
they can then start to move forward and change their
(35:19):
life once they actually believe that.
Speaker 4 (35:22):
Hmm, that's a great question. I think the first things
we do is just look at It might sound obvious,
but we look at patterns in their life and we
identify where do these patterns come from? Because the authentic
self isn't something that needs to be created, it's already there.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4 (35:41):
So the challenge is looking at what's been blocking, what's
been the what's stopping you from expressing it, not necessarily
from taking the actions that you want in your life,
but even deeper, deeper, what's stopping you on the inside
from allowing to yourself to trust that part of yourself.
(36:02):
And so we look at that, We really we go,
We go as deep as they want to go, and
we identify like so, like this this is a modern
coaching tool. It's so common but we identify the limiting
beliefs because they shed light on where the neural where
what are those neural pathways that are just that have
been working since childhood to keep you this way that
(36:24):
you don't want to be. And it's a it's also
just the way I like to call it in simple terms,
it's like slowing all of that down. It's like when
you have a coach, when you have a space to work,
you can actually to become aware of the subconscious. We
have to slow down our relationship with our own minds,
our own bodies, our own emotions. We have to take time,
(36:45):
we have to we get to look at Okay, what
was what? Where is this coming from? What was the
first thought I had? Why did I have that thought
about myself? What's going on there? So it's just like
the simple work, but it's powerful, it's powerful and once
they become aware of the authentic self, when we address
the blocks, the authentic self comes through no problems.
Speaker 3 (37:05):
Oh that's wonderful.
Speaker 5 (37:06):
And as you mentioned, you know there's so many methodologies here,
but you talk about yoga, which really has to do
with that semantic the movement of the body, which is
I've talked to various different people. You know, for many
of them, that's so important you talk about meditation and
how important that is for people. How often or how
(37:28):
how many times do you find resistance from your clients
as you're starting to work with them when you start
talking about meditation or you know, movement and all of
those type of things which you know and I know
actually help to handle all of that. How do you
help them to understand that all of these different things
that you're talking about literally have been not only helpful
(37:51):
to you and to others, but it will be absolutely
helpful to them.
Speaker 4 (37:55):
To them, well, I always like to start where people
are at, because if we don't meet meet people where
they're at, we can't we can't really do much, you know,
we've lost them. So the cool thing is most people
are actually pretty open to this kind of stuff. They
(38:19):
just if there's things holding them back. The first level is,
let's say like they they've never meditated before, but most
people at this point have heard about it from somebody
somewhere on Instagram, something like that, you know, in a movie,
like people know what it is now and more or less,
more or less, what's holding them back from doing it
(38:41):
or practicing it. I mean on a deep level, it's
just usually a feeling of great discomfort of just sitting
with themselves. But on a more on other levels or
other other things that could be holding them back that
I've seen, it's just like they feel like they should
be doing it a certain way. They have these ideas
about what these things should look like or be like.
(39:05):
So they'll say, oh, I tried it once and it
was horrible. I had so many thoughts, I felt so uncomfortable,
so I just stopped. And so a lot of times
it just involves us sitting down and talking about, like,
what is their experience with this stuff been, what are
some of their preconceptions and these stories they're telling themselves
about what this is supposed to look like and what
(39:26):
it's supposed to do. And then also I address some
of those things like that's normal if you never sit
down with yourself, if you have never sat down and
sat in meditation, before you sit in a silent meditation,
a lot of stuff's gonna come up. That's a good thing,
you know, good job, congratulations. It's a lot of it
is just reframing, you know, what their experience has been
(39:48):
with this, what this is supposed to look like breaking
down some of those rules and ideas so that it
feels more accessible to them. And then some people they
have their things. I love going to certain yoga class,
or they love doing a certain like guided meditation. They
just need the support of the accountability. They want to
tell me at the end of the day, I did it,
I did it, I did it.
Speaker 3 (40:08):
You know.
Speaker 4 (40:08):
I check in with them. So there's that, which is great.
And then if they're not comfortable doing those things outside
of the session, we'll do them in the session and
we'll play with it and they end up loving it
and they usually will ask me, can we do a
meditation today? You know? And it's so nice because you
feel the benefits over time, you know. So they they yeah,
they love it well.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
And what I found and I think it's interesting for
people to know that, you know, there's not one type
of meditation, as you say, there's a guided meditation, there's
a meditation with you know self veggio and yeah, you know,
or I'm just I've just started really getting interested in
the in the vedding meditation.
Speaker 3 (40:48):
So now I'm starting to listen to the chance and.
Speaker 5 (40:51):
And doing that I see cool and you know, I
think it's important for you people to understand keep trying
until you find something that works, find something that works
for you. When that happens, then all of a sudden,
you're doing a good job. So how do people find you?
Number one? You've got a book that you've written, which
is a book of poetry, right, yeah.
Speaker 4 (41:10):
And it's authored with my husband. It's both of our
poetry dancing together in the form of a book.
Speaker 3 (41:16):
Okay. And what's it called?
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Cosmic Wilderness?
Speaker 3 (41:19):
All right? How do people find it?
Speaker 4 (41:21):
They can just find it on Amazon the company's website.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
Okay.
Speaker 5 (41:27):
And if people want to talk to you specifically, how
do they find you?
Speaker 3 (41:31):
How do they find you?
Speaker 4 (41:33):
They can just go on my website. It's my first name, Pooja,
my last name Bakai Poojabakai dot com. And there's a link.
There should be plenty of links to book a console
with me and we can have a chat.
Speaker 3 (41:45):
Great.
Speaker 5 (41:46):
So as we close, what would be a finalness is
that you'd like to leave with the audience.
Speaker 4 (41:54):
You know, I've been thinking about this one throughout the call,
just tuning in and feeling into what that is. And
I would say my final message is to just trust yourself,
trust your intuition, trust your heart. All right, that's simple.
Speaker 3 (42:13):
Well, Buoja, thanks so much. It's been great.
Speaker 5 (42:15):
It's fascinating to me how people have different journeys.
Speaker 3 (42:18):
But when it's all said and.
Speaker 5 (42:20):
Done, people on these type of journeys end up in
a similar situation where you're finding that love, you're finding
that piece. You're helping other people to get through some
of those issues that they had so that they can
find it also, so kudos to you that you're one
of those people.
Speaker 4 (42:36):
Oh, thank you. And we're all works in progress, so
I'm still working on my piece and my joy, but
I'm really happy to be here and thanks so much
for having me.
Speaker 5 (42:46):
Oh and aren't we all working on that? But anyway,
thank you so much, and folks, thanks for listening. I'm
hoping you enjoyed this and go to the website because
there's some great information there. I was there a couple
of times and it really is wonderful. So anyway, this
is doctor Doug. You're saying thanks for listening, and not
a stay
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Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.