#150 Navigating the Path to Authenticity: Voice, Identity, and Freedom

Transcript of Interview

Find Your Voice, Change Your Life Podcast

Podcast Host: Dr. Doreen Downing

Free Guide to Fearless Speaking: Doreen7steps.com

Episode #150 DevSuroop Kaur

“Navigating the Path to Authenticity: Voice, Identity, and Freedom”

(00:00) Doreen Downing: Hi, this is Dr. Doreen Downing, host of the Find Your Voice, Change Your Life podcast. What I do here is interview guests who have a story about their voice, about not having it, about having a struggle to find it, and also, what it’s been like to finally feel the freedom of being able to tap into voice, where it is inside. Of course, it’s inside. It’s not outside of us. 

So, today, I’m going to be interviewing DevSuroop Kaur, and she’s a wonderful new friend of mine who is also into finding your voice, your authentic voice. So, we’re going to have a lot to share and to collaborate on and show you guys the possibility of finding your voice. Hi, DevSuroop. 

(00:54) DevSuroop Kaur: Hi, Doreen. I’m delighted to be here. Thank you for the invitation. 

(00:58) Doreen Downing: You sent a bio, so I’d like to read that just so people get a good sense of your background and what you do right now. 

DevSuroop Kaur helps soul-led entrepreneurs and speakers unlock the full potential of their authentic voice. With over 40 years of experience in executive business management, deep yogic practices, and music performance, she is a sought after voice empowerment coach. Her clients benefit from a unique blend of Naad Yoga, the yoga of voice, by the way, and practical life and business experiences, driving profound personal and professional change.

An influential entrepreneur and speaker, DevSuroop is also an accomplished chant leader and vocalist with internationally distributed albums, spanning chant, meditation, jazz, and Classical Indian Kirtan. Wow, I’m glad I read it, so that people can see the, “Ooh.” It’s a beautiful tapestry that comes together.

You are a work of art, DevSuroop. Already. 

(02:19) DevSuroop Kaur: That’s really beautiful. Thank you so much. Yes. 

(02:22) Doreen Downing: Well. Usually, I start the conversation just grounding in what it was like growing up because that’s where we come into the world. We have our potential, and it’s recognized, seen, “Hello in there. Let’s help you grow,” or it’s tamped down, or ignored, or abused. There’s so many ways in which the voice is hampered early on in our life. 

So, I don’t want to spend a lot of time there because I know your story has something to do with later in life, and that’s what I want to highlight today, but I do also want to just hear about the foundation when you came in.

(03:04) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes, I’m the youngest of three girls, and by the time I came in, the way I like to say it or feel right is that the battlegrounds were set. Being the youngest, I really, just like you’re saying, all the ways that our voices get muted as young person, that was very true for me. 

I didn’t feel like I had the ability to come forward with my true, authentic, soft self and be embraced and heard. With lots of reflection and therapy and all those kinds of things, I mean, I know it’s not the intention of people involved and I love everybody very dearly, it’s just what happened. I felt very silenced and then also very angry in my silence. 

(04:02) Doreen Downing: Well, thank you. Thank you for painting the quick snapshot and yes, a little bit. But it’s a frame, it’s a blueprint in a way we organize ourselves relative to the outside world, and that first world is in our family. It’s like the place, the dinner table had already been set and they made room for you, kind of, but it wasn’t your playground.

So, the whole idea though, is that from those early experiences, and you use the word silenced and muted, that there’s a way in which that carries on as we start to move out into the wider world, which is school and then into early adulthood. I’m not saying go quickly through that, but here you are in your family and then you go into a more of a social environment. How do you feel with peers, let’s say, in school? 

(05:09) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes, so I call the moving from the family of origin, that first nest into the phase two of moving out in the world and my way. There was certainly a lot of resonance, of course, because I didn’t have the skills and the tools to really understand how to come into my own. Truly. 

I didn’t go to college right away. I experimented. I cleared hiking trails. I worked in heavy construction. I worked on farms. I moved to Alaska. I did all sorts of different things to try to find my own being and myself. This was also a period of active addiction of drinking, and drugging, and doing all the things to try to find my way. There was a lot of turmoil and challenge in that period. 

I had a lot of fun. I had a lot of great experiences. But there was a way that I was very—the word that comes to mind is shy, but it really wasn’t shy. It was like I was afraid to speak. So, there’s the homeopathy of that one. 

(06:30) Doreen Downing: But what I just got there when you said, “Shy,” and then you were looking for the word and then afraid to speak, it felt like you were on a search. That’s what it’s like, and you’re searching, searching, searching, searching, searching. You were searching for a self and some kind of alignment with yourself and that’s, hello, that’s where voice is, inside of yourself. 

So, you weren’t home yet with yourself and your voice. So, thank you. I felt the thread of early childhood and you moving through early adulthood, and then early twenties. This was a big moment where you found something there. So, tell us about it. 

(07:16) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes. What happened in my early twenties, 22, 23 in there, first of all, I quit drinking. I quit that whole realm, and around that time, I also found my husband, who I’m still married to all these years later. We were living in Fairbanks, Alaska. That was really, finally, I had found a partner that I felt like I could be in a relationship with that felt like a good synergy, a good give and take, but I mentioned that I quit drinking and I still felt unsettled within myself.

This is where I started in Fairbanks practicing Kundalini yoga. I was looking for yoga. That was the only yoga I could find, and this was in an ashram that was run by Western Sikhs, and at that time, that was all very closely melded in Kundalini Yoga and the whole Western Sikh movement. 

And after, not all that long, I started to feel like, oh, what a relief. I finally felt like I was home. I finally felt like I could live a spiritual life and still be in a family out in the world, have a job, be married, but I didn’t have to go do a monastic “Be a Buddhist nun,” somewhere or something, that I could be really fully in the world.

I was thrilled to have found this community and I really went all in. My husband and I had to make some good discussions about—we weren’t married then and we did get married—if we could do this together because he wasn’t interested in this lifestyle, but I went all in and it was really super powerful for me.

I found that I could be grounded in myself. I felt free. I did change my name. DevSuroop is my spiritual name. I wore white and dressed in a turban and really, really, really got deeply in that community. I think from a voice perspective, what was super powerful, Doreen, is that I got deeply into music, singing and chanting, and Naad yoga, the yoga of sound. 

Got deeply into all of that and became a yoga teacher trainer. Simultaneously had an executive life. So, both things, all things were going on at the same time. It was a great era. It was great in many ways. There’s a life but you know, that was—

(09:53) Doreen Downing: But to me, it felt like the best of both worlds, the external world where you are productive and doing, hopefully, it was good work. It was executive. I don’t know what exactly it was, but you were engaged, and you must have been making a living. 

(10:11) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes. Yes, definitely. 

(10:13) Doreen Downing: Money coming in. But also, the soulfulness of what yoga and what spirituality can do. The other thing that I felt was around the community. If you had, not just this work around yoga and being more spiritual, whatever those principles meant in your life and how you live them out, but you were in a, I guess, a family. 

(10:42) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes, absolutely, and it was a very, very good life for me. There were things within the community, like anything that I didn’t like so much, or maybe kinds of personalities that I didn’t really resonate with.

There were ways, which is kind of part of what we were talking about, that because it was a community and it was—somebody used a really good word for it, like a very high—it’s very structured. You had ways that you were expected to be.

And so, if you told the line and lived in this, or appeared to, anyway, live within these constraints, it was good, but if you started to go out of it, you kind of lost your voice out in your authentic expression if it wasn’t within a certain—I think that’s very natural in a very highly structured community. This was definitely true of the community that I was in, for sure. 

(11:45) Doreen Downing: Could you give me an example?

(11:47) DevSuroop Kaur: Oh, gosh. I’m trying to think of a good one. There were rules like, you don’t cut your hair. You would just let your hair grow, which I did for all the whole time I was in that community, and if you cut your hair—and some people would cut their hair and wear a turban and hide it, but that would mean that you were not part of the—that would be a problem in the community. 

(12:11) Doreen Downing: And what would be the consequence? 

(12:12) DevSuroop Kaur: If you were all in, in the whole social structure and you make a choice to cut your hair, you’re basically saying you’re out. 

(12:21) Doreen Downing: Okay. When I was thinking spiritual, I was thinking way more expansive, and accepting, and some of what I might think spiritual is about, but I get what you’re saying. It’s a whole different brand of spirituality when it’s a structure, when it’s—maybe it’s a stronger word—cultish. 

(12:40) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes, definitely some people will say, absolutely, this community was and is a cult. Some would say it’s cultish, had cult aspects to it. 

(12:51) Doreen Downing: Yes. 

(12:51) DevSuroop Kaur: I remember for years and years and years ago. No, no, no, no, this isn’t a cult because we’re Sikhs, which is a world religion.

We’re Sikhs. We’re not in a cult, but this is how I think of it these days, Doreen, because clearly I’ve cut my hair. Still use the name DevSuroop. I don’t consider myself part of that community, clearly the way I was. I still practice and train people in Kundalini yoga.

But I’m freeing myself, kind of like freeing your voice. I’m really freeing myself. But this is, I think, a really important point that there are, in my experience, because part of what I did in my career was compliance and ethics. I was a chief compliance officer for part of my career.

And so, you had precepts. This is a guiding vision, guiding values, guiding things, which in a spiritual community, are gorgeous. Guiding spiritual principles are like everything that you want in—I’m sure some people from my community are watching, so I’m saying, “Hello, love you,” but what happens is you have the spiritual concepts, you have the vision, you have the values, but the culture grows up differently, separately from that. 

Maybe it starts like this and then this starts to happen. Kind of like if you make a 1-degree shift and then it goes further and further out. It becomes further and further out. So, there became aspects that you weren’t free, that you weren’t—

I’d have to think about some. I’m speaking conceptually, but that’s what I kind of how—because I left that community about four years ago, and certainly I’ve been pondering about that a lot like, “Okay, what happened?” 

(14:52) Doreen Downing: Yes, well, four years ago is a long time, and to continue to ponder means it’s been very deep in your psyche and deep in your soul. Before I get to that story, I want to take a quick break and we’ll be right back.

Hi, we’re back with DevSuroop Kaur and already fully fascinated by her story of not only growing up the third of three children who felt more muted and silenced, a little softer and shyer than other kids growing up, but found a community where it felt like a place where she belonged, where her voice could be heard, and started teaching yoga.

But where we are now, in terms of discovering what it means to find your voice and be in a community that has certain expectations, not only just expectations, but rules. It wasn’t just like, “Oh, everybody’s free to be who they are.” It’s like, you have to be this way or else. 

That seems to be where we are right now. It’s that at some point, with the years that you were in it, you made a decision to leave, and it sounds like there’s still—or like the AA program says, “Take what you can and leave the rest.” I think there’s some model like that. That feels like what you’re doing.

(16:22) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes. So, what happened in this community is in early 2020, somebody came forward with a book. The woman had been a staff member of the leader of the community in the late 60s, 70s into the early 80s. It was her memoir and then she came forward with her telling of their sexual relationship, which was always denied that there was a sexual relationship.

Then what happened, this was right when the pandemic was starting, so the pandemic and this happened at the same time, many, many, many people came forward with stories that became a “Me Too” sort of thing, where various staff members came forward and said, “Yes, I was in a sexual relationship.” Some claimed or came forward that it was an abusive sexual relationship, coercive sexual relationship. Many, many children came forward who are now adults, saying things that had happened in the school environment because many children went to school in India. 

It was this big explosion of—and I had a tipping point. There was rumors all these years and people would leave the community and you go, “Okay, well, they left,” and you’d hear rumors, but I never had a full tipping point where I went, “Oh, my gosh. Wow.” 

Things were going on that it was true, and there’s a few people where I go, “Whoa.” If they said this, “Whoa.” Like, I could really, really believe it. So, I started in this community when I was 23. I was 60, I think, when this came forward. Yes. It was like, ” I can’t do it.” Had I stayed, Doreen, talk about muting your voice. Talk about not being able to say, “Look. I know this happened now. I know certain things happened.” I cannot live with that. I cannot pretend. I can’t pretend. I can’t be in a community where the predominant attitude is it didn’t happen.

(18:46) Doreen Downing: That’s a lie. 

(18:47) DevSuroop Kaur: That’s a lie. I just can’t do it. So, I’ve been on a journey since. This is phase four now of my life, where “Okay. Who am I deeply now? Who am I really?” without the comfort of leaning into a community that did give me tremendous value. 

It’s a—I want to say recreation, but it’s—Fortunately, I have the opportunity to—I’m still 65. I just turned 65—fortunately, I’m still around, that I have this opportunity to, like you mentioned, the little person at the very, very beginning that comes in, and sometimes that child is nurtured into its excellence, and sometimes the situation is way too overwhelming to recognize that beautiful being. Now, I get to really, really recognize that beautiful being.

(19:47) Doreen Downing: Yes. I recognize you, your beautiful being. That’s partly why I invited you and want you to share your story here, so that other beings can hear the possibility that it’s never too late to come out of hiding. I said hiding because maybe you didn’t even know that’s what that was for you, but when you woke up, you had a choice, and that was the coming to terms moment. They call it coming-to- Jesus moment 

(20:23) DevSuroop Kaur: To Jesus, yes. I came to Jesus. 

(20:28) Doreen Downing: Yes, and that choice moment, “Wow,” that had to draw something from who you truly are because that’s voice. It’s the voice saying, “No, I am leaving, taking what I want, and dropping the rest.” It’s the sorting process too is what I see that you’ve been doing. 

(20:51) DevSuroop Kaur: Yes, and I’m kind of tired of it. I remember one of the things I said early on and I keep on remembering. Early on, meaning 2020, when I was saying, “Okay, I can’t do this.” Like, the two short-term decisions that would have been the easiest in the short term was to not believe all these people that were saying that they were harmed. That would be easy in the short term because I wouldn’t have to change anything. 

The other easy one is to deny any value that I had experienced in all of those years, and value in the technology, and the teaching and all of that. So, in the short term, those two things would be easiest. But they would be harder in the long term because I wouldn’t have really dealt with everything.

So, the harder thing, the short term, is to be in there in that sifting and sorting process, which I am still in, but in the long term, that’s the better choice. Honestly, I’m kind of tired of it. It’s kind of like, “Okay. Can we just go?” Maybe phase 4 is the sifting and sorting and phase 5 means I’m still recognizing the whole breadth of my life and I’m moving now into the new expression of myself. 

(22:14) Doreen Downing: You just said it. Wow. It’s like a threshold. You are there. 

(22:21) DevSuroop Kaur: What a process. 

(22:22) Doreen Downing: Yes, beautiful, beautiful. Well thank you. This is very profound for me to sit with you today. I’m getting all sorts of little goosebumps on my skin because it feels so real, so true, so authentic. 

We’re almost done. So, I want to come back to what you currently do. We’ll have show notes and also how people can find you, but just give us something about—I know you do master classes and your work is about voice, and so tell us something about that. 

(22:55) DevSuroop Kaur: Through my life, being a musician and being a yogi and also being an executive, I’ve learned so much about so many techniques and so much about how to activate your own true, deeply authentic voice. 

You and I both do this but we have different ways of doing it, and I do it deeply from the innate capability of the physiology, the Western physiology, and the yogic physiology, the subtle physiology of the being, to create, tap into that strength and power that of the authentic self and allow the voice to come from that. 

So, I work with people to work on that activation or recognition and awakening of their own authentic self and authentic voice, and then really how that turns into manifesting their soul work, their vision, their work in the world, what they’re here to do. So, it’s the very spiritual and the very grounded, which is what I talked about, haunting way, way back. And it’s the same thing. 

(24:05) Doreen Downing: But your own flavor, on your own terms. Thank you so much.

Before we end, I like to just open up the space for you to listen and see how you would want to leave our time together and what might want to—when you listen into this moment of life where we’re in this shared experience together, is what comes to be said before we leave. 

(24:34) DevSuroop Kaur: Hmm. I’m grateful for connection. I’m grateful for the opportunity for you and I to get to know each other as a beautiful example of connection and the different ways that I see that in the example with you and just that the other things in my life that are really, truly, deeply authentic and acceptance of the authentic self, the authentic you, the authentic me, the authentic person next to me and giving us all freedom to be, have voice for that, who we are. So, true, honest, heartfelt connection and recognition of who we are, the authentic self, the soul.

(25:28) Doreen Downing: Nothing to say after that, except for beautiful, beautiful, meaningful moments shared with the group today. Thank you so much. 

(25:38) DevSuroop Kaur: Thank you, Doreen. Grateful.