SHE Asked Podcast

Ep 7: Finding Your Purpose: Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita (Part 3)

• Anna McBride

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Anna continues her exploration of the Bhagavad Gita - a story that has quietly guided her through major pivots in her life. Reflecting on her own crossroads as a young mother and unfulfilled wife, Anna connects timeless spiritual teachings to the modern journey of self-discovery and purpose.

Drawing from Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life, she unpacks core lessons from the Gita: focusing on your actions rather than the outcomes, embracing your own Dharma over imitation, and building mental steadiness through spiritual practice. 

Anna shares anecdotes about figures like Jane Goodall and Henry David Thoreau, who practiced their Dharma by staying committed to their work regardless of the outcome.

Whether you're seeking direction, navigating change, or simply curious about the intersection of ancient wisdom and modern life, this episode offers grounded insights and compassionate encouragement to help you reconnect with what truly matters.



Speaker 1:

Hi everyone. It's Anna McBride. Welcome to she Asked. Tools of Practical Hope. This show explores topics of growth, healing and recovery and offers tips and guidelines to help you along your personal journey.

Speaker 1:

On today's episode, this is really part three of our series on the Bhagavad Gita. This has really been the story of my life's journey, finding my way to my purpose. I first came across the story back in college when I was studying literature. This is back in 1981. And I didn't understand the role this story was going to take in my life. And yet it's become the guiding post for what I am doing now. It led me along the way even though I didn't even know it. I actually have collected several translations of the story.

Speaker 1:

This story comes out of ancient India. The Bhagavad Gita is the story of the song, which is another way of saying this conversation between man and God. There are two main characters in this story the warrior named Arjuna and the charioteer, god, embodied in a human body whose name was Krishna, and the two of them have a conversation about this crisis that Arjuna is facing, and it's really. He was at a crossroads, he was about to embark on a battle like many battles in his life, and he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to do the thing that life was calling him to do, and even though he was born into this caste system that India had of being born into the role that you play in life, which was, for him, that of a warrior, he didn't want to kill anybody anymore, because he knew that everybody he was killing was his family essentially, and so his conversation with God began at that crossroads, at that crisis, and when I came back to this book, it was a couple decades later when I first found it and it was given to me as a part of yoga meditation training. And as I read it the second time, I realized I know this story. I know it not only because I've read it before. I know it because I myself was living it.

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The reason why I was getting into meditation and yoga was because I myself was at a crossroads in my life. I was in my early 30s, young mother, in a marriage that was not happy. I was very unfulfilled and I didn't know what to do Since I was married and I thought that was one of my main purposes in life was to be married as well, as the other purpose was to be a mother and the fact that I was so unhappy I didn't know what to do. My motivation was to run to cut and run. That's what I did when I was young. I just would take off and leave. Yet I had three young children under the age of five, couldn't do that. I was married and unable to really financially support myself, so I couldn't leave that, or so I thought. Yet this story came back into my life and it offered me some great direction around what I could do, what I could better understand of what to do about my circumstances and my response to it, so that I could see my way through it, grow through it and become the better version of me.

Speaker 1:

So today I want to talk about what this idea is of purpose. You know, I have met many people in my life, in my work life, that have asked me how do you know what your purpose is? Why are we here? It's like the quintessential thing of man, like why are we here? Or if we struggle to stay committed to the path that we're on. If that sounds like you, this teaching is for you. We're drawing from one of my favorite translations of the Bhagavad Gita, and I have collected many of them, but this one has been one of my favorites. It's one by an author named Stephen Cope, and I have collected many of them, but this one has been one of my favorites. It's one by an author named Stephen Cope and it's called the Great Work of your Life.

Speaker 1:

In this book, stephen talks about not only the story of the Bhagavad Gita. He illustrates the themes of it through modern day protagonists, which I'll share with you some of them. And he gets to the main lessons that come from the Bhagavad Gita, which I will also with you some of them. And he gets to the main lessons that come from the Bhagavad Gita, which I will also cover with you, because that's what helped me unfold what I needed to know about myself. First things, when Arjuna has this conversation with Krishna, he says help me to know what to do. I don't know what to do about what I'm going through. And Krishna, or God, says to him Of course you don't know what to do because you don't know who you are.

Speaker 1:

When I read that part again, it just was like a bunch of clarity. I didn't know who I was At the age of 34, I didn't know who I was. I only knew what I was doing. I knew what to do to be a mom. I kind of knew what to do to be a wife. I knew what to be, you know, when it came to certain athletic things that I really loved to do. Yet I didn't know how to be happier with my circumstances, and so Krishna goes about telling and showing Arjuna not only who he is and why he's there, also what to do about it.

Speaker 1:

So let me tell you a little bit about the Bhagavad Gita. So it's an ancient story, as I said, that comes out of India. This is in part in a historical story because it is based on a greater text called the Mahabharata, which is a story about this war that took place in a town called Kodusheta Sorry for that mispronunciation that's in India, it's north of New Delhi, and this war was over land. That's all they fought about back then. Pretty much was who was controlling the land, because with the land you had power, and there were two families that were fighting over land, and Arjuna was from one of those families. And as the battle was being set up, arjuna knew that he was one of the best, if not the best, warrior of the time, known for all of his great conquests. He just didn't want to be responsible for killing anybody anymore. And for me you know I can relate to that there are many things that I was doing at the time when I came across the story again that I was doing, that I didn't want to do. I wanted to better understand what got me there and what to do about it. So Arjuna's crisis was a crisis of faith, confusion, fear, and since he didn't know what to do, he was willing to do nothing. And Krishna told him there is no nothing. Even an inaction is an action, and life is really about action.

Speaker 1:

Now, stephen Cope wrote this book to bring this ancient story into modern day context, and what I love about this translation is he did it through anecdotal sharing from some great, well-known modern day protagonists in parts of their stories that I had never heard before. So it really brought to life these lessons in ways that only the way that Stephen Cope shared it was how it really was able to resonate. So let's get into these lessons and start to shape it, and I'm going to do it from a context of the quotes that the story is most known for and the four main themes of the story. So the first theme is focus on the work, not the outcome, and so the quote is you have the right to your work, but never to the fruit of it. What does that mean? That means that we only have control over what we choose to do, not what happens as a result of it. Only what we do we have control over, not what happens after that. So it's, for me, really helped me to understand that I have to choose what I'm doing with a bit more clarity and I have to let go of what happens after that.

Speaker 1:

And as somebody who had been a people pleaser has been too focused on what other people think about me, I was too focused on the outcome and not my own behavior heading into any situation. So, for example, when I back then in my 30s, I would attempt to speak up for myself with my ex-husband and it wouldn't come out nice, it wasn't kind, it wasn't considerate, it was just loud and it was like a scream towards what I really wanted, and it never turned out well. Yet I only saw that I was attempting to fight for my rights. I wasn't considering how I was doing it, and what this quote says to me is that happiness or joy needs to come from the process, not what comes out of the process. So I need to be happy with how I show up in any situation. I need to be okay with my behavior and let that be what I focus on, not on what comes out of it, because I have no control over other people, situations, outcomes and what I was doing. In my marriage, I was clinging to the desire for it, meaning the marriage to get better, yet I had no control over that. I never once thought that I was part of the problem. I thought I was actually fighting for the solution and instead all I was doing was fighting, not helpful. So here's a question for you Is there anything that you're clinging to the results of? Do you over focus on the outcome instead of, maybe, your outlook, and in what ways? Could you maybe shift a little bit and own your part in whatever is going on in your life? If you detach from the outcome and just commit to showing up, it makes a big difference.

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One of the characters whose story he tells about this is Jane Goodall. I don't know if you're familiar with her, but she is known as the ape woman. She was one of the first women who was able to travel over to Africa and study apes. She's really brought a lot of great things forward about them and their environment, and she got to study them extensively Still does. We owe a lot to her for what we know about the life of apes and how they so much are like humans. Yet here's the thing about Jane. Jane grew up knowing that all she wanted to do was to understand, appreciate and be connected to animals, to these living things, and she was afforded the ability to do that with the support of her mother. Her mother recognized her gifts very, very early, like at the age of three.

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There's a great story in this book of how Jane disappeared at six years old and was found hours later coming out of the hen house that they had on the farm, and her mother had been looking for her for hours and instead of raising her voice or expressing fear, she just sat and listened to Jane as she went on and on and on about the magnificent experience she had watching a chicken lay an egg. I just love that story. It really speaks to the curiosity and the excitement, because all Jane wanted to do was to see the chicken lay an egg, and she didn't even think about the outcome or the effect on her mother, and her mother didn't make that the problem. She just really helped Jane embrace her gifts. So again, detaching from the outcome and committing to just fully showing up with what we're doing and how we're showing up in it, that is important core lesson that comes from this story. The next lesson is follow your own dharma. Follow your own dharma. One of the quotes from the Bhagavad Gita says it's better to fail at your own dharma than to succeed at the dharma of another. Don't live someone else's life. You got to live your own.

Speaker 1:

In my life I didn't know who I was when I got married. I was barely 21 years old, not even like one month shy of that birthday when I got married, and I hadn't graduated yet from college. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, but I didn't know it fully, and I decided to just follow in the footsteps of one of my biggest mentors, which was my father. He was a corporate educator in the pharmaceutical world and I decided to pursue corporate education. I worked for an insurance company and got promoted because I was great at communication and had some great skill sets relative to present. They hired me based on my ability to speak in front of a crowd and I served in this capacity for a few years and yet I was never successful at it. I never really thought about is it what I wanted to do? I basically chose it because it was what my father did and he was really good at it. And when, if I think about this quote, it's better to fail at your own Dharma than to succeed at the Dharma of another. It just reminds me that I can't go chasing what someone else did and thinking that that's mine. There's no copying. You need to be the original you.

Speaker 1:

And one of the characters that you know that he illustrates this through Stephen Cope in his book is Henry David Thoreau, who's known for actually being a devotee to the Bhagavad Gita. He carried the book around with him in his life. Henry David Thoreau wanted to be a well-known writer. Coming from Concord, massachusetts, he wanted to be a well-known writer and took off at the very young age of, I think, 26 years old, for New York City to strike it big, because that's where you went when you wanted to be a writer back then. And he took off and he tried and he failed miserably. He barely got published. He barely survived in terms of being able to pay for his life and he eventually had to go back home and re-enter, invent himself. There was a pond near his parents' home, he worked for a bit in the factory for his father and he just continued to write, and write, and write and he eventually got published towards the end of his life. Some of the great works from his life were all about nature and being in solitude and being true to himself. No real pressure there on the farm for him and for me.

Speaker 1:

When I evolved in my life, I have attempted over and over again to copy other people, thinking if I could just be like them, I'll be successful. It never worked out for me. Them, I'll be successful. It never worked out for me. The only things, quite frankly, that I've ever succeeded at are the things that I am really good at on my own. And this idea of choosing authenticity over imitation Choose you. When we are brave enough to do that, even if it's messier, we move forward and achieve the ultimate idea of what Dharma is. It's our gift, it's our purpose. You know I've had many people ask me how do you know what your gifts are? How do you know what your purpose is? And the truth is? Is that purpose? There are many purposes we have in life. As we live and grow, we'll come across many of them. For me, it included being a mother, included being a wife, included being a sister, a daughter, included being a therapist, a business owner. So it's been many things. Yet the real dharma how I could bring that forward, to be of service is when I really attended to what lit me up, what got me excited. How could I be of service doing what I love to do? And me being here today sharing with you about one of my favorite stories of all time and how it really helped me in my life, is me being of service and being lit up, and it's a great, great way for me to apply this.

Speaker 1:

The next lesson, lesson three, is about mental steadiness through practice. So the quote is the mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. The mind is unwavering like the flame of a lamp in a windless place. That means that we have to sharpen our mind. We have to not be controlled by it. We need to instead be the master of it. So what we do on a daily basis to do that matters does matter. To have stillness, meditation, reflection, all of these things, journaling, because that's how we begin to quiet the mind, slow it down, so that it is something that we aren't manipulated by, it's something that we're able to use and incorporate to help us have the life we want. So a daily spiritual practice as a compass for your life.

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In my life, I started practicing meditation and yoga in my 30s. That was over 30 years ago, and I didn't understand what that was going to do for me. Yet I can tell you that back then my mind was like a hamster wheel. My mind was constantly being invaded by negative thinking. My mind was at the whim of whatever emotions that I struggled to manage at the time my life circumstances. I just really saw my glasses half empty and that I was a victim of circumstances. That was only part of the story. It wasn't all of it.

Speaker 1:

So in the Bhagavad Gita, krishna teaches Arjuna about the powerful practice of yoga. Yoga is a lifestyle, it is a spiritual practice. It is a physical practice as we know it now in the Western world, but back then it was a spiritual practice, in a way to stay connected to their God, and Krishna taught Arjuna about the important role that yoga plays in quieting the mind. In ancient India they used to practice yoga, as I understand it, ahead of meditation, because back then the only people who were allowed to go to school were young boys. As a mother of one son, who's now an adult male, when he was young and we're talking about boys around the ages of seven, eight, nine he struggled to be able to sit still or be still, and yoga was a way for the teachers to have the boys get out their physical rambunctiousness in order to sit and be still for meditation. So yoga prepares the mind for meditation. That was the role of yoga.

Speaker 1:

Yoga is also full of many lessons, and they call it the eight-limb path of yoga on how to live your life according to the way God had wanted them to live. And as I describe this, I don't want you to think of or to be put off by necessarily the spiritual part of this, yet see it as an opportunity that, if you feel called to yoga, if you are really drawn to want to expand a spiritual program, yoga has a lot of benefits. I taught yoga and meditation myself as a part of a business that I owned, a yoga meditation studio for about 15 to 20 years, and it really was quite an opportunity to understand the role it was helping me in moving through what was happening in my life. I didn't understand that it was also helping me understand better my gifts, my talents, what was right in front of me. In order to process that and get the good from it, like the lesson from it, I had to find a way to move through it. Yoga is a better way to move through things than fighting, than running away, than avoiding. It was an action that became a way for me to be more present, which is really important, because this lesson is all about quieting the mind so you can show up presently in your life.

Speaker 1:

Part of what Krishna was teaching Arjuna was that you can't know who you are without being present at this moment. Don't worry about what's coming next, don't think about what's happened before. Be here now. And the last lesson of this great story is acting with detachment from the outcome Really being detached Now. What does that mean? Does that mean not caring? No, the quote is perform your duty and abandon all attachment to success or failure. So you do it as your duty is what Krishna was telling Arjuna Do not think about what you're about to do. Is I going to be successful or I might fail. Just think of it as what you are meant to do. So when you do your dharma, you do it full out and you do it without attachment to the outcome, meaning success or failure and you do it as a devotion to yourself, to your life, to achieving something.

Speaker 1:

It may be a little abstract. I know that most of us here, as we listen to this, may be thinking well, why would I be doing something if I'm not thinking about how I'm going to be successful in it, if I'm not thinking about what I'm going to get out of it? Well, this story has taught me to let go of approval, let go of outcome, and to just show up with devotion that I am doing this because it is what I'm meant to do. It's what makes me happy. It's me being of service. It makes me happy. It's me being of service. I've come to believe and understand that why we are all here not taking care of me, but she's taking care of everybody else.

Speaker 1:

In this country, we don't really understand that there are many, many, many people around the world that are less fortunate and that if we can be of help, that's what we are meant to do, and my father used to say to whom much is given, much is expected. So I was raised in a family where purpose, duty, service, was sort of at the forefront. However, here I was back in my 30s, thinking I just need to figure out how to fix this marriage, get out of this marriage, get on with my life and be happy. And here I am three decades later I am divorced, yet I continue to be a mother. I love being a mother and I also have found my way to take my mess and turn it into a message where I can help other people find their way, find their purpose and find ways of being of service to help other people find their way.

Speaker 1:

So here are some things I want you to think about when you think about the story of the Bhagavad Gita is you know, what's one thing that you do that makes you feel most alive? What lights you up? If you want to know what your purpose is, just think about what lights you up. What do you enjoy doing? If you are lucky to do for work something that you enjoy doing, then that's added bonus. You get paid for what you love to do, but sometimes what we love to do isn't what we get paid for. It may be something that we do as a side hustle or that we do as a hobby, and then I want you to also think about where you might be living. Someone else's script, someone else's dharma, or according to someone else's script.

Speaker 1:

In my case, I was attempting to become the corporate educator that my father was. I knew I was meant to be a teacher. I know now that I was never meant to be a corporate educator. Then I want you to ask yourself what am I afraid to start because I have a fear of failing? Do you focus a lot on only doing what you think you'll be successful at? If failure was not even a part of the equation, what would you be doing now?

Speaker 1:

When I remove the fear of failure, it gives me a lot of freedom for my creative expression and the ways I can be of service, and I want to encourage you to write down your current sense of Dharma and choose one action that you're going to take this week that's going to help you become more purposeful, more alive, more driven towards service. Remember, your dharma is not something that you chase. It's something that you remember as you get to know yourself on a deeper level. You will come to know your Dharma in a more personal way. So, again, the four Gita quotes that we focused on was you're entitled to the work, not the fruit of the work, and to follow your own Dharma, meaning it's better to fail at it than to attempt to copy someone else. And your mental steadiness through meditation, through yoga, is the way that you achieve your understanding and appreciation of why you're here in life, and your steadiness and the courage to move forward with it. And, lastly, let's let go of this labeling of success or failure. Let's just become more action-oriented towards what lights us up, because the world needs more light, it needs more people full of light, and this is why I'm here encouraging you to do the same.

Speaker 1:

I want to let you know that we have put together a Dharma reflection journal, and so there will be access to that through a link, and so look to that. Please subscribe to this podcast or the channel and download that reflection journal and reach out. I want to hear from you what you've come to appreciate or know about what your dharma is or what you're doing to be of service to the world. My name is Anna McBride and this is she Asked, the podcast where we provide practical hope to help you along your personal journey. I hope you've enjoyed this discussion about the Bhagavad Gita, my favorite story ever. It changed my life and I hope it will help you change yours as well. Until soon, be well.