✓ Reviewed for medical safety by Dr Sanap Patnaik, MBBS, Reg. No. 38203, on 30 October 2026.
Note from the reviewing doctor: For IBS, the most useful first steps are regular meals, a food-and-symptom diary to find your personal triggers, enough fluids, gentle exercise and less stress. Change one food or habit at a time so you can see what helps. For constipation, add soluble fibre such as oats or isabgol gradually. If symptoms persist, ask a dietitian about a short, guided low-FODMAP trial.
This is one person's experience, shared with their consent. Every body is different. It is not medical advice, so please keep working with your doctor, and never change or stop medication without them.
Josephine's story at a glance
- Who: Josephine Shepard Shukla, 42, HR professional from Ghaziabad, UP
- Condition: IBS for over 18 years, with constipation, severe stomach pain and haemorrhoids
- Program: Satvic Movement's 7-day yoga challenge, after first finding its videos in 2019
- What she changed: 16-hour fasting, vegetable juice and single-fruit breakfasts, no oily, spicy or packaged foods, sunbathing, yoga, wet packs and enemas
- What she noticed: in her words, bathroom trips stopped feeling like a nightmare, her body felt light, and she slept well and woke without an alarm
Constipation is a sure sign that your guts are giving you the silent treatment. As an Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS) patient for over 18 years, I can say it’s been more like silent torture. Things had gotten so bad that when someone asked me “what were my trigger foods?”, I had to say “anything with food in it”. I feared eating. I feared going to the bathroom. I feared even sharing my fears with my family for the longest time. But when I turned to Mother Nature, my fears and pains began to ease faster than I could have imagined.
“I felt like everything I put into my body had a one-way ticket. I could eat it, but my bowels would refuse to let anything slip out. But the slippery slope of my life was getting more slippery by the day. My job, my health, my family time, everything I loved was slipping out of my hands.”
How my IBS became an Incredibly Burdening Secret
I grew up as a healthy child in an athletic family. My father is a former national level boxer and mother is a school teacher. We were happy to keep our family doctor as a stranger in our lives. So when I got married at 22 and shifted to my husband’s home, I had no idea why my bowel health went for a toss so rapidly. Perhaps it was the food, or the infected water in our colony, or my pregnancy issues. I didn’t know the root cause. But I felt hurt when my doctor brushed off my question about whether it could be IBS. He handed me some medicines and said: “It’s all in your mind.”
Josephine experiencing excruciating stomach pains in the middle of the night
If it was all in my mind, why would I give myself sleepless nights having waking nightmares about my next bathroom trip? Why do my intestines feel like an elephant is trampling over them? Why would I puree my sabzis and rotis just so that my bowels don’t feel like someone set them on fire? Why would I create so much misery for myself? At the time, I felt that nobody could tell me the root cause, and the medicines I was taking did not seem to help me.
Josephine starting her day with a handful of medicines in order to have relief from constant pain
Desperation led me to experiment with the strangest remedies like smoking cigarettes to try and relieve myself, using abdominal discs to twist my abdominal muscles, and taking a 7-month long homeopathy medicine course. None of them had even a tiny impact on my massive problems.As a natural introvert, I hated burdening anyone with my problems. And coming from a healthy family where no one could relate to this problem, I felt embarrassed and preferred fighting my battle alone. If even the doctors could not explain what I was going through, I felt there was no point in worrying my family. I had the responsibility of raising my daughters, so I was determined to find the solution myself.
From the breaking point to the breakthrough point
After developing haemorrhoids that made the simple act of sitting a torture, I was shedding more tears in the bathroom than I was passing stool. Traveling had become impossible. In April 2021, an unimaginable pain had invaded my left pelvic region. I had to hold onto a hot pack next to my abdomen for 5 days straight. Due to the second wave of the pandemic peaking, I couldn’t even go to a hospital because of the fear. I actually felt like I was going to die.
After getting introduced to the Satvic Lifestyle, Josephine starting her day with a glass of ash gourd juice
But something sparked to life within me once again when my elder daughter reminded me that I have to put my research work into action. While hunting for a natural solution for IBS, I stumbled upon the Satvic Movement YouTube channel back in 2019. But I had only followed 16 hour fasting since then, which had helped me cut down my weight from 70 kgs to 60 kgs by Feb 2020. However, I didn’t follow the other steps of the Satvic lifestyle.So I revisited the videos once again and signed up for the 7-day Yoga challenge workshop. It was the perfect way to refuel my inspiration and commit to a natural healing plan that could set me free from this misery.
Josephine participating in 7 day yoga challenge and starting her day with a rejuvenating yoga flow
Hope comes back with a bang
Although I loved being an early bird all my life, my IBS had made it extremely challenging to start my day without rolling from side to side clutching my abdomen in pain. I wanted to be ready by 7 AM for the Yoga challenge so I woke up at 5 AM, but I was surprised that I was now able to get ready by 6 AM.Initially, I wasn’t able to follow the meal plan schedule so consistently. But I had given up all oily, spicy, packaged foods that were like weapons of mass destruction for my stomach. I started my day with a fresh vegetable juice and a single-fruit breakfast, which felt easy on my stomach. I felt that Mother Nature’s love was what my body needed most. So I continued to nourish myself with delicious beetroot or spinach rotis and my favourite aloo-lowki-gajar sabzi.
Josephine enjoying satvic chapati and pumpkin sabji for her lunch
Food became a big part of my healing: fresh, plant-based, wholesome, water-rich food. I was beginning to have more faith in my inner healing power now. I found short windows for sunbathing as my house is surrounded by towering buildings that restrict sunlight. The golden sunlight on my stomach felt soothing for both my body and my anxious mind. Adding my homemade wet pack and enema made it feel like I finally had a healing plan that worked for me. I believed in it because I could see how my body was responding.My bathroom trips didn’t feel like a nightmare anymore. Constipation was slowly being replaced by elation. There was lightness in my body and a spring in my step to start every day with a new focus. I was sleeping effortlessly and waking up without an alarm. Feeling exhausted after exercise? Old news! And what did I give up to get back my life? Time and energy? I have a lot more of both now. Taste? When you have the Satvic Food Book with you, you never need to compromise with your taste buds either. Just make one promise to Mother Nature and you’ll never need to make compromises.I hope to keep feeling better over the next 3 months as I follow all the steps. I’m on the fast-track to reclaiming my health already. Soon, I will reclaim my ability to travel and work comfortably. I have also found a new state of zen to tune into when I go driving and someone honks non-stop around me. But the benefits didn’t just stop there. Now, I can be a better mother, a better wife, a better daughter who can safeguard my family’s health thanks to my own healing journey. I feel like everything had to slip out of my hands first so that I could make room to seize a lot more possibilities now. I share this secret that I had buried deep within me for so many years, hoping it gives you courage on your own journey with IBS.
Josephine spending time with her two daughters
Every journey is different. If you are on medication or have a medical condition, make any changes together with your doctor. If this story speaks to you, our workshops are a good place to start learning the Satvic lifestyle.
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