Ruth Penfold (00:58)
back to Women Who Lead. And I am so thrilled to be joined today by the brilliant Sanal, who I had the very great privilege, privilege, privilege, privilege of meeting in the last...
Ruth Penfold (01:16)
year or so, I would say. That's about right, isn't it? Yeah. But
Sonal Bhatia (01:21)
Mm, yeah.
Ruth Penfold (01:22)
you were, I believe, the first woman to serve as Chief Medical Affairs Officer at Pfizer. Is that correct, Data? You will know better than me.
Sonal Bhatia (01:31)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (01:33)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. but so now recently stepped out to create her own business, which is very much grounded in the world of Ayurveda. We're going to get into all of that. We're going to get into all of the meat of all of it, all of it. But I like to sort of start these podcasts right in the beginning, in the middle rather, right? Like, and I find them a great way to get into the middle is to ask you.
Ruth Penfold (02:02)
What does it mean to be in bloom to you in work and in life?
Sonal Bhatia (02:07)
Well, Ruth, first of all, thank you so much for having me on your podcast. It's such an honor to be here. And
Ruth Penfold (02:14)
Yeah!
Sonal Bhatia (02:15)
you know, to be in bloom just means blossoming for me. I think women have so much potential. And there unfortunately we've lived in systems and structures that create us believing that we're our worth is aligned
Ruth Penfold (02:32)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (02:32)
with that work and only for a period of time.
Sonal Bhatia (02:36)
And to me, bloom is almost like, well, no, there is so much more potential. Step out of
Ruth Penfold (02:41)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (02:42)
it and go do what allows you to create what you need to do for society and for the world and the place we live. And that to
Ruth Penfold (02:50)
Mm.
Sonal Bhatia (02:50)
me is what I want to empower other women to feel and actually do.
Ruth Penfold (02:55)
and actually do. And what you just said there is so relevant because there's nothing quite like a radiant woman, is there?
Sonal Bhatia (03:05)
No.
Ruth Penfold (03:05)
Like a radiant woman that lights up the world around her just with her, a radiant human, but a radiant woman in particular, right? And actually your business is called OGIS VEDA, right? And can you just tell us what OGIS is?
Ruth Penfold (03:23)
To me, ogis and the radiance that we're talking about are kind of the same thing, right?
Sonal Bhatia (03:29)
Yeah, actually, I would assume you know Sanskrit because you said that. So Ojis means it's a Sanskrit word and it means vitality, bliss,
Ruth Penfold (03:36)
Yeah. Right.
Sonal Bhatia (03:38)
radiance, like that that desire to live, the the life
Ruth Penfold (03:43)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (03:43)
force that we have within us. And
Ruth Penfold (03:45)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (03:46)
Vida means life in Spanish. And the reason I created this name was because I was born in Mexico City, but my heritage is Indian and I wanted
Ruth Penfold (03:56)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (03:56)
to
Sonal Bhatia (03:57)
combine those and what I created because I show up as a very unique individual based on my own genetics, my soul, where it lived, where it resided, my experiences. But ultimately, we want to live a blissful life. We do not
Ruth Penfold (04:12)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (04:13)
want to be stuck in normative misery. And that is where you get that radiance and that power and energy to live your life the way you want. The way you
Ruth Penfold (04:23)
Right.
Sonal Bhatia (04:24)
want, not the way others expect of you.
Ruth Penfold (04:27)
Yeah, and so be real with me here because the way I learned about life force energy is by having mine very depleted, right? So I know that you have more of a like and I've studied Ayurveda too, but not to the level that Sanal has, right? So I have some understanding. So we'll have to be careful that we don't nerd out too much for you listeners and that we make sure that you understand it all right. But, you know, so
Ruth Penfold (04:53)
But talk to me about your life force energy. How radiant were you able to be, would you say, when you were in those big corporate roles?
Sonal Bhatia (05:03)
Well, that's an excellent question because I believed that I was doing everything I needed to do. I was checking all the boxes. I was
Ruth Penfold (05:10)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (05:12)
highly successful. I was at the top of the food chain. I grew through that role and I was extremely happy. Okay, but I was depleted every night. I was exhausted
Ruth Penfold (05:24)
Mm-hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (05:24)
in the middle of the day. I was having restless sleep. I was not getting enough sleep. I was not eating right.
Sonal Bhatia (05:31)
I was dealing with skin rashes that every amazing dermatologist was misdiagnosing as as poison ivy when I lived in New York City in a high-rise. Like
Ruth Penfold (05:41)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (05:41)
there was no connection. And so what I thought was, radiant life, energy and force was really systematic, all those boxes that we check when we believe that this is what I need for success.
Ruth Penfold (05:57)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (05:58)
And you check
Sonal Bhatia (05:58)
them off and at the end of the day you've forgotten yourself, your soul, your your inner being. And it
Ruth Penfold (06:04)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (06:05)
screams at you. It screams at you in that headache, in that skin rash, in that my GI is completely off. What's going on? My digestion's
Ruth Penfold (06:14)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (06:15)
awful. I crave sugar all the time. I need to pick me up at 3 PM. Those are all signs that we all conveniently just don't listen to because we
Ruth Penfold (06:26)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (06:27)
Not that we choose not to. We don't realize that that's our inner body speaking and sending us
Ruth Penfold (06:32)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (06:33)
these little signals. That is what was happening when I started to recognize not just in myself, but those high-powered women around me getting inflammatory diseases, getting diagnosed with almost everyone seems to have ADHD as a woman. I'm like, really? Or is it just that you're dealing with a thousand things? We're misdiagnosing them. And then cancer.
Ruth Penfold (06:55)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (06:56)
Why are we getting not just the primary but the secondary cancer? Because
Ruth Penfold (07:01)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (07:02)
we've ignored all the signals over the decade before, believing that we had life force energy when we quite didn't. It was suppressed.
Ruth Penfold (07:11)
Yeah, and something that's certainly in my field at the moment quite a lot because it's being re-categorized, but things like endometriosis, right? Like these things that are occurring for women that we just accept as a... Right? So like, I'm just... There's something wrong with me because my hair's falling out. There's something
Sonal Bhatia (07:35)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (07:35)
wrong with me because there's something on my skin.
Ruth Penfold (07:39)
rather than actually there's something wrong with my environment and is this environment fertile soil for me or not? Because the answer is not always leave, is it too, right? The answer sometimes is actually, if my boundaries, if I was able to hold them differently, if I was able to operate slightly differently, I may actually graduate to the next level of the computer game and thrive in this environment.
Ruth Penfold (08:07)
give other people the permission to do that too. But I guess we have to discern really whether that's gonna be, really whether that's gonna be the place. And that doesn't just mean workplace either, gang, to anyone listening, it might be relationship. I mean, like, my gosh, the glow up is so real. Like, I left my last husband and I actually happened to host an event a month, two months before I left.
Ruth Penfold (08:33)
or maybe it was a month before I left, and an event two months after I left, right? So this was only like three months, three months. I look like a different woman. And the woman in the picture, if you didn't know better, she was smiling, she looked okay. Her face was puffy, her hair was
Sonal Bhatia (08:53)
Mm-hmm.
Ruth Penfold (08:53)
falling out, her skin was bloated. The next, the woman that stepped forward when...
Ruth Penfold (09:00)
the cortisol levels started to get less in my body, like it's completely different. So I guess my question then for you, my darling, is was there something that made the volume turn up loud enough for you to listen? Or was it just kind of a like divine intervention or, know, like what kind of made you be where you are?
Sonal Bhatia (09:22)
You know, I I love that you brought in divine intervention because I absolutely believe we have divine intervention. Every one of us does. We just choose not to listen. And
Ruth Penfold (09:31)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (09:34)
for me right? We we that's
Ruth Penfold (09:36)
Yeah, wait a minute. You're like, not that
Ruth Penfold (09:39)
intervention though. Like, do you know what mean? Like, want to, show me, but don't show me that.
Sonal Bhatia (09:46)
Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Now I'll tell you, I was absolutely I was doing my role, but the question became everything else around it that was no longer fitting in, you know? And at that moment when I start to get skin rashes, and you're right, the the bloatedness, the puffiness, the inflammation, all of that was surfacing.
Sonal Bhatia (10:13)
When and I went doctor after doctor. The derm was the last one, but trust me, I went to primary care. They sent me to the allergist. The allergist said no, back to primary care, then to derm, then back to primary care. Because Western medicine is fragmented and segmented. It is that's how
Ruth Penfold (10:28)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (10:28)
it is. It is always meant to be the specialist, decide what to do. They may not talk to the primary care. I got stuck in the system I grew up in. And that
Ruth Penfold (10:38)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (10:40)
Frustrated me when I got the steroids, when I was prescribed steroids, because I well know that there's too many people out there taking steroids, thinking it helps them. No, it's immunosuppressing you and prepping you for the next diagnosis you're gonna get. You don't realize
Ruth Penfold (10:56)
Right.
Sonal Bhatia (10:57)
that even low-dose steroids are not needed unless you really need them. And doctors don't make that distinction. It is very easy to prescribe. So
Sonal Bhatia (11:08)
I chose. That was my choice. No, I'm not accepting
Ruth Penfold (11:11)
you
Sonal Bhatia (11:12)
this. I started to go on the internet, looking at other alternatives, alternatives. And that led me to Ayurveda. Well, do you know what's
Ruth Penfold (11:22)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (11:23)
your constitution? Whoa, what's a constitution? Let me read
Ruth Penfold (11:26)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (11:26)
more into this. So I started reading, figuring out my constitution, did some basic quizzing, and through that I realized, wait a sec.
Sonal Bhatia (11:36)
It's my environment, it's my lifestyle, it's my food, it's my lack of
Ruth Penfold (11:40)
Hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (11:41)
knowledge of what to eat in the summer versus the winter versus springfall. It's my
Ruth Penfold (11:45)
Right, right.
Sonal Bhatia (11:47)
eating the same foods consistently draw throughout the year and thinking that's fine. Having a lot of jalapeno margaritas when you're a person with fire in the summer, probably not a good idea. So
Ruth Penfold (11:58)
Mm. Right.
Sonal Bhatia (12:00)
I started to implement changes
Sonal Bhatia (12:03)
Small, small changes, because at the end of the day, we live a Western lifestyle. We're
Ruth Penfold (12:07)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (12:08)
not here to say, hey guys, we're gonna bring in some ancient Eastern medicine and completely shift gears. No, no, no.
Ruth Penfold (12:16)
Right.
Sonal Bhatia (12:17)
That's impossible. But making small changes and learning to meditate, meditation
Ruth Penfold (12:24)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (12:24)
was powerful because what it did is it brought my cortisol level down.
Ruth Penfold (12:30)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (12:31)
Because
Sonal Bhatia (12:31)
we are so high that we don't even realize we're at that high. We've created
Ruth Penfold (12:36)
No.
Sonal Bhatia (12:36)
a new normal of of high cortisol being our new normal. And that is as
Ruth Penfold (12:41)
That's it. That's it.
Sonal Bhatia (12:42)
humanity that's not right. So we wonder why we get all these conditions. It's our cortisol. So I when I learned I did all what I could, my rash disappeared. No cortisol.
Ruth Penfold (12:54)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (12:55)
Those pills, out. I chucked them out.
Ruth Penfold (12:58)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (12:58)
Then
Sonal Bhatia (12:59)
I started meditating. Through my meditation, while I was still leading a high power role, I came across a fellowship for called Integrative Health in Ayurveda at the in Iowa at the Maharisha
Ruth Penfold (13:12)
Mm.
Sonal Bhatia (13:13)
International University. And it was a two-year program. Like I can do this. It was mostly virtual, except for clinic weeks that you go in. And I started pursuing that.
Sonal Bhatia (13:24)
At the same time, my evenings and
Ruth Penfold (13:25)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (13:26)
weekends became consumed with learning Ayurveda, stemming out of my interest. But the more I learned and applied it to myself, that is when I started to witness what life force, vitality, energy this feels like. Because you're totally
Ruth Penfold (13:41)
Mmm, right? Yes. Wow.
Sonal Bhatia (13:46)
in alignment. And for me, it became I reached a crossroad where I said.
Sonal Bhatia (13:53)
I can keep going in corporate. I'm good at it. I can keep reorganizing every nine to twelve months, which was starting to be the average. I can keep doing it. But what am
Ruth Penfold (14:03)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (14:04)
I doing? How am I helping people? Everyone around me is getting sick and they don't even know it. They're they're going for surgeries when they haven't even tried different things naturally before they go for the surgery, which is a whole systematic way of
Sonal Bhatia (14:21)
helping women who are going through menopause. I'm
Ruth Penfold (14:23)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (14:24)
not sure that's the right way, but that's what many people are undergoing. So I decided now I'm gonna go help everyone one by one or in groups and make Arabita thing. Make it something
Ruth Penfold (14:36)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (14:37)
that people start to embody in their lifestyles. Actually
Ruth Penfold (14:41)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (14:42)
deliver the learnings, the teachings, my own experiences
Sonal Bhatia (14:49)
In hopes that people listen and make those small adaptive changes.
Ruth Penfold (14:53)
Yeah, and I love your medical background also makes it very, certainly adds an underline and like, we call it a full stop, you would call it a period, and like a pow, right? Pow. What I love about Ayurveda is you don't actually need to know a huge amount about it. You don't have to study it. Like, I've liked, I've done like little, I've done a reasonable amount of study in it.
Ruth Penfold (15:21)
and obviously, Senel has done a full program in it. But you don't even need to go that far because once you understand just a tiny bit more about what your constitution is, then you literally go, so, and we, I mean, I'm gonna try and make this make sense. We'll try and make it make sense in a really easy way together, right? Like.
Ruth Penfold (15:43)
And just dive into the woo to the woo with us just for a minute, because you'll be like, what are they talking about? They're talking about elements. I know we're talking about elements, but it makes sense. When you understand it, it makes sense. We each have five, there are five great elements according to Ayurveda, and we each have a blend of the five in us. And that makes up our unique constitution. And I'm gonna let Sanal take this a little bit deeper and further. But.
Ruth Penfold (16:10)
Once you know that you're high in something or low in something, you basically really simply figure out how to balance yourself more. So I'm high in, I mean, I don't need to tell Sanel, I'm high in air and fire, right? Like she already knows, because she can already tell. She's met me before, she knows who I am. So knowing that about myself, it means that I don't naturally have so much of
Ruth Penfold (16:40)
earth and water in me. So I have to consciously cultivate almost like a mud-like quality in my life to make me whole. That means eating warm and nourishing and grounding foods. That means warm baths. I have a bath every single day, right? Like even in the summer because of how airy I can be. And so I'm going to let you pick it up here, but just knowing those tiny little things means that when
Ruth Penfold (17:07)
Ruth can feel she's scattered and a bit up in the air, up here, she knows she has to go and bring her body down to the earth.
Sonal Bhatia (17:17)
Yeah. And I love that you talk about water that allows you to do that. A bath, a shower really helps to ground, but even sitting in grass, barefoot in grass, sitting under a tree, all of these are grounding techniques, meditation to bring you down. Exactly. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (17:33)
Yeah, lie on the floor in your apartment if it's all you got. It connects
Ruth Penfold (17:37)
to the earth somewhere, baby.
Sonal Bhatia (17:39)
Yeah. You know, we all we all have in New York, there's a lot of wood flooring. And it's
Ruth Penfold (17:45)
Yeah!
Sonal Bhatia (17:45)
amazing because you've got wood in your home. Lie down. And you're connecting
Ruth Penfold (17:48)
Yes, lie on it. Yeah!
Sonal Bhatia (17:51)
to the natural element of Mother Earth. And I
Ruth Penfold (17:54)
Yeah
Sonal Bhatia (17:55)
love how you described it. It is beautiful. You know, one of the things that I work with my clients is yes, I I help them figure out, are you air, water, fire, earth? how
Sonal Bhatia (18:08)
even space like how are
Ruth Penfold (18:09)
space.
Sonal Bhatia (18:10)
these elements, these are the five elements, how are they interconnected with you? What were you born with? Who
Ruth Penfold (18:17)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (18:17)
are you at baseline? That is very important because what ends up happening is that over our journeys in life and if during different experiences, you're fluctuating. You're never just staying. We're we're creatures that continue to move. So you're not always going to stay exactly the way you were born.
Sonal Bhatia (18:37)
Having said that, that is your baseline. And if you're going through something, you are off balance. And I'm able
Ruth Penfold (18:45)
Mm.
Sonal Bhatia (18:46)
to help you identify what is driving that off balance element with you. Like maybe right now you're going through a lot of stress, there's fire in you, but you are someone that has a lot of earth, so that fire is really not.
Sonal Bhatia (19:01)
aligning with your constitution and it starts to manifest in ways where you have a problem within you. Usually
Ruth Penfold (19:09)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (19:10)
it starts with the GI or the skin. Those are two big organ systems that our body loves to communicate through. And that's how
Ruth Penfold (19:18)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (19:18)
you can identify what's your imbalance and then guess what? You can bridge back to gap balance. And sometimes you need Western medicine to help you. But it also means that you
Sonal Bhatia (19:31)
Can learn how to then restore yourself so that you no longer need the Western medicine. And I think Western medicine is powerful. We are so lucky to be living in this era where we have breakthrough medicines that are helping with
Ruth Penfold (19:44)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (19:45)
longevity, they're helping treat cancer, they're helping give vaccines to those who need it in areas of the world that they knew do. It's beautiful.
Ruth Penfold (19:52)
Hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (19:54)
But there's a lot of other things that
Sonal Bhatia (19:56)
We don't need until we have tried to inner restore ourselves. And that's why
Ruth Penfold (20:01)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (20:01)
I believe that the two in balance is where the power of healing is, where you can combine
Ruth Penfold (20:06)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (20:07)
the Western medicine and the Ayurveda, bridge them together and say, For this I need this, for this I need that. Ultimately, you may not need anything because you have learned how to restore your balance and continue.
Sonal Bhatia (20:23)
With those restorative techniques every day. Like you said, I take a bath every day. You know, you know the day you don't take a bath, how you're gonna feel, what your sleep would look like because you've been
Ruth Penfold (20:33)
Mm-hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (20:34)
in your head all day. You learn that about yourself and you listen to those body cues. That's very important.
Ruth Penfold (20:41)
That's it, and learning the rhythm of you, right? Like, so knowing that I have to wake up and be with myself, otherwise I will leave myself behind for the entire day, right? So I have to wake up and be with myself. There's no choice,
Sonal Bhatia (20:56)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (20:57)
right?
Sonal Bhatia (20:57)
And you know what? I'm gonna take a step back with that statement and I say
Ruth Penfold (21:02)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (21:03)
everybody, this is not even
Ruth Penfold (21:05)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (21:05)
Ari Veda at this point. Every single human being needs to start to wake up and be with themselves. Please, please
Ruth Penfold (21:12)
and be with themselves, you're so right.
Sonal Bhatia (21:14)
divorce yourself from your phones by your bedside. Get
Ruth Penfold (21:17)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (21:18)
them out of your bedroom. They do not belong there. They're disrupting your sleep. The blue light is
Sonal Bhatia (21:24)
There at three in the morning when you wake up tired but wired, it's your phone. Keep your phone out, wake up in the morning, take three deep breaths, give gratitude for being alive and be within you. Before you react to the world of calendars and emails from your boss, how about you just spend the next 30 minutes in silence with you? Listening
Ruth Penfold (21:46)
Mmmmm
Sonal Bhatia (21:47)
to you. If everyone did that, that that's the only thing. If you all just did that.
Ruth Penfold (21:53)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (21:54)
You would be centered for the rest of the day. You will not lash out at anyone. You will not say yes to the commitment that is a screaming no in your body that depletes you for the rest of the week. These are the
Ruth Penfold (22:08)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (22:08)
moments when you can really center and the morning is the most beautiful time to do it.
Ruth Penfold (22:13)
Yeah, yeah, no, I love that. I love that so much. And so, like, looking at the world as it exists right now, right, like we spoke about how radiant women can be, and men, but women in particular, but we also see the level of depletion in women right now, you know, operating for maybe years in the kind of functional freeze that you're talking about, right? Like...
Ruth Penfold (22:40)
We are so normalized in the living from cortisol. That was so normal for me. I had no idea that something else was going on, right? But of course, I loved some things about what that did because it made me work very hard. It made me successful in the sense of working my way in my career and determined, and that energy pushed me on.
Ruth Penfold (23:06)
But do you think, like, what will it take for us to now co-create a world that's not full of over-functioning women, right? That doesn't see, that actually sees women, because lots of us are depleted, absolutely, in the world, but women are far more depleted than, you you see men who are still rested and not carrying their family at the same time, you know what I mean?
Ruth Penfold (23:33)
But whereas I feel like we see less examples of that, I'm not saying it's perfect for men, I'm just saying we see less examples of that in women.
Sonal Bhatia (23:40)
Yeah, I have so so much to say on this. So
Ruth Penfold (23:43)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (23:44)
I'm gonna start with from an Ayurveda perspective, women and men, all humans, are going through a change while they're in their growth in their twenties, thirties, forties. We're in a constitution called pitta. And I'm not gonna bring in Sanskrit words, but it's the fire element in that
Ruth Penfold (24:06)
Hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (24:07)
stage of your life.
Sonal Bhatia (24:08)
And when there's fire, what are you doing? You're going, going, going. You're burning.
Ruth Penfold (24:12)
Go and go and go.
Sonal Bhatia (24:12)
You're burning yourself and you're successful. You get the career, the family, the kids, the car, the house, the everything, the community, all that is building with the fire. But what happens in the 40s and 50s is that you start to go into a vata phase, which is more airy.
Ruth Penfold (24:31)
Mmmmm
Sonal Bhatia (24:32)
And you're losing the pitta. You're losing the fire and you're going into air.
Sonal Bhatia (24:37)
This happens to every human. Every human
Ruth Penfold (24:39)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (24:40)
goes through this. The problem is when you are going through this transition and you're pushing against the natural rhythm of life and the natural alignment of elements with your body, that is when problems arise. So this notion
Ruth Penfold (24:58)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (24:59)
of midlife, my god, midlife, I'm declining. No, you're simply transitioning from fire to air.
Sonal Bhatia (25:07)
And therefore,
Ruth Penfold (25:07)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (25:08)
you need to adapt how you are working through. You need more rest in the evening. You need a break at 3 to 3:30, not a nap. Maybe that's what you need, but not a nap, not a coffee. Maybe just closing your eyes and being quiet. Maybe just meditating, maybe grounding in the grass. Those are such powerful techniques to get you through
Ruth Penfold (25:29)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (25:30)
the day in that stage that is a transition. It's a powerful transition. Now.
Sonal Bhatia (25:36)
Women, unlike men, also have something else happening, which is estrogen progesterone declining, our hormones
Ruth Penfold (25:42)
Mm-hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (25:43)
are changing, they are changing differently for men. That is where the difference arises, and this is where women need to start honoring their body and understanding that with this decline, if I keep pushing forward, I am going to get to a point where I'm going to need to be medicated or have surgery because I am pushing my entire body.
Sonal Bhatia (26:04)
Out of alignment with the cycles of nature, and we are creatures
Ruth Penfold (26:09)
Mm.
Sonal Bhatia (26:09)
of nature. The other thing that's happening with women is when we think about our ancestors, our grandparents, they our grandmothers didn't necessarily work. Our mothers were the one generation that started getting into the workforce. You had teachers, you had nurses, more commonly, or some other roles, but these were.
Sonal Bhatia (26:32)
Traditionally, the roles of the women who started to enter the workforce.
Ruth Penfold (26:36)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (26:36)
You and I are that next generation of those women.
Ruth Penfold (26:41)
Right?
Sonal Bhatia (26:41)
We are the ones who rose the ranks. We went into powerful leadership roles. We became the doctors, the CMOs, the CEOs, the see everything roles. We we were raised that way. We were raised to be women who can do whatever you want. But the one thing that didn't go away.
Sonal Bhatia (27:00)
Is that we still had to take care of our home. We still had to take
Ruth Penfold (27:03)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (27:04)
care of our kids. There are a lot of men and women living and helping each other in the family, but let's be honest, it's not 50-50. Women are still carrying the workload. And then you have the aging parents and that commitment around this age when we are in an airy phase. A
Ruth Penfold (27:22)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (27:23)
lot of it is coming. There's a lot of hats that we're wearing, and we truly believe.
Sonal Bhatia (27:29)
That we have to do it all every single day. And
Ruth Penfold (27:31)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (27:32)
I would say, spend your weekends assessing what you really can do for the next week. And then spend that morning time to say, I don't have the energy I had yesterday. So of these 10 things, I'm committing to these six. The other four, move them forward. That
Ruth Penfold (27:50)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (27:51)
is you honoring your energy for the day, the phase of life you're in.
Sonal Bhatia (27:57)
and really recognizing that you don't have to do it all and maybe you start delegating what you can.
Ruth Penfold (28:04)
Mmm, yeah, beautiful, beautiful. And I love the rich tapestry that you wove for us there, because you're right, you know, like that, the pitta, the fiery time of life is always going to be there, right? And the vata time of life, the airy time of life where everything is thinning out and getting... Like, it's... That's going to come. The part that I think might be a useful layer on there, too, a little sprinkle, is that...
Ruth Penfold (28:31)
With all of these great elements, there are assets and there are liabilities. So if we're looking at the evolution of women, and maybe we are the generation where we didn't get to live that version, we got the burn out WTF version of C-suite leadership.
Sonal Bhatia (28:51)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (28:51)
Okay, but if we think about younger women stepping up into those roles, if they've learned how to harness that life force energy, so it turns it to ogis, that beautiful glow of radiance, and not the fire of depletion, do you you see, Gang, in what we're layering here, the elements are always gonna be elementing, right? And it's like there's a positive,
Ruth Penfold (29:17)
Expression of that element is beautiful. I mean the way I describe it with fire, so now and maybe you'll you'll layer something on this too is When I talk about the kind of fire that we want I speak to embers, right? Versus we don't want this fire that spits and burns and burns people and burns us But if
Sonal Bhatia (29:35)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (29:36)
we can then stoke that fire in the right way to turn it into embers Embers think about it
Ruth Penfold (29:44)
Embers warm us and those
Sonal Bhatia (29:46)
Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (29:46)
hot rocks, we can sit around them and not be in danger, but if you touch the ember, you get burnt. So I think it's a great analogy for women. It's like, if we can be embers, radiant, people wanna come closer, but you cross a boundary and you're gonna burn your hand.
Sonal Bhatia (30:03)
You know, I think about a lot of leadership styles, and there are some women in leadership roles that are burning others. And it's it's their
Ruth Penfold (30:10)
Yeah!
Sonal Bhatia (30:12)
it's exactly what you're describing. They don't need to be that way, but they choose to be that way because they're not able to soften themselves and still be a powerful leader. And
Ruth Penfold (30:24)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (30:24)
what I think is gonna happen in this future generation, and we are helping that future generation.
Ruth Penfold (30:30)
it we're here as big
Ruth Penfold (30:31)
sisters we're like rolling up our sleeves come on let's go yeah
Sonal Bhatia (30:32)
Yeah, we're we're we're telling them, let's go.
Sonal Bhatia (30:36)
We we know what didn't work. We did it, we know what didn't work. But there's
Ruth Penfold (30:38)
Yes. Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (30:41)
another element in order for us to get to these roles, let's be honest, we had to suppress feminine energy and allow the masculine within us to rise up. We
Ruth Penfold (30:49)
We did. We did.
Sonal Bhatia (30:52)
imbalanced ourselves from that moment. This isn't even
Ruth Penfold (30:55)
We did.
Sonal Bhatia (30:56)
now about Ayurveda, it's simply about everybody has.
Sonal Bhatia (31:00)
masculine feminine energy within them. And when it's in balance, it's beautiful. You flow. You owe just bliss. But when it's out of balance and you're pure masculine and you're operational and you're dictative and you don't even think about the soft elements of you, we've been taught in in the corporate world to not be soft. If a woman's soft, there's a label for that. But the truth is
Ruth Penfold (31:24)
Exactly, gosh.
Sonal Bhatia (31:26)
that the best leaders
Sonal Bhatia (31:28)
Bring in the softness and the feminine with the masculine when that's in balance, you are a powerful leader. And watch out because our future generation is gonna bring that up not just men. I mean, not just women. Men who are also very masculine, their powerful leaders driving on ego, are now gonna bring up their feminine energy within them and
Ruth Penfold (31:51)
Hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (31:52)
create a much more cohesive leadership and
Sonal Bhatia (31:57)
be able to lead people in a much better way. And that's what humanity needs at the corporate corporate level,
Ruth Penfold (32:00)
Yeah, it's what we need.
Sonal Bhatia (32:04)
political level, we can talk about every level.
Ruth Penfold (32:06)
I love it.
Sonal Bhatia (32:06)
But I truly, I believe and this is it you also have to believe it and if enough people believe it'll happen, you've gotta believe that that's the future. And I hope that our future generation balances their energies and balances themselves to be their authentic version and not to change.
Ruth Penfold (32:24)
Right.
Sonal Bhatia (32:25)
Because of the expectations of the systems and structures that are going to fall. They are falling already.
Ruth Penfold (32:30)
Right,
Ruth Penfold (32:32)
right, right, right, exactly. And I love it so much what you've just said because literally the sort of, like don't get me wrong, there's the real world vision for my business, but my soul vision is masculine and feminine energy are respected and allowed equally, right? Like that's it. Because right
Sonal Bhatia (32:54)
Exactly.
Ruth Penfold (32:55)
now,
Ruth Penfold (32:56)
what we've done by all becoming so masculine dominant is we've created a ridiculously masculine dominant world that only recognizes that as power, right? And whereas
Sonal Bhatia (33:09)
Yeah, exactly.
Ruth Penfold (33:10)
there's this quiet uprising of feminine energy, you know, I hosted a workshop for a group of male leaders recently and the qualities that they gave for a successful leader were almost all
Ruth Penfold (33:24)
qualities of the feminine, right? Qualities of the feminine. you know, collaboration, you know, all these sorts of things, realizing that actually when we inspire each other to greatness, that is leading from the feminine, right? And
Sonal Bhatia (33:39)
Yes, yes.
Ruth Penfold (33:41)
we know that when humans are with you with their hearts, not just their body, then they will run through, like that is where we become superhuman.
Sonal Bhatia (33:50)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (33:50)
I mean,
Ruth Penfold (33:51)
And I love that so much.
Sonal Bhatia (33:53)
and and the performance goes beyond. Like when I led teams and I had teams of 300, but when I took my entire leadership or my organization and talked about what's our purpose? What are we here for? And people gave stories, men and women alike, that was feminine energy rising in the room. And those
Ruth Penfold (34:13)
Mm.
Sonal Bhatia (34:13)
powerful stories that were the underlying theme of why you're working in a a space like
Sonal Bhatia (34:20)
I I won't mention the therapeutic area, but a space that requires so much of giving from you to bring medicines to patients who have no access. That was our purpose. But it was driven
Ruth Penfold (34:30)
Yeah. Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (34:33)
by something in their lives that motivates them, that called them to this. That
Ruth Penfold (34:38)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (34:38)
alignment, after that, for the next couple years, I was not there to hold hands someone to say you didn't perform, you didn't do this, you didn't do that.
Sonal Bhatia (34:48)
Everyone collectively knew what they needed to do and our performance went up significantly, not because I was pushing them to meet reach milestones, but because they collectively had raised their feminine energy in the room and they were all working together to that mission. That is what leaders need to be doing because people want that. People want to be seen,
Ruth Penfold (35:10)
That's it.
Sonal Bhatia (35:11)
heard, felt.
Sonal Bhatia (35:12)
And you can do that when you are showing up in balance as a leader. And as
Ruth Penfold (35:16)
Mmm.
Sonal Bhatia (35:17)
an and not just as a leader, just even in our jobs today, right? When you show up and talk to someone with both masculine and feminine balance, every day that balance is different. Every person you talk to requires a different balance, but you'll feel it. And that is amazing.
Ruth Penfold (35:33)
Oh, you feel it, you feel it. Yeah.
Ruth Penfold (35:37)
It's amazing. And you're just making me realize how I should have introduced you actually. So I'm going to out reduce you with how I should have introduced you. But then I have one final question. So my out reducing you is, Pfizer were, were one of my biggest clients so far in my business for a lot of the people, the culture work I do around burnout, around sustainability and
Ruth Penfold (36:01)
Senal and I met each other. I met Senal's reputation before I met the woman.
Ruth Penfold (36:08)
And what I mean by that is I kept hearing, I worked with Pfizer a lot, they were a big client for me, so I met multiple people at Pfizer and what I felt through those people was your OGIS, right? With the quality of you, right? And that is, that's like, to be able to leave that imprint.
Ruth Penfold (36:33)
So that when you actually are leaving a place that the, obviously we all know when we leave somewhere, that everything carries on and fights another day, but the rupture was felt because of the quality of you. So
Sonal Bhatia (36:45)
Mm.
Ruth Penfold (36:45)
I just wanna honor that in you.
Sonal Bhatia (36:48)
Thank you.
Ruth Penfold (36:48)
I wanna honor that in you. And I wanna say for a final question, what's one thing that you wish that you'd learned sooner, if you just had to pick one in your career?
Sonal Bhatia (36:59)
You know, I'm gonna answer it with the first thing that came to my mind. I truly believe that I learned every lesson I had to at the time I had to. And I
Ruth Penfold (37:08)
Hmm.
Sonal Bhatia (37:08)
honor that you're always where you're supposed to be to learn the lessons for your soul journey and that there's no looking back of earlier or later. It happened when it meant to happen.
Ruth Penfold (37:19)
Yes,
Ruth Penfold (37:20)
yes, like literally, I would not get to be the woman that I am today were it not for my last divorce that would look like a mistake. It was not a mistake. It
Sonal Bhatia (37:30)
Yeah. Exactly.
Ruth Penfold (37:33)
was fabulous because I get to be her now, right?
Sonal Bhatia (37:37)
Yes.
Sonal Bhatia (37:37)
Yes. We are who we are based on the experiences and the learnings we had to have to become
Ruth Penfold (37:43)
That's it.
Sonal Bhatia (37:44)
the power and the magnet and the OGs we are today.
Ruth Penfold (37:47)
Yeah, beautiful, beautiful. So tell me, tell us if we want to find you to explore working with you or how do people do that? Where should they go?
Sonal Bhatia (37:59)
Well, I offer a 30-minute free consult, so you can just book it on my calendarly, sinalbaatia.com.
Ruth Penfold (38:05)
already opening my calendly to book my free consult gang.
Sonal Bhatia (38:10)
I'm on my website is sinalbatia.com. I'm on
Ruth Penfold (38:14)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (38:14)
Instagram, Sennelba MD. I'm on LinkedIn, Sennelba MD. I also write on Substack and very soon there's gonna be a book coming out. It's called and it's how to
Ruth Penfold (38:25)
Woo! It's called what? Say
Ruth Penfold (38:28)
that again. was wooing.
Sonal Bhatia (38:29)
It's
Sonal Bhatia (38:30)
woo, it's it's called The Bridge. I'm sharing the book right now.
Ruth Penfold (38:33)
Okay, love it. Love it.
Sonal Bhatia (38:36)
and it's really about integrating ancient wisdom and modern healing to
Ruth Penfold (38:40)
Yeah.
Sonal Bhatia (38:40)
enhance vitality. So
Ruth Penfold (38:42)
Beautiful.
Sonal Bhatia (38:43)
that should be coming out soon. And that's also another way where you can get to learn about my journey and
Ruth Penfold (38:49)
Great.
Sonal Bhatia (38:50)
my recommendation.
Ruth Penfold (38:51)
Beautiful. Well, thank you so much. It's been such an honor to have this conversation with you and to be able to share it with others is just such a gift. Thank you.
Sonal Bhatia (38:59)
Thank you. Thank
Sonal Bhatia (39:01)
you. Thank you for having me here. I enjoyed our conversation. I really appreciate it.
Ruth Penfold (39:05)
Yeah,
Ruth Penfold (39:06)
thank you so much.
