Self-Care to Support Your Purpose with Vaidya Jay [Episode #549]

This week’s topic is: Self-Care to Support Your Purpose with Vaidya Jay

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Vaidya Jay, who is a renowned Ayurvedic professor and physician. Listen in as Vaidya Jay talks about a deeper way to look at self-care, how we can really use it to help support our purpose, using our four cornerstones, and what are the best ways to really care for ourselves right now, here in winter.

[BULLETS]

• #1 Cornerstone: Food and which ones to add into your Beauty Detox/Solluna routine…
• #2 Cornerstone: The body and how to strengthen your scalp and hair health…
• #3 Cornerstone: Emotional wellbeing and tips on how to take care of your mental health…
• #4 Cornerstone: Spiritual growth and how to incorporate chanting into your meditation practice…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

About Vaidya Jay

Vaidya Jayagopal Parla (Jay) is a world-renowned speaker. professor of Ayurvedic medicine and a NAMA registered practitioner. Jay has more than 23 years of experience in Ayurvedic practice and teaching.

Jayagopal Parla (Jay) holds a Masters in Ayurvedic Medicine from Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences. Bangalore. India. He also holds a Masters in Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine from Southern California University of Health Sciences and is a certified Yoga teacher.

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Vaidya Jay’s Interview

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Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• Finding Your Passion and Living a Fulfilled Life
• Your Energy: Out With The Old and In With The New
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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Welcome back to our Monday interview podcast, where we have one of my favorite guests back by popular demand, Vaidya Jay. Vaidya is the Sanskrit word for doctor, and he’s requested that we call him that going forward. So in the past, I’ve called him Dr. Jay a billion times, but Vaidya Jay is back with us to share some of his amazing Ayurvedic wisdom.

Kimberly : 00:36 Today we’re going to be talking about a deeper way to look at self-care, how we can really use it to help support our purpose, and of course our four cornerstones and what are the best ways to really care for ourselves right now, here in winter.

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Kimberly : 00:52 But before we go into it, I just want to give you a little reminder to please leave us a review on iTunes, which is free and easy, and just takes a moment. It’s such an amazing way to support the show. So thank you so much in advance, right from my heart. And also, please be sure to subscribe to our show, and that way you don’t miss out on any of these interview podcasts or our Thursday Q&A community show, which are questions that come right from our community. All right. All that being said, let’s get right into our interview today with Vaidya Jay.

Interview: Self-Care to Support Your Purpose with Vaidya Jay

Kimberly: 00:03 Okay. So, first of all, thank you so much for coming back on our podcast. I want to announce to everybody that I’ve been calling you Dr. J for however long I’ve known you for, five, six years; but now we are transitioning to Vedya J, which is the Sanskrit term. It’s the more traditional term for Ayurvedic doctor. So, I’ll have to retrain my brain to say Vedya J, not Dr. Jay.

Vaidya Jay: 00:27 No, it’s a very powerful word. Vedya, also means one who has learned the traditional knowledge of Vedas too. So, if you look back into those Ayurvedic practitioners who came to this country, probably in 1970s through Maha shi Mahesh Yogi, they were all called us Vedyas. So there was one Vedya Tricurnath there was Vedya Artimishra. So these people were called as Vedyas and then later, the doctor word came and in India too. They all would always address, Ayurvedic practitioners or doctors as Vedyas.

Kimberly: 01:11 Dr. Jay, when you talk about, you know, when we talk about the Vedas and we hear this term Vedic philosophy; it does mean anything derived from the Vedas. So includes Ayurveda and yoga and all these ancient texts. Anything from the Vedas is Vedic knowledge, is that right?

Vaidya Jay: 01:31 It encompasses everything that has to do with a positive life which is geared not only towards physical, you know vibrancy, health, and so on, but mental integrity, and most important is this spiritual direction that these Vedic way of thinking and philosophy brings us. So that’s what it’s called as Vedic or Vedas, means to know. Vede, the Sanskrit [inaudible 00:02:07] in of the route form Veda is Vede, Vede means guide yourself towards spirituality.

Kimberly: 02:15 Wow. And I remember from you, Dr. Jay from one of our classes at the beginning of our program, there was four Vedic texts. You know, we hear a lot about the Bhagavad Gita, are the yoga sutra, was that part of one of the texts or is that separate Patanjali sutra?

Vaidya Jay: 02:31 The first of the four Vedas which go back maybe 10 to 12,000 years of timeframe. Once the Vedas were written, Vedas were written in a very unique way, that is said as, “heard and discover”. So, deep state of meditation, the [inaudible 00:03:01] or the sages, they grasp them, and then decoded it after getting these information’s they started decoding. So it is not an imagine knowledge, but rather a court that came in and then it was deciphered. So, that’s why Sanskrit is such a unique language, you get the sound first and then you look the meaning for it. So, it is a very special type of a knowledge, which doesn’t come from human consciousness at all. It comes from somewhat higher consciousness.

Kimberly: 03:38 And the Atharvaveda, the most recent one has the knowledge of aryuveda in it?

Vaidya Jay: 03:44 Yeah, so for that matter Ayurveda does seem to be part of health and wellbeing, right. From the conception of Rigveda, because we find about 126 Herb’s that have been mentioned for various things. It may be for, five ceremonies, for sacrificing in a Firestone ceremony or, offering it to the fire so that it can be distributed into the environment and everybody in that region gets the benefit of this herb being offered. So, it was seen in that way to promote health in the Rigveda itself. The herbs were used the knowledge of, you know, somewhat like wellbeing and medicine was existing. By the time of Rigveda to Atharvaveda this knowledge had grown.

Kimberly: 04:34 So Rigveda was the earliest and Atharvaveda was the fourth

Vaidya Jay: 04:39 Yeah, fourth one, by the fourth one it was a body of knowledge that somebody has to dedicate time and effort in learning it rather than just a general life information. So they separated it and then they gave it an identity as healing science.

Kimberly: 05:00 Is the yoga sutras by Patanjali though, was that in one of the Vedas or was that considered a separate ancient text?

Vaidya Jay: 05:09 Yeah, so post Vedic knowledge, because once the Vedas were given, people used it for their spiritual life and growth and general, you know, 100 years of living, that’s what it inspires us to do in Vedic knowledge. Then people had a tough time after a few generations to understand what is this, how to decipher the Vedic knowledge. So there were commentaries and sub knowledge that is called Vedanta. Vedanta is the schools of philosophy, which took different aspects of Vedas and started `expanding on that knowledge because if whatever was coded needed to be encoded in a way that human mind can understand. So, yoga, then sankia, there’s another school of thought called Sankia where everything is counted. Sankia is identified atoms as the physical makeup of the universe, I’m talking like maybe 3000 years ago they, knew that there are atoms that can create this universe because of mutual attraction, mind boggling right? So Sankia takes care of all the numbers, you know, what number of things make up this? How does the mind, you know, make up, what are the, you know, pieces of mind? So that is Sankia then we have,

Kimberly: 06:38 Oh, sorry Vedya to interrupt, but does that include sacred geometry and shapes?

Vaidya Jay: 06:45 Yeah. So sacred geometry we call it as Vastu. Vastu is also extended into your living space. So how do you arrange things in a way that the universe has a better flow towards you; whoever is living in that house. That’s again, sacred geometry. Sankia deals with some of that, and then we have the Niyaya. Niyaya means, the always way, various aspects and then finally give out an answer which is more near to the truth. That is, Niyaya. So Niyaya philosophy also exists [inaudible 00:07:28] so these are like six schools of philosophy that came after Vedas and yoga is one among them. Yoga’s purpose is to make sure that we have an abundance flow of prana in us so that we don’t get constricted or congested from our spiritual growth, or shy away from our responsibilities because that’s the purpose of yoga.

Kimberly: 07:52 Oh, this is a perfect segue Doctor J into our topic today. You and I, I could nerd out with you. I love all the intellectual part, but, we want to add in the practical as well. And Dr. Jay, Vedya J. Since we last spoke, we launched our Solluna app and very excitingly have a whole membership portal which is for our Solluna Circle. So we have a theme every month and if anybody is listening are interested please come check it out it’s amazing. We have a zoom call every month, Vaidya and we have tips, and our theme this month is prioritizing self care.

Vaidya Jay: 08:31 Which is my favorite topic.

Kimberly: 08:36 I feel like you were just saying, about, the idea is bringing us towards our spiritual growth it’s about something deeper. Which is why we have our cornerstone. So I want to break that down today with you, Vedya from the Ayurvedic perspective, food body, emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth. But first when I think about self care, to me, it’s like people get really confused and they think, Oh maybe I should do more baths or more masks or you know, more stuff in the bathroom, or maybe I need to do more working out. Underneath that, behind that, to me self-care is really about nurturing our energy. You know, are we depleted? Do we need to build up? Are we overtaxing our nervous system and we need to calm down? So in a deeper sense, to me, self care is bringing us back towards balance. Can you share the argument?

Vaidya Jay: 09:29 Yeah, so self care for me is as a passenger or the driver of a vehicle, you can’t be just polishing your car, vacuuming it, taking it over its engine, changing the engine oil. All that is great, but you cannot forget the destination that you’re heading to. You can spend as much time as you want to take care of the car, but you can never forget that destination. So to reach the destination, that is to realize your true purpose, and in Ayurveda that that is the key to self care. Self care here is to uplift every experience that you’re having as a human being from human consciousness to God consciousness. That’s what the self care is all about. Yes.

Kimberly: 10:40 Finding the will of spirit?

Vaidya Jay: 10:45 Goal will be to know your true potential, that you exist not just in the body, that you exist beyond the body. That’s that empowerment where you lose your fear, where you lose your anger and sadness, because you feel a greater presence; because when you feel only that you’re in this car and just looking in car, rather than going to the destination, enjoying every part of the journey reaching the destination is what Ayurvedic routine teaches us.

Kimberly: 11:23 Vedya I read this article that talked about the Geeva Apman, this idea that we’re becoming, so we’re human, but then there’s this divine part inside of us. And I think sometimes it’s hard for the modern person to unite those.I know for me sometimes you know I want to live up here I want to be in my meditations, but then there’s the humanness and there’s the part of us that is stumbling along making mistakes, trying to figure things out. What’s your, because then sometimes I think, I simplify things and I focus less and less on the physical, because I want to be with the divine, but the truth is that we are having an embodied experience we are here, we have this human part. So tell me, Dr. Vedya J about your perspective of uniting the humanity and the divinity within us.

Vaidya Jay: 12:19 Yeah, very nice way of thinking, I exist. Yes, I exist in the body. That is the hardcore truth that in this time and space I need to exist in the body. I need my car to get to my destination I cannot ignore that. So the balance when you want to be in your body to carry out the things that are necessary to be taken care in this mundane life, with the body and mind working together, right. So that balance of body and mind being together is defined as a present moment. This present moment is an integration of yourself with what you want to be or what you like to be in the spiritual [inaudible 00:13:27] . So the, every daily routine or experience, or, work, or service that we are doing should bring the alignment of being body and mind together. I’m bringing that moment to the highest spiritual cause.

Kimberly: 13:53 Right.

Vaidya Jay: 13:53 So people may say, okay, I have a spiritual practice in the morning. I do my meditation for 20 minutes or 30 minutes and then I carry on with my day. That’s not true. Your meditation is an affirmation that you exist now, and you will exist throughout the day with the same consciousness. That I exist in the body, but my purpose is this. That’s what you are constantly reinforcing, and for our listeners, it is not difficult to achieve. And that’s the secret of Ayurvedic routine, yoga, is that they give what we call as a capsule or a small window into that consciousness that we are all about. And they make all through the day so that we don’t get distracted by sensory distractions or our mental emotional distractions. So the purpose of these daily routines and meditation and yoga used to check, there’re checkpoints. Okay, during the day, before you eat, you have a checkpoint, before you go out to walk there’s a checkpoint. So these checkpoints are what are making us to come back to this state that is your completeness of body mind together and enjoying every experience that you’re having.

Kimberly: 15:34 So Vedya like again, we have this practice, we have the tools of Ayurveda. We have the divinity inside of us, what Yogananda calls, the true self that we’re working to connect with, and then we have the human part. And the human part sometimes messes up by Vedya as you know sometimes we eat a bunch of sugar or, we get up and we’re grumpy and we’re really mean, so we get a lot of questions here about confidence and about shame. People feel bad about themselves for things they’ve done or they mess up in different ways. What would be the Ayurvedic approach about again, just this really interesting line I’ve been reading about lately the Geeva Apman, we’re becoming, we’re coming into our truth, but there’s a perfect part of us too. So there’s this duality inside the unity, it’s like interesting. So, when we beat ourselves up we hold onto stuff, you know, you work with a lot of women Vedya. You see like women especially I think taken we’re very sensitive. What would you say about that

Vaidya Jay: 16:37 For all of our listeners you know, I want to give this simile. In those ancient times we used to have lanterns, the lanterns where you have kerosene or, and you know lit. And then there is a glass covering on the top so that the wind cannot disturb it and then you can hold it and then walk around. So we have that, we have the light within, right. We have in that lantern we have a light, but we also have soot that collects from time to time on the glass. So the soot is what our mistakes and the guilt of mistake that we carry. Okay. So the soot will, after some time, the light will start becoming more and more dim and less clear because the soot is kind of accumulating and accumulating because our human nature is to do mistakes. That’s how we learn. That’s how we move on from what is low to high. So it is okay to accumulate that suit around us, but, instead thinking about, oh this black soot is bothering me, just make an attempt to clean it so that your light can come through that.

Kimberly: 17:57 What do you mean by that Exactly. Dr. J, all the things we’ve done, you mean identified with the light and so it comes off, or how would you suggest cleaning off the soot?

Vaidya Jay: 18:10 Acknowledge that the light exists, otherwise, [inaudible 00:18:13] then you will think there is not light at all, you start doubting.

Kimberly: 18:19 Exactly, this is our true identity. This is not who we really are.

Vaidya Jay: 18:22 Correct, so then we look at all this darkness and then we start identifying us with this dark soot that is around us. So, the attempt for that is what do you do exactly Kimberly? Like doing things that lighten your body, like, drinking those detoxes to help the body to cleanse up because there is a physical soot, there is emotional soot there is egoistic soot that kind of accumulates around us. So cleaning that up is an everyday process, a daily process.

Kimberly: 18:53 Vedya this seems like a perfect time to go into our cornerstones, Dr. Jay, so we can get some detail here, food, body, emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth, and we can tailor your tips today around cleaning off the soot. And also a little bit, you know obviously seasonal because it’s winter, it’s cold for a lot of people although for us in Southern California it’s not been a very cold winter. Can we break it down if we are looking to keep going deeper into our practice, into our purpose, into best self-care for winter; what’s the best thing right now food wise, Dr. Jay, sorry, Vedya J

Vaidya Jay: 19:37 It’s a nice practice for all our listeners, that shift is happening, okay he was Dr j now he’s Vedya J. So it’s great.

Kimberly: 19:45 Next time I’ll get used to it. Yeah.

#1 Cornerstone: Food and which ones to add into your Beauty Detox/Solluna routine

Vaidya Jay: 19:50 So the routine or the diet things that need to be done during this winter season is something that is very grounding. If we look at what’s happening in nature everything is in dormancy, right?

Kimberly: 20:08 Yes.

Vaidya Jay: 20:09 In the past, what we used to do is whatever we gathered during the abundant times of nature, like, fruits and flowers, fruits, grains, etc. We gained them, we stored them, in the winter, we eat them because nothing is available in the nature. So similarly animals do exactly the same thing, the big animals like beer I mean bear and all that they go into a hibernation. So this time is when you want to build, right. This is a time when you want to really nourish your body. It’s also recommended in Ayurveda that one should eat to full capacity.

Kimberly: 20:55 Oh is it, wow

Vaidya Jay: 21:02 Right? That’s because your metabolism is at the highest because everything is cold in this textbook of [inaudible 00:21:12] they say that, cold wind touches the skin, body becomes cold, but body has to warm it warm itself up to ward off or to move away or to face the cold. So they say that one should, that change, automatically makes our metabolism and digestion and gut to go very strong to digest things and produce heat. And winter is a great season or great time to improve your meditation practice as well.

Kimberly: 21:52 Yes. So, but food wise, give us more specifics, Dr. Jay, more fat, more coconut?

Vaidya Jay: 21:59 Seeds, very much seeds will be, and then nuts, which are again stored from the other season from the summer and fall you gathered all of them now they are ready, which have good oil in them can be used like coconut, for example, in something sprinkling coconut on your salad if you’re making a salad it’s a great choice. Nuts like Brazilian nuts and almonds and things like that, which you, always count on for a good nourishing diet. Nut butters are great in this season. So something that’s very, very substantial and then on top of it, you’re going to do lentils, beans, which are also great. So combining oils with the lentils and beans is the secret to making a very strong substantial diet in this season Kimberly.

Kimberly: 23:08 So I think a lot of us are drawn to the warm foods, Vedya, like the Khichdi the lentils, I’m not eating as many. I still have my smoothie closer to room temperature, but more cooked veggies, less salads naturally right now. What is, I also have been eating a lot of sourdough bread Vedya, which seems to work with my system, like with avocado. How does that play out seasonally? I think there’s obviously different breads in the arguments to.

Vaidya Jay: 23:39 Yeah, so breads are okay too. Grains are also part of harvesting and storing that we have done as humans for thousands of years. Fermenting dough is a very important process, because it makes things to digest easily.

Kimberly: 23:56 Yes.

Vaidya Jay: 23:57 Rather than just baking something without fermenting, because, fermenting process in Ayurveda is seen as an “agni” infusing process. Agni in the sense metabolism infusing process. So sourdough bread is welcome in this season again, you may have to eat that with little olive oil dipped in or, olive oil with some spices, like what Italians do. that can be done. Avocado is a great choice, nut butters can be smothered on that and then eaten, but, mostly bread should be eaten at lunchtime rather than dinner time. Because bread has a tendency to slow down the metabolism, in terms of its movement, not in digestion, but movement becomes slower when you’d love bread. So how listeners can do this, of course, if they are okay with gluten and if they don’t have any issues with gluten, flour bread is the best choice to do work in this season.

Kimberly: 24:58 What about spices Vedya right now, or things to cook with. Great choices, best choices?

Vaidya Jay: 25:06 Best choices will be, we will divide the spices into two categories, pungent spices and sweet spices. Pungent spices will be like black pepper, then we can also use ginger, of course these are two versatile things we always use. Ginger, dry ginger can be bought in the season so if you are cooking something like I, myself, when I do my oatmeal nowadays I put a dry ginger powder on it when it is cooking, dry ginger and jaggery combination. You should try that. Dried ginger with oatmeal and jaggery sprinkled on top with some raisins or something like, very good combination, because the dry ginger has the ability to keep the small channels of the body open; because winter is a time when everything gets kind of clogged, so you want to keep the channels of the body open so that the [inaudible 00:26:05] can flow, food can flow, fluids can flow efficiently. So, ginger powder, dry ginger powder would be a great thing, yeah.

Kimberly: 26:13 When would you use ginger powder as opposed to just small slices, the thin slices or regular ginger?

Vaidya Jay: 26:20 So, regular ginger has more digestive actions. So when you’re eating food, if you eat ginger raw, it helps to balance out your secretions from the stomach, activates the intestines, helps to eliminate, that’s the wet ginger. Whereas, Ayurveda says dry ginger is more for respiratory health. So it is drying in nature, it’s much more pungent than the wet one and what it does is in the morning, usually in this season because the cold also needs things to get congested in the nasal passages and throat and all that. So, the dry ginger used in the morning is what opens up the channels of the Prana in the hodden neck regions, secretions will be gone, sinuses will become much more clear. So the winter spice in the morning will be dry ginger, the winter spice in the afternoon will be wet ginger. So both can be used.

Kimberly: 00:00 And I was saying, what are the other categories?

Vaidya Jay: 00:07 The sweet spices.

Kimberly: 00:07 What are the second category of spices Dr. Jay? We talked about ginger a little bit, the black pepper, the pungent. And then you said something about the sweet spices.

Vaidya Jay: 00:15 So the sweet spices are something that we all know. One of the examples if I give you everybody will say “Oh, we know that.” It is like cinnamon, like nutmeg, like clove, like bay leaf. These are sweet spices. They do have a pungentness to it, but they don’t aggravate the digestive system so much. So you can look at spices that are milder during the night-time, like the sweet spices that go in the night-time. So people can make something with nutmeg, like herbal tea with nutmeg in it can be a good choice at the night-time. So sweet pungent spices in the night-time, strong splendid spices in the day-time will be a good combination with the season.

Kimberly: 01:09 What specifically are those sweet ones?

Vaidya Jay: 01:11 As I said, cinnamon, we can use definitely. We can use cinnamon in many things. Lately I’ve been using cinnamon sticks while cooking my rice.

Kimberly: 01:20 I love cinnamon sticks.

Vaidya Jay: 01:23 So you can put it in coconut oil or some mild oil. Heat it up. This is a very easy combination that I do. I have mint, which is like the sweet mint. I chop it up and then I have a little bit of cumin seeds. So heat up the oil for the cumin seeds, then the sticks of cinnamon, like maybe two sticks of cinnamon. Whole sticks. I just drop it in and then put the cut mint leaves into it and then sauté them all together and then put the rice into it and then mix it and eat it. It’s so flavorful and this gives that sweet, mild pungentness, which is very good in this season.

#2 Cornerstone: The body and how to strengthen your scalp and hair health

Kimberly: 02:04 Wow. okay. So next cornerstone doctor Vaidya, thank you so much for that, is Body. And I know this is the season for a lot of oil massage. A lot of Abhyanga. Now you and I were texting because, as a new mom, I was sharing, sometimes we lose hair here on the crown of the head and I, to be honest, I love once in a while doing the full Abhyanga. Your hair gets totally oily, but it’s really hard sometimes. You know Vaidya, I don’t wash my hair that often. So you were saying, you could just do like 10 drops. I just put a little bit in my fingertips and I just do a scalp massage and I leave it overnight. Can you share a little bit about what that does, how much oil we really should be putting in our hair that practice for growth.

Vaidya Jay: 02:50 So, as we all can relate, the scalp health reflects the hair health. So hair follicles are embedded in the scalp or the skin of the scalp. So if the scalp becomes dry, it exposes the hair follicles. So the exposure of hair folicles gives room for hair follicles to fall out and then there is a small pattern thing that happens. Or the hair loss that we notice. What the hair oil does is to keep the layers of the skin in the scalp intact, not to peel off. Right? So we do have a acid mantle that’s on the surface of the scalp. But it is necessary that we cleanse this acid mantle from time to time, otherwise that itself retains the secretions and then starts eroding the skin. So it’s a nice way of finally removing the body’s natural secretions and adding a neutral oil on surface, which is very beneficial for keeping the layers of the skin together and not to expose the hair follicles.

Kimberly: 04:17 Well what’s so important about removing Dr. Jay? Because it feels like the oil is adding more layers.

Vaidya Jay: 04:23 So, remember the fat dissolves in the fat. So if you want to take out something that is really greasy, you need to spray another lighter oil to dissolve it and take it off. Same concept applies here too. So you take out the old secretions of your own body by adding the new oil onto the surface and dissolve it. And then you were saying, instead of putting all the oil into the scalp and then massaging it. That can be done once a week, that is great. But you can use few drops of oil, just apply it under the scalp and allow it to stay there and let the body kind of absorb it. For thousands of years Ayurveda that has recommended one should do oil on the head.

Vaidya Jay: 05:18 The advantage of that is not only hair will become more healthier and strong. Follicles will be grown into the scalp. But another advantage is your facial skin will have less wrinkles.

Kimberly: 05:37 Why is that?

Vaidya Jay: 05:39 I wondered about that too. Why if you’re putting oil on the head, what is the benefit on the face? Oil diffuses. Each cell of our body is made from a bi phospholipid layer. So it is made from fat, inside all the organelles. But the outside is fat. So this fat dissolve the fat and then it just keeps on diffusing. Even though it’s in the scalp, it starts descending onto the forehead, onto the cheeks, so that wrinkles don’t get formed because the skin needs all the collagen and all the elastin that you need that is supported by the oily secretions that are on your skin.

Kimberly: 06:22 So, Dr. Jay, you’re saying every night, this is what I’ve been doing and I’m not sure if I’m doing it exactly right. So I only wash my hair. Let’s say every five days, but every night I’ve been putting some oil on my finger tips and massaging in. Should I be putting the oil right in my hair?

Vaidya Jay: 06:38 You have to separate the hair, put it on the scalp. Apply it on the scalp, not on the hair. Hair will just take in. But you want it on the scalp.

Kimberly: 06:49 You put on your fingertips though?

Vaidya Jay: 06:52 Yeah. If you have a dropper, you take a dropper and then go like that and then use the dropper to drop wherever you separate the hairs. In the part, you can put the oil on. So that’s one of the best ways to take care of the hair in dry weather.

Kimberly: 07:09 You can do that every day, every night?

Vaidya Jay: 07:11 Every night. Look at my hair.

Kimberly: 07:15 It won’t build up even if I wash my hair only every five days?

Vaidya Jay: 07:18 Because your body absorbs some of the oils because in this dry season, your body is so dry, the skin is very readily peeling out the outer layers. So it’s a way of absorbing the oil into the skin.

Kimberly: 07:30 Can you overdo the oil? Is there any disadvantage from Ayurveda or can you put it… Like you said, 10 drops is okay. You don’t want to be oil head but.

Vaidya Jay: 07:43 That may be the new style, oil head. From bad head. Oil head. Okay. So there is no disadvantage of using too much of oil. It’s better to wash it off once in five days or so, if you have done a lot of oil onto the scalp. And in Ayurveda, we have this treatment called Shirodhara where they’re personalized [inaudible 00:08:06] because we run oil on the forehead. It is one of the treatments for hair fall and then for pattern baldness. So that is something where oil is drenched into the hair follicles so that they get complete nourishment. So it’s nothing wrong to keep oil [crosstalk 00:08:25]

Kimberly: 08:25 Especially here where new moms lose a lot of hair on the crown. Just put the oil right here?

Vaidya Jay: 08:30 Correct. And then if you have an oil like herbal oil, that’ll be great. You know, we have Bhringraj oil made from Bhringraj, it’s Eclipta Alba, which is the name of the herb itself is King of hair. So Bhringraj is one of the best things and they have derived oil from it. And it’s wonderful how these people came up with this very specific combinations of oils for the hair.

Kimberly: 08:55 So we will link to that directly in the show notes Vaidya, from your company, Athreya Herbs has amazing. They’re USDA organic. I’ve been taking them for a while and you’ve made me different mixes over the years. So that hair oil we can find on your site?

Vaidya Jay: 09:15 That’s right.

#3 Cornerstone: Emotional wellbeing and tips on how to take care of your mental health

Kimberly: 09:16 Wonderful. So that’s great. A lot of great information there. Let’s move to emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth Vaidya, which is our third cornerstone. So we talk a lot about community here. We talk about journaling. Our fourth cornerstone, just so you know is spiritual growth. So there’s the meditation. But emotionally, right now in winter, it can feel a little bit desolate, lonely, isolated. What are some of your tips for taking care of the mental health, the emotional part of ourselves right now?

Vaidya Jay: 09:50 Put your hiking shoes on, get onto the nature. So here, we are so isolated, especially with the COVID situation that we have been having. A lot of people are feeling lonely and people are prone to repetitive actions of addiction. Like they get into emotional eating, emotional alcohol, emotional watching TV. So these things can really make our emotions bottled up and feel like you are so congested and no way out. That’s what everybody would feel in this winter. On top of it, isolation. So nature is our best emotional therapist that we have. We should encourage all of our listeners to just put their hiking shoes on, go for a good walk. Find a trail, just to feel your presence, just not in the body, but everywhere, everything that you’re experiencing out there is what we need to affirm to ourselves. So, that’s one thing that I have been recommending to people who have tough time facing these challenging times. Anything. Go ahead.

Kimberly: 11:15 So Vaidya, if someone lives in a city ,they can go to the park. Bundle up if it’s cold, like you said, hiking shoes, maybe snow shoes for some people.

Vaidya Jay: 11:28 That’s true. Or, the second thing for the emotional balance is to talk to somebody like your parents. You may have not so a great feeling about calling. Winter, it’s a time for bonding. Calling your mother, calling your father. Not to talk about… Conversations immediately go on blaming and things like that. That’s not the purpose of this emotional connection that you’re looking for. Your sibling or parent, or mother or father. They may not be in the body too. It’s okay. To just communicate to them and then convey your gratitude or your love and how much respect you have towards them. Just give up, take up a phone call and then just call. “I just wanted to check on you. Are you all right? And I just wanted to tell you, I love you. And I care for you.” Finish. That’s the way that emotion can be extended in the winter season for that matter, because we are isolated. So these two things will be very useful emotionally.

Vaidya Jay: 12:51 Third thing is Self, what I call as Check. Self-check. That means if your tower thought is getting you somewhere, like you woke up in the morning, you’ve just not interested in getting up from the bed. You open your eyes and you just think about “What is so exciting about life? I don’t have anything to do. I’m just lying down here, and I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to sleep.” It just like that dilemma that you have. Then the thoughts will start coming in. And once the thoughts take you from the present moment to another space, another time. And then you watch that “Okay, I’m now being carried by my thoughts”. So this situation which may be your last night or in a few days ago, or sometime. You broke up with your partner, I mean with a boyfriend or girlfriend. I’m just giving an example here.

Vaidya Jay: 13:52 Thoughts will go and immediately your emotions will start coming up with that part being an expression of what you went. Right? So what I do is I check. I check the part and I say, why am I here in this time and space now? Why is my part taking me to this time and space? And then I slowly reverse it. And I think about, okay, wait, why did I go to the space? I was thinking about, maybe the roof of my room and why did I look at my roof of my room? And then I just slowly bring myself into my present situation rather than going away with the motions to the next time and space. So this is Check. We call it as Check.

#4 Cornerstone: Spiritual growth and how to incorporate chanting into your meditation practice

Kimberly: 14:38 Beautiful. And then finally, Vaidya, which is our last cornerstone is spiritual growth. And we’ve talked about the regularity of meditation, sitting with the Self. Anything you want to add specifically for winter to that?

Vaidya Jay: 14:54 Chanting.

Kimberly: 14:55 Chanting.

Vaidya Jay: 14:57 Chanting is a wonderful tool. It connects the mind and the body. Holds them together. Sometimes we sit in meditation. Mind is such tricky space. It moves us into different corridors of our thoughts and emotions and things like that. So it’s better to come back to chanting. Hold chanting as your guiding torch, which you hold in the areas of uncertainty and then keep moving forward. So chanting. Take up any simple chanting that vibrates with you. You don’t have to go ask a spiritual teacher. Can you give me a… Not necessary at all. Not necessarily. Divinity is there in everything. So it is matter of connecting, tuning you. I think the chanting is like an antenna of your radio that you pull up and leave it for the specific radio wave length to get attracted towards you. And that’s what I would say for all our listeners. Just take up one simple chanting and then start doing it as your daily practice.

Kimberly: 16:07 Do you chant before you meditate Vaidya? Is that part of your practice? For how long you chant?

Vaidya Jay: 16:14 Sometimes on the moon cycle, it depends in medic system. We have days of the moon cycle that has specific importance for a healer. So if it is a very powerful day in the moon cycle, then I chant for almost 30 minutes.

Kimberly: 16:30 Wow.

Vaidya Jay: 16:31 Which includes the thousand names of divinity or the universal consciousness. I chant that. And then I sit for meditation. The days when it’s not a very unique day for healing or gaining the divinity, then I do it for maybe 20 minutes or even less than that sometimes even 15 minutes.

Kimberly: 16:53 Wow. Beautiful. Well Vaidya Jay I can talk to you forever. We’re so grateful for you to keep coming back and sharing so much deep wisdom with us. We appreciate you so much. And all listeners, please remember to check out Vaidya Jay’s website. As I mentioned, he has amazing herbs formulas. The hair oil is on there. Tell us the website again. Vaidya, we’ll put it on the show notes, but can you verbally tell us too.

Vaidya Jay: 17:21 It is athreya. A.T.H.R.E.Y.A herbs. Athreyaherbs.

Kimberly: 17:27 Athreyaherbs. Amazing Vaidya. Well, thank you so much again, we appreciate you. We love you. Blessing. Namaste.

Vaidya Jay: 17:36 Thank you. We wish all of our listeners a wonderful, happy new year.

Kimberly: 17:44 Namaste.

Kimberly : 01:26 All right Beauties. I hoped you enjoy this interview as much as I enjoyed doing it with Vaidya Jay. What an amazing, amazing soul. Remember to head over to the show notes to check out our links, helpful resources, as well as other podcasts I think you would enjoy over at mysolluna.com. Remember to please check out our free Solluna app as well. You can just type in Solluna by Kimberly Snyder in the app store. It’s free. Our community is thriving in there. There’s a whole section for chatting and questions, people answering each other. It’s a lot more engaging than, say, Instagram. And then we also have our membership portal over there for our Solluna Circle, which is our really tight inner tribal circle, which is amazing.

Kimberly : 02:17 So I will be back here Thursday for our next community show. Sending you so much love. Hope you’re having a great start to the month, and I will see you soon. All done.