Grief, Ayurveda, and Hidden Drivers of Health: Healing Beyond the Surface

What’s Inside This Episode

• Why grief is more than loss of a loved one. It can show up as chronic symptoms
• How the body signals unresolved emotional trauma through physiology and behavior
• The Ayurvedic framework for understanding imbalance (Vata, Pitta, Kapha) in daily life
• Practical approaches for safely addressing grief in client interactions
• How simple rituals, journaling, and mindful presence can support resilience
• Creating space for emotional visibility and healing in professional practice

Resources and Links:

• Download the Full Reset here
• Get your FREE guide to Supporting a Healthy and Balanced Immune System
• Get your FREE guide: Beyond Protocols: A Practitioner's Guide to Root Cause Pattern Recognition for a structured framework to integrate symptoms, systems, and sequence in complex cases
• Join the Next-Level Health Practitioner Facebook group here for free resources and community support
• Visit INEMethod.com for advanced health practitioner training and tools to elevate your clinical skills and grow your practice by getting life-changing results. 
• Check out other podcast episodes here

Guest Resources and Links

• Visit Sweta Srivastava Vikram’s Website to explore her work, books, and wellness resources: www.swetavikram.com
• Follow Sweta on Social Media for daily insights and updates:
  • Instagram: @swetavikram
  • Facebook: Sweta’s Words and Wellness
  • LinkedIn: Sweta Srivastava Vikram
  • YouTube: Holistic Wellness with Sweta
• Listen to Sweta’s Podcast The Grounded Leader: Ayurvedic Wellness for Leaders Who Want to Succeed from a Place of Balance
• Download Free Wellness Guides to apply Ayurveda in your practice or daily life:
  • Free Rejuvenating Sleep Guide: Ayurveda Quick Tips
  • The 5-Minute Ayurveda Reset

Guest Bio

Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is an international speaker, best-selling author of 14 books, award-winning entrepreneur, a certified grief coach, trauma-informed yoga teacher works with survivors – being safe in body, Adjunct Professor – teCHES COMMUNICATIONS, and Doctor of Ayurveda (AD) who is committed to helping people thrive on their own terms.

Her upcoming book is tentatively titled Rhythms of Resilience: An Ayurvedic Guide to ReducING Stress and Bringing (Loving Healing Press 2026), and she’s the host of the podcast The Grounded Leader: Ayurvedic Wellness for Leaders Who Want to Succeed from a Place of Balance. 

As a trusted source on health and wellness, most recently appearing on NBC, NPR, iHeartRadio, and Radio Lifeforce and in a documentary with Dr. Deepak Chopra, Sweta has dedicated her career to writing about and teaching a more holistic approach to creativity, productivity, health, and nutrition. Her work has appeared in The New York Times and other publications across nine countries on three continents. Sweta holds a Master’s in Strategic Communications from Columbia University. Voted as “One of the Most Influential Asians of Our Times” and winner of the “Voices of the Year” award (past recipients include Chelsea Clinton), she lives in New York City with her husband and works with clients across the globe. She also teaches yoga, meditation, and mindfulness to survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. Find her on: X, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube.

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Transcript

 

Dr Ritamarie

So what if the root cause of some of these really chronic issues that we're dealing with in our clients, the fatigue, and the depression, and hormonal imbalances and more has to do with unresolved grief?

 

Today we're having an interesting conversation. We're talking about grief and we're talking about resolving some of the underlying grief using ayurvedic principles.

We are here today with Dr. Sweta Vikram. She is an international speaker, she's a best-selling author, and she has 14 books. Check her out on Amazon. She's an award-winning entrepreneur, certified grief coach, and a trauma-informed yoga teacher. What that means is she basically helps people through movement in their body to feel safe in their bodies again. She's an adjunct professor. She teaches communications, plus she's a doctor of Ayurveda, and she's committed to really helping people thrive on their own terms. 

 

So welcome today. I'm so excited to have you here, and I want you to tell us a little bit about your upcoming book as well.

 

Sweta Vikram (01:49)

It’s so lovely to be here, Dr. Ritamarie. Thank you for having me on your show and to everyone who's tuning in. Remember self-care starts with self-compassion, and we can't help our families, our patients, our clients, or our employees if we don't take care of ourselves. I think that brings me to what you asked me about. 

 

My 15th book, tentatively titled, Rhythms of Resilience, is basically for people like you, I, and everyone who's listening in, high achievers, high performers, and I want to clarify high achievers and high performers are not just people who've climbed the corporate ladder. A parent who is managing fifty million parent teacher association duties and soccer club and things. That's a high achiever and high performer as well. 

 

I want to really clarify that. What is happening for a lot of us, we keep doing, keep performing, because A, we don't know how to pause. Sometimes we don't have alternatives available for us to pause, and then we start to lead whatever lead means to each individual from this place of imbalance. 

 

What does that do? It impacts our well-being, it impacts our careers, it impacts our relationships, and it doesn't have to be that way. Whether rest shouldn't have to be earned, pausing shouldn't make you feel guilty, and the body always speaks to us, don't wait for it to scream when there's a chronic illness that's developed.

 

Dr Ritamarie (03:21)

Right. I always say, “Listen to the whispers, so they don't become shouts.” I don't know where I got it from, but it just came to me. We see people all the time as holistic and functional practitioners and as conventional, allopathic practitioners, as well. We see people with chronic issues, with chronic hormonal imbalances, with things like fatigue, chronic fatigue. So many people are dealing with that. Brain fog, depression, anxiety, so many different symptoms. We're here to pull that all together and understand what the underlying cause is. When we do that, we look for this hormone, or this food, or this nutrient that's out of balance. 

 

There's all kinds of things we look for, but one of the things that I wanted to chat with you about, because that's your unique brilliance here, is how would I even suspect that they may have some underlying, unresolved grief that's totally affecting their physiology and their biochemistry?

 

Sweta Vikram (04:40)

Yes, I love that question because in my practice, sometimes there are people who'll come in, and they'll say, This is what has happened that's impacted my sleep. I can't sleep, I can't eat, or I'm overeating. A large majority is exactly the group that you're talking about. They might not even realize that they're grieving. 

 

Most people think grief means loss of a loved one. And that's grief, but we need to go back and look at that framework. Grief is the response to any kind of loss. So whether you're falling sick, at the end of a relationship, end of a friendship, or losing a job, losing a dream, all of that. And then again, it goes back to the complications of this grief hierarchy and comparison. 

 

When someone says, I lost my parent. I lost my dad, but then someone else says, I lost a job, automatically they're dismissed. Your grief doesn't matter, and then even in terms of grief, because in our family, my husband and I, lost our dads unexpectedly two days apart. So, two grieving families, and strangers, not family, they said mom-in-law's grief matters more. I lost my mom when I was super young, and now I've lost my dad. So I'm an adult orphan, and I'm not even a full adult, I feel, and you're telling me that my grief doesn't matter. 

 

A lot of people don't even want to explore if they're grieving or hurting, because they just rightly assume they're just going to be dismissed. So that's where it comes down. It's like firstly creating that safe space. And what I do with my clients is say, what's been going on with your life? What's been going on? So you know, people start with work, because that feels safer to share compared to what's going on in their personal life.

 

If they say, my wife and I have been arguing a lot more, or my partner and I, or my child is doing these high school applications, and we haven't slept, all of those are stressful situations. But if you haven't slept in two weeks, what else is going on or has there been trouble? Is your child navigating stress? 

 

When you start talking about that, and very often people say, I feel tightness in my chest. It's very easy to assume it's a heart condition. It could be. I'm not dismissing that, but alongside, again, root-cause of what is going on. 

 

Are you pouring yourself, without judgment, five drinks a night to just put yourself through, or you're just not able to sleep? Do you feel a tightness in your jaw? How are your shoulders feeling? Or do you exercise? You haven't been feeling motivated. You've been doing a triathlon while you're just sleeping tonight. 

 

You're looking at the emotional, because grief lives in the body, but it shows up emotionally, mentally, physically, physiologically, and behaviorally. There's Thanksgiving, and I don't feel like going out with the family. Okay, there's an alarm in my head. What's going on? Right? Two friends, best of friends, they might have a breakup or even disenfranchise grief. 

 

In my case personally, between January and February of 2026, I lost three friends, close friends, between the mid-40s, two fifty. You're super young. One of them, we had wished her a birthday a week or 10 days before she passed away. Another one, her birthday was a day after mine. I called up a wish, and she was gone. So in that sense, I'm not making this about me at all, but in retrospect, and I'm like, okay, so you know her partner, obviously, and the children are navigating stuff, and then the parents and the in-laws are. Where do friends come in all of that? So now there is no bereavement for disenfranchised grief, right? 

 

There is no funeral for the disenfranchised, because a lot of families are closed. The funeral is for the image of family only. Now this person shows up and says, I feel a tightness. I feel like I can't swallow. That's your throat to say something. 

 

It's just getting the story of what's going on in their life that starts to spell out. There is something more there, and that could have led to a chronic disease. The root cause has been this unaddressed grief and emotions.

 

Dr Ritamarie (09:08)

You're an Ayurvedic practitioner, and Ayurvedic practitioners look at the physical body and the emotional body. We look at things. I think about Ayurvedic, I think about the different doshas and how you classify and how you eat according to your dosha and how you move according to your dosha. 

 

You're a grief counselor and incorporating Ayurvedic principles. How would you incorporate it if I said, I lost my parents when I was in my 30s, both of them, and now I feel exhausted. Now I feel menopause is difficult. How would you help me to go back and resolve that grief using some of these Ayurvedic principles?

 

Sweta Vikram (09:56)

I’m just loving these questions. You're speaking to my soul. The first thing that I would ask them is this, or you in this case, is do you remember when you lost your mom or your dad? How were you feeling? What did people say? How were you functioning? Was the anxiety so high that you couldn't sit still, your mind wouldn't shut, you couldn't sleep? Or did you pour yourself into work? Which is what I do, hype in the house. Burnout? Or was it like there was a lack of motivation? You found yourself gaining, and there's no judgment. You found yourself sitting with a pint of ice cream every night. You didn't want to move, you didn't want to work. All three are imbalances. 

 

High anxiety is typically a Vata, and I'm not trying to oversimplify, but I want to break it down into one sign or symptoms. High anxiety and ability to shut down constipation could be a Vata imbalance.

 

When someone says I was sharp-tongued, and I told half the people off, and I drank too much, and I poured myself into work. I was burning the midnight oil. That is a coping mechanism for a Pitta imbalance. 

 

And the kaphas, it's earth and water. It's already heavy. When they're in balance, they're your two AM friends, they're stable when they're out of balance. Earth and water, pizza, bagel, all come together for dough. That's the emotional standpoint. So what they do is they get clingy. They want to eat, they hoard.

 

When earth goes up, kaphas season is late winter to spring. What happens? That's when most people talk about gaining weight. They feel congested, emotionally sick. December, January, very few people will say I feel this. So it's February, March when Kapha starts. It's going back to that place. If they say I can't recall, so I'll tell them, okay, tell me in the last week how have you been feeling? 

 

When I'm doing the intake form, I will figure out what their Prakriti, their constitution, which is at the time of conception, whatever was the dominant dosha and the mom and the dad, that child becomes a combination of that, so if  dad was pitta and mom was vata at the time, you're a pitta vata and depending on who was dominant, you're the pita vata or vata pitta, and then you'll have these. 

 

People are think all pitta vatas, all of them, are the same. No, then you have qualities.

 

Some pittas, like me, I have this thing of sharpness and brightness. On a good day, I'll light up a room. On a bad day, I'll burn down a room. For others, they have very oily skin. They might have acne. They might break into hype. We all have a place of balance and imbalance. Even asking them what their last week or two weeks have been gives me a sense of the imbalance in the now. And just knowing what their constitution is, it gives me a sense and then I'll ask them behavioral questions around if this were a scenario at work, how do you typically respond? 

 

If someone tells you how do you typically respond? All of that paints a picture, tells me a story. For some, for a pitta, they'll tell you 30 years ago what happened to them at 9 a.m. on June 18th, very specifics. And Vata wouldn't know what happened this morning.

 

And couples are like, it's okay. It goes back to that point. In talking to them, their mannerisms, their features, the intake form will tell me what their constitution is, and the rest of it tells me what the imbalance is.

 

I can't go back and help them with what happened 30 years ago, but the grief that they're carrying, I start addressing the Vikruti, which is the imbalance. If the person tells me, I never feel motivated, or I feel like I am done.

 

My mom told me about this lady, and I mention her example in this book, The Loss That Binds Us, where when her dad died, she was a doctor, she stopped practicing, and she turned her house into a museum. Every pair of his footwear was on display. In my head, that's a kapha imbalance, chronic and in need of a psychiatrist, because this is not just an imbalance. This might need some deeper level of intervention. 

 

It's also like really looking at how they navigate a daily situation.

 

Dr Ritamarie (14:20)

Those are interesting situations. When I think about it, we as practitioners, I teach a certain way. I teach practitioners how to do an effective intake, and how to look at the genes and look at the labs and pull it all together to really understand the underlying causes. I would like to know are there particular questions that we could insert into some of our intakes that would help us identify that this person is carrying this old stuff, this old grief, because usually it's the short-term grief, people learn to get over it, but when you don't learn to get over it, that's when you carry it forward.

 

Are there questions we should be asking in our intake to help us to identify?

 

Sweta Vikram (15:11)

When I think about it, what I have in my intake form, and people don't realize the importance of it, but for me as a practitioner, I do. I ask them where they were born. Where were they raised until they were five years old? Where else have they lived? In the last five years, where have they been? The body language will tell me am I being really present? Do they say, I lived in, I'm just making this up, 

I lived in some place which was Rwanda, because it can be a very war-zone, and no one says I lived in Rwanda. It's like I live there. So I'm like, there's a story there. 

 

I'm a storyteller, I'm going to that point. Then I start to ask them, where did the signs and symptoms first appear? For a lot of people, when they go to Europe or Asia, they do fine with gluten and dairy,  because it's non-GMO, but they come back to the United States, and I have gas and bloating, I can't do gluten, I can't do dairy, my lactose intolerance has kicked in. Did you move from one place to the other? The time frame is very, very important in also understanding where it all started. Where was the grief? 

 

I met a woman who was abandoned by her parents, and she talks about it openly, so I think I can talk about it, too. Her grief was one day her parents realized that they wanted to bring her where they were and be the family story, why she was raised by her aunts and grandparents versus her parents. When they did is when she said she developed cancer, so from a kapha perspective, again, not super simplifying it, growth, and anything anabolic is kapha. Then excessive emotionally, excessive attachment, is also kapha. 

 

She did have the other things internally from a Western science perspective that were going crazy, but the emotional aspect, and she's okay now, and she's off all meds, chemo, everything, but she chose to disconnect with her parents from that family, and she said that was crucial to her healing. She needed to be back where she was raised in the country where she was born and raised and not move to the other country where her parents were. 

 

It didn't work for her, and she didn't realize how misaligned they were, until she really felt sick and her body? First it whispered and then it started to scream.

 

Dr Ritamarie (17:51)

I'm a very big fan of what you're talking about, really tuning into not just the answers to the questions, but how their body language is showing. Most of my practitioners work remotely with people, but we do stuff like this where I can see you, and I can see if I ask you a question, and I could see the look on your face or the body language, and that's a really important piece that we need to be aware of as practitioners, not just what we're hearing as an answer, but what is their demeanor, what's their facial expression, what's their body expression, because that's going to tell us more than what their words are going to tell us. Is that what you're kind of getting at? 

 

Sweta Vikram (18:33)

100%. Very often, not everybody is an extrovert who likes to talk about themselves. It has nothing to do with men, women, any gender. It's people, everybody is an individual. 

 

My husband and I go for acupuncture, 90 minutes down, I'm still filling out my form. In five minutes, he’s yes, no, he's done. This is the stereotype of a man vs woman, but it can flip in other relationships, and so it's the unsaid. It's the silence between words. It's the unsaid.

 

I went to hear Dr. Gabor Mate. He was visiting New York, and he gave a talk in Harlem in 2025, May. I've been reading his work, watching his videos and things, and he said something which reiterated for me something which we all know. To hear him say that in flesh and blood, he said in half of the diseases people would start to heal if they just felt visible, and this is so true, especially for women. 

 

I think it's a stereotype even for men. If you're a family of five boys and you, four of them are lawyers, and you don't want to be one, you are the black sheep of the family, and we don't know what you're navigating, because of that. 

 

People, when they start to feel visible, how powerful is that? 

 

For me in my practice, that's very important. I see people for who they are, not what I want them to be, or what others expect them to be, and I feel like it also heals parts of me. If I can be that honest and compassionate with them, I'm reflecting that energy myself.

 

Dr Ritamarie (20:13)

I love that. Feeling visible, I think you hit on something there that's not talked about very much. People don't say, well, I need to be visible. Have you ever heard anybody say that? I really haven't.

 

Sweta Vikram (20:28)

No, because they might be dismissed. They don't even know that language exists. The world has gotten so used to it, and because I teach yoga to survivors, I'm realizing in the trauma-informed world, people are used to being gaslit more often than they are used to being heard. 

 

To your face they would say, “I never said that.” “You didn't say that.” “That never happened,” so you start to shut down.

 

When we look, the minute I say, “shut down,” my wall, my voice, the volume reduced, and when I say shut down, I'm crunching. What am I doing? My diaphragm, my lungs, everything is getting impacted. I'm in survival mode, fight or flight. This is my sympathetic system. That's impacting my digestion. Now that's going to impact my reproductive system. It's also reminding them how to get into parasympathetic nervous system mode without really using the language of a doctor.

 

Also, when we talk about paying attention, when they talk about childhood, are they here or are they there? When they talk about that sibling, are they here or are they there? So for me, that practice of being present is so important. 

 

Because I see my clients virtually, too, and I have a lot of extended time, they'll say come over this weekend, you can work from here, because I do see clients on Saturday mornings.

 

I have stopped explaining why I can't, I just can't. I need to have my self-care and meditative processes in place that can happen at home, or my office, so I can really be present for the people.

 

Dr Ritamarie (22:07)

I love that, and I love that concept. I think we need to be aware. And, I think as practitioners, when we can be open and see people and see beyond the words, the words on the paper or the words that they're saying, but hearing intonation in the voice. Like you said, the voice drops, or does the voice get higher? Does it get more rushed? And, do we start to see some agitation in the body, or do we see a calmness?

 

What is it that it's prompting? And I think that's a big lesson for everybody listening in as a practitioner, and I know if you're in medicine, and you’ve got five minutes to deal with somebody, or 15 minutes at the most, it's hard to really be aware of that. You really have to train yourself to quickly tune in to what are the words behind the words, or what are the feelings behind the words?

 

Sweta Vikram (23:01)

Absolutely. And if I may suggest, since you'd asked this question, another thing practitioners who are in medicine, especially, like you said, it's finite time, and that finite is really a small window. Even asking, like you're suggesting to your patients, pay attention to how a show or a video or a conversation or a person or a place makes you feel.

 

Maybe just jot it down in your journal. The world we live in, people are so disconnected from themselves. A, they're used to external validation, and they're so used to the noise of everyone else around them. It's also partially laziness. It's easy to live your life when someone sees you a certain way, and you just execute it, but that's making us sick, because we're not being authentic. 

 

I asked some of my clients to do that, just maintain a journal. You don't even have to share it with me. 

 

I went to Thanksgiving, and this uncle? I don't know. I didn't like him. It was cringe, and so I would never suggest breaking up, because we are dealing with the loneliness epidemic. But, can you do accountability? Can you pair up with a cousin and say, hey, whenever we see that uncle, can we be together? Or, whenever a friend shows up, they're only talking about their big life, not aware of everything that's not going on. Can we take a walk after this happy hour that we've done together. 

 

Having those systems and processes in place without really breaking everything up, because a lot of the gurus will say, just take care of you. But take care of you, where we don't live in isolation. Community and connection are so important to us. 

 

How can we practice boundaries and self-care in a way which is sustainable?

 

Dr Ritamarie (24:47)

I like that idea, and I think that teaching people to be aware of when you walk in the room and the icky uncle or the bossy whatever, the person, how do the people make you feel? There's some places where you go, and you just feel light and comfortable, and you can be who you are, and then there's other people that you're with that you feel like I’ve got to protect myself. I've got to keep them from seeing “the me” behind here, because they're going to make fun of me, or they're going to criticize me. 

 

I think that happens not just in families, it happens in work environments. You are afraid to speak, because you're going to be criticized, so we shut down.

 

Sweta Vikram (25:32)

Many companies, or I would say, a large number of companies, don't have protocols in place for grieving employees. We are talking about this, someone might come to you and say, I lost my mom, and I haven't been able to eat, sleep, but then, after two days of bereavement, they're supposed to show up to work and be functional. 

 

Dr Ritamarie (25:55)

I think part of that is that people don't know how other people are uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable with your grief. I don't know what to say to you. I'm afraid I'm going to say something that's going to make you cry, which actually might be the totally appropriate thing to say, because it's helping you to grieve properly and express, but I think so many people are afraid. They're afraid of their feelings.

 

Sweta Vikram (26:20)

Yes. They're also overthinking it. I always say to ask someone what they need. It's very easy to tell a coworker, hey, we just know each other formally within the workspace. I just learned of your loss. I'm here if you need anything. How may I help? Do you want me to take on a task for you? That's one example I can think of. Can I buy you a coffee, and we don't have to talk if you just need a breather, if something gets heavy. Offer a couple of mild solutions where you don't come across as a martyr.

 

Otherwise just say, I'm here, what do you need? Oftentimes grievers don't even know what they need. The minute you feel when someone offers you that and you feel safe, it might make a little bit of difference in your digestion, might make a little bit of a difference in your sleep, in your anxiety, your anger, depending on which dosha is imbalanced.

 

Dr Ritamarie (27:09)

You know, it made me think of a friend years ago. She lost her son, her eight-year-old son. This was much like a couple of decades ago. And she said the hardest part was that people would ignore it. They were afraid to express, hey, my heart is with you. What? How can I support you? They were afraid to say all that. After a couple of weeks, it was like everybody wanted to go their own way, and they didn't want to be around her, because she made them feel uncomfortable, and she wasn't getting what she needed. 

 

If I say something, and somebody starts to cry, or somebody says something to me, my parents died 30 something years ago. 30, because my oldest son is 32. My mom died four years before he was born. My dad died the year before he was born. Somewhere in the low 30s. That's a long time ago.

 

But still, on Mother's Day, somebody says something to me, we talk about it, and suddenly the tears come, and they apologize. I'm like, no, no need to apologize. You're just helping me get in touch with, and remember, and just process more. We don't ever fully recover from losing our parents. You don't ever. You're always going to miss them. 

 

If the tears come, and that's the thing I think a lot of people need to know. When I talk to folks when I'm doing an intake, there's times when I'll say, tell me more, tell me more, and suddenly the ducts break, and it breaks down. I'm not going to apologize for that. I'm just going to sit with them and let them, let them process. I'm sorry, I'm crying. No. Keep crying, feel it. It's healing. 

 

I think as practitioners, this brings up that we need to start to feel comfortable with other people's grief and sadness, because that's the only way we can help them with it.

 

Sweta Vikram (29:09)

Why not? Because they've gotten so used to being on a tight leash with the timeline. Your first Christmas is done, your first Diwali is done, your first Hanukkah is done, you might be better now. He might be like you said, 30 years. And it again, we learned to cope better with it. It doesn't mean it's a forever loss. There's no coming back. 

 

So there might be moments, that are like random, I'll smell a perfume that reminds me of my mom. I might not have been thinking about her, but depending on how my day is going, either it brings a smile or tears to my eyes. 

 

So why does anyone have to take on that pressure of performance, of this is what my grief will look like? And people don't realize, Dr. Ritamarie, that grief doesn't discriminate. It will touch each and everybody. The more humane we are with other humans, the better prepared we are, and we invite more kindness into our lives.

 

Dr Ritamarie (30:02)

I agree with you there, and what I'm thinking, too, is as we process this,I don't have any health issues right now. I'm 70 years old, and I'm full of energy and health, and she was 56 when she died. It's sad. It's sad, but I don't think it's creating health issues in me. But for others, those griefs, maybe it was a husband who left for another woman, or maybe it's a child like my friend, losing a child to cancer at age eight or in a car accident.

 

That's a trauma that's going to be there. It might be that she has never felt the same since, and she developed this chronic fatigue, or she developed this hormonal imbalance. 

 

As practitioners, I think we need to become aware and not think that every time somebody talks about their mother who died 30 years ago and cries. That it has something to do with their stuff, but how do we know if it does? And how do we explore that?

 

Sweta Vikram (31:07)

I think the beauty of it is just showing up with an open mind. not showing up thinking this is what this might mean. Be prepared to be surprised and humbled. And I'm so glad to hear that, you're thriving and doing well, but it could have been also because you've done the work.

 

Dr Ritamarie (31:26)

Yes, yes. I will just relate that. My younger brother, I don't think he ever recovered from it, and I think all the issues that he's having now are related to that.

 

Sweta Vikram (32:36)

Right. Just as practitioners, we just need to be compassionate towards ourselves. I always remind people that, because if you're kind to yourself, you'll automatically be kind to others. A lot of people who are rude, not everybody is messed up here. Some people, they just haven't felt visible or seen. Meanness becomes them, and I'm not justifying bad behavior, but that becomes their modus operandi. 

 

When you are kind, and you welcome people with a heartfelt smile, automatically they're not there. They're here. I'm not saying they're like, whoa, but they're at least here.

 

Dr Ritamarie (32:13)

Absolutely. Wow, this has been fascinating. Are there other things that you would like to share with us, as practitioners, as to how to maneuver these sorts of things in our practice when we start to see, I really think this person, the loss of this child then, or this, whatever the grief might be, because it's not just loss, like you said, it's not just loss of a person. Sometimes it's loss of an identity, it's loss of a job. There's a lot of ways we can be grieving.

 

Sweta Vikram (32:42)

100%. I think one of the things, and different people have different needs, is talking to a mental health practitioner. In my practice I've learned not everyone is open to therapy, and sometimes therapy is not for everyone, but it's important to talk to a mental health practitioner to figure out which direction would be helpful. 

 

Maybe join a support group, because I also feel like grief is so heavy, it's important to have unbiased people in your support circle. The same friends and family, firstly, they're biased, they're also tired. They might have had 10 people. So now I'm speaking on their behalf. The heaviness gets to people. And I know I've had friends who say, I do this work, but right now I don't have the bandwidth for someone else's. And that's fair, too. 

 

That's why it's very important to not be angry if you are grieving. Or even as a practitioner, you can't say this to your patient, you shouldn't be saying this to your patient to your client, but maybe I don't have the bandwidth to navigate their grief. Either I refer them to somebody else, or at least, show them the path. Like, hey, would you consider talking to a therapist? 

 

If you're religious, do you want to go to your local, whatever your faith is, their support group? Do you want to talk to whoever runs your church, temple, synagogue, mosque, whatever you have? Do you want to talk to them? They're different depending on where people are, there are different pathways available.

 

Dr Ritamarie (34:15)

So if I'm talking to somebody, and I think some of the physical symptoms they're having right now are related to an old grief, a prior grief, presenting that to them, is there a proper way to say that to them? I think this hormone is out of balance and this and this and this, but I also think that there's some connection with this old grief that you have, this old trauma, and trauma can lead to grief.

 

Sweta Vikram (34:47)

The one thing I would recommend is I don't use the word trauma or grief. I just tell them,  this connection keeps coming up. Is there a story you want to share? Or do you think this could be connected to that? Because the minute I say trauma, especially if I'm talking to a heterosexual man, they are never traumatized, they are stoic. They've dismissed me. But I'm like, okay, this keeps coming up. Do you think you want to explore this, and if it feels too much today, we can do it in our next appointment. 

 

When people are not cornered, they don't get defensive. Maybe you can journal about this and see what you want to share the next time. Or, you want to email me, you could do that, but take a moment. I feel like you are telling us something about your health, and it'll be a disservice to you if we stop right here.

 

Dr Ritamarie (35:42)

It's confronting in a non-confrontational way.

 

Sweta Vikram (35:47)

Absolutely. Hitting it head on, we are both seeing something is coming up here, and it might be helpful to go there. But you know, one of my mentors said to me many, many years ago, you cannot help people who don't believe they need help. 

 

Just because someone has come to you or me, they might be ready to receive help here. They might not be here.  It's my job as a practitioner to help them see there is another way, and there is a gap.

 

I'll keep helping them here. Then they’re like, no, I'm okay, but you know, can you just help me with the sleep? And then I'll give them some modalities. But in my practice, I've seen because they realize, and it's fair, they've felt invisible for so long. Why will they believe in one that'll be my ego, right? As a practitioner, if I think, I do this one thing, I'm not God. They don't have to believe me. I'm like, I have to earn that trust, too. 

 

Always tell them, if someone says, I've been drinking ten cups of coffee, since I lost my child, ten cups of coffee a day. I was like, Okay, that makes you functional. We all need to do what we need to do. And I truly mean that. But would you consider just maybe cutting down two cups? Really? You want to ask me to leave coffee? I was, No, you're not hitting or hurting other people, so just cut down on two cups of coffee and see if that makes you feel better, and I know that will make them feel better. It's a little bit less caffeine. 

 

Three weeks later we say, Can you make it to four cups? And then there are people who've never touched coffee, or they'll be like, do not touch my first cup of coffee. We'll never talk. So it's just asking them to lead their own way. As a practitioner, we are present as their safe guides.

 

Dr Ritamarie (37:27)

Yes, and safety and helping them to do it. I call it the low and slow process. Everything we do is low and slow. Small steps leading towards a bigger goal, and eventually you get there. 

 

We're getting close to the end of our time here together, and I've really appreciated the way this conversation's going. 

 

I know you have 14 books, a 15th on the way. Are there particular books in that series that you would recommend for someone. As a practitioner, we're uncovering that we think that there's some grief that we could refer somebody to that would help them in this process.

 

Sweta Vikram (38:02)

Absolutely. In this book, a lot of mental health practitioners have been recommending it to their patients, The Loss That Binds Us. It's a hundred eight simple tips. If I were to open a page, you'll see that every tip is a paragraph. It's not more than that, and it's numbered. I have a brain that works better with processes and things highlighted. That's why I wanted to share. So you'll find something for yourself.

 

Anyone who's listening in, we are all grieving at any given time, because as Dr. Ritamarie and I talked about, grief is the response to any kind of loss. You'll find something in there. 

 

I have another book of mine, A Piece of Peace. I wrote it during the pandemic, and it's Everyday Mindfulness for a Balanced Life. There are books of poetry and fiction, feel free. I have a podcast, The Grounded Leader Podcast.

 

You can go to my website, which I'm sure Dr. Ritamarie will share in the show notes. but I do have a freebie. 

 

It's called a free Rejuvenating Sleep guide. It's Ayurvedic quick tips to be able to at least regulate your sleep to some extent, and it's all simple. Everybody needs that. Most of us are so busy. If someone tells me, Dr. Ritamarie, wake up at 4 a.m. and go do a headstand, I'd be like, what are you smoking? I don't want that. All the tips are simple, something that I follow.

 

I do not share anything that I haven't tried and tested, and it's worked for me.

 

Dr Ritamarie (39:39)

Well, I would love to get everybody to check out this Rejuvenated Sleep, because I don't know about you, but everybody that comes to me has some sort of sleep disruption, including my own husband.

 

Sweta Vikram (39:49)

Hundred percent. If you're looking at my name, SwetaVikram.com, the guide, the podcast, the blog, the articles, everything is on there. I will also share the link with Dr. Ritamarie, so we have it for all our listeners.

 

Dr Ritamarie (40:01)

We'll put that in the show notes. Thank you so much for being here. We've been chatting with Dr. Sweta Vikram, who's an Ayurvedic practitioner. She specializes in grief. She has 14 books already on Amazon. You could check her out there as well as on her own website and a 15th book coming out in the spring of 2027. 

 

I thank you for being here, and I thank all of you for listening, because we're out here to try to change healthcare to really help people to get the true health that they deserve and that they desire. 

 

I look forward to continuing to work with all of you and check out all the notes, check out the show notes. If you're interested in more info on how to be that kind of practitioner who does that, just visit our site at inemethod.com. And until next time, continue to shine on.