Finally Feel Free - How to get unstuck - Jasmin terrany, lmhc interviews nisha moodley

We are on. So, I am here with Nisha Moodley, and we just found out that we are both in Miami right now. Had we known, I guess we could've done this in person, 'cause we're down the road from each other. But let's start. We're gonna go through and just get to know Nisha on a deeper level, get to know what really makes her tick, and all the stuff that you can't find all over the Internet. We're gonna get deep and personal with Nisha Moodley right now, if that's okay with you. Sounds good? Yeah. Alright. So why don't we begin, why don't you tell us a little bit about I guess your childhood, and maybe your story, and what brought you to where you are today? I know it's a little open-ended, but we'll start pulling apart pieces as you go, if that's cool with you? Yeah, absolutely. So, I grew up, my parents divorced when I was quite young. I grew up in Canada. And, as a child their divorce impacted me pretty deeply which it would any child I'm sure. And I grew up living half time with my Mom, half time with my Dad. And my Mom remarried when I was quite young and I have a brother from their partnership. And, you know, part of my story that sort of leads to the work that I do is that throughout my whole life, I struggled with overeating and emotional eating. And to me it was just normal, I didn't know that other kids didn't do that, like some kids sucked their thumb, that's a little more obvious, everybody can see it. Some kids have a blankie, some kids use a pacifier until, you know, they're 10 years old, I don't know. My thing was food, and really... Mine too. Yeah, and you know, I used food for comfort, as I think almost all humans do. We can use food for comfort. But I certainly was like overusing food for comfort. As a child, even? Even as a child, I would say that it was, you know, my default would be to just eat and I would eat to please people, you know, because when children eat a lot, they're called good eaters, so I was like, "Oh, I'm a good girl if I eat lots." And, you know, really there was definitely like a bit of a disconnection. I could feel really stuffed, and then sort of pause for five minutes, and force myself to keep going. So there was something there. I didn't really work out what was going on until probably my early mid-twenties when I realized this was like a drug for me, that this was actually an addiction. Were you overweight? I wasn't, so that's part of it, you know. Some people present externally, and some internally, and I was the kind of person who you couldn't really tell on the outside, which actually was really isolating. Nobody knew that there was this thing going on for me. But my digestion was a disaster. Like, total disaster. I had horrible, horrible digestion. And it was actually, in part, my digestion had me seeking out different alternative health modalities. Like trying to understand nutrition better and figure out how to heal this. And that was the path that lead me to really understanding and, eventually, overcoming this compulsion with food. I'd like to get deeper into that, but if we could just kind of go back to divorce, parents, little kid, alone. Do you remember what it was like for you? And when you say you were at different houses, I mean, half the time each place, how did you manage that? Yeah, I do remember how it was for me. I mean in one respect I remember growing up and, this was early 1980s. I was born in 1979, so you know, I knew plenty of kids whose parents were divorced, and I knew kids who, not as many, but I did know children, one or two perhaps, who didn't spend time with their Mothers, and I knew kids who didn't spend time with their Fathers. And I remember in that respect feeling really fortunate, that I never questioned whether my parents loved me. It's like, oh well they both want me, I spend lots of time with both of my parents, they both love me. And I felt, you know, as an, at that time only child, going back and forth one week with my Mom, one week with my Dad, back and forth every week. I remember drawing pictures as a little kid of suitcases with feet, like legs, and you know I remember saying to my Grandmother and my Mom, I feel like I'm just a suitcase with legs, I'm always going back and forth. So, it was unsettling in many ways and also I couldn't quite figure out how to have it any other way. It just was what it was. So, you know, and I think pretty much, I was a pretty happy go lucky kid. I mean, everybody would comment like "She's great, she's super happy." But I also think that that became like a persona. You know, being bubbly, and happy, and it was my way of maybe in a strange way like taking care of the adults in my life. You know, if they could see I was okay, then they wouldn't feel bad, and maybe it'll make them happier to see that I'm happy. And you know, all of these things that I can understand now, and wrap my head around now, but at the time, certainly it was just my default. Right. It's amazing, I mean you know, as a therapist, you spend a lot of time learning about people's childhood and upbringing, and you know people are always like "Yeah, yeah, yeah." But when you really think about it, what you went through as a child was what developed who you are as an adult. The way in which you learn how to cope with life were the mechanisms that got instilled in you at such young age, and I too was a food person and a happy person. And I think that, you know, through all my own work also is just realizing that, you know, the people who are the optimists and the positive and the bubbly, or whatever, is that oftentimes there's a lot of avoidance going on. And somewhere we learn that it's not okay to be sad, and it's not okay to have pain, and then we start to push it down or we deal with it in all these other unhealthy ways. So, you used the word "addiction." I mean was it really as extreme as what you'd consider addiction with your food issues? Yeah, I mean I think addiction is a really controversial topic, so I'll just give my sort of definition which is when you're using that thing to avoid other things in life, so it becomes a crutch that without it you can't move through life. And so, if that's the definition, then sure it was an addiction for me. The interesting thing though about it is, you know with a drug or alcohol addiction the commonly accepted protocol is abstinence. With food addiction, what are you gonna do? This is our fuel. So, I don't know, I think there's a lot of grey area. But what I do know is that I was absolutely using food, it was totally a crutch for me. And later on, which we can get to, it was shopping, and then it was work. You know, workaholism was the next really big one for me. And again, to me it wasn't just working all the time, in the same way that it wasn't just about having a big appetite, or eating all the time. It was using it to numb out, numbing out, using it like a drug in a way to get me out of my experience, yeah. So, I actually read somewhere on your website that you're multiracial. Yeah. How did that interplay in your life? What are you? What's your ethnic make-up? Yeah you just asked the magic question. So when I was a kid, I grew up in a pretty, fairly diverse community, even though I grew up in Western Canada, which people might not think as the most diverse place ever. I grew up in a small city, it wasn't a town, it was a small city. And, you know, we had kids of a lot of different ethnic backgrounds in our class. So, the question that I got asked all the time was: "What are you?" And I think, you know, at that time it was like, all the Korean, Japanese and Chinese kids just got called Chinese, or Asian. Or Oriental. And then, you know, like any kid, any European kid, Eastern European kid, kid of Eastern European descendance was the white kid, or a normal kid. And you know, we had a few black kids, and the brown kids were in the end. And I was, you know, my Father's South Indian, although my family has been in South Africa for many generations. And my Mother is Scottish/English/Welsh. So if you can imagine a picture of my Mom and Dad, my Dad is very, very dark-skinned, sort of black hair, really dark eyes, very dark features, South Indian. My Mother is very fair, light blue eyes, freckles, and sort of had, you know, reddish-brown hair, like auburn, light-auburn hair I would say when I was growing up. So you didn't look like either of them? Not entirely. I mean, I haven't had the experience in my life of looking at somebody and saying "My Gosh, we really look alike." And you know there will be moments when I'll see a picture of me and my Dad and I can see the features that we share, or a picture of my Mom and I and can see the features that we share, but certainly not the "Wow, I really look like my Brother/Sister/Mother/Father/." So growing up, kids would always ask "What are you?" And I didn't know how to answer the question because it's kind of a big answer and I was little, didn't know really the answer, understand the answer. So, I feel like part of the role that it played in my life is I was very curious about other cultures, about other foods, I always wondered where people's parents were from, so the answer like white, black or Asian was not, didn't mean anything to me. I wanted to know like what country are you from, is your family from, and how long have they been here? So all of that was really interesting to me and those are the parts, the sort of good parts, although that's good and bad judgement, so it's another conversation. Those are the parts of being, you know, mixed race that I really value and appreciate having. And the parts that have been harder to work with are just feeling really different and lonely in that difference, and really wanting to relate to and identify with the other kids, you know, who were Indian, or Hindu, you know, kind of like there's something that we share, but not feeling entirely like I was part of the club. And so always sort of feeling halfway in and out. Has loneliness been kind of a consistent thing that you've experienced kind of as an only child, and going back, and you know the mixed race? I imagine that that must have been pretty prevalent. Yeah, it's actually, you know, I think that we tend to have default emotions, and it's certainly one of the sort of default emotions that I experienced. Some people are really familiar with sadness, or rage, mine is loneliness, and I think it's actually the driving, I would say undercurrent, like part of the driving force in the work that I do around creating community and sisterhood for women, is that experience of feeling very lonely and misunderstood and alone as a child, which I think a lot of children feel, I just happen to be one of them. And so, yeah, really familiar emotion for me, very familiar, and you know, I have such healthier coping mechanisms, like much healthier ways of dealing with that feeling of loneliness, which still shows itself, 'cause it's so familiar to me than I did in the past. But yeah it's an emotion that I feel super familiar with. Do you think you could tell us a little bit about maybe these darker moments and your struggle through, you know maybe some of the loneliness, or the food, or these types of addictions? Can you bring us into the experience of it? Because, just to be clear, you know, I work with a lot of people who come to me with similar issues, and there's always like this desire for a calendar, like a schedule. Like, when will I be over this, or when will I get through this, you know. And I always try to explain, this is a life process, you know, and certain things you learn how to deal with and certain things you get better at, and hopefully you'll overcome it, but you're always gonna have some sort of thing that you're going through. And I guess I'd like to kind of get a little clear about how your process has been in your struggle and your journey, and getting clear about where you are now with all that kind of stuff. Yeah, I think it's really interesting I mean for a long time I definitely wanted out, you know I wanted out of this feeling of loneliness or out of the struggle and I think as soon as I started to really realize the gifts that were coming from it, I was like wow, this is a really big opportunity for me to grow and learn and serve, and so I totally like know what you mean about it being a life-long process and I think that just acknowledging and appreciating the gifts that it's given me. And that it, you know, it just keeps getting better if I keep my attention on it without frustration, so that helps. How did you get that? 'Cause I mean, I wanna clarify it. What I'm hearing you say is that you learned not to be scared of the darkness, and that you started seeing it as a gift, as an opportunity for growth rather than something you had to run away from, is that right? Totally, and I think if I feel loneliness now for example, it's not that I'm like "Yey I feel so lonely," I mean there's certainly a part of me that doesn't wanna be in that emotion, but there's another part of me that can also at the same time recognize, this isn't gonna kill me, and has some more well-developed coping mechanisms. So, you know, I mentioned that I struggled with emotional eating for years and years, maybe decades, and started working with a naturopath probably 10 years ago, and changed my diet. What is a naturopath? A naturopath? So just like a holistic or integrative doctor. I was living in Canada at the time, and I don't know about now 'cause I don't live in Canada anymore, but at that time anyways naturopaths, you know, they took my insurance, all of that kind of stuff. So this was about 10 years ago, and I was working with this naturopathic doctor and she helped me make a lot of dietary changes. And as I was making these changes, I started getting into reading ingredient labels, 'cause, you know, there were certain foods that we were taking out, so I needed to know what was in all this food that I was buying. And I just became really fascinated by food and the food industry, and how there's so much garbage in packaged foods. It was just really fascinating and eye-opening to me. It wasn't something that I had really looked into before. And while I was getting more interested and curious about food and nutrition, I was also feeling just so much better. I mean, if anybody cuts out you know gluten, and dairy, and sugar, and caffeine, and alcohol, you know, all that stuff, and I was just eating vegetables and you know really clean foods. My body was feeling awesome. My digestion started to improve. And I also started becoming, I just felt like I was becoming a more passionate person, you know. More alive. I was getting interested in, I was getting, I was interested in food so I started getting interested in environmental sustainability, and reading books about that. You know, I was taking better care of my body and doing yoga more. And so going out to the clubs felt like out of alignment for me. This was in my early twenties. And so, I started doing photography, and writing poetry, and going to poetry slams, and just my life was changing a lot at that time. And it was, and it was, feeling amazing. Like my life was really blossoming open. Wait, just before you continue, what was the impetus for this shift, 'cause it feels like it was kind of subtle, you started going to a naturopath, was there something more, was there like a moment where you said, I need to make a change, or was it just. Yeah, yeah, I mean really the catalyst was a breakup. So I was living with a boyfriend at the time, first person I, you know, romantic relationship that I, we had lived together. We really thought we were it. We were gonna get married. And it just didn't work out. I moved out, was living with my girlfriends, and I could see that I was gonna go into these habits of like watching television, and eating all the time, and just going out, and getting drunk on the weekends and. There was just something about, I could see myself moving in that direction and it was so unappealing to me that I wanted to make a change. So I actually went to yoga, signed up for yoga class, and that got me more interested in what I was eating, and that's sort of how it all began. So it was like a rock-bottom moment of this breakup, this huge loss, where you got to really look at yourself in a way that you hadn't before. I think that's something important to just put out there. Sometimes those darkest moments are the times when we get to see ourselves more clearly, 'cause otherwise it's like driving with a dirty windshield. Like you can do it indefinitely, and you're kind of coasting through life like fuzzying, clouding, grey. And sometimes you just need a little something to decide that you wanna clean that up. It's so true, it's a great analogy. I needed the storm to hit in a way, or at least that's what happened, and it catalyzed all of this change, so... You know, I eventually went on to study nutrition myself and start working with women, to help them find freedom with food. And how that happened to me is that in the process of learning about food and nutrition and getting passionate about environmental sustainability, and starting to have a life that I was inspired by, and get curious about what do I really wanna do with my life, you know? I'm working 40 hours a week at a job, what do I wanna be spending those 40 hours doing? And all of those questions had me actually overcome my own compulsion with food because the hole that the food was filling was no longer there. So I didn't need the crutch of food because my life was filling really fulfilling and I was taking care of my body, so there weren't sort of nutritional gaps that I was filling with junk food. There's a whole lot in there that I could talk about, but you know I went on to help women with emotional eating. So then it almost seems like it wasn't like a "I need to get over this food, emotional food addiction thing." You just kind of started getting passionate about things that started to fill you up in ways that food didn't, and that almost coincidentally served its purpose. I mean was it as not-intentional as it seems? It's a little bit of both. I think, you know, the recognizing that there was actually a problem was the catalyst. But then my attention just went to having more fun and eating these foods and I didn't know how to get out of the problem, and sort of, fortunately, I sort of you know, stumbled my way out of the problem by focusing instead on all of the things I wanted to bring in and create and just having more enjoyment in my life. That's interesting. I have a little theory, it's my little, my Love Tank Theory. And the idea, which feels really relevant, is that people are like cars, that in order for a car to function properly, you need to fill its tank with gas, right? It's not gonna go anywhere if you have no gas in its tank. And, similarly, we have love tanks. And so if our love tank isn't full or is empty, how do we feel? We feel empty. We feel lonely. We feel miserable, pain, hurt, sadness, whatever. And in order to deal with those uncomfortable feelings, we naturally look for things to fill us up. And I feel like there's kind of three domains in which we fill up that love tank: one is that more addictive domain, which is the food, sex, alcohol, shopping, work, whatever it is that might give you a temporary high, but is really depleting you and making you feel more and more empty, so it feels you up temporarily, but it's really emptying your love tank further and further. And then the second are kind of like more neutral, which are the distractions, like TV, or socializing, or even giving, I mean mine was always even giving, like things that you think that you're doing that are just ways to avoid being with that empty love tank. And then the third is learning how to really give yourself love, like learning what you truly need, learning how to sit with those feelings, learning how to fill yourself up with real love, and it seems like you just kind of started being like, wait, I wanna feel full and you started filling yourself with things that were in alignment with loving yourself. Totally. What I ultimately wanted was my life to feel adventurous and meaningful, and to feel a sense of connection, I had felt disconnected for so long, I felt like I was sort of going the motions and doing the things that, you know, I felt like I was supposed to do. And that was just unfulfilling, so I was like, I'm gonna try it my way. And it was a little bit of a joyful rebellion, you know, that I was undertaking. So, if I can fast forward a little bit, I, this was a few years ago, I had built up my business coaching women around emotional eating, my business was going well, I felt really fulfilled by the work that I was doing, but in my personal life, so I was married, I'm now divorced, so you can tell where this is going, but you know we were really struggling in our marriage. And anybody who's on the brink of divorce will say 90% of your mental, emotional bandwidth is totally taken up all the time, maybe even in your sleep by "Do I stay, do I go, what do I do, what's wrong with me, what's wrong with you?" I mean it was just, it was a really intense time, and really painful time. And one day we were in the middle of an argument and I sort of felt myself, it was almost like I was there and I was also watching myself from the outside, and I felt myself shut down and then I went "I don't have time for this, I have work to do." And I turned around, it was like no emotion, turned around, got behind my laptop, and as I sat down I realized, and I think actually now as I'm thinking it through, maybe I got on Facebook and realized, I'm not even working, what am I even, I'm not. And I realized in that moment that I was using work the same way I used food. I always had ton of work to do, there was always a fire to put out in my business, there was always like "Oh, no" you know, I thought the money was gonna come and it didn't come, like there was always a drama, yeah, a problem, a drama that needed my attention in my business like all the time. And if I wasn't working I felt guilty because I had problems and dramas to fix. And that realization that I was in the same pattern of avoidance that I had been in, and I was using work just as I had used food, had me realized "Okay, now I know that it's not about the work, it's about the whole," the empty love tank as you would say. And I could do what most people would do in that position, which is obsess about how to make myself more productive and how to just make more money so I can get to the next milestone, because then I could. But I realized, that's not what this is about. What this is about, I'm hurting, I'm feeling lonely again, I don't know what to do, I'm confused about my relationship. So, instead, I vowed to get support around that. And I got a relationship coach, I started taking more time for my self-care, I started telling my friends what was actually going on and not. You know we get, we make stock answers for things. Like ask anybody how they're doing, and 9 times out of 10 they'll be like "Oh you know" or "Oh, I'm fine" or, you know, "Better than yesterday." Like we have these little, what does that even mean? And I realized, you know, my stock answer was "You know, we're doing okay, we're, it's been challenging, but we're you know, we're still in it." It was just very vague, and it was my way of like keeping my friends at an arm's length, and not actually dealing with what was really going on. And so I just knew... Not being vulnerable. Totally, totally, and I knew that the only way I was gonna end this cycle of addiction or avoidance in my life, and not only that, actually have the kind of life that I wouldn't be trying to avoid, was to deal with this thing in me. And so, I got a lot of support, and it was really hard, it was really hard. What was this thing, if you had to like, when you say "thing" can you identify what is it, and what was it like to deal with it? 'Cause I think this is kind of the core of it, and I feel like this is the heart of the process that people don't like to talk about, you know, they. What's the thing, and what was it like to see it? So it's like a pit of loneliness is what it was for me, and you know I think I'm still learning my way through all the nooks and crannies of this, you know, space of loneliness. Well, then, if you asked me "Do you feel lonely" and I was being honest, I would say "Yeah, I feel really lonely." If you ask me now "Do you feel lonely" I'd say "No, I don't feel lonely. Sometimes, maybe I feel a little lonely." But, again, it was that time, going through my divorce that I learned for the first time ever how to actually deal with the whole, the space. And, so, and the beauty of that is that the first time when I created all this joy and pleasure and fun in my life, you know, I didn't need food because that hole was full of all that beautiful stuff. But there was still a hole, 'cause I still had a loneliness default. I didn't realize it, but, here it showed up again, you know, many years later, and the reason it showed up again is because I didn't have my circumstances of my life, I didn't have all the pleasure, and the joy, and the fun. So, I realized, yes, I need, you know, if you have a wound, you need to dress the wound, treat the wound, put some salve on the wound, but you also need to address why the wound happened in the first place, perhaps, you know? If you keep falling, you need to figure out what's going on with this hip that it keeps giving out, for example. And, so, I needed the friendship, and I needed the self-care, I needed the joy, I needed all those things and I needed to deal with the wound, like this is, there's a loneliness that is pervasive here and it's very familiar what is that, so I got therapy. And how did you deal? Therapy, there you go. Yeah therapy, we love you. Coaching, yeah, therapy, I had a coach. I started sharing deeply with my girlfriends. Letting yourself have it, letting yourself be in it. Can I give another little theory, 'cause I feel like you're getting to like another really key point? So one day I was at the gym on the elliptical machine and I'm watching the Weather Channel, and it says: "The Mood Swings of Mother Nature." And, you know, it was a little weird or whatever, but it occurred to me that Mother Nature has mood swings. And then I really thought about it, that you know, it's not always a sunny day. Sometimes it's stormy, sometimes it's cloudy, right now it just started getting rainy. It's not always a sunny day, and that's the perfection of our planet. If we didn't have that balance, we'd burn up and die. It couldn't function if it was just always a sunny day. And I think that part of our problem as a society is that we think that it's always suppose to be a sunny day inside of us, and that we don't have any love or respect for the "stormy weather." Whoa, I don't want that. That's uncomfortable. There's a lot of like, and not sharing and not letting. There's all of the avoidance, not letting ourselves have the darkness, the stormy weather is the issue. Because in truth, the stormy stuff is part of our perfection. That's our wholeness, that's what makes us whole. But if we are just being happy, then we're only dealing with one side of the spectrum. And it sounds like you started embracing, for a while, you went into just like your sunny side, and started filling that up, and were focusing there, and all of the sudden you're like, "Wait, this isn't working." But the stormy side still exists. And so it's learning that that duality is part of being human, and learning to be comfortable with the duality, knowing that the painful, yucky, horrible, uncomfortable stuff is where the learning comes from, is where the growing comes from, it's godawful and miserable. And I definitely, in my own darkest moments, people would be like "What are you doing Saturday night," and I'm like "I'm crying on my couch," you know? Just like, here, I'm here in it, you know? Just the willingness to honor it, and deal with it, and not run away from it, and not be scared of it, is what let's it pass and doesn't make it build and make it even stormier, you know? Absolutely. I Amen to everything you just said. And, yeah, I think I got more comfortable with being genuinely joyful, and I learned to take exquisite care of myself. And there was a fear of the circumstances in my life not being awesome. So of course when they showed up, I just defaulted into avoidance because I was so, couldn't deal. And it's been such a beautiful learning for me, to learn what it is, to actually be a friend, you know, being a friend isn't just listening to my friends. Being a friend is sharing with my friends, and all of it. And that, that's a big one. It is so valuable. You know, it's interesting, being a coach, and I'm sure you as well in the work that you do, there tends to be a lot of embarrassment or shame around getting support for things. Like, we think we should be able to handle it on our own. So people will easily save money to buy a new dishwasher. I mean, easily, I mean the mental leap to "Oh yeah, well we need a new dishwasher," or you know, the towels are horrible and we have guests coming, we need to buy new towels. And that's great, I'm not saying, I'm not gonna go on a rant about like material things. I like my comforts. If my towels are horrible, I want new towels. But I totally, highly value the support that I get in my life, not only for my friends and my family, but the people who I pay, you know? I have a coach, I have a therapist. Me too. Sometimes I have two coaches, one working on my business, and one working on something else with me. Me too, I have the spiritual coach, the business, the therapist. Totally. And it's an investment in yourself and how are you suppose to learn and grow if you're not investing in you? You're the biggest asset. We, at least the people that I roll with, wanna make a difference in the World. And, you know, part of that difference is you know, yes, having the time to do it, and making the time to do it, and having your life structured in such a way that you can do it. And a lot of it has to do with what's going on in here. I would beg to say, most of it has to do with. Yeah, totally. And in fact, sometimes the other stuff can be just a distraction, because the most important stuff is the stuff that's going on in here. And if I really wanna make a difference, I love, you know my core philosophy is that the World will be set free by women who are free. And I came to that because around the time of my, you know, marriage falling apart and my divorce, I remember hearing the Dalai Lama quote "The World will be saved by the Western woman." I have goosebumps. Yeah, it was amazing. And I remember feeling when I first heard that, he said it at the 2010, I believe, World Peace Summit. It's like "wow, that's amazing," you know, I felt proud to be a women, and a Western woman, like the Dalai Lama says that we're gonna save the World, so it must be true. But I thought about it and I thought, well which ones? Every, like all Western women? I mean, and I understood that he, what he was getting at is that we have freedoms that a lot of other women don't have, right? We're allowed to speak our minds, and sure we have a long way to go, but we have a lot more freedoms that many women in many other places. Majority of the World, for sure. Majority of the World. And, so, but it dawned on me that the ones of us who were going to make a real difference, the biggest difference were the ones who, to mash up two quotes, like Gandhi said being the change. And that's when I started really immersing myself in, listen if the change I wanna make in the World is expanding women's freedom, whatever that means to each of us, then I have to be free. And to expand my sense of freedom, sure, yeah, travel, all that stuff, those are expressions of my extrinsic freedom, but there is a whole kind of freedom that's happening in here, that I can cultivate in here, and I started being willing to pay almost anything I had to see that grow and expand. And, man, I wanna see massive cultural shift for Westerners. We have the money to do it, we can stop buying a new freaking dishwasher every two years and instead invest in grow and expanding in here, and opening our hearts, having more open hearts. Because then we can actually give and serve in a bigger way. But it's that shift in value system, you know? We have this society that's focused on stuff, and this will make you happy and that will make you happy, and once I get the guy, once I get the body, once I get the dress, once I get whatever, then I'll be happy. And we're really, as a society, I think, I think there's obviously a shift going on, but that there's such a focus in our Capitalist society, to help sell things, that everyone thinks that once they get XYZ, they'll be happy. And, unfortunately, it's not true, you know? It's that you could get as many things as you want, if you're not good on the inside, you're not gonna be good no matter how many of these amazing things you have. And so, it's having that value shift to really trust that you know what, all those things are fine and good, and granted I love having all of those things, but they're secondary, you know? That's not the heart of what we're out to achieve and get, you know? Yeah, totally. You know, I had somebody say to me recently, "Well don't you think that spending all that money on yourself is selfish?" And it wasn't a, there wasn't that sign of that little, you know there was an accusatory tone, and I'm not sure that there was, but the point is, you know, I said that I had spent so many years of my life waiting, like you said, well when this happens, then I'll be able to do this, and then I'll be able to like go out and. But it was very "me" focused. When I have all this stuff, when I have all this stuff, when I have all this stuff, when I feel, when I, when I, when I, when I, when I... And it was sort of a distant thought that then I would go and be able to serve. And, what's interesting is, although I have coaches and therapists and, you know, I'm getting all of this support for me, I'm very aware when I make those investments, that I'm doing it for the World. That I'm doing it for my future children, and then how they are in the World, and that I'm doing it for my clients, and then they get to pass that on to the people that they serve. And the focus is totally shifted, it's completely different. 'Cause the value system is shifted. I think there's no one way or the other, but we have to recognize that if we're part of the ecology, we have to take care of ourselves too. I actually, recently, I was very pleased with this new concept I came up with. The idea of looking at your life on a timeline. I was talking to one of my clients about the exact same thing and we were in the conversation "When I, when I, when I." And I was like, well if you look at your life as a timeline, you could have these like pointy moments of happiness, when you got your car, when you got your boyfriend, when you got married, when you had your baby. You have these like specific moments on your timeline when you were satisfied. Or, you could focus on every moment that you were in on that timeline and focus on being satisfied in that. It doesn't mean you don't get the car, it doesn't mean you don't get the husband, it doesn't mean you don't get the baby, it doesn't mean you don't get the body. It doesn't mean those things don't happen, it just means that you don't have to wait for those things to have those little moments of satisfaction. You can start learning how to be satisfied every point on this timeline, rather than waiting for those special moments to achieve it. Yeah. I thought that was an interesting visual. Well why don't you tell us a little bit about your business, and where you are now? What you do? Sure. Yes, so everything I do is based around this core belief that I have that the World will be set free by women who are free, and that sisterhood is key. So, as I was really learning to overcome this loneliness that I had experienced for so long, one of the key things that helped to allow me to have my freedom, to open that up for me, was this space of supporting, sorry, supportive, loving sisterhood. And it was the women in my life, my girlfriends who said: "Call my therapist, this coach, go talk to her. We have to go to the spa. Get out of your pajamas." And sat and cried with me, held my hand at divorce court, hugged me, did cord-cutting, you know, all this stuff that we do, just these incredibly supportive, loving women in my life. And so, what I do in my work is create communities of women entrepreneurs and bring them together in this space of supportive sisterhood, so that we can explore what freedom means to each of us and discover how we can create those new levels of freedom so that we can be making the kind of contributions that we wanna make, and living the way that we wanna live. So what does that look like? Retreats, yeah. Yeah, so I lead retreats, I run a Mastermind, it's a 9-month program for twenty women. I have an online program called "The Virtual Sisterhood" and I have a few other things in the works right now, but those are the main moving parts. And how often do you do the retreats? Is there anything that you'd like to tell people about, so they know? Yeah, yeah, well the retreats, I'm getting back into doing retreats actually. I was doing them several years ago, just individual retreats, and I stopped for a few years, and I'm getting back into doing them. So, right now, there are plans, but nothing solid. Okay. Yeah. So if anyone wants to know more about you, where should they go, what should they do if they're interested? Yes, so my website is FierceFabulousFree.com and that's the best place to find me, so I invite people to come on over and check me out. I'm also on Facebook and I'm pretty interactive on Facebook, so I always love having new friends. Just search my name: Nisha Moodley and come say hi. Anything else before we go, any words of wisdom or anything before we get out of here? Yeah, I think that, you know, the thing that I almost always want to leave people with is to phone a friend, and just see how you can gently deepen that friendship with them. And just give them your time, your listening, and share yourself with them in return. You know, I was sitting at dinner with a girlfriend last night, wish you were there. I know. If we had only known we're in the same city. I was sitting at dinner with a girlfriend and I said, look at the table behind you, and it was three women and they were all like on their iPhones. I've seen that too. And they were like that the whole time before the food came, and I just thought, wow, you know, these are the people that are gonna be there for you when your heart is breaking, or you know, are gonna talk with you when when you're, celebrate with you when you're excited about the raise that you got at work, or the new career that you're starting. And, yet, we're tinkering on our iPhones. And I love technology, but I don't love the way that we've been interacting with technology, and I think it's time that we get back to a place that maybe we haven't as a society been for a really long time, which is just real with one another. I couldn't agree more. I, just on a closing note, I was talking to a client about the same thing last night, just realizing how lacking friendships can be, and how yearning most people are for real deep intimacy and connectedness. And it takes a lot of courage to be the one to take that step with the trust that someone's gonna take the step back. But I think if, just to piggyback off what you're saying, is that everybody wants it, everyone wants to feel loved, everyone wants to feel connected, whether or not they even know it, whether or not they're capable of it. The more that you're willing to be it, and show it, the more of a chance it is that you're gonna get in response. So I think it's really valuable, it's a really good point. Yeah, thank you. And I really appreciate you for keeping it real with me in this interview, and I really, I have such a good, you know, experience and feeling for the work that you do, and so appreciate you. So thank you for having me. I feel the same way about you too. Well, it was lovely and we'll say goodbye now and we'll see if we can hang up this call. Let's see here. Alright, bye everybody. Bye!