Conversation with Seekers - Feminine Courage with Sonam
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We are back with another heartwarming episode of Conversation with Seekers. In this episode, Chandresh sits down with Leela's student Sonam. They go deeper into what it means to trust and nurture the feminine courage within. Sonam shares her journey that sails through Afghanistan to the UK, Islam to Tantra, healing to blooming, and beyond! This one is special! Do let us know what you think about it.
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Episode Transcript
Chandresh: Hi, Sonam. I'm so glad to have you on the Leela Gurukul podcast and it's good to see you after quite a few months now. How are you doing?
Sonam: Thank you, Chandresh. It's so lovely to be here. I'm very good, thank you. It's been a journey that everything shifted since before Leela and after I was in Leela. So everything has changed, but I really enjoyed the process of it.
Chandresh: Yeah. I'm so curious to dive into your shift. I see a significant shift and I'm so inspired to ask so many questions I have on my mind, but let's start from your journey. Give us some context about where you were a few years ago and where you are now, because I know the cities, the countries shaped your strength, shaped your foundation, so let's start from the beginning. Where were you and where are you now?
Sonam: I was born in Afghanistan, raised and grew up in Iran, but it's more than five years I'm living the UK. So I was growing between three different cultures. I was very studious. Someone who was spending most of her time in her books, tech, I used to do different software designing, working in IT industry, all of that, but just something shifted in me. It's like, I just wanted to accept in a different path because I realized that I wasn't true to myself. Although what I was studying, software engineering, was fulfilling me at that time but it's like some part of me dead, felt a death, so with that, I had to step up and assert a new path that I'm currently in.
Chandresh: A lot of people say this, and I also use this word that, "I was not true to myself and that's why I left Wall Street, that's why I did the things I did and the things I do." What was it for you not to be true to yourself? What was the pain point, that wound that was hurting and you were like, "Yeah, this is not my true self"?
Sonam: It's like you wearing a mask, you just fulfilling expectation of everyone around you and just wanting to be seen rather than feeling that power from within. It just was like a mask of outside world. I studied math and physics and lots of math and physics, and then moved to software engineering IT, so it was like a very core science. I said so much science, but it was the only reason I did that, it was to be worthy. It wasn't just comes from inside that I feel worse inside. No, it was just, I wanted to prove something.
Chandresh: Yeah. How long did you live in Afghanistan, Sonam?
Sonam: I was probably four years old. I was very young. I was four when we left.
Chandresh: And how many years in Iran?
Sonam: I was in Iran till I was 19, so more than 15 years.
Chandresh: In spirituality, we always look at the first five, six years as a root foundation of your fear, excitement, anxiety, a lot of things, and then the next 10 years, we look at in psychology as very critical years to understand relationships, to understand love, heartbreak and everything. As a 19-year-old Sonam, you were moving to UK. So I'm curious, how did the experiences in Afghanistan and Iran shape you as a woman? And we'll talk about the UK shift, but let's first talk about how did the feminine in you was experiencing life until the age of 19?
Sonam: That's a good question because I reflected in this during Leela, because the question that you asked me, "What does it mean to you? What does divine feminine mean to you?" It was the question that I never look at it, but when I look back it's it was like... When I look back, everything happened, but made me to be here. It's like, there was a reason. It made me to question and I was very curious. It made me to question probably that one is to not accept norms. That one was, I would see the norms, but I would know that I don't want that, but in the meantime, it was like, I resisted that as well. The feminist that I was seeing, the life of people around me, even though that was very nice life. They have grow up, study, then marriage, have children and then others. It was not for me. I just found it like I was fighting with that, in some way. I was fighting with that.
Sonam: Regarding spirituality, I just grew up with stories, so many stories that they were unconsciously, they just give me this idea that there is something beyond me that is looking after me and that I can trust it. I used to sit down, especially when I was seven, eight, I used to sit down in the rooftop. In the UK, we don't have that, but it's roof. I used to look at the sky and see. I was 17. I used to stand there, look at the sky and just be in my own world. I had my own universe in summer. I had a deep connection with something beyond me that sometime it just shifted me to make decision or even to take steps that were out of my... It was completely unknown, but it just led me there. I think, if I put it in one word, it's a sense of trust.
Chandresh: You're taking back to the time when I would sit on the rooftop in India as a child, and same age as you are talking about, I would just stare at the sky and my neighbors thought I'd come on top to smoke so they told my grandfather, "I think your grandson smokes." And they were like, "Oh, he's too young to smoke." And they were like, "Yeah, but we think he's smoking because he spends too much time on rooftop." And my grandpa passed me, he said, "Why? What do you do just on the roof for two hours? I'm like, "I look at the sky. I look at the stars." And he's like, "You're not smoking, right?" I said, "No, I'm not smoking." But those used to be the best days. I was a teenager. The worst problem we had was doing the school homework and what are we going to do with friends tomorrow?
Chandresh: And those were the biggest assignments in the head, but life started changing. Thank you for sharing this. This gives me so much warmth in the heart, Sonam. I know, for you, the shift in divine feminine was probably one of the biggest breakthroughs I witnessed in you. Could you share what's that one thing or maybe more than one, but yeah, I'm curious, was there one particular big thing as a woman that you had to let go or a belief or a norm that you completely dismantled, that this is not how I'm going to honor the feminine in me? Was that there any one particular thing?
Sonam: I wanted to study psychology for such a long time. It was three years that I was planning to just go study humans, but I didn't have the courage. I just think that still I need to do something science-based, tech-based something in that and it's just I thought that it's the way that my family would accept, or even the culture would accept, that I need my voices in tech, to be in tech industry and to do something science based something. And then during the Leela, I think something just broke and, suddenly, I had to courage to make the decision and suddenly everything just fall into place. There was so many other things as well that I was going through, like with my dreams that I shared some of them with you about my dreams and just I decided to take that a step. The courage, the courage and knowing that I have the right to make the choices and if I make the decision, I just allow the other people in my life to be honest with themselves and with me as well, because it's like, I am true to myself so I can be much more powerful in my relationship, in my family, in society.
Chandresh: Did you feel you were misjudged as a woman in the early days? Or do you feel now you're being misjudged or is it the judgments are moving to acceptance? How do others see you right now?
Sonam: That's a hard question, actually. Now, it's like much more acceptance, probably, but there's two different scenarios, actually. I was a good girl, the good girl that is just the good girl. Just do the thing that she thinks is right but in the meantime, in the boundaries that she has, just breaks some of them as well. So I was that kind of girl, but in the meantime, I wasn't... How to put it in word. I wasn't myself. I was some aspect of myself, but not whole of me. It was some part of me, a fraction of who anyone can be. I don't know, really, how to put it in words, but I can definitely feel a shift, but it's much more toward, they know that if I make a decision, I'm going to do that.
Chandresh: Yeah, no, thanks. I see the efforts you were making to invite the right words and I'm going to expand that a bit for you as well. You are so right. I see you as becoming much more whole now, a much more complete version of who you are. I remember when we first spoke, ever, I saw someone who was rebellious, unconventional, ambitious, who was really wanting to break the norm, break that old pattern, but didn't know where, how, what, when, didn't know what's my next step here. And I remember telling you, it doesn't matter what it would take, I want you on Leela. And my selfish reason was, I knew your journey would inspire me, your journey would inspire others. And I've said this to many other students and friends, Sonam, whenever you used to talk. I used to sometimes pinch my finger because the emotions would become so strong and it's like, I can't break down in front of students. I can't be so vulnerable because I knew your experiences were so powerful and it would make me emotional seeing the girl I saw many months ago and the girl you were becoming, the woman you were becoming, that was immensely powerful because I grew up honoring Shakti. Shakti is feminine. Shakti means courage, strength, and I was actually seeing you embracing that.
Chandresh: And I can't tell you how emotional of an experience was that. Also, it was happening in Leela, which was something I nurtured with so much love and seeing a human blooming in that space, I felt I'm just a medium in this, I just had to witness this. Something much more powerful is happening, and then you started sending longer notes on where you wish to be. Your clarity was opening up, your courage was giving you new ideas, real ideas, not just fancy poetic ideas, like real stuff, that this is what I want to stop doing and this is what I want to start doing. And I know it's something you can put in words. Do you think there was no one thing and there were probably bunch of episodes or moments that just cracked you open, fully?
Sonam: Yes. There was many things, actually. I think we usually can filter it to just one. I guess everything just came together like they needed to come together in some way. Yes.
Chandresh: So I've always been curious about this. I don't think I ever asked you. Where did spirituality meditation started showing up? There's Afghanistan, there's Iran, there's UK, where did spirituality started showing up? Was there one moment or just series of events that inspired you to look at a deeper layers of meditation, self-realization?
Sonam: It just came many years ago. Actually, it started probably in Iran. I can't remember anything from age of four. All of my memories, for some reason, I can't remember them. I have some points but not many, but I was very young. I used to pray. I'm Muslim. I was born in a Islamic country so I used to pray, I used to listen to stories of spirituality and everything that's shifting so it was part of there. It just was there in some part of me and I had the trust. There was a trust in me that even in the darkest moment of the time, things will shift. I would always repeat that to myself. So it was for pretty old, but during my teenage year, my health just broke down because I was putting too much pressure to become accepted in one of the best universities in Iran.
Sonam: And it's very competitive to get in a good university in Iran, it's very competitive. So my head just broke down and then I had to completely change what I wanted to study and it's just become deeper at that point. But when I was in the UK, I just learned about meditation and silence and silence wasn't something that I was experiencing in my life. I loved night when I was in Iran, because it was so peaceful. You could just sit down. I said that I used to sit in rooftop and look at the sky, even in freezing temperature. I just feel it, but it started in the UK from 2019. I started to meditate and then it lead me to Leela and finding your podcast.
Chandresh: Wow. So let's talk about Tantra and Islam and I want to give you my context of it. I think at some point in podcast, I shared that I went to Catholic school in India, so I would meditate in church and dad always traveled, he's my teacher. So whenever he's in town, he would take me to the mosque in India. Very profound, old mosque. My grandfather has translated Bhagavad Gita, the Indian holy, text in Urdu, in Arabic. He was a PhD in Farsi and his poetry is all in Urdu, so there was a lot of Islamic influence in his poetry, in his teachings and my father has always been very open about all religions and my friends, we were kids, so as a teenager, they would tell me, "Oh, why do you go to mosque? You're not Muslim. Why do you meditate in church? You're not Christian." And then they would think, "You come from a religious Hindu family. Why are you going there? Does uncle know?"
Chandresh: They would talk about my father, "Does he know?" He's the one who's sending me there, but those experiences just opened my heart and awareness to the love, the harmony that's uniquely available in all religious practices, and I feel the so-called caretakers of every religion, they'll manipulate and corrupt or they'll do whatever they wish to do with it, but as a seeker, you could smell the fragrance of every religion and what it has to offer. And my experiences with every religion, they are really, really profound, very powerful, very personal and sacred. And I would love to know from you, Sonam, how did Tantra felt for you? Were you shocked or were you questioning yourself when Tantra started opening up? Yeah, go ahead.
Sonam: I just felt it was like home. It wasn't different from what I was learning, what I learned in my spiritual, like, in the faith that I grew up in. I didn't see many differences. It's like, you need to be disciplined, there is some aspects you need to follow there. I just found it to be same, especially when we came to Tantra says God, God says they are energy, they are formless, they change shape, it's exactly the teaching that I learned. We can't name it, we can't put it, but I like the concept of Tantra because they just give it so many forms, but to identify it. But in the meantime, the formless part of it is there, if you pay attention to it, it's there. For me, it felt like home, but one thing that, I guess the world as a world collective, we got to drawing is that, we thought we need to separate. It is a box, you just need to be inside this box. And I am in the inside this box. I think the chaoses that mainly we will feel is because of all love these little boxes that people created as a culture, as a society but in the essence, they take you in one place to become, to rule, to yourself and have the power from inside.
Chandresh: You're touching some really powerful points here because I feel so many people, even many teachers, I know they can find the goddesses to like a particular form. And they're like, "Goddess Kali is this, this goddess is this." And I find that so limiting. Not even limiting, I think it's the wrong teaching about a goddess because I think we are so stuck or we are so confined to see our existence only through the physical lens so we start limiting the goddess consciousness, we start limiting the Tantra deities and we are like, "Oh, they should also look like, behave like fellow humans", but they don't. And that's a very powerful concept. I'm glad you related that to Islam, actually, because I know it's a very powerful teaching in Islam as well. Is there any particular teaching in Tantra, Sonam, that gave you liberation or courage as a woman? Is there anything you remember or you tap into still?
Sonam: It's the intention. There's so many part of it, but I really, really like the intention part of it. It's like the seed that just, really, will grow. That part of it, that is everything. You need to have intention and it's exactly similar to teachings that I was brought up, that you need to have intention, we call it niat, niat but intention. Yes, that was very true and I really like that it just touched in different level, the questions that we are asking ourselves, the mantras. You don't have to be so lost in it. It's not just about the mantras. I really like that part, that it just not about that. It's just which one you would resonate with it. There are many, actually-
Chandresh: Yeah, I know.
Sonam: Just the intention came to my mind.
Chandresh: I can see you going into various chapters right now in your mind, which you know, trying to pick which one is more powerful, but yeah, I think in intention, the concept of intention, sankalpa near that's beyond powerful. I think people underestimate the power of your intention, how magically it could just plant the right seeds and the right growth for you. Is there a meditation routine, Sonam, that you find easier and consistent for you to practice? What does it look like for you now?
Sonam: When I want to meditate, I'm I'm very, my energy is just very, very moving. So I first I need to ground myself. Like if I feel like I can't see too meditate, just dance or I write to have much more, have to find the stillness in me to sit down and the one, I just sit down and feel which one is the right for me. Sometimes I like to listen to a guided meditation that I just choose from Lila. And other times I just sit down and do the routines that I learned from Lila, like just bracing and then having an intention and just canteening from there. But the silence it's just different, but I just sit and feel which one feels right for me in that moment, because we are not saying every day.
Chandresh: Mm. So silent meditations come easily to you then the guided right? Sometimes is that what you're saying?
Sonam: Majority of time, the guided comes easily for me. I really enjoy them, but sometime I just like to be a stillness. Just being silent.
Chandresh: So few questions that my hope is will help all the listeners. Number one, what do you think people do not get right about spirituality? If you had to speak about one misconception that people should let go about spiritual path, what it should be?
Sonam: Just comparison came to my mind. So many people just say they break through, they moments that they awakening, they energy, what they see, but it's not like that. I mean, it just fluid and it's shifting, just the trust and being patient with it and keep going because at first you see nothing is happening, but there's so many unseen element that is just shifting, but we don't see it.
Chandresh: Yeah. A new cohort just started for Leela and within the first week, there were two strong reactions. One was, "I'm not experiencing any light or powerful stuff. When are we going to start Tantra? When that is going to happen? I'm excited about Tantra." And I was like, "It has already started. Before you joined Leela, Tantra started for you and it's also happening right now, but I can see your mind is rushing to the next best thing." And then other strong reaction was, "It's too much. I can't. It feels a lot to receive, to experience." And I'm like, "Yeah, the mind is doing the same thing for you, but it's in a different flavor you are comparing." And I was like, "Why do you think it's too much? What's making you overwhelmed?" And they were like, "People are so excited, people are so charged up and I feel I'm not ready." I'm like, "Yeah, why are you comparing your spiritual journey to someone?"
Chandresh: Comparison is terrible in every aspect of life, but especially in a spiritual growth, it ruins, your talent, it ruins your potential and we all go through it. I go through random comparison at times and I have to stop and just reframe my mindset. That's powerful. As you are experiencing more self-awareness, getting to know yourself better, does forgiveness or letting go happening easily now or does the mind still have revenge plans?
Sonam: Mine always wants to find a revenge plan, but I feel like now it makes me to have compassion because... It was a story, I don't know. I guess you shared it about... Who shared it, this story? There was a story that I heard about compassion and forgiveness. It's like, at some point, when you just letting go and letting go of the stories, because it's not the hurt, it's a story around that. And when you start to rephrase the story instead of being the victim of the story, reframe it to just extract from it the teaching, or just accept it, then my mind, in me, I don't go to revenge plan. It just let go when I accept it or when I sit down and I usually write a story. One thing I do, always, is just journaling. If something really hurts me, I start to write this story again and again, and again, until I just feel the dots, make sense of it. When I make sense of it, then it no longer hurts me or it no longer take the energy from me.
Sonam: The energy is released because when it shows up, it's like, okay, I'm still here. You haven't forgive or you haven't let go. Or when I just sit down with it or just sometime even meditate or write about it, it just helps, really helps to untangle. But when I started to be much more studious in my meditation practice and in Leela, I just felt that something just let go. I was able to let go.
Chandresh: Right? Yeah. Thanks for bringing up journaling, and I have to confess, I was never, ever into journaling. I would reflect into my thoughts in meditation. That was, I think, my process for most of all of the life. Lately, I started writing down some specific things. I'm not still able to do it every day, but when the noise started getting too loud in between the pandemic and so much going on, I decided to write down and as I was writing down, I saw the silliness of it, the anxiety, the drama that the mind was building up and then I randomly looked back after a few days and I laughed looking at it, that wow, that entire problem has faded away but that particular day, I felt, this is it. I'm losing everything. Everything is collapsing.
Chandresh: I have started respecting journaling a lot more now. I would love to write on a piece of paper, but I'm still using my phone, mostly, because I'm also a bit afraid of losing the notebooks. And if I travel, that's another fair. What if I left the notebook in flight or in a hotel, because that has happened with me in the past. So I'm still using my notes on the phone, but that's very powerful and incredible way to cultivate the healing. One question, Sonam, and then I'll let you ask any question if you have any. I know there are some women who might be listening to you right now, who might be holding back their courage for reasons that either they're aware of or the reasons that they don't know, what would be your advice as a friend to them? Advice, or even some words for the woman who are holding back their courage?
Sonam: It's like I'm going advise myself. Everything that we are doing and everything that we have accepted ever, someone decided to create it and it doesn't mean that it's going to forever be the same way. Just it's keep shifting, but... Finding the words for myself. I advise myself like, find one thing that you are really drawn to, even if it's in daily basis by a small thing. Like if you always wanted to wear your red dress, but you never wear it or if you just wanted to speak, but you don't have the courage to say that. This advice doesn't come easy, actually. I don't know why.
Chandresh: You're doing great. Trust me. This is powerful.
Sonam: Just assert very small, anything that is holding you back, it's just constructed of the mind. It's just everything that we accumulated and it's our perception, it's a filter, how we filter the surrounding. And when you shift even one small piece of it in the daily routine, then things start to move and it's going to change very fast. If the momentum is keep going, you would see that everything is changing but trust. Trust that all the things seems like a caged sometime, things may seems very restricted. It's just the one that we created for ourselves and the culture that's around us, but the world, and as a collective, we are all contributing to it and we are all can change it little by little.
Chandresh: Speaking like a true Tantra student. The concept of seed, the concept of focusing on one thing, that's a very third eye concept that I always say, if you give too many ideas to your third eye, it gets confused which one do you really want to accomplish? But the beauty of sankalpa or intention, that's where it comes. It asks you to focus on one thing and you could improve on it 1% or even half a percent every day, but if you keep nurturing it gently, mindfully every single day, then one day you wake up and you realize, wow, you have come so far and your strength starts to feel more tangible. You start to see much more changes. So this is powerful. Thank you, Sonam. Is there anything that you want to share and I didn't ask or anything in your mind that you wish to share or ask or anything?
Sonam: I know the world, it seems very chaotic, but the question that just sometime it just come to me, is it the chaos is just coming out, so they need our attention to heal as a collective or it just, some way, we are all contributing to it, whether it's unconsciously or consciously with our decision and what is the smallest thing I, as a person that, who was born in a war and it shaped me in so many way, can take action? One seed that I can plant and nurture it for years to come, what is that?
Chandresh: Yeah, are you asking me this? That's a heavy question. Wow.
Sonam: It is.
Chandresh: Yeah, wow. I was expecting maybe you'll say, "So how do I meditate for 10 extra minutes every day?" This is the signature Sonam question. It's heavy, it's powerful and I think it's going to make a lot of people think. What do we say on this? I feel, as a mankind, we became too arrogant in the last few years. We started to believe and think that we got it all and we can fix it all and we are the most powerful creators out there and I think COVID, the whole pandemic was a reminder that you are not above the nature. You are still messing up things, you should not be arrogant, you should approach life with more empathy, with more compassion.
Chandresh: And we all noticed how the worst of the human behavior also showed up in the last few years, but also very kind behavior showed up. But yeah, a lot of darkness also showed up and what's happening right now as we are speaking, the Russia-Ukraine, craziness is building up rapidly and when you were in Leela, Afghanistan was in trouble and I remember not even asking or sharing so much on it because I was like, "How do I share it without getting painful, without getting emotional?" And I used to hold back a lot of my emotions. I was processing a lot of it. Before Afghanistan, there were farmers in India protesting for more than one year and the government was so arrogant about it and it just would make me so angry and upset.
Chandresh: And I feel while there are many human minds who are contributing to the collective pain and anxiety only because of ego and also fear, I feel. Ego is happening because they feel, "We are so powerful and we are going to make sure everyone knows our power." And that's where I see the ego of the mankind. And the fear also shows up because ego is always fearful. Ego is never strong. So in order to protect that ego, they choose violence, they choose hate, they choose anger, division and they keep trying new ways of punishing the other humans, because the ego says, if you don't kill, if you don't fight, if you don't spread hate, you might lose your power. So ego makes you do terrible things. And sometimes it's on a smaller scale, but still very painful impact, and by a smaller scale, I mean it could be a domestic violent situation at home. It could be some fight happening on street, but when the fight starts between thousands, millions of people together, that's no more a smaller impact. That's going to just destroy lives for generations.
Chandresh: But is there any healing side to it? I like to believe, yeah, there is a healing side to it. I would not have gone deeper in my healing journey in the last few years if COVID didn't show up the way it did. I feel the pandemic pushed me to go deeper into my own journey as a seeker, as a healer, as a human, because I realized, I thought I have enough patience, calmness, but in COVID, I realized I maybe don't. I'm very fragile. I'm very sensitive. I'm very weak and I can't handle this. And I remember thinking inventing new ways of recharging my strength. And there would be times I felt lost. I felt, okay, this is collapsing. I can't handle it, but then it was manageable eventually, because I would tap into a part of my strength, which I didn't know that it existed. Leela would not have happened for another 10 years, 20 years because I was in my comfort zone, doing the things I was doing, sharing the way I was sharing, but this entire situation, it pushed me to also give birth to Leela because I realized, "Why am I waiting? What's the fear of failing or living up to certain expectations when the whole world could collapse next day? Why am I holding back my expression?"
Chandresh: So I feel if there is darkness and trauma doing its thing, then there is also inner light and healing doing its thing and we have to make a conscious choice. We have to make a choice that could contribute to collective healing and not collective anxiety. That's a choice we get to make as humans. And yeah, that's always possible, right?
Sonam: Yes. I really like the conscious choice because that one was very deep and profound for me during the Leela program, because every day I used to remind myself, I have a choice here. I have a choice. It was like my daily reminder to be aware and thank you for bringing up because it was such profound for me. I have a choice and this is really powerful to know that you have a choice and your choice, even if it's a smaller scale, you're going to change things. Even if you can do it in your close relationship, that's enough, I guess, for that one generation, for the generation to come.
Chandresh: I feel people underestimate the power of a choice. I remember when I created the meditations, the conscious choice making was a very personal to me and as you're telling me, I feel it's like a God sent voice. I needed to hear these words for myself today, that there is a choice. Why did I feel there was no choice? Because there is a choice and we can always make one. Yeah, thank you, Sonam. Anything else, Sonam, you wish to ask or share?
Sonam: I just want to share one thing, that sometime there's a little voice tells us to do things, and if you can't listen to, it'll lead you to the place that you need to be, but just trust. Trust, that's a big word for me and Leela prove it to me.
Chandresh: Thank you. I can tell, Sonam, you are a huge believer in trust, in intention, in conscious choice making now and I'm going to take a clip from here and put it on YouTube. Those who are listening on just the voice podcast, I would recommend watch this clip even for two minutes, because I want them to see when you share, you share it with so much belief, conviction, and compassion. You inspire me and I hope this podcast, this energy will inspire many women and men out there. Thank you again, Sonam, for sharing and I'm excited to see how far you will bloom and how amazingly you'll continue to inspire everyone.
Sonam: Thank you Chandresh, really appreciate it.
Chandresh: Thank you.
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