What if the emotions that you are feeling have nothing to do with any disease or illness but instead have everything to do with a “dis-ease” in the body. This is where this journey of healing is taking us my dear Serenity Seekers. We are going to explore how a 5000 year old ancient body of wisdom can help us get back into balance and back to the people that we know we have the potential to be.
When I was younger, I was energetic, intelligent, focused and fun! I could study for hours and hours. Run from activity to activity. Get my workout, my work, my study, my sports and my time with friends in each week and still have time for self-care. The majority of the traumas that are most prominent in my history had already taken place. Though my resilience and perseverance were at an all time high. What happened? Well we could say that age happened or life happened. However, what I’ve learned this week has led me to believe that my diet and lifestyle habits could have contributed to the fact that I have reached my max.. or my all-time low, depending on your perspective.
I’m going to go on a bit of a rant here. It will not be a new rant I’m sure, but it’s important to take a minute to talk about these issues in order to set the stage for a potential solution.
“It is the best of times, it is the worst of time”. Have you noticed that in a time when we could have the ability to connect to others (many many others) in our pockets at any part of the day that we are feeling more disconnected than ever? You go to a restaurant and there are so many people “just checking” their phones and not connecting with those right in front of them? It saddens me as I watch a mom eat alone as her son (about 11 years old) sits across from her with a game system in hand, not saying a word to her. This disconnection that we are feeling is detrimental to our health. If you’ve read any of Brene Brown’s work, you will know just how damaging a lack of connection can be to not only your mental but also you’re physical well-being.
At the same time, we are carrying our work with us everywhere we go! This seems like a great idea at first because we don’t have to be strapped to our desks in our office. But work life is now making it’s way into our vacations with our families and friends and into our much needed down time for our brains and bodies to be able to recover from the stress hormones that can pulse through our veins throughout our work day.
We now spend less time in nature. Since we are now able to get our food at the grocery store and order pretty much anything online and watch our favourite show back to back for hours on Netflix, we have to force ourselves to get out of the house and spend time in nature. Activities feel over structured and over planned. There was a time in history when kids just said, “I’m going out to play!” To which mom or dad said, “Be home by dark”. When I was at my healthiest, I would go for walks through the neighbourhood with my best friend and we would walk down a path to the beach and sit there for a long time just talking and sometimes sitting in silence, staring at the ocean waves. That was true connection. That was time in nature. That was medicine. But now I would have to text that friend, and maybe they would reply that day and maybe they wouldn’t. Gone are the days that you can just call someone and say, “let’s go out for coffee or for a walk”. Try it. Call a friend right now to go out right now. Nope. The likelihood is that you either won’t do it or they won’t be free. We over schedule ourselves and our kids. We are more lonely than ever. And stressed. And chaotic. If it’s just me, I would be happy to hear from you so that you can tell me your secrets!
Anyhow, riddled with chaos in my life, I’ve been forced to take a bit of a period of rest and reflection, again. Earlier this week, a lovely women started following my instagram account so I decided to look and see who she was. In her profile, there was mention of her journey with Ayurveda. I’ve been in love with it’s sister science, Yoga, for many years now and had heard of it but was always intimidated when I picked up books on it. I’ve read about and explored many diets and my assumption was that it was just another diet to follow. I already had my essential oils, yoga, meditation and diet roller coaster of Keto or Paleo or brutally off the wagon. However, this time, I was at an all time high in brain fog, poor sleep patterns, anxiety, seasonal depression and just overall numbness in everyday life so I decided to take a closer look.
Newly inspired, or desperate, or a mix of both, I went and purchased a modern Ayurvedic cookbook titled Eat Feel Fresh by Sahara Rose and headed to Farm Boy to get some fresh ingredients. Being a subscriber to Gaia.com, I started watching as many documentaries as I could on this system. Guess what I discovered?! When I have felt the most resilient in my life, I’ve been adhering naturally to a lifestyle that my body needed from an Ayurvedic lifestyle perspective and foods that I needed to keep my constitution in check. When I had experiences of extreme weight gain and mood fluctuations, I had been living a lifestyle out of balance and avoiding the habits (including food) that was allowing me to feel my best and perform optimally.
Wow!!
Now, I’ve been trying to lose weight for about 15 years but over that period of time, have only managed to take off some and then gain more back. Yes I've had three kids but I've had periods of extreme diet and exercise only to feel that I couldn't sustain it and my habits that became my norm due to stress caused me to gain it all back and get mad at myself. I listened to a show called “The Ayurvedic MD with Nita Dasai” on Gaia and Nita Dasai pointed out that until she figures out with her clients what purpose their weight is serving them, no diet is going to allow the weight to come off and stay off. I once read a book by Jon Gabriel called The Gabriel Method and this is consistent with what he teaches as well. From my journalling and learning about my constitution, I've discovered that after a day of high stress, coffee and little food (skipping lunch to work and breakfast to get the kids out the door), I use food for grounding. In additional to figuring out what your reason is for keeping the weight, Jon Gabriel recommends simply adding nutrients to your diet as opposed to going on a drastic diet. Essentially, he argues that we all have a natural set point and that our lifestyle causes us to increase or decrease our set point. It’s been a long while since I read that book. At the time I didn’t find it had enough for me to go on. Just commit to healthy lifestyle habits and the weight will start to pour off? Hmmm… I was suspicious. I like a much more structured approach. But now, I found it interesting that there was a parallel with what he was saying and this 5000 year old science. If you want to learn more about his method, there is currently an opportunity to read about his method for free on his site.
Inspired by what I’ve learned so far, and based on both my physical and mental state, I’ve decided to embark on a 40 day Ayurvedic lifestyle challenge. Starting on Monday, 25 March until 3 May 2019, I will adhering to the lifestyle and diet prescribed for my body and sharing with you what I learn at the end. I would love if you would join me so that we can learn what this can do for our lives together!!! To follow the challenge live, visit my Facebook and/or Instagram page where we can chat about what we learn together.
So if you're going to join me then what is Ayurveda? One of the better and most comprehensive sites that I have found to learn all about this way of life is Banyan Botanicals. Though there are tons of others!
Accordingly to Ayurveda, we are each born with a unique dosha (or constitution) which is genetically inherited. The three doshas are Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Banyan Botanicals has a very well written description of each for more information which you can access here. Each of the doshas have a different way of expressing themselves in us in terms of our personality and our physical state both when they are in and out of balance. Each of us have a percentage of each of the doshas naturally, but there is a dominant one. We may see ourselves split between two of them and rarely, all three. When our dosha gets out of balance, then we experience mental and physical symptoms. To keep them in balance, diet and lifestyle changes are recommended and adjustments are made based on how you're feeling. The specific changes to adhere to will vary depending on your imbalance. That website also has questionnaire that you can fill out to find out where your imbalances may lie and they even give you recommended changes to your diet and lifestyle to start with.
What has Ayurveda taught me this week? The jury is out on which is my dominant dosha as I see myself in all three but the quizzes have revealed that I’m naturally Pitta-Kapha and currently have a Vata & Kapha imbalance, making me anxious, sluggish, and with a tendency to overeat and be overweight. So they recommend grounding activities, self-care and a change in my diet. With information that Nita Dasai provided on Gaia, I discovered by assessing my nails that my yoyo Keto diet caused me to actually become nutrient deficient. Adding nutrients to your diet with fruits and veggies seems common sense and it works, that’s for sure. But when you’ve had a really hard day and you follow your bunny rabbit eating at work with the consumption of a bottle of wine and a bag of chips to ground yourself from stress then your digestion gets thrown off.
Ayurveda focuses not on a 100% restrictive way of living and eating but on an 80% solution to adding more of what nourishes your mind-body-spirit and less of what depletes it. There isn’t anything that I’ve learned so far that is complex or difficult to understand. In fact, it’s quite intuitive. In a life full of high demands, stress, constant noise and lack of connection or being in nature, is there any wonder that we aren’t feeling well?
I can’t wait to see what this lifestyle can do for our well-being.
Until next time!
Kat xo
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