Ancient Healing Wisdom: How to Transform Your Health Naturally with Hannah Levin

What if the secret to transforming your health isn't found in the latest supplement or workout trend, but in the ancient wisdom that our ancestors knew all along? Join us as we dive deep with Hannah Levin, who discovered that our bodies and minds possess an infinite capacity to heal—when given the right conditions and support.

We explore how personal healing creates ripple effects that extend far beyond ourselves. Hannah Levin shares her transformative journey from struggling with her own health challenges to becoming a guide for women seeking vibrant wellness through the integration of ancient practices and modern science.

• Learn why Hannah believes that with the right conditions and support, our bodies and minds can heal from virtually anything—and how to create those optimal conditions in your own life.
• Discover how traditional practices like Ayurveda and yoga can be enhanced with contemporary habit formation techniques for lasting transformation.
• Understand how your personal healing journey doesn't just transform your life—it creates a cascade of wellness that impacts your family, community, and ultimately our planet.
• Learn practical strategies for overcoming the belief that you're "stuck" in your current health situation and how to shift into a mindset of infinite possibility.

 This Episode Is For

• Women seeking a holistic approach to health and wellness
• Anyone struggling with chronic health issues looking for hope and practical solutions
• Practitioners interested in integrating ancient wisdom with modern techniques
• People curious about Ayurveda, yoga, and mindset transformation

Hannah  Levin is the founder of Heartfelt Wellbeing LLC. She is an Ayurveda Practitioner, yoga teacher. Her mission is to alleviate unnecessary suffering in the world. Hannah expertly guides women to regain their optimal health and wellbeing through her online coaching programs and retreats.

Connect with Hannah  heartfeltwellbeing.com

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Chapters

• 0:00 Hannah's Healing Journey
• 4:53 Understanding Ayurveda's Five Elements
• 12:34 Living in Rhythm with Nature
• 18:08 Digestive Health and Gut Microbiome
• 29:55 Perimenopause: The Second Puberty
• 40:18 Embracing Life's Transitions
• 47:27 Heartfelt Wellbeing Programs

Transcript

Rose: 0:00

Hannah combines ancient wisdom with modern habit evolution techniques to help women break free from the belief that they are stuck in their current health situations. Her message is clear With the right conditions and support, our bodies and minds have an infinite capacity to heal, ready to unlock your most vibrant, authentic self. Your journey to radiant wellness starts now. Welcome to Chat Off the Mat. I'm your host, rose Whippich, and I'm here to guide you on an extraordinary journey of feminine healing, energy work and total wellbeing. Get ready to be inspired by authentic conversations with leading women practitioners, wellness experts and holistic healers who understand your unique journey. Subscribe to Chat Off the Mat wherever you get your podcasts and let's create magic together.

Hannah: 0:55

Welcome, Hannah. Thank you, Rose. I'm so excited to be here.

Rose: 1:00

I'm excited that you're here, so we're going to start off by asking you to tell us about yourself and your journey, to how you came to helping others on your path.

Hannah: 1:11

Yeah, well, I think, like many people who end up in the healing profession, we have to go through some dark nights in our own evolution. So I feel really lucky evolution. So I feel really lucky. I grew up in a family where food and herbs were seen as medicine, and so that seed got planted very early on in my life. However, I had chronic sinus infections all through high school and I turns out like my room in the house that I grew up in was kind of moldy and like there were kind of just all these predisposing things Fast forward, like gut dysbiosis that came in from all those antibiotics, and then the things that happen like you know, inflammation and insomnia and weight gain, and you know horrible PMS and, um, joint pain, I mean kind of all the things and, um, yeah, and then I became a yoga teacher, um in two. I started teaching yoga in 2004 and I was, um, you know, kind of seen as somebody in the community that was really healthy, but I felt like a fraud a lot because I was like dealing with my own health stuff. And so, in 2015, I went to Ayurveda school and I went part, like in big part, to be able to help other people. But what I didn't realize is how much I would heal.

Hannah: 2:47

But the big shift for me was in 2013, I was diagnosed with high grade cervical dysplasia, which is a pretty common diagnosis for women and there's a lot of, I know. You get the whole like energetic and spiritual, emotional components of everything. So, as we are women living in a patriarchal society and navigating how to be powerful in whatever way that looks like that's acceptable, a lot of us will have imbalances in our reproductive organs, and the Western medicine route is to cut it out, which doesn't actually solve anything. And so that diagnosis in 2013 really put me on my path to be like I'm not going to just have surgery to remove 70% of my cervix, I want to investigate, like why this happened, like go upstream, and so that led me to Ayurveda School in 2015. So I've been practicing for almost 10 years now and specializing in women's health specifically.

Rose: 3:56

What a journey, and you know, I think oftentimes, in many who I've spoken with on the podcast, they've had to go through their own challenges to get where we are today. And as you're describing your story too, I mean, I'm also a yoga instructor and became one after having my own personal struggles and realizing how much yoga has helped me and transformed my life as well.

Hannah: 4:23

Well, let me just say that all of the things that I mentioned prior that I was struggling with I no longer struggle with and I've had some you know health roller coasters since then. I mean, as we live and you know, now I'm in perimenopause and like that's its own adventure, and so I'm constantly learning from my own experience. What I found from studying Ayurveda is that all of us have this blueprint of who we are uniquely. That's based in a five element system. Should I do kind of like a brief?

Rose: 4:59

Sure, yeah, I think that would be great. I mean, I yeah, I think that would be great to educate our audience, because I know that, according to Ayurveda, everybody's different.

Hannah: 5:08

Right, yeah, and yet there's some things that we can all align with. Yes and so, yeah, so Ayurveda originated in India over 5,000 years ago, so what I like to point out is that things that don't work don't stick around. So the fact that it has stuck around for over 5,000 years is pretty incredible. It's a five-element system similar to Chinese medicine and Tibetan medicine, which actually grew out of Ayurveda as it traveled across Asia. So the five elements in Ayurveda are space, air, fire, water and earth. Five elements in Ayurveda are space, air, fire, water and earth, and everything can be brought back to its elemental components, from food to weather patterns, to mental states, to things that are happening in our bodies, to life stages, to everything. And Ayurveda further simplifies us working with these elements by putting them into what we call doshas or energies. And dosha can also be translated as faults, kind of like the fault in the earth, like where things shift, and so the doshas and I'll come back to this shifting idea in a moment but the doshas are made up of two elements each. So vada is the dosha that's made up of air and space Sorry, air and space, so it's very light and ungrounded and dry and mobile. Pitta is made up of fire and water, so it's very like hot and sharp and spreading. And kapha is made up of earth and water, so it's heavy, dull, cool, static, and so all of us have all three of these doshas, but in differing amounts, and that's where we become our own unique universe. So we have what's called a prakriti, which is our base constitution, which is established when we're conceived, and then we have vikritis, which are ways in which we get out of balance as we live our lives. Those vikritis can come in very early in our lives so we can think they are innately who we are.

Hannah: 7:17

But when we begin to travel this Ayurvedic journey initially, you don't really need to know your specific constitution Initially. Just living in alignment with the rhythms of nature will help tremendously. So knowing how to live in alignment with the different seasons and if we're living in a place where there are actually four different seasons, then we have these elemental qualities that we're balancing as we're navigating. If you just align with eating seasonally to balance the doshas that are predominant, so, like in the springtime, we have these heavy elements of earth and water. We want to eat lighter foods to balance that. Balancing with the wisdom of opposites is really what we're always focusing on. So navigating with the seasons is a great place to start, and I think a lot of people get really hung up on what's my constitution and then they're like oh, this Ayurveda thing is too complicated, I'm not going to bother.

Hannah: 8:21

When we do add in the layer of personal constitution, that's where we can see our tendencies and our patterns and we start to click like, oh yeah, every spring I get really mucusy and like feel really heavy all the time, or like I tend to get headaches at 4 pm in, you know, in the winter, or things like that that were like, oh, aha, it's a lot of noticing. And then we can see these patterns. But the individual constitution really helps us understand that we're not so strange. We will have these tendencies, like I had a tendency to. I'm vada pitta, so I'm vada, predominant secondary pitta, and then I don't have much kapha at all, but I was getting these chronic sinus infections and lots of mucus where the imbalance that I was dealing with was kapha, this heavy, sick, mucusy experience, but then other experiences like chronic constipation and insomnia and anxiety. Those are all vata imbalances. So my primary constitution is that fault. It's like where we tend to go out of balance. So we will tend to go out of balance most in our predominant dosha.

Rose: 9:44

I like the way you explained it, even if we don't know our own constitution, which can be very daunting if you don't have it explained to you well, or the proper guidance. If you live with the seasons, then you're on the right path there and understanding okay. Well, I'm not feeling so good. Why am I not feeling well? I'm constipated, my skin is dry. There's, you know, seasonal reasons why this is occurring. That could be a clue as to where your imbalances might lie. Absolutely yeah, and I mean, I've been learning or following Ayurveda for a long time and there's always something new and I'm always reminded of my own imbalances and, you know, reminding myself what I need to do at certain times of the year. So it's, this is wonderful, it's a great roadmap really.

Hannah: 10:51

It is. And another thing I'd like to just add in there is like none of us in Western culture learn this stuff. You know, I specialize in women's health and the main program that I run is a year long, so that we travel through each of the seasons and everybody gets to experience, like, what does balancing in this season look like? Because we're constantly changing and we need to be in conversation with nature, always, always. Well, we don't learn that growing up in the United States, we are told, like you can have daylight whenever you want, just turn on a light or you can, you know, eat whatever you want Anytime of the year. We import foods from all over the world. Who knew what seasonal eating was right?

Hannah: 11:34

So any of these really basic things come back to us living in rhythm with nature. Back to us living in rhythm with nature, and what I have found, and why I built a group program and a community, is that we you know, behavioral science shows us that our habits are not our own, that we are actually expressing the habits of the five people we interact with the most. So if we're living in an arrhythmic culture and interacting with other arrhythmic people, it's going to be really hard for us to make these changes, even if it's just, you know, going to bed a little earlier, eating dinner before the sun down or eating. You know, like that, that there's these things that if we start doing them, we feel or seem or are labeled as weird and strange. But if you join a community of other people that are having these conversations and you know implementing these things in their lives too, then there's a lot more ease with making those transitions, which then ultimately benefit you for the rest of your life.

Rose: 12:42

I love this conversation because I think women especially tend to put their needs last. So if they want to eat early or if they want to eat something that is different than what everyone else in their family wants to eat, because they're conscious of their diet or Ayurvedic rhythm, right, they won't honor that. And I struggle with that as well, even with just my husband home. I mean, he was working late and then it's eight o'clock or 7.30. I'm like I don't want to eat this late, but I can't find myself to just sit down and eat when I want to, and I need to do that. But it's really important to listen to what we want to do.

Hannah: 13:25

It is yeah, and as women, we're trained to make sure everybody else is okay Not necessarily us, right? So like, oh, I'm not sleeping well or, you know, I'm having digestive issues, whatever, as long as everybody else is okay, but yeah. So being in community with other women who are learning how to pay attention to their own I call them the check engine lights, right, like the little signals that we get can we listen with the ear of our hearts, instead of the judge or the you know punitive voice? That's like stop, you know, stop feeling bad, or stop, you know, complaining, or stop, you know be. Like can I just listen and be like, oh, wow, there's that sensation again. Or like I didn't sleep well again. What? What can I do to to really nourish and nurture this being, body, mind and spirit?

Hannah: 14:19

You know it's not all physical and a lot of people think Ayurveda just has to do with food. It's not a diet. You know there's not one way to eat in Ayurveda. It's kind of seasonal alignment layered with your personal constitutional needs and imbalances that you're healing, and so everybody's on their own journey. But while we live in this really individualist society, it's like everybody for their own.

Hannah: 14:48

We're really hesitant to do like what you were just talking about. Like what if you sat down by yourself and set a nice table for yourself and you know, at five, 30, and just had like a really lovely evening meal, and then when your husband comes home at eight you're like here's your dinner and I'll sit and talk with you and I'll have a cup of tea. But I feel better if I'm not eating at 8 pm. Great, you know, and we're not here to force it on anybody else. But we in my program, the Vitalia Circle, we call it trickle down Ayurveda because, as we are practicing, and you know the people in our households and I have two teenagers who are very resistant to all this stuff but then they'll start noticing, you know, they'll be like oh yeah, I ate all that ice cream at 10 pm. And then I woke up this next morning just feeling really groggy and sluggish and had a big coating on my tongue and I'm like, there you go you're noticing, digestion is really, really important to observe in Ayurveda.

Rose: 15:51

Can you talk about that?

Hannah: 15:52

And then the gut microbiome, because this is good stuff, yes, and what I love about this conversation is that Western medicine is just discovering how important that gut microbiome is and healthy digestion to our overall health. But Ayurveda has known this for over 5,000 years. So, yeah, digestion is seen as the seat of health in Ayurveda and so all of us have a combination of all three doshas, as I mentioned before. But there are tendencies for each doshic pattern with the so VADA folks will tend to have more dry issues, so gas bloating, so burping, farting, feeling like you're pregnant after you eat a meal, like really bloating up, and also feel erratic hunger, so not really clear, authentic hunger, like eat a meal. So Vata folks will tend to kind of pick at food or snack throughout the day, which is actually further increasing the imbalance, instead of eating just three regular meals on a schedule. And then, elimination-wise, vata folks will tend to be um, constipated, so we'll not have a full bowel movement at least once a day. Often it's dry pebbles, feels like there's not a full elimination, um, and can have a tendency towards things like hemorrhoids, um and so and. And use of laxatives ends up often being what people turn to there, and a lot of people are on laxatives that don't need to be right um, and you know those can be helpful in short, short-term uh needs. But pitta digestion will tend to be hot. So dealing with things like acid reflux, gerd, and we'll maybe even have like a burning sensation in the stomach. And then, elimination wise, we'll be dealing with loose stool. So the people that like have to run to the bathroom or even going to the bathroom after each time they meet sorry, eat are going to have more of that pitta fiery imbalance.

Hannah: 18:13

And then kapha, the sluggishness is like if you eat and then you feel like there's just a rock in your stomach, like things are not moving or like it's taking forever to digest something, and then constipation is also an outcome of that for the elimination, but it's more of a sluggishness, not not from it being hard and dry, but from it just being slow, like it feels like it takes days for, you know, a meal to move, move through your move through your system. There can also be mucus in the stool there and so the gut microbiome is is really kind of the modern day term for for what we're looking at in Ayurveda, which is what we call Agni, which is spelled A-G-N-I, which is spelled A-G-N-I, which is the digestive fire, and so we really look at the digestive fire as the seed of health. So we want to have if you think about, like you know, having a campfire that you're going to cook food over while you're camping you don't want a raging inferno. You couldn't cook anything on that, you'd have to stand back 40 feet right. And you also don't want just a teeny little twig fire because that won't be enough to, you know, heat anything or cook anything. So we want a really healthy, balanced fire that has, like some good coals, you know they're like established for ongoing radiant heat and a little bit of flame.

Hannah: 19:48

And so often when I start working with women, we're looking at specifically what's going on with their digestion and most people have compromised agni, and I would say more so on the and I would say more so on the lack of strength side than being overactive.

Hannah: 20:19

So the agni really often needs support through both rebuilding the microbiome. So in our kind of modern day conversation about this, people are really focused on probiotics and prebiotics and us wanting to have the, the gut bugs that are really beneficial, and then, you know, taking out the gut bugs that are not as great. Like you know, candida is probably one of the you know, like yeast kind of overgrowth is probably one of the most common known. But what I think that modern day conversation is missing is the support of the digestive fire that through what we're eating, like using digestive spices and making sure food is warm and cooked when the agni is low, we're not eating raw, cold or dry foods that were supporting that, that fire, without bombarding it with. You know, probiotics and even you know probiotic foods have become really popular, like well and kombucha was something that really took off as this is a probiotic food but if you're having kombucha you need like an ounce of it a day, like drinking a whole bottle of kombucha is very overtaxing for oh yeah, I know firsthand.

Rose: 21:41

I tried it and I was. I was in agony, I didn't know what was happening I think we try too, I think we try to do so much, and even with the probiotics, I mean, it all comes down to having a balance.

Hannah: 21:56

Right, right. And so having some probiotic foods I encourage folks to make homemade sauerkraut and sometimes kimchi, depending on how well they handle spice. But again, those are things to do like in spring and fall, not so much in summer and winter. And so knowing the seasonality of it is really helpful when we're at these joints in the season, giving our body a little bit of a boost. But even just using culinary spices you know, cumin, coriander, cinnamon, cardamom and ginger especially fresh ginger is so beneficial for your digestion that you know what we're eating looks really different when we start looking at it from a place of tending to our inner well-being, of that biome but also the fire there. And we can really do a lot of good work just by including certain spices and certain foods in our diet.

Hannah: 23:03

And you know, food in our modern culture is very much equated to fuel, like put fuel in the gas tank, and there's a lot more to that and I would say that's actually not a very helpful analogy. Most of the time we do need fuel to continue, you know, to have energy. And yet the whole conversation of like calories, I'm like let's, let's get rid of that Like calorie. You know. You know however many hundred calories of Cheetos and a hundred calories of broccoli are going to do very, very different things in your body. Yeah, so, anyway, I digress, but that's a bit of the microbiome Agni picture.

Rose: 23:52

Yeah, yeah, and it's really difficult for someone to understand what's going on in the microbiome unless you get it tested. I recently had mine tested and found that I have leaky gut. So my doctor is giving me protocol all natural supplements, including probiotics, that I'm following and I have to say I had distention and gas and all those things. I know it's TMI, but I'm telling you because now I feel way better. I don't feel that I feel like my digestion is normal. I have off days, but I know it's because maybe I had. You know, I was also told don't eat gluten and dairy for three months because I was having joint pain and also affected my gut. I noticed a difference there. So being guided by someone like an expert, a doctor or someone in Ayurvedic field like yourself is really important, because you don't want to go ahead and start doing something and, you know, eating a pound of ginger a day because you may wake up and be like, oh my God, you have to go to the hospital or something like that. You don't want that.

Hannah: 25:01

Right, yeah, I love that. You've experienced that firsthand too. And in Ayurveda we have these three questions that we always ask. And they are for who? Who are we talking about? Because everybody has their own individual universe. When, when are they doing this? And you know what time of year, what stage of their life, what time of day right when are they doing? And then how much? Right, so how much of this food or herb or exercise or whatever?

Hannah: 25:32

And in our Western mentality, we tend to think if a little is good, more is better, and that is not actually the case. So, yeah, it is about, it's about balance, it's about understanding everybody's uniqueness. And how many of us too, I mean, before I found Ayurveda, I'd be like, oh, this diet or whatever was is working for my friend, I'll, I'll try that. And then be like, oh, that that feels awful or so, and so can eat that piece of chocolate cake and feel, fine, I can too. Or you know, they like to drink wine or whatever. And we're taking those cues externally by just looking at the world around us, like, how can I be? Okay.

Hannah: 26:09

And then, alternatively, we'll like, in your case, you might have had a point in time where you're just like, well, I'm just getting older, so my joints are going to ache, and we kind of write it off instead of asking the question like, how good could I feel right now? And wow, I'm not feeling that great. Let me check into what I could do about it. A lot of folks and I think especially women, because we're caretakers and we're not used to paying attention to ourselves we we write it off and we say, well, it's, it's okay, it's okay that I've gained 20 pounds in the last five years. I'm middle aged anyway. I'll you know everybody else, my age looks like this or whatever it is whatever yeah.

Hannah: 26:53

Yeah. So I do detoxes twice a year, in the spring and the fall. So these are the shifts in the seasons from when it's hot to cold or cold to hot, and we need to reset that digestive fire and I think it's important to recognize that. You know, we can get lots of testing done and we like to know specifically what's happening in our gut, but we can also just do routine resets of lead. So during these D, I mean I call them detoxes, but they're really digestive resets.

Hannah: 27:27

I tried to sell them as a digestive reset and nobody signed up. But when I sell it as a detox, it's like all these people sign up. So it's kind of funny. But the the point is that we're we're really dialing down what we're asking of the digestive fire, rekindling the digestive fire, re-inoculating with some good seasonal probiotic and prebiotic foods, and then that lets you have some awareness, Like it's. It's a time when you can be like oh yeah, I don't feel very good when I eat gluten or dairy or um, or if you have leaky gut and it needs to heal, like that that will do it, the detox will do it. So I'm just pointing out that if we're living rhythmically in an Ayurvedic lifestyle that these resets are keeping us in good stead, as long as we're not, like, exposed to some big toxic load.

Rose: 28:28

Right, right, I actually have done some of those and they really, you know it's a commitment you have to follow along, but that's what you're doing and I felt, oh, oh, my god, amazing afterwards and I just love the rituals of the, of it and certain things, and even started to incorporate some of the things I learned during the, the reset, into my every day.

Hannah: 28:50

So yes, and that's the hope, is that there's little pieces, that you can continue, and then yeah, I have a love of cardamom now.

Rose: 29:01

I love cardamom on my oatmeal and it's just amazing. The spice, and that's another thing. You're exploring so many new, different tastes and flavors and those that are appropriate for you for the season. It's all natural stuff, right, you know, it's not all this artificial stuff that's out there in the world. This is like the real stuff that we're working with.

Hannah: 29:19

And it's really the grandmother wisdom. Like it doesn't really matter what culture we're from. If any of us go back, you know in our lineage a few generations. The grandmothers were healing with food and herbs, and that's what, in essence, ayurveda is Like. Yes, it originated from India, but it doesn't mean you have to eat Indian food. It means that you are acknowledging what supports health. That is simply in your daily flow.

Rose: 29:51

I'd like to take some time also to talk about some more of the common issues that women go through, especially during menopause. Can you reflect on what some of those more common struggles are, how Ayurveda or how you have helped women transition through some of these struggles?

Hannah: 30:13

Yeah, it's interesting, and through some of these struggles, yeah, it's interesting, like I started practicing 10 years ago and I was in my 30s and a lot of the women that have been drawn to work with me are older than me, and so I've learned a lot about perimenopause and postmenopause and I'll you know, now I'm almost 47 and I'm in the throes of perimenopause myself now and I'm like, oh, this is, this is what the experience is, and I'm so grateful for living the way that I do, because I feel like I'm getting off pretty easy with this, with this experience too. But, yeah, so I mean I think there's all the shifts that we're familiar with with the menopausal transition and, just to frame the way I'm using these terms, perimenopause is really the 10 years prior to menopause, which is really one day, which is the day that you are finished with a year of not having any menstrual action and then yours considered to be postmenopausal, so then you're no longer in reproductive years of your life. So perimenopause and postmenopause are these very distinct transitions, and I like to think about perimenopause basically being like your second puberty. So you're going through a lot of hormonal shifts. From an Ayurvedic perspective, you're shifting. So when you initially go through puberty.

Hannah: 31:51

When you're younger, you're moving from kapha stage of life, which is this like grounded, like as babies we're kind of you know we're growing and babies, children, you know, adolescents we're physically growing a lot that earth and water element and hopefully we have a good foundation and we feel like very supported and have good bedrock for us to build our lives on. A lot of us get some traumas in there too that can throw us off, but that shift is moving us from kapha stage of life into pitta stage of life. So that's really our like reproductive years and adulthood. And so pitta stage is like when we're building everything. We're on fire, we're creating a career, our new community, a family away from you know, just the family that we grew up in, and sexual activity. Yes, yeah, we're passionate, we're on fire, but there's also often some burnout in there. We crash and burn, either in relationships or, you know, finance or business, or our bodies. Our bodies are like oh, I can't take this anymore. Here's an autoimmune disease. So there's these shifts that happen there.

Hannah: 33:02

And then we go into perimenopause, which is the shift from Pitta stage of life into Vata stage of life and, depending on your constitution, this can be shocking, like women will just say I don't know myself, like why is my body acting like this? Or like I've slept fine my whole life and all of a sudden I have insomnia? Or what hot flashes like where did this come from? You know? Brain fog, all sorts of things, and it's really like that. Ayurveda teaches that how we live out the decade from 30 to 40 will really determine how we go through menopause. So if we're burning the candle at both ends, we've got the kids, we've got the career, we've got the, you know, volunteer positions in the community and we're, you know, doing the side hustle. We're burning, burning, burning, burning, and that burning will come out when you're in that perimenopausal time. There's your hot flashes, right?

Hannah: 34:08

And so the transition is really one of honoring, right, we kind of honor, in some ways, the transition in puberty of like, now you're a woman, you can go out in the world and you can have a family and you can have a career and you can do all these things. Well, the transition that's happening through menopause is this transition into being an elder or a crone, somebody who's wise and does not need to continue to be so attached to the material world. And yet in our culture, again, we say stay young, dye your hair and, you know, get Botox and continue to pretend that you are not aging. We poo-poo the aging process and yet it is one of the greatest honors. Like what?

Hannah: 35:00

What's the alternative? Right, If we get to be in our fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties, maybe beyond, wow, what, what wisdom we've gained, what amazing life experiences we've had, and can we step into that era of our lives, honoring that it is different from where we were when we were 30 and 40, right, and this is a big part of what the community that I lead is focusing on, is what we call graceful aging, where we celebrate it, that we listen to each other's wisdom and experiences and we don't say, oh, just go get some Botox, Get on a different diet or you know, really like honoring.

Rose: 35:49

Yeah, yeah, because and it doesn't mean that we cannot reinvent ourselves and try new things and embrace new things, it's just honoring that passage into this time and embracing it Because really, when you look at it, society doesn't really look fondly upon that age group or that. You know we're like you said. You know, pretend to be someone who you're not, when we really should use that wisdom and help others, other women who are there before us, transition towards this phase as well.

Hannah: 36:23

That's beautiful and I love that you just said reinvent yourself. It is a time to reinvent yourself. It is a time to say is what I've been doing, what I want to continue to do, how? And it's a time to give back. You know, women who are moving into their 60s and 70s and you know are are looking at like how do I give back in in the world? And unfortunately there's not a whole lot of encouragement for that, just in our mainstream culture. I think, you know, in smaller communities that can be really great to have connections across ages.

Rose: 37:00

I think that's going to change. Yes, I think so too. Yes, I don't have proof, I just have a gut feeling. Yes, trust your gut, I trust my gut. I'm actually writing a book about that.

Rose: 37:15

So about embracing those years and rebranding it, and so I'm excited about that. Yeah, so I'm all about that because you know, I know I have a lot more things to do and I've done a majority of the well. Besides having my children at the age of 41, I went on to become a yoga teacher at a later age and then a podcaster and just embracing so many things because I just don't want to stop. But not just that, because I just feel I have so much more to give and give back.

Hannah: 37:46

Great and there's I have, a bunch of questions for you from what you just said. But there's a subtlety that comes in with that time, like when we're in more pitta stage of life. It's just like get the stuff done, check the boxes. It's very linear and material based. It's like this life, this right, and as you move into vata stage of life, you're, you're more tuned into spirit, more tuned into the subtle. What are you noticing with your senses and how do you cultivate a life that is honoring of that? Now, a lot of people push that away, but if you're tuned into that, that's part of that vada stage of life. When we lose our menstruation, we lose this apana vayu, that downward moving energy, and the shishunanadi opens up and here's our connection to spirit. Right, we can embody and hold that in a way that we can't when we're in our bleeding years.

Rose: 38:47

Right, that's a really beautiful thing and and needs to be honored um, yeah, so I I think it's a a wonderful message that we're saying what we're talking about here for women and you know, to learn new ways. You know, don't be afraid to try something new and if you don't feel good, okay, I'm not saying don't go to the doctor, I'm going to my physical today but go and explore new things natural ways. I think it's fun.

Hannah: 39:28

Yeah, yeah I always tell my clients go, go, get the information and then let's talk. You know, like get your labs done, get you know, get the information and then know that what your doctor will present you with is one option. Maybe that option sounds good to you? Great, go with it. I'm not anti-Western medicine. I'm all for choice, right, and integrating yes, integrating, and knowing that they always have other options. You know, if they're just told, oh, the only thing we can do for you is put you on a medication, and they're like yeah, I don't.

Hannah: 40:07

Most medication, or most medications are gut disruptors. And so you know. Back to the leaky gut conversation. We need to really think twice before going on medications, and most adults over the age of 50 are on a good handful of medications. Well, that's setting you up for gut dysbiosis, leaky gut how poor Agni, however you want to phrase it and that's going to impact your health for the rest of your life in a way that's not necessarily going to override the benefit you might be getting from those drugs. So I just tell people like you have choices and you can weigh. You know you might decide one medication is worth taking, but you're going to nurture your gut in these other ways. It works out, okay, great, but let's not just pile on lots and lots and lots of pills and not understand the long-term repercussion.

Rose: 41:00

Yes, yes, you do have choices. You're so right. I love that. Can you talk about something? So you talk, you work with people. Obviously you have a community. Talk a little bit more about that, how you work with people and or what your offerings are, how they can find you all that good stuff.

Hannah: 41:18

Yeah, well, thank you for the opportunity to share that. Yeah, my business is called Heartfelt Wellbeing and so my website is just heartfeltwellbeingcom, and you can find everything there. My main program is called the Vitality Circle and it's a year long program for women and we journey through four seasons and within each of those seasons we focus on 10 daily habits. So they're the same habits every season, but we deepen our connection with them and their seasonal alignment. So, as I mentioned before, it's like we're learning how to live through each season of the year in constant conversation with nature.

Hannah: 41:58

So we do that as a group and then, additionally, every member of the Vitality Circle is working one-on-one with me to balance whatever their current imbalances are. So, whether it's an autoimmune disease or high blood pressure or, you know, some sort of gut issue, constipation, whatever, we're working with it. And we also do a lot of work with mindset and thought processes, and so a lot of people think Ayurveda is just about food. It's not, and so, yeah, we incorporate, you know, breath, body practices and meditation and the ways in which our changing thoughts and habits affect our relationships. So it's really a large, whole, whole life picture, and so I often describe it as like women's circle meets concierge medicine.

Hannah: 42:55

I love that, like you've got me in your pocket with the, with the Ayurveda, and then we're also have this incredible community, so that opens up four times a year at the beginning of each season. And then, additionally, I have the detoxes that I mentioned, that anybody can sign up for. Men too can sign up for the detoxes. Those are in the spring and the fall. And then I also have a course that's just kind of like self-paced videos, that's for women's health from the perspective of Ayurveda, and that's called Evolve. And then I do retreats. So I do online retreats for each solstice and equinox, and then I also lead in-person retreats. I just got back from leading a week long retreat in Costa Rica.

Rose: 43:47

Well, I loved having you here talking about everything Ayurveda, and your energy is amazing and so yeah, so I thank you for being here today. It's been wonderful.

Hannah: 43:57

Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it and I hope it does turn some people on to exploring what Ayurveda has to offer them. And yeah, and I didn't mention to you, I lead a Facebook group and I have a YouTube channel, and both of those are totally free and there's a lot of information. There's yoga on there and I teach yoga from an Ayurveda inspired perspective, so they're seasonally aligned yoga practices and so that can be kind of interesting for people that are interested in yoga too. But there's also a bunch of talks. They're called Tuesday Talks with Hannah and they're about a half an hour each, and so there's lots of kind of seasonal things, intro to Ayurveda, conversations about different things, and then there's also some cooking videos if you want to cook along with me and learn some tips and tricks from understanding food from an Ayurvedic perspective.

Rose: 44:50

So, yeah, check those things out. Yeah, and I'm sure, if anyone has questions, please direct them to Hannah. She'll be more than happy to answer them. And I'm sure you have questions. Don't be afraid to dip your toe into that Ayurvedic pool. Yes, and learn more.

Hannah: 45:03

Yes, wonderful, it's really fun. Yeah, it's a fun pool, awesome, thank you.

Rose: 45:14

Thank you for joining me on Chat Off The Mat. If you're ready to transform your energy and step into your fullest potential, I'd love to work with you. As an energy alchemist, I help women release blocked energy and reclaim their vibrant essence. Visit rosewipichcom to explore working together and discover free resources for your journey. Love today's episode, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, leave a rating and share your biggest takeaway with me on Instagram at Rose Wipich. Remember wellness warriors your energy is precious. Nurture it wisely.