A2H #18 | The Only in the Room with Anika Aftab

Have you ever felt like you were an only in the room? Like no matter how many people you’re surrounded by, you feel like you can’t quite relate to anyone? It’s hard to put a specific word to what this feels like. Our guest today, Anika Aftab, has searched far and wide in many languages and cultures for the perfect word. She ultimately describes it as feeling like the only in the room. In fact, she feels soo deeply about this that she’s writing a book on it, called, you guessed it, The Only in the Room.On the day this was recorded earlier this year, Anika interviewed me for her book and podcast, and we had so much fun that we decided to keep the conversation going and recorded this interview for my podcast on the same day. As life would have it, we’re releasing the episodes on the same day! So if you like this episode, make sure you check out her podcast called The Only in the Room to check out her episode interviewing me.Anika is one of the realest people I know. She doesn’t pull her punches, she gets to the heart of what she’s trying to say right away, and she doesn’t mind being vulnerable about the lessons she’s learned along the way. She has a very excited and grounded perspective of the universe that is childlike yet mature, with wonder yet with clarity, with awe yet with OBVIously….at Anika’s core is a hyper awarness about the duality of what it means to be a human.In this episode, she shares a powerful excerpt from her book about lonliness vs being alone that I know you’ll love. We talk about the moment she realized she was muting her own story, we talk about substance use and abuse and addictions.We talk about the mental wrestling around synchronicities and signs from the universe.We talk about angel numbers and all could mean, and we also talk about how they can could mean aboslutely nothing too.Thanks so much for joining us today, and let’s dive in.Listen to my interview with AnikaListen on SpotifyConnect with AnikaInstagram: @theonlyintheroom Instagram: @anikersssLinkedIn:Anika Aftab____________________________________Follow the PodInstagram: @art2heart.podcastWebsite: art2heart.life____________________________________Podcast artwork by Holly Pelletier ClarkInstagram: @themoonstorybook