Is This Self-Care or Just Self-Pity? feat. Life Coach & Therapist Ramon Llamba

You are entering the overthink tank. Welcome back to the Overthink Tank. Today's topic is protecting your peace. Today on the podcast, we have life coach and boundary expert Ramon Lamba to talk us through it all. Please welcome Dr. Ramon.

Thank you so much, Surabhi, for having me over. And I think I'm super excited about this podcast today.

What do you think about these Gen Z's who are like, oh, you know, if you do something wrong or negative, you lose aura points. Have you heard about this?

So we are all light beings, okay? We're constantly generating a light and broadcasting a certain light. So every time you tune into a lower frequency, you dim your light. So I think, I guess that's what they mean. You know, your light goes down and you go into more of a darker side. So I guess that's what they mean by you lose your points on the aura.

I love that you're so, like, in touch with the Gen Z's because I only learned about aura points yesterday. But thank you so much, ma'am, for being here on the Overthink Tank. By the name of this podcast, you might have known that all we're going to do today is overthink. So every episode, a listener sends me a question. Do you want to hear today's question?

Sure, definitely. I would love to just go straight into it.

Awesome. Dear Overthink Tank, I feel like I'm a protect my peace type of person. I've cut people out of my life for good, and I think it's left me with fewer friends than I would like. So my question is, should. Should I be learning to forgive people no matter what, or are they better off in the block list? I feel like because it's so easy to block someone and to cut off people doesn't mean that we're just cutting off every mildly annoying person because it's so easy.

We, by default, are an interconnected species. Life works on a scale of balance. So I personally believe blocking someone off or over giving and overindulging are two extreme polarity. Really important to recognize. Balance is the key. So drawing healthy boundaries and recognizing where we allow people to step into our personal space or where we could just keep them at an arm's length. Keep everybody at an arm's length away from you, because at an arm's length is your own auric field or your own space. Your personal space. And anybody who steps in there and does drama actually ends up damaging your own auric field or creating some auric wounds on you. And then because we are in so much pain, we want to cut that person out completely because they're giving you pain. So the best thing is don't allow people to come in so much or don't even disconnect them. So I always say, either we never have boundaries or then we build up walls.

A lot of life coaching to me is about motivation. You know, like, okay, how do I become a better version of myself? How would you summarize life coaching?

Its premise is total transformation. You know, energy can be transformed into another version always. So life coaching is a premise where when a person comes in into a certain version, we make sure that our goal as a coach is to transform them into a much more better, upgraded version of themselves. So it's much more beyond motivation.

An upgraded version of them. That's. That's. That's pretty cool. It sounds very like, oh, you're an app that was full of bugs. And now we've updated your software. I know your body has chakras. Can your chakras ever be aligned? Forever.

Do you have a bath every day? Yes. And if you didn't have bath for 10 days, what would happen?

I would stink.

So similarly, your chakras need to be cleansed every day, and it's really not a lot of work if you've learned how to do it. So there are beach mantras that you chant the chakra. Beach mantras. Every chakra has its own frequency mantra. Once you chant it, even for three minutes per chakra. So it's all 21 minutes in all seven chakras, and you feel a sense of alignment. There are many other modalities, many other tools to keep your chakras balanced. When my chakras are strong and I have a very powerful grip over my mind, then I can stay in the here and now consciously and enjoy this present moment as a gift.

Either future tripping, you know, we're thinking about the future, or we're feeling guilty about our past. But mindfulness and aligning your chakras has this common theme, which is to be in the present moment.

Yes.

And that clarifies a lot of things because I didn't know about chakra alignment up until this point. So this has already been a great podcast for me.

Amazing.

So moving on to this question, Ramon. So this person is thinking that, you know, because I've cut off so many people in from my life now I've left. I'm left with two friends, and this is something that I can relate to.

Cutting off people is not really the solution because they End up staying in your mind, in your thoughts, in your feelings, right? So more healthier option is about you becoming energetically strong, emotionally strong, and learning to learn to handle those situations that are forcing you to cut them out of your life. That's a real winning game. Cutting off people is more of a coping mechanism or an escape mechanism. Because the first thing you need to understand is we are all magnets. We attract our reality. I will end up attracting the same situation from another person in my life. So the same pattern follows me everywhere I go. So the whole idea is my inner world creates my outer world. So rather than cutting out so many people, I rather go within and understand the pattern where I am magnetizing this experience into my reality. The thing that I don't like in another person that I'm judging them for is actually a reflection of parts of me that maybe I've not accepted or I'm not aware of, or I'm judging, right? So for me, cutting off people is never an option because I always believe we are one and the universe treats us the way we treat people. So if I cut out someone, then the universe is going to cut me out from the grand scheme of life. Everything in the universe is energy, and it's matching our frequency.

Okay?

So if I'm vibrating at love, what I will attract from the outside is only pure love.

And how do I vibrate at love?

Now that's the game, you know? That's the game where you go within and your chakras also balancing your chakras help you tune into your vibrational frequency to a great degree. The whole idea is we live so much on the outside, wanting to change people, expecting them to love us.

It's very tempting to, you know, want to change people. It's like, okay, I can change you. Especially in relationships. You're like, I'm given a someone who's a piece of work, but where I will fix them and I will change them. Why do humans feel like that they can change people? Why do we have this need to change someone?

Because nobody ever trained us to go within and give us that capacity to change ourselves. We cannot change anyone. We are here to only change ourselves. And once we recognize this truth, we really become powerful creators of our reality. Because the thumb rule here is our outside world is only a reflection of what's in my inner world, right? So rather than changing the whole world, I'd rather go within and change myself and the field. The world outside is only a mirror that's reflecting back to me what I am Projecting out, Right. So the game of wanting to change someone is a very futile game. It leads you nowhere. It only leads you with these coping mechanisms of cutting people out or being a victim or just being this sad person, which is in the. And all of that.

Like the why me? Syndrome. I feel like I have that syndrome every once in a while, especially around my period. But do you feel like energetically because. Because we have different frequencies. Do you feel like every human being will dip at some point? Like, you know, it doesn't matter how mindful or how aligned they are, how much meditation they do, but they will feel like sort of their vibration dipping around.

Certain people, our vibrations are directly in correlation with our emotions. And our emotions like the waves of an ocean, and they have their own tides, up tide and down tide. It can never be a constant wave of motion. It's always got to be up and down. And that's the rhythm of life, the flow of life. You also even seen your ECG or your eeg. The moment it's a single line, you're gone. Right? So moving up and down through the waves is the rhythm of life. So you can never be a constant. You're constantly moving up and down. So no matter how evolved a person is, they have the uptight and downtight.

Okay. Even you as a life coach.

Absolutely.

This is an offbeat question. Do you feel like you have clients who drain your energy?

Initially, yes. There are people who come as energy vampires. That's too harsh. Harsh words. Energy hooks. They have their energy hooks on you, and they hook onto your energy. But the moment I recognize this, I pull up my barriers, I draw my boundaries, and I protect my own energy. However, people only want to take your energy when they are in a deficit of energy, right? So I become a source for them. So I start flowing energy consciously to them that they don't have to pull it away from me.

How do you. How do you do that?

That's again, energy technique that you master over time. Where you see, Please understand. We live in this ocean of motion, which is an abundance of energy. And when you're meditating, you're constantly. Your crown chakra is connected to source energy, right? Just visualize as this ocean of water and you have a pipe connected, and you're constantly. The water is coming and you're flowing water to them, right? So when you are meditating and you're full of energy, and it's a universal cosmic energy flowing through you, then it's not our energy that they have to suck. Because then you. Before they even come to sucking your energy. You start flowing so much energy to them.

This reminds me, Ramon ma'am, she's a PhD in quantum physics. And I know that you draw the parallel between science and spirituality, you know, in your work. Do you want to touch upon that a little bit? How do you, how do you do that? Because as you know, 21st century people, we're all like, you know, we either believe in science, which is the logic side of us, or we believe in spiritualism. How do you tell people that it's okay to believe in both of them?

The new paradigm that we are in, in the new energy that we've stepped into, the demand is of merging of both the right brain and the left brain. We are actually merging logic with spiritual world. And the current new generation really, really understands this. Right? And like, I teach spirituality through the scientific perspective perspective of it. Like, for example, when you talk about the quantum physics experiments. The theory of entanglement or the power of observation. It's very clearly written in our scriptures, right? That for reality to exist, you need an observer or you need a Sakshi. And that's exactly what's stated in quantum physics. The theory of entanglement states that we're all interconnected in this divine interplay of consciousness. And so does our scripture state. So there's a lot of similarities when you really recognize quantum physics as a study of the unseen world. The whole idea is our left brain is our intelligent brain. And our right brain is our emotional brain. And when we want to create emotional intelligence. We got to use both of them at the same time.

So is there like a practical way to like really open up your brain? Is there like a technique?

Meditation is very good. Breath work is good. Just like simple exercise like humming. Humming produces a chemical called nitric oxide, right? And it's a very simple technique, but the most powerful technique because it produces that frequency sound and vibration in the brain. Actually gives you a whole brain experience. But then people find it too simple to practice. Because they are expecting very complicated techniques.

Correct. I was hoping when you said exercise like a bunch of push ups. And then my. But push ups are way harder than humming. Can you tell me what's the way to hum?

Like, I like the Brahmari Pranayam. It's very simple. When you inhale, right? And in the exhale you do the hum sound. The vibration in the goes up to your brains. And the neurons in your brain are vibrating. And any hardwired stuff suddenly starts becoming malleable. Also, humming produces nitric oxide now, nitric oxide is a very powerful chemical that we need. That is, they call it the barp of all chemicals in your brain. When you look at it, our brain is like a chemical factory that can produce so many chemicals. And everything in our body is nothing but a chemistry of what my brain is producing. Our emotions also are chemical responses or chemical reactions. So humming is a very simple but the most powerful technique. In fact, one of the researchers during COVID also stated that people who had high levels of nitric oxide had a very high level of immunity. And Covid did not happen to them.

Damn.

And they did endorse humming as an exercise or a practice to be applied or followed.

That is so cool. And it's so easy to, you know, remember that, okay? Something as simple as humming can change the setting of your brain. Mistakes to learn from. But at some point I'm like, I'm done with the lessons. Life now I've learned enough. Give me something that doesn't require any learning.

So please understand. Life is a school. So when you go to school, I hate school. So life is exactly like a school. If you failed in your science, you'll keep repeating it till you've not passed the subject.

That's incredible. It's like school never leaves you. I feel like these days there's a coach for everything, right? There's a family coaching, there's ADHD coaching, parenting, relationships. You say it. There's a coach for everything. It makes me wonder, are these services genuinely valuable or do people sometimes just get a little lost in the whole, like, self help hype?

I think even as scriptures, it's very clearly written that we all need a guru. A guru is someone who shows you the path. And when we are born in life, you're not born with a manual of how to do the right parenting or how to do the right business way or how to manage your emotions. We don't know how to do it. So hiring a coach, I think is a very intelligent idea. Today, Sachin Tendulkar is Sachin Tendulkar because he still has a coach, right? So we all need a mentor to guide us through. Like, till date, they are. I could be excelled in many areas of my life, but when I want to navigate a new path, I'd rather struggle it on my own. Or I'll hire a coach who already knows the path. That's more intelligent.

That is true.

So it's not about getting lost. I think it's. I appreciate people who reach out for coaching and mentoring because I feel they're More committed to living a better life than making those same mistakes and, you know, learning on your own.

And that's so rightly said. Of course you need a guru and you need sort of a mentor. But, you know, the problem sort of begins when on social media there's people who are like, live like me. Like, they will present this lifestyle of, oh, you can live like me for a sweet, sweet price of your entire salary. There's a lot of people.

So choose the right person, right? I mean, you got to navigate through the right person.

That's what's wrong with the current self help hype, right? Like the minute you think that you know you this is the right person, they'll try to sell you something more and then they'll try to sell you something more. And then they'll be like, come to my seminar. And they'll be like, oh, here's my book that you can buy the ex. Like, I love the whole idea of like, you know, this is going to help me fix myself, but not at the cost of my entire bank account.

It depends what you're looking for. Because why are you attracting such a confused set of coaches? Is because maybe you're confused. It's all got to be very compartmentalized. So if you're going for an emotional upgradation, then go and hire an emotional coach. Then don't open up the scope for anything else. Suppose you're going, you want to upgrade your belief system or learn manifestation, then go to a manifestation coach, right? So you have to be clear what you're looking for. People will sell you all of that only when you are not clear about and you always have an option or a choice to say no.

How do I know that this is the right choice for me? And is it okay if I don't like a certain life coach to actually look around in the market?

Of course, yeah. But they always say, when the student is ready, the guru appears, right? The master appears. So you will attract the right person to show you what you are thinking, believing and perceiving. This universe is like a buffet. Everything is available.

Gulab jamun from the buffet.

Yeah. So you need to recognize, how can I attract something that's aligned with my true purpose?

It's a little hard to know if one life coach is better for me than the other life coach because I am very gullible, ma'am. And I feel like a lot of my listeners will relate to this, that, you know, someone sits in front of us and starts talking to us nicely and, you know, they're listening to us, it's very easy to feel like I found the right person.

See, first of all, you got to, you're spending your money so you got to do your background check.

Ok. Check if they have, you know.

Yeah. Their past records, their past, how long they've been in the industry, their credentials, from where they got certified, where they got trained, how old are they? You could speak to a few people about getting a feedback.

Do you have clients who will walk up to you and you know, they'll do a bunch of sessions and then they'll come out and be like, I should do this, I should become a life coach. Because this is so nice and refreshing, you know, to help someone else and to feel like I have the power to help someone else. Do you feel like people come to you and after a couple of sessions that they want to become a life coach themselves?

A lot of them. And I do have a 18 month training program where I train life coaches. I've trained a lot of coaches in the industry currently and I've been doing this program for the last 10 years now. And a lot of people, yes, they do have the potential, they do have the. It's like becoming a general physician.

Right.

And it's a good, it's, it's an upcoming industry, it's an upcoming profession and a lot of people are choosing it. However, I feel it's not as fancy as it looks on the other side. Like people feel I have a little bit of Gyan and let me become a life coach. We're talking about life, correct. It's a vast subject, right. So that little Gyan doesn't equip you to be a life coach.

Let's talk a little bit about therapy versus life coaching because I know that people might be confused about what's the difference between both of them.

Life coaching is more like on the outside. For example, if I give you an analogy, let's say there's a cow dung cake, there's lot of cherries and icing on the top. Life coaching is about decorating the shitty life that you have the cow dung cake. But therapy is about going deep inside and rebaking the cake. So I personally believe they both are very important aspects of rebuilding you to a new version of yourself. So you cannot just look at one aspect or the other aspect. Therapy is a very deep internal emotional rewiring state, mentally and emotionally rewiring you, healing your trauma, healing your inner child, your inner emotional wounds, your psychological wounds. And then life coaching is about rebuilding and decorating that Cake.

Correct.

So that it looks appeasing and appealing.

Obviously life coaching and therapy go hand in hand. They're both very important, as you just said. But do you think there are situations that a life coach is not equipped to handle?

Absolutely. Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

When it requires a deep trauma response, healing then life coaches, like I told you, life coaching is a very outside thing. Right. It's about we have an inner world and an outer world. Our inner world is a world of our mind and our emotions. Right. And outer world is more of an action, more of what we are displaying on the outside. So a life coach is equipped to help you handle something that's on the outside. The therapist goes a little more detail into your deep rooted emotional wounds and psychological wounds.

Some of us are guilty of even like going back and reading chats of our exes, you know, of our ex partners, ex romantic lovers. And even though they've long gone from our lives, we still go back and read our chats and I. Do you feel like that in the. That's sort of like an emotional sabotage. Like you're just. Your energy drains from reading chats from your ex.

Because one of my favorite quotes by Carl Jung is you cannot live the evening of your life, right, with the memories and the programs of life's morning. Because what was the truth in the morning will become a lie in the evening. So what you grew up with maybe was the truth at that time. But now you're matured, you're grown. So you always have a choice to tell yourself that, okay, I don't have to live with this sadness and this victim mentality. And I always have a choice to change and rewire myself.

When something bad happens to you, the memory of that is much stronger than the memory of something good.

Positive memory has a positive emotion. So it was a light energy, light emotion. So it came, it left a nice positive impact and it released a negative emotion. Is dense and it stagnates as residual energy in your brain.

Oh no.

So it gets trapped as a memory. So that's why we hold on to the negative more than the positive. Because it's dense, it's dark, it's heavier, heavier. So it gets trapped. We call this stagnated residual energy.

A lot of people believe that blocking their exes is good, is healthy. Do you feel like that's a form of self care, like blocking your ex romantic level?

It is a way of, you know, safeguarding yourself. Because if you're emotionally going through a low time and if you feel you're wounded, then Blocking them temporarily helps you at least heal and recover.

And what about stalking them occasionally? Is that helpful?

That's more toxic.

Wow. All right, ma'am, thank you so much. Before we let you go, there's some like choices that people make in life, you know, and since we have a life coach, why don't you tell us what's your take on some of these life choices that people make? Let's begin. So the game is called Chakra align or energy Drain. I'll give you a life choice that people make and you have to tell me if that's chakra align or energy drain. Okay. People who have Maggie with ketchup.

Energy drain.

Great answer. Okay, people who blame mercury retrograde for everything that goes bad in their lives.

Energy drain.

Using sage in your house after a breakup.

Chakra aligned.

Okay, thank you. Because I did that. Blocking your ex from everywhere after a breakup.

Chakra aligned.

People who send you only voice notes, no texting. Okay.

None of them.

Okay. People who ghost you.

Energy drain.

Energy drain. What about people who you match with on dating apps, but they never really meet you in real life, but they keep coming back to stalk your Instagram Energy drain. That's a specific one. Okay. Crystal Obsession. Some people are like, you know, they're just obsessed with crystals and they'll wear rings, but they won't really do anything to actually better themselves.

I would not call them energy drain. But then they're somewhere getting to alignment and they at least aware that they need some external help or something to maybe take them inside.

Chakra sort of aligned.

Sort of aligned.

Okay, well, that brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you so much, Ramon. This has been amazing. I loved having you on the overthink tank.

Thank you so much, Surabhi for having me here. And I think it's been quite interesting.

What's some passing advice for this person?

The first thing is we need to first make ourselves important enough so that we heal our emotional wounds that we've been carrying and recognize that why did I attract such insanity in my relationships? And every time there's a need to draw to block people, it's an indication that something you need to work on. So once you've healed yourself, then life is really beautiful. When you have healthy boundaries, you say no when you have to say no. And your boundary has a beautiful door open in your heart center where you allow people to come in with the right degree. Anybody who's stepping into your energy field to hurt you, just very categorically draw a healthy boundary. You don't need to build up walls. So you have to be assertive enough and love yourself enough to recognize what is toxic and what is not toxic for you. And it all starts with immense self love.

We want personal growth. We want to be better than what we were yesterday. And that is the takeaway from this episode. Guys, I hope you enjoyed the Overthink Tank. If you did, don't forget to subscribe to the channel. And once again, thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Bye. You can say bye to that. Bye.