EP24: Ayurveda and the body types: Ancient Wellness System with Kendra Irvine

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Welcome everyone to another episode of winning with wellness and I'm sure you know that because that's why you're here but I can't help myself but say it So there we are. We're in another episode. And I am so so excited to have Kendra Irvine here. She is an amazing person that's focused on wellness and I am really excited for her to share about her modality welcome Kendra,

thank you so much for having me, Jenny. I appreciate the time to be here and for the platform to be able to share the energy of this timeless wisdom. I am absolutely

thrilled for you to share this this actually this wisdom is something that's new to me and I've been learning more and more about it and I can't wait to get in this conversation with you. So I'm going to share with everybody a little bit about your bio and then we're going to dig into what's really exciting and more fun is an actual conversations so I'm going to share a little bit about you and then we'll get at it sound good flater great.

So Kendra Irvine isn't a no I'm gonna do my best to pronounce this our Vedic Hellfire Vedic IR Vedic, I did the a wrong. So it's ironic. And it's, you guys will see it in the show notes. It's spelt very uniquely. So if you're searching it, I encourage you to look at the show notes to get the proper spelling, health counselor, certified wellness coach, professional kinesiologist, and speaker. She has been in the wellness industry for 22 years and founded like living light eye or VEDA in the fall of 2015. Her zone of genius is creating body type nutrition and lifestyle programs for high performing humans. So I am really excited to dig into this concept of you know, nutritional program towards your body type which is really exciting. But I first want to ask you before we dig into kind of what it means and what that all looks like. What does wellness mean to you? We're always trying to give people different perspectives on overall wellness what wellness means for everybody and it's interesting everybody has obviously a different opinion but I be curious Kendra, what does wellness mean to you?

Well, I think you've got to if you would ask me what wellness meant to me like 15 years ago, I would have said well it's easy, eight, right and work out all the time. I think as we grow and evolve our definition of what wellness means to us changes. And that's also based on our stage of life and essentially what our priorities are as well as our experience. So wellness to me actually means more of a proactive approach to health one that specific for our unique bodies. And then third of all, it actually takes a holistic view of what health looks like so not only is it nutrition and the way that we move, but it's our environment. It's the things that are within our environment. It's It's how we experience our lives through all five of our senses sight smell, sound, taste and touch. And so wellness is really the the call it a hug maybe it encompasses everything that we experience on a daily basis to keep us healthy and moving towards ease and harmony in the body. As opposed to we have the opposite his illness is moving to disorder and disease wellness is the promotion of body harmony for the individual.

Hmm I love that is such a beautiful way to to to describe it and give people a different way to see it. So when we think of iron VEDA, can you explain so there will be people? Yeah, and I probably would say a few months ago I would have been like I what was that a face cream. I love last So what what this modality is like you know, many people have never even though it's ancient with those beautiful wisdoms have been have been hidden or suppressed or forgotten about can you share with people what what it is?

Oh she said there's so many roads I could don't go down with it right yeah so so I Aveda is not to be confused with Aveda ice cream product that people are used to in the wellness products. So I your VEDA ironically, while it's new to a lot of people, it's actually been around for 1000s of years. The average age or that that has been around is around 5000 years some say as old as 10,000. And when you take the Sanskrit word literally it means life science. So it takes into account the natural laws. We as humans come from nature. In nature, there's five elements we have air, space, fire, water, and Earth. So if you come from nature, it stands to reason that your body also has all five of these elements. In fact, everything you see out in nature is in its natural form, or is in a man made version of it. So from the desks that we're working from, to the tree out there. That is that's representative of the earth quality. If we look at our bodies, we have Earth in our bodies as well. So what that looks like is it's our bones, it's anything tangible. So our bones, our muscles, ligaments, tendons, skin, even down to mucus. Yeah, that is part earth as well and water. So the way Why are your VEDA so beautiful is because all it does is it takes the wisdom of Mother Nature, and it applies us to our bodies, we are just a form of nature. So with us having all five of the elements within our bodies, these elements have qualities. So if we think of Earth, what kind of qualities does earth have, Earth is stable, it's a little bit cool. And it's, it's encompassing, essentially, it is strong. But if we look at wind, for example, or space, what is that that's light, and that's a little bit cool. And it's very mobile as well. So moving into the fall season, we see a lot more wind happening. And things change from direction, north, east, south and west. So that has a quality, if we look at fire, for example, in nature of fire is hot, sharp and mobile, in our bodies, that exists as well. So decomposition happens in nature, it happens in our bodies as well. So nature will digest the leaves in the fall, our bodies will digest food, our bodies will digest information. So this conversation that we're having right now, is, is received so the words that I'm saying are received by the listener and the listener unpacks, that digests it using that fire element, and then make sense of it and then makes and then interprets the world moving forward. So really all you're doing is you're taking the clues from Mother Nature, which has been all in front of us this whole time, and we're applying it to our bodies. Now when we understand what the qualities are of these elements, the way that we bring our bodies into balance if they go out of balance. So what that looks like is in the form of disease, so things like so arthritis, for example, or we can think of diabetes, that's a disease, any disease you name out there is as a result of the imbalance that's happening within our bodies, they're one in the same. So if we look at the qualities of what's causing the disc ease, and we go to the opposite, because nature there's always an opposite, right? For a hot or cold, we have a sharp we have a dull we have a cloudy, we have a clear. So if we have more of that, let's use inflammation as an example. So inflammation is what it's it's fire, it's hot. So if we have that fire in that hot, we have hot, sharp and mobile qualities. So because they all have an opposite quality, we would need to treat it with cold, dull and stagnant qualities. And that creates that homeostasis as we know in the last for that balance. So that's all we're doing is we're taking the elements, the qualities of the elements, finding out what its opposite are treating it with the opposite, which brings us back to center. And we always look at treating the imbalance first if it is known and if it has been, quote unquote diagnosed and assess To be an imbalance we treat that first we reduce it with the opposite qualities and then all we do is we maintain the body's natural constitution with the the elements afterwards.

Okay, so that's really cool. Actually before we move forward I just want you to be conscious you're hitting your mic with your hand so it's pausing I know I'm a hand talker just in case someone's listening and they're not hearing what is coming through clear but just so we don't miss anything down the road. So okay, okay, you used a great example inflammation I think a lot of us in life or experienced information in one form or another could you provide an example of what the opposite elements would be like a tactical thing what people would do in reference to that just so they can experience what necessarily you're not obviously we're not diagnosing here and we're not confirming this treatment would be the fact if it was going to be individual but just so that people could see what that would look like if they didn't have that conversation with you. So I show up I got inflammation you tell me where what kind and then tell me what I'm doing to move forward out of that

okay. So, when we look at inflammation in the body inflammation has is part of the fire element. So what are the five elements is acting here which is the dominant so we look at the fire element okay. So the fire element has has qualities to it. So in nature, we have 10 pairs of qualities or we know it at in Ayurveda as the gunas. Okay, so that's your hot, sharp, cloudy, clear, mobile stagnant. And then soul, if you will. Yeah, okay. So let's, I use that as an example as well. So the cool nation, in the body inflammation in the mind, right? So inflammation in the body. So say that person has is dealing with an itis somewhere in the body, anywhere, that's inflammation, especially we talked about, like the guts, a lot of people are experiencing inflammation in the guts, okay, so if we have those particular qualities, think of the top three, hot, sharp and mobile, okay. So for hot, we have a cold for sharp, we have adult and mobile, we have a stagnant essentially. So if someone was experiencing the imbalance of inflammation, which would be what we call a Pitta imbalance. So there's three Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Pitta is fire, essentially, we would then treat it with the opposite qualities in kafa. So what we need to do with that inflammation is bring more cooling elements to it, we need to bring more soft elements to it, and we need to bring more stagnant elements to it. So what that would look like is we can achieve that both through diet and lifestyle. Okay, so in the diet, instead of having, you know, the spicy Mexican food, for example, and you have inflammation that exacerbates, it, exacerbates it, pardon me, what we would do is treat it with cooling foods. So known cooling foods are things like oats, watermelon, cucumber, sweet potato, fennel, so that can be used in the body to treat that because they're cooling and they're soothing to take down the inflammation. Okay, that's a dietary approach, you can also look at inflammation of the mind for exam. So what that looks like is someone that who is a Pitta type is more likely to go out of balance in their own body type. So if they were, for example, so fires their dominant element. So if you think about fire, when we have a conversation, and it's not going very well, we get what we call heated, right? So that happens to pittas more often than it does to coffees or vatas. So in the same way that we get agitated, irritated, angry, anything where we get heated, we could treat it the same way with both nutrition and lifestyle. So from a lifestyle factor as well. what's commonly recommended to pittas who have inflammation would be rose. So rose could be in essential oils, it can be anything that we put on our skin, that soothing, there you go. Aloe Vera, yeah, we can take Aloe Vera, you can take like a shot of it. If you want it to the inner filet of it, you can rub it on your skin as well. Coconut oil, even buying yourself some roses as well because Rose is soothing to the pittas. It's well known an IR beta for that. So all we're doing is we're bringing into our environment through all five of our senses, ways to nourish it through the opposite qualities. So that can also work in colors. For example, someone who is pitta, stay away from red, because red is a very heating color. But someone that is, Casa would benefit from red because it's opposite, they wouldn't benefit from Blue because blue is a cool color. And coffee has already Earth and water, which is, which is cooler. So someone that's Pitta actually benefits from what aggravates a cup, all right, we're not all the same, we're all going to have different chemistry in our bodies when we consume things within our environment, not just to diet. So using PID as an example there to really illustrate real life examples, you know, we've got inflammation, what are the qualities, they now we know the qualities, what are the things in our environment, or even in my fridge or my pantry that I can do to bring down this access. So I'm an avid runner, and I run probably on average more often than I should for my body type, I know that I still have to do it. So it just means I have to be extra vigilant with my body because it can put me out of balance a lot quicker.

So then what I do is I have aloe vera in my fridge, actually, for that very reason. And then I've got phenol that I can that I can use as well. And I don't use a lot of spices in my food. So the more someone begins to use this on a daily basis through incremental changes, so even if they were like, oh, Kendra said all the things I gotta write down fennel, and I gotta have this, I gotta have this, we're gonna have this. Yeah, the easiest ways so that it doesn't feel overwhelming to someone is just to choose one thing. Yeah, so it's okay, well, Rose is good, I can do that I can start with one don't overload my plate, because it's already loaded enough. We need to like simmer down on that. Let's start with one thing at a time, there's plenty of time for it to start to evolve, and really work in someone's favor, to keep their bodies in harmony and in wellness instead of battling illness all the time.

So I love this is just I love this. I want to say new, but it's not new. I love this approach to wellness, because you really can critique it to you. It's not a one size fits all, which is amazing. So if I was curious about this, what would I expect? Two things? How do I ensure I'm getting the right person to coach me through this process? I'm sure not all people are trained equally, I would guess. So. I'd love for you to answer like, how do I ensure because everybody's gonna resonate with different people. So what should they look for when they're finding somebody to guide them through this process? And what do the first steps look like?

Okay, so I mean, I can, I can create a shortcut for you and just book a calendly discovery call with me. And then you don't have to go searching because I am the trained person, right? That does that for people. In terms of looking for qualified professionals, though, as a whole, how I've been found as well as actually through the California College of IR VEDA. So that is, that's where I matriculated. And so I am found on that site. And I have been found by some of my clients through there, because they don't want to just Google it and say, oh, find an eye or Vedic specialist. And then Google will tell you whatever you want right now. And then you could you could end up with someone that has like that, read a book. Or you could, you can end up with someone that has a weekend course you can end up with someone that has full on academic and practical training, as well as experience as well. Right? Yeah. So

okay, great. Now I do want to interject for those that are listening. Don't worry about writing this down. Kendra has been so gracious to offer that conversation for you guys. So I will be putting that into the show notes so that you can access you just got to mention you saw or you heard this on winning with wellness podcast so she knows where it came from. And that link to reach out to her will be in the show notes. So don't worry if you don't have a pan if you're running or driving or all the things so Alright, so we've connected I'm going to work with you What does phase one look like?

Alright, so yes, you did ask them about that as well. So phase one. So what we do, the first step is we clarify what your natural constitution is, and what your imbalance is. So that's done through an intake process that's very comprehensive. The paperwork that I send out, ask any of the people that attend assessments with me, it's eight pages long. So it's not like your Hey, stop into the doctor for like 15 minutes to solve one problem. And she know here's your prescription kind of thing. It is very comprehensive, because the more that we know about a person, the more that we care, the better we can make the diagnosis essentially, what's going on how much of this person is Vata? How much is peda and how much is Is kafa. And so what this, what that means on an elemental level is how much air in space is in this person, how much fire and a little bit of waters in this person and how much Earth is in this person, because each one of us is going to have a variation of that. So I can have a coffee type that's a lot of Earth and very little air and space. Or I can do an assessment on someone that's got a lot of air and space, but predominantly more Earth and water. So it's going to vary quite a bit in terms of what shakes out as a result of the clarity that we get in the intake. So the intake happens then we do what we call a two hour assessment where that is the physical assessment there is us there's a psych one emotional environmental, all that happens within that two hours I also in terms of the physical I look at someone's palm, I look at their tongue, I look at their face, their body stature, assessing everything from their voice patterns to even the size of their ears, that all has qualities in our bodies coming from nature. So once that's done, what I do is essentially take all that data collection that I have and I sort okay which has more vada type which is more PID and which is more capa. Then when I come up with the numbers based on the information gleaned from the intake and the assessment, then I can come up with a diagnosis Okay, this person is 50%, pitta, 40% kafa and 10% Fada. Once I have that that is your natural constitution. So that's the constitution you were born with. Now, the other thing that I'm looking for as well as what has happened more recently, or is more of a short term imbalance, we call it Vic rooty in in AI or beta. So what does this person would call it Vic for short? What's their victory at their imbalances? Okay, well, I wasn't, you know, conceived in inflammation kind of thing, but I developed it later on in life as a result of this, that or the other thing, so that's the imbalance, okay, so we have some inflammation in the knees, perhaps this person developed colitis later on, and that's the imbalance that body's dealing with. Maybe their mind is imbalanced, and they're experiencing overwhelm and fear and anxiety. So that's movement. So I would categorize that as well. And that's just using again, the laws of nature, it's not something I make up and decide like, oh, it seems like it's that we're using the fight. Yeah, we're actually using the evidence in nature. And so that's the qualities and the elements, pardon me. So we clarify the natural constitution, we clarify the imbalanced once the imbalances figured out, then we then we create a treatment program to nourish the imbalance. And that's done through a college OSHA. So constitution. So for example, I would if someone had a Vata imbalance, I would give them a Vata pacifying food program and lifestyle program, just start to treat it little by little increment by increment. And then that's that's the starting point. And it's week by week. So what that looks like with the people I work with now is, when we first meet, we start more global, we start on the physical plane and work with the diet. What's the diet look like? And how we can? Can we make little tweaks from there? How is this person eating? are they eating standing up on the go all the time? are they eating at their table? Are they rushing through their software takes in two minutes to wolf down their food? And then they're running off to the next thing? Are they sitting at the table for a good 2030 minutes and you know, really narrowing their food body? chewing their food? gratitude, right? So what does that look like right? And how do we start to really kind of make these little tweaks to the habits that we've developed over the years that have caused and nurtured an imbalance. So we just start to work our way backwards until that person finds that that balance again, has reduced it and then we then work on just maintaining their natural constitutions that is taken through the seasons as well because our bodies are going to be different moving into the fall our bodies need to go through this adjustment or this metamorphosis if you will, just as nature does, from the party season of the summer to now the kind of the chaos of the fall and it gets lighter and drier. And then we move into the heavier contemplate of season of the winter and then we're back into spring where it's the rebirth so our bodies need to shift and adjusted each season. So my clients know they're like oh springs coming up. So we're gonna have to change my food program, right and it's they're good with it because it's exciting because they're working with nature. I love it. Yeah.

abuse. Beautiful a beautiful opportunity and a way of thinking and being I just am so thrilled that you are able to share this with the audience and and bring it in. I know I can't believe we're running this there's so much information and not enough time so I was curious what drew you to this work before we close out?

Well, it's interesting because as soon as I had my slow down moments, I really recognized what my purpose was. As soon as I found my purpose I aligned myself and then I found out your beta and it found me at the same time. So in that journey, I used to be a like a fully active kinesiologist working with the human movement in the body and everything in that process I zoom down is like if it's the bigger picture I want to work with more and you know, that hug that wellness hug, right? So I zoomed out and looked at the big picture I want to treat the whole person and in that process, I got certified as a wellness coach. And it was in the training for a wellness coach that I found out your VEDA and it found me and I was like, I seriously I was like, oh my god so many people would benefit from this so that's like I think I found it it was like, I don't know I felt like a leprechaun with a pot of gold and only I'm coming but I found How do people not know about this? This this system helps people heal themselves. It is empowering to them it helps us build our immune system it helps us become resilient and strong human beings and connected with our Dharma or our purpose. Why are we here on this planet? This crazy planet in 2021 because when we connect with that we slow down we align only then do we actually connect with our our sole purpose our higher version of ourselves we listen to that and we're like this is my purpose This is why I'm here to help other people and you know and and for me, it was through iron VEDA Ayurveda is just I read is a system I use to be able to help people and so really everything after that moment when I was like oh my god everyone needs to know it just started I didn't have to try anymore it just started coming to me like I had been doing yoga for a while I was like okay yeah that's it sister science right? Then opportunity to go to India came and then you know I went to India and then I end up going to Albuquerque New Mexico train with a doctor that had brought it to the west. And like just all these signs along the way. You know, one of the cool things that I learned to or that I found out when I was in India, so I'm going to tuck tuck and I'm going down the hill and looking at everything got my bag in front of me and I veer off to the corner I was just like huh what is a yoga Kendra? I was like why is my name on the side of that building? And I was like I'm curious as to what that means and I believe and I was like it's it's Hindu maybe so you want to look it up and it means center so my name in centers like a yoga Kendra is like a yoga center and and this whole idea of harmony and creating balance and centeredness and homeostasis and everything I was like you can't make this stuff up I'm like this is so cool. If you needed to sign you're on the right path I think a literal one

oh my gosh, that literally is so beautiful Kendra and I think you know, it just it's a great invitation for those listening and those that you know, it's okay if you're not sure where you're supposed to be at but but know that we have the opportunity and the the willpower to dig in and look in and slow down so we can listen to where where we're supposed to be. I can't thank you enough for sharing your wisdom. You guys have any of you are interested at all in digging into this or asking more questions please reach out to Kendra like I said, I'm going to ensure that you have her access link in the show notes in this podcast. So do not hesitate because she is not only a wealth of information, you can tell that she lives her truth and is exceptionally passionate and if you do one slight thing different. You're going to change your trajectory. So camera thank you so much for being here.

Oh and a name of truth, my friends, I will support anyone that wants the journey of really remembering who they are and remembering their truth. And that is and so it is my friends and so it is thank you so much for