Did it ever occur to you that yoga for health can really help you have a stronger immune system and improve your autoimmune condition? Did you realize that there are various forms of yoga and you don’t necessarily have to go to a yoga class?
Join me as I interview Sivani Ishaya from Explore Yoga as we talk all about yoga for health. What is yoga really? How can yoga help your immmune system? Do you have to go to a formal yoga class in order to benefit from it? Get the answers to these questions and more. You will be surprised by some of what she has to say.
Contact Sivani at her website above and tell her you heard her on my podcast for a special offer.
Yoga Interview Transcript
?Hello. This is Anna Laura Brown, host of the Autoimmune Rehab Podcast, where we explore ideas, solutions, and helpful hints to help you in your autoimmune healing journey. We strive to transform your health and inspire hope in you so that we can help you with your emotional healing and self-care, and some of your physical healing, things like diets, that kind of thing, which you know, you would find on any kind of podcast on an autoimmune.
Find all the episodes with show notes@autoimmunerehab.com. And now without any further delay, let’s get started.
Okay. Hello ladies and welcome to this episode of the Autoimmune Rehab Podcast. And on this episode, I am really happy to be interviewing and I’m gonna let her share her name because it’s not a name that I can really pronounce, and I’m sure we’ll have a little bit of a conversation about where the name came from as well.
Uh, Wolf, thank you for having me. Um, my name is Shivani and um, did you want me to give you a little bit more about me or just my name? Sure. Go ahead. Share with us a little bit about your name, your background, where you came from. Okay. So, um, my name is actually a part of my, uh, spiritual path. Um, and it was something that I, um, changed about 10 years, 10, 15 years ago.
Um, Just, so that’s just a little bit about my name. It does mean, um, like a supreme goddess or the wife of God, which is kind of cool when you know a little bit more about me cause I was kind of a struggling housewife and, um, struggling with a lot of different ways. And so to change the way I was looking at, um, my relationship to the masculine, uh, in my world.
But, um, just a little bit about me. , uh, 43 years old. I am a first time college student. I am getting my bachelor’s degree in something called Aveda, that’s the sister science of yoga. Um, it’s an interesting thing to be doing at 43 years old, but, um, I love it. Um, I also have three children. Um, all of ’em are nearly grown.
My youngest is 15, but I have a 20 and a 20, um, two years old.
I also really love writing with, um, with my husband on the backup, his Harley, that’s my favorite go-to getaway from the world and any of my stresses in life. That’s a little bit about me. That’s awesome. So for those of you that are listening to this, we will probably have the video version available on YouTube that you can refer to as well.
But for those of you that are listening to this in an audio recording and you can’t see what she looks like, she has gorgeous, long red hair. So she really doesn’t look, you know, like what you would think, you know? Oh, you know, an Indian person that has that kind of a name. So, you know, that was one of the reasons that I brought that up.
Because you’re like, oh, there’s gotta be a story behind that name for sure. So I love it. I wasn’t aware you could actually get a bat, an actual bachelor’s degree in Ayurveda either too, so that’s really cool. Yeah. In fact, um, I am considering a master’s and potentially a PhD where I’ll do some studies on Ayurveda and then be able to publish those studies in scientific magazines.
Um, so we’ll see. That’s really cool. That’s awesome. Mm-hmm. ? Yeah, I’ve studied, you know, just a little tiny bit of Ayurveda, nowhere close to what you’ve studied, so, you know, I have a pretty good idea of at least the foundational pieces of. So why don’t you share with us, I guess, a little bit about, you know, so obviously you do the AYURVeda and then you do the yoga.
How do you see those two, I guess, working together? Or do they work together as far as if somebody’s thinking, okay, you know, maybe I should try doing yoga to help support my immune system and my autoimmunity, but what about this AUR beta piece and you know, should I do them both at the same time? Should I be doing it to help improve my health?
The thing that’s great about them is that they do come from the vadk tradition. So that’s 5,000 years old, um, tradition, and it’s not really a religion. So the tradition upheld that each individual is unique, um, and that they. We are all connected to an inner intelligence inside of us, but how we do life really needs to be done uniquely because on an energetic level, we’re all very different, even though we’re composed of the same basic, uh, materials or, or what have you.
But we are all unique and different. So what. What brings these two concepts together, both yoga and Ayurveda, is, it really is pointing each individual back to their own inner intelligence, um, discovering what that is and refining that relationship. So, like for example, if you were in, if you were engaged in physical asanas of yoga, your body is gonna be telling you if something works for you or not.
It doesn’t really matter the posture that you’re doing or what it looks like on the outside. What matters is this. The communication that’s taking place on the cellular level to your, um, your brain, your mind, all of those things, your emotional level. The more that you are in alignment, the more things become light and easy.
Even if there are physical challenges that may never go away, um, things just become. easier, they feel better. Um, there’s greater energy involved in it, and that’s the essential nature of Ayurveda as a, as well as how can we refine certain things based on foods, um, lifestyle habits, um, other, you know, kind of the big more natural aspects to improve the quality of life and get as much vitality out of life as possible.
for sure. That’s awesome. Yeah. So let’s, uh, try to do, I guess a real life example, if you will. So I haven’t done yoga a lot, but I have done some, and I find that when I do yoga, it just makes me really, really tired. Even though I am, you know, it doesn’t seem like I’m really putting forth a lot of effort, doing a lot of exercise.
I just do the yoga at the end. I’m just. I’m so tired, you know? What would you have to say about that as far as like, you know, is that like a good thing, a bad thing? So this is one of those things that it would depend on, but my, um, take is, is that your interest in autoimmune disorders means that you’re kind of walking down that road a little bit.
Am I correct in that? Mm-hmm. ? Yeah, I do. I have Hashimotos, so that’s like the main thing that I have personal experience with at the autoimmune. Mm-hmm. . Right? So for you, yoga and the, the physical Austin as aspect of yoga really would be about turning on the parasympathetic nervous system and. , putting your body in the rest and digesting the state as much as possible, because whenever you’re going through an autoimmune or any chronic illness, you’re, you’re having a fight upstream with a lot of different things in your life.
So having that, um, that physical movement allows you to rest on a very, very deep level is the value or the purpose of why you would engage in. . Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. So how would somebody, let’s say somebody, you know, know they have this autoimmune condition and either, you know, they’re like me, where they’ve tried it a little bit, or maybe they’ve never even done yoga.
How would you recommend that they get started on that journey to doing it? Well, I personally, I mean, I have, I also have, um, Faced some chronic illnesses in my life and um, the best teachers that I’ve ever had are the ones that have the ability to really listen to your inner self. Um, aspects that are going on and that they’re not really pushing that.
So the first place that I would say is start talking to different yoga instructors. Don’t just assume that you’re gonna, you know, sign up at a gym and, and have the right person there for you. If you’re gonna go, um, on a live one-on-one, if you’re gonna start looking at videos online, that would be the same sort of thing.
What is that teacher teaching you? Are they teaching you to focus on the physical external? Aspect of, of, um, posture, which can be very, very valuable. That’s very helpful so that you don’t hurt yourself. But, um, frequently when you’re, again, when you have a lot of, um, challenges that you’re already facing, the more that you can find somebody that’s.
Pointing you towards your own inner intelligence, the more that that’s gonna create the sensation of deep relaxation and growing confidence inside your, your own body, your own experience. I do just have to kind of bump in here. So for me, uh, uh, as a result of my 20 plus years, Delving into the vedic tradition.
Yoga itself means like the traditional definition would be connecting our busy surface level of mind. The part of us that deals with everything that’s going on day-to-day. Like, what am I going to eat for dinner? Why did so-and-so say whatever they said to me? You know, all of that stuff that’s kind of processing that, that’s important.
It needs to take place, but there is a much, much deeper part of us that is responsible. The amount of oxygen and glyco that needs to go to each cell and so that cell can, um, get the energy that it needs and so many more functions that we are completely unaware of. That there’s that aspect of us. So I’m, I’m trying to even take it away from the spiritual aspect.
There is a part of us that knows so much, and so yoga would be taking that surface busy mind and connecting to it. Aspect of us that has the answers, that has the solution to. kind of basically everything that we’re looking for. And the ASAs are a physical way for us to play with that. So like as you were saying, when you do yoga, um, you feel tired, you feel like you’re ready to sleep, and we’ll, That’s because as you do those movements, it’s helping to connect that surface level of your mind with this need or this, this desire to turn inward and give your body that deep breath so that it can heal and it can regenerate itself.
And that’s, you know, again, where that inner intelligence is, is saying something in particular to you. . That’s awesome. That’s cool. I love it. I think that’s great that you point that out because you know, if you look at the statistics behind autoimmune disorders, there’s a lot more women that have them, and they say that a lot of times the women come down with them, you know, at the very root cause, you know, I mean, there may be other things, there may be toxins, there may be another illness that you have something else.
Trauma may happen even in some cases, but a lot of the root cause of autoimmunity for a lot of us, especially as women, is that we get too stressed out. We get too busy. We focus too much on other people. We don’t focus enough on our own self-care, and so we don’t do the things that we need to do to look inward to help us have a more peaceful and balanced life.
And so, yeah, I could definitely see how yoga would. would definitely help with that. Yeah. It’s amazing as women, the things that we can do to ourselves because we are, we have such complex emotional experiences and all of that, that it’s well known that, uh, a woman could die of a heart attack. And it’s not because of anything that’s wrong with her physiologically.
It has everything to do with an emotional heartbreak, you know, that we can manifest these types of things in our body because of our emotional experience. And as you. Go, go, go. Give, give, give, give. And never taking the time to fill our own, you know, our own needs. For sure. Yeah. So what do you do when you work with people?
Do you teach like actual yoga classes or what is your main focus at this point? Um, I do teach yoga, um, somewhat. I’ve been doing that for about 20 years, so I’m kind of stepping away from that a little bit. Um, I own a small yoga studio in the town in which I live, and, um, I’m having some new yoga teachers coming in and doing some more of that.
Um, however, it is a part of what it is that I teach. So I would also always be supporting individuals. Um, but essentially where I’m moving more into is working with individuals to help them connect one-on-one, whether. , whether they would even want to do yoga in the physical form or whether they would wanna explore what that means in different aspects.
So that would obviously bring in the Ayurveda that I’m studying, but it also brings in forms of, um, yoga that could be more mental, you know, um, people use the word, the term or phrase meditation. However, I’ve, um, learned, and I’m trained in a meditative technique, but essentially, Its main goal is not to give your mind something else to do, but to distract your mind for a moment so that you can experience more of that inner intelligence.
Um, so that really is more of my interest is to. Be working with, with individuals to really deter, determine what it is they wanna do. The yoga tradition is so vast. I mean, it’s so big that I don’t even have access to everything that is a possibility there. So to really just turn inward, because sometimes we get going down these rabbit holes because somebody posted.
You know, a webinar or I mean a podcast that yoga’s good for you and all of that. So we head down these rabbit holes, but maybe is that really what it is that we need to do? Or is that just causing more stress or and strain in our lives? Same thing with Aveda. Um, it’s been great for me. Again, I have a chronic digestive challenge in my life, so getting to see that, just adopting a diet based off of, you know, the ideals hasn’t.
That actually hasn’t been very helpful for me at all. I’ve needed to approach things in a different sort of way, but still use the foundation of which all of these teachings come from. . That’s awesome. That’s interesting. Yeah, I guess I never thought of, you know, I thought of yoga, I thought of the, you know, the downward dog and the moving and the , you know, like actually doing the physical, never thought of it as an actual mental thing.
So that’s, yeah, that’s really interesting. That’s, I think that’s really intriguing and probably be really intriguing to a lot of people listening to this. So, another question I thought of, you know, just as you were talking about this, I thought, well, when you go. . So I don’t know if you actually do yoga class, go to yoga classes yourself, you know where there’s another instructor there, or if you just kind of do it on your own, do you find it hard to find somebody like that.
Fits in with what you’re looking for because you have so much experience in yoga that you’re like, oh, well, they don’t really know what they’re doing. Or how does hell like it for you? Um, well, I wouldn’t say that. I think that everybody, there are, there are different yoga teachers out there for different needs and different desires.
So some people, like, they like to do yoga for exercise. Um, , I wouldn’t, um, I think it’s maybe sometimes fun to pop into a class. I don’t frequently do it just cuz I’m a very busy individual, but, and have somebody kind of lead. Cuz that’s also one of the great things about going to a live class is just giving it up for a moment and for an hour or somebody else’s kind of taking your body through something.
So that can be enjoyable for me. Um, but most of the time I just go ahead and do my own. Yoga practice, which has become very, very simple and basic. And I do that every morning for myself. Um, and it takes me, you know, max 15 minutes. That’s it. That physical aspect. I love that. So would you say that that would be a good idea for somebody who’s just wanting to get started then to try to figure out a way to come up with just.
10, 15 minutes, find a routine that works for you, and then maybe expand from there as well. Yeah, and I mean, one, again, one of the ways to look at it is that the ASAs, um, there are different ones that are beneficial for certain things, and all of those can be. things that you grow into, but if you were to look at the Austin as, as a way to just move your body, well, what do animals do when they get up after resting?
They move, they stretch. And so even just some sort of basic movement in the morning would be a great way to begin connecting. And what does that feel like? How do you feel when you do things like that? I have a client that was. Kind of struggling with some of her body issues, not having, uh, a great time being able to sleep at night.
And she was in her 70’s and, uh, she learned some of the basic yoga things that she’s adopted that are too awesome, a routine that works for her. And she’s like, well, it’s not really, but it doesn’t matter because she’s getting the benefits out of it. I mean, who really cares if you follow the exact routine, if you’re feeling better, if your life is improving, if you’re able to sleep when you can’t sleep, you know, all of those things.
Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, for sure. No, you’re absolutely right. Because I have a little dog, she’s about 16 pounds. She sleeps at night in a kennel, and when I let her out in the morning, the first thing she starts doing before I even take her upstairs to go potty is She’s stretching. Yeah. She starts moving and stretching around.
The room. And I noticed that. I was like, oh yeah, , I should be doing that too, you know? Yeah. And if it turns into this big old thing that you have to do for an hour and you have to go through these, this stretch and this stretch and this stretch, uh, again, especially if you’re. Facing any sort of autoimmune or any sort of chronic challenge in your life, you’re just not gonna do it.
So then you’re not gonna get the benefits. But if you can take it easy on yourself and just do something small, I mean, it could be stretching in your bed, moving, you know, reaching your arms over your head and moving your knees side to side for a long time. My sister did something like that. She doesn’t have a chronic illness.
She had, uh, some sciatic nerve thing and she did it for months and all of a sudden it was no longer bugging her because she was just giving herself time to. love herself in that way, and then, you know, Things transform from there. That’s good. That’s awesome. I love it. It’s almost like, you know, we need to slow down, relax a little bit, and I guess view yoga, if you will, through new eyes a little bit, so that we’re not seeing, oh, this has to be, I have to go to a formal class and I have to do it for a full 50 minutes, or else it’s not yoga, you know?
Right. And really a lot of. isn’t really traditional yoga anyway. You know what, what we know of yoga in our collective, you know, western world, that’s not really . I mean, I’m sure it’s not. I’m sure if you were to go to India or some of the other places where you see them doing it, it would be pretty different.
Have you had a chance to go to like India or any of those places and, um, I haven’t actually traveled there. I do have, um, some individuals that I work with from India and you know, the things that are that. As I, again, I have chronic digestion, so the things that they would come up and say to me like, okay, so this, this posture is important to you.
You’re gonna sit on your heels and you’re gonna rub your belly clockwise, and that’s, that’s your yoga. For five minutes after you eat, that’s your yoga. You know, like, wait a second. That’s not yoga. We gotta do, I gotta do something. I gotta do something. But like you said, that’s for me, that’s a lot of what causes a challenge in me digesting my food.
Cuz I’m, you know, having to go, go, go, go, go, go. So to challenge myself, to sit and rub my belly for, you know, in that very nurturing. Nourishing way, you know, allows me to absorb more of the nutrients for my food. You know, it’s things like that, um, again, if you went to India, you would probably run into different types of yoga teachers and some would be, you know, that you need to go through all of this type of stuff.
And then, um, obviously the ones that I’m dealing with are much more inclined to. individuals that are really challenged with their physical body and to really love and nourish those bodies and watch how, when they are given that loving care that they respond in a very different way. Awesome. That’s cool.
So do you have anything else you wanted to share before we jump in and have you shared a little bit about how somebody who connects with you, if they are wanting to learn a little more? Um, No, I can’t think of anything unless you don’t have any questions . Okay. So how would somebody connect with you? What would be the best way?
And we’ll make sure we include at least one of the links, you know, or whatever your contact information is that you wanna share in the description. So those of you that have been listening to this, if you wanna go online and check her out, see what she has to offer, that would be cool. Yeah, so you could go to my website, which is Explore yoga.health.
Um, that, that would be the way that you could just see what my website looks like. However, I wanted to, um, extend an invitation to, or anybody who listens to this podcast, that if they want to come in and have, um, an experience with this, with me live. Um, I have a once a month wellness kind of escape that’s online.
I do wanna kind of see, talk to you one-on-one first before you come into this, but if you wanted to do something like that, that I would, um, love to have you come and do that with me for free, both the, the one-on-one, and then when you come into that wellness escape, um, and then just mention this podcast as your, as your little coupon or your.
Awesome. That’s amazing. I love that. So you do it like as a. type wellness thing. Yeah. And again, my main focus, um, is really to allow people to explore the concepts of yoga, um, with me one-on-one, or I mean like at in this group, to discover if they really wanna go down that or what maybe is the best avenue for them, um, before they just kind of hop into things like ask questions, play around with it, uh, in a non-threatening sort of way because I really don’t have a lot of attachment into.
how it looks. I want to offer to you what so many have offered to me that have improved the quality of my life. And that is just, just what’s it gonna take to make you feel better? You know, what’s that? What’s that look like? And here are some options, you know, some ideas, but, um, the healing is really coming from the inside of you in your connection with your inner intelligence.
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. That’s great. That’s amazing. Well, thank you for coming on. We’ll make sure we have the links there and please take advantage of it cuz that sounds really awesome. And thank you so much for having me. It was wonderful talking to you. Absolutely.
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