Podcast With Vidya Malvade
"The Art of the Pause" Podcast Episode 2
Keep Your Mind, Body and Soul Balanced While Juggling Between Your 9 to 9 Work Schedules with These Tips by Yoga Expert Vidya Malvade
A huge chunk of our customers constantly requests us to share tips and ideas on how to balance their work and personal life while still finding some time to exercise and indulge in yoga, meditation, and other healing activities. So, we decided to come up with a series of blog on How to keep your mind, body, and soul balanced while juggling between your 9 to 9 work schedules with the advices of go to industry experts.
Finally we got a chance to get in touch with the Chak-De Girl, Vidya Malvade, who won hearts with her amazing acting skills and strong character. We have been following her instagram feed regularly and you can also check it out at https://www.instagram.com/vidyamalavade/, it’s full of positivity, enthusiasm, happiness and yoga tutorials. Even after having a tight work schedule, she manages to get some time out indulging in yoga and meditation practices.
Since candle meditation is pretty popular in western countries, so we thought to bring this lifestyle trend into India and share this knowledge with every Indian who’s juggling between their personal and professional lives. Our team member got in touch with Vidya and jotted down her valuable inputs on this topic. Here’s a gist of her conversation featuring all the inputs that will help you in becoming a better person.
- What brought the passion inside you for indulging in yoga and meditation?
About 10-15 years ago, I was looking for answers because of a tragedy that occurred in my life and I didn’t know what to do. It was just quite devastating, I was feeling very destroyed and broken inside. So, the questions that I had inside me needed to be answered and a solution was needed, just some kind of a help. Because I was looking for answers I found yoga but I think Yoga found me, and whenever you indulge in a physical exercise it releases happy hormones. You feel slightly better, so maybe it started in that sense like an exercise form or something but then after a short period of time I realized that yoga was something that can take you deeper, few years ago I did my first yoga teacher course and I think it was just very limited to me because it was my understanding, I also realized that there was more to yoga than just 1-2 hours of practice, it is a learning process that never ends. There is so much inside us that we hold on to, we’re angry about certain things, sad about certain things, everything is so chunked in our lives. The best way to be happy is to stay in the moment, to allow everything to happen to us whether it’s good or bad, it always has a lesson. There’s no point in holding on to anything pain, sadness, anger because you’re meant to go through all these things in your life. If you can choose, you can choose suffering or you can choose to let go, when you choose suffering it will just carry on. And I have experienced this thing that pain is very addictive, it’s not like you start enjoying it but you just get addicted to it. It is a weird cycle that that you should break and say NO, it’s just enough, time to move on. I have been through my time in depression when I completely lost hope but eventually when you understand yourself, after a night, there has to be a day shining brightly. You have to wake up in the morning to look forward to and yoga helps in that. Just go out in the sunlight, there is so much that the nature and mother earth offers to us and we should be grateful for, we should connect with nature and get that healing energy.
Simple things like saying you in the morning, just be grateful that you woke up you’re breathing, there are so many people that lose their lives before the beginning of the next day. The attitude of gratitude will just make your life a better place it will be sorted, think of three things you’re grateful for on a daily basis.
Depression will vanish after practicing these things, there are a lot of medicines that are recommended when you’re going through depression but medicines will not let it heal, it will just suppress it.
- Are you just a yoga person or you perform cardio and weight lifting exercises as well?
I am first a yoga person because I really enjoy doing it. The practice of mind, body and breath in a sequence, it is very interesting, exciting and healing for me but I can’t ditch other forms of work out because I really feel that for a normal person if you can get some of exercises in a day, it is great. Whether it’s playing an outdoor game, going to the gym, cycling or swimming, just get some sort of activity in your life. That’s what more important, I don’t exactly enjoy the air-conditioned atmosphere in gym or zumba classes, but they do help in building strength. I also do cardio but that doesn’t mean I ditch my yoga sessions, cardios come as an addition. I love dancing, I love swimming and indulging in other outdoor activities but yoga is always a part of my routine.
- Do you think that weight-lifting reduces your flexibility?
Yes, it does. If you’re only lifting heavy weights, it will affect your flexibility for sure. But if you balance your strength training sessions with yoga routine, it won’t affect your flexibility. But on the other hand if you only do yoga, you will have more flexibility but not enough strength, which means in both cases you may get injured. Too much flexibility or too much strength will not be good enough; you need to create a balance of both. So combine your strength trainings with yoga sessions. I feel like gym bodies are more like bulls, you have to decide if you want to be a bull or cheetah.
- We have those 9 to 5 schedules that turn into 9 to 9, what do you suggest to people stuck in their work lives? How can they create a work-life balance and live a healthy lifestyle?
You can work as much as you want but what’s more important is your sleep. We have a nation or world full of diabetes or lifestyle diseases. I keep telling everyone I meet, you need to give your body the right nutrition, and you need to give your body rest. If you don’t do these things, when that great job or that great opportunity comes to you, suddenly your body will say that sorry I am not ready. I have seen it happening to my family members in front of my eyes, what I am saying whatever you need work on needs to done, you have to meet the deadlines but they’re just deadlines. My question is, is it really more important than your health? It is not, so get your priorities right, today a lot of young people come to me and say, I have blood pressure and I am like is it even your age to get blood pressure. If you can incorporate some activity in your life, if you can give yourself some nutritious food and not the crap. Everybody is scared of fruits these days because they say they have a lot of sugar, but eventually it’s all natural sugar, your body needs it. I have fruits at 12 every morning and I eat dozen of fruits daily, every time I am hungry I just have some fruits. I carry fruits with me wherever I go and when I feel like munching, instead of buying a packet of chips I eat fruits. You need three things to maintain a healthy lifestyle, you need movement, nutritious food and some form of meditation to get rid of stress, just maybe 5 minutes of meditating will help you throughout your day. Even when you’re working, just turn the screen off, put your head down and relax for 15-20 minutes.
- Have you heard about Chakra Healing? Do you think people incorporate aromatherapy candles for chakra healing?
Of course I have, I do Chakra Meditation every day. I love scents and aromas, I love indulging in aromatherapy every evening. When you burn traditional aggarbattis (incense sticks, organic ones) with nice sandalwood or rose fragrance, the smoke cleanses the surroundings, there are seven colors of life and when you ignite fire the green one cleanses out, the second benefit is that the aroma makes you feel good. Now, an aggarbatti can be turned into a candle or an essential oil, now when you say it is for your heart chakra or your or the root chakra then it’s wrong because at the end of the day when you go back to your home, just light up a diya or candle, when you just dim your lights and light up a candle, it creates a mellow mood as when the sun goes down, you’re not supposed to be in bright lights the body is supposed to be in rest. As ancient people, they woke up with sun and went to sleep with sun. So just be in touch with nature and when you get back to your home, don’t spend your time scrolling through your phones or in front of your TV screens. Instead of focusing on other things, focus on what’s going on inside you. Just dim the lights, put on a soothing music and light up some candles to relax and unwind after a tiring day. You can on put some chantings, keep phones and instruments away. It’s not like one particular fragrance works for one particular chakra, it’s about how does that aroma makes you feel.
What is your favorite fragrance? What effect does it has on you?
I love sandalwood or lemongrass they just make me feel calm, when I light an aggarbatti while praying. It’s showing gratitude to the god, I pray for cleaning my surroundings and creating a healing aura, I tell the particles of fragrance and fire to take away all the negativity. I love lavender because of its healing properties and it removes all the negative energies while spreading positive vibes in the atmosphere.
According to Buddha, the scent of oud can take you to a “state of nirvana”?
I don’t know about the oud as such, but according to me fragrances does clean the environment. I haven’t tried much Oud but I love sandalwood. You burn sage, it has got properties to cleanse negative energy around. Also, music plays a big part, I have a Tibetan singing bowl, and whenever I feel a stuck energy in my home I just play that bowl. The sound is incredibly healing, whenever my mom does puja or when I perform rituals I always play that bowl.
Would you suggest people to use natural aroma candles during their yoga and meditation session more relaxing?
I definitely would as I personally use a lot of essential oils and they come with many healing benefits. So, I would definitely recommend people to use natural aroma candles and essential oils during their yoga and meditation practices. Even if you aren’t performing any of those activities, you still can light up some scented candles to create a relaxing aura.