The Divine Feminine is rising and with it the potential for a better world to live in. Join us in this transformative episode as we delve into the profound realm of the Divine Feminine with the insightful Neeta Jain. Discover the ancient wisdom of Shakti and its incredible potential as a remedy for burnout in our fast-paced lives. Neeta shares practical insights and empowering practices to tap into the feminine energy that resides within us all. As we explore the sacred principles of Shakti, you’ll learn how to harness its revitalizing force to achieve balance, resilience, and a renewed sense of purpose. This conversation is a gentle reminder that embracing the Divine Feminine is not just a spiritual practice but a potent solution for modern-day burnout. Tune in and embark on a journey of self-discovery and empowerment, as Neeta guides us through the path of Shakti to reclaim vitality, joy, and a harmonious life.
—
Watch the episode here
Listen to the podcast here
The Power Of The Divine Feminine: Shakti As A Burnout Solution With Neeta Jain
In this episode, I have such a special guest with you, Neeta Jain. I’m going to have Neeta go over her entire background but I do want to start with a quick bio. Neeta is an engineer turned board-certified health coach who supports ambitious women to shatter glass ceilings without breaking down their bodies and minds. Neeta is the Founder of Her Shakti, a wellness empowerment platform, and is a DEIB. What’s DEIB? Tell everyone.
Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.
That’s a new one to me. She is a DEIB champion at tech corporations. She delivered a TEDx Talk, which I watched and highly recommend, focused on corporate burnout and women’s wellness. We need that more than ever. Neeta was also featured in the Leadership Essential Series for women at Amazon globally, where she spoke to a virtual audience with a reach of 60,000 employees. By any standards, that is a humongous audience. Congratulations on that.
Thank you so much, Jen. I’m so happy to be here.
We’re so happy to learn from your wisdom. We’d like to share why I chose or curate this wonderful guest list for this show. You’ve heard me say it before. When you become a black belt in badassery, it means that you’ve overcome lots of challenges or maybe one huge challenge in your life. When you get to the other side, you are on a mission to help other people rise. Usually, for this show, we’re talking about women but honestly, all humans could rise.
One other quick thing before we dive in, right as I was thinking about Season 2 and who I can have shared their wisdom on this show, I saw a little clip on Instagram from Michael Beckwith. I don’t know if you know who he is. Don’t you love him? Everyone out there, if you don’t know who he is, he is a spiritual teacher. He has a massive spiritual center here in Los Angeles that’s pretty famous called Agape. This little clip said something like this, “We are living in an age where the divine feminine is rising here in the United States. In Africa, Iran, and all over the world, the divine feminine is rising.” Right around then, I watched Neeta’s TEDx Talk all about divine feminine energy.
I got goosebumps. Feminine is rising. It’s true. I feel and see it. It’s collective. It is happening in all paths of the world. It’s happening interestingly like protests in different parts of the world and even in corporations as we dive deeper into that. Thank you for that beautiful quote.
The divine feminine is rising so let’s rise together. With that, I’m going to pass it over to you. I would love to hear you share your background a little bit from that TEDx Talk that I love so much.
Thank you for having me. I’m a huge fan of The Art of Badassery Movement. I was so excited to get that invitation. I was like, “Anything to be associated with that movement.”
I love that you call it a movement.
It is the show, the book, and all of you. I grew up in India. I always dreamed of America. I had the American dream. At the time, I had three goals, get a job in big tech, meet a decent guy and get married, and then buy a home and live the American dream. At the time, I wanted to work at Microsoft. Along my immigrant journey, I kept checking these boxes. I don’t know if they’re good boxes but they were my boxes. That’s what the expectations were of you.
I kept checking them on. I made it to Amazon. I became a new mom. Like in the TEDx Talk, I do the beatboxing. I was in the maternity room pumping breast milk on conference calls, breaking down and crying, smelling my son’s onesie. I looked down and noticed that I had produced more tears than breast milk. That’s when I felt disconnected from my body. I knew something was very off that I had checked all these boxes. I had been that good girl. I had checked all the boxes and done what everybody had told me to. I was still miserable. I felt misaligned with my purpose. I faced this existential crisis like, “What am I on this planet for?” I didn’t have an answer and that bothered me.
What was the answer?
I didn’t have the answer. I was like, “Surely there has to be a purpose where I’ve been put on this planet at this time.” I searched online. I love this term called ikigai. Have you heard of that term?
Yes, it’s a Japanese term.
The reason for living. It’s this beautiful Venn diagram with four circles. It says, “What do you love? What are you good at? What can pay you money?” The fourth one, “What does the world need from you?” The intersection of the four bubbles is where you are like, “If you love something, you’re good at it. If the world needs it and you get money from it, that’s when you experience the state of flow,” where in the way they can from India, you call it the state of Korea, where you effortless flow.
I was not feeling. I was feeling anything but that. I was feeling a lot of friction and burnout. That’s my story. I burnt out and took the very spontaneous and unlikely decision to quit my job. As an immigrant, that’s hard because you’re on this temporary work visa, which you have to leave the country. I have a baby but I did it. I spontaneously quit my job, which seemed very impractical. I felt very irresponsible but aligned. I joined IIN. I went to nutrition school. Did you also go, Jen?
Yes. If you don’t know what IIN is, it’s Institute for Integrative Nutrition. That’s where I started my health coaching career in 2005. What year was this that you quit your job and did that?
This is much later. It was 2018. That’s how I started. I always knew I was passionate about health and wellness. At 2:00 AM in the middle of the night, I could go down a rabbit hole searching for what vitamins are in which food. I could be out on it. It would never bore me. I thought, “Why not study something for the joy of it?” Computer Science is what I came here to study. As a student, it was very practical but I didn’t feel lit up by it.
You mentioned when you came here to study. What age were you when you came here from India?
I was 21. I turned 22 here. It’s pretty late in life. It was 2004. This was way back. I came here to do my Master’s in Computer Science. I did engineering in India. I started my career as a software engineer in the Silicon Valley. I was in California. That was my first journey.
Up there, I bet there’s plenty of burnout going on and they need you more than ever. Can we back up even more because there was something in your TED Talk that I thought was so important? I bet your realization of it came. You mentioned your deep dive into the subject of the divine feminine and feminine energy. Can you bring us back to early Neeta and your relationship with your dad? How does that all play out in your new search for well-being and balance?
Growing up in India, when there were guests who came home, at the time, he would say, and I’m going to imitate him a little bit, “I have two sons.” He would point at my brother and me. Strangely, I felt flattered. I was as good as a boy. It was a compliment. I grew up believing that was something to be proud of. My family speaks this dialect called Malvi. It’s spoken by a few in India. In that language, he called me something, which means a good obedient child or a good girl.
Growing up, I felt like I had to be as fast and strong as a boy but also this good girl. It was confusing like, “Do I stay quiet to color with the lines or should I challenge everything?” It felt like I had to be both. I feel like as I grew up and as women, we are always in this pressure cooker, “You got to be doing this and that,” at the same time while being a good girl or whatever that means.
As women, it feels like we’re always in a pressure cooker. You have to both be as fast and as strong as a boy while being a good girl at the same time.
This reminds me of the Barbie monologue by America Ferrera. It’s so good.
When I saw that, I had goosebumps that wouldn’t go away. Fun fact, the Barbie movie inspired what I wrote on the TEDx stage. I chose Barbie. It’s the year of Barbie 2022. Not too many people know that but here it is on the show. That was the reason for the Barbie pink. I felt like we needed more female engineers so I got into engineering. My father was a celebrated engineer. I felt this call to prove myself that I’m as good. There was always that competitive streak, perhaps it is, that was my conditioning growing up in a patriarchal society like India.
I’m sure everyone out there reading is doing what I’m doing and going back to my childhood. I write a little bit about it even in my introduction to the book. It’s confusing. If you grew up like me, even here, which is not maybe as patriarchal as how you grew up but still it’s invasive. I had parents that would say, “You can do whatever you want when you grow up. You can become a lawyer or doctor, and could do this.”
At the end of us eating dinner, my brother got to sit there while me and my sister had to clean off the table. There were different things that irked me and were noticeable. If not careful, we carry that with us throughout our lives and in this way. It’s like an unconscious message that as a woman, your needs, wants and desires are not as important as a man’s. That’s how I have interpreted it in my life and how I see it in many others.
If that doesn’t resonate with you, great but if it does, maybe this is your chance, time, or opportunity. Take a look at it and say, “Is that true? Am I playing that out in my roles and relationships? Am I allowing other people’s needs, wants, and desires to be more important than my own?” Women do that all the time. Even with their children, not just their partners, relationships with their bosses and colleagues. It’s invasive. Bounce back to you, you then start realizing this and start doing a deeper dive into that masculine feminine energy. Can you share more about that and teach us a little bit?
Thank you for that example from your childhood. It’s interesting that you share that because as an immigrant, I always looked at America as being not patriarchal at all. When I arrived here, it was there but differently presented. It’s very much there. When I was in corporations and studying in the Computer Science program, I kept feeling this need to be more like a boy to fit into the brogrammer culture.
Is that a word, brogrammer?
Wearing the hoodie and being good at video games.
You dress like a boy. Sometimes I do. I put on my very feminine floral shirt for this episode. I want to point that out. Go ahead.
I encountered that along the journey, whether it was in India or America, whether it was in a classroom in engineering or a tech corporation. I always found something coming up. I went to IIN because I was burnt out. I was disconnected from my body. I wanted answers. I wanted to be healthy, the buzzword. I drank enough green juice, did a lot of Pilates, and still felt like crap.
I went to IIN and felt like they talked about primary and secondary food. That was very insightful. I was doing well in nutrition and was very good at fitness but I wouldn’t sleep and rest. I was just going. I wouldn’t stop. This is a common limiting belief that the hours you work and how busy you are define your worth to your bone. I felt like I wouldn’t stop.
Along the way, as I was going down different rabbit holes, I found the answers in the ancient Eastern philosophies. Yin and Yang from China and Shiva and Shakti in India. They all refer to these two specific energies that exist in each one of us, our communities and society, and how the planet has been built. That’s masculine and feminine in very simplistic terms. Masculine would be Shiva in Indian philosophy. It would be Yang in the Chinese philosophy. Feminine would be Shakti and Yin in the Chinese philosophy. Feminine means a state of being and masculine is a state of doing.
Masculine refers to the state of doing, and feminine refers to the state of being.
You’re analytical, rational, logical, and results-oriented. You are in the mind. Feminine reference to the state of being and surrender. I live in the suburbs of New Jersey. There are lots of trees and animals. They say this is the Yin part but when you go into a city like Manhattan, everybody’s racing and doing. I found that the answer was in finding the unique balance between these two energies. This balance is different for each one of us.
In my past, I was so much in my masculine. I wouldn’t rest, surrender, or trust. That’s the wounded feminine where it’s hard to trust and let go. You are controlling. This has nothing to do with gender. We can be anywhere on the gender spectrum and have both energies. Depending on what’s the right mix for us, we need to reclaim feminine and masculine.
As a woman, we are expected to only be feminine. I tried that. I went to the other end of the spectrum. I said, “No more masculine, only feminine. I’m going to focus on being intuitive. I wouldn’t do much.” You have to be both. We need to be building those big vision boards, introspecting, and going within but we also need to come out and take action. It’s that balance.
I taught my digital vision board workshop. I do it once a year. That’s exactly the thing. There are three steps to manifestation, manifesting anything but your dream life is one being clear. Be calm. Give yourself that time to think, feel, see, and hear what your goals, dreams, and desires are because most of us don’t even know what that is. Step two is to create a visual representation of that so we can use a vision board or something like that. Step three is probably the most important and that is getting into action, even if it’s baby steps in the direction of your dreams. You figured that out with that other philosophy. There’s so much wisdom.
Can I share a fun fact? I don’t know if I shared this with you. Maybe, I did. My 2023 vision board had a picture of you doing TEDx. I do it on paper and pen. I thought I shared it on Instagram when I put it. It’s interesting because when my TEDx went live, it was Facebook that reminded me. My Facebook and Instagram are linked. It said, “Same time last year, you shared Jen,” because yours went live then. I had reshared it to my audience at the time. Funnily, mine was out. That’s when I was like, “You were on my vision board.”
I didn’t know that. That’s so cool. I’m honored.
I’ll share the picture of the vision board. I keep all of them. Along this journey of feminine and masculine, I realized that if you’re too much in your masculine, you get burnt out of doing. If you’re too much in your feminine, you feel stuck. I felt this sense of inertia when I was too much in my feminine. I needed a little bit of both. I felt very empowered to reclaim my masculinity because that’s a huge part of my being. I felt very confused about my childhood, reclaiming the fem-masculine. There was always this tug of war. I feel so empowered to reclaim both the energies in myself.
For people reading, what are some things that they can think about? How can we tell? What are some signs that we are maybe unbalanced or that we’re leading with one of those energies maybe a little too much or is there such thing as too much?
In general, the world is too masculine. I was in my masculine too much. Look at our corporations, the hustle culture, and work to the bones culture. In general, we are more masculine. There is some good research around feminine leadership that when we lead, and this is for men, women, or however you identify on the gender spectrum, you can be empathetic and vulnerable. You are empowered to do that. That’s the feminine leadership that a man can also embody and adopt.
Some signs would be being too stressed out. Burning out is a common sign. The way I teach, I give some practical examples. For example, when you’re working out in the gym, some people only do strength training, cardio, or hip. I would incorporate stretching. Imagine the stretch and the yoga after your strength training. That’s the balance of Yin and Yang in workouts. The other way to think of it, which is the simple way, is the pause after speaking is the Yin and Yang, the exhale and inhale. The exhale is the Yin, and the inhale, which is energizing, is the Yang.
I know you are Dan 3 Hapkido. My son does Taekwondo. I watched very carefully. Even in Taekwondo, I see how they balance the Yin and Yang. It’s part of the symbol where there is this meditation, slowing down, and going into action, which is the Yang. There is the Yin portion. It’s watching for that balance that we need. I’ve been doing this for a few years. I catch myself when I’m overdoing it. For example, when I’m over-binging Emily in Paris, I know I’m a bit too much in my Yin. I’m not moving and just letting go. That’s when I need to be like, “Maybe I need to wake up at 5:00 AM or 7:00 AM, go for that strength training class, and get some action.”
That’s funny because I was watching Barbie for the second time in a row. I needed to be as you put it. It’s being. That so felt good. I’m brought back to the dojo in my past where I learned a lot about Yin and Yang. You’re right. Even in our movements, there was the hard, fast, and aggressive type of training. We always had slower movements, katas, that synced with our breath, all kinds of things, and meditation. It felt so balanced. Yet, at the same time, I look back to those ten years living in New York City hustling and running my business as a personal trainer and health coach.
I was running around the city in and out of the subways. It felt hard and aggressive. I was very much in my masculinity because I had to get things done, pay the rent and bills, and get more clients. I had to be that way. When I moved out to Los Angeles, it felt a little bit more expansive. The smell of Jasmine. I was no longer living in Chinatown. I felt more in my feminine. It’s interesting to think of it in those terms but even my whole personality has softened a bit, not all the way. That might be getting older and hopefully wiser.
The expansion and contraction felt exactly right. Yin is expansive and Yang is contraction. I had sugar addiction cycles. The way I overcame sugar addiction was by balancing the Yin and Yang energies on my plate.
Say more about that.
This is what I learned. Every food has an energy associated with it. If you’re too much in the Yin, you’ll start craving the Yang. As an Indian, I eat a lot of spicy food. When I do that, I crave sweet desserts to balance that off. I’ve been too much in my Yang because sweet stuff is Yin. Even if you go to Japan and eat their food, it’s balanced. There’s no pull. Another good example is in restaurants, they serve these salty nuts right in the beginning. That gets you into the Yang.
You create the Yin, which is the alcohol. That’s how the restaurant industry has monetized this balance. It’s there in everything. What I found is when I talk about gender inequity in our society, we all grew up as gender essentialists where just because you’re a girl, you are expected to be feminine. You’re a boy so you’re expected to be good at numbers and repairing the toilet. As a woman, you’re expected to be nurturing and being good in the kitchen. There’s one thing about being gender essentialist but also feminine has been considered inferior to masculine.
Masculine qualities are venerated. If you are analytical, rational, hard, and tough, you’re more respected. If you tend to be a vulnerable and soft person, you are not an appreciated and nurturing person. There’s been an imbalance in our society. When you combine gender essentialism and patriarchy, that’s what leads to gender inequity. We see this in our homes, sports grounds, and boardrooms. I’ll give a stat. In the boardrooms as of 2023, only 1/3 of the seats are occupied by women.
We see that in our government. This is when I wrote the book but I don’t think much has changed. Only about a quarter of all the leadership seats in both houses were held by women and yet our population is half women and half men but we’re only being represented by a quarter of women. It doesn’t make sense.
The quote that you shared from Michael Beckwith is, “The feminine is rising.” We are seeing the benefits for everybody when they embrace the feminine within themselves. The TEDx Talk was dedicated to my son because I hope that he embraces the feminine in him. The next wave of feminism will come from men who embrace their femininity. Women have been fighting this good fight for centuries.
The next wave of feminism will come from men who embrace their feminine because women have been fighting this good fight for centuries, and we need allies.
We need allies, men who embrace their femininity too, and women who embrace their masculinity. I would love for boys who want to embrace their femininity to be empowered and for women who want to embrace their masculinity to be empowered to do so. Growing up, I felt like this was never the case. Thank you for teasing that beautiful quote at the beginning. I feel that was such an important theme.
We brought it full circle. Thank you so much. Here we are. That’s a great way to step right into our Rapid-fire questions for you. 1) What was your favorite food when you were a kid?
It has to be sweet. I’d say ice cream.
It’s very Yin of you. 2) If you could have a drink with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be and what would you drink?
I would love to have a drink with Arianna Huffington and talk all about burnout or have a nice Yin cosmo.
I can see the scene in New York City happening. Arianna, are you reading? 3) What is your favorite self-help book or personal development book?
There are so many that have transformed me. I love the book The ONE Thing by Jay Papasan.
That book keeps coming up in my high-performance coaching certification that I’m in. When someone recommends something three times to me, that’s when I buy the book
It’s so good. It was a game-changer. I have the shiny object syndrome. I keep feeling the FOMO. I need to double down on that one thing in my life, which is not just any one thing but the leading domino effect in our lives. I’m always looking for that one thing. I need to focus on one habit and the tide that can lift all the boats.
That’s one of my favorite quotes. Last but not least, what’s your favorite hype song?
Unstoppable.
Sia?
Yes, that one.
That’s mine. I can’t believe no one has said that yet. Thank you for saying it because it’s going on the playlist. Please, tell everyone where they can find you, follow you, and watch your TEDx Talk.
My Instagram handle is @IAmNeetaJain. My website is NeetaJain.co.
Thank you so much, everyone. I hope this was helpful and that you get to explore your masculine and feminine energy. One last message for everyone out there, maybe for men reading. I was going to ask you then when you were talking about it but is there anything that you want to say to men who might be reading this episode?
I would invite men to be curious and open their minds. Oftentimes, when I say the word feminist, a lot of men are like, “It’s like equated to terrorist. I’m a feminist.” It’s as bad. I’d have them be curious about feminine and masculine energies and explore them among themselves. Unfortunately, men experience so much stigma. I feel for them because they feel like they can’t be vulnerable and show their empathy as leaders. Especially in our times, we need leaders in our government and companies to embody feminine leadership.
In this day and age, we need leaders in our government and our companies to embody feminine leadership.
I love this so much. I invite all the gents out there, but everyone, the invitation to explore. Thank you all so much, Neeta, for being such a wonderful guest, and for sharing your wisdom with us. Everyone out there, thank you for reading. Subscribe. Leave us a message. Go to Instagram and let us know what you thought of this episode. As always, stay safe and enjoy.
Thank you, Jen.
Important Links
- Her Shakti
- TEDx Talk – The Surprising Path To Equity In Our Imbalanced World
- Agape
- The ONE Thing
- @IAmNeetaJain
- NeetaJain.co
About Neeta Jain
Neeta Jain is an Engineer turned board-certified Health Coach (NBC-HWC), who supports ambitious women to shatter glass ceilings without breaking down their bodies and minds. Neeta is the Founder of Her Shakti LLC, a wellness empowerment platform and is a DEIB champion at Tech corporations.
She recently delivered a TEDx talk, focussed on Corporate Burnout & Women’s wellness. Neeta was also featured in the Leadership essential series for Women at Amazon globally, where she spoke to a virtual audience with a reach of 60,000 employees.
