Last Friday I ventured down to Cincinnati to have a one-on-one meeting with Liz, the Ayurvedic practitioner I’ve mentioned. We had a great two hours together, getting more into my personal constitution and what I can do to step more into balance.
I had already determined that I hold a Vata-Pitta constitution, but after talking for an hour and some other fun stuff such as pulse work and tongue gazing Liz described me more as a Vata pushing Pitta type. Vata holds the qualities of being light, rough, cold, dry, and mobile while Pitta holds the qualities light, sharp, hot, oil, and slightly mobile. Vata tends to be the aggravator and the mobile forces in the body that push the other doshas, in my mind kinda like a bully! Now the question remains, how to balance?
I can bring balance into my life in many different ways and Liz started off by just suggesting some basic things to implement, all with the goal of bringing down my Vata a notch and introducing some more Kapha tendencies into my life.
1. Oil. Oil is huge in Ayurveda. It is used to calm and sooth and also begin to push toxins inwards so that they can be eliminated by the digestive system. I need to incorporation oil via self-massage and more into my diet, a least 1 teaspoon of ghee or olive oil a day.
2. Routine: Sit down at the beginning of each week and make a schedule for what is happening and then revisit each day the night before. This is especially important for me as I am really all over the place with teaching, tutoring, and school. I need to also make time to eat meals sitting down (not in front of the computer!!!!) and at least 5-minutes of calmness each day.
3. Heat: Make sure I am never cold. I don’t need to necessarily heat myself up, but I have to stave off the Vata by staying warm: always having a sweater with me, cooking all my food, adding oil, using hing (an herb), and drinking tea made of either ginger and/or cumin, coriander, and fennel.
4. Bathe nightly in a mixture of baking soda and dry ginger. This is supposed to do wonders to calm and soothe.
5. Drink pomegranate juice to help with digestion and immunity.
6. Add ¼ teaspoon of turmeric to my food or taken by itself each day.
7. Pulse: Find my middle pulse, not to deep and not at the surface, spending 5-minutes here each day to reconnect with my soul.
This is all a journey and LIz cautioned that I don’t need to dive in to it all at once. It can be a slow process, after all that is how things usually stick in our lives. I otherwise run the risk of pressuring myself into failure and then becoming disheartened. None of this is a quick-fix and like yoga it is a practice to bring consistency into our lives, ultimately seeing change when we least expect it and when we stop looking.
Photo: Chachatea.com, vt-fiddle.com, webmd.com
