You are the most skilled, knowledgeable, and wise authority on you. It’s time to check in and learn how to listen to your body’s unique needs.
Self Reflection and an assessment will help you become more self-aware, self-knowing, and equipped to address common signs and symptoms of imbalance, from sluggish digestion and fatigue to persistent inflammation and discomfort.
What’s beautiful about Ayurveda is that while it is a natural healing system, Ayurveda is also a way of life. It’s a lifestyle—a set of principles and practices—you can learn and welcome into your day-to-day life as you deepen your understanding of it and experience first hand its benefits. Empower your life with more agency and choices. Create something sublime, redefine, and re-align.
Healing process
Remember, the energetic composition (VPK) of anything can be understood by sensing its qualities. So, when you note these qualities in anything, you are sensing the presence of vata, pitta, and kapha.
⇀ Notice some words that may seem more “good” or “bad” because we are conditioned to categorise the world this way. For example, depleted may seem like a “bad” aspect of vata, and sweet may seem like a “good” aspect of kapha. In reality, the designation is in our minds, and relative to the beholder.
⇀ What may be intense to me, for example, may not seem intense to you. This could be the case if I had a sensitive (more vata) nature/current state, or if you had a more accepting (more kapha) nature/current state.
⇀ What we perceive differently underscores our unique nature, or constitution.
⇀ Each dosha has its beneficial qualities, which are augmented when we are in balance in that dosha. Similarly, each dosha has its detrimental qualities, which we see when we have imbalance.
The Role Your Feelings Play
The signs and symptoms of imbalance
What’s beautiful about Ayurveda is that while it is a natural healing system, Ayurveda is also a way of life. It’s a lifestyle—a set of principles and practices—you can learn and welcome into your day-to-day life as you deepen your understanding of it and experience first hand its benefits.
A key component of feeling your best is, well, feeling your feelings. We don’t need anything to be able to know how something feels. It’s innate. We just need to feel.
We just need to work with the concept of “current state” in order to fully understand the influence and impact feelings have on your well-being, as well as how the information of feelings can be used to recognize and address imbalance.
Current State
This is the answer to “Where am I at?”
Your present energetic state. Your imbalances.
+ Where my feelings are at
+ Where my mind is at
————————————–
= the signs & symptoms I feel
Patterns of Imbalance
A way to focus your healing shifts
Once you have felt what your bodies and emotions are revealing to you, it’s time to think about what the signs and symptoms reveal about your patterns.
Imbalances show up when we have too much of certain energy, knowing how and where this energy is coming from allows us to target our healing shifts.
When we look at imbalance, we look at five key elements:
● Frequency – How often does it occur? Is frequency increasing/decreasing?
● Intensity – How severe does it feel? Is it increasing/decreasing?
● Duration – How long does it last? Is it chronic/episodic?
● Associations – What makes it worse or better?
● Qualities – Which qualities are in excess?
To keep it simple, look at four key areas of your life.
Can you start to identify the qualities of VPK in each of these areas?
WORK (includes home-making)
Consider the pace, movement, people, workspace, and the work itself.
FOOD
Consider the tastes, textures, and your experience of cooking and eating.
RELATIONSHIPS
Pick one to start, a major one. Choose the person you spend the most time with. Consider both the qualities of the person, as well as of the relationship, since you’re absorbing both.
ROUTINE
Think about the flow of your day, your sleep-wake cycles, the pace, the movement, and the rhythm.