Dhru Purohit Show - #220: The Power of Hitting Rock Bottom and Where to Go Next with Dr. Shefali

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

The Power of Hitting Rock Bottom and Where to Go Next  | This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers. Throughout my years of soul-searching, meditating, and contemplating life, I’ve learned one really big lesson: we’re in control of our own experience and reality. Our mindset will dictate what we deem true and real, but as humans, our egos can creep in and blur the lines. We get lost between what we need to be our authentic selves and what society or other people say we need in order to be worthy.  Unfortunately, that lie of unworthiness has seeped into many of our lives and taken away our power. Today’s guest on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dr. Shefali Tsabury, is here to talk about reclaiming consciousness and empowerment, especially as women in a patriarchal world.  Dr. Shefali received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University. Specializing in the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, she brings together the best of both worlds for her clients. She is an expert in family dynamics and personal development, teaching courses around the globe. She has written four books, three of which are New York Times bestsellers, including her two landmark books The Conscious Parent and The Awakened Family. Oprah has endorsed her work as revolutionary and life-changing.  On today’s episode Dr. Shefali and Dhru talk about her new book, A Radical Awakening and specifically explore its central topics around how women can break free of explicit and implicit expectations that society has placed on them. Dr. Shefali shares her experience of awakening from the fog so many women find themselves in when only identifying as wives, mothers, or a slew of other labels that aren’t their true essence.    In this episode, we dive into:  -Dr. Shefali’s radical awakening (5:10)  -Where unworthiness comes from (11:51) -Victim vs. victimhood (18:50) -Empowerment and taking control of your own emotional experiences (21:07) -Understanding consciousness and ego (25:40)  -Why hitting rock bottom is a gift (30:26) -Why we get stuck in the blame game (38:07)  -Breaking free from victimized consciousness and challenging cultural norms (41:47)  -The lies about marriage and divorce (58:10)  -What it looks like to have a benevolent partnership (1:02:30)  For more on Dr. Shefali you can follow her on Instagram @DoctorShefali, on Facebook @DrShefaliTsabary, on Twitter @DrShefali, on YouTube @DrShefali, and through her website https://www.drshefali.com. Get her book A Radical Awakening: Turn Pain into Power, Embrace Your Truth, Live Free at https://www.aradicalawakening.com. Also mentioned in this episode: -A Radical Awakening Course - https://courses.drshefali.com/p/aradicalawakening -The Female Brain by Louann Brizendine - https://www.amazon.com/Female-Brain-Louann-Brizendine/dp/0767920104 For more on Dhru Purohit, be sure to follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, on Facebook @dhruxpurohit, on Twitter @dhrupurohit, and on YouTube @dhrupurohit. You can also text Dhru at [phone] or click here https://my.community.com/dhrupurohit. Interested in joining The Dhru Purohit Podcast Facebook Community? Submit your request to join here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2819627591487473/. This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers. If I had to pick one supplement that has made the biggest difference in my overall health, it would be magnesium. I personally started taking magnesium to help with my sleep, especially when I travel, and it’s been a game changer. But I don’t take just any old magnesium, I take BiOptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough. It contains 7 different forms of magnesium, which all have different functions in the body. I haven’t found anything else like it on the market. Right now, BiOptimizers is offering my community a few special bundles, just head over to https://magbreakthrough.com/dhru, with code DHRU10. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I had still bought into the idea that my worth came from my roles. And so I had believed the lie. And I believe this is the ultimate lie we all ingest, the lie of unworthiness. Hi everyone, Drew Prode here. On today's episode, we have Dr. She's a three-time New York Times bestselling author. And her latest book is called Radical Awakening. It's all about how we can let go of the explicit and implicit expectations that society places on us.

If you want to know how to use this approach to level up your consciousness or even improve your love life, stay tuned for a fascinating interview. So if I had to pick one supplement that's made the biggest difference in my overall health, it would have to be magnesium. This super mineral is needed for over 400 different enzyme reactions in your body. And this is the thing because you know I'm obsessed with sleep. It's so critical for your sleep plus your heart, brain health, your muscles, and so much more. When you don't get enough magnesium, you can struggle with things like muscle twitches, insomnia, palpitations, constipation, migraines, and the list goes on and on.

I personally started taking magnesium to help my sleep, especially when I travel, and it's been a game changer. But I don't just take any old magnesium. I take bio-optimizers, magnesium breakthrough. It contains seven, yes, seven different forms of magnesium, which all have different functions in the body. I haven't found anything else like it on the market. Honest to God, magnesium breakthrough can help reduce cortisol and stress, and it promotes deeper relaxation and helps with even anxiety.

I have so many friends reaching out to me saying that they feel infinitely more relaxed after they incorporated some form of magnesium supplement into their research. routine. Now, one of the reasons I specifically like bio-optimizers is because their products are soy-free, gluten-free, lactose-free, non-GMO, free of chemicals and fillers, and they're made with all-natural ingredients. So right now, if you're looking for magnesium, bio-optimizers is offering my community a few special bundles. Just head over to magbreakthrough.com backslash drew with the code Drew 10. That's M-A-G-B-R-E-A-K-T-R-O-U-G-H dot com backslash Drew, D-H-R-U, with the code Drew-D-H-R-U-10, and get your bio-optimizers magnesium breakthrough today. Welcome to the Drew-P-P-R-A-Podcast. Each

week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Dr. Sheffali. Dr. Sheffali received her doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University. She specialized with the integration of Western psychology and Eastern philosophy, and she brings the best of both worlds together for her clients and in her books. She's an expert in family dynamics and personal development, teaching courses around the globe. She has written four books, three of which are New York Times bestsellers, including her two

landmark books on conscious parenting. Oprah has endorsed her work. That's all you need to know. On today's interview with Dr. Sheffali, we dive deep into her new book called Radical Awakening and specifically explore its central topics around how women can break free of explicit and implicit expectations that society has placed on them. We also talk about love, relationships, the taboo around divorce, consciousness, and most importantly, how all people, men and women, can go from being powerless in their lives to truly powerful.

Let's jump into my interview with Dr. Sheffali. Dr. Sheffali, welcome to the podcast, and I don't have you here. I'm so happy to be with you, Drew. Thank you for having me. It was such a pleasure. We had you speaking at our Feel Good Summit. And since that time, we've kept in touch and I've been seeing your work from afar. And my sisters, you know, because this is a book that is for everybody, but really you're writing to women, but it's for everybody.

Yeah. We're very excited about this book. Shout out to my sisters, Herschel and Kea. You know them both. And when I was summarizing the book, because I read it this weekend, when I was sharing the book with them and they said, you know, talk to me a little bit more about what it's about. And I said, you know, this book is about really pointing out the fog that many people find themselves in, even if they don't know that they're in there, but particularly for women, right? But it's important for men to be aware and women to be aware.

So I want to start there. And I want to start with that term fog because you write in the opening of the book that you can honestly, you say that I can honestly say that I lived in a fog for much of my life. There were glimpses of my authentic self here and there, of course, but there were large parts of myself that stayed submerged for decades. Talk to us about this fog and what you're writing about. When we're children, we inherit these emotional legacies from our parents, the ambiance within which we grew. And we are assigned certain roles. I'll be the pleasing. I'll be the achiever, I'll be the comedian, I'll be the rebel, I'll be the angry one, I'll be the

dysfunctional one. So whether we want them or not, whether we like it or not, we all inherit and are raised in a cultural ambiance, psychological environment. And that becomes our template. We then make choices in our lives. We enter relationships, we enter careers, operating from that template, never realizing that there's a template that is pulling our strings that may not be in any way leading us to our authentic self. If anything, that template and those strings are straying us from who it is we truly are. So the fog I speak to is this complete disorientation, disempowerment, disconnection to who we could have been before. that template or even knowing that we are operating tethered to a template. And then can we choose

parts of the template and discard others? But because we don't do any of this, because we don't even know we're in the matrix, that we are living in this fog of confusion and just kind of reactive to our everyday life. So in my life, I had my templates which led me to certain roles. So I was the giver and the pleaser and the conflict avoider, the empath. So I talk about this in my book. I identify all these roles that people play. The book is a radical awakening in case people are wondering. And I help women identify that template, that archetype, that gives us certain roles. And I didn't realize that I was pretty much tethered to these roles to the cost of authenticity. and that was my real radical awakening to realize that I was co-creating my dynamics in my life

based on these roles and they were taking me away from my authentic self. You've been teaching in this field, the larger field of awakening, consciousness, you know, your whole past history, many of our listeners are familiar with you with the books on parenting, which we'll talk about in a little bit, conscious parenting. Going back to the title of the book, A Radical Awakening, these templates that you were just sharing about, they come at different time periods of our life. It's in our own unfolding. So we might have, as sometimes people will say, the hero's journey, right? We have different heroes journeys that we're always going through to realize a new piece of the true authentic self of ours that's

unfolding. You say that even you being in this world, again, you're a human being as well too, You had a recent piece, like about two years ago, two or three years ago, that was part of your unfolding, your awareness of that. So talk to us about that. You know, you say that after 25 years of playing a role, you burned out. So what role were you playing? Yeah. And again, just to speak to your point, it's a constant unlayering.

So when I was 21, I had one awakening. and then at 44 I had another level of awakening, you know. So who knows, maybe in 20 years I'll have another one if I'm still alive. It's not a linear process. It's not one where you reach a destination and you can put a bow and you're done. You know, you keep drawing experiences to your life that push you to go even deeper into authenticity. So like I said, my role was to be the perfect wife, the perfect mother, the perfect family person and really what the biggest role I played was to believe in the lie that I wasn't worthy

enough. I had fully, even though I was successful and even though I was by all standards way outside, you know, any level of mediocrity, it didn't matter. Deep down inside, I had still bought into the idea that my worth came from my roles. And so I had believed that. I had believed the lie, and I believe this is the ultimate lie we all ingest, I call it in my book, a pill that kills the lie of unworthiness. And somehow that seeps into our interactions. You know, we don't ask for a raise or we don't raise our price or we don't say no, or we don't say yes, or we don't simply take charge of our life. I was not in the driver's seat of my life. I was 100% giving up my power, even though to the outside person it would look like I was so super powerful.

I knew inside me I was not fully authentically. I felt afraid to fully take my power. And now I feel like I am in that full ownership of my own psychology. And what that means is I no longer am a victim. I'm no longer martyr. I'm no longer, you know, in any way dependent on the unconsciousness of other people. I now know that I am in charge of my own emotional well-being for the entire 360 of my experience. And that, for me, is a radical awakening.

So a lot to unpack there, and I'm super excited to unpack it. Let's start at the beginning and say that unworthiness, you know, one of the individuals that wrote a beautiful testimonial for your book is Gabor Mate. And, you know, he has a quote that many people know of, which I'll paraphrase here. And he says, you know, the question is, you know, why, not why the addiction, but why the pain, right? So, so in that context, let's look at the lens of, let's look at the topic of unworthiness. Where did that start in your life if you look back at that? are the origins of it so our listeners can kind of follow along?

Yeah. Well, Drew, it's really everywhere. It's the culture is predicated on human unworthiness. We are, and when I say we are all, of course, there may be 10 people on the earth who isn't what I'm talking about. But for the most part, we are all disconnected from our. authentic heart. And how do I know that? Because we just have to look at the state of our planet. The state of our planet would not be the way it is if we as humans did not globally and individually participate in our own severance from our heart. So where did I get unworthiness? I got

it from my culture. You know, it's like it's everywhere. Our culture predicates. The capitalism predicated on our consumerism. Our consumerism predicated on our lack. Where does our lack come from from our fear? Our fear is again predicated on a deep resistance to our own being, to our, the fact that we will die, the fact that we'll grow old, the fact that we're going to get wrinkles and celluline, we can't all be billionaires. So that scarcity, that feeling of unworthiness is at the core upon which then we participate in consumerism and achieving and success and go for the gold medal and go for the pot at the end of the rainbow. And then that is how capitalism turns its wheels.

So we feed it. It feeds us back because there's never any end to consuming. Because the core is that we feel unworthy. So unless we understand that we will always feel unworthy, there's no amount of wrinkle cream. that is going to take that away. There's no fancy man or woman in a Bentley or Rolls-Royce that can come and take that away. And as long as we're looking for worth on the outside, which is what consumerism is predicated on,

buying the creams, buying the cars, looking for the next ladder, we will perpetuate what we are perpetuating, an entire globe of great malfunction and disconnect. and our children are being more driven to success and competition than ever before. Therefore, they're more anxious than ever before. This generation is more anxious than ever before. I was asked to write a book with my co-author,

superpowered three years before the pandemic because the rates of anxiety in children were skyrocketing. So now, after the pandemic, they are probably on steroids. So we are, you know, in this culture of tremendous lack. And then consumerism comes and then greed comes and then capitalism comes and then capitalism comes and profit is the only goal. And that's why we've decimated our children, our earth, our species.

You know, we're not in a good place right now in terms of well-being. And, you know, the earth's resources are drying up because our inner connection to ourself is severed. what role does are early. So that's like the global, right? We're zooming out and we're seeing the global sort of sense of it. So that's the macro. Let's bring it down to the micro.

Let's just talk on just a human level. You know, the human levels of you're very open and honest in your book about some of the drivers that were in your life in societal parental upbringing of needing to be the good girl that put everybody else first. Yes. So let's bring it down to the micro. What were some of the conditions that were some of the things that you saw growing up or what are some of the things that you heard growing up that played a part in that? Oh, my God. Thank you for bringing me back to the micro. So yes, growing up, for example, I heard these things, but other people can reflect on what they heard. But I heard so much focus on my external looks. So much. I mean, I walked into a room. They would comment on whether I was fat or thin compared to the last time. I walked into the room, they would tell me whether my hair was shiny or not. I mean, Indian culture is known to do this. We all can't stand it, but it still continues, generation after generation, where people feel they have the audacious right

to comment about every part of your body. Then we were in India, especially, oh my goodness, through the movies we saw, through our aunties, through the parties, that women ate last. I saw that. I saw that the woman would, the mother, the wife would be in the kitchen and she would be making the hot food. And everyone else starts before. My mother did this. And I thought she was the most amazing mother for doing it.

Nobody ever asked her to sit at the table because we all wanted her hot food. But nobody ever said, hey, let's find a tradeoff. This is not okay with us. Let's negotiate. Nobody said it. It was expected and understood and we thrived on it. And as a young girl, I absorbed the message that to be self-abnegating is virtuous. So then, so external focus on the, on the beauty, on the physical appearance, on self-abnegation, and then on, you know, the focus that girls need to keep the harmony. You know, we need to always suffer in silence and sacrifice of feelings because we want to keep everyone happy. This is how we were raised. It was in literally everywhere I turned, this is my this was my message.

So whether my individual two parents tried to help me be free or not, almost didn't matter because their voice was drowned out. And so then as I grew up and wanted to assert myself, those messages played back and interrupted my capacity to step into my power. It created doubt. It created ambivalence. And then I was in a hamster wheel of complete, you know, self, you know, criticism. How can you want to speak up when you should be a family harmonizer?

How can you want to speak up when you're pissing other people off? So this internal conflict was almost too hard to bear. So I just silenced the conflict by never trying to speak up. It was just easier to follow than contend with this inner conflict. I think this is a good opportunity to make the distinction and really talk about inside the book, you early on and we'll come back and unpack that story a little bit more, you talk about being a victim versus victimhood. And I think this is a great place to start off with because some of what we're going to get into is going to be segmenting a little bit of the difference between those two. And so I'd love to introduce that in. Why did you write about that and what is the

difference between the two? So there is such an objective reality of being a victim, of being a victim of perpetration, being a victim of slaughter, being a victim of rape, being a victim of the Holocaust, being a victim of slavery, and being a victim of the ones who were in the Me Too movement. We women have been so stigmatized against this word victim that when we are victims, we don't speak up and we don't allow our daughters to. to speak up were they to become victims of true crimes. It's no shame to say I'm a victim, especially victims of domestic abuse.

We feel so scared to own that as women because it brings shame to the family and it somehow bears badly on us. But I wrote that in the book to empower women to say, no shame on me, I was a victim of rape. No shame on me. I was a victim of molestation. I was a victim of physical or emotional abuse. Now, what is victim consciousness or victimhood idness is when we now internalize the oppression to the point where we are actually continuing that reality of oppression in our own lives. So that is the way we continue a victim consciousness. And in doing that, we don't realize

that we actually give back our power to our oppressor because we still keep reliving in that experience and we don't know how to take our power back. So that is victim consciousness that I teach women to step up against and to push back against and to heal against. So that is very, very key that we do that. Power seems like a through line in the book, right?

this idea. I mean, there's many through lines that are inside of the book and we'll touch on a bunch of them. But let's just touch on power for a second. What is important for people to know about this topic of power when it comes to their own awakening? Oh. So power really is from the word empowerment because typically power has also got a negative connotation of domination. So I speak a lot about power in terms of empowerment, which means

that we can become co-creators in our lives and understand that the reason we are in any emotional experience, not physical, if I'm running in Central Park and I get raped, I didn't co-create that. I co-create everything that happens after my rape, but I don't co-create the rape. So I distinguish. between physical co-creation and emotional co-creation. All our emotional experiences are co-created, because that mental real estate is something that we can choose to share with others or not. And what we put on the land inside ourselves depends on us. So empowerment occurs when you realize that you are a co-creator of your emotional life.

And that is such a difficult thing to get, but when you get it, you can break free. So I'll give it through an example. A woman came to me complaining that her husband was so narcissistic and so controlling and so dominating and she's so angry. You know, a lot of women come back. And they want empathy. And I, of course, give them empathy. But my empathy is very limited because I don't want to create codependency.

I don't want to create the idea that she is. is a victim in victim consciousness of this. So most emotional abuse is when we stay in victim consciousness. And I wanted to show her she is not a victim here. She is in victim consciousness because it's emotional and mental abuse. It's not physical. So first I distinguished all these things for her. And then I told her that the only reason that this narcissist is in your life

or there's abusers in your life or this negative boss is in your life, or this negative bosses in your life is because you are fully co-participating in your childhood role right now. You are recreating your childhood emotional experience by fully you get an A plus in how well you are executing your role of being the counterbalance to the narcissist.

The narcissist cannot continue more than 30 days in any relationship that doesn't foster him or her. And that's where our empowerment comes in in examples like this, where you realize, oh, why am I not speaking up? Oh, why didn't I ask for the race? Why didn't I leave the room? Why didn't I report the person to the police? Because somewhere we get sidetracked by the messages from culture like I said I did, which throw you off course. You have an inner knowing, but then you get thrown off course and you enter this cyclonic self-demand.

out ambivalence, equivocation, and then you're like, forget it. I'd rather just not even speak up, leave it. So our inner knowing needs to be honed, needs to be cultivated. And that's when you begin to become really empowered when you take charge of your own emotional experiences. And you've used some examples that, you know, I mean, when we look at the statistics, especially after a lot of what we saw after the Me Too movement, of course, these sexual abuse and domestic violence is way more prominent than most people understood.

And even if there's somebody that's listening here that says, well, that hasn't happened to me, even the small examples that you share about in the book of saying yes to something that you don't want to do, right? Why do we say yes to something? Because the pressure, the components, the daily, the daily items that come through our play in our world that have us contradict what our gut intuition is. And I feel like we can't really talk about those without talking about the ego. And there's an opening section where you kind of like really help people understand like what the ego is.

So where does victim consciousness and the ego intersect? And what is their relationship? Okay. That's a kind of deep question. So give me a few minutes to explain. So the ego I always say is like the egg surround the shell surrounding the chicken. in an egg. And what that means is that the chicken needs that shell to survive. But if that shell stays for too long, the chicken will die. It needs to crack. Everyone's ego needs to crack.

So then one might ask, why the hell is it there in the first place? Well, it's here in our life. Dinovo, all of us have it because in our childhoods, we were raised pretty much unconsciously, to follow the traditions of our parents and culture. And because of that, we all had to survive, not thrive so much, but survive to get love and worth. And we put on these masks, these roles, you know, achiever, provider, competitor, athlete, musician. And those roles gave us adulation, gave us the worth that we were so missing. But the good thing about the ego is it also. allowed us to survive. It also allowed us to grow up in this very bitter, difficult world sometimes.

However, because it's based on a false identification, because we can never be our role through, you know, are you a parent yet through? Not yet, no. Yeah. Even though you will love being a parent and you're like, this is the most important thing, even that is not going to be your essence. And this is a big lesson for us to realize because we believe that our kids are our identity, our wife or partner are our identity or our career is our identity. But Eastern spirituality has taught us that our only identity is a limitless, expansive, spacious essence, which doesn't cling to anything. So in childhood, all we did was cling to the identity, you know?

And that's why when we grow up, we then push those people who give us our identity or the things that give us identity to keep giving us our identity. So anytime they don't give us our identity, so you wanted the raise, but you didn't get the raise, now your identity is in jeopardy. You wanted the fabulous, fantastic, A-grade child. Guess what? You got an ordinary kid. Now your identity is in jeopardy. So this is why it's so precarious to place our worth on our identity. identity is false sense of self. So even in today's world, they ask, you know, how do you identify?

And I understand why they're asking that. But it's tricky because even if we are identifying as whatever we're identifying, ultimately it is still an identity. It's not who we truly are. Who we truly are is identityless. You know, you are not through perohet. You are just an essence and being that yearns to be known. for just your essence.

And you're not drooperoid, this fabulous business entrepreneur and this podcaster. You are just essence. And we've gone so far from essence by creating all these roles that we've all gotten lost. Okay, so now victim consciousness comes in when that identity gets attacked. So when that identity gets attacked, we dip, we fall. And we then wonder why we're feeling so anxious because the identity was attacked. So what I do in my life, because I meditate, and I understand the principles of emptiness, is that I move away from identities.

I don't want to be identified. So people always ask me, you know, can I do, you know, are you a psychologist? And what should I describe you as? And I just say, you know, Dr. Shavali is enough and you can drop the doctor, you know, and you can even call me Natasha if you want. I already don't care. Just we're going to have a conversation from our essence. And we have become a world that has forgotten simple conversations, essence to essence.

It's all about the likes and the popularity. And it's seductive, but it's empty. Empty of essence. Our true essence is with emptiness. I mean, I'm using the word empty, but there's an empty. But then there's an emptiness, which is our essence, meaning it is devoid of identity. Talk to us about rock bottom, because we're, Rock Bottom, you've shared before that it can be a gift.

And I bring up rock bottom as the next thing to get into because in one way, our ego attaching to all these different identities is painful and there's a lot of suffering that comes with it. On another side is that if we're quote unquote lucky enough, we may hit rock bottom, which is very scary for a lot of people, but actually you say that it could be a gift. Tell us why. Because when we hit rock bottom, what that really means is that we are forced to look at who we are without the identity. We typically hit rock bottom because one of our role identifications has gone into the gutter.

Either our kid is on drugs or our partner left us or the job fired us. You know, it's typically, I'm just being very broad. and we think we are unhappy because the kid is a drug addict. Yeah, I'm sure that's very alarming. But the real rock bottom is coming because we don't know who we are without that fantasy, without that identity of the successful entrepreneur, the successful parent, or the successful wife or husband. And that identity has been shattered.

That's why we're at rock bottom because finally, The identity identification has shattered against the rock. And finally, we are forced to ask, bear and naked, who are we now? And it's exciting because now the real you that has been yearning to come all this time has the chance to finally resurface. So let's bring that back again to the to the micro focus. And I'd love for you to share in your own life if you feel comfortable. I think you would be because you've written about it inside of the book. You know, a few years in your own life, a few years ago, you had a layer where you say you had to really ask yourself, who am I when it came to relationship and marriage? Talk through that a little bit with the audience here. What? were the circumstances, I don't mean the ins and outs of what happened, but what were the beliefs or identities that you had at the time that then were later rocked, so to speak? Yeah. So as I was

evolving, you know, I've been a meditator and on this path since I was 21. So on one level, I'm pretty slow to learn, but there's no judgment. So since 21, I've been evolving. and shedding a lot of my identifications of the good girl, the pleaser. But then I became a mother. Then I wanted to be the perfect mother. I was trying to be the perfect wife. And I also began shedding those. As much as I wanted to be those because they came into my life,

I was also simultaneously deconstructing them in my own spiritual growth and really shedding the layers of identifying with them. I was still a mother. I think I was still a pretty awesome mother. My identity as Maya's mother was really fading. My identity as the wife was fading. And there came a moment three years ago, or maybe four, where I hit my rock bottom because I had evolved pretty much out of my marriage, out of my relationship, which I had

been in for 25 years. So, you know, without getting into details, I just felt that that container no longer could contain me, that who I had become was now something that needed a new environment and new causes and effects and new conditions. But that was very traumatic for me because I had been living so many years attached to that container that to now come to the precipice of a new point where I knew I needed a different container was extremely traumatic for me. And for women in particular, because we are by nature the caretakers, by nature the fosters of love and nurturance in our families, to be the one to say, oh, I may not be able to do this anymore is just an admission of such

defeat it feels because culture has told us this is our purpose. This is our crowning glory. So you feel like a failure. But I really did a lot of inner work for many years after the rock bottom, which I encourage everyone to do. Rock bottom doesn't mean you'll get to leave because then you just stake your issues with you. You know, then you go through a real process of true inner work and deconstruction, sitting with yourself. I stayed in silence and solitude for a long time to understand what did I need to do next. What could be my next choice that was authentic to me? So I would not revert back to inauthenticity and what price was I willing to pay for the price of authenticity. So a lot of soul searching and it was very difficult to detach and

detangle because in my head I had so many ideas from childhood to be that perfect woman. And in my eyes, in my conditioned eyes, I was failing. In my spiritual eyes, I was winning. I knew that. But it took a long time for the spiritual to come to focus. But then I eventually did come to a place where I realized that I was really just divorcing my old self. I was really divorcing my inauthenticity, my weakness, my cowardice, my tremendous fear to be autonomous, to be empowered. And that's what all divorce really is about if one does the work. It has nothing to do with the other person. You'll never hear me talk about my ex ever because I will never, ever be so spiritually

immature to ever think that they are at blame. I was a full participant and I am so grateful for that person and their presence in my life to allow me to go through my journey and come to my awakening. So when we can look at our life like this, there is no winning or losing. There is no failure and success. It's all evolution. It's all, am I now coming into my most authentic self or not? I think that's a very beautiful point because there's so many times in our lives that we feel that we got dealt the bad hand.

And sometimes there's the projection, which you talk a lot about, of, I got dealt this bad hand and it was this person's fault or was this situation's fault, which there might be a connection that's there as you talked before. You know, it's nothing wrong to say that I was a victim of this thing. This thing happened to me. These were my life circumstances. Somebody might be born in poverty. Those are all very real things.

And then there is the meaning around that and how we carry it forward. And, you know, I had a mentor of mine would always say that, in life, some of the biggest teachers are relationships, money, and general sort of career or success, because those are the three things that society says that when we finally have them, that everything else will work out. And when you realize that that's not the case, then some major work starts happening, right? There's another theme that you just mentioned there, which I want to talk a little bit about, which is sometimes we often think about.

situations that we've been through. And we don't, it's actually very difficult to do this, but we don't honor the fact that without that pain, as challenging as it was, as much as we wouldn't want to wish it upon somebody else, some of the painful moments in our life, some of the things that were very tragic that happened, quote unquote, to us, also led to a lot of beauty. So you might have had a relationship that from somebody externally, their eyes, it, quote, failed, but you look at it and it's like, I wouldn't be the woman that I am. I wouldn't have the child that I have. I wouldn't have all these incredible things without this person. So how can I demonize them, make them wrong, and make them bad? How does somebody get there?

I mean, how do you arrive to that place for the members that are listening that very much feel that, no, I feel like something bad happened to me. And that's why I am in this difficult place in life right now. because I think the reason people get stuck in the blame game is because in essence, that's what we were taught by being in our false self. We were taught separation from our own essence. So we project separation onto the world. So it's very easy to make people our enemies.

This is why racism exists. This is why all these current conflicts in our world exists because of a projection of separation. because we're separate from our essence. And we project hate very quickly because of our unheeled unworthiness. You know, all hatred, all blame gaming to the other person is a projection of unworthiness. When somebody blames me, I want to look at it. I want to see whether I have had a role in it. But I won't take the whole blame because it's a co-creation.

It's a dynamic. But I also want to make sure I haven't made anybody a victim, right? So I always want to say, this doesn't give a rapist a pass to say, oh, it was a co-creation. There is physical abuse that we can never, ever not take responsibility for. And there is also emotional abuse. But in emotional abuse, suppose I'm the abuser and you are my friend who I'm abusing, you have every power to walk out. And that's where you are a co-creator, right?

Now, if I'm your physical abuser and I'm bigger than you, I can't blame you for not walking out. That's why I always make the difference between physical abuse and mental abuse. So the reason we blame others is because we don't want to take accountability for our co-creation. It's too hard to look in the mirror so that hatred toward the other person fuels our identity as the victimized person and keeps us in victim consciousness. And what is the purpose of victimized consciousness? To stay passive. To keep sabotaging and to keep being unworthy. You know, I work with people who stay in endless labyrinths of unworthiness.

And I keep saying there's a way out of this. You just have to look in the mirror and take ownership. But it's too difficult. So they need to keep staying there because they would rather stay there than do the hard work of waking up. And that's what this book teaches women to do, step by step, how to wake up. How do we take our power back from our own? giving it away to people on the outside, from wanting validation and approval from people on the outside. So I'd love to dig into the topic of women a little bit more because as you mentioned,

this book is primarily for women, but anybody can get benefit from it. And I think that in the world that we live in right now, there are a lot of different words that are thrown out that have their own meaning depending on different groups that you talk about within them. And so they need to be sort of spliced up a little bit to understand what somebody is chatting about. So because you mentioned women, and again, the book is written for women. One of the through lines inside of the book is first understanding patriarchy. Now, patriarchy is a term that a lot of people have been hearing about sort of call it just modern culture, social media, and even if somebody has different thoughts than the patriarchy, let's call it the culture,

the culture wars. So what is important that you want women to know about the patriarchy and how would you contrast maybe your definition of patriarchy in terms of ownership, victimhood, victim consciousness versus victim with what you see sometimes out there in the world? So I know there was a lot of things that I covered. So let's just start off with the basics. What's important to women to know about the topic of patriarchy and what you mean by it? It's natural to have hierarchies in nature and hierarchies in cultures.

When the hierarchy becomes rigid and only toward one sex, in this case, the male, then we call it a patriarchy. In our particular case, I believe we don't even have a patriarchy. We have a toxic patriarchy. And what I mean by that is that it is a patriarchy that is not benevolent. It is not a patriarchy that honors the matriacs, the women. It is a patriarchy that is toxic because it is based on domination, separation, competition, and division. and profit, greed.

So this is why it's toxic, because it's ego-driven from a toxic masculinity. It's a masculinity gone rogue. It's all the good qualities of the masculine energy gone excessive. So masculine energy is strong. The toxic patriarchy is dominant. The general male and masculinity in general, the benevolent sides of it,

can be protective, but the toxic patriarchy is invasive. It's enslaving. It's colonial. So this is how we are currently living in a system that is most at its core, endemic to its core, a dominant division, separatist, greed-based, violence-fueled, really dysfunctional system that we're living in. So why Why is it important for women to know that? Well, when you're living in such a world, you got to really protect yourself with your own voice, with your sisters. You got to surround yourself with your sisters, with your aunts, with your mother, with your girlfriends, so that you are not caught alone on the streets, as most women already know. But we protect ourselves even more. We tell our daughters, hey, you may be praying to unwanted advances.

and there's no harm if you are that you need help, get help. We're here for you. You know, when I was growing up, women didn't even know that girls were being molested. And I was molested so many times. So I got upset with my mother. And I said, why didn't you ever protect me? And she's like, I didn't even know. I was like, how it's happening everywhere.

So we women need to stand up for each other to go, you will be praying. You know, I protected my daughter from age three against molestation. I was very awake. I wasn't paranoid, but I was very awake and very aware that this was a possibility because I'm aware we're living in a toxic patriarchy. I'm aware that my boundaries would be violated. I practice now, at least, more than before, how to use my voice. I've created a community of sisters around me who I can call on, who will not judge me,

were I to fall prey to the toxic patriarchy. So it's very important for women to know the ship there on. but the most important thing for them to know is that they get to steer the ship to a large degree in their individual choices. And how they choose to respond to the sexist messages on magazine covers, how they choose to respond to the anti-aging movement, how they choose to feel in their slippers versus high heels is all up to them. and that's where we get to take our power back. And that's where my book, I believe, is powerful in giving women the pathway and the permission to take that power back into the hands. Is part of that also the recognition, just like you were showing earlier, about what role are we all playing?

Men, women, any gender that somebody identifies with, right? What role are we all playing inside of that? And the awareness of where that come in. Because I think sometimes when people hear toxic patriarchy, they think that, okay, this is all just coming from men. And there's a question with the role. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, it's so not.

I'm so happy you brought that up because we women are fully participating in the toxic patriarchy. We are complicit in this movement, in this system. There can be no anything without the woman because we women are really. raising the children. What? We are just invisible. However, the toxic patriarchy favors the men, the men have an advantage, and the way we are complicit is by staying silent. The way we're complicit is by pretending we don't know when we know, and we don't check the men, right? So, so for example, if I was to go to a party and I'm talking about, say, my new book or conscious parenting and a man just keeps staring at my face or my boobs and just keep saying,

oh my God, you're so pretty or whatever, can I date you or whatever? And turns the conversation into an objectified, sexualized conversation, I can gently, not with hatred, check him and say, listen, the best thing you can do for me as a woman right now to respect me is to not focus on my external facade, but to really listen. listen to what I'm saying. Or the next time at a boardroom, when a man interrupts us, you know, men are good at that, because they're part of the toxic patriarchy that tells them that they can interrupt and they can talk over. Then we can just gently remind them, hey, I was talking. Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, I was talking, you know, to take ownership like that.

But, Drew, before we continue, you are an amazing listener. You haven't interrupted me once. I've interrupted you. I know you grew up in a home full of very strong. women. So why don't you share with us? I'm taking charge of this interview. How did you learn to be so, you're a me, I know you're in touch with your feminine so beautifully and you have a beautiful balance of both. So talk about how the women in your life checked you. Yeah. I will say that, I mean, I have very layered thoughts. I would just be very honest, right? So the first thoughts that I have is that we, you know, like I was listening to a little bit of your interview with Lewis House. When people get excited, you interrupt him, he interrupts you. That's some of the

nature and that's the, actually, that's one of the reasons why I love in person. So I, the first thing is that I don't always, I want people to understand that interruption is not always a power move, right? That's sometimes an excitement move. You're so excited you want to jump in, right? And I want women to interrupt as just as much as men interrupt, right? But I think because of the nature of where we're at, where we don't have, you know, enough women in, let's say, the boardrooms and other stuff, which it's not a simple reason why. There's a lot of layers, just like a lot of things, just like a lot of aspects that are there. Yes, we need to change the odds of that component, but it's not as simplistic as I personally

don't believe that the whole thing can be chalked up to just sexism, right? I mean, there's a lot of complicated layers that are in it. I'm happy to go into that more. You didn't ask about that. But I want women to interrupt just as much as men do, but I think that we need to create more opportunity. We need to create more opportunity for success amongst all genders, backgrounds, and races. But like you had mentioned, there are natural reasons why hierarchies happen. That doesn't mean we have to live with them. But when we go back and we understand, like, how did we get here? You know, there's a whole section inside your book where you talk about, like, anti-aging and skin creams and other stuff. A beautiful book that I read that really opened my eyes is a book called The Female Brain. And there's

also the counterpart to that book is called The Male Brain. And it says that, you know, men and women's brains are more alike than they are different. But we have to understand that when it comes to sexual reproduction and the hormones that are associated with that, there's a reason why girls become 12, 13, 14 years old and there is an internal drive for them to want to seek male attention. And not all of it can be chalked up to society, right? Not all of it. Some of it, yes, absolutely. Society has a role to play without a doubt. And I think that your question for me is that I grew up with parents who sort of, first of all, let the kids be the kids. So I didn't know a difference between men should be strong and women should not be strong.

My sisters were so strong from a young age. And like we all had equal opportunity to shine in any way that we wanted to. And I think on the listening side, it's who am I to say that what I have to say is more important than you. But sometimes listen, I get excited. I interrupt other people, but I apologize for that. but that's not me trying to dominate. That's me just being excited.

So there's so many components that are inside of there, but I think the thing that I really am enjoying and got from your book is that it's so important right now is that we all, if we do not see where we've played a role, we cannot be empowered. We have to see that because just like there might be a toxic patriarchy, there's also a benevolent patriarchy like you shared earlier. What does that look like? And there's a toxic femininity.

I interrupted you. There's a toxic. Yes. Yes, there's toxic femininity. There's all these things. And how could any one of that? We all come from women. We're 3D printed by these amazing beings in our life, women.

And they nurture us and they feed us with their bosoms. There has to be something beautiful and pure. And it's really up to us as individuals. It's easy to call out on social. today what's wrong, but what I love about what you're talking about is we need to design the future for what we want to see as right. What does that example look like? And, and, you know, like a lot of things, there's so many layers, but we have to have the discussion. I think the only thing I'll add in last part before I pass it back over to you to see if you have any questions

or all continue on is I can see that when this goes with conversations on, race, right? Like this goes on conversations with gender. Anytime we want to shut down the conversation and prevent the other side from sharing their thoughts and having a real debate, that's where I see the challenge of what we're missing out on. And what I, you know, if I could reflect back upon you, I saw some pretty hard hitting questions that people had asked you even in the past. And you always are willing to get into it and say, here's my thoughts and here's I may disagree, but let's go, you know, let's talk a little bit about why this is there. We have to take people on the journey to help them understand, especially when we have a different

point of view that's there. And I just don't want the conversation to be shut down. Yeah, and you're such a great, you know, an inviter of conversation and non-judgmental. And, yeah, I find that people do not want to have difficult conversations, you know. I feel that often my thoughts or my way or my books are bulls in China shops, you know, shattering everyone's ego. And I feel compassion because I hit hard and I provoke. So it's not, you know, this book and my other books have not been easy reads because I challenge people to question.

I don't leave the status quo as a glorified edifice. I bust it, I shatter it, and I challenge people to find out who they are without it. So it's not, I commend people who do read my books. You know, it's definitely hard to sit in these difficult conversations. And you're having them all the time. So kudos to you for creating a space for difficult conversations. What do you think with this book especially, as you've been on book, book tour. You had two big interviews that came out today. Can't wait for our audience to listen to

this interview. What do you think with this book and the idea that you're presenting to people? And as you said, you know, you're challenging them, not for the sake of just challenging people, but for the purpose of growth, right? Growth and freedom. Why growth? So freedom. That's really what we're looking for. What do you think is one of the most challenging concepts in the current book that you're even seeing that pretty aware people might be having a little bit of a hard time with. Every page. I talk about, for example, I talk about, you know, the matrix having these institutions, you know, ideas around love, ideas around beauty, aging, being nice, marriage, divorce.

the fact that we need to own our sexuality as women, the fact that we are biological creatures in many ways, you bought that up. Our hormones are our hormones, you know. You can't talk yourself out of your hormones, you know? And a lot of our behavior is biologically driven. You're right. It's not all culturally driven.

I've written that in the book. And awakening is to understand all parts of ourselves, our cultural, our psychological, a biological, and our spiritual. So, you know, this book to me is for growth, but to somebody else, it could be a curse, an anathema, depending on their level of openness and curiosity. I challenge our assumptions around beliefs and truth. I question it. I mean, I could have gone even harder hitting, but my publisher was like, I think that's enough for this book. So I think I've been gentle, but I know my gentleness is quite.

brutal for many people. You know, you were very kind to open up about the identification that you had with marriage and what that meant, that not bringing things up or not prioritizing some of the needs or things that you had was one of the ways that you kept peace because keeping peace, you equated to being in a successful marriage and being a successful marriage equated to all the things, you know, that were there and the opinions of other people. one of the chapters that's inside or the sections inside of the book is just as you had mentioned, is this even question about marriage and what's it for?

And while we're on the topic of tough subjects for people to get into, I think our audience would love to hear your thoughts on that and really this idea of ownership, right? ownership and how that plays into it. So please expand on that in any way that you want to. Well, I think marriage needs to be understood as an institution that was constructed by man. There was no marriage before a certain period in our recent history. And by entering into the institution, you are really legislating your love through the judicial system and through the religious system. So now your love, that is a free emotion, has become

legislated by religion's morality and the laws of your land. So just know people need to know that. Like I tell my daughter, you can love and you can live together, but think about the marriage part, because now you're giving your power away to religious morality and to this idea that unless it's under the religious sanction, it's not divine. You know, this whole idea of divine ordination comes into it. So anyway, we have all these ideas around marriage, but people think it's, you know, the holiest way to be, but it's just a man-made construction.

That's all. And I'm not against it. I was it for many, many, many decades. So people can choose it or not, just know what you're doing, you know. And then I question whether love, which is such a supposed transcendent, beautiful emotion needs to be prescribed. And why do we feel we need to have a contract? I mean, think about it. We, in a way, are showing the greatest distrust by having to sign a contract, right? So I'm all for people making whatever choice. I just want them to understand what the symbolism

really is beneath the wedding cake and the fancy gifts you get on one wedding night. It has severe implications for your life. And we're not taught about, you know, finding ourselves first, marrying ourselves. You know, here we are 21 falling in love and, you know, this whole idea of falling in love, I debunk as well. And then we go and catch the guy and we, or the girl, same sex, doesn't matter. And then we want it to be a marriage, a relationship based on longevity. And I reframe that in my book and I challenge the idea of marriage for longevity and instead rebirth it into marriage for growth. But we're not taught. any of that in our 20s. We're not taught you need to know yourself first. You need to marry yourself

first. So it's just another box on our checklist that we robotically enter. Then we think it's divinely ordained. And then we sign a contract because, you know, I love you, but I don't know whether I trust you. So let's sign a contract. And now we've given our power to another institution. So it was created marriage for utility, for ownership, property, and of of property and control of property, and along with it, the woman and the child. So we have to ask ourselves, how much of that have we inherited, that idea that now I'm married to you, I own you, I possess you, I control you. And that I really debunk in the marriage. I tell people you can get married or not, but you've got to let go of

these ideas of ownership, possession, and control, because that is conditionality. That is more legislation that is complete like enslavement. So love should be emancipated, love should be liberated, love should be free. But these ideas toxify us and then bind us to them. And then when the other person doesn't meet that expectation of my ownership, my possession and my control, then I suffer, right? But I need to look at why do I feel I own this person in the first place? Just because I married them? All important points. And I mean, I know your work so well. And I've obviously read this book. And I'm going to ask some of the questions that I know that the audience might be asking that might be a little less familiar, obviously with this work, but some of the other books. So people always say in their

head, okay, but what does that mean? Does that mean that I let my partner do whatever they want to do? Does that mean this? So take it a step further and say, what does it look like to have a benevolent sort of partnership, whether somebody's married or not married? You know, that's a up to their own decision, but you have a partnership. We have this desire for connection, love, intimacy, you know, building together, co-creating together. What does it look like when somebody's, well, let's start with the following one. What if somebody finds themselves in that situation right now, where they realize that

they're there, what should they, what could they be considering that would still allow them to have all the beautiful parts of a relationship? with another person, but not all the negative parts of the suffering that comes along with it. Right. So a person who enters a conscious intimacy with another person first has declared self-love and self-marriage. And they've declared that growth is of preeminent importance in their life. So they then take on this partnership with this other person,

understanding that they too are evolving beings who are. going to grow. And two conscious people who are committed to their growth can undertake a partnership with great intimacy without these enmeshments and dependencies and entanglements of I now own you, I now possess you. So what does that look like if that person does something that the other person doesn't like? Well, then with consciousness, we have a discussion and with consciousness we choose to either stay and accept or leave or change, you know, but we don't have to get this idea in our head that somebody betrayed us because we own them. There's no such thing, you know, and if the other person keeps doing what you don't like,

well, that is a huge signal, a huge sign that they're in inner being, they're unheeled parts of themselves or they're acting out parts, maybe, or maybe the authentic parts need to be doing this. So who am I to stop this person? And of course you can grieve around your unmet fantasy. You can watch your fantasies come crashing down. I always say it's not your heart that breaks. It's your fantasies that break.

You know, and you expected something from this other being that they couldn't give you. But when you have the right wholesome attitude that I don't own anyone, if somebody keeps doing something they're doing, that I don't like, I have many choices here. I'm not some sitting duck. I'm not, again, in victim consciousness

to let this just happen to me. I can leave. But to expect the other person to follow your fantasy because you have decided that's important is complete childish lunacy and many relationships get stuck there and break up because of that.

And I challenge people to go, no, no, no, no, no. This person is not your mother or your father. Your mother and your father could barely meet expectations. This person doesn't owe you anything. They owe themselves. And sure, in the ideal world, they owe you at least honesty, but even that we can't expect from anyone who doesn't want to give it. We can't expect people to be loyal to us. We hope they would, but we can't expect it. And that's what I talk about, the expectation, which comes from this delusion of ownership, possession and control. Now, this is an even bigger one that people resist me on, even than

the idea of marriage. You know, they don't want to give up this idea or they can intellectually agree with it, but they won't emotionally come and sync with it because everyone wants to own their children and own their partner. Of course we do. But that's the false idea of how relationships are, false conscious intimacy. It's not true conscious intimacy. So what does it look like to start a partnership off with people being in a relationship?

in a place where, you know, because we don't want to wait until we're all a Buddha to be in a relationship, right? That's not what you're talking about. But there is some recognition. There's some recognition that we are doing the best that we can. We're showing up, but we all have our own wounds. We all have our childhood stuff. What does it look like to enter into a partnership or to reset a partnership with that context in mind. You know, it depends on the evolution of that person, the consciousness of the person. So I always encourage people beginning relationships to check the consciousness of the person. I'm like, he or she could be really cute.

But that has nothing to do with their level of consciousness. See how much work they've done on themselves to heal their childhood wounds. Because that's who you're entering a relationship with, that inner child. And if the inner child is out of control and out of whack, that's who you're sleeping with. You think you're sleeping with the 35-year-old. No, you're sleeping with the 5-year-old. So check to see whether that person has done enough inner work and that you talk about your issues because that's what makes up and breaks up the relationship.

Not your fantasy, but the real emotional baggage that each one brings on their back that you don't see when they're dating you in the first six months. The first six months are so fabulous because no one is showing their emotional baggage. Now you start living with them. A year and a half is fast. That's when it hits rock bottom. And relationships begin to fall apart at a year, year and a half. Because now you're seeing the real baggage that you may not be equipped to handle.

And that maybe even that we were complicit in because we often fall in love with the idea of someone. It starts there. We have our projections. Yes, not only our fantasies, but they're all so smart. They don't show their real parts, you know. So we're both showing the facade. So you're 100% percent. And knowing the motivation of all people, not to purposefully, you know,

most people aren't even smart enough to want to purposefully deceive to try to trick you into this thing. They're dealing with their own wounds. They're dealing with their own sense of needing to be liked. They're dealing with their own stuff. And sometimes they don't even know that they're tricking, you know, the other person, right? This is the beauty of starting any kind of relationship off. Or even if you're well into it, because I'm sure most people who are listening are probably in a relationship and well into it,

it's never too late to start therapy and start unwinding the stories that we have about ourselves and the other, but mostly about ourselves. Because whatever stories we have about ourselves are just going to get. intertwined with the stories and the projections that we make up about other people and them finally being the one to save us, them finally being the one to give us the thing, finally being the one to understand us. They'll understand us so well that they'll complete us and then everything will be great and, you know, good from there. And so I think that that's a takeaway from one part of this in addition to picking up your book is it's never too late to start unwinding the stories

that we've told about ourselves and other people. Yeah, beautiful. And to just realize that when we enter relationships, we are very egocentric, like children, they will understand me. They finally love me unconditionally. Look how much they adore me. Me, me, me, me, me.

And the other one is feeling the same way, right? Because we're showing ourselves without our pain. And then when the veil comes off, we now realize, my goodness, this other person is wounded just like I am, and they're looking for mommy and daddy, just like I am. And I call it the twin beggar syndrome. Both are begging for adoration, adulation, worth approval. But we are empty inside because we haven't done that work.

So like you said, it's never too late to go begin the inner work so you can enter a sense of wholeness so that you don't use the other person to make you feel good about yourself. Let's talk about givers, controllers, and takers, and why you dedicated a section inside of the book where you are chatting about these different sort of patterns that people can find themselves in or embody themselves. In the book, I talk about these archetypes, givers, controllers, and takers, because for the most part, we follow these scripts. Now, there are many other nuances and subsets. but I wanted women to start thinking about what their patterns are. And the givers are the empaths, the saviors, the victims and the martyrs. The controllers are the perfectionists, the tyrants, the helicopter mom,

and the shield, who doesn't show her emotions. And takers are those who live in eternal optimism, childlike energy, princesses, divas, where they have this entitlement about them that keeps sabotage. who it is they are. So I devote a whole section in this book to these patterns so that we can go, oh my God, I'm that, I'm that. So that we can then when it shows up in our lives, we can see it's not Matthew or Sam or Sarah on the outside. It's me playing these patterns. And I'm setting up the dynamic to be a certain way. Because as I've said before, the radical awakening occurs when you empower yourself to take charge of your own patterns. So this whole

book is driving women to recognize and own and disrupt their patterns. To clarify, I mean, these sound like patterns that I've seen in men, too, right? So men can embody these same patterns as well. Would there be any distinction between the difference between men and women when it comes to some of those patterns? Or are you more writing through the vessel of who you are and sort of in the context and the stories that women can relate to? I think it's more for women. For men, I would have more things like the achiever, the competitor, maybe the bully, you know, a different sort of the masculine energy more there. But again, like you said, they overlap and interface with each other.

When, I mean, I've seen people ask you this question at our event that you talked at and other things. When we're talking about these big picture themes and patterns and people say, well, okay, so what's the first step? And you always share like, look, nothing can happen without the awareness. first, right? Why, I mean, it sounds so obvious, but let's just say it. Why is awareness the first step? Because if you're not aware that you're unhappy, you're not going to do anything about it. That's why I wait for people to realize that they're not happy. I know that sounds like such a horrible thing to say. I'm waiting for people to tell me they're not happy, but as a therapist, you know. So until they're aware that they're uncomfortable, they are going to stay.

in complacency and stagnancy because they're okay with it. Because they're okay with it. Some internal equilibrium of theirs manages the situation and hasn't yet disrupted them from inside to dis-equilibrium. So unhappiness and dis-equilibrium needs to be made aware of before they can want to change. Others, why would we want to change? So that's why we need to become aware.

Oh, my goodness, I've been clenching my jaw. My heart is racing. sweating all the time. I'm so anxious. The body holds a lot of signals. Then our life holds signals. Oh my God, I'm late to every meeting. I'm exhausted all the time. I'm snapping at my kids. But become aware of these signs and then you can begin doing the work. You know, the important, I think, reminder inside of that besides our own awareness to know, like we sometimes we don't know, like a little kid who doesn't know sometimes that they're tired, right? And they want to stay up. And that can lead to cranky behavior. And the model is like,

no, no, they're just tired. You know, we're going to get them to bed soon. In that same way. So that's important for us to notice that. But it's also important for us to remember that unless somebody has that realization, no matter how much we believe that we have the right answer for their life, who are we to say that this is something that they, quote, quote, need right now? And that's an important part of your message, too, is that you are bringing up these

themes, you're calling them out, but also remember that we have, when we're in the midst of our own suffering, we become so attached to that suffering. We don't want anybody to tell us that we shouldn't be, you know, that there's a path to freedom that's over there. So we have to understand and realize that we can want the best for people. Sure, pray if you want to, but ultimately, if it doesn't come from them, you cannot force anybody into the path of freedom. Absolutely. Hallelujah. You cannot, and this book really teaches women to just revere their own transformation, but don't wish to impinge it on anybody. That's wisdom. It took me a long time to get to the place of not expecting the people around me to follow my ways because it was so wise. Or I was so evolved, so other people should be evolved too. It was such a delusion I had to really break in my own mind and allow people to develop. exactly the way they need to, exactly at the pace they want to, and I cannot keep shoving my truths onto other people. And that has been so liberating for me because now I'm not resentful

of people, because I'm not expecting them. And in fact, I honor and revere and celebrate exactly where they are. And I know that each one of us has to go through our life journey exactly in our own authentic way. We cannot take on another person's journey just because it's a clever way or makes more money or looks nicer. No, even if my way has a lot of landmines, that is my way and that is to be revered. And that's the philosophy I live with now. You know, the beauty of that as we start to wind down here, because I know you have another interview coming up and I want to be mindful and talk about all the cool things that you have, including the course that's coming up. But I think a beautiful reminder in that is that you can

both fight to empower people and especially women, right? We have to be embody men, women, everybody. We have to embody the benevolent patriarchy, what it was intended to be, the protective, looking after people, supporting them, encouraging, any kind of traits that you might say that would be part of that. So you can advocate for people to call out when there is victimization that's happening, bad behavior, things that are wrong, just not okay, right? We can do that. We can also understand the role that we played in something. to either keep it alive or continue to keep it alive. We can advocate then as we step into awakening for what we want our own lives to be,

saying yes to the things we want to, saying no to the things that we don't want to, not carrying on the societal guilt that's there. But we also have compassion for people who are not in that place that they might be stuck. They can only see a limited view of the world. and we're not utilizing tools like shame and blame, which is a little bit of the conversation that you kind of see actively right now because there's no other vehicle for the pain, right?

There's pain and it's looking for an outlet. It doesn't see the empowerment outlet, so it's going towards the shame and blame. So I understand it. I can understand why people are there. But when we are somebody that embodies that empowerment, those are just tools that we see that are ineffective because we know that if we went through the same situation,

if we were brought up the same way that they were brought up, if we went through the same life circumstances, if we were born the same color or gender or whatever or class, chances are we would be very similar in our life to how they are. And now we're left with the most important question, which is who am I and what do I want? Because everything starts from there. And I think that is, you know, really what I got as, you know, like, You can understand it intellectually, but when you get that at your core, life looks completely different.

Yes, yes, yes. You summed up the book beautifully. It all comes back down to that authentic yearning and seeking of our most transparent, our most natural self that only can happen after you unpeel all the other layers. Dr. Chavale, it's been a pleasure to have you. you on to talk about it. I think one of the most exciting things about this book is besides the book, which please go get a copy, get one for your friend, get one for the women that you love in your life. There's also the course because there's so much inside of the book. So I'd love for you to just

talk a little bit about that and anything else that you want our audience to check out after this interview is done. Thank you. So this is the book, A Radical Awakening, Turn Pain Into Power, your truth and live free. If they go to a radical awakening.com, they can buy the book there or buy the course. I think by the time you are starting this, the course may have started, but we're going to be having it on sale regularly.

So grab a book, grab it for your sisters, your mothers, it will potentially change your life. So thank you, Drew, for having me and for doing all the work you do and being such a wonderful advocate for wisdom, for consciousness, for transformation. Absolutely.

And thank you for coming on the podcast. We'll have the links to follow you in the book and everything inside the show notes. Check it out. Dr. Schvali, thank you again. I'm grateful for who you are in the world and I appreciate you. Thank you.