281: Plot Twist: How to Survive Abuse & The First Step to Taking Your Life Back with Dr. Neeta Bhushan

In this Plot Twist episode, Dr. Neeta Bhushan shares her powerful journey of resilience, self-discovery, and transformation. On the surface, she had it all—a thriving dental practice, financial success, and a picture-perfect marriage. But behind the scenes, she was trapped in an abusive relationship, living in fear, and hiding the truth from everyone, including herself.

Neeta takes us back to the pivotal moment on New Year’s Eve in 2011 when she finally admitted to herself that she was in a toxic marriage. That night, she made the life-altering decision to walk away, leaving behind the illusion of success and stepping into the unknown. In this raw and emotional conversation, she opens up about the fear, shame, and self-doubt that kept her stuck for so long—and the courage it took to break free.

From rebuilding her life from scratch to immersing herself in personal growth, stand-up comedy, and improv, Neeta shares how saying yes to the unknown led her to a purpose greater than she ever imagined. Now a best-selling author, emotional health advocate, and global speaker, she inspires others to turn their pain into power.

If you’ve ever felt stuck in a life that looks good on paper but feels completely wrong inside, this episode is for you. Neeta’s story is a testament to the strength it takes to start over—and the magic that unfolds when you do.

Transcript

NB: “I really wanted to be loved. And I was willing to do whatever it took to get that, and to be in a relationship where they weren't gonna leave me. But it would definitely break me because I would then be so afraid to leave. Because then the emotional conditioning was you're worthless, you're broken, you're never gonna find anyone. And so I don't know what else to do. And I remember saying,  wow, Neeta just look at where you have come and you can create a whole new life for yourself. And I would still make excuses because I was in the suck. I was fully in it. And that's where I have so much empathy for women who feel like they have to be stuck in it. And I think that's where it comes. There's that rock bottom, that was the rock bottom because my life was threatened. He threatened to end my life. And when that happened I'm like, okay, this is serious.”
 

[INTRODUCTION] 

Have you ever felt that the life that you spent years building isn't actually the life that you want and on the outside, everything looks great, right? You look successful. You look stable. You look like you found true love, but on the inside, something feels off.  So what happens when you finally admit the truth and you choose to start over? 

In today's Plot Twist episode, Neeta Bhushan, a three time international best selling author and world renowned emotional health advocate, shares how to recognize when you're stuck in a life that isn't right for you any longer,  and why hitting rock bottom can be the wake up call that you need, and how stepping into the unknown can lead to something better than you've ever imagined. 

Let's dive in…

LW: You are now practicing cosmetic dentistry. You're married. You've rebuilt your life. You're successful on paper, but it's not all what it seems.

NB: Yeah. I used my 20s to really prove myself and it started in Rome. It started in Rome where I could create whatever I want, because I ended up there and I could share whatever I choose to share in order to be accepted, in order to not be the weird one. In order to not be the weird girl that has all of this drama in her life. These were the beliefs that I had in my head, or the stories that I had in my head. Very pivotal point in my life, December 31st, 2011, where I thought I had done such a good job of convincing to the outside world that I had made it, that I had this very lucrative practice. It was a seven-figure business. I wasn't even 30. I had 10 people working under me. It was all the ego, the bells and whistles. Every single check mark was box was checked off for me proverbially.

I found myself in – I was married. I had this big dream wedding. I fell in love and I thought that all of those things were going to mask what I was really feeling. It didn't, because I was literally in a toxic relationship. I was in an abusive marriage. December 31st was literally the day that I actually admitted to myself, because I was in such denial, such denial to my family, such denial to my friends and more importantly, such denial to myself, because I had been now spiritually broken, mentally just completely off, emotionally distraught. Physically, I was in fear.

That would then take me through the darkest night of the soul of leaving haphazardly in the middle of the night. This was New Year's Eve, 2011. Take whatever I could and literally say goodbye to that life.

LW: You were staring in this mirror and looking at all your stuff that you’ve accumulated and all that. What preceded that night? Because you also mentioned being in court and having – Your file was stapled together, because there's so many instances of physical abuse. Did something happen? Was there abuse that happened just before you decided this is it?

NB: Yeah. Oh, yeah. That was the cherry on top. It was the last time I would allow him to strike his fist across my face.

LW: Did it ever leave marks? Were you wearing a lot of makeup when you went to work? Did people notice at work? Did everybody know, but you didn't realize everybody knew?

NB: I think that if you had met us, you'd probably know. Just in, again, I think hurt people hurt people, and I'm not going to speak on my ex's behalf, right? It's your quintessential co-dependent relationship, where it's the narcissistic and the co-dependent, perhaps maybe sociopathic. But I really wanted love. I was willing to do whatever it took to get that and to be in a relationship where they weren't going to leave me, but it would definitely break me, because I would then be so afraid to leave, because then the emotional conditioning was you're worthless, you're broken, you're never going to find anyone. I empathize with –

LW: Well, everyone else had left you. Everyone you cared about had left you at that point. This is one thing you're holding onto.

NB: Holding on to it for dear life. I remember even in my therapist's office, just full hysterics and saying, “But I don't know what else to do.” I remember him saying, “Wow, Neeta. Just look at where you have come and you can create a whole new life for yourself.” I would still make excuses, because I was in the suck. I was fully in it. That's where I have so much empathy for women who feel like they have to be – they’re stuck in it. I think that's where it comes. There's that rock bottom and I definitely – that was the rock bottom, because my life was threatened. I mean, he threatened to end my life.

When that happened, I'm like, “Okay, this is serious. We're not kidding around anymore. Who am I kidding?” There I am in this five-story home, where I thought everything led to all the success, but I was so broken on the inside. I’m just so ashamed of what people would think. So ashamed that like, “Ah, she couldn't keep this marriage.” Because that was the mentality I grew up. God, did it feel so good to leave.

Yeah, the first few days, the first few initial weeks, that was dark. It got messy. It got so dark. I don't even talk a lot about the details anymore. Everything that you can ever imagine and a tumultuous divorce came out from me getting a restraining order, standing before the judge. I remember the judge putting her glasses down and being like, “What took you so long, honey?” I remember shaking, because I was so afraid at that point of public speaking, because I was not the only person in the courtroom. There was a whole line of other women. Some of them had tiny little kids and I'm shaking, because I'm so afraid of what the world would think. Man, after those words left my mouth, it was like, again, full liberation. Full liberation and full empowerment and agency, and starting to cultivate that resiliency that I talk about in the book.

LW: If someone had stopped you going into court that day and said, “Hey, Neeta. You're going to one day become a huge wellness influencer and leadership coach and entrepreneur. You're going to be giving talks on massive stages and inspiring all these people over the world.” Would you have believed them?

NB: No.

LW: You're going to use your story of being abused. You’re going to speak very publicly and openly about it. You're going to write books about it.

NB: You're not going to be shaking anymore like you are right now.

LW: You won't be shaking anymore. Would you have believed them? Would you have thought it would be possible in a million years?

NB: No, not in a million years. Not in a million years. I think for whoever is listening, or maybe you have a friend going through something like this, that's where the mess can really be the magic. When we dive into it, when we accept it, it could truly be a lead to your next chapter. I even remember my divorce lawyer, I was such a hot mess at that time. I felt like I couldn't trust anyone.

I went through a lot of betrayal, even in my dental office and things like I said, were really dark for a while. She said, “Neeta, I'm going to talk to you in five years and you are going to be a whole different person.” I still remember those words. It was crazy, because five years later, I'm sending her all of these people, because people are coming up to me asking me like, “Who do I go to for my divorce?” It's just so interesting that wow, yeah. It's true. It's true.

LW: You went through this period of saying yes to everything. What happened? Did you read The Surrender Experiment, or how did you get this idea to just say yes and you ended up in this improv class. Talk about that period.

NB: Oh, man. I think I needed – I was in such a rock bottom state, like zero confidence. Just really in fear. I totally had PTSD that I had to recreate a whole community that I had left. Whole friend circle. I think now you should know that I thrive in community. For me to walk away from that life and all of those people, and I needed to do something completely different. I didn't know what it was, but I definitely dove into all kinds of things. Improv and stand-up comedy were my saving grace.

I remember my one of my friends was saying, “Hey, there's this thing. You should totally go to it.” I said, “Well, where is it at?” They're like, “Well, it's at Second City.” I'm like, “Second City, that's where people go where they want to be – it's Saturday Night Live. I can’t do that.”

LW: Saturday Night Live.

NB: That's not me. Literally, the greats go there, right? Because it was in Chicago and they're like, “Come on. I think it'd be good for you. Just try it out. Just try one.” I remember, I was also reading The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer. That was on repeat in my life during that time, one of my favorite, favorite books, still all time. I feel like he's such a godsend, but he, of course, The Surrender Experiment was part of that. Shonda Rhimes, Year of Yes. All of those books were just so pivotal during that time. It was almost just like, okay, fine, if it scares you, then just say yes to it. Just do it. Because I was just on a mission to find people that were just so different than what suckiness that I was in at that time.

I did the improv. I said yes to a Bible study group, like hardcore, the non-denominational Christian group. I still, I'm so thankful for that community for the longest time, but then I became the leader of that small group. Then we started talking about all sorts of things. Then that turned into starting a book club, which then that turned into what we would call today, a female mastermind. Because again, I was looking for community.

As my human design as a generator, I just needed to generate these different kinds of opportunities for myself. That meant saying yes to even psychedelic experiences and yes to different kinds of shamans, yes to alternative modes of healing, yes to thought-talk therapy, yes to – Just saying yes. What I was saying no to was male relationships at the time. That part of my life was definitely closed for a while, until I was able to open up myself to love again. I think, I really needed to do the work for myself. That meant looking at – I remember, gosh, one of the books that I read, because I definitely went into the whole narcissistic, co-dependent relationships. There was a ton of books that I was just – I was getting my PhD in that whole field at that time, because I was just obsessed with, okay, how was I co-dependent? What were some of my characteristics? Why did I want that? It was massive self-growth and massive reading. I just became voracious at consuming to literally get out of this time.

One of the greatest things that I still keep today is the time at stand-up comedy, because that, again, legit scared me. I'm like, there's no way. How can you create a joke out of a one line? It just required so much energy and so much thoughtfulness and specificity. Of course, me as a recovering perfectionist, I'm like, “Well, what if they don't laugh at my jokes?” Saying yes to that just blew my mind away, where then I entered a pitch competition. I got into this VC realm of venture capitalists. They were actually putting on an incubator.

I said I would be an angel investor, because they needed women who were also small business owners to advise some of these females who were talking about their startups. I'm like, “Okay, what's a startup?” I didn't even know what that was. They're like, “Well, you have a startup. You started your dental practice.” I'm like, “Yeah.”

I sat through one of these and that again, blew me to another level, because in each of these instances, I was the small fish. I didn't want to be on Saturday Night Live. I didn't care to be a standup comedian. I didn't care to be a VC. I was not pitching to get money for a startup. I was just there, just saying yes to these opportunities. What started to happen was, I started to say yes to some of the things that I really was passionate about, which was women and girls. Then I started a non-profit. Then that led me to San Francisco and going to the Bay Area and learning from people at the Stanford Business School, because they then ran the non-profit management school, because they're teaching these non-profits how to make money as well.

That blew myself away, because I'm like, “Wow, in medicine and in dentistry, no one's talking about this. No one's talking about failing first.” We're all talking about how to be perfect and how to be lauded by the accomplishments that we've had and it's very egoistic in that community, where then you go into the startup community and they're like, “Yeah, I want you to fail. I'm not going to give you money until I see you have some sweat equity, some grit.” That then changed my life, because then as I was starting to gain momentum in my non-profit and it was very small. It ended up being something very national and local to these universities. But it really got my foot in the door being around really big giants and titans who was actually saving the water crisis and climate change.

Then I realized like, oh, wow, okay, this is my little tiny little effort here, but I can actually learn from some of these people who are really doing major things in the world. Once they got to know the resiliency and the emotional grit at the time that I was starting to cultivate and talk about as one of my talking pieces for the non-profit as well, that's what would start my speaking career. That's what would really start my advisory into the world of startups and angel investing. Then actually making the hard decision to sell my dental practice and move to the Bay area. 

LW: Internally, what was your mental state like? You've done all this work, right? You've been exposed this whole of the world. Did that help to cure the anxiety, or whatever you felt, or the PTSD that you had been carrying around since you were 16-years-old? 

NB: I think it transmuted and it transformed into, “Oh, wow. Okay, there's something bigger than this.” Because every time that I would share my story, whether it was at a high school and many times the speaking was at high schools, or different organizations, and this was before it became these corporate events. Knowing that other people felt solace in hearing my story, It gave more fuel to, all right, this is what we're doing.

It also just activated more of like, okay, I need to do more research on this. I need to do more research as to why we are suffering in our mental health, why in my dental world, our practice was growing at an exponential rate 20%, 30% and I wasn't even there. My leadership completely changed. So many things completely changed when I started to just expand. One of the concepts that I talk about in the book is really tap into your bounce factor. It wasn't until that I was making peace with one of the pillars, which is your upbringing. For me, making peace with my upbringing and really loving the fact that, hey, all of these things happen for me was a huge perspective shift.

Allowing myself to get that support, because that second pillar of building your bounce factor is, how are you invoking good stress and how are you surrounding yourself and looking at your current environment right now, and is it actually supporting you? One of the things that I knew I needed constantly was advisors; advisors, mentors, coaches, healers, people that would take me to that next level in my thinking, in the way that I operated, in the way that I was healing. I honestly prioritized healing, because for a whole decade before that, I didn't even know. I had no idea I became such a wellness and health geek, obviously, because I went through all those losses. I also think that I became really obsessed with alternative modes of healing. That's where it literally took me around the world.

[END]

 Thank you for tuning into today's Plot Twist with Neeta Bhushan. If you'd like to follow Neeta's work on emotional resilience and personal transformation, you can find her on the socials @neetabuhshan, which is N E E T A B H U S H A N. And if you want to hear more of Neeta's incredible journey, be sure to check out our full interview, which is an episode 145 where we dive deeper into how she rebuilt her life and found her true calling and turn her pain into purpose.

And if you know someone who's making the world a better place through their work or story, please send me your guest suggestions to light@lightwatkins.com. And also, please take a few seconds to just rate and review the show. I hope to see you next week for another inspiring story of an ordinary person doing extraordinary things. And until then, keep trusting your intuition, keep following your heart and keep taking those leaps of faith. And remember, no one's told you lately that they believe in you.  I believe in you. Thank you. And have a fantastic day.