Monday, December 21, 2020

Ayurveda and Purpose with Sahara Rose [Episode #535]

Sahara Rose [Podcast #535] Blog Graphic for Ayurveda and Purpose with Sahara Rose on the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder.

This week’s topic is: Ayurveda and Purpose with Sahara Rose

I am so excited to have my very special guest, Sahara Rose, who is an Ayurvedic practitioner, speaker and host of the Highest Self podcast. Listen in as Sahara shares her Ayurvedic perspective on how to create more balance, connecting with the feminine, and how to define your purpose.

[BULLETS]

  • Ayurvedic perspective on how to create more balance body-wise…
  • Whether you should focus on numbers within Ayurvedic medicine…
  • Sahara’s Ayurvedic background and how she embodies this more holistic perspective…
  • How to connect with the feminine, in both men and women…
  • We discuss how we personally define our purpose…
  • Breaking down what Kapha is Ayurveda…
  • Sahara shares Ayurvedic concept offerings when it comes to our Four Cornerstones…

[FEATURED GUESTS]

Sahara Rose on the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyder.

About Sahara Rose 

Sahara Rose is an Ayurvedic practitioner, speaker and host of the Highest Self podcast. Sahara is on a mission to remind people of their highest selves so they can share their gifts with the world and raise the vibration of the planet. She is the author of the book Discover Your Dharma: A Vedic Guide to Discovering Your Soul’s Purpose. 

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[❤️ FAN OF THE WEEK]

#535 Sahara Rose Fan of the Week interview on the Feel Good Podcast with Kimberly Snyderr.

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Sahara Rose’s Interview

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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.

Kimberly: 00:01 Hey Beauties, welcome back to our Monday interview podcast. I hope you are staying cozy and safe and grounded as we are now in the full height of the holiday season, and you are not, hopefully, getting so wrapped up in the details, but remembering, reminding yourself that it’s really about staying in that loving, connected space with yourself, giving yourself a break, sticking with your practices. Speaking of which, we have a very special guest for you today. Her name is Sahara Rose, and she is an Ayurveda practitioner, speaker, and an author, and she has an upcoming book called “Discover your Dharma.”

Fan of the Week

Kimberly: 00:39 We’re going to be talking about practices, and especially for this time of year, in how it relates to our purpose and expanding some of these Vedic concepts. I’m super excited to get into the podcast today, but before we do, I want to give a quick shout out to our fan of the week, who is a man, who was one of our brothers. I love it. His name is lukestreet91, and he writes, “You need this. This podcast is great.” Luke, brother, I am so happy you are here. I feel that our mail base is growing and growing, and it makes me really happy because ultimately we all come from source. Ultimately, know what is gender anyway? What does it really matter? It’s another form of, in some ways, creating duality and separation. At the core, we connect on so many similarities that we have the divine feminine and divine masculine in each of us anyway. I am really, really excited that you’re here, and thank you so much for your amazing, amazing review. I send you a huge virtual hug, no matter where you are. Thank you.

Leave a Review and Subscribe on Itunes

Kimberly: 01:53 Beauties, for your chance to also be shouted out as the fan of the week, please just take a moment out of your day and leave us a review on iTunes, which is free, and easy, and just such a great way to support the show. Just like Lukestreet91’s here, it can literally be one sentence. It’s one sentence, and then the thumbs up emoji. I love that. While you’re over there, please be sure to subscribe to our show, that way you don’t miss out on any of these interview podcasts or any of our Thursday community shows. All right, all that being said, let’s get right into our interview today with Sahara.

Interview with Sahara Rose

Kimberly: 00:00 It’s great to connect with you, finally. We’ve been talking a bit and we’ve met at some events.

Sahara: 00:06 Yes.

Kimberly: 00:07 Yeah. The universe has brought us together. So, it’s great to be here and thank you for being flexible with the time. I’m trying to juggle so much right now with the baby and a four year old who’s not in school and we just started creating a sleep schedule.

Kimberly: 00:23 So, right now the baby is napping and my four year old is eating breakfast. So, thank you.

Sahara: 00:29 Well I’ve been following your posts and I just want to commend you and all mothers right now. You guys are seriously the embodiments of the Durga energy, of just the warrioress with the eight arms doing it all and I know you already have been embodying her with your books and your career and it’s just a whole other level of showing me and so many people what is possible. So, thank you for showing that and being the exception.

Kimberly: 00:54 Thank you so much. I think it’s great when we can share our struggles too. It’s been a challenging year and there is just so much that’s gone on for all of us. We’ve had to shift, we’ve had to adjust, and I know you’re an Ayurvedic practitioner as well, Sahara.

Ayurvedic perspective on how to create more balance body-wise

Kimberly: 01:12 I tend to really go out of balance with my Vata and it’s Vata season right now. So, trying to do all the other more things to get balanced. Can you share a little bit about what is going on right now just body-wise from an Ayurvedic perspective and how we can create more balance first of all, because I just think a lot of us are feeling that wind energy, we’re just feelings things pick up right now.

Sahara: 01:42 Yeah, totally. Vata is the air energy and it’s like this physical back-to-school season that we all feel of when fall comes around we’re changing, we’re shifting. We’re shifting identity. We’re shifting habits, we’re shifting relationships. This year in particular, I feel like a decision that could have taken us five to 10 years, we made this year.

Sahara: 02:04 It was like catapult, sort of things moving so much faster which is beautiful and allows us to basically shift timelines and is super overwhelming because it’s all happening at once.

Sahara: 02:16 That Vata energy spirals and spirals like that tornado and if we don’t have that balance of that grounding, that moisture, then it can essentially cause us to create a tornado in our minds, the anxiety, the insomnia and then physically qualities of air.

Sahara: 02:32 So, feeling cold, dry. I know you live in Topanga, which is already like in LA it’s its own climate. It’s much more fall.

Kimberly: 02:41 I think there’s four or possibly five micro climates in Topanga. So, I actually live in the more tropical one. There’s a lot of natural springs here. Whereas if I go 10 minutes down the road, it’s really interesting, my friend’s place feels like the desert. It’s this very interesting micro climate place.

Sahara: 03:00 I love that.

Kimberly: 03:00 A little like LA.

Sahara: 03:01 Yeah. I just moved to Miami, so your environment is so important because I’m also pretty Vata and I need the moisture. I need it otherwise I will get super, even eggs and that type of skin. That’s great. I’m wondering when you were choosing your home, were you like, “I need to be in this more tropical micro climate verse the dry one because of my Vata.”

Kimberly: 03:23 Yeah. I think that I loved the ocean. I used to do ocean walks, beach walks every day. I used to live down in Venice and I just felt the pull. I’m more of a forest person, the mountains. So, I felt really clear about where I wanted to live.

Kimberly: 03:39 Sure, probably I’m half Filipino. So, in my most natural essence I would live in a full tropical place like Thailand or the Philippines, but not right now in my life. This does feel a lot more moisturizing than other parts of LA.

Sahara: 03:59 Totally. I think we’re realizing right now how much our environment impacts us. We’re spending so much more time at home and we’re realizing the little things, like that little clutter that’s been in the corner for way too long or maybe you’re walking with your feet on the cold tile. Or these little things that can constantly be making our bodies feel cold, out of balance, or even just be creating energetic imbalance in the room.

Sahara: 04:23 So, so many of us right now, which is really beautiful, are rethinking how can I create more of this soothing, cozy, warm environment in my home so it doesn’t feel like I’m … I think a lot of us we never thought about it that much until this year. Your home is kind of like you sleep and you go. Now we’re like, “Wow, how can I create a sanctuary for myself that really creates the grounding and the energy that I need to show up?”

Kimberly: 04:49 Thank you for bringing that up. I think it’s so important because you’re right, a lot of people just kind of go and through their busy day they don’t think about their home space. I’ve been really interested in sanctuary for a while and then when I was studying with Dr. Jay, I don’t know if you know my Ayurvedic teacher as well?

Sahara: 05:05 I’ve heard him on your podcast but I don’t know him.

Kimberly: 05:08 Okay.

Sahara: 05:08 Yeah.

Kimberly: 05:08 But there is this, which I only did one class in Rasashastra, am I saying that right? The Ayurvedic …

Sahara: 05:14 Vastu shastra, yes.

Kimberly: 05:16 Yes. Do you practice some of those principles?

Sahara: 05:19 I do some of it. Vastu shastra was the original form of home energy sciences that Feng Shui is based off of just like Chinese medicine was based off of Ayurveda in year 800 A.D. That’s when Chinese medicine came to be from India.

Sahara: 05:34 But some things in Vastu shastra like Feng Shui are super technical and it’s hard. Unless you’re designing your home from scratch, can you make sure it’s facing the north or all of those things.

Kimberly: 05:44 And it’s closer to the roof and all these things.

Sahara: 05:46 Exactly. But some things I do. One thing in Vastu shastra is the doshas do impact you on a home level, but even the plants that you have.

Kimberly: 05:54 Yeah.

Sahara: 05:55 So, a lot of us in California have cactuses. That’s very trendy. It grows outside. Cactuses are kind of like the wellness home aesthetic.

Kimberly: 06:05 Exactly.

Sahara: 06:05 But it’s something in Vastu shastra that they don’t recommend because they say that it will create spiky energy in your life and to always have plants that have more of that soft, luxurious, leafy energy like a money tree or a fiddle leaf tree, et cetera. That’s going to create more abundance and softness in your life.

Sahara: 06:25 Once I learned about that, I was like, “Okay, I’m not going to get any more cactuses. I’m going to go for the luxury trees and try to create more of that in my life.”

Kimberly: 06:32 Totally. I think it’s like we take what makes sense to us. Because I’ve heard there’s so many Feng Shui way of schools and some say the cactus brings strength and resiliency. So, I think there’s all these systems. People are always asking me, I’m sure they ask you too, what do I follow? They get confused.

Kimberly: 06:50 I say ultimately listen to your own instinct and your own gut because I think it’s just like astrology or certain things they can give us guide points, but ultimately we want to tune back in.

Sahara: 07:03 Absolutely.

Kimberly: 07:04 Otherwise I’d be redecorating my house all the time.

Sahara: 07:05 I know. You’re like, good for the Vastu shastra, Feng Shui this. Yeah. That’s the thing too, what’s your personal energy when you look at that thing. Some people really like cactus. They really love a little bit of mess. They really love a lot of eclectic color.

Sahara: 07:18 For other people, that makes them feel energetically off. Sometimes the only way we can know is through trial and error, see how it feels. Then the thing is a lot of people we don’t realize when something feels off until it’s gone or until we’ve made that change.

Sahara: 07:32 So, it’s to have more access to your intuition. How am I feeling when I’m in this space, when I’m eating this food, when I’m having this type of conversation. Feeling energetically in my body what does expansive feel like, what does contractive feel like.

Sahara: 07:45 So, then when I’m doing these different things in my life, I can tune in, is this making me feel more expansive or more contractive.

Whether you should focus on numbers within Ayurvedic medicine 

Kimberly: 07:52 That’s one of the reasons, Sahara, that I have always taught people not to focus so much on numbers. Coming from someone that was obsessed with calorie counting and the number on the scale. Then I threw out my scale and then I just stopped counting and it make such a difference because I think when we focus on numbers, that’s what we’re getting our information versus tuning in.

Kimberly: 08:15 First we have to even understand this concept that energy can’t be measured by the finiteness of numbers. Ayurvedic medicine you don’t really see numbers talked about very much at all, do you?

Sahara: 08:28 Absolutely. Well I think that for us we’ve grown up in this system that has taught us to measure everything. That we need facts, data, analytics, research. We have, as children and you see this yourself probably with your own kids, we’re very intuitive, inquisitive, playful, curious. But then we enter our institution that teaches us to show up in different ways.

Sahara: 08:50 So, we think if someone told me that this is good for me, then I’m going to do it. If someone told me to do this, then I will do it. We allow authority to dictate our decisions rather than ourselves. So, it really is.

Sahara: 09:03 We all have different starting points. So, for me and also for you is your physical health. For someone else it could be through their skincare routine or through Reiki or through Arbology or something. But we all get to the same place of where is this actually taking us, what’s the purpose of it, what’s the purpose of this overall health?

Sahara: 09:23 It’s so you can radiate as your fullest expression. Then when you begin to do that, you realize that wow, one person’s decisions definitely don’t make me radiate at my fullest self and it gives you more permission to say, “Hey, love what you’re doing. Also, not for me.”

Sahara: 09:41 Then this systems like Ayurveda give us more language to then understand and have a framework of oh, maybe the reason why that wasn’t for me has to do with the Vata or has to do with the Pitta, the Kapha, et cetera.

Sahara: 09:53 But really it’s just giving language and terminology to something that we’re already intuitively feeling.

Kimberly: 09:59 I feel like we do intuitively feel. But like you said, the way that many of us have been raised or these systems or Western medicine can teach us to silence those voices. I see my sons, especially the four year old, the baby is just this little baby. But the four year is so intuitive and he says things that are so wise and I don’t want to turn it off.

Kimberly: 10:20 So, I always try to encourage him to listen to himself. But I’m interested in your background of how you came here because I think it’s important we just kind of see our roots and we see the pathway. It’s interesting to share our journeys.

Kimberly: 10:34 I’ll say at Solluna we have something called our Four Cornerstone philosophy, which is food, body, emotional wellbeing and spiritual growth. What I loved when I started learning about Ayurveda was this aspect of incorporating the elements of our feelings and our emotions and what’s going on in the mind and mental disturbances.

Kimberly: 10:53 That’s not really how I was raised. So, for me the pathway into wellness really was food because I was constipated and I was blotted and food was so tangible I could pick it up and I could hold it and I could smell it.

Kimberly: 11:06 But then I went down the pathway and after a few years I realized oh, the emotional part and the spiritual part, which is to me the most important, but this connection with ourself was really lacking.

Kimberly: 11:19 So, I discovered that through this whole journey and working with so many hundreds and hundreds of clients, but it wasn’t the way I was initially raised. I was raised Catholic, so there was this prayer part and then there was the food part, but it wasn’t integrated.

Sahara’s Ayurvedic background and how she embodies this more holistic perspective

Kimberly: 11:35 Anyways. Back to you, were you raised with an Ayurvedic background or tell me a little bit about your child life, your home life, how you came into embodying this more holistic perspective.

Sahara: 11:47 Yeah. I can totally relate and I’ll share also in this story how I came across your work specifically. When I was a child just like yourself, definitely it was not healthy. My parents, my mom especially would tell me this is warming, this is cooling, a lot of Ayurvedic principles. But I never-

Kimberly: 12:03 Yeah. Sorry. Where did you grow up and are your parents Indian or?

Sahara: 12:06 Yeah. My mom’s ancestry is Indian. My dad’s Iranian.

Kimberly: 12:10 Okay.

Sahara: 12:12 I grew up hearing that in Persian culture, Indian culture it’s really like the qualities of the food mattered. And the way that we speak to everything, it’s cooling, it’s warming. Not so much the doshas, but more of just the temperature wise, which also exist in Latin culture, different African cultures, et cetera.

Sahara: 12:30 My mom would give me lentils and give me all these stews and I hated it and I really wanted to fit in with the other American kids in my school. So, I saw what they were eating and I was like, okay, if I just eat lunchables and macaroni and cheese and peanut butter and jelly, then I’ll fit in. I definitely don’t look like anyone else, I didn’t even speak English when I first came to school. So, I did everything I could to assimilate to Western culture. So, that got me …

Kimberly: 12:55 Where was your school, where were you as a child?

Sahara: 12:58 Outside of Boston.

Kimberly: 13:00 Okay.

Sahara: 13:00 Yeah. So, it was very white.

Kimberly: 13:04 I grew up in Connecticut and I was also the non-white person.

Sahara: 13:07 Yeah, exactly. So, I was like okay, I definitely don’t look like anyone but I can eat like them. That made me addicted to it. Once you start sipping the Kool-Aid, you really start craving it. So, I became overweight, I had all sorts of allergies, which later led to asthma.

Sahara: 13:23 Every time I would actually go outside, I’m sure you remember in Connecticut all the sun, I would get such an asthma attack that I couldn’t play outside. So, every day when it was recess I would get sent to the principal’s office, I would have to sit in the principal’s office and wait for the kids to come back inside.

Sahara: 13:38 I was like serving a punishment for a crime I didn’t commit. But because my body was so disconnected from earth, that it would literally have this response. My mom would tell me, “The only way you can get through this is to go outside.” I was like, “Are you crazy? Are you trying to kill me?”

Sahara: 13:54 I hated outside. I was afraid of it. So, I had so many asthma attacks growing up. Then eventually when I was in high school, I actually remember this, I was at Sephora, you know when they do these little makeovers. The makeover girl was like, “Check out this book. It’s by this woman, she talks about Glowing Green Smoothie®.”

Kimberly: 14:12 Oh my God.

Sahara: 14:14 I was like, “What is this? This is so cool. You could just … You can put all these things in a smoothie?”

Kimberly: 14:19 Wow.

Sahara: 14:19 I remember that and seeing yourself, it was such a pivotal moment of like, wow, you can be a goddess and beautiful and not like the nerdy, nutrition freaks. That was really, that’s why it’s so amazing talking to you today.

Sahara: 14:31 I was telling my husband, I was like, I so remember that moment when I went to Barnes & Nobles and picked up your book. I was like I’m going to start doing this. I started to learn everything I could about nutrition and that helped me feel physically better, which later brought me very deeply into yoga.

Sahara: 14:49 From that yoga journey I was on, it brought me into Ravenism, which I know is also a part of your journey.

Kimberly: 14:55 Yes.

Sahara: 14:58 Then I started Vikram vegan. I was like, “No, no, no.”

Kimberly: 15:02 I think it works for a time for a lot of us.

Sahara: 15:04 Exactly.

Kimberly: 15:05 I felt great the first year. But then the second year as you probably know well, I just started wanting hot soup. So, it’s always a mix. I know Ayurveda will also say no to the smoothies although Dr. Jay has adapted it. He recommends smoothies.

Kimberly: 15:21 I don’t really drink them cold and I always have hot tea first. We just …

Sahara: 15:26 Yeah, exactly. I started to go into different raw vegan food, learning from David Wolfe and all these different people. In the first eight months I felt amazing and then I was also in very cold icy Boston. So, my body began really shutting down.

Sahara: 15:41 It started for me not getting my period anymore. Having a really hard time digesting food. Losing a lot of hair, a lot of weight. Feeling so shivering cold all the time. I didn’t get my period at all for over two years.

Kimberly: 15:55 Wow.

Sahara: 15:55 I had all sorts of digestive issues that I started to go to many gastroenterologists, endocrinologists. I couldn’t sleep, I had really bad insomnia and they just kept prescribing me more medication.

Sahara: 16:08 They would say, “Take an antidepressant medication for your digestion.” And all of these different medications. Hormone replacement therapy, everything you could imagine. I got a blood test to check my hormone levels and I was at zero. Zero estrogen, and three testosterone. My body went into menopause.

Kimberly: 16:27 Were you diagnosed with anything like PCOS or anything?

Sahara: 16:30 It wasn’t PCOS. Now we know PCOS is so much more than the cyst. But it wasn’t an elevated testosterone, it was basically what happens when your body goes into menopause, you just stop producing any type of hormone anymore.

Sahara: 16:43 So, from that place of constantly getting injured, going through everything that a menopausal woman is going through when I was 21 years old, and every doctor telling me, “Oh, just microwave ice cream and drink that every night to help yourself gain weight.” Do you want me to get diabetes? Because they were just like calories in, calories out. You need more calories so drink this kind of Ben & Jerry’s every night. Or again take more medications.

Sahara: 17:09 They were like, “Yeah you’re definitely never going to be able to have kids but don’t worry, you could do IVF or you maybe get a surrogate or something.” It wasn’t a thing for them.

Sahara: 17:19 I realized that I had to take matters into my own hands. That’s when I really begun started different ancient health systems and going back to Ayurveda. I remember doing this Ayurveda quiz and by then I was doing IIN and I did this quiz and I learned about Vata. I was like, “This is me to a T.” Not just physically from the hormonal imbalance, digestive bloating, gas constipation, but mentally creative, idealistic, think outside the box, wants to travel.

Kimberly: 17:49 Can be spacey.

Sahara: 17:50 Spacey. I was like wait, this is the story of my life. How come no one has told me about this. So, I just became obsessed. I need to know everything I can about this health system. At the time I was going back and forth to India already.

Sahara: 18:03 I was teaching Calpin Sanitation in the slums of Delhi. Raw vegan in India, which is unheard of. They used to call me the cow because they had never seen anyone eating greens before.

Kimberly: 18:12 Wow.

Sahara: 18:13 That’s when I decided to sign up for Ayurveda school there. From learning about Ayurveda, it really felt like re-learning a language that my soul once learned and so many things to me were like wait, that doesn’t make sense. You want me to drink all this milk? All this skim? Oh my God.

Kimberly: 18:29 Yeah, did you cross over back into dairy?

Sahara: 18:32 That was really tough for me because I didn’t want to. I really wanted to stick to plant-based but they were telling me it’s never going to work out. This is essential to Ayurveda and especially the way Ayurveda is practiced in India is more traditional.

Sahara: 18:48 That brought me on this journey of how can I take these guidelines of Ayurveda which feel so true and keep it plant-based and take account how much our food system has changed since then.

Sahara: 19:00 In India, I realize it makes total sense. They didn’t have avocados and coconuts in North India. So, they needed to have the neighborhood cow’s milk and just so many things about Ayurveda I was like, “Wait, why can’t you have mushrooms.” Learning how to do with the British rule and the psychedelic mushrooms, right?

Kimberly: 19:17 Yes. And also the cows in India are so sacred and they’re treating as such. Then when you look at the way dairy cows are treated here and the hormones and it’s just a completely different world from …

Sahara: 19:29 Totally. Most cows in India have a better life than we do, right?

Kimberly: 19:32 Exactly.

Sahara: 19:34 Flowers, adornment.

Kimberly: 19:37 They go to the Gangas when they die. But yeah, Yogananda Miguru says sometimes we need to update things. That’s the one part. I can’t even stand the smell of ghee, personally.

Sahara: 19:49 Me too. I still don’t eat it.

Kimberly: 19:50 Tons of other fats. But the dairy thing for me has always been a little bit of a separation from Ayurveda. But yet I take the parts that make sense to me just like any system I don’t completely embody the whole thing. But there are such … There’s amazing wisdom to take from it.

Sahara: 20:11 100% and it’s really the guidelines that are universal. These are things that will never change. These archetypes we will forever see them. I realize Ayurveda through this journey of healing myself, that it’s so much more than physical health, but it’s really noticing the physical symptoms in your body and taking them as cues of where are you out of balance in your life.

Sahara: 20:31 I realize I was disconnected from my feminine energy. I wasn’t connected to my body. All of these deeper spiritual and emotional aspects began showing up for me. As I became more grounded and rooted and strong in who I was, my body also began to shift. That’s what led me to really begin studying Ayurveda also from a spiritual perspective, how these doshas are related to our purpose, to our dharma, and seeing all of these beautiful Ayurvedic principles as a framework so you can elevate into your higher self.

Kimberly: 21:04 I love that you brought up the feminine, the divine feminine and the goddess archetype that you talked about. I usually have some goddesses on my desk.

Sahara: 21:13 Yes.

Connecting with the feminine, in both men and women

Kimberly: 21:13 But I have Lakshmi and Saraswati usually when I’m writing, and Durga. I have my most favorite statue of Durga from Varanasi. Can you talk a little bit about connecting with the feminine, which is in both men and women because I think we do with in this very masculine society, where there’s to-do lists and pushing.

Kimberly: 21:39 I definitely fall into that as well and we’re sort of rethinking everything now with this pandemic and our connection with ourselves. We have more time and space as we manage to be home and to connect back in. What is connecting to the feminine inside of you mean?

Sahara: 21:55 Yeah, absolutely. In Vataic terminology we call it Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is the awareness, it’s the container. In Vataic mythology, Shiva was actually this god who went up to the Himalayas and he meditated for thousands of years to achieve the awareness that we are all one.

Sahara: 22:19 He is that feeling that when you’re deep in meditation and you’re just nothing and everything at the same time, that is that Shiva energy that we all have inside of ourselves.

Sahara: 22:29 Now Shakti is the dance of life. This to be immersed in all of the things. To be embodied. I like to think of the difference between spirit and soul. Spirit is ethereal, it’s universal, it’s formless.

Sahara: 22:43 Whereas the soul is in the body, it’s in the heart, it’s with the children, it’s with the earth, with the blood. So, a lot of us especially in feminine bodies, but also it could be people binary masculine or non-binary bodies are feeling this desire to connect more to that feminine Shakti embodied wild expressed side of ourselves.

Sahara: 23:04 It’s interesting because spirituality is definitely growing but the way that we have been taught it is still coming from such a masculine and patriarchal system of you do what your guru tells you and you do a meditation practice, which is to be detached from the world.

Sahara: 23:21 Just the … Think of a man cave. I know your husband just made his karate man cave in your basement or your garage. I saw you comment about that.

Kimberly: 23:28 Yeah. It’s so cold plunge sauna. It’s just the ways … It’s a complete like bio hacking area over there.

Sahara: 23:36 That’s what the Shiva wants. It’s like let me get away from the kids for a sec and be in my solitude and be in my warrior energy. Whereas the Shakti is like, let me see how the plants are, let me see how the kids are, let me talk to my friends, let me be with the food. I just want to dance through life.

Sahara: 23:52 This is the creative life force that exists inside all of us. It’s the energy of becoming, whereas Shiva is the energy of being. We all have both. It’s not to just only be on one side, however the feminine hasn’t had an equal time at the mic.

Sahara: 24:11 Right now when we talk about the rising of the sacred feminine, it’s not to replace the masculine, it’s very different than the “feminist movement” because it’s about embodying your feminine energy that doesn’t want to leave the world or meditate enough that it can handle it.

Sahara: 24:28 It wants to actually be on the grounds and making this world a better place while enjoying her time here.

Kimberly: 24:35 One thing I always says Sahara is equalness doesn’t mean sameness. So when you say men and women are equal, masculine and feminine is equal but it doesn’t mean the same because when you mentioned the feminist movement, there’s aspects where it feels a little bit hardened to me.

Kimberly: 24:50 I’m going to open my own door, I’m going to do it all myself and I think there was a time and a place where women were really fighting to get the vote and to get equal pay and to get these elements. But now we’re in a world, like you said, where we can embody both and they’re not fighting each other. There is this marriage, this intertwining.

Kimberly: 25:14 We can really incorporate and integrate both inside of us, that I think is important to say. It’s not replacing one, they’re not fighting each other, but there is an important place for both.

Sahara: 25:25 Absolutely. It’s all about the integration and in Ayurveda we have these both sides of ourselves that are really dancing with each other. So, it’s great for listeners to notice where do I feel maybe more comfortable?

Kimberly: 25:37 Yeah.

Sahara: 25:37 What is my go-to. Maybe you’re spending a lot of time in your masculine energy of kind of like getting things on your to-do list, slaying each day, and that’s wonderful. But where can you just sing, be, create, express.

Sahara: 25:51 I think a lot of times our society trains us that our worth is defined by your productivity. So, when we don’t have that anymore, we feel like well I must be nothing. But in the times of the village, the women were actually often the ones in power and they were the ones who were more connected to where the village was actually heading from a big picture scenario.

Sahara: 26:11 I believe right now this new paradigm shift that we are entering is going to see the value of the feminine both inside of ourselves and also bringing women leaders to rise who haven’t divorced themselves from the side of themselves but have rather integrated it in.

Kimberly: 26:28 Yes. Yes. Just to close the loop on your story, this whole period in your life where you stopped having your period, I assume it has come back.

Sahara: 26:40 Yes. My period is back.

Kimberly: 26:44 Everything got re-balanced and now you moved to Miami and perhaps in the future would be interested in being a mother yourself or not. That’s another interesting topic. I find more and more friends and colleagues deciding not to have children, consciously.

Kimberly: 27:00 Because they’re feeling their creativity and their fulfillment in other ways. Obviously there isn’t one exact way, not everybody needs to go through the parent experience.

Sahara: 27:10 Absolutely. I think more people are getting that choice. For me kind of my period came back after a year of really trying. A lot of cooked foods, grounding foods, sweet potatoes, things that had natural estrogen in it, tahini, dates.

Kimberly: 27:25 Yes, all those amazing yams.

Sahara: 27:27 Exactly. That really helped but also changing my exercise practices. I was doing a lot of Ashtanga yoga at the time, which is a quite masculine and intense practice, to more of the dance, more of just the grounding, spending time in nature.

Sahara: 27:44 Then for me the shift really happened too of realizing my purpose, my dharma and having those Vata aspects of myself, not be like ah, why do I keep changing my mind, why can’t I stick to one thing. But seeing those as my gifts and my strengths.

Sahara: 27:59 Once I really reclaimed that all in, I was able to bring the other doshas into balance. Take action on those ideas, ground them, and went on to write books and podcasts and speak and so many things that I believe that all of our souls require the exact curriculum that we needed to embody our dharmas, our purposes.

Sahara: 28:20 So, if it wasn’t for those experiences I wouldn’t have cultivated the strength, the awareness. I wouldn’t have even been interested in this type of stuff. So, I needed to physically go through it to call me back into the importance of being aligned with my body and seeing it as a bridge to other things such as feminine, masculine energy, living your purpose and giving gratitude to my body for being that vessel that I get to have this human experience through.

Kimberly: 28:47 Yes. Yes. Well it was inspiring to hear. We get a lot of questions around female cycles. In a couple of months we’re releasing a fertility pregnancy and post-partum plant-based course, which I’m really excited about.

Kimberly: 29:01 Because so many of us go through that imbalance. I went through it, you went through it. Yeah, to know that the body with its vast intelligence can come back and there is so much potential for healing once we embrace our wholeness.

Sahara: 29:17 Absolutely.

We discuss how we personally define our purpose 

Kimberly: 29:18 This period has upended a lot of us. I know your new book is about purpose. It seems like a really perfect time for us to all interest back and to go back in. First of all, how would you define purpose because sometimes, I’m actually writing about this a little bit in my new book to, for some people it’s wound up in their family. My purpose is to serve my children, my husband, not in a servant sense but of course in a love sense day-to-day or some people think my purpose is tied to my vocation, what I’m doing, or my community. How would you define it?

Sahara: 29:58 Yeah, it’s beautiful because they’re all valid. Your dharma is so much more than your job or one role that you play. It’s really your soul’s expression. It’s the big reason why you’re here.

Sahara: 30:09 It’s the red thread that will connect anything it is that you do in your life. It’s who you are. It’s that Kimberly essence that you’ll bring to everything it is that you do.

Sahara: 30:17 So, thinking of it more as like a mission statement of I’m here to raise consciousness or bring beauty to this world or connect people back to their hearts, et cetera. Now, throughout your life you’ll have different manifestations of how that shows up.

Sahara: 30:32 Now some of us who are more Vata, more Arya creative, will probably feel like we’re having multiple lifetimes in one. We will have a lot of ideas that you feel, right?

Kimberly: 30:42 Yeah.

Sahara: 30:45 Yeah. That’s part of the Vata’s dharma is to create, to be a channel, to be thinking about the future, what’s new, what is to come, to be that usher for the experiences waiting to come through.

Sahara: 30:56 The Vatas we say that an idea is not yours but rather exists and it’s waiting to come through. So, it will land in the crown chakras of whomever can bring it to life. Now, this doesn’t mean every idea that you have you have to bring to life, that takes an intuitive through your third eye is this for me, is it not, speaking it through your throat, feeling it through your heart. Action it through your solar plexus, finding the joy through your scroll and birthing it through your root.

Sahara: 31:27 Where Vatas often get stuck, and I know this myself, is we have so many ideas that it can sometimes feel like a lot of wheel spinning. But then when you aren’t taking action on them, it’s very easy to start something new.

Sahara: 31:41 So, they’ll have a lot of things that they may have begun and not things that they have finished or closed that loop on. So, if you are someone who’s really Vata, the trick is to take action on one thing, bring it to life, give it that energy, that focus, before you usher off to the next idea. That’s that Pitta stage, the buyer, the transformation.

Kimberly: 32:03 You’re saying keep directing back to the one thing because the tendency is let me start this and then I’m interested in this. When that Vata tendency comes, there’s a self-discipline and it may not feel innately a true tendency, but to train ourselves to focus on one task.

Sahara: 32:22 Yes, absolutely. I think a lot of times it comes with the fear of well I don’t want to choose the wrong thing or I don’t want to not do this.

Kimberly: 32:30 Well there are so many things.

Sahara: 32:32 Exactly. It’s not that if you chose one thing and you bring it to action you have to discard the rest. But you actually shift so much as a person when you take something to action and the process of writing a book or getting a business of the ground that it will bring so much more experience and also shift the way that you’ll show up for that thing in the future.

Sahara: 32:51 It’s like you can’t be pregnant with one baby, eight months pregnant, one-one month pregnant, one-four months pregnant. It requires very different things from your body. Letting that dharma, that vision come to life, seeing it to fruition, being the channel of it through your chakras, and then when you’re ready bring the next vision to life.

Kimberly: 33:10 Interesting. Well I did share with you Sahara when I was 34 weeks pregnant, very pregnant and that’s around when the baby turns, so his head comes down and it rests near your root chakra, I just had this vision, this download for this new book that I’m writing now.

Kimberly: 33:31 I felt like I really couldn’t ignore it. I was pregnant but there was all this pregnant, creative energy, so I just wrote a little bit, and then I had a scheduled Zoom call and it just happened like that. I think three days before I gave birth and I signed my book.

Kimberly: 33:44 But in this case now I’m in this situation where I have a baby, a newborn baby and I am writing book, which does feel like a baby. I hear what you’re saying. Sometimes there’s a little overlap, there’s a little, right, and for sure I am feeling a big depleted now, a little bit imbalanced although I’m getting my sleep back.

Kimberly: 34:06 But sometimes there is such a call that the timing may not line up and sometimes you have to go for it at the same time.

Sahara: 34:14 Absolutely. I see that same energy channel that pushed your baby out has pushed this book out. It really is the same. I feel like your baby’s dharma is this book in a way. It’s like very interconnected of your baby being like mom, this book is coming with me. It’s almost like the sibling.

Kimberly: 34:33 Yes. Yes.

Sahara: 34:34 I feel like it’s that same energy that you’re in of bringing this new vision to life that is coming in the creative lens and then also in this very human lens. I’m excited to see how it turns out. I feel like they’ll really be intertwined and supporting each other.

Kimberly: 34:52 Yes, thank you. It does feel so connected. Again, I think this is a wonderful time to bring forth and you defined that really beautifully, this period where people are introspective and this idea that dharma kind of overlays on top of everything. So that essence is how you can be a mother and how you can bring it to how you make food or whatever your vocation is. Is that one of the essential teachings of your book is?

Kimberly: 35:17 Again we think of things like okay if I get the promotion I become a partner in the law firm. That’s my purpose. But that is a bit more specific, isn’t it?

Sahara: 35:28 Absolutely. The Pitta people might really feel like it’s my job, it’s my role. They have a lot of energy that they want to bring to action. So, it can be very defined by their productivity, by the things that they usher out into this world.

Sahara: 35:40 So, Pitta people really do love to focus on a project. That actually gives them this essence of feeling alive. They need to always have a direction, a goal that they’re moving towards.

Sahara: 35:52 That’s part of their dharma. That’s part of why they’re here. It’s not to overcome that and try to just be nothing. To use that energy and to not be overly identified with it as well as if I’m not constantly creating the next thing, then I musth not matter.

Sahara: 36:07 So, the Pitta people their medicine really comes in stepping into the Kapha energy, that earth energy, that grounding.

Kimberly: 36:11 Yes. Let’s talk about Kapha.

Sahara: 36:11 Yes.

Breaking down what Kapha is Ayurveda

Kimberly: 36:12 We haven’t talked about Kapha so much. Talk a little bit about that. That feels really nice and very balancing.

Sahara: 36:20 Yeah. That Kapha is the sacred pause. It’s really the space between the inhale and the exhale and it’s really what 2020 has been about. Globally sitting in that Kapha space of how am I in my body, in my home, in my four walls and really looking at that. Like how we start our conversation.

Sahara: 36:39 These are all the topics of the Kapha. A person who’s very Kapha is someone who is really calm, they see their dharma as their relationships. They are someone who may really say I really feel like my dharma is to be a mother. Or to be a wonderful friend. Or an incredible coach or a therapist.

Sahara: 36:58 Oprah is such a great example of this. Of even when she’s on a massive stage, she’s sitting on a chair next to a person and having a really deep conversation. That’s when she comes alive. The Kapha might look around and see, “Oh my gosh, this person is doing all of these things and I don’t have five legs to my business, so I must not be as successful or ambitious.”

Sahara: 37:23 But their purpose may really just come with getting deeper and deeper in their conversations and relationships and roles. That is part of their purpose. However, often you’ll hear and I’m sure you hear with other mothers, especially when their children grow up of I must not have a purpose, I’m just a mom. I only did that and feeling like that wasn’t enough.

Sahara: 37:46 So, if you don’t feel like that was enough, that’s probably a sign that there’s something either greater out there for you that came from that role of motherhood or to re-shift your mindset around being a mother.

Sahara: 38:00 For people who are really Kapha, I say go into the Vata, the dream, think big for yourself, imagine. Oftentimes we want to go from the Kapha right into the Pitta of okay, I’ve been out of the game, how do I take action.

Sahara: 38:12 But it’s to let yourself think big, let the idea come to you and then from that place you’ll feel so passionate about it that you can’t help but to take action. Then we enter the cycle again. It’s this beautiful compass to move through life. This Vata idea, Pitta execution, Kapha re-evaluation and then we begin it again.

Kimberly: 38:35 As you’re speaking it’s funny because I can see that executed that through my team because I’m very Vata and then we have really important Kapha energy. Katelyn as our GM I call her our earth mama because she’s so gentle and calm and grounded and she’s managing everything and we have Pitta on the team too.

Kimberly: 38:56 So, I think it will rise when you’re creating your business how you chose because if we have are just all Vata people, then you probably won’t have ideas.

Sahara: 39:05 Won’t have ideas, yes exactly. We can look at it in terms of our team, in our terms of our relationships. Maybe two very Pitta people in a relationship can be really intense and then snap at each other. Or two Kapha people might never want to go do something new. So, even looking at that balance in our relationships, our friendships, I honestly see the world through the lens of the doshas and that’s why I love it so much because it helps us give this language, these patterns that we subconsciously notice and be like, “Oh, this is what’s showing up and then here are all of the food lifestyle meditative practices to support me where I am.”

Sahara shares Ayurvedic concept offerings when it comes to our Four Cornerstones

Kimberly: 39:41 I love how specific you are to the doshas and these Ayurvedic concepts which are ancient and beautiful. We do have these Four Cornerstones, food, body, emotional wellbeing/mental health, and spiritual growth.

Kimberly: 39:56 I wonder if you could share something that you’re … It’s hard to give a general recommendation for everyone, of course with different doshas. But something that you would want to offer on each of those cornerstones either as a more universal concept or something that’s personal to your journey right now. Just one type of focus. Food-wise, we know it’s Vata in all of us is one thing.

Sahara: 40:21 Yes. Food-wise definitely the warm beverages. I know people are … Juicing is such a big trend. I think juicing is super incredible and every time I’ve tried it first thing in the morning as recommended I go exactly back to my Vata tendencies.

Kimberly: 40:36 Yes.

Sahara: 40:36 I know for myself I have to have something warm in the morning, getting my digestive fire going, and then do the juice. That is for everyone regardless of the season, and something that I think will really help us get more benefit from the juice as well.

Kimberly: 40:51 Okay. So hot beverages love it. Body-wise. Body is anything not food-based, sleep, exercise, supplements.

Sahara: 41:01 Yeah. Body I love dance as a spiritual practice. For me that has been such a gateway to connect to that feminine within. It allows you permission to let your body move you instead of your mind telling your body how to go.

Sahara: 41:14 Even if you don’t feel like a dancer or you don’t want to learn choreography, it’s not about that but it’s really about playing music and letting your body guide you and it really connects such a beautiful connection of seeing that your body has its own wisdom, it’s in communication with the music and it really helps you.

Sahara: 41:31 In Vata and so many [inaudible 00:41:34] et cetera, temple dances have always been such a divine offering and using your bodies to be expressions of the mudras, which are different energy centers. So play your favorite song, maybe it’s your favorite high school song or really beautiful sacred song and let your body dance.

Kimberly: 41:53 You don’t have to be in front of a mirror, you don’t have to video tape it and put it on Instagram.

Sahara: 41:58 Yeah, you don’t have to put it on Instagram. Yeah.

Kimberly: 42:00 Just for yourself, I love that. Now emotionally, emotional wellbeing, mental health.

Sahara: 42:06 For me the biggest thing has been going into my ancestors, my ancestral lineage. Oftentimes the things that are showing up for us in this lifetime have to do with our ancestors meaning our parents’ relationship with their parents, their relationship with their parents, et cetera.

Sahara: 42:20 You’ll often notice that those exact same wounding, traumas, et cetera, are being passed down inter generationally. We are the generation that is choosing to do the work on this.

Kimberly: 42:32 True.

Sahara: 42:32 So, for me going deep into my lineage of child marriage, my grandma was even in a child marriage and a lot of females and going into that and how that has shown up in potentially in myself of limiting beliefs in myself and also how to move past it if it shows up has been tremendous for my emotional health.

Sahara: 42:54 There’s a practice called family constellations, which is a form of kind of like a therapeutic healing that you can do with your ancestry. So, I did that this year and then both of my parents did it on their own as well and it was so healing for our relationship.

Kimberly: 43:09 Wow. Wow. That is a huge one. I think a lot about this idea of parents were doing their best and they were parenting us with their wounds, which usually came from so many generations back.

Kimberly: 43:22 So, for whatever reason we are called, any of us listening to this, there is this call to wake up and to understand ourselves more in our wholeness, which means taking a look at those wounds and tendencies and reactions and processing them and understanding them more instead of just distracting, numbing and then passing it on again.

Sahara: 43:47 Exactly. It was so helpful for me because I’m not a mother yet but I want to be one day to become aware of those things so I don’t pass it along to my children and have us be a continual pattern.

Sahara: 43:58 Everyone is going to have something that comes up for them. So, I definitely recommend this. There are so many great books out there, et cetera, but ancestral healing is a big one.

Kimberly: 44:06 Yes. Sahara I have to say as a parent I feel like I mother my sons the way that I would have wanted to be mothered. I had great parents but again everybody has their stuff. Just like telling them and you’re loved for you, you don’t have to do anything for love.

Kimberly: 44:21 You can really heal yourself as a parent, something I didn’t realize before I became a mother. Something that you have to look forward to of course.

Sahara: 44:29 Yes, I love that. I really believe it’s such a great opportunity to re-parent ourselves and to also have compassion for where our parents are at too.

Kimberly: 44:37 For sure. For sure. Then our last cornerstone is spiritual growth, which I think sometimes the word spirituality kind of trips people out. I’m not talking about religion. You understand this. Or dogmatism. To me it’s really the pathway to understanding yourself in a more deep way, the true self, as Yogananda says or the divine within us. Our unique assets.

Kimberly: 44:59 So, we talk about meditation so much here in our space. What is the one recommendation that you’re personally working on or you would recommend out in a more universal way?

Sahara: 45:12 Yes. What I would recommend for anyone is to really dive deep into why am I here. Because if we don’t ask that question, then we’re going to forever look for things to entertain us, distract us and it feels like such a big question that we often don’t ask because we don’t know the answer.

Sahara: 45:28 But really dive into what are my gifts, what are my strengths, what are my talents, what makes me feel like I’m coming alive? A good little question to ask yourself is if you have no idea what your purpose could be, if a friend it texting you saying I need your advice on something, what do you think that text is going to be about? Like for you Kimberly, if you get a text from a friend, I need your advice, what do you think they’re going to ask you for?

Kimberly: 45:55 If you ask me five years ago, most of my texts were coming from my clients. It would be under the guise of food, like what should I eat, what should I do. But it was always from the beginning, Sahara. Now I had this language as we were talking about the language of aryu, the language to talk about what my work has really been about, which is about bringing people back to wholeness.

Kimberly: 46:15 So, underneath it, when I start to talk to them, they’re really nervous about something, they’re feeling anxiety. So, it’s really about helping someone feel better, feel their wholeness. So, today it’s shifted away from food. People come to me more for how do I feel better about this situation or this person said this. So, it’s an anxiety in the mind.

Kimberly: 46:36 It’s been the same thing although the surface questions may shift. But it’s really about coming back to wholeness.

Sahara: 46:43 I love that. That’s your dharma.

Kimberly: 46:46 Yes.

Sahara: 46:47 It’s so beautiful because sometimes it’s hard for us to say it but then it’s so easy for us to recognize in other people. So, just think of what do people come to me for and I guarantee it’s related to your dharma.

Kimberly: 46:59 That’s beautiful, beautiful way to simplify it and it’s practical and it’s something that doesn’t feel esoteric but feels applicable.

Sahara: 47:11 Yes.

Kimberly: 47:11 Thank you so much for sharing all your wisdom here. I know your new book is coming out soon or this year.

Sahara: 47:18 Yeah. Discovering your Dharma comes out January 5th. You can get it on my website. I am SaharaRose.com/dharma. I also have a dharma archetype quiz that you can take which I feel like your dharma archetypes are visionary, nurture, and teacher. But there’s a quiz that you can take that will help you.

Kimberly: 47:37 I will for sure.

Sahara: 47:39 That will help you discover your dharma archetypes. Yeah, so grateful to be here. So grateful for the impact you’ve made on my personal dharma. Truly it feels like a full circle moment and I can’t wait to interview you on my podcast soon too.

Kimberly: 47:53 Amazing love. Thank you so much for your time. You always done your beauty, and yeah. So much love to you sister.

Sahara: 48:00 Thank you.

Kimberly: 02:51 All right, Beauties, hope you enjoyed that interview with the lovely Sahara as much as I did. Remember to check out her new book, we will have links to it as well as links to other podcasts you might enjoy, and other resources over at our show notes, which are at mysolluna.com. Thank you again so much for being part of our community. Be sure to take great care of yourself now, it’s a bit of a tender time with the whirlwind of the holidays around us, and the weather getting a bit colder now, but remember that you can maintain the strength and the resiliency of your inner space. It’s a great time to dive deep into your meditation practice, and also to your self-care practices in all of the corner stones, food, body, emotional wellbeing, and spiritual growth.

Kimberly: 03:37 I send you so much love, and we will be back here Thursday for our next Q&A community show. Until then, take great care, and again, big virtual hug.

The post Ayurveda and Purpose with Sahara Rose [Episode #535] appeared first on Solluna by Kimberly Snyder.

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