Mayim Bialik's Breakdown - Kunal Nayyar: Stay Present & Know Yourself

Episode Date: February 23, 2021

Mayim's reunion with Big Bang Theory co-star explores Kunal's childhood and path to becoming an actor - including getting punched in the face by Mark Harmon on NCIS. While Kunal is known for his acting, his instagram account Buddha in Jeans shares deep spiritual wisdom which Kunal brings with him to this episode. He discusses the importance of seeing past perception and shares how his experiences of anxiety and debilitating panic attacks led him to hypnotherapy and a modern day path of self-discovery. BialikBreakdown.com YouTube.com/mayimbialik Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The mind creates the fear, and then the mind creates the angst to get over the fear. So I realized I'm thinking about the fear and I'm thinking about getting over the fear. It was a big aha moment for me to realize, oh, I can't outthink thinking. People who have an accent like you, it's like everything you say sounds wise. I'm looking at you and I'm listening to your words and I'm thinking, what if he looked like, you know, the captain of the football team in a 1950s movie? Are you saying that my beard doesn't help white? Your Canadian accent conjures something totally different for me.

You look like an NBA analyst. Hi, I'm Iambiolic and welcome to my breakdown. This is the place where I break things down so you don't have to. It's my ambiolic's breakdown. She's going to break it down for you. Because you know she knows a thing or two. And now she's going to break down. It's a breakdown.

She's going to break it down. Today we're going to be breaking down knowing yourself with Kunal Neer who played Raj on the Big Bang Theory for 13 years, nine of which I was working with him. And Kunal is a really, really interesting, and I would say extraordinary, like out of the ordinary person, both in the industry and just in life in general. and he is going to break down a lot about the journey that he went on, essentially, while he was on the Big Bang theory. It's very, very interesting, and this is a great episode. I'm just going to say it. I'm excited. Who's excited?

The Pence to My Fly, Jonathan Cohen. I'll have you buzz around me anytime. I don't know if that's what I meant. I meant more you're trying to go about your business, and I just keep getting up in it. being like, look at me. Oh, I thought you were just stealing the spotlight. No, I was making everything about myself. Oh, I'm into it.

And if the audience at home wants to make everything about you, they can subscribe to the podcast. Give us a five-star review because it very much helps us make more. And they can also visit Biolikbreakdown.com. B-I-A. L-I-K. Breakdown.com. Where you can ask Maim anything. Yeah, you scroll down and there's like a little form and you can ask me anything about mental health.

And she'll answer on air. We've been getting a ton of submissions. And so we want to thank everyone. Thank you so much for all of the participation so far. The questions have been amazing. Difficult. There have been some hard ones. I thought they'd be a little easier.

Like, why do I feel so bad inside? Is that your question, Jonathan? Every day. Just kidding. I always feel good around you, Mime. Word of the day. The word of the day is hypnotherapy. Mind? Tell us a little bit about it.

Hypnotherapy is a form of therapy that involves the practitioner or the therapist helping the client or patient go into a very, very deep state of relaxation, which is known as hypnosis. And the idea of like, you know, magicians hypnotizing people and making them quack like a duck and the power of suggestion is a little bit distant from what we talk about with hypnotherapy. but the idea is that when you're in that kind of state, you have more access to the unconscious mind, meaning you're not asleep, but you're in a sort of drifty, in between sort of relaxed state where you can really better focus on the issues at hand. And this can be very helpful for things like stopping cigarette smoking. A lot of people will use hypnotherapy more as kind of cognitive behavioral therapy and use it for repetitive behaviors and habits and things like that.

And the idea is that when we kind of filter out a lot of the noise that's part of our conscious mind and our conscious experience, it gives us the opportunity to be more open and receptive to suggestions, in this case, for help with habits, as an example, or addictions. And hypnotherapy is something that usually you would want a practitioner who's certified, and that's not to be elitist or snobbish, but there's a lot of techniques that are not hypnotherapy. and that can border on things that are more suggestive and not necessarily ethically binding, whereas someone who's gone through certification usually has more training in how to make that, you know, an appropriate ethical therapeutic process.

And that is the word of the day. The reason we bring that up today is because we talk a lot about consciousness, what we're aware of, the lenses that shape our reality. For example, I may be interpreting that look that you're giving me as like, you don't want me to keep talking. But really, that might be either true or it might not be the reality with the capital R. It might be a projection. Well, and one of the things that Kunal talks about in his journey to a deeper knowledge of himself, one of the earliest techniques that he used was hypnotherapy. And so he talks about it in the context also of working on some issues of

panic disorder, panic attacks, with hypnotherapy and then finding out that there was a lot more underneath it. Kunal Neir is an English actor. He's actually born in England, best known for his role as Rajesh Kuthr Pali on the Big Bang Theory. Kunal has also voiced the character of Gupta in Ice Age Continental Drift and he's Guy Diamond and trolls. I saw him in that. He acted alongside Jesse Eisenberg in the Broadway production of The Spoils. He holds a Bachelor of Business Administration and Finance from University of Portland. He actually grew up in India after leaving England and then went to college in Portland. And he has an MFA. He's still fancy. He has an MFA in acting from Temple University. This might sound weird. He has a

very interesting Instagram feed. He started Buddha in jeans, Buddhas in jeans. Which we'll link to on the site. He started Buddhas in jeans as kind of an expression of a lot of what I think he kind of wanted, you know, during this past year, dealing with COVID and started putting out a lot of really interesting reflections and spiritual reflections and mental health suggestions. And so I really wanted to talk to him and find out how that came about. So it's a real, real honor to have him here. Welcome, Knaul. Break it down. Hi, Knaul. Thank you for being here. Of course. It's very special to get to see your face also because I was so used to seeing your face for about a decade of my life. And it's been a real period of adjustment. Maybe you want to

start just by sort of telling us where you've been since. Big Bang ended and what life's been like in a nutshell? First of all, good to see you too. For those of you who don't know, Maia and I spent a lot of time together and did become very close on the show and it's really nice to see you after so long. We'll get into why it's been so long in a bit.

But I thought I was going to take all this time off because that was fair to my family, to my wife. Went to India four times in six months, so that was nice. I got to spend a lot of time my parents. but dove back into acting again. You know, and I did a show for Netflix called Criminal, UK, where I played a criminal.

And now I'm doing a show for Apple called Suspicion, where I play someone suspicious. So I'm really going the drama route because, you know, it's important for me to be able to showcase sort of the range that I have. I think it's important for my career. And also it's fun. It's fun to do a show with like people shooting guns and making this face a lot. It's fun.

But at the same time, I do feel like I should have taken a little more time. I think there was this real excitement to dive back into it. It's like you need a break, but at the same time, there's this window of opportunity that you really want to capitalize on also at the same time. But if I look back, no one could have predicted the pandemic. The plan was to be in London, but travel Europe at the same time, and it didn't work out. But I wish I had taken a little more time to myself and still shooting, because that's how long it takes to shoot during the pandemic and I'm shooting till the end of March after which I am

shutting it down. I'm going to really just not do anything for six months. We'll see. Talk a little bit because obviously I know you as, you know, a very, very skilled comedic actor and you're also classically trained, which people may not know, meaning like you have a fancy degree, like you're a proper actor. You also played such a, I mean, all of our characters were kind of, you know, we were playful caricatures, you know, of archetypes. And you in particular, especially your physical appearance, you know, the way they did your hair and, you know, you're a very, very stylish and, you know, handsome dapper fellow. And, you know, you played this character that was very, you know, next to Amy Farrah Fowler, I think the worst dresser, you know,

of us all, although I guess it's arguable. But what is it like doing drama? Like, I don't know you as a drama actor because I, you know, I worked with you exclusively in this comedy world where you got to be physical and you got to be funny. And yeah, I'm curious what that's like, sort of stepping into a different role, literally. When it comes to acting, truth is truth, right? It doesn't matter whatever character you're playing. It doesn't matter what you're doing. You're ultimately trying to discover the truth in a moment.

I think that's what's so exciting about being an actor is that you're trying to discover the truth in present time circumstances. So for me, it's just more of the same, to be honest. It doesn't, you know, the genre is not the difference between drama. comedy. The genre for me, the difference is between multi-camera and single camera, which is doing a show in front of a live audience that feels like you're performing a concert, whereas you're doing one take of a scene, and then you're stopping, and then you're doing the take again, and then you're stopping, and then you turn it around, and you stop and you wait in your trailer

for 20 minutes, and you come back out, and you're back into screaming mode, and then you sit, so it takes a different kind of muscle, a different kind of focus to be able to switch on and switch off because we had such an intense two and a half hour period of shooting that it was that's where you were. But when you're shooting these intense scenes, you have all these breaks because for those of you don't know, there's one camera. So if my and I in a scene, it has to shoot this way, then it has to shoot this way and then it has to shoot this way and then it has to shoot that way. So it takes time. And the reason that there are not more cameras is that they're very expensive. And the amount of people, the amount of people required for you to be

able to shoot into a set means that there's literally not enough room. So if you want to, you know, shoot something with a proscenium, you need to have one camera, make it look like it's really happening, and then get all those other angles. So yes, very, very different from, from sitcom right. But I love it. The thing is that people don't realize that being an actor is not just acting. It's also being on set. It's also interacting with all the various people that you're working with. For me, that's enjoyable. I love being on set. I love hanging out with the fellow actors. I love me hanging out with the crew guys, the crew girls. Like there's a real sense of community.

There's a real sense we're in this together for a short period of time. And you get to know people very, very quickly. And then you never talk to them again. It's the weirdest experience. I love it. I love the totality of it. You know, I really love what I do. I'm very lucky.

You know, what you're describing is the experience of being an employed actor, which, you know, is that's the other thing. And it actually ties into a little bit of what I want to kind of get into in terms of like mental health and why we do what we do and what we get from doing what we do. And the fact is it's not the same. You know, my mental state when I'm a struggling actor or when I don't have work or I'm not sure if I can, you know, pay the bills is very different than being employed. You know, even as a guest actor here and there, I famously returned to acting and ended up

on Big Bang Theory because I was running out of health insurance. Like after getting my doctorate, there was that element of like, this is a thing I do that can make money. But like to get to end up then having a life, you know, of getting to be on set and have all those experiences, it's tremendously, and it's life affirming, you know, as an actor to get that kind of employment. Anyway, take us back. You were born in London, correct? Your family is from India, also correct? And you spent time there. Can you tell us a little bit just, you know, about sort of what you were born into, what your parents did or? Yeah, you know, England, I was only there till I was three years old. So for me, I don't have much memory of it. My dad was an accountant.

My mom was an interior designer. She stopped working to take care of the two kids while my dad worked. And when I was about, they were working in England when I was born. And we moved to a beautiful place called Hounslow, which at the time when they bought an apartment there was supposed to be this artsy community and turned out to be not a very, very nice place. It's changed a lot since. the 80s, but in the 80s it was really not great. But they decided to move back to India to take care of their parents. That was a decision my father made. And it cost him a lot.

He lost a lot of sort of his wealth and everything that he had accumulated working in England. But there was an inherent joy in his karmic duty to take care of his parents, I think, that. And also growing up in India for me being so close to all my cousins and my uncles and aunts and that sense of Indian community, which is every single, night, the doorbell would ring at 8 p.m. And you don't know who's coming over. But, and everyone's like, okay, what are we eating tonight? You know, everyone's going into everyone's fridge.

Anyone who's sick comes over, you take care of them. They take care of you. There's a real sense of, this is why when I moved to America, one of the hardest things I had to get used to is if you have a cold, that everyone was like this. Whereas in India, if you have a cold, everyone's like, come here, come here, sit, sit, let me put cold compress on your head. You want chai biscuit, what do you want? You sit, don't do anything.

So there's real sense of when you're sick that everyone comes and takes care of you and here if you get sick, it's like stay away, you know, which has been a very interesting transition. It still takes a while for me to get used to. But so that's why they moved to India and that's why I ended up growing up there because they decided they wanted to come home and take care of their parents as they got older. You came for college? To the U.S. from India. Yeah. 1999, Portland, Oregon. Yeah. It's a university of Portland. I didn't have a great SAT score. My brother was going to a college called Reed, which is a very famous. college for intellectuals.

Like, he's a brilliant guy. And I went to sort of the lesser intellectual college because I didn't have the grades to get in. I got a good scholarship. And I said, let's go see the world, you know. And then you ended up in Portland. By the way, Portland in, it was such a cool, open-minded city. People were interested where I was from.

They were not so afraid to see someone of a different skin color. It's a great, it's a, it's a very educated, very educated, very. liberal city. So I felt like I integrated quite well. And then you stayed for graduate school, correct? I got my graduate degree in acting in Philadelphia at Temple University. Got it. Which is in North Philadelphia, yeah. And then how long after that was Big Bang for you? One year. Wow. Wow. So you, hold on. I just got to do this. You came to America. You went to college and then you went to grad school. I trained to be an actor for seven years, undergrad and then three years in master's. I did a play at the role, Shakespeare.

for a company in England. Then I had about 10 months left on my work visa. So I came to L.A. I played a terrorist on N-C-I-S, which I guess you have to do. Mark Harmon punched me in the face. It was so cool. And then I did a McDonald's commercial and a...

Did Mark Harmon punch you in the face in that too? No. And then a Citibank commercial. Was Big Bang your first pilot? Yeah, first pilot. Oh my goodness. I mean, it's such a number. amazing trajectory also, you know, my grandparents were immigrants to this country and they saw in me

like the American dream. Like, look, we came from nothing. We were cigarette peddlers and tailors and, you know, our granddaughters on television. Like, that's literally, that was how they could comprehend it. Like, they were not educated people. You know, my grandfather left school at 15. My grandmother probably at 9. Like, I don't even know if there was school for girls really structured. So what was that like, you know, coming from such a different culture and sort of having that and, you know, going into a world that was really kind of instantly a schedule, a life, and then eventually this tremendous success? What did that feel like? Did it feel specifically different from, you know, your other castmates? I can't speak of the other castmates,

but for me, when I decided to become an actor, I took it very seriously. Like it was not a I remember telling my parents, this is what I want to do. I remember the day. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember exactly when it happened. I was on stage. I had a moment where I had completely, for the first time in my life, discovered what it means to be present.

And it happened on stage. And I finished the play and I went home at my parents. This is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I'm going to do it. And they were very supportive. They said, do whatever makes you happy. And I was very lucky. And that was the beginning of the end.

From that day onwards, I took to this craft like I was training for the Olympics. You know, I don't mean that physically, but I mean that I... People don't know about your Olympian body. It's about time they know. I really committed to it to try to be the first person on set, you know, to try and make sure that I'm very committed, that I'm always on time, that I'm well-prepared, that I'm... Pleasant. Even to this day, I take it very, very seriously. I don't take for one second, I don't take it for granted.

Because I know and you know how quickly it can be taken away. I can, I mean, and also like this is not, this is not like a BS interview where like celebrities tell each other how amazing they are. But I can absolutely attest to that that whenever anybody would ask me about you or, you know, tell us about the cast members. You know, there's like an anecdote about everybody. But the thing that I always would say about you is you had a tremendous sense of presence and optimism.

We went through challenges for sure. We went through challenges, you know, there's things that people don't, I always say to people, like, you don't know everything that happened in all of our lives, you know, like a lot happened in those years. And, you know, you really always were, you know, kind of that cheerleader, but not in an obnoxious sense.

Although Simon sometimes gave you a hard time about how positive you were. My NBiNBialx breakdown is supported by Superpower. We all know the feeling of leaving a doctor's office and kind of feeling like we didn't get anything. out of the experience that was useful. Maybe they're like, you're fine, drink more water. There's no real data. There's no game plan. This has happened to me many, many times, especially on the perimenopause journey. That's why we're fascinated by what superpower is doing. They send a licensed

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Not only did Superpower reduce their price to just $199, but for a limited time, our listeners get an additional. additional $20 off with the code break. Head to superpower.com. Use the code break at checkout for $20 off your membership. And after you sign up, they'll ask how you heard about them. Make sure to mention Miami-Biol's breakdown to help support the show. Obviously, we talk a lot about, you know, mindfulness and being present and what it means for meditation and what it means for relationships and what it means for conversations. Can you describe, you know, what that feels like? Like, what did it feel like in your body or what did it feel like in your heart? Or what did it feel like to have an awakening of like, this is how present I want to be?

It's a good question. It's a tricky question to answer because hypothetically, any answer I give and someone likes the answer, then we'll try to recreate that with their mind and be completely out of the present, you know. This is why spirituality or spiritual teachings or mindfulness are very good because they get you to a certain point. But eventually, if you begin to live someone else's spiritual life or someone else's idea of the present, then you're out of the present completely. I think it's important to realize

that you are in the present. That's just a fact. Like right now, we are in the present. We may be thinking about something or imagining something. That's fine. We've given a lot of power to our mind. But you cannot not be physically in the present. I think it's very important people to realize that. How do you stay so present? I'm not staying present. I am present. If there's any question you want to ask yourself is what am I doing right now that's taking me away from the present moment? Because you always are in the present moment. What it felt like for me was a complete sense of no distraction from the thinking mind and completely just here as myself.

That's what it felt like or feels like to me. It's not always possible because my mind sometimes. We're artists. We are very vivid imagination. But so it's not about being in the present moment. It's just about accepting that you cannot not be in the present moment. No, I really, I love that description also. And, you know, people often ask, should young people be actors, right?

Like, do you encourage my five-year-old from getting into the business? And I remember, you know, I started acting when I was 11, but, you know, Kaylee had been acting since she was four and, you know, Johnny also. Like, there's a sense of learning that you have to be in the present. You don't get to have a sick day. You don't get to have a bad day. You can have stuff that's going on. But when they yell action,

I mean, I've never thought of it like this until you said it. Like, that really is. It's a moment where all you have is the present. I have the words that are coming out of my mouth, you know, that I've integrated into my brain in a way that I can spit them out. And I have my feet that need to walk here or this prop that I need to handle.

That's one of the hard things, you know, when people ask me about children. Like, you have to teach a child to essentially compartmentalize, you know, because they have to be in the present. They can't be thinking about what happened in class that morning. They can't be thinking about that their tummy hurts. You know, we've all worked with the flu.

I was thinking, you know, we have pictures of us in masks. Remember how funny? We was like, ha-ha, we have to wear masks. We're sick. Like, look at us now. But we all worked on that show quite ill in various stages of sickness. You know, we don't get to be in that kind of present. You know, we're in the present, in that sense, of our craft.

I feel more now because of the pandemic, people are turning to, people are turning inward, people are turning towards mindfulness or something, something to understand what the meaning of all of this is that's deeper than just what you can see and touch, right? So people are talking a lot about meditation. It's exactly what you said. When you're in action, the kind of focus that it takes, it's a very one-pointed, undistracted focus, which kind of what meditation is. If you talk to high F1 formula race drivers, when they're racing, it's a similar feeling

of being completely in the present because one distracting thought on a turn at 250 miles an hour or whatever is going to, that's it. It's similar. You find yourself when you mess up a take is when you're most distracted. There is a real element of meditation in acting, a real element of discovery. what it means to be completely present. That's why I think a lot of actors turn towards mindfulness.

Something, Knoll that you said about being present. I don't have the playback exactly, but you said something to the effect of it allowed you to feel like yourself. And I think so many people are connected to their thoughts and the linkage of their thoughts

as their experience of the self. And so I think there's not really a question here as much as a comment to both of you that it's like that moment of discovering a stillness of the mind and the access that that can give someone to feeling themselves differently. You know, it sounds both of you have experienced that in the work. Well, I mean, honestly, I can't speak for Knoll, but I can say for me that what I think

it is and kind of what I want to, you know, ask Knoll about next is for me, being that present is myself. That's the truest form of myself that there is, is that state. and the fact is when you do mindfulness meditation or other forms of meditation, that's really what we're trying, we're trying to remove everything that's not us, right? It's Michelangelo's David, like remove everything that's not David from that block of stone, right? Thinking of it in those terms, that's kind of what it is. And, you know, it sort of feels like maybe we figured out like the solution to, you know, all of our mental health challenges is like literally finding a way to be present puts you the most in touch with yourself.

Scientifically, I can support that. That's what spirituality's been saying for 5,000 years. That's what it means when they say nithi, neti in Buddhism, which is not me, not me, not me, not me, not me. What's left? But it's this kind of incredible game where you kind of are playing hide and seek with yourself, you know, until you can't run from yourself anymore.

And then you have a meeting of yourself and you decide. Okay, I'm obsessed with this line of thinking. Okay, so hold on. I want you to get us here. I'm going to be super honest. It's a very special thing, to be honest about. People who have an accent like you, it's like everything you say sounds wise. And like it's a thing.

Like, it's totally a thing because I'm looking at you and I'm listening to your words and I'm thinking, what if he looked like, you know, the captain of the football team in a 1950s movie? You know, like, what if he looked like James Dean? Like, you know, what if he looked like Gal Gadot? you know, like what, there's something very specific. And I think, look, part of that is just it's, it's social construct, it's cultural construct. It's our notion of South Asia. Like, it's a lot of things.

Are you saying that my beard doesn't help me seem as why? Your Canadian accent conjures something totally different for me. You look like, you look like an NBA analyst. I'll take that. That's amazing. That's the highest compliment anyone's ever paid Jonathan on this podcast. I have South Asian friends. I know that some are Hindu and some are Jane.

Tell us a bit about your upbringing in terms of kind of, and also I should say, for those who are not from ethnic families, you know, culture and religion and spirituality are often very, very intricately enmeshed in a beautiful way. That's a very, very astute observation. Yeah, so I'm going to just make that a caveat that, and I've met many members of your family, actually, when they've come to visit our set. So I've seen that there's a very special kind of connection. So to say, like, what religion was your mom is not the whole, you know, that's not the question.

I think you understand what the question is. I'm curious, yeah, really where you come from religiously and spiritually. You know, we grew up Hindu. My mom was, it's so difficult to say Hindu because even though I guess I was brought up Hindu, you know, Hinduism has so many different sort of versions, right? when we were discovered that we were called Hindus, not because we were religious, but because we were found near the Indus River. That's why we're called Hindus. So Hinduism, yes, of course, it's a religion, but ultimately Hinduism is about seeking, it's about self-realization.

The Bhagavad Gita is about realizing the self. It's not a set of moral principles in which God punishes you. you for being alive, you know, which we see a lot in religion. As soon as you're born, God is like, you know, I died because of you, which I understand in some religions is helpful, but Hinduism is not that. It's not a set of moral guidelines. But there are moral guidelines. But there are, I was exactly what I was just going to say, but there are moral guidelines.

This is the religion of hedonism that Kanaal was raised in. Exactly. No rules just right. For me growing up, we celebrated Christmas. We celebrated Diwali and all the Hindu festivals, but we also celebrated Christmas. Tell me about that. I've never celebrated Christmas. You've seen any, you've seen skinny Indian Santa Claus? It's the hell of it. Oh, ho, my young child. Oh, oh, oh. Okay, so tell me what it was like being Hindu because, you know, did you pray every day?

Do you go to temple? Like, what's the? So I went to a Christian brother school. I went to St. Columba School. So there was a large Christian component in my life too because I went to a school. We did prayers in my family, we did prayers for big things. So if you had exams coming up, my mom would go to the Gurdwara, because she's half Sikh. If we had something, someone was ill, we'd go to the temple. For all the religious holidays, we would go to the temple. For Diwali, we would do our prayers at home in my grandfather's clinic because he was a dentist. So, but we were not, it was not something that was very regular in our home, like every Sunday or something like this, you know. I think,

there's something about growing up in India where you see so much poverty and you see also so much richness. You see wealth and you see poverty. So you grow up understanding, it's a great equalizer. Growing up in India is a great equalizer. Nothing is that impressive to me anymore in terms of someone's wealth, you know, or nothing is, I don't push anything away, nor am I really drawn toward anything because life is a great equalizer. I think that was a great lesson I learned growing up in India. And did you have a kind of a any sort of spiritual consciousness for yourself? Like, you know, you definitely have a spiritual consciousness now. Yeah, I'm curious as a child or as a teenager. Did you identify as a, no? Nothing. Like, nothing other than like I read Khalil Gibran's The Prophet,

which my father gave me when I was 18. My dad was very wise, is very wise. He was always a real teacher to me about treating everyone equally, just the way I saw him treat people too. He was never intimidated by power, nor was he ever intimidated by poverty. And I think there was a real great sense of self that I learned from him. But no, I was just a happy kid. You know, it's like I never truly ever discovered consciousness, awareness, mindfulness, until I began to struggle in my life because I woke up happy. And I was lucky to have a family that supported me and loved me.

And yes, they were tough times for all of us. But there was just, I woke up happy. I was a happy kid. I never had to look within to find myself because my identity. People always say now, you know, I got to get rid of my conditioning. But there's a lot of conditioning that I was good in me. I don't want to get rid of that stuff. Like being kind to elders and taking care of people and my sort of harming duty towards my family.

Those are good things that were conditioned in me that I don't want to get rid of. But when I began to struggle mentally, when I began to have those. dark episodes, that was very shocking. How old were you? Probably my first panic anxiety was when I was 30, 29, 30 is when I had a panic attack on the highway, didn't know what that was. I mean, ever since then, I've had to fight some kind of battle with panic or anxiety. That's actually a great way to define a panic attack.

You don't know what it is. An anxiety attack, you know, like, oh, this feels like, oh, it feels so icky. But panic attack is the like, what is happening? happening. I mean, I've had to pull off the road. Having a panic attack while driving is one of the most terrifying things. I mean, death feels very close. Death feels very close. Yeah, especially on the highway, you know, and I had never experienced that. So I just got off and someone was in the car with me. I said, ah, you know, there's a lot of traffic ahead because I was embarrassed too. So I'm having this full-blown panic attack inside. Now I'm being embarrassed. So like I'm pulling off

and joking and joking and inside. I don't know what else going on. I got so bad. I couldn't even look at my car keys without feeling panic. And then I knew something was wrong. And then I had to begin to fight my way back to look at it. Because the scary thing is we don't look at it. We don't, we don't turn within and say, what is this? I didn't even know any of that. So I started seeing a therapist. And that was very helpful, very, very helpful. What kind of therapist can I ask? Hypnotherapy, because at the time, I was just trying to get over my fear of driving on the highway. I didn't know that the road it was going to lead me to. I didn't realize what I was going to uncover

because when I started getting better and driving back on the highway again, it began to happen in elevators. So three years after working on the highway, it started happening in it. And I've never liked heights or elevators. Never. But then it became like the highway again.

And that's when I said something's wrong. That was five years into therapy. And that's when I called my parents and I said, I'm sick. Like, something's wrong. I'm feeling like mentally sick. They said, oh, it's okay. We see a family therapist.

And I was like, what? I didn't even know. So they sent me to this Indian therapist when I was home. And I had a really, really lovely time with him. What was that like? He's a very, he's an older gentleman, very calm. And it was just nice. He spoke to me also in Hindi,

Hindi and English. And there was maybe something about the language that spoke to me in a sort of an existential way, maybe, I don't know. And I remember he gave me an anti-anxiety pill. And he said, why are you so scared to be here? I said, because I don't want to take medication. I was very afraid to take medication for some reason. But I was self-medicating with five martinis a night.

So it doesn't, you know what I mean? I was still, I mean, I was medicating through alcohol. So he gave me these pills, he said, keep them for an emergency. So you know on your pocket, you have it. So if you're in an elevator and you can't get out of it, take one. Don't worry. Sure enough, I'm on the 17th floor to go see my dentist and I begin to have this horrible panic and I had this pill in my hand. I take it out and I hear this voice. And we just said, before you run away from yourself, I just want to die. Even if I die right now,

I'm not going to run away from myself. And I threw it away. I threw the pill away. And that began my sort of spiritual journey. I said, I don't want to run from myself any. I want to get to know who I am. That was it, really. That what sort of was the catalyst for me to really begin to look and spend time with myself. What did that or what does that look like? Meaning, did you undertake, you know, meditation? Did you start?

Like, what did it look like for you? I started reading Deepak Chopra. That was the beginning for me. I still saw my hypnotherapist. I was still doing drives. But then I started talking to her about deeper. All this stuff she was already talking about that I just couldn't hear. You know, always.

And I started talking to my therapist in India also. And I would just spend hours alone, alone, reading, not reading about spirituality, reading about turning within. Meditation started. You probably don't know some of these stories, but, because I'm working this whole time. Yeah, that's what I was, I mean, I... I mean, I'm functioning on the outside and I'm dying on the inside. You know, I started listening to, started doing meditation, started with like two minutes.

a day, became five minutes a day, became 10 minutes a day, became 30 minutes a day. And I realized that it's not about the fear of the highway. And it's not about getting over the fear of the highway either because some new fear will spring up. Some new fear will spring up. The mind creates the fear and then the mind creates the angst to get over the fear. So I realized I'm thinking about the fear and I'm thinking about getting over the fear. And it was a big aha moment. for me to realize, oh, I can't outthink thinking. I can't use the same tool to get over a thought. Because it's not about good thoughts or bad thoughts.

It's about who's listening. Who's in here that's listening? And that really was life-changing. And I remember we were shooting an episode of Big Bang on a Tuesday. And in between takes, I was listening to this meditation, just because I was like listening to spiritual videos. And as this thing is listening, and for half a second, half a second, I experienced a complete gap between two thoughts, a complete silence. And in that moment, I knew myself in a way that I can't explain.

And that was five, four years ago. And the journey still continues. Sure. Like even today, and I'm being completely honest, today out of the blue. There's some stuff going on. I'm busy. I'm traveling. and the pandemic and today out of the blue,

I just had complete panic for like 10 minutes. As a passenger in my wife's car, out of the blue today. There's this thing that I'm realizing called surrender but. It's like, yeah, I trust the universe, but on my own terms. I trust the universe.

I surrender. I let go. But I don't want to let that go. And we get identified with our anxiety in a way where we feel safe. with it. It's good that I'm anxious about this because if I'm not, then what will I do with all my freedom? It becomes a cage in which we feel safe. And I don't really know what to do with that. Sometimes you have to just truly also let it happen. What was your relationship like? And, you know,

you can be as detailed or vague as you want. But, you know, I think about the times in my life when I've been the most debilitated by challenges, depression, anxiety, panic. You know, I was given medication because I was not, I was not being well treated then and the solution was just take this. I do want to mention that I absolutely think there are moments and people and situations where medication can do wonders. I am not against anxiety medication. Everyone's journey is their journey. And I am not against it at all. It just so happened in my situation. There was just something that stopped me. No, I, yeah. I appreciate you saying that, and also I think it's important to note that when people make a decision to not take medication, they often do very little to try and get to the route, or they often don't have the resources to get to the root of what's going on.

So I absolutely agree that medication is not, it is not for everyone, but if you choose not to take medication, there's a lot of work that you do have to do. It will not magically disappear. here. But what I was saying was that at the times in my life when I've been the most debilitated, you know, it was my partner. It was my then boyfriend who I ended up marrying. And, you know, you know, Mike, you've seen him and we've been divorced, obviously. But so much of the burden really fell on him because he was having to balance this person, you know, who was, I mean, in many ways, I was not really functional, you know. I was able to go to class and I did that. But that was kind of my life. So I'm curious, you know, what kind of shifts you've seen in your relationship.

There was, there's this real sense in me about taking care of my family. I have to take care of my family. I work so I could take care of my family. There's this sense. And I was embarrassed for a long time because I felt like, oh, if I can't get into an elevator, how will I ever take care of my children? If I can't drive on the highway, how will I take them on a road trip? How can I be a husband to protect my wife if I'm having panic and anxiety. So I hid a lot of that and I was functional on the outside, but it manifested in other ways, drinking, anger, frustration. But all of that was truly only because I had drifted very far away from my true nature.

The only reason I know when I feel anxious or panicky or anything, it's because I'm disconnected to reality, that I'm living and either an imagined truth or something, that I'm harping on in the memory of my past. That's when I'm disconnected to what we talked about, the present moment and reality. That's when I'm living through the fragmented version of the mind. That's why we talk about letting go of some of this stuff so that you can actually see clearly what is happening, because when you see clearly what's happening, panic and anxiety doesn't

come. As in my spiritual journey, I began to wash away some of the noise and the storm. My relationship got a lot better with myself. and as my relationship got better with myself, my relationship in my marriage got better. And on the other side was true for my partner too. When she began to do her own work, that's why when two people do a lot of work on themselves,

it's really lovely to see them come together, you know, because you can't, you really just, you can be there for someone as much as you can, but you can't do the work for them. You just cannot. I've tried and I failed. And even then, it's your own version of what they should be doing, your own version of how they should be. Your own version of this is what's going to fix them.

Letting go is also letting go of those expectations and realizing the only thing you can do for society truly is in here. Come home in here. Come close to yourself in here. Be at peace in here with yourself. Then that manifests into light and everyone around you feels it. Here's the stupid thing I'm going to say. Like, I would love to hear more of you. Like, I liked how you talk, and I like the way you speak about things.

You've done a bit of this in the social media realm, you know, of taking people's, you know, sort of thoughts and struggles and questions. And I don't mean this to sound stupid, but, like, I could totally see you, you know, being a speaker, a religious kind of, a spiritual leader. Like, if you want to start a cult, I'll be your first member. No, but in all seriousness, have you thought about, you know, taking this in a larger, like, I don't, do you identify as Hindu still? Do you think of yourself more as a Buddhist? You know, a lot of, I mean, I'm hearing a lot of like Zen Buddhist philosophy and things like that.

You're obviously extremely well read and well read in philosophy and, you know, spiritual philosophy and other, you know, other things that relate to that. Do you have thoughts about trying to share this in a wider way? Are you just kind of happy being you right now? During the pandemic, I started doing Instagram live every single day just to boost people's spirits. And what came out of that is I started a spiritual page called Buddhas in jeans, Buddha's in genes with the philosophy that you don't need to go to a cave for 30 years to discover who you truly are, that all of us have the Buddha nature in us, the Shiva in us, the Christ in us, the Yahweh in us, the Allah in us.

We all have, we're all the same source in different stories. So I started that and the reason I'm not sort of publicizing it or something is because it's not a very popular philosophy to help people be free. The reason that programs like here are seven steps to get enlightenment or whatever, here are 10 steps to become happy and here's 45 steps to be the best version of yourself, the mind loves those programs because it keeps the mind alive and it keeps the mind engaged and it keeps the mind running away from the true source of who you are. There's nothing wrong with those programs. They're wonderful.

They do wonders. What we're doing with Buddhas and genes is, eliminating all the projections of how you should be and coming home to who you really are and living your life from that source and it's not for everyone. It's not for everyone, you know? So we started that, I mean, I started that page

and that's where I talk a lot about these things and I share a lot of my journey. I keep saying the greatest day for me is the day you stop following this page because you've come home to yourself. I don't want anything from this other than to help you maybe through my struggles lead you to the bridge, and then you go ahead and cross it. So what is that? Like if I had to say to you, like, and I know, and I know this is,

this is not something you can encapsulate, but look. Enlightenment in three words. No, but I'm, I'm curious like, I mean, I don't want to stop unfollowing that page. So, you know, I'll allow myself that luxury. You know, my thing is always like when people say to me, like, how do I, whatever, go to therapy or, go to a 12-step program if you have a problem with food, sex, alcohol substances, or obsessing. Like, go to a program, go to therapy. Do you, is there sort of like, you know, here are the things that sort of guide you? Because, you know, it's an ethereal concept.

Like, to know yourself, like, and I'm totally for it, and I have my own journey that I get to be on. I guess what is it? Like, what is it for you? I think the number one thing is to take responsibility for how you perceive. things, to understand that if you are able to look within and see, wow, I am conditioned in such a way that my response to A, B, C, D, E, F is such, that's enough to have a little space from it. So you begin to look at your story and say, oh, this is where I'm stuck, oh, that is where I'm stuck. You begin to become an observer of all of the things that you've learned that you have taken

to be you. For example, when you're born, your father has some energetic DNA in his sperm, combines with your mother's sort of energetic DNA, and you come into this world with some kind of, let's say, karma, carmic energy, you know. But outside of that, everything, when you're a baby, your mind is blank and everything you've acquired. You've been given a name. You've been taught a religion. You've been born into a home. You've been born into a culture. These are all things that you've acquired since you are a child. And those are beautiful things too. That's why I say you shouldn't get rid of any of that.

But it's important, I think, for every single human in their lifetime at some point to look within and ask, is that all that I am? Am I only my conditioning? Or is there something or someone underneath all of that that has been here from the beginning? And some people may use therapy to get there. Some people, I mean, there's all different ways to get there. That's a thing. And that's the thing. you may use a 10-step program or you may go to the Himalayas for 30 years.

You may, but ultimately, ultimately, it truly comes down to meeting yourself, is to truly look within and ask, like, who is in here? And why do I keep running away from this? You know, what is it that's causing me to run away from this? I appreciate that. And I'm going to ask you a difficult follow-up question. And then we'll see if Jonathan has anything to follow up with before we let you go, but there are many people who say that this, not your thinking in particular,

but this kind of conversation is elitist. Or it's for people who have a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of resources. One of the reasons that Jonathan and I started this podcast is because we, you know, believe it's a human right for people to have access to information about mental health. The fact that so many people need psychiatric attention and those are the people who cannot afford it in many cases, is a travesty. It's a tragedy in the world and in this country in particular. What do you sort of offer to people who might feel that this is, that this kind of freedom, this kind of knowledge,

this kind of presentness, this kind of knowing oneself is, I don't have time, I don't have money, you know, I live with too many people. What's your response? All of my struggles began when I had money, when I had fame, when I was married. Married to a former Miss India. You were married to, I mean, she's exceptionally intelligent and talented.

But also, you had that picture perfect. Yes. What I've realized in this life is that I've seen incredibly rich people who are unhappy. And I've seen incredibly poor people who are happy. And I've seen vice versa. I stop judging anyone's struggle because I know how horrible mental struggle can be, regardless of your circumstances. The reason I'm sharing my story,

the reason I've started Buddha's and genes, is to help people understand it doesn't matter what you have. Because what I had actually created this real separation from me and who I truly am as opposed to the opposite. And now I'm using my resources to help people understand that.

And then the second thing I'll say is it doesn't cost anything to look within. It doesn't take any time. It can be one minute before you go to bed. and no one can do that for you. Someone can say to you, look within, look within, look within, and you can say, I don't have time, I don't have time, I don't have time, fine. But ultimately, it takes a second.

And the reason people don't do it, the reason people keep asking for this, asking for that, asking someone to help, help, help, help, help, help. Because it's very, very, very scary to look in them. It's very scary. Because our whole life we've been taught to look out for people to give us happiness. to work, to take money, to work, to build a house. We're always taught outside in, and never for one second have we ever looked inside. And that takes tremendous amount of courage.

It has nothing to do with money or resources. It just takes a real commitment. And I laud people who can do it, and I don't think that people who don't do it are any less, you know, it just depends. In this journey of your life, what do you want it to be? be for you. I want it to be a cult and you're the leader. Jonathan, do you have anything you want to ask, ask you know, before we let him go? The idea of looking within, some people don't understand what that even means.

They're like, what am I looking at? And if I can wrap up sort of some of the ideas that have been shared so far in this conversation, the idea is that we're examining our truth of our perception. And I had this experience with Maim the other day where I got an yesterday. Yesterday. I got an email. I got annoyed. My first reaction is this. And then like 20 minutes later, I'm like, actually, that's not what existed in that email. It's my disease of perception that caused me to have a reaction, which led to this thought. And so looking within for many people just means, wait a second, my immediate reaction might be wrong or might be slanted in some way. What I was going to just wrap this into is what you had said at the beginning, which is that acting for you doesn't matter if it's comedy or drama is about a truth in a moment.

And so if we bring this back to meditation, consciousness, awareness, is that what is our truth in any moment? So I'm trying to bridge the acting experience to the life experience. And, you know, both of you have had tremendous time where you have to be present. You have to find the truth in a scene. And so maybe, you know, there's a version of consciousness. which is really trying to find our own unique truth, and that can be as easy as saying my perception might not be accurate. And as Knoll, as you mentioned, creating that very initial separation between two thoughts, where you said in that moment, that separation between those

two thoughts allowed you to feel yourself. Yes. That's made. That you're not this or that. You just are. You just are in between that where it's not my reaction. It's not the thing. It's not the thing I have to do next is that separation. Which, if I can just, like, bring it all home, that's why we do breath work when we meditate or when we're mindful, because that's exactly, it's the bottom of the breath. When you let everything out and there's no more, there is that moment where you are neither inhaling nor exhaling. That's that moment, you know, of silence before your brain kicks into inhale, you know,

and it's at the top of the breath too. It's like when you wake up before you put on your clothes, it's, it's, kind of like that before you put on the clothes of Kunal, you can wake up and just lie there and say, what does it feel like to not put on this costume for a few seconds? I will say one last thing before you guys go that I think it's important to realize there's no finality in any of this. If you get into any of this work because you just want to be enlightened or awakened or you want to live some projected version of it, you can have a beautiful spiritual life and still at some point, feel anxious, still at some point feel sad and depressed and panicky. It is life. It's never always going to be

100% the way you wanted to. That's what we talk about when we say surrender, that there has to be a surrendering of just living your life. And there's no shame in that. There's no shame in feeling anxious. There's no shame in feeling stress. There's no shame in feeling panic. These things may creep up at some point, but they don't last forever. And these tools help you through those difficult times, but it's not a finality.

Once I see the light, I'll never experience life again. Don't use spirituality to run away from truth, also, which happens all the time. People become very spiritual, you know, and then they start ignoring this life that we live. That's why I say sometimes when you struggle, you're the most present ever.

Because you are in life. you're not away from it seeing through your third eye or something like this it's not that's not like that it's being completely yourself here you know and these are the tools that will hopefully help you and you're fine first of all it's okay everyone's fine i think you have a second member of the cult i think jonathan and i are both in i just filled out the application form yeah yeah that'll be one thousand $1,000. Thank you so much for sharing and for giving us your time. And also for sharing, you know, I've watched you grow, you know, in the years that I got to work next to you.

And, you know, I loved all versions of you, but I also really admire how much more light you spread, you know, as you went on this journey. So I really, so beautiful to talk to you. And thank you. Thank you for all that you're doing. Obviously, your new show, which is hilarious. We watched it last night. but also just this, what you're doing, to realize that it's not a stigma

to talk about mental health. So this time needs you, and I'm very proud to call your friend. Thank you. Namaste, my friend. And you too now, Jonathan, you too. Thank you. Bye, guys. Well, that was my friend Kanaal

of Big Bang Theory fame. He was really sore. How do you get so wise? For me, it's about how does he package that wisdom so succinctly. He's very articulate, meaning he's extremely articulate. And he's very concise. I was like, I can generally talk about this stuff, but you're going to need to give me four hours. I don't have four hours, Jonathan. That's why I have 10 seconds, and he's going to fix my life in 10

seconds. He's amazing. That was very, what an interview. This is something that there is science to. There is an energy to that person. The way that he speaks, and I'm sure people have done studies on this. This is not my field of expertise. It's the timber of his voice. It's the pacing, the pauses. You can't, it was so hard for me not to interrupt him. I saw that. He takes so many pauses. It's the way that he speaks that puts me, I can't speak for anybody else, it puts me in a place of being in the present. Like I'm hanging on every word. Here's a question for you. In a head-to-head meditative and consciousness. Between him and Sam Harris?

Correct. Who is going to make you feel calmer? Kunal. Oh, those are fighting words. No, I, first of all, I adore Sam Harris. So do I, but I'm just saying that Vegas odds have already started to put wagers on the over and under between this. I mean, that's a mental,

it's not even like a mental fight. Those are two people who would be fascinating to put together. Season two of Miami-B-Lx breakdown, We pair your favorite guests by category. Kunal is a very, you know, warm, spiritual, religious. I mean, to me, like, he feels very like my favorite rabbis. He's a sage, you know, like he has, he has a wisdom in a way that he presents it that reminds me of when I have been interested by my favorite rabbis who also happen

to be philosophers. There's something about that intellectual, spiritual, enlightenment that is, it really speaks to me. Other people may want something totally different. Like, that's my vibe of understanding. And also to hear what was going on behind the scenes, you know, and I knew a lot of what he was going through. And we would talk a lot about that. You know, he had questions about Judaism. Like he knew that I fasted sometimes, you know, as a Jewish person. And also, I do identify, you know, I grew up with Eastern European grandparents. So I do really, I really resonate with people who come from culturally rich, you know, homes because there's so much

about our food, you know, and all this stuff. I loved so much of what he said, particularly this notion of how he struggled when he had that success. Yeah. And that I found fascinating because so many people, again, are externalizing. If only I had this, if I had that. So I just loved. Also, like, such a universal, you know, it's such a universally engaging story of, you know,

it started with like, I don't feel comfortable driving. Like, so many people have that. I just love this idea of whackamol where it's like actually the driving is not what's bothering me. No. Now it's elevators. Now it's this. Now it's that.

Oh, yeah. That's just your anxiety will find a place to go. And this is something people ask me about a lot. Why am I this? Why am I obsessing about that? Because that's where it's going. Like, the question's not why. The question's, what do you do next?

So this is something that has been a huge piece of learning for me in the last couple years really is that it's not the thing that I'm anxious about. And you say this to me. You're like, Jonathan, is that really what's going on? Is that just the place that you're like? He always says, yes, it is. That's why I know exactly. Go away. Feed me. The words you use is that's where your anxiety

is binding. And this idea that we will, and it feels so real, right? Like it's like... Well, it's not that it's not real, but it feels like that's the thing. Like, if he would just do what I want, I wouldn't feel this way. Or if that person, this, if the situation... That's right. But it's like our anxiety about that, the thoughts that lead from one to the next.

Scientifically speaking, it's almost always a feeling. It's a feeling that makes you take that drink. It's a feeling that makes you get high. It's a feeling that sends you to the fridge. And it's a feeling that sends you to control other people instead of looking at yourself. There's a literal physiological feeling which none of us are taught to identify. And it wasn't until I did specific trauma work where he made me identify what it felt like in my body. when I felt and I was like,

makes me feel like I want to leave your office. That's what it makes me feel like. And he would make me identify it. What color is it? If it had a shape, what shape would? Is it changing? And I was like, ah, ah. But that's what it was.

It was learning to know what it feels it because your body's the thing that's telling you what's going on. Ask my anything. Yeah. Nat Fabro asks, pain originates in the mind. People with the same diagnosis experience different pain levels.

And some people experience different pain from the same problem depending on the time of day, etc. Mind occupied or happiness equals pain. So Nat is interested in the mind over pain topic. This is a great question. It literally is, you know, the topic of a thesis. But you can summarize that in two minutes, right? No problem.

Watch me, bro. I just assume that your brain is like a little AI that just summarizes vast amounts of data and spits it out. Here's the thing. You're not really a robot. Pain is not a singular experience. Pain has input from a lot of different parts of your brain and your body. Pain doesn't necessarily originate in the mind per se.

The perception of pain is something that we form based on a lot of other things, a large number of which are physiological. They're anatomical. So we have nerve fibers that run throughout our whole body. That's the nervous system. And there are special fibers that are uniquely tuned to pain. They're sensitive to pain. There are others that are sensitive just to temperature.

But there are pain fibers that send information to your brain. However, if you take a system, for example, that is already agitated, it's going to, generally speaking, hurt more. If you take a system that is stressed, it's going to hurt more, meaning the perception and report of pain is more. I gave birth to two human beings with no drugs. One was a three-day labor and one was an under three-hour labor. I am not a superhero in that I don't feel pain. It's that when you undergo the kind of hypnosis training and meditation that people who believe in natural birth often take on, you are learning to change your perception of pain.

Part of that is around the language that we use, and part of it is around the interpretation of sensation. So learning to manage pain is part of what goes on when you have chronic pain. I am a person who does have chronic pain. The ways that we manage it do have a tremendous amount to do with the other things going on. in our lives and in our brains and in our bodies.

I know that's not a full answer, but I think the take-home points are, while the mind does control to a certain extent our perception of pain, pain is real, and anyone's pain is real to them, even if someone else wouldn't experience it the same way. So I'm sure you've seen an example if you slam your hand in a door.

Some people will have a reaction that looks like they need to go to the same way. hospital and other people will cry for 10 seconds. Other people will head straight to the ice box and put their hand in some ice and move on from it. Those are coping mechanisms. And those are things also that we can learn so that we can adapt to pain better. Thank you, Nat, for your question. Thank you, Nat. If you have a question, go to Bialikbreakdown.com. BIA, L-I-K-Breatdown.com. You can ask me anything, anything mental health related. There's a little form that you can fill out and you can submit your questions and we will answer them on the air. There's also an option

to submit video or audio that's fun that we can include if you'd like. I would love that. And we've been getting a ton of questions so thank you everyone who has submitted a question so far. I'll also encourage people to tell us where you're from and we'll do a little call out to your hometown. Your hometown. All right. What a special episode. Thank you Jonathan for being present with me for that. Thank you, Maim, for always being present. From my breakdown to the one I hope you never have. I'll see you next time. It's my and be allix breakdown. She's gonna break it down for you.

She's got a neuroscience PhD or two. One fix you. And now she's gonna break down. It's a breakdown. She's gonna break it down.