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Have you forgotten how to roar? In this inspiring episode Vedic teacher Acharya Shunya invites anyone who has experienced oppression to break free from their bondage and step into their power using three Hindu goddesses as their guides. Shunya reminds us that despite our circumstances each one of us is innately resilient, strong and fierce.
What's on the menu at Lucid Cafe? Stories of transformation; healing journeys; thought-provoking conversations about consciousness, shamanism, psychology, ethics. Hosted by Wendy Halley of Lucid Path Wellness & Healing Arts.
INTRO
You're listening to Lucid Cafe. Hi, I'm Wendy Halley. Thanks for joining me for another episode of Lucid Cafe, a podcast exploring healing, consciousness and the complexities of being human.
I hope your 2023 is off to a good start. Although, according to my astrologer friend, Linda River Valente, who was featured in not one but two episodes last season, January is not going to have that fresh start feeling that we're probably all craving. She told me that we should really consider February as the start of the new year. If that ends up not being the case for you, it's Linda's fault. You know I'm kidding. Right?!
But if you do choose to be pissed at Linda, perhaps, today's episode will help you tap into your anger in a healthy way to help you roar like a goddess. Okay, I just need to take a moment to acknowledge how masterful that segue was. It even surprised me. Damn, that was good.
My guest, Acharya Shunya, has written a feminist manifesto rooted in classic Vedic teachings and brought to life through India's primary goddess archetypes. It's titled Roar Like A Goddess: Every Woman's Guide to Becoming Unapologetically Powerful, Prosperous and Peaceful.
Shunya is a truth teller who facilitates authenticity, self remembrance, and divine feminine pathways to awakening. The first female head of her spiritual lineage that traces its roots to 2000 years ago in India, she represents the ancient Vedic tradition of India in a way that is completely authentic, yet as relevant as possible to modern sensibilities and needs. She is a highly rated motivational speaker, podcast host, workshop facilitator, and retreat leader with over 20 years of experience as a spiritual wellness relationship and women's empowerment coach. Her approach is all about amplifying your authenticity and empowering you to become a better version of yourself. And she uses goddess archetypes from her culture as tools for unapologetic living.
Please enjoy my conversation with Acharya Shunya.
Wendy: Shunya, thank you so much for joining me.
Shunya: Complete pleasure. Thank you for having me, Wendy.
Wendy: Absolutely. So you have a new book out. Roar like a Goddess every woman's guide to becoming unapologetically, powerful, prosperous and peaceful. That's a pretty amazing title. It's a pretty powerful title.
Shunya: Yeah. I'm surprised. It just came to me because I compare a roar to, like, claiming our authentic voice, which is reflective of our true power. And what could be better than a roar?
Wendy: Yes. As a Leo, I'm totally behind that.
Shunya: Yes.
Wendy: Well, it definitely makes a statement, too. It gets your attention. Not just the title, but also the cover of the book. It's beautiful. The color, it's totally an attention grabber. This might be a strange place to start our conversation, but I'm interested to know if you were born roaring like a goddess, or if you had to come to that at some point in your life.
Shunya: Oh, Wendy, I was born roaring like a goddess, and I was raised like one. But I forgot for a while there, when I went through an arranged marriage in India and I met patriarchy, and I absorbed some self diminishing beliefs like all women do, I lost my roar for a while there. I started squeaking. I started apologizing. I started explaining myself way more than necessary. It was not to the point where maybe it was obvious to others, because people tell me that I've been a powerful, self assured person all my life.
But, you know, it when you're not completely in your essence, when you're not totally owning your light. And that's when I had to use some knowledge, some other divine feminine, empowering knowledge through storytelling and through wisdom, teachings that I had received in my family of origin. From my mother, from my grandfather, who was also my guru and the guru of thousands of people in India. And I had to relearn that to roar is my birthright and to forget it happens. But now I know I forgot. So I could experience the pain and write a book one day about it and then maybe talk to you, Wendy. It was all written in the stars.
Wendy: Right! So then what was that moment like? Because to have your voice then to lose it only to regain it again, that must be even more challenging than to never have it. So I'm curious, what was that moment, the moment you realized that, oh, my God, I don't have my voice? What did I do?
Shunya: When I started saying yes when I should say no. When I stopped meaning my yes? Because I was a person of integrity. And I started seeing how I'm resentful. How I am feeling suffocated. You start feeling like, the climate inside you is no longer like the bright open sky and the shining sun. It felt cloudy, it felt moldy. And I started seeing that I am looking out towards what others are thinking way more than I should be.
I understand there's a word in Sanskrit from my language, from my tradition called Dharma. And Dharma includes being sensitive to others, to be sympathetic and sensitive to others needs. And so there is some looking at being integrated with the whole network, not just being self absorbed and selfish in the name of being progressive, but being kind and considerate. Uh, and that is fine, but it does not leave you out. Dharma means you're breathing, you're happy, you're smiling, because Dharma includes the value of self value and self worth and self esteem. And it started dropping for me. And I had these silent observations where I realized that I'm abandoning myself to please a husband or some role that I had to play out.
And ultimately, my teaching now on a world stage, is, hey, if you can't be true to yourself, you cannot even be a great mom or a wife or anything. Um, those realizations, it didn't happen in an intellectual sense, that what is happening to me is that I'm facing those same old demands that women worldwide feel. Whether they're walking into an arranged marriage or a professional setup as a CEO, they're still going to meet those ceilings and those walls of expectations and limitations. You can change the circumstance. You can't change the bottom line that women have to carry way more weight and explain way more of why they take certain actions than the male gender. And my role, like a goddess, is not about being against the male gender, because I've had some great men in my life, including my father, my grandfather, and so many people I know. But it's more about the women not falling victim to those expectations which are in the air we breathe.
Wendy: Right. So then you're in this arranged marriage, and you find your Roar again. And then what were the consequences of that?
Shunya: Yeah, the consequences were that, well, you don't get to roar right here. and that roar allowed me to. The Roar is not just a no to what is happening around me, but it's also a yes to who I want to become. And the Roar is also a leap of joy and an exclamation of hope in my future self and my future partner and my future life, where I'm seen and I can see back equality and love and empowerment. And so my role took me to another marriage. And I've been married 20 plus years in a beautiful relationship. I've been a beautiful relationship. And that roar led me to found more than one organization in California with internationally spread students worldwide, all learning to be empowered in different ways, through their health, through their wealth, through their relationships. The Roar is really about stopping to dream and just start doing and start living the life that we want, meant to lead all along. And our, uh, deep self knows that version. How I got that last minute or how I got this unstoppable wave or tidal wave of the Roar coming through me that I leave to the Divine feminine, the Divine Mother.
Wendy: I was actually wondering if you were able to stay in that arranged marriage, because that's one of the things I think that is difficult about changing, especially for women, is that when they do find their power and their voice again, that people that have been in their lives when they've been powerless are used to them not having a voice. And so when they find their voice, it may not go over well.
Shunya: That's very true. However, I was not evicted. I left.
Wendy: I like that! So, your book focuses on three of the Hindu goddesses.
Shunya: Yeah, these Hindu goddesses are my muse.
Wendy: And you leaned on them specifically? Because there are many goddesses and gods in the Hindu tradition, yeah?
Shunya: Yeah. They all represent the one nondual consciousness, which is really formless. But in Hinduism, we get to have any version of that informed. That's why there are numerous gods and goddesses, because it was not sure what to leave out, who to leave out, really. So we have animals, plants, humans, and even transgender gods and goddesses to really represent that that unbounded entity or reality can possess or come through any form.
But the chief forms that really beloved in my tradition and culture for thousands of years are Goddess Durga, the goddess of, unbridled power and even righteous rage. Goddess Lakshmi, the goddess of pleasure and prosperity, and Goddess Saraswati, the goddess of wisdom and intuition. And you could call them as the chief incarnations of that ultimate, undefinable, unboxable presence. And I had heard their stories from my mother at bedtime. And those bedtime stories would hardly put me to sleep. They would rouse me, kind of, and I dream of them. But these are empowering stories that every child of every gender needs to learn so they can be more safe and more empowered on this planet. And I was fortunate to receive them from my mother in a very dramatic way because she loved theater. And then, as I grew older, my grandfather, who was my traditional guru, he unpacked their deeper wisdom, their symbolism, and explained how those powers could be accessed through our chakras. And it became a very living reality for me.
So when I was not in a good place in my dreams, these goddesses would come and knock on me to say, what's happening to you? Did you fall asleep on the wheel? What's happening? Gradually, I would remember their story, and I would learn to roar, despite people wanting to suffocate it or despite me wanting to choke my own voice. You know how our shadow comes in and stops wanting to please others?
Wendy: Oh, yeah. So then, for Westerners who are maybe not as familiar with the Hindu tradition, how do you invite people to, women, in particular, how do you invite women to connect with these goddesses in a way that can serve them in the way that they have served you?
Shunya: I don't approach the goddesses from a religious perspective at all. I approach them as universal archetypes of empowered feminine hood, so to say. And it's really interesting that in their stories, in their mythology, these goddesses also face some of the things women worldwide face, like sexual objectification dismissal, because the great power is showing up in a female form, being made invisible, or even being treated unfairly. But the goddesses don't respond with silence, which is historic, which is what all women are complimented for.
These goddesses don't respond with rescuing behavior or obliging behavior. They respond in spontaneous new ways. That the book explains all those different ways. Sometimes they are generous and accommodating. Other times, they are unaccomidating in fears. Sometimes they are domestic. Other times, they break all molds and do their own thing as a single gal having so much power on the planet.
So throughout all these goddess archetypes I saw radical self acceptance. I saw authority that is sourced from within rather than without or from their status of being married or single or spins or divorced. There was this radical liking of the self and a declaration of their presence as they are, who they are. That really makes them a goddess.
And that is why my publishers at Sounds True, which is a well known publisher here in America and a publisher of my multiple books this is my third book with them. We're so excited about it. They're even thinking of potentially creating a comic book version for girls worldwide to have these stories as almost like superwoman. But they talked to us not just about fighting the bad guys out there, but also fighting those bad thoughts in here that lead to self abandonment or self trashing or self diminishing or self doubting beyond what's normal.
Wendy: When I was reading through your book, I was really taken by how complex each one is, each archetype is. And the idea of balance, right, is that they're not one dimensional. As you were saying. It's like there's time to be permissive or apologetic, and then there's a time to be unapologetic.
Shunya: Yeah.
Wendy: I was wondering if they can have... in some traditions, there can be, like, a negative expression and a positive expression of the archetype. And I was wondering if that's the case with these as well. Like, if there's cautionary tales or things to be aware of.
Shunya: There is none. Interestingly. These goddesses are what is known in Sanskrit. My language is Sampurna, which means they represents wholeness. And though they don't represent every aspect of the wholeness, I wanted to point out that they don't represent, necessarily, holiness. Wholeness is more important than holiness.
Wendy: I like that.
Shunya: Yeah. And I'm not just saying it. Maybe these are my words, but this is what I have interpreted or understood when I go back into the deeper tradition. That's why these goddesses are sexual. These goddesses are passionate. These goddesses, they embody all their emotions, including rage, if they're violated. And so these goddesses are representing, when you study them like a scholar, like I did, uh, maybe ways for a woman to come into our wholeness. And one of the things that women universally have been chastised about is owning their anger, or least of all, expressing it. Then we become nags and hags and witches.
But the goddess Durga, for example, shows that, hey, there'll be times when your sexual, physical, emotional, verbal boundaries are being violated. And at that time, it's dharmic. It is Dharma. It's ethical to experience her anger. Let it inform you of your boundary violation. But then anger is not always related to violence. Anger can be also a cold pulling away. And anger can lead to detachment. And anger can lead to more discernment. And anger can lead to inner housekeeping. And anger can lead to even physically putting up a boundary.
They don't necessarily they show us that anger does not always mean being brutal. While stupid, crazy anger means you're smart, you've been violated and you feel it. And you should. Even a butterfly doesn't want to be violated. A caterpillar doesn't. Then how can we decided that the female gender and people of nonbinary expansive genders don't get to experience the anger? It's not okay. People of one color get to experience the anger, but not the other colors. They are outright dangerous. These are all human made beliefs that are floating around in patriarchy. Because patriarchy does not just do a number on women, but on all genders and forces us to behave in artificial ways.
Whereas when you go into these goddess archetypes through role like a goddess, you go, oh, gosh. I have chapters and chapters on healthy anger, conscious anger versus unconscious anger. Then what is super conscious anger? When you channel something, when you channel anger for the good of all. And I really feel, Wendy, that my book Roar Like A Goddess has emerged from my super conscious anger.
Wendy: Yeah. Can you talk more about that?
Shunya: With super conscious anger would be something where you're upset, you know, you've noticed things, and you can dare to call a spade a spade. But now, it's not about being vindictive against one gender or one people, or one group of people. You realize that you must embody and express and talk about this anger and make changes because of this anger. And when you do that, it's going to benefit all people. The whole planet will be uplifted, the consciousness will be elevated.
And I feel like I have through my anger, which I experienced not only for myself, but for all people who are disempowered because of, uh, their sexual preference or their genitals at birth, their biology at birth or because of various other reasons they are being marginalized or they are being asked to take a second place on this planet. I felt angry. And it went from being personal to impersonal. It went from being wanting some solution just for me, to wanting to uplift the beliefs of all beings. And that's why it went from being unconscious where it was giving me heartburn, to being conscious where I could speak for myself. At least I'm not somebody who forgets anymore to roar with power, prosperity, pleasure, peace. And now it's coming through a super conscious anger.
When I write the book, and all the people who have been reading advanced copies of the book are telling me that, oh, this book is a game changer, and I feel it too. And I feel so relieved that I allowed my superconscious anger to help me write this vulnerable but raw and fierce book at the same time.
Wendy: It's beautiful. So then what I was going to ask about anger because I think that is something that, as you've pointed out, women have really struggled with and where we have not been using our voices. And then the consequence of not acknowledging your anger. What are your thoughts on the consequences of withholding your anger?
Shunya: Anger is an information system. Anger was placed into our being, psyche, biology as a protective mechanism. Every emotion has a place. And for, uh, us to artificially only want to be joyful, only want to be peaceful, only want to be generous, is to lead a skewed life. And if we don't experience an occasional spark of our anger, if we don't own it, we won't really take a stock of our own life. We won't look at, like, why are we angry? Especially if you are chronically angry. We'll have to dig in and bury through several files of anger that are lying in our spam. We need to bring that back into our inbox and look at it. And as we keep looking at why we're angry, ultimately, anger informs us of something we have to do, like rescue less, please less, say yes less or mean our nose, or not break our diet or stay on our exercise schedule. Because I have known that there are two levels of reality. There's the outer reality, where people make you angry, but then there is the, uh, inner reality, where you can look at, well, why do they have when did I give them this power to make me angry?
Wendy: Ooh, yeah.
Shunya: Right? And if they kind of suppress our anger, we're going to be bereft of all this knowledge and intuition and wisdom that could come our way. Anger is really not enough to do some homework and do some housekeeping. So when I'm having less angry days, I'm cruising along. Wendy when I experience anger, I get really excited. I'm like, oh, what am I being asked to look at now? And I start going inwards and try and feel my anger. And often, first it's like you feel angry with your husband because he didn't pick up the cups and put them in the kitchen. It's like something as simple, but really there's something deeper and then deeper, and I have to sit with it. And then it comes down to what do I want in my life?
Wendy: Or what didn't I say?
Shunya: Yeah. What didn't I say?
Wendy: I think that's a really good indicator for those of us who are so unfamiliar with anger because we've suppressed it for so long, that the moment you find yourself resentful, I think that's a really good clue to start doing some of that digging that you're suggesting. Right?
Shunya: Yeah. Resentful. And even prior to resentment mode, if I may add, when there might be before resentful, which has some miffed frustration in it. There's another subtle emotion that I want to talk about, where you feel like you're not breathing fully, like it's not this deep, light breath. And you feel some sadness, too, which we often miss or be distracted with. Television or browsing on the internet. But I want us to pay attention to these stages of anger, which begins with some sense of not okayness.
Wendy: Right.
Shunya: Yeah. Which then if we skip, it goes into resentment, which then if we settle for some quick resolution to a resentment, it's going to go away. But I would rather sit with that resentment and then explore what's the real deal happening here.
Wendy: Yeah, that's a great point. I was also thinking about too, in my practice as a psychotherapist, I will frequently ask what's underneath the anger? Because typically what I found is that, and maybe you'll disagree, I don't know. But what I found is hurt.
Shunya: Absolutely, I don't disagree. I totally agree. Mhm.
Wendy: Yeah. What I love about the archetypes of each of these goddesses is that they are very human and relatable. They're like incredible role models for us.
Shunya: They are. And I feel like if anybody did a patient read of the book or heard the audiobook, which is very exciting because it has all these spontaneous parts that I spoke while recording the book, I feel like they would be like stories from real life, from women all over the world who shared their journey with me of transformation, my own insights. I think it really gives people a very clear idea of what to look for. It's like an investment of a few hours into your life.
But these goddess archetypes then become internalized as a result, and they're there to guide us. They give us options instead of simply walking this conditioned path of overdoing it. Similarly, Saraswati gives us some discernment. This is the goddess of intuition, where sometimes, even when we experience the hurt and then the resentment and then the full blown rage, we could discern if this is something worthy of our attention. Or are we just repeating, uh, the same old pattern? Are we stuck with experiencing rage on a certain matter that we may have now outgrown, or it's not important to us anymore? Does that sit with you, Wendy?
For example, I would feel upset, in my case, with, maybe a relative who was very imposing or authoritative, but insensitive and very demanding of attention. And when I was in my twenty s, I would resent them. But now that I'm in my mid fifty s, I don't even resent them because I'm indifferent to them now. Like, they don't have any power over me. But then that familiar anger comes up and I go, yeah, I don't have to be angry. I can just say a hi to them and then do my own thing.
Wendy: Yeah.
Shunya: So you've outgrown it. Yeah.
Wendy: So yeah. It sounds like what has happened in your evolution, if I'm understanding you correctly, is that you have, first of all, paid attention to what's going on inside of you and looked at it as information rather than kind of getting caught up in it, like lost in it. Well, that's where you've come to later in your life, is that, oh, this is information. So if I have a reaction or if I have a memory about someone, oh, it's just information. It sounds like what the goddesses are inviting us to do is to exercise choice, that we don't have to fall into those old patterns anymore, that you have a sense of freedom and, authority or agency in the situation.
Shunya: Exactly. Because these are not black and white. That, oh, here's Goddess Durga, and she's telling you to own your anger. And so then you go about being angry, but then you have her own other avatar because they're really one goddess in many forms. There comes around Lakshmi, and she goes, well, there may be times when you truly enjoy pleasure and gratitude, and that's okay then. And then comes along Saraswati. Well, let's design. Let's discern. When should you be raging with frustration or anger and letting people know what you want? And when should you be in relaxed, uh, restfulness? And I love this discernment part because it gives us more mature agency versus this one monochromatic woman is a powerful person, and she's going to rage when she wants to, kind of right. It's more subtle. Yeah.
Wendy: Yeah. Which makes it not as clean cut, which I think for American, um, culture, that's kind of what we want. We want the more clean cut version. Just give me the three steps I need to do and I'll do them. But it's not that easy, nor should it be, because we are complex being so, of course, we have to get to know the complexity of ourselves and that every day is going to be a different day, given what's going on and how we're feeling that day.
Shunya: Yeah. And if anything we learn as we mature is that life is not black and white, but it's somewhere in the gray area.
Wendy: Uh, it's totally gray.
Shunya: Even as we must have become women from girls. Life, love, hate, sorrow, joy, everything was gray. And I think having these three goddesses helps us, um, discern a more gray area of choice making versus this black and white. Now that Durga go about roaring, now that you're about Lakshmi, just get happy with the pleasure.
But it's not why just the Americans, I think even Indians and worldwide, wherever goddess culture is known, there is this tendency to make these goddesses very, um, neat and clean models of a very specific behavior. In India, goddess Durga has been reduced to just raging Lakshmi to money and Saraswati to the scriptures. But again, it took an author like myself to say, wait, we're missing all this other information, which is in the subtle territory. And so this book is going to be a welcome to the thinking people in India, too.
Wendy: I imagine so. Absolutely. So then I want to talk about power, since that is the main theme of your book. And your message is being in relationship with your power, your personal power. Do you have any thoughts on why women struggle so much with power, with allowing themselves to be powerful?
Shunya: I don't think it is biological because we've all met and we've been young, very young girls, maybe even toddlers. And we were happily full of ourselves. And when we were asked who's the prettiest girl? We said "me." Who's the most strongest girl? We said "me." We just had this belief that the sun rises in us and sets in us. But it is society. And I found, because I've been living outside India more than I have lived in India at this point of my life I'm more of an international person now. My body is it's moving around everywhere. And I found everywhere universally that Indian and non Indian women, everyone in their own way, are being morphed and conditioned and ultimately limited by their birth and also feminine. It's not just the female biology, but the female space, the feminine space where at the core of patriarchy is this weakness between a stronger body and a weaker body and a female body, a queer body, a transgender body, a gender expansive body, a disabled body, an older body than a younger body. They're all considered weaker. And we are asked to take our place as the second class citizens on our planet. And I think somewhere we buy into it.
And I see all these young women who are burning their bras, so to say, and trying to make an impact with changing the world. And I still feel like the sorrow that they have to go to all this effort whether we are rebelling or whether we are compromising and accommodating beyond a point, either way, we are not in our true power, which doesn't have to spend so much time declaring it, but living it. Do you see there's a difference?
Wendy: Yes. Are you suggesting that it's more of a personal journey that can be expressed?
Shunya: Yeah. It's a personal journey. Yes.
Wendy: Then a posturing of power.
Shunya: And sometimes we may have to do that. Sometimes we may have to hold up the billboards and have those special signature, uh, campaigns for a law that supports women. And it's a posturing to those who want to oppress us. May be necessary. Just like our dog will snarl, though he doesn't mean to bark.
Wendy: Right?
Shunya: To give an indication that, don't mess with us. We may have to do the posturing. But at the root of it, I felt like some feminine wisdom was lacking so that we just kind of become silently, significantly powerful.
Wendy: Right. That's what's striking me right now, as you're talking is how much more potent would it be if embracing that feminine power internally? How that would translate externally? Would you even need a poster?
Shunya: Yeah.
Wendy: I don't know. Maybe the poster is necessary for the media exposure or whatever. But I'm just thinking there's something poignant about when you've met someone who's super powerful like yourself, there's something about just how they come across.
Shunya: Yeah. And they don't have to say, "me too." There's no pride in "me too" because they should not be a me in this process, and a too. And okay, it was a movement, and it's plausible, but what if we had schools for women and all genders who felt disempowered to no longer be victims? And so I wanted to, in response to your question and, uh, our line of communication, just read a paragraph from my book, if that's okay. Wendy, it's from the epilogue. And I just wrote these words right at the end, and I imagined a world where we are all empowered.
And I wrote, sometimes I wonder to myself what would happen if all the women and beings were identified with a feminine gender in this world, knew about the Rugged Power, Lakshmi's, Radiance and Saraswati's Peace, and had ways to access their goddess trends, divine protection and grace through contemplation of these archetypes. How would this affect our collective lives, our dreams, our, uh, different gendered goddess children? Would there be more rejection, wounding, discrimination, and painful abuse of the nondominant genders by the dominant ones? Or more compassion, good power, abiding peace and glorious self and other acceptance? Would our children grow up on a hostile, intolerant planet or be celebrated as radiant goddess sparks? Indeed, a revolution of consciousness may occur when we dare to turn inward to discover our esplanade arranian goddess dimension, a portal to everlasting happiness, power, abundance, and wisdom within.
Sometimes, because English is my second language, I know the meaning, and I write it, but I can't always pronounce it.
Wendy: I think you did great.
Shunya: Yeah.
Wendy: And I would like to live in that world that you just described.
Shunya: Yeah. Thank you. You're the first woman who said that, because I haven't been reading much because the book is I have not been reading the epilogue, so to say. But, yeah. Many blessings to you.
Wendy: Thank you. What you're pointing out is just the lack of balance, whether it's externally, how we treat each other, internally, how we treat ourselves.
Shunya: Yeah. Thank you. I think you hit it on the nail that there is a lack of balance. And then what I strive to do through this book was then give the knowledge that will help each one of us recover that balance in our individual lives. Because if this movement does not begin at the individual level, and we just keep holding up the placards collectively, and we keep pointing out what's not okay, but if we don't step into what's okay, we don't step into our own divine immensity, at some point I think we're just going to keep pointing out to the glass half empty but we need to now look at what is full and what's awesome for us. And what is that god's power lying within us? And how can we just live it as wives and moms and neighbors and PTA moms, and, just regular people? Can we just come into our power?
Wendy: Absolutely. I think that's what we're all craving, really. I mean, everything we're doing, is craving that. What you're talking about is authenticity and in that is freedom. It's like a total... this is who I am.
Shunya: Yeah.
Wendy: Unapologetic about it.
Shunya: Yeah. And somebody even pointed out to me, on my social media team was, using the word unapologetic. And somebody even said, hey, don't put the word unapologetic next to your teachings because it gives women all this permission to be like, badass. And I had fun responding to that. It's too long. That word apology has entered our DNA. I agree that we don't want to be insensitive, but there really has to be a no apology about our being us. That word has to now connect with us for a few centuries till we forget to be apologetic.
Wendy: Mhm and another really important point I think you're also bringing up is, and this came up for me, I've been a shamanic practitioner for quite a few years. One of my shamanic adventures took me to meet the spirit of the Earth. We were supposed to ask what she needed, and what she told me was that she said, I'm going to be fine, don't worry about me. She says my human children need to heal themselves because if you have a relationship with yourself, then you're going to have a different kind of relationship with me, was the point.
Shunya: Oh, yeah.
Wendy: She was saying, so the placards, the posters that you all are holding up in my name, that won't really matter as much if you're not coming from this place of being healed, of being in balance. Because you're just going to be operating differently if you're in that really authentic healed place than the way you interact with others in the world around you. The natural world, your community, is going to just be different. Does that make any sense?
Shunya: Totally. And how poignant that Mother Earth would tell you that. And I think again, she is telling us to bring balance and wholeness. And one way to do it is by coming into balance and wholeness with our own power. And now probably roar like a goddess. And even this podcast, we're all just parts of another conversation we must have, like, okay, so our power got taken away, but is it gone or do we still have it?
Wendy: Great question.
Shunya: Yeah. Is it a limited amount and it's been taken away from us forever? Or is it infinite and dwelling within us and we can now lead more empowered lives? And then what does that look like?
Wendy: Yeah, like it's a gas tank.
Shunya: So every morning I get up and I think, well, if I'm a powerful modern day goddess, then what's my day going to look like that's a nicer conversation to have than the other disempowered.
Wendy: Oh shit, I have to do the laundry? Yeah.
Shunya: Yeah. And can I do the laundry like a modern day goddess would from a place of, whose laundry am I doing? Am I doing it with the right attitude? Am I doing it because now I'm in a script and I'm going to complain and I'll still do it anyway.
Wendy: For the right reasons? Am I doing it for the right reason or because I'm supposed to?
Shunya: Yeah. Like, for example, I'll tell you for a while that I was supposed to be cooking. Although my husband is a chef and he cooks a lot, but I didn't like that the part where I was just, like, as a woman and as a mom and as a caregiver expected to cook. And so I looked at that part and I realized I had some resentment around it.
Wendy: Yeah.
Shunya: Right. So I had a conversation with my partner and I said, I think I have taken an avatar to write books and teach probably. And probably I got married to you so you could cook for me. But I understand that. I understand that it should not all fall to you. So that's dharma where I want to.
Wendy: Be ethical and fair.
Shunya: Okay. So how can we make this so that how can we both come into the kitchen from our best place rather than resentment towards each other? And we really had those difficult conversations in a pleasant, empowered way, to the point that, uh, my house has three fresh cooked meals a day. Either he's cooking or we're both not cooking and just drinking a cup of milk or going out because we're coming from this empowered place rather than pressure on each other or ourselves. It's a celebration of who we are rather than an imposition of, you got to do this. This must happen, and you're a woman, so if your husband's not doing it, then you must do it. I didn't choose to be part of that conversation.
Wendy: What a novel idea, though, to actually communicate. Yeah, that's one of the things where I think we get tripped up, too is that I can speak on behalf of myself or the people I've worked with, in particular women, is that there's this wish for our minds to be read so that we don't have to say the words out loud. And then maybe the resentment that comes from, why can't my partner or my friend or whatever my family member not read my mind? It's so obvious. It should be so blatantly obvious that it's not fair, this situation, that I shouldn't have to XYZ do all the cooking or the cleaning or whatever.
Shunya: Yeah. That's why I think my book talks a lot about communication, especially the Lakshmi chapter where she's about prosperity. But the prosperity flows when you have a cardinal value in place which is called self value. Self value is the doorway to all kinds of prosperity and abundance. And, uh, part of that self value is not just valuing yourself by giving yourself a spa day or a long soaking bath, which is fine, but valuing yourself all the way to take those long walks alone and think, well, what the hell are you born for on this planet? What's your core vibration? And my core vibration was not some of the things that women do worldwide. So I have an option to be guilty about it or say, well, that's kind of not something I go to. I can do it. I won't leave my child or my dog starving. I'm going to feed myself and my family. But I'm going to be unapologetic about saying, how is not born to be in the kitchen thinking, I got to go grocery shopping, I got to do this. And somehow the systems in my life worked out. Once I valued myself, and now I have people support and a beautiful husband who prides in supporting me in who I am.
And it really took me to underline my own value. And I remember, and I must share this funny episode, like, I think I was all of twelve or 13. It was summer holidays, and all the girls in my neighborhood joined this fun school where girls were learning some embroidery or something, like something fun, like we were embroidering flowers or things. It was a five day course, only like a kind of a cross stitch and things. And I was there for all of an hour. And I knew that I have done something caught early against my soul. And I'm also supporting people who do this. But my soul, even back then, at twelve years old, knew I can't spend five weeks doing what doesn't sit right with me. I'm a sister, too. Roaring goddess. So I wanted to leave, and the teacher said, well, it's raining and you got to sit out the hour. So I crept out of the window and ran home, Wendy.
Wendy: Oh, did you?!
Shunya: In the rain? Because I was not going to do the cross stitch. That didn't feel right to me. So that woman has written the book!
Wendy: All right, well, that's a cool story to wind down on. I like that. And I wish we'd had more time to talk about. I really enjoyed the chapters on Lakshmi. There's so much rich material there around changing your perspective on what prosperity and wealth are. It's not just about money. And so I'll leave that as a teaser for listeners to buy your book and really dive into what these three goddesses have to offer us.
Shunya: Thank you so much. And, those chapters are my favorite, too, because it really leads women into true abundance.
Wendy: Absolutely. And so how do people contact you or find out more about your book, or your books, I should say.
Shunya: My books are all available everywhere. You hang to buy books and Roar Like a Goddess, Sovereign Self, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, these are my three books and more are coming. And my website is my name Acharyshunya.com. And you can also go to Awakened Self.com. Both of these are my websites and, you will find my retreats, my teachings, my classes, my books in both these websites.
Wendy: Beautiful. Well, Shunya, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me. It was a really fun conversation. I really appreciate it.
Shunya: Thank you.
OUTRO
Are you all fired up now? Are you ready to take life by the cajones? Well, then it might be time to check out Shunya's book, Roar Like A Goddess. You can learn more about Shunya and her books at acharya shunya.com or awakenedself.com.
Thank you so much for listening. If you've enjoyed this episode of Lucid Cafe, please consider sharing it with a friend who might need a little boost.
Well, that does it for this episode. Have an incredible day.
Until next time...