Seismic Shifts: A Journey from Personal Upheaval to Yogi Ashram Bliss

Amy [00:00:03]:
Rachel Zinman, welcome to Imperfect Adulting.

Rachel Zinman [00:00:07]:
Hi, Amy. I’m so happy to be here.

Amy [00:00:10]:
I’m happy you’re here, too. Are you ready to have a fun chat?

Rachel Zinman [00:00:13]:
I really am.

Amy [00:00:14]:
That is good. That is good. So you gave me a hint about this a second ago before I hit record. I always start, or I start most of the interviews by asking people what part of the world they call home. Where do you guys call home?

Rachel Zinman [00:00:26]:
Australia.

Amy [00:00:27]:
Australia. Oh, I have not been there. I sent my son, one of my kids, there a couple summers ago, but I haven’t been and I have. I really, really want to remedy that. I’ve wanted to go since I was a kid, but it’s so far from where I live. It’s just, even though we’ve made amazing advances in how fast we can travel, it is not a short trip from the east coast of the United States to Australia. So now tell me and the listeners as much or as little about the people you live with in your family as you want to, just to get a connection between you and the audience. All right.

Rachel Zinman [00:01:09]:
Well, I live in Australia and I’ve been living here for nearly 40 years. I’m actually from the east coast of the United States, born in Holland and then moved to the US And I’m actually the daughter of a symphony conductor. And so I spent a lot of my life traveling, meeting lots of different interesting people. And I came to Australia on a. He had a work gig here. He was conducting the Sydney Symphony. And I just came for a holiday and I actually fell in love with my step cousin and I was supposed to go to Juilliard as a dancer in New York. And I ended up dropping that gig and moving to Australia and found my way, you know, into an adventure. But right now I am married to a beautiful yogi and teacher of something called Atma Vidya. And I have a 31 year old son who lives in Melbourne and he is an amazing musician and graphic designer.

Amy [00:02:21]:
So that is fantastic. So I actually grew up. I grew up in an apartment and there was a symphony musician in the building, small building, upper west side of Manhattan. And he played, he was a drummer. He played the big round drums, the timpani drums, right?

Rachel Zinman [00:02:37]:
Yeah.

Amy [00:02:37]:
So he also gave drum lessons. I was friends with his daughter. And so there were all these signs all over the place about when he was the. There was big. The point is, the joke is there were big meetings among the people who lived in the building about when the drumming was allowed and when it was hopefully not allowed. Like this was the whole. This was the whole thing. But it was a delightful part of being in the building. All right, so you submitted to be on the show, and I read your submission, and I immediately dubbed it your Eat, Pray love story. And do you know what that reference is? Or is it too old?

Rachel Zinman [00:03:15]:
Absolutely.

Amy [00:03:16]:
There will be people who will listen to this, who will. Will not and watch it, who will not know. They’ll be like, what is she talking about?

Rachel Zinman [00:03:23]:
Yeah, no, definitely semi Eat Pray Love. Yeah.

Amy [00:03:28]:
Let’s just say. Well, I mean, right. It’s not going to be a. It’s not going to be 100% match, of course. But for those of you who don’t know, it’s a book, and there was a movie with, I think, Julia Roberts. It was a big hit. Everybody wanted to do. To just do the thing. So I’m going to gently walk you through what I know of your timeline. I’d love to back way up to before you took this trip. How old? So I. I wrote this question before knowing. I think there are two husbands in your past. How old were you when you married your first husband? Is that the way I want to ask this question?

Rachel Zinman [00:04:02]:
Yeah. Okay. So I was 25 when I got married. Yeah.

Amy [00:04:08]:
Okay. All right.

Rachel Zinman [00:04:09]:
My first husband.

Amy [00:04:11]:
Your first husband. Very good. And let’s briefly talk about sort of that, like, just to set it up for what brought on this decision to take to make this change, like, talk about our life. I have a little bit more information than I had when I started. So you guys. It sounds like you guys did have a kid together. What was life like with you guys when it was good?

Rachel Zinman [00:04:32]:
Yeah. So, you know, it was one of those whirlwind romances. I love that I had all these factors that sort of drew me to this person. I met him at a cafe or I met him at the opening of a shop, and he was very sort of forthright and intense. And my girlfriend said, oh, you know, he’s the same. He’s like this star sign, and you guys would be perfect together. And I kind of sort of was intrigued. And I kept running into him, and he was very. He was very forthright. You know, he would say things to me that I found really kind of garish and jarring, but I kind of was intrigued. And then I actually. I was in another relationship at the time, and I kind of. That kind of ended very fast. And I kind of went on a road trip with. With my husband’s actual. My. My ex husband’s best friend. And he kept saying to me, oh, we should go around and visit this guy Nick. He’s really interesting, you know. And so then I went over and visited him and he played a song and I fell in love with this song. And I thought, wow, this guy’s a musician. That’s so cool. I come from a musical family. I’m really interested in that. And then I went home and I had this dream. And in the dream I saw that he had a dove in his hand. And I was supposed to rescue him from some. I don’t know. And so then I just kind of got obsessed and I decided I had to go and find him. And I found him at this restaurant and like, as he was closing and he said, what are you doing here? And I said, I’m. I had this dream. I’m supposed to rescue you. And we walked onto the beach, because we live in a beach town, and we just sort of fell into each other’s arms. And three weeks later we were engaged. And so, yeah, and my parents. My parents happened to be there at the same time and they. They sort of really clicked with him and thought he was a really great dude. And they were like, okay, you know, this seems like the one, you know, because I was like 25 and all starry eyed and it was all wonderful and so off we went. And he was very musical and I was. I had been a dancer and he. And we started writing songs together. And I think we wrote 80 songs together, like, in the first, you know, year that we were together. And we got engaged and then we got married a year later and we had like a wedding in America. And it was all very la la la. And it was all beautiful, you know. And then a year later we were pregnant. And there were some things that were kind of like. And there were some things that were kind of.

Amy [00:07:04]:
I just want to say good job following the schedule. You know, you get married a year later, you have the baby. That’s the. The, you know, that’s the time frame, if you’re following the rules, checking off the boxes.

Rachel Zinman [00:07:16]:
But there were the things, some things that went on when actually when I got pregnant.

Amy [00:07:21]:
He.

Rachel Zinman [00:07:21]:
He was a very impulsive person and he had a tendency to kind of get involved in things. So he was really, like. I was really into yoga when we met. I was like super focused and dedicated. I just discovered it maybe three years before, and I was meditating two hours a day and I was doing my yoga practice. And this was in the, like, early 90s, you know, late 80s, early 90s, when people weren’t really, like, obsessed with yoga the way they are now. So it was a really. It was like a life path for me. And he kind of joined me. He gave up drinking and smoking and whatever he was doing, and he said, I’m going to do yoga now. And that was like, my initial rescue. You know, it’s bringing him into this very healthy, relaxed, you know, way of being. And. But when I got pregnant, he decided to do some course called the Change Consultancy Training. And after the first weekend of the course, he came back and said, oh, no, I’m not being myself at all. I want to go back to all the things that I normally do, which is drinking and smoking. I was kind of, like, in shock, you know, because I was like, what? We’re married. I’m pregnant. And, like, now you’ve decided that you don’t, you know, want to live this life anymore? And so I was sort of already, you know, like, those were kind of the harbingers of what was to come.

Amy [00:08:44]:
What was to come. And I want to be clear to everybody listening, I was totally making a joke when I joked about the timeframe. Like, that’s like. Like, there is no actual timeframe. But as soon as you get married, people begin to ask you if you’re having kids. And everybody, you know, like, no one should ever ask. You should never ever ask anybody. You should let people do it on their timeframe. But. All right, so very good. So you’re pregnant. You have some warning flags. Some red and purple flags are showing up, but you continue. You continue for a long time. So you talked about your father was in the symphony. Tell me a little bit about your family growing up, just to get an idea of your thoughts on marriage and family overall. Because some people grow up with a very traditional idea of family, and other people grow up with a very different idea of family and marriage. And it all comes out when we get married or if we decide to get unmarried. That’s when these things show up.

Rachel Zinman [00:09:42]:
Yeah. So, interestingly enough, my. My father and my mother were together for the first seven years of my life.

Amy [00:09:52]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:09:52]:
My. My mother was actually very unhappy in the marriage because my father was, you know, starting his career, and he was really busy, and he was conducting all the time. We lived in Holland and he was on tour. Who wasn’t there? And my mom was feeling very. Yeah, like, not met, I guess.

Amy [00:10:12]:
Yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:10:13]:
But she. But she also had other issues. She had. She was, like, 90% deaf. And people didn’t really know how bad it was. And it wasn’t until she got married that she found out that she needed hearing aids. And so often she would turn her hearing aids off. And so, you know, people wouldn’t. She. She would seem like she wasn’t really interested or not listening or whatever. And so I think it was. It was difficult for my father, but she decided to leave my father. And so my father was kind of shocked by that, because by that time, they’d been married for about 15 years. And then he got on a plane to go on tour, and he sat next to a woman who, ironically, was someone who was a friend of mine when I was a little girl in the orchestra. So I would get on the bus and go on tour sometimes, and I would sit next to this woman. And she and I were very close. And she had even asked my mother if she could have me for the night and I could stay the night with her. So I remember having a night at her house, you know, playing with her and having a nice time. Anyways, my dad didn’t really know her. She was just a member of the orchestra. And. And he sat next to her, and they had this conversation on the plane, and they fell in love. And so my mother had already left him, and so they fell in love. And so she became my stepmother. And because I already knew her when they got married, it was sort of fine somehow. Fine for me. I had this beautiful connection with her already as a young child. And then. Anyway, so my parents got divorced, and we moved from Holland to New Jersey, and my father got a position in New York, in Rochester, New York. And so I was going back and forth between New Jersey and New York. Plus, I was a bilingual child, so I spoke Dutch, I spoke English. I came from this European background, and now I’m in this American background and, you know, kind of shuffled back and forth. But in my father’s house, it was like a cavalcade of musicians. Like, all the famous musicians were coming through, and then musicians were living in the house. And it was crazy. It was like very. I can’t. I don’t know really how to describe.

Amy [00:12:24]:
It other than I was very arty, very bohemian.

Rachel Zinman [00:12:26]:
Very bohemian. Very arty. Yeah. And then my mom.

Amy [00:12:31]:
Yeah. So was your mom also in New Jersey at that point? Like, so were you all in the same geographic space?

Rachel Zinman [00:12:36]:
So my mom was in New Jersey, and my father was living in Rochester, New York.

Amy [00:12:40]:
Oh. So, okay. So, yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:12:42]:
And then my mom got sick when I was 10. And then she passed away. She had a brain tumor. She had a stroke. And so we moved in with my dad. And that was really when I was really immersed in this very creative life. And then I wanted to be a dancer. And because my dad was in a financial position to make that happen, I just spent all my time dancing. So I was at ballet more than I was anywhere else with the aspiration to become a professional dancer.

Amy [00:13:13]:
So.

Rachel Zinman [00:13:13]:
So that was kind of, you know, my whole upbringing was dance music, going to concerts, being surrounded by very famous artists and musicians. Yeah. So that was.

Amy [00:13:25]:
That’s delightful. So. But you had an early concept, so it doesn’t sound like you. And correct me if I’m wrong, it sounds like you had a concept of the idea that relationships change depending on where the people are in their life versus a very rigid. We make one decision and it’s forever. And so. All right, so people who are listening are probably. Are watching are probably already going to make the gas that something happened in the relationship. Go ahead and talk us through this marriage breakup, this dissolution. What happened?

Rachel Zinman [00:14:02]:
It’s quite complicated how it happened. So we. We were a very. Living a very creative life. We were. You had this beautiful boy. My ex had quite a few other children from other marriages. He actually had three different children from three different mothers. So he actually has four children, one of whom went through. He had, like, the first water birth in Australia. And so that baby actually died. And it was a huge inquest and court case. And so it was a very full life. We had lots of, you know, we had extra kids who would come and visit and stay with us. It was a. I was like a stepmother. I was a step grandmother. There was like, all these things that went on, but we had our son. And my husband one day went to a psychic, and the psychic said, oh, you shouldn’t be living in Australia anymore. You need to go to New York. You’re going to be a famous radio star. And he came home and he just said, you know, we need to do this. And I. I kind of didn’t know really what I wanted to do next. I was working as a head of dance at a dance college. I was also working in a Waldorf education school, a Steiner school. And I was starting to maybe think about a career as a Steiner educator, but I didn’t really know what was next. I had, like, a blank page in front of me. And so I said, oh, yeah, okay, let’s just go. And so we just took our. You know, I. I own the house. And so we decided to rent out the house. And we had, like, $50,000 on the credit card or something like that. And we just got on a plane and I called my parents, I called some friends, found us a place to stay in Stuyvesant Town, and we just. Off we went, and we went off to New York with, like, just big dreams, you know, whatever. Anyway, and then all that time, everything was really fine in the relationship. Everything was fine. We were loving each other. He was a bit indulgent, but I had found ways to kind of cope with it and everything was fine. And then we got to New York and I guess pretty quickly in it became apparent that he wasn’t really going to be the breadwinner and that I was going to have to do it. And I had been a yoga. Sort of a yoga enthusiast, and I taught some yoga classes, and I’d been studying at that stage by 10 years. And I went to a yoga studio and just, you know, randomly found it in the. In the yellow pages, when we had yellow pages and went to the, you know, before phones and everything, went to the yoga studio. And there was just a series of coincidences says that happened that made me realize this is kind of the yoga studio I should be at. So I was sitting there and there was these pictures of these gurus on the wall, this teacher on the walls. And I thought, oh, he looks kind of like, maybe he’s a guru or something. I don’t really want to do anything with gurus. I’ll just, like, go to the other classes. So one day I was in a class with one of the teachers at the studio, and my husband came to pick me up. And the head teacher, the guru, he wasn’t really a guru, but the head teacher walked out and looked at my husband and said, hey, you look really familiar. Do I know you? And he said, no, I don’t know you. But my wife’s in there and she’s a very experienced yoga teacher and she needs a job. The yoga guru said, like, oh, well, that sounds interesting. Let me meet her. And so I walk out of the class and I meet him and he says, oh, I hear you’re a really experienced yoga teacher. We happen to need an experienced yoga teacher. Why don’t you come out to lunch with me and let’s see if you can teach here. And it was just like, so random, you know? Anyway, so I go, I have lunch with the guy first I go to his class, then I go and have lunch with him. And then he says, I think, you know, I feel really like there’s something here, there’s a connection here, and I think you should teach for us. And that began a huge sort of change for me in my life where I was not only teaching at the yoga studio, but I was also running their teachers training and teaching on their teachers training and just basically kind of, you know, being very close to him as a, as a student. And he was kind of my mentor and he introduced me to the depth of yoga. And he was from South Africa.

Amy [00:18:31]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:18:32]:
And he came to the States, I guess, in the late 70s. And his father was also a very big yoga teacher who came from South Africa. And they had a strong connection with India and Indian teachers. And so while we were in this thing with the yoga, I got more and more into the yoga and things started to happen to me that were kind of really opening me up and more and, and forcing me to question, you know, really question. And this created a lot of restlessness in our relationship because he was creative and he was open and he was spiritual, but he felt very threatened by this, these experiences that I was having and that started this kind of thing. And he would go on these business trips and who knows what was going on on those business trips. And he would sort of disappear for a while and say, I want to go here, I want to go there, I want to explore this course. He was very spiritual and wanted to do all these self development courses. And you know, I was kind of earning all the money and keeping us all going in New York. And then. Yeah, he would just sort of go off and do these things and come back and I would be like, you know, and he would talk about some women that he’d met, but then nothing happened and this was kind of all going on. Yeah, so that was the beginning.

Amy [00:19:50]:
That was the beginning. So you discover yoga and you get very passionate is the word I’ll use about that. Very connected to it. As a part of you and a profession, you’re raising your son. Only one, like the other kids stayed in Australia, I’m assuming.

Rachel Zinman [00:20:07]:
No, we had one other common.

Amy [00:20:09]:
Okay, so you’ve got two kids, you’re making all the money, your then husband is trying to find his way, let’s say, exploring new options and things like that. And, and then what happens?

Rachel Zinman [00:20:22]:
So we, so I, we went through 9 11.

Amy [00:20:25]:
Oh, well, that is the big change. Many, many people had went through big changes after 9 11. Okay, so 911 happens. Yikes.

Rachel Zinman [00:20:33]:
911 happens. And I just, I did not feel well after that. You know, there was sort of a progression and I started to feel more and more unwell. I wasn’t sure why I thought it was Some sort of spiritual awakening. I thought I was having, like, a Kundalini breakdown or something.

Amy [00:20:51]:
And were you living in the city?

Rachel Zinman [00:20:52]:
We were living in Brooklyn.

Amy [00:20:54]:
Yeah, we were living in Brooklyn. So directly across the.

Rachel Zinman [00:20:57]:
Yeah, and so it was all, you know, and we actually, on 9 11, we walked into the Ash to get over the. The bridge to walk to Queens, to then get back to Brooklyn. It was a complicated day.

Amy [00:21:09]:
It was a very complicated day. It’s a very complicated day. But, yeah, the power all went down. The tunnels all closed. The bridges were closed. Thousands and thousands of people had to walk hours to try and get home. Yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:21:24]:
Yeah. So that was that day. Anyway, so it just. Things got worse and worse, and I just felt like I wanted to go home. I wanted to go back to Australia. We. We had a house here. We had a life here. I had friends here. You know, been already living in Australia for, you know, 20 years. At that time, I was just 15 years or whatever. I was like, I just want to go home. So I. And my yoga teacher really wanted to keep me in New York because, you know, I was working really, Like, I was working for the institution. I was making money for them. Like, it was all happening when I was there. And so he was sort of like, I don’t really think you should go. And I was like, no, I really want to go. You know, so he said, okay. There a change happened in the business. They sold the business to a bigger yoga conglomerate, and they said, okay, well, you can go. Go and. But take the teaching system with you. Take the. The whole teaching system with you. So I finally was able to get out of there, and we moved to. Back to Australia. And I think at that point, that’s where things really started to get a little testy because. Yeah, because we got back and I was really happy, and I started telling people about this beautiful teacher training and sort of getting people involved in that. And. But I also kind of met someone who is more into yoga. Another fellow yoga teacher, let’s say, not my husband, but somebody else. And he was very intense and persuasive, and I kind of got a little bit sort of Svengalied by this person, and it was very threatening for my husband. And then he also decided that he wanted to sort of be sort of more exploratory, and he actually made the first move to kind of be more.

Amy [00:23:27]:
Exploratory in terms of opening up the marriage. Yes. Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:23:33]:
I was just thinking about it.

Amy [00:23:36]:
You had the thought, and he pulled the trigger and said, all right.

Rachel Zinman [00:23:40]:
And. And, boy, did he pull the trigger. He pulled it over and over and over again in many, many, many different ways. In all sorts of ways that I didn’t even know about at the time. I thought it was, like, one thing or another thing, but it was like all these things. And so I was kind of like, all right, well, if you’re going to do all these things, I’m going to. I am going to explore this thing with this other person. So that was sort of maybe three years after we got back from New York and two years before the marriage ended. And so I explored this thing, and it really wasn’t for me. It was just, like, very narcissistic, very, you know, very sort of Machiavellian.

Amy [00:24:26]:
Right.

Rachel Zinman [00:24:26]:
Like, I thought it was gonna solve and answer all my questions, but it didn’t. It actually created more questions and more complications.

Amy [00:24:35]:
So when you look back at it with the benefit of time. Right. So you guys were. So. A lot of people left New York City after 9, 11. It’s a pattern that repeats after disasters. I live in Miami, Florida now. Most people who live through Hurricane Andrew, which is a big natural disaster here, they eventually moved. A lot of people moved out of New York City. So it’s not. But you guys went through a really, really stressful thing. There was a lot of pressure on your relationship. You’re raising a bunch of kids. You go back, but you still. You do two international moves, pretty not too far apart from each other, and then you’ve got all this stuff going on in your relationship. You each decide or you agree, or I would love to be a fly on the wall in that conversation. Series of conversations. But you open up the relationship. And. And when you look back on it now, would you say. Because at the time, I bet it just felt like this is our way of moving forward. But when you look back at that now, do you think, oh, we were done. Like, we were finished. I just didn’t know what else to do at the time.

Rachel Zinman [00:25:33]:
I think you’re exactly on the money. We were so done. We should have just finished, like, you know, when we got back. But we had a child, and he was, you know, in fifth grade.

Amy [00:25:47]:
He was, like, still very young. Yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:25:49]:
And it just felt like, you know, maybe we can keep going. And we were kind of, you know, we were creative bohemian people, and we loved each other. Like, there was still a lot of love there, and there was a lot of creativity there. And then, by the way, we had decided, like, we were both.

Amy [00:26:06]:
We were.

Rachel Zinman [00:26:07]:
We ended up doing a lot of sort of Devotional yoga music when we were in the States. So we had decided that we were going to make an album.

Amy [00:26:14]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:26:14]:
And so we were, we were in the middle of creating this album when all this happened and we actually released the album and it was really, it did really well. So, you know, then we were like, okay, let’s make another album.

Amy [00:26:27]:
We actually totally enmeshed. You were totally enmeshed. That’s the word we use for relationships that they’re so entwined that even when they don’t work, you can’t sort of separate them. And so people like add in. Yeah, yeah. You were in business together, you were in artistic creations together, you were raising a child together, you were living together, you guys were. Yeah. All right, so two years later you do, you break up, you end the relate, you end the marriage. Okay, who ends the marriage?

Rachel Zinman [00:26:55]:
He ended the marriage.

Amy [00:26:56]:
He ended the marriage.

Rachel Zinman [00:26:57]:
Okay, so interest. So just. I have to do a little aside here.

Amy [00:27:02]:
Okay, so it’s a very complicated story. I should include it like with a map, like at the beginning of a Russian novel with like the list of all the people and all the places that are involved. People can flip back. I won’t. But I could keep going.

Rachel Zinman [00:27:14]:
I did, I did try and write a book about the whole story, which. Which ended up never going anywhere. But anyway, so when I was in New York, the last year that I was in New York, I went back for a summer to teach on a teacher training. And this girl came to my teacher training and she was, she was a friend of my teacher. Right, My teacher. And she was dating my teacher’s best friend who was also South African, also into yoga. And they had my. The guy that she was dating had been studying with my teacher and my teacher’s father for many, many years in South Africa. And she told me about him and said, I’m with this guy. He’s like 20 years older than me. You know, I don’t know if it’s going to last, but he’s like a really serious yogi. And in my mind this is, you know, I thought I should be with that guy.

Amy [00:28:10]:
Oh, really? Yeah. This is like the dream. Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:28:13]:
Yes, I should be. Yeah, like the dream. I should be with that guy. And I didn’t think anything of it. And then a few years went by, I was back in Australia and I was, you know, working on my teachers trainings and I wanted to do a little bit more in depth research into the lineage of that, of those teachers who they’d studied within India, where that all came From. And so I wrote to my friend and she said, well, don’t ask me, ask this guy, you know. So I wrote him a letter and I said, oh, you know, I’m researching the lineage and can you tell me more about it? And anyway, he wrote back and he said, oh, you sound like a really interesting, dedicated yogi. And yes, here’s some information. But really, you know, I’m studying with a teacher who’s way more exciting and interesting than all of those teachers that we studied with back in the 70s. You know, you should find out more about him. And I thought, who is this guy? Like, I’m writing to him to get this information. He’s telling me all this other stuff. You know what? Anyway, then I didn’t think about it. Then, like a year later, I’m still in this tumultuous thing with this, you know, open relationship and all this stuff going on. I get an email, a general email, that says that this guy is opening up a studio in South Africa and just letting everybody know, like a newsletter. And I remember thinking, don’t open up that studio, because if you open up that studio, I’m never going to meet you. And then a year later, I get another newsletter email, nothing personal, that says, oh, I’m closing the studio. I’m going to India.

Amy [00:29:42]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:29:43]:
And by that stage, it was, I think, 2000, and maybe it was 2008, end of 2008. And I happen to be going to India to teach Japanese yoga teachers. Had to be. Yeah, to teach Japanese people how to become yoga teachers. So it was my, like, first, second trip to India. I was going to go. You know, it wasn’t really India. And. And so I wrote to him and I said, I’m going to be in India. Where are you going to be? And he told me he was going to be in this part of India called Tiruvannamalai. And I said, well, maybe we could meet up, you know, and my husband was going to be with me. We were going to be traveling together. So it was just like a friendly thing. Anyway, so I hear. I hear back from him and he says, actually, I won’t be. You know, I’m going to be in this place. And, yeah, we could meet up. But then when it got closer to the time we. We missed each other, there was. We couldn’t meet up.

Amy [00:30:35]:
Star crust, star crossed. Okay. Yeah. This is like foreshadowing, Foreshadowing.

Rachel Zinman [00:30:41]:
And then the next year, I was going back to India again, and I said, you know, like, we should meet and he’s still married. And just like, like, I was fascinated, you know, he seemed like there was a connection there, something interesting, you know. And so then he said, no, I’m not going to be there. I’m going to be in Johannesburg, blah, blah. So we missed each other again. All right. So then I wrote to him, still married, wrote to him, and I said, it seems like we’re never going to meet. And I became. We became Facebook friends at that point. So we stopped writing and we were like, facebook friends. I said, it seems like we’re never going to meet. And he said, well, you never know. Anyway, that was the end of that. And then my husband decided he was going on a business trip to. To Israel. He was going to do some things in Israel, a workshop. He was working for this workshop company where they were running self development seminars, and he was working for them, whatever. And the night before he decided to go, I, you know, way back in the beginning when we just started messenger, like Facebook chat, like that was like in 2010or something like that, his little chat, like, came on and I thought, let me just, like, say hi. So I just said, hi, how are you? I thought I’d try this. Maybe we can. We can have a little chat. And he said a few things. And it was like midnight because of the time change. And I got into bed, and when I got into bed, I was lying next to my husband. I thought, oh, no. I thought, oh, no. This. I. This. Something’s going on here. This is really big. This is really big. I just. Everything in my body was just like, this is the next step. But I was like, so, like, I’m driving my husband to the airport, drop him at the airport, run back to the computer. Do you have Skype? You know, and anyway, so we. My husband’s in Israel and on this workshop, and he’s texting me. But slowly the texts are getting further and further apart. And I’m kind of with this guy having these conversations that are just getting more and more interesting and intriguing and, you know, amazing. And I’m learning all this stuff from him, and it’s all related to my life with yoga. And all these, you know, things are just clicking over, and I’m thinking, wow, wow, this is amazing. Anyway, so what happens? Time goes by, maybe a month goes by, and I’m in the middle of teaching a teacher training as well. So I’m really inspired while I’m teaching these yoga teachers. And I’m having this, like, these wonderful, friendly, interesting conversations. But my husband’s just not texting me, not texting me. And I’m thinking, he’s still in Israel. Still in Israel on this workshop. Not texting me. And then he’s supposed to come back. And obviously he texted me with the plain details or whatever. And so I said to this guy that I’m talking to, I just said, look, my husband’s coming back. We can’t have these conversations every night anymore. We’ve got to stop. You know, I’ve got to get back into my life. Like, I didn’t really think, oh, I’m in love with this guy, or I didn’t know him. It was like a chat, you know, like, it wasn’t like that. But I had this dream the night before my husband came back that he came home and he told me that he was leaving me for another woman and that our relationship was over. And I remember saying to my girlfriend, I had this weird dream about, you know, my husband. And she was like, well, that’s weird, you know? Anyway, so he comes home, he walks in the door, he sits me down, and he says, I fell in love with another woman in Israel. We moved in together, and she’s coming here in six weeks, and I want to break up.

Amy [00:34:32]:
I have so many thoughts running through my head right now. I have so many thoughts running through my head right now. So that is a fantastic story. I’m really, really jazzed about the way your dreams forecast your future. I don’t meet people every day of the week who do that. It must be a crazy thing. I feel a little bit like you should be immediately cast into the next sitcom of supernatural charact. But that. Okay, so he comes home. So that is really interesting. So was it like a deja vu feeling in real time because you had had the dream? Were you like, oh, my gosh, like, I had you, like, halfway processed it, or were you just like. I mean, it sounds like this has happened to you at other times in your life. So when you have these forecasting dreams and then it happens, does it help you? Were you more prepared, or is it just as much a bombshell, like, as anything else?

Rachel Zinman [00:35:32]:
I wish I could say, yeah, like, I was more prepared. But it was definitely a bombshell. I mean, it was.

Amy [00:35:38]:
I mean, also, you were emotionally like you were making moves.

Rachel Zinman [00:35:43]:
I was making moves emotionally. So what happened was when he told me, and, you know, that sort of shock flooded my body, because it does. You know, you get this huge sort of wave of, like, adrenaline, and everything just goes through, and you sort of go numb and you don’t know what to do. And I just said. He said, what do you want to do? And I said, I just want to call John, you know? I just want to call this guy, you know? So I. I called in, and he just said what? He was like, no, no, no, no, no. You guys got to work this out, you know? Like, this is not about me, you know? Like.

Amy [00:36:19]:
Right.

Rachel Zinman [00:36:20]:
He just, like, was, like, right out of there. He was not interested in this at all. And. And then he. So then, you know, like. And so I had a few days to kind of try and get my head around this, and my husband’s like, this is perfect. You’re gonna go with this guy. You’re gonna have a great life with him. This is how it’s gonna be. I’m gonna be with this girl. Like, he had it all sorted. He was, like, nuts. I was like, no, that’s. I don’t know about that. That’s not. There’s no guarantees with that. We’re just. We just are friends and talking, and I don’t even. I don’t know what he looks like. I don’t know. He smells like. I know nothing about this guy. I met him online. Never seen him so funny.

Amy [00:36:56]:
Looks like. I don’t know what he smells like. I don’t know what makes his coffee. Oh, my gosh. All right.

Rachel Zinman [00:37:03]:
But I can. I can tell you something pretty well, which happened pretty well straight after that, which was that I wrote a letter to this guy, and I’ll say his name, John, because he’s my husband, and we do have a beautiful life.

Amy [00:37:16]:
Okay, Very good.

Rachel Zinman [00:37:18]:
So I wrote a letter to John, and I said, I really think that after all that’s gone down, we should meet. We should definitely meet. And I didn’t know what else to do when I heard all this stuff. And that’s when I thought, well, I could just go to India and I could meet him, because he was in India.

Amy [00:37:37]:
And that’s why I thought of. That’s the piece of this story that I knew. Like, and that’s why I was calling it the E Pray Love Story. Although it’s so much more complex than the love story. The cause you, like, you pick up, and you go on this trip to India. This is not the only thing that happens at this time in your life. Your life at this point is like a country western song. Your son, I don’t know how old he was at that time, but he moves out. Yeah, he moves out. And completing the country western lyrics, you get a medical diagnosis. Of diabetes. So just to bring everybody to pay, to, like, to bring everybody in to this story that Rachel knows by heart. So it’s not complicated for her, but, like, so she’s going through this huge life change. She. Her marriage has fallen apart. She gets on a plane and burns the boats and goes to India. She gets a medical diagnosis and her son leaves home. That’s a lot, Rachel. That’s so much. That’s so much. Now. It’s a super dramatic story with a lot of moving parts. I just want to say that one of the reasons I like to share stories like this, and I want to say thank you for sharing your story very, very openly, is because stuff like this happens in real lives, in real houses, every day of the week. And one of the things that makes it seem so impossible for people when they’re going through it is that we don’t know that when it’s happening to us. We. You know, people don’t often share these stories, and so you don’t hear about them until, like, a long time ago, until a long time in the future. You know, your grandmother will tell you the story of, like, oh, let me tell you the story that happened 30 years ago, right? Like, that’s how these stories. But we need to hear them when we’re in our 20s and our 30s, so that when stuff like this happens to us and to our friends, we’re not like, oh, my gosh, get out the pitchforks. Instead, we’re like, all right, Adventure of life. So you decide to go to India, as one does. I. When you pitched this, I thought this was, like, out of the blue that you decided this, but it wasn’t. You had this connection, and you went to go connect with this guy.

Rachel Zinman [00:39:51]:
Yeah, basically. I mean, I wrote to him, and he said no. And then I wrote to him again, and I said, I’m not gonna take no for an answer.

Amy [00:39:58]:
He said, no. And you were like, sorry, that option is not on the table.

Rachel Zinman [00:40:05]:
I said, you know, like, we really need to meet. This has, like, years in the making. Already was like, by that time, it was like six years in the making of our initial sort of me thinking I should be with that guy to this. And I. I really needed to follow my intuition. But, yes, the year before all of this went down, I had an initial diagnosis of what they thought was pre diabetes. Diabetes. They didn’t know. And by the time I actually, you know, left the relationship, my diabetes was sort of under control, but being managed, but nobody really knew, you know, what it was. I had didn’t have the full complement of blood tests. I wasn’t sure, but it really was type 1 diabetes. So I kind of negligently went on this trip not really having all the tools at hand to manage the situation, other than my ideas about how to manage the situation. Right.

Amy [00:41:05]:
Type 1 diabetes, which is the one where your pancreas totally stops producing insulin and you have to really manage it by hand.

Rachel Zinman [00:41:12]:
Yeah, yeah. So that was a factor that you.

Amy [00:41:15]:
Were pretty sick then.

Rachel Zinman [00:41:17]:
Well, I was sick, but it was like the blood sugar levels were still manageable with diet. Because what happens with type 1 is it can be a slow progression where your body just slowly shuts down and stops producing the insulin, or it can be a very fast. Like all of a sudden your pancreas just stops producing the insulin. So for me, it was very slow. So they were saying, oh, well, it’s not really at the point where you need insulin yet, so just keep managing it with diet and exercise. And so that was what I was doing. And I felt like, okay, well, I’m managing this really well, so it’s all going to be fine. I didn’t really think in my head it’s just going to progress and get worse and worse. And at the same time, my son was. He had skipped a year, so he was 17 and he just graduated. And he kind of had said to me, look, you know, it’s going to be better for me if I just move out.

Amy [00:42:07]:
It was like, thanks for this, but I want off this roller coaster.

Rachel Zinman [00:42:11]:
Absolutely. That was how he was. Love you guys, but I’m so sick of the drama. I’m out of here.

Amy [00:42:18]:
Oh, God bless you.

Rachel Zinman [00:42:19]:
Those were his words. So he packed up and moved to Melbourne.

Amy [00:42:25]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:42:25]:
And, you know, has had a fabulous. You know, his. His life just went like this. But it was very. And we just had finished our last cd, so our last album had been produced. And I’m literally.

Amy [00:42:39]:
This is kind of a very rock and roll story. It’s not like rock and roll that you’re making. You’re making like yogi music. But it’s. It’s a very much like, yeah, all right. Yeah, yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:42:47]:
So we. So I got on the plane with my box of CDs and I had shipped boxes and boxes of my stuff. I don’t know why I shipped all these boxes to India to go and live on this at this retreat center with the plan to meet John kind of at some point in, like a few months. So we couldn’t meet straight away. Visa issues, this, that, and the other. But we could plan to meet a couple of months later. And so I first just went to India and went into this retreat center which is where I had taught all my yoga teacher trainings. And I knew the cook there, so she knew I had some problems with my health. So she was sort of cooking for me and making sure I could manage my levels. And I just did all the workshops that came through, like all the self development stuff and all the yoga stuff, and just cried and cried and cried.

Amy [00:43:40]:
So actually, I mean, that’s. Actually there’s some kismet there, right? Which is, you know, India is famous for its, you know, very fresh veggie forward food, and the spices are really complimentary to contraining. And, you know, and so there were some kismet there. You had somebody to work with you. You were in a foreign country, but there was there. All right, so you’re. So you’re in the retreat center. You’ve got your boxes of CDs, you said goodbye to your old life. How, how long were you. Were you there? Like, I mean, did you have a plan for how long you were going to stay? Was it like, I’m moving to India, I live here now? Like, what were your thoughts at the time?

Rachel Zinman [00:44:22]:
I was so out of my body. I was so shocked. I’ve been married for 20 years. I. I didn’t really know what to do with myself in a sense, like in a future sense. I just knew I had things organized, like, because I was a global yoga teacher at that point. So I had gigs all over plans. Like, you know, I had a, a festival that I was going to be teaching at in Bali. I had three weeks of work in Japan, then I had some work in Europe. So I knew that I couldn’t stay in India permanently. But I, you know, I sort of thought, I’ll start here and I’ll just see what happens and I’ll meet John and we’ll kind of go from there. So when I got to India, it turned out that when we could meet, we would only have 10 days together to get to know each other. And I said to him, look, I don’t think after all this time, but 10 days is going to be enough. So he said, well, where are you going next? And I said, well, I have to go to Bali to teach this on this festival. And he said, well, I’ll come to Bali with you. I was like, okay, first of all, don’t know the guy. Second of all, like, okay, follow me to Bali, whatever. And then he said, I said, but then I’m only in Bali, you know, for like 10 days, where he said, like, where are you going next? I said, well, I’m going to Japan. He said, oh, I always wanted to go to Japan.

Amy [00:45:51]:
So this begins the nomadic tour of Rachel and John getting to know each other.

Rachel Zinman [00:45:57]:
I see. So then I’m running around getting it because he’s South African, he has to have a visa everywhere. So I’m organizing the visa. Still don’t know the guy. Anyway, so it ends up that he decides that he’s going to travel with me on this whole trip. And I’m like, what if we don’t like each other? Like, right, we don’t know each other. We don’t know anything, you know. And he’s like, you know, don’t worry about that. You know, if we don’t like each other, we’ll just, you know, part ways and roll around on the floor laughing and say goodbye. He was really brilliant attitude, because he had a brilliant attitude because he’d been living on an ashram for seven years, studying this beautiful system of knowledge with his teacher, where he really came to understand the source of joy, the source of peace, the source of everything, really. And so he was, you know, a living example of that. So everything to him was sort of impersonally, you know, everything just. I don’t really know how to put it into words. But he just has this great attitude towards life because he sees.

Amy [00:46:59]:
But you’re like a freight train at this point. Like, you’re like, your life is changing. You are questioning your identity. You’ve been married for 20 years. You’re trying to figure out what you’re doing. You’re just. You hadn’t actually. You hadn’t actually made. You were doing the same job you had been doing before. So, like, your marriage had changed and so on, and you had changed your home base, but you were carrying forward the patterns and the actions from before when your marriage broke apart. And then he comes and he’s, like, leveled up in his mindset work, and he’s a calming influence. And you guys come together in the crazy Rachel Jones world tour, which honestly sounds like the greatest vacation ever. You’re like, in India, you’re going to Bali, you’re going to Japan. I’m very envious of this. But so the dot, dot, dot here that we’re going to wrap up a little bit and bring all these things together, that becomes your future. You guys like that. What changed in your life is that you. You and John become partners.

Rachel Zinman [00:48:06]:
Yeah, I mean, it was just absolutely meant to be. I mean, when we came together, it was a very magical moment. We hadn’t met, but we organized to meet in India. And he kind of flew in, and I walked up to him. We met on a beach in the south of. South of Goa. And we just took one look at each other. We had a bit of a hug, and we walked down the beach together. I think we had a bit of a kiss, and then that was it. It was just, like, absolutely meant to be. And I think the big. The big thing was that he wanted to share everything that he’d been experiencing. We had a strong connection. His whole family’s from Holland. I was. I grew up in the town that his whole family lived in. We had no idea about that. We just had so many different kinds of kismet connections. We’d been. He’d come to Holland when I was, like, 7 years old. He’d been in Australia when I was in Australia, like, all these points where we could have met. Even though we’re 15 years apart, we didn’t meet. And then we had this moment where we met, and then it just became, we have to work together, we have to teach together, we have to live together, we have to be together. And there was just absolutely no question. It was almost like. And I did have an astrology reading, like, a year before where they said, oh, you haven’t met your soulmate yet. You know, you haven’t met the person that you’re supposed to. And then I met John, and it was like, okay, that’s it. You know, we’re supposed to do this, you know, so that’s the story.

Amy [00:49:40]:
Yeah. So this. I just want to. I’m going to loop this all the way around, because the decision that we were talking about today, that I thought we were. The decision that I thought we were talking about was the trip to India, which was the change in your life, which was an enormous shift, and so on and so forth. But if you roll it all the way back or if you walk the cat back, like. Because I like to talk about the choices we make and the impact they have on our lives. Right. If in New York, you had not become a yoga teacher, none of this would have unfolded the way that it did.

Rachel Zinman [00:50:12]:
Yeah. Because if I hadn’t met. I mean, I was already doing yoga, but if I had not met this teacher in New York who Johns was. Was John’s best friend, this would have never happened.

Amy [00:50:23]:
It would have never happened. Yeah.

Rachel Zinman [00:50:24]:
That was. To me, that sort of. That was a kismet moment for sure, because all these synchronicities lined up for me to meet this teacher and then it enabled me to meet John. And so we, we often talk about that and my teacher always laughs. How did you two end up together?

Amy [00:50:40]:
Like, no, that is, that is so. It’s. That is amazing. Okay, so we’re gonna, in a minute we’re going to final wrap up this interview and with some questions. Want to give you a choice, a chance, want to give you a chance to tell the audience about what you guys do today and how they can find you online. And then you have a very special offer that you are sharing with the audience, which I’ll share with everybody after you tell them what you do.

Rachel Zinman [00:51:08]:
Okay. So we just, as soon as we got together, we just had this absolute passion that we wanted to share and combine all our knowledge. So John has the whole stream of traditional Vedic Upanishadic wisdom, which is really answering the big questions to life, like, who are you? Why you’re here? What’s the meaning of life? What’s the meaning and purpose of your life? And then I brought all the yoga stream, like the physical postures, also working with breath work, sound, all, you know, just all the different things. So we brought all that together and we wanted to create a physical retreat center in South Africa and we actually bought a piece of land and we went forward with that. And then the pandemic happened and so we took it all online and we created the Sundaram online ashram. Sundaram means the beautiful and it is the beauty that we see all around us is the reflection of who we are. We are the beautiful. And so we created this beautiful online platform where we offer ongoing yoga classes, these beautiful talks in self knowledge, which is called Atma Vidya in the tradition and breath work and all these other beautiful things. So yeah, so that’s our online offering and we have a whole bunch of that’s amazing students and we have a great time sharing all the stuff that we’ve both accumulated over the. Of his 50 years of knowledge in my 40 years. And so we have 90 years combined teaching that we share.

Amy [00:52:41]:
That’s fantastic. And you’re offering all of the listeners and the watchers a free mini retreat, which who does not need a mini retreat? A mini retreat on the ashram, which is a digital ashram, an online ashram. And people can sign up and there’s a link in the show notes and also for everybody. Easiest way to get these links is to subscribe to the imperfect adulting email Community. And then I email them out to you and you just click on them, but it will be in both places. That is a very generous offer. I love it. I want to say thank you for offering it to the audience.

Rachel Zinman [00:53:11]:
It’s just a pleasure.

Amy [00:53:13]:
Oh, good. All right, so we’re going to wrap up with three rapid fire questions. These are not related to anything. My head is spinning from your story. My head is spinning from your story. We’re going to see how this goes. I loved your story so very much. It was exactly what I needed for my afternoon. I want to say thank you to that. All right, so do you. This is a great thing because morning for you, where you are, it’s afternoon where I am, it’s morning for you. Do you have for yourself a set morning routine that you go through? Are you one of those people who has a morning routine that you get up and you follow a certain steps and if so, what is it?

Rachel Zinman [00:53:47]:
Okay, so I get up and I make myself a lovely fruit breakfast. And then I do my yoga practice. I actually do a. Actually do at the moment. I’m doing a lot of dance, sort of a dance warm up just to kind of get my body warm. And then I do a very advanced breath work. We call it pranayama practice.

Amy [00:54:10]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:54:11]:
And then I eat my breakfast while watching the political news.

Amy [00:54:18]:
Oh, my gosh. How well, that. Okay, very. I. I skipped that part. Like, I’m doing everything I can to avoid the political news and also the national. Right now, California is on fire. I’m trying to avoid watching because it’s hard to watch. All right, so next question. What do you like to do? How do you like to consume things for joy and entertainment? Are you a reader? Are you somebody who likes television? Are you a movie person? What’s the, what’s the thing that you do for joy, not for education?

Rachel Zinman [00:54:47]:
Okay, this is like, really embarrassing, but I’m going to be really honest here. I love watching Netflix, like teen dramas, you know, like Riverdale or I can’t even remember how right now I’m watching Vampire Diaries.

Amy [00:55:03]:
Oh, really?

Rachel Zinman [00:55:04]:
It’s such escapism for me because I write all day or, you know, I’m practicing yoga or working with people, you know, in this one area. And so I find, like, it switches my brain off and takes me into my youth and like, the drama, because I don’t live a very dramatic life at all. I live very. Yeah.

Amy [00:55:27]:
So watching the Vampire Diaries. Very, very good. So there is a follow up Vampire Diaries question, right, which is that you have to, like, how far into it are you?

Rachel Zinman [00:55:36]:
Second season.

Amy [00:55:37]:
All right, so are you. What are the characters names? Are you Damon or Stefan? Who’s your. Who’s your hero?

Rachel Zinman [00:55:45]:
Definitely Damon.

Amy [00:55:49]:
This is the funniest question I’ve asked in the old. Okay, good. All right. Oh, my goodness. Okay, here we go.

Rachel Zinman [00:55:55]:
All right.

Amy [00:55:55]:
When you take vacations, I don’t even know how to ask you this question because you’ve been all over the world. You’ve been to Bali, you’ve been to all of these places. But nowadays, when you take vacations, are you now a person who likes to, like, go a long way away, or do you like to stay home and be, you know, close to where you are?

Rachel Zinman [00:56:15]:
You know, I think I’m. I think because I’ve had so much traveling, I think it’s much more like, yeah, a staycation is really lovely.

Amy [00:56:26]:
Okay.

Rachel Zinman [00:56:27]:
We just had a staycation where we stayed in a beautiful home. We just went to the beach every day because we live right next to the beach. We didn’t work at all. And it was just absolutely brilliant. Yeah. So staycation for me, for sure.

Amy [00:56:38]:
I love that answer. Very, very good. That’s it. Rachel Zinman, thank you so much for being an amazing guest on the show today.

Rachel Zinman [00:56:45]:
Thank you, Amy. Incredible to talk with you, and you really made me think about some things that I haven’t thought about for a while. So I really appreciate, appreciate chatting with you. It’s been amazing.

Amy [00:56:55]:
Very good.