The UMA Ayurveda Podcast

Shrankhla Holecek, the founder of UMA, discusses the world of wellness, holistic healing, alternative health, and Ayurveda. Each week, Shrankhla has a conversation with a professional she admires to illuminate ideas, debunk myths, and offer a new perspective on what modern wellness means today. The episodes offer candid takes and insightful advice on why the ancient practice of Ayurveda is both totally relevant and accessible for everyone.

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The UMA Ayurveda Podcast

The UMA Ayurveda Podcast - Ayurveda and the Beauty of Permission with Stacey Lindsay

June 19, 2020 • Shrankhla Holecek • Season 1 • Episode 1

For the premier episode of The UMA Elements podcast, Shrankhla talks with Stacey Lindsay, a multimedia journalist and writer. Over the course of her career, Stacey has held positions as a new anchor and reporter, a magazine writer, and a producer. As the articles editor of goop, Stacey covered the topics of civics, design, money, and career health, and helped to launch several new franchises including The Good Samaritan and Game Changers columns. Stacey has recently engaged in the practice of Ayurveda, weaving in elements of the ancient science piece by piece into her daily life. As she discusses with Shrankhla, Ayurveda has profoundly impacted her life and work, and has unlocked learnings about herself beyond her expectations.

Podcast duration: 41:12

Shrankhla Holecek: Hi! I am Shrankhla Holecek, the Founder & CEO of UMA, an Ayurvedic beauty and wellness collection. This is the UMA Ayurveda podcast. Each week I’ll be having a conversation with someone I greatly admire on the topics of Ayurveda, holistic healing, spiritual well-being and alternative health. By sharing this wisdom, I hope to share a personal truth and revelation with you. That, as ancient as they are, Ayurveda and other healing modalities are as modern and relevant today, as ever.

Today, I will be speaking with Stacey Lindsay – a distinctive multimedia journalist, who I have had the privilege of knowing both as a friend and a colleague at UMA. Stacy has had a storied editorial career that includes Goop, being a news anchor and reporter, and serving as the Editorial Director of The Conscious Investor, an organization that I am a huge fan of. Stacy also has had a fascinating journey with Ayurveda over the last few years. I’ve so enjoyed talking and working together with someone who not only has a passion and gift for research and storytelling, but also has had first-hand experience on how rich and transformational Ayurveda can be. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.

Shrankhla: Hi!

Stacy: Hi Shrankhla

Shrankhla: How are you, Stacy?

Stacy: I am doing well. How are you holding up?

Shrankhla: Good! All things considered, I am very excited to be chatting about Ayurveda with you. Of course, I should carry that with “formally chatting” Ayurveda since we talk about it every day.

Stacy: We really do and it’s kinda been one of the most profound parts of this journey for me is that ever since I started on this journey, and we’ve been continuing this conversation between the two of us. Ayurveda is really.. it touches everything in my day to day so it is kind of becoming the default for me which I love.

Shrankhla: And it is great and gratifying and in a weird way, very encouraging to see that resonate with people. In fact.. that, in the time that you've been practicing Ayurveda, I have to say it has been fuel for me to do some of the things I’ve always known that I should be doing but it’s almost like working out with a buddy or something in terms of its practice.

Stacy: I have to say that, yes, and you kinda see something with fresh eyes when you invite somebody else to take part of it. So we all have our own perspective and this has been a part of your life since day one of course and this is something relatively new for me, so I can imagine that. That is probably very cool. Just to have this sort of .. put a light on things that you may, I don’t want to say take for granted but may have been forgotten about a little bit, because there are so many facets to this ancient science.

Shrankhla: I think there is a little bit of taking for granted that happens and we deny Ayurvedic wisdom and I think that’s fine. Because, just this morning I was explaining to someone what Ayurveda is and I found myself saying that, it's not so much a prescription as a guidance and…

Stacy: Yes…

Shrankhla: So much beauty in that is liberating - that you can do two things or you can do twenty five things, and all of us are okay wherever we are on that spectrum of practicing Ayurveda.

Stacy: So, what would you say then, What does Ayurveda mean to you today?

Shrankhla: It’s a great question, because I have found that the question has evolved over the years and at some point of my life, I would have said, it’s a lifestyle, it’s cultural, it’s very much part of my routine… and this is probably a reflection of where I am currently in my life but it’s a great beacon of solace and direction in some senses, in that maybe for many years I’ve practice Ayurveda just in routine format but recently, I think Ayurveda has been something that I have done to seek a lot more solace and direction than I ever did in the past. So, when you ask me the question, it sort of suddenly came to me, rather than something that I had thought before, so that is…. Interesting and that is helping carry me through, right now and perhaps it will change in another few years and go back to the old ways or evolve into something different. What does Ayurveda mean to you?

Stacy: That’s beautiful that you say that. Because so much of that resonates, cause I feel it has the ability to make you feel quite grounded. I look Ayurveda is, really it’s an invitation it’s been this incredible, consistent invitation and what I mean by that, it’s an invitation for me to get to know myself into really-really understand myself semantically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, I’ve never understood myself better than I have these past years since practicing Ayurveda and it's also I love you use the word beacon and I feel that same way. It’s really been such a beacon of hope. I’ve never Shankhla ever felt connected with any other wellness protocol or wellness system, I think there’s beautiful facets to all of them but it just never connected with any of them until I discovered the ancient science Ayurveda and just the entire science and philosophy behind it, has opened my eyes to the beauty of really being me, and really understanding my uniqueness because for so long I kinda felt like an outsider. I think we all sort of struggle with that at some point of our life. And never really feel like you fit in, or this certain thing doesn’t really give us the wellness answers that we need. Ayurveda is just so generous, it invites you to be you and to just to understand you so there is such an incredible beauty in that but it’s also a heap of breath of fresh air finally I realized, oh, okay this is actually, I don’t really like to use the word “normal” but this is normal, because, I am unique. We’re all unique. And we’re always changing, so it's a wonderful, exciting invitation, I love it.

Shrankhla: So, to go back to that invitation because I feel like we should unpack that because it is such a brilliant classification of how we come to that journey of Ayurveda but I want to round out what you just said by underscoring something that, again, you and I have chatted about - in that the power of Ayurveda is so appealing in that it keeps driving you back to the fact that all the answers you need are within you, and that you need to listen to your body more which I think, especially in the world we live in - where you’re constantly questioning the motives of a philosophy or a product or things that are being presented to you and wondering about … hmm.. what’s going on here. What might be the catch?The fact that Ayurveda keeps driving to your own intuition and listening to your body that has evolved over millions of years, is really quite beautiful and powerful. But coming back to the question of invitation. In as much as you like to share Stacy, I’d love to hear about, and I’m sure everyone else does as well, about what spoke out to you about Ayurveda: was it the science, was it a place in your life? I'd love to hear more about that.

Stacy: it was sort of a meeting of several things, it’s always intrigued me. It has always sort of been in the back of my mind, something that I want to unpacked further. I’ve been intrigued by it for a really long time but I think just this past year - ultimately you’re a huge part ... getting to know the UMA brand more and through collaboration with you, working with you that was a huge part of why I decided to really lean into it. And quite honestly too: It’s extremely personal but it’s something really important that I’ve been starting to talk about since I’ve been practicing Ayurveda, is that I have faced an eating disorder in my adult life and it’s something that came into my adult life, in my early thirties, and this is something that started to happen to me when I was a broadcast journalist that was on TV. It has been a real hard battle, and I decided, you know I really want to, I always wanted to conquer it but I really really really want to start to unpack it, understand what was behind it and that was the ultimate trigger for me. I decided, I want to look into see if Ayurveda can help me with this, and then ultimately help me explore so many other parts of my wellness journey and that is been probably the most profound thing, as I’ve already mentioned. It really helped me understand myself better in such a profound way and I never ever expected that. I had hoped going into it of course but I never expected that it would actually impact me positively this much. Because again, it impacts you on every level: physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally too and I think, we have to really consider that for everything that we’re going through in life. All of those facets need to be honored.

Shrankhla: Thank you for sharing that because in my observation… and I want to put it very carefully, is that since moving to the United States, I think I have practiced less emotional release..

Stacy: Right ..

Shrankhla: In recent years, I realized that I was doing less of that. And what you just shared and did there - is a very, very important part of Ayurveda as you now know. That emotional release is the most important part of detoxifying your body because pent-up emotions lead to actual toxins in your body per Ayurveda. I have to acknowledge that, especially in my professional career in a more traditional role in my consulting job and in business school, that was definitely an element of less free speech about emotion, and being able to talk about things that were uniquely mine, the good or the stuff that was more challenging, is something that took work on being able to do again, as I had done

Maybe in my former life where I felt a little more free but now, it definitely is something that I have to remind myself to work on because, I mean, we’re all so unique, in our emotional journeys that we are on and … it’s just law of averages or of something... that we all must have vulnerability, which talking about can help us make more sense of, but it is sometime stigmatic to be emotional in many ways. I think sometimes as women … and I realize I go on a little bit more of a segue.. it becomes even harder to be emotionally expressive. Of course one can argue that socially, men have been conditioned to never talk about their emotions, but also as women in the workforce we sort of may be go toe to toe with our male counterparts and sometimes deny ourselves the emotional urge to release stuff that we might be thinking about, might be struggling with, might be happy about, and that’s something that is a core tenet of Ayurveda in that emotions must be observed with the respect that they deserve, and then be released.

Stacy - Absolutely and it’s important, because it gives credence to everything too. I think there’s so much sort of the head down, hardworking, hustling mentality that is endemic really, I think, to America that we know, that we’re starting to talk about how it really is impacting us in a negative way. You hear about burn out you know, you hear about all of these things that are happening - but still, we’re still not giving the things credence that we need to give, it’s almost if we don’t see it.. out of sight, out of mind .. or out of sight just push it away, so, of course maybe you can’t actually see your emotions but it doesn’t mean that they are not valid, and it doesn’t mean that they are not as important as maybe .. of course if you broke your arm, oh my gush you rush to the doctor right away, but if you weren’t emotionally feeling stable, or if you’re feeling like you had a pent-up anger or what not, maybe you wouldn’t rush to the doctor right away and that’s unfortunate because that really builds and it manifest in unique ways.. unique to all of us but again.. ultimately it can manifest in whether it’s been a sort of disorder or some sort of a sickness, some of a sort of a disease but just giving that credence. In the same way too with your spiritual being.. that should be and it is in Ayurveda just as important because we’re all really unique, convoluted being that’s what, that is what makes us whole it’s not just the physicality behind us, it’s everything else.

Shrankhla - and even though what I am going to say is a sort of a business oriented or a leadership oriented way of looking at that but you see I have found within this journey of entrepreneurship is that I am my best, when I am allowing the time and the courage to lean into my emotions. So I’ll give, examples of two days that can be widely different in way of the “impact” I have had on my work, or even my personal relationships. The day that I have left myself the room to connect spiritually or emotionally with what’s going on and really leaned into some of the rawness are the days, I can categorically say I have been more impactful .. whether it is in forging a relationship with a business associate or talking to my sister about something and getting her excited about a facet of her life, I just feel like those moments and those days are so much more powerful and memorable and leave behind a positive impact than days that I have just been “grinding”. And in perfect honesty, I do end up having many of those days but they don’t shine bright quite like the other days..

Stacy - That’s incredibly important to talk about that too, and so powerful, and what is so interesting about that too is that there’s actually recent western research that supports that. Which I almost wonder if sometimes... I think about 5000 years ago and people originally practicing this... and who are writing the vedic text … they’re probably laughing going “told you so”. We’ve known these thousands of years… and now, there’s actually recent research that supports that when people genuinely take time off, not just kinda taken a half day but checking email … really take time off to whether it is to nourish your personal relationship going on a really legitimate vacation, to be with your best friend and all of that, you’re actually so much more productive, and efficient and impactful and successful .. when you go back to work.

Shrankhla - I couldn’t agree more . and, yes, it has become more and more practically visible to me as life has gone on…. Stacy, what were some of the resources that you found really helpful in your journey.

Stacy - There’s some great books out there, Dr. Vasant Lad, he’s this sage in Ayurveda and really has been a big part of bringing it here and making it prominent in the United States. I highly recommend any of his books. My partner was so kind to get me several of this books for Christmas and I devoured them and it’s interesting because I kinda keep them they strewn all over my home, so I’ll just pick one up and sort of, sometimes I just pick one up and read a random page cause it just gives me a dose of wisdom and sometimes there’s something specific going on … or approaching new season .. and I wanna give myself sort of a tutorial, I’ll read a page from his book. But there have been amazing resources.. and I did have a formal consultation with a practitioner in Los Angeles, her name is Shiela, I credit so much to her. I recommend sitting and getting a formal consultation with a practitioner .. somebody who’s accredited so that they can really help you unpack your history, kinda unpack your journey going forward and see where, where you should dive into Ayurveda and what aspect you wanna start to weaving into your life and you can really take it slow but that consultation.. mixed with the readings. Of course - I’m so interested in it and when I’ve seen the change like anything, when you start to see results, that just feeds your curiosity even more so as I’ve been noticing, as I have just been feeling brighter and feeling I am more connected to myself and definitely help my anxiety. I am voraciously reading about it more and more .

Shrankhla - and I am, you know, a huge fan of Dr. Vasant Lad. I love that there is not a single compromise on the authenticity of Ayurveda but yet, I think it’s a very inviting, warm, inspiration on how we apply to modern life, that’s what makes his work very, very compelling. And I think it’s a great callout, Stacy, in that your journey is usually step-wise and I keep saying this… and people may whom have heard me elsewhere will chuckle at how often I repeat myself, but what is great about Ayurveda, is you can be anywhere on the spectrum, and it’s still a great place to start out but I think in many ways, a consultation can be that next level jump …. because very often during conversation with a group or you know an instagram live I get, “So how can I figure out my dosha”.. and I always have this answer which I know it’s not gratifying that, “well, an online quiz will take you 40% or 50 % of the way there .. because there are many things that we can tell about our bodies by looking at external manifestations of our dosha… but truly what a doctor can do for you; ofcourse it has to be a good doctor but what a doctor can do for you in terms of understanding your dosha is a step change in how you start to, then apply those principles to your body because sometimes when you’re going off of a reading off the internet, you run into the minor issue that you are actually showing signs of the dosha in your body that is out of balance, instead of your true dosha. As can be the case right now for instance.. a lot of us would present a some vata disturbances because of the environment we are in .. and a lot of us are feeling anxious, so it’s easy to think, “oh because I am so anxious right now, or I am not sleeping well, I must be vata” but a doctor can really help you unpack that whether it was just a seasonal or an environmental imbalance, in the vata dosha while you were really a Pitta or a Kapha versus whether that is your pre dominant dosha, so I agree, it’s a great place to start with Dr. Vasant Lad’s works.. God knows I love him and I think as you get deeper, it’s good to get in for a consultation if you can.

Stacy: That’s so important. I love that you said, you can start anywhere though, cause that is the biggest thing , it’s human nature almost, don’t you think? Okay I will start this when I am in this place … or I just need two more weeks, then I’m gonna start this. No, Ayurveda is so generous that you can start anytime, you can start right after listening to this conversation, you can start right now. And in a lot of ways too.. you probably may not even realize it that you most likely are incorporating Ayurveda into your lifestyle, already. You don’t have to be any particular place… right now is what we have and is so beautiful, and right now is the best moment to start to get to know yourself more, and start to discover Ayurveda.

Shrankhla: the impact you see from the journey can also be different for instance, the idea or the practice of tongue scraping can give you immediate results. I mean, once you sort of clean your tongue or scrape it with a tongue scraper, it’s a huge difference in oral hygiene off the bat that very day. So versus, you know a panchakarma which will take you a few weeks it but really rewire you and reset your balances, so, but there are things that really get you that instant gratification of impact .. not tha that is Ayurveda’s goal but you’re right in that you can start any time.

Stacy: Those small winds... you know they’ve studied the neuroplasticity in how we form new habits and we have this grand goals, it can be really intimidating and it can actually cause us to be petrified but if we start small .. that’s how we can really retrain our brains and we start building upon those .. and Ayurveda is amazing, because, again, there’s a million small ways we can start … and tongue scraping is amazing because it's so simple, it’s so affordable, you just get a simple tongue scraper that costs nothing and you do that .. and you start noticing it right away and I also love it because it not only helps oral hygiene overall but also really has a profound impact on how you eat too.. it helps with sensitivity: how you feel your food, how you experience your food, and studies have shown that it can actually help with, how you taste your food too, so you can taste your food better and again... we’re talking about like how long does it really take to scrape your tongue in the morning?

Shrankhla:...I want to say under 20 seconds

Stacy: Yes, Yeah and it will impact the rest of your day. It’s awesome .

Shrankhla: definitely is. And building on that, Stacy, I know you just debunked a few myths around Ayurveda by calling out that that you can start anywhere. But are there some other myths that you have found that maybe you wrangled with before approaching Ayurveda … or have heard others talk about as they start this journey?

Stacy- the biggest one that I have heard, and that I faced myself two years ago as I was interested in it … is this misconception that it's convoluted, that it’s hard, that it’s sort of “all or nothing” and that, is not.. and that’s, totally not true. Again all we’ve been talking about for several minutes, you can start any place, you can start with any aspect of it, big or small. It’s actually really, really really simple and of course, you can build on it. And it’s really interesting, you know as you build on science before to learn more. Some of it might become a little bit more convoluted and then you look to the experts, or the practitioner or a doctor .. but most of it is quite simple and it’s totally totally malleable and that's the best part . It doesn’t have to be intimidating, it doesn’t have to be… oh my gosh I just have to give up this or give up that … and that’s probably other thing too. Now that I think about it, is that when it comes to Ayurveda diet, I think a lot of people think I have to give up a lot... I have to sacrifice. There’s no sacrificing. I didn’t sacrifice anything. It was not … like, okay, I am going in and, my practitioner said to cut out this, this, this. Yes, she did make recommendations for certain things that I should try not to eat and certain things that I should eat more of that are good for my constitution, my dosha, but you’ll naturally… I’ll just naturally felt like, I gravitate more towards those foods anyways. It made sense, because, for instance, I never really liked eating salads, they just never left me feeling good, they didn’t really leave my digestion feeling good, so when she started recommending more nourishing, warmer foods for me, it’s just, I didn’t feel like it was giving up upon anything... and that is huge too.

It is tough, I don’t know if it’s in American thing or Western culture thing but it is really tough when you're looking at something you know it’s gonna benefit you … but you feel you have to sacrifice . No one wants to do that, you know, because you wanna enjoy your life, so Ayurveda is not about sacrificing, it’s actually about leaning into the things that were better for you and leaning into the things that nourish you and my experience is just naturally the things that didn’t work for me, they just melted away.

Shrankhla: and to just a little bit provocative with that, what may have been your least favorite part of this, this journey of Ayurvedic living?

Stacy - Ohh.gosh. I mean, getting real, you gotta go deep... and it’s funny .. a dear friend and she’s been a big part of my support system in this journey too. She’s always been interested in Ayurveda and practiced it and she told me, she said, Stacy, you're not going deep and I said, what are you talking about? .. I go deep, you know, I mean, I am a journalist, I ask questions, I go deep with people and that has sort of been a huge part of my career too. Writing about wellness, interviewing people about wellness. However - she’s right, you need to really be willing to go deep and what I mean by that is to really get to know yourself and it’s so fantastic once you just let yourself go and let yourself really, really, really get to know yourself …. but it was .. I would say it was definitely uncomfortable... that’s tough for us, we wanna be comfortable all the time and I think, sort of routine and what we know.. we just lean towards that , what we don’t know , what we can leave it other there, unpacking what we don’t know and going deep. It was intense Shrankhla.

Shrankhla - I couldn’t agree with you more … at the top of this conversation, we talked about emotional release and maybe I made it a sound very easy, or theoretically easy, but it’s years of bad habits, emotional bad habits that get sticky and tricky to let go of, even though you start to realize the self harm that comes from that.. but you’re completely right and I hadn’t thought of that as I was asking you the question, I was wondering, what has been hard for me, but you are completely right at bottom, Ayurveda asks you to dig in deeper and deeper and strengthen your journey, whether it’s... through the practices of cleaning your tongue or practicing self Abhyanga or dry brushing.. but it all goes back to the idea of self exploration and self love, and that is harder to do … without sounding trite or too cheesy.. but it’s harder to do than most of us give it credit .

Stacy- And ultimately, so worth it to do and very very very hard to do right, that we, harder to give a credit and also the most worthwhile thing to do in life for yourself.

Shrankhla - Exactly and I think that’s why it is important to celebrate the little winds that come from endorsing those emotions whether it is to just stop showing up for gatherings that do not work well for you. I don’t particularly have social anxiety.. but there are situations where.. there are gatherings that I just take nothing away from .. and I kept falling into that pattern because I kept avoiding that self connection around just acknowledging that, but my little winds were acknowledging those emotions, not acting on those repetitive behavior patterns, and then suddenly recognizing how much more fulfilled I felt by just cutting those little things out, so I think, we’ve to sort of celebrate our emotional winds as we break out of those patterns we’ve fallen into.

Stacy- And I’m glad you shared that, because honoring that, it circles back to what I was talking about several minutes ago about giving credence to certain things, and again this mentality, this go go go, and be tough and hustle and all of that, we are really not honoring so often … we tend to not honor when something just doesn’t feel good. We know we have the gift of fear, we know something feels really scary something of course, animal instinct comes to surface … and we will have to run or do what we have to do... but when something just… you know we’re not in danger but we, as you said, are in a social setting or maybe its a particular relationship too… it’s just.. you’re not really feeling fulfilled from it, or you’re feeling that you’re not growing good or positive.. so often.. I mean, at least for me, and I know a lot of my colleagues and friends… I’ve just said, Oh I see, Stacy, buck up, you should go to this because everybody is going to it .. or you should like this because you just should … when now, I am realizing, “No, I am really gonna honor that”, and by doing that .. similar to what you’ve said.. Shrankhla, I feel that I have released so much more energy and I feel so much better... I just feel better.

Shrankhla - I acknowledge how smart our bodies are.. If you are acknowledging a feeling ..or not acknowledging that feeling.. if it’s nagging away at you - it's among the biggest energy distractors we face, whether you are choosing to face that feeling or not … it’s not serving you … some parts of your body’s energy is going towards allaying the feeling.. and it’s little wonder that everyone I know feels exhausted all the time!

Stacy: Yeah, Everybody, I know.

Shrankhla: Stacy, what dosha are you? And how did you find out?

Stacy: Vata and with a little Pitta... You knew that... And it’s the coolest thing. It really is because.. and it continues to be, it's not the sort of, one hit-wonder when you find out, okay that’s me.. You talk about it a little bit ..and it’s over. No, I’m consistently unveiling things about myself .. just understanding that, it is wild Shrankhla, it’s so awesome. When I sat down with Shiela for my official consultation and we really walked through, and that talked about, you know being uncomfortable, it was beautiful and amazing but talking about going deep and really leaning into that just discomfort, it was mind-blowing when I learned but ultimately she was the one to unveil my true dosha to me and then ever since, from that, just learning about the foods that make me feel good … and the things that when my dosha is out of balance .. how that manifests and how that expresses. My entire life, definitely my entire adult life, anxiety has always been the demon in my life and now I completely understand, I understand when things get out of balance, and it just all goes back to okay, I have to take care of this, I have to nourish this more, to kind of bring myself back to balance and its cool when you meet other, fellow vatas, oh.. yeah and you can see, or like a fellow kapha, and you start to speak each others language - it's pretty neat.

Shrankhla - Completely, and I think, it’s worth calling out that it’s sort of a Myers’ Briggs personality type in that there’s no good or bad Dosha... it is simply recognizing your type and then modifying.. or .. rather optimizing your life and behavior patterns around it .. because it takes one of each type to make the world work and that Ayurveda’s way of beautifully preserving balance in the world.. I mean, when you get deeper in Ayurveda, you also start to see that, the encouragement of the balance is not just within yourself also that the universe takes care of balance as a whole.. and it's nice to see that there are so many balancing personalities, dosha types, doing that on a daily basis, and making the world such a thrilling, amazing, fantastic place to be in when we can take a moment to recognize that.

Stacy- Well, you’re keeping me, I’m so curious now, well, I do wanna say, I wanna briefly say that for those who may not know a Vata is, it’s movement in air and space, or the two main elements that make up a Vata.

Shrankhla, what is your dosha? I think I know but..

Shrankhla - I’m Pitta

Stacy - You’re Pitta.. Water and Fire.

Shrankhla - That is correct and I’ve known my dosha for a really long time also because when I was a child, many of the elements that presented as out of imbalance were of the Pitta nature. Stacy, you know this, I went to boarding school very young and oftentimes - not under constant guidance of my parents- I would do things .. and still do things even though I am not under the stewardship of my parents... that I know that are not good for my dosha and I would start to see those issues present themselves.. temperamentally, I feel like frustration, and anger, might be the first emotional disturbances that presents themselves in me when I am imbalanced. Also- I do struggle with heartburn, anytime I am physically, or emotionally out of balance, that’s one that shows pretty quickly in my body .. and so I feel I’m very strongly a Pitta but with that said, there are times, that I have had Vata disturbances in my body as well. I do, and I have had, periods of feeling very anxious and .. also Kapha.. I mean there are times that you know, during a bad few weeks, and I have trouble getting out of bed, knowing that I should be exercising more to sort of balance the Kapha out but feeling the least motivated to that ... because that’s another dosha in my body.. as we know all of us has all of three dosha while having one dominant one while presenting itself .. but by and large, most of my “imbalances” have been triggered within the Pitta category which is what my dominant dosha is.

Stacy: And that makes sense in getting to know you. I know work is very important to you, and when you are balanced correctly if I’m wrong but, there is more drive in Pittas.

Shrankhla: you’re completely right, I mean, by and large, I’ve always felt like I have seen you in balance, you're so incredibly creative .. among the most creative minds I know.. and that’s such a beautiful Vata talent.

Stacy: Thank you so much and that’s another really fun way to look Ayurveda, unlocking all the fun that it brings to life is of course, the big goal is to be in balance and to honor your dosha and honor your constitution but ultimately what it unlocks too... I love the way it does honor my creativity because I’ve always really valued that .. but of course if I’m not in balance and I’m going into a hard time.. and I’m not eating the right food or what not, I feel like, my life of the mind is just “on hold” and it’s really upsetting so it's just motivates me even more to lean in to it, to care more myself, to honor everything … so I can get back in balance so I can ultimately feel like my creativity thrives again. It's so fun.

Shrankhla: It really is. I mean I hope this conversation makes people a little bit curious around the exploration of Ayurveda, if not go further with it. Stacy, any parting thoughts?

Stacy - it has fueled some of my relationships too, in ways I didn’t expect. Of course I love talking about this with my partner, and understanding him more.. but also just with friends or just dinners, of course when we’re able to have physical dinners again with people but just any conversations with people, it doesn’t need a place to talk about it, somebody doesn’t know about Ayurveda or somebody is on the journey… and just really really really fun. But I hope that everybody can, in some form, at least consider the invitation, to get to know themselves more because it has been the most profound thing in my life that I have ever ever done for myself. And I thank you Shrankhla for being such a huge part of that.

Shrankhla - while you give me too much credit but so beautifully and eloquently, that I will leave people with that gorgeous invitation to explore the tenets of Ayurveda in their lives and for our part.. we hope to keep bringing you, bite-size intelligent, informative, provocative pieces of Ayurveda, through our journey on UMA Elements, and please look out for more.

Stacy- Thank you so much

Shrankhla - Bye. Thank you so much for listening. If you like more information on our guest and the additional references during our conversation, Please visit us at UMAOils.com.

y are, Ayurveda and other healing modalities are as modern and relevant today, as ever.

Today, I will be speaking with Stacy Lindsey – a distinctive multimedia journalist, who I have had the privilege of knowing both as a friend and a colleague at UMA. Stacy has had a storied editorial career that includes Goop, being a news anchor and reporter, and serving as the Editorial Director of The Conscious Investor, an organization that I am a huge fan of. Stacy also has had a fascinating journey with Ayurveda over the last few years. I’ve so enjoyed talking and working together with someone who not only has a passion and gift for research and storytelling, but also has had first-hand experience on how rich and transformational Ayurveda can be. So, without further ado, let’s get into it.