Author: Adena Rose

I am a member of a great group of mama’s on Facebook.  We all get to post questions, pictures, and victories, and sometimes women share very sad personal challenges in a supportive, intimate setting.  The other day, a mama posted about how her digestion was getting so bad, she was considering a colostomy bag.  She had previously had surgery to remove part of her intestines, and thought she needed more.  She was reaching out to the mamas to ask if anyone had had a similar experience, and how her sex life might be after the fact…

I was (and still am, thinking about it) overwhelmed with compassion for this woman.  She in in her mid-30’s, a busy mom and wife.  I do not know her whole story, but I could only imagine her discomfort, and the pain she must be in daily if she felt his is her only option.  In a way, I felt like I wanted to share Ayurveda…though I’ve realized through years of teaching the best way is to sometimes just offer yourself, and you must sit back and see who accepts.

Faith

I am starting to really have more faith in karma.  I trust my karma brought me to learn about Ayurveda, and I trust that each of my students and clients comes to it, comes to me, because they are meant to.  No forcing necessary, if it’s meant to be, it will be.  And that’s the way our relationship thrives as well.

So even though I feel like Ayurveda can help this woman – not necessarily heal all the damage or trauma that has occurred to bring her to this state of imbalance, but simply help her digestion stay as balanced as possible while her physical body undergoes such a hit – she hasn’t come to me.  I can make myself available in that community, as much as might be appropriate, but perhaps this time around, or at least for now, Ayurveda is not calling to her.

I decided to do a little bit of research, when I heard her story.  In Ayurveda, digestion is literally the key to health and longevity.  In the past 5 or 6 years, I have heard of a few people who have had to have a colostomy bag, whether for a short period of time, or permanently.  And these people happened to be women, between the ages of 25 and 40.  This is so YOUNG to be having such deep bowel imbalances, so deep that surgery is necessary. What’s going on?

No self blaming, please, just compassionate self inquiry

I understand that sometimes our imbalances are not simply due to the food choices we make, or have made for us.  Trauma can certainly be a reason for this, whether physical trauma (like other surgeries or accidents) or emotional.  In Ayurveda, there is a word we use, kavaigunya, which means ‘defective space.’  This is really like your weak spot – whether it’s due to genetics, or an energetic pattern that becomes physical, it is the place in the body where the stressors go, where the toxins build up.  For so many of us it does happen to be the digestive tract, or for a lot of women, the reproductive organs.  And of course, the digestive tract has to manage all the physical stuff we throw into it as well.  Ayurveda gives us the tools to learn and to get to know how to take care of ourselves, starting with the gut.

In Ayurveda, it is mentioned that there seem to be 6 stages of disease.  The first 3 stages are quite subtle, in fact if you went in to a western medical doctor before stage 4, there would probably be no treatment or diagnosis available.  This makes it tough to really practice preventative medicine in this culture.  We put up with the daily discomforts, even when they might be to the point of disrupting our daily activities, partially because we know if we go to the doctor they won’t really be able to do anything for us.  Bad gas? Perhaps a prescription.  Daily afternoon headaches and irritability? Take tylenol.  Rashy skin? Try steroids.  Easten medicine wants to work from the inside out.

And I don’t say this stuff to bash western medicine, it is incredible and life saving! It just proves that what it is best at are the deep imbalances, are the emergencies.  And what Eastern medicine is best at is the smaller stuff.  And getting the smaller stuff before the bigger stuff becomes necessary, like colostomies.

Don’t just accept things as they are

I spoke with one of my students yesterday, who I feel was very successful in The Healing Diet course (click the link for a video).  One of the first things she says is something like, “Well, The Healing Diet is not really a diet at all, but a course about life…”  And she is right on.  It’s not about ‘perfect’ food choices, but about living an authentic life.  About digesting this whole experience.  About gaining the tools, the framework of Ayurveda to live better, and feel better, and that’s how we come into healing.  We are complex beings, and healing does not happen only on one of our layers.

When I was out in California, I learned about 3 medical systems. I was a little bit disappointed where I felt Ayurveda fit in. I want to write about that next time.

When I found Ayurveda, I felt like I found the language I had been looking for most of my life.  If you’re feeling the call to Ayurveda, heed it.  I know I came to yoga and Ayurveda because I needed them in this lifetime to get through.  Got what you need to get through?

Love,

“Never take what I say as gospel truth…I am human, which means that I make mistakes. Always first try out what I say, experience it yourself, and then you will know whether or not it actually is the truth. Because you are human you too make mistakes; that is inevitable. Just always make sure that you make different mistakes each time. Then you will never cease to progress.” – Vimalananda (shared by Dr. Robert Svoboda in his recent newsletter)

What popped into your head first? Yes, or no? Or an “I don’t know if I am eating food that is good for me?”

The answer should be simple, but the solution might not be so easy.

We are bombarded by health information.  This is not necessarily a bad thing, though it seems like there is just an overwhelming amount of it coming at us.  In my experience, it seems that this tyranny of choice leads us to feel frozen in place, even though it’s meant to inspire us to change.

This kind of information is not exactly what we need, though we think we crave it.  It can be helpful, but really only to a point.  If you’re familiar with yoga, you might have heard the Sanskrit word jnana before. Jnana means knowledge.  Jnana mudra is a common hand position, thumb and index ginger touching, taken during meditation, sort of like a sign language ‘d.’  By taking this mudra, the meditator invites in experience and knowledge of truth, or reality.

Jnana is a kind of knowledge, a way of acquiring information that implies wisdom gained through personal experience, or experimentation.  It is said that this is the toughest path to nirvana – perhaps because one might need nearly be immortal to have time to experiment with all the different ways of being to find which one works to bring enlightenment (enter Ayurveda, the Science of Longevity 😉 ).  It eventually becomes beneficial to have some sort of structure to begin working with, some sort of framework within to experiment, so it doesn’t take you ‘forever.’

Ayurveda is a Balancing Act

There are no Ayurvedic foods. There are no good or bad foods within Ayurveda.  Ayurveda just gives us a framework, a language, a lens through which to view the world – our food, our body, our balancing act.

We talk about the principle that every substance in Ayurveda can be medicinal, neutral, or poisonous – depending on it’s affect on their agni, or power of digestion. I have been integrating Ayurveda into my life since I heard about it 8 years ago.  The more I learn, the more I experience, the less slipping I do.  I am more in tune with this idea of agni – more in tune with ow much or ME it really affects.  It’s not only the ability to digest food, but the cascade of after affects when that is efficient, or not.

Outside Influence

Last week I went on my annual family vacation to Maine. I am from Maine originally, but now it’s even more special because we travel from Vermont towards the ocean.  Family ties, and familial influence run deep.  And as you know, it’s tough to  control your food choices when you are away from home and not always cooking for yourself. My husband and I bring a suitcase of food with us, and do as much cooking, and sharing, as we can. Then there is seafood, bread, cheese, and Summer happy hours on the beach to contend with.

Don’t get me wrong – these things are not ‘bad.’ In fact, there is so much good, so much connection and heart-opening that can happen when sharing these foods with loved ones.  I simply had the powerful visceral experience of what happens when agni is dampened. When food combining is not addressed, and the point of overindulgence is reached.

I was not experiencing these foods in a healing way after a certain point. And for me, 5 weeks post-partum at that point, agni and ojas depleted already from birth, that point was reached very quickly.  Though I went past it.  I had this ah-hah moment: I was coping with what I was ingesting.  This was not using food in a healing way.  I experienced my agni struggling to keep up.  I experienced yes, gas and nausea, due to ama, or toxin build up, but also irritability, exhaustion, and some bodily aches and pains.

I have the tools, and I still made my choices, the ones easier made with the influence of those around me.  Not ‘bad’ choices, though choices that happene to bring me into a state of imbalance. Away from healing, into dealing with dis-ease.  And long term choices like this really do lead to disease.

*Just a side note, my awesome red lentil soup I made mid-week with ginger and turmeric and yummy curry was tossed out because it must have looked suspicious on the stove to one of my family members 😉

Keep good company

Re-read the quote from above: “Never take what I say as gospel truth.  I am human, which means that I make mistakes. Always first try out what I say, experience it yourself, and then you will know whether or not it actually is the truth. Because you are human you too make mistakes; that is inevitable. Just always make sure that you make different mistakes each time. Then you will never cease to progress.” 

There are a few keys to success in your ‘progress.’

For one, it’s necessary to have tools to experiment with, and two, surround yourself with positive influences. In the words of my teacher Dr. Claudia Welch, we must ‘Keep good company.‘

When working with my students in The Healing Diet, I try to stay away from using those words ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ though I really like the simplicity of this statement. I give my students a different vcabulary to talk about and understand how food affects their body and mind.   Then, over ten weeks, they get to experiment – with guidance of course, and the framework of Ayurveda to bounce off from.

Did you know that Picasso had very traditional art school training, before he went off to do all those abstracts?  Can you imagine his still lifes, his portraits?  Like Picasso, we must learn the rules before we push the boundaries.

I plan to continue this conversation. In part 2 I need to talk about colostomies…a scary but very real reality for too many.  This is about how we must move away from our coping diet before daily discomfort becomes a lifetime of suffering.

Hang in there, and check this out while you’re at it, if you’re ready for those tools we talked about.

Love,

I flew out to California last May and met an awesome herbalist.

We sat in a circle around 3 cups of tea, and sipped them while we meditated on the energy of the plants within. I might have dismissed this as quite a bit of hippie stuff, if it wasn’t for the strong images and information I downloaded from each of them.  We spent probably 25 minutes meditating on each tea/herb, and then journaled on and shared our findings – the similarities were remarkable, and the few differences were really informative.

This is the Wise Woman Way of herbalism.  This is a term coined by a famous western herbalist, Susan Weed.  In this way of medicine, everyone is an herbalist, everyone is their own best healer.  The aim is to find your allies – the herbs that work for you and feel right in your body.

I had an ah-hah moment there – THIS is how I teach Ayurveda.  THIS is what I am always driving home in The Healing Diet.

This might seem overwhelming – the idea of finding your own medicine. But it’s really about taking a bit of time, moving slowly, trial and error, all while having a good and supportive guide to keep you safe while you explore and heal.  The guide is key to keeping you on track and focused.  I have my own guides, and that day, Marisa, the herbalist, was mine.

In my work with clients, it is affirmed over and over again how individual each person can be. Even if it seems like they’re all coming to me with questions about painful periods, or bad acne, or awful bloating…we always spend time finding a very personalized plan of attack for each of them.

It’s easy to read about Ayurveda – there are so many awesome books and blog articles out their expounding the principles.  It’s not as easy to systematically apply it to your life, to actually put those concepts into practice.  To make it reality.

Over the next couple of weeks, I plan to share more about how I live Ayurveda this way.  Hopefully my small victories are inspiring to you, too.

This way of living and learning is not for everyone. It really takes someone who is ready to change their lives – someone who is ready to take part in their healing process.  To tune in an listen.  I have taught this ten week program in Ayurveda, Food and Digestion twice now.  Coming up on round 4, I am so excited and more confident than ever that this program really helps people.

This Spring, we start March 12, and meet for one hour every Saturday, in the comfort of your own home.  I am honing in on real healing for those who struggle daily with digestive complaints.  They can really, truly, affect your quality of life.

I want to help you find your allies – food, community, self.  Think this sounds cheesy. Then apply.  Early registration pricing ends January 31. When you fill out the application, schedule your free 20 minute phone consultation with me to learn more about the Ayurvedic perspective on your stuff.

Love,