We Were Taught How to Perform. We Never Learned How to Be Human.

0:01 I have spent years in conversation with people who are successful by every measure and still quietly restless, not broken, not lost, just aware somewhere underneath the noise that there is a version of their life that feels more honest, more grounded, more genuinely theirs. This podcast exists for those people, for the ones who are done performing and ready to go deeper. My name is Dr. Doug. Welcome to Inspire Vision. I am glad you are here. Nami, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me, Dr. Doug. Well, I'm really pleased. I was just setting my timer there. So I'm really pleased to have you on the show. It's always fascinating to me. Some of the philosophy that comes from people that I have an opportunity to interview and We're going to get into that a little, you know, quite a bit today. But I'd love for you to kind of share with the audience your background, you know, your educational background, who you are and so forth. Yes.

1:11 Thank you. Thank you for the opportunity to do that. So I actually studied biology and biomedicine. I thought I was going to be a doctor. Instead, I became a scientist. And then I went what's called agency side. And I worked in healthcare communications. For 20 years. And there I was a corporate leader and working in healthcare communications. And then I just felt this, something was missing. So I became a life and success coach and I did leadership coaching. And then I know we're going to get into more of my journey, but that's really where I started. I think though, deep down, I always wanted to be a teacher, but I didn't study it.

1:52 Oh, you know, yeah, that, that gets into a whole thing that I've been doing for a while now called the personal portrait, which- which really approaches exactly what you're talking about, where someone's here working and working, and it just isn't quite fulfilling enough. And it's amazing how people experience that. But what I'd love for you to do, when I was on your website, I saw a couple of statements that, in fact, one sentence that I love are two sentences. We were taught how to perform. We were never taught how to be human. I love to know the journey that you went through to come to that point. Yes, that is something that is so deeply rooted in the work that I'm doing now and my belief. It was when I was healing from complex PTSD. So when I was 40 years old, I found out I have complex PTSD. And when I started my healing journey, I started learning tools and not just through that, but also through my coaching journey. And so I started learning these tools that were just immensely helpful on becoming human and things like emotional regulation, developing self-awareness.

3:09 Energy management. And I remember one day thinking, oh my gosh, what if I had known this when I was younger? Or what if I had been formally taught this in any other way, not once I'm in my rock bottom? And who ever taught us to be human anyway? Who's teaching all of this in a formal way? I know that I can go learn bits and pieces all over the place and from different experts. But where is it formally being taught? And that's actually when I realized it's not. And that's my journey. And so that's what that sentence means, that it was from my own journey. Of not being taught how to be human.

3:50 Okay, and you talk about complex PTSD, and if you're not comfortable with it, that's fine. But I'd love to know, what was it, number one, that in your life that caused complex PTSD? Because you don't look like you're someone that would suffer from that. And number two, because I would suspect when you share that story, if you're willing to, that there are many that may be in the same situation and not realize. How did you realize that you were experiencing what they call complex PTSD? And please define that for us too. But go into your journey first.

4:32 Yes, absolutely. It's such a big part of my journey. And Thank you for asking. I'm very comfortable talking about it. As much as I can help, I love to share, especially because so much is not known about complex PTSD. It's not even formally in the DSM. So complex PTSD is being exposed to trauma for. Extended periods of time. And, well, that's really chronic. Complex is different types of trauma over extended periods of time. And for me, it was from childhood to, through adulthood. And it was, so some of the forms that I experienced were childhood abandonment. I experienced severe childhood bullying. I experienced some abuse. These are the types of things that go on for an extended period of time, unlike an incident.

5:22 So PTSD is often referred to like a car accident. So, but this is extended over long periods of time and then some others. And so what happens is that you develop your neurological wiring changes. And so when it changes, some of the things that are very common and behaviors of somebody who might have complex PTSD is. So many triggers and things that maybe won't. Trigger somebody who has just your expected level of trauma, maybe little t trauma, and it will trigger somebody with complex PTSD into different types of behaviors You may have heard, like I know you have, but the audience may have heard of the fight, flight, or freeze. That's definitely something that you would see with somebody with PTSD. And when you have significant behaviors that happen, like different types of triggers, hypervigilance is another one. You said something really interesting. You don't look like somebody who would actually have complex PTSD.

6:26 They're actually really high-performing. But somebody with complex PTSD could be very hypervigilant, very high performing, almost extremely so because they're making up for and keeping themselves safe by overperforming or overachieving. And so what happened is I was very blessed because somebody just brought up their own complex PTSD and a couple of the behaviors associated with it. And for the first time, I thought, oh my gosh, maybe I should just go look into that. And when she did that, it made me. Look into it. And then when I saw the behaviors associated with it, it was like a light bulb went off. I also often say that life turned right side up.

7:08 I felt like I'd been upside down the whole time and it finally went right side up because I realized that there was something within me which was creating my unhappy life. Even though I looked really happy on the outside. Yeah. And what fascinates me is, and I'm not, going to probably use the correct words, but, you know, I'm familiar with PTSD. I've not experienced that, but as I've interviewed so many people and, you know, particularly as we have those individuals, you know, and we honor them for coming back from, you know, the armed forces and so forth who really do experience what we know as PTSD and It seems like what you're explaining and sharing is a very subtle aspect to PTSD that we're not even really aware of. I've never heard of it. And so it's interesting that it's an entirely different, in some respects, it's an entirely different concept of the result of the bullying, of the trauma, and so forth. Why on earth were you bullied?

8:22 It's a great question. I don't really know the answer. It could have been because I look different than everyone else. It could have been because the teachers really favored me. I was highly intelligent. And so I got a lot of attention from teachers. So my full name is Namitha. And there was a I hate Namitha club. And there were 30 people in it in fifth grade. And so I was actually the only person not in it. And it was for the gifted and talented kids. The two classes, they were all in the I hate Namitha Club. It's amazing how much bullying you can. And so that went on for months over an extended period of time. So what happens is that you internalize that feeling of feeling unsafe, like being bullied. And that is when your neurological wiring changes from what may have been more, and I don't want to use the word, more what they would have expected your neurological wiring of a fifth grade girl to be.

9:19 Well, you know, you talk about two aspects, and one sounds very familiar to me because I have a brother, I think, that experienced this. But you were being bullied because of your background. What is that? What is your background, and why were you different from everybody else at school? Yeah, so I'm actually 100% Indian. My parents were immigrants, so I'm the daughter of immigrants. And they didn't—I was— They were younger when they had me. And so they had me very soon after moving to this country. And so a lot of the culture here and how we observe.

10:00 different traditions and all of that was not very similar to how my parents were raising me. So there were some of those differences. I grew up in a really small town called Marion, Indiana, and I was, I think, one of two Indian people in my grade. And so it was, yeah, it was definitely... A different experience because of that. I didn't realize it at the time. So the reason it turned into trauma is because I thought something was wrong with me. I thought, oh, I must be doing something to have this. I hate the club. And when and because if you can understand it, then maybe it wouldn't affect you as a as a as a person like a universal you. And so because I didn't understand it, it affected me significantly. And I thought that it was something that I was doing.

10:51 Well, and interesting you talk about, and I want to get into that. In fact, I wrote a whole article on perception. And how do we understand what's true? And how so often the perception of what's going on may be true. Obviously, it was true you were being bullied. Maybe the perception of why... had something entirely different to do with the fact that you're Indian. But beyond that, your intelligence. And, you know, I have a younger brother who's extraordinarily intelligent. I won't even get into it, but extraordinary. And in elementary school, we were in a private school, and the teachers and the administration came to my parents, and they go, we don't know what to do. But what the teacher did was announce to the students in the class how intelligent and over-intelligent he was from everyone else, and that created such bullying for him. It was just so sad to see. I didn't experience that because I'm not that high-level intelligence, but anyway. So it's interesting how we have such prejudice that occurs. Yeah. My wife just traveled to Cambodia to pick up her granddaughter, and she's Thai, and there's a conflict going on there. And oh my goodness,

12:23 her experience of unkindness and brutality was just amazing when she tried to get through immigration and so forth. And it amazes me how people can be so unkind and so prejudiced towards someone that is of a different nationality or background. Why is that? As you consider that, what is it in us in general that causes people to be so unkind and prejudiced towards those of different backgrounds, different religions, different nationalities?

13:08 You know, it's so interesting. We're all human. We're literally made up of the exact same things, the same basic cells and DNA. We are literally all the same. It's just how it's exposed looks different on the outside. And I would say because we've never been taught. So I really believe that when those feelings of prejudice come up and bias, we don't even understand ourselves enough to recognize it And then change the way that we feel. And I believe it's because we've never been taught. It is human nature to be very concerned about somebody or something that looks different than you. Because that's how biologically we stay safe over the years. Is that what looks like me is safe because I know that it's not going to harm me. And then if it doesn't look like me, it's unsafe.

14:13 But as we. Evolved over time, what we teach did not evolve. And so we're going against our nature of. Understanding that. With this bias of whatever I'm seeing has to look like me, otherwise it's unsafe. Now, if I had that awareness that I have a bias within me, so when it comes up, I should recognize it and then decide to act differently than with intentionality, then we would likely change some of this prejudice that we experience, but we've never even formally taught it. That's actually part of being a human because it's happening on the inside. Well, and you get into the political thing that's going on right now in the US and all over the world and the anger that occurs. And I think it's, I love how you explain it. It's, we don't understand.

15:05 And I love your concept of human. Now, It's interesting. I would assume coming from India, there's a bit of Vedic philosophy there. Believe it or not, I'm not deeply immersed in the Vedas. I did grow up Hindu, yet growing up Hindu in Marion, Indiana was challenging because there's no temple, there's no place of worship, but we did get together every Sunday in an uncle's basement and prayed. all got together and he told amazing stories so I really appreciate him for that it's very much just I'm a very spiritual person and so there's a deep spirituality in everything that I do all the work I do the book I wrote everything that I'm doing right now with the mind quotient everything is all coming from a space of spirituality and being human and is deeply rooted in.

16:04 That Well, and I love that. And I totally agree with you that there's that aspect of spirituality. However we define that for people is so important. But you talk about being human. Define for me and for the audience what you mean by being human. Not performative. And so that's why it says we were taught how to perform. So when I say being human, it's on the inside. What is going on inside of us. So it's not the performative. It's nothing that has to do with outside. So it's not performative. It's not academic so that I can produce and perform. It's not technical. It's not trade.

16:46 It's human. So it's inside of me. And so everything that has to do with the inside is what makes us human. So let me give you an example. I have, we'll get into all of that maybe or maybe not, but I have somebody who's actually going to teach about bullying. Since we talked about bullying. And so they're going. To come to the mind quotient and teach a circle about bullying. And so how do we differentiate where, like what is the human side of bullying? The signs of bullying, what's happening inside of me so that I can recognize that I'm being bullied. That's number one. I didn't even know I was being bullied.

17:26 I just thought that there's a group of people that don't like me that started this club. I didn't even know that it's actually classified as bullying. And then what am I going to do about it? How am I going to manage myself through it? What am I going to do? Like on the inside, do I need to find support? Do I need to talk to somebody? Do I need to create a safe space for myself? What do I need to do? And then another part of it is recovering after bullying. Notice I didn't say anything about reporting it. I didn't say anything about talking, finding out who is responsible for it. That's all outside. What's human is like what's going on within me. And that's the human side.

18:09 Well, and you know, you talk about spirituality and, you know, I come from a Christian and I don't even like that word anymore because I don't like what's being represented now. But I've studied Buddhism. I've studied a little bit about Hinduism. And what I find genuinely is that when you talk about being human, I think there's two aspects to that. One is being truly human and in my mind that divinity, that uniqueness, that purity that lies within us, that's who we are, human. But then there's the human who has all these perceptions, who has all these experiences that has developed all of these imprints from those perceptions and sometimes from the actual experiences such as yourself that you had.

19:00 How do we differentiate in our minds, in our souls, the difference between being genuinely, spiritually, divinely human, and the human that occurs because of all those influences. You know, what you're talking about, the divine human, or some people might say soul, is what lies underneath all of those perceptions and experiences. And so, you know, oftentimes I get asked, well, who are you? Or, you know, what are you doing right now? Or what's next for you? And I say, I'm just, this whole part of my journey has just been uncovering those layers to find out who I truly am. I don't know how I'll know when I become that, but that journey of uncovering those, you know, healing from the complex PTSD, but then underneath that is like values and beliefs and perceptions and experiences and all of that, that I just keep uncovering to find out who I truly am.

20:08 And that's where And you know, once we get there, will we know it? I'm not there yet. I don't know. The journey is amazing. I think I was so attracted to having you on the show because of that very concept. I was thinking this morning, here I have this podcast and the whole goal is to really make a difference in someone's life. And yet, as I think about it, I have been so inspired by by the people that I interview. To the point that just a few months ago, I decided to start a whole new project, but it goes exactly what we're talking about. So I call it Dr. Doug Reflects, A Quiet Return. And the whole point was, let's return to who we genuinely are, that soul. And so I love what you're talking about here. And as you say, it's a journey. And I'm not sure it ever ends in this particular life. I think it continues on. But the reality is the journey itself is what's of great value as we start to uncover some of those things.

21:22 And here's my question for you as you're doing the coaching and mentoring and working with people. It's one thing to recognize that it's there. And that in itself is a difficult thing sometimes for people to be willing to accept that awareness. But then how on earth do they quietly return back to who they are? How do they take those elements of bullying, of prejudice, of all of those things, of trauma, and move them, and I use this word carefully, move them to the side so that they're no longer having an effect. I don't believe you can eliminate them. That happens to be my personality understanding.

22:10 I don't think we can eliminate them. And I think this whole concept of, you know, you need to do this and you need to do that, the focus on personal transformation to a high degree causes more problems than it solves. But when you quietly start to remove it to the side and develop those new neural pathways, as you talked about, That's how it happens. But how do you help people to do that? By teaching them the tools to do it. So the reason that that's what I did. That's why I know it works. Because imagine how much darkness I was living in to have. And I didn't even go through all of the trauma. There was more than that. And so to live through basically 40 years of trauma and there's so much darkness. And then what happened is as I began to learn how to be human, so this is my language that I say. So as I learned how to be human, every time I learned something about myself, I was able to convert that dark to light. So imagine like if you had this like whole mass of darkness, everything I learned, I would be able to convert it.

23:24 I just started converting it dark to light, dark to light. So these tools that we teach, how to be human, such as how to stay calm under pressure, understanding your triggers, how to manage your energy, how to be heard, how to listen, how to create joy. And I'm giving some of these examples, but imagine every single one of those is a tool to actually. Do that, like convert the dark to light. And so if I was saying it in other language that's less spiritual, it would be if I am feeling and like I'm in pain, then I would be able to use this tool to process through the pain and not experience that pain. And then I would use the next tool for the next person of pain. Or it could be trouble or what struggle or whatever other term you want to use. But they're all synonymous with being able.

24:19 To actually actively, I don't, I agree. I don't think you can eliminate them. And I don't think that you can push them to the side. But I do think that you can change how they show up in your life. Well, and I'd love for you to share some specific examples of what you did from turning dark into light. You know, you gave some general examples, but what were maybe just two things that were really dark in your life, and how did you change that to light for the audience to understand? So oftentimes, and this is one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things to say, And so I use the word pain.

24:59 And so it's pain or trouble or struggle. And so when I feel immense pain, something happens that triggered me or upset me, and I'm feeling a deep sense of pain about it. So I'll give you an example. Recently, I felt excluded from a situation. And so rather than getting triggered and lashing out, I actually sat with the pain. I often say feel it to heal it. And so I will sit with the pain and then I start to try to understand where it came from. That's the self-awareness piece, that reflection, just like your reflections and returning to home. And so when I try to better understand myself, then I will go find in the root of the pain was something that may have just been a perception.

25:54 Maybe it was a perception or maybe it was that I was being excluded, but then What can I do about it that I would feel differently if I was in the. Same situation again? Because I have the ability to, I have the autonomy, I have the power to create however I want my life to be. So now another example is that energy management. So I've mentioned that a few times. And so this is a little bit more of a practical skill. If I am feeling really tired or depleted or irritated, likely my energy is low. Like I'm just tired or I'm depleted. I have now learned from these skills what I need to do to renew my energy so that I can show up better. And so I know myself so well that I know if I'm feeling really distracted, I can go do a five minute exercise or walk.

26:49 Or something like meditation. And that is actually going to help me focus. And I'm that self-aware that I know that right now I need to do something to boost my energy so that I can go back and give my full energy and not get triggered and focus. And so that's an. Example of where a situation that can be very dark or painful or have struggle or consequences, because of my work on my human skills, I can actually shift it. It's nothing revolutionary. We do all this. In fact, this has been out there. For decades, centuries. All this work that I'm talking about, it's just never been formally taught in one place. Well, and, you know, it's interesting. I have one son that I tell a number of stories about. But one of his experiences when he was young in Boy Scouts, they came home from a scouting trip, and he had been one of the youth leaders. And he came home, and, you know, how did it go? And it's like he was really sad and upset. And it's like, what happened?

27:53 And he shared with me that, I don't know what had happened other than his leader, his adult leader, really lashed into him about some mistake that he made. And at the time, I had done a lot of studying into human behavior, emotions, and all that type of stuff. And I sat down with him and I said, look, realize, and I knew a little bit about the background of this gentleman, I said, realize that what you experienced had nothing to do with you. Yeah, you made some maybe silly mistakes or choices, but the reality is it had everything to do with him. So as you talked about, why were you excluded? Well, it probably had nothing to do with you. And for people to understand that a lot of what they experience has nothing to do with them.

28:44 It has everything to do with the other person, their emotional level, whatever they're getting triggered by, and so forth. And I think that that helps so much to understand that. And then the other thing that I really appreciate you saying, and it goes to my son again, I just saw a post from him on Facebook, and he had run an incredible, I don't know how many hours it was, seven, eight hours. I mean, it was really a long one up the mountains. It was this amazing thing. But he talked about as he was running, he started to just contemplate, his mother just passed away last year, And he shared that he started to cry and experience all those emotions, which you frown there for a minute, but quite frankly, it was wonderful. And why? Because somatically, he's doing something.

29:41 You talk about going out on a walk, doing a little bit of exercise. I'm not sure people understand how valuable that can be. I try to walk right now, not because it's raining all the time, but I try to walk three times a week. And when I do, I try to spend a great deal of that time in meditation, listening to chimes and so forth. And what a difference that makes for me in sensing that sense of peace. So for me, walking and meditating, doing walking meditation does it. But I think it's so important. And I'd like you to share a little bit more about your expertise on this. What is it that as we start to do things physically or even mentally that that it helps to take us away from that element of being at the effect of an emotion or a trigger and starting to give us greater awareness and ability to really then be in control. Yeah.

30:44 And I love that. Um, I love that you were talking about like processing through the emotions and moving the somatically, there's a huge somatic component to it. And so oftentimes, um, we are, so I talked about it in the sense of energy, but you also kind of talked about it as like coming back to the body and back to like present and awareness. And so we, when we do things somatically with our body, then we are immediately going to come back to present because we're like moving, we're going through like even a breath of fresh air or drinking a water or something is going to help bring us back that self-awareness where you're, where. You come to the present. Now, interestingly, when I, when I teach this and I've been doing it for years, I, what works for one person may not be what works for the other. And so I often, like you mentioned a few different things that you can do, like walking and then you add on the times and, you know, get the fresh air and you have like this, this, I would say this bank or infer like what works for you tools. They're basically like boosters that work for you. And so, oftentimes we don't even think about what works for us. Yeah.

31:54 How often do we even, well, we're likely not even asked. Like, how do you, what do you do to boost your energy or feel better when you're feeling down? And many people won't even be able to ask because, again, it's not formally taught. And so when I learned about it and then I started teaching it in my corporate roles. It was transformational. Because people, well, one, started to become aware of when they weren't feeling good. And then two, they realized that they had the ability to pull from whatever their repertoire is of all the amazing things that they can do to feel better. If they have a minute, they may just go outside and look at the sun or just get a breath of fresh air.

32:38 But if they have. 10 minutes, maybe they are going to go for a walk and do something about it. And their lives changed. Well, and you hit such an important point, and this is one thing I bring up. I interview people from so many different philosophies and so many different backgrounds on how to truly become. And the reason I do that is because one thing doesn't work for everyone. It was just like, as I was sharing, as I started doing this meditation, and I started it a few years ago, particularly the walking, I got into listening to binaural beats. I got into listening to self-video frequencies. And it was okay, and I was studying all of it. And then finally, YouTube, I started to hear these ringing bells and chimes. And all of a sudden, it's like, wow, this is what really is doing it for me. And I recognize that for everyone that's listening, There is no one way for everybody.

33:43 It's not universal. What's universal is the key that you can truly come back to being human, as you say. But the way that that occurs, you need to figure that out. And, you know, listening to different options and trying different options until one really resonates. Yes. And I love that. And so even you even gave the example, you said walking meditation. I bet most people don't even know that's an option. They think meditation is something that you have to sit in silence with, you know, possibly cross-legged with your hands folded. Oh my gosh, you can meditate in so many ways. I actually say that meditation is creating space between thoughts. So it could be whatever you need to do to create space between thoughts. Some people love to sing or run or color or cook or my mom often says she never meditates, but she can just, totally.

34:36 Focus and immerse herself in the process of cooking. And that is meditative for her. Yes. And so, yeah, I love that you did the same. You said walking meditation. Yeah, and it's so true. So what inspired you to develop the Mind Quotient? And what is that exactly? So the Mind Quotient is the home for human skill development. It's the institution where we're bringing together all the experts in teaching these human skills. And so they come, there's coaches, therapists, professors, consultants, researchers, anyone who is an expert in a particular area comes and they teach that human skill because they know it works.

35:21 Either they've done it in their own lives or they have been teaching it and they know it's life experience based. And That's what we do. We teach it to adults. We teach it to teenagers, kids. It's for everyone. We call it MQ because it's on the inside. It's your human skills. And why did I do it? Because I saw the gap and I got worried. That's exactly why. I was in a coaching conference in the middle of the pandemic and I received some sad news about my family member's med school classmate. And I went right into a coaching conference and everyone there was thriving. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, people aren't even surviving. And here we are, a group of people working on our inner skills and we're all thriving.

36:12 And guess what? Our IQs don't really matter right now. And our emotional intelligence, also called EQ, doesn't really matter either. We're rarely socializing. And so it's the other thing. It's the oh my gosh, am I going to be able to pull myself out of the dark? Am I going to be able to manage myself through really tough times? Like, am I going to be able to be human? Because it's going to happen. And so I started searching for it. I'm a scientist. I started looking for like. Where's the language around it? Because if we all use the same language, then there won't be any problem. We will solve all the problems. And then I couldn't find it. So this was in 2020. And then it came to me through a channel.

36:56 And it was the mind quotient and I circled it and it has been a mission since then, but it was on the side of my corporate career. And I just left my corporate career three months ago to build it. And it's building because we have about 10 MQ guides that have come in the last like two months to come and teach and more will be coming. And as they come, they're bringing, we teach these human skills and we are here. We're going to help, especially right now because we are, getting distracted from humanity and what makes us human in the age of AI. And this is the most important time to double down on our humanity. Is it done online or is it done in person? Both.

37:39 So mostly live virtual. So like Zoom sessions, for example. And it's global. Anyone from anywhere can join. You just hop into a one hour, one skill, one hour live for humans by humans, taught for humans by humans. No AI involved in this. And I really, it's really important that I say that because these are human skills. This is like how I feel. How do I manage myself? How do I react to a situation when I get an email I don't really like, you know, or a text message or something? And how do I have an abundance mindset? You know, things like that that are really about being human.

38:20 So how do people find that? We usually do this at the end. How do people find that? How do people find that? So you can look up MQ circles or come to the mind quotient.co. That's our website, or you can follow me and find, you can, I've, you trace it anywhere. So coach nummy is, uh, and we just launched. So it is, uh, that's what we're doing. We're here to teach and, uh, it's a membership. And so people can come become members because we want to build the community, have people learn these human skills. We are here. This is, this is what's missing and we're here to teach it. Wow. And, You know what impresses me? It's so interesting that there are certain individuals such as yourself that have experienced the trauma, that have experienced the bullying, that have experienced things that you have not shared but obviously have been very deep in your life. And you made a choice.

39:16 You made a conscious choice. Rather than being controlled by it, being at the effect of that and becoming a victim of it, you have chosen to overcome it and not only overcome it, but then take those experiences and start to make a difference in other people's lives by doing that. And as you work with people, how do you help them to move from victimhood to clarity and truly control and being in charge of their own lives? Oh, that's such a profound question.

39:58 And thank you for seeing me. The way I turned my pain into purpose was not overnight. It was through healing, through learning how to feel better, really. I talked about turning dark into light or pain into some type of meaning. And That's really what it was, you know, that when you focus on yourself and your own, how you're showing up and how you're healing and how you're being human, you will uncover whatever. Is underneath it. And for me, it was purpose and helping others and serving. And it's different for everyone because we're all born with these amazing gifts and sometimes they get buried underneath our experiences.

40:42 And so I wrote a book called Healing with Courage. And it's actually my origin story. It's my healing journey told through poetry. The reason I wrote that, and it's a very, very open, vulnerable piece because it does talk about all. The different types of trauma. But the reason I wrote it is because I hope to inspire people to know that you're not alone and that whatever it is that may have been painful in life, there is light and healing, you know, through the healing journey and on the other side of healing or maybe through the journey of healing. And so I'm definitely not even there. I have some really dark down days and I have tough times, but I am very open about it and I share it and I continue to do so because I do, back to the, we're all.

41:34 Human and this is what connects us. This vulnerability, this openness, if I can, just like you have the podcast to help people or inspire people. I, that's why I do. This work too. Well, and you know, it's so interesting. I always, you know, when people are saying, well, when, when, when am I actually experiencing that change? And my feeling is, you know, you know, that change is really occurring when you can observe yourself. now reaching out and being kind to other people, loving other people, doing that. So our behavior is really a reflection of where we are internally. And again, the book, how do they find your book?

42:21 Oh, it's, yeah, it's on Amazon or any, if you just Google it, you can find it's audible, all the things. So yeah, Healing with Courage. And it's profound, but it's quite meaningful. And there's something to connect some there will be one poem in there that you will connect to, at least one, because it talks a lot about love, loss, healing, just. All different things. Well, yeah, and you know, it was interesting. I was listening to a talk by a religious leader, and it was called New Beginnings, and he was talking, you know, from a theological standpoint, how we all have new beginnings in our lives, and It really inspired me. But then being here in Thailand and with Buddhism and with the concept of reincarnation and all of that, I'm kind of that curious individual similar to you, I suppose. All right, I really want to understand this. And as I thought about it, I actually just wrote an article on Substack talking about how we die multiple times in this life without ever really dying. And the point is that we literally, each time we get one of those situations understood and start to work on it and to overcome it to some degree, we begin a new life. We've been reborn.

43:49 And we can do that time and time again. And as you say, and as we all experience, it's a journey of rebirth and rebirth and rebirth And it doesn't end here because, quite frankly, we just are never going to get to that point in this life. But I love how the fact you've talked about that and how we can start to make those changes and, hey, if we find ourselves in a situation, oh, wow, I just kind of stepped back a little bit, guess what? Just start again because you can. Exactly, exactly. And how amazing is it that we can? You know, it's been... It's just one step in front of the other.

44:34 And sometimes it does feel like three steps forward, two steps back, or four steps forward, three steps back. As long as we keep moving forward, that's what my spiritual teacher says. So we just have to keep, we're still moving forward. So yeah, it's really a journey for sure. Amen. So as we close, what would be a message you want to share with the audience? I love this one. It's focus on yourself. I love this message because, okay, so let me explain a little bit more. Focus on yourself, that lens that we have on the outside, especially in the age of social media and everything that's performative. If we flip it and we start to think about what's happening inside, that is where we will find connection and it will purpose or change. joy, whatever it is that people are searching for, that lens has to flip though.

45:36 We have to look inside and that's it. If you just do one thing, just think about how am I feeling today? How am I showing up today? What is really happening inside of me today? That's it. Just start there. Wonderful. Thank you. Naomi, this has been an incredible conversation. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. It was really incredible. I loved it. Well, I did too. And I love what you're doing. And so, folks, I hope if you find a need, go learn about the Mind Quotient, particularly since it can be done online from anywhere. I think that could be so valuable. And one of my personal feelings is to be able to have a mentor of some sort, someone to help guide us, is so valuable rather than trying to do it all ourselves. So again, Nami, thank you so much. And folks, thanks for listening. Hope you've enjoyed it. And as normal, namaste. Every conversation on this podcast eventually comes back to that same question, not how do I get more, but is this actually who I am? If something you heard today moved you just a little closer to an honest answer, that is enough.

46:59 I'm Dr. Doug. This is Inspire Vision. Until next time.