Welcome to the Delicious Dignity Podcast. Let's settle in securely and ever so nicely into the brilliance of our own dignity. Hello, my lovelies. This episode is about a recent life-changing event that catapulted me into a into a whole new way of living. So I started 2024 with a full-time job, a business, writing work, designing work, hosting hiking groups, hosting a women's group. I joined and left four volunteer organizations, and all of this is how I started 2024. By the middle of 2024, I added another feather in my cap. I started working for a small business, as a part-time consultant. And I worked with them starting May, so about eight months is how long I worked for them. And at the end of 2024, a day before New Year's Eve, very unceremoniously and with every amount of disrespect imaginable, they fired me. And what was so interesting about this event was that there was a feeling that came along with being fired. And that feeling was one of relief. It was the loudest sigh I've ever sighed in my entire life. It was as though a tumor had been cut out of me. And because that was my first response to an email about being fired, a huge sigh of relief, that was the response. It shocked me because for someone like me, overachiever, in case you didn't already realize that, and someone who had a lot of different things that maybe she tied her self-worth to, for me to feel relief at being fired was so surprising that it really catapulted me into a whole new identity. It was almost as though I was too tired to even feel shame. I was too tired to be embarrassed. I was too tired to even care. And I completely puddled. I completely surrendered. And that is what I want to talk to you about today. Because even though it was my first time being fired ever in my entire life, I thought I'd be embarrassed and ashamed. I thought I would have this feeling of inferiority. And I did. Those feelings came later. But my first response was one of relief. And it made me understand how I had actively participated and encouraged and been encouraged to participate in hustle culture. to the extent to which it destroyed me. And because of that feeling, that surprising feeling of relief, I started to choose a different way of living, which is not maybe the opposite of hustle culture, but a balanced way of living, which I like to call the feel-good culture. And so this hustle culture... I think I want to define it for you so that you have a better understanding of how I define it and what I mean when I say hustle culture. Hustle culture is this big cloud that is pretty much over all Western civilization heads, but especially here in America. And it is really a culture where that almost requires stress in order to live, in order to continue its life cycle and prolonged levels of stress. Hustle culture is a dysfunctional exercise in being worthy. It's almost like you're always doing worthiness gymnastics, contorting yourself into different shapes and sizes just to earn the right to exist. And that brings me to another point, which is it's all about earning. You're always earning something, whether it's earning love or earning the right to speak or earning... the desire to start a podcast even. You know, it's always about earning something. And there's no rhythm, there's no pace, there's no flow, there's no nature to it. It's just always go, go, go. There's no in-breath or out-breath. There's just always holding breath. And life cannot really surprise you because everything is so tightly controlled and planned. And there's always this pushing and striving and achieving and climbing. It's always forward momentum. And it's always as if you're living with one foot in the future constantly. And there's all this pressure and urgency to do anything. It's almost as if somebody is about to die if you don't send that email. There's always this urgency to it. And the other characteristic that I see that characterizes hustle culture is this program of being rated, graded, evaluated. reviewed, measurements, metrics, ranking. And there's no context because everyone is graded, evaluated measurements and this measured in a way that's standardized. There's no room for nuance or context. It's just always cookie cutter. And of course, this is where some people would say this is the patriarchy. This is the factories, industrialization and pollution. that we have allowed not only into our environment, but also into our bodies. And that's diametrically opposed to an artist's life, which is playful and creative and innovative and earth-based. It's all about cookie cutter, sort of a systemic destruction of beauty, because beauty by itself has no value other than to please you. And that systemic removal of beauty from our everyday That too, I feel, characterizes hustle culture. And it's very, very fast. It's all about fast. Everything is fast. Fast food, fast thoughts, fast everything. Fast media consumption. And you hear people say this in their language. They say, work hard, play hard. But it's never really play hard. It's always work hard and check out harder. It's never about playing. If you see a child playing, that's not what these people are doing. They're just checking out. It's the grind, the rat race, and it's all about performance. And that was basically how I lived pretty much my whole life. I mean, we all started off that way in some regard, right? Even in our schooling system, ranked and graded and assessed and evaluated. But for the purposes of this episode, I'm just going to tell you my story to show you just how much I sank into this hustle culture. But before that, let me talk about The opposite or the more balanced version of it, which is what I call feeling good culture. And that is something I slipped into when I got fired because what I realized is feeling good just means doing something that feels like a treat, but without the stress. That yes, you can work, but you don't need to stress because it doesn't require stress in order for you to continue. Life gets to feel like a treat. It's almost as if, God forbid, should I enjoy my life, right? God forbid. And it's about enjoying your life. And it's a lot of ease. There's no urgency. There's a lot of rest in terms of pausing, taking it all in. And life gets to surprise you. And I just want to say that, oh, and also there's a lot of play. There's a lot of play when you're just working on feeling good. And contrary to what you might expect, feeling good does not mean getting rid of your obligations or any of those things. I deep dive into what feeling good means and actual practical examples in the next episode. This episode is all about how I tuned into hustle culture more than feeling good. But what I will say about feeling good is that an addict can say that heroin makes them feel good, but that is not the feeling good I'm talking about. Like I said before, True feeling good is not about checking out. It's about tuning in even more deeply. And so that's where we're starting with today. Are you guys excited? So back to the story. I just wanted to give you a foundation to stand on as I talk to you about the story of how I got here. And so you can sort of see the bits and pieces coming in. And even though I was rewarded for some of the behaviors I was doing, it was actually not good for me. Without further ado, I've delayed you enough. Let's start with the story. So I'll start the story when I was 17 years old, because in a lot of ways, I feel like my life began at 17. So I came to the United States from India at 17 years old. I cannot describe the feeling to you unless you've experienced it yourself, but the feeling I had was as though all the doors opened up for me. I felt like life was handed to me on a silver plate in America. I felt free. I felt inspired. I was high on life. I remember some of my friends smoking weed and marijuana when in college. And I remember looking at them and just being like, wow, I'm already just naturally so high. I don't even need marijuana because I was just so inspired and so on top of the world to be in America. I felt like I could do anything and everything. And literally, that's exactly what I did. I did anything and everything. The mentality I can describe this as, if I could coin a phrase for you is grateful immigrant mentality. A woman being liberated mentality. I just wanted to do anything and everything and I sort of threw myself in. In a way, now looking back was totally dysfunctional, but that's exactly what I did. I did anything and everything. I maxed out my credits every term. I took up every job I could. I was in the library pretty much all day, every day, sometimes till three o'clock or as late as the library would be open. Each night I would stay until closing. I wanted to stand on my own two feet as quickly as I could, and I did. But I was also tired all the time. Sometimes I would stay up for days without sleeping. And I had internships. I took up random jobs whenever I could. And by all means, I was getting all the good grades. I was getting all the accolades. I was getting the money for my jobs. But towards the end of my university, I started putting myself in situations that were not good for me. I started getting a little sick. I became a chain smoker. I broke my foot three times. This is also where my eating habits went out of whack. I got used to eating one meal a day because I hated going to the dining hall. I hated the food. I didn't have time to cook because I was either studying or working all the time. I was so busy, I would either barely eat or when I would finally sit down to eat, I was so hungry, I'd stuff myself. And, you know, I think having one meal a day, if you're not doing anything all day, is maybe fine. But I was doing a lot in the day to only have one meal a day. It would have been fine if I hadn't been working or studying so much. But I was also young and my body recovered quicker. And I didn't think anything was wrong because this is just what I thought was needed. I thought everybody was like this. And I wanted to stand on my feet as quickly as possible. So I did what I needed to do. And I ended up graduating with... two concentrations, two minors, almost a third minor, an honors distinction, a certificate program, and about six to eight jobs under my belt. And I was proud. And I was happy. But things started to get darker for me from here on out. And it's weird, you know, because some people, most people think that you can either be happy or you can be sad. But like I said, this is about nuance. I was happy, but also things started to get darker for me from here on out. Both were true. And of course, because I graduated the way I did, I started getting job offers and I got a job right out of college. And so now I'm around 21 or 22 years old. And I moved from Philadelphia, where I was in university, I moved from Philadelphia to Scottsdale, Arizona. And that was probably one of the lowest periods of my life. I moved for this job that I got right out of college. I was just so incredibly confused by how all the working hard I did in college led me to being in a job that I felt so out of place in. The reality of having a job and what that means, especially in corporate, hit me like a freight train. The way I felt like I always had to put on a performance. I was always wearing uncomfortable clothes. It was all about looking and talking a certain way. It was all about appearances and who you knew. It didn't feel like there was any depth, any soul. It just felt like compliance. Everybody just complying to what the corporate norm was and what it meant to have a job. I feel like I was too young to understand that the problem was not me. You know, I would look at all these people and all the systems and everything outside of me and wonder why I couldn't fit in, wonder why I couldn't look a certain way, be a certain way, talk a certain way, do things a certain way in order to be successful. And I was incredibly lonely. I didn't have any purpose. So in order to work through this loneliness, I coped in very, very dysfunctional ways, mostly with dating. Some of the worst men I ever encountered in my life was during this time. But when I did try to ease my loneliness and reach out to people, I felt even more out of place. So I stopped really reaching out to anyone or making an effort. And that, I think, is the vicious cycle of depression. You know, you try to reach out, it doesn't work, you feel more out of place, so then you stop reaching out, so then you get more lonely, and then you get more into your hole, and it just goes round and round. And I didn't have the words for it at the time. I thought the problem was with me, but what I was dealing with was actually a systemic issue. It had very little to do with me. And the things that I loved most about myself, like my creativity, my ability to learn really quickly, my ability to get information down to the bare bones and explain it simply, all these good qualities in me I felt like didn't matter. because I wasn't compliant with the over-culture of corporate. So I just didn't understand. I think even back then, we didn't have words for what is systemic, what is political, and what is personal, and whether there is even any difference between those things. So anyway, I don't know what it was, but somehow I knew that if I stayed in Scottsdale, I would probably do even more stupid things. And somehow, I got myself out of there. So I left Scottsdale and I went to California. And I did that mostly to shake myself up. But in California, things started to click. I started giving up jobs and taking up better and better jobs. I wanted remote jobs and I wanted to work from home. I wanted good people, smart people, sweet people. I wanted sweetness. That's what I really wanted in my job. At that age, to be giving up jobs and taking up better and better jobs, now I see it as so radical. I was insisting that the jobs have this kind of sweetness in them, in the job, in the company, in the team, which is a weird thing to ask for when you join a company, when you join a team. But that was what I was looking for. And I was asking for purely remote jobs back then. So this is almost... 12, 15 years ago. And there weren't a lot of companies that were offering that. And so then what did I do? I quit having a job entirely. I just couldn't do it anymore. Even though I was getting better and better jobs, it wasn't what I wanted. It didn't feel like it suited me. I gave up having a job entirely. I didn't know what would happen. And my worst fears did happen. I almost went bankrupt. I was only a couple of hundred dollars away from bankruptcy. But that was how committed I was in a way. I have to give myself credit for this. At that age, to saying no thank you to the over-culture of what it meant to have a job and to stay committed to it to the point of bankruptcy, that is some solid commitment. That was how committed I was in a way to never working a job that I felt often. I was committed to never having a job again. In my mind, I associated corporate with feeling bad, feeling uncomfortable. And that, of course, is kind of a youthful miscalculation. Something makes you feel bad, so you throw the baby out with the bathwater. But it never occurred to me. It never occurred to me that I could have a blast in my job until I met my manager and my team, a job that I still have to this day. And I still remember the day I spoke to my manager, I thought I was speaking with a friend. And I am pretty sure I forgot midway through the call that I was even in an interview. I just kept talking to her like she was my best friend. And that is when just a few hundred dollars away from bankruptcy, I got the job I have today with an incredible team and an incredible manager. And I'm having the time of my life. But to go back, I reached rock bottom in my relationships. I reached rock bottom in my corporate job. But while I was quitting, while I had quit my corporate job, I had started my business and my business had just started. So while I had understood the value of sticking to my values and insisting on things feeling good to me in my corporate job and to some extent in my relationships, I had still not learned this in my business because my business was a new aspect of my life and I hadn't quite figured that out yet. I still thought pushing, striving and struggling were necessary in my business because back then there was all this literature and all this media around coaches making it big and all these small businesses being run by women and how you have to do all of these client getting activities. And it was all about pushing, striving and struggling. And the other place it had not left, was in my own feeling of being worthy enough to take care of myself so these two areas my business or my practice and in taking care of myself I had still not learned that hustle was not necessary so in the time that I had quit my job like I said I started my business and while I was building my business I was taking all kinds of classes I often joke that I had a second and maybe third college degree. That's how much time and effort and money I spent on learning all the skills I needed to be better and better at my work. Everything from shamanic courses, coaching courses, business courses, psychic courses, Reiki, you name it, I did it. And the thing is, I never felt like I had enough qualifications or enough experience. I always felt like I needed more and more and more. I was always seeking somebody else's stamp or grading of approval. And that led me to put myself in front of some really disturbing and dangerous mentors, mentors that had no business being my mentors. But this is around the time that trend started of just taking more and more classes, taking more and more courses, trying to be better and better. And so that was my business. But then personally, there's one particular incident that stood out during this time period in California was when one of my friends came to visit me And I think I was getting dressed in front of her and she was also getting dressed in my room. And she looked at me and she said, wow, Dilshad, you really need to buy new underwear. And I just looked at her like she was crazy. I thought, what do you mean I need to buy new underwear? All my underwear was torn or just ratty. But I still remember being so shocked that this is something I needed to do. I needed to buy myself underwear. And I think I may have even tried to argue with her that I don't need underwear, that I don't need to buy new underwear, and that I was fine with torn underwear. God bless the patience of my friends, seriously. And I just remember thinking how funny it was as I was thinking that, that I don't feel like it was necessary to buy underwear, that I would rather take that money and invest in another course or invest in another certification. but underwear was not something I needed. And I thought it wasn't something I needed, but truly it was because I didn't value myself enough. I didn't think that it was necessary for me to have new underwear because getting a qualification or getting a certification is more important than having underwear, than having nice underwear. And that shows you my mentality of how I was chasing this carrot on a stick instead of just taking care of myself or doing both, you know, taking care of myself and doing what I needed to do. But it was always this self-neglect that had been ingrained into me. And that incident of my friend pointing out the underwear issue really stuck with me because it was, I think, one of the first times that I realized that I had been mean or cruel to myself. And then I left California and I moved to Seattle. In Seattle, I put myself in a house with unknown roommates just to save money. I had plenty of savings for my own place, especially for someone my age, because that's all I did was save or invest in courses. I didn't spend my money anywhere else. But I still put myself in this situation with unknown roommates just to save money. And it took me two or three years to realize how damaging that whole time in Seattle was to my nervous system. There were some really high-strung, high-anxiety folks that were living in that house. And I am someone that likes peace and quiet. And so what did I do? I'd smoke so many cigarettes during that time. So many cigarettes. More than I ever thought I ever would. Sometimes a pack and a half a day. And I wouldn't even enter the house. I wouldn't even live in the house. I would hang out in the backyard all day long. And even through those years, I kept arguing with myself that I should be able to stay with these folks. You know, they're not that bad. It's completely fine. Like I'm saving money. And it took me two or three years to finally realize that I deserved and needed a good, quiet, safe home. One where I'm not constantly triggered. And what I ended up doing is I got myself a luxurious apartment. It was more, I don't know what they call it, I think a two-level condo, but it was listed as an apartment. Oh, they call it loft apartments, that's right. And it was the first time that I had spent money on myself to give myself a safe and comfortable home. It was truly everything I wanted in a home. And surprise, surprise, it was the most creative I'd ever become. It was the height of my creativity. I really took my time decorating it. And that was around the time, right before I moved to that place, that was when I quit smoking for good. Meanwhile, my corporate job is doing fantastic. I'm loving the people I work with. I was still not doing so well with romantic relationships with men. But in every other area of my life, I was doing great. However, as you can still see, I was still learning how to take care of myself, how to give myself what I need and not constantly reject my own needs and neglect my own needs and not think that they were superfluous or too much. I do remember a friend saying when they saw my apartment, I remember them saying, don't you think this is too much? Like, you're just one person. Why do you need so much space? And I remember hearing that comment and I knew that a part of me had healed because I didn't get triggered by that comment. I just sat there and thought, well, this person has the same issue that I do, you know, that they couldn't understand why I needed this space to just, it was like my castle. It was so beautiful. And just to give you, these stories are just to give you an idea of where I left hustling and where hustling was still part of my DNA. And it was mostly in my DNA when it came to my business or my practice and in the way I treated myself. So now we come to sort of the final nail in the coffin. And this is when the hustle culture is finally dying off for good. And this starts around the time I was 30 years old. And I just started doing a lot more physical activity. I felt like taking care of myself more. And hiking became a thing. And of course, Seattle offers a lot of great hikes. So it became a thing. Gym became a thing. I started going to doctors, getting tests done, you know, really taking care of my health. Around this time or a little bit before this time, I started wearing my hair natural and not straightening it like I used to. mostly because I thought it looked professional. It's so funny that I ever thought that. I left a lot of stale relationships, including a best friend that I had for almost 20 years. And I let that relationship go. I ended up having more community than I ever had before. I just had more depth. This is around the time I adopted my dog, Azhar. And in general, I was learning. You know, I was learning. I'm learning to take care of myself a little bit more. However, in my business and in my practice, I pushed through a partnership with a jewelry organization, even though it didn't feel good. Because I started designing some jewelry pieces, and this organization was recommended to me by a jewelry designer that I really respected. So I kept pushing them. And You know, they wouldn't respond to my text message. They wouldn't respond to my email. So, sorry, not pushing them, but I kept chasing them to get a response. I kept having to double check their work. And I never thought for one second, wow, this doesn't feel good. This is not something that I should be engaging with. This is clearly not the right fit for me. Instead of thinking that, what I thought was I have to work harder. I have to work harder. If I just email them more or text to them more or send them more samples, then they will respond. And what ended up happening? Surprise, surprise. They gaslit me. They stopped responding. They took a lot of my money, almost $5,000. And I barely got any quality jewelry out of it. It was so heartbreaking. I can't describe the feeling of having something you designed in your hands and seeing how poorly and cheaply it was made. And then I still didn't quite learn my lesson from this. I just decided to go with another jewelry designer, jewelry manufacturer. And I remembered someone because I was going through my mind. I was like, okay, who feels good? Who feels good that I can work with? And this woman's name popped into my head. And I thought, wow, I don't think she manufactures jewelry. She doesn't say that anywhere on her website. She doesn't say that anywhere on her socials. She must not manufacture jewelry from other people's designs. But I emailed her anyway. Turns out she was more than happy to work with me and she ended up producing exactly the right quality and material that I wanted for my jewelry. But yet, even with this dichotomy, of the first jewelry organization and the woman who manufactured my jewelry, I still didn't quite learn my lesson here. I didn't quite grasp the concept. I just thought I was working hard and I hit gold and I was able to find this person who produced my jewelry. Around this time is also when I spent more money on business coaches to help me build my business. And I have to wonder why it took so long for me to really remove hustling from my business or my practice. And the only answer to this is because it's the closest to my heart. At least for me, it was easy to stop hustling in areas that were not as important to me first. They didn't have so much. I wasn't so grippy when it came to them. My worth wasn't so tied to them as much as it was tied to my business and my practice. And so now we come to the main event. So I have now left Seattle and in 2023 is when I moved to Sedona. And I started working at this place in 2024 around May. So like I said before, at this point in 2024, As far as my practice and my life goes, I had a full-time job, a business. I had writing work, designing work, hiking group hosting, women group hosting, volunteer organization volunteering. I was doing it all and then some. And somehow I was balancing all of this out. And I wouldn't say I was tired. I was just excited at the joy of having all these opportunities in Sedona. And it was keeping me happy. But I was doing all of this with a sense of not feeling like I was doing enough. After everything that I was doing, I still felt like I didn't do enough. And so anyway, I started working at this place in May. I thought, you know, why not add a part-time consulting gig to my repertoire? And it's this small business in Sedona. And I was doing that in addition to my full-time job and my business and all the groups and yada, yada, yada. So you get the point. Here's the fun part. This place didn't even pay that well. I wasn't doing it for the money. I was just doing it for the passion because it was an extension of my business. And that's what I was doing at this place. And it brought in a lot of clients. It brought in a lot of energy. And I was just excited to work there. They didn't even pay that well. I just did it for the passion. One more thing to do, right? I didn't even need the money. Even if they paid me money, I didn't even need the money. I was already been taken care of financially in all the other areas of my life. I didn't even need the money. They didn't pay me well and I didn't even need them to pay well. I still was the grateful immigrant. The woman liberated going to excess. And I really want to talk to you about how this small business, how them firing me finally led to me breaking up with the specific character that I had of going to excess with working hard, trying hard, going hard. And so I want to show you all the ways I hustled, overachieved, pushed, struggled, strived, and all the ways that blew up in my face in this small organization. Because this is the first time that I literally could not get it right, no matter what I did. I could not get anything right in this organization. And all of the things I tried because they blew up in my face and everything not working is what needed to happen. for me to finally realize that it's not working. So let me give you some concrete examples. And it's a little bit embarrassing to share this story, but now looking back, it's also funny. But in the moment, it was not funny. In the moment, it was torturous. So here we go. So this new age little small business It catered to a very specific type of crowd. It was this new age tourist crowd. And it peddled in all these new age props, illogical belief systems, and just a variety of immature spiritual nonsense. And I knew that about this place. And instead of that being a trigger to my mind to saying, hey, this is not the right space for you, what did I do? I went and I interviewed there. I made myself believe that it wasn't important. Because It was more important what other people want. And what other people want is this new age touristy kind of thing that they come to to get a session with someone. And I thought I was just giving the people what they want and I was showing up where they wanted to go. Even though I was the complete opposite of all these value systems, I still decided to work there because I thought I needed to go where the people were to reach a broader group of people to work with. I thought there wasn't any harm in going where they wanted to go. I thought, in a way, I thought I could compromise my values to work there because that's what people wanted. And I just thought I could meet them where they're at. That's what people always tell you, right? Meet them where they're at. Meet them where they're at. Give the people what they want. That's hustling because that doesn't allow for creativity or innovation or really using your genius to work with people. That involves compliance. And I didn't realize that. And I thought that's what successful people do. Successful people build big businesses by giving people what they want. I thought successful people showed up where they were wanted, where they were needed. We hustle, we work hard, we put in the effort, we make do, we compromise, right? Right? No, it did not work for me. The clients who came I would say half of them were people who genuinely wanted truth and healing, but the other half were anywhere from manipulative to dangerous people to just people who wanted to hear typical new age things like you'll find your soulmate in 2026 or you'll lose weight because the angels will help you. People who wanted to hear things like that. And I'm not exaggerating. People literally wanted to hear that. Even people who wanted to make somebody love them. Some of these clients were just, again, half of the clients were beautiful and perfect. And then the other half were just not right. And instead of thinking, oh, this is not the right place for me. What did I do instead? I pushed through it anyway. Because I thought if 50% of the time the clients are a perfect match, then that's worth it, right? Who cares about the other 50%? So what did I do? I took on even more work. I actually asked for more work. I'm not even kidding you. I took on more shifts. I even took on a side project for them for free. I didn't even ask them, like I designed some of their posters and I didn't even take any money for it. Just because, because I, you know, 50% of the time it works. So why not? I can just make it work the rest of the 50% of time. The people who worked there, the so-called co-workers, shall we say, they are an episode in of itself. I'm talking a work environment that was straight out of Mean Girls. Have you ever watched the movie Mean Girls? That's what it was like. They only hired women. And it was like a teenage girl high school. And the meanness had been normalized. There was lots of favoritism, contradictory behavior, cruel gossiping. If they liked you, you got one set of rules. But if they didn't like you, you got another set of rules. And the rules would change and the rules wouldn't even be communicated to you. And those eight months that I was working with them was so incredibly stressful. It was like I was walking on eggshells the entire time. Almost everything I tried blew up in my face. And I started getting sick working there. There were times when I would walk into the store and I would get nauseous. I would walk into the establishment and get nauseous. It was, I tried so hard to make it work. I obeyed all their rules. I did everything they told me to do, and it still didn't work. Now, maybe there were two or three exceptions to the co-workers that worked there, but they too were just trying to do the job and leave. And they felt the stress of the environment themselves. But overall, it was just teenage girl high school. So what did Dilshad do? What did your girl do? Instead of thinking, oh, I need to leave this place, what did I do? I cooked for them. Yes. I cooked for them because I wanted to make it a nice environment. So I would offer things every chance I got. In addition to cooking, I would... Anything I had on me that was extra, I would bring it to the small business. I tried to be even more generous. Every time they would be cruel, I would be generous. I went above and beyond what was expected of me whenever I could. And like I said, I volunteered to help with extra projects whenever I could. Do you see what I mean about how I pushed and strived and struggled? And what's weird was that I was just happy to be there in the beginning. It was a new experience. I was happy to be there. But it very quickly got very, very dysfunctional. And I could never do anything right. They would always nitpick on everything that I did wrong. Everything. And according to them, everything I did was wrong. And I'm a naturally happy person. I'm naturally upbeat and I'm naturally joyous. But I was so low. and so depressed during this time. In the last few months that I worked there, I had become extremely closed off, sickly, mellow. I didn't want to hang out with anybody. And the light had started to go off in my eyes. You know, it really, my spunk, my spirit had just left. And what did I do? Even after I noticed all of this, what did I do? I convinced myself that this was only temporary. And that I will get used to it. If I just tried hard enough, I will get used to it. If I just obeyed all their rules, even the imaginary ones that they never communicated, I will get used to it. The manager that worked there in the entire eight months that I worked there never once had a conversation with me about anything. I worked there for eight months and she never once spoke to me unless I spoke to her first. Unless I initiated, she never spoke to me. Every time I saw her, what did I do? I would initiate conversation. I would try to talk to her. I would offer her my food. I remember one time she liked what I made and asked for the recipe. So I painstakingly wrote the recipe down. It must have taken me half an hour because I wrote down every detail, how to make it, because I wanted it to be perfect for her. Instead of saying that this manager is not a good person, does not like me at all, and that this is a dysfunctional environment, I ended up spending half an hour writing down a recipe for her, offering her food, and trying to talk to her. I even offered her a free pair of earrings that I had made from my jewelry collection. The truth is she had already made up her mind about me from the very beginning. And you might say, Doshad, this is not hustle culture. You're just people pleasing. I wasn't trying to please her. I didn't truly care how she, you know, whether she approved of me or not. I just wanted to be generous and work hard at fitting into this environment. I was just trying to level with her. And it was my hustling that made me go on for eight months. If I had prioritized feeling good instead, I would have left in the first three weeks. I may not have even joined that establishment at all if I had just prioritized feeling good. And so these are some concrete examples of how I strived and pushed and struggled and I could not get it right no matter what I did. Nothing I did worked. And I realized that somewhere I learned the belief system that feeling good wasn't as important as working hard and working a lot. And when they fired me one day before New Year's Eve, that relief, was that belief system leaving my body. After this, I will never compromise my safety, my values, my health in order to just work hard for the sake of working hard. Because like I said, I didn't even need the money. They weren't even paying me good money. There was no reason for me to work there. And so how did they fire me, right? They fired me by sending me this long, vague message highly emotional, lengthy email about all the mistakes that I made and why I was such a bad employee. And I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, my friends, but that email was not something I deserved, not even a little bit, not even 1%. And that dichotomy of knowing how much I gave to this organization and how I was treated for it I hate to say it, but I almost needed that contrast in order to see that my approach to my business and my practice and how I treated myself was not working. That email, it was like being executed for the crime of slurping a soup. Or imagine being stabbed because someone didn't like your face. That is what the difference in email for being fired is. And how I was living and working in that establishment. That was the difference between those two things. It was just so completely, I wouldn't even say out of line, I would say out of galaxy. The senselessness and the pointlessness of it all. I needed to get to that point, unfortunately, because there was no other way I could have learned this. I was so raging mad and so sad at the time. But now looking back, I really don't know how else I could have learned this. How else could I have learned this? And in all fairness, all things considered, this was actually a pretty easy way to learn this. To learn to prioritize feeling good and trusting that feel good. I really needed every single thing to go wrong. I needed that stark contrast. Because I can be stubborn. And to be treated so horribly was the only way I could learn to stop pushing. In fact, had the environment been pleasant, I probably would have continued pushing. And when I got that email, I realized that I valued the relief that I felt more than I valued the fact that I was let go. And I realized that I didn't want a successful anything. I don't want to be successful. I realized I don't want to be successful. I just want to feel good doing what I'm doing with whatever I'm doing. And if you want to give it a success metric, that's my KPI. That's my grade. That's my successful metric is, do I feel good with what I'm doing and how I'm doing it? This Henry David Thoreau, I hope I pronounced that right. He said, The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life, which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run. So basically, to shorten that, the price of a thing is the amount of life you exchange for it. And I paid too high a price. I destroyed everything that was good in me to work there. My values, my peace of mind, my self-esteem, my safety, my joy. I let myself be abused for no other reason other than the temptation of doing more, being more, seeing more. There was no other reason. And I had done that for most of my life. And with that email and with this experience, I've realized that I just value myself too much now to do worthiness gymnastics, which is really the core of hustle culture. And I really didn't know what self-love, what it means to love myself, or at least accept myself fully until this final nail in the coffin. And I can almost look back, I can almost look back and say, thank you. But at the same time, I truly no longer care that it happened. I'm almost telling you this story as an example to help you understand of how I got to where I got. And That's this episode. That's all I wanted to tell you about, you know, what is hustle culture? What is feel good culture? And how I got here and what it took to get me here. Because I can be a very stubborn woman. So in part two, which is the next episode, I'll be going over my practical examples and experiments in feeling good in 2025. And I'll be giving you a list of all of the ritual practices that should you choose to also want to start welcoming, feeling good into your life. You don't have to change your entire life. You can just start welcoming a little bit of that into your life. So yeah, I hope you liked this story. I hoped it was educational and you can see the arc of how I came to be. And so until next time, my friends, may you welcome the dignity of feeling good. Bye. you