Alchemy & Unbecoming:

An Interview with Priestess Deepshikha Sairam

How moving beyond fear and connecting with your intuition helps every area of your life.

Are you someone who is drawn to growth, transformation, and living your most authentic, soulful life? If so, you’re going to LOVE this week’s guest. 

Her name is Deepshikha Sairam, and she’s a Priestess of the Divine Feminine and spiritual mentor to high-achieving women entrepreneurs and leaders. 

She is also the creator of The Path to Self Mastery, a revolutionary self discovery framework rooted in ancient wisdom, science backed methodologies and spiritual tools & rituals, designed to close the gap between where you are and where you want to be, so that you can live a more creative, joyful and meaningful life. 

Deepshikha has helped me expand my own thinking about what I’m capable of achieving, and the meditations and exercises I’ve done with her have helped me not only understand myself better, but connect more deeply with my own inner spiritual guidance system. 

And if that weren’t enough, I have had some powerful energy clearing sessions where we worked together to clear my body and subconscious mind of some of the past traumas, failures, and frustrations that I didn’t even know were buried there, but which were holding me back. 

We had such a deep and meaningful conversation that I know you’ll want to listen to the whole interview, but here is a sneak peek of some of the topics we address:

>>Why she changed her career focus when she was at the top of her game and earning multiple six figures each year.

>>How she has been pushed by spirit her whole life to step into the role she is finding now. 

>>How each stage of our development and awareness has a shadow and a gift. 

>>How creativity is our birthright.

>>The paradigm shifts that have helped her become more intuitive in her life. 

I hope you love this interview as much as I did, and take away some strategies for living more creatively, intuitively, and from your soul.

Episode Links
Deepshikha on Instagram
Infinite Possibilities Meditation


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Transcript

welcome to the what dreamers do podcast. i’m your host carla govan, and appalachian musician flatfoot dancer, mama creative and dreamer from kentucky. i’m on a mission to inspire others to realize their dreams and live their most creative lives. grab your mason jar full of sweet tea or something a little stronger, and pull up a chair, because it’s time to get your dream off.

that’s what dreamers do. howdy, howdy. before we get started today, i have a couple of announcements for you. one is that i want to let you know about a new resource i have. it is an e book, and it’s called how to live your most creative life. and it features tips and stories from 15 guests from this podcast, both past and future. and it’s designed to help you get past creative blocks. get your juices flowing when you’re busy, or you’re overwhelmed. and you just want to infuse a little bit of creativity into your day or into your life. this is what some of my guests and the artists that i talked to, and the creatives that i talked to do in their own lives, and i think you’re gonna find it really valuable. if you’d like to get your free copy, all you have to do is go to my website, www dot karla grover.com forward slash creativity. i will also link it in the show notes here. and while i’ve got you here, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, i would love to ask you for a small favor. there are three ways that you could really help me out. one is simply to leave a review on apple podcasts that helps boosts me in the algorithms it helps me get heard by more people. and since i don’t have sponsors or deep pockets or any kind of fancy budget for this, those simple small gestures helped me a lot. also just sharing it with a friend that you think would enjoy this episode or any other episodes, i would appreciate that very much. or if you’d like to buy me a coffee or become a monthly supporter. i will link to it in the show notes. and you can also access it at keio dash f fi forward slash karla go over. if you could do any one of those three things, it would mean the world to me, and i really appreciate your support. meanwhile, let’s get to our interview with my wise and wonderful guest hello dreamers and welcome to this week’s episode of what dreamers do. i am so excited to be here with my friend and mentor deep chica sairam. she is a divine feminine priestess and spiritual mentor to high achieving women entrepreneurs and leaders. i first learned about deep chica via her podcast how to woman am i saying that right? and how to women had a woman. and then i worked with her as she was my business mentor for the past six months or so. and one of the reasons that i wanted to learn from her initially was her spiritual approach to business. and just during the time that i’ve been working with her, i have watched her transform into less business more spiritual. so we’re going to talk about that transformation and many other things today. so welcome, dee, thank you so much for taking the time to be with us here today.

thank you so much for having me. i am so excited and thrilled to be here.

well, and i have to let you know that this far. the podcast is pretty kentucky centric. so you’re the only person who isn’t living or closely associated with kentucky that i’ve interviewed. but you’re just so cool. and i think you have so many good offerings that i know my listeners will, will love you. and i had to invite you.

oh, i feel so honored with that. thank you.

yeah, well, i think it just means that you have to come and visit us in kentucky somewhere. sure.

and i was just thinking that, you know, i think of myself as a star seed. and i’m pretty sure i’ve been everywhere. so i’m pretty sure in some some dimension, some timeline. i’ve also been in kentucky, but i would love to visit. yes,

absolutely. well, um, i think we should just dive right in. and so i referenced it already. but you have been going through quite a transformation lately, i think. and i feel we have a lot to talk about. but it would probably be good for my listeners. if we start just with some background, like maybe a little cliffnotes version of your life and your journey to where you are right now.

ooh, okay. all right. so let me see if i can put all of that in a cliff note. so, i was born and brought up in india, i moved to the united states. when i was 25 years old as married. i moved because of my husband’s job here. and when i came here i quit my job and i wanted to be a writer i wanted to write a novel i wanted to write a fiction book and i’m through that fiction book never got completely written. but i got pregnant with my older one. and then four years later with my younger one, so i was a stay at home mom for about five to six years. and at that point of time, i started to feel this void in my life, i started to feel this craving for my own personal and my financial identity. however, there was a problem, i knew that i wanted to pursue something in the creative field, but the model of what that looked like was not in front of me, i was raised by, you know, women who were very creative, who were highly creative, like my mom was an artist. and at multiplex, she was multi passionate. however, in back in their days, they were, they were made to choose, they could either follow their dream, which was very, very rare, or they could raise a family. and they always chose the latter. i mean, i don’t even think that choice was available to them. and for me, i didn’t want that choice, because i wanted it both. and i wanted it on i’ve always wanted it all, like even like, you know, my i tell my husband like no, i’m not going to choose, i want it all. so i started to i decided to start my own business at that point of time, didn’t know what i was getting into. i didn’t know what is it that i wanted to do. but i didn’t know that i had this longing to, you know, do something in the creative field. but also to have a name for myself, i wanted people to know, know me by my name. and funnily enough, i started as an instagram marketer, like i did kind of social media marketing and that transforming to business mentorship. and over the last two years, i’ve had this kind of like a transformation i’ve had, i’ve lived through, you know, my dark night of the soul, and everything in my life, i feel like came down to this one moment where i had to really face the truth of who i really was. and i’ve been, i’ve been a very spiritual person ever since i was very little. i didn’t know this at that time. but i have had multiple spiritual awakenings, probably when i was as young as three months old, also when i was seven years old, and i have glimpses of faith, and they all make sense now. but of course, at that point of time, it wasn’t, it didn’t make sense. not. i didn’t even talk about all of that, because it was just, it wasn’t even encouraged. there was no conversation about, you know, being a spiritual person and having these vivid remembrance and vivid dreams and lucid dreams. but over the last couple of years, it was pretty clear to me that i had to follow this path. and not just on the garb of business strategy, or you know, something else, but truly on my deeply spiritual nature and my deepest, precise nature. so that’s where the pivot happened. that’s where i finally decided, which was very hard, it was very, you know, it was like, come to jesus moment for me that i had to make that choice, because there was really a fork in the road for me. and that’s why i decided to become a spiritual guide, spiritual teacher and a mentor. and i know that this journey hasn’t stopped, it’s going to continue to evolve. and i think that’s the delicious part of it. you know, we never stop our evolution, we continue to evolve, we continue to transform into something else. but i think that’s like, probably the fastest version of where i’ve been and where i am now.

yeah, that’s, that’s a lot to pack in. and you did a great job of condensing. and it’s clear from what you’re describing that this is much more than the covid pivot that so many people had to go through, you know, to transform or change their business to adapt to a changing world? it’s, it’s deeper than that. it sounds like it’s something coming for a long time.

oh, absolutely. it definitely wasn’t a covid pivot. in fact, i was on a podcast at a you know, a couple of weeks ago, and they asked me, like, why did you decide to change because i was top of my game. it wasn’t like, you know, the business wasn’t making money, or, you know, we had we had losses due to covid i was top of my game when i decided to make the bed and i think that’s what was the hardest part is too hard to let go of something that you know, you’re so good at, you know, that this can turn into something else. but there is almost like a door there which is which you know, is the truths, which you know, is the and i think many of us face these decisions to follow our soul or to follow, you know, the proven path, the, you know, the path that has always been there in front of us and i i love writing, i love reading and, you know, there were two roads and i took the path that was less traveled by the road less traveled. that’s been my journey all my entire life. i’ve always taken the road less traveled.

well, i think it takes a tremendous amount of courage. um, to do what you did in terms of, if i may say so coming out of the closet as a spiritual leader, because that, i feel like that is one of the things that can potentially make you the most vulnerable to scrutiny. because people are looking, then you’re saying, oh, she’s saying she’s a spiritual mentor and guide and priestess even. and i really admire you for coming out on that, and heating your souls call. has that was that scary for you? i imagine it was.

yeah, it’s like i’m saying, carla, it’s been a it’s, it’s been a long journey. it wasn’t something that people saw, saw, maybe one day that i decided that, oh, i’m not a business mentor. and now i’m a spiritual mentor. but the courage to get there has taken years and years and years. for me, and it was definitely scary. i think it was the last year or so i was totally in an indecision. i knew, i would say october 2019. so even before the pandemic, that this was very apparent to me, that this was the direction that i wanted to go. and i kind of like, you know, try to play both sides, and try to do the work and try to, you know, not come out of the spiritual closet, but still, like do the work behind the scenes, but i’m a very black and white person, i can’t, i can’t do i can’t really hide myself. it’s like it was it was stifling it was it was like i was killing my soul. it was it, i wasn’t happy doing that. and i think the moment where when i decided that i am not going to, i’m going to come out and say that i’m a spiritual, you know, mentor, leader, teacher, and a priestess. it was very secure, scary. and i am absolutely aware that i’m sure there are people out there who still like, you know, have me under scrutiny, or, you know, talk about it that oh, like, how did you decide like one day and like, now she’s a spiritual teacher. but i think all of that is on one side. and then this true call to your soul is on the other side. and the path is a scary part. i don’t know, like, you know, if i look back, i feel like i had no choice, i had to do it.

well, and i think that’s common in anybody that heed the call of spirit, whether it’s to be a full time artist, or to be a spiritual person. and i guess one other layer of it that we’re dealing with in this, this time that we’re living in is the fact that a lot of the ways that we’re connecting with people is online, and you have this extra level of i don’t know if it’s work, or just you have to get past that facade of everybody presenting things in this perfect way online to be able to make true connections. and you can you know, i met you online, and i feel like we’ve had a true connection. and it’s meant a lot to me. but i think that’s another just another layer of it. when you’re you know, you’re not only doing the work that you do be embarking on this path as a spiritual mentor, that then you’re navigating the online world and the social media, and all that.

yeah. and i’ll be honest, that’s been hard for me, because now i feel like you know, it’s a very interesting thing that you said, because i think you’ll agree with me that we’re all plugged into the matrix matrix, right, we’re all plugged into this 3d version. and once you get a taste of what that unplugging, looks like, once the way lifts, and you can see the truths, and you can see beyond the ego beyond the identities beyond the character that we have created for ourselves, then you see the truth, right? so you know, being in social media, and now being i used to get very triggered by a lot of things on social media and people and, you know, supposedly my competitors, but now i can kind of like see, see the, the reality of of everything, and it doesn’t trigger me as much because i see that everybody’s just playing a role. everybody’s playing a character, you know, inside, they have their soul they have the higher self, that that’s there, it’s not gone. but outside, we all have to play this identity, this role, this character. so, you know, the first few months, even i would say last month, it was so hard for me to be in the 3d worlds. there have been times when i had to completely disconnect because i could not relate to anybody or anyone. but that’s the game that we played, you know, we are all the souls who have taken a contract to beyond this earth, and it’s not about, you know, staying in the fifth dimension, and being here and staying staying in that that higher octave. it’s about maintaining that higher octave in the 3d world. and that’s how we will change the world, right? that’s how we bring the new consciousness on earth. it’s not about me staying in my cave and meditating all day long as thing as long as i am peaceful, that’s fine. it’s about me being becoming peace and becoming joy and becoming creative. and then, you know, then emergence starts to happen if i can be me, and then i can impact one person, and then two people and three people. that’s how we will bring the new consciousness on earth. and i know we’re going in a completely different direction than we decided to. but yes, like, you know, this being in social media has been pretty hard for me, ever since i decided to decide that i can step out of my character anytime i want.

yeah, i love i love all that. and i do. we’ve talked in recent episodes of this podcast about the importance of of staying plugged into that to use your metaphor of staying plugged into those higher aspects of ourselves and bringing that energy to the earth. because for me, that’s just such a way of feeling empowered, in the face of the dark and despair inducing things that are happening around us right now, to remember that we can be part of the solution. and so i really resonate with what you’re saying, from that respect. and it reminded me of this, this metaphor that i’ve always had in my head for for that thing, you’re describing how we’re playing a role. so i don’t know if growing up in india, bugs bunny cartoons were a big part of your culture. so there was this one bug’s bunny, that they played a lot where there’s a sheep dog, and a wolf and the sheepdogs trying to guard the sheep. and the wolf is doing everything that he can to get the sheep and their mortal enemies. and then the, they blow the horn for quitting time. and it’s 5pm. and they just stop what they’re doing. and they stop, they’re fighting. and they both go in, they clock out, like, like with a little time clock, and they’re like night, ralph, night, sam. and so their roles totally shift the role that they’ve been playing, really shifts. and i know, that’s not related to the social media, part of the conversation, right? is,

you know, it is like, as long as we can remember, this is a role that we’re playing. and we don’t become the role for ever and forget who we really are at the core of it. and, you know, clock out of that, whenever we need to when we want to.

well, maybe this is a good time to talk a little bit about the framework that you’ve been developing, which i think you call the path to self mastery, i don’t really have a clear understanding of what that is yet. and i know that my listeners would love to hear more of how you’re conceiving of that.

yeah, yeah. so just to give you a little bit of a background, i was just sitting around and listening to something and, you know, i get very visual downloads, and i, i got an infinity symbol downloaded to me. and i knew that it meant something to me, but i didn’t know what it meant. and i spent and this was back in, i think, december of 2020.

and i didn’t know and i kind of like how we do like in the 3d matrix, we try to force things we try to like make sense of things and, you know, make things happen as fast as we can. so i took it, i did that i did all of that. i tried to make sense of the infinity mich, infinity symbol, and all of that. and then i realized some time, actually, this december, january, while the christmas break was happening, that this this infinity symbol is what i was going through through many, many years, especially in the last year. and i saw it as the path to, you know, mastering your own self. and i see it as infinity because this is a continuous process, but we are on and i saw that we go through different initiations a different point of time, right? so the first initiation that i see is the fire initiation. i’m sorry, the water initiation. and this is about getting rid of all that emotional gunk that’s been in our body, right? so all the emotions that are there, that are survival based emotions, like fear, and shame and guilt, and unworthiness, getting rid of that and that requires us to look at some of the past events because all those emotions are coming from past trauma and past events, that requires us to look at those events and most of us are not doing that we have kind of like you know, subdued it, we have pressed it, we have pushed it under. so it’s the process of letting go of that emotional body and once you’ve done that now you’re in the air initiation. and this is i call it the entire this process as the wild as the unknown. and i felt like once, you know, things that i do happen in my life, and i had to, i had to get realization that, you know, this is no longer how i want to live. and i, there’s something else for me. i didn’t know what that something else was. and now i was in the void, i was in the unknown now, right, i could not predict what’s going to happen. so in my, let’s say, my past business, as a business mentor, i could predict i’m going to do a launch, this is how much money it’s going to generate. this is what kind of content i’m going to put out. but once i decided that, i don’t want to do this, i don’t, i didn’t know what that next level was, i didn’t know what the universe the goddess was asking me to do. i was now in the unknown. so now, you know, once i got started getting rid of my emotional body and started facing all the emotions, and you know, the trauma from the past. now i was suddenly in, i saw it as air like, i saw it as like fog forest. because now the emotions were kind of like leaving me i was not no longer getting triggered by the same trauma. however, there was this voice inside my head, and i started to hear all these doubts that don’t do this, you’re gonna break your career, you’re gonna, i’m just using my career as an example. we all go through this all the time, we go through this journey all the time. and that that i thought was a really good opportunity for me to really rely on my intuition than the voice of my head than the voice of my inner critic. right. so i see that every stage comes with a shadow and it comes with a gift of the shadow of the first stage was, you know, fear and these these emotions that were in my body, but the gift was the transmutation of the of the emotion, the gift was turning them into creativity, turning them into creative power. and the second stage i saw the shadow was my own inner critic, my own doubt, but the gift was really relying on my intuition. and i always get reminded of the fog because i get reminded of the story of baba yaga and was bacillus bacillus, right, baba yaga and rustlers, who, you know, she was in the forest. and all she had was her doll to rely on, as she found her way to baba yaga. and also, you know, have a conversation and get what you wanted. so she didn’t rely on logic, or the voice of her head, she relied on her intuition, that doll was a symbol, same symbol for her intuition. so once we get out of this, and i saw that most of us are always stuck in a cycle of fear and doubt, that’s where we are all the time, we’re stuck in that cycle. but once you pivot from there, now you can let go all the things that are not serving you, your shadows, the fear, and you can become and come back to, really who you are. so the next two stages are the fire which is you know, the death and rebirth. and the last one is earth, which is regeneration, and unbecoming and wholeness. and then suddenly, you see that, oh, there are so many possibilities like this is we are in the quantum field. now we have access, just infinite possibilities. so this entire process was not just given to me, carla, but i think i’ve lived not i think i know that i’ve lived this process intensely. and when i say your path to self mastery, i mean, i’m someone who is a master of self. so i’m going to give you an example. so yesterday was a hard day for me. a lot of people think that spiritual people don’t react spiritual people don’t have bad days. we do. right. you know, i had a bad day yesterday, i was doubting myself, all the fears and all the monsters out there. however, what i had was an acute awareness of what i was doing. most of all, mostly, we are so unconscious, the unconscious thoughts like we don’t even know we get in that pattern. right. so the fear comes of the doubt comes, we just keep following that. but i was aware of that. and so i was able to use the tools that now i have i have developed and now as they have become part of my literal neurology, i was able to use that and get back. alright, so even i was today in a meditation and i kept going to the fear, but i kept coming back to it. so i often, you know, i have a i have a puppy clear, he’s nine months old now. and we’ve had the most difficult time training him because we will not see you as we will train him whenever we want to do we will train him and we we didn’t, like you know, we didn’t have time you will not train him. but once i decided that he’s the animal, i’m the master, i am going to train him i’m going to say set and he should set i’m going to say come, he should come. that’s when the game changed between him and me. right? that’s when he started to listen. and that’s the same relationship that we need to have with a body and our mind. so when our soul says sit down and pay attention in the present moment, that’s when our body and mind has to agree it needs to come. so it’s the game of becoming a master of have your own self so that your soul is always leading you. so once adventurer, soul gets really bored when things become predictable, and things become boring. so that’s the whole process of getting beyond yourself, your doubt your critic, your fears, your past trauma, and always going towards mastering our own body and our mind.

i love it, i love it, i resonate so much with that, and especially, you know, the idea that while we’re here on earth, even if we’re spiritual people, we’re never going to completely eliminate fear or doubt or those negative voices. right? when it reminds me of one thing that my spiritual teacher says, which is that we we learn to use those triggered those thoughts as a trigger as an alarm clock, because he, the way he explained it to me is, you know, when you have that self doubt, or self criticism, and it’s a habitual, when it’s worn a groove in your brain, you know, there’s a neural pathway there, right. and what you can do is okay, there’s already that’s already a groove, it’s, it’s, it’s, we’re going to use that groove. and when you find yourself thinking that thought, then you pivot it to the thought that you want to replace it with. and you’re using the, the erosion, and it’s already there, the pathway you’ve already worn to create the new pathway, absolutely, totally reminded me of what you were saying. so

yeah, and from a neuroscience perspective, that’s exactly what’s happening in the brain. so i’ve seen brain scans of like people’s brains changing. and that’s exactly what happens, this new neuron, neural pathway, that form gets formed, and the neurons start getting wired together. and it’s amazing because our body, our brain is, you know, plasticity, we can change it. and i think the people who are willing and committed to becoming masters of self, they are the ones who can really keep digging, that that groove that you’re talking about, so that the brain gets changed.

well, it’s really fascinating. i could talk about this stuff all day, i’m saying. one thing i was wondering is, you know, coming from india, and with any region, i guess, there are positive stereotypes and negative stereotypes. but, you know, for much of us, for many of us in in our consciousness, we associate india with this being this repository of deep spiritual wisdom and spiritual practices and, and holy people and gurus. so to what extent do you think your early life in that culture influenced your spirituality today? is there some element?

well, yeah, right. yeah, a lot. and there are definitely both aspects to it. you know, just like in any culture, there are things that you relate to the things that you don’t relate to, and i think in india, and i would say it’s in every culture, i’m just going to talk about india, because i know the indian culture, so well. there’s such deep wisdom, spiritual wisdom that, you know, i saw my grandmother’s use in their daily life, my mom, however, the problem was that when it was passed on to them, there was no explanation of why we do the things that we do. right. so you know, i remember my mom using the chakras, to you know, balance your energy and my grandmother using so many like, manifestation techniques, and, but it wasn’t, it was never explained why that happened. and the the only thing that they talked about was religion. right. and, to me, i, i pursued that for a very long time, because there was some aspects of religion that i liked. and there were some aspects of religion that i did not like. and it was funny because i was 13 years old, when i first saw the goddess, she like, she came to me. and she would appear to me many, many times, whenever i was in a problem, it was almost like whenever i had a problem, a question or anything, i could call upon her, and she would come to me and we would have a chat. and so for me, the the entire idea of going to a temple every tuesday to to talk to god was so alien. and i’m like, what are these people doing? don’t they know that you can just talk wherever you want. and so you know, i poo pooed on that for a long time, however, now i can. now that i know the science behind it. and i know that you know, there are a lot of people who have contributed so much to you know, the the explanation of letter, the chakras, the energy centers, you know, how the prana moves in our body and other things as well now i get it now i understand it and now i’ve kind of like embraced it. you know it within my own practices as well. but it did it did influence me a lot. we do follow some culture as well. however, i’m not for superstition. i’m not for you can’t wear black on a friday, or you have to you can’t cut nails on a thursday. like, i’m not for that. my belief is that god is everywhere. and i am welcome. and i love all god, like the other day i had jesus in my meditation, i was like, oh, my goodness, i’m so happy. so i’m all for all gods. the idea is, and i don’t know how how spiritual your audience is, but i know that the god is within us like we are all divine. so once you understand that, once you once you really know that it’s not something that outside you’re talking to and outside you’re praying to, it’s someone who’s inside you always, you know how there’s a saying that people are looking for god, they can find him, what’s the best place to hide, hide the god inside of all of us. so it did affect me a lot. and i feel like now as i’ve reached the stage in my life, where i’m embracing my spirituality even more, i’ve started to use much of that wisdom in my work as well.

well, that made me think of something that i wanted to ask you that it’s just something i think about a lot. of course, i feel similarly to you. and then i grew up in a very spiritual and religious culture, and i gravitate toward the spiritual aspects of it and was not so much the religious and rigorous and superstitious aspects of it. but in the churches that i went to growing up, god was always depicted as as masculine. and so i think partially because of that reason, when i think about the divine, i’ve been especially attracted to conceptualizing of feminine aspects of the divine because i need that you know, i need that as sort of a role model for me to know that i can also contain it but what do you think about this thing that we do as humans where we have all these different over maybe are they overlays of god these different flavors these different ways that we all have? or at least for those of us who pursue a spiritual path or spiritual thought of thinking of the divine where i’ve also heard other theologians say that you know, the divine ultimately has no gender? no, you know is more formless what do you think about that? why do we do that?

oh, wow, that’s such a loaded question. i think you know, i don’t i honestly don’t think i have the right answer. i can only tell you what i think there is a lot of mythology attached to it. and again, like i’m no expert in you know, the, the religion in the west, i can only talk about you know, india, all gods and we have like at least 500 gods and goddesses. they all have this mythology behind it, but even then there’s always a feminine aspect to it and there’s a there’s a masculine aspect to it. so for example, in india, shiva is the is the masculine god and the shakti is the feminine god. okay, so i’m going to talk about my experience you know, what i know to be true, i know that we all have masculine energy and feminine energy and there’s both energy and we need both in our life and even when we talk about the prana we have two serpents right like you know at the base of our spine, and they both have to unite in order for you to get the enlightenment in order for you to see the light really. so i do think that both are important i think it’s mythology combined with religion combined with patriarchy combined with you know, superstition, that has led to this division of you know, duality, right? but there is no duality they it is all one it is it is all one and it works. it will work better. i don’t know you know if that’s the right language that i should be using, but it will work for the highest good for everybody if you see it as one and not as dual. yeah, so i do think that that there is gender not in the terms of like, you know, how we see gender as you know, as male, female, binary, non binary, i’m all for that. but isn’t there like one of hermetic laws and i’m like, while i’m talking, i’m actually looking at is that there is gender in everything. that’s one of the hermetic principles. and what they’re talking about is the energy not the physical gender, but the energy of gender, there is a masculine energy and there is a feminine energy, but we need both in order to thrive.

well, yes, that and that wasn’t intended to be like a specific, i needed a definitive answer right away. of course. this is something i find very interesting because i tend you know, when i’m conceiving of the divine sometimes it’ll have, you know, one particular goddess or a different goddess or a different god will will come to me that day and i’m always curious, well, you know, what is that? what does that really? what does that mean? why? why does it like that instead of just always experiencing the same energy? that’s just divine energy?

that is such an interesting part. you know, i get the same thing i have different sometimes there will be you know, one god, sometimes there will be another god and i’ve never thought about it. but i feel like maybe there is an at the end of it. you know, if you if you rip apart everything about every religion, all religions say the same thing that mean the same thing, right? the same the same thing at the end of it, like if you take out all the, all the priests and all the pope’s and everything and all the drama that comes with it, they all say the same thing. so i think when we are visited by a particular god or goddess, i think it’s that energy that we’re calling in. so for example, you know, today i had colleagues come to me, and so i kind of knew that i needed that kali energy. right? to to liberate to burn down to you know, that battle, a little bit of a dark energy in me. so, you know, that’s what i would assume that that is, but that’s such a good question. yeah, i would i would definitely ponder on that a little bit more.

yes. well, you already touched on this a little bit. but i wanted to ask, while we’re having this conversation, on this show, i talk a lot about my grandmother and the other female elders in my family that were very strong. and one thing that you and i have talked about that we have in common is that we both come from, you know, with you, in india, me and appalachia, a place that has a lot of really patriarchal tendencies, where there are many, many very strong women who wind up playing second fiddle to these patriarchal systems or ideas. so i’d like to hear anything you have to say about that, or just the strong women, how their strength came out, in spite of those systems.

patriarchy was very apparent. in my household and in my family, and in my culture, you assure you, you can go work by you also need to come back and then and be your wife and take the beatings, and you can’t open your mouth. and i saw all of that, around me. it was everywhere. it was, you know, even in the even in the even in the culture, even in the religion, it was everywhere, the patriarchy was everywhere. and women, you can’t do a lot of things you can you can, you can break out of the box, but you still have to be at the border, you know, you can’t really, you can’t really shatter any any glass ceilings. so that was always there. for me, i have always been a very defiant, almost a rebel. and my mom had had to play by the rules. but she was a very strong woman. and i think my strength really came from her. and even though she was playing by the rules, and she also didn’t really understand herself how she was breaking the patriarchy or even if she had the strength to do that. and i think in the end, she died did she died young. and i think in the end, the stress and the trauma and everything got to her. but one thing that i always got from from my mom was that we are no less than we can do whatever we put our mind to. and we have to take care of ourselves. right? so they, they want actually a lot of examples of strong women in front of me. and of course, we can talk about it in a lot of detail as well with examples, but i always felt that was that was lacking. but to me that somehow turned it as a fuel than, you know, then pushing me down. i always saw that and i was like, why is that happening? and how can i make sure that that doesn’t happen? where i am? yeah, and i mean, i’m a mom to two boys and my husband was raised in a matriarchal family. he was raised by his grandmother. and he always we’re both on the same page on this that we need to teach our boys to, to not play a role in the patriarchy at all.

i was gonna say, you know, i think for me, too, that was fuel it was gave me determination that i need to, even though i didn’t call it that when i was a little girl to smash the patriarchy. i knew i wanted to go up and help smash the patriarchy so that i could have more freedom and more choices and more options in my life and other women could too. but now that i’m raising a son, i realized that it’s not only do i not want him to be a part of the oppression of women, but until we have a society that is not misogynistic, it hurts his full expression of his being because of what you were talking about. we all have that inner masculine, feminine. and if we live in a world where he can’t express himself with colorful glows or cry in front of a friend, he can’t be his full self. so we, we have to do it for the women, but we’re also doing it for the healing of the men and the boys.

oh, absolutely. and you know, a lot of people think patriarchy is to do with, you know, raising the women and empowering moment women, but patriarchy affects men too. it does, you know, our men have grown in a culture where they were told that they can cry, or they can show their emotions, it really did. like imagine the pressure on men, that they have to be the one who needs to be the breadwinner, they have to take care of the entire family. and in india, that meant your parents, your grandparents, your entire family, like, you know, your sister, maria sister paid for the dowry, and all of that, and men crumble from that, and it’s not a healthy society, there is so much imbalance in that society, where women are not given a chance to speak up and or own who they are. and men are, you know, just told that they have so much pressure on them, and they can’t really emote, how they feel, it just creates more separation. so i think we’re seeing a change, we and we have to be the change that we want to see. right. so we are the people who, who can be the change. i feel like our generation carla, especially with my parents, even though they were never cut in half here, half there, they had like both feet in two worlds, like they were working, they had the education, they kind of understood that there was a little bit of like, you know, you know, knowledge around these these issues, however, they still were, they grew up with that oppression they grew up with, you know, so much so much of that. and you know, like in india, for example. there was no such thing as lgbtq community, like, you know, it was it was so foreign, even like dating, like that was not, you know, a considered healthy or love marriages when not not considered healthy. so, you know, there was so much like, they were so confused. so they were trying to do the best that i think that they can, but i feel like they were so confused. like they were so confused, growing up, like, what is the belief and where did they go, like they liked the western culture and the like the the openness, but they also still felt so stifled by their own culture and their own things that they grew up with. we i feel like have a much more open slate to create the future that we can for our kids. and i trust that our kids have an even better future in front of them.

yeah, i was having a conversation with my son about money the other day and beliefs about money. and he said something like, well, well, you know, i’m already ahead of where you and dad were. yeah, it was meaning it has consciousness. and i was like, yes, that’s right. that’s the idea. that’s what we want with each generation that we can, you know, exactly start off, have a head start from where our parents were. well, one more question related to motherhood. before i want to talk some more about your work. and i ask all parents questions about parenthood and how it affects their work and their creativity. so it’s not i know, sometimes people interviewers, especially i’ve seen will just only ask the women about their motherhood in their careers. they won’t ask them in questions about that. i just want to let everybody know that i’m interested in the way that parenthood affects all creative people. yeah, because if you’re doing it, right, it should. but with women, i know. sometimes, in depending on what career you’re in, there’s an idea that, you know, your experience of motherhood can hold you back and be a stumbling block. but for me, even though it’s incredibly time consuming to raise human beings, it was almost it’s been an initiation for me, and it has deepened my soul in ways that, you know, probably wouldn’t have been if i had chosen not to have kids and i don’t want to in any way invalidate women that choose not to have kids or men that choose not to have kids by saying this. but it’s just to say that i’m wondering how your experience as a mother has affected the person that you are in the work that you now are doing with people.

that is okay, it’s such a great question. i’m loving these questions. i feel like these are such deeper conversations than the the average conversations. just like you said, everything i and i didn’t really realize it so much with my first one. but when my second one was born, and you know my my first one was a c section, my second one, i decided that i’m going to have a vaginal birth after c section and it was successful one. and i remember walking to my room and my husband was like, holy shit, you just gave birth to a human, it looks like you are ready to go play soccer out there, i had so much like energy inside of me. and i think there was something that changed inside me when i gave birth to my second one. and there was this moment where it was like, if i can do this, i can do fucking anything. i’m sorry, i don’t know if you allow cursing. but i can do anything. and i think something changed inside of me too. it kind of fueled me. and i’m not seeing it in terms of like, i want to create a better world for my kids. and i want to, like leave the world a better place. all of that is there. it’s always there in the background. but i think it just changed me as a woman. it just allowed me to believe in myself more. yes, it

for me, it was a rite of passage. and like you said, especially number two and number three, because i sort of knew what i was doing more. and it was it was a different kind of process. and at the end of it, i was just like, i am a total badass. wow.

yeah, until date, a lot of people ask me, what’s the most badass thing you’ve ever done in your life and like birthing my second one. because everybody around me say you can’t have a c section. you can’t have a c’s, you can’t have a vaginal birth after a c section like nobody believed in that. and they were literally like people who are cheering and whooping in the in the room, when when he came out of me, and even my husband was like, awestruck, it was it was the most amazing experience that i had. yeah, and i think, you know, kudos to my husband too, because i think he believes in me more than i believe in myself. and he always created this environment. even after i gave birth to my kids, he was the one who told me because my second one, though, you know, i felt like i could do anything. he was a very difficult child, he, he didn’t really sleep at all, for the first three years, i was always tired, and he used to cry and scream all the time. and my husband used to say that you need to do something for yourself, you’re gonna get very depressed if you don’t do something for yourself. and i had no, i had no inclination. and he said, listen, he calls me my baba nickname mini. and it’s a mini to you do not have the fire in your belly, you’re not going to do anything. so you know, he kept saying that to me. and he was like, the fuel to the fire in my belly, which i kind of extinguished with the sleepless nights. but kudos to him too, for, you know, always encouraging me to follow my own path. like even when i decided to make the shift from being a business mentor to a spiritual mentor. and i am a manifester in human design. so i don’t really tell people what i’m doing, i take decision, and then i tell them, so i had already taken the decision. and that’s when i went to him. and i’m like, listen, i’m doing this, which means that we could have a little bit like, you know, maybe a few slow months, right, we probably wouldn’t have the same predictable revenue that i was generating before. and he was like, do whatever you want to do. like, this is your life. and i’ll support you, and this is your who you’re meant to be this person to do it. i don’t know how i came to this topic. but i think, you know, my, my kids changed me. however, if i did not have the support of my husband, which many women in my in back in india did not have when i was growing up, i don’t think i would have been able to do what i’m doing today. so i think it was it was a combination of everything.

well, that’s really beautiful. and it. so you know, i can tell that not only was the act of birth and motherhood, a rite of passage, but just going through the experience with him, gave him the opportunity to show you what he was made of and show you you know, that support. and you know, that’s, that’s the beautiful thing about being in relationship. one of the beautiful things is that, you know, you go through these things together, and then you have the opportunity to get to see what each other is made of. and yeah, so yeah, that’s really awesome. well, i know that my listeners are always looking for ways to live their most creative lives and move past those stumbling blocks that we all encounter in the human experience. so i know that’s part of what you deal with is, you know, helping people get past the inner critic and just getting past some of those, those kinds of issues that we all face. so anything that you have to say about that i’d be interested to hear.

of course lot since i feel like this is this is the new journey that i’m taking. but i think the work that i am so passionate about now is letting people believe in them so that they can never talk them out of possibility they can never let anyone else or themselves talk themselves out of possibility and i i think that that’s a that’s a process. that’s the path to self mastery, when you become so good at believing in your own genius, that you never let anything, whether the circumstances whether you’re, you know, your creative career has launched in the way that you wanted to want it to, or whether a performance went as good as you wanted to, or did not go as good as you wanted to. you never let yourself talk yourself out of that big vision, big dream that you have. and i would love to say to people is, that is so worth it, to get on that path. to know yourself really well to get out, like, you know, to get beyond that critic, get beyond the fear, that is so worth all the pain and all the uncomfortable feelings that you go through you, you when you decide that you’re going to meet your future self, you’re going to meet your higher self, you’re going to meet your soul, you’re going to have a rendezvous with your with your soul, you are entering the unknown, you’re entering the dark night of the soul, there is no other way to say it. and there are some uncomfortable feelings, maybe an ex would come out from the past, maybe you know, you’ll you’ll have like a financial breakdown, or maybe a relationship breakdown, maybe even a health diagnosis. but getting past that is so so worth it. because at the end of it, you really see your soul. and you really see what you are made of you kind of remember who you really are. so my advice to everybody is always go back to that path, always go back, even if it’s scary, even if your current circumstances are telling you that you can’t do this, or you can make a career out of it, or you can make money out of it. believe in possibility and belief in yourself because we are divine. and, you know, we were made to create, i sincerely believe that that we were made to be creative, and all of us are are creative. so whatever you need to do in order to believe in that, whether it’s meditation, whether it’s a spiritual path, whether it’s, you know, cutting off from the world and going in, and you know, staying in a wooden cabin for a week to completely disconnect and connect with yourself, do that, but always stay on that path of, you know, letting go of that character being present in the in the, in the current moment, and facing the demons of your own self. it’s so worth it.

amen. i think that speaks you spoke to one thing i hear from some of my listeners is just that they don’t have time, they feel like everything else always gets in the way of the creativity that they want to express, even if it’s just, you know, their hobby or something they’re doing for personal fulfillment. but then i also hear from people pretty frequently that they want to, like go for whatever their dream is in a bigger way, whether it’s writing or you know, being a crafts person, or whatever it is. but they are afraid to drag their family through financial uncertainty or to just, it feels too risky. it feels too risky to them. so those are two of the things i hear from yeah.

yeah. and it is, it is scary, it is risky, it is the unknown, you know, if one of the biggest lies that we’ve been told is that we can predict. or we can control our future and our present, right. and a lot of people are so scared of that we are scared of the unknown, we are literally scared of the unknown. and that’s why you don’t like the past couple of years. and during covid when, remember when covid first hit. all the people were people who were super scared of the unknown, were the ones who were holding on the toilet papers and the sanitizers. because that’s the only way they could control. the fact is that we have zero control over anything, because we’re always in the present moment. right? and the present moment is the unknown. like, you and i are sitting here you don’t know what’s going to happen, right? the second. we don’t know, like, my laptop could go off a bomb could like, you know, bust through my ceiling right now. anything could happen. but if you think about it, we are never in the present moment. we are always living either in the past, we’re thinking about all the things that have gone wrong and all the things even though we’re not thinking about consciously about the time that we were on the on the playground and someone bullied us, but because we felt like a failure and that we are always stuck frozen in that moment because you’re thinking about what a big failure you are. in some ways you’re still stuck in the past, or you’re always thinking in the future. we are never in the present moment. to be in the present moment is being in the unknown. and if you’re always going to be in the future in the past, your future is going to be so predictable, because you’re in your, in your past you were you were scared, you felt like a failure, maybe you felt doubt you felt shame, you being run by those past emotions. so you could literally pick up your past and put it in your future, it will be very predictable, right? 10 years down the line, if you haven’t gotten through that emotion, when you felt like a failure, you will still feel like a failure. and that’s why, you know, i meet all these successful people, seven figure eight figure business owners, they’re miserable, they’re miserable. even though they’re top of the game, they made so much money, they have so much fame, they’re miserable in their heart, because they haven’t got rid of that shame, that guilt, the fear, those survival based emotion that are stored in in your body. so to to be in the present moment, which is where everything is happening. it’s not happening in the future, it’s not happening in the past is to be in the unknown. and to be in the unknown, is, as i see it, is to sit in terror. it’s just sit with terror. one of the things and i’ve spent a lot of time in the unknown, i’ve spent a lot of time like sitting with my terror. and one of the things that really helped me and maybe this would help your people is having a paradigm shift, because when i was in the unknown, i felt like i wasn’t in a tomb, i felt like it was so scary, i was in a dark tomb and it was dark, and i could not see the end, i could not see the light, i could not see where the tomb ended, and i could come out and breathe fresh air. and the shift that was given to me in a meditation was you’re not in the tomb, you are in the womb. and it was such a beautiful shift for me. because if you think of the tomb, it’s dark is scary, it’s the unknown, you don’t know what’s going to happen, you don’t even know when you’re going to come out. but when you think of yourself in the womb, it’s still dark, it’s still still scary, it’s still the unknown, you still don’t know when you’re going to come out or how you’re going to come out. but suddenly, you know that you’ll be nurtured here. and suddenly, you know that they are you are in a world of possibilities. right. so there’s this like shift that happened. and for me, it was literally a physiological shift that happened in my body. and for months, i just kept every day and i kept repeating this to myself, i’m not in the tomb, i’m in the womb, i’m not in the tomb, and i’m in the womb. so then i could really end you know, think about the framework that i told you of being in the water and then being in air in void. you, your senses won’t work there. and then you have to rely on your intuition. you have to rely, you have to be wrestlers, and rely on that wooden doll to guide you out of that womb, then. so yeah, it’s scary, it’s risky. but if you want predictable future, then you can, you can choose to stay there, but the people who are committed to having a future that they can create, literally, they can dip into that possibility and create what they want, are the ones who are committed to staying in the unknown.

well, i think that’s a, that’s a really beautiful vision that was given to you, you know, from the, from the tomb to the womb. and sometimes it’s just really nice to have a very small thing like that, that we can use to. in the moments when those fears come up, we can apply our mindfulness with an idea like from the tomb to the womb, one that i’ve been using lately, when i notice some, like one of those thought patterns that make you uncomfortable, and it’s really unpleasant and your brain keeps playing it for you. anyway, when that one comes up lately, i’ve just been saying stop change, new song change, but that i can see that being a good one too. you know, okay, yes, it’s the womb. yeah. yeah, can can carry with them. that’s like to give, you know, actionable tips for people. so that’s a good actionable tip, i think. and in a minute, we’re gonna get some more information about how people can work with you more. but i had one last little kind of fun question that i wanted to ask. so we know, you’ve mentioned that you you like to read and write. what are your creative outlets just as a human that you have fun doing maybe that you don’t, or do do for public consumption? but just what are your creative creative outlets?

yeah, i mean, writing is definitely one reading too. and i write, i write publicly, but i also write privately there’s so many things that i don’t share and in public, especially like my poems and stuff, i don’t share it that as much dance. that’s something that i have not really shared. it’s it is my dream that one day i could have like a dance video, maybe but especially bollywood dance, i love dancing and my husband loves dancing and sometimes we dance together. sometimes i just dance with my kids and we usually have these dance parties. but that is such a creative outlet for me. i just love dance. i love it.

i want to see your reel, i want to see a bollywood reel for you and your husband and your kids dancing. that would be awesome.

yeah, maybe maybe one of these days when we can orchestrate it and choreograph it. that’s i think, the difficult part. but it’s been on our vision, both me and my husband that we will have this huge bollywood party, we wanted to do it for my husband’s 40th birthday. but because of covid, and everything, we couldn’t do it. but we have, we have this in our mind. and maybe during the summer, we’ll do it to have a bollywood dance party call a dj call, like all our friends and family or, and just dance or hot dogs.

that sounds like a great idea, i’m going to be imagining your bali party, my head? well, it’s been so awesome to talk with you today. i’m so glad and privileged that we have had this time together. and i know that my listeners would be interested in knowing if they want to just take a bite sized step or a bigger step in working with you, what are the options that you have available right now?

sure, i mean, i am still, you know, creating a lot of other stuff. so i think the best, the best place to kind of get a feel of what it looks like is to download my guided energy activation meditation and see that for yourself of how it looks like to be in the in the field of all possibilities and create your future you want. and then if you want more, if you want to learn more about the path to self mastery framework, we run a workshop every month, there are more things that are going to come and my vision is to make more things accessible, honestly, at all price points to people because i really my my mission now carla is to, to let more and more people really know that we are more powerful than we know and more unbounded. and we think and we have the power to harness into that potential in ourselves, it doesn’t come from the outside, the answers don’t come from the outside, we have it inside of us. and we can we can really take even those negative emotions and that like you know, dense emotions, and we can turn it into creative power. so i would say watch out, get the meditation, get the activation, you will be added to my email list. i communicate very regularly there. and if there’s anything else that you would like to experience, then there’s a lot more coming.

well, that’s a beautiful message about empowerment, and our own agency on earth. and i love that you have the free meditation, and i love a good meditation. and i love your meditations. i love to listen to your voice, and it’s great energy. so i highly encourage everybody to go get that. i will put links to those in the show notes. i don’t know if you want to spell out anything. or tell us your instagram handle your website or anything like that. or,

i mean, so my instagram is deepshikha. saira, that’s the website to deepshikha xyrem.com. my website, unfortunately, still not updated, i’m really slow. and all these tech things. i’m like the worst person when it comes to tech. so we’re still updating it. but the the meditation link, if you could put it in the show notes, you can grab it from there, if not go to my instagram downloaded from my bio, or just send me a message on instagram and say infinite possibilities. and i’ll send you the link.

that sounds great. and i will definitely put all those links in the show notes. again, thank you so much for being with us. and i know everybody’s gonna be really glad to hear your message and glad to get to know you a little more. and i am wishing you all of the success and all of the blessings in your new line of work as a priestess and spiritual mentor.

thank you so much. thanks for facilitating this really deep conversation. this was really it was honestly very different. i’ve never had such a beautiful experience on a podcast. i do want to say that. so i’m actually now i’m looking forward to going back and listening to some of the past interviews because i know that you must have asked some really questions there too. and thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about my journey and about my path.

well, it’s fascinating and yeah, let’s do it again some time. yes. thank you so much for joining me this week. if you want to make sure you never miss an episode. please hit subscribe wherever you’re listening now. or visit my website to get on my email list@www.karlova.com when you sign up, you’ll instantly receive my milton mama digital care package, a bundle of music and videos to help you wring every drop of yeehaw out of life. you’ll even find a dance lesson as well as migraines cornbread recipe with new goodies being added all the time i’ll see you next thursday on the wet dreamers do podcast