Category: Fundamental Well Being

Choosing To Live, Feeling Presence + Embracing Intensity…

Presence, resistance, not wanting to, and then choosing to live- embodiment, messiness, living iterations…we talked about so much!

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They say anything will reveal its secrets if you love it enough. 

As a kid I wanted two things: the ability to heal the suffering around me (I hadn’t quite acknowledged my own yet), and a model of Reality that matched my own experience. 

That want took me on a rich and arduous journey, and I feel grateful to own my place in Life’s healing mechanism. And though no model of Reality will ever be complete, I feel the Mystery revealing its secrets with humbling generosity.

I receive so much more than I can/want to keep contained, it’s my privilege to share it with those who long for the same. It’s a privilege to serve those equally excited to journey, explore, receive, and in fact, play with me to embody the sacred here now!

One such client- a participant in the current MURMURATIONS cohort, April McMurtry and I had an evocative conversation on her Between the Moon podcast. She is a facilitator in her own right, and brings her big questions for us to explore together. 

As you listen you will feel the sincerity of her inquiry, the ways that our journey is changing her and her commitment to her path. It’s this longing in people like her that makes me want to share more and more of myself with you…

Have a listen here, or anywhere they share podcasts!

Presence, resistance, choosing to live and living iterations…we talked about so much!

IF YOU TUNE IN YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT:
– Habits of Attention + Choice
– Escaping Reality, it’s intense being alive!
– Center is not a place it’s a process
– Relation + Belonging
– Return to “natural” way of being
– Right rhythm, right relation, right timing
– Why don’t ask why? 
– Extra suffering optional!
– Raising children + How we were made into people
– Noticing, mirroring, remembering ‘essence’
– Choosing to be in Life, consciously

And if our conversation stokes curiosity, join me to experience this work for yourself.

I’m teaching the process April says has been transformative for her- ENERGETIC BASICS this month and next. I’m also leading BOUNDARIES – a Free Facilitated Experiential Community Call in Sept, like the one on which she first found me! Details below. 

Both are good ways to feel into the work and see if you may want to join the new cohort of MURMURATIONS opening Sept 21st on the Equinox.

If you know others who’d enjoy our conversation or learning these tools, please share the podcast and my invitations with them. But most of all, enjoy listening with your whole body, anchoring into presence– like we do when we are together. 

And do share if/how it touches you.

with so much hope and love,
Ishita 

Getting naked, is where it’s at!

So you’re weaving the basket with one hand and the Universe weaves the other. It’s never been about perfection, it was just about authenticity. 

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In my early Come to Center days, as I was still learning to own, share and make transaction for my gifts, I spoke with a Sufi about desire, nakedness and vulnerability…about showing up in partnership with Life. Before we parted, he asked me to let myself be seen and go make a video, which I will share with you in my next post. 

Our conversation was a gift to my soul. I share an excerpt of it with your heart now as a gift and an invitation.

“This is important,” he said. “Your desire is really intelligence.

There’s the hungry soul state, the free state and the naked state. The hungry soul way of getting what you want, is desperate- stealing the pie. You see the glass is always half empty, and the universe agrees. In the free state you say, I’m ok here, I don’t need any pie, and the universe agrees. You’re numb, and one day you’re walking dead.” 

“You’ve been a renunciate and a sacrificial humanitarian, here and before. You say you don’t need anything, so no one can give it to you. But the thing is, it takes great humility to pay your bills, to ask for money, to say this is how I make my living- to ask for what you need.” And he held my hand as I started to cry. 

“Getting naked is where it’s at, you see…full nakedness!

Every day, you need something! And (you ask, and) the universe then starts filling you up…it’s really about being defenseless. Try to continue to ask for what you want, and give people a chance to love you for who you are, you see…letting them see you in your need, asking for what you want- vulnerability- one of the most important human traits…how Gandhi defeated an empire…that’s the nature of vulnerability… if you tell me how you’re feeling, I get to experience the power and beauty of your thought and emotion. 

So you’re weaving the basket with one hand and the Universe weaves the other. It’s never been about perfection, it was just about authenticity. 

If you make yourself real, God will make you real. If you make God real, God will make you real.”

I did. I still am. Bit by bit. I learned to show up, sometimes trembling, and stand in humility- soft belly, feet planted, heart racing, palms open. I learned to muster up the courage to discover and then ask for what I want, to say no, to be seen in my power and my vulnerability- which it turns out, are the same thing.

This making yourself and God real, isn’t easy! But it is what we have come here to do in our unique ways. This weaving the basket with the universe isn’t an abstraction- it is lived in every aspect of how we are!

And, so much friction eases when turn towards our Sorcerer’s task, knowing who we are, how life works and claim our right place in the Everything. That’s what this path is about, as is Murmurations.

His invitation to me then, is my invitation to you now!

Come weave your basket in partnership with the Universe. 
Let yourself be seen, be known…by yourself and those around you.
Cultivate your inner teacher, healer and sage, that they may fuel how you touch the whole world.

MURMURATIONS opens in two weeks!

This 6 month immersive alongside masterful guides is a place to awaken, heal, embody and align with purpose with a community supporting you!

And I mean a real community (not just a group of people), where we share our truths, our hearts, our highs and lows of life honestly in shared purpose- to heal and embody our deepest intentions, serving something bigger than ourselves. 

A combination of somatics, energetics, relational dynamics, emotional fluidity and awareness based practices coalesce to help people complete the cycles they are in and move into the next level of healing.

You can expect powerful transformation in a relatively short amount of time, in ways that are aligned and attuned to your unique needs.

As of now there are 4 spots open. A mature group is forming, so we can go deeper faster- they’re ready to dive not just into personal healing, but also integrating the relational and spiritual facets of being, while aligning their doing in the world from their new baseline consciousness. 

If our call resonates in you, go check out  the website, see what people are sharing about their own journeys and set up a time for us to connect. We may just be the mutual medicine we need.

just weaving my basket here,
<3 :D
Ishita

An insider’s experience of Murmurations!

LEARN MORE AND SEE IF MURMURATIONS IS RIGHT FOR YOU!

Big Love meets Big Love!

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Baby just let it fly! Louvre, Paris. Circa 2007- photo by Ishita Sharma
Baby, just let it fly! Photo by Ishita Sharma. Louvre, Paris. Circa 2007.

Dear one,

In my morning session today a beautiful client and I laughed for a good 10 minutes as she saw how she was playing the game of life, trying so hard to hide the Big Big Love she actually is!

Who did she think she’s fooling? I asked.
And she pointed to herself. We laughed some more.

As she saw herself as this Ocean of Love, there was nothing left outside of it. 

She, me, we, her stories, ideas, beliefs, emotions – all melted into boundless, all encompassing Big Love. And there was nothing left but tears of joy, the sweet mourning of that forgetting, that hiding…

We convince ourselves no one sees the love that we are, but it can’t be hidden. Mostly, we’re hiding it from ourselves.

What if for this one moment, as you read my words, you let this ocean of love that has been wanting to pour through you out into the Everything actually pour out?   

You showed up in the world one ball of innocence- loving everything you met. As a child you knew this- you were here to love and be loved. It was simple. It was easy to offer your heart and receive love into it. 

So now again, come back to the simplicity of that knowing.

Let yourself BE love. 

Maybe for just this moment. Maybe for another minute…maybe for this whole day, maybe just this weekend or this year…this lifetime!

Especially when it feels vulnerable – when you are afraid you’ll lose connection for showing up as it- like writing this email for me, it will feel so essential and so vulnerable…

Come!
Let it melt you.
Over and over. 

Big Love meets Big Love.

You, Big Love, go to the grocery store and feel the Big Love bagging your groceries for you. You walk to the post office and meet Big Love in the line and there it is again, mailing your letters. You come home and there it is again- Big Love pouring out, disguised as your children, your partner, your parents, your friend…what else was ever there? 

All around you. It’s hard not to feel it!

It can be that simple.

To let it be that simple is the most courageous choice we can make- turning towards what you already are- so much love it’ll break your heart and fill it. Over and over again.

That’s the invitation of Murmurations– being, having and doing as and from Big Big Love. If it calls, let’s talk.

What else could be more essential, more important, more joyful?

a wink, a smile, and Big Big Love!
Ishita

LEARN MORE + APPLY!

M U R M U R A T I O N S 
a unique transformational community

Heal, awaken, embody, and align with your deepest purpose- together.

We start Oct 5.

you can’t plan an adventure

Saying a hearty YES to diving into the uncertain, unknowable, unstable life has always led to openings beyond what I could imagine.

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Saying a hearty YES to diving into the uncertain, unknowable, unstable life has always led to openings beyond what I could imagine.

My partner and I came to France for a friend’s celebration on a whim. Our bodies like the field of Europe. When it was time to leave, we just didn’t feel right getting on our plane, so we sat there letting it go without us on it.

It was the first time I consciously and willingly let a plane ticket go waste- big for me!

We put all the possibilities on the table- staying another month or two years- we would do what felt right. Something wanted to be seen, and we were ready to meet it.

It’s so easy to trick ourselves into believing self-imposed limitation. It is so easy to forget and deny ourselves how free we actually really are. And we are here to re-member this, continually- to keep coming back to center.

There were a hundred reasons not to follow the call, and we could easily have indulged any of them, but that would have been betraying the emergent. And I am a willing slave to it.

And then our adventure began- as did synchronicities. And the thing about planning an adventure is, you can’t.

The journey through this newness has been full of elation, wonder, awe, love, beauty and grief, mourning, anger, longing, renewal and release. There is an expanded possibility.

As it happens, we are growing through Life.

I’m taking notes- yes the conscious journey isn’t easy, but it is full of resource to bring you safely through the storm- not unscathed but truly changed.

It will make you aware of, open and expand the crevices where you hide from yourself, from each other. And it has us.

“Thou shalt be a nomad!” Erik said when I asked in March, what the universe was trying to teach me with no home to be found after 6 months of looking, none of my visions coming manifest!

The message was pretty clear, and it has been showing us slowly, the shape it wanted to take.

I had planned to be settled in a house, establish a Come to Center space and be running a full workshop schedule by now. Oh and have a “regular routine” – something I keep tricking myself into believing I want, when in reality, I don’t!

And I am SO glad I am not!

Exploring the insides of a new culture and country, learning about it and me, swimming through my own darkness into the Sun and back everyday, is teaching me to listen anew. The ocean and my marriage are my biggest teachers right now.

When I am here-now, I belong everywhere and nowhere.

I forgot for a second how much of a nomad I am at heart, how much travel enriches us and the physical immersion into new landscapes changes our inner landscapes…aah yes.

My work is an expression of my Life, the thing about working with energy and consciousness is that they transcend construct, time and space. Come to Center is still funneling the transformation it needs to because I am transforming and growing.

Life is in sync. I’m learning so much, and enjoying it.

I feel truly homeless and fully at home in it.
I’ve never been a creature of habit.
I’m holding life preciously.

I’ve learned time and again it’s a good thing when my dreams don’t come true, because what does instead opens me up to higher possibilities in ways I could never conjure.

Thankful for the beauty of our world,
the love in our hearts,
and those around us,
the marvel of modern technology,
and the courage to choose freedom over comfort.

Every time.

May it be so for each of us.
Thank you Life.
More please.

EQUINOX: Balancing masculine and feminine polarities

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Happy Spring! And happy Equinox!

Let’s take a moment to celebrate we made it through a whole year in a pandemic amidst heightened tumult, before we begin life’s next movement. 

The Equinox is recognized by Yogis as a day conducive to inner harmony. When we attune and balance this dimension in ourselves, with necessary preparation, it gives us an assist on our path to liberation.

To help access this gift I recorded a meditation for everyone in MURMURATIONS. 

If you wish to receive this short 10 minute meditation practice just send me an email and let me know.

This exercise is for any one who wants to live a conscious life. It’s a space to tune into our inner masculine and feminine polarities and discern how they are relating within because awareness of our inner mechanics is the first step to self-mastery.

No matter what kind of body we are in, or how we identify, what we call Masculine and Feminine are fundamental principles that shape all our existence.

Those words point to the most elemental aspects of creation- beyond sex, gender, identity or sexual orientation.

These polarities in form the manifest– we know them as Yin and Yang, Shiva and Shakti, Anima and Animus, being and doing, active and receptive…heart and mind, intuitive and intellectual…and so on…in their union lies wholeness and in wholeness lies liberation.

We get so much information when we create space and tune in.

I visit this exercise every Equinox- it’s different every time. It clarifies my inner directives to tend to as I step into this next season. If you want some inspiration, you can see my meditative impressions here. 

I’ve been watching what folks in MURMURATIONS are discovering through the meditation as they share their words and drawings with us all- the wisdom surfacing in the depths of their silence is still blowing me away…

What are the movements wanting to happen in and through YOU?

Maybe you want to take a moment and tune in to…find out who’s here now, how your inner man and woman are, and through them, what you need to balance these dimensions for a wholesome life. If you want my guided meditation to support your self-inquiry, just ask!

The next cohort of MURMURATIONS begins in June- maybe this conscious community can help you shape what’s springing forth from you! It is so joyful and fulfilling to guide and grow with this cohort, I am delighted to usher in the next.

This 6 month immersion is a space where growing, healing and awakening together to something bigger than ourselves is our priority. 

If it calls to you, explore the website, watch my invitation and reach out to see if it’s in right rhythm for you. And if you know someone who’d enjoy joining us, please share it with them.

in beauty, joy and wonder!
Ishita

SEND ME THE SPECIAL EQUINOX GUIDED MEDITATION!

M U R M U R A T I O N S

Not just a course. Not just a community. 

It’s transformation. It’s home coming.  

Intimate group limited to 8 participants, 6 months,12 live group calls, 2 individual sessions, 2 personalized consults, small group practices, partnered session exchanges, tailored home practices, readings, meditations, movies, an online community to journey with, surprises! FUN! and so much more!

This journey in transformational community is for you if you are wanting:

– to cultivate presence and live anchored in your center regardless of circumstances.
– to come out of your closet and own your truth and purpose.
– more real, balanced and connected relationships.
– to deeply love and understand yourself and the nature of experience.
– to connect with natural intelligence and make sense of your role on Earth. 
– playful and grounded spiritual development in a sandbox of value-aligned peers! 

LEARN MORE AND APPLY TO THE COURSE!

Zodiac Mantras

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These mantras touch something so core and essential in me, I cry every time I meet them.

Excerpted from Alice Bailey’s Treatise on the Seven Rays, each describes the energy of the constellation through which the Soul chooses to incarnate- our deepest longing and purpose, embedded in sound with such simple profundity.

Writing it here so I can re-member and access this knowing as I make my way into Esoteric Astrology!

THE WORDS FOR THE SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC

From the angle of form. Natural order. Retrogression through signs.
Pisces through the Signs to Aries

Pisces
“And the Word said: Go forth into matter.”

Aquarius
“And the Word said: Let desire in form be ruler.”

Capricorn
“And the Word said: Let ambition rule and the door stand wide.

Sagittarius
“And the Word said: Let food be sought.”

Scorpio
“And the Word said: Let Maya flourish and let deception rule.”

Libra
“And the Word said: Let choice be made.”

Virgo
“And the Word said: Let matter reign.”

Leo
“And the Word said: Let other forms exist. I rule.”

Cancer
“And the Word said: Let isolation be the rule and yet the crowd exists.”

Gemini
“And the Word said: Let instability do its work.”

Taurus
“And the Word said:. Let struggle be undismayed.”

Aries
“And the Word said: Let form again be sought.”

From the angle of the soul. Spiritual order. Correct passing through sign.
Aries through the Signs to Pisces.

Aries
“I come forth and from the plane of mind I rule.”

Taurus
“I see, and when the eye is opened, all is illumined.”

Gemini
“I recognize my other self and in the waning of that self I grow and glow.”

Cancer
“I build a lighted house and therein dwell.”

Leo
“I am That and That am I.”

Virgo
“I am the Mother and the Child. I, God, I matter am.”

Libra
“I choose the way that leads between the two great lines of force.

Scorpio
“Warrior I am, and from the battle I emerge triumphant.”

Sagittarius
“I see the goal. I reach the goal and see another.”

Capricorn
“Lost am I in light supernal, yet on that light I turn my back.”

Aquarius
“Water of life am I, poured forth for thirsty men.”

Pisces
“I leave the Father’s Home and turning back, I save.”

Jesus says, “Know thy neighbor!”

2020 has made it clearer than ever that community is a deep human need! Connection is what we all want underneath all our wants- connection to ourselves, to each other, to something bigger than us. Here’s a story about how I created my own community when I wanted it the most!

Ish

Not long after I moved into Joe’s triple decker in Somerville- what I called Casa 69 because I wanted so badly to speak Spanish, I got to know my neighbors in the other 5 apartments, only to find out they didn’t know each other. Even though I was the newest to the building, and others had lived there for years on end, no one had gotten to know the people living 6 feet away from them. Literally! And I couldn’t believe it!

Our sense of community is intrinsically different in America than it is in India- our space bubbles are smaller in India, somehow everyone shares a sense of belonging that is easily extended…Riding a train for 3 hours can have you end up exchanging food over discussions on politics and religion, holding people’s children…there’s an easy familiarity in ways that most Americans I know may be terrified by!

Not knowing your next door neighbors is like a warped version of an impossible reality for most Indians!

I got to confront this difference in many forms as an international student and again and again as a young professional moving around the country alone. So back to Casa 69- I saw so many fun people stacked above each other and suspected they’d enjoy meeting each other!

In fact, I was craving community- like many of us are now! I wanted the kind where you just knock on each other’s door to have a chat, to borrow some milk, to share the craziness of the snowstorm (or the pandemic) outside…So I decided to create it.

Next day, I made these (to me hilarious and awesome) fliers from a deck of post-its my friend Loren had gifted me. For a second I worried they might seem preposterous to a serious Church-goer, but if they were offended, we weren’t going to get along any way! So I posed it as a divine duty- I mean, Jesus says know thy neighbor, right?! I slipped a flyer under each person’s door.

There was a buzz in the building, planning as we crossed paths in the hallways for days, I bought some cupcakes, some wine, and when the day came, so did every person in the building.

Crammed into my tiny living room over a circle of food and wine, we exchanged stories, happy to discover unexpected camaraderie over the hilarity of our rental configurations and the eccentricities of our landlord.
We roared in laughter as we shared our reactions to him blocking out our bathroom windows, all at once, for no reason…We laughed as we realized the Americans were outnumbered by international folks- we had an Irishman, a German, two Mexicans, and of course, me, the resident Indian!

As time went by, the distance shortened.

We knocked on each other’s doors, we played tennis, made art, went on adventures..we even combined apartments and hosted Casa 69 parties (you may have been to one), we had late night existential discussions over music on our porches…We cried and laughed together through life’s growing pains. Some beastly nor’easter nights when Boston was covered with 6′ of snow, I put a giant lasagna bake in the oven n we’d all snuggle into my living room to play games n voluntarily be locked in together!

We became friends. So much love, so much community, just waiting to be put together…oh and most of us aren’t connected on facebook :)

2020 has made it clearer than ever that community is a deep human need! Connection is what we all want underneath all our wants- connection to ourselves, to each other, to something bigger than us.

We all want to belong to something, know that those around us stand with us, that we are part of a grand adventure together- it’s more fun to share the ride!

New partners, new jobs, new horizons came and we all left that building eventually but I still talk to each of them, though less often. It was the sweetest period of my Boston life and I’ve drawn on this experience often to bring people together, and more importantly, bring cool people to me!

They say strangers are just friends waiting to be discovered. I couldn’t agree more!

How are you building community through the pandemic? It’s the balm we all need and in these times we need to actively create and nurture it. I’d love to hear your adventures in turning friends into strangers.

If you’re interested in sharing this kind of fun community, with a purpose to support your deepest intentions- join us in Murmurations! A transformational community starting Jan 28, shepherded by yours truly.

A group of some really cool folks is coming and I’d love to have you too!
Your new friends might just be waiting to be discovered.

<3
Ishita

If you’re feeling the call of newness, a longing for connection and self-transformation, join us!
 
This 6 month journey is a space to realize your intentions in an intimate, conscious community. We’ll be the wind beneath each other’s wings, as we examine who we are and our deepest purpose.

We’ll dive in to clarify your wants in alignment with your deepest purpose, examine and release the blocks in the way, while synchronizing with your natural rhythm and greater order. You’ll cultivate a conscious relationship with yourself, others, your purpose and the earth itself as we journey together. I’m pulling the best parts of my rich healing journey here to usher you into the newness life’s calling you into!

The course starts Jan 28th and an impressive group is forming.
If it resonates, I encourage you to apply soon- I’d love to talk with you too! 
EXPLORE IF MURMURATIONS IS THE COMMUNITY YOU NEED RIGHT NOW!

Listening for Collective Healing

Ish

We know listening is key to healing conflict, yet we seldom know where or how to begin.

In this experiential live online session I led for the global Truth and Reconciliation Weekend, we explored listening through questions like:

How can listening catalyze healing between and within us?
How can we listen to those we disagree with?
How can we connect beyond our ideas of eachother, beyond right and wrong, good and bad, us Vs. them thinking?

This is a recording of a session facilitated by Ishita where we will experiment with a way of being in relation to each other and ourselves that deepens presence, authentic connection and heals division.

Bring your curiosity and the willingness to see and be seen to each exercise.

As you follow the recording, turn the questions being explored onto yourself and notice what you discover.

If you are moved by the session and wish to continue diving deeper, I hope you’ll join me and a group of peers committed to bettering the world.

The world is begging us to show up fully for ourselves and each other from a place of love.

with hope and love,
Ishita

What’s your part?

IshLeave a comment

In light of recent events, I have been asking-

What are my implicit biases around gender, race, age and nationality?What are yours?

How are they affecting our discernment, and our ability to receive the gifts of those who we disagree with?

These are the questions I myself am sitting with and hope you will too. Last week I went in for an interview for US citizenship. After 19 years of living here, I will be granted the right to vote. The man who granted me this right was a Mexican immigrant, spoke with a Mexican accent, and represented the USCIS.

It was beautiful. In him, was the reminder that I will be just as much a citizen as anyone else. First, second or two hundredth generation Americans are all just that- American. And the law of a land must include and nurture all those who dwell in it- the Tao names this beautifully- IF we wish to create harmony. There are plenty of ways not to.

I have been mourning the sad state of this nation and this divisive politik that wants to get the worst in us.

I know what it’s like to come to a new land without 300 years of my ancestors living here before me- the loneliness, the hope, the despair, the fear of losing the life I have created on a single employer or govt officer’s whim. I know the pain of not being able to call home home, not knowing whether to buy real furniture because my visa may expire in a year.

And through this all, I know the incredible gifts of the Divine- I know what it is to integrate polarities of two divergent cultures within myself, bringing the best of each together, in new beautiful ways.

My family lives on four continents, and my children will be children of an immigrant and my God! I hope they protest louder than I have, calling for reform where reform must happen, because they’ll belong here in ways I am only just about to.

I know the immigrant story from the inside- and I assure you it is not the narrative of entitlement, America hating, self-serving drama we are often sold on the news.

Like wholeness comes from wholeness, trauma perpetuates trauma.

No amount of meditation or immersion in silence clears that out unless we’re truly willing to look in the mirror honestly, take responsibility for the ways in which we ourselves (each and every one of us) perpetuate pain inside and outside and sit with the unbearable within us rather than projecting it outwards, and of course, invite our own pain to be seen, known, lovingly held and transformed.

I content the era of the “power over” strong-handed authoritarian leader is coming to an end, and for that matter, I sense this may be the last time two white men in their 70’s are running this race.

A different reality is taking shape. Like a dying animal you can hear it going out with a scream.

Trump may well be re-elected as many people say (I don’t know), but that re-election is going to bring its own demise.

Even as I feel the collective cry for coherence, I do not think this country is ready to receive it just yet. For as Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev noted, “for a Buddha to rule the world, we must have Buddhas to recognize, and elect one.”

No. I do not think either candidate is the Buddha, but I can see the humanity of both- their failings and their goodness, through the veil. I hope you can too.

When (very soon) I am granted the right to vote, I will use it to elect the man who reflects power, not dominance, models empathy, compassion and humility, and has dedicated his life to serving our nation.

And that would be me doing my part.