The TeleWellness Hub Podcast

The Art of Feeling Good: Breaking Free from Burnout Culture with Kavita Sahai

• Martamaria Hamilton

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Discover how Kavita Sahai transformed from a burnt-out executive to the founder of Vibes Tribe, a holistic wellness platform for women in midlife. Kavita shares her personal journey and practical wisdom for anyone looking to move from feeling exhausted to vibrant.

• Kavita's background in the corporate "hustle culture" that led to complete burnout
• How her child's simple comment about her always being tired became her wake-up call
• The science behind aromatherapy and its powerful effects on brain fog and anxiety
• Why essential oils break the blood-brain barrier immediately for fast-acting benefits
• The importance of practicing breath work before meals for better digestion
• How ancient cultures approached women's health differently than modern medicine
• The timeline from "meh to magic" – noticeable changes in one month, transformation in three
• Why feeling tired and overwhelmed shouldn't be normalized
• The power of experimentation and tuning into your own intuition
• How Vibes Tribe creates a supportive community for women's wellness journeys

Connect with Kavita and learn more about her monthly live events at vibestribeco.com.


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Speaker 1:

Welcome, friends, to another episode of the tele-wellness hub podcast. My name is Marta Hamilton, your host, and today we're speaking with Kavita Sahai. She's the founder of Vibes Tribe, a personal development platform empowering women in midlife. After overcoming anxiety and burnout herself, she created Vibes Tribe as a sanctuary for holistic healing. Certified in yoga, aromatherapy and optimal nutrition, she blends natural wellness practices with over a decade of experience. Welcome, kavita.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much.

Speaker 1:

Thank you for having me. I wanted to start first with the question I like to ask all the guests is why I got a little glimpse in the introduction. But why do you do the wellness work that you do? Why I got a little glimpse in the introduction.

Speaker 2:

but why do you do the wellness work that you do? I do the wellness work because I think at some point in my life I realized that feeling good, like waking up and just feeling energetic and having that feeling throughout the day, was the most important thing for me and, I think, for most people, and so that's sort of how I ended up shifting.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Yeah, I love that because I think so often I was listening to another podcast recently I think it's Mel Robbins, and talked about like waking up. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, talked about like just kind of like white knuckling waking up, like waking up and just pushing through right Rather than like waking up feeling good. So I feel like searching for that. I'm sure, like opened up a whole new world for you that you now share with others. So I know that your background in being, I guess, burnt out led to this search for health. I found this fact that burnout is now officially recognized by the World Health Organization as an occupational phenomenon with chronic stress leading to exhaustion, cynicism and reduced efficiency. So that's like the ICD code, officially, of burnout. So I'm wondering if you could share a little bit about you know you personally experienced burnout before you created Vibes Tribe. Can you walk us through that?

Speaker 2:

they've defined burnout because I have to tell you 10 years ago, when I experienced it myself, it was all hustle culture and it was all about how little you slept and how much you worked, and that was the conversation at home and at the workplace and that was my life. I think in those years I maybe had one meal at home. I ate everything out. I lived on many, many cups of coffee. I would say coffee more than water.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I think a lot of people can relate to that. I like me, me too, you know like just living that life, just going powering through.

Speaker 2:

And you think that's what you're supposed to do. Because you're, you're getting this level of financial success and recognition. And people are like, oh, you're a real hustler, and you're getting this level of financial success and recognition. And people are like, oh, you're a real hustler. And you're like yay, I'm amazing, I drink coffee and work all night. I'm so cool. And that was me. I thought that I was doing the right thing and then, all of a sudden, I realized that I woke up every day and I was tired. I was tired all the time, and I think I had this moment when my kid was asking me to do something, and it was like in the middle of the afternoon and before I could say anything, he was like let me guess you're tired and I was like oh man is this one to be known as Like when your kids speak to you.

Speaker 2:

that's like when it really yeah, they're like the mirror right yes, so I was like oh man, I don't, that's not how I want to be remembered. Like how was your mom Tired Because meanwhile, my mom was super fun and energetic. It's like what is happening, and I think that's where I shifted my goal of just financial success to no, I want to feel amazing. Like why have we normalized feeling tired and cranky, like it's just normal? Like, oh, I'm so tired, I'm bloated. Like this has all become like our normal state. Like how?

Speaker 1:

are you? I'm busy, I like.

Speaker 2:

I got so much going on Overwhelmed, and it's like, and nobody stops to be like, oh my God, that's terrible. No, it's like, oh, yeah, me too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so I think that was that of moment that I realized I posted notes everywhere because I couldn't remember a damn thing. My brain fog was something you know intense, and I, yeah, and that's when that started that journey of exploration of I went to my doctor and all my blood work looked great. So they were very much like oh, you're just, it's normal to be an overwhelmed mom, it's normal to be tired, and I was like, no, it's not normal. I happen to have had a mother who's never tired like this and I'm too young to be. This can't be the rest of my life. And so, with the goal shifting to, I'm going to feel amazing every day.

Speaker 2:

It became sort of this process of curiosity of what modalities could I try, um, since apparently there was no magic pill I could take, um, that would get me there, and and so those, it was those baby steps, and that's how I sort of went on this learning journey of like, well, maybe it, you know, I had a friend who ran, who swore by it and that was clearly not what was going to work for me, like okay, but but to me it was information. It wasn't like a waste of my time. I was like, okay, well, running's not for me. And then I tried yoga and I fell in love with it and ended up getting certified in it and that really did help. And same thing with aromatherapy. I'm like, oh, it's like there's a science, formulation and how you can use that to support your entire body. I was like, oh, ok, now I feel a little bit.

Speaker 2:

And so it was like these little steps towards feeling better and I thought, wow, this was a really difficult, comprehensive journey of like finding mentors, studying the material and and wouldn't it be great if it was just easier, because it's very different for women than men, which seems obvious, but in medicine they've kind of treated us as the same, but ancient cultures didn't. They respected that we have cycles and that there are different things you should do based on where you are in your cycle and there's different feelings and emotions, and all this stuff was really taken into account with ancient modalities. So I thought, what if there was a platform where all of it whether it was yoga, breath, work it was all tailored for women, especially in midlife, because I find that that is when our body and our emotional health and our brain and there's a lot of science to back it up kind of is like no, I can't anymore, I'm going to, you know, blow up, stop working until you listen, until you change, you know, and treat it in a way that will work.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I think we're just now starting to have that, the capabilities, right with technology, to measure. Like this inflammation, this cortisol, this reaction, is your body telling you something right. Like this is a signal and it's here, and I I'm so fascinated by so much that you, the way you put it, in the way you mentioned like aromatherapy when it comes to like measurement and science and and I it makes sense with, like formulas that we use all the time in other areas of our lives for our health. So I definitely want to kind of dive into that a little bit more. If you could share a little bit about the aromatherapy and mental well-being, because I think, like you mentioned, I think a lot of people think about aromatherapy as like pleasant scents for their home.

Speaker 1:

Like you mentioned that in the lemon, like, maybe, like make my house smell better and it's less toxic. Like you mentioned that millennium, like maybe, like make my house smell better and it's less toxic. But you mentioned like there's an actual science behind it. I actually knew you worked with oils, so I found that essential oils, like in the Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, so 2019 peer-reviewed study. It shows that essential oils like lavender and rosemary have been shown to stimulate the limbic system. I feel like I need to probably insert the picture of the brain, because that's the brain's emotional center, and so that's when it's been actually shown to reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. So how do you use them in your approach? How have you found them to impact, like mental health and in your experience and your trainings, and how have you seen it transform women's lives? I'm curious.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, absolutely. And I will tell you, I am a complete lover of plants and the essence of them, because they are so incredibly powerful and potent. And there is, like you mentioned, rosemary. I could probably pull 50 different science articles on all the different benefits of rosemary or lavender. So they have so many different benefits just on their own and then synergistically you can put them together to then create formulas that are then even more so impactful.

Speaker 2:

And the cool thing about essential oils is the impact is immediate because they break that blood brain barrier immediately, because you just smell it and it's absorbed and it goes exactly where it needs to go. Oh, wow. So I was immediately so fascinated and actually it was one of the big steps in my wellness journey because once I started to learn about it, it helped my brain fog tremendously. My son at the time was kind of in and out for respiratory issues and within six months he was off medication. So I went all in. I went all in.

Speaker 2:

There was a company I kind of went in and took over as their CEO that sold the oils.

Speaker 2:

And that's where I sort of learned about the formulation piece, because, just like cooking, which I happen to not be as good at. You can give me the same ingredients and you can give a chef the same ingredients, and we're going to come up with super, super different things. And that's kind of how it is with formulas, and that's that's what I learned. It was like, yes, absolutely Take the individual ones and then, by the way, they're so potent, make sure you dilute them so you're not just putting them directly on your skin, which a lot of people make the mistake of doing, but then really looking at which companies have really great formulas, and so, even as a part of Vibes, I kept the oil line to be a part of it. So we do some formulations on our site that have been pre-formulated, based on the company that I used to work with, which was 21 Drops which, by the way, it was in like Oprah and like all the different oh my gosh.

Speaker 1:

I'm like going to go online right now. You're speaking my language. Plants like. I'm like how the cactus-.

Speaker 2:

Yes, I love it. I love it. I just there's more plants elsewhere, but yeah, If I could spin you around, I'd be like home is where my plants are. I've got plants all over. But yeah, no, I'm a really big believer. I mean, even just looking at plants has been shown by science to be relaxing.

Speaker 2:

And so it's this really amazing tool where we're supposed to get out in nature all the time but in absence of that, when we can introduce the essence of plants into our body, it is sort of grounding. It does help our microbiome, it does help study the different parts, and that's what's cool about it, because while rosemary can help with memory and with all these different symptoms, it'll work where it needs to. It'll go and do the thing that it needs to do. And so I hate, hate fragrance I won't even get onto that soapbox. But oils, when used correctly and that they're high quality because that's the other thing you really want to make sure, like all the testing and stuff is available for them, they can be incredibly, incredibly powerful, fun tools. Like I hate taking pills, but you know it's so funny, I have my oils here, but like I can, I can rub it on all day long and it's fun and it's fine. Like I can rub it on all day long, it's fun and it's fine.

Speaker 1:

Wow, and so do you. On your website and just in your work you have those oils that you know you've gone through thorough testing. Because that's the thing is that as women, we're trying to multitask and you know, if I could show you like all the tabs that I have open, or like pins that I have saved, or like books I need to read but haven't gotten to. Like what I love about what you're saying is like you have done the deep dive, you've done the work, you've taken the time to really research to guide women, and I just love that. With the ancient you also mentioned, like you know, we have ancient wisdom and ancient studies, but now we're combining it with modern science.

Speaker 2:

With the exception of the US countries all around the world. You can't just sell oils to people because they are so powerful and potent. Right, it's a lot more that you would go, you know, not that you can't I guess you could but like it's more accepted that you would go to like a pharmacy or a place and then they would like help put it together for you, whereas here we're just like take whatever, use it, however, throw it on your food, like no, that's.

Speaker 1:

I had no idea that you would maybe go to a pharmacist. That's like fascinating.

Speaker 2:

It is a science, there is chemistry to it, and a lot of actually modern medicine is based on the anatomy of plant medicine, right? So what they did is they took it and they just timesed it by 10, but that's not always great for you, right, exactly.

Speaker 1:

Great for you, right, exactly. Okay, well, that's incredible, cause I think you know you talked about the gut brain, like the gut, the microbiomes, with aromatherapy, which I didn't even realize that it could. I had heard about aromatherapy being able to go through the blood brain barrier, but I had no idea how it could also affect the microbiome, because you know, I, we know the importance of like the gut brain connection, right when it comes to mood and what, what would you say are some like maybe impactful changes that women can make to improve, like mental clarity you've talked about, like getting rid of that fog, or just like with your emotions, with energy and I know cause. You also have a background with nutrition, so I don't know if you can enlighten. I feel like we're going to. I feel like this needed to have been a series, now that I'm looking at my all the questions and research I had prepared.

Speaker 2:

But yeah, no, look. I think the reason I say to approach it with curiosity is because different things work for different people at a different pace, and so it's really about experimenting with small changes and see how you feel. But part of that is really seeing how you feel, and so the first thing I think women need to do is to tune into their own intuition, because intuitively, we know what's going to help us, but we've become so reliant on everything else. We have a watch telling us whether we slept well, we have you know something else telling us whether we ate the right calories or but, but we know, like if we could really tune in after we ate something, we'd know does it work or not? Like we don't need a food sensitivity test. We could probably figure it out, but we've become so out of tune with our own body and our own emotions, and so I think that's really the first step is really starting to think about I call it sometimes like an energy diary or like what how do I feel after each step of what I'm doing? And then, if there's a step that you're like, oh, it's really not, like I can see that I'm dipping. At this point, what can you change or introduce or play or experiment with to see how it makes you feel better, with to see how it makes you feel better. So I love using oils at different periods through the day, but I also love breath work.

Speaker 2:

I think you know, especially in midlife you can find women all of a sudden get very anxious. That have never had anxiety ever before, or this feeling of overwhelm. That's almost too much, which again, never happened before and there's a lot of science behind what happens to our brain and our body that causes that. But if you can practice a little bit every day and I always say it's great to do it before a meal. So ancient cultures always used to pray before a meal because it calms your fight or flight, so that you're ready and you can digest your food better. So that was why they did it. Now we don't pray before we eat, or I think most people don't but if you did like a little box breathing or just a little, you know conscious breath.

Speaker 2:

First of all, it's not a very public thing. You're not like holding hands in the middle of, like maybe your lunch meeting or anything, but you know just it. Again, it helps practice it and then when you are having something that, where you do feel like you're spinning out of control when you do it, your brain immediately is like oh yeah, I'm calm. When this happens, when I, when I do this breath work, I'm calm. Or when I use this oil, you know, before I eat, and then I use it when I'm having a panic, oh, I'm calm, this is my calm space. Um, it can even be as simple as like a mudra, like just being very conscious of when you're calm, that I do this thing, and then the way, the best way I think, to practice it is before you eat, because it'll also calm your body. But then, when you have those moments, you use that tool, whatever it is aromatherapy, a mudra, breath work, whatever works for you. It'll be available to you because your body will say oh okay, I'm okay, I'm safe, this is fine.

Speaker 1:

Right. This is blowing my mind because, as a therapist, we've done like mindful based eating practices, right. So you're being mindful to the texture, the you know every single moment, but I had never considered the mindfulness or breathing exercise before you even eat, to just put that body in a. You know that we don't have to. We can turn off the fight or fight to be in that calm state. That's incredible and I'm I'm thinking like you know, as I you mentioned your, your son, right, and I I have daughters and I think about, like the cafeteria, like how rushed it is, right, and like and how we just kind of take that, like maybe rush through. I have I have been guilty of like eating my lunch in front of my computer, you know. So how incredible to be able to I love that tip that is so easy to practice anywhere, anytime to to just have some breath work, maybe even before you eat. I love that.

Speaker 2:

A hundred percent and and and again, and even if that sometimes like cause I have two daughters as well, but so madhouse with the three kids, but you know they're like. You know I don't want to do the breath work, like it just doesn't fit for them. So I'm like this is the Gyan Mudra, it's really easy and you can just put it in your lap and can you just do that before you eat, like who would? Who would notice you, it wouldn't matter, right? And then if you do that also, when you do have time to be mindfulness again, your body will just recognize this is my time to be calm.

Speaker 1:

I love that. That's incredible. Yeah, so if, if someone were, it sounds like everything's really catered when it comes to the clients and the platform that you work with, because I'm trying to picture you mentioned that you can pull two oils at certain time of the day. There's certain breath work. It's individualized Some things that work for one person may not work for others. I'm just curious because now I'm like I think I need to go to a session like this, like as a therapist, I would love to talk to somebody about this. So could you walk me through a little bit of what it would look like to to go to a session with, with you, or what it looks like? I've been to your platform, so I just didn't know.

Speaker 2:

Like, yeah, really it's. What we do is we invite a journey of self-exploration. So it's not about me telling you what I think is supposed to be, because, again, you have to tune into your own intuition. So, through the platform there's again, there's so many different journeys of experts in yoga, experts in meditation we even had someone do feng shui for clarity so like, can you energetically maybe move your space around Self-love? That was, you know, a really popular big topic, and so we bring in teachers to do it. And then every month we do a live event which I am there to to help. If you're just like I just don't know, yeah, right, and so then you can receive some sort of live coaching. We don't record it, so it can be very private and people can be very open about whatever it is they're having in community. That feels like a safe space, and of course there's also a private Facebook group. But really it's meant to be this journey of self-exploration, self-love.

Speaker 2:

I'm not going to know what's best for you. All I can do is tell you to start tuning in to what do you think feels right? Does the idea of starting with working on your nutrition make you want to go crazy? Okay, no problem. Maybe you want to start with sleep, maybe it's like a sleep routine and you do that. Or you know, maybe you're like, oh, yoga is definitely not for me. Or you know it used to be. I couldn't sit still for meditation. Honestly, it took me some time to get there. But you, you know, you know that intuitively, like you kind of get that like gut, like oh yeah or no, right. So so then go for journaling, or you know. But the point is to experiment and then tune in. Did that make it better? Do I feel better?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, you know, you mentioned, you know the time right, like how long would you say for you? What has this journey look like? Everyone's different, right, I understand that. But I think just to give me and other listeners just kind of that encouragement, right, things take time.

Speaker 1:

And I think we're used to kind of like this on-demand feel good hits right. So I'm just, if you couldn't share with us because you see these radical changes in your life. I know you have like an MBA, right, so I'm picturing you with your business world and you talked about the hustle and the shift into really focusing on feeling good.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker 1:

If you could share a little bit about what that time looks like.

Speaker 2:

I used to do mergers and acquisitions for defense and aerospace companies post 9-11. So I'm dating myself. But, yes, so that was meh. That was not eating well, that was not being mindful, that was just total hessive. And then I'll go to what I call like more magic. So meh to magic.

Speaker 2:

To me it was sort of this unwrapped, like I would say. I noticed a dramatic difference within a month, wow. But then to go completely where I didn't wake up exhausted, you know, because I was still, I feel, know, cause I was still, I feel better, but I was still waking up tired and I was still not, I would say, vibrant. Um, it probably took about three months and then, and then that was it. But I, I dove right in. I mean, I know that everyone doesn't have the ability or flexibility, but I rage, quit my job and just kind of went all in Like my new goal in life is just to feel amazing, even if I'm broke. I'm going to be the most vibrant, broke person you've ever met. But I had the flexibility to obviously do that and not because I just felt like if I didn't take a break, I was, I was, I was going to break.

Speaker 1:

So yeah, well, thank you for sharing. I was curious, like you know, just sharing your role in the story and it's interesting you talk about that because I was reading um an article today about the top 10 happiest countries. But there a lot of the ones in the top are also like on some of the most like what's considered like kind of poverty stricken countries, right. So I think you know, just looking at values, goals, what you've got in in life, and yeah, I just I thought it was.

Speaker 2:

I have this other memory I'd love to share.

Speaker 2:

I went to India and it was with my daughter, and you know she was, it was her first time and she was very heartbroken by all the homeless children she saw like kids her age, begging and awful, and you know, and she was, you know, trying to give away all my gluten-free food things.

Speaker 2:

And so I decided to take her to an NGO and it was an NGO of girls who were rescued from human, from sorry child marriages. Oh wow, girls that had been married at the age of like, as early as six or seven, right, and they were on the floor and they were like making these different textiles or whatever. But can I tell you they were so happy, happier than me, and I just thought how is it possible that these girls who have such trauma, lost everything, they have no family, that these, whoever these people are in this NGO right now, these are their family, these kids are their family. They're happier than me and my kids. What's going on right? Because they have such a deep sense of gratitude and purpose and you know, of course, they eat right and they're doing the right things in that particular one. But I thought, wow, that's, it was just one of those things that I observed and was just sort of like wow, that's that's crazy, yeah, it's so inspiring.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, my, my family's from Mexico originally, so I think there's yeah, there's just kind of stepping into just seeing another way to, like you mentioned like live the lens through which you see the world Right A hundred percent. Yeah, so well, you know, if you had to, if you had to then share one message with women who may feel stuck or unfulfilled in midlife, or just life in general, what would it be?

Speaker 2:

It would be. It's not normal. Don't let anyone tell you that it's normal to feel meh, it's not normal. And if you can, however much time, you can spend it on experimenting on ways to feel great. And that would be my message, honestly, because everyone should feel great and you can only give and care and, you know, do all the things that you were here to do if you're feeling good about yourself and you're feeling healthy. And we have just, I think, for too long, normalized feeling exhausted, not feeling good.

Speaker 1:

I love that. Experimenting it sounds like going from the met to the magic, Like you said. I love that. I loved that. How can people connect with you?

Speaker 2:

So vibes tribeco is a site and we actually have the live event every month, so they can always register on the site and attend one of the events, which would be a great way to meet again.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, I will be joining. I'm very excited. I feel, like this will be great. This is, this is awesome. Well, thank you so much, kavita, for joining us and being a part of our wellness journey today.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for having me.