Shayamal Vallabhjee

"Once you still the mind and understand yourself, you bring the best version [of yourself] to that project, to the world," adds Vallabhjee, whose own spiritual journey began when he was a 20-year-old.

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"I grew up in South Africa during the apartheid era, a systemic oppression of the coloured. I wanted to play sports for the country, but that wasn't an opportunity that was open to people of colour. I played at the state and national level, but couldn't progress beyond that. It left me angry. I noticed that oppression turns people of colour against their own. I came from a spiritual family and knew that that was my anchoring point. For three-and-a half-years, I lived at the Hare Krishna Temple and worked out of here sporadically," he adds.

It's the principles he learnt through their spiritual practices, that come together in the book to help readers, critically, with emotional healing and learning how not to sabotage yourself.

On why emotional healing is necessary in every aspect of our lives, Vallabhjee gives the example of an athlete who breaks their racket during a super difficult point in a match. "Now the ramifications of that in the field of sports are big. It shows the inability to control one's anger. And the learnt behaviour probably came in early childhood when someone around him reacted to a situation with rage and got a positive outcome. Let's say his mom or dad shouted with rage. The other got subdued and listened. However, in the field of sports, there's a penalty for such behaviour. This athlete would need to rewire his brain."

The book aims to help you find your own patterns. "The brain," says Vallabhjee, "loves symmetry, story and familiarity. Familiarity is the most dangerous." It's
familiarity with what's toxic that pushes us to choose what we don't want. How does one break these patterns?

Everything is in the book, he says. The first step of course, is to fall in love with yourself.

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