I Thought Achievement Made Me Worthy | Veera Bhajan

Born without arms, Veera Bhajan learned from childhood how quickly the world can define someone by what it believes they lack. But behind her remarkable academic achievements and successful legal career was a much deeper struggle involving survival, shame, depression and the pressure to continually prove her worth. In this deeply personal conversation, Veera explains how achievement became connected to acceptance—and why she eventually realised that much of her life had become performative. She takes us inside her childhood in Trinidad and Tobago, being rejected from preschool, learning to write and complete everyday tasks with her feet, excelling academically and becoming nationally recognised after placing among the country’s top students. Veera also discusses the emotional cost of living in survival mode, the public dispute surrounding her appointment to the Equal Opportunity Tribunal and how that painful experience reopened wounds of rejection that stretched back to childhood. Today, Veera is an attorney, trauma coach, yoga instructor and motivational speaker. Through therapy, meditation and yoga, she has learned to separate her identity from her achievements, disability and past experiences—and reconnect with the person beneath them all. This conversation explores disability, childhood trauma, depression, healing, hustle culture, education, vulnerability, identity and what it truly means to live an authentic life. If this conversation resonates with you, like the episode, share it with someone who needs it and subscribe to The Corie Sheppard Podcast. 🎧 SUPPORT THE PODCAST Get early access, exclusive episodes and behind-the-scenes content on Patreon.   / coriesheppardpodcast   📱 FOLLOW CORIE SHEPPARD 📸 Instagram   / coriesheppod   👍 Facebook   / coriesheppardpodcast   🎵 TikTok   / coriesheppod   𝕏 X https://x.com/coriesheppod ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Coming up 01:52 Meet Veera Bhajan 04:46 Balancing law, coaching and yoga 06:03 How Veera became a trauma coach 08:32 Protecting yourself as an empath 11:12 Why vulnerability can feel frightening 15:27 Finding purpose beyond professional success 18:11 Living with public attention 21:36 Returning to where her education began 23:40 Being rejected from preschool 25:08 Entering a mainstream school 28:27 “People stare, but they don’t see me” 31:07 When achievement becomes your identity 33:23 Rejecting hustle culture 37:02 Facing fear at secondary school 38:35 Friendship, depression and emotional support 40:26 Living in a constant state of survival 44:11 How yoga transformed Veera’s life 48:48 Learning to sit with silence 53:14 Being defined by what you lack 55:15 The support her parents never received 58:33 Why children should not be compared 01:00:54 The pressure placed on young students 01:04:15 Veera responds to the song about her 01:06:33 Discovering the person beneath the trauma 01:08:36 When opportunities begin finding you 01:11:46 Becoming a motivational speaker 01:16:32 Choosing law from childhood 01:18:24 The public battle over her appointment 01:20:12 Seeing herself on the newspaper’s front page 01:22:01 Learning to advocate for herself 01:23:29 Veera’s vision for the future 01:28:03 Why she will never return to private practice 01:29:13 Rediscovering her singing voice