Do you have an appreciation for stillness? A consistent practice to help bring calmness, clarity, and authenticity to your daily life? And do you actively engage in the power of bringing energy to thoughts and actions as a way to achieve your dreams?
In this episode, you are introduced to Aesculus The Buckeye Mala and the "Buckeye" way of entering into a consistent practice for stillness that fills you with passion, inspiration, servant leadership, and lasting friendships in mind.
To best serve others, you have to have clarity about where you believe your power comes from and we are inviting you to explore our hand-crafted guide.
https://seemenotasd.com/the-shop/
Do you have an appreciation for stillness? A consistent practice to help bring calmness, clarity, and authenticity to your daily life? And do you actively engage in the power of bringing energy to thoughts and actions as a way to achieve your dreams?
In this episode, you are introduced to Aesculus The Buckeye Mala and the "Buckeye" way of entering into a consistent practice for stillness that fills you with passion, inspiration, servant leadership, and lasting friendships in mind.
To best serve others, you have to have clarity about where you believe your power comes from and we are inviting you to explore our hand-crafted guide.
https://seemenotasd.com/the-shop/
Hello. And welcome here is a podcast just for you where every day I'm teaching you something new about how to be the best version of yourself. So you can be an inspiring visionary for everyone else. I'm showing up to guide you. There's some things that you may have often overlooked such as how to strengthen your mindset. Without having to read a book in a world where everyone's focus is on what everyone else is up to. I'm hoping I can help you slow life down so you can focus on what you can do. The world needs more people to believe in what they see and to have visions beyond diagnoses with a focus on possibility. So I'm asking that as you listen in, please open up your mind and together, let's see all the ways we can make better. What we find. This is a podcast about diversity, equity and inclusion, and it's also about my experiences with exclusion. And it is my hope that in each episode, you're able to connect with me. And when we leave the conversation, I hope you are forever committed to the cause. See me not ASD. Let's get started.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to episode 11 of Simi, not ASD the podcast. I'm your host Devika car. In this episode, I'm talking about the luck of the Buckeye in particular, I'm giving you an introduction to escalas the Buckeye Mala crafted and created by me. Our monologue question for you is this, do you currently have an appreciation for stillness? Do you have a consistent practice to help bring calmness, clarity and authenticity to your life? And do you actively engage in the power of bringing energy to your thoughts and your actions as a way to achieve your dreams? Our segment goal is to offer up a way a practice that you can tap into. And it's the Buckeye way. It's the way that comes with passion, inspiration, commitment to servant leadership and lasting friendships, always in mind. So before I get started on all the key points in this episode, I'd like to show you what Aesculus the Buckeye Mala is. This is SQL plus the Buckeye Mela. It's a handcrafted necklace with 108 selected crystals or stones as beads. Each bead has a double knot in between it Cortes in the center and two tags that say, see me not ASD as the guru bead, the bead that ties everything together. We've chosen the Buckeye. It's actually a Buckeye nut. That's has a hole drilled through it and then connects you to the tassel for which is an extension of all the thoughts and all the energy that is placed into the beads. As you wear it, as you meditate with it, as you pray with it. And as you set your intentions for your day and for your life, I frequently wear my Mala necklace nearly every day, even if I'm just lying around the house or hanging out at home, I truly believe in the power of crystals and stones, mostly because they each serve their own energetic property and purpose in our lives. And I also believe that we as individuals were created from the earth at our inception at our beginning, and while we may not come from the earth directly anymore, I do believe that our bodies have the energetic properties of the same crystals and stones that are coming from the earth. And as one way, that we can align with our bodies and our higher selves and the powers that be those which we believe in and have faith in. And that guide us, I believe in a practice dedicated to constantly being reminded of what being a Buckeye means, but also utilizing my daily practice to change the lives of others. So to best serve others, which I believe many of you come to this podcast to discern in your own lives. I believe that you have to have clarity about where you believe your power comes from. I believe that you also, once you have decided where you believe your power comes from, I believe you have to accept responsibility for how much your own energy impacts your possibilities to serve well and serve completely. You find strength and resilience in the powers that be in those that, in which you believe in, and you should make time to contemplate, to visualize and speak truth through positive affirmations for your life, for your future, for your daily living for your daily moments, those in the now and those experiences that you recall through memory. Each time you get through a positive affirmation for yourself and for your life and your journey, you will discover thereafter the revelations that reveal where you're meant to be. They serve as confirmations for you and all the joy that you hope to receive. I believe that you have to be willing to step into the light, always step into the light. And for many of us that may simply mean just stepping out into the sun, feeling the warmth of the sun on your face. Not expecting much more than just the feeling I actually had. My friend April, um, engage in a daily practice that I have after I leave the gym. After I leave the sauna at the gym, I step outside where it's much cooler, usually because I'm there early in the mornings. And I stand where I can put my face to the sun. I close my eyes and I stand very still. And then with my eyes closed, I rotate my head upward slowly, downward chin to chest, back to center then to the right, okay. Back to center then to the left, back to center. And I engage in this practice because it's what is beautifully revealed to me every time, no matter how bright the sun is or how overcast it is as covered by the clouds. I always discover that the light and the colors change depending on where my head is position. So as I go up, uh, different colors revealed as I go down, a different color reserve is revealed. And if you know anything about shockers, it's usually in line with the chakras themselves. And it's quite fascinating, but I really love the sun. I believe the sun brings us the kind of warmth that we often look for when we are evaluating our levels of happiness. And so I believe that this practice in this exercise of feeling the warmth of the sun on your face can really bring you to a well-grounded feeling and it's a good place to start your day. So anyway, that aside, I believe that only, the only way that you can commit to servant leadership is by having a practice by having clarity about the powers that be, and those in which you believe are your source of energy. And so one way to discover the powers that you believe in is to try different things. And in the past few episodes, we've discussed the power of now the power of inviting more on inspiring moments into your life, such as stepping outside into the natural world, around you, observing the clouds, uh, observing the ocean and how the waves move, observing the trees and how they sway going outside on a starry night. And on a clear, on a clear night to observe the starring night that is, and seeing how they sparkle or seeing where they are seeing how they, how different they look depending on where you stand. These are the examples of what it means to step out into the world outside of you and to observe and tap into the natural wanders around you to invite an awe inspiring moment into your life. And by experiencing these new moments, your vision grows because you find memories that inspire you, that prompt you to have intellectual ideas and intellectual conversations and intellectual thought processes that then guide you to your next moments. Right? So if you've listened into the previous couple of episodes, we kind of talked about that and covered all of that. We've discussed how having gratitude for each present moment. Each now can reveal greater opportunities for you to serve others in the, in the ways in which you hope to serve them. But how having clearly defined inner purpose and guiding principles is what ensures that you're always ready to serve no matter where, or when you, you, the opportunity exists or presents itself. And so escalas the Buckeye Mala is the guidance tool that I use to refine my inner purpose. And so everything always kind of flows together and in these episodes. And I really encourage you at any time to go back and listen to an episodes that you can recall, uh, where the pieces fit. Um, but essentially the, the Buckeye Mala is what I use to help me clarify my guiding principles. What's in my heart to define my inner purpose and make sure that everything is aligned. And of course I have a consistent yoga practice. I have a consistent, um, workout practice. I have a consistent running, uh, practice. And, and yet I activate all of, all of the things that bring me to my inner purpose and make sure that I'm still where I want to be. I activate these opportunities to diminish my ego. That's why I tap into them. And so when I turned my attention to the practice of my breathing, the practice of the movement of my body, the practice of, um, my F my physical exertion, my opportunities to grow in muscle and strength in endurance, these are all ways in which that I can step back outside of myself and outside of my ego to really see what I see and make sure that what's inside as my purpose is going to be matched when I'm outside in the world and ready to start. So this here is the look book for Aesculus the Buckeye Mala. And I'd like to just go through some of the pages to kind of give you some idea of why this product was created and why it's so near and dear to my heart and what the Buckeye way really is and what it means, what a buck I even means. So Aesculus is actually the scientific name for a Buckeye. And it's the official phrase is Aesculus Galot bruh. And it's, uh, the scientific name for a tree species known as Ohio Buckeye. Um, like I, for many of you who know, or don't know, I graduated from the Ohio state university in 2006 with a sociology and criminology degree. And, uh, while I was there, I competed, uh, as an all-girl cheerleader, uh, competitively. And yet, even after I graduated and left Columbus, Ohio, I still always felt so connected to what it meant to be a Buckeye. It was so much more to me always than just going to football games and basketball games and watching sporting events. It was more than just cheering for the university, uh, as you know, a competitive cheerleader through the all-girl team. It was more to me than just getting a D my first, you know, degree. I always felt compelled to discover though why I was always so drawn on to Ohio state, why I was always so deeply rooted. And so I had to sift through years of experience, years of memories, years of, of, of things that I had done. And what I discovered is that in every aspect of being a Buckeye in my collegiate career, and also, uh, as an alumni, I have found that there have been principals that always show up for me. And then when I started researching other individuals, my friends, um, you know, other people that I would meet at alumni events or wherever, I mean, I've met bet guys from everywhere. And when I moved to Florida, there's a ton of Buckeyes here. And I, at first I was a little puzzled by it, but then I, I realized it doesn't matter where in the world you are, there are Buckeyes everywhere, and yes, this may be true for other universities and other colleges, but I wanted to know what made being a Buckeye so different. And when I started studying the kinds of things that Buckeyes were accomplishing and achieving in the world, there were principles that I always saw showing up. And those were passion. People were doing things with passion, always. They were inspired at every aspect of their lives, no matter how high or low they were feeling. And they were committed to servant leadership. I have seen more leaders as Buckeyes than anything else. And, you know, I may be biased, but I truly believe that Buckeyes are committed to servant leadership in every aspect of whatever it is that they're doing. And the best part is that they always have lasting friendships in mind. It's not about the number of friends you have, but it truly is about creating lasting friendships with the ones that you do have. And so many of, you know, that CME not AST was, was created, um, as a result of my experiences with my son being diagnosed as having autism spectrum disorder and what ASD means to me and what it doesn't. Um, and for those of you who know individuals with autism spectrum disorder are typically, uh, I guess, labeled as having difficulty, maintaining friendships, creating them, engaging, uh, having meaningful relationships, uh, de identified as friendships. And so it don't edit, always been fascinating to me that I was coming from a university whose, who has a song and in the song, it says how, from my friendship, Ohio, and here, now I have this child who's been designated as having a disability that makes it difficult for him to make friends or even understand what friendship is. And, you know, before the conception of escalas the Buckeye Mala, I had always contemplated what that would mean when he was older, what that would mean for him when he got to grade school, would friendships truly be difficult for him? What kind of friendships would he have? Would he have any at all? And so that was always in the back of my mind. And, um, so I started Simi, not ASD for many reasons, but escalas the Buckeye Mala. The reason every necklace has a CME, not ASD tag or two of them is because I, I thought how brilliant that you could, you could take the Buckeye, which is, is about servant leadership and passion and inspiration, but also about lasting friendships. And you could spread the word and spread the awareness that we should all be mindful of others and how each of us is diverse in our own way. And we could all be mindful to be more inclusive. And we could certainly be more mindful to have genuine and authentic friendships with one another, no matter what level they may be at and to be firm in that. And so I started it as, as like a social enterprise, really just to spread awareness. And, but to get people to understand that individuals with autism spectrum disorder do, uh, sometimes experience difficulties, developing genuine friendships, and because the disability impedes their social understanding and their social interactions, it doesn't mean that we who are not diagnosed, do not have an opportunity to change that, to change that dialogue, to change that reality and, and make it better. And so it is my prayer that for every person who purchases and or wears an escalas, the book I'm Allah, that they're always reminded to be firm in friendship, to be committed to servant leadership, to do everything with passion and to be inspired, uh, at every, every juncture of their lives. So that's the meaning of Aesculus the Buckeye. Uh, but traditionally a Buckeye is passed out at game watch parties. Um, any, anywhere you go on on campus, anywhere that you can find Buckeyes, there's usually somebody passing out Buckeyes and traditionally they're passed out for good, for good luck. And so, you know, I called this episode, the luck of the Buckeye, but really it's, it's not luck at all. It's about intent taking the intention of what it means to be a Buckeye and setting that as your intention for how you interact with other individuals around the world, and just allowing it to serve as a reminder to you and to others to, to serve, um, in a way that is inclusive of everyone. So, uh, as to the selection of crystals and stones, you know, maybe you don't believe in the power and the energy of crystals. Um, maybe you think that that's taboo, maybe you think it's a fad. Maybe you think it's too holistic, uh, not godly, I don't know. Or perhaps you're like me and you believe that because we are from the earth. So too are the things that come from earth powerful and energetic like we are. And so I carefully curate each design, um, based on what the meaning of the crystals are. And, and yet for me with my family, I, when my son was, uh, smaller and he would have tantrums or difficulty adjusting to changes in his schedule, I was always looking for ways to bring a sense of calmness and clarity into his life in a way that didn't feel aggressive. That didn't feel as if I, I didn't accept him for who he was. And I always wanted him to be able to, to find something that he could bring himself back to. Uh, and so I, I had introduced him to yoga and to meditation, and I added, as I added it to my own practice, I added it to his, his practice and his practice of life and living and learning to adjust to how he was feeling. Um, each of my children has their own personality, obviously, but I wanted each of my children to appreciate stillness. And so when I introduced mediation and yoga med med, excuse me, meditation and yoga to my son on the spectrum, I decided that I wasn't going to only give it to him, that I was going to gift it to all of my children, because it didn't matter that he was designated with a disability. What mattered is that each of them could receive something positive from the experience of learning to meditate and learning to, uh, to feel their bodies differently. And what I decided I have heard is is that meditation, yoga, crystals, stones, and prayer as holistic approaches to how you handle certain challenges, uh, for individuals on the autism spectrum, those things are not reserved only for individuals who are struggling. They are reserved for everyone. And when I quickly discovered how intuitive all my children were and how receptive all of them were to crystals and stones in prayer and meditation, I realized that there should never be a distinction between the things that we teach those on the spectrum, or those with disability diagnosis, there should be no distinction from, from them and every other individual and every other child, because we can all learn from the same things. We can all become better in ourselves and for others by using the same techniques. Um, so, you know, that's, I wanted, I wanted them all to learn, to find stillness, to find calmness, to find clarity, to know who they could call upon the higher powers that be that they truly could believe in. And then they could find worked for them that would energize them and make them feel as if they could move forward to the next moment, based on the memory of their last experience. So whether you even the healing powers of meditation, prayer, and positive thinking, and the colorful energies from crystals and stones, we believe the symbolism behind our handcrafted models will encourage you, guide you on your journey and serve as your reminder to serve others with love. And a few of these other pages I talk about, you know, which stones we've chosen and why. And the commitment really is that for every Aesculus Buckeye Mala, that's sold, we donate, we are committed to creating a scholarship fund and giving out scholarships to individuals on the autism spectrum or any individual with a disability diagnosis who is gifted in some way and exceptional in some way. And their families aren't able to afford those extracurricular activities that would allow them to elevate and cultivate their gifts because they're spending more of their money on therapies and activities, social activities that are trying to help their children integrate into a society that still is not yet where it needs to be in terms of acceptance and inclusion. And so 50% of the profit from every necklace goes towards the scholarship fund that I'm building. And while I have not sold very many, I think I've sold two. Since I started the project in August of 2019, I am confident that this is something that will change people's lives. And it's, it's not so much just about spreading awareness about what being a Buckeye means, but it is utilizing my experience and my, uh, true belief in being a Buckeye to inspire other people to live in a way that is about diversity inclusion and equity in a way that we can elevate individuals with disability diagnoses or elevate individuals who are different than us recognizing that we ourselves are different from them. And that we each have some contribution to society. And I think just being able to give something to someone that is so meaningful and so thoughtful and can guide them in their lives to inspire them and to continue reminding them to be firm in friendship and to be committed in their servant leadership, I think is a very powerful tool. And I'm excited because I know that, uh, with that intention set in the world, there's no way that it could be a failure. I mean, just being able to share it with each of you is exciting enough for me. So there are five different types of molars and you can, this, uh, look book is available online and through our, uh, link tree on our Instagram page. So please check it out. If you'd like, pass it on to anyone you would like, and if you have any questions, please let me know. Um, and this is my favorite part of the entire book. Um, I went to the grand Canyon to sort of bless my Mala and, uh, the intention that I was setting for its purpose to, to travel the world and change people's lives. And I took a photograph of me sitting on the edge of cliff in the middle of the grand Canyon. So this is Aesculus the Buckeye Mala. You've now received an introduction to all that it is. And I hope you'll check it out further. So the call to action, this episode is for you to enter the space where everything you need is ready to be received. Check out Aesculus the Buckeye mall is lookbook and ask yourself if it is something that you'd like to welcome into your life as a guiding tool, gift it to yourself, or gift it to someone else. And in the next episode, episode 12, I will talk deeply about, uh, how to use it in meditation, prayer, or intention setting. Uh, and also when you check out the lookbook, I kind of, I kind of describe and explain how it is meant to be used. Uh, but essentially there are 108 beads and, you know, the one stands for there being only one. You, you take the time to discover your power by entering the space where you have a single focus and, um, you follow your breath because you sick. It signifies that you're alive, you meditate or pray or, or set an intention over each aspect of your life. That is most important to you. And you expand into the touch of each, be the energy that you wish to receive. The zero stands for having zero expectations and judgments. This will open up the space that you are in and allow you to enter into the infinite, which is what the eight stands for eight is for the infinite possibilities that you grow into by showing up for steady practice of meditation or prayer or intention setting, which we will cover in episode 12, you unite your soul with these infinite possibilities and you float with them bead by bead. The tassel is a symbolic connection to the divine and to one another, the quarter strong and durable, it's intended to carry the weight of 108 beats and last their normal use. And the tag are cause me not. ASD is attached to every tassel. It is. One is a one of a kind hand stamp created by Buckeye engraving in Kent, Ohio. And they specialize in manufacturing, quality, custom marking products, check them out. We are committed to creating our scholarship, and we know that there's so much power in being a Buckeye, but there's more power in sharing with the world, what it means to be a Buckeye, the creative connection, two quotes that are, uh, that you can find inside the look book. The first is a quote by myself. Vision is not some fantasy and we never expect to come. True. Vision is actually seeing beyond the limitations we've been told exist. Vision is believing. There are endless possibilities to succeed. And then I call upon Dana, Isaiah Thomas, his quote says success is not what we do compared to others, but what we do compared to what we were created for the mantra in this episode is this. I am the movement. I am the transformation I see beyond limitations. I've been told exist. I believe there are endless possibilities to succeed and my success lives wherever I am found doing what I was created for. Thank you so much for joining me on this episode. And I look forward to talking to you again soon, take care.
Speaker 1:You've just listened to see me not ASD the podcast with your hosts. Devika, thank you for joining. Please connect with us beyond this week's episode so we can continue the conversation. We hope that you'll have time to visit our website. See me not asd.com, where you'll discover show notes, bonus content, be able to sign up for access to our other resources and submit any questions, comments, or topic ideas. But if you're currently multitasking while watching or listening to this podcast, and you're not able to get to the website right now, we simply ask that you remember us on Instagram, me not ASC. We have some bonus content that we've bookmarked for you, easy access, and you'll be able to get started. We believe we are the number one source for inspiring visionary supporters around the world so that they can elevate the exceptional people in the world as well in the pursuit of diversity, equity, and inclusion. So as you meet individuals, see them for the exceptional people that they are and do your best to elevate that.