SHE Asked Podcast
Welcome to The SHE Asked Podcast with Anna McBride—a space where the stories we tell ourselves are challenged, reimagined, and rewritten to unlock personal transformation.
Hosted by former therapist, storyteller, and lifelong seeker Anna McBride, this podcast dives deep into the power of narrative. Through personal stories and intimate conversations with guests, we explore how shifting our internal dialogue can change not just how we see our lives—but how we live them.
Each episode offers what Anna calls “practical hope”—real tools, lived experience, and emotional honesty for anyone feeling stuck, lost, or ready for change. Whether you’re navigating divorce, grief, reinvention, or simply trying to understand your past, The SHE Asked Podcast invites you to become the author of your own story—and the hero in it, too.
Follow along for weekly episodes filled with compassion, perspective, and the courage to ask yourself:
What story am I telling—and is it still serving me?
SHE Asked Podcast
Vata, Pitta, Kapha: A Beginner’s Guide to Doshas and Rebalancing Your Life
In this special Q&A episode of She Asked, host Anna McBride sits with her producer Jennifer Martin to explore the wisdom of Ayurveda.
Together, we break down the three doshas—Vata, Pitta, and Kapha—and what they reveal about your mind, body, and energy. Anna shares how to recognize when you’re out of balance and offers simple, practical ways to return to harmony, no matter your constitution.
If you’ve ever wondered why you feel off and how to realign with your natural rhythm, this episode is a grounding and empowering guide.
DISCOVER YOUR DOSHA - Take the Quiz
https://iamsahararose.com/dosha-quiz/
COACH WITH ANNA - Balance your dosha
https://www.annamcbride.com
Okay, hello, hello, welcome back to she Asked. Welcome back. This is Anna and Jennifer, and I am so excited to have a little Q&A session after your Ayurvedic episode that you just recorded on Pitta. So highly recommend watching that first, pitta. So highly recommend watching that first. But if you haven't quite yet, I want to recap the three doshas when it comes to Ayurveda Very quickly. Ayurveda is a sister science of yoga. It is the science of life, correct, and is there anything else you want to add? To just be very brief about what Ayurveda is before we dive deep to just be very brief about what Ayurveda is before we dive deep.
Speaker 2:Sure, so it's over 5,000 years old. That's important to note. It was created in India and really was born out of their curiosity on how to live more in balance with nature.
Speaker 1:Okay, awesome. And so, with these balances, our body has a balance of three doshas the vata, which is an element of air and ether, the pitta, which is the element of fire and water, and kapha, which is the element of earth and water. Correct, and we're going to be focusing on pitta today, which is that fire and water. So can you repeat and briefly explain what that means and entails?
Speaker 2:Okay, I first want to identify, so understand, that each these three doshas are based on the five basic elements that we all are made up from and all of life is made up from, and that is earth, fire, water, air and ether right. These elements exist in the universe and they actually exist in each of us in some form of capacity. So these doshas take into account of the fact that what is within us is outside of us and that we each have a constitution based on a combination of these elements. Ayurvedic principles suggest that we have all of these doshas within us, yet some of us will have more of one than the other.
Speaker 2:So, for me, my dosha is predominantly pitta, meaning fire and water. Fire is about digestion, about passion, about adventure, basically, and then water is the subtlety, the cooling, the nourishing, the balancing, the cleansing part of us. That is very important to balance out the pitta's fire. And so what Ayurvedic people believe is that, because of we live in the world and not secluded, we are imbalanced, all of us most of the time, and so it's important to not only identify your dosha, they also want to identify what are your imbalances, and so, for me, as a pitta, my imbalance was the inaction that I was taking in my life, how I was frozen when I became too overwhelmed with things in my life or confused, and fire is clear. Right, as it turns out through the study of this form of medicine, is that I had some addictive patterns in my life, in my thought processes, in my mind, because Ayurvedic is based on mind, body and spirit. Right, we want balances in all three and the dosha applies to all three. I'll have a dosha signature of pitta in my mind, I'll have it in my body and I'll have it in balance in my spirit. So my goal is to align my mind and body with my spiritual balance and I have to understand what that means.
Speaker 2:So Pitta really is about digestion and how we approach things in life, what is the energy we bring to it and how do we see clarity in things and need clarity. It also is about how are we nourishing ourselves Like, how are we resting? How are we taking in information? Is it helpful to us or are we allowing it to harm us? So I had to learn how to balance that out. Because of all three doshas, this is one of the ones. It's not the easiest to get out of balance, but it's the second easiest, the hardest.
Speaker 1:The one that's the easiest to out balance is vata yeah, and you think that makes sense because it's all about movement, vata's movement, vata's air, right, but there's like tangible movement. You can see the water move you can see the fire ablaze right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the invisible part of Vata is what's really hard to appreciate, right, the mind part as well as the breath part, and often, going back to the dosha that I had, what made it difficult was to practice the balance. You have to incorporate the other two doshas to help you. So I needed to be more grounded, which is what the earth element, the kapha, is about, and I needed more movement that was deliberate, that was really breath based, because I was an athlete and I was constantly chasing this anaerobic type of breath style and what I needed was something more aerobic and learning how to get the breath to move through my tissues in a way that was cleansing and not in a way that was further taxing.
Speaker 1:Wow, that sounds like some deep work. I want to go back a bit, depending depending on where you are in understanding Ayurveda you've never heard of it or you're a deep practitioner. Let's just go to the basics and talk about the three doshas and how they might manifest in your physical body. I don't want to explain this in a way that puts your body type in a box, but there are certain characteristics, so let's go through those and I'll share what I know, and I'd love you to elaborate With Vata. These are going to be already taller, thinner, both in body length and also maybe in your hair and in your skin. They're going to be ones that are very creative, maybe a little airy, but they are full of ideas and they're great conversationalists. That's getting into less physical.
Speaker 2:That's actually them in balance right.
Speaker 2:These are balanced types of Vata. I can speak to complement that. The imbalance version great. So often vata people tend to struggle to focus because their mind is going all over the place. The movement of the mind and then in terms of their body it's often similar. It's difficult for them to be still, sit still. They have shortness of breath, like it's's very rapid, fast-moving, just upper chest area. It's not deep, it's not slow, it's short and it's shallow and rapid. Also, their skin will tend to be dry. So there's that problem, or their hair could be dry again.
Speaker 2:If they're out of balance, they're going to their emotional state. They will have a tendency towards anxiety is one of the common ailments within a Vata, imbalanced person. They will also have a tendency towards holding on to traumas and recycling them over and over. So there's that, and I want just caution to say that anybody who has suffered some sort of trauma. It can create an imbalance. If you're a Vata, however, it's not a preterminate of it. It just means that if you are, let's say, vata and you have a trauma in your life, letting those episodes go and not cycle through them is one of the potential imbalances and what that does? It further exasperates the ability to focus and for the nervous system to settle down. This is another imbalance.
Speaker 2:Common within vata is that your sympathetic nervous system is constantly revved up. That's the form of the central nervous system, or the side of it that is, for fight or flight, and so when we are really when vatas are really out of balance, that's a common one. So there's some of the imbalances that you would see in vata, but vatas are great idea people. They're very creative. They're known for being able to move through things. Again, this is balanced version, and so when I say that, what I mean to describe is if you know someone, or if you are someone who can roll through situations and not let it stick to you. That is a balanced version of Vata, where they move through and not pick up things that are along the way. They tend to feel lighter, have a lighter sense of humor, have a lighter type of personality. They're easier to be around as a result. So those are some more of the balances.
Speaker 1:Great, I guess. My last question on Vata, which another physical characteristic that I remember is like just bright eyes, like lighter eyes, and again, I think if some of these characteristics sound like you, that could be because you are a.
Speaker 2:Vata. But I want to also point out, like the seasonal correlation.
Speaker 1:And so that was spring. Right, so that's what was spring. Yeah, it's spring, so great. I was wanting to touch up on that. Let's say we are in spring. What are some home practices that you would?
Speaker 2:do so again to get to restore balance. We lean on almost the opposite dosha and bring in some of those practices. So we talked about vatas as being prone to movement and almost lack of focus, and so the opposite of that lack of focus would be pittas that take action and are very specific. They're almost routine followers. Right, they have a structure, but they just move right through it. So that would be very great for vatas, meaning they need structure, which is also something that's relevant to kaphas. Kaphas are really known for being a system-oriented or structure-based people. Vatas can benefit from those types of practices. The other things would be like the food. So in the spring we the thing about ayurveda is that they bring in seasonal food, seasonal practices.
Speaker 2:Now, because vata is like movement, we would want to bring in more grounded movement. So there are certain yoga poses, for example, that are very beneficial, that are more inclined to balance out the movement. So something like that's touching the ground, like the warrior poses, even child's pose, or when you're on your back or on your hands and knees. Those are probably some of the best poses that you can do to ground someone who's out of balance as Vata, and you could sit into meditation, that would be a great one, and focused, intentional breath that is slow and long. And foods, for example, we would want something that is warm, because vatas prefer things that are usually cooler, light, maybe even more salad-like, right or raw. We would want things that are more soupy and stewy to balance them. It's not going to be their preferred meal, but in Ayurveda land we do a lot of khichri, which is a stew-based type of meal, and those are so nourishing and warming and balancing for the body, particularly if they're done with particular spices that are intended to ground the body.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the last thing I want to ask let's say that you identify as a vata. What are some key indicators that you're imbalanced and what are some activities or foods that you should avoid if you're imbalanced.
Speaker 2:All right. So some key indicators. I think this is related to running. If you run a lot, if you run not only physically, emotionally, also like you avoid.
Speaker 2:If you're an avoidant, chances are you're imbalanced in Vata. And, for example, a way that can look like is if you're somebody who goes on social media to get away from focusing on difficult tasks or upset in your life. Right, if you're escaping, like I used to do it through daydreaming I used to actually used to I was vata, in balance and I was meditating over meditating. So overdoing anything is an indication of an imbalance. And so foods to avoid things like salad, as great as they are vatas, you got to be careful not to overdo it. Often what happens with vatas is that they will stop eating. If they're really imbalanced, they're highly prone to stop eating or not eat much or forget about eating, lose appetite. They lose their appetite and that's an indicator. So when that is happening, it's important to name it, claim it and get some help, and often the very first thing to do is to talk to somebody about it.
Speaker 1:Okay, wonderful. So let's move into Pitta. Okay, what are some of the characteristics I know, because I am one as well. You sweat a lot, you sweat a lot. You're a sweaty creature Sweaty, but we also have already, like, a lot of natural muscle. We build muscle pretty easily. We're naturally athletic. We are decision makers, we are leaders. Yes, we execute. Yeah, we're not afraid to take action. Your eyes might be a little bit more intense. Action, your eyes might be a little bit more intense. Your hair may be a little bit more thicker, curly and probably have good skin, or you don't, or you don't. So that's what I remember. What do you have to add? Physical characteristics, so physical characteristics.
Speaker 2:We definitely got a more athletic build. Not that vatas aren't athletic, they're just more lean in nature. Not that kaphas are athletic Right, they're just a little bit more stockier in build, but pittas are. They're that in-between where their body is built for action, and so therefore they can move quickly. They're more agile. They're more muscular muscular, as you mentioned, they're definitely because of the agni inside them that's always burning. They're prone to perspire more. They're glandular, they're more glands or their pores are bigger. So you know you're going to have more moisture showing. That's the water side of it, right? So, structure-wise, as you mentioned, the eyes are stronger, their bones are strong, whereas vatas tend to be thinner. So that was one thing I did mention for vatas is they have a tendency towards osteoporosis, whereas opitas don't. When they're in balance Now, their personalities are fiery.
Speaker 2:They're very strong willed, they're very opinionated. They're very, as you described, leader oriented. They like to take charge. They are doers. They're not people to just stand by and watch. They want to take and be a part of the action. They're talkers. Vatas can talk a lot also, however, not as much as a Pitta. Pittas tend to really want to talk because they have a lot to say, and they want people to hear them. I think it's also important to understand and appreciate, rather, the nuances around the thinking patterns. So with a vata it's creative, with a pitta it's about action, and so that may seem very nuanced, and it is. But this is the difference between the vatas come up with the ideas, the pittas not only see it, yet they get the clarity on what to do to make it happen. And often that's the difference between those two elements is that one is about creating the idea in space, the next one is bringing it to fruition, and that's why they make great leaders.
Speaker 1:So that's the Pitta Okay and a Pitta imbalanced.
Speaker 2:Oh boy.
Speaker 1:You mentioned in your previous video lots of digestion issues, probably a lot of anger.
Speaker 2:Reactivity. As a result, they will react, and so, therefore, I would describe it like this, because this was me once I would chop off heads and scorch villages before I asked questions, and that was a good day when I was upset and then I'd look around and see what was left over and what we want to move into, because a balanced version of a pitta would be someone who would recognize that they're upset, be able to speak to that upset and be able to navigate that conflict through communication, effective communication, which could resolve the situation, de-escalate it, in other words, whereas an imbalanced version of Pitta's would take any situation and turn it into a crisis because they're angry or they feel hurt or something.
Speaker 1:They just have undigested emotions and correct me if I'm wrong. A lot of this is happening in the solar plexus, which is all about like confidence. So sometimes with confliction, if you feel threatened, if your ego is feeling threatened, then you want to double down and assert your dominance. Is that kind of resonating with what you just mentioned being out of balance and feeling smaller, so then trying to get bigger to compensate?
Speaker 2:Yeah, understand that the ego is a part of the mind and the mind is so prone to imbalance. So what imbalance starts in the mind will ultimately form some sort of dis-ease in the body. When I was studying it, we always said what came first, the chicken or the egg? Was it the imbalance in the mind or the imbalance in the body, and it doesn't really matter. So when you were describing those feelings, those upsets, those reactions are really a signature of an imbalanced mind, an imbalanced ego that is over-identifying. You said this. I can't believe you did that and blah, blah to me and I'm the victim. Whatever the scenario is, and from a Ayurvedic standpoint, is that we've got to first try to cool down the mind and then come back and address the thought that created the problem to begin with, which is often when we involve the Ayurvedic psychology, they say all right, a thought is really at the beginning of imbalance, because we will over identify with a single thought. So our work is a meditation in order to try and slow down the thoughts, because pittas are known for being over thinkers. Also right, and particularly if we have a vata imbalance, which is one of the most common imbalances in pittas, is vata the overthinking, the ruminating, the worrying about the future. These are all vata, meaning the thoughts moving through the mind. That's why we associate it with vata, and yet it is a misunderstood interpretation of the imbalance within the vata. Pitta, dosha is that this air, that thoughts moving through the mind, can become so enraptured and fired up, so to speak to use the terms of the dosha and then it becomes the thing we just can't let go of and we can't cool it. The water is pretty much dried up at that point and fire is just raging through us and that's what becomes the inflammation, the agitation, the digestion issues, because, as I mentioned earlier, we are digesting not just food, we digest thoughts.
Speaker 2:When we talk about things like disordered eating, which was a part of my work in therapy, often the person who is suffering from disorder eating not always, but a lot of the times we notice that it begins at the dining room table because one, two or more of the people at that table are upset. Generally speaking, let's just say, if a child is suffering from this disorder, the parents are coming to the table, the authority figures with an upset, or there was some upset before the meal was even meal time it was. So the best scenario is and it could be unrealistic in most homes is to have a calm dinner time where you're actually having a positive conversation that's uplifting and then therefore your body is calm and then the food is entering a calm system. Yet if we're rushing to the dinner table or rushing on to the next thing, or the people coming are agitated, it's already a heightenedly charged environment and when that's the case, our body systems become heightened and charged and then therefore, when we introduce food to that, we don't digest it well.
Speaker 2:So a common practice that we'll say, for Pitta's particularly, is if you are upset, don't eat, take maybe take a soup, maybe drink a cold water, maybe go take a bath bath, maybe go for a swim, maybe get some fresh air. Calm your system down before you eat. And I I never understood that. I always thought you got to eat three meals a day and upset have some cake that's right feed the upset.
Speaker 1:Yeah, wow, what a stark difference of what you've learned through ayurveda and how you were taught as a kid but to address the imbalances.
Speaker 2:And again you want to use a, an opposite type of dosha, to help you.
Speaker 2:So you're going to pull from vata, meaning you're going to pull meditation in and see, since pittas are known for movement, they're not known for sitting still, getting them to do meditation and doing a type of practice, that a type of meditation which is a little bit longer, a little bit lighter, a little bit more ethereal. What I mean by that, that is that you're not focusing on breath, you're not focusing on physicality, you're focusing on how to almost let go of the body itself. This is why I started practicing Yoga Nidra, because it is a particular type of meditation practice in which you lay still in your body. So the body becomes detached from the practice itself and your mind can go in a completely different direction and you have much better chance of soothing and healing the mind quicker. And then we would pull from kapha, meaning that's more earthy. We would want to do a type of yoga poses about bringing us down to the ground. Do child's pose to dead bug, do knees up, legs up the wall doing, shavasana doing and then breathing in a little bit more deeper.
Speaker 1:It could be rapid but then slow so it's not just one, it's the other and finding a way to just cool the mind and the body down, and often that's done through slower movements, using okay, kafa, I like to think of it as these are the people that have the deep eyes that you can just like, hustle in and they provide the warmest hugs, and they're the caregivers, they're the nurses and the teachers, the parents, and they already bring a sense of peace. So what can you add to that? And what is a balanced kapha? Look like.
Speaker 2:Okay so a balanced kapha look like. Okay so, a balanced kapha. Structurally they're definitely shorter in statue and thicker in bone and their hair can be longer. It can be both thick or thin, but it's there's a lot of it. And their eyes, as you mentioned, there's a deeper, almost just like you could like you said you could get lost in their eyes. Their eyes are just so big and deep and their facial features tend to be bigger.
Speaker 2:A pitta's face we didn't mention it is medium. A vata's face is long, maybe oval, but a kapha's face is wide and broad. And the other parts of the physicality is that they are more pear-shaped. But a more bigger area of the physicality is that they are more pear-shaped but a more bigger area of the body, like they can be more heavier set. Let's put it that way. They're less athletic, although doesn't mean that they aren't athletic. They're less inclined to that. And yet they're also known for being strong. They're used to carrying a lot of weight because they have a strong grounded structure and solid, all right. So we they're. That's their physicality.
Speaker 2:So a balanced kapha is someone who is patient. So this is their minds, of course patient. They're discerning, they take their time, they have a process. They're process-oriented people. They won't be rushed, they consider before they give you a response and they are good sleepers they're probably some of the best sleepers and they have a strong appetite, and that if they can eat anything, whereas Pintas have a certain type of food that they like, usually pittas like spicy, hot food and of different types, but a lot of protein Kaphas will eat anything. Vatas, on the other hand, are more vegetarian in nature and it is interesting to understand that, and so kaphas are also. When they're in balance, they're careful to pick their words out, they speak slower and they consider before they give you a response. The other thing that they do when they're balanced is that they don't get thrown. They are the person that you would want, the personality you would want when you're in a crisis, because they would be there to hold your hand. They wouldn't get caught up into the crisis. They can be detached, they can see things in a different perspective because they're more grounded, whereas Pittas, they see an action plan and want to act it, and Bhattas have a different point of view, meaning they're more ethereal. So they tend to look from up-down, whereas kaphas are looking from down-up and it's just a different perspective. So that's a balanced version of a kapha. Let's talk about imbalance.
Speaker 2:Kaphas are probably next to vattas, most known for being out of balance and the way it looks like is that they don't do anything. They're lethargic, they're depressed. Right, they tend to be prone to depression, prone to inaction. We talk about the central nervous system and how. Vatas are the flight version, pitas are the fight version, kapha's are the freeze or fawn version, and fawning for those that don't know that term, it means people pleasing. They tend to gain weight when they're out of balance. They tend to oversleep when they're out of balance. And then, when it comes to digestion, as I said, they're prone to gain weight because they're not digesting. Things are sitting in their system for extended period of time. So their digestive tracts are, for different reasons, very toxic because waste is in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and there's so much that we can talk about these and we will in future episodes, but I do want to sum this up in asking you how do you figure out your dosha and what do you recommend?
Speaker 2:That's really a great question. Thank you, jennifer. We can actually put in this part of the Q&A quiz a dosha quiz, very commonly used, which will basically speak to your body frame, your height, your personality, nature and the time of year. We said that spring was Vata, pitta's is summer and Kapha's are fall and winter, so there's seasonal resonance that you would consider. So these quizzes are important and they're not foolproof important and they're not foolproof. So actually talking to somebody who is an Ayurvedic counselor or coach would be the best way, because there's diameter of wrist, even your tongue, even your eye setting are three features that we look at and to diagnose more perfectly a dosha. You can get a pretty good idea through the quiz.
Speaker 1:Cool and I think, just like thinking about doshas, almost astrology we're not just our sun sign, we have a moon sign, we have a rising and we have to think about the complexity of ourselves, much like in the doshas and Ayurvedas. Yes, I identify mostly as pitta, but I can get into vata when I'm going crazy in my mind and I can be surely lazy.
Speaker 2:And it's important to do these exercises of self-study, to know, yes, and rebalance and adjust and then fine-tune yeah so you get into equilibrium the goal is to strive for balance, knowing that we are out of balance most of the time, and so it's again. It's a target, it's not a destination and, depending on the season of the year, that's another contributor to imbalance, besides what's going on in our life and what we're eating in our rest cycles. So there's a lot of contributors to it. Talking with someone who can coach you through that will help you understand not only that these five elements play a factor. The dosha combination right plays a factor, and then these seasons and these experiences and your lifestyle. It's a lifestyle. That's the point. It's not a quick fix. It's not like a pill spoiler alert that you get out of a bottle. So that's my two cents on that.
Speaker 1:Yes, and if you're still curious on how you might achieve that, anna is open for clients in her coaching business. And to sum up, what I think is the best way to balance for any dosha is meditation. Yeah which is also something that anna has plenty of recordings for you to download on her website at annamcbridecom. So this has been she asked. My name is jennifer and I am anna, and we're so glad that you joined us today.
Speaker 2:Yes, and until soon be well.