Women Gone Vibrant| Ayurveda for midlife & menopause

If you are like most people eating healthy and well is high on your new year's resolution list. Is it?

That's not surprising. After all, good food is a foundational piece to lasting health and happiness. With bad food we feel blah, bloaty, uninspired. Who wants that? With good food we feel uplifted and inspired. I attest to it.

Well, I hate to break the news to you, but if you want to feed yourself well, home cooked food is essential for a peaceful and harmonious mind … and a vibrant body of course. Are you cringing? Does cooking at home sound like a whole lot of work? Hold your horses and read on …

If you are a person who eats out a lot you have very little control about what goes into your body (and mind). Restaurants typically get their ingredients from big suppliers who give a d&*% about where they source their food from. The main goal is to keep costs down so you can eat affordably. It's likely that you eat artificial ingredients, hormone fed beef and unorganic lettuce. Those ingredients ain't creating ease and peace.

When eating out, you also have no control over the emotions that go into your food. Yep that's right? The emotions of the cook go right into your food. And having worked in restaurants, I know what a stressful environment kitchens are. How is that creating a peaceful mind for the eater? Check out my conversation with Alec Hurley on that.

Now, if you are anything like me you don't want to spend hours in the kitchen. I am way into simple, easy and delicious. That's why I talked to Kate O'Donnell who has written two Ayurvedic cookbooks. They are filled with simple recipes that take less than 30 min to prep, are nourishing and tasty. Yahoo Kate. Well done.

I chat with Kate about the ins and out of everyday cooking and how it impacts our minds.

• The 3 states of the mind
• The types of food that create harmony in the mind
• Why seasonal eating makes sense
• The impact of cookies and holiday treats on the mind
• Inspiration that cooking can be simple and time saving
• How to overcome food cravings … using the fire boys

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

This is a practical episode about food to help you stay on the bandwagon of healthy eating during the winter holidays.

For most of us, winter holidays mean lots of cookies, home-baked goods, many parties and lots of alcohol. And with it comes what? You guessed it, tight fitting pants and a sluggish, heavy digestion.

In the last episode we talked about the 3 phase holiday feasting strategy. If you have not listened to that episode, do it now.

Then tune in here to get four satisfying recipes to PREP FOR and RECOVER from the feast.

• 4 recipes to recover from winter holiday parties
• The digest-ability scale and why you need to care
• The eat light, eat simple, eat veg principle
• How to find healthy feasting recipes

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

Holidays and celebrations feed our soul. They are a way for us to honor the abundance of earth and connect with friends and family.

On the downside, the holidays present us with tons of temptations. Think cookies, home baked sweets, elaborate feasts. Can you already feel your pants getting tighter just thinking about it? And on top of it, you may be wondering if you should make another hole in your belt to accommodate all those goodies.

As soul feeding and nourishing as the holidays may be, feeling heavy, sluggish and bogged down by all the goodies is no fun.

Proper feasting takes some skill and awareness. In this podcast, I share with you how I approach the holidays and feasting in general. You can apply the principles I am sharing to any feast really…..may it be your birthday celebration, your 20th wedding anniversary or your nieces wedding…you get the idea.

• The 3 phases of feasting
• The 80/20 rule and how to apply it to the holidays
• The pre- and post holiday meal schedule
• 5 simple strategies to feast right

This is to loose fitting pants and lightness of being.

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

This is the story of how Jackie Prete healed herself from a traumatic accident and how you can too.

She found herself in excruciating pain and motionless in a hospital bed after being run over on her bike. The prospect was dire.

Her shattered leg may leave her unable to walk, teach yoga, being potentially deformed for life and/ or permanently on crutches. Not a sunny outlook for anyone but especially dire for someone whose livelihood depends on teaching yoga and movement.

A four hour surgery put her body back together.

Her resilience and strong belief that she will heal carried her through mentally and emotionally.

Simple and down to earth practices from Yoga and Ayurveda, diet & lifestyle practices were integral to her healing as well.

Today Jackie travels worldwide again to share the power of yoga asana, diet and lifestyle practices.

• 5 simple strategies to work with the body and mind after an accident
• How to use yogic practices to heal more quickly from a severe accident
• The role of chanting & mantra in the healing process (if you don't know what that is you definitely want to find out about it in this podcast)
• The big lesson of receiving
• The role of rest, love and space in recovery
• What Jackie most needed from helpers during recovery (you might need that too)
• Yoga postures during the recovery process
• The countless blessings of a traumatic accident
• The power of community

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

We are talking about clothes of all things. What me? Yes. That's right.

Clothes and everything that comes with it, shoes, accessories, jewelry is important to many women. Period. And clothes are something that in the world of yogis, with whom I have been hanging out, has often been suppressed and shunned. After all the development of the soul is more important, right?…..and what do clothes have to do with that?

Well, truth be told, a lot.

The way you dress reflects a level of self confidence, self worth and self love. Clothes reflect your identity and who you are as a person.

Clothes also express what you want to experience at any moment in time. Remember a day when you were in pyjamas all day? You were probably going for comfort and snuggle time. Now imagine a day where you dressed up, in a beautiful and carefully chosen dress, adorned with jewelry and maybe high heels (likely not me, but you get the point). Were you going on a date? You probably felt immediately more powerful, worthy and self confident.

And what is more, dressing right can make you be seen and heard as who you are. Authentically.

If you want to be heard and seen (even though part of you is resistant) you need to listen to this conversation.

What you get from tuning in:

• How your clothes impacts your self-confidence, self-worth and self-love
• The interrelationship between appearance/dress, habits and identity
• The wrong pieces of clothes take away from you
• The impact of color on your energy
• And some joyful laughter….

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

Most of us have no concept around what it means to invest in ourselves. You may have invested in your career or maybe in a house but have you truly invested in yourself?

I venture to say that most people SPEND on themselves but not INVEST.

Hahh? What's the difference?

You will find out in this podcast and way more on what is holding you back from creating more happiness and joy in your life.

You can read more on this on my blog "The 3 biggest reasons why we don't invest in ourselves & how we can"

• The difference between investing and spending on yourself
• What you get from investing in yourself
• The 3 biggest reasons that is holding you back from investing in yourself
• The Hell Yes concept
• The top tool I use to decide what to invest in

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

Divorce suck but life doesn't have to.

Getting divorced is not a failure. Getting divorced can be a massive opportunity for growth.

There are no mistakes in life. There is only lessons learnt. But truth be told a relationship death can also be tremendously heartbreaking.

Using the language of "getting un-married" versus "getting divorced" is one way of signaling that you are ready to empower yourself as a woman. Blooming after marriage is a skill than can be learnt.

Daniella, psychotherapist and transformational coach, shares her journey through her own divorce, what feminine empowerment means to her and how to cultivate it.

• The lessons one can learn from divorce
• How to move from 'once married' to 'empowered'
• The power of receiving without guilt
• What it means to be a woman in her feminine energy
• Danielle's top strategies to deal with grief caused by divorce
• How to step into your inner queen
• How to attract a high quality partner
• How to untangle co-dependent relationships

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

Elise makes bold claims on the front flap of her book Superager. She says: You can look younger, have more energy, a better memory, and live a long and healthy life.

First of all, what in the world is a superager? And how come she feels so confident about claiming that we can all be one?

Elise is answering all those questions plus she shares inspiring stories of wise elders. We also talk about how aging has changed over time and what it means to age today. You can be a wild, wise, vibrant one too at age 70, 80, 90 and beyond. There is many things you can do for that.

" According to those born on Okinawa, the island with the most centenarians in the world, our Ikigai is the reason we get up in the morning. Our Ikigai is hidden deep inside each of us, and finding it requires a patient search." Elise Marie Collins

• What the heck is a Superager?
• The inspiring story of May Musk and other women
• How has aging changed over time and what does it mean for us today
• The role of Ikigai as you age (and what is Ikigai anyway? And why should you care?)
• Creative solutions to aging in your own space

"If there is a will, there's a way". In 2015, at age 99, Doreetha Daniels graduated from college with an associate degree in Social Sciences. She suffered several health setbacks along the way, but she never gave up. Doreetha is a living testament to the saying "if there is a will, there is a way". From book Superager, pg 206.

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

Finding your feminine essence in a masculine world is not an easy feat. It's a discovery, it's a curiosity.

As women, regardless of sexual orientation, we carry a watery nature, an essence, a juiciness and creativity that has been given to us by nature. We can create and birth a human being. Menstruation is one way the body expresses that power.

Amenorrhea, or the absence of menses, during a time in our lives when we are expected to have it aka when we are not postmenopausal, is a sign of imbalance. A sign, that points toward something undiscovered.

Kristen so thoughtfully shares how she is peeling away the layers to find her feminine essence; how she willingly sets her PhD-achiever-self aside and embraces the softness and flow of the feminine.

• What living in your feminine feels like
• How to tap into your watery, unctuous, feminine nature
• Why menstruating is divine and important even if you don't want to have children
• Practices to step into your feminine essence
• The "Art of Pause Meditation" by Maya Tiwari

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy

18% of the US population suffers from generalized anxiety. That's almost 1/5 of the population. That's huge. Anxiety disorders are highly treatable, yet less than 40% of those suffering receive treatment. Hand in hand with anxiety often comes depression. Yikes.

I had severe anxiety in my early to mid 20s, too. So did Jamie. We have walked the path and came out the other end way more grounded and self confident. Jamie used to be on anti- depressants and was frequently so anxious she would cancel a yoga class she was scheduled to teach last minute. Looking at Jamie today, you see a firm and empowered woman across the table.

Yoga and Ayurveda offer simple, low cost and no-side-effect tools. We share with you what worked and still works for us.

• The difference between constructive vs. crippling anxiety
• The mental attitude you need to adopt to emerge from your anxiety
• How Jamie weaned off her anti-anxiety medication and how you might be able to do it too
• The vortex of healing vs the vortex of disease
• The role of Yoga and Ayurveda in generalized anxiety
• The traits of anxiety
• Vulnerability as a pathway out

Visit my Website

Join my private Facebook Group

Watch the free video series 5 secrets to a Better Menopause

Upgrade your body experience. Apply for Body Joy