Have you ever noticed we often hold the belief that in order to grow spiritually we must go through pain? We shape our reality with our thoughts so if we drop those thoughts and choose to grow instead through ease and grace, we open up a whole new paradigm.

-How to choose ease and grace over pain and discomfort
-Why we are attached to our pain stories
-Changing your mindset to one of joy and abundance
-Shifting your reality with your thoughts to open up a whole new paradigm

Let’s take the discussion further in the Mind-Body Balancers FB group: www.facebook.com/groups/1213662491998309/

Discover Your Dosha (Mind-Body Type) with my free quiz: iamsahararose.com

Connect with me for daily Ayurvedic and modern spiritual wisdom at Instagram: @iamsahararose Facebook.com/iamsahararose Twitter.com/iamsahararose

Intro + Outro Music: Silent Ganges by Maneesh de Moor

Receive 15% off Four Sigmatic at foursigmatic.com with code “sahara”

 

Transcription

Episode 091 – How To Spiritually Grow Through Ease with 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. And first, a note from our sponsor Four Sigmatic.Four Sigmatic is a mushroom elixir company that makes mushrooms super easy to consume. And I’m not talking about regular mushrooms, I’m talking about medicinal mushrooms. They have all sorts of flavors from mushroom coffees, to different non-caffeinated elixirs. My absolute favorite is their chai, it tastes incredible, like a real chai latte, but doesn’t have all the sugar in it, it’s totally natural, and it has the medicinal mushrooms, which are really good for balancing your hormones and really goes with this episode.

They also just came out with this new mushroom lemonade with activated charcoal in it, which is so detoxifying and amazing, and they use monkfruit sweetener, so it also has no sugar. If you’re interested in giving Four Sigmatic a try, you can go on four, F-O-U-R S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com and use the code “Sahara,” and you’ll receive 15% off your order. Again, foursigmatic.com using coupon code “Sahara” for 15% off.

In this episode I’m going to explore a question that I’ve been asking to myself, which is can spiritual growth be easy, and in fact, can it be pleasurable? So this is one of those podcast episodes where I take the mic, and I just let it flow. I talk about a lot of different topics from what spiritual growth can look like, different avenues you can take, the path of the householder, the tantric and shamanic path versus the Buddhist monk and nun path and what all of that means. So I’m really excited to share it with you, it’s one of those episodes that came straight from the heart, and I hope it resonate with you.

And first I want to say a special shout out to our sponsor YouVeda. So I just did a podcast episode about my journey dealing with adrenal fatigue, and adrenal fatigue is essentially when your body burns out from having too much cortisol stress hormone at all times. And this was something that I had for probably ten years and didn’t even know about just from working really hard, being very studious in school, playing a lot of all-nighters, and then eventually writing three books, and you know, putting a lot of content out and eventually it really ran a toll on my body. And I talk more in that episode which you can check out, episode 58 I think, 58 or 59, all about how I healed my adrenal fatigue.

And part of my journey was discovering this Ayurvedic supplement called YouVeda. So YouVeda is basically a blend of different Ayurvedic supplements, as well as multi-vitamins, and they specifically work on your moods. So they have a mood blend, which works very well for adrenal support. It has adaptogens, it has saffron, it has all of the vitamins that you need for a healthy mood. DHEA which feeds your brain, basically everything to really make you feel like your highest self. Because our brain health is so important, and we’re not getting the nutrients that we need. It doesn’t even matter how we’re thinking because our brain is missing vital nutrients.

So I’m really happy that I discovered this brand, and that they were partnering up with “Highest Self” podcast. And as a gift to all listeners, they are offering 35% your first order. So you can have your 30-day trial of the YouVeda mood formula for 35% off. You just go on youveda.com, Y-O-U-V-E-D-A.com, and then you put “sahara,” all in lowercase letters as your coupon, and you’ll get your 35% discount. And you’re gonna love this, it’s helped me so much, and in this episode we’re gonna talk a lot about what the spiritual path looks like, but for me, healing that adrenal fatigue, choosing a life of more ease, letting go of the need to make everything really difficult for myself has been a total game changer for my growth. So let’s get more into the episode.

I wanna share with you a lesson, really a revelation that I just had. And that’s life doesn’t have to be hard. Most of us are running around with this story in our heads saying, “Life has to be hard. Work has to be stressful. Growth can only happen through pain and agony. I can’t have it all. I can’t have time for myself, and my family, plus achieve my dreams and take care of my body, and have a social life. It’s impossible.” Sound familiar?

See the thing that I’ve only just been beginning to learn is that it doesn’t have to be that way. You can change the story. What if you told yourself, “I live my life with ease. Work flows naturally through me. Growth is joyful and fun. I have more than enough time for the things that I want to achieve, plus extra time to take care of myself.” This is how we change the narrative. This is how we end the soul contract of suffering. This is how we transform the human experience. This is how we rewrite the story.

Most of us came into this world with the set belief that the human experience is going to be a tough one. And it’s true, it definitely is. Living life on the earthly plane is no easy task for anyone. You will never meet anyone in their life that hasn’t had struggles. However, we begin to take on the beliefs of our families, of society, of the adults that we see as a kid. And we see them really struggling. We see them stressed out about bills, and fighting, and just unsatisfied with their lives.

And as children we absorb everything that we see. So we grow up seeing, well, this is adulthood. Have you ever been told that, “Oh, just wait until you grow up, you’re going to have bills over your head.” Or, “Oh, it’s all fun and games when you’re a kid. Wait till you get older.” Or, “Oh, I’d do anything jus to be your age again.”

You know, these statements were not even surprising to us because they were things we heard every time we saw adults. So in our little mandible minds that created this story that being an adult sucks. It’s a lot of hard work, there’s no pleasure, there’s no enjoyment. And when I get older, I’m gonna live a life like that, too. And we enter this school system, and the kid who studies the hardest, who stays up the latest, who gets all the answers right is rewarded. So we see around us that for me to get the attention and praise of my teachers, and so my family, I have to struggle, and do these tasks that don’t even make sense to me.

And then there’s college, and we have to study for these tests that don’t even make sense, they have nothing to do with actually what kind of learner you are. But we have to get good at these tests because that’s what we’re told. And then we get jobs, and the person who stays the latest and works the most hours, again, gets that salary, gets that bonus.

So we’re conditioned really to give up our joy, give up our free time, give up our pleasure, our sovereignty for this outer appraisal. And this creates his deep-rooted conditioning in society that life is a struggle, work is hard, and really work is meaningless because the reason why we are working is merely just to survive. But what if I told you that life doesn’t actually have to be this way? By changing our mindset, but reshaping the framework of our thoughts, we are able to have a totally different experience.

And if you don’t believe me, try it for yourself. Walk into the gym one day and tell yourself, “Today’s gonna be a really bad day. I’m exhausted. I can barely do anything,” and see how you perform. Then the next day tell yourself, “I’m feeling on fire today. My body’s feeling really fit. I’m gonna kill it,” and see how you perform. There has been so much research on positive psychology and how the stories we tell ourselves actually create a totally different outcome—physically, mentally, emotionally. And that’s also the case spiritually.

So we were conditioned by society that work is hard, and hard work is something that is applauded. And then many of us—not in society, but of you guys listening—begin to take on spiritual journey—and again, we are by far the minority. And in these spiritual journeys we begin questioning our societal conditions. We question, “Why am I even slaving away at this job that I don’t care about? Why am I sitting for these tests that I don’t have anything to do with what I actually want to be doing in this world? Why am I perpetuating the relationship of my parents instead of rewriting my own rules?”

So we begin to kind of rewrite the story and begin questioning everything that was taught to us and implanted in us from such a young age. But then we take on another collective story, and that is spiritual growth is hard. Again, this is a story that a lot of people don’t take on because a lot of people hear about it. They say, “I don’t want to do that work,” and then they don’t get into it. And that’s why 99% of Americans are not interested in this sort of stuff, but you guys are.

So we read a book, we watch “Eat, Pray, Love,” something happens, we decide we want to change our lives, become more spirit-centered. So we kind of look, we look around us, “What do spiritual people do?” They go trekking up to the Himalayas, they sell all their possessions, they shave their heads, they move to a hut, they stop having sex. They separate themselves from their families and society, they give up their entire lives to humanitarian causes. We look at Buddha, we look at Gandhi, we look at Mother Teresa, we look at martyrs, these are the people that come to mind, true selflessness.So we say, “For me to become spiritual, I have to now model that.” And we don’t realize that we’re doing the exact same thing as we were doing when we were part of the conditioned society.

I know I subscribe to this, and it’s something that I am just beginning to really break out of. You can even go on my YouTube channel, there’s a YouTube video of me from four years ago when I was 23, and I’m just speaking to the camera saying, “I don’t want an easy life. I want to suffer, I want to go to third world countries and risk my life for helping people, and I want to truly feel everything there is to experience in this world.” And it was a really beautiful statement what I said, and I’m not gonna delete that video, and you guys are free to look at it on youtube.com/sahararose. It’s an old video from, you know, 2014, 2013.

So I believed that in order for me to be spiritual I have to go through pain and suffering, I have to live in the most dangerous places, I have to become a human shield, I have to give up my desire to have love, have family, have anything that I basically have to become a martyr for the cause. And it was something that I honestly wanted to do because I so badly did not want to be part of this paradigm. So I thought the only alternative is to be part of the totally opposite paradigm, which is that—giving up everything, giving up all pleasure, and living a difficult life.

So I began doing so, and you know, I went to Africa, I lived in India for a while, I got really sick in India, definitely had a lot of struggles in my life, I got what I wanted, I didn’t grow a lot. And I wouldn’t change anything about it, but I realize now that growth does not only have to take place during suffering. When we suffer, when we experience pain or loss, that creates an accelerated growth because we have no choice we either fumble or we rise. So that’s when a break-up happens, or you lose your house, or something like that happens, you have no choice but to put yourself back together, otherwise you’ll just collapse.

And I believe that we all need to experience that first because otherwise we will never really know what it’s like to have to rely on yourself. But every time you want to keep growing you don’t have to put yourself in another one of those situations. And that’s a realization that many of us on the spiritual journey do not have. So I like to think of a child who’s just learning how to walk, and that kid learns, is learning, they’re kind of fumbling, and they fall down, and you know, they notice, “Oh, that kinda hurt,” and they get back up. And it’s through this falling and getting up that they learn. You can’t explain to the kid, “Hey, if you fall it’s going to hurt,” they have to experience it for themselves.

So they fall, they fall, and they fall enough times until they learn how to hold themselves together. But then afterwards, you don’t have to keep falling to continue to walk. You don’t have to keep falling to learn how to jog, to learn how to run, to learn how to sprint. Once you’re on your feet, you can move faster. And the same thing goes with the spiritual journey, you don’t have to keep on finding another really difficult situation so you can get to that next level of growth.

You know, I see people and they’re like, “Oh, I feel like I’ve hit a wall, I need to you know, go trek in the Mt. Everest, and go sell all my belongings, and this and that” because they feel like “I need to get to that next level of growth.” But the thing is, they’re just creating this soul contract that says, “I can only growth through suffering,” and they’ve halted their own spiritual growth because they’re saying, “Oh, my life is comfortable, and it’s easy right now, and I’ve created this level of flow for myself, therefore I must not be growing, so let me look for a really difficult situation. Ah, okay, trek the Himalayas.”

Now, you might not find trekking the Himalayas hard, you might find that easy, and if that’s the case, great. But the example really is that most of us look for those tough situations to stimulate that level of growth. So that might not be something as extreme as that. That might be, in a subtle way, taking on another relationship, another kind of case project of someone that you feel like you can heal. Especially us healers, we tend to look for people who need that healing, and we take those people on. We say, “Oh, I’ve reached this new level of, you know, finding myself so I’ll be able to handle it,” and we catapult our own growth.

What if you told yourself that “Every time I take a bath, I get more enlightened. Every time I take a nice walk in nature, I become more enlightened. Every time I cuddle with my dog, or with my partner, or I fall a little bit more in love with myself, I feel enlightened.” Growth does not have to be hard. We all have to deal with the hard part, that’s level one, but as you keep evolving in the spiritual journey, you don’t have to keep on creating those situations for yourself. Life was meant to be enjoyed.

I don’t subscribe to the Buddhist philosophy that life is suffering, and we must let go of all desires in order to survive in this world. When I first began my spiritual journey, I definitely thought I believed that because to me, Buddhism was the most polar opposite thing of materialism, so I said, “Okay, I’ll take that.” And I feel like for a lot of you guys listening you’ve had that same experience. And while I love the Buddha and all that he represents, the word Buddha in Sanskrit means “unenlightened one,” so Siddhartha was a Buddha. But I don’t believe you have to give up all your possessions and become a monk in order to live a spiritually fulfilling life.

You know, I remember when I went to India and I wanted to join Mother Teresa’s ashram. And I went to the hospital where she has the children, and the lepers, and I said, “I’m gonna stay here, I wanna live here, this is what I’m gonna do.” The people there were like, “No, no, this isn’t for you.” And I’m like, “Why? This has been my lifelong dream, this is what I wanna do,” And they’re like, “No, your goal is not here. You were meant to help people from a different way. You were meant to share with them what’s going on, and bring their attention, and use your gifts of writing and speaking, and this is for us. We want to do this, but that’s not your role.”

And I was super offended, I was like, “Do they think I can’t do it? Do they think I’m not compassionate enough? Like what’s wrong?” And later on through the Michael teachings, which I talk about in episode four I realized exactly what they were talking about and just how wise they were to say that. That my soul’s essence, my role is not one of the immediate server, the Michael teachings calls it the server, but the facilitator, the helper, the one-on-one. That’s not my role. My role is the Michael teachings calls it the priest role, but it’s someone who uses speech and language and they speak on a more cardinal level, so more to groups.

And they immediately saw that, but I couldn’t see it for myself because I thought spirituality means you have to become a nun, you have to become a monk, you have to do these things. I didn’t know that I could live in society and be spiritual. I thought it was one or the other. I thought that, you know, at a certain Point I was like, “I’m not going to get married, I’m not going to have kids, I’m not going to do any of this stuff because I want to be spiritual.” And I didn’t realize that the householder path, which is what they call it in Ayurveda and in Buddhism too, the path of the householder is a person who chooses to have a household, to have a partner, to have kids, to have a family, to be integrated in society.

This is a really sacred path, and that person is not meant to do the same things as the monk. They are not meant to become the nun. They are not mean to let go of material possessions, and sell their belongings, and cut off ties with their family. Some people choose to do that, and that’s okay, but that’s not the role of the householder. So realizing that, I realized that I can be a part of society, and in fact, I’m able to help and propel society to become more spiritually advanced by bringing these topics that would have remained in the confines of the ashram to the modern world.

And as much as I resisted it at first, and I was so irritated, especially when I came back from India, you know, what are these shopping malls, and everyone’s so loud here, and I can’t connect with anyone, and didn’t have any friends in L.A. for the first two years really that I lived here. It’s only the past few months really that I’ve had friends, but total isolation, and you know, just my practice, my work, that’s it. But then realizing that it’s okay for me to experience joy and pleasure. It’s okay for me to feel my body and experience the joys of sexuality and sensuality. And the movements of my body, and the dance, and the pleasure that that can experience. And to want to make money and not feel like money is this icky, dirty thing that I want nothing to do with.

Because that was for sure my belief before, and then the reason why no money was coming to me was because I made it very clear to the universe money is the root of all evil, more money more problems. So the universe was like, “Okay, well, you’re gonna wanna get this cash, so we’re gonna send over there.” But it’s okay to want to be financially abundant, it’s okay to want sexual pleasure, it’s okay to want to be successful, it’s okay to want to be seen, it’s okay to want to be heard.

And really embracing this more tantric path, and in tantra it’s all about embracing duality and that there’s no right or wrong. And you know, it’s the opposite of saying, “This is the path, these are the dos and don’ts, which is very much the yogic path, which I was really following.” But the tantric path is saying, “Do what feels good. Do what feels right, and don’t get so stuck in this is right, this is wrong, this is what I’m supposed to be doing, this is what I’m not supposed to be doing. Just enjoy all sensations that come with life and grow through pleasure, manifest through orgasm.

You know, these things were foreign concepts to me. I have heard of tantra, I thought it was a sex practice, I heard of Osho, I thought he was a cult leader. I was very, very closed off to even hearing about this side, and for some of you guys you’re probably like, “What is she saying right now?” So I totally get you ‘cause I was there, too. But then I was realizing that, you know, I just created more judgment for myself. The first judgment was I want to be successful in a society point of view, and the second judgment was I want to be successful from a “spiritual” point of view.

And not realizing that there is a different type of spirituality, and this type of spirituality is not the one that we see in “Eat, Pray, Love,” and in you know, yoga studios. And that’s the path of—I don’t even want to call it a tantric path because it’s just experiencing it all, it’s even a shamanic path. It’s just exploring all avenues, all channels, connecting with all elements, connecting with your earth, and your body, connecting with water, and your fluidity, and touch, and contact. And connect with space, and receiving those downloads from higher source, and connecting with fire and having passions, and drive, and goals, and not being shameful of that either.

So the reason why I share this with you is because I think it’s really important for us to remove stigma on wanting to be successful, wanting to have joy, and love, and ease, and grace, and also being on a spiritual path. Being spiritual does not mean being a martyr, it does not mean letting go of all desire. If you choose that it is, it can be. But just know that that’s not the only path. You can have desires, in fact, we wouldn’t be humans if we didn’t have desires, you know. If we didn’t have desires, then what would we do? We would just sit and wait to die.

And the way I see it, our desires are what bring us our greatest joys in our lives. If you think about the times that you were the happiest, it was when you did something amazing when you gave that speech, when you created that project, when your business came to life, when you helped someone. Accomplishment is not a bad thing. And a lot of us when we become spiritual we think, oh, accomplishment is bad, I’m not a human doing, I’m a human being, and that makes sense, too. But in that human being you can still do, I mean that’s why we were put on this planet and we were given the formidable thumbs so we can do things so we can make things and that’s part of the path.

If we were truly meant to do nothing, then why do we have desires? Why would the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, give us these desires, but then the whole point of life is to not have them? Why would they do that to us? That doesn’t even make sense. Why would the universe want to torture us? Why would the universe make sexuality feel good? Make desire feel good? Why would they give us pleasure and orgasms if we weren’t meant to do it? Why is all life created through that process? That’s the only thing that’s keeping us alive. And the universe made it the most pleasurable thing.

Why would it do that if we weren’t meant to do it? Why does food taste good if we should just be fasting and have zero attachment to food? Did they just, you know, make all these delicious sweet fruits so just to tempt us to not have it? You know, the universe, the God, the whatever I prescribe to is not one that’s evil and surrounds with temptation and the whole point of life is to just say, “No, no, no, no, no.” That doesn’t feel like life to me. To me, life feels like saying yes to those pleasures, but also knowing your boundaries with them, not being defined by, “I’m just gonna do whatever’s the most pleasurable, whatever’s the most easy at the moment,” but also creating space for that too.

Creating space for, “You know what? I am going to lie down and go on my foam roller and give myself a massage. Or I’m going to let my partner play with my hair. Or I’m going to self-pleasure, or I’m going to put oil on my body and just love myself.” These are not sinful things, these are basic sensations that were given to our bodies. Why does sleep feel good? And then some spiritual paths say, “Oh, don’t sleep more than four hours a night.” Well then why does it feel good? Why does it heal our bodies?

So I bring this up because we should question everything. Not just what society says, but also what spiritual education we’ve been given, including the things I say question that. Question everything and feel it out on your body. And notice how your own opinions change through time, and how maybe for a period of your life you had certain soul contracts and certain beliefs, but that moved and shifted. And if you wanted to move and shift, you can do that too just simply by making that decision. Simply by telling yourself, “I want to live a life of ease and fluidity. I want to say yes to sacred pleasure. I want to create more joy in my life. I want to feel passionate and purposeful. I love productivity, it’s a meditation.”

So when we change these narratives, we change these scripts, we open up the field, the potential of what can be a spiritual practice. You know, basic level one is turn on Headspace, and do this meditation, and breathe for five minutes. And that’s great, that’s for sure better than not doing anything. But when you get on the path you realize that you don’t have to do that. It’s about the way you live your life. It actually has nothing to do with those five minutes.

The reason those five minutes are there just so you can get used to taking that five minutes amount of time for yourself. You know, all of these practices are merely suggestions. But just like there’s no one diet for everyone, there’s not one spiritual practice for everyone. And just like the foods you need are always changing with time, and seasons, and your doshic state, and your age, so are the practices that ring true for you.

Maybe you’re going through a period of your life where there’s a lot going on and you just want to be still. Or maybe you’re going through a period of your life where you’re feeling really stuck and stiff and you just want to flow and dance. Maybe you’ve been sexually blocked for so long that you want to start experiencing the pleasures and sensations of your own body. Or maybe you’ve been a sexual addict and you want to start experiencing connection that has nothing to do with sexuality.

So there’s so many backgrounds that we’re all coming from, so how can I say, “This is the practice, this works for everyone,” when it doesn’t. Do what feels right for you, create more space for yourself to explore that, and the only way you’ll know what feels right for you is just by giving different things a try.

So I know I’ve kind of talked a bout a lot of things, a lot of different topics, but back to the point of creating more ease. This is something that I want all of us to give a try this week. Just notice the things that you’re doing, the tension that you are holding onto that’s making life harder than it is. Just notice yourself, like sometimes you get into the car and you’re just frantic, and like imagine just every time you enter the car someone’s saying, “Breathe.” And you just breathe five breaths, that’s it. Every time you get into the car, just do that this week and see how you feel. You know, I notice I’ll walk out of a store, I’ll walk out of a meeting and I’m rushing to my car, and I’m like turning the car on, and I’m like moving forward, I even have my seatbelt fully on, I’m in such a rush.

And then if I just breathe for five breaths, I shift my whole energy, and I realize “Wow, I just created such a state of tension in my body for literally no reason, and I didn’t have to do that.” And just by those little shifts in moments of time, when all the e-mails are coming in and you’re frantically doing it. Look, what if you just said yes? People are e-mailing me, I’m getting things done, this feels good. Or when you wake up and you have to take your kids to school and there’s a million tasks, you’re like, “Whoo, today, I got it, I’m in flow state.”

 Cause you know what you’re doing, you know, especially if this is your routine, this is what your everyday life is like. This is not a surprise for you anymore, so why do we keep putting ourselves in this perspective of, “Oh my God, how am I gonna get today done? How am I gonna finish my to-do list? How am I gonna go to work and pick up Sam from soccer practice, and do the groceries, and make dinner, and do the dishes, and then put the kids to sleep, and make their lunch for tomorrow. How am I gonna do it?” The same way you did it yesterday, honey. The same way you’ve been doing it.

We’ve been doing the practice, we’ve been getting done all the things that need to be done. You know, we give ourselves a lot less credit than we deserve. You’ve been doing an amazing job, your kids are alive, your work is good, you’re alive, you’re not hurt, you’re showing up, you’re doing a great job. So instead of coming forth with this, “How am I gonna get today done?” The same way you have been getting it done. But this time, let’s create a little bit more ease in that process just by, you know, smiling. They say if you just smile, it triggers the rest of your body to think that it’s happy.

So if you’re like running on a treadmill or something and you just smile, your body’s like, “Oh, she’s actually happy right now. This isn’t as stressful as we thought.” Just by smiling throughout your day, just by being a little bit nicer than you normally would be. Listening to music, a podcast, just living your life in flow instead of getting so stressed and overwhelmed about it. Changing that perspective of, “I’m gonna get done the things done that need to be done,” and carving out those chunks of time for yourself to do the things that feel indulgent.

We all can find 30 minutes in our day to stretch, to take a walk outside, to take a bath, whatever feels good for you. We can all do it if, you know, Barack Obama when he was president was like waking up every morning and playing basketball for an hour before starting the tasks at the White House. If he can do it, we all can. There’s so much more time than we think.

We’re carrying this belief that “time is limited, there’s never enough time. I just wish I could have more time.” But time is endless, a minute can feel like an hour or it can feel like a second. So time is really just a perspective. So if we tell ourselves like, “Wow, I have you know, 16 hours this day, and these are the things that need to be done, and this is how much time it’s going to take, and actually all the things that actually need to be done take four hours.”

So where is all this other time even going? Chances are it’s going to things that are wasting your time, and also not creating ease and happiness. Like scrolling on Instagram, you know I got this app on my phone called Moments and it tracks how much time you’re on your phone. I don’t even want to check how much time today, but it’s been four hours-plus. And again, like I have to work on my phone because of, you know, social media and that stuff, but I’m not—oh my god, today I was on a plane, so it says I was on four nine hours and 56 minutes, I kid you not. That’s insane.

You’ll be shocked how much time we are just spending on our phones when that period of time we can actually just be getting done that thing that we actually want to happen. That job, that task, that project that we want to be creating. If we just stopped wasting time on the dumb stuff, on watching random people’s Instagram Stories that we’ve never met, on going on the explore page and looking at all these before and after pictures that make us feel like crap and don’t really help us, and we’re never gonna follow the work exercise protocols that they followed. Or watching make-up tutorials when we don’t even put on make-up.Or stalking people from high school, or looking at what your ex is doing, or Googling random things. Who knows, we’re all doing so much stuff that we’re wasting hours a day on.

So really, the problem is not that we don’t have enough time, the problem is that we are wasting it on things that neither bring us productivity or joy. So if we just focus, we put schedules or you know, a little bit of organization in our days and our weeks that say this is my time to, you know, even just chill. This is my time that I’m going to lie down on the floor. That’s okay because if that’s helping you, if that’s creating ease in your life then that’s okay. It’s way better for you to have your 30 minutes where you lay on the floor and you afterwards feel really light and amazing than to just waste it on social media.

So life, again, doesn’t have to be hard, it’s just the perspective that we have with it. The spiritual journey does not have to be suffering. Pleasure can be a means for growth. We can have desires and actually desires make us who we are. And the householder path is no less spiritual than the path of the monk or the nun. And there are many routes to enlightenment, and it’s up to us to explore which ones resonate with us and allow space for that to change, too.

I hope this podcast episode resonated with you. I hope it sparked some new insights in your mind. I would love for you to share your perspective with me in the “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group. And I would love even more if you could write a review for this podcast because it helps so much for this podcast to be viewed. And that way I can record more episodes for you guys. Before it was once a week, and now it’s twice a week. Thanks to a larger and larger listenership, and your reviews help so much with that.

So as a free gift for writing a review for the podcast, I’m going to e-mail you the first half of my unreleased book. It’s called “Eat Right For Your Mind Body Type,” and it’s the first book that I ever wrote about Ayurveda and mixing it with modern sports nutrition. This book is unpublished, it’s not the same book as “Eat Feel Fresh,” which is coming out in October 2018. But it’s a book that I wrote, self-graphic designed, edited, really did all myself.

And I don’t know if it will ever be published, so the only way for you to get your hands on it is to just write a review for me on iTunes and e-mail me a screenshot of it. So take a screenshot of it before you hit send and e-mail it to me. My e-mail is Sahara, S-A-H-A-R-A at eatfeelfresh.com. Again, [email protected]. Take a screenshot of your review on the iTunes store and send it over to me and I will send you back the first half of my unreleased book “Eat Right For Your Mind Body type.”

And if you’re not listening to this on iTunes and you don’t have an iPhone or a Mac, you don’t have any way to get on iTunes then you can do the same thing by leaving a review for my book on Amazon. My book is called “The Idiot’s Guide to Ayurveda,” and it’s all about exploring different parts of Ayurveda from the food, to the self-care, to the spiritual, all of the above. It’s the number one best-selling book in Ayurveda, it’s been up there for the past nine months, and it’s something I’m really, really proud of. So if you write a review on Amazon I will also send you the first half of my unreleased book.

Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for our sponsor YouVeda, you can check them out, they’re an Ayurvedic supplement company, and you can use the word Sahara, S-A-H-A-R-A, for a 35% off discount for your first month. I’ve been taking the mood formula and it’s been amazing. Listen to my episode on adrenal fatigue to learn more about that. And let me know how you like it in the “Mind Body Balancers” Facebook group. Namaste.

Episode 091 – How To Spiritually Grow Through Ease with Sahara Rose