Self Care With Indu Arora (Part 1)
The following 2 Part Blog Post is a sneak peak into my amazing conversation with Indu Arora on my podcast, Talk. Travel. Transformation. The episode will be available to listen on December 22nd.
I am delighted to have with me one of my mentors Indu Arora to speak with us today. For more than two decades, Indu has dedicated her life to studying, contemplating, and sharing Yoga and Ayurveda. She is acknowledged as a strong, clear, and authentic voice in this community. I call her my Guru/teacher but Indu always comes back saying she considers herself a student for a lifetime. Her approach is always sharing from the student lens and I think that is what makes her such a remarkable teacher and writer. She has written several books but just this past month has released her latest book in ebook format - SOMA -100 Heritage Recipes for Self-Care. Keep reading to tap into ancient Ayervedic Wisdoms including the importance of AM and PM self Care Routines so that you wake up each day refreshed, 3 essential ingredients you should have in your pantry, how to get a Yogi Glow and Beauty tips for the inside and out, Digestion and the Holiday Season.
Kelly: Can you tell everyone a little bit on who inspired this book and to whom you dedicate it to?
Indu: So it's an homage to anyone who has brought that gift of mothering and care in my life. When growing up, I was surrounded in a joint family in India. Surrounded by my grandmother and my uncles. It is all about those recipes or remedies, practices, rituals that I learned growing up and when I continued to study about them living with my teacher and yoga group. It is what they have passed on to me. So simply, so effortlessly and how, because of its simplicity, at times, it is lost in the creases of time.
Kelly: l do want to emphasize this e-book’s simplicity and approachability to self-care. This e-book is filled with self care tips including beauty, rest and philosophy anchors. I am delighted to give everyone a peek inside this lovingly created collection - it’s filled with heritage recipes for your body, mind, and spirit.
Let's tell everyone a little bit about some of these wisdoms. Let's talk a little bit about like, AM and PM routines. These are some of the teachings that you passed along to me when we have worked together one on one.
Indu: I think that it's important that we first recognize the presence of these rhythms that are like a subtle undercurrent in our life. Whether it is the rhythms of day and night, whether it is the phases of the moon, whether it's the solstice, whether it is a change of seasons and everything that's going on outside Kelly, that is no way it is not affecting us. There is no way it does not impact us.
So there is a value in aligning our body, our breath. Of our mind with what is going on outside at the larger scale. So the dancing to the tune of circadian rhythms is primarily calibrating your inner compass of emotions, mind and breadth. To the, to the rhythms of sun and moon.
So, you know, so many times we hear about waking up groggy or don't feel like waking up, or, you know, you don't feel refreshed even after eight hours of sleep. So what is missing here? What is it that we are, uh, losing track of? What is it that we may not be doing as we should do in order to wake up fresh in order to wake up with this freshness, lightness, with this energy, with enthusiasm.
Kelly: So what are some basic steps that we can take and incorporate in our life?
Indu: And one of the things that's coming to my mind, and it's a childhood story, Kelly, you know, and these recipes are inspired. You know, these are while as, as a child, while you growing up, what did I learn sitting with my grandmother? What did I learn sitting with my mother, with my father? So this is a story from my childhood and, uh, my grandmother, uh, you know, she, I used to watch her.
Waking up in the early morning hours. And I can only imagine a approximate right now, somewhere around four o'clock or four 30, and she would wake up and just sit still, like how you mentioned how you mentioned about the definition of solstice. Just sit still, just to wake up with a pause, not wake up with panic, not wake up with a list of things to do not wake up with what am I missing, but wake up with a pause.
And later on, as I met my yoga group, I realized that there is a practice that I am going to make simple for you to understand.
There is the self, the inner self, the real self, the soul. There is a process of waking up by staying connected to your deepest to our true self. And when we do that before even you open our eyes.
Here is how. Draw your mind in the space, the center space. That is your heart and let it be there without thinking anything without imagining, without visualizing - no thought, no color, no emotion. Just stay in that space. That vastness that silence and let that become your bottom line because throughout the day, without doubt, we are going to go through the ebb and flow of emotions.
Through the ebb and flow of work life through the ebb and flow of all the rhythms of the day. And that's going to impact our mood, our energy level, our appetite, everything. So, how we start our day with an anchor point, which is in contentment, in peace, in quietness is important so that it can inform everything else that we do in the day.
Kelly: So, this is just one recipe. An AM routine. I am starting to get the idea that in your recipe book there is not always “something to cook.” You call them recipes, prescriptions…let’s keep laying it all out.
Let’s talk about digestion. We all tend to eat a little bit more during the holiday season. Let's expand on digestion just because it's kind of poignant for what's going on right now as we eat heavier this time of year.
Indu: As you know, digestion changes based on the time of the day,
Based on the number of your age and digestive capacity changes based on the season. Also, with the holiday season also, let's add You know, food is one of the ways of bringing a kind of content that nothing else brings, nothing else.
During the holidays, we enjoy the kind of contentment of enjoying the flavors, enjoying the textures, enjoying the different kinds of foods. Foods of our childhood. Foods of tradition. That’s all well and good. It's just that during the holiday season, we do it a little bit too much! And that is, that is the layering of heaviness. While there's a layering of joy, there is no doubt an affect on our digestion.
There is a gift that I have received from my heritage. And it's a combination of all kinds of things - a philosophy - remedy. I summed it up as pick it up.
I tried to name the recipes in a way that just directly gives away what it is for. So it's very intuitive. Yeah. So yes, in a way that it makes it easier for the mind to understand where should I go instead of trying to search for what should I do now?
So pick it up is just a three ingredient recipe, and it is so beneficial for our digestive system.
And it works two ways. Let's say your appetite is not good enough and you feel a variation in your appetite. Then in that case, you take this recipe. Prior to your meals. And if you feel heaviness, dullness, bloating, nausea, sleepiness, after meals, then you take it after. So there is this dual application of this recipe, so it has beneficial for everyone.
So the three ingredients are fresh ginger root, Lime juice (not lemon!) and Pink Himalayan Salt. You wash the ginger, dry it up and you chop it up in these in matchsticks. And then you squeeze lime juice over it.
And then you add little bit of Himalayan pink, salt, and you keep it in a glass jar. And, uh, tied in the lid and keep it in the refrigerator. That is it. That is how simple. It is simple, very simple. It's like making your own pickle. And just because you are adding lime juice and salt, they are natural preservatives.
You don't need to add anything else. All you have to do is anytime you feel that your stomach, your digestive system is not cooperating. You just take a match, stick out a mastic of this ginger, pickle out, keep it in your mouth. Don't just gulp it. And don't chew it in too fast. Savor the juices, let that lime juices acidity, and that sword dissolve in your mouth and activate this library glands.
And then slowly chew upon it. This is a recipe that was a blessing for us as kids, you know, because of the holiday season, there was so many goodies made at home and they were filled with butter and sugar and white flour. I think everywhere its the same.
Kelly: And every, and every culture, every part of the world, I want to make sure I've been a good student of yours. It's lime juice, because lime is. Cooling and lemon is heating. So you want to make sure you use lime juice and not lemon juice, correct?
Indu: Absolutely. So ayruveda is a very unique concept and that is the post digestive effect. Now both lime and lemon they're acidic.
You know, when you put them in the mouth that sourness the tartness, but the post digestive effect of one is more alkaline than acidic. And we want more, which is base, which is alkaline, so that it balances out the acids in the body. And initially the tartness is really beneficial because it, it activates the salivary glands, and it really kick-starts a digestive system.