Gentle Conversation with Aneesh Popat

Meet one of the 1000 most influential Londoners - an award winning chocolatier!

Welcome to my lovely conversation with Aneesh, who was game enough to accept a strange invitation from one of his most devoted chocolate customers. Amongst other things we talk about how to have good boundaries around work, spreading joy, and the spiritual qualities of chocolate… and do scroll down if you’d like some money off some of Aneesh’s chocs.

Aneesh Popat

Hi Aneesh - thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this interview. A little introduction: I'm a therapist and a writer and I run a Buddhist temple in Malvern with my spouse Kaspa. Recent interests/preoccupations have included trying to book less into my diary, and starting a ministry training programme here at the temple. What about you?

Thank you for inviting me to the interview. I am a chocolatier, foodie, entrepreneur and nature lover. I spend almost all of my time either obsessing about chocolate products or walking in nature whilst listening to moving music, typically classical. I am constantly coming up with ideas and enjoy the challenge of bringing them to fruition and making them a success.

Mmm, chocolate. I'm feeling glad that some of your excellent chocolates are in the post to me as I type... It sounds like you have a lot of 'entrepreneurial energy' in your life, and that you enjoy thinking about your business a lot of the time. It reminds me a little of my life here at the temple, where the lines between 'work' and 'not work' can get a little fuzzy. Do your work/nonwork lines ever get fuzzy, and if they do, what helps you to sharpen them up?

Life at the temple sounds blissful! I had spent 2 years in an ashram in India and miss that life dearly.

Work and non-work do indeed get fuzzy. Where chocolate making ends because of work and starts because of my passion and vice versa is impossible to say. I love what I do so it never feels like work. Yes it can get busy and there are pressures due to deadlines but that's all adrenaline and problem solving - and I love that too. I try to sharpen the boundaries during the summer when the days are longer and there is more warmth outdoors. During the winter - and my peak seasons - my boundaries are non-existent in honesty.

How does work and non work blend for you and what advice do you have for me to both sharpen these and also tools to sharpen the mind for focus?

Great questions! It is hard when (as it sounds like it is for both of us) our work is almost more like a 'calling' than a job. Sometimes I find it difficult to know the difference between 'work' and 'nonwork'. I think I have got better at working less over the years, or at least making sure that I include a mixture of things in my week - temple work, therapy work, dog walking, reading trashy detective novels...

To answer your question about how to be more focussed, I find that I am more focussed when I've properly rested. By resting I don't just mean 'recovery rest', which is when I'm just napping or watching mindless television because I'm so tired. I mean 'recreation rest' where I start to feel creative, and can read books that require concentration, or go on longer walks in nature, and when the energy starts to return but I don't immediately 'spend it' by working. I also swear by having a Sabbath day (ours is on a Monday), and I take a whole day once a month as a retreat day with no appointments allowed. I can choose what I want to do with it but I'm not allowed to do any work! 

Some of the chocolates….

Now I am torn between asking about the ashram and asking about chocolate... maybe a combination. How does your passion for chocolate connect with other aspects of your life, and maybe even with your spiritual life?

That is a very overlooked and valid point. I love your Sabbath implementation. Rest does not equal sleep or mindless activities. Being restful I guess is then a state of mind!

I make chocolate because it makes me joyous and spreads joy. What more is there to achieve in life than to be joyous? Through chocolate, if we help others on their journey to find joy, whether be that directly through enjoying chocolate or indirectly through the initiatives we can do because of chocolate such as promoting sustainability, preserving wild rainforests, promoting better lives for farm workers etc. etc. then we have made a success of our lives. And this is a spiritual practice for me too - anything done to sharpen one's character and become a more perfect human is a spiritual pursuit.

Why did you seek out Buddhism?

I love how you speak about your own and other's joy as central to your chocolate-making calling.

Why did I seek Buddhism... I'm not so sure about me seeking it, it felt like it sought me! I grew up atheist and was very anti-religion. I hated the idea of not taking responsibility for my life, and I saw religious people as somehow abdicating that responsibility and relying on God and God's rules instead. I was in a relationship with an alcoholic at the time, and it was only at the end of a long period of trying to change him that I realised I needed help myself, and turned to a 12 step programme. Here I was introduced to the benefits of a 'Higher Power' and, once my heart was opened to the possibility of something that is bigger than me and that knows better than me, I never looked back...

So - time for my last question! What do you see as your biggest achievement to date, and what wild dream would you have for a future achievement? (I'm kind of cheating as that's two!)

My biggest achievement to date is learning to establish healthy boundaries in my life. It is all good and well aspiring for goodness, but not if you cannot also be fiercely protective of this. Ying and yang concept I suppose or even the concept of the Laxman Rekha.

A wild dream would be to travel the world living nomadically with the real people that make up this world, meeting them, hearing their stories, connecting with them and the nature that they rely on.

I guess it's my last turn to be cheeky back! What three things would you go back and tell your aspiring 18 year old self? And if today was your last day, how would you live it?

I like your use of the word 'fierce' - it reminds me of the Bodhisattva Manjushri who has a sword which cuts dramatically through things in order to reveal truth. I looked up Laxman Rekha - interesting story. A line in the sand. Sometimes it's necessary to be fierce...

And that is a cheeky cheating compound question to finish, it serves me right for starting it! (karma...) Now, I'm not sure the 18 year old me would have listened to anything I might have to say. So I would probably just say, keep going, you're doing great, I love you.

And if today was my last day? As I get older I appreciate the simpler things more and more. Some of your chocolate would definitely feature. I would give the dogs a very long walk, write a goodbye letter to my friends and family and settle other affairs (i.e. arrange for someone to look after my therapy clients etc.) I’d walk slowly around the temple garden and the temple and appreciate the space. Then I’d snuggle under a blanket with my spouse Kaspa and watch Ru Paul. Kaspa isn't too keen on Ru Paul but as long as it was only my last day and not theirs, I think it would be the least they could do. It's a great question and I think it will stay with me for a little while - we never really know how many days we have left, do we?

This is what I’m talking about…

It's been an absolute pleasure to have this conversation with you, Aneesh. I was a bit anxious at the start as we hardly know each other and I was wondering if you thought some of my questions were intrusive! Thank you so much for trusting the conversation and for sharing some of your life with us. Any last thing you'd like to add?

It has been a pleasure to be in conversation with someone who is in pursuit of their true self. And my last word would be to frame that - may we all continue to be in the pursuit of finding ourselves.

⭐

Do visit The Chocolatier and Aneesh has created a special offer just for us - enter ‘GOINGGENTLY’ at the check out for 20% off. Generous!! It would be rude not to…

⭐ ⭐ ⭐