Episode 27: Ego, Identity, Purpose, & Awakening with Priya Lahki

Listening to this episode is like sitting at the feet of an awakened and compassionate but firm spiritual teacher and soaking up love and wisdom and truth.

This episode forces us to take an honest look at the hidden programming (aka “autopilot) and decide from a place of awareness if the stories we’re telling ourselves and others support our journeys to being the hero of our own stories or remain in a place of disempowered victimhood.

Priya, the founder of Awaken Ananda, specializes in supporting you to integrate spirit with matter, intuition with intelligence. After 15 years as a lawyer and professor, she became passionate about guiding others to harness the power within to create potent and powerful lives. Priya is a Master Results Coach, a Board Certified Trainer in Hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming, and has spent years studying ancient spiritual wisdom and the quantum field. She is also a published author, international trainer, and speaker. Priya works with clients one-to-one, facilitates group coaching, events, international retreats, and teaches certification classes.

Show Notes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

In this episode, hypnotherapist and coach Priya Lahki and I…

share Priya’s story of growing up as an Indian immigrant in Columbus, Ohio
share how Priya had built a very outwardly successful life as a criminal defense attorney but was inwardly falling apart
discuss the resemblance of her former career as a defense attorney to her role now as a spiritual teacher and coach
talk about awareness of the identities we create for ourselves, especially the identities based on the worst things that have ever happened to us
talk about the importance of language in how we tell our stories
discuss shifting out of identifying as a victim or survivor and into acceptance of our stories as a path to healing
discuss the brain science of hidden programming (aka “autopilot) and how by age 35 we live 95% of our existence on autopilot
discuss creating a hypnosis of success rather than a hypnosis of victimhood
share why personal development without spiritual awareness and teaching won’t bring peace and isn’t fulfilling
challenge the negative connotations of the word trauma”, especially in the English language
discuss self-love as self-discipline
discuss understanding cosmic and spiritual law
talk about soul contracts, karma, and why each of us chose this time and these bodies and this planet for this time and a purpose

Transcript

[INTRO MUSIC]

LINDSEY: Hi there and welcome to March. This is the first episode in March, 2021. And spring is just around the corner. We’re getting ready for the great thought to begin to happen, which means we will be tapping maple trees very soon, collecting SAP and doing the age old indigenous practice of collecting zap and boiling SAP into our own maple syrup. So that’s, what’s coming up for us in the immediate future. And I tell you what, it’s been a long, cold winter, and I’m really, really excited for the great thought to begin. Today’s episode is very, very special. I am interviewing Priya Locky. Priya is the founder of Awaken Ananda, and she specializes in supporting you to integrate spirit with matter intuition with intelligence after 15 years, as a lawyer and professors, she became passionate about guiding others to harness the power within, to create potent and powerful lives. Priya is a master results coach, a board certified trainer in hypnotherapy and neurolinguistic programming and have spent years studying ancient spiritual wisdom and the quantum field. She is also a published author, international trainer and speaker.

Priya works with clients one-on-one to facilitate group coaching events, international retreats, and she teaches certification classes. I’m so excited about this episode. This episode is one of the more spiritual episodes that I’ve done on the podcast, which is very important to me. As I’ve shared in the past part of what makes us whole beings is that we are spiritual beings. We have souls, we have spirits. Just as much as we have a physical body. And part of healing. Trauma is spiritual healing and spiritual awakening. So in this episode, Priya shares her story of growing up as an Indian immigrant in Columbus, Ohio of all places. She shares, how she built a very outwardly successful life, but inwardly her life was falling apart. And in 2017. Her walls came crumbling down and she left relationships, friendships, her law career, and went to India and had a spiritual awakening. We discussed the resemblance of her career as a criminal defense attorney to the role that she has now as a spiritual teacher and coach.

We talk about awareness of the identities that we create for ourselves, especially how we create identities based on the worst things that have ever happened to us. We talk about the importance of language and how we talk about our problems is creating the reality we live in. We discussed shifting out of identifying as victims or survivors and into acceptance of our stories. We also discussed some brain science and the hidden programming, AKA autopilots, and by the age of 35, all of us are living 95% of our lives on autopilot. And because we’re living in this autopilot space, we discussed the importance of creating a hypnosis of success rather than a hypnosis of victim hood.

We share why personal development without spiritual awareness and teaching doesn’t bring peace and isn’t fulfilling. We challenged the negative connotation of the word trauma, especially in the English language. And we discuss self-love as self-disciplined and how the more we bullshit ourselves, the more we choose not to love ourselves.

Um, this conversation. Kind of was a weird experience for me because I hit the record button. We had this amazing conversation at the end of the conversation. I sort of felt like I hadn’t done a very good job. Like I felt sort of scatter brained and like I had been talking really fast and furiously.And I wasn’t even sure of that. It had gone that well, and it was over a month later that I listened to the interview again. And I was like, Oh my gosh, this is like one of the best conversations I’ve ever had in my life. Not because my interviewing skills or like implacable or anything.

But just because I feel like I had the ability to be fully present. In myself, in this conversation with Priya and I felt like I was sitting at the feet of a guru. But she’s the most humble non guru like person you’ve ever met. And it was such an honor to have the experience to meet with her and to chat with her on zoom.And I just know you’re really going to love this episode. Um, if you’ve been looking for the spiritual side of healing and awakening and stepping into purpose, then this episode is it. So enjoy.

Hi, Priya. Welcome to the holistic trauma healing podcast. I’m glad you’re here.

PRIYA: Thank you for having me, Lindsay. It’s really great to be here.

LINDSEY: Yeah we had, we’ve been trying to connect now for, it feels like it finally worked out and thank you for being here. And I’m wondering if you can tell me more about yourself and what you

PRIYA: Yeah, absolutely. I don’t even know where to start this story. I will start with, I’m an immigrant from India. I moved to the United States when I was five years old and like many immigrant families. My family came to an entirely new country with absolutely No one around them. And they came because they wanted to give me their daughter an opportunity that I would not have had in India. So we landed in Columbus, Ohio of all places. And I, till this day, asked my parents out of all of the cities and all of the States, the United States, why Columbus and my dad will give the, the very, again, typical immigrant answer, we knew someone.

So you go where, even one soul, one human, who feels like you’re connected back to home. But because of that, I grew up in a household that was filled with a lot of struggle. A lot of economic struggle, a lot of relationships struggle, coming to this country. My father was very determined that I would be completely Indian on the inside and only American on the outside. So that led to a deep conflict within me. And so I started most of my childhood and middle school years with a real insecurity around who am I and what am I doing here? And who am I supposed to be? And who am I supposed to make happy? And how can I be With my American friends. And then I came home and I would down this like completely different personality.

So I became really good at pretending to be one thing on the outside and something else on the inside. And that led to a lot of turmoil as you can imagine. So in high school, I became really rebellious. I wanted to have nothing to do with my birth country of India. It was the cause of so much pain and then people made fun of my name. People made fun of the way I looked growing up in Columbus. I was the only Brown skinned woman girl in my entire high school class. And I was in the small town in Ohio and I was like, Oh, I just had such self hatred. It was a really Uncomfortable feeling to be so ostracized and then self ostracized on top of it.

And then I began to really hate my parents for bringing me here. And so my childhood was filled with a lot of stress with a lot of people pleasing with a lot of looking outside of me for validation. Somewhere along the way. I decided that the best way to handle my situation in life was to get a good job and earn my own money and move to another part of the country where I felt more secure and familiar. So like most Indian parents, I had a choice of medical school, law school or engineering school. Those were the only three options of a career I had to fit into this really interesting box. And the sight of blood made me woozy. So medical school was out and engineering centered, completely boring. So I went to law school and funny enough and I majored in psychology as sociology in dance as a college student and I went to law school. And for the first time I was taught about the power of my voice. I was taught that we have the ability to stand up for other people. We have rules and the job of a lawyer is to make sure that justice is done and fairness is accomplished.

And I was able to use those skills. And for the first time, stand up for myself. And say, Oh, I can use that voice. So I went to law school became a criminal defense lawyer working with clients on death row for 15 years. I was also a professor, a law school professor. And then in all of that Lindsey, I did what most of us do when we’re successful on the outside. We end up ignoring all of the messy stuff on the inside. Because society doesn’t really teach us emotional intelligence, spiritual intelligence, self-love so I did what I, everyone around me was doing. The only example I had amongst my colleagues was you work hard and you play hard. Am I playing her?

That meant you drank a lot. You did a lot of weekend partying and then we would work these insane hours. And no one would be talking about. Do you feel fulfilled? Is your life happy? Are you actually okay. On the inside? Okay. But because I’d always been this really curious soul since I was a kid, my sole mission and my soul blueprint kept pointing at me saying, Pria, pay attention to your life, pay attention to these unresolved feelings, pay attention to the rage and the anger that you’re feeling. Pay attention to the disappointment. Pay attention to the lack of self-confidence. And so every once in a while, I would get these pings of do something with these unresolved feelings. And so I went to therapy and being a double Capricorn, which means my son and my moon sign is in Capricorn. I’m very left brain logical strategic, I Bullshitted the therapist, I was able to outsmart her. I was able to say, Oh yeah, I understand what you’re saying. And I understand I should probably all do these things, but I internally had not made a choice to change a choice to go inward, a choice to really reflect. And so I was just going through these motions and so the universe as it does it started really bringing my house down.

I was in a partnership with a man that was narcissistic and abusive. I was in a job that I’ve thought I really loved, but I was completely burnt out. My finances were a mess. My friendships with my friends were superficial and very surface. And so slowly by slowly, the universe started stripping away. And in the spiritual world, it’s called the dark night of the soul. And we have many of them right in our life. And, but this one was a big one. And so in 2017, my entire world had just come crumbling down around me to get my attention because I was a really stubborn, intelligent, extra manipulative person. I really knew how to make everything look okay on the outside. Happens like that. It was a real movie moment. Like I was on my bathroom floor and tissues and tears and just rage and anger. And I wanted to scream from the mountaintops, like for any sort of help. And this was after most of my friends looked at me and said, what’s wrong. You have everything you want in your life.

You’ve got a great job, a great boyfriend, a great house. I don’t understand what’s wrong with you. And so I kept questioning whether I was going and saying I heard a voice that said go to India and I didn’t believe in God at that point. I sure as hell didn’t believe in spirit. I didn’t believe in any of those things that you couldn’t prove to me logically. Cause I was very much in my left brain. And eventually that voice got louder and over a three-day period, that voice got so loud that I literally said, okay, I don’t know what else to do. I have two choices here. I can choose not to live. And I was suicidal or I can choose. To listen to this voice that says, go to India and I’ll say the last place I wanted to go Lindsey was India because it was the land that caused so much turmoil in my childhood.

And so I went to India, I booked a ticket for two weeks thinking I could short sort my shit out and two weeks. And I’m laughing because it’s really funny to think about now. And I landed up at my aunt’s store and my aunt was a Reiki teacher, a yoga teacher, and a spiritual teacher, my mom’s sister. And she literally looked at me and said, you cannot go back home. You need someone to take care of you. I’m going to teach you why you’ve gone through all of the things you’ve gone through. And by the way, you’ve come to be a healer and we’ve been waiting for you. And that started this journey that I’m on.

LINDSEY: Wow. You got tears. That’s incredible. Thank you for sharing that with me. That’s so incredible. Just goosebumps. That’s really powerful. Gosh, there’s so many things that I want to ask you right now. I don’t know if you’d know where to start. So it’s it. I would love to, if I knew anything about astrology, I would love to go back to the charts of 2017 because 2017 was when my life also started to fall apart.

PRIYA: Interesting. Interesting. It’s very interesting. And yeah, it was a slow sort of falling apart that just picked up speed and. Had a snowball effect and that snowball kept moving faster and foster, and finally that snowball crashed and broke into a million pieces in early 2019. So very interesting hard journey parallel there. Also very interesting that your aunt is a Reiki healer. My husband is also a Reiki healer, and he learned Reiki actually to help me. And so he’s new to that, but you’ve been doing it a couple of years. But I want to go back to being a defense attorney. That’s because I’ve seen your website awakenananda. And reading through your website, looking at it, even the look of it. There is nothing in me that would ever think that you used to be a criminal defense attorney, nothing it’s somewhere in the about me section. It is. It is. But if you’re just looking at your homepage, looking at the classes that you offer, the things that you teach, your message, none of that is like indicative of the person you used to be.

LINDSEY: So I’m just curious Now that you can look back on your time as a criminal defense attorney, do you see the ways in which you were being like your spirit was developing even then to do what you do now? Or is there just like a total, like you were this person and now you’re this person?

PRIYA: I think it’s both. I think it’s absolutely both. The biggest parallel between my life as a criminal defense attorney and my life is a spiritual teacher and coach and hypnotherapist is that my clients, whether they were facing the death penalty. Or facing, homicide or rape or drug charges or whatever they were facing, or my current coaching clients and students that are facing their own internal, no prison that they’ve put themselves in want the same thing from me. They want hope they want love. They want support. They want someone to believe in them. They want someone to tell them that they are more than the worst thing they’ve ever done, and they want to feel like they are not alone in this world. So it is uncanny to me. The resemblance of the space that I held as a criminal defense attorney and the space that I hold as a teacher and a coach.

What I realize in that thread is that the human experience is identical. Okay. Want love? We want to know we’re worthy of love, and we want to give love. But we have all of these filters, all of these blockages, all of these experiences, all of these learnings in the way of that and what I really try to express to my clients now. And part of the way my lawyer skills really helped me is that I’m really good at My clients will sometimes say, are you cross-examining me? But there is right. The questioning ability that I learned as a lawyer was really good because listen, as a bullshitter myself, I can read through your bullshit.

And so the ability to get crystal clear on what your aha moment needs to be is where my questioning skills as a lawyer come in really handy. I have a client who says to me, she says you have a whip in one hand and tissues and the other. And I say yes, because. I am your spiritual teacher, not your friend, right? You don’t come to me because you want me to tell you what you want to hear you come to me because you’ve decided is time for me to create a life that I love, and I don’t know how to do that. So it’s a really interesting, it’s a really interesting parallel experience, but at the same time, I used to self identify as I used to, when people used to ask me what I used to do, just even like maybe 18 months ago, I used to start start with I used to be a lawyer and now I’m in this because my ego was like, Oh, you have to give some sort of credibility. And now I’m like fully embracing that. Like most of us, I lived multiple lifetimes in one lifetime. And so I’m just in a different shift. And I don’t know if I’ll be this and even two more years, I don’t know.

LINDSEY: Yeah. You just call me on something that I did cause well, before we hit the record button, you said, tell me about what you do. And I started out with I used to be a food blogger. Yeah. Work on that. Yeah, cause it’s like one holding onto one foot and one identity and trying to still step forward in the other one. And it doesn’t work eventually you’re going to do the splits and that’s going to hurt and. You gotta move both feet. Thank you. That’s a lesson that I’ve learned just from our conversations.

PRIYA: But it’s all right, because there’s we. We know from science, we know from science that everything we do as humans fulfills a need within us, it may not be a healthy way to fulfill the need, but it fulfills a need within us. So when I was answering people with, I used to be a lawyer, there was a need for, I want you to accept me. Yeah. And so it was, I was like in that middle space, not because I wasn’t proud of the way I was as a teacher and a coach, but I just made all these assumptions about how the world would view that. And so it was just keeping this need within me of safety, but I wasn’t stepping fully into my yeah.

LINDSEY: I’m glad you brought up identity and how we identify. I like to talk about that. I am actually reading again, Eckhart Tolle’s book, a new earth. And I’m getting so much out of it because he talks a lot about identity and how we identify and why the ego needs that validation or that, whatever it is. And as a person who has been through a lot of trauma in my life a lot of abusive situations, a shitty childhood religious trauma, various things like that. It took me a long time to get to the point where I didn’t identify with the worst things that had ever happened to me. Does that make sense? And sometimes I have conversations with people on the internet or in my real life. And it seems like they’re in that place that I used to be, which is identifying with all the worst things that have ever happened to them, and that defines so much of their lives. And it definitely defined a big part of my life for a long time. So I’m wondering if you can talk about what your evolution out of that was like, what was it like for you to have the awareness of identifying as a lawyer first? Because I’m trying to establish credibility or I want validation or I want acceptance. And then realizing, Oh, that’s actually not serving a purpose for me. I’m going to, I’m just going to be who I am. Like, how did you make that shift and how could that apply for people who are identifying with the worst things that have ever happened to them?

PRIYA: I think I pause before I answer, because oftentimes. I want to make sure I’m in complete alignment with the spirit, right? Because my ego wants to give you an answer, but that’s not the highest potential that we can give. But, so what I’m hearing though is the first thing is to, is the reminder that the ego is everything, but spirit. The ego was our entire human personal experience, how we think, how we act and we feel it’s not our spirit. And the other thing I think was really important for me in terms of my identification, is that personal development doesn’t bring me peace, identifying as something that is, and believe me, every marketer that I ever talked to before I started this business was like, you should lead with your lawyer, because it’s how you’re going to establish yourself as an expert. And I thought I don’t want to be manipulative in my marketing strategies. You either will identify with me or you won’t. And so I guess at the bottom line of my work and the way that I view the world is that unless we understand the cosmic and the spiritual laws around us and how they influence us, And what they are, nothing else matters. Everything else is living in our ego.

And so I think it’s really important that I identify myself as a soul first. That has had just simply having this human incarnation as this woman named Priya, who used to be a lawyer and is now at this and who knows what she’ll be like. And I, as Eckart tole and lots of other teachers say I really relish in being the observer of that experience versus identifying with that experience because this personality, this personal reality is going to disappear The minute, my soul leaves my body. So understanding for me that’s how I want to live. My life is understanding of the spiritual and cosmic laws, I think is how I was able to really shift out of any ego need to identify as a lawyer or as a, this or that, because our words are so important. So anything that I say after I am, I create in my reality.

LINDSEY: Yeah, that was a big thing. A big moment that I had in the last couple of years, I attempted suicide on March 7th, 2019. And one thing that became really clear for me over the last couple of years of digging myself out of that deep dark hole, the prison of my mind. Whenever I was in the throws of panic attacks and anxiety and insomnia was, I feel like I’m in prisoner in my own head and I can’t get out. But I realized at some point that the words that I used were key because I said a lot. I am anxious. I am afraid I can’t sleep. I, this I, that I am unhappy. I am whatever. And then at a certain point I realized no, I am not anxious. I am having anxious feelings at this moment, but I am not, actually, I am not an anxious. I’m not anxious. I am, I can sleep. My body will sleep whenever it’s ready to sleep. And until then, I’m going to just Sit with myself and observe and breathe and observe my breath. And and I’m not going to identify as an insomniac and I have three diagnosed mental illnesses, and I do not identify with any of them. And for me to be able to take that I am blank, insert whatever it is here and transform that into not identifying with those things was a huge part of Awakening for me becoming aware for me. And so one of the ways that I used to identify was that I was a survivor of childhood abuse. I was a survivor of religious trauma. And it, there felt like it felt like there was a lot of validation and saying I was a survivor of this or a survivor of that. And like when it came to having those conversations with people, because I was a survivor of those things, then that meant what I had to say was credible because I had firsthand experience of what it was like. And so I had a place and a voice at the table. And I don’t feel that way anymore. And I don’t think that, so I’ve had conversations with people where I say that I don’t identify with the mental illnesses I’ve been diagnosed with I am not a sufferer of anxiety.

I experience anxiety from time to time. I’m not a suffer of depression. I ex I have experienced depression in my life. I am not a warrior for pelvic floor dysfunction. That was one of the things that was quote unquote, wrong with me, and a lot of people with chronic illness, they identify as a warrior against that illness. And that never felt right to me. And I’m curious how, if you could maybe help me explain it a much better way than I’m currently articulating how this translates to people who have had really shitty terrible experiences, lots of hurt, lots of pain things happen that they were the victim. How can we shift out of identifying as a victim of this or that, or suffer or a warrior against this or that. And that becomes part of our story instead of who we are.

We are wired for connection and community that’s why it feels so good when we find our people if you’re looking for an open-minded community of trauma healers i invite you to join the trauma healers circle. You’ll get access to bonus podcast, episodes, monthly zoom calls, and most importantly, you’ll find connection. Go to LindseyLockett.com forward slash circle to learn more

PRIYA: First of all, thank you for sharing all of that about yourself. And with such vulnerability, I think the number one way we transcend our human experience is to first know ourselves and accept ourselves and then finally heal yourself. And then after that comes, actually this thing called God realization, but you can’t even get to God realization less, we know and accept ourselves. So thank you for knowing yourself, accepting yourself, and then sharing that with us. I want to talk about how it works in the brain. Let’s bring a little brain science into this. We have science proves that we live 95% of our day. Think about this 95% of our day on autopilot in the unconscious mind. So what does that mean? That means by the age of 35. Which is the age that science has pinpointed. We have literally become a museum piece where we are predictable on all decisions, all reactions, all ways of experiencing our human life, the filters, the programs, everything that we think is life we have pre-programmed by the time we’re 35 in our subconscious or unconscious mind. 95% of her day. We’re just going throughout the day, thinking we’re living consciously, except we’re just repeating the same patterns, the same stories and they’re filters. They’re literally filters. So there’s let’s say an external event happens to me.

Let’s say I’m driving my car and my friend is walking down the street towards the bus stop. And let’s say, I look up and I see my friend notice me and I wave, but my friend doesn’t wave back. In fact, she just starts walking faster towards the bus stop. Now, depending on my filter, I can have a multitude of reactions to that. One reaction could be, Oh my gosh, how dare she? She doesn’t even love me. She doesn’t even recognize me. Why would she walk faster? Why would she not even waste her hand at me? What’s wrong? What is, did I do something wrong? Oh, I must’ve fucked up somehow. Oh. And then we go through our story. And we create the worst case scenario. Yes. In our head, right? Yes. Or depending on my programmed filter in my unconscious mind, I could say, Oh, it’s so nice seeing my friend. She must’ve not just see me. Maybe she’s late for the bus. I’ll send her a text message in a minute. And say it was nice to see you and that’s literally what ends up happening and people are living their lives in these filters.

So I think it’s really important to recognize that in the unconscious mind, whatever the record that you’ve decided to play, that is going to be your view of the world, but let’s take it one step further. However you respond to the, what is your story? Who are you statement you make that record stronger, or you change the record. So I tell my clients, you can tell me your whole story once, and then you’re going to make a commitment to yourself that you’re never going to say it again. At least not in the way in which you are the victim. We are going to shift this story. So only 25% of this story is all the shit that happened to you.And 75% is how you got through it and became the hero of your own life. And that slowly starts to reprogram and repattern that unconscious mind. So if we’re going to live 95%, we might as well create a hypnosis of success versus a hypnosis of victim hood. I’m not sure that answered your question.

LINDSEY: Totally.

PRIYA: Did that answer my question?

LINDSEY: Yeah, that was beautiful. I can’t wait to go back and replay this and take really intense notes about all the things you just said. I feel like all the things you just said, look really great framed on my wall, as a reminder of all of these truths and they really are true. I actually did talk about the hidden programming with a guest of mine, Evelyn Hale and episode nine, and how trauma creates hidden programming. And it’s interesting. I didn’t know that the fact that you said that 95% of our lives is lived on autopilot. I did not know that the age, that it’s all cemented as 35.

35 was actually the age that I lost all of my shit. And so it must’ve been the universe like here, there’s your statistic there is there 35 years. Like it’s time to shake you and wake you up. And it’s been a practice of being awake and Living from a place of awareness versus living on autopilot ever since. And and that’s been huge. And I think I’ve said this in almost every podcast episode that like awareness is like 90% of the battle. That’s. It’s huge. It’s everything like, just knowing that I am not those things, but I can feel myself or watch myself or observe myself. And I don’t have to identify with that. Like I am not the sum of every bad thing I’ve ever done, just because I believe one thing doesn’t mean I can’t. Change and believe something else. Dear God, can we all just acknowledge that we are so grateful that we are not the same people we were when we were 17, that we’ve evolved as people. And that evolution continues through our whole lives, it never stops.

PRIYA: I can change is the only stable ground to stand on. We have no choice, but to change, change is inevitable. We are nature. We are not separate from nature. We are part of mother earth. Mother earth is constantly changing. Nature is constantly changing. We are constantly changing ourselves for God’s sakes are constantly changing. Every seven years, we have a whole new cellular structure. Like we are change is literally the only stable ground to stand on. And so I think when people fight for a false sense of control, That’s where a lot of anxiety comes up. Yeah. Anxiety is fear of failure in the future. Yeah. Yeah. And there’s a whole fight going on for that. Yeah. I think awareness is absolutely a lot of the starting point of what I would say would be an awakening journey, but I think that awareness has to go beyond our personality.

That awareness has to go to our Godself. And our soul and the purpose of our existence. And why did we choose to come to planet earth? And why did we choose the lessons we came to learn? Because in the esoteric and the wisdom teachings, that’s what esoteric means. It means the hidden teachings that are, that have just been hidden from you, ham humanity, because of a variety of reasons. But in those very beautiful old teachings of masters like Mary Magdalen and ISIS. Our birth on planet earth is not random. We came to learn. We’re here for the learnings. And so the choices and the experiences that we have are here to teach us not to put labels on us, not to limit us, which is why I think personal development alone without spiritual teaching cannot bring peace. If we don’t understand the cosmic laws, we don’t understand the spiritual nature behind us. And spiritual, not in like the new age memes on Instagram. Like really understanding what is the soul? What is the higher self? What are dimensions? What does it mean to be multi-dimensional? What is my spirit? What is my karmic DNA? Why did I choose to be more into these particular parents? Why did I choose to have this experience when I was 16? Why did I choose that experience when I was 25? Because we did choose on some level. So for me, I had set up a lot of thresholds to cross that would give, I was given a hundred choice points before the final choice point of my entire life collapsing.

I chose to ignore every choice point. I chose to go back into my own victim hood. I chose to go back into my old programming and patterns and assuming that life was happening to me and not for me. So somewhere along the way I set in my soul blueprint and we have a soul blueprint that we create before we incarnate somewhere. I said, okay, by this age, by this year, If I have not awakened, then burn the whole house down. And in that learning, there is such a sense of empowerment versus victim hood. That again, I just think it’s really important that we know ourselves accept ourselves and understand the cosmic laws that rule the planet that we live on.

LINDSEY: Absolutely. So then if we’re looking at this through the lens of trauma, And as we were preparing to have this conversation, you came out on, you said, I actually think differently about trauma than a lot of people. So can you share your views on trauma? And then we can talk about maybe being a victim of trauma or a survivor of trauma and how that, how we can change that narrative for ourselves as part of our healing.

PRIYA: Yeah, it’s my views on trauma are not that we don’t have experiences from which we can experience deep moments of grief and pain and fear and chaos. It’s the fact that the word itself, trauma in our particular country and in the English language has such a negative connotation to it. And again, our words are Muncha. Which means our words create our reality or words or a vibration. Everything around us is energy and energy creates matter. Doesn’t matter. Doesn’t create energy creates matter. So energy creates our body energy creates our experiences. Energy creates the conversation you and I are having right now. And so when I hear the word trauma. I have had so many clients come to me and say, my life is full of trauma. My life is shitty. My life is terrible. Trauma is all around me. And I think can we use a different word? Can we use a word that allows us to stand in our. Goddess hood. Like I’ve had some really interesting experiences in my life. And let me tell you the warrior that has come out of them. I just find the word trauma to be so limiting in its scope. It makes people feel like they have to live in this box. And then when you self identify in this box, it creates another program that creates on autopilot. It’s the same problem I have with someone walking into an AA meeting and saying, hi, my name is Priya and I’m an addict. Okay. Creating that story in their head over and over.

And we just got through saying, there’s one record playing in your unconscious mind. Do you want it to be a success story or do you want it to be a trauma story? And so that’s the only way I would like to encourage the use of that word. Can we use a different word and the way you define trauma was to me, the human experience. We all go through stuff in our life, some and I can’t judge whether yours is worse than mine. Play that game of you were sexually abused, but I was only emotionally abused. And so therefore you had it rougher than I did sit there for your, we, I don’t believe that’s the trauma I have. So learning that I’ve come to learn, there’s absolutely no way that I could have created the life that I love right now. And I truly say I have a life that I love. If I had not gone through years and years of chaos and pain. Okay.

We also live on planet earth and planet earth is ruled by something known as cosmic Ray four. I want to tell you what that is. This is through the work of Alice Bailey, who was a mystic and a spiritual teacher. Cosmic Ray four says The planet earth is ruled by this sort of law. And the law is harmony through conflict. And by the way, only 3% of our soul is on the planet. We’re multi-dimensional beings. And only 3% of my God self is experiencing earth, which means 97% of me is having mystical magical experiences where Ray four is not a part of it, but I came here to the PhD school known as earth, so I could achieve harmony through conflict. It presupposes a life filled with conflict for the learning. If that doesn’t set you free, I don’t know. What does it also says you chose to come here because you’re brave enough, strong enough, lovable enough, worthy enough deserving enough. To see the other side of what that conflict is to achieve harmony. And that is truly my entire sole mission is to help achieve the harmony after the conflict.

LINDSEY: Wow. So I love that you brought in the compare. I call it trauma comparison. The ego loves to compare traumas. The ego loves to say I was sexually abused. So that was worse than emotional abuse, or I even really hate a lot of trauma people, therapists, psychologists, they use big T little T trauma. That drives me crazy because I’m like who’s to say. What’s big T little T pain is pain, conflict is conflict. So yeah, I, I call that trauma comparison and I think that it really only serves to keep us in that box and to keep us stuck and keep us in the ego. I did not know that about cosmic Ray four and Alice Bailey.

And now I cannot wait to learn more. This is so something that my husband and I would go off and research together. We’re definitely going to learn more about that. I would love to talk more about the work that you do with your clients, because. I’m on your website here. And your website says that you help successful women who feel stifled in their work and lost in their direction awaken their true purpose with magnificent spirit awaken the power of the goddess within express yourself. Feel abundant, live your big dream every day. You bridge science strategy spirituality and the intelligence of a heart.

And then ANanda you’re on your website is a Sanskrit word. That means the field of all possibility, a place for your highest potential. And by awakening a Nanda, you are choosing to tap into your ultimate bliss. And I think that’s really beautiful. And the reason why I would like to talk about it is because the first thing that struck me is for those of us who have had our worldviews framed by trauma, the human experience of, that, those negative things, abusive situations harm. I know for myself until I awakened to the fact that I wasn’t a victim, that I didn’t have to identify as a survivor or a warrior or a, whatever for my trauma. I don’t even like to use the word my in front of trauma. I don’t want to own it. I’m really big on watching my possessive pronoun use. It’s not my anxiety. It’s not my fear. It’s just something I’m experiencing. But. I think for me, at least until two years ago, before I lost all my shit and everything collapsed in on itself. And I had to start digging my way out.

One thing at a time, I did feel like my field of possibility was limited. I wasn’t awakened to that field of possibility where anything is possible. And I think that a lot of people who listen to this podcast, if they’re listening to a podcast about healing trauma, I’m guessing that they’re probably feeling very similarly that for whatever reason, their nervous system or their ego or whatever has been stuck in this hidden program and the filter through which they’re viewing their entire lives is one of expecting the worst. Believing that bad things always happen to you because that’s how it’s always been. And that is very much a victim mentality. And I don’t want to invalidate anyone by saying that, but like we got to call it what it is, we can’t get out of it until we know what it is and that’s awareness. So can you talk more about that field of possibility and ANanda and what you do with your clients and how you help people through this spiritual awakening and healing?

PRIYA: Yeah, and I absolutely can, but I want to also just first acknowledge that all of us start in victim hood, all of us start in victim hood. The only free will choice we have is whether we’re going to stay in victimhood or whether we’re going to take tiny steps towards understanding it. We have something called free will on this planet. So that means no matter what is going on around us, the hundreds of things that have happened, and I’m telling you , I understand that it’s sometimes so much easier to say my life just sucks and I don’t want to do anything about it. And only bad shit happens to me. And why am I, Poor or why is my dad an asshole or why is my husband abusive? Or why is my girlfriend, cheating on me or all of the things that we all have experienced. Part of why I started my story with I’ve been through similar stuff because we all start in victim hood.

But the choice that we have when we hit rock bottom, and for some of us, including me, it took hitting rock bottom, multiple times. Was it, I had to choose, am I going to claw my way out of this prison? Or am I going to complete lead deplete my life and energy and keep going deeper and deeper into my own. So I think the number one question to ask yourself is. Am I ready to choose change? Am I willing to choose change? My first teacher said to me when I went to India, so I met with shamans and healers and coaches to heal myself. I had no. When I say no, I’m saying no idea when I would return from my one year in India, that you and I would be having a conversation like this, that I would be a teacher and a healer, and a hypnotherapist.

But one of my first teachers in India who very much saw the lazy side in me who said, outwardly, I want change, but inwardly, I didn’t want to do the work. She said, do you know that self-love is self-discipline. Self love is self discipline. So the more you just bullshit yourself, the more you’re choosing not to love yourself. So my clients come to me in the same space. Most of my clients come to me one of two ways. They’ve tried everything and I’m the very last resort, right? They’ve tried therapy. They’ve tried plant medicine. They’ve tried coaching. They’ve tried other healers, but they haven’t actually gotten to someone that’s able to bridge the right and left brain, which is our male and female energies, which is actually the path to true mastery of ourselves. Understanding both the fact that we are energetic and logical beings and how to mash our mind with our heart or clients come to me because they appreciate the fact of my own journey. So I think the other thing I want to make sure that people hear me say loud and clear is that healing does not have to be years and years.

I left India in 2018. It’s what, 20 beginning of 2021. There is not a single part of me that holds the same energy that I had when I left India. Or when I went to India. So I want to make sure that’s really loud and clear and the tools that I use with my clients, with the tools that I work with me. So it’s energy healing, it’s hypnotherapy, it’s really deep diving and understanding true spirituality and it’s awareness of our patterns and our filters. And I do a lot of inner child healing where we store and hold a lot of the trauma. Everyone’s an energetic being. And so before I start my work with my clients, I do an energy scan. I talk to My master’s right. It’s not me doing anything. Let me be very clear. I am not a healer that says I will heal you. I literally become what you would call a halt bamboo. And I left the flow of the divine spirit work through me. So I always go with what I am guided for that particular client in front of me. And most clients who come to work with me, like I said, are coming because they have truly hit a point where they recognize that enough is enough. I’m tired of living my life in this way. I’m tired of waking up every morning, thinking about what’s the worst thing that’s going to happen to me today. And I’m ready to use my ability my wisdom, I power and to reclaim my life back versus giving it way to the world around me.

LINDSEY: Wow. Other than you hypnotherapy, what other things do you teach or do you offer?

PRIYA: Yeah, so I do a free master class every month. I’m very clear that as I’m shifting my practice and my practice shifts. Daily monthly, but what I’m shifting to is more teaching on what are the cosmic laws and the truths and teaching people how to heal themselves self healers. I am in no way interested in creating a codependent relationship with my clients. So my real mission and passion is to teach you tools that will take you through a lifetime. Whether that’s how to recognize your patterns, whether that’s, how to read energy, whether that’s, how to tap into your intuition, whether that is how to use crystals, all of the things that my. Journey has taken me on and I do it from a very straightforward and down to earth approach where, because I think my lawyering and my left brain is still very active and part of me. So I understand that part of my purpose as being turning into a teacher is to make the spiritual accessible. So I do that through classes, through workshops, through retreats through one-on-one work. I offer a 30 minute consultation, a free consultation. And it’s an opportunity for me to get to know someone and for them to get to know me and for me to see if I provide value through those calls where I can direct people like, Oh, I think this group coaching would be better for you, or I think one-to-one would be better. Or I think just take this free class. I have a YouTube channel. People can go and watch some free videos that I’ve done. I also do a four week group guided hypnosis journey. I think that we’ll be starting in March as well. I haven’t confirmed the dates yet, but the last two times I’ve run this. It’s been really extraordinary meet once a week for four weeks and we have a group guided hypnosis journey. So whether that’s to meet your inner child, whether that’s a past life regression, whether that’s a meet your future self, meet your higher self, bringing more joy, more confidence, more ease into your life.

Those are the types of things we cover in the group. Everything is on zoom. Even my one-to-one client sessions are all on zoom. Energy creates matter. So it doesn’t matter that there’s a computer screen in front of me. Yeah, for sure. And then people can find you on Instagram, @awakenananda

I try to post regularly because I find it that it’s a really. It’s a really great place that I find motivation. I use social for the Connection. I feel with other people. I like, I follow very few people. I’ve actually really limited. All of the notifications that I get, I’ve changed my life a little bit since being up and down in Mexico now for two months. But yeah, I’m on Instagram, I’m on Facebook and I think, people will listen to this and You’ll either resonate and get a feeling for my energy and feel like it’s something that you’re interested in learning more about, or you’ll hit, next episode. And either way, I’m just grateful that you were here and doing what you do, Lindsay and sharing the work that you do and sharing the light that you bring to the world. I honor you and I honor your path.

LINDSEY: Thank you for ya. Same. I honor you. Thank you for being here. Before we close out, since you are such an intuitive person, I’m curious if if maybe you’d be willing to tune in and if there’s a message that comes through, that would be specifically for people listening to this episode that you might want to share. And if not, no pressure.

PRIYA: Just let me see. Give me a second. Yeah. Yeah. What came through loud and clear was stop believing the stories. Stop believing the stories. Maybe that resonates for someone. Yeah. That’s great. Thanks for letting me put you on the spot. Stop believing the stories. No, you are more than those stories.

LINDSEY: Wasn’t that amazing. Don’t you feel like you’ve just sat at the feet of a spiritual teacher and received just. Incredible insights and gentle nudges to keep going and to keep rewriting your story in a way that centers you as the hero instead of the victim. That’s definitely how I feel. This is not all of my interview with Priya. However, we had a big chunk of conversation where we talk all about the left and right brain and how she’s bridging those together with her hypnotherapy practice.

But I’m saving that for a bonus episode bonus podcast episodes are only available to members of the trauma healing circle. You can become a member of the trauma healers circle by going to Lindsey locket.com forward slash circle circle members receive. At least two bonus podcast episodes per month, a monthly call with me and the rest of the circle members, as well as other little discounts and perks. So if you want to hear more from Priya and about the amazing science and bridging together of the two sides of the brain and how that can help us rewrite our trauma stories with Priya, you will find that in a bonus episode,

📍 Did you enjoy the show? Awesome. Here’s what you can do next first. Make sure you’re subscribed second. I really appreciate it. If you took a few moments to rate the podcast, finally, you can partner with me to keep putting this healing information into the world for just $5 per month. You will help keep the show ad free and freely available. If you want to go deeper and connect with me and other trauma healers in community, I invite you to join the trauma healer circle. This community is where the magic happens. You get access to bonus podcast episodes monthly zoom calls, and most importantly, you’ll find your people go to LindseyLockett.com forward slash circle to join.

Holistic Trauma Healing Podcast

Episode 27: Ego, Identity, Purpose, & Awakening with Priya Lahki

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