N A M A S T E
My name is Cailan.
I’m the creator of Understanding Ayurveda and The Mind Body Connection. My background is in in yoga and meditation teacher, fitness, nutrition and coaching. Through education and understanding, I help people take the reigns on their health, heal from self sabotaging behaviours, regulate their lifestyles and create balance in their lives. I thrive off helping people discover their purpose, realise their potential and create the life they want through self discovery.
Having a history in burn out, eating disorder recovery and overcoming self sabotage, learning to own my problems and confront my demons was a difficult path to walk. Having someone in my corner, guiding me through the steps and showing me the tools to heal was instrumental in my journey. Now I have the opportunity to help others from a place of understanding and compassion. My goal is to help people find their ultimate version of health and harmony, and overcome whatever has been holding them back, allowing them to unlock their potential because the world needs what you have to offer.
QUALIFICATIONS
- Registered Yoga Teacher 350 Hour
- Kids Yoga Teacher 100 Hour
- Certified Ayurvedic Transformation and Wellness Coach 500 Hour
- Certified Ayurveda Psychology
SPECIALISING IN
- Emotional Eating and Eating Disordered Behaviour
- Healing from Burn Out
- Overcoming Self Sabotage
- Behaviour Change
- Unlocking Passion and Pursuing Potential
MY STORY
I first truly understood the power in yoga, Ayurveda and wellness coaching when I was healing from burn out and an eating disorder. My struggles started in my teens, which isn’t an uncommon story for many women. Low self esteem, self harm, eating disorders, poor body image, toxic relationships. I carried these habits into adulthood. Being six foot tall from the age of 13 meant I stood out and I felt like a fish out of water during those trying years.
In my early 20s I started training at the gym which began to drastically improve my health, self image and confidence before entering the body building realm which exacerbated every detrimental habit I’d begun to heal from. Suddenly the obsessive level of control around food and body image was glorified and my eating disorder reached a new height. This continued well into my late twenties.
I could never understand why I felt so out of balance. I looked the part. I trained well and ate clean, except for binge eating episodes that ended up with a purge session on an almost weekly basis. I often felt foggy and unmotivated, scattered and couldn’t make decisions.
Things all came to a head when I was working as a baker in hospitality. With junk food as my weakness, being surrounded by it in a stressful environment saw me eating any time my emotions became too overwhelming, without the opportunity to purge. My people pleasing tendencies meant I was overworked, under extreme pressure and lacked boundaries in my work/ life balance. It was at this time I realised I had huge problems and started life coaching.
After two years of living like this with no routine, the cafe closed, I stopped working and realised I’d hit such a high level of burn out I couldn’t get out of bed. I felt depressed and exhausted. I was broke and completely lost. I was used to bouncing back after hardships but I couldn’t muster the energy for anything. I secluded myself from the world as much as I could, including friendships and close relationships.
I’d had a consistent yoga and meditation practice for years, but I had run my body into the ground. When you don’t have your health, everything else becomes hard. I had lost the will to keep going around this point, however having that meditation practice and the tools from coaching allowed me to navigate those feelings and get my through, to begin to change those emotional eating habits and without realising it, I was beginning to heal.
Healing isn’t linear, and it doesn’t always feel good, or comfortable. I went to a yoga and meditation retreat in May despite not being financially stable. It was there I saw how powerful Ayurveda could be in someone’s healing journey. It was the first time in years I’d had a routine. I went to sleep and woke up at the same did, did yoga and meditation, ate three meals at the same time each day, detoxed from technology, spent a lot of time outside, had a bedtime routine and journaled my story. By the end of the week I noticed a 20% increase in my energy. That doesn’t sound like a lot but when you have been operating on 30% capacity for years, suddenly having 50% of yourself again is massive!
When I got back, I worked on implementing routine into my life. I started slowly, saw an Ayurvedic practitioner to implement the timeless practices into my life and for the first time ever, took things step by step. When one thing became easy, I’d add another. My body started to respond. My energy started to improve. I began to feel better. My spark started coming back, my drive and determination. My passion for being able to help others. It took close to a year, but I woke up one day and felt completely myself again.
When I look back on my healing journey, it was one of the hardest things I’ve done. It wasn’t just about finding optimum health and healing eating disordered behaviour, it was about confronting all the self sabotaging behaviours and beliefs I’d been holding onto in my life. Because when you start to heal once aspect of your life, you can’t ignore the others. It takes courage and responsibility to own your story and it’s hard, however it’s also hard to stay right where you are, feeling dissatisfied and unhappy.
Now I’m a qualified yoga instructor and Ayurvedic Wellness Coach who helps people apply daily practices to their lives to create health and longevity. I get to share the knowledge that helped me and pass on the tools from this timeless holistic medical system to help others heal their lives, step into their power and discover their direction in life.
