What if self-care isn't about doing more? In this episode of Your Wise Self with Sara, I explore seasonal living, Ayurveda, nervous system regulation, and how working with your body's changing needs can help build greater resilience- especially in midlife.
I recently had the opportunity to join fellow Yoga Therapist and Integrative Health Coach Sara Klute Behn on Your Wise Self with Sara for a conversation about something that sits close to my heart: learning to work with our bodies instead of constantly asking them to work harder.
We talked about seasonal living, Ayurveda, nervous system regulation, resilience, and why midlife can be such an important time to reconsider the ways we've been caring for ourselves.
And somehow, what felt like a conversation between two Yoga Therapists turned into 51 minutes that covered everything from my early days waiting tables to the way I now think about resilience, self-care, and the changing seasons.
Watch a snippet of the interview below. Listen to the full episode here.
What Does Seasonal Living Have to Do With Your Nervous System?
One of the ideas we explored is something I talk about often at Elevate:
Nature doesn't ask itself to stay the same all year long. So why do we?
Our environment is constantly changing. Temperature, humidity, daylight, food availability, activity, schedules and routines all shift throughout the year — and our bodies are responding to those changes, too.
Ayurveda gives us a particularly useful framework for understanding those patterns through the elements and qualities we see both in nature and within ourselves.
Seasonal living isn't about following a perfect set of rules for each season. It's about paying attention.
What is changing within me and around me?
And what would help me feel more supported right now?
That awareness becomes especially important when we're already carrying a high stress load or moving through a major season of change.
Why This Conversation Matters in Midlife
We also talked about something I think many women discover in midlife:
The things that allowed us to push through before may not work anymore.
And perhaps that's not entirely a bad thing.
Midlife can invite us to reconsider our relationship with productivity, movement, nourishment, rest and even self-care itself. Rather than continually adding another wellness practice to an already overflowing schedule, sometimes supporting the nervous system means creating more consistency. Sometimes it means changing the way we move or eat. And sometimes it means doing less.
As I shared with Sara, resilience isn't simply our ability to keep pushing.
Resilience is our ability to adapt.
And learning to recognize and respond to what our bodies need- whether we're navigating a change in weather, hormones, health, responsibilities or an entirely new chapter of life- is part of building that resilience.
A Few Things We Talk About
In the full episode, Sara and I explore:
- What nervous system dysregulation can actually look like in everyday life
- Why we may not recognize it until we've reached a breaking point
- How Ayurveda helps us understand seasonal changes in our energy, emotions and bodies
- Why midlife can be an opportunity to reassess what's no longer working
- Simple ways to create more rhythm and predictability for the nervous system
- Apana Mudra as an accessible grounding practice
- The role of breath in working with anxiety
- Why eating at consistent times can be surprisingly supportive
- A different way of thinking about resilience
- Why good self-care doesn't always mean doing more
Listen to the Full Conversation
Beyond Self-Care: Seasonal Living for a Regulated Nervous System is available now on Your Wise Self with Sara.
Ready to Listen to the Full Podcast? Listen Here 😊