Ayurveda seeks to return us to our True nature, taking our spirituality into account as a part of us and the healing process and not something separate. In the words of my master teacher Dr. Lad-ji, “Ayurveda states that the purpose of life is to know or realize the Creator, both within and without, and to express this Divinity in every aspect of one's life.”
As people who are more sensitive, there’s a lot that can knock us off-center or overwhelm us. However, this ability to feel and respond to the world around us is our biggest asset and superpower. This, combined with our innate ability to sense the interconnectedness of everything, gives us some major advantages when it comes to our wellness and healing.
Ayurveda meets us there—in our advantages and sensitivities. It sees us as whole beings, embracing every part of us. It sees everything in our lives and in the world as an opportunity to heal and balance—things we might not even think to look at like season, direction, environment, food, lifestyle. (This can be a welcome change in perspective for us!)
For us, simple tweaks in our lives can have a lasting and profound effect. Ayurveda sees our inherent Perfection and seeks to help us to return to that state, providing the road map of exactly what we can change to have more vibrancy, energy, and alignment. Everything in our lives works together to make us who we are.
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At the moment of conception you were perfectly balanced for who YOU are in this lifetime. Everything was aligned exactly the way it needed to be for you to do the Work that you are here to do and to live your healthiest life in service to that. From that moment forward, it’s been a challenge for you to return to that balance. It’s been that way for each of us.
Even in utero, the food that was being ingested, the environment that our parents were in, and the emotions of our mother are just some of the things that affected our balance/imbalance. We were two separate beings living within the same body, each with our own perfect unique states of being. The balanced state of our birth mother was not the same as ours.
This is the beauty of Ayurveda. It takes our individuality into account. We are each completely unique beings and this needs to be considered when we approach medicine and healing. There’s not a one-size-fits-all approach that can fix everything for everyone.
Ayurveda views every bit of matter as a unique combination of the five elements—earth, air, fire, water, and ether. For this reason, it understands exactly why we do what we do and wants us to understand it as well. Everything in the world contains each of these elements in unique combination, and we all have one or two in predominance.
Each element has specific qualities that it brings, as well. We express these qualities in every aspect of our lives, especially those of the predominant elements. For example fire has heat, air has mobility, water is liquid, earth is static, and ether is light. There are many other qualities, as well, and some even overlap between elements.
When elements become imbalanced in our bodies, these qualities and characteristics go out of balance. This is fairly easy to notice, if we know what to look for. So, if someone who is predominantly fire spends a lot of time in the sun, they might find themselves getting upset and angry. Their personality might be extra fiery that day. Someone who's predominantly made up of water, might find themselves getting overly emotional and crying very easily when a rainy day causes them to go out of balance.
When we understand our individual nature, it allows us to become more attuned to ourselves, noticing more quickly when we are becoming imbalanced. We become more subtly attuned, which puts the power of our wellness in our hands. We can counter the imbalance and rectify it before it goes too far.
How do we address imbalance? It depends. For example, if I'm a fiery personality and I'm finding myself a little bit angry today maybe I don't eat the hot, spicy food that I was going to eat for dinner. Maybe I also spend some time in the air conditioning to cool myself down instead of going to hot yoga.
If I find that I'm overly emotional and I'm crying very easily, maybe I don't watch that sad movie that I was going to watch. Maybe instead of sitting on the couch and wallowing, I get up and take a walk and move some of that energy through.
When we don't notice or we choose to ignore these imbalances for an extended period of time, they start to go deeper and take root in our system. This makes them more difficult to re-balance and begins the disease process. Our goal in Ayurveda, is ultimately to catch and manage imbalance faster rather than waiting for it to go so far out of balance that dis-ease or illness occurs.
Ayurveda’s goal is access and to treat things at the root, rather than simply managing symptoms. This is why it is so successful over time.
All of the spiritual work, introspection, and excavation we do on a regular basis makes us naturally suited to work with the science of Ayurveda in this way. Our willingness to look deep within and find the thing that needs adjusting works to our benefit because we have less resistance.
Ayurveda helps us to clear our body, mind, and spirit so that we can allow that energy that's been going to that illness, that disease, that blockage to be freed up, allowing opening and flow. Everything starts to relax within our system and we have that much more energy available to us for our Work—the Work we're doing in the world and how we're showing up for our friends, our families and those who we’re here to help.
Ayurveda is also the perfect complement to all that we are already doing for our health and wellness, so we don't have to commit to only living an Ayurvedic life. It seamlessly weaves itself into any other forms of treatment, medicine, health and wellness practices that you're already choosing to bring into your life.
This is why I love it so much and why it worked so well in my healing process.
Ayurveda can enhance all that you are already doing, as well as help you to discover what isn't working as well as it used to. It can then provide you with a path for moving forward with ease and grace.
A well-trained Ayurvedic practitioner will be able to work with all of your other practitioners and help to create a healing plan that works for you, as an individual.
There is no one else on this planet like you, so why should your wellness protocol look like anyone else’s?
There is only one of you and we need you in your health, your vibrancy, and Shining your own brand of Light! You’re a necessary piece of this world’s puzzle at this time.
Shine on, Love Warrior!
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Theresa Vee Theresa is a professionally certified Ayurvedic and Holistic Health and Wellness practitioner. She meets the currently established NAMA criteria for education and experience as a Certified Ayurvedic Health Counselor.
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