Hi friends. This conversation I am bringing you today is super special and if I'm being perfectly authentic, I'll tell you I have rerecorded this intro at least five times. And nothing seems to do it justice. So I'm going to cut to the chase and let you hear the conversation with my dear friend Chitra right now. Enjoy, I'm serving it to you with a silver platter and a whole lot of love. Oh, Chitra, my friend, thank you so much for spending some time with me today. I can't wait to share you with my other friends who have not met you yet. Welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I know you and I have both come through different stages of business and life together. And I'm so grateful that even in the spaces in between, we just pick up right where we left off. Before we dive in, in the spirit of pictures, would you describe one of your favorite pictures? I know you have many, and I know you are no stranger to photography, but would you just share a quick little story about a picture that makes you feel delicious? Yeah, there are so many. So, as you know, I used to be a photographer. So my phone is probably extremely overloaded with pictures because I like to capture everything. But I think my go to favorite picture is a picture of, my family on the beach riding our bikes along the beach. It almost is like one activity that my entire family loves doing together. And it's just such a joyful time that, you know, it just, it just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. Is that New Jersey beach? No, that one that I'm thinking about was where was it? Actually, I just remembered it was like the San Francisco, you know, where the wharf is and you go to the Golden Gate Bridge. So we rode our bikes all around that. And then we stopped right there and we could see the ocean right there. It was just, you know, everybody together having fun. Yes, that's so beautiful. Now, who's in your family? Who's in this picture with you? Well, my husband and my two boys. One's a junior in high school and a junior in college. So. That's so cool because mine are nearly exactly the same age as a senior in high school and junior in college. So our children are very similar in age. Although, you get the boys and I get the girls, so. Two different worlds, apparently, but hey. Yes, yes, I think, I think God knew what I could handle. That's why those moments mean so much more, right? As teenagers, you know, you don't always get those moments where everybody's happy and everybody's having fun. Yeah, yeah. We could, go down that worm hole about other people's happiness. I think we'll touch on that. As we continue to talk about, but thank you for sharing. And I, I have a beautiful image in my mind because we have happy family memories, especially me and my husband over in that area of California. It's such a beautiful country. And here we are on the East coast. I think that I think we have a unique vantage point of appreciating the opposite coast. You know, when you don't live there, you're not, it's not normal. You're, you're in a place of discovery and wonder when you're in a, in a new place. And I could digress into the beauty of travel, like all day long and pictures. Me too. Let's come back. Let's come back. So could you just kind of give us some high points about what you're really happy about, like serving up today? And you're welcome to kind of reflect about where you came from as far as business wise, you are doing some beautiful things from books to speaking, to coaching, to inspiring. And I just would love for you to just describe it a little bit yourself and the parts that That you are most excited to put on the world right now. Sure. Yeah. Thank you. You know, like I said, I was, I used to be a photographer in a previous lifetime and then I got into the fitness and nutrition world and you know, as I became a health coach, I focused a lot on the mindset and I realized you know, last year as I was writing my book called the warrior mindset, that mindset is literally something that I obsess about day and night, and it is something that I have, you know, studied, I have learned, I have, you know, heard about, I have researched, like, it's just one of those topics that is just always, always on the forefront of my mind. And because I think that, you know, I always joke, I'm like, give me, you know, if you've seen the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding he says give me any word, any word, and I will connect it back to Greece or origin comes from Greek. So I tell people, I'm like, give me any problem, any problem. I will make it back to mindset. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah. Because you know, it's not, it's not the people or the things or the experiences that we go through that causes. Pain or pleasure. It is how we think about ourselves in relation to the people and the things and the experiences around us that cause us the pain or the pleasure, right? So you and I are talking here. And the way I think about myself in this relationship right now, in this experience right now is going to reflect on the way I feel afterwards, right? If I am too caught up in how do I look and how am I, you know, presenting myself and how am I showing up? Then that's what's going to reflect in my mind. If I think about how can I serve and how can I show up so that your audience gets the most out of it. I'm coming from a different place and a different mindset. So mindset is something that I've always been passionate about. And you know, something that, you know, that most people may not know is that I'm also a medium and an intuitive healer. And that is something that I've practiced for over 24 years now, but I have only started sharing it publicly 2 years ago. And that was a journey in itself. Right? I mean, coming to terms with my authenticity and opening my gifts to the point where I'm okay to share that with anyone, regardless of what they might perceive this as. Yes, I could so relate to that because quite honestly, there's just so many people who have, have other perceptions of what's real and what's not right. And it's exhausting to live. That is exhausting to show up the way you think is going to make people comfortable. Yeah. And so I used to be a chronic people pleaser I now call myself hovering people pleaser. Me too. I love that. We should have t shirts. No, we should. Recovered. So, you know, and, and I say recovering because I feel like that, that people pleaser in me loves to pop her head out, you know, when I'm least thinking about her, but you know as I coming back to what I do and, you know, really just the way that I want to show up in the world now is with 1000 percent authenticity. And, you know, it took me a while to get here. But now that I'm here, I want not only for myself to be able to show up in that authenticity, because, you know, when you're trying to manifest something in your life, the best, best, best way to do that is to reach your own authenticity, because when you do that, you attract, you don't have to chase anymore. When you're authentic, your energy is different. You know, you, we all know people who we hang out with, and something about their energy just draws them in. Right. Imagine if all of us could be at that level of authenticity, where people are just drawn to us, we would all be these beautiful orbs of light, just shining all over the world. Right. And we would just produce so much more light. So as a medium, as an intuitive, as someone who is now owning her power, the way that I show up physically in this world is to speak about intuition, about manifestation, about mediumship, about mindset. And I do this in front of all kinds of groups. Corporates, whoever will have me, basically. And then I also do one on one intuitive readings where people will come to me and I will tap into their energy and see what guidance they need to receive. And I do this through something called auto writing. And I just messages that go on paper and I will either just get thoughts or I will have to write them down. Sometimes I do images and they all make sense in a reading at the end. So this is how I'm showing up now, and I love every minute of it, and I wouldn't change a thing. Mm. That's so beautiful. So many things I could pull apart from what you just shared, but the fact that mediumship and channeling information to help other people show up in their authenticity, that's, it's practicing what you preach and then unpacking gifts that do that even deeper is how I saw it. Showing up authentically is a form of self care. It's, it's a way of not denying who you are, but actually allowing yourself to embrace who you are and, and abandoning fears or pushing through them to quiet them to actually show up as that. Now, I'm not here to say that. You have to tell everybody all of your business because there is such thing as too much. But, but to be authentic is to not deny who we really are. What does being authentic mean to you? Like from a definitive standpoint. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know I'll tell you two sides of it, right? Cause I think everything has a practical side and energy side to it. So from the, there was actually a study done called a SBANE, a study, it's a study of positive and negative emotions, S B A N E. And in this study, they measured the frequency of different emotions. And in this study, they found that you know, there are high vibe emotions, high frequency emotions and low frequency emotions. And if I had to ask you to take a guess as to what is the highest frequency emotion, what would you think it was? I'm going to put you on the spot there. I believe I've heard this information. So authenticity, authenticity. Yes. Most people will guess love. We think love. We think which is, which is very high. Which is very high. Those are like gateways to authenticity. Would you say they're like on the way? Right. Yeah, for sure. Oh, you're preaching to the choir girl. Keep going. Yeah. Okay. I love it. There's peace. There's love. There's joy. There's gratitude. Then there's authenticity and authenticity is 4, 000 times higher than love. And if you look at anybody who's trying to teach you about manifestation, the number one thing that you will hear over and over Again, is that you need to raise your energy to match what you want to attract. And if you're in a state of authenticity, I think that is the highest level of self love highest manifestation, highest expression of self love that you can have, right? Because you love yourself so much. And I don't mean like an egotistical love. I mean, like you love your true essence so much that you are showing up unafraid, unapologetic in the world. And by doing that. You are giving everyone else permission to do the same, right? So there is the practical, the measured, the scientific part of it. And then there is the energy part of it, where it's like, as you shine brighter, you give everyone else permission to shine brighter. And what a beautiful world that would make if all of us did that. So I don't know if I'm deducing this or I've heard it. Okay. So I would love your input, but I'm getting this phrase that you can't be authentic without. Love that love is the currency or and that in our natural state of love, that's where the eco is completely at rest. How do you feel about any of that? These are just kind of like, I'm, I'm painting a picture in my mind. Yeah. Of course you are. I love it. So yeah, I mean you could definitely say that, you know, because love is a beautiful currency that we can use to communicate with each other, right? And we should possibly use that as the currency. Like imagine if we use that instead of dollars and cents, like we gave up love, right? Yeah, that would be so good. So good. But you know, love is another thing, right? People think of self love as what, what is self love? Right to me, self love has layers. It has layers. It has layers of, you know, the kind of self love that you show to yourself by checking into a spa or a spiritual retreat. And then there is the tough love that you give yourself to say, Hey, you know what? You've gotten used to being a certain way because the world conditioned you to be a certain way. And how about we fight for that inner essence of yours that needs to come out? And there has to be a little bit of that, you know, let's go like, you know, I call it the inner warrior, you know, who's inside of us and the inner witch who's had a field day telling you, you're not good enough, just evil. And she's telling you, Oh, you can't do this. You shouldn't try this. You should be afraid. But then there's that inner warrior. And when you start taking the megaphone away from the witch and giving it to the warrior, you start seeing your true self, right? Layers and layers to first identify who you are, then fighting for her, then letting her to show up in her full courage. Absolutely. Oh, I'm so with you. So that quote unquote, witch. Would be like your, your inner child wounds or your refer to them as shadow sides or like the ego that wants to keep you safe, that is willing to stay in something familiar like pain. To keep you from making risk of more pain, but then giving, but allowing your inner warrior, as you refer to the, the opportunity by listening to advice and guidance to work through some of these fears for the sake of unpacking things that are keeping us from those higher states of self care and self love and being willing to do something uncomfortable, like move your body so that you can start moving it stronger and more whole. Yeah, I think that, you know, we need to redefine what success means. We are born. Pure. We are born connected. We are born in harmony, right? And then this world starts to shape us and take us down this linear path of success; you have to get good grades. You have to get into a good school. You have to get a great job. You have to marry the perfect person, have the perfect looking house with the white picket fence and the dog and the kids and all of that. And then no dandelions. No dandelions and no, you know, ugly looking fruits and vegetables, like everything has to look perfect on the outside. Yeah, when we live in a world like that, it is natural that we try to fit in and it is natural that we try to blend in and become who the world expects us to become. But if you look at a two year old child or a five year old child or even seven year old child, they are not trying to fit in. And so that's really all we need to do is go back to who we were. So I call it the P. F. H. formula or framework, and it's really peel the layers of your old conditioning, whether it came from. Trauma, whether it came from just your upbringing, whether it's the culture that you were brought up in, whatever that conditioning is, peel those layers and then feel the emotion that comes up, right? Because I know we were talking about people pleasing earlier. I used to go from chronic people pleaser. If you think of a pendulum, I would go from chronic people pleaser to someone who resented everyone for taking advantage of people, pleasing resentment, people, pleasing resentment. And then, as I started to peel those layers and feel the emotions and heal the pain that came up, I started to bring that pendulum down to here because I learned how to set boundaries. So I wouldn't be resentful. And I still figured out how to be a giver, but without giving. overly of myself or too much to the point of depletion. So now I'm here and I have this balance between giving and receiving, giving and receiving and receiving was not even on my radar, right? It was just people pleasing to resentment. So, but it was hard work to peel, feel and heal. It's not comfortable. It was easier to be the people pleaser and then complain later. Yeah, that's where that little tough love came in and said, Oh, so you don't want to be a people pleaser, but you also don't want to set boundaries. What does that say about you? Well, it's other people's fault that they're taking advantage of me. It was easier to say that than to say. Maybe I need to learn how to set boundaries and I need to realize that I'm enabling some of this behavior. Yeah. And that those layers, once you peel them, it's like, oh, okay, there is more here that I need to see. Yeah. And at every layer. You find new opportunities. We have to unpack that as, as we grow, right? We hit new levels of awareness and new, you know, chapters in life. And then we have to peel, and feel and the heel in each layer of life. It's like a haircut. You don't just get it once if you Layers and layers. Yeah. You gotta keep going. Yes. It's like that lawn. You gotta keep mowing it. If you want to keep looking beautiful, take care of it. And, yeah, I was, I was given an analogy. I hope you don't mind me jumping in here. Say, say you're shopping with friends and you're buying what you think you're supposed to be wanting and wearing because that's what they're buying and you want to just not stand out. And I'm thinking of myself as an adolescent, you know. And shopping with friends and buying the clothes that they're buying, even though I don't really like them, but I'm not even listening to that part of myself. And then they fill up my closet and my closet's so full of things that don't make me happy. And I've spent money on things they don't want. And so I shoved them in the back and I hide them, but they don't go away until I'm willing to unpack them. And I think my degree of people pleasing was really Not knowing what I wanted for the longest time. I'm talking decades, Chitra, of not knowing what I want. I feel you. I so feel you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because those things grow into different weeds. Yeah, because you haven't You haven't given yourself the opportunity to explore with you, right? I mean, I don't know if you've seen the movie Runaway Bride with Julia Roberts. Yeah. But when at the end, she's finally like, you know, I don't know what kind of eggs I like. And the guy who is trying to, you know, her friend is like, well, you know what, I'm going to order you five different types of eggs and you're going to taste them. And you're going to figure out which ones you like, because she keeps running away from these weddings. And she, it's really the root of it is that she doesn't know who she is and she doesn't know what she wants. And so I can totally relate to what you're saying because there was a time in my life where, you know, somebody had asked me this question, like, what makes you happy? As I was going through a conflict, what, what, what, what would make you happy in this? I'm like, well, I've never really been asked that ever. And it was like, it was like a pause, like a big pause in my life where I've never questioned that. What does make me happy? Right. That's great. Yeah. Right. Does people policing really make me happy to saying, yes, everything really make me happy. No, clearly. Cause I'm feeling resentful. It doesn't make me happy. So what makes me happy? Giving on my own terms, redefining what being a giver means, redefining what health means, redefining what fashion means to me, right? We have an opportunity. We have the ability to explore and decide what all of these things mean to us. Yeah. Absolutely. Chitra, why is it so important to love yourself in the world? Why is it so important? That's a good question. You know, in my health coaching days, I used to say, you can't hate yourself then, you You know, you just, because I say we carry these invisible backpacks all around and all of them have pain and trauma and all of these experiences that have caused us pain. And we don't want to look at them. But the thing that we really need to do is look at them, not just to break them apart and fight with them. We need to look at them from a place of self love because. If we can be kind and loving to ourselves, then how are we role playing that for the world to be kind and loving to us? And I think that the soul's way is love. Think the ego's way is to fight. And I think that we were meant to be loving and compassionate and kind towards each other. You know, it is that makes us, you know, go to war and fight and, you know, antagonize each other. It's just, unfortunately love, you know, is not given enough priority. It's true. And, you know, for everybody, it's going to be different how they express their self love, but, but loving yourself enough to make your definition of success an emotion, an emotional state instead of what society can put a monetary value on, you know, status symbols. There's nothing wrong with having a beautiful home. There's nothing wrong with having more money than you need. I mean, powerful people can do beautiful things with these resources for themselves first so they can show up great in the world. But making the definition of success a beautiful state of emotional being. Imagine that. What if our society just defined success by how happy are we? Cause it's the happy people that show up to help and it's the happy people that fill up their own cup and then they can fill up other cups. Absolutely. It's the happy people that, that nurture and heal. And it's the people willing to know that none of us have to have it all figured out. As long as we keep our own healing journey, our own growth, our own loving journey we can help others by just showing up as our loving selves. It doesn't have to be hard, right? It doesn't have to be complicated. We make it complicated. Right. We think that our definition of success Is all of those physical material things, and like you said, nothing wrong with those. Right. But when you come from a place of authenticity, you're not chasing after that you're attracting, and there's a big difference in chasing versus attracting between competition versus collaboration. You can come together. Like, you know, the best example that I always use is nature. Nature is always in harmony. No competition. There is the sun never says I'm going to shine all day and all night. I'm going to pull an all nighter. The sun never says that. Oh, and thank it. Well, certain parts of the world, that may be the case, but generally, but then it's a day there. It's not night there. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's always the sun always during the day. The moon always shines during the night. Bye. Spring always comes during spring. You know, imagine if the flowers decided I'm going to grow all year round, or I'm going to grow in the fall and all the summer and fall flowers start to compete with each other. Like, and that's the reason we feel so good when we go out in nature, because nature is always in harmony, that frequency, that high energy, that nature is vibrating at that rubs off on us when we go there. And it calms our nerves down. So really, there is a better way to live. I just think that somehow we lost our way. And I think that there's hope because we are all starting to find our way back. And if more people like you and me and all the people, the happy people of the world. And, and there's always more good than evil in the world. And that's why we survive. And so. Thankfully, I think even something like Covid, even though it was horrendous in the lives it took, it was a course correction. I think it was a course correction for all of us to focus on what is really important. Like, people don't want to go back to work 5 days a week. No more because they saw the work life balance that they were able to accomplish. They do want to go 3 days a week. They don't want to work from home all day. So that's the thing with, like, nature too, right? There's laws. There's, you know, balances, checks and balances, and there are things that work. And so we want that balance innately. We want to work. Nobody wants to stay home all day. We want to relax and we want to spend time connecting with our loved ones. So how can we create a world where all of that can be in harmony? I think we need to let go of the greed. I think we need to let go of the chase. I think we need to let go of the competition. And to me, the only way to do that is to honor who you are in your authenticity, because When I'm authentic, I'm not thinking about how I can show up better than you because you're authentic and I'm authentic and we're showing up in our authenticity together. We're secure in who we are. Huge difference. And abandoning expectations of others. Because when you're, when you're showing up as your fully authentic self, you're not you universal. We, you. Yeah. Yeah. Don't have a need to project expectations on how other people behave and how they perform because we are in our more, I guess you said homeostasis, but I, I also like to think about just a place of a regulation. And coming back to pictures, one of the things that I have very late in life come to love is. The gift of having pictures of me as a child so that I can picture that childlike self love into the person I always have been, but forgot. And so to come back to, and there's just so many terms we could throw around, but just spending time reflecting on who I was as a child and why I was not worried about hitting sales goals or worried about, you know, stats on the podcast list. And why, you know, worried about like. Did I pick a good goal? Because I've had so many coaches tell me, no, those are not good goals. Your goals have to be measurable. They have to be something that can be on a spreadsheet. And I'll tell you, I never found happiness on a spreadsheet. I found information and information is wonderful. But the information I was forgetting was sitting there right there in some childhood images. So that's the information that I'm returning to right now and, and hoping I can encourage other people to, and, and not to be afraid of what they're going to uncover, but to come to it with a place of less expectation and more self love, more self compassion to be able to look at yourself. And quite honestly, I was just that ugly duckling stereotype, you know, I was too tall for my age for too long and not the most. Athletic person. Yes, I was skinny, but it was gangly. You know, I could think of so many unkind things that I was called and I really believed were true. And now I look at myself and I remember how I felt at the time, but I could say, Oh my gosh, I was so cute. Why did I think I was such a loser? Why did I think that? Because I listened to other damaged people's perceptions of the world and took that as fact. Yeah. You know, I, when I do my workshops, I share the story of this woman who has this rare, rare disease that You know, she cannot gain weight if she tried. And so, I will show a clip of her saying, I can eat whatever I want, and I will never gain a pound. And I play that just the audio for people. And I tell them, what does that make you feel? And we come up, most people in the audience will be like, oh, she's not in touch with reality. Or she's, you know, she probably has a really high metabolism. Or, you know, and, and we're doing all of this based on the judgment that she can eat whatever she wants without gaining weight. And I flipped to the screen where it shows her video talking and saying she has this rare disease. She's super, super skinny. She cannot put on any muscle or fat on her body. And so her face is like, almost like a little bit like shrunken in and she, you know, by society standards does not look appealing. But she had a choice to either she somebody posted a video of her online and they said, she is the ugliest woman in the world. And that went viral. It went viral and not 1 person had anything kind to say to her. And she said, I went through the comments, hoping that at least 1 person would have said something nice. And this is before people were aware of what social media is doing to you. Right? And so her choices were to take her own life or to fight that so that her parents wouldn't have to deal with the loss of a child. And so she embraced herself. To the point where now she's giving million dollar Ted talks and, and, or like, you know speaking opportunities to share with people all over the world as an inspiration. And I always think back to whenever I feel compelled to judge myself harshly, I think to people like her and I say, well, if she could find self love, why can't I? If she could love her body and show up in authenticity, why can't I? And it really, it comes down to how you feel about yourself, your image in your own mind, right? Because if I, like, I could be Lizzo and be comfortable, totally comfortable in my body and show up as her, right? Or I could be like this woman, Liz, and I could show up like her. The difference between someone who is Struggling to accept themselves and someone who already has is that layer of inner work where they're appealing the feeling and the healing and they've come out on the other side and they are now in touch with themselves and believe that they were meant to be here as they are. I love that. I love that. And I've seen, I've seen her. Thank you for reminding me of that story because, and, and God bless her for showing up and being willing to be the lesson. And, you know, one thing that I'm working on right now that I'm very excited about unpacking because every day is a new version of it, is when somebody says something to me or near me that triggers me, it tells me there's something that needs some attention. Not at them, but inside, like, Oh, that's where I need to do some more work. And you know, we attract these experiences for ourselves. Yeah. Because if you don't learn them, then we get more and more opportunities. And they don't, it's not always obvious if you're not clued into exactly what we're supposed to be learning. Because you think, Oh, I did all the work. I'm good now. And then suddenly it's like, boom, trigger. Oh yeah. I guess there's more work to be done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's a never ending saga, but you know, hopefully we keep evolving as we do the work and, you know shed some more layers of the ego and embrace more of our spirit. Chitra, I love this conversation. Can we continue this some other time? I really, I want, I, I feel like we could unpack at least seven other conversations. My pleasure to be here I love talking about this stuff. Me too. You could, you could feel the resonance that we have, that we just are very passionate about helping people find their own happiness while working on our own. How are you inviting people to come alongside of you and to be a piece of your world? Yeah. So, you know, the easiest way is to go on my website. It's fitwarriorlife.Com and all my information's on there. My book is on Amazon warrior mindset, but yeah, reach out on my website. There's a way to connect. You can book the discovery call. I'd like to offer your listeners a complimentary reading, if you will. And I can send that link 15 minute reading to see what's coming up in your energy. If anyone wants to take advantage of that, I would love to share that as well. That's very generous. I will make sure that all of the links are here in the show notes so that people can continue to drive, and still find you later, if that's what's happening. Thank you, Chitra. From my heart to yours, I just, I love you to pieces and I can't wait to keep the conversation going. Thank you so much. Love you too.