EPI 74 - Ditch the Supplements (for Now): Return to the Basics of Real Wellness

Hi friend, welcome back to The Habit Within! I’m Camille Kinzler, and this episode is one I’m especially excited (and honestly, relieved) to share — because we’re pulling the plug on overcomplicated wellness and going back to the essentials.

In this season of life and learning, I’ve found myself more curious than ever about what actually supports vitality for women — and spoiler alert: it’s not always another supplement or test. So today’s conversation is a breath of fresh air with two incredible women who are deeply rooted in real, lived wellness: Dr. Keesha Ewers and Masami Covey.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why vitality might not come from a capsule or a protocol, but from things like sunlight, stillness, and breath
• What happens when we ditch the “quick fix” and return to curiosity, movement, and awe
• Dr. Keesha’s powerful reflections on healing generational trauma and walking (literally!) as a sacred practice
• Masami’s call to stop chasing complicated solutions and reconnect with your body’s natural rhythms
• Why dung beetles, yes dung beetles, might be your new teachers in joy and presence

If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by all the “wellness noise” or like you’re constantly chasing the next magic fix… this episode is for you. Come back to what’s simple, sustainable, and actually supportive.

Big Takeaways:

• You are not broken. Your healing doesn’t have to be complicated.
• Curiosity is radical medicine.
• Return to the basics: light, movement, nourishment, presence.

I’d love to know:
What resonated most? Tag me, leave a review, or share this with a friend who’s ready to begin again — with grace, not guilt.

Learn More from Dr. Keesha Ewers

Website: www.DrKeesha.com

Learn More from Masami Covey

Website: www.masamicovey.com
YouTube: Masami Covey Channel

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Transcript

(0:00 - 0:19)

Hey y'all, welcome back to The Habit With Ben. I'm Camille Kinsler, your host, and my family is back together again. Both of my kids are home, my husband is here, so for the next three weeks of our summer, we'll be able to spend it together, at least the evenings when we're all together again.

(0:19 - 0:42)

So my heart feels full and really, it's so strange having one of your kids away. Although I knew that he was in a safe place and having a really great time, it just felt like something was missing, because something was, my oldest. So now we're back together and it is so lovely.

(0:43 - 1:05)

We are also moving. We are moving closer to our kid's school because commuting just isn't working for us anymore. We had a carpool mate the last two years and he's not going to school with us next year, which is really sad because I loved having an extra kiddo in the car a few days a week.

(1:05 - 1:40)

It was just really lovely to change up the energy between my kids and he was so sweet to my youngest. So yeah, so we're making this really big decision and even though it feels like, or even though it's not really moving that far away, it really does feel like, I mean, we might as well be moving to a new city because it's just really will change up everything about what our daily routine is. So send me some love and support for those of you who have moved recently or understand what that really looks like.

(1:40 - 1:57)

We have yet to find a place to stay. We are renting out our primary home that we're in and somebody is moving in, in I think like two weeks. And we still don't know if we're going to be buying a place or just renting for a year to see where we want to live or what.

(1:57 - 2:29)

So there are a few things in boxes and I've packed the things that I didn't think I was going to need like board games, which then the kids are now home for the next three weeks and they are wondering where their games are. I also packed a crock pot and one of the recipes I found that I wanted to make, it requires a crock pot. So I'm like, why am I even packing when I still am going to be here for another three weeks? Yeah, so that's just a little bit about my life.

(2:29 - 3:00)

And I am doing a lot of study around women's health and really how I want to break the, I don't know what we've learned or what we know about women's health. Or let me just put it this way, what we've currently been practicing about women's health is from outdated research and outdated science. There is so much updated information out there, but it just takes forever for the medical system to do it differently.

(3:01 - 3:10)

And I don't want to wait. I don't want to wait for it to become quote unquote mainstream because again, the science is there. There are people who are actually practicing this way.

(3:10 - 3:30)

And so I'm really just learning and researching and becoming more and more confident so I can provide this information for you moving forward. Because I don't think we should feel crappy. I don't think that we should have tests that are unnecessary.

(3:30 - 3:46)

I don't think that we should have intervention that is unnecessary. I don't think that we should be on medications that are unnecessary. I think that we should be on things that actually move the dial forward to true vitality and vibrancy and aliveness.

(3:47 - 4:08)

So anyway, more on that later. Today, what we're doing is we're continuing our series, the summer interview series, where I'm interviewing women who really I feel like are just, oh God, they just have so much wisdom. I was re-watching the podcast interviews that I did with these two women.

(4:09 - 4:31)

Remember, these are like under 10 minutes. These interviews with these women, it's one question I'm asking, how do you stay on purpose and vital and show up fully in your own life and can you teach us how in 10 minutes or less? And so it's really quick little bites of information, but these women really walk the talk. And the two that I re-listened to today, I was just jaw dropped.

(4:31 - 4:54)

I mean, just really beautiful human beings who experience the world in such a different way than I think than so many of us do. They, and I'm gonna just say that again, they experience the world and they allow the world to really experience them. It's such a beautiful exchange that they have.

(4:54 - 5:27)

They really understand the importance of being in nature and of being in awe about what unfolds in our life from just looking at nature to the way that we can just view our life in general. Also talk about the importance of really going back to the basics when we're looking at our health and wellness. And I think that this is so important and so often missed where we jump to supplements and medications.

(5:27 - 6:08)

We try to put lipstick on the pig, if you will, when we're really not doing some of the freest and simplest parts of feeling better. And I myself am victim to this where I start falling into these patterns where I'm looking for the magic pill as well, or I'm looking for the magic pill to give y'all because quite honestly, I mean, wouldn't that be amazing if there was something that actually worked, this one pill, like the ring to rule them all, this pill to heal them all. I so wish that there was something like that out there, but in reality, we have to get back to the basics.

(6:08 - 6:36)

So we'll hear from these two incredible, incredible guests, Dr. Keisha and then also Masami Covey. They're just gonna share their lived experience with you and how to really come back to your body and your truth and your joy. We're gonna talk about walking as a sacred act of vitality, the habit of awe and wonder and how generational healing starts with one brave choice.

(6:37 - 7:02)

We're also gonna explore the magic of returning to the basics, just like I was talking about, sunlight, stillness, breath, and even dung beetles. Yep, you heard that, dung beetles as a doorway to peace and presence. This episode is about remembering that you are not broken, my love, that healing isn't always complicated and or it doesn't need to be complicated.

(7:03 - 7:20)

And that curiosity just might be the most radical medicine that you can do and receive or that we have within us. So let's go ahead and dive into this episode. And I hope that you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it for you.

(7:21 - 7:45)

Let me know. Hey, we have Dr. Keisha here today and she is going to share with us her tips and tricks on how she stays vital, energetic, and on purpose in her life. Welcome, and I would love for you to see if you can teach us some of your tricks and tips.

(7:48 - 7:55)

I walk 15,000 to 20,000 steps a day. That is really how I stay vital. And I do it in the forest.

(7:56 - 8:14)

I live in Washington State and I live at the base of a state park and a mountain. And I get to take my two dogs out off leash and I get in the trees and walk. And I used to be a marathon runner years and years ago.

(8:14 - 8:36)

I just beat the crap out of my body, you know? And I think I had exercise anorexia back in those days before I was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease and had to stop running. And then I just, when COVID hit, I started getting outside and walking and I found my vitality. I was never more vital than COVID.

(8:38 - 9:06)

My vitality is just like 10 times, you know? And I found so much freedom being able to move inside my body and into places that had so much beauty. And so I used to take groups to Peru before COVID. And one of the things in the Andes that they talk about are these five pillars of, I call them the five pillars of Andean philosophy.

(9:06 - 9:16)

And the very first one is called Munye. And it's actually witnessing beauty. And so out of Berkeley, there's science now about awe and wonder.

(9:17 - 9:56)

And in the Andes, they've been talking about that for a long time. And it's this ability to see all, and this is what Tantra is about too, in Asia, it's not about sex, everybody. It's about everything being divine, everything, which includes things that are sometimes called transgressive, like sex, right? So that everything's divine, that all of your challenges, all your hardships, all of your anger and sadness and pain, as well as your love and your wonder and your excitement and joy are all divine.

(9:57 - 10:12)

And to be able to witness it that way. And so I think walking has been a huge, I get to be very contemplative. I get to be out with, I use the symbol of the tree a lot.

(10:12 - 10:32)

One day it hit me when I was out. I thought, gosh, you guys, you've witnessed how many generations of humans, right? And all of our little Tempests in the teacups and all of the things that we do, which some of them are kind of stupid pet tricks. And yet you just continue to provide oxygen.

(10:33 - 10:48)

And I thought they're just like these sentinels of life for us. And they take in our carbon dioxide and they give us oxygen. And so I thought, how can I be more like that, right? They do it without emotional reactivity.

(10:48 - 11:12)

They just give. And so I thought, walking, that gives me an opportunity to really contemplate themes like that and to drop into places that are beautiful and witness them and feel awe. So I come back very expansive and open and like everything is humming along the way it should.

(11:13 - 11:55)

So what I'm hearing from you is this idea of living life in awe and wonder. And I think oftentimes when we're really naturally good at something, or maybe we've trained ourselves to be that way, but we're that second nature to us, we don't really notice that that's one of our superpowers. So I'm curious to you, are you always in a state of awe and wonder? And if not, then how do you go back to that when you slip and fall? Or when you start getting into maybe more not so serving thought patterns? Yeah, how do you create the habit? I haven't always been like that, no.

(11:56 - 12:22)

And I think it was the birth of my second of four children. I was nursing her in the middle of the night one night and the moonlight was falling on her face and George Bush Senior was sending troops out. And I remember like looking at my baby thinking, oh gosh, if the rulers of the world had this experience, maybe we wouldn't have so much war.

(12:23 - 12:40)

And then I started, I looked at her and it was just like this overwhelming love and awe, right, for this baby. And I thought, gosh, I wonder if my mom felt like that at some point about me. And then I thought, oh, where did it go wrong? And then I started contemplating that.

(12:42 - 12:54)

And I thought, oh, I think she really didn't like my adolescent self. And I didn't like her when I was an adolescent. And I thought we have each other frozen in time.

(12:54 - 13:06)

So here I am a 32 year old woman, or I think at that time I was 30. And I have my mother frozen in my 15 year old state of perception. And she's got me frozen there.

(13:07 - 13:45)

And so what I decided to do was to very intentionally thought us out and to invite, I invited us into conversations. I actually wound up when I was done nursing, it was several months later, I took her on a trip and she and I had never been on a trip together before. And we went to Mexico to Tulum and we stayed on the beach and we cried and we talked about some of our pains with each other and then started laughing and then started bringing in like how beautiful this place was that we were in.

(13:45 - 14:19)

And then I thought to myself, gosh, you know, this feels so open and I've been so contracted in this kind of bitterness and what I didn't get. And in places that she didn't protect me from sexual abuse when I was younger and things that I hadn't forgiven her for and I just hadn't realized it. And so I was so, I thought, I don't wanna pass this on to my kids, right? Cause my mom, when I grew up complained about her mom and I thought, oh, I'm not ever, I'm never doing that.

(14:19 - 14:53)

And so how do I fix this, right? And so this generational trauma, I went into it and we started healing it and that started letting me be more open to the wonder of life, but it had to be this very intentional process. So the habit of mind was if I feel fear, it feels like a contracted tight state, anger feels like a contracted tight state. So in my body, if I was contracted and tight, I would realize I was either in fear or anger.

(14:54 - 15:15)

And so then I would shift it and open. And the way that I do that is I open my chest, I bring my shoulders back and I take a deep breath and I go, okay, what can I bring in, right? That is all around us that I have so many options, so many choices. And I started being very intentional to create a new habit of mind.

(15:15 - 15:38)

Because I realized that every single time I was unhappy, I was there. And I thought maybe it's not about all those things, all those people out there or all those circumstances, maybe it's here. And that's a moment that I teach my students and my patients that actually is, it's like a transcendental moment.

(15:38 - 16:09)

When you start recognizing that maybe the way that you perceive is your problem, rather than all of the events of your life and the people in your life, that is a moment that you can start getting very curious about the way that your mind processes. And you can start having compassion in your curiosity for it and start shifting it. And so it's been a habit that has been honed over many, many years since, yeah, like almost, yeah, 30 years.

(16:10 - 16:38)

So what are the mantras, if you will, that you say to yourself on a day-to-day basis around this particular topic? Yeah, I have a practice that in our other interview I talked about where I'll zoom out. And so I'll say open. And because if I'm feeling really contracted, I'll go open.

(16:38 - 17:12)

And then as I open up the aperture wider and wider and wider, and then I do a practice where I just start bringing in like the anxiety or the jealousy or the fear or the anger from all of the beings in the cosmos and then bringing out compassion. So that's versus open, right? Yeah, yeah. So you bring in compassion when you're feeling that constriction, but the word to trigger that is open.

(17:12 - 17:34)

That's so beautiful. And when you trip and fall, what do you tell yourself? What are the things that help pick you back up and put one foot in front of the other and continue? Yeah, I have a community of people that are students of mine and we laugh about this because I did this long backpacking trip and I was just telling them about it. It was four years ago after my dad died.

(17:34 - 17:42)

And my dad died and he was kind of an angry guy. And I thought, I'm gonna dedicate this hike. I'm just gonna say mantra the whole time.

(17:42 - 17:53)

And I'm going to, and it's this mantra for processing anger. And I'm gonna pray for my dad. And so I spent the whole hike, which was a good four hours in and four hours out.

(17:53 - 18:12)

So I get up to the top and this, and then I'm coming down and there's a, it's called Kendall Catwalk and there's a catwalk. It's a very narrow ledge. You go around a cliff and this guy came around the corner and I moved over for him, but I moved over on the side of the cliff and he like bumped up against me with his backpack.

(18:12 - 18:27)

He was like really not mindful at all about the danger of what was going on. And I actually said a word that my dad would use that I've never used in my entire life, anger. Under my breath, I just went, bastard.

(18:28 - 18:40)

And then I started laughing because I was just like, that was my dad's word. And here I've spent four hours dedicating, you know, and I just laughed. And then I said to myself, begin again.

(18:40 - 18:58)

And so I did it all the way down and I told that story to my community and they were laughing. And so now every single person in my community, that's our little mantra is if you fall down, begin again. Just begin again, right? No shame, no judgment, no recrimination.

(18:59 - 19:08)

Just begin again. That is so powerful. Thank you so much Keisha for coming on and I hope to see you soon.

(19:09 - 19:40)

Thank you. Hello, Masami, Kavi, thank you so much for coming on the podcast series where we follow up with our favorite speaker from the summit. And I know that you are gonna have so many people following you and yeah, checking out your work and you speak all about how the lunar cycle impacts menopause and premenopause and our hormones, all of our hormones, not just our sex hormones, specifically melatonin, that's one of your faves.

(19:41 - 20:06)

So I would love to ask you, how do you stay energized and on purpose in your own life? And can you teach it to us? Well, that's a great question. And there's a lot that I do actually, but I do believe that there may be two main things. One is to come back to the basics.

(20:06 - 20:58)

So what I mean by that is you can't really put more practices and add more fancy things and more fancy supplements and all these amazing tools that are out there, machines, and I mean, it's endless, right? Your whole entire basement could be filled with all these tools if you would like to buy because they're there. But coming back to the basics means really, when you wake up in the morning, before the feet hit the ground, are you in the place of gratitude? Are you in the place of, did you just check in with your breath? So that's just kind of a basic things, but then you wake up and then you expose your eyes to the sunlight. So I call it the saying hello to the morning.

(20:59 - 21:24)

And so my husband knows, when I say I'm gonna go say hi to the morning, he knows exactly what I'm doing. And I do a little bit of fascial movements and then basics are really, when you go into the supplement world, you can take a lot of different supplements. Yes, there's so much out there and they all are very much studied and it's interesting.

(21:24 - 21:57)

But if what's on your plate is toxic, and then you're eating things that got microwaved, okay, that's the basic level. So when I talk about the basics, most people just roll their eyes and say, oh, seriously, Ms. Sami, again? And I say, yes, again and again and again, you have to come back to the basics. I always say, you cannot do high school calculus if you don't know how to add and subtract first grade and second grade level math.

(21:57 - 22:16)

That's humbling and it's the truth. It's really the capital T truth. Come back to the basics before you begin to do this test and that blood test and that stool test and keep spending thousands and thousands of dollars on tests, come back to the basics.

(22:16 - 22:48)

And this includes stillness, this includes breath work, this includes hydration, and this also includes just daydreaming. And one of the things that I put it in the basics is curiosity. So be curious and go, I wonder, I wonder what's, it's like, just have that kind of the young child's curiosity that is so excited to discover something new in the garden that day.

(22:49 - 23:28)

I have this one story that I read maybe two decades ago and maybe it was in a New Yorker or something like that, but the mother heard her two kids screaming outside saying, mom, mom, mommy, mommy, you gotta come out, come out. And they were so excited. And then the mom's like, oh my gosh, what is going on? Folding laundry, what do you need? And then she goes out there and this two kids of hers were looking and just so delighted by a dung beetle that was pushing the poop across the little, you know, the ground.

(23:29 - 23:47)

And oh my gosh, they were so delighted and excited that they were so entertained by it. And they're lying on the ground and, you know, being earthing right there and just having just the best time ever in their lives. And that's because they're curious.

(23:47 - 24:06)

And when you're curious, it actually relaxes. So when you're wondering about something, it's like, I wonder, okay, everybody will pull their chin up a little bit and they will actually stretch the front of the neck a little bit. So that neck part is called SCM, sternocleidomastoid.

(24:08 - 24:48)

So SCM for short, but that, those two muscles, the big muscles in the front, they get really shortened as you face fear, anxiety in front of the computer and you're looking at your 401k going down, or, you know, you're watching the politics and, or just like a weird email that came in. Your SCM, those two muscles will shorten and they will get very taut. So basically if you can go, hmm, I wonder, and if you could laugh with these kids, you know, Camille, I know you have kids.

(24:49 - 25:07)

So it's like, you get to laugh with them. That's the moment that you can actually relax the limbic part of the brain, especially the amygdalas. So amygdalas basically are like a center that's pushing the button that says danger, danger, danger.

(25:07 - 25:15)

You know, it's always danger. And most of us are living in this perceived danger all day long. And so we lose touch with curiosity.

(25:16 - 25:50)

So if you could just sprinkle that little curiosity throughout the day, even one time per day that you're consciously doing it, that'll not only cool that part of the brain that's always for most of us on fire, but it will also open up the SCM that basically holds and binds the lymphatic system and also your vagus nerve. So that's probably, you know, that's the basics that I wanted to share. Oh my gosh, returning back to the basics.

(25:50 - 26:19)

That is so important. And can we just like, can we just post that all over, you know, Instagram and everywhere instead, you know, that should be on the questionnaire of things that you've done. Have you returned back to the basics? So go back to step one, if you haven't, and then we can do the stool studies and the supplements and all of the things, because likely your symptoms will be resolved if you just go back to the basics.

(26:19 - 26:33)

So thank you so much for that. Thank you. We should all stay in curiosity, not only for the beautiful things that it does for our body physiologically, but it just gives us that childhood wonder and fun and life again.

(26:34 - 26:47)

And I'm gonna pull this in from the interview that we did on the summit that you gave us the permission to not be perfect. And I think that that is also so brilliant. So I wanted to drop that here too.

(26:48 - 26:51)

Thank you so much, Masami. Thank you.