Madonna Woke Up from a Coma After a Spiritual Encounter with Her Late Mother

Key Takeaway

Create a 10-minute daily pause before reacting to stress. Ask: “What is happening, what am I resisting, and what can I learn or do differently?” Madonna’s practice is not about denying pain; it is about moving more quickly from blame, comparison, and self-pity toward acceptance, accountability, and constructive action. Today, use this reflection on one frustrating situation, then take one small response aligned with your values rather than your immediate emotion.

Episode Overview

Madonna discusses the nearly three-decade spiritual practice she says has helped her navigate fame, parenthood, illness, loss, creativity, and conflict. She describes Kabbalah as an ongoing practice of study, inward reflection, intention, radical acceptance, accountability, and forgiveness—not a rejection of ambition or success.

Full Transcript

Transcript of Madonna Woke Up from a Coma After a Spiritual Encounter with Her Late Mother from On Purpose. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

I wanted to start off by asking you don't do a lot of interviews. We don't see you doing interviews maybe even for the last 9 10 years or give or take. Mhm. What's your intention for being here today? Why now? Why today? Well, in the past I've usually done interviews to promote my work, whether that's music or a tour or film. Um, but today I would like to talk about my spiritual life and the spiritual path that I've been on for over 28 years. This wisdom uh has helped me navigate the the ups and downs of life for lack of a better expression.

People ask me a lot through the years like what is the reason you're still sane? What is the reason you keep going? Why have you not fallen by the wayside like other people? Um definitely a lot of my peers who who are no longer with us like what would you say is the key and I would say that is my spiritual life. I absolutely would not be where I am or who I am if I did not have that. It's helped me enormously as I said um navigate the ups and downs of life.

So, I I feel like I would like to share that with people. So, that's really the point of I'm not I'm not here to promote a product or um I don't want anyone to buy anything. I just um I want to share something with with people that has pretty much saved my life. That sounds dramatic, but it's true. Yeah. Yeah, it seems like it's something that's extremely meaningful to you and a deep part of your life that often I feel you don't get to share in other spaces.

So even though it's been a part of your life for nearly three decades, maybe you haven't shared parts of it before. What would your life look like if you didn't find it? I would believe that the physical world is all there is. I would believe all the illusions and that would be my downfall and that is most people's downfall. What does spirituality mean to you? Because I think that word itself means so many things to so many people. Yes. I mean a spiritual life or a spiritual path could could could be mean a lot of things.

Um I know that you have a spiritual path and and for me it's not a really about like who's is the best or you know it's whatever works for you. I've been studying Cabala for 29 years. So since 1996. Mhm. Yeah. It's a long time. And I'm not a frivolous person. I don't suffer fools gladly. I if something if I think there's something false about it or corrupt or not authentic, I wouldn't have stuck around for so long. I I've had the same teacher for all this time.

For me, a spiritual life is having an internal life. Because you know this, I'm sure. You know, if we get caught up in the belief system that our value in the world is based on people loving us or pe other people's approval or how much money you have or how many fabulous outfits you have or how many followers you have on Instagram. Those things don't make us happy. Those things don't bring us peace. So having an internal life and being able to look internally and having some kind of practice whatever that might look like your prayer, your meditations that those the time you take out of every day to stop and take stock like contemplate.

We live in a very busy chaotic world. Lots of noise, lots of distraction. I mean, how many times have you heard people say, "Oh, you know, social media and like all the, you know, people can't walk down the street without listening to music. Everybody has to be visually stimulated all the time." Like, there is no peace. There's no quiet. We're we're not comfortable being quiet with ourselves and looking inward and asking ourselves, why am I here? What am I doing? Or what is my intention in this specific choice I'm making right now?

whether it's about my work or the way I'm raising my children, decisions that I make about everything really. Yeah. I have to ask myself. And if you don't have a spiritual life, you're never going to stop and ask any questions. You're just going to plow through life. And if you just and and you're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event. And I don't believe that anything is random. I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us um to teach us some kind of a lesson.

But you know the question is are you aware enough? Are you awake enough? Are you interested enough to find out what that reason is? Like why did this happen to me? What is my lesson? I don't want to go through life seeing everything that happens to me as random. But I also don't want to go through life as a victim. And I've had a pretty challenging life. And it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself or like being a victim or you know why why isn't this happening to other people?

Why is it happening to me? Why don't I have what that person has? I'm sure you know the expression comparison is the killer of joy. So you know it's like to you got to to get out of that game. You have to have a spiritual life. You just have to that to me is like a prison. Get if you get if you remove the spiritual life, spiritual practice, you remove the workplace, then you you're in the home. And then removed once more from home is you're looking at your phone.

Which is even takes you out of home. It's a great point. Yeah. So where are you? You're nowhere. We're living in the virtual world. Yeah. We're living in the virtual world. Not even in the material world. We're just Yes. But a virtual and a virtual world is not a bad world. But if you don't have consciousness, there's really no point to living. Well, one really important thing is studying. Making time every week to sit down and study. I mean, you can study the Bible. You can study the poetry of Cahil Gibbran or you can study the Vadas.

You you know and you did that, right? You actually studied different traditions on your I mean to be honest before I discovered Cabala. I I was looking for answers. And why do you think that was? Why were you looking for answers? Because I had everything that people would assume would give you happiness. I had successful career. I had fame, fortune, monetary things, physical things. But I wasn't happy. And then later on I started practicing yoga Ashtanga yoga and my teacher Eddie um Stern he still has a love Eddie he's great you know Eddie yeah he's amazing I got quite caught up in and competitive about like first series second series third series but one thing I noticed is that a lot of people would come into his practice his studio where he taught and they wouldn't even do the poses they would just go and sit in front of the statue of Ganesha or light candles or prayer and I realized and Eddie pointed it out to me cuz sometimes I would have injuries.

I would or I would be traveling and I couldn't practice yoga and he'd say, "Look, are you breathing?" And I'd say, "Yes." And he said, "You're practicing yoga." So, I realized that I was too still too caught up in the physical poses. He's like, "No, you don't understand. You're missing the whole point. The poses are just something that you do to breathe through to calm your nervous system down and to bring you back to your center. And that really spoke to me. There was a big um now it was a painting on the wall of the yoga studio.

It says desire and detachment. And I I said, "What does that mean?" And he said, "Well, of course we want we want all the beautiful things in life. We want all the pleasures. We want all the happiness. We want every. We want it all. There's nothing wrong with that, but you can't be attached to it because then if you're attached to it and you don't have it, what's going to happen to you? But then again, nothing happens by accident. But I was pregnant with my daughter Lola, my oldest daughter, and I suddenly realized I was living in LA.

I suddenly realized I'm going to be responsible for another human being. What am I going to teach her? I'm just I'm like a meteor like making my way through the you know the on this planet like you know I'm I have great survival instincts. I have a great work ethic. Yes, I'm very ambitious. All of those things. Um but I was never like I was just knocking them down. You know what I mean? And not like looking back like I'm going to be somebody because that's you know that's why I came to New York in the first place.

I will never go back to the nobody life I had when I was a child growing up. So I definitely was fueled by an inner drive but I would not say that I was spiritual or conscious. When I was pregnant, I suddenly realized I knew nothing and I was a slave or a victim of of other people's opinions of me and I didn't have really even though it looks like and looked like I was confident, brave, audacious, whatever, you know, um I deep down inside I was not.

So, I was at a dinner party while you were pregnant. Yeah. I was at a dinner party at my friends in LA and there was a woman sitting next to me and I knew her vaguely. She was she's a costume designer. She was a costume designer. Her husband's a director. And she said, "Oh, you should come with me to class." And I said, "What class? I'm I'm open to classes, by the way. I love being a student. So, what's the class all about? She said, "There's a teacher there.

It's something called Cabala. It's next to a synagogue." And I was like, "Wait, so he's Jewish?" And she said, "Yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with being Jewish. It's just a belief system, not a belief system, like a philosophy about life that, you know, you could learn a lot from." And I said, "Okay, I'll go." So, I did. And that's how I met my teacher. And I literally would sit in the back of class for years. Mostly men were in the class at the time.

It was um but everything that he said seemed to make so much sense to me and gave me courage to be who I am and who I meant to be and made me actually think about intention and a real sense of purpose. cuz my sense of purpose can't just be I want to be rich and famous or I want to be popular or I want to sell a lot of records because none of that lasts. But it wasn't until I went to class that I actually started thinking about those things.

So, I just kept going and um here I am today. But, you know, motherhood or being a parent is really what um made me start asking questions that I most likely I should have asked them sooner, but I didn't cuz I was just caught up in my self. It's amazing to hear that you had this ambition and this drive Yeah. to become successful and at the same time there was this spiritual calling. Yes. That was almost happening simultaneously. How did you reconcile the two when to the external eye they could look very opposite?

How did you actually see look weird? You mean not weird in the sense of I think a lot of people assume that spirituality and success don't go together. A lot of people would think that that's absurd. Those are narrow-minded people. I mean you need to be spiritual to be successful. Success is having a spiritual life. Period. It's interesting cuz I had this boyfriend some time ago and after we broke up, we saw each other years later and I was telling him about Cabal. He's like, "Oh yeah, that makes a lot of sense because you grew up as a Catholic.

I know how religious your mother was." And I was like, "No, no, that's not what it is at all. It's got nothing to do with religion." Everybody has to find the the path that speaks to them and resonates with them. [clears throat] But I do think it's important to have one. And I dare say if you didn't have a spiritual path, you wouldn't be as successful as you are today. I will make that assumption in your work, in your marriage, in your friendships, all your relationships.

It honestly, it sounds like a really like a cliche. Your spiritual life even. It's like the reason. But it's just got a bad rap. you know, you like 100% can have a spiritual life and be successful. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have one. Let's talk about how your spiritual life has impacted your different roles because you played so many roles in life. And let's start with artist because that's what the majority of our viewers and our audience will connect with you on. Your spiritual life has directly impacted your art.

When did you feel it was first introduced to your art? How was it introduced? How would you use it to inspire your art? About a year after I started studying, I made my ray of light album and that is 100% influenced by my study, my spiritual practice. Like a door opened for me and I suddenly and maybe I was spiritual without knowing it unconsciously and some things happened. I mean, often things would happen where I would have visions or I would get ideas and I would manifest them.

And if you're too busy to sit for a moment and think, "Wow, that's so amazing what just happened. I channeled that." Like, you don't actually know that you're tapping into another dimension until you start paying attention to the other to the idea that there is more to life than you and I sitting in this room on a chair. Like if you believe in energy and you believe in universal laws and you believe in quantum physics like the possibilities are endless and miracles the idea of miracles is is not a foreign concept.

It's not a lucky strike. You know what I mean? It definitely affected my work. I became conscious of the fact that I was and am I am channeling light. That's what I'm doing. It I don't own it. It's not mine. I am a vessel for it. I'm a vessel for this light which in turn my goal is to share with other people. Now I can I can do that through my work. I can do that through my music. I can do that through my relationships with people.

I can do that as a friend. I can do that as a mother, as a parent. So you realize that it can it informs every part of your life. But the one really important thing, well, one of the many important things that my teacher taught me was that I am not the owner of my talent. I am the manager. As long as you keep that consciousness and you're aware like people who run to say, I did that. That was my idea. I mean, you created an opportunity for yourself by allowing yourself to be a vessel for this.

Call it what you like. Magic. I think it's magic. I think when you channel artistic ideas and you have creative visions, it's magic. And when you think it, overthink it, or you start thinking about how much of that you own, you stop it. That's why a lot of I would say this is my observation that a lot of people have these great kind of meteoric careers and they rise up and they take the world by storm and they influence the masses and they and then they just something happens and they can't handle the light and they're not even aware of it.

M and it it in a way they fly too close to the light and it burns them. Yeah, that's and I would say that's really true about my many of my peers that I had. I was lucky enough to know them. um whether that's Prince or Michael Jackson or or um Jean Michelle Boscott the painter like the these are like people who had just were channeling channeling but I also don't think they understood like the concept of their their what they were channeling and that you know there has to be some kind of restriction there has to be some kind of filament there has to be you know like people like to take drugs Right.

Why? Cuz it makes they're they're actually channeling light where they're, you know, tripping on acid. But it's light with no restriction. And then that's what kills you or burns you out. That was never your path to the light. Oh, no. No. No. No. Thank God because everybody was What kept you away from it when everyone else was doing it? The universe. God. Honestly, uh people ask me that all the time because I grew up when I came to New York when I was broke and I had no friends, nowhere to live, no nothing really.

What protected me from, you know, I was held up at gunpoint, I was robbed, like I was raped. I like all these horrendous things happened to me. But I just feel like I' I've always had a guardian angel. just it took me a minute to figure out that how blessed I was. Talk to me about the journey of having that experience and then getting to the realization you just mentioned because I'm I'm [clears throat] assuming it's not immediate and no and and what is so walk us through that?

First, there was just my determination that I think I was so I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York City. I was like, whatever happens to me is better than what what my life was. So, I'm going to I'm sticking around. I'm not going back. But you see, the worst things that happened to you are the best things that happened to you. Because if that had if my childhood hadn't been what it had been, if I hadn't lost my mother, if I hadn't had all of these challenges as a child, I would have thought of my home as a place of comfort and I would have gone back.

But I didn't. So that's what kept me going. And then you know there are challenges in my career even though even though I was very successful, I went through many periods of time where the press was beating up on me. I was demonized. What kept me going? I don't I don't know. Like I said, guardian angels, but again, I wasn't conscious of it until I was pregnant. Then I started to see like everything started to like come into focus for me. [gasps] But it's not I make it sound like it's an easy thing like studying like the more you know, the harder everything is.

And the more enlightened you try to become, the more conscious you try to become, the more tests you have, the more You know, it's like why? Like like the more you know, the more you realize you don't know. And the more you aspire to be conscious, the more you feel like everyone's trying to drag you down and take you out of it and convince you that it's not true or you know the tests. Yeah. And you know, life is a test. Let's face it. How did you hold on to that beautiful belief that you're not the light and you're a manager of the light when anyone else could easily believe they were?

By continuing to have a spiritual practice, a spiritual life by continuing to study. Like always pulls you back to center. Were you able to keep it up when you were like on tour or when you were building your album? Absolutely. Wow. It drove everyone crazy. My manager is like, "Why can't we have shows on this night?" Or, "Why are you late because I'm cuz I'm praying like what?" You know what I mean? Like, no. People who are only focused on Absolutely. Pray before every show. But people who are focused on making money um are definitely not focused on spiritual life.

Honestly, it's really hard to balance being a parent, having work, having a spiritual life. You're you're constantly juggling. you there's it's not there's not a lot of time to rest and if people don't recognize that then they're just going to look at you in a very 1% sp like superficial way and go you're late it's like but you don't understand what I was doing before I got I became late I want to talk about how spirituality affected you your role as a mother obviously you said that becoming a mother yourself is actually what even began that enlightenment kind of began that journey me it felt like a responsibility.

It felt like a a moment of change. How is Well, my mother died after giving birth to all my brothers and sisters. So, literally like the year after my youngest sister was born, my mother died. So, I I always equated motherhood with death. So, in and I also equated it with I could see she was not happy. I could see she wasn't living the life she wanted to live. I equated it with death. I or I equated it with no freedom or I equated with no no life except taking care of other people.

And so when I started my when I came to New York and I started my career, I was like, "No, this is not for me. I don't want to be a mother. I don't want that." I wasn't saying it out loud, but I was thinking that like why would I give all of this up? I work so hard for it. Well, one day I found that I was pregnant and I and I had been running away from it for so long and I wouldn't say I was in a stable relationship, but I loved the her father.

So, I wasn't really thinking it through, but I was like, "Okay, this happened. This happened to me, so it's meant to happen to me." So, um, but honestly, what what the hell am I going to teach my daughter? like how am I gonna guide her? I've just been living this, you know, completely selfish life really that, you know, turned out good in many ways, but um in reality, I was doing everything for my own self. And I also kind of thought, well, you know, okay, I'm pregnant, so I'm going to be a mother, so I'll figure it out.

I'll work it out. But honestly, I was scared shitless. [snorts] And I wasn't in a traditional relationship. And once again, like this is the story of my life. I keep finding myself in unconventional or untraditional or unusual or unfamiliar places and I have to keep adjusting. And I say that I would say that that is also the reason that I am still here and still going and have the strength to fight things or to to to survive. Um because being too comfortable in life I would say is the downfall of a lot of people who started off taking chances, taking risks.

Is that something success does to you? Do you think where in the beginning you take risks and you get out? I feel like that happens to other people, not me. Um I think I've always been felt like an outsider in life. I felt like an outsider growing up in Michigan. I felt like an outsider when I came to New York. I felt like an outsider when I moved to LA and had my Hollywood life. You know, I always felt like I did when I was in high school.

I don't fit in. And not fitting in is what saves you. And that, you know, studying Cabala, no, nobody else was interested in it. Not my friend group. And if I would speak about it to people, they'd be like, "Oh, that's really interesting." Having a spiritual life isn't necessarily going to make you popular. But if you're a conscious person searching for truth, then it's going to be interesting. Like, I'm interested in your spiritual path, your spiritual life. I want to know what you do, what it does for you.

I want to know how you do it cuz I'm curious. and curiosity and being an outsider. And um those are the things that actually save you even though it's not supported in our society. Like to think outside the box, to take the road less traveled by, to not be so concerned with approval, public approval. And now we live in a world where everyone follows algorithms. And algorithms are the opposite of taking chances. They are the opposite of being unique. They're the opposite of spiritual life. They are the opposite of consciousness.

That's why artificial intelligence cannot duplicate consciousness. It can duplicate doing things following formulas, but it can't duplicate consciousness. when you became a mom and you're trying to teach your children about I guess I'm assuming you want Yeah. you wanted to pass some of these teachings on. Yeah. I mean, they grew up learning it and studying it, studying or listening to me study with my teachers or listening to other people and they would bounce back and forth between thinking it was silly or something weird that mom does or but I see that it has impacted all of them.

What makes you see that? What? Because they study. Not all of them, but I feel like my children who have a spiritual life are happier than the ones who do not. But obviously, they could start at any time. It could it could happen. I'm not, you know, there's no coercion in spirituality. It's like if you either it speaks to you or it doesn't. Yeah. I remember my dad was trying to get us to do things for so long and you I rejected it so hard because Yes.

Well, that's the other thing. Children always reject their their parents, the path they follow, their belief systems. They think it's stupid and then they they come back around a little bit. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. There's that famous quote that says, "The day you realize your parents were right, your kids are telling you that you're wrong." And and I think it's an often common experience that people have. Yeah. How did Cabala impact your and your spiritual practice impact your role as a daughter? Because like you said, you lost your mother when you were five.

To a certain extent, I resented my father growing up because I felt like he wasn't present for us emotionally. Um, he did have a lot of responsibilities and he's deeply Catholic person, but I don't I felt like he followed his spiritual path or he followed Catholicism because that's how it was that's how he was raised. That's how it was done. When I was growing up, if I wanted to ask a question about why do we do this? Why are we janulecting? Why are we receiving the body and blood of Christ?

Why is my father didn't have an answer? He just say that's what that's what is written and what what drew me to Cabala was that I could ask questions and there were answers and questions were invited which is the opposite of how I was brought up. So I thought I looked at my father as kind of like a religious robot. You know what I mean? Not that he's not a good person, but [clears throat] I didn't want to be a robot. And especially having a a a spiritual life, I started to see my father as a human being and see that he was a human that made mistakes and that he did the best with what he was taught, what he was given.

When those cylinders start clicking in your head, you start to have a lot more compassion. Not just for your parents, but for all people who don't see life the way you see it, that you don't agree with. It brought me to a place where I could have more compassion for him. I mean, that seems like a really big gift. Yeah. To to have that understanding and and I I could agree. I think spiritual context creates so much compassion when you are able to zoom out and look at someone's life.

Like I remember the moment I really had compassion for my dad was when I visited the home he grew up in which was this room. I mean I can't even compare it to this. His home was like probably just from here to here. Mhm. like his entire home and they shared a bathroom with 20 30 families. Yeah. And we went outside. I was 9 years old. We're in India and there's cockroaches around his in Pune. There's cockroaches around his home. there's bats in the, you know, and it's just like and inside and I I was 9 years old and I couldn't believe that, you know, that's where my dad grew up.

And it was almost like something clicked where I was like I I unless I saw that I wouldn't have had that experience because it was always easier to assume that their life Yeah. Well, that's the thing. My like I say to my kids all the time like you're judging me by the chapter you arrived in. Like this is not how my life has been. And it's really hard for kids to see that. Talk to me about the emotional journey of shifting from a victim to what you whatever you would call this on the other side because it would be very natural for anyone to feel that way.

I want to hear about the emotional journey and the spiritual journey you went on. What were some of the steps or stages that you saw that if anyone who's listening or watching can recognize and potentially? Well, the first thing is you're suffering all the time. If you don't have a spiritual life, like you're just suffering all the time and and you really think that whatever is happening to you is like something that's never going to end. And you drew the wrong card, you know? That's how you feel.

Yeah. That's how I used to think. And even now since I've been studying, there's been times where I've been really challenged and really suffered uh in certain situations. And I if I didn't have a spiritual life, I I don't know how I wanted, you know, there were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off. I wanted I actually contemplated suicide. I And that probably sounds really weird coming from me cuz I'm not that I'm not emo. You know what I mean? But I was like, I can't take this pain anymore.

But as soon as you understand that what's happening to you is um a challenge that you are karmically meant to experience and learn from and evolve to a higher level of consciousness then you can look at that event that experience as a lesson and not punishment. What what pain at the time pushed you to that place of potentially wanting to take your own life? I mean, I don't I don't I don't I'm not in the blame game. That's the thing. I used to be that way.

[snorts] And uh I used to always want to seek revenge. You know, somebody did did me wrong. Um or I would pronounce loudly, oh well, you know, they'll get their own karma. Well, whatever. You know what I mean? And even knowing about karma doesn't mean you're a grown-up. It doesn't mean you're not a being a victim. Um, but I I would say probably one of the most painful moments in my life where I could I honestly couldn't see the forest through for the trees was when um I went through a custody battle with my son.

And um I you know even though my marriage didn't work out I mean a lot of people's marriages don't work out. They marry the wrong people. They're not aligned. They're not meant for each other. Um someone taking trying to take my child away from me was like um they might as well just kill me. That's really how I was thinking. And I was on tour at the time. So I had to go on stage every night. I would just be lying on the floor of my dressing room sobbing.

I really thought it was like it was the end of the world. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't take it. Um, but thank God I don't feel that way anymore. And I had to keep, you know, studying the continuing my studies and continuing on my spiritual path like helped me to understand that, you know, the enemy is within. Talk to me about that. You know, lots of people do lots of bad things and make a lot of bad choices or make choices that cause other people pain, suffering or chaos or whatever.

Um, but at the end of the day, I needed to learn some lessons and I can see that with the benefit of hindsight, but I couldn't see it at the time. And also I was abandoned as a child by my own mother. And so losing a child like it was like life repeating itself. I couldn't accept it. And so it caused me a lot of suffering. And not being able to accept things causes all of us a lot of suffering. So yes, and now you know I'm happy to say that I'm really good friends with my son, but I couldn't see it then.

I really thought it was the end of the world. So, you know, thank God I had a spiritual life. Was the lesson radical acceptance? Yeah, exactly. It took me a long time, actually. Several years. Um, radical acceptance is just accepting that what is happening to you is meant to happen to you and that you're going to be okay. I mean, it's not an instant thing. There's no such thing as an instant thing. There's no way we're going to escape suffering. Even if we grow up with wealth and privilege and you know we didn't grow up in a small room.

You know our challenges and our suffering is going to come to us in a different way. I can give you another example of radical acceptance and that is and this is something that my teacher shared with me about a year and a half ago. I was rehearsing for my tour, a tour, and I I got a a bacterial infection and I one minute I was alive and dancing around and the next minute I was in the ICU unit of a hospital and I woke up from being unconscious for 4 days.

I got out of the hospital. They took me off of, you know, the ventilator. I started to breathe on my own and I had something something it's called sepsis and it's like it can kill you. Yeah, that's really bad. And everybody recovers at a different rate and so you know I've always seen myself as superwoman. So I was like, "Oh, I'm going to this is going to I'm going to kick this. I'm going to be good. I'm getting back into rehearsals." And I had no strength.

I had no energy. I couldn't get out of bed and I didn't know when it was going to end. And I used to talk to my teacher all the time and he's like, "The sooner you accept what's happening to you and that you don't know when it's going to end, the sooner it's going to end." That made so much sense to me. And of course it did. But I mean, I've heard some people never recover from it completely, never uh recover and have their like full health again.

Mhm. So again, it's the same idea, same concept like is if you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, oh well, wo is me or poor me or this is like I don't accept it. I will not accept it. Well, then you're just going to be swimming and suffering because you mentioned karma there and this idea of choices we make and lessons we need to learn and karma almost being this experience of learning the lessons. How how do you see karma? How do you define karma from your learnings and studies?

And let's start there and then I'll ask the second question after that. [snorts] Um, my personal understanding is that our souls choose the lives that we are born into, the circumstances we are born into, that our souls are perfect, but then we're born into a life which is one challenge after the next after after the next. And that we our journey is to navigate and to like see that each challenge that happens to us is our karmic destiny. It's energy. It's the law of it's quantum physics.

It's cause and effect. Whatever's happening to me that might be uncomfortable is obviously meant to happen to me to teach me a lesson. And if I don't learn that lesson at that point, I'm going to it's going to come up again. and again and again until I learn it and accept that it's a lesson not a punishment. So that's how you get out of victim mentality also. What was the lesson that kept repeating for you and took you a bit longer than you would have liked to learn?

What was the one that kept showing up? Betrayal uh or abandonment. Sometimes they go hand in hand, but it really kept me like I saw a lot of people or I felt and experienced that I was constantly being either abandoned or betrayed. So that kept me in a state sometimes often like feeling sorry for myself, stuck in a place of blaming others and not taking responsibilities for well how did I bring this upon myself or why asking the question well why is this happening to me over and over again obviously I need to learn something.

I think everybody if they think about it like what is the thing that always comes back to you or like for everybody it's something different obviously I think the abandonment thing was the the greatest lesson to that I could teach me that I could stop being um destroyed by it or um paralyzed by it um was to think of all like how am I not showing up for other people? How am I abandoning myself? How how long have I been not listening to myself, my inner truth, my inner voice?

Yes. And we all say goodbye to our inner selves at some point or another until something wakes us up. Push has to come to shove for everybody. There's just no way to escape it. So that's something that as a concept that you have to get your head around. There's no running away from being tested. There's no running away from experiencing pain, suffering, whether it's physical or emotional. When you're just thinking about yourself and consumed with yourself, you're actually not connected to yourself at all. You know what I mean?

Yeah. When So, how do how does it change now when you go through betrayal or you go through rejection or any of those things that you talked about? How do you process it differently now with your spiritual practices than you did before? What's the different experience you have of it? Well, I spend less time feeling sorry for myself, being a victim, blaming, and more time thinking, okay, why why did this happen to me? What's the lesson? I mean, I go to that sooner. Wow. Than I did before.

What's the difference between self-lame and accountability? Because I feel a lot of people fall into the trap of now you don't go and blame other people but you blame yourself and you go I I messed up. I should have chosen right. I should have done this. Okay. Well, self-reflection and acknowledging and being accountable for your behavior is not the same as feeling guilty. That feeling guilty is just you're consumed with your ego shaming yourself. Yeah. So, you're not going to get anywhere with that. That just stops any kind of growth from happening.

It's pretty amazing to say that you can speed up to that point of asking yourself that question of what can I learn from this? I mean, that's the ultimate question. Yeah. And believe me, it's not something that stays with me all the time. It's like sometimes I forget. I'm like, I'm doing this again. I'm doing it again. I'm falling back into a familiar pattern. Yeah. But if you don't know, then you're not like it's important to know again not beat up on yourself. Well, okay, I made a mistake.

What can I learn from it? Swallow your pride. Tell your ego to shut up. Basically, you mentioned the word manifesting earlier. Mhm. Talk to us about your process of manifestation. What does it actually look like? If you're manifesting things and you're not conscious that it's a gift from the universe, from the light, from the creator, whatever you want to call it, if you're not aware of that and you're not conscious, then okay, you you invented something. Great. You created this thing that now is selling billions.

But everything becomes finite when you're not manifesting with the with the consciousness that you are channeling something. You don't own it. So that's a big thing. That's the key part. Yeah. Sure. So whatever it is, so if I have a successful show, if I have successful, if anything happens to me successfully like is perceived as a success in the outside world, I just say, you know, that's I I how blessed am I. I manifested that with the help of God. I didn't do it on my own.

I do nothing on my own. And if you manif if you think you're manifesting on your own and you're you're like an ostrich with your head in the sand and there will be an end to whatever you're manifesting. So if someone desires something they've got to recognize that it's not their hand. It's something that they're willing to become recognized. I mean it requires work to be conscious. Mhm. It requires work to see that you're channeling something and being a vessel for something. So, you do have your part in it, but you're not on your own.

That's the point. And and a lot of us feel like I'm going to do this. When I do this, I'll get this. And when I get this, then I will be this person. That's desire for selfish reasons. you're, you know, manifesting success is whenever you want something for the sake of sharing. When you want something just for yourself, like I'll be happy when I have 10 Bugattis and a mansion in every major city and I'm the brand ambassador of Louis Vuitton. Um, no offense to Louis Vuitton, just throwing that out there.

But, you know what I mean? like those things like really make people happy, but it's it's shortlived and sooner or later everybody comes to that realization anyways. M it's just whether it's sooner or later writing my first song for example and how I taught myself how to play the drums and then I my friend my boyfriend at the time was in a band and he taught me how to play guitar like just simple chords and when nobody was around I would start playing with all the instruments and start without thinking without any like I'm going to be this or I'm going to be that let me just I just sat sat down and wrote a song for the first time and I was very conscious at that moment after it happened.

Where did that come from? Well, how did that happen? I didn't grow up with musicians. I didn't grow up with songwriters. No one I didn't have a goal to be that where did it come from? And so when you start like opening your eyes to that, where did how did that happen? Where did that come from? Then you see you see the the possibilities. You see the magic of the universe of life. And you see that you know that was a gift. Some angels showed up in my room and you know what am I going to do with that gift?

So these h these moments happen to you throughout life. They happen to everybody. Whether you're saving someone's life or or you have this incredible idea for some life-saving invention, you know what I mean? We we're all blessed with those moments. And it's, you know, it's really the important thing is to acknowledge where that came from. That's really manifesting. Say out loud what you want out of life. That is important. But it's it's you're it's you're in a partnership. It's that that's really what's important to remember.

Yeah. And we become our environments as well. So we want to surround ourselves with people who with like-minded individuals and if you are around people who also are attaining to reach a higher level of consciousness or want to know the deeper meanings of life or want to look inward and figure out why what their karmic destiny is or even take into consideration the idea of karma. I mean, you need that also because if you don't have that support system, then you can also fall back into the trap of recreating formulas that work or um trying to capture some magical moment and make it magic again.

And that's just our ego taking over and telling us, you know, I did that. I can do it again. Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing how our conditioning and education is so the opposite that we all believe that every man for himself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the statement. No. How much unconditioning does it take for us to lose the every man for himself mindset? What does that look like in your spiritual practice and journey especially and not fall back into that trap? You mean to continue to have a spiritual life, spiritual practice to study?

I love our to stop every you know whether every day once a week you if people don't have some kind of ritualistic moment in their life like I said whether it's every day or a few times a week that like what's going to stop you? You know what I mean? Right? You have to have that moment where you're thinking about what you've done, thinking about what you would like to do, thinking about what you know, have I capitalized on the opportunities that have come my way, not monetarily, spiritually, like what did I do to help someone, what have I done for others?

Um, I mean that's really the only way you can be successful in life. What were you trying to channel when you were creating in your music? And what were you trying to do to help people? What was Well, in the beginning I just wanted to be somebody, right? I just wanted to be somebody like I wanted to have a voice. I wanted to make a difference in the world, but I wasn't clear about what that meant. Now I'm clear about what it means. What is it?

What does it mean today? that everything I say has weight and gravity and that words are powerful and actions are powerful and I always ask myself like why am I doing this? Why do I want to why why is this song important to me? Why is this performance important to me? Why is this conversation we're having right now important to me? That's really the difference is like having intention and consciousness. We're really like I'm repeating myself over and over again. I can't think of other words that capture that, but self-awareness.

Self-awareness doesn't really do it because self-awareness kind of implies like selfishness. You know what I mean? A day at the spa. Not that that's not something to to be enjoyed. I could I could use a day. Sure. My roof has been leaking for a month. Yeah. I want to go to the spa. That's okay. But that's not going to bring me lasting happiness. Well, you have to live in the paradox. Yeah. It's like the greatest amount of light is where there's darkness and you can reveal the most amount of light.

When you're in a dark room, you turn on the light. When you're in a room that's already light, what do you There's no um effort made. So, should we look for darkness? You know what I mean? Should we? But no. But when we are in that space where we're feeling dark, where we feeling an absence of light, an absence of hope, an absence of inspiration, of vision, [clears throat] then you have to those are the moments, the challenging moments where you you say you have to say to yourself, this is my opportunity to bring light to a dark place.

You know, spiritual wisdom is not helpful when everything's going your way. It's helpful when you're challenged and when you're happy. It's it's helpful to remember that at any given time, in any moment, it could be gone. So, don't take it for granted. Have humility. Be grateful when things are going your way. And when you're being tested, also be grateful. That's a hard one. That was a hard one for me. It still is. Um, and but I'm glad that I know what I know. I feel like forgiveness for us in the world today is probably one of the hardest things for us.

Whether we've been betrayed, whether we've been lied to, whether we've been exploited, whether we've been taken advantage of and we always hear the age-old phrase of forgiveness is for you, it's not for them. And you hear these things, but it's Wait, who says that? It's I mean it's common like verbiage that exists in the world at least of this idea that you know don't hold on to grudges. Well you shouldn't we shouldn't and it is ultimately liberating for us to forgive but obviously the world benefits from our empathy our ability to forgive.

Talk to us about that conditioning and I'm a fighter. You know if somebody messes with me they're going to get it. That's you've always been like that. Yes, but you know when things happen to you and there's not a tangible en enemy that you can like put your finger on like what are you going to do? You have to lean into radical acceptance. Um but you know there's there are things that you know there are things that have happened to me in my life that I just thought I I will never forgive this person.

I will never. Now I just don't I don't want to have those feelings anymore cuz they're really it's a prison and it's a poison to not be able to forgive and to live in a state of like holding a grudge or hating someone or wanting them to suffer. This is like a kind of poison. It's like a kind of cancer. That's why it's important to find a way to forgive even people that you perceive as your biggest enemies. For a really long time, it was my brother um who died recently because I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like you're the like they're you're the closest to.

They're your greatest ally and they turn on you. The people that hurt you the most are the people that you love the most. And when life doesn't go the way that you expected it to go, that you suddenly like this pain is unbearable and that you think what's going to save you is to think vengeful thoughts or to never forgive. Like that's going to give you some kind of power, magical power. It doesn't just weighs you down and eats away at you and is poisonous. So having to forgive my brother or knowing that I had to forgive my brother was, you know, it's like your ego dances around it like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'll I'll get to it. I'll get to calling him up or talking to him or being his friend or helping him." But eventually I did. And I know I'm being mysterious. If someone you love deeply betrays you and does something that shows that they have no consciousness in that moment that they made that choice to do that. Um it's it's really it's a bitter pill for me to swallow. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that lots of people feel this way. I'd agree. For my brother, I didn't speak to him for, you know, for years, years, and years.

And it was him uh being ill um and come and reaching out to me and saying, "I need your help." And me having that moment like, "Am I going to help my enemy?" You know, that's how it felt. Yeah. And I just did. And I ended up and and I felt so relieved. And it was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand even if he was dying and saying, "I I love you and I forgive you." That was really important.

And that was another thing that I realized when I woke up in the hospital, forgiveness. That word came to my mind like I have to forgive people cuz I was there. I was almost there on the other side and I I had a conscious moment and my mother appeared to me and she said, "Do you want to come with me?" And I said, "No." My assistant was in the room with me, but I was still unconscious, but she heard me say no. And then when I did eventually wake up, I realized that the no was about me needing to forgive and and make good with people that I still held grudges against.

So, and interestingly, I well, I wrote a song about him. I I'm working on new music and I wrote a song called Fragile, which is about my brother. And then I wrote another song and this is again just channeling. It's called forgive yourself. But the the the repeating phrase the chorus of the song is if you can't forgive me, forgive yourself. Which is something we all have to do. We have to forgive others. But we also have to figure forgive ourselves and stop beating up on ourselves about things choices we've made in the past that haven't worked out for ourselves or other people.

Taking responsibility again we come back to that concept also or that idea of being accountable and being responsible taking responsibility that's a very big lesson that I learned studying cabal is that I am responsible and every and I believe in personal accountability personal karma and I believe in global karma like a lot of the things that are happening in the world is as a result of our selfishness As people, as humans, as a society, we are responsible. You can't just sit in your room and or your house or the safety of your home and go these people are, you know, they deserve it, whatever.

Like to be aware and conscious that you contributed in in some way, shape or form. And at the same time, if we have collectively and consciously evolved to a higher state of consciousness, we can change the world. That also sounds like a cliche, but make the world a better place. Tip the balance, so to speak. But that's why I'm here and that's why I'm talking to you. And that's why I made these um this [clears throat] is why I documented my studies with my teacher because I really believe that this wisdom can help other people in a very practical way, not in an esoteric way.

And that's why I'm here. Harsh words and and harsh behavior is energy and you can never take it back. But you can change your destiny, your karmic destiny. And one of those ways is to forgive others and forgive yourself. Madona, you've been so gracious with your time, your energy, and and and vulnerability today. I feel like I've learned so much about you. If this clip brought you value and you'd like to watch something else, this next video has been chosen especially for you based on your viewing behaviors.

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