Healing Through Breath and Seasons: Ayurveda with Brett Aldrich

Lisa Belisle: Hello, I am Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. We are sponsored by the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. Today I have with me Brett Aldrich, who is an Ayurvedic counselor, breathwork practitioner, and founder of Seed the Spirit right here in Maine. I'm really looking forward to talking to you about where we are seasonally and how we can help ourselves using some ancient practices that have, it sounds like, become very important to your life. So welcome today.

Brett Aldrich: Thank you, Lisa. Thank you for having me.

Lisa Belisle: As a doctor who has practiced acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine for many years, I know that I love the healing system that I practice. Well, both of them, actually. Ayurvedic work is something I don't have that much background in, but it seems there are some similarities to TCM.

Brett Aldrich: There are many similarities. The little bit that I do know about, there are seasons and each season has its own characteristic and its own elements. So we go based upon our elemental bank of most things. We have fire, earth, water, air, and ether, all of those five elements. What I understand is a little similar to our practices and our daily practices in our life. Those elements have characteristics, and those characteristics we work with internally. We see the external as well, and we try to balance the both to feel healthy.

Lisa Belisle: So it doesn't sound like you have wood.

Brett Aldrich: Wood is not an element that we deal with.

Lisa Belisle: Interesting. Okay. Well, talk to me about Ayurveda. It's 5,000 years old, at least that we know of. So talk to me about what this is and why this should matter to us.

Brett Aldrich: Yes. How does it matter now? That's the question I get a lot. Often due to the fact that it is such an ancient practice, and it's a practice from a different part of the world, and how do we place it here in New England, here in the state? It is very different but similar in many ways. It is 5,000 years old. It's a practice that is the study of life. The study of life really is anything is possible, everything matters. And no matter whether it was 5,000 years ago or present day, the categories and the rules still sort of apply. There is still the elements of earth, water, fire, air, and ether. Are we going to apply it to our lives today? That's usually how I present it to people and try to apply it. I say we befriend, we try to make friends with the past, with the present, and that's how we start, and that's where we become more balanced within our bodies.

Sometimes we also need to start shifting, making some changes in our lives that we've become accustomed to doing that sometimes don't always work well with our internal body and our internal clock. So that's how I bring it all together. If people feel comfortable with that process in the beginning stages, we start from there and do one thing at a time with people. We try to make sure it's a slow process, a sustainable process, and in some cases affordable and useful for them for their day to day. That's how it goes, to begin anyhow.

Lisa Belisle: My understanding of Ayurveda, similar to traditional Chinese medicine and other healing systems, is that food is very important. What we eat and when we eat it and how we eat it in relationship to the seasons can have, I don't want to say detrimental, but certainly we can do it in a way that's additive. We can do it so that it actually is in alignment with where our bodies are and where the earth is at any given time.

Brett Aldrich: Yes, absolutely. Seasonal eating is very useful for us. When there is food that is in abundance, when food is at its top nutritive availability, that's when it's in season, and that's when we usually imbibe in that type of food. How we cook it is also essential to our overall wellbeing and health. I always say your home is usually where your most medicine is. Your medicine is in your kitchen. What you do on a daily basis is your medicine, and what you eat, how you treat it, and how you cook it, and how you take care of yourself is basically all there right at our fingertips. So what we try to do is educate people on what is in season, what is available right now, what spices you can use to better assimilate this food for it to be more nutritive for you, how you can absorb it.

That's usually how we prescribe our clients. We put in a plan where seasonal eating is a piece of it, and it also balances out the internal. When we have a time of year where things are colder or more mobile, like windy, we try to eat foods that are more stable and sturdy. Usually we look at the season and what's being grown, what's available to us. Wintertime, we usually have root vegetables, warmer foods, more fluid foods, more soups, things like that. So we do the best we can to provide that information to anyone that has interest. The biggest piece is your medicine cabinet is your kitchen, and that's where we go from.

Lisa Belisle: You talked about three different elements that are integral to the time of year and the way that we interface with what's going on outside of us. I know I'm going to get them wrong, but let's see. Pitta, Vata, Kapha. So where are we now that we're around the solstice? It's December. Where are we as far as that is concerned?

Brett Aldrich: Yes. Wintertime, well, there's the Pitta, there's the Kapha, and there's the Vata. Wintertime is the stage of Vata. Vata stage is cold, rough. The description and characteristics of Vata, which is also air and ether combined, are cold, mobile, unstable, rough. So when you have that characteristic and the elements are around you, what we do is try to choose the opposite action in order to balance that out, to have internal health. It also allows you to support your immune system, your digestion, things like that. Wintertime is a time to be inside more often. That is a time of self-reflection. There's another side, not just what we eat and how we treat our body, but also how we treat our mind and our soul. A lot of this time, interestingly enough, December is usually when we're out busy spending time with family. It's a season that many people are outside of the home. So what we try to do is advise people to spend more time inward, spend more time calming themselves down, creating practices in the home to allow themselves to go out into the world. That's basically what we do this time of year. With the solstice, it's the time of darkness, a time of quiet, a time of self-reflection.

Lisa Belisle: I wanted to switch gears a little bit because I'm intrigued by how you got to this place and founding Seed the Spirit and doing the study of Ayurveda. You have a very richly textured background. You've done a lot of different things, all of which seem interrelated, but it sounds like 2020 was kind of a pivotal time for you.

Brett Aldrich: Absolutely, yes.

Lisa Belisle: With that sort of lead in, how did you decide that Ayurveda is something that you wanted to put your attention toward at this point in your life?

Brett Aldrich: Yes, there were a lot of life changes that occurred during 2020, and I feel a lot of us can feel similar. I had the ability to receive this education before 2020, however, that was the moment of all of our lives where we were like, what am I going to do next? Things are so different now. And also I'm growing older. Prior to 2020, I did triathlons. I was an athlete, I was very active. My lifestyle was very aggressive in nature just by what I was doing physically. It was a period of time where I was raising my children and I was home full time, and I knew there was something out there, but I wasn't quite sure what it was. So I just naturally felt that I had this education of Ayurveda, I knew what yoga was, breathwork was just the next thing that added and really supported what I was doing.

I just thought to myself, why not? This is an opportunity to support others through a process of change as well. I think myself and many other people are going through change, and it takes this toll sometimes mentally and physically to go through big change. When I worked for an office that was very serious in nature, I had a very serious job a long time ago, and this is another way to support people just in a new way, in a kinder way, a softer way. I just felt it was offered to me during my process of change, and I felt called to do it again for someone else that might be going through something similar.

I love the quality of it. I love that it's kind and I love that it's soft in nature and supportive. That is basically how it went. Changes make more change, and that's where it went. So I was fortunate to be able to take this time to develop something completely new and different. Every day is different for me and I'm always asking for information and help along the way. However, the Ayurvedic foundation that I've learned has been a deep, progressive foundation for me for how I can serve others.

Lisa Belisle: You are a 200-hour certified yoga instructor. This took place back in 2011, so this has been quite a while that you have that background. You have all of this work that you've done. It looks like Spiraldance breathwork, which I want to hear more about because I'm fascinated by what that actually is. And you're part of the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance. So it sounds to me like you are continuing to expand what you have to offer to people and be there wherever they are in their change journey. As you were deciding what to study, was there an alignment with where you were in your life to the choices that you made?

Brett Aldrich: Yes, absolutely. There was alignment. There were a lot of interesting coincidences. Originally the practice of yoga was just because I was injured. I had injuries, or I had children, and yoga was a great alternative to what I was doing to support my body as I was growing older, as things were changing, as my children were growing older. Ayurveda was an education for me personally. My daughter was born and she was allergic to everything. It was when I began to read the labels of food and say, what is in here? What can she eat? What can be provided for her? I ended up having to make everything. When I came to that realization that everything my daughter could eat I had to create, over time it started to develop into, it was wonderful, but it was also a personal stressor.

I was like, how am I going to provide for my child if I have to make everything? Over time, in my life, the Ayurveda was a real great support. The breathwork was actually just how to bring it all together. For me, it was about integration. How am I going to integrate all of this information and how am I going to move forward with this process? Because breathwork is wonderful for taking the barriers away. Breathwork is wonderful for opening up the body and the mind. Breathwork is also helpful to expand yourself. Sometimes if there's stuck emotion or something in the body that's holding me back, or even in my mind itself, there would be something where I'm like, why can't I remember this? What's holding me here? What's stopping me? And it usually was just myself.

So breathwork was so helpful to get through those barriers and let go of some of this stuck energy that might be in my body, and it just allowed me to keep moving forward. The lessons were wonderful. It was deep work getting through this certification and this education as well. There are so many organizations out there that feel breathwork is a large piece of wellness and good health. So breathwork was just another piece to the whole puzzle that brought it all together and helped it integrate. Spiraldance and the Global Professional Breathwork Alliance were a great resource for me to add to the greatness of all of it together.

Lisa Belisle: So as you're talking about breathwork and Spiraldance breathwork in particular, talk to me about some of the differences and similarities. I mean breathing, we all think, oh, I can breathe, no problem. But it sounds like what you're saying is there are actually different techniques that maybe could be applied differently, and Spiraldance might be one of them.

Brett Aldrich: Yes. Spiraldance breathwork is a particular kind of breathing. There's the yogic breathing, there's controlled breathing, which I was taught through the yoga practice and Ayurveda. Spiraldance itself is more of a cyclical breath. It's in the mouth, out of the mouth, one after the other, so it brings and builds in oxygen within the body. It kind of over-oxygenates your body, so it creates an expansion internally. We can look at it biologically or spiritually or energetically. All three of them create a consistent movement internally from the external. As you breathe over time, it starts letting go of any blockages in the body. If there are any emotions held in the body, it's just another way of getting to the source of what's going on, on top of just getting through the layers through the body. This particular breathwork, I think, has become pretty popular.

A lot of people are starting to do this practice, and it's just another tool for someone to use through their process of life, transition, change, or just a piece of breathwork that is new and experiential. It's a very experiential type of practice. Every time you breathe like this, every time you do it, it's different. There's really no expectations. I think sometimes that's a nice thing too, with this kind of breathwork. The result of this kind of breathwork is different every single time, and it really is about just growing and changing and feeling better within yourself. It's been a great transition in my life anyhow, and hopefully, and it has been for many others.

Lisa Belisle: It's interesting as I think about it, because when we talk about holding one's breath, you have to hold your breath if you're underwater, or sometimes you hold your breath if you're scared. But when you hold your breath, you are kind of refusing to interact with the outside environment, for whatever reason, if it's because you're scared or because you're underwater. We think of air as being, oh, it's just air. But it's representative of what's going on around us and outside us. So the way we interact with this very important and vital substance is probably a lot more significant than we give thought to.

Brett Aldrich: Air and ether as well. So it's moving consciousness or moving air in and out of the body. I like to say that when you breathe in and then breathe out all at once, it creates an openness in the body itself. The diaphragm, right? So sometimes, like you said, holding your breath is because we just don't want to interact with what's going on outside, and it allows you to relax into the body. This breathwork, you're active in the world. However, at the same time, there is a level of relaxation that comes with it. What you're trying to do is interact with the external world, but also at the same time be relaxed in that moment. The breathwork itself is just not be afraid of what's going on in the world, but also just know how to breathe through it and interact with it the best that you can.

Many of us hold our breath. Many of us only breathe through our chest. Many of us only do belly breath, and a lot of us can have constrictive breathing. So this is a way to have a full life experience using breath, and we may not be okay with what's going on. However, at the same time, we're able to be awake and aware with what is happening and be relaxed in the situation, be able to take action with a clear mind and in a clear body. That's how we try to teach people when we do breathwork like this in particular.

Lisa Belisle: Another thing that's coming up for me as we're talking is you talked about 2020 as being a little bit of a dividing line in your life. 2020 is the beginning of a very interesting dividing line that we've had globally. So much of that was about breath and the lack of it. Even those of us in an effort to stay healthy, we masked our breath and we didn't interact with the outside world. To have that restriction and that fear around something that we absolutely have to have, there's something very metaphorical about that, in a way that we had these traumatic world events that happened right before 2020 comes along, and now all of a sudden we're all trying to figure out how to navigate, how to interface, and what that looks like for us as a society, but also as individuals. As somebody who's done breathwork for years, I am assuming that this is something that's probably occurred to you.

Brett Aldrich: Oh yes, absolutely. How metaphorical was it when all of these things were happening and I was training in breathwork and getting into that space of learning how the breath operates and how it expands our lives, internally and externally. Same thing with Ayurveda. Whatever's going on with the external or the internal, we try to do the opposite to find balance. When we were asked to stay isolated and not be with our community, there were a lot of us that had a community where we were unable to be part of for some time, and we were spent within our own energy, our own space for a very long time. It's our own breath that we had to work with without someone else's. Finding that internal time, although it was very challenging for so many of us, for me, the breathwork was a place where I could be in my own energy, take care of my own body. Whatever was going on, I couldn't change it.

There were a lot of things we couldn't change. However, for me, I was able to breathe and connect with that understanding and the knowing in that moment, and hopefully over time provide this for other people that felt the same. So it's a tool to share. When we were able to see people again, I was able to share it with others, and that was a piece of it as well, the training. The interesting thing, the training did happen during that period of time in 2020. My education was during that period of time, and I feel like it was a preparation so I could provide it to others that were ready to be part of this and take on this practice or this tool to feel better in the world, because we've come to realize there's a lot happening, and there are some things we can do, but some things we cannot.

Taking care of yourself is priority, I feel, putting yourself on the list of to-dos and to take care of, and this was a piece of it. I didn't realize at the time what it was really doing. I didn't realize at the time how important or poignant it was in my own life until I reflect back, and I'm like, oh, wow, what a moment that was to be able to learn something like this during that kind of time. So I was grateful for it, and hopefully people see the results in themselves when they do this practice, when we guide them through those moments.

Lisa Belisle: You have a background of using trauma-sensitive approaches in your work. Having spoken a couple months ago on Radio Maine with Mike Keeley, who is an army veteran who is also a yoga instructor, and his language, he deals with veterans and people who have had a lot of trauma. Even something that seems as simple as the language around trauma and how we interact with individuals, and the invitation to have them come into a space where they want to engage with these tools, can be really life changing, but also their choice. I'm wondering, with your background as an advocate in your other life, and your interface with people who have experienced trauma, was there something about wanting to create this healing space and really perpetuate this that pushed you along the path to do this training and education?

Brett Aldrich: Yes. My previous world, my world before children, working with survivors of trauma and witnesses as well, I felt back then I did my job, but I didn't see what happened down the road. I was there in the moment during an emergency, in crisis. However, I never saw, very fortunately I probably saw a couple people many years later, on how they were doing. Now it's just another way to do similar work, however, down the road, no longer in crisis, but still working towards feeling better, still working towards health, still working towards a space and place where they consistently and constantly feel safe in their bodies on a daily basis. That is something I sometimes feel people have conversation with me about. They say, oh gosh, I really think I worked through this. I thought I got through this and I'm on the other side, but I'm still dealing with some old stuff.

I'm still working on something right now that I didn't think I'd have to. These are also just another layer of working with someone who has been through something and empowering them into taking tools and using them for themselves. A lot of what I do is education. A lot of what I do is just talk information. Use this to your best knowledge, use this for you, decide when you want to use this. These are tools for you to have for your own betterment and your own healing and your own process. I let go of it too. This is for you to have and take it how you need and come back to me when you feel best or when you want to. That's really what it is, just empowering people to have this understanding and self-awareness so they can over time just continue to get better.

So when they wake up one day and something happens, they can do it for themselves that day. That is such a great thing to hear and see, that you work with me, but I hope not forever. That's the thing too that I think is wonderful. This is for now, but hopefully you don't have to see me over time. That way is what I feel is really important, knowing that I can take part in the process again with someone in a different way, in a softer way, when there's no crisis but there's still more work to do, and supporting people when they come to that realization, wow, I've got more work to do. Being there for them and supporting them in that space as well. So it's just a progression. I also think it might be my age. I'm just really enjoying this time in my life and meeting people again on the other side in another way. So it's been really beneficial and really wonderful.

Lisa Belisle: Brett, what is your Maine connection?

Brett Aldrich: Oh gosh. I grew up here. I was born here. I grew up in Maine and, interestingly enough, I didn't go very far. I'm still in my hometown. I left to get my college education. I left Maine for that. However, I did return. I was living in the city for quite some time, and after my daughter was born, I decided to move back to Maine. I felt it was a great place to raise children. I don't know that many people that have not enjoyed Maine. I think most of us love it here. I grew up here and was born on the water, and I can't seem to leave. It's always been this way.

Lisa Belisle: In Portland?

Brett Aldrich: I've been in the Portland area. Yes, I grew up on the mainland during the winters, but in the summertime I actually spent some time on an island off the coast here as well. So I was able to have the island life too, as part of my world. It's been a really beautiful part of my world. There's always something beautiful to be part of or look at or be around or immerse myself in around here. So I've always been grateful for the state of Maine, to be honest.

Lisa Belisle: Well, I grew up in Maine and came back, and now here I am in the same place that I grew up. I think I enjoy it in a different way given my life experiences. I interface with it in a different way. As much as I, I'll say this, and my husband will remind me of this later, I love the seasons, he'll remind me, but why do you want to go somewhere where it's warm in the winter if you love the seasons so much? I think you could both, you could say I love and appreciate the seasons. And also it's a little bit cold. I would like to leave now. Thank you.

Brett Aldrich: Absolutely.

Lisa Belisle: So I think there is something really wonderful about having an in-the-moment relationship with a place like Maine, where there's just so much fluidity to the weather and to nature around you, but also a longitudinal relationship. Particularly if you have an island background like both of us do. It kind of brings us back to this whole conversation around seasonality and around change, because that's just what the world is. The world that we live in, it's always changing.

Brett Aldrich: Absolutely. Dare I say, the consistency of the inconsistency in this area has always been in our world. We used to joke too that as long as you had good gear, as long as you knew what was coming up, you could be prepared in some way. These practices that I have in my life are just another layer of preparation. I know what I could probably do in this situation for myself. Growing up here in Maine, we also enjoy going to the warmer climates to take a little break. There are those moments that come, like March, where we're just like, okay, I think we're going to need to take a moment out of here for a little bit. Being able to have that opportunity is so lovely. I know a lot of people from Maine, especially family members of mine, I think we've all grown accustomed to taking a little break. We absolutely have done that, and I'm so grateful to be able to get that opportunity, because being by the water by then is definitely a little harsh. Knowing the harshness and understanding the harshness and being able to take that moment to take care of ourselves in those moments has been a blessing as well. But yes, I can relate absolutely to all of that.

Lisa Belisle: It's a good way to look at it. It's our way to counterbalance. We can love Maine and also need to go away for a little while.

Brett Aldrich: Yes, I totally understand that. I can relate a hundred percent.

Lisa Belisle: Well Brett, it's been a pleasure to speak with you today, and I really encourage people who've been listening to learn more about your work at Seed the Spirit and maybe reach out to you if they have questions about Ayurvedic approaches, breathwork approaches, or other ways in which they can build on their own internal energy and work with the energy of the world around them to create better health.

Brett Aldrich: Yes, thank you. I appreciate it. I will be out and about as well. I'll be at the South Portland Public Library talking about what I'm doing. You can see me at my website, it's seedthespirit.com, and I now have a lovely new location in South Portland, at 85 E Street in South Portland. That's my office space and the location where I'm working currently with other healers and practitioners. So anytime. I love talking about this, so if you have questions, please reach out. I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that people have. I can't talk about it enough.

Lisa Belisle: Absolutely. Wonderful. Thank you for coming in today.

Brett Aldrich: All right, thank you so much, Lisa. I appreciate it.

Lisa Belisle: I'm Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to or watching Radio Maine, our video podcast where we explore and celebrate creativity and the human spirit. Today I've been speaking with Brett Aldrich, who is an Ayurvedic counselor, breathwork practitioner, and founder of Seed the Spirit. She's provided you with information on how to get in touch, and I do encourage you to do this. I think anytime that we can care for ourselves, especially as we move into the next season that's a little bit less hospitable to humans here up in the northeast, it's a wonderful way to engage in self-care. So find out more about Brett on her website or by reaching out to her. And again, thanks so much for coming in.

Brett Aldrich: Thank you so much, Lisa.