What are Ayurveda Body Types? Understand Vata, Pitta and Kapha

for all of you to be on video so I can see your lovely faces. Uh, I'm going to mute all as well just for us to welcome. Just settle down, get yourself a beverage and, uh, notes if you want to. This is going to be my first webinar in 2024. I was hiding away in India, just experiencing all the love of my family, love of Guruji, from whom I was studying Ayurveda. This time I went deep into Marma, so, uh, lots of new knowledge to share. We have about 60 minutes and then about 30 minutes to have a chat, get to know each other, understand some, uh, new concepts, or maybe clear some doubts, and then The longer workshop that we are here to kind of preview is starting on the 9th. So hi Lisa, lovely to have you. I am so happy to be here. I don't know why I was resisting holding a meeting for so long. I love this. This is my jam. I love to meet all of you. Please unmute yourself, Lisa, and tell us about yourself. You are from South Africa. What brings you here? What are you hoping to get out of this session? Yes.

Yeah, I'm actually— I live in Italy and I'm from South Africa. I'm here visiting my dad and I have been and studied in India many times, so I'm very happy to be here with you guys. And I'm a yoga teacher and I've studied Ayurvedic therapies, massage and Panchakarma, but I don't practice for other people. It's more for my own knowledge. And I'm just curious to learn a bit more so that I can incorporate it into my offerings when I launch my yoga website.

Yes, yes.

It—

you know, I think those who take time are the most serious teachers because they understand that this is not just like do a course, jump into it, start teaching, which is great. If you are somebody who is, uh, called to do that. But I feel like the most serious teachers are the ones who like kind of stand at the shore and like, this is an ocean, I better take my time and be prepared before I jump in. So thank you for sharing that, Lekha. You are on the right path. Wherever your heart leads, follow it. The timing is always right when you are ready. And I'm excited to be sharing more with you. All right, we have— we are at 7:02. We're going to give 5 more minutes for everyone to kind of settle in. We had over 300 registrations, so I'm guessing about 20% will show up, which will be about maybe 60. So, um, anybody else who wants to say hello? I'm seeing your lovely faces. Thank you for being on, uh, video. I'm seeing some, uh, familiar faces. Chani Goel is someone I know from my community on Instagram. Shivani, Anu, Alka Aurora, Drishti Mehta, Darth Theorus. Lovely names. Yasmin Devji. Who wants to say hello? Don't be shy, this is a group of friends. I'll say good morning. Hello, good morning. Thank you for offering this. My name is Vasila Sukumaran. I'm a medicine woman and a wellness retreat facilitator, and I'm always looking to learn new ways. And Ayurveda is new to me, so I'm excited to hear what you have to say. Wonderful. Say your name again, dear. Vasulaki. Vasulaki, what a beautiful name. Thank you for sharing that. Welcome.

Thank you.

Medicine women are the best. They are the visionaries of the world. They see what others can't see. So we are very honored to have you among us.

Thank you.

Is that your experience as well? That you are being a sensitive, being an empath, You see things before others do.

Absolutely.

We, we're, we're, we as, we as women were born in this lifetime to help heal the planet and heal the world. So, so yes, totally, totally. I think I am all about bringing matriarchy back, and the backbone of matriarchy is this idea that we women are the stewards of the planet. We are the, we have The planet is our mother, and we have the first right to her, to protect her, to take care of her, to give her to the next generation even better than before. So land ownership is something my matriarchal— I come from a matriarchal matrilineal tradition, which was made defunct by the government of India because they wanted to progress and bring new land ownership laws. But about 70 years ago, our matriarchal way was completely made defunct, but still practiced in spirit. So I would say everybody here, just think of yourself as I own Mother Earth, a piece of Mother Earth. Should— I should always have a piece of Mother Earth because that is one of the most basic, basic ways we women feel grounded when we own a piece of property, not as like I am the owner, which is— which has all these undertones of like patriarchal male exploitation kind of ways. But she's my mother and I'm going to take care of her. Hi, Aniruddhan! Does that resonate? Uh, absolutely. Yes, thank you so much, dear. Uh, where, where is the chat? Ah, here is the chat. I'm It's like I'm coming back from, I don't know, planet Mars or somewhere. I'm going to admit everybody. And who else wants to— thank you, Liz, thank you. Um, who else wants to say hello before we start? Because I think we have about 60 people, and that's like my 20% that I'm waiting for.

Hi, maybe I'll also say hi.

I'm Liz.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can hear you. How are you, Liz? I love your— brave Liz. I love it.

Thank you. So for me, I am a life coach, and recently I have started my attraction coaching program, and it's all about raising our vibrations to start to become the vibratory match of what we want to attract in life. And I think right now I'm at a phase where I'm also exposing myself to different people to explore different modalities and to understand, like, how are we all the creators of our own lives in our own ways.

Yeah, I love that, Liz. Oh, I believe in attraction and manifestation so much. I have a fascinating, uh, incident to share with you. I'll just take a few seconds to, you know, share with you. I was hiding away in India doing my studies, being my mother's daughter, and like wearing whatever, right? No makeup, nothing. Just putting whatever old 20-year-old clothes that I had left back at home. And I went to the salon to get to be with my sister, basically. And I walk into the salon and this lovely girl walks over to me and says, you are Salila, right? And I was like, yes. And then she says, I prayed that I meet you because I saw your story that you were in Kerala by my parents' home. That's the name of the place. And she said, I prayed last night that I meet you. And here I am. You are here. And how mind-blowing is this, that the moment she walked in with her mother was the exact moment I walked in with my sister. And she was able to see me, and I was able to give her a hug and say thank you for that love. And I was like, wow, this— she wanted something so badly, she moved my energy, she arranged my day, she changed my intentions to such a place where I went with my sister, I met her, I gave her a hug. That's how powerful attraction is, magnetism is, manifestation is. Right, brave, Liz? Would you, would you agree?

Yeah, absolutely. I feel like sometimes there's moments where we're in the zone, and then there's moments where we, we see what the flow looks like, but there's also glimpses of us falling short. So I think like that's the reality of life, and that's where the fun is, which is to constantly be creating. And I think these are the magical moments that tells us that Oh, it's possible. There are possibilities out there if only we choose to believe in it.

I just want to pick up everything you're saying and I want to like tattoo it on my brain so I never fall out of it, because that's our reality, right? We, we go into the flow, we fall out of the flow. And this is what is Ayurveda as well. And I would use that as a segue into our lovely topic today that the play of the three energies that keep us vital, healthy, vibrant, juicy. We are always going into balance. We are moving towards our sattva, we are moving towards our intelligence, and then we are falling out of balance. We are moving away. We are— it's almost like we are crashing on the floor and breaking our cup every second, and then the cup is coming back and restoring itself when we apply the sattvic intelligence. So this is Ayurveda. We— the knowledge that we are going to fall apart and that the doshas— the word dosha itself comes from a negative word, it's a negative connotation, the fault. The fault in these basic bioenergies that build up our body is that they are constantly out of balance, and the only thing that is in balance is our sattva, our intelligence, the Shiva within us. The stable, powerful intelligence that keeps bringing it back and saying, no, no, no, don't go there, come back here. This is the flow, this is the connection, this is the, this is the, the, the, the anchor to the Divine that is going to keep you healthy. All right, dears, so how many of you here are absolutely new and have no idea what Ayurveda is. Say no idea in the chat box if you have no idea what Ayurveda is. Oh, I see a lot of people saying hello. Sorry, I missed that because the chat keeps hiding. Okay, Trishti says no idea. Banit says no idea. Alex says no idea. Gayatri says— Usha says okay. So at least there's about 10 people here who have no idea.

Perfect.

So then let's talk about Ayurveda. So all of you know that Ayurveda comes from the word ayush. Thank you, Elos. Um, ayush, which is health, life, longevity. It can mean many things. Sanskrit is a fascinating language. One word can mean many things, and all those things kind of add into the understanding of that word. So aayu is life, years, vitality, our ability to be alive. And Veda is anything that is like the encyclopedia. This is it. This is the authority on how to live well. So Ayurveda is that collection of knowledge, guidance Advice that is the authority on how to live a long, strong, vital life. It is about adding more life into our— not just our entire span of life, but to our daily experience of life. It is what will give us that rich feeling at the end of the day where we feel like, ah, that was a well-lived day. It is all about creating this framework of rituals that will hold us up as a scaffolding to our psyche, to our energy, to our sense of well-being and belonging in the world. So Ayurveda is all this all at once. And because it is so ancient, based on the written records that we have received, it's about from 1500 BC. But we know that when somebody writes a book, that knowledge was already in practice for many generations before it was collected, summarized, and put into a book, right? When you go— when I'm talking about Ayurveda today, it does not mean that I just discovered Ayurveda today morning. I studied it for 10 years, which is why I am talking to you today. So when a rishi writes a book and he says this is the authority, we can be sure there's at least 10 generations of study that went into it, observations that went into it based on Ayurveda. Ayurveda says it's from the Treta Yuga. Treta Yuga is a completely whole— it's like an epoch. So that is nearly 3 million years ago. Isn't that mind-blowing that Ayurveda says that I have been on this planet for 3 million years helping humans live a good life? Why is that not so hard for me to believe? Because humans have been on this planet for about 6 million years, so it's not crazy stretch, it's not a crazy flex that the Ayurveda acharyas say that yes, half of that time we have been observing this body machine, this mind machine, and finding ways to live well. Does that make sense? Say yes or say no. Let me see how many of you think it makes sense. Some idea.

Okay.

Yes, yes, yes, totally wonderful. Pat, wonderful. Brenda, wonderful. Yes. Amazing. Thank you so much for sharing. So there will be no PowerPoint presentation. This, like I said, is a preview of the 5-day workshop that's coming up. I wish I could share everything with you that I'm going to be sharing in the 5-day workshop, but I can't. But today I'm going to touch upon a few things, like 3 secrets to vitality. We're going to talk about the triopasthambha, the 3 pillars of life that Ayurveda speaks about. I'm going to talk about quick remedies when you start to come out of— when you start falling apart, how do you bring yourself back? Okay, so you all get lots of value when you walk out of this, okay? And you get a glimpse of who I am, what I stand for, what I bring to the table, right? Um, common health, uh, deteriorating foods, very important. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about 5 of those, and we are going to talk about the 5 top health risks. And then we're going to talk about what is vata, pitta, kapha, what are combination body types, why should we even understand this based on Ayurveda, right? There's so many different kind of personality tests, and they're all fun. I have friends who are doing like Enneagram and the Human Design, and they keep telling me all this stuff, and I'm like, fascinating, fascinating, I had no idea. Uh, everything okay?

Yeah, could you please check the participants? Some participants are sending message on the WhatsApp, they are on the waiting list and I kind of want to join in.

Oh, I've just admitted everybody. Sorry, I was talking. Yes, thank you for reminding me about that. Okay, I'm gonna get my thoughts back in order because I'm a Vata body, right? So I need to have like concrete things to hold myself to, right? So this universe, if we broke it down into subatomic particles and further into subatomic particles, we can see that this universe is Jasmine, is everything okay? Is my voice audible? Everybody can hear me? Yes, yes, yes. Okay. Yeah, Jasmine, sweetheart, I have no idea. My dog is whining here. That's the only thing I can think of. But yeah, so this universe, if we broke it down into its very, very, very, very basic form, we can see that it's made up of 5 things. And almost all ancient traditional medicines like TCM, like Japanese medicine, Hyniac from Korea, they all agree kind of similarly on this. Okay, so one is that everything has space, right? If here is my hand, it has to occupy space. There has to be space in the cells and the capillaries within my hand. This glass has to have space to even become a container, to become a glass. Without space, I wouldn't be able to pour my gut bestie into it, right, which is my Ayurvedic drink that I keep drinking all the time. Space.

Air.

Without air, there is no circulation. Air makes sound possible. Air makes voice possible. Air makes movement possible. Third one is fire. When, when the acharyas say fire, they're really meaning temperature, acids, alkalis, enzymes— things that have the ability to transform from one state to another. It plays a very important role. This glass, if it has to be melted, it has to be put into a kiln. We have to apply heat and pressure on it. Only then this will melt and become something else, right? So that transformative power is given by Agni, the fire. Then water— without water there is no life. Water is what holds things together. Earth, which is what provides us all the minerals. Our bodies are made up of the minerals from Mother Earth, which is why we, we are born of Mother Earth, we go back to Mother Earth. And when we, we are done, when our body is done, we Hindus, we burn our bodies. We return all the elements back to the 5 basic elements. Now you know that if Mother Earth was making, um, something from 5 distinct things, there is no way that she would have the absolute same percentage for everybody, right? She, she does not have a factory. She does not have like absolute measures. Mother Earth is very creative, so each one of our bodies has a different percentage of all these basic 5 elements. Okay, now from all the creatures and things on this planet and this universe, let's now come down to the population of those 7 billion human beings on this planet. Each of these 7 billion people, just as we all have very unique irises, very unique fingerprints. We all have very unique combinations of air, space, fire, water, and earth, right? And if we looked at us from a very high, like a bird's eye view, then the acharyas say that we can roughly look at the bodies and say that some of these bodies have a higher percentage of air and, uh, space in them. Some bodies have a higher percentage of fire and water in them, and some bodies have a higher percentage of earth and water in them. Are you following me? Is this clear so far? Yes?

No?

Thumbs up? You're talking too fast? You're going too fast? Or some feedback? Okay, great, perfect. So just think of this like a story. This is— so Mother Earth made all these 7 billion people on the planet. Now, about 30% of the people, Mother Earth gave them extra space and air. 30%, she gave them extra fire and water. 30%, she gave them extra earth and water. Now the people who have extra space and air naturally would start to have qualities of the space and air, which is higher movement, greater circulation. They talk too fast, they blink too fast, they have drier bodies because things are circulating fast. They have less water, less air, less Agni, right, less fire. So their temperature is lower, so they start feeling cold. So when I wake up in the morning, I'm a Vata body type, I'm probably feeling really, really cold than someone, let's say, Kapha or Pitta, who was in my house sharing my room with me or something like that, right? So, um, someone who is a fire dominant and a fire and a water dominant person, because we need a dominant quality which is fire, and we need something to, um, bring it down, to balance it. So when we say a particular body type has a dominance of one element and another element, these two elements kind of play with each other, they balance out each other, they bring the intensity of each other down, or they help each other burn brighter. They help each other express themselves much better. So when a body type, about 30% roughly, are Agni dominant and water— Agni and water dominant, fire and water dominant— what we mean by that is they are going to have a lot more color on their skin. So there's their, uh, their skin would be more ruddy They would have a more redder complexion, their hair would look more bronze, their gums would look more pink, their nails, their skin, their hands, their soles of the feet would look more pink, and they would have a propensity for higher emotions. So they would have, um, anger, shortness, upset, hunger, any kind of phase in your life which involves the action of enzymes, acids, alkalis— so digestion, puberty, lactation— our Pitta friends will be more challenged during that time because by nature they have more Agni, they have a little bit of extra water. So puberty will be a great challenge for a Pitta teenager than a Vata teenager or a Kapha teenager. Lactation, menopause. Menopause will be terrible on our Pitta women, on our Vata women, because menopause is both these high hot flashes and dryness. So it will be a Vata-Pitta person will suffer the most during menopause because of this reason. Okay, now who is a Kapha person? A Kapha person, about roughly 30% of the world, is somebody who has the earth and the water element higher. Now think of the qualities of the earth. The earth is very stable. The earth is— holds up. The earth is nurturing. The earth is creative. So kapha people would naturally have well-developed, rounded bodies, and they will— thank you for that, Lisa— a kapha person will naturally be more grounded in their mind. A kapha person would be a loving, nurturing presence. But the thing is, when the kapha starts going out of balance, they may gain more weight because they have that extra earth element in them, right? And their emotions would also be more dense. Their consciousness would go towards density. So vata, pitta, kapha— broadly, these are the 3 buckets that we put human beings in. Now there are also categories where people are a mix— vata-pitta, pitta-kapha, kapha-pitta, pitta-vata. It could also be vata-pitta-kapha, all three together. Now these are all the fascinating variations that we show up as. Now I am not a pure, pure vata. I have pitta elements as well. So if I look at my hair, it's gonna be slightly bronzy. My, my soles and my hands and my lips tend to be a little bit extra pink. So these are all cues that tell me that I am Vata, Pitta, or Kapha. Now, a Vata person is somebody who is going to be skinny no matter what they eat. They are prone towards dryness. A Pitta person is somebody who is athletic. They don't gain a lot of weight quickly. Their bodies tend to gain muscle very fast. Okay, pitta person— uh, kapha people are those who gain weight quickly. So the kapha person is the one who's always weight watching. If 3 friends, vata, pitta, and kapha, came together to a club and they decided to have 3 cocktails, okay, the vata person is the first one who's going to run to the bathroom. Why? Because their circulation is high. Pitta person is the one who is going to get drunk fast.

Why?

Their metabolism is very high. Kapha person, if that cocktail happened to be nice and sweet, let's say like a piña colada, which I love, the Kapha person is the first person who's going to put on weight because of that. She will have bloating and water retention next morning. Okay, so this is how the knowledge of Ayurveda works. It's so practical. It's so relatable, it is so immediately useful. Okay, now let's look at what could be the top health risks because of these— being a Vata body type, being a Pitta body type, being a Kapha body type. Vata body type, we said, is somebody whose circulation is high, who tends to be drier. So what can you think? Dryness, extreme dryness in the body. Menopause would be a big challenge. Osteoporosis, osteopenia, loss of bone density would be a challenge. Mental issues, as in anxiety, would be a challenge because they would feel anxious all the time. They are prone to anxiety much more than others. Constipation, lack of— irregular digestion. This is a challenge for our wonderful Vata people. What are some top health risks for a Pitta person? Because it is— their Pitta is related to emotions, Pitta is related to heart, Pitta is related to small intestines. They are going to have problems with heart health issues. They're going to have problems, minor issues like balding, losing hair very fast. So it's the Pitta moms during lactation and menopause who are— menopause— who are losing fistfuls of hair, right? They are losing the most amount of hair among all other people. Pitta people will have issues with, um, anything that requires kind of a transformation. So let's say urinary bladder issues, UTI issues, um, anything that requires for the temperature to be right in the body. So when the temperature is right, then the microbiome will function well. But when the temperature is too much, there is more incidence of diarrhea, IBS, then obviously the microbiome is not going to do so well. So microbiome issues will be a Pitta issue because they will have associated symptoms like diarrhea with that. Constant UTI issues where the microbiome is not doing so well and they are, um, their body is not able to have good immunity in that way. What is a kapha issue? A kapha issue would be anything that has any kind of buildup in the body. So endometriosis, PCOS, PCOD, um, issues with plaque, Alzheimer's, of everything from dental caries, like our teeth collecting this extra plaque, to our body collecting extra tissues, which would be something like a cancer. Um, what else? Excess blo— excess, um, edemas. So any condition that is— has a lot of swelling in the body, that comes with a lot of swelling in the body, that would be a kapha risk. Any condition that has a lot of redness and inflammation, that would be a Pitta. Any condition that has a lot of darkening and drying up, that is a Vata condition. Now this is just a very high-level view of this. If we went into each disease and looked at all the symptoms, we can see that Vata, Pitta, and Kapha are acting upon each one of these diseases. For example, this is so fascinating. If we looked at urinary stones, if we looked at kidney stones, if we looked at gallbladder stones, which are all kapha, because there is— on a high level, it's kapha because there is accumulation of the earth element. But if we looked at the stones and we saw that some stones were spiky and dark colored, we know those are vata stones. Stones that are milk— that are soft and smooth and reddish colored, we know those are Pitta stones. If we saw pale looking, pearlish looking, white looking, uh, very smooth big stones, we know those stones are Kapha stones. So this is that detail, this is that complex. So for anybody of you who does not know your body type, I would say go and first figure out your body type so that you can then figure out what kind of, um, what kind of diseases you are prone to. Because for me, the biggest advantage of knowing our body type is knowing what issues am I prone to. So I know I'm a Vata body type, so I know anxiety is going to be a lifelong challenge for me. If you know you're a Pitta body type, you will know anger will be a lifelong challenge for you. If you are a Kapha body type, you will know that depression, sadness, and woe be me, and feeling like you're the victim of the world is going to be a lifelong challenge for you. This is not something that is like, oh no, why did this happen to me? This is like empowering ourselves with the knowledge. If I am a Vata, I know my bones, my hair, anything that is the driest part of me is going to be my biggest challenge, right? If you're a Pitta body type, your heart, your blood, that is going to be the biggest challenge for you. So cholesterol, heart disease, you have to watch out for all this. And if you're a Kapha body type, you know that your water element, your chest, your, your lungs your head region, your immunity, your sinuses. These are your biggest challenges. So this is how we use this knowledge to gain, um, mastery over our health. So if you want, go to my blog, read in detail about Vata, Pitta, Kapha, and then take the test so that you can understand what your body type is and what are the challenges that you will face in your life. By looking at your parents, you will know what challenges they faced because you've seen them get old. And looking at other elders in your family, check whether this knowledge is correct. Check in your own body. If you're in your 20s, you may not know a lot, but we people in our 40s, by now we know that, oh yeah, this makes sense, right? How many of you agree? How many 40 years here? 40-year-olds here who say that, yes, I know this, this is what I have experienced. Say yes in the chat, please. Yes, yes, yes. Anirudh says yes. Deepa says yes. Sanjeev says a big yes. Thank you so much. Dar says yes. Wonderful. So this is so intuitive, this is so easy. When my daughter was 8 years old, I was teaching her about this. And she got it. So we have to drop what we've studied in science, not because— because science makes our brain a certain way, and we are only able to— like, it be— it changes the shape of our, our vessel. So we are not able to receive these alternate ways of looking at the world. We have to become innocent like a child. Like, even Jesus said something like that, right? Become like innocent, like a child, and then all the treasures of the world would be open to you. So what basically all these ancient masters and prophets are telling us through these guidances, this advice, is that we have to go back to that enthusiastic child that was like— that wasn't like, I'm not going to listen to it because it's not in a certain way and it's not done, said by a certain person. We have to say, okay, what is useful for me here? Apply it in my life. If it is good, I'm going to keep it. If it's bad, then it's okay, I can move on. It's not the end of the world. Okay, so that was the top health risk, and we are going to come to questions. We still have about half an hour left. We are good on time, so we'll have half an hour left at the end for questions. So now let's talk about— we talked about how this body is in balance. And this body is kept in balance by these three energies of vata, pitta, and kapha, because our body is made up of the five great elements: water, earth, fire, space, and air. These five great elements come together, and as soon as they mix together, they create these three great energies called vata, pitta, and kapha. Now here's a little bit of confusion. The people whose bodies are Vata dominant are called Vata body types. So that's a different term. People whose fire and water element is high, they are called the Pitta body types. So there's the Pitta dosha energy, and then there is the Pitta body type who has a predominance of that energy. There is the Kapha dosha, the Kapha energy, and there is a predominance of the people who have Kapha energy in them. They are kapha body types. Okay, so when we say the kapha energy is predominant in a body, means that the earth and the water element is predominant. So children are kapha dominant because their bodies are— the structure is getting built up. A menopausal person is vata dominant because we are moving towards a stage where our bodies are experiencing dryness and the structure is breaking down. Okay, not to frighten anybody who's here because there are plenty of beautiful remedies that Ayurveda provides. Somebody in puberty is pitta dominant because their transformative energies are in dominance. Their transformative energies are in high drive. They are shifting shape from a child to an adult. Their reproductive organs are doing very important functions. The body is literally changing its function. From inert, they are going into a very fertile human being who can hold another life. So that is a Pitta dominant phase. Now, as we are going through life, there are 5 common health deteriorating foods that are going to create a lot of imbalance in our body, and it'll be difficult to bring us back to balance without going to a professional, a practitioner like me, or to a physician, or doing a panchakarma, which is like a detoxification procedure. A lot of my clients are in their 30s, their 40s, who have overdone these 5 foods, and because of that, they are at my doorstep, or they are working with a physician so that they can bring themselves back to health. Because these are vitality-draining foods, okay? You already know this, this is already out there, but I want to explain this to you in an Ayurvedic way so you understand it better, okay? So number 1 is our favorite villain, sugar, right? Everybody says don't eat sugar, don't eat sugar, don't eat sugar. Ayurveda does not say don't eat sugar. Ayurveda says you need sugar. Sugar is sticky. If we mix sugar with water, what happens? Sugar becomes sticky, right? This sticky quality is very important. Sugar is sweet, sugar is calming. If you go to any ancient places in the world during summers, you will see that they drink a lot of sugary drinks. Like lemonades, like sweet candy. Like in China, they'll candy winter melon and eat it during summers. In India, they have 1,000 different beverages, sweet milky beverages to, to combat heat. This is ancient knowledge that sugar calms down. Why do we drink so much sugar when we are stressed? This is actually our intelligence in action. Stress is a heat-producing phenomenon. Stress creates more heat in the body. So we naturally— some part of us knows that this is making my body hot, I need to cool it down. Exactly, Deepika, thank you. Um, sugarcane juice, yes, I love it. When we Feel stress. We know heat is increasing. To calm it down, we drink Frappuccino, Starbucks Frappuccino. How many people love Starbucks Frappuccino here? I love Starbucks Frappuccino. Do you know how much sugar there is in a Starbucks Frappuccino? 54 grams, which is nearly 11 teaspoons of sugar. So yes, high Vata creates stress. High stress itself is a drying, heating phenomenon. So it's not just one thing. Everything has multiple gunas, multiple qualities, but stress also has a heating element. So a, a normal person should have about 3 teaspoons of sugar. So my advice is not to dump sugar because it's the villain. Have about 3 teaspoons of sugar because we need sugar to build our body up, to keep that— the excess heat, we need to balance it out with sugar. However, if you've got yourself a Frappuccino with 11 teaspoons of sugar, you know how many girlfriends to share that with. So when you go to the office, make sure you are sharing it with at least 4 people to complete your quota of sugar for that day.. And if at all you drink 11 teaspoons of sugar in one day, then think about the rest of the days of the week and the rest of the days of the month and kind of calibrate yourself to adjust. And also understand that as we are growing older, our ability to process insulin becomes worse. So my daughter, 13-year-old, um, drinking a Frappuccino is— her body is going to react to it way differently from my 40-year-old body. It's going to react very differently. Okay, second one is spices, excessive spices. Whenever we are disconnected from our body, we tend to have a lot of spices. If you see that people who are under A lot of like, you know, people who are really poor, people who are disconnected from their body, people who have a lot of stress in their body will also overdo on spices. They'll eat chilies, their food will be so spicy that you can't even taste it. Okay, so overdoing spices, let's say in India we overdo spices, in America, in the Western world, we overdo ferments. Which are like pickles. So I have many clients who have issues with their periods because they overdo spices, they overdo pickles, pickle juices, fermented drinks. So if you are somebody who's like, hey, kombucha is really great for my— exactly, kombucha is really great for my body, I'm gonna drink kombucha, 3 bottles of kombucha every day, we are overdoing it.

Why?

Because this is going to imbalance our Pitta, and Pitta is essential for us to use our intelligence to transform things, manage our emotions, um, have healthy periods, have healthy menopause, have healthy lactation, uh, for men to have a healthy level of testosterone. And the third kind of food that deteriorates our health is ultra-refined oils— refined oils, period. Refined oils made from grains, because grains have to be processed in a very different way from seeds and nuts. Like coconut, melon seeds, sesame seeds— if you squeeze them, they will produce oil. So those kind of seeds and nuts, when they are processed in a cold press, and that lots of that healthy enzyme-intact oil is extracted. Olive oil. This is all very good for the body. These kind of oils will have a lower shelf life. However, big industries want to maximize their supply chain, their profits, so they use hexane extraction, petroleum-based extraction, out of soybean, rice bran, wheat germ, corn, which are grains which are— which don't have a lot of oil in them. We can't squeeze a corn and get the oil out. So these companies, they will use hexane to extract that oil because they, they work with thousands of tons of these grains, and then they refine it to a point where all the good sattvic principles in that oil, that sattvic qualities in that oil is gone. And then they put it on our supermarket shelves at a very cheap price, and they put labels like heart healthy, tasty, and this and that, and we buy them. And that's the worst thing we can do to our health. So if we can drop refined oils and use whole oils with their enzymes intact, where we can see the sediment, we can see that it's sticky, and when we cook it, we cannot cook it on a high heat because it burns very quickly. So it means that it has a lot of its good life-giving properties intact. We would do the greatest, greatest, you know, benefit to our health. And if you want, you can try ghee. However, I say buy ghee from ethical sources, from, from from people who— not from the industrial dairy complex, but from ethical sources. Otherwise, good olive oil, good sesame oil, all these are adequate. Now the fourth food is salt. Overdoing salt. Salt dries us up. Salt naturally has an effect on our blood pressure. So if we are eating refined salt, it's time to drop it and to switch to Himalayan pink salt or sea salt or any kind of salt that has a higher amount of minerals. Not the refined sea salt, but pure sea salt. Salt with like— you get this beautiful salts in America, which is like lava salt and salt from the mountains and specialized salt from seaweeds and things like that. I go to all kinds of grocery stores, Korean, Japanese, Mexican, every grocery store, Thai, Vietnamese, and they all have their own very special salts. Don't hesitate spending money on salt because salt is not just salt, it is also one of the fundamental nutrition givers. It gives us important minerals. So if all of you can switch to something like a Himalayan pink salt and drop table salt, which has additives and which is again, which is like dead. All the good things have been taken out of it. That'll be super, super helpful. Then the next one, the last and the fifth health deteriorating food might come as a surprise to you. These are foods that are not ancestrally aligned for you. So the healthiest food for our human body are the foods that our ancestors have eaten. Ayurveda shlokas say, the matra, bha, bhratra, the matra, pitra, bhratra, meaning the mother, the father, and the brothers, the community has eaten. So I am from India, I am from South India, and there's a certain kind of foods that I have grown up with, that my family has eaten. When I come to America and I switch to American foods here thinking that, yeah, these are all available, so cool looking, I'm gonna have that. It's not going to work for my body. I— if it gives me indigestion, if it hurts my body, if it gives me pain, if it sits like a stone in my stomach, these are all big red flags that I should drop them. So the 5th common health deteriorating foods are foods that we jump at because some influencer in Costa Rica says that eat this, and then because she's super healthy, so I'm going to go to Costa Rica and get some for myself. So that, I mean, feel free, go, go to Costa Rica and get some fabulous something for yourself. Taste it. But if it sits like a stone in your stomach, you feel like throwing up, your stomach hurts, you have a headache, you have diarrhea, you have constipation, those are your body begging you not to eat it. I remember the first time— I mean, I don't even remember the names of foods anymore now because I'm so much into eating just what works for me, but it was like this berry that was like this big deal, and everybody was like, this is the elixir, if you eat this you will live to 100. Sawa or something like that. I'm sorry, I forget the name. And I got myself a whole bottle of that juice Acai berries. Acai berries. I drank that juice, the whole bottle, thinking that, oh my God, this is going to make me so vital and beautiful and everything. It, it just sat like a stone in my stomach for like hours afterwards. And I was like, what is this? I couldn't— I got a whole bottle because I got a whole carton because a friend of mine was selling it. I just had to toss it. I had to give it away. So Does this make sense? Say yes or say no. Is this making sense? Are you getting something out of this session with me? Hmm.

Okay.

Yes and no. Lisa, thank you. I love your honesty. Yes, we'll have time for questions. Thank you. Tinker's a naughty little rascal. She's always scratching me. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Okay, even if you're saying like no, it's fine. We are here to understand. And the 5-day workshop when we are going to do, we're going to talk, go in far more details. All right, I've got to now wrap up quickly because I have 7 minutes left before I introduce my workshop, and then we're going to talk about question and answers. Okay, so 7 Secrets to Vitality. These are called the 3 Sorry, 3 secrets to vitality, the 3 pillars of health. What is this? Ayurveda says the triopastambha are diet, sleep, and sexual intimacy. So we talked about diet, the 5 foods. If you took notes and you followed what I said, you will already make yourself far more vital. Sleep. We've got to protect sleep. And I think by the time we come into our 40s, you know, we just— our sleep just takes over. It's like, nope, you're no longer 20, you can't do this. Get to sleep at 10:30, wake up at whatever, 5, 6 in the morning. We've got to have 8 hours of sleep. We've got to sleep adequately for our body type. Pittas don't need as much sleep because their body is very quick to process and eliminate that waste. But vatas and kaphas, we need a lot of sleep. We need good sleep. So protect your sleep, have your sleep rituals, uh, make sure that you don't have your phone so that you're not tempted to scroll. Wake up on time, wake up before the sun rises so that you are feeling vital and full of energy. And the third one is sexual intimacy. Now Ayurveda says that sexual intimacy is one of the biggest drains on our energy if done wrong. So in the West and in modern world— now we can't say West anymore because everywhere we have the same culture now, right? Which is, your life sucks if you don't have a partner and you are not sexually intimate with somebody constantly. Like, there are webinars and seminars and things saying that a woman has to always be sexy and this and that. You have to be an object. I'm sorry, there are children here. Are there children here? No? Okay, I'm sorry, I thought I saw somebody. Um, so this whole thing about overabundance of expression of love as sex is a modern concept. It's a very, very mis— it's, it's completely— it'll misfire totally. If we have a certain life energy, the more we expend it, the more we are going to run out of it. And the older we get, our ability to re-energize those tissues, our ability to— it is called ojas in Ayurveda our ability to nourish it becomes lesser and lesser. So if we are going to be a brahmachari, as in celibate— and we won't go into the meaning of the word for now, but we'll go into it later during the workshop— we are able to preserve that energy. And I think I saw a question about menopause and women. Lose vitality during masturbation. No, you know, we have to keep our plumbing going. Women have to keep that plumbing going. So this is more for men than for women. We men have to be more careful about this than women. We women only have certain days in the month where we have libido, where we have sexual drive, whereas for men sexual drive is every day because this testosterone is peaking at 9 AM every day, right? So women have to take this with a little bit of context around the difference between men and women. Okay, so this is a lot more like a strict advice for men than for women. For us, it's slightly— there's a little bit of nuance to that, and we'll talk about going into that in detail when we do our workshop. Okay, so 3 quick remedies. So when we are having our vata spiking, when we are having anxiety spiking, what is a quick remedy we can do to help our vata come to balance? Grab a cup of warm gud besti, any kind of tea. This I've made with just carom because I'm getting over a little bit of indigestion. But make a gut pesti with a pinch of carom, half a teaspoon of coriander, half a teaspoon of fennel, half a teaspoon of cumin. Roast it all together till it's popping and jumping. Pour over about a liter of water, bring it to a nice boil. It'll turn into a nice dark yellowish liquid. Sip on that and your vata will come to balance. I promise you, if your girlfriend is visiting you and she has her vata high and she's just going on and on and on in like an anxious loop of like, oh my God, my life sucks, everything's gonna fall apart, my life is— everything is falling apart, everybody hates me, hand her this warm cup of drink, this nice spicy warming drink, and you will watch her as she's sipping, she will start to calm down. It's this powerful. Okay, what to do when your Pitta is going out of balance? You are upset, you are short. Yes, Rocky, we'll do that again during the question and answer. I want to get, get through this, introduce you to workshop, and then we'll talk about that. Okay, thank you so much. Um, and I can also drop the link to the, uh, uh, to the video, to the reel in my WhatsApp group. So that you can all have access to it. So what, what should we do when our Pitta is spiking? So Pitta is heat, Pitta is color, Pitta is anger, right? So drink anything cold or switch on the AC or just smell something that is soothing, like a rose perfume, like an essential oil, like lavender, like sandalwood, which is a cooling perfume. And you will see the Pitta person calming down. So if you go to office and you have certain people who aggravate you, they aggravate your Pitta, keep a roll-on of rose oil or, um, sandalwood oil on your desk, apply it on your pulse points, and just smell it when you're talking to them, and you will see that you will not get as aggravated around them as as before, right? Or have a cold drink, have a cool drink, or just switch on the AC. Bring the opposite quality of coolness and you will get— you will start feeling much, much better. What about a kapha person? A kapha person, when they start going out of balance, they start to feel very tense, heavy, sad, don't want to move. So in that time, what the kapha person needs to do is you need to eat something that is warming and spicy. So again, the Gut Bestie will work great for you. If not, make yourself a nice spicy meal. Just add some extra spices in your meal and you will feel like you want to move. Your kapha would get— energies would get balanced a little bit. So why are we balancing these energies as soon as we see, see them in our mind? Because first the imbalance hits our mind, then it hits our body. So if we have remedied it when it was at the mind level, when it was at the emotion level, we have stopped it from becoming a disease in our body, which is why we are always watching out for anxiety, anger, sadness, and wanting not to move. These three major moods. Okay, so I am always, always, always watching my thoughts for the slightest hint of anxiety because I'm a Vata person, and I go to great lengths to manage my anxiety. It's not because I'm a crazy anxious person, it's because I'm a very aware person that if I don't manage this, this is going to affect my bones. This is going to make my nails brittle. This is going to make my hair brittle. And this is going to bring all those hosts of all those diseases that we talked about. It's going to make my menopause worse. If you— somebody is a Pitta person, then if they're not managing their anger, a lot of Pittas feel very righteously angry and they're like, so what? You know, deal with it. I'm angry. This is me. But this constant daily anger is going to create heart attacks, is going to create cholesterol issues, is going to create blood circulation issues, right? If a Kapha person is constantly feeling like, I don't want to leave the house, I don't want to leave the house, I'm feeling sad, everybody hates me, you know, it's not that we can let that person be that way and nothing's going to happen to them. They are going to get all kinds of Kapha issues diabetes, all kinds of issues, right? Alzheimer's as they age, endometriosis, frequent pains with periods. Okay, so that brings us to the end of the workshop. And if you like this workshop, if you like this masterclass with me, you know that I've given you a lot of value. And imagine how much more value I'm going to give you when we host the 5-day workshop. And here is the details of the 5-day workshop. I'm going to drop it in the, in the chat box.

Hold on.

Let me send it to everybody.

Meeting group.

Okay, here is the 5-day workshop that I'm launching, where I am going to talk about everything we talked about in far more greater detail. For 5 days, we're going to talk about each body type separately— vata, pitta, kapha— and then a combination of all. And then everything I went through today, we are going to go into greater detail. We will have more time to talk about it. This workshop is priced at $129 or ₹4,999. But for just all of you participants here, we are offering it for $89 for 5 days and 3,999. So go ahead and sign up for it. And we start on the 9th. So today is the 7th, we are starting day after tomorrow. So if you sign up, you will have access to it, we will start working together. And I launched these workshops these courses so that a lot of you can heal with me just by doing these courses. I have had people come out of my courses and say things like, I've gotten pregnant, I was trying for a decade, I could not get pregnant. So already from this session with me, this 1-hour session with me, you know that I have given you tremendous value. I go to other people's sessions just to see what they do, how they how they, you know, this is life now for anybody who's a coach, or, you know, a lot of you are coaches. They'll give you 3 things, they'll, you know, do this show and tell and all that, right? Smoke and mirrors and things like that. I am not like that. I will give you the high-level details. I want you to be healed by just this interaction with me. I want you to learn new things. I want you to have those aha moments. So that when you come into the workshop with me, I can provide you even more. Because all this is so nuanced, all this is— can get really complex if we go to the, you know, go deeper into it. So we need somebody who can tell us, who can, you know, kind of calm our fears and tell us that yes, this is— we can learn this, we can understand this. We don't have to become PhDs in this, but we start with how our bodies are showing up and what remedies we can apply to heal our bodies, right? So join me, I would love to have you. Um, if you have any questions, we will open up the floor and talk about questions. Okay, there are 2 people waiting in the— so I've admitted everybody. Sorry for all those who were trying to come in, and I couldn't admit. I'm sorry, it was difficult for me to kind of see where it was popping up. But any questions about the workshop, any questions about what I've shared, I would love to talk further. And let me see if I can. Yeah. Okay, let me also share my screen and show you how the workshop— what's the workshop details. Okay, so if you can see all this, this is the page where you land if I— if you clicked on the link that I sent you. We're doing a 5-day online Ayurveda workshop, Know Your Prakriti and Balance Your Dosha. We are going to go into the remedies. We're going to go into more details of the remedies. We're going to talk about the health deteriorating food.

We—

I could just talk about 5. I'm going to give you more. We're going to go into details of each one. Why is the house— we're going to talk about the 3 pillars of health. We're going to go into details of what Brahmacharya is because it's a topic that brings up a lot of questions, a lot of doubts. You know, talk about remedies, not just the 3 quick ones that I could share today, but more in-depth remedies. So you don't have to see a practitioner after taking this course. Once you do this course, you are good. Um, day 1, we're going to understand the energies of vata, pitta, and kapha. Today I could only share a snapshot with you. We're going to use a PowerPoint so that there's more clarity. Day 2, we're going to understand who is a Vata and what makes a Vata so typical. So a lot of diseases happen because of Vata. Vata is that main force because of which 80% of all diseases happen. So understanding Vata is very important. Who is a Pitta, and can we identify the Pittas in our lives? I've had people from my workshop tell me, I'm going to have a better relationship with my daughter because I understand that I am a Pitta and how I operate. So that's how powerful testimonials are that come out of my workshop. That's how I empower you with the knowledge of Ayurveda. Day 4, we're going to do deep diving into the kapha body type. We're going to talk about who a kapha body type is, what kind of diseases are they prone to, um, not just a snapshot of what I shared today, but much, much more in detail, and why it's important to heal kapha. Because towards the end of our life, Those kapha afflictions are some of the worst that can happen to us. So, and then day 5, we're going to bring it all home. We can understand exceptions, we can understand, um, the, you know, the vata, pitta, kapha body types. We can understand the different variations, the exceptions, because biology is a science of exceptions, right? I, I studied biology, I studied pre-med, and my biology teacher on the first day said, welcome to the class. Biology is a study of exceptions. So Ayurveda is also not just a study of what is the usual and normal, but also exceptions. We got to understand them, otherwise we get confused. And then here are the details of what it is. So please go on this link, sign up. It's going to happen from 9th to 13th of April. I'm doing it with Ashish from Fitshri. You're going to get recordings. Your discounted price is $89, ₹3,999 if you're in India. You're going to get handouts, you're going to get a dosha quiz, you're going to have recordings, you're going to get 5 hours of learning with me. And if you have any questions, shoot away. Will you give a certificate? Um, uh, yeah, sure. I can look at giving you a certificate. I do have the provision to offer certificates in my Podia platform. Yeah, I can definitely give you a certificate. That's no problem.

With the hours on it?

Hours of CE?

Okay.

Thank you. Sure, sure, sure.

Not a problem. I was wondering if you're going to be doing this program again, because I'm already signed up for the yoga teacher training and it's at the same time. So I, I love to do it, but I was wondering if you'll have dates to do another one. Uh, we don't have dates right now, but usually Ashish and we do this like once a year. So yeah, if there is interest and there's a lot of signups, we would love to do it again.

Yeah.

Okay, thank you. This was amazing. Absolutely. It's such a pleasure for me to connect with all of you and share what I know. Okay, who has signed up so far?

I have to pay first.

Okay, great. Thank you. Who was that? Sorry, I didn't get— My name is Meera. My name is Meera. Welcome.

Yeah.

I would also like to—

in your workshop, I'm particularly interested in reducing anger, anxiety, and sadness, whatever you said. Totally, totally. We're going to learn tools and tips.

That's all I have.

Easy methods to reduce that. Easy methods. Yes.

Nothing I do is hard. It's as easy as going to the kitchen and grabbing something. I'm the laziest person in the world. This is Preeti. Yes, Preeti. So if we miss the class, you said we would have access to the recordings, right? Yes, you will have access to it. You will have access to the— yeah, absolutely. You will have access to recording, you'll have access to the WhatsApp group. We will create a WhatsApp group for all those who sign up for this particular course, and then everything will be shared by via email, via WhatsApp, so that, you know, you all are— you know, WhatsApp is one of the best ways to stay in touch, on top of things. So yeah.

Okay, thank you. Oh, sorry, it's Lisa here. Can I ask a question?

Absolutely.

Hi, thank you, that was great. And, um, I can't sign up for this workshop, although I would really love to, as yet. But don't worry, because I'm on your email list. Um, several reasons why I can't. Um, but I did have a question about what you were saying earlier, which I'm very interested in, because you mentioned when we're talking about our food and the food that we grew up with or of our ancestors, kind of as you said it, so I thought, well, that makes sense, and I lean more towards the food of, but of my father's ancestors. Now what happens when you have two sets of ancestors that are from completely different— like I have a father who comes from Indonesia, I have Hindu grandparents, and I have a mother who is couldn't be more Dutch. I'm— I have eaten most of my life mainly Indonesian food and Indian food, so that is clearly what I'm more attracted to. But how— what would that— what is your opinion on that? I'm just curious. Um, if I was doing the course, I'd ask more questions, and I will in future if I ever get to that, because I have— I would really like to deepen my knowledge on nutrition and health issues. But this is something that I found quite— it was new to me and I haven't heard before, and I'm quite interested in.

Yeah, yeah, I'm all about ancestral alignment. So you have inherited the blueprint to digest both Dutch food and Indonesian food, so you're lucky.

But are you supposed to stick to one rather than the other? How do you know what's good and what's not? I mean, How does that work? How does that become— because as, as humans, as we grow and grow, there's now 7 billion of us, there are more and more obviously mixed crossed, um, ancestral thingies. So that's quite interesting. Sorry.

Yeah, yes, the answer lies in your gut and how your gut reacts. I say understand your gut's love language. Your gut's love language is, um, Lucia. Who is Lucia? I'm sorry. Ah, Lucia, hold on, dear. I'll come back to you in a minute after Lisa. Um, Lisa, um, bringing my thoughts back. So our gut's love language is when our gut feels light, our gut feels— the digestion feels great. Next day or the next bowel movement is well-formed and doesn't have any issues. That when I eat a meal, let's say you ate a Dutch meal and you felt great, then that means that whatever were the ingredients in that Dutch meal work for your body. There is a memory. We inherit the genes of our grandparents and our great-grandparents. So maybe there's a Dutch dish that I don't know about that you go to Europe and then somebody serves you and you eat it for the first time and you're like, oh my God, what is this? My body feels so good. I have so much energy. There's your answer. You go to Indonesia and somebody serves you a skewer of some meat that your grandma used to eat. But you absolutely hate it. It gives you a stomachache. And you know, ah, even though I may have inherited the genes, my Dutch genes and my Indonesian genes kind of are fighting over this, and this one doesn't work for me so much. So the answer lies in how our gut reacts.

It's how you're feeling. It'll be an instinctive thing. Okay, that makes sense.

Thank you.

Sorry, you better attend to Lucia. Thanks very much, Lucia.

Sorry, dear, I wasn't ignoring you. It's just that so many things are happening. How can I help you?

Um, it's Lucia, by the way.

Lucia.

Sorry, sorry, I, I can't interrupt. I can't. I have severe social anxiety, so I can't jump into conversations like that, so I have to raise my hand.

Welcome to raise your hand, dear. Thank you for sharing that.

Um, so I've looked into Ayurveda before and tried to categorize myself into one of these body types, and I don't fit into any of them. Um, and as for— I mean, it's like, it, it's it's, it feels for me like not a practical way to categorize myself.

Mm-hmm.

And comes to anxiety, anger, and depression. I have had all three of them.

Mm-hmm.

And this brings up a question of, um, especially anxiety as, as you can see. Um, what about like psychology and childhood and adult abuse, abuse as causes, um, rather than body type? Or, well, I guess the body type isn't— I don't know, like I'm very deep into psychology and I understand like my psychology and such, like, but And I can't categorize myself, so I don't know which body type I am because it all seems very like, yeah, random.

Yeah. Thank you for sharing all that, Lucia. I know it takes a lot of bravery to speak up. It's nerve-wracking even for me, even any— everybody to speak up when there is a big gathering. Um, thank you for being brave. You could be a tridoshik body type, a person who has vata, pitta, and kapha together. And if we have gone through unpleasant experiences and we have a propensity to feel a certain emotion more than others, then We do remedies based on the emotion we are feeling, based on the, let's say, anxiety or anger or withdrawal or, uh, becoming immobile. So we're gonna apply the opposite of that quality. Anxiety is caused by dryness, by cold, so we're going to apply the quality of warmth. Unctuous, oily foods so that our body retains water more and the Vata reduces. If we are feeling anger, then we are going to add sweetness, coolness, uh, to our environment and our food so that the anger can be reduced. If you are feeling immobile and sad, depressed, then we are going to do enlivening things. Music that is more enlivening, foods that are spicier, friends that are more cheerful. So we're going to surround ourselves with people who we know are going to pull us out of our— that feeling of like, oh, I don't want to go anywhere. So we're going to apply remedies like that. And like I said, there are exceptions. Of people who don't fit into any of these categories. And when we don't fit into those categories, we apply the remedies to whatever is coming up in our life on a daily basis. Does that help, Lucia?

Yes, I think so. Hopefully. More light will be shed when we do the whole, the workshop.

Oh, I'm excited that you'll be joining us. Thank you so much. Anybody else wants to ask a question? How do we get on your email list? Um, go to my Podia. Let me, let me drop my Podia. I just returned last week from India and I haven't done any of this, so please bear with me. Okay, I am dropping my Podia link. So anybody who wants to join my email list, just go to Podia, and then it has a pop-up that says, I want to join your newsletters. And then there also, I send all the information on my— I have a group on WhatsApp. So if you join that group, that's where I add all the announcements, and I give priority discounts. And, you know, I whatever is happening in my life, I use that as a teaching moment with Ayurveda and I share. So if you want to join my WhatsApp group, that's another way. To join the WhatsApp group, you will have to go to my Instagram. I'm sorry, this is all such a roundabout way. And if you hit on my stories, you will see I have posted the link there. And I will also send my WhatsApp group link to all those who registered to today's workshop so that you all have it. So I'll share my Podia, all the links. Yeah, I'll send you all an email later today.

Fabulous.

Any other questions about the workshop? Liz? Yes, dear.

Hi, Salila Sukumaran. I do have a question. I am very intrigued and very interested by how you spoke about being able to come up with remedies based on emotions. And I loved how you connected it back to the constitutions based on our body, the elements that make up Earth, or like us as a whole. I think it all ties back to this universal idea. And personally, I'm just asking this for myself because I think I do have a kapha body type. But recently I have been struggling with acne issues, so I think it's more like hormonal issues. So is that something that the remedies will also be useful for?

Mm-hmm. So see, acne is something that is a symptom of a deeper issue. Right? Like you said, hormonal, right? So the emotion happened, then it took many months for it to become a hormonal imbalance, and then it took many months for it to manifest itself as acne. So now if we work on just the emotion, that's not enough. Now we have to work on the body, we have to work on restoring balance in the body. So I have other courses where I go into the whole protocol for how to manage hormonal imbalances. And I, I will not be able to cover that in the 5-day workshop because the 5-day workshop is more about understanding our body type, understanding the challenges of the body type, having better relationships, and then understanding how to remedy those first signs of imbalance in the mind. Acne is like the 5th or the 6th step of an imbalance.

I guess what I may be looking for is something that could be potentially a lot more prescriptive, like something that brings us back to the root cause.

Yes, right.

I have, I think, at least 20 courses on different health issues on my Podia. And I would invite you to go take a look and see if anything resonates with you. They're all very reasonably priced. And if you want to work one-on-one with me, that's available as well. So depending on what you feel it will best take care of your needs right now.

Yeah, because personally, I'm coming more from an educational perspective, trying to understand also like What, what is the approach that Ayurveda is using to help people solve problems today? Which is something that intrigues me. And I think it's, it's really interesting to see the magic that it's been— it's creating with many years of history supporting this science.

Yeah. Yes.

For—

from an educational point of view, if you wanted to see something that works for everybody irrespective, I would ask you to look at Dinacharya. Dinacharya is daily rituals that are supportive for our health, and I'm going to launch a Dinacharya webinar and a, you know, a like an 8-day boot camp. So we are all doing all the Dinacharya rituals, the daily rituals, on a daily basis for about 8 to 10 days together. I'm going to do that, uh, in this month itself. So I will announce that in my Instagram, on my WhatsApp, and everywhere. However, we— now there are, there are remedies we can give to everybody, and then there are focused remedies for each pathology. Since Ayurveda is a big, big, big ocean, that's the way I have created based on the needs of my clients. Because many people will come to me and say, Salila, your one-on-one is I cannot afford it. Can you please do a group healing session? So then for people, let's say, have PCOS, people who have hormonal imbalance, people who have fertility challenges, I've created these specific protocols to help them. So they are receiving the benefit of a group healing at a lower price. And then people come to me and say, Salila Sukumaran, we just want a generic thing so that my health is maintained. So I create these generic programs for everybody, irrespective of what individual challenges they may be facing. Whether they do a generic thing or they do these individual-focused remedies, the results speak for themselves. Does that help?

Yeah, maybe I'll just look through your current offerings and I'll just reach out if I have any inquiries. Thank you so much.

Absolutely, Liz. Let's talk to— who is P? Sorry, dear, I don't see your name. And then we'll come to Vedanshi. Vedanshi, Vedanshi, please unmute yourself and ask your question.

So actually, I have a question regarding the doshas. Um, so like I typed in the chat box, for example, if I see my hair, it's thin, so it means Vata. It has a shine and it's brown, so it means Pitta. So how do you understand what type is it? Because it has multiple dosha symptoms, characteristics.

Take the dosha quiz. So Like I said, every body part— you do, you're on the right track— every body part has characteristics of Vata, Pitta, and Kapha because it's made up of the 5 elements, right? And the 5 elements make the 3 doshas. So every body part will have Vata, Pitta, and Kapha. Some body parts will have a predominance of it, but there are specific questions which are asked to determine whether you are a Vata, a Pitta, or a Kapha person. So we have to look at those questions. So if you go to the quiz, the link of the quiz that I shared, I can reshare that again, it will be helpful. And then also go to my blog and read the Vata, Pitta, Kapha in detail. That will also be helpful for you.

Thank you.

Absolutely, Vedanshi.

Here you go. It's Salila Sukumaran. It's Liz, I guess. Liz is raising hand from a long time. So it's Liz.

I'm sorry, I forgot to put down my hand. Let me put it down.

Okay.

No worries. Okay, who else? There was somebody else who had their hands up who didn't speak up. I'm sorry. Is there anybody else who has a question?

So I put my hand up again.

Lucia, yes, dear.

Yeah, I— so I noticed I was interested in hand mudras and learning how to use those, and I was wondering the connection because they also have the fire air, ether, earth, and water elements in the fingers. So can you connect that to Ayurveda?

Yeah, so mudras are also healing. However, just like they are part of the remedies, remedy. So first is understanding what's the issue. The workshop is all about understanding the body type and the challenges. Understanding our own unique ways we've shown up. Like, I am a Vata Pitta, but if I had 100 other Vata Pittas in the room, each of those Vata Pittas would be different. Each of our challenges would be different. The ways we, uh, the issues in our bodies would be all different, right? So We, the Vedic sciences of India, have given us all these tools to heal our body through diet, through lifestyle, through mudras, through mantra, through chanting, through rituals, through fire ceremonies, through yoga. All these beautiful ways of healing ourselves. Whatever calls to us, we do that. Like when I am speaking, I'll usually do a Gyan Mudra here under, so you guys are not seeing it, but I'm holding a Gyan Mudra. So I do the Gyan Mudra so that I can access my knowledge, I can balance my energies, because when my cat is interrupting me, when, you know, people are coming in and out, or something is happening in my own mind, naturally my train of thoughts will drop. So I assume the mudra to bring my train of thoughts back. So mudras are very powerful. I believe in them. When I'm, when I'm feeling very, uh, like disconnected from my femininity, I do the Yoni mudra. I, you know, I sit like this and then I feel connected. It makes me calm. Just doing this makes me calm. Just try it. Just bring your hands together like this.

Ah.

And just holding that, we are bringing our fingers together. And then like this.

This is also another mudra though that I learned.

I can't remember what it is.

When you hold it like, like this, like this, isn't it two different mudras?

You know, I know that this mudra is called something else as well online, but this is what I learned from my Kundalini training. As the Yoni mudra. So I know some people do Yoni mudra like this, but this is what I learned. So different teachers will have different ways of explaining things, and there may be overlaps. So we just go with what we believe in.

So can I learn how to use the mudras through—

are you red-eyed?

Better also.

I don't teach mudras right now. I'm myself a student of mudras, but Ashish has a lot of courses on fischri, so you can look at it. I'm also learning about mudras. Yeah, anybody else has a question?

Uh, Salila, please Can you just go through the chat box and see what queries we can take at this moment? And then I guess it's already time. Yes. Yeah. So quickly, please go through the chat box.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay. I see that you've also answered a lot of questions. Thank you for sharing that, Lucia. We understand this is a safe place We will hold you and make the accommodations that are required for you to feel like you got something out of this. Yeah, Lisa sharing that she tries to hold Kyanamudra when teaching and lecturing. Yes, I totally get that. I'm like that as well.

No, I don't. I'm going to now that I've heard that you do that. Thanks for the tip. Yeah, but I do use mudras a lot. And Lucia, mudras are really powerful and well worth learning about. I highly recommend. Thanks, Salila Sukumaran.

Yes, yes, totally. Ganesh wants me to share the drink ingredients and the procedure to make. Ganesh, how about you join our WhatsApp group? And then I'll send you the reel because that'll be the easiest for you to understand. But the simple way is half a teaspoon of cumin, half a teaspoon of coriander, half a teaspoon of fennel, a pinch of— large pinch of carom. Pop it on a hot griddle, put it into 1 liter of water, bring it to a rolling boil for about 5 minutes, simmer it, and then Drink it.

Okay.

Okay, Preeti, thank you for purchasing the course. Excited to have you. Yay for Preeti! And does everyday yoga help to balance vata? 100%, 100%, 100%. But it has to be We have to do the right kind of yoga. If there is— Alison, thank you for joining. I'm glad you joined. We just announced the workshop. So if you can join the workshop, that'll be great. We'll have the recording shared with everybody. So you can look, listen through, see if you missed anything. We start in 2 days. So yes. Um, let me see. Thank you, Dar. Okay, Kanish had some questions about the workshop. I think we've— excessive Vata, is it possible to reestablish? Uh, Isa is asking about excessive Vata leading to clinical depression. Is it possible to reestablish chemical balance only through Ayurveda? 100%. It's possible. 100%. It's possible unless it's really far gone. Then in that case, I'm not about like strictly, strictly Ayurveda and don't do anything else. I'm like, use all the tools that is available for us. If it helps using medication and drugs to bring that serotonin dopamine level high, Go for it. And on the side, do Ayurveda, because Ayurveda will never harm. Ayurveda will only help. Lucia, if you don't have WhatsApp, it's okay. Just stay connected with, with the newsletters, then you will, um you will know. Or, or through Instagram. I'm, I'm always making announcements on Instagram, Instagram stories. Kavita says amazing session. Thank you so much. I'm not seeing any specific— okay, Vedanshi has already asked her question. For Vatas, any oils that are beneficial? Sesame oil is beneficial for all body types, so all body types can, uh, use it. I want to get Lisa's choke.

Ah.

Yeah, this— I understand what you're saying there about not loving all these apps on our phones, but that's the only way we stay in touch with our long-distance friends and family. Well, friends, thank you so much for being part of this masterclass today. Send me your notes, send me what you learned. If anybody wants to unmute and tell me what was an aha moment for them, I would love to hear from you. Unmute yourself and tell me what— if there was anything that really resonated with you. And if you've signed up for the workshop, yay, yay, yay! I'm excited to have you. Please unmute yourself and let me know because it gives me energy. You know, Ashish and I did this out of our personal time, out of our wish to serve the world. So when you give us feedback and say, I really liked something, that gives us energy. Kriti, Kriti, look at your hair.

Hi, Salila.

It's so good to see you after so many months and be part of this platform that you hold for us. It was a quick revision. I entered a little late because I was having my early dinner, following it still. It's getting really hot. I did put my question in the chat, but I think there are a lot of messages, so you must have missed them. Uh, so yeah, that's okay. Um, so it's getting really hot here in India. I'm sure you know because you've returned just now. Um, so is there any cooling drink that we can use to keep the Pitta in control, in balance, because it's becoming unbearable? And unfortunately, where I stay, I don't have an air conditioner as an option for myself. So I have been trying to use the basil seeds, which we call sabja seeds here, in water. It's not helping me so much. And I do remember from previous workshops you had said that buttermilk would be heating post-lunch. So I don't know now what to replace buttermilk with. So if you could help me with this, it will help me manage my Pitta in this season. Thank you.

This is Absolutely. This is the time we unabashedly drink lots of sugarcane juice, lots of coconut water, lots of lemonade, lots of sugary drinks. Have a mud pot in your kitchen and store drinks in that and drink these cooling drinks, which are like at least 6 degrees lesser than the room temperature, or stick it in the fridge. And when you see that it's not like really, really cold, but about 6 degrees lower than room temperature, you can drink that. That is safe to drink without hurting your body. So don't hesitate drinking sugar. Sugar is going to cool you. So have lots of mishri, kaand sugar, which is rock sugar. Don't hesitate eating rock sugar.

Thank you. I hope to reconnect with you soon.

I look forward to it. Kriti took my classes earlier. She's done a cleanse with me. She's a major, major supporter, and I'm so grateful that she was able to find her health through Ayurveda. Anybody else wants to share a few words of gratitude? What you learned, some aha moments.

I would like to, before I log off, I would like to say thank you. I enjoyed it very much. I did know a lot of it already because, as I had said, I've studied for quite some time, not enough, but I studied in, in Kerala. And I would love to study further, and I am pretty sure that you'll see me again. So I just want to say thank you. Any aha moments more that, yeah, just reinforcing that we have this gut feeling, this instinct that we should learn to grow more and trust. And I think that especially in the West, people have lost that ability. I had a little aha moment with that because it's something that has been in my mind for a lot, and you have reinforced that. There was something else regarding depression and anxiety, because I am Pitta Kapha, but I suffer massively from clinical depression. I have in the past, and addiction, which I would put more to Pitta with the anger and everything. And anxiety has come later in life, now in the last 10 years due to circumstances, no doubt. So that was— those were little, little aha moments that kind of help give me a little bit of a push to keep going in the right direction. So thank you very much.

Thank you, Lisa, for sharing that. Really honored.

Goodbye to all of you.

Yes.

Anybody else wants to share?

Hi, Salila.

This is Rekha.

Really, I liked your session. And I think it will gonna help my balance Vata. I am a Vata person, so I am excited to learn more from you. And, uh, aha moment is you told like, um, with the diet and sleep and proper, uh, some steps, uh, that will help you to balance Vata. That's aha moment for me. Really appreciate it.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you so much, Rekha, for showing up for yourself. Anybody else wants to go before we say bye? We're already 15 minutes over due.

Hi, Salila.

Maybe I'll—

I'm sorry.

Yes, yes, we do too.

That's okay, go ahead.

Okay, I'll go first.

Yeah, thanks, Salila.

I think it was an amazing session for me. For me, the aha moment was when you talked about the remedies and then you linked it back to the constitutions of the body. And I love how I think it kind of— I was able to connect the dots on how we can— it all makes sense because it's linked to the elements of the universe. And I really love how you're encouraging everyone to tune in to the needs of their body rather than to just follow good concoctions out there. Yeah, I think that's very empowering.

Oh, thank you. That's what I'm all about. Yes, thank you for repeating that, Liz.

Also, Salila, are you in California right now?

Yes, I'm in the Bay Area.

Okay, all right, just wanted to know where you were.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sad I'm here, but I'm happy now. I was sad all these days, but I think for me, community is big. When I connect and when I serve, I start to feel happy.

Yeah.

Yeah. Thank you so much, Patti D.

Who else wants to go?

Hi, Salila Sukumaran.

I came in late. However, there was still a bit of an aha moment. I think there always is when I join you. So thank you for your wisdom. For me, it was connecting with our ancestry. Um, I came in today just for a refresher. I'm pretty versed in the doshas and, and this part of Ayurveda, and I love this piece that you add. Not all practitioners add this, but to really look at our ancestry, what our lineage has been eating. And I'm of like South Asian descent, but raised in the Caribbean, so of diaspora. And it's been really interesting connecting with my lineage in this way to kind of reconnect with what we've known and what we've been able to keep. But I also found that when I went to Africa, specifically West Africa, the food digested so well and suits me so well. And it was just a really interesting exploration that actually a lot of South Asia and African food has very similar base, very similar spices. And so when we're looking at our ancestry, the aha moment for me was, oh, there's probably somewhere down the line a connection between my South Asian and African ancestors.

So thank you for that.

Yeah, yeah.

A lot of, you know, that Horn of Africa, like that's called the Horn, right? That part, that's from where India broke apart and came down. And I swear there are women in Kerala, in my own family, who could, who look like totally like Eritrean, Somalian, that, that West African part. I don't know if I'm right on my geography. But that's what I think. So much similarity in facial features.

Yes, I see it a lot. Thank you.

Thank you for sharing that. Chelsea, right?

Yeah.

Wonderful. Yeah, I don't know, for some reason I can't tell who is speaking. So there you are. I see you now.

Yeah.

Anybody else wants to go before we say bye? Ashish, is there any closing thoughts you want to share with the group here?

Uh, no, Salila Sukumaran, nothing particular. All, uh, I just want to say whoever has registered so far, we have got around 10, I guess. I will see and check, but they will get the confirmation very soon. So thank you so much for being patient and Whoever registered, we'll see you in the workshop.

Hi, Salila Sukumaran. This is Nupur. Sorry to cut you in between. Just a quick thing. My internet connection was not smooth. Will the recordings be provided for this session?

Yes, we will provide recordings. Yeah.

Thank you so much. Thank you for the session. Thanks for your time.

Absolutely. Was there any aha moment for you? Was there anything that you are walking away with that's like, oh, I wish I had known that before, or wow, this is so—

yeah, there's so many things, but unfortunately I was interrupted by another call from India, so I could not listen the whole session. That's why I was— but Ayurveda is something which is very close to my heart because I'm I'm actually an Art of Living teacher. So I just connect with all, especially the 3 doshas and all these things. It really fascinates me. But yeah, I would love to listen to the recorded session and any doubts or any clarifications, I will get back to you. But a lot of gratitude for you for this time, for your time, I'm so grateful for you. Thank you so much.

Thank you, Nupurji. What an honor that an Art of Living teacher is here among us. Well, everybody, thank you.

Thanks to each one of you for your blessings.

Thanks.

Take good care, everyone, and we'll hopefully see many of you in the workshop. Whatever you saw today was a preview. There's more, more, much, much more to come. It'll be a journey of discovery and excitement and, uh, different perspectives, different ways of looking things and healing our bodies and keeping our body vibrant and juicy with health. Take good care, everybody. Namaste.