Hi, and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. And today I'm going to tackle this in the most respectful way I can. I'm talking to Smita Joshi. Good afternoon, Smita how are you?
Smita:Hi, Russell. So nice to talk to you. Great podcast you have there.
Russell:Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to our chat about all sorts of things about the inner world and the outer world. So, I'm looking forward to it. Maybe tell us a little bit about yourself.
Smita:Oh, this is such a wide question. Perhaps let me just say it this way. I'm really passionate about living life to the full, living life to the max and tapping into those talents and potential that's just there, developing it, mastering it, and exploring like, who am I, what can I accomplish in this lifetime? And how can life become ever more joyful? That's really probably all you need to know about me
Russell 01.00
And you talk about this lifetime. Can I infer from that there may be others to pick up on?
Smita:I do believe so. I do believe that. Well, I really subscribe to what the ancient Indian science sages said about consciousness. They said that the consciousness that we are is a continuum. It was never born, and it never dies. And that in a field of infinity, in a field of infinite consciousness and intelligence and innate potentiality, then what do you do when that's what there is ultimately to experience? And so perhaps this particular form and time and space that we are in is just that we've kind of hopped in here to play a little bit, to explore, to make infinity interesting. I do believe that we have more than I do believe that consciousness is a continuum and we do continue.
Russell:Yeah, interesting. It's interesting you talk about the field theory, so I don't know if you're using that term consciously, because it's around the ideas of field from Kohler and such like. But it's a fascinating concept, this idea of us being part of something else, being part of some sort of spiritual, energetic field. It's a nice idea. It gets away from the concept of religion and situated into the boundaries of spirituality and science. I quite like that sort of thinking. Where does your association with this school of thought come from?
Smita:It's profoundly innate at one level and at other levels. I have gone out to see whether how I experience life and what I feel, and my points of view have been articulated at other times by people wiser and older than me. And I found a lot of that exists in the Indian, Vedic and other thought. So, it's a fairly common idea in those sacred texts and the sages, I like to think of them as scientists, ancient scientists, because they really went very deep into exploring the frontier of consciousness. And I haven't found anything outside of the indian texts where anything other than what they have said has been articulated better or differently. So, let's just say that's one of the influences that I'm profoundly subject to, and I absorb that very well. I feel it innately.
Smita:And I have gone out of my way to see whether it's just something unique to me, or is it just me crazy, or have other people had the same thoughts and so on. So, I found evidence to, you know, to support my. My point of view.
Russell:Yeah, that we attempt to, don't we? And that's fascinating. So, for someone who's listening to this, forgive me for being, what's the word? Too practical. But what is the practical application of a theory like this? How does it work for someone in their day-to-day world?
Smita:It helps me to be very conscious of everything I think and do because it makes me accountable, gives me an access to, or perhaps an incentive to take responsibility for myself and the impact that I have in the world around me and the impact I could have in the world around me. So, it also puts me solely me at cause and at effect. So, it takes away the excuse of blaming other people and sort of saying that life just happens. I don't know whether my point of view is the point of view and whether it's the truth, but certainly it empowers me to take responsibility and make the best of myself, my circumstances, to rise above, to heal, to transform what doesn't work, and then to really focus on being clear about what it is that I want to invite into my life.
Russell:So it sounds like an interesting confluence between positive psychology and choice, because what you're doing is getting higher order thinking to guide choices, but then you're responsible for the choices that you're making, which is a very common idea in positive psychology.
Smita:Truly, truly, I think freedom is one of the key values that I espouse, and it means a lot to me. I would say that in order for me to have my freedom in making my life choices, because it's not always a given that we have the freedom to do that. I come from communities where there is a lot of expectation, and sometimes my expectation, what I would choose for myself, doesn't necessarily meet the expectations of other people that I care about and that I would wish to please. Sometimes you have to fight for your right to have that freedom means. But then freedom, I guess, to have that right, to make that sort of the waves and to sacrifice the things one needs to sacrifice to actually take charge of your life.
Smita:I think it's really important to understand what it is you are looking to accomplish and why. And sometimes you may not have the why, but you have the inner conviction. You have the knowing that for me, that is the why. So, it's important to. I think claiming the right to have choice also is a big responsibility. And that's why it's really important to put freedom and choice side by side. The two go together. They're like right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg.
Russell:And a funny story, what you seem to be saying, and forgive me if I got this wrong, but we're operating within a context in which we have a degree of freedom that we've chosen for ourselves. In other words, make the best of what we find. And I like your analogy about fighting. But also, one of the challenges that we mostly have is with ourselves. Because often the boundaries we put in place for ourselves are the biggest issue. And so that's the difference between, very roughly said, sort of the outer and inner voice, outer and inner world. So how do you manage the interplay between those two things?
Smita:Yes, we're in a world largely today where we are consciously or unconsciously drawn to do things and to fulfil a certain image the world expects of us to be successful, to study, to accomplish certain things in our lives. Depending on which communities you come from and which countries you live in, the expectations may vary somewhat. But largely that means that we are given by the outside. But the reality is that you may want to fulfil on what's expected. At the same time, if we can do that by truly being true to our innate nature, then we can align the success that we create in our lives. And still meet expectations of the outer world. But by at the same time, doing and being and doing rather that which is really consistent with our own innate design. That means we take the conflict away.
Smita:That means we take the resistance away from within our own being. Because a lot of the times, the conflict, and the resistance we feel is because we're doing things that are not really true to ourselves, to our deeper self.
Russell:But how do we find that deeper self? How do we find that innate nature? How do we tap into it or discover it?
Smita:You mean the being within who we are?
Russell:Yeah, maybe, if that's what we want.
Smita:I mean, there are always clues. Any area where one feels unfulfilled or feels angry or feels resentful or any of those things are a very good indicator that there is something going on in that area of your life that is not somehow aligning with some other aspect of you that you may or may not be aware of. Sometimes within ourselves, we know that we want to do something different, and yet we continue to remain in a relationship or a job or a life path, which is just not giving us any joy. So, it's an indicator. I'm not saying that we should only ever do. There are cliches nowadays, do what you love, and the money will come, or only do what you're passionate about and so on. I think perhaps that is unrealistic. It's a little bit unrealistic.
Smita:I think we have to do 80% of perhaps those things which are really aligned if we create a life. But it does take something. It means giving up certain things, it means espousing new points of view, it means integrating a new framework of thinking from some that we think from and so on. So, it takes some work within, but it also means that's what it is. The more we resist what our inner being is calling for, the more conflict we're likely to find on the outside, or dissatisfaction at the very least. So those are little indicators and there are obviously many more, but I don't know, we can necessarily cover everything in a few minutes.
Russell:Interesting. So, it's listening after the signs in your body, discontents, I suppose things, then they become effortful rather than enjoyable. Aspel, all that sort of usual stuff. Yeah, makes sense to me. And then what do we do when we found these areas of discontent? How do we begin to affect change for ourselves?
Smita:Yeah, this is really, again, coming back to taking responsibility for that's there. And acknowledging is the first place. Often, we can acknowledge something, but not necessarily accept. We still know it's there and yet we continue to battle it for a while, et cetera. One of the things that in my journey of transformation that I've learned to do is to really get honest where something doesn't work and it doesn't work repeatedly over a period of time, is to really just say as much as I want it. This is not for me, or have I done enough work to develop the skills that I need to be able to navigate a certain area? For example, social media is a very good making podcasts, creating videos. There was a time when I was interviewing, and YouTube was in one place.
Smita:Today, YouTube has become a much more sophisticated. Videos have become the person watching, the person listening has become more discriminating, and they expect a lot more and so there are certain skills that I've had to develop along the way to be able to create the type of content, for example, that I want to create. And I want to be happy with that because if I'm not happy with what I'm offering out there, I'm sure other people won't be. So sometimes it's a matter of developing skills, working hard at your craft, sometimes it's learning new skills in communication, if it's a relationship thing, because often we say, why do I keep coming? Why do I keep. Somebody recently said to me, why is it that wherever I go people don't like me?
Smita:I mean, somebody literally said this to me, and I spent a little bit of time with this person over the next few days and I came to realise what the patterns were. And yet I knew very well there is absolutely no way that person is open to. That person is not requesting coaching, even though they are saying what they're saying as such, they are requesting coaching, but that they're not really open to it. So, when it comes to shifting something profound that is deep and it really impacts the quality of our life, I think profound action is required. Self-reflection that can come in many forms. You might want to talk to somebody. You may want to do that inside a coaching scenario.
Smita:You may do a program that truly confronts your status quo and invites you to break down a little bit, break down your thinking, break down your points of view and examine things. So, I'm a big believer in emotional intelligence and developing skills that help with the more skills we've got in relating to people, communication, getting things done, managing our money, the better life gets.
Russell:Yes, it is interesting, isn't it? Because lots of people we deal with as coaches are in parts, aren't they? So, part of them wants to do something and part of them doesn't because there's a reason to do it and a reason not to do it because of the things that happen. So, it's interesting you talk through that sort of approach. Looking at your site earlier, so much reference to meditation, mindfulness, breathing, all that sort of stuff. Is that part of your approach? Where does that fit into your methodology or ideas?
Smita:I grew up in a household where my dad was a yogi and I've watched him meditate every day and do yoga every day. I started to practice out of a book when I was twelve and since about 2009, I've really taken on yoga as a practice in my own life. I also teach now. I've been teaching now since around 2012 and I'm constantly like, every single day, the practices get tougher and more dynamic and deeper and stronger. And it's not just the Asana practice, that's not just the physical practice, but the whole of the Yoga philosophy. The physical aspect is only one part of it that really is designed to enable you to sit still long enough so that you can be with, you can meditate, you can go within, you can actually connect to that which is beyond your identity.
Smita:And so the breath is a very central theme of that. And in my own journey, I kind of have done things the upside-down way. I started meditating first. Normally, meditation comes later in the process, and the physical asanas come first. But I started with meditations purely because of the questions I had in my own urgent questions I had in my own life in my 20s that started to emerge at one point from my earlier life. Some of the things that I was trying to look at and see why my life had gone the way it had, why certain things had happened to me the way they had. So, meditation was what called me into exploring from within. And so meditation is where I started.
Smita:And as a result of that, it's been my constant guide, it's been my constant companion through my corporate life, and it's been the thing that balances me. So, over the years, I've practiced many different types of meditations for long periods of time. Then I've developed my own meditations, which you can find on my website, guided meditations for people of all levels. The breath element is the central aspect of everything in life. If you want to heal yourself, breathe, sit with your breath. The breath will take you so deep inside and so profoundly into places within your own physical being and your subtle being in ways that absolutely nothing else can.
Smita:It's the one thing in my yoga teaching, as I teach yoga classes, it's the one thing that I really focus on is teaching people certain types of breathing, but also just breathing in general.
Russell:Yeah, it sounds as simple, but it really is quite fundamental, isn't it? People really underestimate the thought of conscious breath. And it's astonishing, honestly, how many people mouth breathe or breathe the wrong way around or upside down or whatever. It is quite staggering, really, and absolutely fascinating. Tell us how we find out more about your work, maybe how we consume those meditations. Where would we find them?
Smita:So I have a meditation, sorry, my website is smitajoshi.com, and the meditations are on. There’re about 100 different versions of 30 foundational meditations, twelve of which we package to put with the books as well, because the books have deep journeys within them. For example, meditating in a cave of a very ancient philosopher sage India, just by the Ganges. Very profound experiences that I had there. Swimming with wild dolphins off the coast of Hawaii, which I've done many times, incredible encounters with dolphins. There are so many different types of meditations on there for different levels of people. Just drifting clouds, wandering thoughts is really about calming, recognizing, catching your thoughts in a stream of consciousness, and calming the nervous system down, calming the thoughts down so you can really be present. So, there are many different meditations.
Smita:And if people, anyone listening to this podcast, I'd be more than happy. If they want to get in touch with me through the website and let me know that they listen to this podcast with you, I'd be more than happy to send them a gift code with which they can download a bunch of meditations. But there's also some free gifts with one meditation on there.
Russell:Okay.
Smita:But also the YouTube channel where I've interviewed gurus and politicians, other people, and I make my own content on there. It's called the Self-Discovery Channel. Smitha Joshi. And on Instagram, I'm Smitha Joshi 108, as well as on TikTok.
Russell:I didn't realise there were another 107. Smita Joshis.
Smita:It's actually a sacred number, Russell. 108 is a sacred number in the Vedic philosophy.
Russell:I see.
Smita:And it has a lot of sacred geometry attached to the number. There are a lot of Smita Joshis in the world, would you believe? I didn't know that. But there are quite considerable. I was very lucky to get my website as I did.
Russell:Yeah, well, you're the most important one that I can see, so that's great. I could chat all day. I've just seen the times rocketed past. I do forgive me for running on slightly longer than I intended, but we'll put all the links to things in the show notes and such like. And it's been an absolute joy to talk to you today. Thanks so much for joining us and.
Smita:Thank you so much, Russell. Real privilege to be on your program. Thank you.
Russell:Pleasure. You take care.
Smita:Thank you.