Tag: healing diet

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Is your life sustainable?

My husband is taking a certification course here in Vermont this month in Sustainable Building and Design.  Sustainable is an idea we’re all hip to now – we’re encouraged to support sustainability in the environment, by buying organic food, etc.

At least that is what I first think of – FOOD.  Supporting sustainable agriculture, or farming, and recycling, as well as composting – the latter two things making me feel like I am hopefully making my life here on earth more sustainable…that Mother Earth can sustain herself for longer from the stress my lifestyle puts on her, I suppose, if I do these things.

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Though his course is called Sustainable Building and Design, his teachers encouraged him to find a better word – striving for more than just sustainable.

He gave me this example, ‘If someone asked how our marriage was, would you say ‘sustainable?’  And that really made me think again about this word we tote around.  Do we want to just sustain the planet as it is now?  Or do things really need to improve around here?

Sustainable’s not enough.

Now the word seems like we’re just hoping for neutral (SIDE NOTE: This is often a realistic starting place, and we talk about this in The Healing Diet).  So…how can we be progressive?  What can we do to THRIVE?

Sticking with the example of my husband – his teachers are introducing him to permaculture.  Many of you might know what that means – but I didn’t .  Very basically, it’s using the laws or patterns found in nature in the most productive way possible.  In as many ways as possible, improving the natural strengths found within your environment.

It can be slower going than traditional agriculture.  First, one must simply observe.  For months, seasons, years even, to discover the patterns.

And then it’s time to take action, incorporating changes slowly, so they’ll stick.  And so then you’ll be informed on the next way to supplement the pattern in the best way.  The fruit might be months away, or even years.

Luckily, in Ayurveda, the fruit comes faster than that.  The human body is incredibly resilient.  So as you can see, I found so many parallels in this model to what it takes to upgrade to an Ayurvedic lifestyle.  To a better diet.  To a better relationship with yourself, and food choices.

All we are is another manifestation nature. 

We just need to learn and observe the patterns in our own bodies. To connect with the rhythms of nature within ourselves.  Then we can take action!

And what I love about Ayurveda is that there are direct action steps to self healing and making change.  For changing your state of mind.  For working with your metabolism, and not against it.  For thriving as a human being, not just ‘sustaining.’  (Though, again, sustaining is better than sinking, loves, it’s okay if you’re in need of a raising up! It’s important to start where you are – in fact, it’s the only place you CAN start!)

Are you in the service industry?

I want to hear from you.  Do you feel like your life is sustainable right now? Is your stress level sustainable?  Do you give out more than you’re taking in?

If you’re a health coach, massage therapist, yoga teacher – you are a care giver – serving others is your dharma. You need to be thriving, not just surviving to hold space for your clients healing.  If you’re interested in studying Ayurveda (to take YOUR health to the next level – and possibly your clients!) I want you in this Spring’s The Healing Diet.  And I’m giving a big discount to you in my next newsletter.  If you apply today, you’ll can still get it – just be sure to let me know what kind of care -giver you are!

Do you walk your talk?  I’ll share my experiences with this…next time.

Love,

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Have you self-diagnosed IBS?

We’re into week 10 of my 10 week program, The Healing Diet.  Throughout the weeks, I noticed similar questions come up over and over again.  These questions are questions I know my students now have the answers to – but they involved some of their most-common, daily-ritualized foods, and changing those ingrained habits are hard to make.  Some foods and food combinations used often within our culture, are ‘fine’ for those with stomachs-of-steel, but can send the rest of us into the land of headaches and acne, or maybe more obvious and immediate – an afternoon of griping stomach pains.

 

(Side Note: One of my teachers, Dr. John Douillard, uses ‘fine’ as an acronym for Freaked out, Insecure, Neurotic and Emotional.)

 

More and more (and more!) people seem to have self-diagnosed themselves with IBS.  Or actually been diagnosed by their doctors – and what is it, really, but a set combination of symptoms that has some root in the gut, and makes us very aware of what we put into it.

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I am actually not one of those people, but I could have been if I hadn’t made some changes.  Years ago now – let’s say, after 4 years in college putting my iron stomach to the test with plenty of pizza and whiskey, and a study abroad in Italy full of pasta and wine – I started noticing some uncomfortable digestive symptoms, most-notably gas, bloating, and pain.  I started managing it with some movement – yoga twists, down dog, headstands…but then I noticed EVERY time I would go out to eat, I’d end up in the bathroom doing some twisting thing or downward facing dog to pass a little air-bubble (I know we’re getting a little TMI, but hey, I think it’s reality for quite a few) in order to be able to go back to the table and semi-enjoy myself comfortably.

 

I nailed down my culprit.  Gluten? NOPE.  Dairy?  NOPE.  Ice water.

 

This was  before I had even heard of the word Ayurveda.  I cut cold drinks out of my diet, and instead actually started drinking room temperature water, or warm water, and most of those problems just went away…

 

Think me weak?  A little ice water taking me down? 🙂 I feel lucky that I caught that with my awareness.  I didn’t have to change much, and it made the biggest difference.

 

And to this day, I still feel funny, well more like an inconvenience, when I shun the ice water, and ask a server to bring me warm water instead.  And at home, all my freezer is used for is to keep the compost from stinking.

And after years of studying and practicing Ayurveda, now, I find that the most simple things can make the biggest difference – but sometimes those habits can be the hardest to break because they are so ingrained in our food culture.

 

Ayurveda is a science of qualities – we look for 20 qualities or ‘gunas’ to tell us which doshas, or element is present, out of balance, and needs to be balanced.  We use more, or less of those qualities to heal.  It’s a simple (and as complex) as looking for patterns like coldness, dryness, lightness, heaviness, dampness…etc.  And like I said, we learn all about those subtleties of using food as medicine in my program, The Healing Diet.

 

In Part 2, I’ll talk about 3 common foods we eat that exacerbate or even cause indigestion and IBS.

 

PS: I just started taking applications for The Healing Diet session 3, which begins October 3 2015.  Get yours in and we can talk about how you can get on track to healing. Apply here.

 

PPS: Next October the focus is really making changes to heal gut issues – Ayurveda just WORKS. But if you don’t know, you don’t know!  Does this article sound like you? Check it out.