Returning Home to Your Body with Ancient Ayurvedic Wisdom | Radhi Devlukia

[Music] welcome back to episode two of season 5 of what's the juice podcast I am so overjoyed and thrilled at all the feedback we got last week on Alexis's episode it makes me so happy that you guys felt there were true actionable tips for your gut and digestive health and I hope that so many of you go on to work with her and do her courses because she is such a wealth of knowledge and it just makes me really excited for this season that you guys get my mission here and you get my intentions and it just feels more connected than ever so in today's episode I am interviewing Rody devlukia she is a plant-based cook a recipe developer and a mission-driven entrepreneur who practices conscious cooking and shares a wealth of beautiful kitchen medicine recipes in her new cookbook joyful I'm sure you guys have seen Rody before she's the wife of Jay Shetty who's also just incredible and shares so much wisdom and philosophy for living in this world and being true to your soul and that is exactly what we get into in this episode of course we're going to talk about her new cookbook joyful which is full of those recipes that I mentioned and also contains Rod's daily Wellness practices that are derived from ayurveda like her meditations like Beauty and oiling rituals that you can use to nourish your body and strengthen your hair but more than anything this episode is going to get into Rody's philosophy on life we're going really deep and this is one of those Soulful spiritual episodes that are going to help you rethink the way in which you are interacting with the world and the relationship that you have with yourself and how you're showing up for others from the heart instead of from your ego and she's going to talk a lot about the ways that she's been able to stay present in her life and stay in Integrity with her purpose and her calling we're going to talk about where to start when you're feeling lost and you want to develop a relationship with yourself and you want to know who you are and what your true voice is but you feel like you don't even know where to start and you don't know how much of you is this version of you that you've curated for outside eyes and how to connect with your true self and your intuition we're going to talk about the ways that she first started to spend more time with herself and how uncomfortable that actually was we're just getting raw and real about that because when you start to become your own friend and you realize how long you've kind of abandoned yourself it can be a little bit ugly until you start to find your groove she's going to give us advice on why it's so important to sit with yourself in moments of Silence throughout the day instead of constantly filling your silence with scrolling on your phone or listening to music or even podcasts so that you can actually start to hear your own voice again and we're going to talk a lot about how to build a sense of identity that is separate from just what you do for others or how your identity is related to the value or the approval that you get from others she's going to talk about the ayurvadic practices that everyone can start implementing and benefiting from today and of course my favorite we're going to talk about why kitchen medicine can actually be even more medicinal and potent than supplementation she'll also talk about the spices that you use in your food and why it's more potent to actually buy them whole and grind them up yourself and that's such a simple change that you can make to up the medicine in your food and she'll share some of her favorite easy medicinal recipes that you can start with today including the two ingredient drink that she has every night before bed this was such a heart-c centered Soulful conversation and something you can look forward to a lot more on this season so I hope that you love r as much as I do and I'm so excited to continue cooking some recipes from her book joyful enjoy this episode and I will see you guys next time welcome to the show how are you going to grow if you don't know where you're growing from wo this is is the scientific proof of Grace that's wild what is Healy to you I just moved toward Liberation let's get juicy hi Rody welcome to the show thank you I'm so happy to be here thank you so much for coming on and um sharing your new cookbook with us and I want to start by kind of talking about your background a bit because as I listen to you on other shows I found out you are a dietitian yes you actually studied dietetics and then like many of us in the holistic world perhaps you also realize that there was still this disconnect where we were looking at the body sort of in a silo separate from its soul and its environment and all these other factors so then you went on to study ayurveda so if you could just tell us what that draw to ayurveda was and how your study of this ancient medicine changed the way that you began to take care of yourself yeah sure um so I actually grew up in an Indian house where I didn't realize at the time but aeda was already a thread through my life um um through the way that my mom cooked through the way she healed my body when I was unwell you know if I got a cough she would use aan seeds and water and honey and you know she would already use a lot of the basics of areda because it was just part of our culture and so I definitely grew up around it without knowing I was around it and then I my mom is also my mom's amazing everyone but my mom is also the person who recommended that I go to study nutrition when I actually thought about what I wanted to do as every typical Indian I was like I want to be a doctor and then um I wanted to be a pediatric um doctor and or pediatrician and I didn't get the grades for that so she was like I've heard about this course nutrition why didn't you go and do it so I went to studying nutrition and then I studied dietetics because I wanted to work in a clinical environment and so I've done a nutrition degree and a dietician degree um and then I worked in a hospital for um a couple of years and you know there for me when I started doing that there was so much I wanted to do to do with food but because of a lot of the regulations of how you have to practice I had to prescribe things I wouldn't want to I had to recommend you know things that wasn't necessarily aligned with my values I grew a vegetarian and so I truly believe that we you know we can fuel our bodies through plants and we don't necessarily need to harm animals for that and so when I was doing that it did feel a little bit out of my out of alignment to myself and so luckily and at the time it felt unluckily but luckily my um husband actually got a job in New York and so I couldn't use any of my degrees that I already had in New York because I didn't have a work permit and so I went from having studied for like six years to then realizing I have to kind of start all over again or at least you know think about life in a different way so I threw myself back into study which is my passion I just love studying over and over again and so I did my yoga teacher training there I started that there and then I found my teacher Divia alter she is incredible and she was the person that really introduced me to areda for the first time in a way where it was um taught to me rather than just through my family and so I watched her and I was like I just want to follow you around I'll do anything just let me like inter with you I'll cut things up I'll just you know whatever you need I'm here and so I started doing that I helped her with her cookery classes um with different things that she was doing and I learned so much just through observing her and learning from her and as soon as I did that I was like this is it like this is what feels right for me this is what makes complete sense to me when something makes sense to you you're like okay this is it because a lot of things didn't make sense to me what I was learning before and so I loved the holistic approach of this food is not just nourishing my body it has the ability through how I cook it and how I prepare it and the mindset that I have when I'm when I'm preparing it to actually nourish me even deeper than that it can nourish my spirit IR it can nourish my mood it can nourish my energy like there's so much more to food than just you know nourishing my physical body and so I still feel like I'm a beginner in IA honestly I've only studied for a couple of years and there's so much to it it's so complex it is it's so complex it's not just P Kaa it's truly but at the same time I think you know I really do believe that there are some basic principles where we don't have to go 100% in on everything and so all the thing all the basic things that I've learned that I've incorporated into into my life have helped me so much that being able to just share the basics I see myself as a bridge I'm like I will I will help you get to a point and then I can lead you to my amazing great teachers like I'm just uh I feel that way exactly that is exactly where I am in my life and career also having studied herbalism but always feeling like the Perpetual beginner because the more you know the more you realize you don't know and it's almost irresponsible to say I know this for sure I feel and it can be so intimidating because you know people listen to you and they look up to you in a way and you want to always make sure you're giving the right advice so I'm at this place in my career where now I just want to platform the folks who can take people to the next level and I love that you are that bridge yeah I would just say like um I just feel like a grateful student of many great teachers and that's honestly how I feel and for me having a platform I just think that I have the ability to share them with other people through what I share and so I used to have that a lot where I was like you know that impostor syndrome feeling where you always feel like you don't know enough to share and then one of my teachers rat Swami he said knowledge is useless unless it's shared and I truly do believe that knowledge isn't meant to sit in us and when it sits in US it can actually create ego within us because the more you feel like you know and the more you feel like you've accumulated and it's you and everything is about you and you've studied this and you've gathered this it ends up actually increasing ego in the body and in the mind and so actually being able to be a vessel and an instrument where I'm receiving this from a teacher and I'm going to process it in me but then I'm also going to release it out of my body by sharing it with other people and I really think that's the same with emotions with food with everything like our body is not meant to be a place to hold things or keep things the same with emotions whenever we do that we become stagnant and it actually causes damage to our body and mind and so to be a vessel and to be an instrument means you allow everything to flow into you process it and then let it flow out of you as well yeah isn't there that quote that something like sharing your story or sharing your shame is what actually dissolves that shame oh wow I haven't had that but that's great if I think about my life when you start talking about something and you start bringing light to it and you start coming to terms with it it starts to dissolve it and it starts to make it less of a you know a scary monster in a closet absolutely and I love that you just brought the ego into it because I think so much of my personal work in health and also what I've shared in the last few years has gone beyond just use this herb for this thing or you know just like this kind of broad level inflow and it's gone more into hey my ego has been part of what's keeping me sick I've have gone into a bit more of the spiritual journey so how much of your work around your own ego and your own shadow has been informed by either ayurveda or your spiritual practices and your teachers like tell us more about that every part of it because I really do think you know there were so many times in in so many different ways so I'd say one when it comes to the knowledge not being shared like there's such a big difference between feeling impostor syndrome where you feel you're actually not good enough versus is not wanting to share because you think people are going to see your flaws or notice where you're not the expert and so those two things for me are two very separate things it's like do I actually feel like I don't have the right information that I actually don't know my stuff or am I scared of putting myself out there as someone who is an expert and I don't like using that term but as someone who knows things in this field and being picked and prodded at and and them realizing what I actually don't know and so I think think the secondary is ego and the first is something that you know means we need to build up confidence in oursel and so I've had to really really look at myself in the mirror and on paper whenever I'm reflecting or writing and think is this you know I think it's so hard to know what's coming from our ego these days because we are constantly living through a filter and we're constantly thinking everyone's going to see this at some point like when they when they write a memoir about me when they do this about me you know we live in such a seen culture that we always think even when I'm writing or journ if I come back to it after a long time I find that I fully am writing through my ego because I'm thinking what if someone sees this or you know what if someone finds this or sometimes it's not even about other people it's actually being able to see it yourself and think oh my gosh am I really that person that I actually thought those things and so I think I remember um again I keep talking about rather not swamy but he's just changed my life so much he's one of my spiritual teachers and he always talks about how Integrity is the alignment of your words your actions and your thoughts and so I notice and and ego comes into play there because when you are thinking something but like if I'm looking at you and I'm thinking which by the way I did think when I saw you I was like wow she's so beautiful but then my words let's say I'm thinking I'm saying that to you and let's say I didn't mean it in my head I'm thinking oh that girl she's so beautiful and I hate her for it and whatever it is you naturally and my actions are showing tense body language and I and I'm not exactly being welcoming to you what happens then is that's all your ego coming into play and other people feel it ego energy is so obvious when people meet you and so I noticed that for myself where when I was going through a difficult time and I was struggling to figure out what made me happy and who I was and what I needed in my life I was thinking from a place of ego but speaking from a place of almost falseness because I was coming through that where I don't want them to think I'm mean so I'm going to say something really really nice but my mind's thinking something different and so I wanted to start purifying that because you want people to feel good energy you can only really penetrate people's hearts and really get to their core if you are truly speaking from their heart and I've experienced that from teachers like ranat Swami and my other teachers where when he speaks it comes straight to my heart there is nothing in between there is no air no filters like I feel it deep to my core and I think to be someone with powerful words and have words that are that powerful there has to be this deep rooted heart and intention behind it and that takes practice and so every day is a practice of am I looking at am I working through my ego or am I working through you know my heart am I looking at the world through my heart or am I looking at the world through ego um and so I think it's a it's a constant practice cuz you can switch between the two so FAS MH and we don't realize we're doing it or we think we're doing it or someone else I had this journey even with my own social anxiety once where I was like how much of my social anxiety is ego because I'm worried about how much other people are liking me versus I'm just concerned about being curious about them that's me I would I would not be present because of that so i' go I still have that a lot where I go to places and I feel really anxious about going there when there's a big group of people and I realized it was such a make sure of how are they perceiving me if they they think of me as one thing online and then when they see me in person are they thinking the same thing or when I speak about something you know if I'm in a group of people where let's say they're talking about politics or let's say they're talking about a topic that I don't business or whatever it is and I feel underqualified am I worried that when I open my mouth they're going to realize that I'm not you know as educated in that area and so all of those things mix together and up making me not want to go places and not actually enter into to group group places or places that I don't know people um but it does come from a place of ego I just need to listen and be present because otherwise I noticed I have such gaps in my memory because my body was present somewhere but my mind was totally not so whether it's names or conversations that I'm having I'm physically present there you know when you go to an event I'm physically present but I actually don't remember much of it because my my whole mind was thinking about everything else everyone else was thinking rather than just zoning in and focusing on that one person yeah I for me again the word curiosity comes to mind CU I feel that's the antidote to just continue bringing it back to curiosity about the person in front of you and even when it comes to quote killing your own ego I found that curiosity asking myself hey why did I do that is the most compassionate route to then deliver myself the brutal honesty that it requires to to solve the ego so I'm wondering if you have some words to say around your practice practices or methods that have helped you kind of dissolve that ego and be brutally honest with yourself when I first started off doing this and I started reflecting on myself because I always used to think oh I'm I'm I'm a good person like you always want to think you're a good person I'm nice to people and then I started breaking down again the thoughts I was having versus what I was saying and so one practice that I started was when I was in a situation where I noticed them differ I would write down exactly the words that came out of my mouth exactly what my mind was thinking at the time and and then what I wish which one of them did I want to actually be saying and so which one is the truth for me and so it helped me to train my mind towards positive thinking and speaking the truth that I was feeling because I was reflecting on each moment that I was not aligned in that way and so you write down what my what my mouth actually ended up saying the feelings I had and why I said them or what I wish I had said and then you start comparing them and and digging into okay well if I said this but my mind was thinking this why was it is it the person is it me what area of my life is that coming from where is this rooting from cuz everything has a room and and if you really trace it back the point is if you don't know where something came from it's really difficult to figure out how to solve it and so um I always try and track it back to things so oh I got really agitated with my husband about this one thing he said when it wasn't even that mean why was that oh it's because when I was younger I felt like no one trusted my ability to do things and so when he's asking me oh should I look after your passport for example when we're traveling I'm like of no of course I can look after my own passport I can look after my why why do you think I'm going to lose my passport because and he's just trying to be nice but for me it's Roo it's taken me back to oh my gosh he thinks I'm incapable of looking after myself because everyone else thinks I lose things when I'm you know such it can be such minute things to things that end up being so big because we don't deal with them um so definitely writing um and refle ing on my thoughts my words and my actions have been in has been an incredible growth place for me so I've been practicing meditation for yeah pretty much 10 years now and I definitely don't know who I would be without it I don't know what type of person I would be if I wasn't meditating in the morning and I think Med you know it took me a while to figure out what type of meditation really worked for me there's so many different types right but I personally was most attracted to Mantra meditation the reason being that we are so stimulated constantly in our life we are hearing things we're hearing sounds we're seeing visuals over and over again through Instagram through the way that we interact with people and so Mantra meditation really helps to I find silent meditation is is quite difficult to get into Mantra meditation you are using Sound Vibrations which is already something that we get very attracted to as humans and so you're using Sound Vibrations that are coming from your physical body um mantras that are ancient and old and that carry so much energy with them and then that gives you a focus your mind keeps coming back to these words over and over again so every time your mind wonders you bring it back to the word every time your mind wanders you bring it back to the word and so I fell in love with that practice and I started that and breath work I think doing moments you know don't fill the moments between your days with noise try and sit with your silence sit with your own noise your own breath your own voice in your mind because the more you end up hearing other people's and I've had to learn this the hard way the more you hear other people's voices the stronger they become and you silence your own and so my voice was whispering for a really long time actually I feel like I suffocated my own internal voice where I didn't know who I was based on my own desires it was based on what everybody else thought about me felt about me thought I should be doing because I never trusted in my own voice and so that voice decided to go on Permanent Vacation I was like well you're listening to everybody else you're not even trying to tune in to me so why should I keep screaming at you and so taking a moment to think wow when was the last time I actually listened to what my body's feeling and suddenly you'll notice oh these aches and pains in my body where are they coming from is it my emotions is it too much exertion in my on a physical level oh I've been feeling really low in emotion and I never even realized it I've been feeling low energy where is that coming from so our body speaks to us our heart speaks to us but we have to be open to listening and so um that helped me with my ego and with my life um those practices are probably the ones that come to mind now but I think presence and living consciously and by that I just mean being in the moment with your Consciousness and your physical body in one place regularly can teach you so much cuz we don't realize how much we are out of our own body on a regular basis because our mind is is just wondering in the past in the future about other people's lives um and we kind of avoid tuning into our own yeah when you talk about both sides of this a the Curiosity around the root of where did that reaction come from within me and within my past and within my original wounding as well as the time that you were able to progressively um dedicate to yourself through meditation I just keep getting this this notion of this relationship that you have with yourself yes because I think we have we put a lot of time and effort into relationships with other people and then when it comes to having a relationship with ourselves as a person interacting with ourselves in a friendship sort of way the way that we'd create that same time for a person where we wouldn't sit next to them scrolling on a phone why are we doing that with ourselves um I'm wondering if it was ever difficult for you initially to even have that Curiosity because you didn't have a relationship with yourself um and if so what were the baby steps that you took to become your own friend um yeah it was so difficult I think I spent a lot of my time by myself crying because it was so intolerable to be by myself or make decisions with myself and you know I remember even when I moved to New York it was like I would have to call my mom about what bed sheets to buy what what color Cutlery I should get cuz I just did there was no part of me that trusted in my own abilities my own abilities to actually get something right and it was because you know you build up trust with someone with a friend with a partner through one allowing them to be in your life and if you're not allowing yourself in your own life and to participate in it where is that going to come from but also by spending time with them by observing them by seeing how they react in different situations and and how they interact with with you and so in the same way you have to date yourself and spend time with yourself and I think when I started doing that it was really not pretty like it was not a good version of myself because I'd got to the point where I realized I'd been disconnected from myself from most of my life until I got to that point where I was like so what do I do now no one's telling me what to do I don't have a direction to go in but nothing's calling to me and I'm not telling myself I don't know how to choose it myself what path I should take and so it was really difficult in the beginning because I just didn't know who I was like that's that's what that's honest my honest answer I had no idea where to go from that point yes thank you for saying that about how hard and ugly it could be at times in the beginning people need to hear that it's the truth it is it's getting to know someone but that someone is yourself and it's scary because you're having to dig deep into the darkest parts of you into the parts where you thought oh this is a good part of me but actually it's fueled with something completely different and and and my insecurities and you know I always used think I do so much for people and then I realized I do so much for aot of people because it's my value that I place on myself so my value is based on my role in other people's lives and so I will over give and over be there and and be overly available because who else then would I be if I don't have this role in their life and if I'm not the person that's fixing their problems and looking after them when they need it and and being always available then I lose this version of me that that that defines who I am and then I have nothing left and so I really I had to strip that back of my role in other people's lives is it because I'm gaining or is it because I'm giving because when you're I mean I truly believe that giving should bring joy but if you're giving and you're counting and you're giving and you're expecting to feel something from it and and get a deep sense of purpose from what you're giving to other people you need to learn where to draw the line because that you know your the hats that you have and the roles that you play in other people's life can't be the only any definition of yourself what I see this as is codependency essentially when you don't have that relationship with yourself when you don't have that sense of identity of this is who I am regardless of how that person views me regardless of how that person likes what I did for them you then can begin to latch on to others either in a way where you're people pleasing them as a way to be validated and seen because you're not going to meet your own needs you're not even going to see that they're there so let's go meet that person's needs or you're going to do it in a way where because you can't be alone then you're almost asking another person to be the people pleaser to be the overg giver so that they may plate that part of you that that inner child that's terrified to be alone because she's never had anyone really see her in a real relationship exactly exactly that yeah it's it's interesting and you know I think everyone has to be so patient with themselves as you would with somebody that you love because it takes time and by the way this isn't like oh I had this amazing moment where I figured it all out and then it just was then I became exactly who I'm supposed to be and I lived in my truth and it's like that's never going to happen because we are constantly going through es and flows of life and that is what life is it's never you know we always think life is going to be an upward Journey but it's not it's always going to be we we we're thriving in a certain area and then we realize that we actually you know feeling really bad about something else so then we get a little bit lower and then we find our path again and we go up again and then you know it's always a constant MO of you know how the waves are it flows up and down like that's how we are and so we you have to not realize that it's not going to be a light bulb moment it's going to be a forever journey and that plays into curiosity again where being a forever student is what life is about like we are not we're not trying to become Masters and trying to master life life is going to master us that's just how it's going to be but we have to realize that the learning is what we're here for we're not here to to become the king and queen of anything we're here to be students because there is something we have to learn in this lifetime um and God or the universe is going to make sure we learn it one way or another so the more you avoid that lesson the worse it gets every time it shows up it's going to show up over and over again and that's what I say about the body as well when it comes to healing and when it comes to our bodies feeling a certain way it's like okay first of all you know your body will whisper at you oh look I've got this little niggle in my neck it's hurting and suddenly your body will you know start you know shouting at you a little bit or you know a little bit louder a little bit louder and eventually you will have a full bodily breakdown somewhere where it will scream at you and tell you there is something wrong I need you to be looking at me I need you to listen to me and so you could have listened at the whisper but we don't we let it get to the point where the body is screaming and shouting before we take action and so um yeah there is the body body lessons everything will will eventually keep building until you actually pay attention yep and the body's shouting cuz you've over wrote overridden it's its own wisdom and intuition of hey say no to that thing hey slow down you've you've you know really turn that down or not H it or not been in touch with it for so long and that's what I think I just get so many questions from the community about this and I feel like you're such a perfect person to speak to about this because so many people are like how do you have an intuition how do you even get there to the point where you can hear it and it goes back to what we're saying about building this relationship with yourself again you shared so beautifully how meditation has helped you with that but I wonder if do you think it's so hard in the beginning to hear that Intuition or to even start spending time with yourself because of what you said earlier about this highly seen culture to where the part of us that we're trying to spend time with has been so contorted to fit the eyes of other and eyes of society that when we start to see them they're like Oh no you're still not seeing me yeah cuz I now that I have a relationship with myself I realized I'm weird I'm such a weird little kid inside and I finally accepted that but in the beginning I wasn't spending time with a weird little kid I was spending time with some version of me that was trying to like please the world I um I actually just today saw um my friend she posted a spoken word piece and it was about where the term weird comes from you be seen that no her name is Ali Michelle mhm and she says the original meaning of the word weird comes from wyrd and it means Destiny and she says meaning that to be weird is to be one who follows the path of their Destiny meaning that normal is a clear road that has already been paved and when you're weird no one else can show you the way when you notice that you're weird coming back to what you said when you finally realize that you are weird and not like anybody else that is the beginning of you following your own path and becoming comfortable with who you are and and so weird isn't isn't weird in the way that we think weird is weird is finding your unique self and identifying with that unique self because all of our souls are so different and they've had different paths before they came into this body they've experienced so much so of course we are not one and the same like we cannot be we may all be one and the same in in a in in a very minute way where we're all connected to each other but when you think about the differences between all of us how beautiful that they are so that we are so different and so we come from a culture where everybody wants to wear the same clothes and look a certain way and the body types that we have have to be a particular way for us to feel happy and that that's how it should be and then you actually and you know the way I broke it down in my mind was like you then look back and you think God everything has evolved so much where a specific body typee or a specific mindset or a specific way of you know dressing was so cool now and then a year ago it was something else and a year ago it was something else and 500 years ago it was something else and so what you have to realize is you are attaching yourself to something which is so temporary and so you will attach yourself to something temporary a temporary version of what Perfection looks like for a period of time and then you may even reach that level of perfection for that time and it will move on and then you'll realize that oh I've met this but now there's something else that's come along and so now I have to change my body to look like this and then this and then this rather than sitting in your own unique self and starting to accept that this is the way that I was supposed to be and this is who I am not even supposed to be this is who I am and it doesn't mean that you don't want to better yourself whether it's your physical body or even you know your mindset or your heart doesn't mean you can't bet yourself but acceptance is almost the first stage of being being able to then grow because again how are you going to grow if you don't know where you're growing from or who you are to begin with and so it is a difficult time it is I mean it's so difficult to even detach yourself from that but I I think one thing that uh always helps me and this is going to sound really morbid or maybe not actually I try to not think of death as being morbid but um when I think about my death or I think about other people around me like that are close to me dying it everything back into perspective and that sounds really like a harsh thing to say it's the truth it is am I and I think about this like I was talking to Liz um uh Liz Moody and I was talking to her and she was saying that you know am I going to if I go onto a beach and I'm really conscious about the way that I look and I decide not to go into this beautiful ocean that's in front of me when I get to 60 70 years old am I going to say thank God I didn't show them my cellulite on my thighs or am I going to think I wish I had gone into that ocean I wish I had swam far into it and I wish I'd felt the water on my body and felt the sand beneath my feet and I wish I had enjoyed that moment which one are you going to think you're going to probably think the second one and so when you think about life and that perspective of how would I feel if I was making this decision if I was choosing to act in a certain way because of all of these factors other people are telling me to versus listening to who I am that's what's help helped me gain Clarity and get out of my ego and get out of my comfort zone of being um like everybody else and into my uncomfortable zone of being who I actually am and soon it swaps over and that's when you know you are in alignment is when the comfort is when you are living in your own body in your own space and living according to your own values and the disalignment or when you feel unaligned is when you start conforming to other people and So eventually you will see a swap but it takes all those practices and and it's Choice by choice by the way it's really not it's it's every single day making that little step that little adjustment where you get coming and and it's you're coming a little bit closer to yourself and a little bit closer to yourself and a little bit closer to yourself um it's not a huge leap it's just day by day Choice by choice saying is this aligning with who I am does this feel right to my core yes um and it can start with just saying no to things you don't your intuition doesn't have to be this magical ping of I'm meant to go here today or I meant to do this thing sometimes it does right like when you have a really strong relationship with your intuition you get to this point where you can feel what's a yes and what you're drawn to do but that's like way down the line the beginning sometimes all you can feel is the the body closing up and saying no and the more you listen to the Nos and enact those in your life the closer you'll get to the expansion of the yes and the downloads in the vadas it talks about our um self as being imagine yourself as uh a mirror and the mirror has been accumulating dust layer by layer by layer by layer and eventually when you start doing these practices and you start meditating and you start making these small choices that bring you closer to yourself that D slowly gets wiped one by one by one by one until eventually you see yourself fully completely in Clarity and so I love that analogy because it's not just a full wipe off let's get the you know the spray out and wipe everything off it's like no it's bit dust particle by dust particle that is going to be taken off by those micro micro choices that we make every single day and so yeah the first thing is you know I actually one way of starting it is start on the bodily level I really do think that start on the bodily level of okay let me start just listening to my body and what I mean by that is when you're eating foods to begin with when you start eating meals let's say you've got really bad digestion and you're trying trying to also connect yourself start with your body level level and say let me start taking note of the foods I'm eating where my body is saying yes and my body is saying no and start simply by that let me start by saying what workouts is my body feeling energized by not because this person on Instagram said it was the best thing for their booty or their abs or hot Pilates is what got them ripped and made them feel amazing no what is the workout that makes you feel energized that makes you feel good in yourself what other food that does that for you and then who are the people in your life like start everything from an external point of view cuz that's a great place to start honestly because we live on a bodily platform and so start with that think about all your externals and by externals I mean every single thing you're allowing into your senses so what am I listening to what am I looking at on a regular basis who am I spending time with what food am I eating um essentially how am I spending my time break your day down into how you are spending your time and the hours that you are investing into each of those things and then go through them and and and start paying attention paying attention is the first step to getting in tune with yourself just start by observing if you don't want to analyze start by observing so what I'm eating for breakfast how is that making me feel is it making me me feel dull by the afternoon is it making me feel heavy or is it making me feel light and ready to start the day as I'm going through my day is my workout making me feel tired and exhausted said am I overworking my body or do I need a little bit more stimulation in my body and maybe I could do a little bit more and so I would say if you're at the beginning stages start there find out what makes your physical body feel great and then start getting to the actually what people am I spending time with that make me feel good about myself what people am I spending time with where things are starting to come up and the the parts of myself which I don't love are being you know are coming up to the surface who are those most people in my life and then you you know there's just there's so many observations we can do but I'd say start with that and then start working your way to your inner self and then start working your way to your mind and then start working your way into your heart um I think you can do it layer by layer I think that's so beautiful and that layer by layer leads me back to your mirror analogy which I loved so much of the layers of dust and all I could think is that when you eventually get to the point where you can wipe that last layer of dust the person who's looking back at you is actually your inner child MH because I really believe that the way to find our weird our good weird our individuality our path our Essence our soul is to go back to the time before we lost touch with them before we conform to society or once we got the messages on the TV you have to look a certain way or once we internalized even our mother's voice of I don't like my body so then we think oh should I not like mine you kind of have to go back and figure out create that relationship with yourself at younger ages and ask that inner child What She Likes what she needs who she is and so much of the way my work is evolving is into inner child's work because I think that is where the key is yeah I need to explore that more too that's something I haven't really every time people say that I'm like gosh I don't even remember what I felt like when I was a child and I think that's something I really have to go into and think about and think before all those moments like who was that person and what did she feel and yeah I think that's that's really important to do cuz that's your essence like what did you like to do as a child did you dance or sing or have any hobbies yeah I was definitely very loud growing up then I went through a phase of being very quiet um but when I was younger I was definitely from videos that I see I was always in front of the camera and like laughing and being the Joker of the family um I find that even finding pictures of yourself as a child and drawing portraits of little you is such a beautiful practice to sort reconnect kind of like a meditation so it's like all these ways are ways in the meditation the drawing the art they're just ways to start creating that relationship with yourself which as you're saying is sort of at the core of becoming that healthier more whole human who knows who they are I have a question for you actually um do you have any good books that you've read that you love I love hearing people's recommendation I'm in a big reading aam reading like six books at a time at the moment um I was with my friend Mesa the other night and she recommend recomended that on this topic of inner child that I read um big me little me oh I haven't and it's this it's like a book where it's like your inner mother talking to your inner child but I think most of the way I've grown into this practice and probably the next phase of what I'll do with my life and publicly is I've just sort of come to a breaking point where I I had to like through therapy and all these things like every everything just kept pointing back to inner child your inner mother and actually through um grieving my mom cuz she's pretty sick so G ging her like anticipatory grief and processing that through art drawing her I started to realize how much that was an Avenue for me to heal just the art piece and the meditative nature of art so I did a series on her I did a series on my inner mother my inner child and I want to connect people their inner mother and their inner child so if I find more books about it I will definitely let you know and my other book recommendation period is the courage to be disliked I was going ask you tell me oh my God I'm reading the courage to be disliked right now shut up is it not okay no is it not the best book you've ever read in your life it's amazing that's the book I'm recommending to everyone right now even the random person that was sitting next to me on a fly on the way to La I was like I'm reading that she asked me about something and she was asking advice about something randomly and then I said you know what book I think you'll love and I was literally reading at the time and I gave it to her she started flicking through it and she was like this is what I need so yeah that's the book I'm reading right now every time I meet I haven't I haven't who's reading like who loves courage be is like I'm like that's my person like yes okay because it's so funny the title is kind of like you think it's going to be about not giving a what people think about you and it's not it's about codependency in interpersonal relationships and how to it's fully about interpersonal relationships how they're the he what does he say he's like that's the root cause of everything is our interpersonal relationships yes but we also need to have interpersonal relationships yes it's literally a book about codependency because he talks so much about separating tasks and how in order to have these strong interpersonal relationships we have to constantly audit separate what's yours what's mine so we don't get sticky and resentful exactly oh great B great B what's your favorite takeaway from it so far I did really resonate with that the root cause of most of our suffering is from our interpersonal relationships and then that breaking down of I really had to reflect and I was like wow that is so true but then we also don't know lonely without having these like there is no such thing as being lonely and I love that actually when he when the philosopher was talking about that he was like there is no such thing as lonely the only reason you know what Loney feels like is because you have these relationships had you been born on this Earth by yourself you probably wouldn't even know what Loney feels like and and I was like that's so true we only we only associate being lonely having been around people and having felt other people's energy and so there's a way to be able to feel independent and not alone or be alone but not lonely amongst other people so continue to have your individuality while also still being surrounded by so many other people um and I love the analogy of a Lotus Flower and I guess it reminds me of that um where a Lotus sits um on water but unaffected by the water and I think that's really the the the essence of being in this world but not being of this world and I love that the the concept of that where you know that is the goal is let us try and be in this world but remain our own self unaffected by the water or the mud or anything else around us M um I love a good nature analogy oh my gosh you love good analogy in general I do love analogy you're amazing I can listen to your talk all day okay so let's jump back a bit to the food and ayurveda just a touch cuz I could go into the spiritual world with you for hours we're going to oh go we're going to we need to get together more I would love that um but I just want to talk about sort of Hier is really big on routines right routines and ritual and rituals that ground us right body oiling and so I wonder if you can share a bit about the importance of certain practices that can be applied to most people obviously we each have a different proerty a different DOA that we're born with um and also a different imbalance that is expressing so some people need to do less or more of certain things but are there any blanket recommendations like waking up early or the body oiling yes absolutely um I you know my book and just to the the reason I ended up writing at first I was like I'm not going to include IA in the book because it's just such a big vast topic and how can I incorporate it all and I don't want it to be an aurvedic book because I also you know all the recipes in there aren't aurvedic they're very normal recipes but also everything can be aurvedic it's you know everything is IAD everything is medicine when it's real food exactly um but what I did include was all those Wellness practices and rituals that I do on a day-to-day basis that aren't complex that don't feel like they um are too uh intricate or too detailed but that made such a difference to my life so yes waking up early waking up early and feeling the the sun's energy the moon's energy and being able to differentiate between the two is really powerful and so what I mean by that is experiencing nature and the fact that we are part of Nature and we don't live in nature and I think that is number one key light bulb moment that I had and I said that means that we can not only take from nature we have the ability to one give back to it in energy in in who we are and in how we how we react and interact with it but also Nature's there to give to us it wants to Mother Nature is literally called Mother Nature because the abundance that nature gives and so in the morning when you wake up and if you see the sunrise and you stand outside and you experience the heat on your face and you experience the light coming up like that powers you in a way that no caffeine drink no energy drink no food or fuel like nothing can do the same thing that the sun does for our body and so I know everyone's like scared of the sun and the you know UV rays and whatever I get that but like Sunrise is different it's infrared light is also different and it's a spiritual time in AA righta time yes the morning time is the time for creativity and connection um and so ideally waking up before the sunrise but if you can't manage before the sunrise just waking up a little bit earlier giving yourself that time of quietness before the world gets crazy and that's why I love it so much because everything is silent around you and you have this moment where the world is quiet um and you have the opportunity to hear you and I think that's what I love about that time so I usually wake up before the sun rises and I'll see the sunrise um so definitely waking up early another ritual that I really recommend is tongue scraping people this is a ritual that it may not you may not think it's affecting your soul but it's definitely affecting your body and tell your soul your soul I said it's probably it's not affecting your soul but I'm like it's it may not be could be if you have like armor and that's actually true it will definitely affect your mood and your energy um and your physical body intensely because you know when we sleep overnight a lot of toxins build up in our body that's when our body is processing it's you know doing all the I imagine it as that you've got a little vacuum going around in your body like cting up all the the things that your body no longer needs but we also have to know how to we can get rid of them and so tongue scraping you do not know what your mouth how clean your mouth can be until you start tongue scraping so definitely that you can get tongue scrapers of Amazon I recommend getting copper ones not plastic ones um super simple you do it with your you know when you're brushing your teeth scrape your tongue um another ritual is I love abanga what you said body massage something I do every single day beautiful practice to fall in love with yourself again to create some love between you and yourself you know when you love someone you hug them and you embrace them and so uh good body oil massage even if you just have time in the evening to massage your feet where your nerve endings all finish um and where a lot of our stress actually comes from is from our feet oil massage on your feet throw some love on yourself and it also helps to lubricate the nervous system which helps with um your anxiety during the day and and how high strong you might be during the day and this is different from like lathering yourself with body care this is actually a pure oil right what kind of oil should so you can get medicated oil so look if you don't have um the abanga oils which have a lot of the herbs in them even just doing it with a little bit of warm oil a natural oil with no you know added fragrances or additives if they've got essential oils amazing um but just by starting that practice otherwise there are some there are different types of aanga oils which aanga basically just means self body massage um and you warm the oils and it's got herbas in them and so it will have everything from you know for a woman it might have chitar in it which is incredible to the you know a female body and hormone system um but lots of different ashwagandha it can have lots of different herbs in it um but I sometimes just put a few essential oils that I love like rose you know Rose is such a beautiful scent to get you into a calm space but also to connect back into your feminine energy it's such a it's like it's like the perfect scent for that and so throwing a bit of essential oil into an oil and scrubber dubbing yourself a little bit my teacher would say be careful cuz if you're very PA you're probably going to be like oh I don't want this damn oil on me she's like pittas are so particular and like don't want like the feeling of the oil on them but it's so good for you and if you can get used to it and maybe like for me as a very pitched person I will like put clothes like you know clothes that I don't care about on over the oil and for some reason the clothes touching my skin like helps with that better okay good wise just like a sensory thing I guess the P nerves are very hot and sensitive oh yeah for sure what's your DOA um I am kaffa Pitter same but I'm just so p and b i you know what I for a long time I had a very big vatter imbalance so I was like 100% I must be vatter but in in body I wasn't but in mind I was but I just had a strong vatter imbalance where I was just all over the place and couldn't finish things and I was jumping from this to that to this to that how did you correct that it by incor by nourishing my cffa side by really you know getting into the the balancing and earthing and and uh grounding parts of my life so abanga was a big part of that for me did meditation help too oh yeah anything slow cuz cof is more the slow and steady and like steady heavier yeah it's water and Earth and so it's just really just grounding yourself and I was traveling a lot so my Vata was just all over the place so most people I feel need a little cof of the way we live definitely we all need that okay and then I just want to talk a bit about something that I think is so beautiful about your book which is that you incorporate a lot of spices sort of medically and I have a term that I use within my community that we all sorted talking about during covid because supplements were sold out everywhere and I was like you guys don't need supplements for your immune system let's get some orange peel let's get some onion let's start cooking up kitchen medicine ginger on the stove and let's make your family this medicinal immune tea so tell us about the role that kitchen medicine quote unquote herbs and spices have played not only in your life and your health but in the recipes in your book I for at least eight years have only used spices and essential oils as my medicine I and I can just I fully swear by them because I grew up on them my mom would only use spices to help heal us as much as possible whether it was a toothache and we'd use cloves and clove W whether it was like I said a coff and a cold and she'd used toric and a Wayne seeds and know how to crush them and make me inhale them and you know all the different ways that spices can heal your body so I think I had an affinity to it from that age where I knew that it was possible to help heal my body just through spices but I also just start using spice as my medicine box because I see it as a prevention in ieda it's not about let us get to the point of disease and then let's let's cure it no let's try and incorporate things every single day to avoid getting to the point of disease and so SP spices are such an integral part of that every single spice is so potent and filled with medicinal qualities my intention and my deep desire of this book was to get people's spice cupboards filled by the end of creating the meals because every single recipe has some sort of spice in it pick a spice pick one spice Pick Five Spices to incorporate over the next month and just see how you can do that you can do it in your morning water you can do that in the milk that you drink at night nutmeg and incredible sedatives helps with sleep and to to calm and soothe your nervous system so a bit of nutmeg and milk at night just nutmeg and milk yeah nutmeg and milk great some nutmeg into milk I'm going do a nutmeg and milk pre- bedtime do that and it tastes so good latte um adding cumin coriander seeds fennel seeds you know really just experiment like life is again about curiosity and experimenting and see what your body falls in love with you know usually even the smells that we get attracted to is what our body needs um and so the tastes of the spices really see what what is my body attracted to right now what do I really feel like I need from these and I mean you talk about the daily use and how potent therapeutic that can be I think about therapeutic dosages of herbs because I'm an herbalist and I make herbal supplements and that's what I do but you know sometimes on a an herbal supplement label you'll see that something's at 250 milligrams or 500 milligrams because only so much fits in a capsule when you're using a teaspoon of turmeric powder or cumin you're getting that's five grams as a teaspoon you're getting five grams of that herb in the food so you can have such a sometimes a bigger therapeutic effect from a meal that's very well seasoned with kitchen medicine than you can from just taking a supplement and in its natural form you're getting it and on top of that you're getting it activated by the fats because a lot of spices their properties are activated when combined and heated in fats and so when you're sautéing your spices that's why you start smelling them so much more because they're being activated and and that's the same with with the medicinal properties so a lot of the spices are actually even better when you are creating them in a meal because you're getting the full activation and potency of them one other thing I just would want to say is try and buy spices whole because as soon as they start being ground up and broken down um they just start losing a lot of their property so if possible if you are you know wanting coriander or cilantro uh I guess do you guys call the spice coriander here coriander seed would be the spice cilantro would be the leaf yeah so if you um have coriander seeds just crush them up from Whole you'll notice such a difference in their taste and the way that they make you feel and you mentioned the nutmeg and milk before bed could you throw out like maybe five more quick hacks like that with kitchen medicine yeah sure CCF is something that I start my morning with every single day coriander seeds cumin seeds and fennel seeds in equal parts just boiled in water sip on that that's three spices you've already got down in the morning and that helps to purify the blood it helps to clear out your digestive system all very gently gentle detox gentle purification when your digestive tract is clear your skin your hair like you notice it in every part of you so CCF is a great place to start if you're not used to spices at all start with that in the morning and it's even gentle enough for Elder folks it's a very gentle safe herbal remedy yes definitely definitely in your oatmeal throw in a chai spice great blend of you know I have a chai spice oatmeal in my book and I love it because it takes oatmeal to a whole other level and whether you're making it with quinoa you know you can make quinoa oatmeal make it from oats whatever grain you're using or seed you're using just add in a little bit of chai spice into it I've even got I think a syrup in there that I put over my you know sour dough toast a bit of almond butter and then I make a chai spiced AG garve to go on the top and that's so good because another way you can just add in a spice but into something that you love eating spice Blends are a great place to start rather than trying to figure out how to use individual spices buy yourself some spice Blends and get used to adding them into your curries your lentil dishes if you're having a boring old vegetable by the way I don't think vegetables are boring but if you find vegetables boring spices are the key to being able to take a humble potato or uh broccoli and elevate it every single day and take it to a whole different country every single day because you can use Indian spices a Indian spice blend then you can use a Moroccan spice blend then you can use a Chinese spice blend and you'll have different flavors but using the same ingredient and make a spiced dip like a put that Spice in your yogurt in a little bit of great yogurt and make a dip with that so you don't have to necessarily spice your food if that's too much but you can balance it with the cooling nature of the yogurt and it can be a really flavorful broccoli dip or sauce yum love that I love that I'm sure there's so much of that in your book thank you from the bottom of my heart for coming and sharing your wisdom and a little bit of your soul with us I love this conversation it was so great and it was so nice to meet you finally so nice to meet you and please tell us where we can find your book yeah um my book is called joyful you can find it on Amazon um you can go to www. jooy F book actually you know what come to this page instead do www. jooy book.com and you'll find everywhere that you can find the book um my intention with it was just to really show people that you don't have to pick between food that makes you feel good and the food that brings you Joy you know food can be both uh that tastes good makes you feel good and brings you so much joy in your life um and also just that life is about all their little joyful moments the practices the the wellness rituals um every mouthful that you take um it should be about you know bringing you more joy every single day and so I hope this book does that for everybody that reads it I love that thank you that [Music] [Music] great me me call me me call

Channel: What's The Juice Podcast

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Id: Z_fFbawUCe0

Length: 60min 12sec (3612 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2024