Between the Moon - 5. Anchoring into Presence by Engaging Energetic Basics with Ishita Sharma

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

In today's episode I have the pleasure of being in conversation with mentor and modern mystic Ishita Sharma. Ishita Sharma serves as a mentor, mirror and activator to those who wish to better our world starting from within. She was born in Haridwar in northern India and came to the US as a teenager and began to study as a physicist, then turned to architecture and design, evolving into a multidisciplinary artist. Through it all, she felt that she was looking for an even deeper framework to explain what felt obvious to her: that we are all connected.In 2016, she established Come to Center to share the joy and freedom of living an awake, connected and fulfilling life. She holds space for life in all of its abundant complexity, from the highest joys and miracles to the deepest suffering and sorrows. Her work points people back to their own inner harmonic and wholeness.Today, Ishita works with contemporary visionaries, spiritual seekers and healers, therapists and coaches, CEOs and incarcerated youth to create futures that are free of past limitations to help them embody power, pleasure and show up in service, while rising beyond ego-centric paradigms. Ishita’s work is the expression of her deepest realizations, and an invitation into your own. Her unique approach integrates non-dual awareness with its embodiment, subtle energetics and relational dynamics to free the core of personal and systemic hindrances.In this episode we explore the mechanics of anchoring into presence and noticing our habits of attention to become more skilled at navigating our relationship with ourselves and others.To learn more about Ishita's offerings including Murmurations and Basics visit cometocenter.com This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit themoonismycalendar.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome, dear listener, to Between the Moon, a podcast about self-study in relationship with cycles. I'm your host, April McMurtry, founder of The Moon is My Calendar. In today's episode, I have the pleasure of being in conversation with mentor and modern mystic Ishita Sharma of Come To To Be. center. We explore hidden dynamics that are just below the surface within our conversation and just as a human navigating life. Her work brings people back to center. And you will hear this several times in the conversation. And so I hope that you can have a sense of the skill of facilitation for bringing somebody back to center. This is why I'm drawn to Ishta's work.

I am currently in a six-month program called Murmurations, where we are working with and engaging energetic basics. And we talk a little bit about this on the call. And basically, the basics are a way to anchor into presence. and this anchoring into presence with the self in order to engage more skillfully in relationships and with the world. As I mentioned, Ishita serves as a mentor, also a mirror and an activator for those who wish to better our world starting from within. She was born in Hardiwar in northern India, and she came to the U.S. as a teenager and began to study as a physicist,

which you'll hear her talk about a bit in the conversation as well, then turned to architecture and design evolving into multidisciplinary artist. Through it all, she felt that she was looking for an even deeper framework to explain what felt obvious to her that we were all connected. So in 2016, she established, come to center to share the joy and freedom of living and awake, connected, and fulfilling life. She holds space for life in all of its abundant complexity from the highest joys, which you can hear in her laughter in this call, to the deepest suffering and sorrows. And her work continually

points people back to their own inner harmonic and wholeness. So, Today, Ishta's work, she works with contemporary visionaries, spiritual seekers and healers, therapists, coaches, CEOs, and incarcerated youth to create futures that are free of past limitations and help people embody their power, pleasure, and show up in service, rising beyond egoic-centric paradigms. So Ishta's work is the expression of her deepest realizations and an invitation in to each of our own. Her unique approach integrates non-dual awareness and its embodiment, subtle energetics and relational dynamics to free the core of personal and systemic hindrances.

And she helps to point these out and slows things down to really see and sense and feel what those dynamics are, what is happening, where the mind is going, what the story is, to unravel that. I hope this conversation inspires and supports your own practice with self-study, in relationship with cycles, to notice what fluctuates, noticing your own habits of attention, going deeper with this, even though Ishita and I aren't talking directly about the moon, what she teaches in the basics of energetics, I see can be applied so clearly in working with cycles to help to really strengthen your own base. She talks about sitting in your base and feeling that

in a lived and embodied way. And this is important. And as she describes in this episode, so that we can get out of fight or flight, so that we can have a foundation to be able to really grow and explore and allow ourselves to go through iterations. And iterations, like the different versions really are like the different phases of the moon. We begin this conversation with some laughter because the first time that we met, I did not press record. and did not realize that until the very end. So this was our second attempt. And I hope you enjoy this exploration, allowing space for the pauses to contemplate

and consider and reflect on your own experience. Thank you for being here. Maybe. Today is our day. Today is our day. Well, welcome Ishtha to Between the Moon. This is a podcast for exploring self-study and exploring that practice in relationship with cycles. And I find your work and approach to self-study, this practice of coming into relationship

and a starting with the self. So if you'd like to, we can begin with basics. Absolutely. Those listening may not know what I'm referring to. And that's okay, whatever you do to get yourself into the asylum, however you get yourself closest to yourself. So we're going to reference resource. I'm going to invite you, April, to start a bit of,

reference whatever it is you think of you feel resourced by and imagining this field of resource surrounding us here now mm-hmm seeing us through clear eyes like pull us the eyes of god eyes that know us exactly as we are and cherish us and want the best for us. Hands that support us on our part. There is. Good. And then referencing here now. Engaging your basics, April and everybody else just engaging.

Well, sounds connection to this place, this time, your body, your vessel. Good. That's much better. Do you feel it? So precise, so helpful. As this is happening, part of what I want to do is name that in tangent. thing that's happening, that shift that's happening, this invitation to engage the basics.

And you notice them and see them and point them out in a way that is so helpful and so helpful to me because then I can have something to reference. Well, actually you're referencing your felt sense, right? But what happens when we meet is I can reference your felt sense through mind. And when you have reflection, mirroring, validation, whatever you want to call it, you get data. Like a feedback. Precisely. It's just a feedback loop because I track energy and you're tracking your energetics and we say,

ah, yes, now I feel my bass is sitting stronger. And somebody else is like, yes, I feel you sitting stronger in your base. How lovely. And we reinforce the good that's here, the innate capacity of your instrument to sing. And I wonder, what are some of the things that you see possible that sort of come to life when people you work with are sitting stronger in their base? Oh, that's a beautiful and big, big one. Wow. So if you feel, if you can just imagine a building that has a weak, straggly foundation. that's not a word

I just made it up if you just envision just get the felt sense of a building that is solidly anchored on the ground versus a structure

that is on thin stills and the engagement with the environment is different from that place right so for a human being

for us as we as we learn to find safety in our bodies as we learn to relax and be in the flow of life that's something that happens as I have more ground to stand up we're just literally like trees we don't think of ourselves as trees but we're basically trees that are different a few other layers and here we are if we don't have our feet firmly planted on the ground if our attentions are not able to reference the solidity of physical existence on this here now claim we're in trouble so one of the things one of the big things that happens along the way is people's postures change your body literally learns to hold itself more in a alignment with your natural flow of energy.

You're an extension of the air. You're an extension of the sky. When we forget, we take our place, we go to forward, we go to backwards, we go one side, the other side. But as we deepen our presence practice, as we anchor that way of being, everything else, I can't stress this enough. And ground, sitting on your base, is a comprehensive. complex function. There's a lot of things happening when I sit on my base more firmly.

I have the benefit of knowing I'm held. And when I know I'm held, I can explore much further, just like a child. I can grow up taller, just like a tree. I mean figuratively, energetically, in all ways. And then with ground, I think the other thing that we get when we sit more in our base, and this is a function,

is where less in fight of flight. Our nervous system remembers that fell sound safely of being anchored in a place and I literally have a place to stand on you hear,

hear a lot of people say this, right? Like, I don't feel like I'm taking up my space. I don't have enough space in this house. I don't have this. Well, they're not, they have not been taught or modeled or mirrored or cultivated the skill of actually holding their space. And I teach this the mechanics of presence and I can engage systematically. What is missing? I am again holding my space, filling it with myself. down anchored on the ground. And again, so simply, I have belonging. Suddenly, I have relation.

That's the magic. And consistently being able to track how that is happening is a very huge advantage. The skills of being present are not just sitting on our bases. There's a lot more that's happening. but as we cultivate that skill now I can meet the unfolding now holding my space knowing who I am not acting from my past right that I just put here and I think I'm living and you didn't no no no I'm not I forgot and now I have the advantage of actually being connected to the flow of life in myself and then I can have relation with you now I'm holding my space I'm anchored

my essence and say oh hi now when you talk to me you actually will feel me huge thing how many times does this happen where you're with somebody you're like they're just not there or you're not there and we're all in our heads like somewhere we're in construct ideas we're in like possibility that's great but we have no base to stand on And when you add that, there's a richness. There's this exquisite opening into the breath and depth and richness of experience. It's also better for your health. Physical help, I mean, all help.

Does that make sense? Yeah, some of the things that you mentioned of holding space. And I sort of saw your hands go out beyond the body. So this is an embodied practice and so much is that calling back of how the mind can go somewhere else. Future or past, I'm so good at this. We all have a special talent. Special talent. We talked a little before in our past conversation about that kind of separation or that split of whatever may be happening, how to get all parts, spirit form, everything in one place.

place, united in one place, with a base. And so to move from a place of a base and feeling resourced, feeling supported. You also mentioned like just being a human and being an extension of the earth. I just I would love to explore because this is part of imagining a new, a way of being in relationship, what it would feel like to live on a planet where people, humans are walking around engaging their basics. And almost like what is the, I wonder what that relationship that is that's missing to be able to do that. Oh. In working with you, it feels so natural now. Like it's something that can come more easily with practice. So let's be precise here. You said it feels more natural now, right? And there's a way, of course that's true, right? And I'm so glad. How lovely. Wonderful to do you. And I see, I feel you.

imbiving it more as we go, which is gratifying as hell, which is why I do this work. And it's a return to your natural state. So it's actually more than adding on, it's stripping away to reveal to be as we are here to be. That's a bold statement. But it's in alignment with the natural flow of life. Now, that's a big statement. And it's a big thing. If you're going to play the game of life, well, you have to be on the field.

You have to know how the game works. If you want to play it and you have to actually choose to play it. So it's just remembering, I'm playing the game and this is how is efficient and fun to play the game. That's very simple. So there's a, it's you're coming back. You're coming closer and closer and closer and closer. into what we call alignment, which might sound really woo-woo, but it is the best word, because there is an actual sort of felt sense clicking into place.

When you know you're in the right place, right timing, right relation, right rhythm, not for anyone else, not for any standard, no right wrong way, but it just feels inherently good and simple. So you're coming back to how you always have been without the extra extra clothing. Perhaps you can think of where there's extra stuff that we put on. Shows, children's, emotional drama. We can, you know, we're masters of creating our own drama

and then spinning in it. We're masters. We tell ourselves stories of oppression and we believe that they enhance our sums of. So we do a lot of things. And then underneath that, there is an intelligence that's still throbbing. And if it wasn't, you wouldn't be alive.

But it's coming out of the self-created chaos and back to center. And center is not a place, I always say. It's a process. So that's a segue because we think in that culture it's almost like

how do I say this nicely in a world where insanity is more prevalent than sanity sanity looks insane where we think it's normal no no no no there's not normal where you're coming back to

that's normal And then to answer this question, or to at least start to think about it, it's a beautiful question. Why? What did you say? That was a beautiful inquiry. What prevents us from living from this place? And we call it presence. You said, how would it be? Well, if everybody walked around in that engaging their base. So it's magnificent. It's really beautiful and it's so empowering to be. be around a group of folks. This is what my life is dedicated to is facilitating this transformation, you can call a transformation or return to basics to health, where it is incredibly empowering. We stand with and for each other's greatness because we want to because that's the

most natural and beautiful thing because I know I'm full in myself. I want you to be as expansive, as true in yourself as I can, as you ever can be, right? So we support each other and being who we've come here to be rather than imposing ideas of who we should be and then getting into conflicts, trying to morph and push and pull each other. And it's a big healing thing. But what prevents us is a fantastic question. If you look in your experience, you might.

check what prevents you. And for me, it's fear. I've looked for a long time and we have all these, well, fear is the symptom. Fear is the symptom of an underlying disconnection from ourselves. That's what I would say. It prevents us from showing up that way, from engaging from that space.

because well we've forgotten who we are and systematically so we have been in calcated we've been trained right like i studied lots of things i knew a lot about i mean i i started out as a physics major and i had to stop because i was crying in my closet i was like i am calculating the distance to this planet and the time warp equation of how time destroys here and i have no experience of this in myself It doesn't my life. What are we talking? You know, there's a disconnection. We can talk about things from outside them.

And we can understand so much the brain is amazing. The intellect is amazing to be precise. And it does so much wonder. But what we do in our culture is we constantly and continually keep attending to a very small sliver of the whole of reality. This is the most precise language. which I can use is we keep pointing like I have a nephew and I see how we do it. Right. Like I remember being made a person.

Remember that process. We didn't show up as people, right? We had to be made into people. Our personality has been accumulated through experience. But underneath that, like no one's like reflecting who you are back to you. Or if you're very lucky, they are. luckily, hopefully, everybody has someone or many ones, a village, a city, a culture, a society that reflects continually back to them who they are like that.

And when that happens, there's this beautiful feedback loop, right? Then I remember who I am. I feel connection. I feel expansion. I feel my uniqueness. All of the good stuff. But what we do is we take very small things. We'll say, I don't know, in my family, it's about being right.

It's about following the rules, being good, doing things the way that I was told. I mean, it was a lot about this is how you are supposed to look. You know, your legs are like this, your face is like this. And is, you know, attention was on a different part of experience. So what we get trained to do is like exercise what we are attended to. If nobody around me knows how to reference their own essence, I will never know that. Then I have to develop that relation.

So what's preventing us is in very simple terms, a lack of consciousness. A simple lack of consciousness, a simple forgetting of who we are and a simple distortion in our habits of attention. What we think of is good, what we think of success, what we have been taught is important, how to enhance our sense of self, has become about accumulating a lot of things. Money, a lot of, even experiences, people are experienced junkies.

Right? Like now I have had my enlightenment experience and now I am so, you know, Even that is its own addiction. So it goes all the way too. How does that land in you? Yeah, there's this like a contrast felt between the appearances. Of you should look this way and sort of even, you know, for me raising two children early on the comments about the appearances. Oh, they're so big.

Oh, they're so this. Or they're so just those kinds of comments of everything that's seen on. the outside or visible or sort of measurable, I guess, on the outside. And what you said about having someone that can point back or be a reference point for your own essence to see somebody in their essence as a, not necessarily a modeling, but like a embodying, really embodying something that is not just an appearance. of something, but there's something that's felt that's, that's different. It's beautiful.

Yeah. And as you say that, there's this, I mean, it's a tragedy, right? Like, it's, to me, it feels tragic. And I'm, I still grieve it. I still grieve it in a lot of parts of my life. Lots more to grieve. Say that as I love. it's a tragedy to never know a reality that's deeper than physical

because life has a very broad spectrum frequency as we said right it's like what's a good analogy it's like never knowing um color beyond black and white has its own beauty and it's limited right it's like and when i say physical i don't just mean what most people think of as physical i mean physical emotional and mental in a in the yogic system we think of those three is still in the physical realm mm-hmm right and even here i'm feeling this a weaving of of the embodiment piece of of how and where we're starting of like starting with the body in space of like inhabiting the physical and that being a

starting place for so many people how do I even inhabit my own physical life with my senses and with what what seems are outside and then what am I experiencing inside especially with so what feels like living in a world that is so destabilizing destabilized or chaotic and that there's it's kind of this what you mentioned about habits of attention of how our attention is more and more everyday. Distraction. The distraction.

I'm doing the same with my hands because that's what it feels like. I have all my fingers out and they're like pulling in different directions my, you know, that distraction to actually claim our own habit of attention when it feels like someone else has a hold of it. Yes. And there is, there is an assumption in there, right? That I would like to make explicit. And this is the fundamental basis of any spiritual tradition.

And I guess where I come from, spirituality is woven into the way of being. separate from what you do when you go to work and you have children and you blah blah blah right but the assumption the the fact of the matter is that i can cultivate the skill of paying attention with intention right now that's a basic skill i wish i'd learned before i'd learned um you know about the history of India and the all of this stuff right like that's very foundational to say hey you have agency we don't have a lot of agency let me be clear i'm not one of those people who believes i can do whatever i want whenever i want i don't believe so there are limitations i'm wearing a human suit and thank god i'm grateful for these limitations because imagine

I could just do everything that my mind thought of. That would be a disaster. I don't want that. Or yours. I don't want to be. Oh. But it's really helpful to be able to direct your attention where you actually want it to be. And the thing is that you can do that.

So that you are not a helpless victim of the overstimulation that you are being bombarded by we are everywhere and that's its own expression of our internal turmoil is the external world so there's no world outside and me away from the world or i am an extension of life itself what i've created in my country in my city in my body in my global collective is actually mine so i'm not separate from it that's a very important important recognition. What if I want to be separate from it? What if I don't like it? I don't like the bombardment. Absolutely. To almost like a coming to terms with that to identify. I would like to make my bubble where I'm in my essence and with other people who are and the rest

of the world feel so heightened that that interconnection that there isn't. I mean, the word escape came to mind but I think that's a route that many people keep consciously or unconsciously because it's so painful to feel. It's very painful. You're so right. I have to say there's no qualms about this right. It's intense here on planet Earth. It's really intense. When the human body and getting inside of it, it's an intense

experience. And there's a beautiful book I fell in love with. It's called Star Child. It's the book that I wish my three-year-old had had when she was three. And I won't butcher it, but I'll paraphrase it. But it just puts it very simply, right? Like, you will be plunged into Earth's River of Time. there will be so much for you to feel that's what we can say what i cannot promise right people

come and they're like well i'm going to do this work and i'm ready to get enlightened and how long does that take ishhhah and this and doesn't happen anymore those clients have figured out this is not the one for them right there's no time bound no five-step process that i'm going to lead you through and your process of awakening and healing is an organic natural thing that, of course, needs some intention and direction, but it's a beautiful unfolding. That doesn't happen. But what I can say is that no matter who or where you are, there will be so much for you to feel. Just because I can embody it more and more presence in my life does not mean.

in fact it doesn't mean I won't ever suffer doesn't mean I will never experience pain doesn't mean that life's going to be all rainbows and unicorns that's that's not going to happen it it is hard here we chose to come to the school of life and you might not think so but I seem to, I don't know, I know this in my experience. I said, let's go. Give me the suit. Give me the personality. Here's what I, here's my curriculum.

Let's go. I'm going to do this and then I'm going to, I need to learn how to do all these things. And look, here's my cohort. This is the path to my freedom, my deepest evolution. Let's go. Right. So as we get more and more, I don't know how to say this, maybe as we walk the path more,

this, come to center is an invitation to walking your life's path consciously. And as you do that more and more, what happens is the extra that you add on top starts to fall away. That suffering, that we self-inflicted. That maybe I don't know, you know. That's optional. Or the worrying, the what is it called?

catastrophizing, the victimizing. It's optional. We don't have to go do that. But it's always going to bring you a rich mix of pain and intense joy. That's the nature of being alive. The more you go, actually, the more our hearts open, the more we feel. And as we do that, we're more and more in connection with life as it is. So, of course, it's not easy.

I get it. I get it. No judgment. I know that you want, it's tempting to say, I don't want to do this. And you have to choose to live. You have to choose consciously to live. I work with a lot of people whose lives change, whose health returns once we make that choice explicit. We make ourselves, we debilitate ourselves when we choose not to be in life. Now that can be an unconscious decision that can look like many things but we are cutting ourselves off of life I've had to choose to live

not once not twice at least three times and I was the third time I was like fuck this what are you serious I don't want to do this I'm done like I feel complete what else is there for me to do I want to wait if I have to come back then will I have to start away like am I done with the school I chose

no but everybody I believe everybody has to at some point in their life reconcile and grapple with this question and hopefully make that choice very consciously but both feet into this river of life and I'm going to go where it takes me and I'm going to uphold my agency and I'm going to swim with the river in partnership with my life that's my pact with life I want all the help and I'll take I'll take a cruise of people. I'll lead the expedition for as many as want to do this with me, you come. And we need resource. And we don't expect, we don't expect we're never going to, you know,

topple down the waterfall where we don't expect that it's going to be smooth sailing. We know the waters are going to get to everyone. We know how to anchor into our house. We know how to navigate the path. And we know how to work with the mystery and let it be so. Yeah, it's a big, it's a reconciliation. Yeah. And like you said, that choice, I'm even asking myself in this moment, like, am I waking up each morning and like choosing? Yeah, that's, it just brings that to my awareness. So this within the choosing and within the choosing and within the, like you said, but the body suit, in this body suit that has so many needs for things like rest and and caring for the physical form, another practice of living iteration.

And so for me has that question of, is my essence going through iterations? is everything around the essence, the thing that is an iteration, I understand to be change, to be not who I was last week. And yet something isn't changing as well. And so is there any way to kind of talk through or bring some language to the experience of being with the iteration, of not sort of, I would say, holding myself to who I think I was at a certain time to kind of hold an identity together. And yet also the importance of having an identity.

And I guess if there's a way too of even thinking about this in a cyclical way, you know, when you said coming to earth and just plunging into that. that river of time. I often language gives me very visual images. And so I pictured an actual river kind of like circling the earth as the time, as a as a circle. I don't, I don't think I would have always thought that. I guess it's a parallel experience,

but the sense of time being a point A to point B, like the river starts when I'm born and then it ends when I died. Are you moving for this body, baby? Right. Something came from some elements and then we'll dissolve into some other elements. But this notion of a river that there is movement and we're in it. We're a part of it and maybe guiding it, maybe being guided, maybe that's part of that mystery. And now I feel like I've thrown a lot of things into.

this pot of words, this soup. At the core, it is that how in an experience of iteration, an experience of time that moves in cycles that comes back around to both experience, what is unchanging and within each of us, within myself, And what? Right here. If you were going to just take a moment. Yeah. My mind is already like around the block running laps.

Right. Right. It's a good noticing. It is. Thank you, mine. Wow. So so many people are beautiful. And if you go to that part of you,

that you just referenced. To feel your core. So there's a delicious way that our minds can both savor and distract. There was a time in my life where I was so swirling in the river of time, we might say, that my email signature was a line from the life of pie.

It said, why is it that we can throw out a question farther than we can reel in an answer? Like fishing. like fishing. I was way pissed. You know, I would go to and go to the Shavananda ashram up in the cat skills

to go be with the temple and just do yoga twice a day. And I remember talking to the person, I don't know, priest or whoever you call it, the yogh who was leading this thing. And I was like, I had a question and I raised my hand. And he said, that is a transcendental question. and he said very good and he didn't answer it i was so angry that is a question that your mind will

point you to in transcendent okay good but what i found at some point was the mistake was actually in imagining that the mind could answer the questions it was creating. I stopped asking why. We found it much more enriching and useful and generative to move beyond this sort of projected idea of causality. And in the text we say, I haven't read many texts, but some of them that I have before. went into you know um it's a causal it has no cause it has no cause the divine but the divine dimension is that which is a causal it births itself right my mind tried to go somewhere to find that that's a great actually feel the movement of that modification in your mind in your presence

because both are useful the one without the other and usually the mind without the rest we are in trouble and you might find a lot of the answers to your questions sort of don't feel that urgent and are already

kind of able to rest in question yeah but what you're pointing to in this inquiry and if you were to really you know love this inquiry and dance with it without getting lost in it.

We're going to hold it like it's this delicious, beautiful piece of music to cherish. It comes to this exquisite what might be called counterpoint in music, this paradox of always being.

There's the dimension that's always whole, always perfect, always and always changing and always morphing and always evolving. There's a, I love that your podcast is about the moon. I love the moon. I use this analogy. I'm going to tell you because it's so perfect right here. People come for one-on-one work typically and when they come, you know, people have ideas

of what goals they're going to achieve and how it's going to look and all of, that starts to break down here. And one of the person that said to a certain sort of person, maybe you are one, I don't know, is, ah, yes,

like I feel, I feel the call of your evolution. I can feel how in this desire there's the call towards the future of like forging that beautiful path that your soul

is calling. And like imagine two people, right? Like one is sitting here on planet Earth and it's like, oh my God, this earth sucks. And we've just destroyed it and everything is gone to shit. And people, people are the problem and blah, blah, blah. And like, I hate being here. I want to get out of this place and I want to go to the moon. Let's build colonies on the moon.

Let's invest in this new future. It's going to be magnificent. And like it's just like, you know, and there's that inspiration. there's that trajectory and then there is oh my gosh it's so amazing to be here isn't it just incredible look i'm talking to you i've had this body i have these emotions oh my god i have this beautiful nature here we are i get to share life and i get to grow from it and you're here and i'm here and we're all sharing this magnificent planet how cool can you imagine what it's going to be like on the moon if it's so nice here what if we found out aren't you curious like want to go check it out

oh my gosh i do right and which which vantage which person so to speak is a way obviously exaggerated hypothetical but who is more prone to finding fulfillment when they get to them right so it's that paradox of I'm here. I love myself as I am. I love who I am and I'm excited to follow the movement of my life into its natural organization into its trajectory. How to fix myself because I'm whole. Doesn't think I'm perfect. I have so many flaws. Right. But there's this part of me that's grounded. That's solid. That's a bad word to use. Changeless perhaps. Out of time. Out of whatnot. And there's parts of me that are here to be swimming in the river. But when I lose connection between them, that's when I go skittling. So it's kind of like we're being on.

and we say this, right? We say it's about duality here. We're learning to return to our oneness through the experience of contrast of duality. When actually at some point that duality collapses, there is no one on two in many years. It's just like it's just the one thing. You can't not see it.

You cannot forget the sacredness of April in front of you and the glass and the deer outside. There's just nothing outside of it. That was a lot. There's something where I just had, you know, in this moment, the experience of like the waves stirring up and then settling, you know, of having that like thoughts and feelings and emotions that all get stirred up and that can settle.

And as you said, earlier there isn't this guarantee of smooth sailing like oh it's all just going to be calm and i'm going to be peaceful and i'm having a felt sense of of everything is whole now and then what if what else is there to possibly explore and open up and an openness to that movement right so before i had the right words i think i botched it up many times and of course it It's always changing. But there was a point in my life where I couldn't see anything but perfection. Right.

And from that place or space or state or whatever, people would come to me and want to do the work. And it's semantics. And I saw that there was so much for them to grow into. But I couldn't find the language to say, oh, but make you good as you are. And actually sometimes the thing that's missing is just to remember I'm good as I am. And a lot of these, that's what we're coming back to. And I say, I'm actual state. It is like, yeah, I'm here.

I'm good. I love myself. I love you. I love life. I trust myself. I trust the process. I have to push for myself or you or like. it was very simple but there is both the dimension of me growing like at what stage in the

baby's evolution in your womb you had two children at what stage do you think that is ever going to be perfected and when was it not right that what came up as that lens of the deficiency of what's missing of what hasn't developed yet or what feels lacking and part of that function of the mind that can find all of those things. Yeah, and that is so it's job, right? Like there's a way that we talk about the intellect in precise terms as a knife. It's the thing that slivers up your experience and makes it into a small, right? like it takes all of your data.

Don't cope me on the numbers. It's crazy, but this, I never remember what the right numbers are, but it's something like, a small fraction. Very small, like the proportion is something like

54 million or billion bits of data coming at the nervous system per second. And a conscious mind can filter consciously, process about 34 or something. right that's that's what we've built our realities out of that's what my intellect can actually hold my conscious mind and we think it is everything no all be all rightness and this is the right way to be and this is the should and all of those are ideas accumulated over experience freedom and space is creating a little more space

where the intellect takes its place but it's not the bus driver it learns how to work in service of something bigger my identity you name this and we should definitely be careful here what we're saying is not that you don't need to have

identity. What I'm saying is that your identity doesn't need to be fixed. And the more you try to fix it, the more suffering you create for yourself and everyone else then. Me too. I'm not, special. Well, and this is right to take that and put it into that a self-study practice of when am I constructing my identity in a way and what are the things then that lead to my experience of suffering. Absolutely. I mean, those are the moments that are most transformative for me. This is how I, this whole thing began for me. As I noticed, that I was really identified with having the answer when I was asked a question. Because I why, when I don't know, I feel afraid to not know.

How is interesting is that? Why do I get so scared about not knowing? Oh, man. Right? So juicy. Like any, like any, you just say it is, we have 20 million opportunities every day, every moment. But that's the thing is to actually go in and attend with loving attention to these hidden dynamics just below the same. I just, I wish I could like, we could have a day for all of humanity to explore that question for ourselves. What is that fear that comes up when I don't know?

when I'm faced with the unknown and what are my strategies around that. Yes. Well, I just want to say it is so lovely to talk to you. And I knew the first time because I heard you on a podcast and I heard you. And there was a part of me that was like, I need to spend some time with Ishita, with these teachings, with whatever is going on because even the language sometimes I'm like, resource. okay, if my mind tries to understand it, I go one place.

If I, I don't know, sink down deeper or just feel something from a different place than I'm experiencing something else. But I knew just that that takes time. So I appreciate and I know that the container of murmurations is a longer journey and that you're also offering these energetic basics called basics. Yes. the basics to go deep with the basics because as we know it's not it's basic but it's and it's basic and it's like okay an orientation or reorientation or reorientation or realigning so I'm

wondering as we wrap up if there's anything else that you'd like to share about basics and and what you're offering coming up for people who might want to work with you absolutely So I say if any of this resonated and felt exciting, perhaps a lot of times people say, well, my mind was blown and I didn't really get sad. And that's okay. Well, when they come, they're like, but I felt why you were speaking from. And it spoke to me. So I'd say, if you feel the call and you'll feel it, then come, come explore. I love working with people and I call it work only because it's called that here.

But we get to walk together and play together and explore. And everything I do is a doorway into something deeper. So knowing this, there is going to be a free call in September, a community call where everybody is welcome. And we're going to look at the nature of your experience. a little more closely with loving attention, kind of like we did on the call that we first met April on flow. And there's going to be a free call in September followed by, I'm going to be opening a cohort of memorations,

a six-month journey similar to the one that April you're in in the fall in October. So you'll have some space to sort of feel into if these are the steps that are for you. And in memorations and everything I do, you're going to learn a skill set that we refer to as basics that we've been talking about, helping you anchor into presence, regardless of what's going on around you, who was home, how terrible your boss is, you know, all of those things. And I'm teaching basics exclusively as a two-day workshop. is a two-day immersive rather and that is August 27th and 28th

and then I'm also teaching basics in person in September and that is the 17th and 18th but all this information is on my website and folks can go and listen to me talk some more if they want or even experience a free call it's all online on come to center.com Yeah. And I'll put the link in the show notes. Thank you. And as you said, your offerings are doorways into something deeper. And I'm just, I'm, I'm, I'm grateful that you're opening those,

those doorways and inviting people in and that I was able to somehow very serendipitously was like, in the moment, joined a free call and thought I was going to have my camera off. And you're so present was like, The presence was like, no, we're present here. We are present in this moment, in this place, in this body, that invitation into presence and the loving way that you invite us into presence. I'm just, I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. You showed up and you turned your camera on.

Look at that. Here we are. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jistata. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you, sweetheart. If you like this podcast, please subscribe, leave a review, share it with a friend, all the things to help it reach more people who will benefit in some meaningful way. I'm April, and I'll be with you next time on Between the Moon.