We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Sujata Patel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Sujata, thank you so much for joining us today. There are so many topics we could discuss, but perhaps one of the most relevant is empathy because it’s at the core of great leadership and so we’d love to hear about how you developed your empathy?
How did I find my purpose?
What were the conditions that allowed me to develop my empathy?
The very same things that allowed me to develop my empathy are the events that helped me find my purpose. I feel like we have to go through difficult life experiences to truly develop empathy. And it has been in times of adversity that my empathy and compassion has grown and continues to grow. I feel like going through specific challenging and sometimes devastating events in my life and understanding what my feelings and needs have been – whether they be met or unmet – has been a key factor in developing my empathy for others. I had always felt that I felt other people’s pain, but my life experiences took my empathy to the next level.
During the first few years of my marriage in my mid 20’s, I struggled with infertility. It took me three years to finally get pregnant with my first baby, and then I miscarried. I then had a full-term pregnancy, during which time I developed gestational diabetes. At that time, I was a newly licensed pharmacist and I was learning so much more about women’s health care and hormones than I did in pharmacy school. It was then that I dove into holistic healing. I pulled from my Eastern upbringing and philosophies to learn more about my body, the cycles of the moon, and more universal and bigger thought modalities. I knew that Western medicine had some limitations and I wanted to help women navigate their various health concerns from a mind, body, spirit approach rather than a one size fits all pharmaceutical drug.
This was one of the major factors in deciding to open a consulting and compounding pharmacy. That was two and a half decades ago, before bio-identical hormones were popular. It was the empathy I developed while experiencing the ups and downs of hormones, PMS, infertility and the agony associated with that. It was because of my own experiences that I could step into the pain of others and truly be there to listen and provide what they needed. And hence, I found purpose.
When I learned that my husband was having an affair, I went through all of the emotions that go with that sort of event. I had a lot of needs that went unmet because I was unable to truly connect with a counselor, and my husband decided to leave the marriage. That opened up another door to the empathy I was able to feel at a deeper level. Divorce was happening all around me, and because of my own experience, I was able to hold space for others navigating it as well.
When, to my surprise, I discovered that my new partner was having an affair, this came with a whole different set of emotions and struggles to work through. It was then that I asked myself, “What is it about me that I attract men who will be unfaithful?” I wanted to break this pattern. So I worked through each and every childhood and adult wound that I had. I dug deep, identified them, felt them, and then went in to heal those places. I felt alone through most of this path. But I was determined. Through this entire process, my empathy deepened. I thought more about the fact that everyone is suffering. Some wear it with a smile, others become bitter and need more love. I didn’t want anyone to feel the loneliness I felt when I was going through it. I reached out to strangers who looked like they were having a bad day, and would inquire more about it. Random people would tell me their deepest issues, not even having known my name. I could feel the pain of people going through trauma and I was able to sit with them in the hole of despair and let them know I had their back and we would get through it.
Ultimately, I wrote and published a book called “Poorly Wrapped Gifts: Rising and Thriving After Infidelity.” This was my labor of love to not only heal myself, but to validate other people’s experiences, let them know they are not alone, and offer a practical path to healing, empowerment, and self-love. I found great purpose in sharing my experiences.
I was crippled by an antibiotic in the class of drugs known as fluoroquinolones. As a single mother of four young children, this was a huge challenge for me. Every tendon, muscle, and joint in my body was in pain 24/7. I had neuropathies throughout my body, indicating nerve damage. I could not walk up and down the stairs. I literally crawled. I could not squeeze a shower scrubby or twist the lid on a gallon of milk. I suffered cognitive decline as my brain became affected. One evening I discovered I could not add 1 plus 1. Before this poisoning happened, I was teaching four spin classes a week, had just opened up a yoga and meditation studio, was teaching bootcamps and yoga classes. I was incredibly active and fit. I lived a healthy lifestyle. My life literally changed overnight. Western medicine was at a loss, so I took it upon myself to do the research and figure out how to heal my body and mind. It took me two years to heal to 95%, which I celebrate by running a half marathon.
This experience opened my eyes to the thousands of people around the world who also suffer from fluoroquinolone toxicity. I was lucky because my knowledge base includes medicinal chemistry and biochemistry. I had leaned heavily on those areas to help figure out how to heal. Not everyone has that. And back then, there was not a lot of information out there to help people heal. That’s when I realized I had found another purpose. I shifted my consulting practice to dedicate a large amount of time to helping others heal. Having been through the toxicity, having felt the hopelessness and devastation of not knowing if I would get my life back, my empathy for others grew even more. Listening to the stories of countless people suffering, I found myself feeling their pain and responding in the way they needed me to. This trauma ends up leaving people with PTSD, and unless someone has gone through it, it is very difficult to understand. Ultimately, it is my level of empathy for those going through this toxicity that has made a huge difference in their healing paths.
About 5 years ago, I discovered that two of my children have a mutated gene for a debilitating genetic disease. The word devastation doesn’t do what I felt justice. This opened my eyes to a whole population of people suffering from rare diseases and their parents. As my eyes opened, again, my level of empathy deepened.
Having an estranged daughter was the next most devastating event that happened for me. I joined support groups for this surprisingly common phenomena, happening all over the world. Having felt the emotional upheaval and navigating the grief from losing someone who still walks the Earth uncovered yet another opportunity to develop my empathy.
These are some of the life events that have shaped how I view suffering and extend empathy and compassion to the people around me. These very same events are what helped me find my purpose. Again, I do believe I have always felt the pain of others. But having been through a multitude of challenges, the empathy I feel for others – no matter what the cause of suffering is – continues to develop and grow. And because finding your purpose is about identifying your unique gifts and talents and using them to serve others, my purpose continues to evolve at various points in my life.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
My career has evolved over the last 30 years, moving hand in hand with my life experiences. For a great number of years, as a pharmacist, I owned a compounding and consulting pharmacy. But when I divorced, I sold my half of the business to my ex-husband. This allowed me to dream big. It was an opportunity to define what I wanted to do, how I wanted to spend my days and shape my career, and most importantly, how I wanted to serve others. I trained at the Chopra Center for Wellbeing to become a meditation instructor, then a yoga instructor. I took this amazing opportunity of having a clean career slate to brainstorm and ultimately shift gears and start a health and wellness company.
I started by opening a yoga and meditation studio. As I interacted with my students, I found that they were asking questions about their health and well-being, which I was also qualified to answer. This led to the expansion of my practice to helping people achieve total health and well-being. I became certified as a functional medicine practitioner, then did some energy work and became a Reiki master. I wanted to use however many modalities I could that would resonate with my clients.
Through my clients and students, an overarching theme came to my awareness. Everyone suffers. My personal life struggles and the skills I had developed as a result, led me to use holistic approaches to help others heal their minds and bodies, reclaim their lives, empower themselves, LOVE themselves, and live with greater ease and grace.
I currently own the company, Wellness With Sujata. The services I provide are designed to help empower others on their own journeys to healing and wholeness.
I work with women who want to regain their lives after having put everyone around them first and sacrificing their own mental and physical well-being. I also cater to a whole group of clients who have been afflicted with fluoroquinolone toxicity, which is a crippling and debilitating condition caused by that class of antibiotics. I have also started working with women who are struggling to rediscover themselves, their self-worth and identities after having been betrayed.
For all of my clients, I focus on taking a complete mind, body, spirit approach to healing. As a functional medicine practitioner and pharmacist, I recommend regimens of supplements and lifestyle modifications that will aid in balancing the body and healing. As a coach, I focus on stress management, meditation and mindfulness techniques, breathing techniques and calming the nervous system to navigate the triggers due to the trauma of physical impairment as well as the emotional upheaval my clients experience. I also help my clients navigate the psychological impact of having been poisoned by fluoroquinolones and any life trauma.
When a client chooses to work with me, we develop a very close relationship. We work three months at a time, during which they have access to me via text or email in between our weekly sessions. I never want my clients to feel alone on their journeys, and they know I care about them and always have their back.
My latest adventure is that I started my author career. I wrote and published a book called “Poorly Wrapped Gifts: Rising and Thriving After Infidelity.” It is a very raw, authentic, and honest account of my experience with infidelity. I wrote it in as much of a conversational tone as I could, and my goal is to make sure others going through this sort of betrayal know they are not alone. I strive to validate their experiences and give them practical tips on moving through the healing process. I discuss the grief process, how to handle triggers, the healing timeline, trust, forgiveness, intimacy, and more. I draw on my knowledge of how to regulate the nervous system as well as a multitude of self-care practices to support the reader through their healing path. This book can also serve as a resource for anyone struggling, even if not from infidelity. I’m really excited about seeing how this book will be received, and hope it impacts the healing journeys of my readers.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three qualities, skills or areas of knowledge that were most impactful on my journey are: 1. My inherent empathy and compassion
2. My drive to positively impact the lives of others and help ease their suffering
3. My rounded education including pharmacy, functional medicine, meditation and yoga and Reiki, as well as my upbringing in Eastern philosophies
My advice to folks who are early on in their journey is to gain clarity of what your unique gifts and talents are. Everyone has things they are good at and come naturally. These are things that feel easy to you that don’t even feel like work. Identify what those gifts and talents are. Make an exhaustive list. And then find a way to use those unique gifts and talents to serve others. Do what lights you up and gets your creative energy flowing. Do something that fills you up by the end of the day. And everyday you show up to it, be heart centered. When you are interacting with others, ask yourself, “What does this person need? How does this person need me to show up?” and then go from there.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest area of growth in the past 12 months has been in the realm of truly embracing the authentic, vulnerable side of me. I have dropped my people pleasing tendencies and fully stepped into my own. I have found my voice and have used it unapologetically. With kindness and compassion, of course. But unapologetically. And this also means knowing that choosing silence is also me using my voice. My meditation practice has deepened and I connect to it multiple times a day as a means of making sure the spiritual aspect of my being is nurtured and connected, I have stepped away from toxic individuals and when they try to cause drama, I am happy to say that it does not illicit an emotional reaction or affect my body. It doesn’t get in. It’s as if I am swatting a gnat away from my awareness. I have consistently practiced self-care and self-love as a requirement before I interact with anyone for the day. I prioritize my physical and mental health over all other things. These past 12 months have actually been all about me truly feeling empowered and making nourishing choices without guilt. Having been on this journey myself, I am also much better equipped to journey with my clients. I feel peace.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://wellnesswithsujata.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/poorlywrappedgifts_the_book/
- Facebook: http://facebook.com/wellnesswithsujata
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wellnesswithsujata/
- Other: https://poorlywrappedgifts.com
