Padma Sundari daring to put love first

My guest today is Padma Sundari. She is a meditation teacher from Mexico but now lives in Norway, and she has been on a journey of self-discovery through choosing for happiness and learning How to choose for happiness. She is also a mum to her 9-year old son Khaled and has been a solo mum for much of her son’s life, and I’m looking forward to finding out how meditation has supported her in her life both with parenting and re-establishing her life in a different country and culture. Topics Mentioned: Curiosity led her to learn to meditate. Previously, happiness was following the recipe - finish school, get a job, get a husband, have a family and then the fairy tale says that after that you are happy forever. But after getting pregnant to her boyfriend she realised that that wasn’t what she wanted - So she decided to be a single mum - the first thing she did to consciously own her own happiness. “I really wanted to feel good, happy, grounded, mature and I was open to it. I was directly my journey towards meditation, because I was getting peace from it and I knew it worked.” She thought meditation would fix her but she learned that there was nothing to fix. Being ‘fixed’ was just a concept, a judgement. Kids don't care about judgements and beliefs because when we are young, we are just happy for no reason. “I had a clear goal, to do something that I knew works, to close my eyes, to find who I was beause I knew that I could be a better version of me, for my son.” How Padma made it a priority to meditate every day, making it work, even as a parent, even with her son around. And now her son meditates with her. Biggest impact - finding courage, finding the real desires that are in me, being true to who I am and not what society dictates. When Padma stopped looking for love to fulfil her, she found someone who was willing to prioritise her peace as well. It is beautiful to experience love with no judgement - it feels great, authentic, it is the experience I had always been looking for, it just happened to be with another woman. Biggest challenge: Acceptance - learning how to be accepted in a new country and culture. Wisdom: Do what makes you happy. Try different things, make different choices, follow your heart. Meditation helped Padma realise that there was a part of her that intuitively knew where to go and what the right choice to make was. I loved noticing that both before and after Padma Sundari made meditation a part of her life, her inner drive was always pulling her toward putting love above all else, even at the risk of going against convention or at the risk of experiencing judgement from others. First is taking the courageous decision to raise her child on her own and then later in entering a same sex relationship. Resources Mentioned: Chit Happens by Narain Ishaya [amazon_textlink asin='1452558205' text='Chit Happens' template='ProductGrid' store='lilab108-20' marketplace='US' link_id='43810324-aa60-11e7-9a8b-397257a39f19'] This episode is brought to you by Audible. Don't forget you can trial Audible for 30 days with one free audiobook by going to lilab.life/audible.