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Madonna is opening up like never before.
The Queen of Pop sat down with Jay Shetty for her first ever podcast interview on the Monday (September 29) episode of his On Purpose podcast, diving deep into how her spirituality has influenced her personal life as well as her decades-long career. Madonna has been open about her practice with Kabbalah over the years and was even joined on the podcast by her Kabbalah teacher Eitan.
The Ray of Light singer, 67, credited her spiritual life for keeping her "sane" and helping her "navigate the ups and downs of life," adding that she "absolutely would not be where I am or who I am" without it.
Madonna explained the importance of spirituality and looking inward in a time where everyone is caught up in the distractions of the "busy" world, from the prevalence of social media to being "visually stimulated all the time."
"We live in a very busy, chaotic world. Lots of noise, lots of distraction... there's no peace, there's no quiet. We're not comfortable being quiet with ourselves and looking inward and asking ourselves why am I here or what am I doing," she said. "If you don't have a spiritual life, you're never going to stop and ask any questions. You're just going to plow through life, and you're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event. I don't believe that anything is random. I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us, to teach us some kind of a lesson."
The "Vogue" hitmaker shared that her spirituality journey ramped up when she was pregnant with her first child, Lourdes, and was invited to a Kabbalah class by a woman she met at a dinner party. Being the constant student she is, she was immediately interested and wanted to learn more, and went to the class where she met her now-teacher.
"Everything that he said seemed to make so much sense to me and gave me courage to be who I am and who I'm meant to be, and made me actually think about intention and a real sense of purpose. Because my sense of purpose can't just be I want to be rich or famous, or I want to be popular, or I want to sell a lot of records, because none of that lasts. But it wasn't until I went to class that I actually started thinking about those things."
On Purpose with Jay Shetty has a focus on mental health and aims to help listeners feel understood in the challenges and hurdles they face in life. The podcast has new episodes each week and often features special guests to "uncover a side of them we've never seen before." Follow along with On Purpose or catch up on past episodes at iHeart.com.