Jody Vassallo joins the podcast for the 3rd and final conversation of her 'Ageing Well with Ayurveda' series. Jody is a cookbook author, publisher, Ayurvedic Practitioner, Counsellor, Yoga Teacher, Cleaner and Tilba Chai maker.
Jody lives in dreamy Tilba, home of River Cottage on the Far South Coast of NSW. Jody has spent a large chunk of her career as a cookbook author and food stylist and once owned her own publishing company which failed and left her in heap on the floor but led her to discovering Ayurveda.
Jody helps women of ages rekindle their passion for food and themselves through nourishing recipes, yoga, honest conversation, vulnerability and laughter. Jody is passionate about sharing the healing power of ghee, routine, rest and living a life that changes with the seasons with the world.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, Google Podcast and more. But be sure to listen to Part 1 here and Part 2 here first.
Broadcast: January 27, 2023
Duration: 34:46
Here is a snippet of our conversation…
The necessity of facing our emotions as we approach midlife.
So as we come into the Vata stage of life, minimising and controlling emotions becomes more and more difficult because Vata rules movement. So every time someone who's angry tries to control their anger and squash it down, haha, welcome. You are just going to have hot flushes daily, maybe hourly, maybe 10 minutes if you are not prepared to find a way to look at your anger and have learned how to have boundaries because that's what anger is a trigger and a way to say to someone, I don't like the way I feel when that happens, and if that continues, I'm going to do that and then be prepared for that person not to like you.
Menopause and the lie detector country..
Menopause is literally like going to the lie detector country and being there every day for about three years. And it's like, ‘sorry, lying not accepted here’, and it just shows up physically. So you know, no one else really cares. And you just have to go, okay, am I going to now be authentic or am I going to be liked? Because if you want to be liked, you're going to be hot, you're going to be anxious, you're going to be sad, and you're kind of going to feel pretty crap. And I want people to understand that this time of their life is a time where they're going to feel a little bit separate from everybody else. And to understand that this is a bridge that we walk. We learn how to put neat little fences called boundaries up ..
The beautiful sense of sweetness and softness
So this is the softness of kapha, this is the coming home to oneself, and this is the part that grounds Vata to a level that it needs. It needs to know deep within it cells, this feeling this soft, soft, soft, truly undervalued magnificence of kapha. It's that sweet thing that it just feels so precious to experience it alone because Vata, the feeling of aloneness is very, very, very frightening. It's cold in that aloneness and it's scary in the aloneness. And that's where the anxiety feels very heightened in the aloneness. …it's that sweetness of creativity. It's that sweetness of connecting with the earth.
The importance of routines and rituals and knowing your body.
I have a bath every night before I go to bed, and that helps me calm down and prepare. So it's having routines and rituals that provide you with that landing, that coming back to yourself, especially if you are feeling frazzled a lot, especially if you are finding yourself thinking more about others than you are about yourself. Because this is a time where you really have to turn your radio dial to yourself and you have to become aware of what heats you up. You know, what is the impact of the foods that you eat? What is the impact of the choice you make? Because I can say as much as I like about the things that are recommended, but you need to know your own body.
