When Achievement Becomes Your Identity with Dr. Mamta Bhatt | Awakening

What happens when you’ve spent so long achieving that you’re no longer sure who you are without the achievement?

The Delay the Binge™ Journey begins with Awakening and Dr. Mamta Bhatt, a macromolecular scientist, bestselling author, speaker, and wellness expert whose own journey took her from high-pressure achievement through years of illness and nearly two decades of monastery life.

Mamta had built an identity around output. She knew how to achieve, solve problems, and keep going.

But when her health changed, the tools that had always served her couldn't answer a much more personal question:

Who was she without all the achieving?

In this conversation, Mamta shares a pivotal sunrise at the monastery when she realized she had been waiting to get well before allowing herself to be happy. In that moment, she discovered that illness and joy didn't have to be mutually exclusive, she could experience difficulty and still choose joy. 

Pam and Mamta also explore:

• When achievement quietly becomes identity
 • The tiny moments that can add up to self-abandonment
 • Why high achievers often struggle to turn off
 • Perfectionism and the connection between achievement and self-worth
 • Listening to the body's “whispers” before continually overriding them
 • Creating intentional periods of silence and space
 • Mamta's SWOON practice for reconnecting with yourself
 • Why progress can matter more than perfection

This may speak to you if...

You've spent years achieving, producing, helping, or meeting expectations, and you're beginning to wonder who you are without all the doing.

This is Day 1 of The Delay the Binge™ Journey and the opening conversation of Week One:

AWAKENING | You can't change what you haven't seen.

Beginning August 10, one conversation will be released each weekday. You don't need to listen to all of them.

Choose what speaks to you. There is no “getting behind” on this Journey.

🗺️ Explore all 20 voices and four themes:
https://tpkkconcepts.com/delay-the-binge-the-journey/

🎧 Watch The Journey on the platform of your choice:
https://geni.us/dtb-dr-mamta-bhatt

Pause. Choose. Take your Plus One. And keep going.

Release date:  Monday, August 10, 2026

Transcript

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The Pause Between Impulse And Action

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to Delay the Binge Podcast, where we explore the pause between impulse and action. Because lasting change rarely happens in the big moments, it happens in the small moments when we choose differently. Today's guest has lived a life that seems impossible to summarize in a single sentence. Dr. Monta Bott is a macromolecular scientist, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and internationally recognized wellness expert. She has worked with Fortune 50 companies, including Nike, DuPont, and Johnson ⁇ Johnson, and contributed to projects involving NASA and the U.S. Army. Yet despite all that success, she found herself facing a challenge she couldn't solve with science alone. What followed was a journey into nearly 20 years of life in a monastery, where she discovered profound lessons about healing, self-love, joy, and what happens when we finally become quiet enough to hear ourselves. Today she helps high-performing women overcome self-abandonment and reconnect with the wisdom they've been carrying all along. Dr. Bott, welcome to Delay the Bend.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Thank you so much. What a wonderful welcome. And I love the focus of your podcast. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Thank you. I'm so excited to dig deep.

Burnout And A Monastery Detour

SPEAKER_01 1:28

But before we do that, I'd like to start with where you find yourself now. Like what are you most passionate about today?

SPEAKER_00 1:38

What I'm passionate about today is very intimately related to my own life. As you described beautifully, I lived a life of high achievement in very high precision labs and very high pressure environments. And I somehow took that to heart and I thought that's what life is. That's the mistake I made. And I burnt out, lived 20 years in a monastery. And here's the key that determines what my passion is today is that in the years that I was in the monastery, I was really looking for healing. I had tremendous fatigue, fatigue like 20 tons of lead. I couldn't walk three steps without panting. And they thought, is it asthma? Is it pneumonia? All of these things were checked out, right? And when nothing was there that they could find, really, there was no diagnosis, right? Um it is bewildering. As a scientist, I'm used to, you know, high-quality work, excellence in everything. So I was expecting that I go to the best doctors in the world and I will get to know what it is and we'll solve it. Yeah. Like, you know, we always do. And the bewilderment that I went through and the frustration was that going from doctor to doctor, the medical system, the way it's set up, could not really help me, could not do anything for me. And um, as a scientist, remember, I would never have gone for alternate healing. I would have never gone to a monastery. But because you know there's a power inside you that knows that you would you deserve to get well. You want to get well. There's nothing greater than that. And you're ready to climb the biggest mountain for getting well. And for that reason, I went around the world looking for healing. And

When Doctors Have No Answers

SPEAKER_00 3:34

when none of that happened, even though all of them were very fascinating feels and absolutely wonderful on their own, I finally had out of complete sheer hopelessness and literally reaching the end of my tether, I finally thought one day that I'm a scientist. I should be able to figure this out. And I looked at my own blood work. All these years I was going to all these experts and looking at them like demigod, like, you know, you know, like help me, because I mean I really want to get well. And when that didn't happen, and I looked at all these things, finally, you know, finally, suddenly saying, What about me? I'm highly trained, I can do this. And I went through all this and I saw some patterns in my own blood work. And I said, How did the ancient people heal themselves when there were no supplements, no vaccines, no medication? And all my research led me to understand that food is your medicine. Let you know, let food be their medicine. And I was thinking, how uh I had already, in my effort to get well, become a vegetarian, you know, you think that's the answer. Where can I go further? So I created, with all the research I did, this is completely out of my own self. I created a protocol for me, okay, for me, which was specific to my conditions and all my symptoms, and there were like a 20-30 symptoms I was having. And here's the incredible journey that I went on in 90 days. I got well, completely well. So I created this protocol um specifically for me, and I was stunned that I got well in 90 days. I got well, I got my energy back. I wasn't panting. I uh my allergies, I had so many allergies, I they all disappeared. I I couldn't eat a banana. If I ate a banana, I would have like my nose would swell up and I would have so much sinus and I would get a headache, papaya, I couldn't eat a potato, I couldn't eat, you know. And here everything went away. And I myself was it was miraculous for me. Okay, yes, just miraculous for me. And I just thought, oh wow, I created this thing and it worked. And there was a there was a bittersweet ending to it. You will be surprised. Why do I say bittersweet? Because the bitter part was, my god, I wasted 20 years of my life running behind people and feeling so dejected and hopeless, and I and and all the negative things that you can possibly think of, right? And the positive part was like, oh, really? My god, what do I do now? Because I had resigned myself to living in the monastery forever. You know? Yeah, and so that was like wow. But

Root Causes And Helping Others Heal

SPEAKER_00 6:41

before I could even think, like, what am I going to be doing next? The most extraordinary thing happened because you know, when you're sick for that long, you go to any place that anybody tells you. And and I can probably you and I should have another episode of just laughing at all the places I tried, okay? Or like crazy, crazy, crazy. But you meet people who are also sick, right? They're also going through something. And the first thing that happened was that people knew and heard that I got well, and I got a man coming to me and saying, Hey, my girlfriend, she's got cysts in her ovaries, and she uh they've she's gone to two or three doctors, they all want to do surgery, she doesn't want to do surgery. Can you help her? Now remember, what have I done? I have just created a protocol for me, it's customized to my situation. And so I said, okay, um, give me her blood work and give me all these symptoms. Remember, I have a whole list of how what things I evaluate, right? Yes. And I'm not charging anybody money, I'm not claiming anything, is just to help another person who was suffering. Remember, when you were bedridden for 20 years, you were ready to help everybody, right? Yes. Nobody should suffer. You ask me what's my passion today, you can see how passionate I am. I don't want one person in this world to suffer because I saw the uselessness, the, the, the, the, the price you have to pay for how desperate and desolate and lonely. Because you also find that, you know, you really find out who your friends are. And you find out when things are going in my life, when things were going well, everybody wanted to be my friend.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Isn't that the way of it? Yes, that is the way.

SPEAKER_00 8:34

And I experienced it. You know, we know this, but we have never ex when you experience something, it's like into it's cellular, right? It gets into your cell. You'll never forget it. You cannot unsee it. And when I got unwell and went to a monastery, let me tell you, like, people fell off, like, oh my god, they nobody wanted to know me. So this is a really great lesson, also, about life that we can have achievement and really think that's what life is about. And all these are your real friends and this family, and everybody thinks like they're so tight-knit with you, right? But let push comes to shove and things go the other way, which were not by your volition, it just happened, right?

unknown 9:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

And you start seeing everybody disappears.

SPEAKER_01 9:30

Yes, they do. I can so relate to everything you just shared, because that was my life. I went to so many specialists and doctors trying to figure out why I was over 300 pounds. And I said, I eat healthy, I move my body, why do I keep getting bigger, bigger, bigger?

unknown 9:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:48

I just knew that there was some magic pill out there, but if they didn't have the answer, they just suggested tools, which I took advantage of some of them, which caused more problems. I've had bariatric surgery, and I thought the tool would fix it all. And and that's why I do delay the binge. It's to teach people that you can overcome obstacles and health issues. You just have to find the people that will advise you in a way that serves you. And that's what you are doing. And I'm just so thankful that there's at least one out there that will treat their patient as a whole and look at everything.

SPEAKER_00 10:31

Yes. And that's exactly what I did for me was to look at everything and then find the root cause of it. Because if you get to the root cause, you you know, it's like a tree with roots. If you get the roots watered, the whole t tree flourishes. But if you keep spraying the branch here and branch there, it's not going to give you lasting benefit, right? So my passion today is to help anyone in the world today who is suffering from any chronic disease and to help them to know that your body has a miraculous recovering power. It has the capacity to heal itself given the right parameters. And most people don't know what the right parameters are, and for each body, it would be slightly customized differently. So, back to the story about the lady, the first lady who came to me. Yeah, you know, she had cysts in her ovaries, and she actually had cysts in her breasts too. And I created this protocol for her, and she was so determined to get well that some of the things that I recommended to her were not available in her country. And she went to the wholesale market and got the ingredients and made this particular thing and applied it to the areas that I had told her to apply, uh, along with coconut oil. That was the carrier oil I was recommending in her case. I'm not saying this for anyone with cysts, so please don't take that. But I'm not giving you the you know solution because it's going to be specific to you. So, and you know what? She got well in three months. And that was what? How did that happen? I thought 90 days was just my thing, you know, it was just my body. I had no idea that 90 days was how the body, how much time the body needs to reconfigure itself, given all the parameters that help it to flourish, right? Yes. And so that's how my journey started into this area, which was completely uh not what I had gone out to do, but I am very passionate because I told you when I got well, there was a very deep sadness that did I really have to go 20 years when it was that simple. But obviously, like you just said, everybody doesn't know that you can come to somebody like me and many others like me uh to help you get recovery, which is holistic, which is leveraging the power already inherent in your cells, right? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yes, the uh holistically treating yourself. A lot of people are leery of that. And I don't know why. I mean, why not try it? It's a natural approach. And if it doesn't work, well, you can check that off your box, you know, and move on to the next thing.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

But I I wish they would try it first.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

Absolutely. Um, you know, something very simplistic that I share, even though I'm a scientist, but remember I lived in a monastery, is that just try to understand. Instead of first, I'm not against medication at all. I think medication has a wonderful, very important role for whatever the problem is, if it's needed. It's like when you need a hammer, you use a hammer, not a screwdriver. And and when you need a screwdriver, you don't use uh calipers, right? You need to use the right tool. So if you, God forbid, broke your leg today, you should run to emergency and get the best care, right? Yes, yes. But if you have a chronic condition for whatever it is, whether it's a rash or a you know, anything that's chronic, it's probably stemming from a root cause deeper inside than putting a topical something on it. Right? Yeah and so it's worth all I ask you is to be it's worth exploring the root cause because if it's showing up here, it's probably coming from somewhere deeper within. And I, you know, have been led to the holistic approach by after trying everything chemical and going to the best of the best. Um you know, and so since this uh protocol, I developed this protocol, and then the first lady I already told you, she came and she recovered in three months, she never needed surgery, and then it went by word of mouth, and so she told somebody else. So I started getting people, remember, I'm not charging anybody anything, I just want to help as many people because of what I went through. And uh people started coming with various problems. There, you know, uh, somebody came with 20-year insomnia, he was having sleeping pills for 20 years and was not sleeping, and so we helped him completely naturally, and he was sleeping like a baby, you know, in three months. And then somebody came with high blood sugar, type 2 diabetes, and he was on, you know, uh insulin, so on and so forth. The point is we are not against medication at all. Medication is fantastic when it's required, and if it's giving you benefit, please take it. It's only in the condition. Look at my condition. When nothing helped me, right? What I found was the power of the human body and giving it the right parameters. That's the main thing.

The RESET Framework Explained

SPEAKER_00 15:54

And with that, I developed what is called a reset protocol, and I'm giving it very easily and simplistically so you can remember it, but of course it's customized to each person, and it's called reset. How easy is that? R-E-S-E-T. I love that. You can remember it because it's really a reset. So the first R is for restful sleep, and you know this that when you have excess weight and you're agonizing about why it is that you're overweight, and it's hard. It's not that anybody's body shaming you, it's hard to get up, to sit down. You know this, and uh so just for convenience, you want to be at a different weight, and you then look at your sleep because your body's metabolism works during when you're sleeping, so sleep is so important, so I optimize sleep. That's so that's where your weight loss happens in the sleep, and then E for getting energy from whole foods, right? If there is a fruit which is coming off of a tree, yes. So, what is it? It's only a grapefruit or an apple, it doesn't have another ingredient like high fractose corn syrup or something else, right? It doesn't have anything else. Eat whole foods. Why? Because your body recognizes it, your body's nature. I said this before uh in another podcast that you know, God forbid you were to die today and you're put in nature, in a few months your body perishes and becomes the earth, right?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

So what does that tell us? It's not it's not becoming it's not decomposing into this chemical and that chemical. It's mixing and blending with nature. Yep. So how? Think about it a little bit. So if you are nature, if you're really nature, then what will heal you most? Nature. Oh, I love that. It's as simple as that. That's it's simple. It's simple, but we're missing it because all of us are very intellectual. We'll talk about that in a moment about our high achievers. Yes. But really, this is this is the avenue that we should talk about. So if you, you know, God forbid were to die, and then you were in a forest and left alone, and somebody comes back after six months, they won't know this body versus the earth, right? It's all become ash or whatever, if it's not burnt, it's just the earth. So if that is who we really are, nature, then what'll heal us most is nature, which is why even today, I think about it a little deeply here. Whenever we want to decompress, where do we go? Either to the beach or to the mountain or in the snow. What are we doing? We're going to nature. Because there is a part of our being that knows that that'll heal me. Because I'm among my own people, I'm among my own self, right? Yes. So, and then think about it another level. In a house, when you make your house and you say, Oh, make it a little warmer, and you add plants, even fake plants. Why do you do that? Because your cells are recognizing this is calming. Yes. Cells recognize this is going to decompress you, right? So this is very serious stuff. I I've sitting in a monastery, obviously, I thought a lot about it, and many of your viewers may not, you know, appreciate what I'm saying, but really, this is seriously something to think about. So, like you said, you went for a three-mile walk today, I went on a walk today. How lovely was that?

SPEAKER_01 19:30

Very lovely, and I didn't share this with you, but before every interview, I will go out to my backyard. It's just all grass, I take my shoes off, and I become one with the earth. I just literally, it's grounding. And I I walk barefoot and and I pray that I am a vessel. Please use me as a vessel to get the message of whatever this person needs today. And if I don't do that, I notice there's a big difference in how I present. It really does ground me. I guess that's why they call it grounding. It is grounding, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Because when you become one with nature, your mind stops. And really, what is vacation? What is the word vacation? Everybody wants a vacation, right? Word vacation really means vacating your mind. When you make your mind empty, free of thoughts, there's relief. There's relief. And you can have a vacation in your house if you know consciously how to vacate your mind. And those are the tools that I work with, right? And and and we and how often is it that people go on a vacation but come back more wired? Yes. They didn't know how to get empty.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Well, and the food they consume on vacation.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 20:48

It's not food they normally eat, usually.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yes. And and their mind doesn't stop like I've got to go here, I've got to go there, I've got to show this picture. You know, there's so much I've got to do, right? Right. And that brings us, and that brings us to one more important point. I

Nature And Devices Drive Chronic Disease

SPEAKER_00 21:03

want to share this before we go to the uh high achieving thing, is that our world today is so pressurized by non-stop 24-7 being on devices. 24-7, we are consuming content. Yes. 24-7, we are on, whether it's in conference calls or Zoom meetings or whatever it is. But nature, remember, we already have discussed that we are nature, right? We agreed on we are nature. Because when we when we die, there's no laptop that's going to be left. It's just going to be earth, right? There's no podcast, little little headphones gonna be left there. It's gonna be just earth, soil, right? Yeah. So if we are nature, we have agreed that we are nature, then nature is the only way that we will become. Become more of who we are.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I oh that's all about the my becoming series is not being becoming someone different, but becoming the person you've always been, who you were meant to be.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

I wanted to say that your grounding and why that really works is because you're one with nature then, and we are all nature. So then you're able to give your best back to nature.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

Yes. So beautiful. It is so beautiful. Just get curious, everyone. Just try it. What are you gonna lose? I mean, time passes anyway. You might as well use it.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:41

Yes. And the other thing I wanted to say is that, you know, on the planet right now, almost 8 billion people, right? Almost 8 billion people. And I don't know if anybody listening is aware that today, five and a half billion people are sick with a chronic chronic disease, not an acute disease, chronic disease. And it's increasing rapidly. Like 25 years ago, it was only 40% of the population. Right now it's 65% of the population. So 10 people in a room, almost six to seven people are sick with a chronic disease. Right? So that's staggering. That's staggering, right? And then the second thing I want to share. So this is already showing that if you think you are not one of them, probably you are one of them, right? And so this is so important what we are sharing. And second, if you think it only happens to older people, the data today is that it's the first time in the history of humanity that the younger generation will not outlive the older generation.

SPEAKER_01 23:52

Oh my gosh, that's huge.

SPEAKER_00 23:56

That is huge. Do you understand what that means? That is staggering. It's never happened in the history of humanity. And because the younger generation is presented with so much onslaught of noise, of light, of sound, of aspiration, of thinking they don't have it, whatever, everybody's showing a pretend world out there. And 40% of all youngsters are depressed. I wanted to share these stats so that when we're talking very soon about other interesting stuff, it will make sense why that is feeding into all of this, right? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

That is perfect. Perfect that we had talked about this in detail because first you have to learn, educate yourself, and then we can become inspired and motivated to make a change.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Yes.

Identity And Joy Rewire The Brain

SPEAKER_01 24:50

Well, I read something you wrote. It was so interesting to me. You said I had built an entire identity around output and had no idea who I was when I stopped producing. And it really made me think about a lot of my clients. Usually, when I have trouble getting them to try some of the things that we're suggesting that will help them, it's because they are so tied to the issue they are having, the health issue or the behavior. And we always find out that they were subconsciously sabotaging themselves. Because who are they without this thing? Who are they? They don't have any idea who they are if they should resolve the issue they have been struggling with for so long.

unknown 25:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:45

And so I was wondering what you thought about that. That's magnificent what you said, and very, very insightful. So I went through a lot of this introspection for me too. Because when I wasn't getting well and I was going from doctor to doctor, and after that, it was like healer to healer. Anybody says so-and-so healer has come to the monastery, I'll be the first person, right? And I started wondering what you just said, that had I created an identity of being sick, and was that why it wasn't happening? So if I may, may I share this right now? Of course. In addition to what you just said, which is very deep, and I wish and I hope that people listening will explore that. I think the thing that I personally felt was that I was asking myself every minute why, why, why me, why me? I've been a good person. I was helping people. You know, I had all these formulas in my head that, you know, if you're a good person, bad things cannot happen to you. And I was out there serving the poor. I was cooking in food soup kitchens, I was doing all of this thing, right? So, you know, you're alone and you're sitting in a monastery, and uh everybody's saying with prayer, you're getting well, and why aren't you getting well, right? And you're doing it sincerely and you know, honestly, and at it, you're not wasting any time. So I think I will share this particular thing. I think that'll be very helpful. So I found that I was uh unknowing to myself. We all do it unconsciously, right? Like, why me, why me? And I had tried what this one said, what that one said, this prayer and that, whatever, right? This meditation. And I was really good. In meditation, interestingly, I was really when I would meditate, I would have all the energy in the world. Because I was sitting in one place and I had extraordinary experiences, which I almost thought, am I crazy? Because I was a scientist. Like, what is all this happening to me? However, it did not translate to getting well in the body, which was even more frustrating to me, because all the meditators in the in the monastery would be like, hey, you're a good meditator, you can heal your body, right? It wasn't happening to me. And I was feeling somewhere a little, you know, like the person like, why not? Why not, right? And one day, and this was going on for a long, long time, I had gone to everybody, tried everything, and I'd at my wit's end, right? And I think I shared with you when we both spoke personally that I really thought of ending it all because I couldn't think of what else like to do, right? And so right around that time, uh I noticed that, and I think I I mentioned to you that we couldn't do what we had to do, so because I was looking for a chemical, and um and we couldn't source the chemical, and that caused even more depression. Okay, this is the important part because I thought I'd have a solution. I was very scientific. I'm gonna have a solution. Solution doesn't work, let's go here. And I found this is very important, that I had little bitter taste in my mouth. Like literally, there was a bitter taste in my mouth. It was from all this negative thinking, like, why me, why me, why you know, you're just feeling miserable about yourself. Like, why you? What's wrong? And blah, blah. And um, and this one morning, I it was sunrise and I was walking. Uh, there was a little prayer place there, very close to my room in the monastery. And I remember looking at the sunrise and being mesmerized by it. And my heart opened, I just like was just looking at these beautiful yellowish, orange, you know, you know, the morning sunrise light. It's so beautiful. And it was coming through the trees, which was right above this shrine. There was a shrine there, and it was above the tree, it was behind it, and so it was coming through. And I remember um just feeling like, oh my god, like what I would give to be happy. Like, you know, I just so desperately wanted to be happy, right? And then in that moment from within me, the voice, there's a voice that said, But you are happy, your heart is open, your mouth, my face was smiling. I wasn't aware of it. And so for a second I just kind of self-observed myself, and I saw, yes, my I was smiling at the sunrise, and my heart had opened. And in that moment, I think that was the epiphany of my life. I realized that you could be sick and you could choose joy, and you could have both together.

SPEAKER_01 30:44

That is profound. That is incredible. What an experience. I'm still got goosebumps, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

And and that epiphany, oh my god, I was I did not realize till that moment that I was waiting to get well to be happy. Do you see? And so in that moment, I remember leaving that place, just turning around and having the smile on my face because I can choose joy. This thing had told me, this knowingness from within had told me you were joyful and you are sick, you are not able to move, you're really having such a terrible time. And so from that day, I think this is a long answer to your thing, but it's a wonderful answer. Is that from that day I chose joy every moment? You remember you came on this call and I mean this thing, and you said you're always so cheerful and happy, because I know that that's a choice you can make every moment. Doesn't matter your condition. And so, since that day when I could see you could choose joy, I started looking for everything which was creating joy. So I had sunrise, right? Sunrise did it to me, right? And so yellow is my favorite color now. I saw every tiny little thing from that day onwards. And like I was smiling. My god, the green grass, smiling. Oh my god, puppies playing, I'm smiling. Like there are a million reasons to be happy. Yes, choose joy, and here we can talk a little bit about neuroplasticity. So, you know, this happened, this was a wonderful thing, and within 15 days or so, or maybe a week, I forget exactly, is when I had the idea that, hey, I'm a scientist, why can't I figure this out? So you see how looking for joy, choosing joy, thinking and finding joy created that new idea. Why didn't I think of that idea 10 years ago, 20 years ago? Why didn't I think that in the beginning? Just did not come to me because your thought process is different. So it's coming back to your identity question. Um, about I think that that day when I chose joy and it became a like a bookmark in my consciousness, right? So I'm looking for joy. In our brain, at the back of our brain, in the brain stem, there is something called a reticular activating system. It's a bundle of nerves, which helps you to see more of whatever you're looking for. So if you say, I'm looking for joyful things, because you've told yourself, now it shows you more joyful things because it is it's called RAS. It's a reticular activating system. And so now I had more things to be joyful about. And so I was more and more happy. And also, I didn't know the word neuroplasticity then. I'm being very honest. But I was practicing it unknowingly, I was always smiling. It didn't matter how I felt, I was going to smile because I remembered that very great moment with the sunrise, right? Right. Right because remember, I was looking so desperately to be happy, and now I knew just have to choose to be happy. So so I kept smiling. The more I smiled, the more my brain changed, and the more happier things started coming into my consciousness. And this is all, you know, uh corroborated by science, but I'm just sharing that till I had that victim mentality. I'm not saying it's, you know, anybody who's sick and listening to this and saying, I'm not belittling you because I have lived it 20 years. All I ask you to do is to do some of the practices which I share in my work. Uh, and if you do them every day, you start reprogramming your brain and you reprogram your consciousness to then see the beauty that's out there, see the opportunity that's out there, see the possibility that's out there, and then one le thing leads to another and leads to another, and soon enough, you've created a whole new life for yourself.

unknown 35:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 35:07

And that's so powerful because I'm obsessed, as my listeners know, with with the neuroscience of how the brain works and why we have unhealthy behaviors and we continue to do them and what we can do.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Absolutely, 100%. I and I've done many experiments, you and you can do this today, and you just say, Okay, I'm thinking of a I'm making it up, um, a burgundy Mercedes. Let's make it up, like a strange, unusual color. And I remember trying this out with myself, and then within a few hours, it just drove past me, and I thought, oh my god, there it is. Because it was anyway going to be there, but now your brain is tuned to look for it. Yes. It is tuned to look for it. And so what we're doing is we're training our brain to look for all the wonder and extraordinary grace that there is in this world already. Right? Like, for example, I was I was sick and I was so de desperate. But had I said, My goodness, I'm alive, that's incredible. I'm so happy. Thank you. Thank you. I'm alive. I can read. Oh my god, that's a lie. I mean, I I feel extraordinarily grateful. Oh my god, I have hair on my head. Oh my god, I can see. You know, there are so many things. I I I I'm not being facetious. This is as simple as where it starts. But if you start with wherever you are and go next, next, next, the path opens up. And your brain has this incredible capacity to create a billion-dollar business if that's what you decide to focus on today. Or to find yourself, you know, this amazing partner or whatever it is that you're looking for, right? Right. Whatever is your idea. And um, and I think we can come back to the high

High Achievers And Quiet Depletion

SPEAKER_00 36:59

achiever. So I would say something here that for me, uh, in my life, and I have not mentioned it in any uh podcast so far, is I found that whatever I thought of back, you know, when I was working, um, I had wanted to work with, you know, the space shuttle. I was working on that. I wanted to be this very high-flying person, I was doing that. I realized over my life that whatever I wanted actually was, you know, happened later, right? Whatever you thought of happened later. And so once you realize that you have that power of creating whatever it is that's you know, whatever you wish for, like we say, make a vision board or you know, dream of your life, or whatever it is, right? That we say our to our people. I think the dream for me is not anything except, and there's no dream, it's reality, is that I love myself and that I accept myself and that I acknowledge myself and I respect myself, and that every cell of my being feels this, it's not intellectual, it's I act it out every single day for me to have trust that every word I just said to you is really what I mean. I'm almost going to cry.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

I know it's so beautiful. And if we could convince everyone to love themselves like that, the body would follow suit. I I think that we would not have as many health issues as that are out there. And and a lot of the health concerns are from stress and burnout is the big word right now. But we use quiet depletion. Quiet depletion is when everything looks fine on the outside and you are still performing, you are still achieving all the expectations someone else set upon you when you were young.

unknown 39:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 39:06

And you're trying to achieve that to the best of your ability, but we forget to love ourselves. And we love ourselves, right, by taking care of the very machine that is enabling you to see, to walk, to feel.

unknown 39:20

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 39:21

I think that um the reason I started with the chronic disease, because I wanted to connect back to this, is that remember, how did I come to all this? I was, you know, desperately sick, nobody knew why. And finally, those days they labeled it as chronic fatigue. Um, but there were 20, 30 symptoms that nobody could figure out. And today, if I was to backtrack as to what led to that, I have just, I think you've you probably read that article that just I just it just came out in June issue, I think. It was about the fact that I think I only lived for achievement. I loved it. I'm just being honest. I was the accomplishment queen, right? If any pro anybody needed had a difficult project, they knew give it to her, it's going to come out outstanding.

unknown 40:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:22

And I knew that, I loved it, and that was my identity. See that that we can overcome anything and we will be winning. That was my identity, very strong. And today, and that's a great identity, nothing wrong with it. I absolutely encourage everyone to feel that you're the winner and that you will win at everything. That's wonderful. However, it's a great mindset to have, but it's not who you are. You are a being full of light and energy, and with the capacity to first love yourself deeply and then to reflect that magnificent love to the world and help the world from that place of alignment, wholeness. Yes, wholeness is what you need to have. And I feel that at that time, at least for me, the wholeness was not present because I was disconnected from myself because I was so out there achieving, out there, making things happen, out there leading projects, uh, you know, winning aqualads, winning awards. But it was out there. And if I think of who I was, because I mean uh when you're young, you know you have a lot of energy and you don't really know that you're abandoning yourself, right? Right. And that's why I say this that whoever's listening to this, at whatever age you are, because I mentioned already that the younger people are not going to outlive us. So they need to hear this conversation more carefully. Yes, is that when we give ourselves up unconsciously, as I did, and most people will do it unconsciously, obviously. We forget that if think of this, think of ourselves as this mountain, right? And that's producing all this gold that you think is achievement, right? Yeah. Mountain, and instead of the volcano lava, there's gold coins coming out, right? I'm just making it funny. So now you're you're looking at all these gold coins coming out, which is this achievement, that achievement, that achievement, and you're running behind all of this. But you've vacated, you have left the mountain, and there's nobody to take care of the greenery on the mountain, of watering the mountain, of ensuring there's enough sunlight, enough, ensuring there's right uh flora, fauna, whatever the mountain needs, right? And that's what I did not do. I was going for an aerobics class. Let me tell you, the token aerobics class. Um uh, but but what were the symptoms? Over time, here are some of the key symptoms that people can look at. That you're always thinking about work. You know, you're driving and you're thinking, I'll get that presentation like this, I will talk to so and so. You never turn off, you don't turn off. Come back to our original conversations. I'll give you two examples here. One, we're nature. What does nature do? 12 hours night, everything goes to bed, everything sleeps, right? And then the sun comes back. Imagine if the sun was on 24 hours, things would burn, plants would not live, nature would just be destroyed because too much heat. So that's what I was doing to myself. I was on, on, on all the time. There was no stopping. So that's the first thing for any high achiever listening today is don't be on all the time. That's the first thing. You need to have conscious off periods, completely off. No device, no nothing. Be out in nature and just laugh and be, you know, with the birds, with the puppies, with the dogs, with the children, whatever it is that is your jam to make you happy. If it is, you know, uh swimming, but again, not competitive. Because I tell you, I work with so many high achievers, they won't listen. Even in their free time, they want to do competitive things, you know, tennis, matches. Remember, that's still being on because you're trying to be the top of the league, you're top of this, and that's who I was. I don't know if you recall the funny joke I sure shared with you. Even when I had friends over for dinner, I would make a bon appetite meal, I would have, you know, a sorbet, you know, between palate cleansers, between every course, I would make the best flower arrangement. I mean, I loved it. But as I look back in retrospect, did I really have to be like the queen Martha Stewart of hospitality? Did I really have to be? Did I really have to be? I mean, you know what I mean? I loved it. And that's what you'll find most high achievers today saying that they love it. Yes, but what they're loving is just the cortisol spiking, right? The adrenaline spiking, and that gives a high temporarily. But here are the symptoms. You can have eczema, you can have nights you don't sleep. I have somebody I know right now who gets up every night at three o'clock and he's having all the supplements, all the latest. But who turns this off? Who's there to do that?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

He has to do that. He has to make a consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

And those are practices. You can't make this mind go off. I mean, live 20 years in a monastery. The greatest sages couldn't turn the mind off. There are practices. Just like, you know, Michael Jordan, right? We heard him say that 500 times he was shooting hoops, right? Every morning at five o'clock. It's practice. Nobody has excelled without practice. You can have talent, yes, but practice. So all these things that we talk about, about certain breathing practices, so certain stillness practices, certain silence practices, certain being in nature, all of these are to shut this off. So you stop being on all the time. And that's a gift you give yourself.

SPEAKER_01 46:34

And a lot of people struggle with that, though, Dr. Bot, because the silence will force them to see what the real pain is. Yes. And the high achievers think they don't have time to deal with that. And so they don't. That's what delay the binge is about pausing long enough to see what the real issue is. I love how you uh talk about whispers before they become screens.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

Yes, yes. I mentioned this that most high achievers will have whispers from their body long before they become even larger whispers. And they would be like you're exhausted by three o'clock, you're having brain fog, you need to have more coffee, you are not sleeping well, you have weight gain that doesn't go away, how much ever you exercise, you have so many hormonal issues, right? All of these, as you said beautifully, are related back to our reset. Remember this five I said. So you didn't get restful sleep, you didn't eat whole foods, you had too much stress, which you know was not managed, and you didn't have the right movement. Remind me to talk about the right movement for you. And the last T res uh reset T is back to that very good example of positive thinking, right? Positively thinking. So the E I want to share with you. This is another thing. I find a lot of high achievers, they're always busy, busy. Like if I talk about my previous self, I'm talking to my previous self, it was always busy and kind of enjoying being that busy, you know, because you're like making things happen, you're a mover and shaker. So you will find that these busy people will never gravitate to the activity that will help them calm down because that's alien to them. So, what will they do? Look what I did. I did aerobics. I have many clients and they're doing hardcore tennis, hardcore pickleball. But they actually they they can do all that, but they need to spend time, they need to do yoga, they need to do breathing, nervous system regulation, because for their lifestyle, that's the remedy. You see that? So they're not going to gravitate towards it because they're going back to the what makes gives them the high, the kick, right? Yeah, I can do this, I got in this league, right? I got into the next league of tennis or pickleball or whatever, you know, you're playing soccer. Um, and I'm not against any achievement. I hope people, I hope I'm making that clear to you. It's exactly where you're trying to achieve from. Yeah, the place from where you achieve needs to be that which is not your identity. And that requires some space, some space between what you achieve and who you are. And when you create that space, which is through reflection and through breath work, through nervous system regulation, through meditation, through so many uh uh techniques are there to help us do that, then you'll find that, oh, I don't like to go do yoga because it seems too slow to me. But maybe that's what I really need to do, you know, and and try it out and give yourself one month to do a completely because why in yoga there's no achieving? I'm giving an example, I'm not saying go out do yoga. I'm not but it is wonderful. Yeah, it is wonderful. I uh I love it, but you know, I'm just sharing that I'm not giving a solution to anyone, I'm giving examples. And high achievers are very clever, they can figure this out that if you are leaning towards being busy and fast, you really need to slow down. And that's not what you want to do.

SPEAKER_01 50:35

And that's not what our young people are taught. They're taught to work harder. Do go, go, go, go. And if you're unhappy, it's because you're not hustling hard enough.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

Right. Well, here's the question I do ask people: is you're hustling as fast as you can, and still, why aren't you happy? Because you will really have true happiness, the ultimate core happiness of when you connect to yourself and you have acknowledged what you bring to the world, which is this beautiful mass of cells which are full of love and light and energy with so much talent. And when you bring that out as an offering into this universe from a different place, uh, I know I know uh people who uh had knew me back then would say, My God, this is a softer, kind of I was such a go-getter, you have no idea. But I learned the hard way, right? Nobody wants to be sick for so long, and I pray for all those who are listening, do not let it come where the whispers of the body become screams. You can whispers are all these things that I'm sharing. And I have very simple programs which you can just follow on your own, and you can make sure you're embedding these five, six practices into your days, into your weeks, into your months, and you will see the benefit. Just like just like if today you and I went and tried to shoot hoops at the basketball court, we're not gonna make much progress. Uh so same way, everything great takes time and consistency and stacking it up on top of each other, tiny little habits stacked up in one year make 37% change. That's huge. That is one percent every day. 1% every day makes it 37%.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Oh wow. Wow, I love that. And and and if they don't apply this and listen to the whispers their body is putting out, over time, it's like climbing that mountain you were talking about. When you get to the summit, which is the goal, you get to the top, you're gonna be like, is this it? Yeah, you'll be disappointed it's not going to be what you think. And your body is still going to be whispering to you, or if not screaming at you.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

By screaming by then, possibly. And and how many people do we know? I mean, I know those are the people who come to me who have done really well in their careers, but they've sacrificed their body, right? At the cost. So how much cost is worth your achievement? That's something, you know, just like when you buy a stock and you say, okay, I'm gonna buy this stock, and how what's the percentage return it's gonna give me projected? And is it worth this amount of money? Does it justify? And you look at all the work in the back end for that, you try to see, hey, is this a fair valuation? Is it overly valued? Whatever. Same way, this way. I'll say, is this achievement overly valued? Is it worth sacrificing your life and your health for it? I don't think so. I don't think I think the if there's one message from this podcast, it is that you deserve to take a deep breath and achieve everything you wanted to achieve. Yes, and also honor your body and give it that presence, that gratitude, that affection, that care that will make it thrive, and then you have a thriving body and great success, and that's um combination nobody can beat.

SPEAKER_01 54:20

Oh, that's beautiful.

Self-Abandonment In Tiny Moments

SPEAKER_01 54:22

I've heard you uh mention a lot the phrase self-abandonment. I was wondering if you could define it for us. Do you think self-abandonment happens all at once, or is it a thousand tiny moments where we ignore what we know to be true? Yes.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

So every moment when you're overriding your body, it's tiny step by step. It doesn't happen in one day, it happens step by step. Today you say, Oh, it's okay. This presentation is really important, I'm gonna stay up all night. Okay. You're young, you're 27, you're just like nothing happens, you stay up all night. I just want you to know that three nights in a row, if you don't sleep, your chances of diabetes increase by 25%. How's that? And nobody knows it. Nobody knows it. So every time you betray yourself, there is a there is a book. I'm just making a joke here, but there is a book inside your body that you know how to say the body keeps the score. There is a little little counter inside your body. It's tacking up all the times that you override the body. For example, you really want to sleep, and you think that, oh, I better wake up because you know my neighbor said we have to meet today to go for something, whatever. And then so you didn't listen to your body and you went with that because that'll make you look good. Um that's one tiny little thing. They're all so tiny, each abandonment is so tiny that it will seem nothing. But as they pile up, because then you you push through it, right? You push through it, and then uh oh, I'll give another example. So the whole whole whole team is going to go eat pizza, right? And you're trying to lose weight and you're not wanting to eat pizza. But what do you do? You go and have pizza.

unknown 56:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:26

So you have two options. You you have many options. You you need to see what do I want? You want to have salad. Let's make it, I'm making it up. So you want to have salad, so you go with them and you order a salad and you say, I'll have the pizza later. Nobody's keeping track of anybody, nobody cares. Exactly. Do what's right for you. Yes, be there with them, have your pizza. I mean, have your salad. That's brilliant, right? Um, another one is you can't do it, you know, take a rain check. I'll come for the next time. Bring your own salad. You have so many options. That's the delay.

SPEAKER_01 57:02

That's the delay.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

Yeah. And and you know, here's the funny thing. I now I meet a lot of people, which I'm very proud of. Uh so I give a lot of talks around the world on this, and I meet a lot of people who say, Oh, they're invited for this um event in the evening, but of course they're going to eat and go from home. They don't care what's given over there. How amazing! You have gotten under control. You've eaten what's healthy for you, and you go there and you mix and you come back. So people are getting very alert and aware, and self-abandonment is small, tiny, tiny moments of overriding your needs over time, they become your habit, and then you don't know how to come back. And it's a long journey back, let me tell you that.

SPEAKER_01 57:55

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Oh, you're speaking my language, and I just love that someone with your knowledge and experience and expertise is validating delaying the binge. That's wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 58:10

Yes, absolutely. I mean, that's the the thing that works is awareness. I mean, I keep saying this over and over. Once you become aware that, oh my God, I said yes before I checked in with myself. You know, uh, they asked me for a meeting. I uh I have meetings all day long. They asked me, you know, can you meet at four o'clock? And you have meetings running from 11 till 4, and you haven't had lunch. Like, really? And you just said yes. And so, you know, I I I also want to share this very honestly that you and I, we come from that, uh, you know, sorry to age us here, but generation where it was uh no, where it was really um a badge of honor. Oh, I skipped lunch, and you know, I I don't need it. You know, we we we come from that that kind of, you know, at least in the corporations I worked with, it was very very very well known if you you just ate on the go or you didn't eat or you drove through, because your loyalty and your ability to contribute was like, oh, that's first, right? Sacrifice is power. Sacrifice yourself for the company or the project, right? And I think noble as that sounds, all high achievers, you know this, are highly responsible uh leaders, and they are always the people that we rely on, right? And when people start relying on you, you start becoming like, oh, they're relying on me, so I can't let them down. And it's all unconscious, but in that process of not letting them down, you let yourself down.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Yes, you're you are letting yourself down. If and and like you said, it happens in small, tiny, incremental steps.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Yes, you know, yeah, and self-abandonment is really when you're looking, your first priority is the outside goal, the achievement, the output, whatever that is, and you're putting yourself not in the picture. You know, your needs are not important, and you that's how you lived your life. And um, and when I started first doing it, I almost I started crying. You know, the first time that I actually looked into a mirror to tell myself that I love myself, I just could not complete that three words. I just was crying, and I know I cannot be the only one who has that experience. So I encourage everybody to work on this, to write. Writing is very important. Uh it's you know, it's neuroplasticity, it changes your brain. Write positive things about yourself. Speak positive things about yourself, speak to others positively about yourself. These are sounding like very small things, but they are the most important things, they're the building block of your experience of life. You know, I want to share something here that the other day I was just thinking that you know, there are people who are billionaires, and you hear about so many billionaires who are not happy. And there are billionaires who are happy, and then you hear of people who are um, you know, you're like you're like spending their whole life trying to find money and like get more money, and then thinking that's gonna make them happy. But what you forget is that really the quality, listen carefully, the quality of your life is the quality of your thoughts. The quality of your inner life is the quality of your thoughts. Because remember, the guy has a billion bucks. Why is he still unhappy? Because there's something in here that's not giving him a good software, right? So make a good program run inside you, right? And if your program is not good because you you've been uh a perfectionist and you've been criticizing everything about yourself, and we know all high achievers tend to be perfectionists, um, then that's why I'm asking you because I was the biggest perfectionist ever. Ever. You know when you know how you know you're a big perfectionist? Because you don't even know you're a perfectionist. I am one, I know I am, I struggle with that. That is me. So so once I realized I was a perfectionist, I was like, oh my god, doesn't everybody live like this? Doesn't everybody doesn't everybody have high standards? Because high standards, we masquerade high standards as a mask for the fear of getting something done. And if we would just let things progress and get things done, and not think that this has to be perfect, because if you did something perfect, which is how you want to be perceived, you've identified again wrong identity. You thought this is me, and you know, I have to endlessly improve this because this is going to be a judgment of my self-worth. Yes. So that's the second place high achievers make a mistake is confusing achievement with self-worth. And I have been all of those people, so I can talk endlessly about it. And uh, and I think one of the greatest things for a perfectionist listening is try to remember when I'm to when I'm gonna share this with you, you're gonna see yourself like how many times you agonize on an email trying to perfect this word and that word and this and that and or a document or anything, and it's the and then you leave it and say, Okay, I'll come back to it, because it's just not perfect, right? Just remember there is a value to movement. Progress is more important than perfection, right? Because perfection is just to satisfy you that I'm so incredible. I am the next thing since sliced bread. I am so incredible. Let it go. Don't confuse your identity with that. See the importance of what the task is, where do we need to go with it, and just do what's required, right? And uh, I know that uh high achievers listening, my God, we have hit three bullets at them. One is perfectionism, one is one is perfectionism, one is self-worth, one is um, you know, confusing your own, you know, yourself with the achievement. So, but the thing is both of us are high achievers, so you know, we're all in the same club. So I hope that somebody listening can recognize that if you don't, these are just the deepest symptoms. If you don't, then you'll be coming to me with all the other diseases that have manifest because you didn't take yourself care of yourself at the whisper place, right? When the body was whispered. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:02

Yes, and and realizing what's behind the perfectionism, because that was always a hindrance to me in my career. I would spend so much time, I'm a graphic designer by trade, getting the design perfect in my eyes that it would take too long. And so my boss would just say, We need this now. I'm like, it's not ready. No, we need it now, Pam. It's not ready. It was never going to be ready because, or the worst case scenario, are you ready for this? Is 120% or nothing. So if I couldn't do it to perfection, I just didn't do it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:41

Yeah, that's oh my God, are you talking to me like I am that person? So that's why I think I hope that uh the high achievers listening can relate to themselves and ourselves, how we are dealing with this. And it takes a while, a long, long, long time, right? Overcome this because old habits die hard. We still end up wanting that perfection. We still think we have high standards. We still think that you know achievement is all that there is, but I have suffered so dramatically that I am very alert, right? Yes. Because that's not a life I wish on anybody what I had to live. And um, and I was going to say you had asked me one more question, which I think was a beautiful question, and you had said that what are the five things that people can do today uh to um uh to stop being uh burnt out or be you know uh abandoning themselves.

SWOON Daily Habits To Reconnect

SPEAKER_00 1:06:39

So I made an acronym for you, and it's called and it's called SWOON SWOON. Okay, easy to remember, easy to remember because you can't forget, you're gonna swoon when you hear this. I love it, is is that when you wake up in the morning, silence, give yourself 10 minutes of complete silence, no devices, no talking, silence. So that's the S for the swoon. That's really helpful to connect with yourself, right? And W is check in with your body, close your eyes after you do this 10 minutes of silence, and just check in with your body, don't talk, just keep quiet because your body is very intelligent and ask it, what are you telling me? What are you telling me? And I'm sure because I do that to my body, and my body will say, I just need rest. You know, and trust me, it tells me that at the exact time when I think we should not rest. Right? Because the high achievers will go in the opposite direction. The other the source so SWO is one have one healthy, colorful vegetable or fruit on your plate every day. One at least. Okay. SWO. Then another O. Have one walk a day. One walk a day without a phone, without listening to a podcast, without talking to someone, without having a phone call. Just you and nature. I'm giving very seriously good good advice because this will really help you to get connected with yourself. If you do this every day, and then the last one is N, which is say no to one task which is on your plate for that day, because we know you're a high achiever, you're saying yes to everything. You need to learn to say no because you have to prioritize you. If you prioritize yourself from making this whole and this joyful and this this mass of energy thriving and full of vitality, anything can be accomplished. Yes. Come from here to outside rather than outside to inside.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:07

It sounds a lot like you described your experience at the monastery. I think swoon was all up in there. Because I think you said that you can carry the monastery within you.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:22

That's what I say to everybody now. And I have a program, you can I I can share it with you, uh, which is you know, carry the monastery inside you. And so that they can follow with me. And uh, when you do all these SWON, when you do the swan, you create space for a bigger yes and make yourself the yes. Make the yes to you before you say yes to somebody else. And when you make yes for you, I want you to be the most vital, most thriving being who's achieving great things in the world. We can do both.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

You know what it makes me think of? You know what visual I have of that is on the airplane when they're giving you instructions on an emergency happens and they say when the mask drops, don't put it on your child first, you put it on yourself first. Correct, correct so that you can help your child. Exactly. It's no different with us if we say yes to us. It's not selfish, it's not thinking of ourselves before anyone else. It's empowering us to share the light and energy so that we can give others the same opportunities.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:31

Absolutely. And I think I think the thing that we have discussed today, which I think um at least the first part people will relate to, right? The achievement part um is that you can achieve to build a life of success, but you can choose joy to big build a wholesome, fulfilling, thriving life.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

And I think that is real success. We talk a lot on this show about the pause, yeah. And most people think that the pause is where change happens. Yeah. But after listening to you, I'm beginning to wonder if the pause is where truth becomes visible. Yes. Yes. What became visible to you when the noise disappeared. Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:26

I mean, that's the the main thing that happened when the noise disappeared is that I first realized that I wasn't all those things that I thought I was. All those titles, all those awards, all those uh private planes that I was on, and I all those boardrooms, I was none of that. That was not my identity. And that was a very sobering moment. Uh, I think in my case, I was very lucky that some part of me took to the silence, that I have to confess, because somebody else may have gone crazy. Something really, I was very lucky. I just something I was like a duck in water, surprisingly, from this noisy life. I loved the silence because I think it was like a bomb to my soul. You know, it was like a bomb. I needed it. And so I think I I think the noise when it disappeared made me first realize that all those things that I carried as myself was only clothing. It wasn't me. And just like you can wear fancier and fancier clothing and you can have greater and greater accomplishments, they're just clothing. And uh when you rip that off, you are not that person. And that was the greatest discovery for me, which we should probably have another podcast on that is that I uh in my meditation, I discovered that I was just a mass of energy. That's what I experienced myself as. And it was the most joyful moment of recur of recognizing that I was just a mass of energy. And once you realize that that's your identity and not all these other things, life starts becoming very simple and easy and joyful. Because you can take these clothes and wear them and throw them off and wear them and throw them off, but you, as a mass of energy, remain the same and you can do whatever with that mass of energy, right? Yes. We can have a podcast. Tomorrow we can make an app. Yeah, you know, we can start a big company.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:30

That mass of energy is malleable. I so love how you explained the importance of joy. And if there is an illness, let's say cancer, yeah, that they can coexist. And the people that beat cancer are usually the ones that are choosing joy.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:49

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:50

I noticed that that a lot of people that beat it and go into remission are the ones that just chose joy the whole entire process.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:00

Yes. In fact, I I read this beautiful, I think I met this lady, I can't remember right now, and she said that she just she had the diagnosis, and then she said she just decided to live her life to the best and forget about whatever was told to her. And um, after a few months, they said, What? You don't have anything. I told you the joy was the reason that I actually came out of the other end. And joy is just like drinking water, it is a key part of your being, and choosing it consciously and living your days with it, it's part of getting to the other side rather than thinking that you will get it. So we're our culture is also programmed to have joy as a reward, but actually, joy is part of the meal, so to speak. And and it should be uh a part of our um everyday, you know. Uh I like I don't know if you have a whole routine for your morning, but you know, if you have a morning routine, you write down these things, right? What's what you're grateful for, and you start looking for joyful things in your life, and then it becomes a habit and becomes a practice. And then, like in my neighborhood, you're going to laugh. I meet um I I went to some get together, and this lady says, You are always so happy. Like she was all she was almost irritated.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:22

Don't you ever get upset?

SPEAKER_00 1:15:24

Yeah. No, it's not that I I am not any perfect person. I I'm uh like everybody, we are a work in progress. But I explained to her that, you know, I spent a large part of my life when I was in uh corporations. Uh my job was one of the things, you know, you're always trying to look for what can go wrong because you don't want this experiment to fail. So you're always looking at possible flaws. So I had but become used to looking at flaws in myself and in others. And I have practiced very, very consciously to find one good thing about every person that I meet. And I tell you, you remember I met you at this morning, and the first thing I said was, I love your hair. So, right? So there's something good that's everybody has, and if that was for me. I you have to see what your issues are, but for me, I have to find something genuinely good with everyone I meet, and I say it to them right when I meet them. Because that's I'm training myself, I'm doing it for me. Yes, it makes the other person happy. Of course, who doesn't like to see something that's genuinely good appreciated? But it's a gift you give yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:35

Well, and like sleep or eating well, I think kindness is heals just as well. It heals the giver and it heals the receiver.

unknown 1:16:45

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

You know, kindness is is a superpower in my eyes.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:50

And I grew up on that. Put your energy into joy and kindness, and I promise you it will make a big, big difference in your life.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:00

Absolutely. And I want to share that we can only give to others what we have got.

SPEAKER_02 1:17:08

Right?

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

If you have $20, you can give $19 or $20, but you cannot give $21 because you got only 20, right? Right. If you are kind to yourself, only then can you be kind to others. If you love yourself, only then you know what it means to love others. And this is a very deep thought, which people need to sit with. So if your vessel is full, then only you're able to share from that space of compassion, of kindness, of understanding, of gratitude, of presence. Uh this is a journey of self-growth that you and I are talking about. And those who link to it, you know, it's a it's a it's a daily progress, moment-to-moment awareness. And when we are able to live that life, the biggest recipient is us. We are the we are the we are the ones. I mean, I call you know, my my Instagram handle is the joyful scientist. Because, you know, like who has seen a scientist who's joyful, right? But my situation forced me to be that, and I'm very, very grateful, correct? Yes. And I just want to applaud you on that uh beautiful sentiment of kindness and joy, because that has to be the foundation.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:31

It does. It's so important. It impacted me as a young person when people were kind to me and they actually saw me. To this day, I strive to be like that, to be like them, because it was shown to me. It has a major impact on people, especially if they've never experienced it.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:52

Yes, beautiful. And that's a gift because somebody did it for you and you are giving it back to the world. Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:59

Pay it forward. Pay it forward.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:02

What would you say, Dr. Bot, to someone who no longer recognizes themselves because they've spent so long taking care of everyone else or being the perfectionist? If someone someone wanted to begin reconnecting with themselves this week, where would they start?

SPEAKER_00 1:19:20

S-W-O-O-N. We just thought that, right? S-W-O-O-N. Start with that. It's so easy. One simple walk without devices, one simple bright, colorful vegetable on your plate or fruit on your plate. Eat that every day whole, whole food. Um, and sit in silence. I cannot underemphasize that. And learn to ask your body, what are you trying to tell me? And in the beginning, the body won't answer because you are too busy thinking. So you have to listen. If it's saying it's exhausted, take rest. Needs water, go and get water, which by the way, I need water. And and then and then say no, say no to one item every day.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:11

Right. That is a big problem for a lot of people. Yes. Being a perfectionist and saying yes all the time.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:17

Actually, I didn't get to that. Is that all high achievers need to really look into their childhood and look at the inner child because somewhere for us, the inner child felt that they were loved, accepted, approved when they performed. And I know for me, my mother was an amazing woman, but you know, she didn't know that I will interpret her, you know, uh rewards for me for getting high grades, and you know, she had little rewards set up for all of this. And I love them. It kept me doing well, but you know what? She had no idea I would become like this. Running for a child. So I think it's our childhood, it's the inner child in us, and we need to soothe that inner child, it's going to be okay. It's okay. I hear you. Don't worry. I'm I know what you're trying to tell me, but it's okay. I'm gonna be fine. So when we start telling that inner child, that's because the inner child is like, make this better. Do do five five more hours on this, make this better, right? It's okay. I love you, I hear you, and I hear you. We'll take care of you. You're safe, you're safe because it's feeling unsafe. Because if it delivers this work, which in our minds has not been overdone, like overperforming, over functioning, right? 20 hours to do a task of one hour, we feel afraid. There is a fear inside us, right? Yeah, fearful. And so once we try to help this inner child and soothe it and be the caring adult to this inner child, slowly with time it starts becoming more relaxed. I can tell you the little things that I, you know, was trying to, you know, everything will bother me because I mean the room should be perfect, this should be perfect, right? Perfect, perfect, perfect. Everything should look like a museum. But I started telling myself, first me, what is my body trying to tell me? So my body is trying to tell, I just need to stop talking so much, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

Whatever fear, I think, is a whisper.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:39

Yes, fear is a whisper. Now that now you're getting to deeper levels of whisper, which the fear whisper is giving rise to this overworking, to this overfunctioning, to this overperforming, right? That's the inside cause, and outside we are doing this to overcompensate for that fear, right? So if we can heal that inner child, then that fear is going to slowly, slowly you're like, oh, I didn't know there's no need to be fearful. I have an alarm. I have a burglar alarm. It's okay. It's going to call the police. I don't have to worry. So I tell myself, it's okay. Um, I don't have to, you know, I you'll be surprised I do tiny things like I have to send this WhatsApp message. I'll be agonizing over three, four, and then I'll say, Oh, look, there I am, trying to make it perfect. Boom, send it. Sometimes the other person is not even reading the message. We are just over-obsessed. We as high achievers have to learn to heal ourselves. Yes, we have to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:44

Well, before we close, Dr. Bot, I just wanted to say I've realized something. The scientist became a seeker, the seeker became a healer, and the healer became a teacher. Oh. Who who is Dr. Bot becoming now?

SPEAKER_00 1:24:02

I left all these identities because I realized who I was, right? A massive energy. And that massive energy can be the teacher if that helps people to heal. It can be the leader if that helps us to take charge of our lives, right? Yes. And it can it can be the thought leader because we keep repeating things that people need to hear but are not ready to hear, right? Right. So my passion is to help millions of people realize that they can be the CEO of their own health.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:40

Oh, I love that. Well, you are truly a rare jewel in this world. And I hope that everyone listening shares this with every person struggling or has issues, or just is at their wit's end about what to do next.

Where To Find Dr. Bott

unknown 1:24:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:56

So where can listeners learn more about your work, Dr. Pot?

SPEAKER_00 1:25:01

Um, I am on TikTok as the joyful scientist with double L. Joyful G-O-Y-F-U-L-L scientist. On Instagram as the joyful scientist with one L. I'm sure you're going to put the things on this. Are you going to put the oh, I'm putting it all in the show notes so y'all don't freak out if you don't have a pen. Right. And and then I have my website uh and there's a link tree where you can see all my interviews on CBS, NBC, my books, recipes for joy. In fact, I I wanted to show this because joy is such a big word to both of us. And so recipes for joy. That's the book. And look at all the bright, colorful vegetables and beautiful. Right. And this book has got half the book, is about all the factors which will reverse uh and heal people of chronic diseases, which is about sleep, about what oils to use, what sugars not to use, what what sugars are good, like everything in detail, all those things are there inside this about all the reset, all those things, and much more granular detail. And then the other half of the book has recipes that have helped my clients to feel better from various diseases. You can take them and start trying some of these recipes and see how you like. So I welcome you. And this uh is uh on my uh TikTok, it's on my Instagram, it's on my website, and um I my website is of course www.drmamtabat.com. I'm sure you're going to give that to them. And I look forward uh to reach me. I you can text me at 813-235-3724. I'm that accessible. And uh, if there's anyone who needs help in any area, whether it's all these mindset issues, whether it's how you're feeling in your body and in your spirit, we have programs for all of them because I had to work through all of those.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:07

Gosh. Dr. Bot, thank you so much. It's been incredible. Thank you for sharing your time.

Final Takeaways And Finish Stronger

SPEAKER_01 1:27:13

What I like to do is always sum up what I've learned. And so if today's conversation is a reminder that the whispers matter, the quiet matters, the pause matters, not because it changes who you are, but because it helps you remember who you've been all along. You don't have to fix everything today, and you don't have to have all the answers. You just pause long enough to listen. So until next time, pause, choose, build momentum, and finish stronger than you started. See y'all next week. Thanks again, Dr. Pot. Thank you so much. That was

Important Disclaimer And Farewell

SPEAKER_01 1:27:54

wonderful. Hey, it's me, Pam. And before we go, just a quick reminder: everything we share here is meant to encourage, educate, and get you thinking. But it's not a substitute for professional mental health, medical, legal, financial, or any other licensed advice. I'm simply someone who's walking through life, learning right alongside you. And I'm grateful we get to learn together. Always seek the guidance of a qualified professional for your unique situation. Thanks for spending this time with us. Until next time, remember sometimes the biggest change begins with one small pause. I'll see you on the next episode of Delay the Binge.