22. The Truth About Panchakarma: Detox, Digestion & Healing

EA_Episode 22_Salila VIDEO

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Introduction to Everyday Ayurveda

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Kate: Welcome to everyday Ayurveda with Kate, a podcast that translates ancient wisdom for modern lives. I'm your host, Kate O'Donnell. I've been living and teaching Ayurveda, India's traditional medicine for over 25 years, and I've authored four bestselling books on bringing Ayurveda practices into our lives.

Kate: If you're tired of battling digestive issues, hormonal imbalances, Menopause symptoms or are seeking a deeper spiritual connection and purpose, you're in the right place. This podcast is for you offering practical, accessible advice to help you heal through diet, optimize your daily routines, and enhance your overall wellbeing.

Kate: Follow this space for insights on a diet that heals strategies for better digestion. Sleep. Hormone health and direction for finding a deep sense of meaning and purpose. Join me, my pod people for this [00:01:00] empowering journey into self-care and self-discovery. Together we'll explore how to bring balance and vitality into your everyday life.

Kate: Let's do this.

Kate: Hi pod friend.

Meet Salila Sukumaram: A Generational Ayurveda Practitioner

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Kate: Thanks for showing up for today's episode with Salila Sukumaram. I'm a fan girl. She's a fantastic influencer on social media. She's a generational Ayurveda practitioner from Kerala, India, but she's been in the United States for 20 years in the San Francisco Bay area. She is a practitioner, an educator, a chef, and a yogi.

Kate: And she's got just such a great energy, not to mention has grown up in a family where Ayurvedic knowledge is. Shared as part of the life. And she tells us about that, although it was sometimes embarrassing as a kid, but she [00:02:00] does give us some insight into her earlier days. And one of the things that I was excited to share with you in this episode is sort of the The going back and forth between India and the United States, which has been a big part of my journey as well since I was, in college, and, you know, you hear a lot of things rituals and dietary recommendations in Ayurveda that sometimes might sound difficult to pull off if you're in the United States.

Kate: So I know some of you listening, you live in India, some of you live in the United States, some of you live in totally different parts of the world, and I'm so happy for each and every one of you. And that's what we're talking about. Salila works with people from all over the world and she's got some great hacks for how do you do you know, a certain ritual in your own home.

Kate: Right. How can you, if you don't have a sauna, what can you do instead? You know, if you don't [00:03:00] have a certain vegetable, what can you use instead? So that's a big focus of our conversation. And we also get into the conversation of cleansing and Salila is a big advocate for cleansing practices. And she gives us a really fantastic description of how toxins are formed and make their way deep into the body and also of how traditional Ayurveda therapies can get that stuff out, as well as a few really beautiful stories about individuals that she's seen over the years with pretty serious disorders, really healing and becoming well through Ayurveda practices.

Kate: Don't go anywhere. You don't want to miss this fabulous conversation with Salila Sukumaram. Definitely follow her at salila. ayurveda. Her content is fabulous.

Kate: Welcome, Salila. I am so happy to have you with us [00:04:00] today.

Salila: Thank you so much, Kate. This is such an honor.

Kate: friends, I've been following Salila for a few years at least on the social airwaves and , I've always loved what you share, it's, there's something just super authentic and also very passionate.

Kate: about the way that you talk about Ayurveda. Like it's clearly that's super important to you. So I'm just so happy to be here and be able to dork out about this with you. so I know you're a fourth generation practitioner. Would you tell us a little bit sort of how you got into Ayurveda

Salila: Yeah, I'm surprised, Kate, that we've never connected and had a chat before. Love that we are having this conversation now.

Salila's Personal Journey with Ayurveda

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Salila: For me I never thought that what was done in my family was Ayurveda. It was just my family being weird and my family being my family and really old fashioned. I don't believe I used a shampoo in my hair till I was like 13 years old.

Salila: And I, [00:05:00] I was terribly ashamed of the things my mother used to do because Everybody else looked modern and they seemed to be moving with the times and we seemed to be stuck in this time warp back home and we smelt of oils and things. So for me growing up was super embarrassing to let anyone think that I came from a family that did these weird things.

Salila: However, in 2015, I had had several miscarriages and a long bout of infertility that could not be explained by my doctors at Kaiser. And I was gaining weight. I was on hormonal support and I was not able to maintain my pregnancies. And because of that, it was taking a huge toll on my physical health, my mental health.

Salila: That completely broke down and that's when I went back home to Kerala where I am from where my family is from and my mother checked me into a [00:06:00] retreat and to kind of rehab and that Ayurveda was my rehab and I did a Panchakarma cleanse and that was when the floodgates opened and I realized like, Oh my God, everything that was taught to me growing up is what I should have continued to maintain good health and connection with my own self. And it was that being lost and being off my path is what created this disease, not just in my body, but in my mind, in my spirit, where I had come to the weakest point in my life. And once I regained that strength, my path became very clear that I needed to be helping the many women, the many mamas I Hang out with back in California and all we did was complain about the aches and the pains and having no energy, having no motivation. How do we take care of our children? What are we doing with our lives? We were professionals. [00:07:00] Now we are moms. We have no purpose. You know, what's going on. Life is just passing by.

Salila: And I was like, here is the answer. I got the answer. And all I needed to do was get on a plane, come to a center and spend 21 days. And I have the answer handed to me on a silver platter and I wanted everybody to have that answer. But it took a bit of convincing in 2015 when I came back. Most people in America, the people at least in my circle, had not heard about Ayurveda.

Salila: So then I started to learn and educate. And the journey just began, the path just unfolded.

Kate: Wow, I love that because for me, it was also a panchakarma in India. I was 21. the same you described, like the portal opened. And I walked right through it, you know, and I kind of never looked back.

Salila: It just whacks your chakras into alignment.

Kate: Yeah, I really felt like [00:08:00] similar to what you described, Salila, that this is an answer for me. I felt this. I was, I had been seeking, I mean, I was only 21, but I had been seeking for, since I was probably like 13, you know, for some relationship to the world and to reality and the body that I hadn't found it yet.

Kate: You know, I'd looked into like microbiotics and raw food and I had tried like every food based thing under the sun, basically, from the time I was 13 until 21. I I had this experience, you know, very spiritual portal opening through the panchakarma process Then I kind of turned around and started to try to figure out what this was I didn't even know what Ayurveda was.

Kate: I was just there for help, you know And then I started studying and reading and I realized wow so much of this has to do with food Which has always been an interest of mine, working in like health food cafes and stuff like that.

Salila (2): Right.

Kate: So it was like, oh, wow, everything's coming together here.

Kate: You know, that food is [00:09:00] medicine and that, you know, it's this whole way of understanding. I've been back and forth to India since then. So I've had to do a lot of figuring out. You know, I learn a lot of cooking when I'm in India with my aunties, or with the nurses at the Ayurvedic clinic.

Kate: And then I come home and I'm just like, ah, I don't think we have that gourd here.

Adapting Ayurveda to Different Cultures

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Kate: One of the things that really struck me Salila and listening to your work was something you said recently where you described the avocado as an American coconut and I thought, Oh yes, I need to talk to this, woman because this is the same sort of problem that I'm always having of going back and forth between India and the United States and wanting to always have that.

Kate: same medicinal relationship with food, but then the foods that are available or the medicines, you know, there's so many medicines , in India that my doctors will be recommending. I come home with a suitcase full of all sorts of crazy stuff, you know, that will [00:10:00] last for X amount of months. But anything that you can share with us about how you find the qualities, you know, of foods and of herbs when you're back and forth between the two places.

Salila: Yes. So Thank you for sharing all that. That's brilliant that, you know, you and I have a similar path of recognizing that Ayurveda is the answer. And what a blessed soul you are that, you know, at 21 you enjoyed something. There are people who discover Ayurveda at 60 and it feels like, Oh my God, I wish I had known about this earlier, right?

Salila: So I'm always urging people to give it a try. Give it a try. Right? For me, I grew up in different regions of India because my father worked in the Indian defense. So we were traveling every three years to a new region of India. So one thing I understood from the way [00:11:00] my mother cooked for us is that if we were not eating like the locals ate.

Salila: We would all fall sick pretty fast as soon as we arrived at a new place, new vegetation, new kind of climate. So we cannot cook the way we cook back home in tropical, warm South India, as we would cook at the Himalayas where it is cold and freezing and you see frost on the ground. You cannot have coconut curries.

Salila: You would catch cold in like less than four days and a toddler might possibly pass away if they continue to eat that way. So this became very clear to us. That anywhere we are, we have to eat locally. However, our food also has to be ancestrally aligned. Like, the [00:12:00] food that I am preparing for myself, let's say I'm in California now.

Salila: I will not eat the coconut that I eat back in South India, but the avocado that I'm eating, I have to eat it with spices because spices work for me ancestrally. Spices align for me ancestrally. The second thing I have to keep in mind is, am I able to digest this avocado properly? Is my gut happy when I eat it?

Salila: When I came here nearly 20 years ago, I love the taste and the texture of avocado, but my stomach did not agree with it. Now, when I eat the avocado, it agrees with it a lot better. So we have to be very carefully watching for signs of acceptance or rejection in our body. We have to look at the foods that were ancestrally had in our family.

Salila: For example, I come from Kerala, which is south of India. [00:13:00] The gourds that you're talking about. So we look at like the broad category of food. What is this? I can't get the exact gourd as Kerala. However, the squashes, the pumpkins, the kombucha, the cucumbers, these are all within the gourd family. And my body loves them a lot better.

Salila: Right? The winter melons. So I use them. with spices, with the recipes that I've learned from my mom, which gives me this feeling of nostalgia and childhood memories, which is also important for feeling that sense of contentment after a meal. You know, I'm not going to go get kale and make a kale salad because that's not going to work for my body.

Salila: But if I do get a kale, I'm going to prepare it in a way that I know how to make, which is with spices, mashed, having it with a nice roti, [00:14:00] so that it agrees more with my body. It ancestrally aligns more. Does that help?

Kate: That, yeah, I hear you saying, Salila, that, yes, you want, you're looking for things in, let's say, in the gourd family, because you grew up with a lot of gourds, and so your body will be happier with gourd like foods, but you're also sort of serving things, like, like roti is something you're used to eating, where someone from, say, South America might be used to tortilla, or a rice, or, you know, everywhere you go in the world, they have some kind of grain.

Kate: That's always on the plate, you know, I hear you saying this sort of like really important that what we're habituated to over the course of the life is, is a really important part of how we're going to digest that food.

Salila: Yeah. Totally. Yes. Like there was studies done on the soybean scientists.

Salila: Gave the soybean diet to several populations from the world, the Chinese, the Koreans, the Japanese, and they found [00:15:00] out that people who had the genetic predisposition of having eaten soybean ancestrally were able to extract more nutrition out of the soybeans than let's say. somebody from India or somebody from, you know, France or something like that.

Salila: So that gives us an insight into, even if it is locally available in your region, if I've never eaten an avocado in my life, but I've never eaten a fork full of kale in my life, it's not going to work for my body.

Kate: That makes sense. Are there any foods that you really go to a lot when you're in California?

Kate: Things that you just, just gravitate towards?

Salila (2): Mm

Salila: hmm. When I'm in California, I'm naturally eating foods that are similar to the colder regions of India. So the warming foods I like to use sesame oil a lot because it's a warming oil. I love my [00:16:00] khichris because khichris are cleansing, so every week I'll definitely have a pot of khichri, so every Saturday or a Sunday, my stomach gets a break, there's a little bit of cleansing happening.

Salila: I also love to make broths. So I like to juice and I like to make broths with whatever is the waste so I'm not wasting a lot of food because I feel like now it's cold. My body needs that warming broths. Celery is something I like because if I were in India, I would do more gourd juices like winter melon juices.

Salila: I use celery as a substitute for that. So celery is cleansing. Celery gives me a lot of nutrition, especially during this time when I'm like traveling and coming back and settling down. So I like to like be in a cleansing mode for about a month. So a lot of celery juices. Celery broths is something I like to do.

Salila: I [00:17:00] don't do a lot of avocados at this time because it's really cold. So I stick to more warming foods, more nourishing foods, and I always love to have a pizza.

Kate: Yeah, who doesn't love that?

The Importance of Cleansing in Ayurveda

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Kate: So you talk about Kichuri, you mentioned, you know, being in cleanse mode right now. We've also talked about Panchakarma.

Kate: I've talked about that a little bit on this podcast, but not a lot. And I know that's something you really specialize in, Panchakarma therapies. So this is a big topic, but I'm interested to hear sort of how you look at the conversation about like, what is cleansing? What is Panchakarma? You know, like what is the, what is the sames and what are the differences and how can we use this knowledge in, in our lives, sort of lay people.

Kate: You know, who don't know a ton, like, how would we approach this conversation?

Salila: Yes. So we all drive cars, right? And if we don't use really the best fuel [00:18:00] in our cars, we know that our cars will start developing a little bit of gunk and not be so quick on the uptake, not give such good mileage if we never serviced it.

Salila: So just as we service our cars once a year or How many ever times we want to service them, our body also requires annual maintenance and servicing because these foods that we eat, you know, we, we know that in the modern world, we are all rushed. we all have our to do's. We all have our meetings.

Salila: We eat food almost as an afterthought. We don't intentionally cook food or sit down to eat a meal in peace. We do not digest our food very well. Most of us experience suboptimal digestion. So what happens when we are day in and day out experiencing this for quality [00:19:00] digestion is byproducts get built up in our tissues and our body tries to do its best to maintain all the systems in the best way possible.

Salila: However, this byproduct starts to now get baked into our tissues, kind of get hidden under our skin, in our bones. And then as we are going about our day, as winter comes, we feel like the joints are not feeling so flexible. Sometimes we notice our skin is not looking so good. There's like these bumps and rashes.

Salila: Hair is falling out in the fistful. Our mouth doesn't feel so fresh. There's a little bit of sinus blockage here and there. Eyes look a little puffy when we wake up. All these are signs that there's these metabolic byproducts being created that are getting shoved in various parts of the body away from the main organs.

Salila: So the main [00:20:00] organs are maintaining their optimal level of working. In India, what would happen is we would Ancestrally, we would be cleansing once every year during the Navratras or during the spring festivals to cleanse the body of these metabolic byproducts. And the shlokas, the ancient texts of Ayurveda say that even if we took a pot of water and just kept it on a countertop for a couple of months and came back, we would see that there would be dust in it, there would be residue of it in it.

Salila: So even a body that is Maintained to the best of its ability will develop some issues as time goes on.

Understanding Panchakarma Therapies

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Salila: Panchakarma cleansing is a way to cleanse these extra, Ayurveda calls it Ama, the sticky toxin, right? On a daily basis we have sticky emotions, the negative emotions that we constantly feel. The [00:21:00] irritability, the impatience, the upset, the stress, the overwhelm, the feeling like I'm being constantly challenged, sticky emotion, sticky metabolites in this by product of insufficient metabolism in our body.

Salila: This requires to be maintained. This requires to be flushed out. And we do this through panchakarma, which are the five processes through which we cleanse all the body's systems. We use Nasya, which is nasal oiling, cleansing the sinus passages. We do Vamana, we are therapeutically cleansing the stomach by purgation, by vomiting.

Salila: We are cleansing the small intestine through diarrhea. We're cleansing the colon through Vasti, enemas. So basically this is like a high level detail of how we are cleansing the entire system. As soon as we are cleansed, we see like we sleep deeper, our [00:22:00] mood improves, we have greater energy, those 3pm slumps, no more.

Salila: Sleep like a baby, mind is zen, the cravings are gone. So many more benefits.

Kate: I love how you describe, there's a great description of the process of sort of the metabolic toxins. I like how you say they bake, bake into the tissues. the ways that I look at this, this sort of distinction between, you know, what I might call a cleanse or a detox with my community versus the panchakarma therapies is sort of like are we taking the load off the digestive tract or are we going for some of this deeper stuff?

Kate: That's been baked in, my understanding of the Panchakarma therapies is that we actually can draw out some of that metabolic toxin that's sort of been pushed into these nooks and crannies, you know, found homes and all these places in the body, which I'm sure us talking about diarrhea and [00:23:00] vomiting is not it's not a sexy conversation.

Kate: but I think people will be pretty excited to learn about how can I actually dredge some of this stuff that, that I can feel as you describe in the joints or in the emotions or that, you know, the taste in the mouth. So how do you go about sort of teaching people and helping them understand like when they need what in terms of these therapies?

Salila: So our body is constantly in a state of elimination and healing. Our body is called Sharira in Sanskrit. Sharira literally means that which eliminates, that which cleanses itself. Our body is a cleansing machine. And the only reason it's not able to focus on cleansing is because of the digestive load we place on the body.

Salila: Every day we wake up with a finite energy points. Every day we wake up with X amount of energy. And if we are going to load this body with [00:24:00] excessive food which we do as we are going about the day. We're constantly snacking. We are eating huge portions. We are eating stale foods or we're eating food that is cold or not prepared properly according to the season, according to our digestive capacity for that day.

Salila: And if we've overloaded , then our body does not have that residual energy, that extra cash in the bank to take care of this. metabolic byproducts that are kind of baked into the tissue. So then it starts to hide it rather than address it. And the first part of any Panchakarma cleansing, and you know this well, Kate, is the reduction of the load on the body, on the digestive system.

Salila: We reduce the load by eating simpler foods, and then we take on a few supportive herbs that will start to do increased digestion on a cellular level. So we're doing that Deepana and [00:25:00] Pachana. This is in Ayurvedic terms, we call Deepana Pachana. So we are bringing all that All that armor, all that endogenous toxin, the by products into our alimentary canal, and then we are digesting it, burning, helping the body burn through it in the digestive system, helping the body eliminate it through the natural eliminatory cycles of peeing, the daily bowel movement, the sweating, and whatever is remaining after that.

Salila: is what we then use the vomiting and the diarrhea to further flush out the system with. We think of these things as uncomfortable things, however, we don't understand, we have to change our perspective about these bodily functions. These are healing, life giving interventions the body does. When a baby is born, the baby throws up.

Salila: [00:26:00] When a baby does not throw up, a physician suctioned the baby. Why? Without this therapeutic vomiting, the baby's life would not be maintained. The baby's transitioning from the womb to the world, and the baby needs good emotions to handle life in the world. So the first therapeutic cleansing that happens is vomiting.

Salila: As soon as the vomiting happens, the baby is calm. The baby is ready to face the world. And when we do therapeutic vomiting, We discover the same thing about our mind, like the brain just goes like, whoop, it's like zen.

Kate: And there is something about vomiting that one feels so good after,

Salila (2): you

Kate: know, it's just like, ah, you're just fresh.

Addressing Squeamishness in Therapies

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Kate: Yes. So do you encounter a lot of squeamishness or resistance to, to these therapies?

Salila: Absolutely. I feel nervous before I do myself. [00:27:00] It's not something we want to be doing, but once we're done, we have somebody who's there to hold our hands and say, it's okay. You're going to be okay. I'm here with you.

Salila: And we've all had that experience of like going to a club and having a few extra shots and then having a throw up. That was our body trying to cleanse of that excess alcohol. The body was like you put this toxin inside of me. I'm going to make you do a woman right now.

Kate: Mm hmm.

One-on-One Guidance and Accountability

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Kate: So do you work mostly with like one to ones?

Kate: So you'll be sort of guiding somebody through this process and a one to one relationship?

Salila: Yes. I get so much satisfaction out of Working with people very closely because I can teach them so much more and then they're held accountable to doing the practices, the rituals, the meditations, the yoga nidra, then they see the results because, you know, we can hand somebody a blueprint with like the path to heaven written down, right?

Salila: But. [00:28:00] People wouldn't walk on it unless somebody held their hand and walked with them side by side and then they realize oh my god It was so simple. All I needed to do was just do it five times and it's a habit I can't stop myself,

Kate: right? you described earlier sort of that Preliminary process of pulling some of that baked Toxin out of the tissue.

Kate: Could you give us some examples of how that is done?

Salila: So we come to decide in like a first Intake meeting and orientation on onboarding. I understand the kind of foods the person is eating and what kind of rituals they have. For example, if somebody wakes up and the first thing they're drinking some kind of a drink, like let's say these days, the lemon, the cinnamon, the turmeric drink is quite in vogue.

Salila: So people love to wake up and drink something really hot and [00:29:00] spicy like that. And I see that they're drinking it with a big bowl of some kind of a raw meal right after. Then I understand that they are doing things that is creating a lot more armor in their body. So we have to first eliminate those kind of habits they've developed in the attempt to be healthier.

Salila: They're just getting all this information from Instagram reels or social media. Without really understanding their body type, they could be a Pitta body type. When you're a Pitta body type, you are a fire energy dominant body type. And you are introducing these fiery spicy drinks into your body first thing in the morning.

Salila: You are moving towards acid reflux issues. You're moving towards skin irritation and eczema sort of issues. So we have to eliminate all that. So that reduces the load on the digestive system. And then we have to give [00:30:00] them foods that will help balance whatever their body type is. If it is a Vata body type, then we have to educate them.

Salila: They have to stay away from cold, raw, dry, and steel. If they're a pitta body type, they are a fire dominant body type, they have to stay away from spicy, oily, salty, sour, and fermented foods. If they're a kapha body type, they have to be careful around dairy, nuts. Sugary, sweet, sticky things, things that have that slimy quality.

Salila: Once they develop this discipline, then naturally their body's digestive fire starts to become optimal, starts to digesting this ama that we are moving through the abhyangams, the massages, the sweating, the swethana practices. And as this ama is moving in, because the digestive load is now lower. The body has extra energy reserves to work through it and [00:31:00] whatever is residual then we use the deeper purgative measures to flush out of the body.

Salila: Does that help?

Kate: Oh, fantastic. Yeah, great description.

Sweating Techniques for Detoxification

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Kate: I'm used to when we talk about the sweating, the suedna after the oil massage, I'm used to being sort of put in a box, you know, a steam box. So how do you have your people at home achieve the suedna? Suedna.

Salila: I work with women all over the world, all kinds of climates, all kinds of limitations, budgetary limitations, space limitations.

Salila: And we do anything from buying one those blankets on Amazon, where you Tie yourself into a blanket and sweat or you just put on a really peppy dance number and dance for 15 minutes till you're like pouring. That's another way of swayadana or really hot bathtub. That is also [00:32:00] swayadana.

Kate: Right. So the sauna blanket, the dance party, and the bathtub.

Salila: you can order a sauna for yourself. And I have clients who are like, yeah, no problem. I'll get a sauna installed. That's right. Well,

Kate: yeah, we are seeing that more now like saunas are available. You know, there's the infrared, there's that barrel shaped one. I mean, people are getting those at like Costco, you know, and putting it in their yard.

Kate: I know they're definitely around now. But I think one of the things in my work has always been to break down the the barriers, to practicing Ayurveda, wherever you are, you know, whatever time of life, whatever's available to you, because the principles can always work. So the, the thing that I see people doing a lot is they think it has to be just so, you know, like, Oh, well, if I can't do.

Kate: Abian Suena, then I can't do Pancha Karma therapy, you know?

Creative Hacks for Ayurvedic Practices

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Kate: And so I, I'm, [00:33:00] I'm guessing that a lot of your work and working with so many people in so many places has been to sort of like hack how do we do this stuff at home? Are there any other fabulous things you, you recommend a lot to folks at home that we should know about?

Salila: I love a challenge. So when my clients come up with like this situation, like, Oh, but I can't do that. I love to like, pull out all the tools from my backpack and see what works. I have wonderful women who like to have a steak. for dinner and they're like, Oh, but Celila, you told us not to eat such a heavy dinner because that's not good because I'm over 40 and I'm menopausal and if I'm eating like a really heavy dinner then it's going to affect, you know, my digestion.

Salila: I might develop gallbladder stones later down the line. So how do I do it? So then I'll say things like, how about we take that steak and chop it up into four pieces and then add it to a slow cooker in the morning with your garlic and your spices and some barley [00:34:00] thrown in. And by the time you come back home, you have a nice bowl of hearty soup that you can eat, which is lighter on your body.

Salila: So you're still getting the nutrition. Then another thing that a client of mine was like I asked the client to do Abhyangam, which is oil massages in the body, which calms down the space and the wind energy. She is a high profile person who handles really, really stressful meetings throughout the day, back to back.

Salila: So I was like, you need to do your Abhyangams in the morning. So that your body can calm down, your mind can calm down and you can attend your meetings. And she was like, well, Selena, I'm in like really expensive designer suits and I can't have oil on my, these fabulous clothes. So I was like, okay, then we can just rub the oil on your hands on the soles of your feet, few drops in your crown chakra.[00:35:00]

Salila: a few drops in your navel and then do your Abhyangam baths in the evening after you're done with the cold. So that was a hack, which she absolutely loved. The many of my clients are vegan vegetarian and when they are menopausal and it looks like they may be, going towards osteopenia, osteoporosis, then I love to suggest that they do a mutton bone broth, which is very helpful for women who are losing that bone density.

Salila: However, they are vegans, vegetarians. So then we come up with like, okay, then we need to use bean sprouts. Mushrooms, kale, celery, that is something that we boil together and create something closer to a nourishing bone broth, like some sort of a vegan bone broth. So these are the three hacks that are coming to mind.

Kate: Oh, I really like that one about the clothes [00:36:00] because I've, I've heard that one before and I feel that way sometimes, especially if I'm on the road, like I tend to, if I have, you know, speaking engagements, I have nice clothes, and so I will, I have actually a Bianca pajamas.

Salila (3): I think that's like a, that's like something you would see in Ayurvedic practitioner have Abhyanga towels, Abhyanga, Oh

Kate: yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And , they're not a natural fiber. So that's the thing, because if I wear a cotton pajama, which is what I prefer, you know, when I'm doing the oil, it's just.

Kate: It's gross, you know, they absorb it right away, so I'm wearing these sort of like, I don't know what brand they are, but they're, you know, they're not something I would normally choose, but they, they work with the oil, you know, and I'll usually wear them for like a few hours after I do the oil massage, and I walk around and I'm doing, it's so funny, I did that today before we had this meeting.

Kate: I was like timing it so that I could do the oil and I walked around and I still have the pants on. You [00:37:00] can't see those, but I have my Bianca suit on and I just put a sweater on top to jump on this call with you. I know and I shared that with my community recently and everyone was like, Oh, thank you so much.

Kate: You know, because you So, as the years go by, you do notice the smell, , and you notice the smell of oil. You talked about that as a youngster, too, you know. So that has been something I've had to sort of work through and hack around over the years because I'm a dry type. I use sesame oils, you know, and there's a certain aroma happening there, you know, that you can't get around, but now that I found my pajama, like everything is okay.

Salila: Yeah, I have to apologize to my guests because I have my towels and I'm like please, please don't look at them. That's my

Kate: Those are the oil towels. Yeah. And I mean, oil is, it's such a big part of the healing, you know, whether it's in the ear, the skin, the nose, the hair, I mean, it's the [00:38:00] food, it's, it's huge.

Kate: So you know, so I feel like we kind of have to make it work.

Salila: Yeah. I was going to say that stress is the opposite of oil. Oil is Sneha. Oil is love. Stress creates dryness stress breaks us apart, makes us brittle. Oil brings us together. Oil holds us together, increases cohesiveness.

Salila: So the natural order of the universe is always entropy. It's always the falling apart. The bringing together is the creative force. The bringing together is the coming back to life. And we are constantly playing with stress and oil in our daily life. We are bringing us back to, bringing that life force energy back in, the prana back in every time we are oiling.

Salila: So the greater stress and brittleness we have. the more oiling we have to do, and especially somebody like you, you're an author of several books, you're a [00:39:00] successful woman, a woman of influence, naturally you are facing a lot of that brittle stress destroying your fabric, and you No surprises that you have to constantly be oiling.

Salila: Right. Right. So, I got my

Kate: jammies. So, I'm all set. Yeah.

Specializing in Women's Health Issues

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Kate: It seems like you talk about a lot of the sort of high profile disorders that we see. I hear you talk about diabetes a lot. Are there, like, specialties that you would say you like to work with certain things more, or you have found in your practice that more things are coming to you in certain categories?

Salila: Yes. Women with PCOS, PCOD, women who are fertility challenged, menopausal women, sisters who are going through perimenopause. They seem to resonate with my message. They seem to want help. And what I've [00:40:00] found that, you know, I'm not a physician, so I cannot say I heal any of these conditions, but when we do the cleanses, it's amazing.

Salila: I've had a recent client who did a cleanse with me. And her father was visiting her. So she was like, dad, let me put you through this. And he was game. It was like, all right, let's do it. She taught him what I had taught her, which I don't suggest anybody do, but she did it, she just had that intuition and she went with it and her dad did it.

Salila: And he did everything to the T. He had psoriasis. And his skin started to flake and peel and new skin started to come up. And he was somebody the physicians had said, you have to be on steroids for the rest of your life. So I'm waiting for my interview with her so we can put it out there for the world to see.

Salila: I was surprised. I, I get surprised because when, you know, people like you [00:41:00] and me, when we give this gift to the world, we don't see how far it reaches. How many applications it has, and when our wonderful community comes back and gives us feedback with such real life examples, even we learn these new things about the power of Ayurveda.

Kate: Mm hmm. So many stories like that. So many stories, really surprising stories, and also, I'm sure you see this too, Salila, that people, when Western medicine has said, kind of, all we can do is give you medication at this point, and this is just how it's going to be, those are the people who seem to get results, it's like when it doesn't make sense through the Western medicine.

Kate: lens. I feel like it always makes sense through the Ayurveda lens.

Salila (2): Totally. And that's where the complimentary thing comes in, right? Yeah.

Kate: Yeah. Yes, definitely. Definitely. So thank you for sharing. I'm so glad to hear sort of like who, who you work with, and I'm sure you [00:42:00] work with everything, all sorts of things, but for, for us to hear a little more about what kind of disorders you're working with most in your practice now.

Kate: So if people want to work with you, what's the best way for them to find you?

Salila: Email me Salila at ayurgamea. com or DM me on my Instagram. I'm always checking my messages to make sure that. You know, I love to talk and connect with people. And I think since the pandemic, I've become a homebody working online.

Salila: So any conversation I can have, I'm excited. So. Feel free to reach out.

Kate: Great. Yeah. I get that from you. Your presence is that you are so excited about what you do and about working with people, which is just such a fantastic gift. So we will put also those links in the show notes, your Instagram, your email, how to reach you before we let you go, [00:43:00] which is hard to do because I feel like I could talk with you all day, but three rapid fire questions.

Rapid Fire Questions and Daily Routines

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Kate: What's the first thing that you do when you get up in the morning? I

Salila: drink my gut best tea, which is a warm tea made with spices. Usually it's black cumin, black seed, carom, pinch of coriander. Yeah, I, I rotate.

Kate: Mm. Do you get up and boil that, or did you soak it and then you warm it up,

Salila: I cook it the night prior, as I'm closing down dinner after cleaning up the kitchen and then I'll take a little flask and put it by my bedside and in the morning I'll sip on that.

Kate: Oh, wow.

Kate: So it's right by your bed. That's smart. Oh, I like that. You're gut bestie. Fantastic. What, okay, number two, what's the first food you eat?

Salila: The first food I eat is, I make myself a little cup of chai, if that's a food.

Kate: I mean, I think so, in my world, yeah.

Kate: I

Salila: love to make a little [00:44:00] bit of spicy chai with ginger, cardamom, and a little bit of cinnamon. So after I've had my gut bestie, my stomach has settled, I've done my rituals, I come to the kitchen and make myself a little cup of chai.

Kate: Ooh. That's very similar to my routine there. What's your sort of non negotiable wind down routine in the evening?

Salila: A non negotiable routine would be my pada bhiangam, the oiling of the feet, making sure that my feet are well taken care of because how soft and how flexible our feet are determines our longevity. And I did not know this for the longest time. I did not take care of my feet, like I was putting everything on my face and neglecting my feet.

Salila: Now it's the opposite. Now I'm taking care of my feet more than my face.

Kate: Thank you so much for that. Yeah, that's important that we we think about our face, but you're right that and I had my one of my [00:45:00] yoga instructors on a few months ago and she talked about how we we die from the feet up

Salila (2): and being

Kate: around my father died this fall and it was it's it was the feet.

Kate: First, and it moved up through the legs, the pelvis. I mean, it was very true. I observed that for real, you know? So I think the oiling of the feet is, it's, that is a great takeaway. Thank you for that. And thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, it was, he was 92. So it was, he had a good run, he was a great dad.

Final Thoughts and Ancestral Inspiration

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Kate: Thank you so much for being with us today. You have so much to share and in such a wonderful, really fun, engaging and also like intense in the right way kind of approach, which I appreciate.

Salila (3): You're intense, but in a

Kate: good way though. We love that and we need that, you know, people who are just super passionate about, what they're sharing.

Kate: So I [00:46:00] appreciate you and your time today.

Salila: Such a pleasure, Kate, such a pleasure. Every time I talk, , I just visualize my ancestors behind me. So they're all waving at us right now. But I'm doing this because of the call of the ancestors. And that's why you see the passion. And this is what I'm going to be doing till my last breath.

Kate: Ah, thank you. Waving, waving back at your ancestors, all of us.