Know Thyself - E23 - Mona Sharma, Celebrity Nutritionist: Healing Through Food, Mindset, & Lifestyle

Episode Date: December 6, 2022

We are living in an era of hyper-wellness, and yet diseases like obesity and diabetes are on the rise. Leaving us to question whether if what we've been taught about health, is actually true or not. André sits down with Mona Sharma, celebrity nutritionist and wellness expert to unpack what's making us sick, and how to heal from 'the inside out'. Mona explains the state of health today, and how we got to this place. She shares her personal experience of undergoing 2 heart surgeries before deciding to heal her body, herself. She explains that the key to preventing chronic diseases is not only in the food that we eat - but also in our thoughts and mindset. She shares how she applied the lessons she learned from growing up going to an Ashram, into her wellbeing today.     ___________ Timecodes: 0:00 Intro 2:13 State of health today  5:01 Mona’s Story  12:37 Advice for Healing  15:51 Preventing Chronic Disease  20:53 Power of food 23:33 From Good to Great Health  26:20 How to Make Real Change 32:45 The Power of Mindset 44:07 Community is Immunity  48:17 If You're Going to a Doctor... 50:46 Meditation 51:50 Xicama  55:25 Mona's Greatest Teachings  56:57 Lessons from Failure 1:01:41 New Year, New You 1:04:23 Conclusion ___________   Mona Sharma:   Mona Sharma is a dynamic leader and entrepreneur in the health and wellness industry who works with high profile clients around the world. She also has a reoccurring role on the Facebook series Red Table Talk where they profile her work with Will Smith, and the entire Smith family’s healing journey.   Mona has seen first hand the power of food and mindfulness to heal, having grown up living on an Ashram. Her approach is rooted in this philosophy, and also inspires her research into the gut microbiome and its impact on our health and happiness.   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/monasharma/ Website: https://www.monasharma.com Mona's Elixir Company Xicama: https://xicamalife.com   ___________   Know Thyself Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/knowthyself/ Website: https://www.knowthyself.one Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ4wglCWTJeWQC0exBalgKg   Listen to all episodes on Audio:  Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4FSiemtvZrWesGtO2MqTZ4?si=d389c8dee8fa4026 Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/know-thyself/id1633725927     André Duqum Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreduqum/   Meraki Media https://merakimedia.com https://www.instagram.com/merakimedia/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

We're living in an era of hyper-wellness. Yet, obesity's on the rise amongst adults and children. Diabetes is on the rise amongst adults and children. Our children are on medication. So the system is broken. I was watching my heart on this massive monitor. Wires going everywhere, sweating like crazy. And I just thought, what is happening?

This is not my life. I'm not sick. It wasn't the diet that helped me lose the 45 pounds or get off the medication. It was the recalibrating with nature. Food has a vibration. It comes from. the earth, its vitamins, its nutrients is information to every single cell in our body that either helps us thrive or not. If we want to heal, you need to connect with the power of foods from

nature that is there for a reason. If you can start to consider that your kitchen is your healthcare, you will be a step ahead. If what goes into your pantries is what's going to thrive your body's physiology, that's the way to look at food. Hello, beautiful beings. Welcome back to the Know Theyself podcast for every single week. We get the honor and privileged to sit down with a beautiful mind and open heart to see what we can glean from the insights that they've learned in their life on their journey to help us learn more about ourselves and the world. My guest today is a celebrity wellness educator. She's been featured on various prominent platforms like Red Table Talk with Will Smith and his entire family. She's really dedicated and devoted to bringing wellness

the masses. And she's also the founder of a functional beverage and food line called Hickema, which I'm excited to chat about. And yeah, above all else, I feel like since the first time I met her, she just got a very grounding, peaceful spirit. And I can very well feel her heart and her attention to bring wellness to all walks of the planet and all walks of the human race. So thank you so much for being here, Mona Sharma. Thank you.

Oh, thank you for seeing me. Yeah. Oh, so good. I'm so excited to dive into this conversation today. Me too. Yeah, I feel like we have so much in alignment. just the theme of your podcast alone. My gosh, talk about the true essence of healing. Yeah, so good. Well, let's start. I mean, let's start there because right now the world is in a very

sick place. And I mean, if you just look at some stats of like, you know, almost half of Americans by 2030 will be obese. That's one in every two people. And like the path that we're headed down, there's so many contributing factors to the current state of the world on a collective level, but also on our individual lives. And for this podcast, I'd love to talk about all of the various things, not all, because there's so many, but many of the various things that go into creating a healthy, vital life for ourselves first and foremost before we try to go out and support the world and finding that. So yeah, before we go into your journey and your story, which I'm really fascinated about, I think it's really powerful, what are some of the key things that you feel like has brought us

to this place where almost half of the people on the planet or in America? in particular obese and sick. Yeah. Ultimately, it's really sad, but this all roots back to big food and big pharma, right? And we're living in an era of hyper-wellness. There has never been more awareness, access to information, experts on what to do,

how to eat, how to work out, you know, fads and gimmicks and protocols and everything. Yet, obesity is on the rise amongst adults and children, diabetes is on the rise amongst adults and children, anxiety and anxiety related disorders are higher than they've ever been before. Our children are on medication when they shouldn't have to be, right? So the system is broken. And so ultimately, this has to go back to, you know, our roots. You know, what do we know fundamentally that is great for the human physiology, for the human mind and spirit, right? And I think for a lot of us, there needs to be

some unlearning that has to happen. I've been on this unlearning process for about 20 years now. And I think that it's probably what has brought me to my passion today in supporting others in their healing journey because I think that we've over complicated it. I think that for a lot of women especially, we think that to get healthy means going on a protocol or starting a diet when that's simply not the case. Yeah. It's powerful. I think like we've just been so disconnected from the like health is extremely simple. yet living in a modern world being simple isn't always the easiest. And because we have access to so many conveniences that are really to our detriment. And like you said, in so many different facets

in industry, but big food and big pharma are definitely not supporting, you know, because we're just so disconnected from how we have moved, how we've eaten, how we've drank, how we've communed, how we've done so many things in the evolution of our human species. And, you know, you face that. And you know, you face that yourself, being earlier on your journey facing various different health challenges that really got you to this place where you had to wake up and make a real change because of, yeah, of how devastated your body was. And can you speak to a couple of those big health challenges and then, you know, lead us into the kind of the health awakening. Yeah. So it probably helps to share my story a little bit. So before health and wellness, I actually come from the corporate world. I worked in luxury

in cosmetics. So on paper, it seemed like a glorious job. I worked for some really big name brands. I got to do makeup for fashion shows and travel the world and it seemed beautiful. But at the end of the day, it was a number's job. I was waking up in hotel rooms, not knowing what city I was in. I was traveling a lot. And ultimately, I was getting sick. I was out of alignment with my purpose. That was causing me a lot of anxiety. I suffered from debilitating heart palpitations. The heart palpitations led me to getting a prescription for beta blocker medications to subside them. And then years later, I ended up having two heart surgeries. So the first one obviously didn't work. I went in for the second one because like many people, I just wanted a quick fix. Just tell me what to do to get rid of

this problem. And let's go that route. So for a couple hours, I was in this surgery and the doctors, you're awake for the whole thing. It wasn't open heart. The doctors were pumping me full of adrenaline and other drugs to try to induce these palpitations that I knew would only happen if I was moving my body. And sure enough, they finally found it. And they said, okay, great news, Mona. We found this extra electrical valve. And if we go through with this ablation burning it off, there's a chance that you might have to wear a pacemaker for the rest of your life. And this was like just this aha moment. I was watching my heart on this massive monitor, wires going everywhere, sweating like crazy. And I just thought, what is happening? This is not my life. I'm not sick.

I love my heart. There's been so much sadness. I can't go through with this. And so sure enough, I said no. And I made some really big life changes. I knew that I had to. I quit the corporate world. I ended up going back to my roots. The irony of the story is that growing up, I'm half Indian and half Danish. My father with his Ayurvedic and yogic insights and my mother, who I've only known with rheumatoid arthritis, a debilitating autoimmune disease I've only ever known her to be completely crippled. So they would take us to live at an ashram every single summer. An ashram is a spiritual center where you focus on food as the power of healing, where you focus on living in community,

where yoga is done, but breathwork is about a 35 to 45 minute practice every day. You go into yoga postures as these asanas to help clear energetic blockages, but you go down, you rest between every pose. you're outside calibrating with the power of nature. So the irony is I had this as an upbringing, but I didn't get to go to like fun summer camp growing up. My dad called it yoga camp.

And him tapping me on the shoulder at 5 a.m. to meditate was not fun. So I guess I had to go and live this experience. And, you know, of course there were gifts along the journey in that corporate world. But ultimately the calling was going back to my roots and understanding how to heal. So when I quit the corporate world, I went back to the ashram. I became a yoga teacher, a meditation teacher. I became a nutritionist, not knowing I was going to pursue it professionally, but really for my own calling. And I started to notice the power of food, but I also noticed how closely, whenever I overthought about food, it felt like diet and it felt like restriction.

And that brought up a lot of anxiety within me and I felt like I was living a very restrictive life. But there was something about being at the ashram where it felt like this, for lack of a better, you know, but like source energy, like just plugging into a system that worked. It wasn't the diet at the ashram that helped me lose the 45 pounds or get off the medication or heal my heart. It was the recalibrating with nature. It was honoring my constitution. It was sitting with my thoughts every single day and addressing the fact that my mind is so busy. This monkey mind is causing me so much distraction and discomfort and sadness, that the tools from the ashram allowed me to shut down all of the open and running tabs to simply focus on my heart again and acknowledge the heartache that

ultimately I'd experienced since I was a little girl, right? Doctors never asked me about the heartache that I was happening. They asked me about my stress, but they never asked about what I was eating. You know, the alcohol, yeah, having a couple drinks every week, that's okay. They didn't ask me about my sense of fulfillment. They didn't ask me if I was getting into nature. They didn't ask me if I felt like I had a sense of purpose, right? And these are all the things that really kept my body out of harmony, right? It's so powerful. And in those moments when you just are so lost, you're distraught, you're not well, you can't really see it. You can't connect those dots looking forward, only looking backwards. But like now you're at the place where you're

supporting so many people find that vitality and wellness within. How important do you feel like it was for you to go through those challenges and like how it informs how you can actually show up in service now. It could not have happened any other way. Like this is really the gift of my journey, learning from my own experience. And I think ultimately that's what makes us better teachers. If we can live through the journey and experience the lessons ourselves and really overcome them, I think healing is a lifelong process. I'm, you know, nowhere near healed. But I know exactly what I need to do to keep my physiology in alignment. So I learned very quickly, this idea of going on a diet or workout protocol with my clients, it had an expiry date.

Anybody can do that, right? Then they'd fall off the wagon and then they'd come back to see me. So now instead, and this is where along the journey ended up getting into NLP, so neurolinguistic programming, really understanding the power of your thoughts, your inner belief system, beliefs about yourself that may have been formed since you were a child, right, that shape who you are today, that really dictate why you make the decisions around. your health, that may be why you feel unworthy of living in a healthy body or the fact that living your best and feeling your best and making healthy choices is actually quite easy, but we tend to overcomplicate it, right? But clearly I had to go through those lessons myself

because we live in a society where we're taught to look for these easy solutions, right? The red pill, this diet, that doctor, this protocol. When our physiology doesn't work that way, Right. We need to honor just like nature. When nature heals itself, it doesn't happen overnight. It's something that's a progression that naturally occurs, right? So yeah, I think that this is a make me a better teacher today, a better educator. And I really just become a guide for my clients, right? I think that your perfect healing program, your perfect healing protocol, your perfect diet, if you want to call it that should be as unique as your constitution as unique as your thumbprint. When I put my clients on a healing protocol, they do not look the same. There are some fundamental truths, right? The power of sleep,

the power of nature, the power of connection, your sense of purpose, your spirituality, right, eating whole food, stuff like that. There's some fundamental truths, but ultimately the way that you experience that within your day-to-day life and your journey is going to look different. Yeah. Powerful. When you start to work with an individual, who is feeling like they don't know where to start. What is the most powerful thing you start to look at with an individual in terms of in terms of its cascade and how it's really affecting them physiologically and mind, body, spirit?

Like what are some of the questions that you ask or like where do you begin with somebody who's feeling like they're at that place where they're just, you know, they're lost and they don't know where to begin? Yeah. So when I hop on a call with somebody for the first time, you know, I can really sense the urgency and, okay, Mona, tell me. what do I need to eat? What do I need to do to heal myself? Right? How many sessions do I need? It's like, we can't even go there. There's two parts to it. So first, I need to understand my client's physiology.

And the beautiful thing about living today's modern world is that we can actually do that. So I really ask my clients to get their blood labs done, maybe do a saliva test, hormonal panel, a stool test even, so that we can understand what is happening within your constitution that might be causing those and balances. And then the second part, you know, I would say that 95% of the people that I work with end up in tears on our first assessment together because I know that in order for them to really step into a new way of being, they have to create space and let go of a version of themselves that they think is true. For me, I experienced trauma when I was a little girl that caused me to show up and live a certain way and have a bully system about myself.

For some of us, sadly, there's a lot of trauma that exists on every spectrum. And I almost felt like I had no right to complain about my trauma. You know, thank God I didn't experience sexual abuse or, you know, homelessness or anything like that. But we all only know our own pain and our own trauma. So I work with my clients and I'm uncovering what those traumas were. And I typically ask someone question, tell me, about a time in your life when you remember feeling true happiness, true joy, peace, and freedom,

where there wasn't a sense of, you know, overthinking your body and what you need to eat and stuff like that. And for most of my clients, we have to go back to a time in their life when they were a little kid. I will also say for most of my clients, it involves they can't remember a memory. They need to think of a picture of themselves as a child where they were smart. It's like, oh, yeah, I remember being like that, but I don't remember it in my body. So a lot of this, you know, we do some timeline therapy and visualization so that we can really recreate what that feeling is. And just we can ask your audience this now.

Like when is a moment in your life when you remember feeling happiness, peace, health, freedom, peace of mind, joy within your body where life just felt really good. And we first have to awaken that before the true healing can take place. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think for most people, unfortunately, they have to get smacked in face by the proverbial two by four of like some sort of crazy health chronic condition that arises. And that becomes a catalysts in a wake-up call to like, okay, I need to change my behavior and change the way I'm thinking. Like change needs to happen. But for a lot of people that feel like right now in their life, they're good. Like they're coasting, you know.

How important is it to gain awareness on and like develop the ability to listen to what are, what symptoms we're currently experiencing to preemptively like expect what the path that we're currently on, like what, you know, chronic conditions could potentially be forming? First and foremost, it's remembering that your body can heal itself. Each and every day, right in this moment, cells are turning in within our body and our bodies are working so hard to heal. Right. And I would say that the number one thing that you can do is to stop ignoring your symptoms.

Our body is built to deliver, you know, messengers to help us understand where there's imbalance. Unfortunately, in today's modern world, we are over-stimulated. We are busier than we've ever been before. And yet we call it normal, right? I often say, you know, how often do you ask somebody how they are and they say, oh, gosh, I'm so busy, right? As though it's an emotion. Being busy is not an emotion. So if there's symptoms that you've been suffering in, and typically when I speak at a conference,

I'll ask these questions, how many people here suffer from irritability, from bloating, from gas, from indigestion, from heartburn, from headaches, from constipation, from diarrhea, from low sex drive, to brain fog, whatever it is. And by the end of this kind of list of symptoms, everyone's hand is up, right? and yet we've all become used to living with these symptoms and we call them normal today. These are not normal. They're common today, but this is part of the reason why we're becoming sicker and sicker as a society. So whatever the symptoms are that you feel, that you might have felt for a really long time,

that you might have gotten very used to living with, stop ignoring those symptoms. And the next find, it could be a doctor, but if it is a doctor, make sure that it's a doctor that is your partner in healing. we're spending five, seven minutes with these doctors in an office. And look, and just like with my journey, doctors are there to take away the pain. They're there to take away the symptom. And often that comes with the prescription for a drug, the prescription for surgery, and then we go on our way, right? However, we now know that there's other modalities that can be taken before the prescription

is written, before the surgery is to be had. And if we have a doctor who acknowledges this and who can, can really take a closer look at our life and our lifestyle and what could be causing those imbalances to begin with, then really that is health care, right? And so what healthcare ultimately needs to be is a return to these practices that honor, you know, bring peace and alignment to our constitution first and then recognizing, okay, well, maybe we've ignored these symptoms for too long, and this has led to a physiological response whereby a medication might be necessary, but might be necessary for a couple of months, right? Not for a lifetime because I know that when I was put on

a prescription med, I started kind of acknowledging myself as somebody who was sick. I'm a medication. I have a heart problem, right? When you identify with your symptoms of illness, when you identify with disease, it becomes you. When it's not, it's simply a messenger system from your body trying to say, hey, pay attention. We're trying to heal. We could use your support, right? Let's find a team to help us do this. Yeah. It's so powerful. And I think the group kind of normalcy that's created and on an individual level of tolerating the imbalances that we have as just like, you know, oh yeah, like I'm constipated every once in a while or like I get bloated here and there and like little things that maybe are just like kind of little pebbles in your shoe that aren't the

biggest, you know, you're not going to stop you from living your life. But those do over time cultivate and create more havoc in the system. And, um, Yeah, just how you spoke to, we live in such a time that wants a quick fix and wants to instant gratification of the pill or the quick solution. But not a lot of people want to look at words and see like really what are, what's their lifestyle. And like those fundamental changes are the reasons why we experience, you know, those smaller imbalances.

And then, you know, unfortunately, like the pharmaceutical industry is so interwoven in education into, into vast advertising. and marketing and sad, right, because there is a lot of beautiful things that have come from, you know, Western medicine. But in terms of chronic conditions and healing from the inside out, it's really got it backwards and oftentimes creates another host of symptoms and, you know, issues that come from trying to fix that one thing. So I just love how you're speaking to, holistically getting somebody that can block arms with you or whether it's, you know, a person online that's an educator. And, you know, we have so many resources online for like how to

heal or if it's a nutritionist. I just think that, you know, you go into a doctor's office today and they're not trained in nutrition. And that just baffles me. They've maybe had 30 minutes, an hour, a course, on training. And typically that goes at the window the second they're done school, right? And yet food is our sustenance. It keeps us alive. From my upbringing, you know, in our house, food was taught to us that it was medicine. Food has a vibration. It comes from the earth. it's vitamins, it's nutrients, it's phytochemicals, the nutrients within it that literally is information to every single cell in our body that either helps us thrive or not, right? And so the fact that we're so disconnected from that process, I think, is also terrible.

I know from my parents were both immigrants and their parents on both sides were farmers. They were deeply connected to their food system and where their food came from and how it grew. and if it didn't grew, the scarcity that came from that, right? Today, when we think about healthy food, a lot of my clients will think of, oh, well, I've got this gluten-free, non-GMO, paleo-labeled, all-natural labeled, food labels on these like packaged food containers, right? That's not healthy food from my upbringing from the Syrivedic lineage. Anything that comes from a package that's been processed like that,

it's dead food, right? It's nutrient void. If we want to heal, we need to connect with the power of foods from nature that is there for a reason. Foods that come from vibrant soil and the earth that is full of also color, right? When we think about this idea of eating the rainbow, reds, blues, purples, oranges, green, don't just look at it as eat the rainbow. Look at that as like if you want to go shopping in a pharmacy, like there's your drugstore

right there. If you can start to consider that your kitchen is your health care, you will be a step ahead. if what goes into your pantries is what's going to thrive your body's physiology, your mental state, your happiness, your joy, and even your future, that's the way to look at food. And of course, there's a time for the fun packaged processed foods, right? But the point is, our bodies can handle those foods when we're in a state of balance. When we're in a state of inflammation or dis-ease, those foods simply cause more inflammation. You're feeding the fire. You're feeding the symptoms that you have. So I would say like start off by just looking at what nature has to

provide you with, right? Start there. Take out everything else. There is an abundance of food to focus on. And then notice how that makes you feel. Give it three days without processed food even. I promise you'll notice a change in your physiology, most likely your digestion also. Yeah. Wonderful. What are some things that either you do personally and also you've seen individuals do to go from good health to great health, you know, to where you feel like you're coasting, you're like living your life, but there's not this like next level vibrancy that you have. And what are some things that you've either done personally, like I said, or you support individuals to get to that next level of health? If you're looking to step into vibrant health, the first thing that

you have to do is prioritize yourself. When you move yourself into the number one position of your list of things to do, ultimately you're prioritizing you. And I think that in this journey of healing and this trillion dollar industry of health and wellness, we think that healing takes a lot of effort, which it does, but there should be joy stacked behind that, right? So when you think about your health and wellness, although you might have some physical goals that you want to achieve, I get that. But ultimately, consider how do you want to feel in your body every day? When you wake up, how do you want to feel? When you turn 80, 90, 100, how do you want to feel?

I want to be in a vibrant body that is still running after my grandkids, maybe going on a hike, and it changes the why for you wanting to eat well and be on whatever health cake that you're on, right? The immediate physical goals, those will come and go. You're going to let yourself off the hook when you, you know, indulge or have the weekend or week away. But instead, if your inspiration is, you know, what? My guidance system is telling me I'm choosing these healthy foods or this healthy lifestyle

because I love myself so much that I want to thrive when I'm older, right? I want to live the life of my dreams, but I also want to feel it also. And for my clients, I ask them to kind of attune to this core value. So when we kind of uncover what your core value is, for most people, it's stepping into, well, I want to feel happy every day. I want to feel peaceful. I want to feel joy these high vibrational feelings, right? I don't want to feel anxious or worried or stressed where a lot of us live. When you can attune to this guidance system of knowing what your core value is, you can use that as a question throughout your life. So every time you go to eat something, is this going to align me closer with my value of joy and how I want to live and feel in my life? Or will it not? If I have

this conversation with my friend, is this an alignment with a version of myself that I want to create or not when I watch that movie or television or read that book. Is this an alignment with who I want to become or is it not? So that every day you get into this ritual of asking yourself, like, is this in alignment with who I want to become and how I want to feel? Because if it isn't, then I can easily say no to it. Yeah. And it's like it's a journey in the fact of how do you help people close that knowing and doing gap?

Because a lot of times people know the things that contribute to good health, but they don't do it. You know, it's one thing to know that eating a process. bag of chips isn't good for you. And it's another thing to actually not eat the process bag of chips. Totally. And I think you're speaking to really having and gaining clarity on what those core values are and like what is your why between, you know, for actually desiring vibrant health. And the more you clarify that, the more you'll actually have less resistance to taking behavior that is in alignment with it. But yeah, how do you support people kind of close that gap from knowing what they should do

to actually doing it? I love that. So I would say that ultimately, what I support my clients in doing is I help them build their ashram in the city. Okay. We're so busy. I get it. We don't have the time to escape the way that I did in my 20s to go and live at this ashram for two or three months, right? So instead, what are the values from the ashram that we can bring into our houses,

our homes, our workplace? I would say that the ashram is the ultimate wellness retreat, but it's also integrative medicine in today's modern world. Okay? So when I work with my clients, I help them step into this feeling of a flow or flow state. I think that anybody can create a healthy habit, but I think that habits come and go. But if you create rituals within your life, your rituals become you, right? Brushing your teeth every day, the way that you shower, how you brush your hair,

when you make a phone call, when you start your work, those are all rituals. But adopt rituals that are part of optimizing your health. So, for example, the power of mindfulness, it has to be number one. Right? So we now know, everybody knows what to eat. People generally have an idea of what's healthy or not. But if you are really in tune with a ritual around your mindfulness practice every morning, magic mornings, right? They're becoming trendy for a reason now because they're backed by science. When you start your day off aligning yourself with the version of yourself that we were talking about, then it kind of sets the stage for the rest of the day. So with Ayurveda, we have to understand that we digest so much more than what we eat. We digest what we eat. but we also digest what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we feel. So if you look around you right now, is it an alignment with how you want to feel? Right? I would say recommend highly having a meditation area, maybe even a little altar in your home.

It's kind of like a grounding area for you to go to every day for your practice. But also something when you see it, you know it's the reminder of like, oh, yeah, that's the vibration that I want to feel. Right. So you're setting the stage with rituals. And depending on my client's lifestyle, no matter where they are on the spectrum, from being at home every day, whether they are CEO, celebrity, you name it. But it's figuring out where in their life, what do they need in order to feel their highest self, right?

What are the types of foods that need to go in their fridge? What type of music do they need to listen to in the morning? If it's meditation, maybe breathwork is good for one person, but box breathing is better for another. Maybe visualization is better for another person. So we really own in on the specifics of what helped that individual feel optimized. When you're in flow, healthy living is effortless. Opportunity comes to you.

Synchronicity happens. Creativity is at your fingertips. But often we get accustomed to living in disalignment. And we can easily get shaken out of that, especially with what's happening in the world. Right. So we have to turn down the volume and all the noise that's happening and just really create this grounding Astrum in the city aspect of healing front and center because you know that that will then feed into every other area

of your life. Powerful. Thank you for sharing. Yeah. It's, I think it's so, it's just so valuable to be able to reduce the compulsivity that we have within our life. And whether we reach for our phone first thing in the morning or right when we feel like we want some sugar, we just have some sugar, or like all the different things that are subtle and they seem small, but they add up. And I love just like prioritizing that connection with self and being able to have that kind of bringing the ashram into your home and having a big supporter and having like a big supporter and having like an altar in your space and having that time to prioritize for stillness. And before you go and you know, you have your job or you have your work or you have your connection

or family or friends that you're going to go out there and enjoy the day with, it's like coming back into that stillness is really, really important to prioritize that first. Yeah, what's really cool too, so what we're talking about also, this idea of integrative medicine, right? I think that doctors and functional medicine now is starting to catch on, right? What they're calling modern medicine is, in fact, ancient medicine. When we look at traditional Chinese medicine, at Ayurvedic medicine, these are practices that we've been preaching for centuries, right? And I think that the closer we can start to adopt to those rituals

and really incorporate those into our day-to-day life is when we will really feel the benefits, right? If you're on a protocol for healing and you're not feeling a difference, then it's not working. Like find something that really works for you. And as you're talking about that, ignoring the symptoms and stuff like that, I think that often when you start a protocol, maybe a lot of the modalities that I'm even speaking of today might seem overwhelming. But list three things. Like if I could, you know, step my finger and make three imbalances go away, what would those three things be?

Write those down and start with those three things. Just focus on those three things until you feel the difference. And then you can add in something else and then you can add in something else until it actually becomes you. But instead of overcomplicating it and thinking that you need to overhaul your life and your lifestyle practices and wellness and, you know, start a protocol the way that we do January 1st, It's not about that. It's doing little increments of things every single day so that healthy living and wellness becomes you. It becomes part of your DNA instead of a protocol that you start. Yeah. That just feels so much more integrated in allowing it to become a part of who you are in your lifestyle instead of just something that you're doing and to get to an achievement or result. But allow it to become an integrated way of being and how you show up in the world and for yourself. It's beautiful. And I feel like for you, like energetically is such a big part.

part of your own connection with self and how you show up in service to others is the time you've spent in the ashram because energetically in ways you can't consciously comprehend, it kind of wires you in your nervous system into a state of being that it just finds ease. And I think when we find ease within ourselves, it's a lot easier to find ease around us and the connections and in our work, in our finances, our relationships, your mind, body, spirit connection. So how impactful has that time of the ashram been for you and informing who you are today and how you show up? You just reminded me. So I recently saw how my dad, my father has been my greatest spiritual teacher. He would take me up for a walk in

the morning. He would end up talking about consciousness and karma when I was little. We'd always roll our eyes. But he recently shared with me that when my mother found out that she was pregnant with me, he drove her to the ashram where she lived for two weeks. And he said, Mona, I think that the vibration of the ashram has stayed with you ever since. And in that moment, I really just understood all of it. There is a vibration at the ashram, and I wish that everyone could experience this. It's a feeling of going in and plugging into a space that is safe for you to unravel and unfold everything within you that you're tired of living with the way that I did.

And I really spiraled deeply out of balance before I made the decision to come back into balance. And yes, it took a really great, God, health catastrophe, right? And I hope that nobody goes through that. And if it isn't the Asthma, it might be your personal spiritual practice. What I think that ultimately happened to me was the power of my thoughts. We know that our body keeps score. The power of the thoughts that we have in our mind are dictated in almost, emotions are stored within her body. For me, the emotions that I was experiencing around the time

of my heart palpitations, there was heartache. My parents got a divorce. I was breaking up with the love of my life. I was going through a lot of changes. I never felt like I fit in. I was out of alignment with my purpose. I didn't feel like I had a community. The list really goes on, right? So every day my dialogue was, I'm not enough. I don't feel safe. I'm not happy. So is it not inevitable that my body would get sick? And I think that for many people, although we get used to getting dressed every day and putting on a fresh face and going out into the world and we're so focused on the doing that we're completely distracted and derailed from the being, our only purpose in this life is to be so passionately in love and at ease and at peace with yourself

in who you are, in the version of yourself that came into this world for a reason that we forget that. We're so busy doing that we're distracted from being. And I think what the ashram invites is a sense of just be, like be here in the moment. And when I talked about that flow state before, something that you can also do in this modern world is use your calendar. The beauty of the ashram is every single hour of every single hour of every every single day is accounted for from 5 a.m. until lights are at 10 o'clock in the morning, it is structured. We're meditating at the same time, yoga at the same time, brunch at the same time, karma yoga at the same time, satsing at the same time. And what that does, it allows you

to create this space to just be, right? And now that we're learning a lot about this, Stephen Kotler writes a lot about flow state, he studied this, the power of using your calendar so that you can just be so focused in that moment. But instead, we're living to be conditioned with over-stimulation, the pings that go off on our phone, those fast dopamine hits that were constantly actually addicted to getting stimulant addiction that's happening, whether it's from coffee or greater drugs that are out there, right? So whatever you can do in your life today that allows you to just be and think back to that version of yourself as a kid, if you were to imagine right now yourself as you're happiest being at three, four, or five years old,

what would you be doing? Would you be in nature? Would you be in nature? Would you playing with the trees? Would you be dancing? Would you be cooking with your parents? Like, what would you be doing? For me, it meant being in nature. I needed to be in nature. I wanted my hands in the ground. I wanted to get dirty. I wanted to pick up leaves. I wanted to like play with my friends and and laugh. Right? And it's no surprise that till this day when I'm in nature, I feel a sense of ease. It's when my body, my nervous system just resets. I can exhale. And that's how I think, think that when you can tune into what that is for you, that is the only way that our nervous systems will survive what's happening in the modern day world. So good. So good. And it's a

beautiful invitation for whoever's listening right now to tune into what is that image you have of that three, four, five year old version of yourself that is inherently curious, wonders about the world, is adventurous, is playful. And like, that is just their nature. That is just your nature. And then we grow up and because unfortunately a lot of the systems that we're just surrounded in and we develop all these conclusions about what life is. We develop all this toxic buildup in our physical body, in our physiology. And that smile slowly starts to turn into a frown. And it doesn't have to be that way just because it's normal and because it's normal. It's not natural. It's not natural to who we truly are. And so,

Yeah, it can be a long journey when there's so much stuff you've accumulated and learned that you have to unlearn and cleanse out of your psyche, out of your physiology. And the Sanskrit word samscaro, which is like the impressions that we accumulate in our life, the beautiful thing about the human psyche and our physiology is first, if we just stop putting bad stuff in, if we stop exposing ourselves to having to digest all this through all of our sense. is right through horror films, through all the junk that we see on TikTok or the food that we eat, our body does naturally move towards that like vibrancy and finding health within. So it's like first like I feel like just stop doing things that are accumulating in a negative way. And then it becomes a lot easier in time. Yeah, maybe for once you stop going to Dr. Google or the book or the protocol or what even, you know, wellness advocates are preaching that you should do.

Use that as information to fuel. Hang on, let me just tune in. What do I need today? What types of foods make me feel great? And if you are answering that it's McDonald's or Doritos, I promise you that's food addiction. Like you've got to get over the addiction process, get that out of your system first.

But then ask yourself, like, what do you need? Right? And imagine the day. And I really do. You know, I wish my hope is that one day you will go to your doctor and part of their prescription will say, all right, I want you to go home and focus on these probiotic foods. Okay?

Tomorrow I want you to wake up and I want you to go outside. I want you to play like you're five years old. Okay. Or I want you to go on a date with your husband. Don't go for dinner. I want you guys to go on a paddleboard session or go on a roller coaster together. You know what I mean? Like something that where they recognize that changing your body state out of whatever

this like sick illness vibration is into just like get out of it for a second. Like it's really fun over here. Come over here. Get used to living here. And I promise you those healthy decisions get so much easier. Promise you that. But you have to be patient and cultivate that sense of love and time to get there. People will always say that, well, how did you heal yourself?

I'm healing every day. I'm still doing work. And I feel like the more that I peel back the layers is it's more for me to unravel and honor and just honor that it's who I am. because I also don't want a lot of these things to get, you know, passed on to my children, right? We know generational trauma is a real thing. So ultimately, if you can get in tune with your highest self in every activity of your life

and every decision that you make, then my goodness, the world would just be so much more happy. It would probably be a lot nicer to each other also. I hold that vision as well. And I feel like it's so different in America than it is in. other places in the world. Like you go to various different parts of the world and there isn't this this I mean it's it's unfortunately I feel like infiltrated many many in many ways but this westernized view of health and in healing isn't as prevalent across different parts of the world as it is here.

And yeah, I would love to before we move on just what were the what's the ashram that you've gone to just because I'm sure here's going to be curious. Yeah. So I grew up with the shivenanda Ashram. It's an association. They are global. They have locations all around the world. I grew up going to the one in Valmaran, the beautiful mountains of Montreal and Canada. When I got to live there, though, I went to the Bahamas and got to live with a beautiful ocean instead. And what I love about the Shivenanda Ashram is that although a lot of these rituals are founded in Hinduism and Ayurveda, you will see imagery of all religions, right? They're non-denominational. They're open to everybody to coming. So I also lead retreats there so we can share that all. also. But yeah, a point that you brought off that I don't want to let go of is like these ancient practices, right? If we were to travel, you and I are lucky to have traveled to many places in the world. And whenever we travel to these places, there's always these rituals for the countries or for the cities that are inherent to who they are, right? And something that I'm fearful of that I want to bring to the table to see a lot more on my platform next year, these ancient

rituals, but across all cultures. I got to a point where I was so worried, like, oh my gosh, these rituals are dying with our mothers and our aunties and our grandmothers. My mom and my grandma could just like go and cook something up in the kitchen and just like a little bit more of this and a bit more of that. I'm here like on Google, okay, how many teaspoons of that, right? What do I need? My aunties in India could go walk on their balconies or into their backyards and pick off the trees, the Tulsi and the Ashwaganda and the rodeola and the herbs and the cumin and stuff like that, these natural inherent nature's pharmacy essentially, right, that are known to just like heal our bodies every day through our teas and our food.

We're kind of losing that. So something that could be interesting for your listeners is like, acknowledge who you are. Your perfect diet might be in alignment with what your ancestors were eating. Go look up some of those recipes, some of those herbs and foods, what came from the earth that healed your ancestors, and maybe that could be a solution for how it makes you feel all. also. Beautiful. So powerful. What's the power of community? Like I feel like especially in this

day and age, community is our immunity. And unfortunately, not having community is the opposite. It's like it leads to a lot of dis-ease within our system because of how hardwired we are in for connection and we're living in a very disconnected, quote-unquote, connected digitally, but disconnected interpersonally lives. How is the power of community? And and having friends and family in your life that have those deep meaningful relationships, how is that, how important is that in the pursuit of cultivating good health? I think that this is something that came front and center when I became a mother. So as a mother, our ancestors would have lived in community, in tribes, you know,

a community of people helping each other, helping the mother, acclimating the child. Our DNA was also mixing together, right? Like our biochemistry, our physiology was all interwoven and connected. And today, when we go on Matley, we're at home. We go and walks typically by ourselves. We might be part of a mom's group. And there's this isolation that happens. And I think that for me, that led to a bit of depression postpartum also.

And I asked myself, well, what was missing? And then sure enough, when I went back home to where my family was, I was surrounded by, you know, more of my cousins, my mother, my, my siblings. and other people were taking the baby and we were interacting together. There's a sense of lightness that happened, right? And so this awareness with my teaching and also through my journey about the ashram, what was it? It's the recognition that like we are really all in this together. Our physiology is the same.

We have the same needs and the same requirements and the same desire for deeper, soulful connection. I guarantee that the majority of your listeners probably don't even know who their neighbors are, right? Isn't that crazy? Like we should have these connection to our neighbors for the sense of community, for the sense of extended family, for the sense of support. We notice that our immune systems go up when we are in service to other people. Go help your neighbor.

Deliver a product to them. Give them flowers. Leave them on their doorstep for crying out loud, right? Ask for an egg if you don't need it. Just like make the connection with your neighbor. When we are connected that way, our immune systems go up. We boost serotonin within our kids. got microbiome. We optimize our sense of well-being. The Danish culture, my mother's side of things,

they still live in communities. So they've got these, you know, what will you call them? They've got these neighborhoods where they'll share communal kitchens. So knowing that the mother and father have to go out to work every single day, but the families will come together at the end of the day and cook together to bring a sense of ease and bring the kids together as families are having fewer children also. Like this is that joy of life that needs to be awakened again and bring a sense of lightness because at the end of the day from what I learn from my clients is that most people they're exhausted. They can't wait for their head to hit the pillow. They are using wine as a coping mechanism with their family to unwind, right? Instead of just looking for deeper value and

connection. So in our family to keep the dialogue going, we will talk every single night. Like tell me about what happened in your day, not, how are you? How was your day? Tell me something great that happened today for you. I love that in my kids' classes, they talk about, tell me a rose and tell me a thorn, right? Because we don't want to deny the thorns. Thorns are part of being. Help me help you process your thorns. So maybe in your conversation with your friend or community the next time you see them is like, tell me what's going on in your life. Help me learn a little bit more about you. Like, what are you excited for, right? Instead of, how are you? How's it going? Yeah. Right? This will most

likely get you out of your spinning thoughts in your mind. And instead you'll become so present to the conversation that you'll notice a sense of uplifting in your spirit. Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that in your kids class. They're asking, what are your roses and thorns? They're making progress. There's not the education system. Yeah, I did not have that. What's one thing that we haven't touched on that most people are overlooking in terms of the impact that it has on their health? Asking questions. ask why, right? So if you're watching a practitioner, for example, even someone like myself who's talking about something that works or why you should be doing it, ask why. Would this be good for my physiology or not? When you go to a doctor's office, ask why, right? Just set the stage with

what you want to going into that. I think often we're overcome by fear when we hear about ourselves getting sick. And I'll share a quick story, you know, even recently. I'm a holistic nutritionist. I've been doing this for over a decade. I talked about my astromic experience. I talk about like overcoming, you know, really healing myself from my palpitations. But I still want to check in on the physiology of my heart. So I met with a new cardiologist and he said, well, Mona, you know, if it happens sometimes and you might want to consider there's new drugs on the market that we can prescribe to you just so you don't have to worry about it. No, no, no. I gave you my backstory because I don't want to go on a medication, right? Well, you know what? Well, maybe there's new surgery

procedures these days. We can consider going for the surgery. We get rid of that, you know, extra valve. Then you just don't have to worry about it when you're older, right? It's like, you're not hearing me. I don't want to have the surgery. She's like, well, I guess what you're saying is that you're willing to live with this for the rest of your life, right? So in that moment, it took a lot. I said, I'm not willing to live with this for the rest of my life. I said, I'm looking for a partner for healing and prevention so that I know this will not become an issue when I'm older. Are you that person? Obviously, they weren't, right? So simply asking questions around if something's right for you, asking questions from ingredient labels that you read. If you do not know what an ingredient is on the

product that you're eating, neither will your body and it will most likely cause you inflammation, right? So get rid of that, ask questions, read labels really, really closely and decide you're going to control with your dollar. If we stop paying these big companies for products that are making us sick, they will not make them anymore. And unfortunately, those products tend to be cheaper, but I promise you, if you're only shopping the outer perimeter of the store, they're products that have no ingredient labels that tend to be cheaper. And I think we need to start acknowledging the people that grow those foods or deliver those foods to us are actually our healers, right? They're the healers of our future, the farmers.

Yeah, so good. What's the most worthwhile investment you've made in yourself? It could be time, energy, or money. Curious. The most worthwhile investment in myself is my meditation practice. I would say for a good decade, and this is even after living at the ashram, I met with an Ayurvedic doctor. And she said, you're non-negotiable every day.

It has to be rising before the sun because of my Ayurvedic constitution with my Vata, you know, being out of balance. And yeah, yeah, yeah, I got it. But it's so hard. I want to get it. I didn't want to get up earlier. But when I came into building my mindfulness bank and feeling the rewards of my meditation practice and how that impacted my conversations, my decision making, my sense of ease throughout the day, that was like, oh, aha, okay, it's the meditation. It's not anything else I'm doing it really just is sitting in stillness with myself. So I really, for me, my meditation practice every day is probably more important than anything else.

This has all been so good. I got to throw like a light one in there. What's your favorite, what's your favorite like snack? Oh my gosh. Even this for me, people laugh at me. I would say like it's crackers and hummus. It's not even the worst thing. Okay, let me think deeper than that.

I'm also there. I was basically breastfed hummus growing up. I had like a so much. Yeah, my mom made really great hummus. So crackers and hummus, but I get like really great seed crackers that I love. I just, I could eat crackers and hummus as a meal. Dark chocolate, but really great dark chocolate. I would say is probably my indulgence. When somebody asks me sweet or salty, I say sweet and then salty. So I'll go for like a sweeter chocolate with goji berries and then the salty chocolate afterwards. So that would be my, my indulgence. Amazing. And talk to us a little bit about Hickama and why that's such a powerful superfood and that you're precious. about. Yeah. So with my mom's autoimmune disease, she was talking about gut health from when I was a little kid. The motto in my house was eat it. It's good for you. And so these prebiotic foods were something that she's used for a really long time. So flash forward, when I became a nutritionist and I was seeking for a really healthy swap for things like crackers and chips and cookies and stuff

like that, Hickama was right there. If you haven't had it, it's really nutrient dense. It's a prebiotic fiber that fuels the good bacteria in your gut. It's loaded with hydration. It's a little crispy. It's a little bit sweet. So I was using it for a long time. And when I was pregnant with my daughter, we're reading some hickama. And my husband actually thought, like, this would taste great as a drink. So we went home. We juiced it. We threw it through a blender and it tasted amazing and quickly went online to see what we could find about hickama water and nobody was doing anything with it, which blew my mind. But if you do this, you will find that. Thousands of stories.

There's a generational love affair with Hickama. So I found all these stories of my mom used to give this to me for a sore belly or my grandma used to put it on her skin because of the vitamin C. So we just kept the dialogue going and ended up partnering with these incredible mixologists who made us three flavors. And from there, my gosh, they asked us if we wanted to be part of Coachella 2019, where they ordered for one weekend, but we ended up selling out within the first two hours. And we were the number one selling drink there.

yeah, we broke sales records. So I never saw myself starting a beverage company. But again, it's using this ingredient from nature, creating something that was fun and functional without sacrificing the taste. But what's to come for Hicama is really, I can use the entire Hicama. After you juice it, you're left with all this incredible pulp.

So we're creating some really great products around that and just like understanding, rooting in nature, right? And telling the story of our farmers. So Dr. Zach Bush has been incredibly supportive also when we talk about regenerative soil. This is really a big part of my mission. I would say that we've got to learn how our food is grown. Isn't it wild that we don't know how to grow food? Do you know how to grow food?

I mean, I know how to grow plants. I have about 40 plants in my house. But not like. Isn't that wild? So for our survival, let's just say, like if we had to, we had to grow our own food, I wouldn't know how to do it, right? So my mission really is around, you know, treating our farmers, like they are our doctors,

understanding the quality of our soil. I think that we have nine turnovers, if I'm incorrect apologies, before we really lose the nutrient density of our soil. So soil regeneration is a really big topic. Like, this is the source of our livelihood, right? So telling that story is something that's to come.

It's really a big picture for Hickama that we've got growing. Amazing. What's been like, has there been one biggest teacher in your life that you haven't talked about yet? And also, is there one book that has most impacted your life? My greatest teacher has been my father. Yeah, my father is like Deepak Chopra, but he ended up becoming an engineer. And I think that he knew deep down that there was a really deep spiritual calling for himself.

But as a result, when I woke up in the morning, he was listening to Budgens or spiritual lessons. And we had the bug of Agita growing up, which he would read to us. And I would say now that I'm an adult going back to these lessons of the Gita, which I really recommend everyone reads because ultimately it's just a story about humanity and coming up against obstacles and making decisions that are in alignment with our higher selves and a greater calling or not, that's founded a beautiful story. But that would definitely be a book that was most impactful that came to me from my father who was my greatest spiritual teacher and continues to be actually.

I think there's so many incredible books. and I really geek out from everything to like lifespan from Dr. David Sinclair. Yeah. That really makes my brain work to books like the Gita with my spiritual practice. But I think that those kind of reawakening the spirit ultimately is what I think keeps you an interested learner for life. Yeah. I'm an eternal student. Yeah.

I think I would go back to school again if I could. Yeah. So good. Beautiful. Has there been last couple questions here. Of course. to wrapping up. Has there been an apparent failure in the past few years of your life that has taught you the most about yourself in business and relationship and in your own health life

journey? Yeah. So a failure, a failure which I call the greatest lesson that I've been through. So it was actually, you know, I started working with Will Smith and ended up on Red Table Talk. and my dear friend Drew ProHitt, he's incredible. He connected me with Dr. Mark Hyman and needed a functional medicine doctor to work with. And he came on the show with me. And we kind of like really met cameras rolling. We were on and Dr. Hyman was there talking about nutrition.

And obviously he's a genius. He's been a mentor of mine since gosh, for as long as I can remember. But in that moment, I realized that he was talking about all the things that I was hoping to talk about. Right. And so in that moment, cameras rolling, I was like, huh, all right. So you're not a doctor. You're not here to talk about that. You had an expectation of how you wanted to be perceived by others in order of trying to

fitting in. And you got out of alignment with yourself. And here you are. Instead of being totally present, you're wondering in this moment why you're not good enough, right? So greatest lesson. Dr. Hyman is a genius because of what he does in his education. in his mind. He's a doctor that's taking, you know, this incredible knowledge about nutrition to heal the body. That's his genius, right? For me, my genius is my story. It's helping people

uncover their personal truth based on my healing journey, using the power of food, but also the power of mindfulness and yoga. So I needed that to happen for me to remember that I am my happiest, most joyful self when I'm singing my note, my perfect note, the way that it is. is Mona Sharma, instead of in this very loud world of health and wellness where there's so many practitioners, oh, I should do more of that, a little bit of this, a bit of that over there. Oh, that's a really great point. I need to talk more like that. No, your genius is when you play your note out into the world. And I think that as a result, since I've been owning this, God, the energy and connection that I have with my own community has just grown. It just feels so

good. And that leads to my mission to helping as many people as humanly possible in this world. So beautiful. So good. Thank you for sharing that too. That's obviously very, you know, vulnerable. And I think it's, it's probably very beautiful for the listeners to hear as well because when you have like a big moment like that, right, where you're being put on a big stage and like that, that lack of alignment or like, I guess, pre-expectation or perception of how things could be or could have gone. I think you, in that moment, you served like a really beautiful role and like being a being, able to bring this conversation of healing and wellness to, you know, one of the largest media families in the world. And that was so cool. Was that surreal coming off of that and the impact of that? Yeah, completely surreal. Will everything you see is what you get. He's incredible. The way that he came to me was by a great doctor saying, okay, someone's going to call you tomorrow at three o'clock. Just pick up your phone. And I picked up the phone and the voice on the other end said, hey, Mona, it's Will Smith. You know it's him because it's it's Will Smith, right? And yeah, there was a real gift there.

But in my conversation also with Will, the very first call was my experience at the ashram, the gifts that I had learned at the ashram and how I'm using those in today's modern world to help my clients heal, right? He saw that. So you brought up that point of like when you sees these moments and you only get one shot, how are you going to show up, right? Show up as the most authentic version of yourself. That is your note. That goes back to the point you were brought up earlier when you can remember that version of yourself as a kid. Who are they meant to be in this world? Let them come out and play. For me, this ties into this idea of divine feminine, this inherent trust in knowing that things can happen and flow with grace and with ease the way

that it should be. Right? So powerful. Yeah, because when you show up as yourself, as you, as who you authentically are, you're no longer vulnerable to be found out for someone you're not because you're just being you. You're just being you. It's so much better. Yeah. Yeah. That roommate in your head just goes away really fast too. Yeah. So good. That little pestering bugger. There's a good book. Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. Yeah. Love it. He's great. Game changer. Really help me through my meditation practice to disconnect from the voice and the dialogue that was happening to putting her into a room. Yeah. So yeah, as we're like, heading towards the end of the year going into 2023 for individuals that want to develop a new

level of vibrancy, of purpose, of passion in their life. How do we, how have you personally on an individual level and then supporting others get clear and like intention setting going into the new year? May you let all of your new year's resolutions instead being about how you need to go hardcore or, you know, start a new program or protocol and Instead, be guided by the question of, are you ready to let go of a version of yourself that no longer serves you? And really think about that. What are the practices that you have in your life right now that aren't serving you in your

relationships, in your profession, in your spirituality, and your family life, and your connection to self? Just ask what you can take away instead of what more you can start doing. Often my work with my clients, gosh, 50% of it is like, no, no, no, unlearned. doing that. Stop thinking that you need to be this way and like you have to do more on your busy schedule. Instead, just let go of the version of yourself that doesn't serve you anymore. Maybe acknowledge that version of yourself for the gifts and the lessons that came along the journey. But now we experience a sense of freedom. Visualize how you want to feel closing out next year.

Right. And if you're in alignment with your higher self, then I promise the answer has just come so much more easy. So beautiful. I think in a world where so many people are like sign up to the gym, change this, do this, add this to your life, going to the new year to be able to see what do you want to release, right? Because we were speaking to earlier, that innate child that's within us that is inherently connected with source energy that is healthy, vibrant, and abundant. It's removing what's in the way of that. And so that's a beautiful prompt for people to journal and like during a full moon to write down what are the things that are no longer serving you in your psyche and how you've been showing up in the world and what you

want a release to allow more of you to come online, which has been a beautiful thread throughout this whole conversation. Thank you. Yeah. And like looking for the teachers, right? You know, this is something that I've even living right now. Next year, it's really, I'm fully ready to embrace that six-year-old girl within me, right? Like, I want to hug her and squeeze her.

And a beautiful analogy that I heard the other day was, you know, a lot of us are ready to fly, but our wings might be a little wet still. Right? So just when you acknowledge that and you seek out the teachers to help you dry your wings, you will be ready to fly, but it has to lead with an intention. Powerful. Well, and there. If people want to find more Mona, where can they find you? Yeah, find me on Instagram. I love it there. I love that community. So Mona Sharma, I have a website, monosha.com. That links out to all the Hickama Life stuff also so you can find me there. Wonderful. All that will be linked down in the description. Thank you so much for coming out. I really enjoy this time together. Yeah, I adore you. Thank you. So good.

And for everybody that's been tuning in to this episode of the Know They Self Podcast, thank you for coming on this journey with us. I thoroughly enjoy this and I hope you do as well. And if you made it to the end of this episode, please let us know in the comments below and by sharing on socials, what stood out to you, what impacted you. I really love to see that reflection back from you and from the community that we're building here

to see how it's really impacting and transforming your life. So all the links for Mona will be linked down in the description as well as our separate clips channel. Hit the subscribe button if you haven't. already and until next time we will.