Dr. Ellen Vora joins Raghu for a conversation on the connection between mind and body—exploring psychedelics, anxiety as grace, and our personal hotline to intuition.
Ellen Vora, MD received her B.A. from Yale University and attended Columbia University medical school. She’s a board-certified psychiatrist, medical acupuncturist, and yoga teacher. Dr. Vora takes a functional medicine approach to mental health—considering the whole person and addressing imbalance at the root, rather than reflexively prescribing medication. In addition to her private practice and speaking engagements, Dr. Vora consults for healthcare startups and has a book called The Anatomy of Anxiety coming out in March 2022. Fore more info, please visit EllenVora.com
Psychedelics, Curiosity, & Meaning
Welcoming to the Mindrolling podcast, Ellen Vora, MD—a psychiatrist, acupuncturist, yoga teacher, and author—Raghu invites her to share a little bit about what opened her up to trail-blaze this unique path merging a spiritual-holistic approach with mainstream conventional medicine and science. From here, they discuss the gift of psychedelics as a potential bridge to inspiring new perspectives, curiosity, and meaning in our lives.
“I like the way these [psychedelic] medicines can sometimes just pull back the curtain ever so slightly and give us an experience that makes us scratch our heads.” – Ellen Vora, MD
Ram Dass offers help on how to deal with the anxiety of the void, Ep. 193 of Here & Now
Mental Health as Physical Health // Anxiety as Grace (14:14)
Turning the page to Dr. Vora’s timely new book, The Anatomy of Anxiety: Understanding and Overcoming the Body’s Fear Response, they discuss the physical and psychological nuances of Raghu’s energetic relationship with gluten-loaded toast. Next, they discuss working with habits, overcoming anxiety, finding balance in life, destigmatizing mental health, non-identification with diagnoses, uprooting underlying physical factors causing mental issues, and seeing our (true) anxiety as grace—a North Star, a compass.
“We think of anxiety as a nuisance, we pathologize it, we want to medicate it away, we want it to go away. False anxiety, avoidable anxiety, that anxiety that’s caused by physical states of imbalance—I see no problem with eliminating that. I don’t think that serves us. But the true anxiety (that has nothing to do with whether or not we’re eating gluten free, or decaf coffee) it’s really our true north. It’s a compass, an inner compass, and we don’t want to medicate that away. We don’t want to miss out on that message that’s here in a very loving we to nudge us back on course.” – Ellen Vora, MD
Ram Dass sheds light on the ways suffering is grace, on Ep. 25 of Here & Now
Hotline to Intuition (35:35)
Steering the conversation towards the uncovering of the essential truth of who we are, Dr. Vora and Raghu illuminate the importance of trust in connecting to the guidance of intuition buried inside of us. From here, they discuss Yin Yang equilibrium, what to do when the world feels cold and senseless, the anxiety of aging, and the connection between body, mind, and spirit exemplified by beings like Ram Dass.
“Once I dusted off that connection to intuition and practiced how to hear it, how to trust it, how to let it guide me and steer my decisions, I’ve learned that it really does not lead me astray. In those moments when I want to flirt with despair or conceive of this universe as a cold senseless place, I come back to the fact that I have this connection to intuition and that I’ve experienced this golden guidance that’s created nothing but more beauty, love, connection, purpose, and expansiveness in my life.” – Ellen Vora, MD
Lama Tsultrim Allione & Raghu discuss feeding your demons, on Ep. 379 of Mindrolling
