Patti Montella: Episode 324

Transcript

[0:00:27] RW: Hi, everyone. It’s Rae Williams, host of Author Hour, where I interview authors about their new books. Life has a way of coming at us fast and when it does, we’re usually left searching for answers. That’s where Patti Montella found herself early in life after the death of a beloved friend and the unravelling of her marriage: seeking the universal truths of life. Her book Becoming Unshakeable, gives us a rare inside look into the life and transformation about true seeker who rose above countess obstacles, learned from her failures, discovered her inner resilience and uncover the source of happiness. Of course, in our chat today, she shared some of the 15 life changing wisdom lessons she writes about in her book. They’ll not only help you develop a new found sense of self-awareness, but also sets you on a path towards greater clarity, happiness, inner strength and fulfillment. Here’s our conversation with Patti Montella.

[0:01:27] Patti Montella: I saw the deep value of the yogic sciences and the Vedic wisdom and what it was doing for me personally and what it was opening up in my consciousness, how it was making my life easier, how much more resilience was coming up and more joy, more dynamism, just more in all the best ways and it’s a path from the East, from India and it’s an ancient path, it’s ancient wisdom. And so, I felt as someone from the west that it was really my responsibility, my duty to share this from my perspective as a – for a lack of really what’s traditional, there is no such thing, but let’s just say is a mainstream, you could say traditional person. I wanted to connect the dots for people. To see that this may look on the outside, different from what you’re accustomed to or what you’ve been exposed to, what you're familiar with. But the truth in this wisdom and in these practices, transcend religion, culture and any limited identifications. Truth is truth. Regardless of your religion, culture or background, this is wisdom that facilitates the highest expression of life in you as an individual and for society. So, as someone who is not from India, although, this wisdom, in this traditions are from India, I felt like if I would write about my experience, it would help people to step foot on the path themselves, they would be able to perhaps relate with, to me, in the obstacles and the questions and the doubts and the wonders and some of the concepts I had had. Break through that and have this treasure trove of wisdom and practices so they could have a happier, healthier, more fulfilling life themselves. Does that make sense?

[0:03:48] RW: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Tell me a little bit about your personal journey? Kind of to this wisdom and to being to then share this wisdom. What happened in your world that led you to this?

[0:04:03] Patti Montella: That led me to it or you mean, my journey that brought me here to begin with?

[0:04:08] RW: Yeah.

[0:04:09] Patti Montella: Okay. So, I’ve always been someone who I have a questioning and curious mind. How do things work? How can we – what is truth? How do I get to know what that is? I have never settled for a mundane existence and I find that’s our nature, our nature is to expand, we want to know more, we want to have more love, want to have more money, we want to have more happiness, we want to enjoy more. Because our nature is to expand. And that was very true and I was very aware of that in my own nature, this curiosity to understand and how does it all work? And I didn’t want to take just what I was told, in school or through, really, the religious instruction classes I had as a kid. I got value but I kept feeling there was something more that was universal and I didn’t know how to find it. And I also wanted to find unconditional love. I felt like it existed, but how to know it, where is it, how to experience it and who can teach me that? So, I did try a number of different things, you know, I studied, I had a really good solid training in the Catholic religion growing up and it really instilled love and appreciation for everyone who has come before, who has shared this kind of wisdom and it gave me a strong faith in a higher power. But it’s still left me wanting to know more and to also see it beyond an intellectual concept but to experience it in life. So, then I studied Native American traditions, I dabbled in metaphysics for a while and then I came to A Course in Miracles. That was the first time when I took classes and read A Course in Miracles that I started to find something that was beyond any religion or dogma, but was just pure truth about consciousness and how to live life with a great expression of human values, compassion, happiness, friendliness, sincerity, non-violence. That then woke something up in me that said, “aha, I’m starting to get there, this is a good compass but I’m still not quite there.” And when actually, one of my clients when I was in the corporate world, invited me to take something called the healing breath workshop at the time, which is now the happiness workshop, she told me it was about breath. I had seen the power of managing, making my breath smoother, finer, lighter and helping me with migraine headaches and tension. I said, “you know what? Let me check this out.” And when I first went to the course and it’s in the book, I thought, “I don’t actually know if this is for me. I have an open mind; I’ve done a lot of things.” But things on the outside, my mind was still caught up in external factors and it was different and the people were different and the environment, where I happened to take the course was a little different and I was a little unsure of myself. When I learned the Surdashan Kriya, the at the sky breathing technique, that is taught in the happiness program, it was an absolute game changer I my life. And from that point forward and then I heard the wisdom that Sri Sri Ravi Shankar shares this ancient wisdom that is so applicable for my life, for everybody’s life. Again, in managing the mind the emotions and really celebrating life, instead of just existing but making life a celebration. The truths were so universal and I said, “okay, this is exactly what I have been searching for since I’m 16.” It has not disappointed. It just gets richer, there’s more, the effects of the techniques, they’re cumulative, the wisdom, there’s so much wisdom and I ended up finding the mechanics of the breath and how our consciousness and the study of consciousness absolutely fascinating and the law of the unconditional love, that poured through, the teachings, the teacher and everyone around was undeniable. I had found the place that was going to bring me to the truth and it is truth. It’s allowed me to walk in truth and be very happy in doing it.

[0:09:18] RW: All right, so getting into the book a little bit. Of course, the title is Becoming Unshakeable Why is it that we need to be unshakable, what does being unshakable mean and how do we begin to apply that?

[0:09:32] Patti Montella: What becoming unshakable means is not letting people or situations circumstances affect your state of mind. You know, you wake up in the morning, have you wake up wake up in a really happy mood, you hear the birds singing, you have something to drink, have your breakfast and have a little bit of spring in your step. We all have days like that, right? And then, you go to the office and somebody says something to you or something doesn’t work out the way you wanted it to and this thing called life starts showing up either in the office, at home, with the kids, wherever. And that spring in your step, if you’re not unshakable from within, you’re going to give your state of mind over to what someone is saying or doing or what is or is not happening and you're no longer free. Rather than allowing outside circumstances to dictate your state of mind, when you learn breath work, meditation, you're in wisdom and you’re in the company of the enlightened as a way of life or people who are studying and applying these higher states of consciousness, ways to live. You're going to find that there’s a way to start the day like you’ve put your suit of, your Teflon. Nothing’s going to stick. So, you keep the remote control for your state of mind in your own hand. That’s powerful place to be, you know? That’s how we have inner freedom is, “this may be an unpleasant situation or a difficult personality but I’m going to be able to have inner peace, clarity of mind, I’m going to keep my smile, I’m going to have the ability to tap into my intuition, my creativity.” “I’m going to be resilient in the face of change or difficult to challenging circumstances and move through life with much greater ease.” And then, not only do we do that for ourselves. But instead of adding pollution, thought pollution in the environment, we’re adding something positive. We’re contributing something positive.

[0:11:50] RW: All right. And so, I’d like to kind of dive into the book a bit and touch on just a couple of chapters that the chapter tittles that catch my eye and just talk a little bit about those concepts. One of the ones that kind of leaped out at me if you will, is The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling of course, because I feel like we all feel like that sometimes. We have a day where you wake up in the morning and one thing happens and the sky is falling, you know? In your personal experience, what was that like and how do we stop the sky from falling? The chapter after that is What Doesn’t Kill you Make you Stronger, I assume those kind of go hand I hand. So, I’d love to know more about that.

[0:12:35] Patti Montella: Well, The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling is referring to the year 2000 when Y2K happened and there were so much fear and so much preparation worldwide that the computer systems could crash and the calendar had only gone that far on how to – I’m not a programmer, but had something to do with programming and the technology and then what was going to happen if all the technology crashed, what’s going to happen, are you going to be able to get your money out of the bank, is there going to be food? People were storing seeds and food and all kinds of things, anticipating an apocalyptic situation. This was complete illusion in the mind. And I was with a technology company at the time. So, you can imagine, we were doing all kinds of things to avoid or say prepare for what ifs. Nothing happened, that particular new year, I was in Italy with Sri-Sri Ravi Shankar, we were having a millennium course. We’re on a beach in Tuscany about several hundred of us with our teacher, in front of the ocean, meditated to say goodbye to 1999 and then meditated in the morning to welcome the year 2000. Nothing happened and he predicted nothing would happen but still, the world was on edge. And it was so amazing to me to see how our minds can get carried away with anxiety which is – I mean, even in our own country, it’s almost an epidemic levels. With fantasy and imagination of what might have happened. And then when the mind just so in the future, then there’s going to bring a lot of stress in the nervous system. Either if the mind is in the past, where there’s sorrow and regret or we glorify the past, or the mind’s in the future where there’s anxiety, we’re not in the present moment and the present moment is where the joy is. The present moment is where the clarity is. So, it is really quite an experience to see how one person’s fear or your own fear can get carried away about things that may never come to be and we waste so much time and energy in doing that missing the beauty and the joy of the present moment.

[0:15:31] RW: All right and so another chapter that I wanted to touch on that I again, grabbed me is the chapter that is purified in the fire of criticism. So, what about that? Because again, you know words jump out of me. The sky is falling is a feeling we all feel and worry that we are worrying about the things that are not actually existing that we’ve invented but also purified in the fire of criticism, I feel like criticism is something that leads to anxiety that people are afraid of. What was that like for you? What was that chapter about?

[0:16:04] Patti Montella: Absolutely, see it’s part of life. People are going to say nice things to us. People are going to say things, have their opinions. It’s just part of life, but it is a strength in life to be able to give constructive criticism and to receive constructive criticism or anything. Anybody could say about me now, it is not going to shake my smile. That is not going to affect my state of mind because this journey leads you to knowing who you really are and to embrace that. And you know I see these suicide is so high anymore, especially among young people particularly in our country and why are our kids committing suicide like this? Because somebody rejected them at 12 years old or 13 years old. Well rejection is going to come in life, failure is going to come in life, these are things that give us an opportunity to apply our faith. Our faith in our self, our faith in the good of society and faith in a higher power. And being able to give criticism and receive criticism it brings up so much self-confidence. And I don’t mean criticism, where someone is shaking their finger at you telling you what they don’t like. But the kind of feedback that will create expansion in you not contraption. So, it’s a deep topic and it looks at one of the seven levels of our existence. It looks at the ego. So, there is seven layers of existent or seven levels, body, breath, mind, intellect, memory, ego and the self. When we, in my experience was “somebody’s criticizing me or I am failing,” then you can go down this road of victim consciousness. And you start, it didn’t happen. “I failed because of this circumstances or this person didn’t help me or that situation didn’t happen or how could they say that about me or how could say this about the work that my team did?” That is called not victim defense consciousness and defending makes us small. It means you don’t really know who you are that you are part of this divinity. You are truth, you are beauty, you are love, you have so much capacity, so much resource. And the difficult times, the failures, these things you move through it with again, breathe work, meditation and wisdom. You are going to become so much more resilient. So that anybody can say anything to you and again, you will be unshakable. You will be in your center. You will be able to move forward in life rather than getting shaken by someone’s opinion. So, in that story, the purity is the purity of emotion. You know the emotions can make our state. They do make if they are negative emotions, it’s pollution in your state of mind, in your equanimity, in your total peace. So, when you are purified in the fire of criticism, what happens? If you pound gold more, gold gets shinier. If you rub something like sandalwood, the more you rub it, the sweeter the fragrance. So, facing the fear, facing the failure and moving through it with the tools I talk about in the book will purify you so that you are unshakable. And that is exactly what happened to me. It was a big event and of course in any big event, there seems everybody does right things that aren’t so right, mistakes that happened but Sri Sri took it as an opportunity to really purify me in the fire of criticism and at first to be honest, I did not handle it well. I thought I could take more and it turned out there was still something small in me that couldn’t take it and a year later, nature set it up that put me in the exact same situation. And honestly, I thought, “you have got to be kidding me. I already went through that.” It was unpleasant. I became emotional and you know I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want to be so shaky in life that if somebody says something, I lose my smile and I want to defend myself. That is a really small way to move through life and I know that is not who I am. And when that same dynamics were presented by nature, the absolute same dynamics this time it woke the valor in me. Instead of being afraid, the valor woke up and I just let go of what the outcome was. I was 100% in action and this time it turned out to be very successful. That was our very first national interview of Sri Sri in America. So how I had failed the year before, I found it was a game with nature I until I learned my mentioned to have that valor and move forward, come what may and it worked out quite well and it made me much stronger from within as a result. So that is the purification, rub that sandalwood, go ahead and hit that gold and it is going to shine more in time.

[0:21:44] RW: Do you have just an example of maybe a client you worked with or a company that you worked with that has applied some of these principles and has become unshakable?

[0:21:56] Patti Montella: Well, I could never say that a company has become unshakable, but I can give you a very recent example of a company I worked with who really took a risk at a time of a lot of pressure on the company and what the result was, would that work for you?

[0:22:16] RW: Yeah that’s perfect.

[0:22:17] Patti Montella: Because a company is made up of individuals, right? So, I cannot speak for everyone in their company. Last year, I was in the Philippines and I was teaching a corporate program at Coca-Cola FEMSA and it was really something. The CEO of the company had taken our programs in Argentina years earlier and had had an extraordinary benefit in his personal life and he wanted to share this with his employees, his management team and directors and all of the senior executives at Coca-Cola FEMSA. And their top boss was coming in within a couple of days and there was a lot going on, a lot going on in the marketplace, a lot happening for them in the Philippines at the time and now the big boss was coming in to meet with all the top executives and at that time, the CEO said to me, “Patti, I want this program. It’s called T Lux for everyone,” and I knew at the time it was going to be difficult for the busy executives to agree to it because it seemed illogical to them, right? Why are we going to take a training program of managing our mind and emotions and getting along better as teams and inspired leadership right at this particular time when everything is hitting the fan and we are working so many hours to prepare for this big visit? So, I had conviction in what I teach and what I’m sharing through my own experience and that of tens of thousands of people I’ve taught. So, I knew in the end it would be a boom for them. But we are going to have to get through some doubt and resistance to get there. The bottom line in only a few hours over a few days, all the dynamics in their team changed. They said to one another, “I never knew you. I have worked with you all of these years. I had no idea what you are going through, had I known as you’re perhaps they were their director or their VP I would have been able to better manage things for us as a team so that you don’t have to go through all of this.” And then they said, “Patti I am finding through these breathing techniques” they were so excited. They’re like little kids who just found the best candy in the shop, “Patti I am getting actually more done in less time because my mind is so focused. I am not worrying about the visit that is coming up in two days. I am not thinking about what we did or didn’t do right before. I am really in the present moment with these breathing techniques this is amazing,” and I watched it unfold. And I was there when this big boss came in from – I am not sure exactly where, it was Mexico or Panama, but he came in and I watch them waiting each to go into their meetings with him. They were so happy and relaxed. Everything went so wonderful and they were so relieved and it also has a domino effect in their personal life too, right? Because they were not quite so tense. They were able to finish earlier and to be home earlier. Everything, it brought balance into their lives. So, it helped them to be really unshakable during the time of high stress and high demand and it was a joy for me to see it as a trainer and to see that happen for each person in the group and the CEO was very, very pleased.

[0:26:03] RW: Awesome, all right so if you had to issue a challenge. So, to your readers, listeners, people who are just wanting to change their life, what would that challenge be?

[0:26:15] Patti Montella: I would say, you know when we travel and we’re at 30,000 feet on the airplane and we decide we are not comfortable or we’re not liking how it’s going you can’t just say, “let me out. I want to get out now.” You have to finish the trip, in order to have a full experience. So, the first challenge would be read the whole book. Start to finish, see the whole journey and then take at least, two to three of those wisdom lessons shared in the book and reflect on it in your own life. Self-reflection again, not giving people or situations the power of over our state of mind, to me has been one of the sweetest things in life. It is exactly what has helped me to become unshakable, is not being afraid to look at what is small in myself, but to look at it so I can make it a strength not a weakness. So, if they take two to three, if my readers would take two to three, you don’t even had to do more than that, just start with two or three of those wisdom lessons and self-reflect and see by living that wisdom, how can that – What will that do to bring more joy, more ease, more fulfillment in your life? And I really challenge them to take a happiness course with the Art of Living Foundation and learn the breath work.

[0:27:59] RW: All right, awesome and then how can people contact you if they want to learn more?

[0:28:03] Patti Montella: Well, they can email me at hello@pattimontella.com and I also am on Twitter, I’m on Facebook, I am on Instagram and I am very active on all of it. So, email me, reach out to me on social media. I actually really – I have the heart of a teacher and a passion to share the knowledge with others so that they can really have celebration in life. So, it is my nature to connect with others and I really going to look forward to have a conversation along these lines. I think these are the most, juiciest the most interesting conversations that help us to look into our self-development and expansion in life. So, anyone of those ways will work.

[0:28:59] RW: All right awesome. Thank you so much Patti.

[0:29:02] Patti Montella: Thank you, Rae. It was always a joy to connect with all of you and you in particular.

[0:29:09] RW: Oh, thank you. Thank you very much. Loved chatting with Patti Montella and fun fact, I actually got to sit through a breath work session with her that was completely invigorating and without even knowing it, she transformed the entire approach that I have to meditation. So, you really want to check out her book, Becoming Unshakable, which is available right now on amazon.com. I’ll see you next time on Author Hour.