meditation Archives - My Inner Shakti

Mindful Meditation Mama – Tejal V. Patel

You guys! I’m SO excited to share today’s post with you. If you’ve questioned your life purpose, thought about your mission, or wanted to change career paths, today’s post is for you.

This one is from Tejal V. Patel, a kids mindfulness expert/a mindful parenting coach/a mama meditation mentor/an Ayurveda + yoga specialist…and so much more! Tejal is such a beautiful person and soul. We’re never met face-to-face, but I just get such a great feeling when reading her posts, watching her videos, and chatting with her via IG DM! Her message is powerful and impactful, and it will change the way we parent, the way mamas feel about themselves, and the world. You heard it here first!

With that, let me hand it over to Tejal to walk us through her journey…

Wait you’re a divorce attorney who turned into a mindfulness advocate for moms and kids?

I’ve learned the follow-up question people ask me is a clear indicator of where they are on their spiritual journey…

Wait, what do you do?

Wowza, That’s soooo awesome!

Why the heck would you leave a career where you make alootttt of money?

OMG I wanna leave my career to pursue my passion too – tell me everything!

And the classic — what did your parents say when you left your career to pursue your “hobby”?

Hobby? What the… no, my friend, this is my life purpose.

My dharma. The reason I was put on this earth. And the way I’m currently being called to serve.

It’s why at 13 I didn’t tremble when I spoke in front of 200+ people.

It’s why when I meditated for the first time at the age of 6 I can still remember the message that came through to me.

It’s why a shy, super, sensitive and empathic child, who could feel spirits and had an intense intuition was given these gifts.

So I can walk this path of spiritual teacher… mindfulness coach and motivational speaker. And hopefully someday a published author (fingers crossed).

Most people are surprised when I say I didn’t get much resistance from my parents when I told them I was leaving my law career to become a kids yoga teacher.

Mainly because they had many signs and inclinations throughout my 29 years that I was an out-of-the-box, beat to my own dream, free-spirited soul.

Of course, it was not easy to gather the confidence to sit your parents down and tell the people who sacrificed their whole life, saved for so many years and paid an exorbitant amount of money on an education you’re going to renounce.

But I think it’s harder for people who don’t know me as well to understand why I decided to take the path less traveled. Like my in-laws. “Attorney” is an easy way to define what I did. It brings prestige with it. A lot of money. It gives people an image that I’m intelligent.

But a yoga, mindfulness and meditation educator? How do you even describe that?

And worst…what will people think?

In a society where the most widely accepted belief is that happiness, success and worthiness is determined by your grades, degree, how much you make and what others think, saying you are going to break the norm from the trifecta of the “safe” doctor, engineer or lawyer mode is hard for some to understand.

As a recovering perfectionist and people-pleaser, I’ve learned through experience that the things we feel insecure about, others will naturally match that energy and our uncertainty is reflected back to us in the form of people asking judgmental questions or confronting statements that mirror our fears.

Over time when I unapologetically owned my path and was confident about my choice, I noticed that fewer people would bring the “Why the heck would you do that”attitude and I was attracting more supporters, more people who were trying to fulfill their own life purpose and more clients who wanted to work with me.

As for the naysayers that do occasionally show up, I can authentically speak my truth, proudly own my journey and not feel concerned about their opinions of me.

I think one of the biggest misconceptions we have about our life purpose is that our job, our 9-5 or what we do most hours of the day, is our life purpose.

Yes we spend most of our waking hours at our jobs whether you go to work, work from home or motherhood is your full-time gig.

But here is the thing.

Our life purpose isn’t about what we do. It’s about who we want to BE in this life.

Work is only a small part of our life purpose.

Our life purpose is how we choose to show upin the world.

Ask yourself “How do you want others to feel in your presence?” And go BE that person.

For me, my life purpose is to be authentic and vulnerable. I want others to feel inspired, empowered and to feel their own inner light when I shine mine.

So it doesn’t matter if I’m coaching, speaking in front of crowd, at the gas station, doing an Instagram story or in the trenches of motherhood, I fulfill my life purpose when I embody those intentions.

Even if you don’t love your job, you can still fulfill your life purpose. Trust you are exactly where you need to be in this moment and you can always make the choice to spread light in any place you are.

So even before I left my career I started to BE the teacher I desired to be.

You see, I didn’t leave my law career overnight. It was gradual. It started with teaching kids yoga and mindfulness at the pre-schools we own a few days a week. Then to writing articles. Making Youtube Videos to publishing articles on bigger sites and eventually having a few go viral. That’s how organically my coaching career began.

That’s when I left my career.

But there was faith. Trust. There were no guarantees. It required surrender. It was a daily commitment to show up and be a blessing in the life of another. And an unwavering belief that we all have a mission, gift and purpose only we can bring into the world.

When you tap into the energy of who you want to be, the Universe realizes you mean business and will meet you where you are. New opportunities pop up and you are guided on a path to help more people.

Many people think life purpose and our mission is the same thing.

I believe our mission is a constantly evolving way of showing up in the greatest way possible to help us fulfill our larger life purpose.

And we don’t have one mission in our life. As we enter different phases in our life, our mission changes.

This “aha” moment came to me when I was watching the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel when a British retiree travels to India to live at a newly restored hotel, only to take charge and run it. Even in the last phase of her life, she found a new mission.

So don’t let age, resources, environment, location or money ever prevent you from believing you have a powerful mission in this world.

Look at Marianne Williamson who is a spiritual teacher who spent most of her career as an author and spiritual teacher who is now trying to run for president.

Or Oprah who went from news anchor to having her own talk show to doing spiritual shows like Super Soul Sunday.

In my decade of being an entrepreneur my mission has shifted countless times.

Starting as an attorney with my own law practice to creating my own kids yoga company to running large group coaching programs online to creating my own mindfulness curriculum I share with teachers and educators in schools and universities—my path is consistently changing and evolving.

My current mission?

Help moms build stress resilience and empower them to raise the first generation of mindful children and next generation of peace leaders.

But my most important mission at the moment…

Being a mom raising two emotionally balanced and mindful young boys, who help me hone my craft of being a present, patient and peaceful person everyday.

Above all leading by example.

So mama, let me leave you with this.

Never in a million years could my parents every have dreamed when I was a child that I would grow up to be a kids mindfulness teacher, a mindful parenting expert, and an Ayurveda and yoga teacher.

As we raise the next generation, let’s set the intention that we don’t ask our children to become who we dream of them to be. Let’s give them the freedom to discover their gifts, find their own life purpose and do work that we could have never dreamed of them doing.

If mindful parenting, building stress resilience, achieving mind-body balance through Ayurveda or finding inner peace through meditation is something that calls to your heart, join my #ModZenMama tribe and start your mindful mama journey with me at www.TejalVPatel.com. I’d be so honored to connect with you!

THANK YOU, TEJAL! Your post brought tears to my eyes. I love your philosophy and you! Thank you for all that you do. Can’t wait to see where the Universe takes you next.

5 Ways to De-Stress

written by Parita 12 Comments

Over the last seven weeks or so, I’ve started to change as a person. How do I know this? My husband has commented on my “transformation” several times. He’s amazed by how the little things that used to make me upset or emotional don’t seem to affect me in the same ways. And you know what…I feel it too!

What brought on this seemingly sudden shift? To be completely honest, I was fed up with always being stressed about everything. I hated how I felt after getting super pissed about something trivial. It was starting to feel like my emotions controlled me, and I wanted to change that! But the real turning point came when Vishnu pointed out that my average stress level was way too high, and that I needed to do something about it!

And so I did.

Before I share what’s worked for me in turns of de-stressing and bringing more Zen into my life, I have to say that this is one of those endeavors that requires hard work and focus. And if you really want to change, you have to face the not so positive stuff head on. You have to be honest with yourself about your thoughts and behaviors and how they are impacting you and those around you. You have to acknowledge the not so great parts of yourself and commit to being different and actually work on it.

Also, by sharing my thoughts in this post, I am in no way saying that I never get stressed anymore. Even when we commit to a different way of being, there will be good days and bad days. And let’s face it – stress is part of being human. My thoughts are more so around how to manage it in a productive and healthy way.

With all that being said, here are 5 tried and true ways to de-stress…

1. Don’t go at it alone. When I committed to dealing with stress differently, I enlisted Vishnu’s help. I picked him because he’s always honest with me, I trust him, and he’s my husband (duh!) and the person who has to deal with me day in and day out!

Over the past few weeks, he’s been able to give me real-time feedback on what he’s noticed and how it’s affected him (good and bad…but mostly good!). This in turn motivates me to continue on.

2. Meditate for a few minutes every day. I’ve talked about this on the blog before, but this is the first time I’ve actually stuck with a mini practice. And the reason I’ve stuck with it is because it works!

I listen to BK Shivani’s guided meditations on YouTube (this morning mediation is my favorite) because they’re short (just being honest!) and really impactful. When I sit down and meditate/focus first thing in the morning, I sense a difference in the way I view my day and the things happening around me. I’m not as frazzled and all over the place. It’s hard to explain, but all I can say is that it’s made a huge difference for me.

3. Listen to your self-talk very carefully. Over the years, I’ve learned that when my self-talk turns negative, my stress goes up. And inevitably it shows up in the way I behave/react which then starts a vicious cycle.

When negative self-talk has been a part of your life for a long time, it’s hard (near impossible) to stop cold turkey. The key for me has been to nip it in the bud before it takes over and permeates every possible thought. I know from experience that NOTHING good comes from putting yourself down, and that knowledge is enough to make me change the way I think. Now instead of being mean to myself, I try (still working on this) to take a different approach and talk to myself the way I would to my sister or a good friend.

Being kinder and more forgiving to myself has definitely helped keep the stress at bay. Who knew!

4. Slow down! I am notorious for doing everything quickly. And sometimes that’s ok because the situation warrants it, but most of the time, rushing does no good. Personally, the faster I go the more mistakes I make and the more stress I cause.

My day to day responsibilities and work don’t require speed…quite the opposite in fact, so this has been a bit easier for me to do. When I feel myself speeding up, I take a deep breath and slow my roll!

5. Pause. Kind of in line with slowing down, when I feel the stress building up, I take a quick pause. And when I pause, I breathe and ask myself, “What is the best thing you can do right now?” The answer is never to stress out. So I try not to!

Pausing has also helped to keep what’s important front and center. Most of the things that stress me out will be erased from my memory in five years time (if not less), so why am I letting them consume me right now.

Like I said, you can’t stop stress from trying to creep into your life. But you can find better ways of dealing with it, and that’s exactly what I’ve set out to do! It’s not easy, but it’s 110% worth it. Not only is my husband more appreciative but so is my skin (I’ll leave that for another blog post though!).

What’s one of your tried and true ways to de-stress?

My Meditation Practice

written by Parita 22 Comments

For the past few months, I’ve been thinking a lot about meditation and starting my own practice (key word – thinking). Increasing my concentration and focus and quieting my mind are just a couple of reasons why I wanted to get my Zen on.

Two weeks ago I had a wonderful conversation with someone that pushed me to action. This person is a consultant working with our team in London, and luckily, I had the opportunity to work with her a little bit as well. During this particular conversation, we got a little off topic and started talking about yoga, meditation, the Universe, and life in general.

Since my new friend is very knowledgeable and passionate about these things, I took the opportunity to ask her a few questions about meditation. I wanted to know how how I could start meditating and unwinding at the end of the day without feeling defeated because my mind won’t “shut up.” She started laughing and said she knew exactly what I was talking about and then offered some ideas. And that, my friends, is how Parita’s meditation practice was born!

Let me start off by saying that this is one of those things that is 100% based on the individual. What works for me won’t necessarily work for the next person. Second, I’ve come to realize that meditation isn’t an overnight phenomenon. It takes time – weeks, months, maybe even years – to really get the hang of quieting the mind.

With that being said, here’s what works for me…

First, I find a quiet place. For me, this is a corner of our bedroom that isn’t cluttered. Next, I make this an inviting space by turning off the lights and lighting a candle. Then I get in a comfortable position, which is usually sitting Indian style. Finally, I close my eyes and visualize (this takes a bit of work) myself in my happy place – sitting on the beach, a little past where the water meets the sand. For the first few minutes, I try my best to “feel” the sand/water/sun and “hear” the water/breeze. In order to stay in my happy place, I acknowledge random thoughts that float into my head but release them as quickly as possible. After about 10-15 minutes, I get up and go straight to bed. Best bedtime routine ever!

I know this isn’t real, disciplined meditation, but I think it’s a good first step. And my practice makes me happy…and puts me to sleep very quickly! But in all seriousness, after just a couple of weeks, this little routine has made a tremendous impact on my state of being. I feel a bit more centered and focused and also able to let things go more easily. And I’m sure that with time, it’s only going to get better!

Do you meditate? How do you quiet your mind?

Mindful Meditation Mama – Tejal V. Patel

5 Ways to De-Stress

My Meditation Practice

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