Conscious Self-Leadership with Indira Kennedy

Anil Ramjiani:

Hey, HAPPINESS SQUAD. It's great to have you with Ashish and me as we host guests who are industry leaders, helping individuals and organizations unlock inner happiness and flourishing.

Do you seek a still mind and wise heart? Our next guest explains the power you can unlock within you.

Meet Indira Kennedy, a pioneer of conscious leadership and multi-award winner for her commitment to inspiring and informing the next wave of more awakened and empowered leadership.

Since: 2003

This is a beautiful episode because Indira has shared so many thought-provoking and insightful moments since I've known her on my previous podcast, Live, Breathe, Believe.

During this conversation, Ashish, Indira, and I delve into the journey that led her on her mission to unlock the five realities, how you can expand your self-perception and fulfill your life purpose. Let me share them with you: Remembrance, radiance, resonance, resolution, and ritual.

Get ready to understand their significance in personal growth, leadership, and flourishing. We hope that these tips and practices we share can help you open up your consciousness. It was truly eye-opening for me. Join Ashish and me as we welcome Indira to the Happiness Squad podcast.

Ashish, Indira, it is an absolute pleasure to have the two of you together. Indira, welcome. We've come a long way since we first met during lockdown. I met Ashish during lockdown as well, and the three of us are here together today. How are you?

Indira Kennedy:

Really well, thanks. Hello to Ashish, meeting you for the first time. It's wonderful.

Ashish Kothari:

It is such a pleasure to meet you, Indira. I'm excited for this conversation and for our listeners because you come with 20 years of unbelievable experience, you've launched an amazing book, and I can't wait to get into that. It's a topic that is so near and dear to our hearts.

Indira Kennedy:

Lovely. That sounds great.

Anil Ramjiani:

Nice one. So Indra, our favorite question that we love to start out with each of our guests is how has your definition of happiness evolved over time through your research and work in conscious and self leadership?

Indira Kennedy:

That's a lovely question. It's evolved from being aware of the external and looking for things out in the world that make me happy to a deeper understanding that joy is within me at all times and it gets covered up by other things, my expectations, and how I interpret what's going on in life.

I still look for external things. I also keep remembering that when I was a child and into early adulthood, I was naturally joyful. So it was just playful and meaningful. I've got a yogic understanding that I choose to believe that I am joyful. Bliss does exist.

There's also that understanding of how to be playful and truly enjoy. And that's what I look for now, at both levels. And then, the external world, as you and I have spoken about in other times together, Anil, is more about how my external world is an expression of my joy. So, the things in my life are an expression of my joy.

Anil Ramjiani:

Love it.

Ashish Kothari:

Beautiful. So I want to dig a little bit into your book, your upcoming book, The Five Realities of Conscious Self Leadership. They also touch on a really important topic in that book. And remind me, you also wrote another book called Love in Action, correct?

Indira Kennedy:

It was the same book; we changed the title.

Ashish Kothari:

Same book, changed the title. This is good because I was about to ask you that question. But both titles are beautiful. We had Shauna Shapiro a couple of weeks ago. She had a book launched with two different titles in two different parts of the world. One title was 'Good Morning, I Love You', and the second title was more of a business title.

There's a bit of duality here as well. Maybe we can get into that, but if you may, I can talk about both titles because the content is the same and it touches on one of the most important elements needed in our world right now. Do I have your permission to share both titles?

Indira Kennedy:

Absolutely. And I can definitely tell you why I changed them and what I think about them.

Ashish Kothari:

I'd love to get into that. So, Indira is launching a book, one of the titles of the book or the title it's going to launch with is 'Five Realities of Conscious Self Leadership'. It was also originally called 'Love in Action'. I love that word love.

My original book was called 'From Fear to Freedom' and we changed it to 'Hardwired for Happiness'. Same content, different name. But I think your book touches on such a beautiful concept of something that is so needed in our work right now and in our communities and in our world.

And there seems to be so much of a scarcity of it, which is love, love for self and love for the other. You highlight such beautiful practices in this. So without much further elaboration on this, I'll ask you directly that question. Talk to us a little bit, Indira, both about your book, what was behind the title change, but more importantly, walk us into the five realities that you invite your readers and our listeners to think about.

Indira Kennedy:

Thank you. I'd love to do that. I called it 'Love in Action' because if we're talking conscious leadership, that's what we need to be doing, putting our love into action and allowing others to do the same.

My spiritual healing training says we're here for one reason, and that is to learn love. And that's what we chose to do. So for me, that's the baseline. If I'm questioning anything, I will come back to how is this an expression of love or is this loving at all?

I've worked a lot in philanthropy, with not-for-profits, and I saw love being put into amazing action. It's bringing that to what's our higher purpose. There were quite a few books called 'Love in Action', and I was starting to get concerned about the intellectual property side of things. But what had come out of the conversations that Anil and I had was a little statement I have on one of my pages on the website, 'still mind, wise heart'. And we really locked onto that.

So, there are two books because it was growing into one really big book. The first part is 'Still Mind, Wise Heart' and that is the five realities of conscious self-leadership and how to expand your self-perception and fulfill your life purpose.

The second book is the eight elements of self-mastery and they are very much about the eight practices that we need to be bringing into our lives if we want to truly be conscious and be conscious leaders. So today we'll probably focus more on at least starting with the five realities.

When that came to me, really it was given to me. It's something that just kept arising and it was related to me thinking about my work and what I understand relating to who we are as spiritual beings and how we're made up as spiritual beings. And that was following the chakra system, which you may or may not be aware of, is an eastern view of what goes on in the body.

And I realized that most of us are living one reality, but my understanding is that there's five. And so I started to write about that whenever I felt inspired and felt like there was a download coming and I would sit and write and that's where the eight elements also came as a result of that.

Ashish Kothari:

Beautiful. So, walk us through a little bit of those five realities.

Indira Kennedy:

Okay. So the first one is remembrance. There are five R's, and the first one is remembrance, which is to do with our physical, emotional, and mental levels of our being, our mental thinking levels, which are the first three chakras from the base chakra moving up towards the navel.

Most of us are spinning wheels trying to get work-life balance and balancing the physical, emotional, and mental. We need to remember who we are. First up, that we are spiritual beings with a higher purpose. We are here to learn, love, and we need to remember that we are physical beings, human beings, and we need to look after ourselves at all three levels.

What we were ignoring or lacking information and knowledge about was how do I get to my spiritual self? Those three levels are more about our soul lessons, what's going on for us as people with a soul, and we're working on shining that soul and completing that soul. But there's more to us than that, that we can bring online.

Ashish Kothari:

Indira, last week, my ex-colleagues at McKinsey, Barbara, Jackie, and others released a quite seminal piece of research. It's based on a survey that the McKinsey Health Institute did across 30 countries. They think about well-being around four elements: physical, mental, social, and spiritual.

It was clear from that research that from a well-being point of view, we are struggling as a world today on spiritual health, described as the extent to which we integrate meaning into our lives. 58 percent of people reported health in this dimension, whereas for others like physical, it was 70 percent, for mental, it was 67 percent, and for social, it was 64 percent.

We have, in the modern world with so much focus on self, forgotten the connection and interbeing nature of the world. It's a really important element that you highlight to be able to integrate that, to see it, and to know that the 'I' experiencing the body, the mind, the emotions, is the same as what's in you and everything else out there.

Indira Kennedy:

Absolutely. I call that 'I', the witness. This is the one who's watching. This is my great self with a capital S. We all have that self within us. And that's the all-loving, unconditional, fully empowered self.

The interesting question around this for me is what is truly selfish? In our Western world especially, we get incredibly confused about what's okay for me and what should I be giving to others in the workplace.

I've worked in the NHS, in the National Health Scheme, and that's all about sacrifice in the end, and people burn out quickly. What I love about this system is, it always has to come back to “it's me first”. It is about me first. And that's because I am evolving and I'm here to learn a lesson.

No matter how altruistic we are, if we're truly honest with ourselves, we will still be giving because it feels good or there's something there for us, and that's fine. As you say, we're integrated, interconnected, and greatly dependent beings on each other. We're here to evolve together. And so we have a contribution to make, which is the other side of spirituality as well, meaning and contribution, growth and contribution.

Ashish Kothari:

It's interesting for me that when we were researching the level of stress, anxiety, and burnout in the world, I had a story that this was just a problem with Fortune 500 private equity consultants, those pushing themselves.

But actually, the stress, anxiety, and burnout is higher in not-for-profits, teachers, nurses, and doctors. This is because of the loss of forgetting who we are and not taking care of ourselves. Service can only be done if you don't pour from an empty cup.

So many of us lose ourselves into this higher mission of serving others and not taking care of our own needs, putting away what brings us joy. Whether we are working, parents, or just in our homes, there is no space for them, the spouse, to really turn in and tune into how they are doing. Life becomes one big chore list. Which is not self-expression. Loving yourself is important.

The Dalai Lama talked about this in one of his speeches, where he said in the Buddhist tradition, compassion always included the self. But in the Western tradition, the word compassion is always about the other.

You can’t do that with just the other. We are fundamentally integrated with the other. I love your memory and your remembrance of that.now, with the other, other piece, so I love your memory and your remembrance of that.

Indira Kennedy:

Well, we're also very caught in a victim-rescuer model in the workplace. When we do that, we disempower the other person who has the right to find out how great they are and what their own resources are and what they're capable of. So we actually disempower by trying to rescue as well.

Our whole notion of support, what's the right way to support somebody, is quite skewed too, and that's what I love about coaching. I do executive coaching, but for me, when I'm sitting with that person, even when they don't believe in themselves, I'm sitting there in absolute belief of them and that they have the knowledge and the power to work with it. They just need help to uncover it and get the mind out of the way and anything else that's in the way.

But the other thing that takes us into the other reality is that we are forgetting, or not remembering, that we have these other realities that we could be living in that would give us even greater satisfaction and greater fulfillment if we took the time and knew how to access them. And that's what's so special about that model for the five realities.

Anil Ramjiani:

So speaking of them, that was beautiful in terms of remembrance and the one that resonated with me was actually radiance, which is the second. So maybe you can tell us a bit more about that, Indira.

Indira Kennedy:

Sure. The first three chakras, mental, are all about our soul aspects and we need to get to who we are as a spiritual self and the heart is the bridge. This is the realm, the reality of radiance. What is it that we are radiating, and that's where love sits in our hearts.

Are we radiating love? What sort of energy are we radiating? It's where we self-heal, it's also where forgiveness sits. So, radiance is about whether we are truly radiating the light that we are. What are we emanating? And are we spending time... Because interestingly, Ashish, you mentioned that the third one was social on the four cues.

I would say for me it would be the ‘emotional’ because it will include social and relationship. But what happens to our feelings, so much of mental health is about not connecting with our feelings anymore.

The spiritual side can be religious beliefs, but for me, it's our ethics and values and what's our inner truth. What's our mission and purpose and what will genuinely, and our creativity, what are we here to express? And that comes through the heart.

So our higher self can speak to us through our hearts. That's where our truths lie and we get confused and don't know quite what to do and live reactively when we're not anchored in the wisdom of our hearts.

Anil Ramjiani:

That's something we've spoken about before which I always struggled with, right? Because there's ‘go with your gut’ or ‘go with your mind’ and I know one of the famous phrases you actually reminded me is I'm not my body and I'm not my mind but it comes to a wise heart and so maybe, just for our listeners, help us understand when you say listening to the wisdom in our heart, what does that entail?

Indira Kennedy:

If we think back to probably when we were young, we were told about having a conscience, having a clear conscience, not having a guilty conscience about things. And for me, that's where the wisdom sits.

Are we doing the right thing? Are we truly doing what's beneficial for everybody concerned? Are we living our values and what we're prepared to stand by? Because that's what grounds us and ultimately I believe our inner truths are what we will judge our life by.

So we might be running around trying to get through everything, but the dissatisfaction is coming from a place of, I'm not living my values, I'm potentially violating my own values, and I can't do that to myself.

We know people die for their values. They will sacrifice their own life for their values. So it's the soul speaking and we need to take notice because it will be trying to speak to us all the time, guide us and lead us in the right direction that we cut off. We're cutting ourselves off from that. But it starts with love being the bridge to those other realities that I'll talk about as well.

Ashish Kothari:

Yeah, in your book you write, Indira, we are born to learn two things: learn to love and learn to forgive. And it is so true. As I reflect on that question, it rings true. But what also rings true is, as I think about children, children are love, and children forgive. They don't hold on. But somehow, as adults, as we grow up, as we grow our armors, we stop loving and we stop forgiving, we hold on to resentments over years.

We think about love as just romantic love or different, we lose the core essence of love, which is love for you and me as both individuals that are to some extent the same, but really are also looking for the same. We are all united. There's so much in common. So love for the common, love for everyone.

We actually had a recording yesterday with Nick Shaw, and he had a beautiful poem that he had written on love, inspired by the love he received from the community in the wake of his nine-year-old son's death in a tragic skiing accident. So talk to us about this notion of relearning love and relearning forgiveness.

We are born as children with an unbelievable capacity to love and an unbelievable capacity to forgive. We have an argument and tomorrow we move on, but I've seen, even as my own son is now a teenager, that changing where you have to be a lot more careful now because he remembers and says, "Hey, you did X," and it starts to shape them.

Indira Kennedy:

Well, love never leaves because we are love. We are made of that energy we call love. We get so lost because we have had so much put on top of that love, and it goes into self-protection and fear of annihilation.

Our deepest fear is that we will die. So we build up all sorts of defense mechanisms, coping strategies, and then we need to confront our own demons. Some of us are more damaged, more wounded than others. But we all carry some kind of wound. Somewhere there will be a wound that we will hit, and it's important we don't fall into that wound and then forget that we are in fact ‘love’.

The thing about forgiveness is that when we forgive, we actually wipe the slate clean. So it's not only we can start again with that person and with ourselves because we have forgiven.

Anil Ramjiani:

So that's an interesting one. I want to jump in on that because, Ashish, in the Hardwired for Happiness practices, we talk about you can love and forgive but just because you forgive doesn't mean you necessarily forget.

And Indira, what you just mentioned about forgiveness is wiping the slate clean, which may not be the same as forgetting. I just want to make sure for my sake as a listener and as someone who appreciates what each of you are saying, how am I able to forgive, wipe the slate clean? What do I do when I hold on to that and I'm unable to forget? Whether it be forget that pain, forget that harm, or forget that love. What am I meant to do in that space?

Indira Kennedy:

I don't think we do need to forget, because we need to remember that the person's potentially still stuck in a whole lot of unloving stuff. Isn't being loving towards you at the time and therefore, tough love and spirituality is tough love at times. It's about being able to stand in there and saying, I know that you're not being who you really are at your core right now. You're being something else. And that's creating difficulty for me. I can forgive you because I can see you are lost to who you really are right now, but I won't forget that I need to be careful or that you've been prepared to do this.

I've just gone through something like that myself around some private issues. I found that with a change in family situation, I got really triggered. Emotions came up that I did not expect. And I found myself in a mix of anger and grief. And they were the two words I could label this feeling, energy, it's just energy movement. So what I did was I got hold of my journal and I took myself away from my apartment and decided I needed to process this. Because all sorts of things were coming up, including really old memories. And I was building a justification for why this person was not a good person.

And also questioning how I was feeling and was I being fair and was I being reasonable and am I just being petty. But the point is, that emotion was coming up and a whole lot of thoughts. So what I did was I decided I would just capture them in my journal without judging them in any way or trying to shape them in any way. I just kept writing. And ultimately, I got to see what my truth was about it. And ultimately, I had fear that I could not have control over what someone would want to do to me, and I realized how much power I was giving to that person.

Ashish Kothari:

There is so much there. Indira, this notion of just noticing what you're saying. So, Anil, to answer your question and weave in where Indira is, because I'm in agreement with her. These difficult emotions, these triggering moments, these moments that we would rather not have, but we have, let's talk about them.

Forgiveness is not forgetfulness. Sometimes there are really harsh things that happen to us. We can't forget them. We should not forget them, especially if there was a real injustice dealt. Forgiveness is an act we give to us and to the other as a choice to move on from it and to not let an incident in the past continue to hurt us because the hurt, the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth time is us hurting ourselves by reliving the incident.

The incident has happened. We cannot change it. It's in the past. It's the second, third, fourth, fifth, and the twentieth arrow when we wound ourselves by reliving it. So when we forgive, we choose to break away from that cycle and say, I want to free myself.

Sometimes we need to recontract with the other person and make sure that doesn't happen again. In some cases, we need to completely break away and choose to let go of that relationship, especially in extreme cases.

Forgiveness is not about forgetfulness. Even when we choose to forgive, those things can come up, as Indira described. But in those moments, the thoughts she shared are beautiful.

Number one is recognize what's happening. Name your emotion. She said for her, it was anger and grief. Noticing the emotions is really important and naming them.

Second, she said, I started having all these stories about the other person and stories about myself. Don't try to suppress them. Just write them, because when you write them, you are making them visible.

You can then make something you're subject to an object that you can analyze. If you write down the beliefs, the assessments, the stories about myself and the other, and they're on a page, you can go back and say, are they true? They will appear very true in the moment, but they might not be true.

And even if there was something that was done, you can remind yourself that, Hey, I chose to close that chapter, I chose to forgive and to move on so we can start to pay attention to the other parts of it. But it is important to be able to navigate that by making our thoughts and our feelings subjects from being subjects to objects that we can actually analyze.

Indira Kennedy:

Yes, and be careful not to give them too much power by looking at them too closely again. Because what we focus on is what we get, and it's better to look at the alternative. So, at that point, I was then looking at what I wanted instead. And I was also looking at where's the love in this situation.

So what's the compassion I need to have for myself and the other person? And ultimately, because I was not ready to forgive, I waited. It took a day and a half. But the next morning I was able to sit down and through my healing, I have a forgiveness process. And I did that for her, and I did it for me.

Ashish Kothari:

Could you walk us through what that was? Could you walk us through what that forgiveness process is?

Indira Kennedy:

Okay, so it's a really beautiful process. You put your hands up with palms facing, just comfortably, elbows by your side, and you imagine you're holding a golden circle of light. Just a circle. And you place the person in that circle. And then you imagine a golden cord that extends from your heart to theirs and attaches you to that person. And what we say is, we have words and we look at the person and we say, "I don't know why you did what you did. I don't know why you said what you said. But I forgive you," and you see a golden pair of scissors come in and cut the cord between you and "I release you in my love."

And we keep repeating that until the person actually disappears. They fade away, or you can even see a bit of cloud come in and cover them over. I sometimes find that cord is so tough. It's so thick to cut through. And it's a pain when I cut this cord. But so we do the, "I don't know why you did what you did, I don't know why you said what you said, but I forgive you," and the scissors come in, cut the cord, and "I release you in my love," and you must send them love.

When we do that for ourselves, we do the same thing, except then we put ourselves in the circle, and we have the golden cord that goes between us and us. And then we put a little placard around our neck that says what it is I need to forgive myself for, and if we can't think of a word, just put fear, because everything else comes down to fear.

So, I put my grief and anger, or my resentment, or my self-righteousness, or whatever it was that needed to go on that placard. In fact, I think I just put fear. And you say different words, similar but different, and you say, "I do know why I did what I did. I do know why I said what I said, and I forgive myself and I release my," and this time, instead of cutting the cord, because you don't want to cut the cord between you and you, the scissors come in and they cut the strings of the placard around your neck and let it fall. So "I release my fear," and "I release my fear," or "my grief," or "my anger," "resentment," in my love. And we keep doing that until we, in the circle, have gone.

So it's "I do know why I did what I did, I do know why I said what I said, and I forgive myself and I release this fear in my love." And I can tell you that's one of the most emotional things I can ever do. Because love comes pouring out.

Ashish Kothari:

So I love that, Indira. Maybe we can, if, is this one of the practices in your book? If not, maybe we can get a little something from you that we can share.

Indira Kennedy:

Okay. No, it's not in my book as a practice. I'll have to check, but I don't think I have. That's a spiritual healing technique that I was taught. And I use that, and it's my responsibility. We have to take responsibility for ourselves. We don't have to take responsibility for the other person, that's up to them, and we don't know why they did what they did, and we don't know why they said what they said. At a deep level, we've got no idea what they were actually doing when they did or said that thing.

Ashish Kothari:

Yeah, I always think about when I'm in a situation where somebody is angry or does something. We don't know what they are going through, what has made them the way they are. There is always, when we take action that hurts, it might be out of ignorance or if it is out of vengeance, there is a lot of hurt there, and we can still feel compassion.

I really like your practice, Indira. The one that helps me a lot in these moments is the practice of the loving-kindness meditation from the Buddhist tradition. When we can hold, and it addresses forgiveness indirectly. Because what you're sending out is love and compassion for self and for others.

By repeating the words, "May you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free of suffering. May you be at peace." And when we do that for ourselves, to somebody we love, to a friend, to somebody who's neutral, and then to somebody who has hurt us that we are trying to forgive, we connect back to the first remembrance that we are all spiritual beings.

We are all after the same thing, and we don't know the realities, but we can still be compassionate in it, and we can send that wish for them to be happy, to be healthy, to be free of suffering, to be at peace. And as we do that, as you said Indira, we don't control what they do, but we can control how we can keep opening up and be ‘love’.

Indira Kennedy:

Because while we're in that fear, and it will be fear for them that has generated that behavior as well, we're not in our hearts. We're not coming from that space of, as you say, opening up to who we are and having compassion for the path they've chosen to take in that moment, to get whatever lesson they're getting. And that's none of our business either.

But somehow we are connected with that, so I waited, because I knew at that point I couldn't forgive in all honesty. And I kept processing myself until I got to the point where I could do that with a loving heart and have compassion. And yes, and wish them well.

We've got such a competitive society that wants to, on the one hand, chop us off at the legs or build everybody up and then topple them off the pedestal. We're never quite sure where we're safe to be because we want to do wonderful things and make great contributions, but what might people do to us then? Or if we're really not, we're lazy or we're struggling that somehow that's not enough.

We're all here to do what we're here to do. And that competitive spirit is such an individual thing. So why do we not wish people well and celebrate when someone is successful and celebrate when they're wealthy because they can give so much more. That's all love, you know?

Anil Ramjiani:

No. And that's the power of love. Listening to each of you has been helpful for me because there is still some forgiveness and opportunity for me with someone close to me in my life that I'm working through.

So for the listeners, it's a real interesting practice to pause, reflect, and relisten to what Ashish and Indra have just shared because it's something I'm definitely going to do.

Indra, I am conscious of time and mindful. We're two out of five hours down. I'm just going to say for the sake of our listeners that the remaining three realities are resonance, resolution, and ritual. And what I want to ask you, Indra, is which of those three would you like to spend a few minutes discussing with Ashish and me for our listeners as we soon wrap up?

Indira Kennedy:

So quickly, the next one is resonance, and that is about creativity and intuition and what are we resonating with? This is where our authentic self lies. Are we being resonant? Is what we say resonant with what we do? Or is what we feel resonant with what we're saying is going on? And are we allowing that greater conscious energy to speak through us?

Are we resonating with the vibration of that? So there's a resonance of vibration that comes with that. When we're speaking, are we in that? And then resolution is about being resolved to do what we're here to do, resolving with our death.

There are a lot of levels to resolution, being able to resolve and make resolutions and stay with them. But there's an overall resolution that sits there. And then ritual is the practice we need to put in place on a daily basis that holds our life together.

So all of those things can come into being and we can elevate ourselves and the world that we're in and do good for everyone and for ourselves. I think out of those three, I would really like to see more of us working on resonance because I think we ignore our intuition.

We're not so great at being resonant in terms of what we're really thinking and what we're prepared to say in the workplace. We're not necessarily being resonant with the culture that we want to create. And expression, self-expression, the ability to speak and allow spirit to speak through us as well. Allow that conscious energy to be us, find a way through us and be a medium for that energy, which for me is my role. That's my job. When it comes to me as a person, and then I've got things to do in the world, but how do I know what those are?

So if I'm more aligned and I do my meditation and I allow my mind to be still and get out of all of the stuff and find the truth within me, I will be resonant and I can be a conscious leader. That's what being a conscious leader is. Because I'm conscious of, did I line up? Am I really speaking my truth? Am I allowing someone else to speak theirs and not be triggered by them and shut it all down? That's really part of what resonance is about.

Anil Ramjiani:

That's beautiful. When you say resonance, I hear that word so much, it's thrown around often. "Oh, what you said resonates with me. Oh, what I hear resonates." But does it really? And at what level is it truly resonating, and what are you going to do with that? Is it just something that's surface or is there depth to it?

I'm really grateful that you shared that, and I'm mindful and conscious that we haven't had a chance to discuss the eight elements during this conversation. I think it would serve it justice to bring you back to discuss those eight elements at a later stage.

For those that are interested in the eight elements, during lockdown, on my Live, Breathe, Believe podcast, I did go through all eight, and I encourage those that are interested. But I do feel it's a great opportunity for us to understand not only how you're bringing these five realities to our listeners but also how the eight elements link with it. And how you bring it to life in your own life and how you see it coming to life in those that you're teaching and coaching along the way.

Indira Kennedy:

It's fine to leave the eight elements because I think what has been missing for me, and what people perhaps don't understand when you say, "oh, you need to journal or you need to be doing creative visualizations or setting intentions," is if you understand the five realities, they give you the why. And when you know what it is you're trying to do, those elements become so much more powerful because you know the power of them and what it is you're trying to do with these here.

Anil Ramjiani:

It's interesting because just the other day I was speaking to my sister about meditation. We had a debate around how long do you need to meditate for? Is it five minutes, 10 minutes, a minimum of 30 minutes?

People sometimes take medication, take vitamins, do practices without actually understanding the why. Really understanding the meaning behind it so when you actually practice it and do it, there's substance to your practice. There's depth. There's meaning behind it. So you truly appreciate what you unlock as you do it.

So I do agree. We've set up the why with you today. And in the future, we can talk about the what and the how with the eight elements. They're beautiful in conjunction with the nine Hardwired for Happiness practices that Ashish has put together.

It's an invitation to our listeners to check these out and to understand the why. Each of you has done that work. And I feel that this is just an opportunity for folks to benefit on the back of that work to fully appreciate and apply it into their lives.

So Indira, as we wrap up, there are a few questions that I just want to ask you. It's part of something that Ashish and I do to help our listeners get to know our guests better. But do you have a favorite song that you listen to when you want to turn your frown upside down?

Indira Kennedy:

What came to mind was Pharrell's "Happy" song. Absolutely love it. And I have to say in terms of spiritual work, mantras, chants are absolutely my happy songs. That is what shifts my energy when I can't do anything else. If I can't meditate, I chant.

Anil Ramjiani:

Love that. What would you say is your favorite activity to do to lift you up?

Indira Kennedy:

Be on the water. I absolutely love the water, on it, in it, just water, please. This is the Aussie speaking. Near the Thames in Greenwich, but you know, a friend took me paddleboarding recently and we'd only just got out on the water and I just threw up my hands and went, "Yay." She laughed and laughed. It was like, yes, I'm on the water.

Anil Ramjiani:

Reconnecting with nature. Reconnecting with yourself. And then the last question is, what's your favorite book that you would recommend to our listeners? Not yours or Ashish's but maybe a book that inspired you.

Indira Kennedy:

uh, you know, it's been many, many years, but it just has to be, I have so many books, but, um, it has to be power versus force By Dr. David Hawkins, an absolutely remarkable book and it was life changing for me in terms of truly understanding the power of energy and vibration and why we must and choose our words so carefully. It's got the most incredible list of vocabulary for higher level frequency of, um, through our words, through our language.

And, and also these words that are the opposite and pull energy down and suck energy out of our system. So, um, yeah, power versus force. It's a brilliant book.

Anil Ramjiani:

Love it. Love it. Language is powerful. Good. I'm going to say thank you to both of you. Really appreciate your time Indira to reconnect after all this time to have you and Ashish together with me is just absolutely amazing. So thank you.

Indira Kennedy:

Thank you. This has been lovely. There's always more.

Ashish Kothari:

Yes, there's always more. This was such a wonderful connection, Indira. Thank you for all the amazing work you're doing.

Indira Kennedy:

And you too, Ashish. Thank you. I appreciate it so much. Happy to get to know your work as well. And Anil, always.

Ashish Kothari:

Likewise. Well, hey, have an amazing day and a wise heart. Yes. Thank you. Bye for now.