Come into Deeper Balance NOW with Āyurveda
A central tenet of Āyurveda is, like increases like and opposites balance. We're constantly being influenced by our environments, and our organism registers those changes as increases or decreases in qualities within us. To understand your unique nature, is to be aware of the qualities that are strongest in your constitution, and to know how it feels when one of them is aggravated, too high or too low. From there, you can take a balancing action on your behalf.
This is as simpleas noticing when you feel cold, and putting on a sweater; or intuiting that the hot yoga you used to love is too drying for you at mid life.
Everything can be medicine and everything can be poison, depending on the circumstances (for whom, how, when, how much, how often). This is why things that work so well for your friend, don't work for you at all.
Viewing our body/mind symptoms through the lens of aggravated/increasing/decreasing qualities provides a means of meaningful self-care. Simple adjustments to diet, exercise, sleep, meditation, breathing, as well as learning to use spices and herbs become the medicines that help us return to our unique balance. From the POV of Āyurveda, It's not just what we do, but when, how much, how often and in what way we do it. While anyone can learn to understand their unique constitution and the qualities that are most prominent within it, the support of a practitioner is helpful in the beginning to help you understand the deeper principles and how to apply them. Knowing you are a pitta constitution does not mean you need to follow a pitta pacifying diet, for example; and feeling stressed does not mean you should take ashwagandha (which is heating and can be toxic to the liver). Learning an ancient science through cultural memes will never work well.
Āyurveda offers not only a map of constitutional types, but also a way of understanding how they're impacted by time, as you move through your life stages. The "healthy" choices you made in your 20's or 30's may no longer be "healthy" in your 40's and 50's and beyond. Learning to adapt how you live to your stage of life is such good medicine, and feels so right (But it does go against the cultural narrative that aging is a failure).
Āyurveda gives us the the tools to support a stable body/mind which can push back the disease process or even prevent it from from taking root in its early stages. It's possible to die without being sick.
Would you like to find out more about how an Āyurvedic approach could support YOU? I offer complimentary discovery calls and polarity/marma sessions to the community so we can get to know each other, and get a taste of the work. You can schedule your complimentary session here.
Please enjoy this recipe for Squash, Carrot, Ginger Soup, from Margo Bachman’s book: Yoga Mama Yoga Baby, Ayurveda and Yoga for a Healthy Pregnancy and Birth.
Margo writes: This beautiful orange soup is incredibly nurturing on a cold autumn or winter day. The squash, carrots, and sweet potatoes get their orange color from carotenoids, plant pigments that are converted to vitamin A in the body. All these veggies also give hearty doses of Vitamin C, folate, and fiber.
I often enjoy this soup topped with lightly roasted pumpkin seeds for a crunchy, nutritious addition. For a well-rounded meal, serve the soup with a whole grain or a slice of warm whole-grain bread, a protein (lentils, tofu, salmon, or chicken), and dark leafy greens.
This soup is perfect as is for Vata types. Pitta types can occasionally eat this when it’s prepared as directed, or swap out half of the carrots for another sweet potato. Kapha types can make this soup either with light coconut milk or vegetable broth instead of the regular coconut milk, and replace half of the squash with another four carrots.
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