Wisdom of the Body

David Crow is a renowned plant medicine expert who studied Chinese, Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicines and their spiritual lineages. In this episode, David discusses the three indigenous medicines from Asia and what they teach us about immunity and planetary health. He dives deep on the four levels of medicine discussed in the Tibetan tradition, the five elements from Ayurveda, and why it’s difficult to separate the medicine from the spiritual lineage. 

In this episode, we discuss:

• Why the indigenous medicines are inseparable from the spiritual lineages they came out of -- for example Ayurveda, Yoga and Tantra all came out of the Vedic philosophy
• Tibetan medicine’s poetic description of the nine months of pregnancy and embryology, and - being rooted in a belief in reincarnation - also what happens at the end of life and in the transition between death and the next phase, referred to as the bardo
• The four levels of medicine as depicted on a Tibetan thangka
• Why prana from Ayurveda, chi from Chinese medicine, and ultimately enlightenment, are the goals of medicine and spiritual practice
• How plant medicine is reconnecting us to ecophysiology and the health of the earth and why this is important right now spiritually
• Your definition of “me” at the levels of the microcosm and macrocosm
• How to dissolve the boundaries of the self into the unified field and the stream of consciousness 
• Why yoga and meditation create biological unity, where the individual self is part of something else
• The role of herbal medicine, nutrition and detoxification in strengthening the immune system and planetary health
• Why everyone went crazy for herbs like turmeric this year

David Crow, the founder of Floracopeia, is a plant medicine expert, clinician, consultant, researcher, educator and author. He is a specialist in Chinese, Tibetan and Ayurvedic medicines and their spiritual lineages. He is the author of the 2000 book In Search of the Medicine Buddha, offers consultations and is one of the featured teachers with The Shift Network.

Heather Grzych is the author of The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility and the host of the Wisdom of the Body podcast. A board-certified Ayurvedic practitioner, she bridges the worlds of conventional and alternative medicine to help women and men heal their physical and emotional lives. Heather is on the board of directors for the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA) and has consulted with doctors, governments, and insurance companies. She offers virtual consultations and programs worldwide. www.heathergrzych.com 

Connect with Heather:

Instagram.com/heathergrzych

Facebook.com/grzychheather

This podcast is for educational purposes only.

Trusting isn't always easy, and some of us don't even trust ourselves enough. In this solocast, Ayurvedic practitioner and author of The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility, Heather Grzych, explains how important interoception is, why you need to add more qualitative language to the phrase “I’m stressed out”, and taking the Ayurveda journey of the five elements and five senses. 

In this episode, Heather discusses: 

• Five elements from Ayurveda
• Importance of the space element
• How to get less distracted by thoughts
• Using the sensory experience to achieve balance and homeostasis
• Why saying you are stressed is not specific enough
• Examples of how to creatively change the quality of inputs in each of the sense organs: ears, skin, eyes, tongue and nose. 
• Excerpts from her book, The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility

Heather Grzych is the author of The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility and the host of the Wisdom of the Body podcast. A board-certified Ayurvedic practitioner, she bridges the worlds of conventional and alternative medicine to help women and men heal their physical and emotional lives. Heather is on the board of directors for the National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA) and has consulted with doctors, governments, and insurance companies. She offers virtual consultations and programs worldwide. www.heathergrzych.com 

Connect with Heather:

Instagram.com/heathergrzych

Facebook.com/grzychheather

This podcast is for educational purposes only.

Dr. Raja Sivamani is a board-certified dermatologist and an Ayurvedic Practitioner who is the Director of Clinical research in the Department of Dermatology at the University of California, Davis and the Co-Director of the Microbiome Research Initiative at the California State University, Sacramento. An integrative practitioner of both Allopathic and Ayurvedic medicine, he emphasizes nutrition and achieving beautiful skin through the knowledge of ayurveda. In this episode, we learn about skin on a physiological, psychological and sociological level. Discover how deep skin really goes. 

In this episode we discuss:

• Why medical doctors are so attracted to Ayurveda
• The importance of nutrition in skin conditions
• How people who have acne often have a deficiency of short chain fatty acids
• How dead skin actually keeps your skin hydrated
• The many functions of skin and role in the gut-skin axis
• Inner skin and outer skin
• How turmeric, triphala and manjistha are beneficial to the gut microbiome
• How Dr. Sivamani cured his own gut issues through implementing Ayurveda in his life
• Why leading your life with whatever brings you the most vitality is the secret to beautiful skin

Other links for Dr. Raja Sivamani:

• LearnSkin.com  
• Jivome
• Cosmeceuticals and Active Cosmetics Textbook

Katherine Standefer is the author of Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life, a book that tells the story of her rare medical condition and the complicated relationship she has with the defibrillator in her chest. With recognitions from the New York Times, O Magazine, Columbia Graduate School of Journalism, Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, Kirkus Review, People Magazine and NPR's Fresh Air, she provides a unique perspective on what it means to save a life, and how, like the farm-to-table approach to dining, we need to understand what goes into the technology we use.

In this episode we discuss:

• Katherine Standefer’s phenomenal book: Lightning Flowers: My Journey to Uncover the Cost of Saving a Life 
• Life with getting an implanted cardiac defibrillator at the age of 24 
• How her device misfired and ultimately led to more health risks
• Katherine’s complicated relationship with her defibrillator led her to dive deeper and find out about the device's roots
• What really goes into saving a life
• How to look at medical devices and all objects as sacred
• The organization My Heart Your Heart, which recycles and restores pacemakers
• Living with damage caused by a medical device
• How each of us can sit with the idea that someday we will die
• Having a life-threatening condition without health insurance system in the US 
• The mines in Africa where the materials for many of our devices from
• What Lightning Flowers are
• What Long QT Syndrome is 

Other links for Katherine

• http://www.katherinestandefer.com/

Social Handles:

• @girlmakesfire for Twitter & IG

Lisa Smartt, MA, is a linguist, book coach and the author of Words at the Threshold: What We Say When We’re Nearing Death, a book based on the data she has collected through the Final Words Project, which she co-founded with Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term “near-death experience”. Many of us fear death, but it may not be what we think. In this episode, Lisa beautifully describes the common language patterns of individuals who are dying. She also explains the connection our spirits and bodies have with poetic language like metaphor. Listen, and gain clarity and peace surrounding death.

In this episode, we discuss: 

• How witnessing her father’s last days sparked Lisa’s study of the language of the dying
• The work of Lisa’s collaborator, Dr. Raymond Moody, who coined the term near-death experience (NDE), as revealed in his book Life After Life
• Seeing and and speaking with deceased loved ones as we die
• The beauty of nonsensical language and unintelligible speech
• How our dreams, our bodies and the experience of dying speak in metaphors
• Tuning into the language of people passing so you can help nurture the peace of one’s soul transition

More links for Lisa:

• The Final Words Project with Dr. Raymond Moody and Lisa Smartt

Jessica Ann is the CEO and Creative Director of the marketing agency JAM, and a former news producer for national media outlets, such as NBC Newschannel and XM Radio. Jessica is the author of the book Humanize Your Brand, and hosts the Art of Humanity podcast. She discusses how to consume slow media over fast if you want to to reclaim reality. Learn how to have a healthier relationship with social media and technology without shunning what has become such a useful tool and a key part of humanity’s evolution.

In this episode, we discuss:

• The difference between slow media and fast media, and where podcasts fit in
• How blue light blocking glasses can help our nervous systems
• How embodied marketing creates authentic content
• Emotional intelligence and processing
• How empaths are often great visionaries
• The Gene Keys by Richard Rudd

More links for Jessica:

• Jessica’s book: Humanize Your Brand: How to Create Content that Connects with Your Customers
• The Art of Humanity podcast with Jessica Ann

Dr. John Douillard DC, CAP has authored seven Ayurvedic health books, including bestsellers Eat Wheat and The 3-Season Diet, and is a repeat Dr. Oz Show guest, former NBA nutritionist and creator of LifeSpa.com—where ancient Ayurvedic wisdom meets modern science. Dr. Douillard provides insights that he’s discovered from decades of clinical practice - including whether wheat and dairy are bad for you, the benefits of seasonal eating, and how the microbiome isn’t just in the gut. Align your diet to nature’s flow and keep your immune system strong.

In this episode we discuss:

• How wheat and dairy may be able to make your gut immunity stronger. 
• Humans are cyclical beings, like everything else is in nature. 
• Insights on strengthening our immune systems and our lungs with breath work / pranayama. 
• Dr. Douillard's calling to study Ayurveda in India.
• Ayurveda’s meaning: to live out one’s truth.
• How 85% of diseases start with our digestion.
• Rasa: The study of the lymphatic system.
• The link between the gut and the respiratory system.
• Why cleansing and detoxification is so important.
• The importance of nose breathing.
• Kumbhaka: a breath hold that brings more oxygen from our blood to our tissues.
• His earlier books: Perfect Health for Kids and Body, Mind and Sport.

More links for Dr. John:

• John Douillard’s website: https://lifespa.com/
• https://www.facebook.com/dr.douillard 
• https://www.instagram.com/lifespa/  @lifespa
• https://twitter.com/JohnDouillard  @JohnDouillard
• https://www.youtube.com/c/JohnDouillardsLifeSpa

Rama Jyoti Vernon is an international yoga teacher, founder of numerous organizations, and the author of two highly influential yoga books. Rama first discovered yoga in the 1950s, when it was still being confused with yogurt in the US, and she later taught yoga to Indira Gandhi’s cabinet ministers in India, brought B.K.S. Iyengar to teach in the US, and was the force behind the founding of Yoga Journal. We discuss her experience going to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and later to the Middle East, to do peace mediation work. Tune in to take a breath and realize that you don't need to become empowered - you already are.

In this episode, we discuss:

• How collective fear can be much greater than what is presently occurring in one’s life
• Real female empowerment
• What we can learn from asana and philosophy in yoga practice
• Spending 8 years in the Soviet Union as a peace activist, even meeting Gorbachev and Putin along the way
• Rama’s two books: Yoga: The Practice of Myth & Sacred Geometry and Yoga Sutras: Gateway to Enlightenment
• B.K.S. Iyengar's Book: Light on Yoga
• The founding of Yoga Journal: https://www.yogajournal.com/

More about Rama:

• Rama's website: https://www.rama.yoga 
• Rama’s Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rama_Jyoti_Vernon

Go deep into mindfulness and the practice of attuning to nature with Mark Coleman, author and longtime teacher at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as a facilitator of insight meditation retreats worldwide since 1997. Mark discusses his journey from his rebel-punk-anarchist days in London as a college student, to discovering Buddhism, and ultimately realizing the beautiful teachings naturally occurring in the wild. Mark shares several ways to let go of stress and come back to presence, whether you are working in healthcare, hiding from smoke, or angered over politics. Discover how peace, love and joy are available in nature to soothe your soul right now.

In this episode we discuss:

• The teachings accessible in nature “teaching of life, death and everything in between”
• How you can be self aware, mindful and peaceful as an activist
• Mindfulness and insight meditation
• Mark’s three books: From Suffering to Peace: The True Promise of Mindfulness, Awake in the Wild: Mindfulness in Nature as a Path of Self-Discovery, and Make Peace with your Mind: How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You From Your Inner Critic

More study with Mark:

• Mindfulness Training Institute: https://www.mindfulnesstraininginstitute.com
• Awake in the Wild website: https://www.awakeinthewild.com
• Nature Meditation Website: https://markcoleman.org/nature-meditation/

Lisa Hendrickson-Jack is a Fertility Awareness Educator and author of The Fifth Vital Sign and the Fertility Awareness Mastery Charting Workbook. Lisa discusses the ways a woman can learn about how her menstrual cycle really works, why so many of us were misinformed about it growing up and still continue to be - and why it’s so important to pay attention to it. She shares her personal experience of getting off hormonal birth control and learning how to track her cycle to prevent pregnancy. Tune in to discover the wonders of the menstrual cycle and understand the female body more!

In this episode, we discuss:

• The menstrual cycle as a vital sign
• Why the educational and medical systems haven’t properly educated women about their bodies and how to get educated
• Various Fertility Awareness Methods, such as the Rhythm Method, Justisse Method, Creighton Method, and the Billings Method
• How to look for the signs of ovulation through your own powers of observation or through devices like the Daysy or Lady-Comp
• The magic of your bodily fluids
• How the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility influenced Lisa at a young age