Did you know Vatas are meant to be in the creative fields? And Pittas are meant to be managers? And Kaphas are meant to work one-on-one with people? This episode is all about my FAVORITE topic—how your Ayurvedic DOSHA (mind-body type) is connected to your DHARMA.
My Doshas + Dharma Program is designed to bring out your life purpose in just four weeks. If you feel like you’re stuck and need guidance on taking that next step in your career, this program is for you! It consists of LIVE group calls and Q+A’s with me and we begin end of May so apply now here: eatfeelfresh.lpages.co/doshas-dharma-program/
In this episode I discuss:
-What the Personalities of Each Dosha Are
-Each Dosha’s Superpower
-Finding Yours
-How Your Dosha is Related to Your Dharma (Life Purpose)
Transcription
Episode 071 – How Your Dosha is Related to Your Dharma (Life Purpose) with Ayurveda Author Sahara Rose
By Sahara Rose
Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose, and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast. A place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. This is one of those episodes where I’m just on one. And I know when a spirit comes through me because I feel like a rapper who’s about to get into battle, and you’re just hyped up, and you just feel this energy moving through you, and you have no idea what you’re about to just say, but you know it’s going to be something straight from source.
That’s how I feel right now, and that’s how I now when I’m on the path to my dharma. When I’m doing that thing, saying that thing, acting that way, that I need to be doing. And I can feel it, I can feel my chakra’s all opened, I can feel my body in alignment, I can feel I’m just ready to go. And that’s how I feel right now in delivering this message to you, and this podcast is about that big questions, that existential question of why am I here? What is my purpose? What am I supposed to be doing because that person’s a travel blogger, and that looks really fun, and this person has their own business, and that’s pretty cool, and that person’s living in Hawaii, and that sounds pretty rad. And over there, she has her own clothing line, and that has her own jewelry line, and over there they’re working on a supplement line, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
So what am I supposed to do? And social media is our greatest blessing, but our greatest curse when it comes to figuring out your dharma. And when I say the word dharma, it means life purpose. It has over 16 meanings in Sanskrit, but the one I’m referring to is life purpose. So because of social media, we see so many possibilities of what we can become. You just go on YouTube and you’ll see people making money, teaching you how to do make-up to look like a clown, and you’ll see people who are doing enemas on screen, and you’ll see people who are racing cars, and you’ll see people who are building schools in Africa, and you’re going to see everything in between.
And all of it sounds pretty appealing to some level, at some degree. You know, they seem happy doing it. So you begin to think, “Well maybe I’d be happy doing it.” And we look at other people, we look at views of their ideal happiness, and we try it on for size. But the thing is, no one has your dharma. No one was born for the same reason that you were born. Just like no two people have the same fingerprint, no two people were designed in the same way to lie the same path.
So looking at me and saying, “Oh, she seems like she’s really on it, and she’s doing this podcast, and Ayurveda, I want to be just like her.” That’s not a good idea. Looking at Deepak Chopra saying, “I want to be just like him.” Not a good idea. Looking at Tony Robbins, I want to have that sort of thing.” No, cause that’s Tony Robbins’ thing, that’s Deepak’s thing, that’s my thing. Everyone has their own thing.
You can get inspiration from people, you can say I want that same type of fire and drive for the thing that I am meant to be doing. But you are not ever meant to replicate someone else. Because you’re setting yourself up for disaster. And for someone to get somewhere, took the many, many years, and many, many years, and many, many experiences that set up on their path to get them there. So you can’t try to face the same trauma Tony Robbins faced, or grow up in India and move the same time Deepak faced, or live in Bali, and all these things that I did. You can’t replicate someone’s life so you can’t replicate someone’s dharma.
And a true leader is never going to tell you, “Be like me. Be like this person. Be like that.” They’re never going to tell you, “This is the blueprint of who I am, so you all should follow it. This is what I eat, so you all should eat it. This is what I think, so you all should think it.” That’s not a true leader. And if you see anyone ever doing that, run the other way. And even some amazing, very enlightening people like we’ve seen now on the show, Osho, light, a bright, bright life, lots of wonderful ideas.But it became a cult because it became all about the worship, and trying to emanate this one person.
So the purpose of this entire podcast is about you finding your own bright light. You becoming your own highest self, which will not look like anyone else’s. And thank god for that. Because if we all had the same talents, there would be no such thing as talents anymore. If we all had the same gifts, there would be no such thing as gifts anymore. If we all had the same delivery, there would be no great speech, if we all had the same minds, there would be no great ideas.
We need this diversity because that’s what makes things stand out, and that’s what makes things special, and that is why we are here. To experience all of the colors and listen to all the sounds, and feel all of the feelings. And if we all presented them, and looked like, and delivered in that same way, life would be boring. You wouldn’t go to the opera to see the opera perform. You wouldn’t go to the theater to see that amazing actor. You wouldn’t talk to your best friend. You wouldn’t have that relationship with your mom because everyone would be the exact same. Neutral. And that’s not why we’re here.
So as you guys know, I am Ayurvedacharya. Ayurvedacharya means master in Ayurveda. Ayurveda is the world’s oldest health system, it originated in ancient India over 5,000 years ago. It is the sister science of yoga, it is based off of the vedas. The vedas are the first ever recorded texts that tell us basically everything about how to live our life for optimal well-being, which is a pretty tall order, but that’s what they were designed to do. The word veda literally means knowledge. The first ever recorded texts in Sanskrit, orally passed down 8,000 years ago, but written about 5,000 years ago.
The “Charaka Samhita,” the first text that Ayurveda was written in is about 3,200 years old. So we’re talking ancient stuff. We’re talking older than Jesus, older than Buddha, older than Moses. Very, very, very old, that’s basically how I’ll say it—ancient, before we can even imagine. And back at that time, we can’t even imagine what earth looked like. But they were woke, you know, they were awake. They had visions, and they basically received downloads; downloads of ideas.
You know, when you get like when you feel like a rapper ready to go, that’s like a download happening right there. So they were receiving downloads to the Nth degree, and realize that there are patterns. There are patterns in people. There are patterns in our bodies. And in fact, those patterns between our mind and body our interconnected. And people who tend to have dry skin and be more fidgety, and have constipation, and bloating, and gas, and all these like cold bodily characteristics also have them in the mind.
They have air-like qualities. They are creative, they’re free-spirited, they have tons of visions, they’re big dreamers. But they also get really anxious. And when there’s a lot of thoughts circulating in your mind, those thoughts can turn into a tornado. And you’re unable to ground yourself because you are air energy. And they call this energy, this dosha, they gave this energy the name vata. So vata, it’s air and space energy put together. It’s airy, think of the air, move your hands. You can’t even really feel the air unless you’re moving really fast, but on a windy day sure as hell you’re going to feel the air.
So vata people have this air-like quality that they move, and they flow, and they’re you know, you can’t contain the air. But when shit hits the fan, you’re going to feel that wind, and it’s going to hurt. And you can never predict which way the wind is going to blow. You know, we have all this technology, we can’t even figure out what weather it’s going to be tomorrow still. It’s pretty freaking amazing.
So the wind, it’s unpredictable, and the space, think about outer space. It’s space of vast nothingness. We can’t even begin to comprehend how large space is. Space is always expanding at an exponential rate that it’s growing, growing, and growing. So vatas have that sense of constant expansion within them, they’re always thinking from this outside box, this bigger picture of, you know, the regular kind of humans, the other doshas are like, you know, living life, day-to-day. And the vatas are like, “Whoo,” they’re up there, and they’re looking at things from a broader consciousness.
And if you haven’t guessed, I am super, super vata AF. So for me, my biggest problem has always been, “Okay, well, what are the next steps I need to take? Cause I’m already thinking about 30 years from now or 30 lifetimes from now. What are the next steps I need to take? How can I take action? How can I stay consistent with something?” This has been the biggest thing that I need to learn because vatas are really excited, you can hear it in a vata’s voice, I’m sure you guys have heard it in my voice. I get really excited about things, which is their strength. And we’re going to talk about that.
This is their strength that they have, this excitement, and they’re eccentric, and they want to get things moving. And they’re like, “Oh, you have an idea, I have an idea, let’s do it, you know.” But, sometimes they don’t think things fully through. They think, “Oh, well, you know, it’ll just happen and everything will just figure itself out, and just keep on moving.” So that’s why vatas need to be balanced with that pitta energy, the fire, the kapha energy, the earth. So they can have those amazing visions, those amazing ideas, create those things, but have the systems in place to make them happen.
So let’s talk a little bit about the pitta dosha. Pitta, it is comprised of both fire and water, the two most powerful elements. Fire can burn down your house, can burn down a forest, can burn down the earth. There’s nothing that can stand really in the face of fire. You see a fire, you run. But water, water, it’s flowing, it’s moving, it’s feminine, but it can destroy fire. Something so light, so ethereal, so crystalline clear can take that fire down. So pitta dosha, the pitta energy type is comprised of these two elements: Fire and water.
Fire makes them get things done, okay? I told you, “Listen, I have this really fiery friend.” What do you think that friend is like? They’re determined, they’re a boss, they know what they want and they’re going to go get it, they are passionate, they do not take no for an answer. They’re feisty, they’re hot-headed, we even have the same words in the English language—a fiery person, a hot-headed person, someone who is on fire, they’re pitta.
But that water also gives it strength because when pittas are in balance and they have a good relationship with the water too, they can use that fire. And when things don’t go their way they’re still able to flow and maneuver, they’re not stuck in their ways. And that is a balanced pitta who’s in touch with both elements.
But what I am seeing so much in society is the pitta, the fire side so deeply out of balance. We are taught that to be successful you have to beat the person next to you, and you have to climb the top of that ladder, and you have to be louder, and you have to be bossier, and this patriarchal era made it very us versus them. The school system, you know, not everyone can get an A, honey, so they make up reasons for you to get a worse grade just to create this level of hierarchy of competition so your classmate is actually your competitor.
Why do they set it up this way? Because that’s how corporations are set up. They set up our school systems so we can work in the corporations. And when there’s one corner office for the C.E.O., and only one out of the 500 people in the organization is going to go get it, sure as hell you are going to rat out the person in the cubicle next to you and do whatever it takes to get there. Because they’re using the worst of human nature, which is our survival methods.
So pitta, when out of balance, can be very, very, very competitive, can be angry, can lash out at people, can be super impatient. Because they put a lot of effort into things, they put in the work. So when they see other people aren’t putting in as much work, that pisses them off. They’re like, “What is this? I’m doing everything around here, and you ain’t doing shit.” So they get impatient, they snap, they explode. If you’ve ever had a boss or a parent who explodes, hello, pitta imbalance.
And see this going on as a society, you know. As a society we’re on fire. We are so angry, we’re so, “This has to be politically correct, and we’re going to wars in countries,” and everyone is just so waiting to be criticized about something. It’s like we can’t just like have a conversation, everyone is on the defense because of this excess fire that is going on as a society.
So if we look at our president right now, Donald Trump, he is a prime example of an imbalanced pitta. First of all, you can see it in his body, he has red tones, he has very red skin, he has inflammation, he even has red hair. It’s like he dyed his hair red to be like, “Hi, guys, I’m a pitta in case you didn’t know.” So these are all signs of pitta in the body, that inflammation, the redness, the agitation, feeling hot all the time. The acidity, you know, our agni is called our digestive fire, our digestion is a fire.
So if you have excess fire, your excess pitta, what’s going to happen when you eat? You’re going to eat, and your fire is going to go haywire, throwing all the stomach acid at your food. It’s gonna move up your esophagus and you’re going to experience heartburn. Heart is burning, pitta, we have the words in the English language. We are practicing Ayurveda and we don’t even realize.
Heartburn, hyper acidity, inflammation, rashes, ulcers. These are all signs that there is too much pitta going on. If you’re breaking out in hives, pitta.If you have acne, pitta. Why acne? Because the digestion is a fire, and as we know, heat moves up. It’s like if you have bunk beds, you stand on the top bunk, it’s always hotter, right? So heat is moving up our systems, it’s trying to escape, so there’s excess heat in our digestive system, it’s moving up, trying to escape through our skin, shows up as acne.
So that’s why you see teenagers, they are normally the ones who have acne-related issues. And they’re hot all the time, it’s like mid-winter, they’re in shorts and a t-shirt. I’m like, “What? Aren’t you freezing?” But no, cause they have so much pitta moving through them, their skin is like oily, they’re like sweating all the time. That’s pitta.
And what else happens with teenagers? They get pissed as hell. I remember like my mom would say something to me when I was like 13, I would like slam my door and scream, and you know, have a fit. I don’t know why, like it just came through. Afterwards I would be like, “Why did I even do that?” But there’s just so much pitta in your body that you just don’t know how to handle it because you haven’t balanced out with the water side.
So pitta people. The pro side, they’re sharp, they’re passionate, they’re fiery, they get things moving, they’re boss, they’re C.E.O.s So pitta is something that now I have a lot of, but I didn’t naturally. I did not as a kid, I was not that boss person who, you know, showed everyone off, I was for sure not that kid, but I had to learn to pick up these more fiery qualities because that was the only way my ideas could be spread. If I’m off in the jungle in Bali singing “Kumbaya” all the time, I’m not going to change the world.
So I had to call upon this fire, and the fire exists in all of us, but most of us are afraid of it. Because we’ve only see the shadow side of it. We’ve seen the dad screaming at you. We’ve seen the teacher throwing a fit. We’ve seen the ex go crazy. So we fear the fire. And we say, “I don’t want to be anything like that person, so I’m going to turn my fire off.” But honey, if you’re turning your fire off, you’re turning off your life force. Because that fire, that pitta is in charge of all transformation.
All things move through pitta. And if your pitta is weak, your ideas are never going to get anywhere. Pitta is action. Pitta is checking things off your to-do list. Pitta is being that entrepreneur. And if you want to be your own boss, you want to have your own business, you want to live life on your own terms, you’re going to really have to get in touch with your pitta side. Because there are going to be a lot, a lot of people who are going to question you. And if you’re questioning yourself, they’ll be able to see that in an instant.
When I was very, very, very in my vata when I was 23, living in Bali, living in India, very deep in the spirituality. Which I still am, but I was afraid of business, I was afraid of money, I was afraid of the fire cause I wanted to be all air, I wanted to be all Shakti. And I remember in India on New Year’s like 2015 or something, and I said my goal this year, everyone’s like, “I want to have my heart more open. I want to be more my feminine.”
I was like, “I want to step more into my masculine. Because I don’t want to have to depend on anyone. I don’t want to have to move around people and, you know, just do my thing off in the corner. I want to be creating the change. I want to be so sure of myself that when other people see me, they feel a sense of calmness. I don’t want to be flighty, I don’t want to be confused, I don’t want to change what it is I want to do every day,” which is what I used to be like. When you’re super in your vata you see a lot of possibilities. So you’re like, “Hey, I could be a designer. Hey, I could be a life coach. Hey, I could be a orthodontist.” But you could, technically, we could all do anything. But is that your highest purpose?
So that pitta, that fine-tunes it, it takes an idea. It says, “Okay, well, I’m going to kind of analyze and look through what are the options that I have. And then this option feels right, I’m feeling it, it makes sense, and I’m going to move forward with it. And now I’m going to take action. And I’m not going to get dissuaded when I don’t see immediate results.” Because this is what happens when you’re too much in your vata, you’re saying, “Oh, I don’t know, I tried blogging and no one was reading my blog. I did it for a month.” Honey, it’s been seven years, plus, that I’m blogging and creating content every single day, and I’m just getting started.
So when you’re super in your vata, in a way, you’re not willing to put in the work. Because you are expecting things to just float on to you, and you’re going to think about it, and it will manifest into reality, and that’s not how the earthly plane works. That’s how things work in different dimensions, in space, which vatas are very high in space energy. You think of something and it happens. But vatas, we are here in earth, we’re here in this very dense, sixth dimension, physical plain. And things move slower here, and you have to try them multiple times day after day. You have to be consistent, and planet earth, consistency is key.
It’s not what you know. It’s not having the best vision and telling your friend, and you know, hoping that for some reason, the producer’s going to call you up and turn into a show, andit’s going to be the number one star on Netflix. That’s not how things work on this plane. The person who gets things done is the person who just shows up consistently. And the thing is, once you know that, it’s like, “Oh, I could be that person. Why not me?”
And we need more creative, spiritually aligned, heart-centered people to be doing these things because frankly, the people who are getting things done and out there ruling the world are in no way in touch with their higher selves. They’re just consistent, they don’t even really know why. Because sometimes when you’re in pitta, you’re just taking action, taking action, taking action you don’t even know why you’re taking the action because you haven’t gone through the vata step. The vata step is thinking, brainstorming, creating the idea, the pitta step is bringing them into action.
So when you’re in that pitta step, you’re making the phone calls, you’re writing the book proposal, you’re creating the drafts. Whatever it is that you’re doing, you’re doing it. But you have to first know why you’re doing it. Just like I talked about on the podcast episode “Alignment versus Action.” You need to first be aligned, vata, and then take the action, pitta.
So what happens after you take the action day after day, month after month, year after year. But within that, you create pauses, and those pauses are kapha. Re-evaluation, rest, recharge, nourishment. And if you do not weave that into your pitta stage, you will burn out, you will pitta out, you will fire out. So kapha is the earth energy. It is comprised of both earth and water. So when we think about the earth, the earth is soothing. It takes in. You know, gives us resources, water, oil, land, trees, flowers, oxygen, everything earth provides.
No one’s ever gone back to nature and felt uneasy. Earth gives you an instant feeling of calm. Because it is home, it is mother, it is where we all come from, it is our primal root chakra. So coming back into our kapha is coming back to this place of rest and re-evaluation. And it is essential to do this, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly. Because if you don’t, you end up running in circles doing all these tasks, and maybe it’s not even who you are anymore.
You know, I remember I was food blogging, my Instagram was @eatfeelfresh. If you even listened to the first few podcast episodes, I say, “I’m Eat Feel Fresh.” And I was a food blogger, and that was my thing, and that was really what I liked to do at the beginning. But I got to this point that it wasn’t fulfilling me, I wanted to talk about bigger things. I felt like there was more important things than food, and more important things to do with my time than spend like eight hours preparing this, making it, plating it, shooting it, editing it. All so I could get some likes on Instagram? It wasn’t making sense to me anymore.
But at first, I was in denial because I was in the pitta stage. I was seeing results, I was doing it, I had my systems down, I had my camera, I had my—went to culinary school, was doing everything, and I was good at it. So I was like, “Why would I stop doing this? I’m in pitta.” But I took a step back in my kapha, and it was actually between two of the levels in culinary school. I said I needed to take a month off, I don’t want to go directly straight into this.
And I realized that food is not fulfilling me. I’m not Eat Feel Fresh, I’m Sahara Rose. And I don’t want to hide behind a brand, and I don’t want to hide behind a plate. And food is my fuel, but it’s what I do with that fuel that matters. And it’s the energy that takes us to the place that we need to go. And once you heal yourself you have bigger things to worry about, like finding your purpose and making an impact on earth.
So I wasn’t even interested really in talking about all the nutrition stuff that I used to super care about because I was still trying to figure it out. But once I figured out these are the foods that work with me, these are the foods that aren’t, I wanted to move on. So I had to take that kapha break, that re-evaluation of just thinking, and taking walks, and saying, “Is this where I want to be going?” I mean, I can keep doing this, I’ll keep seeing success, but I don’t want to be a chef. I don’t want to have my own restaurant. I don’t want to have a cooking show. I actually don’t want any of the things that taking these steps are going to lead to. So why am I taking these steps?
And I think we’ve all been in situations like this, or maybe we’re in one right now. That you have that job, it’s paying the bills, and your coworkers are nice, and you know, you don’t really want to end up being your boss in five years, but it’s comfortable now, and you’re not really sure what else you’re supposed to be doing. And this is how we end up hurting ourselves really. We end up depriving ourselves of our own truth because we are choosing that comfortable path.
So kapha has two sides. That first side is the nourishment, the rest, the recharge, taking the step back, taking care of your body so you don’t burn out. You know, I see a lot of these big entrepreneurs who have books, and podcasts, et cetera, and they’re like, “Work, work, work. Work 16 hours a day, sleep four hours a night. Don’t sleep, don’t do anything else but work. If you’re not working, someone’s going to be ahead of you, and you’re going to fall behind, and you’re never going to make your impact, and you got to see what are the returns, and blah, blah, blah.”
And now that you know, you’ll see they’re all coming from a very, very, very deep place of pitta. So much fire, and that fire is putting this element of, you know, like ants in your pants of like, “Ah, I got to keep moving, I got to keep creating, got to keep things going or else that other person’s going to come out in front of me.” And it’s like you’re all like running this marathon, and if you slow down at one part, someone else is going to speed up ahead of you, and that’s how they’re living. And the thing is, we will create that reality if that’s how we’re living. If we’re choosing to live in this paradigm that people are trying to get ahead of me, and if I don’t stay on my A-game, I’m going to get replaced because I inherently am not enough, and that’s what’s going to be what shows up for us.
So that’s why we need to weave in the kapha. Thinking about why we’re even here, our purpose, something bigger than us, reconnecting with nature so we realize how small we are. You know, if you ever go camping, or you just spend some time in a big national park, and you realize you’re just so tiny. You look at these mountains, and you see so many trees, and each tree is 30 times bigger than you, and they look like little dots, and there’s so many of them. And you think like, “Wow, if I were among those trees you would never be able to see me.”
And that’s really what we are. We are specks of dust. We are just mere mortal beings. And sometimes we put so much importance and so much heaviness and weight and responsibility on our shoulders that we lose sight of why we are doing it all. And this is why the kapha stage is integral if you want to be not only a conscious entrepreneur, but just an embodied being.
But what happens when you’re too much in the kapha side? So this is when you get stuck, and you get comfortable, and everything is too much for you, you know. If you ever have those friends and they do one thing, and they need to rest for like a week, maybe you’re that person. You’re not going to get things done if you’re taking that much time to rest and recharge.
There may be times in your life that you need to. Like if you went through a severe burnout you might have to take a year off just to recuperate from that. But, in this world we’re moving in, things are moving fast, and we can’t deny that. And if we aren’t moving with the speed of things, we’re falling behind. You know, the earth is spinning, and if you’re standing, you’re moving just with the speed of earth. You need to be moving faster.
So what those entrepreneurs are saying is not entirely wrong either. You do need to be on you’re A-game. You do need to be creating. You do need to keep up with the demands of what is necessary as a blogger, podcaster, business owner, whatever it is you want to be doing. That is entirely accurate. But you have to know why, and you have to remember you’re just a human, and you can’t beat yourself up about it either. And you can’t be so competitive that when you see someone doing better than you, you take it as a criticism of who you are because that’s no way to live either.
So I share this with you because I designed a program, it downloaded to me all at once back in September, and I ran the program in October. And it was actually like the worst time probably to do it because it was right after my book came out, but spirits super came through, and it was like, “You need to put this content out there.” And I did, and 22 people participated, and right now all of them are doing amazing things. We have one girl who’s a health coach, one person who’s now a travel blogger, one person who is a graphic designer, who person who’s starting her own lifestyle store. So many amazing stories from doing my “Doshas and Dharma” program.
So this program, if you liked what this podcast was about, this is like a four week deep dive in the program, and I’m doing live calls with you every week, too. So this is the only live coaching experience that I do because I spend most of my time writing books, and podcasts, and putting out all this free content out there. So this is the only thing I do that’s like a private thing that you have to actually apply and sign up for because something that I’m going to be live, you’re going to have a small “Doshas and Dharma” group that you meet with each week for 30 minutes, whereas one of the students who I graduated and trained, and is now a “Doshas and Dharma” coach is going to be making sure you’re on top of it and holding you accountable. You’re going to have an accountability partner, we’re going to have a Facebook group where we’re sharing videos about what we’re doing, and every week there’s going to be a lesson, bringing you deeper and deeper into your dharma.
And by the end, the fourth week, only four weeks guys, by the fourth week, you will have your purpose statement written about why you’re here. So you can check this program out on m website, iamsahararose.com, you’ll see it right there, it’s called the “Doshas and Dharma” program. If you Google “Doshas and Dharma program,” D-O-S-H-A-S.Dharma is D-H-A-R-M-A and then program, you’ll find it.
But let me tell you a little bit about what it looks like. So the first week is the welcome, and it’s all about finding out how much you’re in kriya and how much you’re in karma. So I talked about this on the podcast before way back, but kriya is living in the state of effortless flow. It’s when things start just moving fast, and synchronicities happen, and you have that conversation that you need to have. You listen to the exact podcast episode that you needed to listen to. Things are just lining up. You’re experiencing what Deepak calls synchro destiny. It’s called kriya, effortless flow.
And karma, you know, most of us only know this one definition of karma, which is kind of what goes around comes around. But actually karma, when you look deeper into the word’s Sanskrit meaning, it means bounded action. It means that when you are not living from a place of alignment with your dharma, you’re not living in a place of kriya, you start to experience bounded action to bring you back on track.
So the first week is all about what percentage you are living in karma and what percentage you’re living in kriya. How much of your life is an effortless flow? Are you on that path to your highest self? Or are you experiencing blocks, after blocks, after blocks, which is the universe communicating with you that you are not living in alignment with your highest self.
So if things keep going bad, and one disaster seems to follow another, and you stub your toe, and you got in a car accident, and you got a ticket, and your best friend broke up with you, or I don’t even know, karma is happening. And thank god for that because it’s telling you, “Hey, listen, this is not the direction you need to be going in. You’re totally going off track.” So week one, even the welcomes, even before week one, is all about determining how much you’re in kriya and how much you’re in karma.
Then week one is all about rewriting the stories. Letting go of the limiting beliefs, these are the stories we are telling ourselves of, “I’m not ready. I’m not smart enough. Someone else is already doing that. I don’t have enough money. I wasn’t born with that kind of upbringing. I don’t live in a big city. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.” Stories, lies, bullshit, narratives that are keeping you playing small. It’s not you, it’s your lower self, your shadow self. It’s coming from a place of fear.
And when we can separate what is truth, what is us, what is part of our true alignment on our higher selves, and what are the limiting beliefs that we’ve taken on to keep us safe and keep us small. We can realize that they’re not them, and we can move forward and begin saying yes to the possibilities and begin speaking our message to the universe.
And I’ve super gone through this, guys. I remember when I was 23 years old, the first time someone told me, “Have you ever thought this is just a story that you were telling yourself?” When I would say, “Oh, you guys are so lucky you can do whatever I want. You know, my parents would never let me.” That was a total story, but in my head, it was so true at that time. Well, my parents aren’t going to let me, so that means I can’t. I’m going to let them down, so that means I can’t. I can’t be who I am because I’m going to make someone else upset. What?
That’s actually how I thought, and I think that’s how a lot of you guys are thinking, too. And sometimes it just takes one sentence, one person someone says to literally change the course of your life and realize like, “Wow, I am repeating this story in my head of I can’t be who I want to be because my grandma’s sick, because my dad’s not going to be happy, because my boyfriend’s going to think I’m weird, because I’m not going to be able to make money doing that because I’ll never get chosen. Blah blah blah blah blah.” It’s all bullshit, and I’m going to be calling you out on it hardcore.
Then week two, deep dive into your dosha and dharma. It’s going to be all about understanding your Ayurvedic dosha in your mind and how it’s connected to your dharma, your life purpose. So in this episode we talked a lot about what the doshas mean in the mind. Now this is going to take it deeper, and then how it’s connected to that life purpose. If you are super vata, what does that mean? How should you be showing up in the world? If you’re super pitta and you can feel that, how can you make the best of that and be a leader?
If you’re super kapha and you just don’t know what to do and you know people are just taking advantage of you, but you’re not really sure where to start, honey, that’s your super power. And I’m going to be teaching you how, and you’re going to be in a group setting where you’re going to be vocalizing it, you’re going to have an accountability partner that’s holding you accountable. And you’re going to have me, and you can ask any question to me, and I will be on that call live answering them.
Week three: determining your strengths. So what is it that you’re truly good at? You know, for most of us if someone asked us, “What are you good at?” We have no idea. You can ask what’s your friend good at, and you’ll come up with a list. Oh, they’re a great listener, they’re smart, they’re funny, they’re blah blah blah blah blah, great sense of style. What are you good at? Oh, I don’t know, I’m not really good at anything, I’m just a loser. You know, that’s actually what most of us are like.
We don’t know what we’re good at because school never taught us, school taught us what we don’t know. You don’t know all the presidents in order? You don’t know this biochemistry thing? You don’t know this, you don’t know that, how are you going to live in the world? Meanwhile, they don’t teach us how to file taxes. So this week is going to be about determining those strengths. Are you a good listener? Are you organized? Are you a brand person? What are you good at?
Because once you know what you’re good at, then you can move forward in doing that. And once you have confirmation from the group, you vocalize it, they asked you the questions because the group’s there for you to get deeper into yourself. You know, I’m never going to tell you what to do, my “Doshas and Dharma” coaches are never going to tell you what to do, your accountability partner’s not either. We’re all going to hold the space for you and ask you the right questions so you can go deeper into your own truth.
Because frankly, you already know what it is you need to do, but there are a lot of blocks that you’ve built around yourself. That you’ve taken on from your family and from society that are not truly yours. So let’s rock what we’re good at. Because not everyone is good at accounting, and not everyone is good at selling, and not everyone is good at writing, and not everyone is good at blogging, and that’s okay. So, do the things you’re good at. You know, you don’t need to be perfectly well-rounded, and perfectly good at everything like our college applications made it seem like. No, own your shit, be good at something, and run with it. Just make sure you’re not horribly bad at something else because that could end up biting you in the butt later. But utilize your strengths, don’t focus on your weaknesses.
And then week four: fine-tuning your purpose. And this is all about finding your ikigai. Ikigai is a Japanese word, which is very common in Japan, it’s what people strive for, but for some reason, we don’t really talk about it in the U.S. or other parts of the world. And that is the purpose that you love, that the world needs, that you’re good at, and you can get paid for. Because you need all of those things. You need to love it because otherwise you’re not going to like how you spend your days. The world should need it because it’s important that we contribute and we’re giving back to the world, you know. The world doesn’t just need you to make a lot of money if you’re not sharing it. It always needs to come back to how are you serving the world? And if that is not part of your entrepreneurship practice, then you’re doing something majorly wrong.
Because the whole reason why we’re doing this is so we can serve the planet. We are uplifting ourselves so we can uplift others, and that is essential to this program and all of our evolvements, so don’t get it twisted. But we also need to get paid for it. We need to take care of ourselves. Because if you’re broke, if you’re borrowing money from people, you’re not helping anyone. I see so many people who are broke, and they say, “Oh, I want to help the world, I want to help the kids in Africa.” I’m like, “Honey, get on your own feet. Take care of yourself.”
And that’s who you can come forth and start a school in Africa, and start at least a sponsor child, something. I talked about this in the episode on financial self-care. The first thing I did when I started to make money is immediately go sponsor a girl in Cambodia, which I totally recommend you doing Cambodia Children’s Fund. But you need to get paid for it because otherwise it’s going to remain a hobby. And I see so many people, they’re like, “Oh, I love doing reiki, but I don’t charge for it,” and that’s fine, you don’t need to charge for everything you love, for sure. But just know it’s going to stay a hobby.
If you want to be doing reiki full-time, you want to spend your days doing reiki, unless you have a rich husband who’s paying for you, which you probably don’t even want because you’re not going to be in your power. But you need to have some sort of energy exchange for it. Because when you’re giving out energy you should be receiving energy. And if it’s not an exchange of services that they do reiki on you, you do their hair, whatever, then money is a form of energy and it’s an exchange.
So it needs to be something that you can get paid for, and a lot of us have these money blocks. If we do the things that we love, and we end up getting used for them because they’re like, “Oh, well, you know, you love to public speak, so come speak here for free. Or you love to help people on this,” and at the beginning, you should. At the beginning, you have to cause that’s how you get good at it.
But a lot of people, they get super, super good at it, but they’re still not getting paid for it, and then they have to work in these 9:00 to 5:00 jobs that they hate instead of fully working on their craft and getting better at it each and every day. Cause that’s what you can do if you’re doing something full-time. And if people are paying you for it, you have to show up bigger, so that’s why this is an essential part of finding your dharma also.
And as I mention, you have to be good at it, too. Because no matter how much you love something, and the world needs it, and you can get paid for it, if you’re not good at it, it’s not going to work out. If you want to be a comedian, the world needs it, you can get paid for it. You might love it, you’re not funny, it’s not going to work out. So it does take a level of being good at something. But the good thing is, your dosha will naturally make you good at it. Because all of our doshas are connected to our dharmas. And the things that we are naturally good at are the things that we are meant to be doing.
So if you came forth with this pitta manager boss energy, chances are you want to be a leader, you want to be in a managerial position because that’s what you’re naturally good at. But you give that position to a kapha, they’re like, “Oh my god, I don’t want to be mean to people. It’s too much responsibility. Like I want to connect with people more.” That’s not their dharma.
So the unique thing about this program that no other program has is like there’s no one end goal. You know, there’s so many programs out there that are like, “If you want to be a business person in this way, you want to be an online marketer, you want to be just this.” It’s like not all of us want to do the same things, and not all of us are meant to do the same things because we all were born with different dharmas, different purposes, different strengths, different weaknesses, different life experiences. And this will create our purpose.
And the program ends with crafting your purpose statement. And I teach you how to break your purpose statement. That elevator pitch that when people are like, “Why are you here?” You have one sentence that can encapsulate it all. And as a bonus, I also have a little audio lesson, and it’s all about growing your Instagram following in an organic way. And it’s all about the tactics that I use to increase my Instagram following. Not from buying followers, or paying for shout outs, or being like following and unfollowing people. Not any of that stuff.
But because smart about it, and having a message, and having an aesthetic. And people come to your Instagram knowing what they’re going to get. And this is the major key to growing your following. And why does an Instagram following matter? Because that’s where people are hanging out. That’s where people’s attention are.
When’s the last time you turned on cable TV? Can you even remember? No one’s watching TV anymore. What’s more impressive: having a big Instagram following, or having your own show on channel 463 on DirecTV? An Instagram following, an online media, because that’s where people are. We’re living in a time where people are not turning to traditional media anymore because it’s too curated. You’re never going to see this on TV, you’re never going to listen to this on the mainstream radio. It’s all so dumbed down, essentially.
I mean even if you listen to things like NPR, it’s like okay, say your thing in like five minutes and move on, and it’s definitely not spiritual, and it’s not quick-moving. You know, there’s so much time and bureaucracy to get a show, it just takes years to make that happen. So people don’t like that, people want truth, people want honesty, and that’s what the internet is providing us with.
So if you have a business, you have a message, you have a voice, anything. It is essential that you grow your social media following. It is essential because if you’re not, you’re never going to connect with those people. And I know, you might think, “Oh, I don’t really care about followers.” Or, “Oh, you know, social media is the devil, and it’s causing so much problems in society.” No, social media is a magnifying glass of who you are, just like money.
So if you are someone who’s comparing yourself to other people, and you think everyone else is better from me, you’re going to find that when you go to the gym, you’re going to find that when you go to the coffee shop, and you sure as hell going to find that when you go on Instagram. But if you’re someone who’s always looking to learn, to grow, to empower yourself, to educate yourself, that’s what you’re going to find on Instagram. Those are the podcasts you’re going to listen to. Those are going to be the people you connect with.
You’re going to be messaging people, making friends with people, creating allies. You’re not going to be competing with the person who has a similar messaging to you. You’re going to DM them and say, “Hey, let’s collaborate.” Because this is the new paradigm of conscious entrepreneurs.People who do not compete, but collaborate. People who see social media and the internet as an integral part of our society. And by looking the other way and pretending it doesn’t exist, you are selling yourself short.
Because whatever it is that you want to do, whether it’s grow your health coaching business, or start a jewelry line, or be a realtor, or whatever it is, social media will amplify your ability to get there. So that is why I included how to build an authentic, organic, social media following as part of it because that is how we spread our dharma.
So again, you can find this program on my website, iamsahararose.com. If you go on my Instagram, you click on the link in the bio, you can find it there. You can find it on highestselfpodcast.com in the show notes. You must apply for the program because you have to be willing to step into your dharma. No playing small, you have to be committed. It is only four weeks, but it is a jam-packed four weeks. So you should allow at least two to three hours a week for those four weeks to do it. We’re going to be starting in probably late May, and it will be once a week, again. You can read the format and everything on the website, but I really encourage you to join. This is the only time I’m going to be leading this program, I led it once last year, and I’ll be leading it once this year. This is the only live group coaching program I do.
So if you’re feeling the call, this is it, no more playing small, it’s time for you to step up, share your message, share your voice, make a big impact. Get the guidance and support you need so you can start rocking it and you can start uplifting other people, and I’m just here for you as a guide to help you become your highest self. Namaste.
Episode 071 – How Your Dosha is Related to Your Dharma (Life Purpose) with Ayurveda Author Sahara Rose