Sense of Soul - Exploring Ayurveda

Episode Date: July 8, 2024

In this episode of Sense of Soul we have Caryn Challman. Caryn is an Ayurvedic Counselor and Practitioner. She pursued her Ayurvedic studies at Kripalu, earning the title of Ayurvedic Health Counselor. Building on this foundation, she continued her education under the guidance of Dr. Anusha Sehgal BAMS, achieving the status of an Advanced Ayurvedic Practitioner. She has also had the great fortune to study with Dr. Vasant Lad and Dr. Claudia Welsh.  Caryn grounded in her 30-year pranayama, meditation, and yoga practice, she brings a well-rounded approach to healing that addresses mind, body, and spirit. Visit her wellness website www.sattvicfern.com. Learn more about Sense of Soul at www.senseofsoulpodcast.com Coming soon you can watch this episode on Ethereal TV!

Hello, my soul-seeking friends. It's Shanna. Thank you so much for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. Enlightening conversations with like-minded souls from around the world. Sharing their journey of finding their light within, turning pain into purpose, and awakening to their true sense of soul. If you like what you hear, show me some love and rate, like, and subscribe. And consider becoming a Sense of Soul Patreon member, where you will get ad-free episodes, monthly circles, and much more.

Now go grab your coffee, open your mind, heart, and soul. It's time to awaken. Hey, it's Shanna. Welcome back. In this episode, we have Karen Chalmon. Karen is an Ayurveda counselor and practitioner. She pursued her Ayurvedic studies at Kripalu, earning the title of Ayurvedic Health Counselor. Building on this foundation, she continued her education in guidance from Dr. Anusha Segal, achieving the status of Advanced Ayurvedic Practitioner. Karen brings a well-rounded approach to healing that addresses the mind, body, and spirit. And I'm super honored to have Karen here with us today

to share with us the ancient practice of Ayurveda. Hi, Karen. How are you? Good. How are you doing? I'm good. Nice to meet you. Nice to meet you, too.

Thank you for having me on. Yeah, it's so funny. I was like, who is she? How is she on my schedule? And I was like racking my brain. And then finally, I was remember, wait a minute. I think it was Lydia from Instagram. Yeah. So you weren't in my email and I was, I was like, oh my gosh. And so stranger. Well, it was kind of good because I had to stalk you to try to figure out who you were. So I learned a lot about you. Oh, you did. I did. And I listened

to an interview with you and one of your friends in New York. I think so. Yeah, it was super good. I really enjoyed it. I was, I was all into it. You should write a book about that. I really should. I really should. Yeah. It's really, it was really fun. So, you know, I used to live near you then. Yes, I do know. Yeah. You were over in Boulder.

See, I wish I had met you when I lived there. I had a hard time making community when I was there, but you know, astrologically speaking, we're all going to find community in different places. Yeah. So thanks so much for coming on.

I'm excited to talk a little bit about, or a lot about, our Ayurveda. I have a hard time saying that word. Think about it like this. I, like your I, your. Your, I, your. Veda. I, your Veda. I got it now. I know. When I do like in-person presentations, I have a slide with like an emoji translator. It's literally like an eye and then like the finger pointing you. Yeah. Veda. I'm going to get it one day. It's a weird word.

I think I got it now. I hear Veda. You're a pro. Oh my God. I can't believe no one ever told me this. So that way I didn't sound like a fricking idiot the whole time trying to say it the whole interview. I learned that little trick when I was at Kripalu, which is where I did my first part of my study for Agaveira. Okay. I don't even know where, what, what part of the world is that in? It's in the, it's like Western mass in the

Berkshires. Oh, okay. Yeah. You know, I haven't ventured over to the East very much. Yeah. I'm originally from New Orleans. Oh, nice. I think I heard that in one of your podcasts. I listened to the one about aliens. Oh, I totally loved. I was like so into it because I love all that.

I know, me too. I love talking about that because for me, it's part of the uncovering and the shedding of my conditions. I was left with, there was more possibilities out there than I realized. Yeah. Yeah. It was interesting. The way that you were describing some of the parts of the Bible, I'm like, oh, I want to go read that now. Like I've never read the Bible. I was raised Catholic. I wasn't, I've never read it. I'm like fascinated. So yeah, I learned some things. So you were raised Catholic. So how did you end up where you are? How did I? You mean like ahist ayurvedic practitioner yeah um you had to do some

shedding so i'm ready to hear your story i'm taking off my sweater so i can get comfortable because i know it's a good one i'm also a designer and i've had a you know a long career doing video and animation and something that I also really love. But then, you know, through my own life circumstances, which is one of the things that I love about your podcast, how it's like how things change and transform us. I had a lot of health issues and Western doctors could not tell me anything other than don't eat those foods that are causing you problems. And when that list of foods exceeds 30, it's a problem. You know, like how do you live? And so that's what led me to Ayurveda. But well, that's what led me to Ayurveda. But, well, that's what led me to focus more into Ayurveda. My whole life, I've kind of looked more into alternative health options. Like right out of college, I actually worked at a herbal apothecary just because I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life.

I didn't, you know, I hadn't gone into my design career yet. And I worked there for about a year and I learned all about herbology just through doing that job. And, you know, it's just something that I've always been passionate about and really interested in. And, but, you know, I'm also an artist and a designer. And so kind of like bringing all these things together. But then when my own health started having all these challenges, it's like, okay, now what? And I went to this Ayurvedic doctor and he gave me some advice that I was like, if I weren't in this bad of shape, I don't know if I would have done it. Some of it was so simple that it's like, oh, how effective is that going to be? And some of it was like, oh, yeah, I'll try that herb or, you know, I'll do that or sure, I'll eat those foods on this list. And, you know, I just I was in such a state that I did it all.

And it was the first thing that made actually made a difference for me. And then, you know, for me, I'm like, why? Why did those things make a difference? It wasn't enough just that it helped me. I've got to know why. So yeah, that's what led me to going to Kripalu, which is in Western Mass in the Berkshires. It's a school of yoga and Ayurveda. They do all kinds of things here. It's a beautiful campus. And I signed up for a foundations of Ayurveda there. And, you know, I just thought that would be all I would do. Sure, I'll, you know, learn a little bit there. And then I'm like, well, I guess I could just keep going and do like the Ayurveda health counselor

track. And okay, let's do that. A year later, I was, you know, an Ayurveda health counselor track and okay let's let's do that a year later I was you know an Ayurveda health counselor and then I'm like but I still don't feel like I fully understand what happened to me you know even with all that training and so then I continued on with one of the instructors that I worked with at Kripalu who teaches out of Boston and pursued the Ayurveda practitioner level of training. And so on the practitioner level, you study disease. And so on the Ayurvedic health counselor level, you understand how to maintain the health of the healthy, which is important. We don't know that enough in our lives. We eat for taste and enjoyment and for a family history. You know, there's all these reasons

that we enjoy food, but we don't really understand how to eat to live long lives. And so, you know, that's what you learn on the health counselor training. But then practitioner, it's like, what do you do when things go wrong or when they get imbalanced to a certain level? So it started out for me, like very similar because I was diagnosed with like fibromyalgia, ADHD, anxiety, and all of these things. And same doctor was like, here, do this, take all of these pills and you'll be fine. Numbed out by all the pills, numbed out.bed out I mean of course I didn't have any more pain but I had no more emotions I my memory was affected and so I was looking for something else and I wanted to know why I was

around 30 at the time and I was pretty healthy and so why did I have all this pain? And I really, looking back, I mean, I know, I mean, it was a lot of stress. That was kind of like when I realized, oh gosh, we're more than a meat suit. So it's actually more than just what you're putting into your body because we're so, we're multidimensional. How does it fit in with Ayurveda? Wait, how does, how does what fit in with Ayurveda? That multi-dimensional part, like I know there's different aspects of it. It's like, what are, what are the doshas stand for? So, you know, we have the doshas of the body, which are Vata, Pitta and Kapha. And, you know, we have the doshas of the body, which are vata, pitta, and kapha. And, you know, just a quick overview of those is that, you know, there are these kind of key elements, earth, water, fire, air, and ether.

It's kind of like they come together into these functional units that we call doshas. So, like, earth and water come together to form kapha. So that's like very, like the ground that we stand on and the physicality of our body. And then there's water and fire, which come together to form pitta, which is like, okay, how do water and fire come together? But you can think of it like a liquid fire, like lava, like heat that's moving in a liquid form, right? So that's kind of like pitta. And this is at the most basic level, because there's so many levels of all these things, you know, and then vata is air and ether. And so it's like open spaces of the body, or like the movement of the body, vata is the only one that moves. And so these are like physical

and space aspects of the body. But then we also have doshas of the mind, which you don't hear about. They're not like in the dosha quizzes, but the doshas of the mind are tamas is like, and it's T-A-M-A-S. It's like kind of heaviness. It's what allows us to fall asleep. So we all have all of these doshas, right? We all have vata, pitta, and kapha. We can't not have kapha or else we wouldn't have a body. We can't not have pitta or else we wouldn't have heat. You know, we have body heat and we can't not have vata because there would be no space for food to digest and for like open cavities. Think about all of our organs that have those cavities. So we have to have all of these things. But we're kind of dominated by one or two of them.

So and some people have more of one than another. So if these doshas are the mind, then tamas lets us sleep. But when it gets imbalanced, it can lead to depression. Because that heaviness, you know, like, oh, I don't want to get up in the morning. You know, that could be, it could be different things, but it could be that kind of imbalance of tamas or excess tamas. And then rajas is the opposite. Rajas is like, oh, my gosh, I have to go, go, go, go, go, go, go, you know, like our culture, like running from this place to next and that kind of

mental agitation when it gets imbalanced. And again, we need Regis or we would sleep all the time. So we have to have a healthy level of both of those. But when they get too much, it can take us to these states of mind that aren't as healthy. And then sattva is this peaceful quality of mind, right? It's like that quality when're like out in nature and looking out over this view and you're watching the birds go by and you're feeling the wind in your hair and you're just, you feel content. It's that contentment. And that's sattva and you can never have too much of it. So I guess I kind of went into the doshas of the mind because you were asking about the multidimensional person. And, you know, even with vata, you know, there are aspects of the mind with that because there's so much correlation between the way that vata moves and the way that our mind moves. They all have to work together for it to be this healthy balance.

Exactly. So I was reading this book that this beautiful woman, Raja Srimad had wrote, and it's Kali Kireki. In her book, every time I saw the word dark mother, because she was talking about Kali Ma, I kept seeing dark matter.

Oh, interesting. And then, yeah, I went down this very deep hole of information and ended up looking at this ayurveda almost diagram and somehow it all made sense to me that creation, this dark matter, and the dark mother has been hidden. But of course, you can't have creation without a mother. I mean, it's just silly to even think otherwise. Right. But yeah, there was all of this. And actually, there was this symbol of matter or like the atom.

I always think about, okay, where did Ayurveda come from? You know, and there are like books and movies and things, but you almost have to like imagine back to this time, like 5,000 years ago. And, you know, we weren't living in these large civilizations. It was people living in the jungle. There was no electricity. There's no apps. There's no apps. There's no, you know, there's no internet. But what they had was this deep attunement to their own bodies.

Yeah. And that's what Ayurveda teaches us. It teaches us to be attuned to what we're experiencing, to what we're eating, to what we're feeling, how we're being affected. We become so desensitized to this. It's like we're kind of told in our culture that all calories are calories and you just eat things, you energy. But there are different types of energy that you can take in. There are different qualities of energy. And there are different qualities of substances, going back to the matter that you were talking about, you know, like, what are the qualities of matter that we're taking into ourselves, that are then becoming the matter of our bodies? There are basically three different types of

people that process matter in a different, in different ways. And that's the Vata, Pitta and Kapha person. You know, there's different variations of that, but those three main groupings, but then you can also classify foods in that same way. So like, let's say a carrot, you know, it's very, it's a root vegetable. It's very grounding. It's orange in color.

You know, it has all these different qualities. It's sweet. And when you start to break that down, you start to see how it can affect the qualities of the different people that are in those different. So it's almost like alchemy. It is. It is because you're thinking about what you're taking in to bring balance to yourself and not just eating to eat. You're eating to bring balance. And everything has an energy behind it.

If I'm going to purchase something and there's like this beautiful story behind it, you know, like the person who created it. I mean, I love that. The energy is so great and it feels so good. And I feel that way about food too. When I go over to like my in-laws, they have this beautiful garden and it tastes so good. Or what about like your mom's sandwich? You know, I always say this, like nobody makes a better sandwich than my mom. I can't make that. There's this love behind it, right? Yeah. So I was wondering that. So if say this chocolate bar has got full of love,

you know, is it going to be that bad for me? And then we have our genetics, you know, what have people been eating in your lineage for so many thousands of years, you know, that has been passed down that maybe you should maybe eat because you've been taking on this one and it's not, you know, this culture and this food is not working for you. What do you think about both of those? Well, I just have to jump in with your second point because it's something that I think about all the time because it's kind of generational aspect and genetic aspect because living in America, we're the melting pot, right? We're not just like living

by what our ancestors ate. We're living by what everybody's ancestors ate. Every climate of every region. Every night. Every moment. In one meal. Think about like big buffets that have like an Italian section and a Mexican section and a Chinese section, you know, and you can like eat all around the world. And were our bodies meant to do that? I mean, ultimately, you know, from an Ayurvedic point of view, it comes down to our digestive fire and how strong it is. And if it's really strong, yes, we can do that. But if we do that too much, will that digestive fire remain strong? And depending on the person, sometimes that can be problematic. Yeah. It just makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if your family came from one area for generations and only ate from that food, and then you go and start eating pizza, ouch. I know, right? You know, I have to tell the story. I think you'll really enjoy it.

Like my, so my family is predominantly Polish. My mom's entire side of the family is Polish. And I've recently been cooking all of this celery soup and cooking just a lot of celery. And it's so good. And every time I do it, I think of my mom because, you know, when you're cooking Polish food, there's often a lot of celery and onions that get cooked together. And she would always call it Polish potpourri. Oh, yeah. I know. And so now whenever I'm making my celery soup, I think of cooking it.

So there's like this energy connected to it. Yeah. Yeah. And her energy is probably connected to her mom or wherever it was passed down. Exactly. Yeah. Because my grandmother always cooked in that way as well. So fun. Yeah. but it's so true. I mean,

you know, being from New Orleans, you know, I got all kinds of, you know, things that are very specific to their culture and tradition. And whenever I eat it, it just, it feels right in my body. Right. Yeah. And that's what you're looking for. And that's what I love about what you said a few minutes ago. It really hit me because you said, think back 5,000 years ago, which I really try to do. You know, in my journey, I've been doing so much history study that, you know, I almost felt like I have time traveled many times back into this place. And then when I come back, I'm like, oh my God, what are we doing? And I think that I never thought about that, but thinking about how really all they had, they didn't have calorie counters. They didn't have this discernment with their body. And to take note how things processed. Like, it's amazing. We don't do that. No. We're just like, oh, oh, I don't feel good. I don't know why I didn't. Yeah. Cover it up with something. But, you know, sometimes it's the combination of things.

And in Ayurveda, there's this whole rich kind of instruction on something that's called Viruta. And Viruta is improper food combining, specific rules on things that should never be taken together. And a lot of times when you trace back in more ancient cultures, you'll see these things, but people stop doing it over time. Like one example is to never eat fish with milk. Oh, I thought you were going to say cheese because that was the one I was thinking. That's the same. Dairy. I should clarify dairy. So fish with dairy. Like when you look at Italian culture, like you would never put a cream sauce on a fish, but you see that here now, you know, like where things are combined. And, and that is a recipe for a disease state in Ayurveda. Wow. And that's because of their

experience over thousands of years. Over watching and collecting. Exactly. And, and another rule that this one always breaks all my clients hearts oh don't say chocolate and peanut butter no no i won't say that to never combine fresh fruit with any other food really it has to do with how things kind of break down when we're digesting and their own time fruit processes faster than anything else and so take it with something else it can end up kind of like fermenting in the you know in the process because it's getting overcooked so and you know again if someone has a strong enough digestive fire they they're going to be fine. But if you're doing all of these things, you know, and this

is just two different things that I'm mentioning, you know, but if you're doing a lot of different things over a long period of time, those things can wear down that digestive fire. And then that's when all kinds of problems can pop up. You know, I had laryngitis and I feel like I am permanently damaged from that time. And one of the reasons is, is because I kept going through it. I refused to have laryngitis. I never took a break. So I would take almost daily, all of this ibuprofen to help with the inflammation and Dayquil with it. And then one day I was eating a bag of wasabi almonds, which I love wasabi almonds, but my stomach didn't. And I ended up in the hospital with acute ulcer colitis.

First thing they asked me, have you been taking a lot of ibuprofen? And I had. And then the wasabi almonds was just kind of like the kicker, cherry on top. It's the straw that broke the camel's back. I was in there for days. I mean i mean it was bad and it ended up being a good thing though because for one i had to fast two had a cleanse i came out i had an eight or drank anything in four days and i felt better than i ever had i mean i had everyone's like you should rest and i'm like because i'm cleaning when i get home i haven't been home in four days i'm like no i have more energy than ever i home. I haven't been home in four days.

I'm like, no, I have more energy than ever. I don't know what's wrong with me. My mind feels clear. My eyesight was better. We would say that there was pitta aggravation that happened. Because think of all the heat that gets generated through all of that ibuprofen that's going in. You're using it to try and cover up a different problem. But it's also very heating in the stomach. And then that wasabi on top of it, this may sound like out there, but you know, I saw when Pitta level becomes too high over an

extended period of time, it can affect the vision. And so what you're saying does not surprise me at all yeah I was blown away and but you know then I became more conscious about what I was I mean I'm unfortunately I'm scared to eat wasabi almonds but I love them I do they're a great little snack you know what I mean if you're gonna I don't know but I'm staying away from them I still eat almonds sometimes but even that I'm scared of because you know actually that was another blessing you know they said you don't know, but I'm staying away from them. I still eat almonds sometimes, but even that I'm scared of because, you know, actually that was another blessing. You know, they said, you don't have little pockets in your, they don't have that, but you have pockets that could turn into that eventually. It was great awareness. And I'm glad that I went through it because it brought me back to my body. Cause a lot of times we get into the spiritual realm and we're just like, kumbaya, you know.

And then, you know, you forget about this is your temple. This is what houses your energy. Yeah. Well, and there's things that you can do to rebuild and rehabilitate the stomach and then also your intestinal mucosal lining and make sure that it's kind of rehabilitated from that experience that it went through. And so like in Ayurveda, what we would do is kind of trace all of that back for you. Like why did the laryngitis happen? What were the causative factors of that? Because we know that the causative factor of some of what's happening in your stomach and in your

intestine is because of the ibuprofen, you know, and, and then the wasabi was an aggravating factor on it, and it worsened it. You know, if you wanted to have some of that once in a while, you could almost like test things out. But I would recommend first, like, you know, kind of rebuild and rehabilitate what's kind of broken down in there. And it's hard to say, it's not like I can tell you go do X. Cause you know, when I work with a client, very thorough, we go through your entire history and map out, you know, what your personal constitution was when you were born, you know, like, what was your blend of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha? And then where are you now? How much of each of those do you have now? And then the goal isn't for us all to be the same.

The goal is for you to come back to who you are. And so that's a spiritual component to me, because it's like, we're always trying to get back to who we are, and we can lose our way. And that can happen in our spiritual lives, and that can also happen in our bodies, because we can pick up different habits. Or even, I was talking to a friend this morning, and it's like, oh, I've just been, you know, I used to only have one square of chocolate each day. And then, you know, now it's like maybe four squares of chocolate, you know, and like and just realizing that we do this over time, you know. And then all of a sudden there might be ramifications from that. And how do we undo that and rebalance? I mean, I heard that every seven years your taste

buds change. Is that true? Have you heard that one? I am not surprised by that because isn't it every seven years that our entire body is completely new? Yeah. Yeah. It's really, it's really, but it is true. I mean, there's things that I like that I never liked before. And of course COVID really screwed me up with my taste. I didn't have taste for like a year after I had COVID. That was a really, yeah. But yeah, it was like, this is no longer enjoyable. I mean, I can remember what it tastes like and I know I love this and I remember loving it, but it tastes like nothing anymore. And you know, when you have a, I have texture issues for sure. So if it doesn't taste good and it has got a texture that I've, you know, took a long time

even to try, then we're done. Well, especially if you don't have flavor to like overcome the texture issue, then, then what do you do? Absolutely. But you know what? There's certain things as I get older, they don't feel good in my body. But this is because I'm more aware of my body. You know, it doesn't feel good in my chest. You have to listen to that. Yeah, absolutely. It's telling you.

Our bodies often do communicate to us, you know, and it usually starts with something small. And this was something I learned from one of my teachers. And I always think of it. It's like, first, it's like just a little like, and then it's like, you know, and then if we don't listen, then there, the door gets busted down, you know, and then we have to deal with it. So if we can attune ourselves to hearing the little ch-ch-ch-ch, then it makes our lives so much easier. We don't have to go through those major. It's so true. Yeah.

I mean, I feel that. I mean, I make a conscious decision sometimes to eat movie theater popcorn. I mean, I know it's going to make me feel bad every time, which is, thank God I don't need it a lot because I don't go to the movies a lot. But if I did be an issue, I'd need, I mean, some fire seats. I remember when my kids were playing baseball. Oh my God. I needed like a 12 step program. I mean, but my mouth would be so numb at the end of the game.

That's, no. I love it. The sunflower seed 12-step program. I love that way. It was hard. I was like addicted. Is it the crunchiness that you're like addicted to? I think it was almost like that nervousness.

You know, it's either my nails or the seeds. So the seeds are going to replace that like hand to mouth. So here I am watching my kids games and nervous. I did a whole bag. Oh gosh. Don't start. Don't start. You may not be able to stop. It's really crazy. All of those things, you know, when we're busy, I was really busy back then. And, you know, we didn't have any kind of schedule of eating. We're on the road a lot. You know, I had four kids, busy, busy, busy. And, you know, now I can, I can be more conscious about, you know, when I'm not as busy, so I can plan dinners and, you know, I love that you can just order from these places and they send you all the ingredients and they're nice and fresh and

you get to pick what you want. And I always try to make everything colorful on the plate. Yeah. Yeah. Getting a range of vitamins and what you're taking and. Yeah, absolutely. But you're a designer. So you're probably thinking that way too. Cause I'm.

I'm always thinking about plating my food. Yes. Me too. My kids are like, I'll get it. And they're like, sorry. I'm like, it's okay. I'll, I'll make your plate. Putting the bread like perfectly on the side. Exactly. Yeah. I know. It's like, I love cooking. And this is something I never used to cook so much, but I really love cooking it now. Beets because of how beautiful they are. And like with a saffron rice.

So that really beautiful yellow rice with the beets that are like seasoned and kind of like, you know, cooked in some water and spices. And oh, my gosh, it's so beautiful. And it's so simple. So I can make things look pretty, but they don't always taste right. I'm known for this. The last cake I made, I left the parchment paper on in between the layers. I know, I know. It's really funny.

It was so bad. Thank God there was like a top layer that you could eat because it was just one layer that had parchment paper but it was when my dad was alive and he's eating it and he's like it's not that bad you're eating the paper anyways i'm like oh my god you don't want you to feel bad he's like just just eating it anyway. He's like, oh, what's a little paper? What's a little parchment? I don't hurt anybody.

Oh God. I think that as we're moving into this, hopefully collective consciousness, that, you know, people understand that they will be able to live a lot longer. You know how they used to say that people would only live like back then to like 50s? I just, what happened? Because, you know, you hear about people living in the Bible to their like 600, then you hear that people weren't living to past 50. Like, it's so strange. Like what happened there? Yeah, it's interesting,'s interesting right well i think probably that transition of living in community and starting like building civilization shifted things but you know in ancient ayurveda just ayurveda itself is the science of longevity so that's That's what that translates to. Like I-your or I-you is life.

Veda is study of. Study of life, study of longevity. And there are methods that these ancient people living in the jungle came up with for living to like 250. Like now that's, you know, there's documentation of this. That's pretty excessive. But you know, there were methods that they had for even just rehabilitating the whole body. Like I remember the name. I remember reading about this guy. He did this whole process and re-grew new teeth. I mean, what? I know it sounds crazy. Is it mewing i don't know okay yeah i don't know quite enough about this but there are methods for rejuvenation of the body like deep rejuvenation of the body um not saying like to fit 250 years old but you know

a complete lifespan is more like a hundred according to ayurveda from things that i've heard and read. A complete, yeah. Yeah. It does kind of seem like the end of the line. Although we right now have a relative who is a hundred, but you know, I know. So, okay. I asked my daughter this morning, cause I happened to come across mewing, M-E-W-I-N-G. And I was like, I thought it was really cool. It is a technique. It's an exercise that you do with your mouth, your tongue. So basically our jaws are going backwards and they haven't, there's a whole reason for it, but I didn't get into all of it. But you do this exercise every day and it has to do with, you know, putting your tongue on the roof of your mouth and like sucking the tongue into the top of your mouth. And it brings in this almost

immediately, but it's because we're open mouth breathers. So I asked my 11 year old daughter, 11 years old on the way to school today. And I was like, you know, I think I might try mewing because I say this straightens out your teeth. She goes, I do that every day. And I was like, what? But, you know, it's natural. You know, it's an alternative to jaw surgery or braces even. And it also helps. I think the main study is against sleep apnea. Yeah.

Well, and, you know, there are a lot of studies around this. And there's a really great book called Breathe. It was on the New York Times bestseller list. I don't know if you've heard of it. And he goes into all these studies and kind of came to it because somebody recommended to him to go to a breathing class because he was having all these issues. And you know, in yoga and in Ayurveda, we do a lot of different pranayama practices. And so he goes to get kind of exploring all these. And the ways that we do breathe, they change the way that our mind functions and they change the way that our body functions. And the way, like the thing that I thought was really fascinating about this book is that, you know, he looks into the function and formation of, and this speaks to the mewing that you're talking about, of the lower jaw. And this is all really substantiated with Ayurveda too because, you you know, we say, it's like when you breathe

through your mouth, you're taking the Vata dosha in and out. So Vata is like highly movable, like I was saying. So if someone is breathing through their mouth, it's not surprising that their teeth would become very crooked. And it's really interesting in this book because he talks about how when humans started breathing more through their mouth, that's where you see more of an issue for orthodontia and a lack of fit of the teeth. Yes. And like your tongue doesn't fit in your mouth as much anymore. I was reading and listening to all this stuff. But isn't that so interesting how we have changed over time because probably

we're so busy we're not even breathing we're not paying attention to how we're breathing and and the main function is through the nose you know and we do a lot of like pranayama practices even alternate nostril breathing which can stimulate different hemispheres of the brain and balance our nervous system i love ayurveda yes because it is so multi-dimensional yeah yeah you're not just when you're focusing on the diet part i hate even call it do what do you want to call it diet too or yeah diet it's diet um diet and like a diet we would call it in sanskrit ahara vihara pranayama that's diet lifestyle breathing and medicines there you go yeah yeah and you know i i mean we've been keeping ourselves so small and giving power away all this time when it's always been

right here. And so I just, I love that this is, you know, becoming a more familiar word. Yes, me too. Yes, I really do. I think it's very important. I think it's, you know, I'm so big when it comes to reclaiming the power for the divine feminine, but just for humanity when it comes to our bodies, our health. Absolutely. And it's so, you know, there's so much going on in like, in terms of even, I mean, this is a bit out there from where our conversation is right now, but where our food comes from, it's like we were on this swing, and I'm talking a generational swing from eating so much meat, right? And now we're on this other end of the swing of so much veganism. And from an Ayurveda point of view, both of those are not balanced.

And from a planetary point of view, we need to be more on that vegan side because of the effect of so much meat eating and what it's causing. We look at the rainforest, we look at all of these problems that are coming from that. But at the same time, you know, when someone has a lot of vata dosha excess, they may need some of those like meat or animal products to ground them. But it doesn't have to be this much, you know. I often think about how in India, the cow is a sacred animal. It's never eaten for meat. Dairy is so sacred, and it's used in so many medicines in Ayurveda. And so when we eliminate that, we eliminate some opportunity for really deep nutrition. But it doesn't have to be a lot. You know what I mean? We don't have to have like these massive quantities of things. We can primarily, you know, vegetables and plant-based, but we don't have to fully eliminate.

Balance. And having a little bit of ghee or having, you know, if someone can take a little bit of milk, depending on how it's processed. Our milk here is homogenized to give it a long shelf life, right? But the longer the shelf life, the harder it is for our body to process. So, you know, even just cooking milk helps us to be able to digest it or using spices helps us to be able to digest it. So, oh, okay. Yeah. So, and also, I mean, I have B12 deficiency, always have.

I struggle to do this. This is what my body does. Not anybody else in my house or just like how I got laryngitis. We all had a virus. I ended up with laryngitis. Probably also from what I do, you know, I talk a lot. Yeah. Well, it's the nature of what we do.

Yeah. All of that. But, you know, I I mean you have to think about just it is a very individualized thing it is and it's individual per person and then it's individual based on what their history is and what their dosha makeup is and there's so many different pieces so you're finding out first what you were were you know originally and then bringing it back into that yes that's the goal that's the goal to bring you back into balance for you not for some ideal of some other person but for you

okay first time ever understanding your vveda and ever seeing the word right. Yeah, thank you. You're a great teacher. Well, thank you. Yeah. If people want to work with you, like, what does that look like? I do work with people virtually. So I do want to put that out there.

And the easiest way to find out more about me is on my website at Sattvic Fern or to follow me at Sattvic Fern. So when someone works with me, I give them a really long exhaustive form. I just have to like warn people. Yeah, because, you know, I don't want to forget to ask a question. So I use this really long form to help me to do that. And then there's also a dosha assessment that helps to get at like someone's original state versus their current state. And so then after all that is done, we have an initial meeting where we go through that form really in depth. And I get a really deep understanding of who that person is and what the current state of their body is.

And so then I put together a program for them on how to get from where they are now back to their state of health. So usually, you know, we'll meet and then we'll meet again about two weeks later. And then it's often best to do like a monthly check-in for a few months. Depending on where someone is along that progression, it might just be a few sessions or some people may need a little bit more depending on where they're at. And when I say their constitution, I mean like the dosha balances for them. What doshas are imbalanced? And so then I give them like food lists, things that are going to be really beneficial to them.

And for me, I usually like to give them some recipes as a starter kit, you know, because it's like, oh my gosh, well, I've never really eaten celery or I've never really eaten beets or, you know, like there's certain vegetables that people might, it might be foreign to them, you know. Or the fact that you said put spice and milk in that might help, you know, digest, my goodness. I mean. I mean, I would have never known that. Right. And so giving them really specific things or sometimes, you know, it's about a schedule, having a schedule for the day, and that can help to reset things. You know, we are ultimately natural creatures. We follow a circadian rhythm, whether we want to acknowledge that or not, you know? And the more that we do acknowledge it and work to use that to our

advantage, the better off that we are going to be. Oh, you're so right. And does your body not tell you, you should not eat late at night and go lay down? It never feels good. It does now as I get older. Maybe it did when I was younger, but it doesn't feel good to eat dinner really late at night and then go lay down. Yeah. We can get away with a lot more when we're younger. Oh, I know. And then it catches up. Yeah. Yeah. It totally tricks us. But if we don't do it when we're younger, we can get away with it more into later into life. So if someone is listening and they're younger we can get away with more into later into life so you know if someone is listening and they're younger you know if you want to keep a stronger digestion for longer pay attention to these things now yeah so i was just thinking about this because i don't have an

issue with drinking my coffee and i put milk in it. But it's chai. I get a dirty chai. Okay. So I get, you know, two espresso shots on a dirty chai. So that chai spice might help digest, because I have no problems at all drinking that. I never have ever. In fact, if I don't drink it, there's going to be a problem.

That's the only time there's going to be a problem. So, and I just have what a day, but I mean, like, I wonder, cause I mean, I do feel like I'm a little, you know, sensitive to some, to milk if I have, you know, ice cream and stuff like that. But I have no problem drinking it in my chai tea. Interesting. So you kind of naturally came to that. Yeah, that spice on that. Yeah. So interesting. I didn't even think of it as a spice, but of course it is. It's just my cock. I don't think about what it is. It's just a need. Now, maybe one day it'll mess with me, but it's definitely not. I mean, if it did at this point in my life, you know, I'm going, in fact, I've been having hot flashes this entire time. You know, I'm, everything is starting to not work with my body.

That's not good for me. I mean, I can't even eat a Reese's peanut butter cup anymore, hardly at all. A Reese's peanut butter cup. So what, what happens? I don't know it used to work out fine what happens when you eat them now I would say heartburn yeah it's too rich now yeah it doesn't make me feel good so I mean in fact people will buy it for me because they know I used to love it but now I'm like yeah yeah I don't I don't like it anymore interesting so so like if we were to work together we would look into because that usually if it's there's

something like a heartburn that that's a that's like the knock of pitta being a little aggravated right and so we would look into what is that that's causing that aggravation. Cause it's not just the peanut butter cup. The peanut butter cup is kind of like making you aware. It could just be the peanut butter cup, but most likely there are other things at play. And so, you know, and this is just to give you a taste,

like what it would be. So it's like, well, what is causing this elevated Pitta? Are there other places that elevated pitta is showing up? Are there places where elevated vata is showing up? So we would look into finding all of those different things and identifying where all that is in your body. When you meet somebody, you're analyzing them.

You're like, oh, she's got a lot of this and she's got less of this. You know, kind of like you're reading the astrology chart. Yeah. Well, for each of these doshas, there are physical characteristics that come into play. And so, you know, there's like even like within the face shape and the eyes and the eye shape, eye color, like all I do, I'm thinking about that. And then, you know, even how someone moves. And so like for myself, for example, I have a lot of Vata Dosha. So you'll see my eyes kind of move around a lot.

They're kind of they're dark and they're kind of like darting around. So that's there's a lot and they're kind of, they're dark and they're kind of like darting around. So that's, there's a lot of movement. Remember Vata has a lot of like movement to it, you know? So those of us who talk with our hands and kind of like. Okay, so I have ADHD too. Yeah. Well, and that can be, ADHD can be excess Vata. So that might be part of your constitution or it could be a current state. And I'm just saying this because for each person, that's what we have to understand. Is it happening because that person has a lot of vata and they're more prone to it and we just have to manage vata? Or is that person more of a pitta type, but they have a lot of excess vata? And so we have to manage the vata

without aggravating the pitta. So, you know, that's how it's individualized medicine could be a combo of them. So, and it takes, you know, there's, there's so many factors. Those are, you could have a lot of physical attributes of one, but then all of your mental attributes are maybe of another. And how you process things in your body could be different. So it's very, there are a lot of different factors at play for making that determination. There's so much to look at. There is so much. Thank you. Thank you so much, Karen. It was such a pleasure to meet you and thanks for bringing all your wisdom. Oh my gosh. Such a pleasure to be here. I'm so happy to meet you.

Wish I'd met you years ago. I know. Tell everybody where they can find you, your website, and also tell them about your friends pod or your friends podcast or her YouTube. So they can go and listen to your amazing story. Yes. So you can find me at sattvicfern.com. That's S-A-T-T-V-I-C-F-E-R-N.com. And you can find me also on Instagram with

Sattvic Fern. And I'm also on Facebook. And if you're in the Hudson Valley area, I have monthly cooking classes that I'm so excited about. They just started this past January and they're on the second Saturdays of the month. And Space in Between podcast, sorry, I was thinking about Nomad, which is the name of her company, is doing yoga, but studio free and kind of like in different locations. And that's where the name Nomad came from. Yeah, that's what I met her. From way pre-pandemic.

So anyway, yes, she's a good friend of mine. And I was on her podcast telling my story of how I came to live in Beacon. Yeah, it's a really cool story. Lots of synchronicity and it's just, it was a really cool story to just share with people that, you know, if you just lean into, you know, this path rather than trying to figure it out for yourself, really, it works. Explore, you know, like I could have, I could have just stayed where I was and, you know, like, I could have just stayed where I was and, you know, figured something out there. But like, I don't know, I just wanted to try something new and find my community. And

it just opened up all these amazing opportunities and it's super cool. Yeah, super cool. Very inspirational. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure to meet you. Pleasure to meet you too. Thank you for having me on. Thanks for listening to Sense of Soul Podcast. And thanks to our special guests for joining me. If you want more of Sense of Soul, check out my website at www.mysenseofsoul.com where you can work with me one-on-one or help support Sense of Soul podcast by donating to my coffee fund. Thanks for listening.