Welcome to Sustain Your Vitality, the podcast that gives you a nurturing kick in the ass so you can take action every day to feel better, not older. Your lifestyle holds the power to change how you feel, and no matter your age or health issues, you are in the driver's seat.

I'm your host, Zoa Conner, functional wellness guide at Zen and Vitality with Zoa and retreat leader at Intentional Vitality Retreats.

I'm here to help you figure out how to lower your stress, increase your energy, put yourself into a healing state, boost your drive and pleasure in life, prevent disease, and feel the best that you ever have with no regrets later. Let's go.

So today we're joined for a conversation about Ayurveda with Sarah DeBlock. Sarah, would you like to introduce yourself?

Yes. Thank you for having me on. I am the founder of Soma Yoga Healing center or in Alexandria, Virginia.

And so we really focus on bringing Ayurveda into all of our yoga classes. And I trained in Houston at Rasa Yoga with Padma Shakti, as well as with Yoga Veda Institute in Ayurveda.

Fabulous. And what do you spend your most time doing now, Ayurveda or yoga?

Well, in form and how I present it. Outwardly, I teach more yoga, but I'm always integrating Ayurveda concepts into everything I teach.

So when I do private lessons, you know, we may be calling it yoga therapy, but we're also looking at, you know, that person's body constitution and what food and lifestyle would make sense for them. And so on paper, it might look like yoga, but really, I see them intertwined and inseparable, so maybe both all the time.

That's what it sounds like to me, too. Well, let's. Let's go on with our conversation.

Sounds great.

So today we're talking about the Ayurvedic concept of ojas, which is one of my favorites, actually, Sarah, because ojas has to do with vitality and your ability to grow and become who you want to be. How do you describe ojas?

I see it very similarly to what you describe, but I have always used, like, a metaphor of a bowl and a reservoir. Like, your bowl is your reservoir, and how big it is is how much ojis you have.

So if our ogis is small, we may only have a small bowl to, you know, catch everything that's coming in in life and handle the emotions. But the larger we can make that bowl and the more we can grow ojis, then the more we can handle and, you know, just really expand in.

Life, I like that so much better than thinking that you have a big bull and are only catching a little bit of life in it.

And yeah, so that means that as you increase your ojas, you can increase your bowl and increase what you can catch and hold onto and increase your everything. Right. And this applies to body, but also how you present yourself in the world. So people with a large ojas reservoir have strong bones, right?

Yes, absolutely. Strong bones, strong immune system. And on the emotional side, I always see ojis as love and like mother nature in a way, because, you know, it's the.

The subtle essence of kapha. And for those who don't know what kapha is, it's really earth and water element and really just this stable love.

So does that mean that mothers always have a lot of ojas?

It does not always mean that. I do think that when a mom is really taking care of herself and embodying, you know, the true motherly love and state, that absolutely.

They have so much ogis.

And I do think even when probably we get pregnant, that we probably our bodies are naturally providing and moving in the direction of more ogis, but our actions can always deplete ourselves.

And so if a mom doesn't have the community support she needs, if she doesn't have the financial she needs, whatever the scenario could be, maybe they just don't know the proper way to eat and they're not getting enough iron, it could be that they deplete themselves. And even though they're an amazing mom, they may have lost some ojis.

Well, don't we lose ojas whenever we grow a baby?

Yes, that as well.

And so that means that part of that recovery for a new mom is going to be recovering her ojas. We know we put our calcium from our bones into our baby's bones, and we know that we gave blood and all kinds of wonderful things to the baby.

And then as the baby starts to grow, we need to heal ourselves and re support our own ojs.

Yeah, I think that, you know, 45 days postpartum is just such an important and sacred window. And probably, you know, mothers were focused more on in ancient times, but I think right now we probably focus more on the baby.

But that is really a time for both mother and baby to, you know, really grow in strength and to take care of themselves in that sacred window.

And then what happens as we age to our ojas? Right, because we're talking about mothers with young babies, some of our listeners won't be of that age range.

Do we need to worry about losing our ojas at other times of life.

Well, you know, yes, and I would say, of course there's certain times of life maybe more than others.

It's always balanced, like, right. What age are we? What do I need to balance with? And so as we age as well, we want to give ourselves more care there.

So I like to think of ojas as being intimately connected to the concept of vitality as you age.

So when your ojas bowl is small, you're not going to feel strong, stable, you're not going to feel good in your emotions and your physicality, your immune system, you're going to feel frail. Right. And so how can we boost our ojas in order to boost our vitality?

Yeah, there are several ways. I'll mention a few and then maybe you can mention a few of your favorites.

But to me, really nurturing ourselves in with our relationship with ourselves and with others, I think having strong connections, like deep, true connections with other people. Also this concept of surrender, kind of just really surrendering to what is allowing.

I've seen the word reverent a lot, come up with ogis to really have reverence for all that we do have. And in a way, it's another way of gratitude, practice. But this word reverence comes up a lot when I have studied ois.

And then on a physical level it can be abianga oil massages, but with the true intention of loving yourself.

It could be adding more oils or ghee into your diet, eating foods that are really going to bring some substance, some grounding into the physical body. And I would love to hear what are some of your, your favorite ways for increasing ojas?

Well, I often tend to go with food first when trying to support someone's ojas growing because most of my clients are so used to nurturing other people and they have a hard time really understanding how to nurture themselves. So if we start with food, then they know that certain foods make them feel good.

And while they might be Concerned about weight, especially if they're menopausal women. The things that feed you, let's feed your brain, let's feed your muscles, let's focus on that. Don't focus on the things that you are trying to avoid.

Focus on the nutrient rich, high quality food that's going to bring you ojas. And so then I also tend to go with supporting how they feel about themselves in a female, womanly, sexual sense. Right.

So in order to feel strong and capable, maybe that is going in the direction of strong core muscles and strong pelvic floor muscles. Pelvic floor leads us to the sexual nature of your femaleness. And there's a sense of fertility associated with ojas. Right.

So when you are at a high ojas time in life, you have the ability to be fertile. And so as your fertility wanes, as you age, your oja swings, there's that tie in.

So what can we do to make you feel in that young, vibrant, juicy sense and that will increase ojas for you as well?

Absolutely. I like how you said add in what makes you feel, you know, vibrant and vital versus takeaway.

That's a really important concept to just keep adding in positive habits.

And I've heard the saying, and I love it that, you know, if you just add in enough good habits, you won't have to remove the ones that are unsupportive.

You won't have time for them because if we try to remove, then we feel deprived. And I also think, you know, you're talking about aging.

I think that's part of the mentality that makes aging hard is feeling like something's being taken away from us when the body changes and something isn't the same as it used to be. It can almost mentally feel like something's been taken. So we don't want to approach it by taking more away. It's like, what can you add?

Yeah. And a really common thing for many women to be concerned about is their skin. Right. Now we know that skin is the largest organ in the body.

It's a pathway into the body because your skin will absorb things, which is why your personal care products need to be really, really healthy and clean for you. But a good practice is skin brushing. Right. And so you can be doing that gentle massage of the skin with your skin brush.

I like my ionic skin brush because it's also got some stimulation on the mineral level for the immune system. It's also a lymphatic massage, so you're helping with cleansing out toxins. And then once you've skin brushed, then you can apply your oils.

And the practice of abhyanga, where you're gently massaging oils into the skin also is a very sensual act. So it's two acts of self care that are supportive of your largest organ and your sexuality.

And everyone knows that babies love touch and so do adults.

But we don't have a lot of opportunities, at least in the American culture, to receive touch as an adult without it being either a paid massage or a sexual act.

So this self care practice of rubbing oil all over your skin, getting that skin contact, getting that oxytocin, that just seems like a really fabulous way of self care and it's supporting your ojas.

And I think abiyanga is one of the most important modalities, especially when, when talking about ojas, I always just say, never underestimate the healing power of touch. And yes, it can be our own touch. Yep.

You don't need to have anyone else with you to be able to get all of those wonderful benefits.

Yes. And even, you know, giving yourself a hug, you know, like maybe you can only do abhyanga once a day at night and that's the time you have for it.

Right.

But what if just in the middle of the day you give yourself a hug and find other ways to bolster it all through the day?

Or you can even do a hand massage while you're waiting for the elevator or waiting for the coffee to brew. There's, there's all kinds of opportunities and they all are going to build your ojas.

I love that idea of a little hand massage or like waiting in line at the grocery store or something.

Sarah, thank you so much for joining us for these Ayurveda related episodes and please tell us how people can find you.

Yes, I am with Soma Yoga Healing center in Alexandria, Virginia and it would be fantastic if you're local that you can come visit. But you can find us@somayogahealing.com and on Instagram somayoga alx.

And if you want to hear more about my story and how I got to this point of teaching yoga and Ayurveda, I hope you'll check out my new memoir, the Year of Sarah. From Heartbreak to Healing. Sorry. From Heartbreak to Happy and the long distance in between. And that is linked on my website.

It's also on all online platforms.

That's fabulous. I didn't even know you had a memoir out.

Yes, it came out in February, so pretty recent. And it has been a fun journey.

Fabulous. And I'LL put all the links to those in the show notes. Thank you Sarah.

Thank you.

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