Stephanie: Hello, Dhruv. Thanks for being here with me today.

Dhruv: Thank you for having me, Stephanie. Great to be here.

Stephanie: Oh, it's my pleasure. you are coming to me from jolly old London, right? All right, all right. So I love taking these conversations and making them universal by talking to people on different parts of the planet. This isn't just,something that's American. This is something that's really much more universal. Thisconcept of transition sometime around age 40.

Dhruv: For sure. I agree with you. Doesn't matter where you are. Many experiences have similarities.

Stephanie: Yes. And that is one of the things that I have been so blown away at. You know, we're like a hundred ish conversations into this podcast. And while there are so many unique stories and so many interesting stories, there are themes people fall into.And then even among the themes, there are common threads that are just consistent around these stories.

So yeah,I'm very,excited to jump into yours. So why don't we start where we normally do, which is tell me a little bit about your early life. What is the prologue to your midlife transition? What sets us up for the person who you were in your early thirties?

Dhruv: I think I have to go back to my infancy, actually. So I was,born in India. So my heritage is Indian, but at the age of six, my family moved to Sweden in North Europe, in Scandinavia. So that's where I grew up. So, pretty much grew up in Sweden since the age of six. And then somewhere in my early twenties, I came to London, UK to study. The main prologue is that coming as an immigrant family to a country like Sweden, the two very different cultures and the culture that I came with from India was very much get your education, get a job, get a career and get married, have kids, very mechanical in that sense.

Whereas in Europe, it's less mechanical. There's a lot more freedom in that and people growing up can make their own decisions. Whereas In Asian and Indian cultures, parents sort of make a lot of the decisions for you.

Stephanie: So I was following that mechanical trend, if you like,that was laid out to me and then moved to London to study and then eventually started working in London as well. And was very much on the hamster wheel.

Dhruv: And then it was time to get married as well. And somewhere in early thirties. That's when I married fo r the first time and a lot of things changed because that marriage did not work out.Yeah, and that leads me into my,midlife somehow where I had a change of thought change in how I was as a person as well. I'm happy to talk more in detail about that.

So let's talk about,you're in London,you're working and you're dating and you meet this gal and you guys, start going steady and moving down the path of relationship. What was that like? That was good. I think for me, I liked it. The idea of being in a relationship and,someone to share your life with. I quite liked that.At that point it was somewhat new, I would say. And I was learning a lot about feminine energy,women as well. I had learned lessons before, but this was somewhat different in many ways. So it was a nice,phase, before marriage, of course.

Stephanie: How old were you when you met your ex wife?

Dhruv: I would have been 30, 31. So yeah, before her, I was just maybe dating, short term flings But then when I met her, it was more serious.

Stephanie: So you did, how long did you date before you got married?

Dhruv: One and a half years, but most of it was long distance.

Stephanie: Oh, where was she?

Dhruv: So she,came to London for an exchange program from India.

Stephanie: Oh,

Dhruv: where we met. We had some common friends, but then she was in London for a few months. and we got to know each other during that month and she went back. And then for the most part of that one and a half years, she was in India.

So it was very much long distance relationship and how we got to know each other. And I will say that was probably the mistake because long distance relationships aren't really relationships. And getting to know somebody over the phone, it's not,the best way of getting to know somebody. So that was probably the big mistake that I made in the relationships out of things.

Stephanie: Yeah. I, I had a long distance relationship in my early thirties as well. You can get to know somebody to an extent when you are on the phone or, visiting for short visits, but it's very different to being with them on a day to day basis and seeing, we talk about social media as being the cultivated versions of our lives the shiny parts and the good parts. I think when you're long distance, you can downplay some of your,issues, faults, quirks, until,you're in the same place for, an extended period of time and you can start to get to know people. How they deal with success, how they deal with failure, how they deal with frustration, how they deal with anger, how they deal with the bills, how they deal with, drudgery. All those things you can't always get a great sense of in a long distance situation.

Dhruv: Exactly. You need to see how people react under stress and to work in a team as well, but you don't see that in a relationship. And that sort of,takes me back to the prologue that I was describing earlier as well. So I had to live up to a certain mechanical roadmap.

I was in my early thirties. It's time to get married. And so that was a milestone that I had to hit. So even though I was seeing some red flags, I'm sure if you ask her, she'll say that she saw red flags in me, but because I had to check that box, the box of getting married. You sort of gloss over some of those red flags because you're in that regimented,road map of your life.

Stephanie: Yeah. Were your parents, was your family giving you overt pressure? Were they telling you you needed to get married? Or was it, was it just,pressure that you had internalized? I'm curious about that.

Dhruv: Great question. My parents are very cool. I mean, they did not give me any overt pressure, but you're absolutely right. So it was internalized pressure, which I had grown up with essentially, so not blaming anyone at all. I mean, at the end of the day, it falls back on me. So it was very much internalized pressure, but sometimes you have to go through bad things in life for you to sort of put the mirror in front of you and realize what these issues are.

So yeah,

Stephanie: 100 percent. Yeah. So you were, you were feeling the power of the shoulds.

Dhruv: You could say that.

Stephanie: Yeah. We've been dating for a year and a half, so we should get married.

Dhruv: It's time. it doesn't get better than this or, maybe it will get better than this, but it's time. Time was,dictating my decision, you could say.

Stephanie: What kind of red flags were you seeing while you were in a long distance situation?

Dhruv: I was seeing sudden bursts of anger. And then sometimes an inability to work through a particular disagreement, maybe.And it's not always about being right or wrong or winning or losing a particular disagreement. It's about the correct answer is always between two extremes. It's about how you get to that middle part.

Stephanie: Absolutely. I always used to say there's your story and there's my story and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle.

Dhruv: Exactly.

Stephanie: So you get married and,I'm guessing she moves to London, right?

Correct. And how was the beginning of your marriage?

Dhruv: It did not start well,to be honest with you. No, it's straight off the bat. It was pretty bad. These sudden bursts of anger, I think they became more prevalent because now we're married. And so now it's okay. It's sort of okay for her and then it's becoming more and more frequent. So it started off really bad. And, you know, within six months we separated. So we had not lived together and,you could say that it was the first time that we were continuously with each other and experiencing the mundane together for the first time after one and a half years.

Stephanie: yeah.

Dhruv: And that's when you really start seeing, okay, she's not doesn't seem to be the person that I thought I was getting married to. And I'm sure she'd say the same thing,

Stephanie: Yeah.

Dhruv: We were not right for each other.

Stephanie: So sudden bursts of anger. And, I think when you and I first talked you, the anger was not just bubbling up out of her. you said she was physical about it as well.

Dhruv: Yeah, she was very physical, very aggressive. No, I don't have a medical certificate to prove this, but I would say that she had bipolar disorder because she had, she was taking some medications and sudden burst up and down, extremely aggressive. And then all of a sudden, very meek and weak and then all of a sudden getting angry again, up and down in the span of a few seconds

Stephanie: Oh,

Dhruv: I would say it was bipolar disorder and that's something she did not tell me before marriage.

Stephanie: So that's something that had you guys had more time together in one place, you might have seen before.

Dhruv: Exactly.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Dhruv: And another major red flag was,highly possessive. Even if I was to speak on the phone with my brothers or my parents. Or if I just stayed behind for a drink after work, that was a problem for her. Highly possessive personality as well.

Stephanie: Yeah. that's challenging. Especially when it's not like you wanted to talk to all your old,female friends from school, your brothers and your parents. I mean, that's pretty disruptive. Yeah. Wow. When you first reached out to me, you said,when you talked about your divorce, you said you could have either been dead or in jail.

Dhruv: Yeah.

Stephanie: So talk a little bit about that.

Dhruv: In the middle of the night, she could get aggressive and physical whilst I was asleep. Once she took a knife and pretended to cut herself, not me, but it was quite easy for her to pick up the knife and start threatening. So, you know, in that extreme level of anger that she would express, you just don't know what could happen sometimes.

So I sometimes fear that she could really seriously harm me whilst I'm asleep. Or even potentially stab me. So that's where the dead comes in. Where I say I could potentially been in jail as well. Now, I did say that she was physical. I refrained myself. I didn't hit her, but I would grab her arm and really shake her.

Cause I didn't want to hit her, but I know as well that,you know, press the wrong buttons enough times a man will hit. And I was feeling that, you know, there's something I need to do. I need to show some level of physical strength as well, because she's damaging my self respect, but I still never hit her.

And I mean, as things are, I could have hit her, could have hurt her and I could have ended up in jail.

Stephanie: Yeah. So how far must you have to be pushed to think that you would do those things or to act in those ways?

Dhruv: I don't know, but I do know I, I would say, I mean, every human being has a dark side and I know somewhere I have that dark side as well. Like I play a lot of sports, especially you could say masculine, aggressive sports like soccer.

Stephanie: And I played soccer all my life and there are times when it gets very physical.

Dhruv: You hurt the other person, you yell, you say bad words. So I know I had that side and it's always about, you know, raising that level incrementally. And if you raise it incrementally enough times, you get in the red zone. So we all have that dark side and somewhere I've seen that dark side, especially when I play sports, but you're right by default, I'm a pretty chill guy. I like a beer every now and then, you know, watch TV. I'm a normal guy.

Stephanie: I've talked before about some of the terrible romantic relationships that I had through my twenties and thirties. There were situations I'm thinking of one boyfriend in particular, who I became so frustrated it was such a bad fit. But I didn't know that at the time and I was committed to making it work and loving him until he could love himself or whatever, but it was such a bad fit. We would get in these, fights I would get so frustrated that when I was driving, I remember him being in the car and I would be driving it.

I would jam the accelerator and just like scream and drive really aggressively out of like frustration, like to the extreme of like, here I am, I have nothing I could do. I remember him yelling at me, and it's not a great way to be using a car, but when you're in those situations it's like the frog in the water, right? You turn it up so slowly. You don't even realize until you look up and you're absolutely not yourself.

Dhruv: Absolutely. And you want to take whatever you're doing to the extreme. So driving a car, maybe you're chopping vegetables and you just starting, you start chopping really fast and just whatever you're doing in that moment, you take it to the extreme. So you don't know if somebody is chopping the vegetables and holds a knife in their hands.

What is their definition of extreme in that moment.

Stephanie: Yeah. Wow. So you only stayed together about six months and then you separated. What did the end of that marriage look like?

Dhruv: It was very dirty, very messy divorce.A lot of back and forth. but I was very fortunate. I had amazing solicitors. I had to get a barrister as well. And I don't know if you've ever used a barrister, but you shake their hands and that's a four figure invoice right there just to shake their hands.

Stephanie: yeah.

Dhruv: It was an expensive affair. But I'd say it was a good experience for me because somewhere in that process, took about a year and a half, a messy divorce. But in that process, I learned a lot about myself actually, and that is I was getting so frustrated and I was, you know, I wanted justice and I wanted to make sure that she had to pay me, my parents, whatever money we spent and all the guests that had come with high hopes, she had to pay.

I wanted my revenge and I was frustrated and all that back and forth. On the last day in the court hearing, my solicitor, the main solicitor that I had in the UK, an older gentleman, an amazing man, and an amazing solicitor. He just said, when I was really upset and angry, he just said, Dhruv, sometimes following principles is an expensive affair.

Stephanie: And the penny dropped. I was like, Yeah. What principles am I talking about? Number one on my list should be my freedom, getting out of this court case. So when he said that penny dropped and I said, okay, you know what? I'm not gonna ask for money from her. I will pay her under the law X, Y, and Z conditions, and that's when I got my freedom and I was out on that very day.

On that day.

I had a situation many years ago when I first started my marketing business. I had a name,for the business and did all the right things. I went to, the state and I registered the name and we got a website and we printed stationery, this was many years ago when you still needed stationery and all these things.

And maybe nine or 12 months after I started my business, this woman came after me and she said, you can't use this name. It's too close to my name. It wasn't really close, close to her name. I might want to move into the area that you're serving using my name. It was a real weird thing. My attorney said to me, listen, you're in the right. You did all the right things. You checked all the right boxes. He said, but how much is it worth to you? He said, I know her attorney and her attorney is like a dog with a bone. So we could fight this. How much money do you want to spend on it? I had the same thing happen to me. It was like the actual expenses were, a couple of boxes of stationary. I was like, it's just not worth it.

Dhruv: And in that instant, did you feel sort of, if I was to draw an analogy, it was almost like you saw your ego in front of you in a way, figuratively speaking, and you have to make sort of a decision that,I've always thought I was this person. These are my principles. And then in that moment, you sort of see another person. And,maybe that path is better somehow.

Stephanie: I would love to say that I got that level of insight at that moment. I didn't, I have had that level of insight at later junctions, but no, at that point I was very frustrated. I was angry because just like you, I was in the right. I felt that the resolution was very unjust and that is 1 of my triggers that sort of injustice piece of, like, people getting away with things they shouldn't be able to get away with. And things that, you know, even though I'm right and doing all the right things. Somehow I still end up paying the price or something. So, I did not have that clear picture that you did at that moment, but I got there.

I got there for sure. And honestly,17 years later, my business is still around and hers isn't so okay. You know, my, my path has been great. and frankly, the name had some connection to actually, interestingly, that same old relationship. And my mom helped me with that as well.

She said, are you really committed to that name? You know, it came to you through this old relationship that's over and gone. Like, what about just, letting all of that be in the past? And that helped too. So

Dhruv: Fantastic.

Stephanie: Okay. So you are now free. You've gained your freedom and you're in your early thirties at this point. You're still like, you know, 32, 33, right?

Dhruv: Yeah, 33. We got married at 33. Then by 34, I was officially divorced.

Stephanie: Okay. All right. So we're just coming into your mid thirties now. That relationship kind of shook your confidence though, right?

Dhruv: Yeah, shook my confidence. And I think it took me down a very dark path as well.

Stephanie: Okay.

Dhruv: I stopped trusting women. I didn't want to get into a long term relationship with women. Happy to have flings or,meet them, talk to them, but I just couldn't trust them. So I went through a period of maybe four or five years or so where I was just dating. I'm not really sure why I was dating, but I was dating and wasn't really getting anywhere in that sense.

What did it feel like to not trust women? Looking back today, it was almost like I had closed a part of me. We're three brothers, always played very,male dominated sports like soccer, and went to an engineering school as well. So a lot of male friends. Surrounded by men everywhere, pretty much. And I've closed that part of me where I'm meeting women, hanging out with women to such an extent that I'm only thinking a certain way.Looking back today, I feel like I closed myself to a lot of different perspectives. At that moment in time. It was a great thing. Cause I didn't feel that I had to get into a relationship. There was no pressure to do so just hanging out with my buddies. That's all that mattered.

Stephanie: So the marriage and then the marriage falling apart sounds like the thing that kind of ejected you from your mechanical, I would also call it linear framework for life.

Dhruv: Great observation. And you're a hundred percent right.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Dhruv: So, and then there was no pressure from parents or society. Uh, they knew, he's been through a rough time and it's just like weight off my shoulders.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's so interesting, right? Cause now you can just kind of go around and, you know, sort of shrug your shoulders like, well, I did it your way and like, look what happened. So what did your way look like? I mean, talked about a lot of focus on yourself the male energy of your world. Did you know at the time? that you needed healing? Or when you closed that door off, did you just kind of close the door to the hurt as well?

Dhruv: I closed the door. I didn't think I needed healing. I thought no, no, I was right. Justice, you know justice this. She lied to me. And I just closed myself off. I didn't realize I need change. I mean at a metaphysical or esoteric level we attract who we are. So in our relationship somewhere, however much we love them or hate them, in some ways they're a mirror of us So I can say whatever I want about my ex wife, but somewhere we were quite similar as well.

So I did close myself off,dating and dating. But eventually I did change because,I think it was maybe two years after my divorce, I met somebody who I really fancied, dated a little bit. She broke off with me and I got double bitter, like even more bitter than what I was before. I was like, it just fortifies what I believed in.

Stephanie: Yes.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Stephanie: These two women, two years apart who broke up with you was there a consistency in why they broke up with you?

Stephanie: Yeah. It's so much easier to see it in other people when we see it like in our friends and our friends will come to us and say, you know, my boss is such a jerk. And then they change jobs and my boss is such a jerk. And then they change, my boss is such a jerk. And it's like, at some point, there's a common denominator here and it's not the boss.

And so we, it's so much easier to see it in the people around us, whether it's friends were having conversations about these things on or even just visibly being able to see it in the people around us. And it's so much harder to see it in ourselves, especially if we're not at a point in our lives where we're thinking about being introspective, where we're thinking about growth, where we're thinking about what we want our future to look like. Actually, again, one of the commonalities of this transition is instead of making it all about everybody else out there and all the ways that they are wrong. We finally start to kind of like unzip a little bit and go, well, maybe I had a little bit to do with it. Well, and that just cracks open enough that we can then, keep going down that path to see, what my part was.

Dhruv: Yeah. I think when one thing I've learned looking back is when we, whether we are in relationships or searching for a relationship, we have to ask ourselves,what do we want? And,then ask ourselves, am I all of those things? And if not, we work on those individual attributes. And again, we'll attract what we are into our lives.

Stephanie: And it's, it's that same thing with the old adage of, you know, you can't wait for somebody else to make you happy.

Dhruv: Hundred percent.

Stephanie: You have to be happy yourself with yourself in order to attract the person that's going to, boost your happiness, compliment your happiness, be happy with you. But making that somebody else's responsibility is really a recipe for disaster.

Dhruv: Yeah. And it's not somebody else's responsibility to fill a void that you have within yourself. It's much more fun if there's no such co dependency and you're enjoying yourself. Like in a very calm way. Someone said once love is not infatuation. It is actually a stable, a healthy high.

So when we experience these peaks and troughs, that is really not real love. That is more like we're hoping that they're going to save us or solve some problem.

Stephanie: Like I was trying to do all those times. Solving problems. Filling voids.Carrying somebody else's baggage, you know, all of those kinds of things. And it just never worked no matter how good I was at it. No matter how much I tried, no matter how much I turned myself inside out. It just never worked.

Dhruv: Absolutely.

Stephanie: Yeah. So. kinds of things were you starting to learn about yourself when the penny dropped, when you were broken up again by the second woman?

Dhruv: I wanted to open up my heart a bit more. I sort of started very intermittently showing a bit of love to her, but then I was closing off a little bit and then I just said, you know what am I fearing? It doesn't cost to show people love and it doesn't cost if I give a random stranger, a compliment, or in our family, we are three brothers and poor mother. She's the only woman.

Stephanie: Right?

Dhruv: But, we forget that she's a woman at the end of the day, she's a mother. And how many times do we actually go and just listen to her chat with her? So I started doing those things and just became a bit softer, became better at listening. I think. One of the most tangible things, the best things I did, and probably for your listeners as well, one of the best things, best advice I can share from my experience is you have to become a very good listener.

And one way of doing that is when somebody is speaking, just breathe. It's very tempting to sort of interject and make your point. You'll get your time to make your point. Just breathe and just listen and pivot off what they're saying. There's something to learn there. And if you don't get a chance to say your piece, that's fine. It wasn't meant to be, just breathe. And,that is a very important skill, I think in life.

Stephanie: I agree with you 100%. If all you're doing is preparing for what you're going to say next, you are missing so much of the conversation. You're missing, and you may not be missing words, but you'll, you'll miss meaning. You'll miss nuance. You'll miss essence.

Dhruv: Absolutely.

And our subconscious records every second of every day since we were in our mother's wombs. So, there's so much there. And our subconscious is speaking to us, even when our conscious mind, is trying to find a solution. It may not, but the subconscious will sometimes bubble up in our dreams or when we're waking up or in that drowsy state when we're just about to fall asleep or wake up, it'll come to us. But the most important thing is that you're listening.

Stephanie: Yes. I actually had that experience just this week. We all get earworms, right. When we get songs stuck in our head. One day this week I was in the morning. I might've been making breakfast or something. And all of a sudden two lines of a song from the eighties came into my head. And I was like, I'm a child of the eighties. So I was rocking out to these two lines in my head. And all of a sudden I realized what these two lines actually said. And I was like, Oh, it's not the song you want me to hear. It's just the words in those two lines. They actually mean something in my life right now. Yeah, It was kind of weird. And it's interesting when you have those moments. Cause you, I don't know, I can't be the only one who actually gives himself like a little pat on the back. I was like, Oh, good girl. You actually, you heard that you didn't just sing the song and like rock out to the song. You actually heard what your subconscious was trying to tell you with the words of those couple of lines.

Dhruv: Exactly. And when the subconscious is makes you realize that it's actually when the subconscious or God or Universe, whatever you believe in, believes that you've now reached a higher level of maturity. And so your subconscious picks that up. So basically you should indeed pat yourself on the back because you've achieved a higher level of maturity.

Stephanie: Yeah. Well, good, good girl. Okay. So what else are you starting to do and learnas you're on this process? So you've started to listen more openly when you're talking to your mom. But what else is happening? What other things are you doing?

Dhruv: Other things. So meditation was a big part. Of,one of the biggest changes I've made and it's one of the best changes as well. Meditation. Waking up early.Trying to wake up before the sun.Meditate on empty stomach. Yoga. A lot of yoga was there as well. And then just going to gym, getting in shape.

I always feel that when in life you don't know what your next move is or your next step in path without thinking you should try to get into physical shape. So going to gym. Yoga, whatever that is. And then ideas start popping up in your head. So I'm doing those things. But meditation was a massive change and it was the best changes I made as well.

Stephanie: How did you start?

Dhruv: How did I start? I don't remember if there was any particular event or incident, but waking up early in the morning and knowing that you had that time, just focusing on your breath. Breathing.That's how I started, but I also noticed that my mind is racing. It's just racing the whole time when you're trying to meditate.

And then eventually I learned that I don't have to fight it. Just let it race. Just don't have to focus on anything. Just let it race, whatever direction or however fast it wants to do. Just don't be attached to any of the thoughts and whatever emotions are bubbling up,just let them bubble up and,you can deal with them through your breath.

And then over time I became better and better at it and I was able to. I was much better able to segregate my thoughts, separate them out and get the emotions out.

And what I noticed is I became even more attractive to women because not only was I listening a lot better, but I had that calmness about me in my eyes. And that poise because I learned to manage my thoughts,control my thoughts. And I did notice,it was quite drastic, actually, a lot more women wanted to be with me, hang out with me. And then I as well was enjoying female company so much more. Because, you know, 90 percent of my network men, but all of a sudden, I'm enjoying spending time with women and getting their perspectives and the way they joke is humor is different. I'm just enjoying life a lot more.

Stephanie: Yeah. Meditation is always something I've been interested in and I've not been able to make a regular habit of it. Although I'm trying again recently. The thing that I always found interesting about it is that the racing, it's the monkey brain. if you can just let the monkey tire itself out, it actually does quiet down after a while.

Dhruv: Absolutely. It does. But the monkey brain has a purpose and it's gonna bring all these random thoughts into your head. But you will notice, as long as you keep breathing withdeep long breaths, the monkey In your brain has a purpose. And what it does is emotions start bubbling up.

And the reason it's bubbling up is because it wants to be let out. It wants to be released out of your body. So just let it. I'm going to take a very extreme example here, but I'm taking an extreme example for illustrative purposes. And that is you're meditating. You've got that monkey brain. Let's say in your head, you see a car crash or a murder or something at that extreme. Obviously that's going to bubble up some feelings, right? But the whole thing is about letting that feeling out and release. So feel it through. And then you will notice over time. And the next time you meditate, The feelings or the thoughts are getting milder and milder and milder and eventually they're just feelings that want to get released.

Stephanie: Yeah. In the fall, I took a course. Irene Lyon is her name and she teaches a,healing, nervous system resetting kind of class. and it's wonderful. I'm actually still making my way through. But, one of the things she talks about with emotions and feelings like that,it's like holding,a ball underwater and you always have to work to shove it down because it wants to come up.And the other thing about these thoughts and these feelings and these emotions is that they can actually get stuck inside of us, get trapped inside of us. The classic book, The Body Keeps the Score, right? By Bessel van der Kolk. and it talks about how by doing this, we actually,end up with, physical,ailments due to holding these thoughts and feelings and emotions inside of our body.

Dhruv: Absolutely.

I attended an energy workshop two weeks ago and the healer was very proficient and was able to read my chakras. And in reading, he pointed out that there are stuck emotions from when I was eight years old and 27 years old as well. And I was like, what, why, what happened then?

So I went back after the energy workshop, I was meditating. I was just thinking back. Where was that when I was eight? Where was I when I was 27? And I was like, you know what? I just gave it a bit of thought. They were significant years in my life. Like eight years, I moved to Sweden when I was six years old. And at the age of eight, I started getting more and more of my memory. And I distinctly remembered then that I was trying to fit in, but I wasn't able to fit in. And my younger brothers were too young. I couldn't take them out, hang out with them. So I was alone in the playground, just trying to fit in. And there was stuck trauma from then.

And there was a particular incident that happened at that age as well. And so I worked through it, got it out of my body, I believe. And now I have to work through the thing that happened when I was 27. And just at a high level at 27, I was at a very low because my friends, my peers from university got high earning banking jobs, whereas I was just starting out my career so far behind. I felt inferior to them. And since that age, that trauma has been in my body since 27. So I have to release that. So we've got a lot of stuck emotions,since childhood.

Stephanie: Yeah. And it's interesting. I love how you said when you were 27, both of these examples are so interesting because they are not capital T traumas, right? It's not a car accident. And you didn't fall off a bike. You didn't get hit by a bus. and yet they are stories that we tell ourselves. They are negative feelings that we hear or feel. And we internalize themthey stay with us and they become, the chink in the armor or the misstep in the, in the stone wall that can actually affect other things down the line and how we behave and how we perceive the world.

Dhruv: Absolutely. And I think once we reach our midlife, like I'm 41 now, we become a lot more open to these things. But when we're in our twenties and thirties, we've got the alpha energy in us, right? We don't want to change. We just want to achieve our career goals, this and that. But when we. Reach that 40 mark, we sort of calm down and the horizon broadens.

Stephanie: Yeah, that's exactly what happens at 40. We start to, you know, in the 15 or 20 years before the onset of this transition, the major,aspect of our adulthood is just our independence from parents, schools, things like that, right? We are independent beings making what we think are our own choices.

But a lot of the times we are following a lot of prescribed pathways, whether it's familial or societal or cultural. And so is a lot of head down. There's a lot of, you know, dig, dig, dig, work, work, work, push, push, push. And then there comes a point where we pick our head up and wonder, like, what have I been working towards and why aren't I happier? And is, is, all that work, and this is where I got?,You know, these kinds of things that are really kind of uncomfortable questions,

Dhruv: Absolutely. And,those are the questions I've been asking myself as well, especially when COVID happened.

Stephanie: Mm hmm.

Dhruv: I went to university. I'm making a decent salary. Decent job. And they're telling me to stay at home. They're telling me I can only exercise once per day, go out once per day. Only buy this much food, all of that. They're telling me what to do. After all the education. What have I done with my life?

Stephanie: Right. After how hard you worked to get where you were.

Dhruv: Exactly.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, goodness. Tell me about your 40th birthday. What'd you do for your 40th birthday?

Dhruv: It was very unceremonial. It was nothing special.

Stephanie: Okay. All right. No big celebration.

Dhruv: But I was dating a girl,then and, I didn't want anything special. She insisted, but then we settled on, she took me to,a show, a West End show.And yeah, we just spent the day together. She took me out. We were around London. I'm not one for big presents or big surprises.

Stephanie: Okay. So tell me what it looks like now that you have opened your heart and I'm hearing from you, you feel like you've done a lot of healing of that early relationship. What does it look like on the other side?

Dhruv: I'd say, yeah, a lot more open, much better listener. I feel,I don't take things personally the same way. I'm not making assumptions about people. I'm less judgmental.Everybody has a story. No, we shouldn't judge anybody. You know, nobody has walked a mile in anybody else's shoe.I believe in the esoteric a lot more as well, like a law of attraction, like we can attract what we want in life.

That is so much more prevalent in how I'm thinking. And, yeah, much more open with my money, much more generous. I wouldn't say I was stingy before, but maybe I was very tight, a bit tight to some extent. Now I'm less so like a lot more freer and my brothers as well. Like, my relationship with them is a lot better,

Stephanie: And how has that impacted your romantic life?

Dhruv: Being open and less judgmental and all of that.

Stephanie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Are you seeing a different outcome?

Dhruv: Yeah, absolutely. It's much easier to be,in a romantic relationship and the outcome is I don't feel anybody would say that I'm needy or put pressure on them. I think women generally feel very safe and comfortable, secure with me.

They enjoy my company. It's more relaxed in that sense. And I really appreciate the feminine perspective on a lot of things as well. Life problems, like it's such a different perspective and I really embrace it and welcome it.

Stephanie: Are you looking for a different outcome from your romantic relationships at this point? I mean, it sounds like you're not at the point where you're in a serious relationship. Would you like to get married again someday? Is that something you'd like to do or,tell me where you are looking forward now.

Dhruv: Yeah, absolutely. I want to settle down. I want to have kids. So no more short term relationships. So now on the dating scene,I'm very happy to not meet somebody if I just don't feel it, it's okay, but I'm not putting any pressure on myself or the other person.

Stephanie: But the ultimate goal is yes, I want to become a father. I want to become a husband. I want to be the head of the family, take care of the family. And yeah, I want that. And so dating takes on a different kind of,character when you know what you're looking for from an outcome, right? I mean, it's less like dating and more like interviewing, I think is an interesting way to say it, right?

Dhruv: You could say it that way. I wouldn't use the word interviewing, but just,maybe a dance. You could say a dance. How do we dance together? Like are we, is a good banter, you know, that is just easy. It's effortless? And then we go on.But maybe I should,step it up a little bit.

I'm 41 now, so

Stephanie: You have plenty of time.

If there's anything I've learned from these conversations, it's that you have plenty of time. And,I didn't meet my husband until I was 40 actually. And we got married, I think I was 44 when we got married. So, you know, it's, and there are plenty of those kinds of stories too.

So you're not late.You're right on time. You're right on track.

Dhruv: Absolutely. And one more thing to add there as well. I don't think I had this brain, this level of maturity. So if I had a kid just five, 10 years ago, I don't think I would have been as good of a husband or a father. But today with this mind, this head, I think I can be the best I can be.

Stephanie: I love that. and that's part of the journey is coming to the point where, you feel prepared for what's next. Where, you know, a lot of times when we do things, when we're young, we're base jumping off buildings and unsure whether we put our parachute on.

Dhruv: Yeah, for sure. for

I just wanted to add one more thing to your one of your earlier questions as to what else has changed. I used to read books before, but I read a lot more books now. And then attending energy workshops. These kinds of things. I mean, the esoteric interest me a lot. So I'm doing a lot more things that interest me.

Stephanie: Whereas before it was very much. career related things. I'm in the banking industry. So very much of those kinds of things. So now I do things that really interest me. And that makes sense, right? Because when you were younger, you were building your career. And you had to go to those events. And you had to do those things and you know, whether it was, you know, seminars or workshops or conferences or just after hours and drinks and happy hours, You had to do those things to put in your time and now that you've built that side of your life, now you're focusing on the other side.And different people come at it in different ways. Some people do a better job of building both of those things together as they're younger people. I didn't,but I have talked to people who did a better job of that. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.

Now you're, you're following your own interests and building that spiritual side of you,your internal experience.

Dhruv: Exactly. And also any business projects or businesses that I wanted to start and I hesitated before now I'm just, I planted a few seeds. I can see some seeds germinating and,there's a lot more ready to take on a lot more risk and,really, try different things out. Open my heart in that sense. Open my heart and my mind. I would say

Stephanie: I love it.

Okay, so you've done all of this work on yourself. What are you now doing with all of the knowledge that you have that you've gained for yourself? What are you doing with it?

Dhruv: So I figured there must be a lot of other men in my situation as well, who are discovering themselves in the late thirties, forties. And so I'm sort of documenting my journey in my podcast, which is called Midlife Masculine. You can find that on all the major podcast platforms, but essentially it is for men who've reached an inflection point in their lives.

They're mid lives and they're looking back and they're asking themselves, what did I achieve? Is there more to life than what I've done already? And so it's an opportunity for men, listeners to get a lot of knowledge. So I'm a student in my own podcast where I bring experts, share all types of knowledge, esoteric, contemporary, ancient knowledge, wisdoms, so that men can get a broader perspective on things and perhaps take that risk that they want to take or make a change in their lives.

Stephanie: I love that. It is precisely what I am doing here with my podcast as well. So many podcasters say the same thing, right? It's like, I went through this, I learned something from it. I can't be the only one. So what if I share my story and then gather others to share their stories so that we can support the folks that are coming behind us. So that we can give them the tools that maybe we didn't have at the time.

Dhruv: Absolutely. Your mission, Stephanie, is very noble as well.

Stephanie: Thank you. Yeah. And what a crazy, what a wonderful time to be alive that we have these tools and we can use them. What I mean by that is in my day job, I own a marketing agency and for years and years, I did,presentations on the history and evolution of marketing.

For so long, these tools were,so expensive and so difficult to use. And so rare that, you know, that's why we had mass media back in the last century. Right. The TV commercials and, all of that stuff.Those were tools that most of us couldn't have access to. But now it's been so democratized that here we are, we can create communities and we can support those who are going through things like what we went through.

Dhruv: It's a great time to be alive.

Stephanie: I love it. I'm so happy for you that you've come through this turbulent period into a place of really feels like stability and steadiness and openness. And,I'm sure that all of that is going to serve just to blossom,in front of you.

Dhruv: Absolutely. Thanks for your kind words

Stephanie: Thank you so much for joining me today and sharing your story. I,really appreciate it.

Dhruv: Thank you very much for having me